Setting Advertising Objectives

For one who has no objective, nothing is relevant.

- Confucius

Without objectives, it is nearly impossible to guide and control decision making. Good performance occurred in the absence of objectives can rarely be sustained. The challenge today is to bring effective management to the advertising process in such a way as to provide simulation as well as direction to the creative effort. The solution is the meaningful objective.

Advertising objectives, like organizational objectives, should be operational. They should be effective communication tools, providing a line between strategic and tactical decisions. A convenient and enticing advertising objective is immediate sales or market share.

However, an increase in immediate sales is not operational in many cases for two reasons:

(1) Advertising is one of many factors influencing sales, and it is difficult to isolate its contribution to sales. The other forces include price, distribution, packaging, product features, competitive actions, and changing buyer needs and tastes.

(2) The second reason involves the long-term effect of advertising on sales. If advertising generates a substantial lagged effect on sales, then the impact of an advertising campaign may not be known until an unacceptable length of time has passed. For example, an important contribution of a 6-month campaign might be its impact 12 months hence. If immediate sales of not the basis of operational objectives, how does to proceed? The answer to the following questions will yield useful and effective objectives.

1. Who is the target segment?
2. What is the ultimate behavior that advertising is attempting to precipitate, reinforce, change, or influence?
3. What is the process that will lead to the desired behavior and what role can advertising play in the process?
4. Is it necessary to create awareness, communicate information about the brand, create an image or attitude, or associate feelings or a type of user personality with a brand?

- Identify the target audience. The specification of the target audience should be a part of the marketing objectives.

- The analysis of the ultimate desired behavior such as trial purchases of new customers, maintenance of loyalty of excising customers, creation of a more positive use experience, reduction of time between purchases, or the decision to visit a retailer use experience, reduction of time between purchases, or the decision to visit a retailer.

- An analysis of the communication and decision process the will affect the desired behavior. It might be that the key variable in inducing a new customer to try your brand is to inculcate high levels of brand awareness. The best way to maintain loyalty is to strengthen an attitude. Which intervening variables provide the best link to the desired behavior and which can be influenced economically by advertising are to be determined.

An analysis of market dynamics can lead to behavioral measures that by themselves can provide the basis for operational objectives. If the advertising’s target is new customers, the goal may be to get new customers to try a brand for the first time. The results would be measured by the number of new customers attached.

The use of behavioral measure as objectives is often appropriate in retailing (store traffic measures), direct marketing, and sales promotion and in lead generation for salespeople. It is useful to analyze the communication and decision process relevant to the desired behavior and to identify intervening variables on which to base objectives. Some situations could dictate the joint use of intervening and behavioral objectives.

Selecting an Advertising Agency

While selecting an advertising agency, the importance of compatibility should be borne in mind. An agency takes a long time to grasp the problems and accumulate the facts that are necessary for the smooth functioning of a client. Though this investment period is long, it pays rich dividends. Therefore, an agency should not be frequently changed.

Here are some points that can help the advertiser to:

• Choose an agency ; and
• Get the best out of an agency.

 Choosing an Agency

• The agency should be able to think independently on various problems, and not solve them by pre-conceived notions which it is unwilling to change.
• The agency should have experience in selling goods and ideas. It should be able to bring in more results than anticipated.
• The company should be financially sound and should be able to cover both local and national advertising campaigns.
• The size of the agency should not be seriously taken into account. A big agency is not necessarily a better than a small agency.
• The agency should not be one that hesitates to correct the advertiser if it feels that he is wrong.
• The agency should be able to use both research and brains to solve problems.
• An agency that plans to make a profit on an account should be chosen, rather than one that maintains that it will work on a no-profit-no-loss basis.

Getting the Best Out of an Agency

• The agency should be given all possible information if good service is expected from it.
• The advertiser should go as far as possible to keep the agency on its toes.
• The agency should be challenged to produce results.
• Criticism, when it is handed out, should not be only unfavourable. It should also be favourable.
• Unnecessary details should not be fussed over.
• The advertiser should appoint a special person for liaison work between his company and the agency, and not expect the agency to contact the junior staff.
• The advertiser should allow the agency, where necessary, to break away from convention in its presentations.
• The agency should be paid extra, if it does any extra work.
• The advertiser should examine the work his agency does for other parties to get new ideas.

It is about time that the top management looked upon advertising as a basic capital investment –a long-term investment –which does not necessarily always bring in immediate returns. The management should realize that advertising has two functions to perform. It has to sell products today and sell the name of the company, so that tomorrow’s products, too, will sell.

Advertising Industry

The advertising industry consists of three principal groups:

(a) Sponsors;

(b) Media; and

(c) Advertising agencies or advertising departments.

Advertising agencies are of two basic types, viz., Independent; and House.

• An independent agency is a business that is free to compete for and select its clients.

• A house agency is owned by its major client. A house agency is not completely free to serve other clients. The advertising department an integral part of the organization it serves.

The advertising agency provides for the client a minimum of:

• Media information, such as the availability of time and space ;
• Creative skills, such as “campaign planning” and “appeal planning” and
• Research capabilities, such as providing brand preference data.

What is an Advertising Agency?

An advertising agency is an independent organization set up to render specialized services in advertising in particular and in marketing in general. Advertising agencies started as space brokers for the handling of the advertisements placed in newspapers. Over the years, the function of the agencies has changed. Their main job today is not to aid media but to serve advertisers.

Working with Advertising Agency

Some organization does not employ advertising agencies because they may be eligible for the media discount. Others feel that they can accomplish the advertising objectives more effectively than the agencies themselves. These marketers often employ their own advertising specialists. Various organizations use captive agencies that work primarily or solely for the organization.

Those organizations which do employ agencies are well-advised to establish a strong working relationship with them. It is especially important that the marketer fully inform the agency personnel of his marketing strategy and advertising objectives.

Advantage of Using Agencies

1. The marketer gains a number of benefits by employing agencies. An agency generally has an invaluable experience in dealing with various advertising and marketing issues.
2. The lessons which agency learned in working with other clients are useful inputs for the marketer.
3. An agency may employ specialists in the various areas of preparation and implementation of advertising plans and strategies.
4. The personnel are not members of the marketer’s management team. They bring objective and unbiased viewpoints to the solution of advertising and other marketing problems.
5. The discounts that the media offer to agencies are also available to advertisers. This is a strong stimulus to them to use an agency, for the media cost is not much affected thereby.
6. The company normally does not have as many types of specialists as a large or medium-sized advertising agency has because an agency can spread the costs or its staff over many clients. It can do more for the same amount of money.
7. The company can also get an objective, outside viewpoint from an agency, assuming that the agency representatives are not acting as “Yes man” in order to keep the advertiser’s account.
8. A related point is that the company can benefit from the agency’s experience with many other products and clients.
9. Another advantage is that agency feels a greater pressure than the company’s own department to produce effective results. The relations between an agency and a client are very easy to terminate; but it is difficult to get rid of an ineffective advertising department.
10. The manner in which agencies are compensated, the use of an agency may not cost the advertiser a single paisa.