Wednesday, December 7, 2011

ADVERTISING(THEORY)


ADVERTISING 
OBJECTIVE: To enhance definitions of Advertising, Advertising Media and how they reach the directed target markets. To be familiar with the global concept of advertising used in multinational companies and to understand the interdependence of agency, client, product (or service) and Media.

UNIT I
Definition, Origin and Evolution, Nature and Scope of Advertising.
UNIT II
Definition, Marketing, Marketing Mix, Geographic Area, Demography, Psychography, Media and Purpose.
UNIT III
Corporate identity, Logo, Logo Types, Copy Writing, Effective Copywriting, Advertiser, Advertising Agency, Types of Ad. Agencies, Media , Consumer Behaviour, Account Planning, Latest trends in Advertising (In India and Abroad).
UNIT IV
Client Brief, Creative Strategy, Creative Brief, Communication Plan, Types of Headlines, Body Copies, Baselines, Slogans Logos and Trade Marks, Typography, Writing Styles, Scripting, Story Board, Case Studies.
UNIT V
Conceptualization and Ideation: Translation of Ideas to Campaign, Visualization, Designing and Lay Out, Brand Management-Positioning, Brand Personality, Brand Image, Brand Equity, Advertising Campaign-from Conception to Execution.
References:
Advertising Handbook: A reference Annual on Press, TV, Radio and Outdoor advertising. Atlantis Publications.
Advertising Management: Concepts and Cases By Mohan, Tata Mcgraw-Hill.
Creative starategy in Advertising  Jewler E.


UNIT I
DEFINITION: Advertising is a form of communication used to encourage or persuade an audience (viewers, readers, listeners, potential consumers or patrons) to take some new action or continue to take some action.
Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behaviour with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common.
The purpose of advertising may also be to reassure employees or shareholders that a company is viable or successful.
Advertising messages are usually paid for by sponsors and viewed via various traditional media; including mass media such as newspaper, magazines, television commercial, radio advertisement, outdoor advertising or direct mail; or  the new media (Internet) websites and text messages (Social Media and Mobile SMS,MMS etc.)
Commercial advertisers often seek to generate increased consumption of their products or services through "branding," which involves the repetition of an image or product name in an effort to associate certain qualities with the brand in the minds of consumers. 
Non-commercial advertisers, who spend money to advertise items other than a consumer product or service include political parties, interest groups, religious organizations and governmental agencies. Non-profit organizations may rely on free modes of persuasion, such as a public service announcement (PSA).
Internationally, the largest ("big four") advertising conglomerates are Interpublic,  Omnicom,  Publicis and  WPP. In India Ogilvy & Mather, JWT J Walter Thompson, Mudra Communication, FCB Ulka Advertising Ltd, Rediffusion, McCann Erickson India Ltd., RK Swamy BBDO Advertising Ltd., Grey Worldwide (I) Pvt. Ltd., Leo Burnett India Pvt. Ltd.,  Contract Advertising India Ltd., are the leading ad companies.
To know more about the details of accounts handled by these ad agencies please visit

THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ADVERTISING
To appreciate the advertising of today and visualize the advertising of tomorrow, we need to understand the origin and evolution of advertising.
The Beginning
The first advertisement may have been a sign painted on a wall of a building. The early outdoor-advertising competitors were town criers employed by merchants to praise their goods. It was Gutenberg’s invention of the moveable-type printing press in 450 that resulted in the mass production of posters and circulars. The first advertisement printed in English was a handbill printed in 1472. It was primarily an announcement of a prayer book for sale. Two hundred years later, the first newspaper ad appeared offering a reward for finding 12 stolen horses. By the 17th century, classified ads were appearing frequently in England’s newsweeklies. These ads featured simple descriptions of products and their prices. Illustrations and color appeared in advertisements in the late 19th  century.
The first advertising agency, which was set up by Volney Palmer in Boston in 1841, introduced the commission system to the business by offering a discount of 25% on ad space in newspapers. This move marked the formal beginning of space selling. Initially, most ad agencies were nothing more than brokers for ad space in newspapers. Advertisers created their own ads. N.W. Ayer & Son became the first full-service agency in 1869.
One of the earliest highly successful advertising campaigns was launched by Pears Soap. In the late 19th  century, Thomas Barratt, whom many consider the father of modern advertising, launched a series of ads featuring children, animals, flowers, and beautiful women to promote the company’s products.
Modern advertising developed with the rise of mass production in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In 2010, spending on advertising was estimated at $142.5 billion in the United States and $467 billion worldwide.
Propaganda and Mechanization
During World War I, advertising became a medium for propaganda. Governments used advertising to persuade their citizens to join the military. This period also saw increased mechanization of the industry, making ads more costly.
The Emergence of New Mass Media
When new mass media—radio and cinema—became commercially available in the first part of the 20th  century, the advertising industry quickly took advantage of their reach, spread, and popularity. This period of prosperity came to an end with the Wall Street crash of 1929, followed by the Great Depression and World War II.
Initially, a single business would sponsor a radio program for a brief mention of its name. Later, sponsorship rights for a show were sold to multiple businesses, a practice that soon became the norm.
Television
The market did not embrace television initially because of the high cost of TV sets and the lack of programming. However, as the American economy improved in the 1950s, television’s popularity surpassed that of radio. Soon, the industry considered it the number-one medium for advertising. With the establishment of the Du Mont Television Network, the modern trend of selling advertising time to multiple sponsors became a permanent feature of the commercial television industry in the U.S.
The Advertising Revolution
The industry became more scientific in the 1960s. This period witnessed some of the most creative ads of all time. Instead of focusing on the product, ads endeavored to strengthen the brand and create an image for the company. Advertising also became subtler and more intelligent, often adopting a conversational style.
Advertising also turned into a major industry in the 20th century. The advertising of the age cleverly used all media, including newspapers, television, direct mail, radio, magazines, outdoor signs, and, of course, the Internet.
Contemporary Advertising
Remote controls in the hands of every spectator and access to hundreds of cable channels mean that advertising must generate interest and entertain in order to survive. Along with these challenges, there are also new frontiers such as Internet marketing. Advertisers and agencies today see innovations like digital ads and interactive advertising as challenges and opportunities rather than obstacles.
The Future of Advertising
It is difficult to predict what form advertising will take in the future. But one thing is sure; it will continue to improve and strive to become more useful to business and to the consumer.
Further reading on the net:
Advertising
encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761564279_5/Advertising.html#s21
American Advertising: A Brief History
historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/ads/amadv.html
The History of Advertising
www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~el6/ presentations/pres_p2_hoa

The History of Advertising
Advertising can be described as any form of communication that is intended to persuade its viewers, listeners or readers into taking some action. It uses different types of media, such as newspapers, radio, magazines, television, billboards and direct mail, to deliver messages. Out-of-home advertising and billboards are the oldest forms of advertising and are believed to date back to 4000 BC. The rise of mass production in the late 19th and early 20th centuries gave way to the development of modern advertising. To know more interesting and amazing information on the origin and background of advertising, read through the following lines.

Interesting & Amazing Information On Origin & Background Of Advertising
Anciently, Egyptians made sales messages and wall posters using papyrus (these displays and messages can well be seen in the ruins of Pompeii and ancient Arabia also). Wall or rock painting was another common commercial advertising form, which is still present in parts of Asia, Africa and South America. Gradually, as towns and cities began to expand, traders started using images to associate their trade, such as a boot, a suit, a hat, a clock, a diamond, a horseshoe, a candle or even a bag of flour.

With time, education became an apparent need and advertising developed to printing handbills. By the 17th century, advertisements started appearing in weekly newspapers in England that were mainly used for promoting books. Consequently, printing press advanced and newspapers became increasingly affordable. However, false advertising and quack advertisements created problems in the regulation of advertising content.

Advertising grew with the expansion of economy in the 19th century. Mail-order advertising grew with the success of advertising in the United States. In 1836, French newspaper La Presse became the first newspaper to include paid advertising in its edition. It also reduced its prices to extend readability and increase profitability. Around 1840, advertising agencies were established and services extended. Initially, they were brokers for advertisement space in newspapers. In 1869, the first full-service agency named N.W. Ayer & Son was opened, assuming responsibility for advertising content in Philadelphia.

