Promotion and Advertising

objectives
Setting specific objectives should be an integral part of the
promotional planning process.
However, companies can either fail to set marketing
communication objectives or set ones that are inadequate for
developing the promotional plan or measuring its effectiveness.
Value of Objectives:
Perhaps one reason why companies do not set objectives for their integrated
marketing communication programs is a failure to see their value.
Advertising and promotional objectives are needed for reasons such as
communication function, planning and decision making, and measurement
and evaluation.
1- Communication Function:
Specific objectives for the IMC program facilitate coordination of the groups
working on the campaign.
2- Planning and Decision Making:
Specific promotional objectives guide IMC plan development. All phases of a firm's
promotional strategy should be based on the established objectives, including
budgeting, creative, and media decisions as well as supportive programs.
3- Measurement and Evaluation:
Setting specific objectives provides a benchmark against which the effects of the
promotional campaign can be measured.
Good objectives are measurable, and they specify a method and criteria for
determining how well the promotional program is working. Most organizations are
concerned about the return on promotional investment; comparing actual effects
against measurable objectives determines whether the return justifies the expense
 Marketing Objectives
• Marketing objectives are generally outlined in the firm's marketing plan
and statements of what is to be accomplished by the overall marketing
program within a given time period.
• Marketing objectives are usually defined in terms of specific, measurable
outcomes such as sales volume, market share, profit, or return on
investment.
• Good marketing objectives should be "smart" as they are specific towards
target market, provide quantifiable measures, identify achievable and
realistic levels of performance, and note the time frame for accomplishing
the goal (often one year).
• For example, a copy-machine company may have as its marketing
objective "to increase sales by 10 percent in the small-business segment
of the market during the next 12 months."
*SMART= specific, measureable, achievable, realistic, time oriented.
1- Sales Objectives
• Some managers believe that the only meaningful objective for their
promotional program is sales, since the reason why a firm spends money
on advertising and promotion is to sell its product or service. Promotional
spending represents an investment of a firm's scarce resources that requires
an economic justification like any other business decision.
• Managers generally compare investment options on a common financial
basis, such as return on investment (ROI). Their position is that monies
spent on advertising and other forms of promotion should produce
measurable results, such as increasing sales or the brand's market share to
assess the effectiveness of the expenditure decision.
• The money spent on advertising and other forms of promotion should
produce measurable results, such as increasing sales or the brand's market
share to assess the effectiveness of the expenditure decision.
Problems with sales objectives:
• One problem with a sales objective for promotion is that poor sales results can be
due to other marketing mix variables, including product design or quality,
packaging, distribution, or pricing.
• Advertising can make consumers aware of and interested in the brand, but it can't
make them buy it, particularly if it is not readily available or is priced higher than a
competing brand. Furthermore, unanticipated or uncontrollable environmental
factors can devastate a firm's sales forecast even with a well communicated
promotion program.
• Another problem with a sales objective is that the effects of advertising often occur
over an extended period. Advertising has a lagged or carryover effect; money spent
on advertising do not necessarily have an immediate impact on sales.
• Further advertising may create awareness, interest, and/or favorable attitudes
toward a brand, but these feelings will not result in an actual purchase until the
consumer enters the market later.
2- Behavioral Objectives:
 When a firm sets a sales growth objective (e.g., increase sales by 10
percent) for a brand, the increased sales can arise from a greater number of
purchases from current customers (e.g., brand loyals).
 Alternatively, higher sales can be gained from new customers who are
currently not buying within the product category (i.e., new category users) or
those currently buying within the product category, but not the firm's brand
(e.g., other brand switchers).
 In all cases, achieving the sales growth is possible; however, the expected
behaviour is fundamentally different. In the first case, the sales growth is due
to a difference in the repurchase behaviour of current customers. In the latter
two cases, the sales growth is due to trial behaviour by non-customers.
 Figure 5-1 shows examples of how marketing objectives can be attained
through variations in the target audience and type of behaviour expected.
• The distinction between repeat purchase versus trial purchase behavior
is critical as it provides direction for the communication objectives, which
subsequently provide guidance for message development.
• For example, increasing the repeat purchasing rate of brand loyals might
involve a message reminding these customers of the previous enjoyable
consumption experiences,
• while a message to encourage trial from other brand switchers might
require a comparative message to these non-customers showing the
benefits of the competing brands.
3- Communication objectives
• Communication objectives are statements of what the marketing
communication will accomplish, and are usually based on
one or more of the consumer response models discussed in Chapter 4.
• Each of these models identified a few communication
effects a consumer receives from a brand message. Any of these effects
can be the basis for establishing communication
objectives. For example, brand awareness is an effect that most
promotional planners would like to achieve, and they would
probably establish a brand awareness objective on three levels.
An individual print ad is expected to increase the brand awareness, and the
promotional planner will design the message and its presentation so the
target audience will recall or recognize the brand when shopping.
First, an individual print ad is expected to increase the brand awareness, and
the promotional planner will design the message and its presentation so the
target audience will recall or recognize the brand when shopping.
Second, a specific IMC tool is expected to strengthen brand awareness, and
the promotional planner will select one (e.g., event sponsorship) to raise the
profile of the brand to those in the target audience.