In early 1920s, radio equipment manufacturers and retailers established radio stations to sell more radios to consumers. Soon, the practice of sponsoring radio programs popularized and they started allocating sponsorship rights to multiple businesses instead of single businesses. The same practice was later carried on to the television in late 1940s and early 1950s. Advertising transformed into a modern approach in 1960s, with creatively produced advertisements tempting consumer’s eyes. This could well be seen in the Volkswagen ad campaign that featured headlines like “Think Small” and “Lemon”.

The era of modern advertising saw promotion of “position” and “unique selling proposition” that was designed to associate every brand with a specific idea in the reader or viewer’s mind. Cable television was introduced in late 1980s and early 1990s, giving further boost to advertising. Steadily, specialty channels emerged that were devoted entirely towards advertising such as QVC, Home Shopping Network and ShopTV Canada. With the boom of Internet in the 1990s, new frontiers opened for advertisers. A number of corporations came up, operating solely on advertising revenue.

The entry of 21st century saw various sites, including the much-used search engine Google, indulging in online advertising, with the intention of helping the users. The recent advertising innovation is “guerrilla advertising” that makes use of unusual approaches, such as staged encounters in public places, giveaway of products such as cars covered with brand messages, and interactive advertising where viewers can respond to become part of the advertising messages. Advertising has come a long way from its inception and there is much progress to be covered in the time to come.



NATURE AND SCOPE OF ADVERTISING:
NATURE OF ADVERTISING
Used by many types of organizations including Churches, Universities, Civic groups and charities, politicians!!
Need to consider the following issues:
Does the product possess unique, important features to focus on Unique Selling Point (USP)
Are the hidden qualities important to the buyers
Is the general demand trend for the product adequate
Is the market potential for the product adequate
Is the competitive environment favorable
Is the organization able and willing to spend the required money to launch an advertising campaign.

SCOPE AND IMPORTANCE OF ADVERTISING
Advertisements are important for:
Standardized products
Products aimed at large markets
Products that have easily communicable features
Products low in price
Products sold through independent channel members and/or are new.

Broadcast Ad spending is at an all time high due to heavy competition in the:
Computer industry
Telecommunications Industry
Auto Industry
Whenever severe competition between marketers, introducing new products etc.
Even with evolution of direct marketing, and interactive media.
For further reading on Ad
http://www.udel.edu/alex/chapt19.html (BEST) for Sample Media Plan and Sample Ad. Project.

http://beraudiovisual.blogspot.in Best for Cinema and TV production


http://www.adglitz.com/2010/09/09/best-advertisements-from-indias-best-brands-includes-some-ads-from-doordarshan-era-part-2-of-2/ Best for Ad learning.

UNIT II


Marketing is "the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large."
For business to consumer marketing, it is "the process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships, in order to capture value from customers in return". For business to business marketing it is creating value, solutions, and relationships either short term or long term with a company or brand. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments. It is an integrated process through which companies build strong customer relationships and create value for their customers and for themselves.
Marketing is used to identify the customer, satisfy the customer, and keep the customer. With the customer as the focus of its activities, marketing management is one of the major components of business management. The term marketing concept holds that achieving organizational goals depends on knowing the needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions. It proposes that in order to satisfy its organizational objectives, an organization should anticipate the needs and wants of consumers and satisfy these more effectively than competitors.
The term developed from an original meaning which referred literally to going to a market to buy or sell goods or services. Seen from a systems point of view, sales process engineering marketing is "a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions, whose methods can be improved using a variety of relatively new approaches."

Marketing Mix: A planned mix of the controllable elements of a product's marketing plan commonly termed as 4Ps: product, price, place, and promotion.
These four elements are adjusted until the right combination is found that serves the needs of the product's customers, while generating optimum income. 
"Marketing mix" is a general phrase used to describe the different kinds of choices organizations have to make in the whole process of bringing a product or service to market. The 4 Ps is one way – probably the best-known way – of defining the marketing mix, and was first expressed in 1960 by E J McCarthy.
The 4Ps are:
Product (or Service)
Place
Price
Promotion
A good way to understand the 4 Ps is by the questions that you need to ask to define you marketing mix. Here are some questions that will help you understand and define each of the four elements:
Product/Service
What does the customer want from the product/service? What needs does it satisfy?
What features does it have to meet these needs?
Are there any features you've missed out?
Are you including costly features that the customer won't actually use?
How and where will the customer use it?
What does it look like? How will customers experience it?
What size(s), color(s), and so on, should it be?
What is it to be called?
How is it branded?
How is it differentiated versus your competitors?
What is the most it can cost to provide, and still be sold sufficiently profitably? (See also Price, below).
Place
Where do buyers look for your product or service?
If they look in a store, what kind? A specialist boutique or in a supermarket, or both? Or online? Or direct, via a catalogue?
How can you access the right distribution channels?
Do you need to use a sales force? Or attend trade fairs? Or make online submissions? Or send samples to catalogue companies?
What do you competitors do, and how can you learn from that and/or differentiate?
Price
What is the value of the product or service to the buyer?
Are there established price points for products or services in this area?
Is the customer price sensitive? Will a small decrease in price gain you extra market share? Or will a small increase be indiscernible, and so gain you extra profit margin?
What discounts should be offered to trade customers, or to other specific segments of your market?
How will your price compare with your competitors?
Promotion
Where and when can you get across your marketing messages to your target market?
Will you reach your audience by advertising in the press, or on TV, or radio, or on billboards? By using direct marketing mailshot? Through PR? On the Internet?
When is the best time to promote? Is there seasonality in the market? Are there any wider environmental issues that suggest or dictate the timing of your market launch, or the timing of subsequent promotions?
How do your competitors do their promotions? And how does that influence your choice of promotional activity?
The 4Ps model is just one of many marketing mix lists that have been developed over the years. And, whilst the questions we have listed above are key, they are just a subset of the detailed probing that may be required to optimize your marketing mix.
Amongst the other marketing mix models have been developed over the years is Boom and Bitner's 7Ps, sometimes called the extended marketing mix, which include the first 4 Ps, plus people, processes and physical layout decisions.
Another marketing mix approach is Lauterborn's 4Cs, which presents the elements of the marketing mix from the buyer's, rather than the seller's, perspective. It is made up of Customer needs and wants (the equivalent of product), Cost (price), Convenience (place) and Communication (promotion). In this article, we focus on the 4Ps model as it is the most well-recognized, and contains the core elements of a good marketing mix.
Using the 4Ps Marketing Mix Model
The marketing mix model can be used to help you decide how to take a new offer to market. It can also be used to test your existing marketing strategy. Whether you are considering a new or existing offer, follow the steps below help you define and improve your marketing mix.
Start by identifying the product or service that you want to analyze.
Now go through and answer the 4Ps questions – as defined in detail above.
Try asking "why" and "what if" questions too, to challenge your offer. For example, ask why your target audience needs a particular feature. What if you drop your price by 5%? What if you offer more colors? Why sell through wholesalers rather than direct channels? What if you improve PR rather than rely on TV advertising?

Tip:
Check through your answers to make sure they are based on sound knowledge and facts. If there are doubts about your assumptions, identify any market research, or facts and figures that you may need to gather.

Once you have a well-defined marketing mix, try "testing" the overall offer from the customer's perspective, by asking customer focused questions:
Does it meet their needs? (product)
Will they find it where they shop? (place)
Will they consider it's priced favorably? (price)
And will the marketing communications reach them? (promotion)
Keep on asking questions and making changes to your mix until you are satisfied that you have optimized your marketing mix, given the information and facts and figures you have available.
Review you marketing mix regularly, as some elements will need to change as the product or service, and its market, grow, mature and adapt in an ever-changing competitive environment.








Target Audience: In marketing and advertising, a target audience, is a specific group of people within the target market at which a product or the marketing message of a product is aimed at. (Kotler 2000)... For example, if a company sells new diet programs for men with heart disease problems (target market) the communication may be aimed at the spouse (target audience) who takes care of the nutrition plan of her husband and child.
A target audience can be formed of people of a certain age group, gender, marital status, etc., e.g. teenagers, females, single people, etc. A combination of factors, e.g. men aged 20–30 is a common target audience. Other groups, although not the main focus, may also be interested. Discovering the appropriate target market(s) and determining the target audience is one of the most important activities in marketing management (Niewenhuizen et al. 2000). The biggest mistake it's possible to make in targeting is trying to reach everybody and ending up appealing to no-one.
For further reading on Ad
http://www.udel.edu/alex/chapt19.html (BEST) for Sample Media Plan and Sample Ad. Project.
Geographic Area: Collecting and analyzing information according to the physical location of the customer or other data source. Geographic segmentation is often used in marketing, since companies selling products and services would like to know where their products are being sold in order to increase advertising and sales efforts there.
Demographic Segmentation: Market segmentation based on differences in demographic factors of different groups of consumers. Demographic analysis can be applied to whole societies or to groups defined by criteria such as education, nationality, religion and ethnicity.  It is one of the five common segmentation strategies, and aims to define specific niches that require custom promotion. Broader field of social demography population studies also analyze the relationships between economic, social, cultural and biological processes influencing a population. The term demographics refers to characteristics of a population.
Psychographics: Analysis of consumer lifestyles to create a detailed customer profile. Market researchers conduct psychographic research by asking consumers to agree or disagree with activities, interests, opinions statements. Results of this exercise are combined with geographic (place of work or residence) and demographic (age, education, occupation, etc.) characteristics to develop a more 'lifelike' portrait of the targeted consumer segment.
As a business, you need to be where your customers are coming from, and you'll want to research where your customers live to make sure that your business is well-placed. This is also a good way to target potential new customers. Use your existing customer geographic market and then ask yourself, “Where can I find potential customers?”
To locate your business' customer geographic market area, here’s some advice:
Start with the addresses of your existing customers. Wherever you have a concentration of existing customers, you also have a concentration of potential customers.
Follow your inquiries. Inquiries are customers waiting to happen. The addresses of your inquiries will define target geographic areas where people have demonstrated interest in the products and services you offer.

Locate your noncustomers. Identify geographic areas with concentrations of people who have the attributes of your current customers but who don’t yet buy from you. These are noncustomers who are also potential customers.
Call advertising representatives at the leading publications that serve your business sector. Media outlets conduct and purchase research, and often they share information as a way to convince you of their ability to carry your marketing message to the right prospects.
Contact your industry association. Inquire about industry market analyses that detail geographic areas with concentrated interest in your offerings.
Visit your library reference desk. Study the SRDS Lifestyle Market Analyst, a rich source of market-by-market demographic and lifestyle information, and the CACI Sourcebook of ZIP Code Demographics, which details the population profiles of 150 U.S. zip codes and county areas.
Advertising Media: Various means (advertising vehicles) such as billboards, magazines, newspapers, radio, television, and internet by which promotional messages are communicated to the public using audio-visuals like words, speech, pictures, video clips and movies.
Purpose of Advertising:
The ultimate purpose of all commercial advertising is to persuade people to buy. To be  effective good ads must have:
the ability  to get our attention.  Hundreds of ads are seen/heard each day.  Therefore, an effective ad must stand out from the competition and grab the consumer's attention.
the ability  to sustain our attention.   It is important that the potential consumer learn something about the product.   An effective ad involves the reader in the details of the ad and carries the reader's attention through the ad.
the ability to transmit the message.   Clarity is important if the consumer is to understand the message given the limited ad space available.
the ability  to convince the potential consumers to accept the message of the ad and the ad brand.  Thus, the ability of the ad to persuade you to accept the product, the brand,  and to buy.
The purpose of advertising may also be to reassure employees or shareholders that a company is viable or successful. Advertising messages are usually paid for by sponsors and viewed via various traditional media; including mass media such as newspaper, magazines, television commercial, radio advertisement, outdoor advertising or direct mail; or new media such as blogs and websites and text messages.





UNIT III

CORPORATE IDENTITY: In Corporate Communications, a corporate identity is the "persona" of a corporation which is designed to accord with and facilitate the attainment of business objectives. It is usually visibly manifested by way of branding and the use of trademarks.
Corporate identity comes into being when there is a common ownership of an organizational philosophy that is manifest in a distinct corporate culture — the corporate personality. At its most profound, the public feel that they have ownership of the philosophy. Often referred to as organizational identity, corporate identity helps organizations to answer questions like “who are we?” and “where are we going?” Corporate identity also allows consumers to denote their sense of belonging with particular human aggregates or groups.
In general, this amounts to a corporate title, logo (logotype and/or logogram), and supporting devices commonly assembled within a set of guidelines. These guidelines govern how the identity is applied and confirm approved colour palettes, typefaces, page layouts and other such methods of maintaining visual continuity and brand recognition across all physical manifestations of the brand. These guidelines are usually formulated into a package of tools called corporate identity manuals.
Many companies, such as McDonald's and Electronic Arts, have their own identity that runs through all of their products and merchandise. The trademark "M" logo and the yellow and red appear consistently throughout the McDonald's packaging and advertisements. Many companies pay large amounts of money for the research, design and execution involved in creating an identity that is extremely distinguishable and appealing to the company's target audience.
Read this topic in Wikipedia for a thorough reference.

LOGO: A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition. Logos are either purely graphic (symbols/icons) or are composed of the name of the organization (a logotype or wordmark).
In the days of hot metal typesetting, a logotype was a uniquely set and arranged typeface or colophon. At the level of mass communication and in common usage a company's logo is today often synonymous with its trademark or brand.

Read this topic in Wikipedia for a thorough reference.
A logo is a perspicuous glyph or symbolic, identifying mark that conveys origin, identity, or ownership. The main function is to elicit recognition. The object of a logo is to act as a mnemonic device and identifier, to communicate a desired thought or feeling, and to generate a desired emotional response. A thought-provoking logo design can strengthen your brand image and corporate identity, giving you a psychological advantage over your competition. Your logo is the core of your corporate identity, defining and symbolizing the character of your company or organization. 
There are three basic types of logos
Apple, Nike, Disney, MSN, Cingular, Shell, Volksvagen, NBC iconic symbolic logosIconic/Symbolic - Icons and symbols are compelling yet uncomplicated images that are emblematic of a particular company or product. They use imagery that conveys a literal or abstract representation of your organization. Symbols are less direct than straight text, leaving room for broader interpretation of what the organization represents. In order for a symbol to be a truly effective logo, it should conform to these maxims:

Instantaneously recognizable.
Memorable.
Clarity when reproduced in small sizes.
Can be illustrative in nature, either concrete or abstract.


Disney, Dell, NASA, RayBan, Fedex, IBM, Mossimo, CNN logotype wordmarksLogotype/Wordmark - A logotype, commonly known in the design industry as a "word mark", incorporates your company or brand name into a uniquely styled type font treatment. Type fonts come in thousands of possible variations, shapes, sizes, and styles, each conveying a slightly different impression upon your intended audience. Script fonts imply a sense of formality and refinement. Thick fonts proclaim strength and power, whereas slanted type fonts impart a sense of motion or movement. Type font treatments can also include hand-drawn letters, characters or symbols that have been rendered in such a way as to intrigue the eye and capture the interest. Images can also be integrated into a logotype, often to great visual effect. Of prime consideration when selecting a logotype or wordmark is legibility and ease of recognition, even when reduced to the size required for printing your business cards.
McDonald's, TiVo, Starbucks, Reebok, Pringles, Domino's, AT&T, Ola combination mark logosCombination Marks - Combination Marks are graphics with both text and a symbol/icon that signifies the brand image that you wish to project for your company or organization. Concise text can complement an icon or symbol, providing supplemental clarity as to what your enterprise is all about.
There are integrated and stand alone combination marks. For instance, Starbucks logo has the text with the graphic integrated, whereas the AT&T logo has the icon separate from the text.