Third and finally, all of the IMC tools within the overall IMC plan should
contribute to improving brand awareness. In short, communication objectives
are set for each of these aspects of promotional planning: individual element
of an IMC tool, an IMC tool, and the overall IMC plan.
 From Communication Response Models
Communication Objectives
• A number of methods have been developed for setting communication
objectives for advertising, related IMC tools, and complete IMC plans. We
review two approaches from a historical perspective in this section. We
begin with the DAGMAR model, which established the necessity for
setting advertising objectives. Next, we consider managerial applications
of the hierarchy of effects model and the information processing model.
DAGMAR(DEFINING ADVERTISING GOALS FOR MEASURED
RESULTS) it is a model for setting advertising objectives and measuring
the results of an ad campaign. The or contribution of the DAGMAR model
is its conclusion that communication effects are the logical basis for
advertising goals and objectives against which success or failure should be
measured.
Under the DAGMAR approach, an advertising goal involves a communication
task that is specific and measurable. A communication task, as opposed to
a marketing task, can be performed by, and attributed to, advertising rather
than a combination of several marketing factors.
• AWARENESS
• Awareness of the existence of a product or a service is needful
before the purchase behavior is expected. The fundamental task of
advertising activity is to improve the consumer awareness of the
product.
• Once the consumer awareness has been provided to the target
audience, it should not be forsaken. The target audience tends to
get distracted by other competing messages if they are ignored.
• Awareness has to be created, developed, refined and maintained
according to the characteristics of the market and the scenario of
the organization at any given point of time.
• The objective is to create awareness about the product amongst
the target audience.
• COMPREHENSION
• Awareness on its own is not sufficient to stimulate a purchase.
Information and understanding about the product and the
organisation are essential. This can be achieved by providing
information about the brand features.
• Example: In an attempt to persuade people to budge for a new
toothpaste brand, it may be necessary to compare the product
with other toothpaste brands, and provide an additional usage
benefit, such as more effective than other toothpaste because it
contains salt or that this particular toothpaste is a vegetarian
toothpaste, which will, in turn, attract more customers.
• The objective is to provide all the information about the product.
• CONVICTION
• Conviction is the next step where the customer evaluates different
products and plans to buy the product. At this stage, a sense of
conviction is established, and by creating interests and preferences,
customers are convinced that a certain product should be tried at the
next purchase.
• At this step, the job of the advertising activity is to mould the audience’s
beliefs and persuade them to buy it. This is often achieved through
messages that convey the superiority of the products over the others by
flaunting the rewards or incentives for using the product.
• Example: Thumbs up featured the incentive of social acceptance as
“grown up”. It implied that those who preferred other soft drinks were
kids.
• The objective is to create a positive mental disposition to buy a product.
• ACTION
• This is the final step which involves the final
purchase of the product. The objective is to
motivate the customer to buy the product.
• A primary advantage of DAGMAR is that the approach emphasized the
value of using communication-based rather than sales-based objectives to
measure advertising effectiveness and encouraged the measurement of
relevant responses to assess a campaign' s impact. This improved the
advertising and promotional planning process by providing a better
understanding of the goals and objectives toward which planners' efforts
should be directed.
• A second contribution of DAGMAR to the advertising planning process
was its definition of what constitutes a good objective; advertising
objectives should
• specify a target audience,
• be stated in terms of concrete and measurable communication tasks,
• indicate a benchmark starting point and the degree of change sought,
• and specify a tÌme period for accomplishing the objective(s)
• Target Audience A well defined target audience may be based on
behavioural variables such as customer status (e.g., brand loyal users),
usage rate, or benefits sought, as well as descriptive variables such as
geography, demographics, and psychographics (on which advertising
media selection decisions are based).
• Concrete, Measurable Tasks The communication task specified in the
objective should be a precise statement of what message the advertiser
wants to communicate to the target audience. During the planning process,
advertisers generally produce a document to describe their basic message
that should be specific and clear enough to guide the creati ve specialists
who develop the advertising message. The objective must be measurable
to determine whether the intended message has been communicated
properly.
• Benchmark and Degree of Change Sought To set objectives, one must
know the target audience's present level concerning response variables
(e.g., awareness) and then determine the degree to which consumers must
be changed by the advertising campaign. Determining the target audience's
present position regarding the response requires benchmark measures,
often obtained from a marketing research study.
• Establishing benchmark measures gives the promotional planner a basis
for determining what communication tasks need to be accomplished and
for specifying particular objectives. For example, a preliminary study for a
brand may reveal that awareness is high but consumer perceptions and
attitudes negative. The objective for the advertising campaign must then
be to change the target audience' s perceptions of and attitudes toward
the brand.
• Specified Time Period : A final consideration in setting
advertising objectives is specifying the time period in which
they must be accomplished. Appropriate time periods can
range from a few days to a year or more. Most ad campaigns
specify time periods from a few months to a year ，
depending on the situation facing the advertiser and the type
of response being sought.
• For example, awareness levels for a brand can be created or
increased fairly quickly through an intensive media schedule
of widespread, repetitive advertising to the get audience.
• Repositioning of a product requires a change in consumers'
perceptions and takes much more time.