Logos are very important for business and a must if you are planning to build or design a strong brand identity. A well constructed logo can create loyal followers through simplicity and memorability. If you are designing a logo, you should follow all 5 principles of good logo design. Also, be aware that a logo is the visual representation of a company/brand’s values, beliefs and functions. When designing one, think of the feel and visual cues you need to represent the business the right way. Along with how the logo will look on products, advertisements and branding collateral. It’s an entire package and not just one small mark you are designing, so remember, the logo you design will serve as the first recognition point for your client’s business. If you would like a more in depth definition of a logo, read a full definition here.
If you design or brand correctly, you might get loyal fans like apple’s.
Well, you need a logo or need to design one and are unsure of the options available to you. I will give you a brief description of each type of logo, the better solution to your design problem, and explain them through the use of successful logo designs in use today.
These famous brandmark symbols require no text to be identified.
Brandmark Symbol – This type of symbol represents the company in a simple but bold manner. Most often represented through an abstract design. Usually, the ideas and concept behind the logo are complex, yet are represented in the simplest form possible. Examples of a brandmark include shell, Mercedes-Benzand apple. The human mind can easily remember a simple form better than a complex one. It is best to use a brandmark symbol if you plan on building a global brand and have the funds to back it up.
Wordmark – Is a uniquely styled font type that spells out the company or brand name. Technology companies usually use this type of logo, as stylized text looks best on electronics and expresses the sophistication of a company. Examples of a wordmark include Sony, Samsung and Microsoft. Other great examples are Facebook and Google, the world’s most visited website.
Lettermark – Are exclusively typographic. The lettermark uses the company name written out, yet has a symbol representing the company through the use of its initials or the brands first letter. Think HP, IBM andHonda. The best usage for this type of logo depends on many different variables such as; your initials can better graphically illustrate the company better than the full name, the name is too long, hard to pronounce, or is just not distinct enough to carry its own weight.
Combination Mark – Is the combination of a symbol and a wordmark. The purpose of the combination mark is to create an identity that embodies a given company through the use of a symbol and type treatment. In certain situations and with proper investment of time & money, a strong combination mark can use its symbol to represent the company without the use of text. Great examples include; Mexicana Airlines,Bank of America, 9/11 Memorial, and Rip Curl.
Emblem – An emblem logo encases the company name within the design. Most notable emblem logos include; Harley Davidson, UPS and NFL.

Is a logo just a logo or do they fall into certain categories or types of logos?  The short answer is yes – there are different approaches to the design of logos for small to medium businesses.
Please take note: Designing a logo for large corporations (ie: banks, councils) requires a very different approach to the one we are representing here. With large corporations it is usual practice that brand managers, marketing researchers and consultants work alongside art directors and graphic designers to develop brand identities. Logos get tested with focus groups prior presenting designs to board of directors.
The design of logos for small to medium businesses is easily grouped into 7 different types:
1.    Abstract
2.    Descriptive
3.    Emblematic
4.    Illustrative
5.    Letterform
6.    Typographic
7.    Wordmark

1. Abstract Logos

Abstract logos are like an abstract idea in that it has no specific form in your brain.  These types of logos have a non-descriptive message using a very specific graphic image.
Abstract logos require a lot of hard work to graphically express a non-descriptive idea. The end result can be a simple mark or a very complex graphic – but they are always unique!
Good for: conveying a very generic idea uniquely and to express ‘feelings’ in a very subtle way, rather than facts.

2. Descriptive Logos

Descriptive logos allude to the name, attributes or benefits of a brand by using clearly recognisable images.
Good for: brand recognition towards a very specific message or even a feeling of what to expect when interacting with the brand.

3. Emblematic Logos

Emblematic logos combine an ‘emblem’ style symbol with unique pictorial elements as well as the brand name. With emblematic logos there is no separation of the words and the symbols.  Icon and text become one. Special consideration should be made when using emblematic logos in small sizes as the detail and the name can become lost and very hard to read.
Good for: sporting teams, package designs and to convey a sense of ‘protection’.

4. Illustrative Logos

Illustrative logos are very unique and express a great deal about the business, product or service they are designed to represent. The illustrative logo incorporates unique drawings and character designs. They need to be created taking into consideration the overall visual identity of the brand, that is, they must work well with all the other elements of the design to be truly effective.
The following examples demonstrate two different cases of illustrative logos. Both logo designs were developed alongside the illustration, character and icon designs.
Good for: creating a more unique approach to presenting a brand to the market. Characters and illustrations for brand identity must be custom made for trademarking reasons.

5. Letterform Logos

Letterform logos are created by using acronyms or one or more letters from the business name, product or service name. In this situation the letters become a ‘symbol’ creating a unique design that acts as a ‘focal point’ for a brand name.
Good for: reinforcing the acronym or initials of the product or service of the brand.

6. Typographic Logos

Typographic logos do not use any symbols – just words and letters to create an image. In most cases, these are the most affordable types of logos as strict limits are established very early on in the design process. The sample on the left was created using commercial fonts and the sample on the right uses custom made letters. They are simple but can still be very effective!
Good for: start up businesses and labels.
 

7. Wordmark Logos

Wordmark logos use the business, product or service name as the foundation for the design. The typography can be created from ‘scratch’ or from a commercial font. Images can then be integrated into the typography to create even greater impact and to give it a truly customised look and feel.
Good for: creating a ‘mental picture’ of a brand – so that whenever you say the name, the image is associated with the sound of the word.

View the creation of Bling logo here

Which type of logo is right for your product or service?

There are no specific rules in design to define right or wrong when it comes to logos. Graphic design is a creative process and each and every brand must be approached in a unique way.  But don’t worry, finding the right solution for you and your business, product or service is all part of your professional graphic designer’s job!
However, as there are many ‘unknown’ areas to what a client is looking for, most graphic designers find it hard to give clients a price without knowing their specific requirements, target market and long term goals.
As a result, it is your graphic designer’s job to discuss and look into ‘aspirational’ and functional solutions (form and function) for your specific needs and wants.  This is determined during the Design brief and design research aspect of the logo design work.  It is once this preliminary phase of the process has been completed, that the creative process begins and a range of solutions are examined.   This all provides the graphic designer with the information that will then enable them give a professional opinion on the approach that will best serve your specific needs.
At Soul Space Graphic Design, we specialize in Visual Identity services.
If you have any queries, feel free to contact us. We’ll be happy to hear from you!



COPYWRITING: Copywriting is the act of writing copy (text) for the purpose of advertising or marketing a product, business, person, opinion or idea. The addressee (reader, listener, etc.) of the copy is meant to be persuaded to buy the product advertised for, or subscribe to the viewpoint the text shares.
Copywriters are used to help create direct mail pieces, taglines, jingle lyrics, web page content (although if the purpose is not ultimately promotional, its author might prefer to be called a content writer), online ads, e-mail and other Internet content, television or radio commercial scripts, press releases, white papers, catalogs, billboards, brochures, postcards, sales letters, and other marketing communications media. Copy can also appear in social media content including blog posts, tweets, and social-networking site posts.
Content writing on websites may include among its objectives the achievement of higher rankings in search engines. Known as "organic" search engine optimization (SEO), this practice involves the strategic placement and repetition of keywords and keyword phrases on web pages, writing in a manner that human readers would consider normal.
COPYWRITERS: Most copywriters are employees within organizations such as advertising agencies, public relations firms, company advertising departments, large stores, marketing firms, broadcasters and cable providers, newspapers, book publishers and magazines. Copywriters can also be independent contractors who freelance for a variety of clients, at the clients' offices or working from their own, or partners or employees in a specialized copywriting agency. Such agencies combine copywriting services with a range of editorial and associated services that may include positioning and messaging consulting, social media and SEO consulting, developmental editing, and copy editing, proofreading, fact checking, layout, and design. A copywriting agency most often serves large corporations.
A copywriter usually works as part of a creative team. Advertising agencies partner copywriters with art directors. The copywriter has ultimate responsibility for the advertisement's verbal or textual content, which often includes receiving the copy information from the client. The copywriter is responsible for telling the story, crafting it in such a way that it resonates with the viewer/reader, ideally producing an emotional response. The art director has ultimate responsibility for visual communication and, particularly in the case of print work, may oversee production. Although, in many instances, either person may come up with the overall idea for the advertisement or commercial (typically referred to as the concept or "big idea"), and the process of collaboration often improves the work.
Copywriters are similar to technical writers and the careers may overlap. Broadly speaking, however, technical writing is dedicated to informing readers rather than persuading them. For example, a copywriter writes an ad to sell a car, while a technical writer writes the operator's manual explaining how to use it.
Because the words sound alike, copywriters are sometimes confused with people who work in copyright law. These careers are unrelated.
Famous copywriters include David Ogilvy, Robert Collier, William Bernbach, Victor O. Schwab and Leo Burnett . Many creative artists spent some of their career as copywriters before becoming famous for other things, including Peter Carey, Dorothy L. Sayers, Eric Ambler, Joseph Heller, Terry Gilliam, William S. Burroughs, Salman Rushdie, Don DeLillo, Lawrence Kasdan, Fay Weldon, Philip Kerr and Shigesato Itoi. (Herschell Gordon Lewis, on the other hand, became famous for directing violent exploitation films, then became a very successful copywriter.)
The Internet has expanded the range of copywriting opportunities to include web content, ads, emails and other online media. It has also brought new opportunities for copywriters to learn their craft, conduct research and view others' work. And the Internet has made it easier for employers, copywriters and art directors to find each other.
As a consequence of these factors, along with increased use of independent contractors and virtual commuting generally, freelancing has become a more viable job option, particularly in certain copywriting specialties and markets. A generation ago, professional freelance copywriters (except those between full-time jobs) were rare.
While education may be a good start or supplement in a budding copywriter's professional education, working as part of an advertising team arguably remains the best way for novices to gain the experience and business sense required by many employers, and expands the range of career opportunities.
10 Steps to Effective Copywriting
Don't waste your ad dollars with an over-the-top sales pitch. Well-written copy follows these simple guidelines.
Whether you're a small-business owner, a medium-size business owner, an eBay seller, or simply trying to break into the copywriting industry, understanding the fundamentals of writing sales-oriented copy and put you on a path to success. At its core, copywriting is another device in a business' marketing toolbox. Well-written copy can make or break an ad or marketing piece. With that in mind, copywriting can equate to either well-spent advertising investments or a waste of advertising dollars.

Many people misinterpret the uniqueness of effective copywriting. I can't count the number of times I've heard freelance writers say they want to shift from article writing to copywriting as if it's simply an extension of their existing abilities. Copywriting does come naturally to some people, but for most, it's a foreign landscape they do not know how to navigate. Copywriting is about more than writing the hard sell sales letter that many short copywriting courses offer. In fact, I cringe when I see those over-the-top sales letters, which do little more than provide an ugly representation of copywriting, sales and marketing.

Well-crafted copywriting doesn't need to beat a person over the head. It doesn't have to drown in bold typeface and capitalization. The message should stand on its own without an overabundance of heavy-handed sales language and design embellishments. I associate many sales letters that are guilty of this technique with a writer who doesn't truly understand the basic purpose of copywriting. However, successful copywriting can be achieved in 10 easy steps.
Consider Your Copy
Motivate your customer to buy with these 10 copywriting steps:
1. Exploit your product's benefits
2. Exploit your competition's weaknesses
3. Know your audience
4. Communicate W.I.I.F.M. (What's In It For Me?)
5. Focus on "you," not "we"
6. Understand your medium
7. Avoid T.M.I. (Too Much Information)
8. Include a call to action
9. C.Y.A. (Cover Your Anxious areas)
10. Proofread


1. Exploit your product's benefits.
The first step of the copywriting outline is the foundation for your advertising campaigns. A benefit is the value of your product to a customer. In other words, a benefit is what the product can do for a customer or how the product can help a customer. You need to put into words the reasons your product is the best available and better than your competitors' products based on the added value it provides to your customers. The key to success is for you to fully understand all the benefits of your product. Only then can you ensure that the audience knows them and can relate to them.

2. Exploit your competition's weaknesses.
To write compelling copy, it is essential that you know what differentiates your product from the competition. Once you know your competitors' weaknesses, you must make sure your audience knows them and understands why buying your competitors' products would be a terrible mistake. Get started by thoroughly researching your competition and understanding what they offer in terms of products and services. Next, list the elements of their offerings that are inferior to your own. Feel free to tear the competition apart but be realistic in your comparisons. You want to be able to support your claims if you are challenged.

3. Know your audience.
Every person in the world is not going to see every ad in the world. Each ad has a specific audience that will see it, and it's the marketer's job to find the best placement to ensure the target audience will see it. For example, an ad for skateboards placed in a local senior citizen housing association newsletter is not likely to generate a lot of sales. In fact, it would be a waste of advertising dollars. The target audience for skateboards is teenagers or young adults. The vast majority of senior citizens do not use skateboards, and it is not a product category in which they typically purchase gifts. Before you buy ad space, make sure you're spending your money in the right place to get the biggest bang for your buck in terms of exposure and building awareness of your product or service.


First, take the time to research your customers thoroughly. In most businesses, 20 percent of customers are responsible for 80 percent of sales (this is called the 80/20 rule in case you're curious about the official marketing terminology for this phenomenon). That 20 percent represents your best customer, and your job is to determine who that 20 percent is. Evaluate your customers and put together a demographic profile of your most valuable customer, so you can advertise in the best places to find similar people who are likely prospects. If you're a small business owner, you probably don't have a budget set aside to conduct a thorough research study and analysis of your customer base, so you'll have to improvise by using your own communication skills and visual investigation. Remember, you're trying to develop a basic profile of your target customer, not a CIA profile of each individual who buys your product. Do your best with the information you have.

There are many attributes you can use to develop a demographic profile of your customers. Following is a list of examples of traits to help you start your own demographic profiling initiative:



Gender
Age
Ethnicity
Family Status
Income
Occupation
Interests
4. Communicate W.I.I.F.M. (What's In It For Me?)
There are a variety of reasons to create an advertisement or marketing piece. Before you write copy for your promotional piece, you need to understand your goals for that piece. What do you want to get in return? The copy you use in each ad or marketing piece will vary based on your goals for that promotion. While this book does not focus on the development of marketing plans and strategies, I will offer some examples of different objectives for ads or marketing pieces that, in turn, will affect the copy you use:

Communicate a special offer
Share information and raise awareness
Generate leads
Your customers need to understand how your product or service is going to help them by making their lives easier, making them feel better, helping them save money, helping them save time, etc. In this step of the copywriting outline, you'll build on the work you've done so far by taking your product's features, benefits, and differentiators and specifically describing how they directly affect your target audience members' lives in positive ways. Remember the first tenet of copywriting--your product or service is far less important than its ability to fulfill your customers' needs.

Answer your target audience's question "What's in it for me?" Remember, you're paying for your ad space and possibly graphic design too. Don't waste your money by placing an ad with ineffective copy that does not clearly tell your customers what they'll get by buying your product or service. Large companies with big advertising and marketing budgets can test snappy, cliché headlines and copy in an attempt to find the best way to catch their target audience's attention, but small and medium-size business owners typically have limited budgets. For smaller businesses that only have one chance to communicate their message, copy must be written so the message, including benefits and differentiators, is heard and understood by the target audience. There is no room in a small business owner's advertising budget to risk not getting that specific message across to the right people every time.

5. Focus on "you," not "we."
It is essential that you are aware of how you're addressing your customers in your copy. To do this, you need to understand pronoun usage. Think back to your school days. Remember your English teacher explaining first person, second person, and third person? As a refresher, first person (I, me, my, mine, we, us, our, ours) is the person speaking and second person (you, your, yours) is the person to whom one is speaking. It's essential that you write copy that speaks to your target audience and not at them--and not about you. Therefore, the majority of your copy in any ad or marketing piece should be written in the second person. For example, do you prefer copy that says, "Through our first-rate sales department, we can deliver cars within 24 hours" or "You can drive your new car tomorrow"? While the first copy example focuses on the business, the second example focuses on customers and speaks directly to them. It's more personal, and thus, more effective.

Remember, writing in the second person helps your audience quickly connect the points in your copy to their own lives and allows them to personalize the advertisement or marketing piece. This is how the ad is connected to an individual customer's own life. By writing your copy so it focuses on the customer rather than yourself, the customer can personalize the ad and product you're selling and act accordingly.

6. Understand your medium.
As you write your copy, be aware that each different medium where an ad is placed requires a different tone or style. Depending on where you're placing your ad, the copy you use changes based on the audience who will see the ad. Are you placing your ad in a local newspaper or on a billboard? Are you placing your ad in a woman's magazine or in a news magazine? Different media require different copy to most effectively persuade a particular audience to act. Furthermore, different types of marketing pieces require different types of copy. Remember, there are many ways to use copy to promote your business other than traditional advertisements. Use every possible and appropriate opportunity to communicate your marketing messages to your customers.

7. Avoid T.M.I. (Too Much Information)
Never risk losing the attention of your audience by providing too much detail in your copy. Effective copywriting tells your audience what they need to know to act and make a purchase or how to contact you for more information. Extraneous details clutter the minds of your audience, which increases the possibility of them forgetting the most important aspects of your advertisement or marketing program. Unless you're advertising a prescription drug, highly technical equipment, or an exceedingly regulated or complicated product, the best rule to follow is K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid). You're spending a substantial amount of your advertising budget on placing each ad. With each ad, you only receive a small amount of space to get your message across to your audience. Wisely use that pricey real estate to ensure you get the highest return on your investment.

8. Include a call to action.
The goal of any ad or marketing piece is to elicit some kind of response from the audience who sees it. A call to action is the element of copy that tells an audience how you want them to respond to your advertisement or marketing piece. Typically, the call to action creates a sense of urgency around a message and provides instructions on what to do next. For example, a call to action might tell the audience to call the advertiser or visit their store or website.

Including a call to action is by far the most important aspect of effective copywriting. It is essential that you make it easy for your audience to act on your ad or marketing message. You already persuaded them to want your product by following Step 1 through Step 7 of the copywriting outline and by writing influential copy. Now you must make sure your audience can respond easily to your ad and buy your product by compelling them to act.

To start, make sure the sentence structure of your copywriting is in an active rather than passive voice. The reason for this is simple. Copy that you write in the active voice is by definition action-oriented, while copy that you write in the passive voice talks about the action in a remote manner. To further explain, when you write a sentence in the active voice, the subject of the sentence performs the action of the verb in the sentence. On the other hand, if you write a sentence in the passive voice, the subject of the sentence receives the action from the verb of the sentence.

The second step in creating an effective call to action in your copy is developing a sense of urgency. Your goal in advertising is to create awareness of your product or service and, ultimately, boost sales. When do you want to do that? Do you want your customers to act tomorrow, next month, or next year? If you're spending money on advertising now, you most likely want your customers to act now. If that's the case, your copy needs to tell them to get off the couch and get into your store now. There are many words and phrases you can add to your copy to create a sense of urgency.

9. C.Y.A. (Cover Your Anxious areas)
While large companies have legal departments that review copy to ensure it does not expose the company to potential problems, smaller companies don't usually have the budget to seek the opinion of an attorney for each ad they run or marketing piece they print. However, that doesn't mean small business owners have any less responsibility for producing ads and marketing pieces that are honest and not considered deceptive. Most small business owners are sole proprietors meaning if they lose a lawsuit, not only can their business assets be used to satisfy a plaintiff's claim, but their personal assets can be targeted as well. When you're writing copy, consider if claims that you can't prove in your copy (or can't provide appropriate disclaimers for) are worth it once you weigh the risk vs. the potential reward.

Aside from opening yourself up to possible litigation, exaggerating or falsifying claims about your product or your competition is unethical and a bad business practice. If you're caught in a lie (no matter how small), word will spread quickly, and your reputation could be irreparably damaged. Again, weigh the risk vs. the potential reward before you advertise using claims you can't prove.

Be careful of using words superlatives such as the examples in the following list:

Free
Guaranteed
Best, lowest, fastest, etc.
Or your money back
Risk-free
No risk
No purchase necessary
No cost
No obligation
No investment
100 percent
Promise
No questions asked
10. Proofread.
It is critical that you accurately proofread your copy. One of the quickest ways to lose credibility in advertising is to allow grammatical or spelling errors to appear in your advertisement or marketing pieces. Customers translate carelessness in ads into carelessness in products and service. They ask themselves, "If this company doesn't care enough to produce an ad without errors, how likely are they to care about taking care of me?" Professional businesses produce professional quality ads and ad copy, and that means their copy has been proofread again and again and is error free.
It Really Is That Simple
Copywriting is truly easy. If you do your research and prep work, your copy will shine. Don't be afraid to take calculated risks and learn from your mistakes, but don't waste your limited advertising budget. By doing the legwork first and thoroughly completing your copywriting outline, you'll have a working document you can use as a tool to produce all your copywriting projects now and in the future. Spend some time up-front to develop a first rate copywriting outline, and you'll reap the rewards later with a boost in sales and profits and a higher return in your advertising investments.
Advertiser: A person, organization or company that places advertisements in order to target customers.
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising (and sometimes other forms of promotion) for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services. An agency can also handle overall marketing and branding strategies and sales promotions for its clients.
Typical ad agency clients include businesses and corporations, non-profit organizations and government agencies. Agencies may be hired to produce television commercials and radio commercials as part of an advertising campaign.
Advertising Media: Various means (advertising vehicles) such as billboards, magazines, newspapers, radio, television, and internet by which promotional messages are communicated to the public using audio-visuals like words, speech, pictures, video clips and movies.
Consumer Behaviour is the study of when, why, how, and where people do or do not buy a product. It blends elements from psychology, sociology, social anthropology and economics.
It attempts to understand the buyer decision making process, both individually and in groups.
It studies characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics and behavioural variables in an attempt to understand people's wants.
It also tries to assess influences on the consumer from groups such as family, friends, reference groups, and society in general.
Buying Behavior is the decision making processes and acts of people involved in buying and using products.
Need to understand:
why consumers make the purchases that they make?
what factors influence consumer purchases?
the changing factors in our society.
Consumer Buying Behavior refers to the buying behavior of the ultimate consumer. A firm needs to analyze buying behavior for:
Buyers reactions to a firms marketing strategy has a great impact on the firms success.
The marketing concept stresses that a firm should create a Marketing Mix (MM) that satisfies (gives utility to) customers, therefore need to analyze the what, where, when and how consumers buy.
Marketers can better predict how consumers will respond to marketing strategies.
Account Planning:
 Medium to large-sized advertising agencies divide their work into various departments, traditionally splitting functions into interacting with clients and looking out for their interests (account management), buying advertising (media), and creating advertising (creative). As the importance of the voice of the consumer has grown, around 25 years ago, ad agencies introduced a new discipline from the UK called account planning which became a primary function in most US ad agencies around 15 years ago. Account planning brings the consumer into the process of developing advertising.
Account planners have often been called 'the left side of a creative brain'. Their primary function is to find consumer truth and insight that helps the creative teams to create work that is not only entertaining and highly memorable, but that is relevant to the consumer and effective in the marketplace. Creative ideas that drive business are more typically the result of a strong collaboration between creative teams and account planners. Account planners (sometimes also called brand planners and strategic planners) use primary and secondary research to inform their strategic thinking and are ultimately responsible for the work that informs, and the penning of, the creative brief. If the creatives are closest to the idea, and the account manager is closest to the client, the account planner is closest to the consumer. The account planner is the person on an advertising team who is most likely to have spent time with consumers (for B to C) or customers (B to B), observing the consumer's path to purchase, by using research such as ethnographies, focus groups or quantitative/social studies, asking consumers how they think about and use the product or service. And in an era in which the brand is at least as important as a specific product (for instance, Nike as a brand has a place in the culture that far exceeds the particular performance characteristics of their shoes), the account planner is responsible for understanding the place of the brand in the consumer's mind. This is not just a simple research function - planning truly begins when research ends - and account planners stay engaged in the campaign process from the initial client briefing and throughout the advertising cycle. Rather than offering research insights to others at a single point in time, they use research to continue to provide insights within the campaign process and most importantly these days, help to track advertising effectiveness. Whereas previously, account planners focused on the use of traditional primary research tools, digital/social networks have given them the ability to listen to and interact with consumers in new ways, and to work more closely with channel or media planners throughout the process closely also, to not only help plan effective advertising but also engage with consumers in the most effective ways.

Step by step procedure of Account planning
A simple approach to account planning

Account planning is simple
Having posted a few thoughts this year about the basics of account planning and strategy (How to get into strategy, Why strategists should make stuff and How to position your business in 3 lines), I thought I’d have a go at explaining a high-level approach to account planning… an account planning process, if you will.
Account planning should be simple. However, a lot of people make a lot of money by making it seem complicated. There’s a well worn Bruce Lee quote that has stuck with me since I was young: “A kick is a kick and a punch is a punch.” Most martial artists go on a journey where they learn the basics but then get distracted by the tricks (fancy spinning kicks, for example) only to return to their core basics now understanding how important they are.
It’s probably a similar journey for many account planners. Someone (like me) will present the basics to you – then you’ll discover some incredible IP about how to do account planning, it will seem more scientific and justifiable… and then eventually you’ll work out that it’s just a bunch of boxes with a trademark icon and that what we do is – finally – simple.
It’s really important to acknowledge that what account planners do is part-science, part-intuition. However, it’s the intuition that makes a planner stand out. As I’ve said before, a strategy is an informed and measurable opinion on where to take a brand/business. Yes, an opinion.
A simple approach to account planning
Step 1: The problem
So you get a brief from the client. Hopefully, they will have (possibly with you) worked out their key business challenges and have a feel for what success looks like.
Often the annual communications budget will be a nice round number and a % of the annual revenue target (typically 5-10%). You can make your first impact here by trying to work out the customer lifetime value of the client’s customers and establish whether their budget makes any sense from the bottom up. There’s often little rhyme or reason to where these budgets come from – they’re typically just rules of thumb that businesses have applied for years.
I seriously suggest you push to get clarity on this before you do anything else because it can swing your entire approach.
OK, onto the problem.
The first few steps may need a few attempts before you decide on the problem. You will need to do some digging: qualitative, quantitative, keyword, website, social research. Maybe you’ll dig up some behavioural economics, social sciences or psychology papers. Whatever your inputs, define the problem in an interesting way.
Couch the problem in a customer’s – not a business’s – point of view if possible. Avoid phrases like ‘we need more sales’, ‘we need to become more relevant’ and ‘we need awareness’ – these things are table stakes.
Make it provocative, say it short, say it in one picture.
Step 2: Personas
Personas are a sort of customer segmentation. They’re fictional representations of your client’s customers based on research.
I’ve read conflicting thoughts about how to do them. Some argue vehemently against creative labels: instead of calling a group The Twilighters, some would argue you should note them as ‘John, he’s really into Twilight’. I like the labels – our brains apply these labels regardless of what’s written on the piece of paper anyway.
The basic info you want to think through are their goals (in life – if relevant to what you’re selling, in decision-making) and behaviour (in life – if relevant to what you’re selling, in decision-making). You may list some of their pre-occupations, beliefs, passions and pain-points. Google it if you’re interested.
Having established your personas (again some conventions say to use 4-6 but I believe you can have as many as are useful and as many as you can resource against), you may need to pick your most valuable – the sort of customer you wish you had more of.
Perfect world, you’d validate that enough of them exist (or could be created) and match your investment against the possible business gain.
Step 3: Insight
Other than ‘strategy’, ‘insight’ is possibly one of the most over- and mis-used words in agency world. There’s a difference between ‘I’ve found some stuff’ and ‘I’ve found an insight’. Insights are unspoken human truths, truths the subconscious recognises when it sees them. Often, insights are the arsenal of comedians and poets. A lot of creatives look up jokes about particular issues as inspiration for their ideas for this reason.
One of the best ways to find them? Start with something that seems obvious and keep asking ‘Why?’ and ‘What if?’.
I’ve recently started keeping note of little insights I personally observe. On the way to work the other day, I passed a homeless person and I automatically held my breath and turned my head. I caught myself doing it and thought how weird it was. I spoke to people at work about it. Apparently, many others do the same thing… automatically. I’m not claiming this as an incredible insight but if many other people are doing the same thing perhaps it is an insight a charity could exploit.
So, dig for the quirky and write it short and interestingly.
Step 4: Brand or product truth
There are a few workshop tools I’ve consistently found handy for exploring this but ultimately what you’re looking for is a truth about the brand or product that is both unique and motivating to its customers.
A lot of established brands have been around for a long time. This may be unique against their competitors but rarely is it highly motivating.
When you’re exploring this, challenge yourself to use different language – but, again, make it short. And also look for what you don’t have that others do – sometimes there’s something unique and motivating there. For example, one pet product I was working on wasn’t a scheduled poison – it was really the only thing unique and motivating about it. We couldn’t claim it publicly but it led to our brand idea.
Step 5: Strategy statement
I’ve come across a lot of ‘strategic thinking’ that doesn’t seem to have a strategy. It has some observations (mis-called ‘insights’) and a clunky single-minded proposition slightly connected to some of the observations. But ultimately, a concise strategy statement is a useful way to ground your prop and creative idea.
A To/By statement may come in handy for this.
Step 6: Proposition or core strategic idea
Whatever you want to call this thing, it’s the guts of your strategy. It links and evolves the insight and brand truth in an interesting way. It’s a handful of words.
Personally, I believe there’s no role for an account planner unless they can flip the perspective on a problem/opportunity/brand/person.
If you’re putting run-of-the-mill language like ‘convenience’, ‘quality’, ‘easy’, etc in here then I don’t believe there’s a need for you.
Of course, if you put in chunky thoughts and the creative teams you work with aren’t used to it they may say you’re putting in ideas. I agree. You are. That’s the point. But you’re not putting in Creative Ideas or Advertising Ideas. They still need to make a whole lot of leaps with your stimulus and take it to a whole other level.
I typically walk the proposition around the office before I make it official. I don’t mind at all if someone makes it better. The point is what gets done with it – not who does it.
Oh, and don’t try to write taglines here.
Step 7: The experience
Many advertising agencies stripped out or siloed the media, DM, digital and PR guys in the years gone but the trend is reversing and, increasingly, the experience is becoming an account planner’s remit. You can map an experience plan (engagement model – or whatever fancy words you want to call it) against different personas.
At a high level, your experience model may address 5-7 key phases of someone’s interaction with you. If you think about the last time you bought a mobile phone. There may have been a trigger, you may have waited for your contract to expire, then you researched, asked around, validated with consumer and expert reviews, shopped, signed up, set up and used. If you put those basic phases into a matrix then mapped the issues (what challenges there are at each step), the context (where the step happens: eg face to face, Google, Facebook) and the content needed to make a decision, you can quickly map out a pretty solid plan.
Check out this Starbucks experience model.
And…
The rest is pretty self-explanatory. I’m personally interested in non-advertising ideas (platforms, content, communities) that get advertised. I think one of the challenges creative agencies face is the lack of common understanding about what an idea is, who does ideas, what sorts of ideas there can be. It can get in the way of coming up with great stuff. Anyway, I’ll save that for another time.
What to apply right now (a summary of the main points)
1. Find the real problem and state it succinctly, interestingly
2. Find a deep human insight – hit a nerve
3. Find what’s truly unique and motivating about the brand/product (one thing can suffice)
4. Link the insight and brand/product truth to a simple strategy statement
5. Try to flip the perspective on the issue/brand/product/person with your core strategic idea
6. Don’t feel you need to do it alone – talk it through
LATEST TRENDS IN ADVERTISING:  (No.1 is Internet followed by SMS on cell phones) As marketers look for ways to keep pace with technology and media, advertising trends have changed dramatically. Think, for example, about that crazy email you got from your friend -- the one featuring the water skiing squirrel.
After you stopped laughing (and wondering why anyone would fashion tiny water skis to strap on a squirrel) you noticed a product logo in the corner of the screen. And before you realized it, you had "consumed" a brand message, and experienced one of the new advertising trends.
This form of sponsorship, known as "viral videos," is among many recent promotional vehicles replacing conventional advertising. Thanks to YouTube, blogs, TiVo, Facebook and basic email, people are spending less time watching television commercials and reading print ads.
The advertising revolution is on.

So, clever folks that they are, advertisers have found new ways to capture those eyeballs, ideally without offending the people behind them.

Branded entertainment. Laughing for dollars

Say your product is a tortilla chip, or a beer, or a sexploitation chick cop flick. Clearly, your target audience is dudes 18 to 34. And where will you find them? In front of their computers, watching two of the things they love most -- ideally at the same time during Burly Sports Show on Heavy.com or Carl's Lock on SuperDeluxe.com. Web channels like these have developed new forms of entertainment, three minute shows called "webisodes." They play directly to the ADD nature of the Internet, and people looking for quick breaks in their workday.

Burly and Carl's toast and roast the previous week in pro sports, trashing athletes and their teams. In return for the laughs, viewers allow the sponsors to ply their wares -- sometimes in the frame around the screen, sometimes as part of the entertainment. And just in case you think this new web-centric format is less than prime time, take a look at some of the ongoing sponsors: Doritos, Coke Zero, AT & T, Dove and of course, sexploitation chick cop flick Bitch Slap.

You Tube. Your new ad network

The 30-second TV spot hasn't gone away entirely. It's just that the smart money is spending less of theirs on media, and placing ads on YouTube. They then attempt to drive consumers there via other inexpensive means. YouTube is a vehicle to attract viewers who might not be watching as much TV, or skipping the shows in the brand's media buy. It's also an ideal vehicle to expand an advertiser's reach. The spot developed for an audience in Peoria is now reaching you wherever you are, thanks to You Tube's international exposure.

Exploiting Social Networks:






Types of Ad agencies: Four Types of Advertising Agencies

Here are basically four types of ad agencies. They are:

In-house agencies
Creative boutiques
Media buying agencies
Full service agencies

In- house agencies
Some companies, in an effort to reduce costs and maintain greater control over agency activities, have set up their own advertising agencies internally. An in-house agency is an ad agency set up, owned and operated by the advertiser. Many companies use in-house agencies exclusively; others combine in-house efforts with those of outside agencies.

A major reason for using in-house agency is to reduce advertising and promotional costs. Companies with very large advertising budgets pay a substantial amount to outside agencies in the form of media commissions. With an internal structure, these commissions go to the in-house ad agency. An in-house ad agency can also provide related work such as sales presentations and sales force material, package design, and public relations at a lower cost than the outside agencies.

Saving money is not the only reason companies use in-house ad agencies. Time savings, bad experience with outside agencies, and the increased knowledge and understanding of the market that come from working advertising and promotion for the product or service day by day are also reasons. Companies can also maintain a tighter control over the process and more easily coordinate promotions with the firm’s overall marketing programmes.

Opponents of the in-house agencies say that they can give the advertiser neither the experience nor the objectivity of the outside agency and nor the range of services. They argue that the outside agencies have a more specialized staff and attract the best creative staff. Also flexibility is higher since if the company is not satisfied with the agency it can be dismissed, whereas changes in an in-house agency could be slower and more disruptive.

Thus we can summarize by saying that
Ad agency
Advantages
Disadvantages
In house agency
Cost saving
More control
Increased coordination
Less experience
Less objectivity
Less flexibility

In-house agencies in India are:

Levers - Lintas (previously)
Videocon – Confidence
Reliance – Mudra (when Mudra started out)

Creative boutiques
Creative boutique is an agency that provides only creative services. These specialized companies have developed in response to some client’s desires to use only the creative talent of an outside provider while maintaining the other functions internally.

The client may seek outside creative talent for two reasons:

Because he wants an extra creative effort
May be because its own employees of the in-house agency or the agency that he has appointed do not have sufficient skills in this regard.
The full-service agencies also sub-contract work creative boutiques when they are very busy or want to avoid adding full time employees to their pay roll. Creative boutiques are usually found by members of the creative departments of full service agencies who leave the firm and take with them clients who want to retain their creative talents. These boutiques generally perform creative function on a fee basis.

Few creative boutiques in India:

RMG David
Vyas Gianetti Creatives
Chlorophyll
Media buying agencies
Media buying agencies are independent companies that specialize in the buying of media, particularly radio and television. The task of purchasing advertising media has grown more complex as specialized media proliferate, so media buying services have found a niche by specializing in the analysis and purchase of the advertising time and space. Agencies and clients generally develop their own media plans and then hire the buying services to execute them.

Some media buying agencies do help advertisers plan their media strategies. Because media buying agencies purchase such large amounts of time and space, they receive large discounts and can save the small ageny’s or client’s money on media buying. Media buying agencies are paid a fee or commission for their work.

Mindshare
Initiative Media (LOWE)
Zenith Media (Bates, Saatchi & Saatchi)
Optimedia (Publicis)
Starcom (Leo Burnett)
Fulcrum (HTA) Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
Full – service agency
The function of an advertising agency is to see to it that its client’s advertising leads to greater profits in the long run than could be achieved without the ad agency. Most such agencies are large in size and offer their clients a full range of services in the area of marketing, communications and promotions. These include planning, creating and producing the advertisement, media selection and research. Other services offered include strategic marketing planning, sales training, package design, sales promotion, event management, trade shows, publicity and public relations.

The full service agency is composed of various departments; each is responsible to provide required inputs to perform various functions to serve the client.

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COURTESY : http://kalyan-city.blogspot.com/2013/08/departments-and-organizational.html



Organizational structure of advertising agency



Advertising agency must have a suitable internal organizational structure to keep functioning properly with a smooth workflow.
When an advertising agency decides to establish its organizational structure, it must ask itself important questions like:
  1. What is the suitability and/or requirement of a department?
  2. How the span of control should be within an agency?
  3. Is there any mechanism or provision to make communication andcoordination more effective within an agency? So on.
All advertising agencies don't have a same organizational structure. Their structure varies from one agency to another. It is so, since, all organizations are unique and their objectives, requirements, functional areas and specialized departments are not common.
Diagram, an example of organizational structure of advertising agency.
organizational structure of advertising agency
The organizational structure of an ad agency becomes more complex with its expansion and growth. Smaller agencies usually have a simple organization-structure compared to giant ones who have ample funds and resources to carry out their large and growing operations in the field of advertising.


Departments of advertising agency



departments of advertising agency
The main functional departments of advertising agency:
  1. Contact department,
  2. Media department,
  3. Copy department,
  4. Art department,
  5. production department
  6. Research department,
  7. Accounting and finance department,
  8. Public relations department and
  9. Office management.
Now let's discuss these important functional departments of an advertising agency along with specialized-functions assigned to them.


1. Contact department



contact department of advertising agency
Contact department of advertising agency keeps contact with their prospective clients, who are mostly advertisers.
The functions of contact department are as follows:
  1. Contact department supplies necessary information to the clients.
  2. It tries to increase and retain the number of clients of agency.
  3. It brings new clients to the agency which is crucial for increasing revenue, expansion and growth.
  4. It acts as a liaison authority (connection) between the advertising agency and its clients.
  5. It acts as a sales promotion department of the ad agency.
  6. It finds out new clients and promotes the business of agency.
The contact department of ad agency comes under accounting services. Account Executive is the head of it.
Efficient working of this department results in quick growth of ad agency.


2. Media department



media department of advertising agency
Media department of advertising agency selects the best-media for advertising the products of the clients.
While selecting a media for advertising it must consider the following:
  • Nature of the product,
  • Competition in the market,
  • Advertising budget of the client,
  • Media trends, etc.
The functions of media department are as follows:
  1. Select and use the best media possible to communicate the ad message to the consumers. This is very important function because a wrong selection will result in the failure of product.
  2. Prepare a media plan for clients.
  3. Media scheduling.
  4. Supervise the execution of the schedule.
  5. Buy or book an advertising time and space in media for client.
  6. Keep contact with various media.
Media department of ad agency comes under marketing services.


3. Copy department



copy department of advertising agency
The main function of a copy department of advertising agency is to prepare an attractive copy-of-ad.
The copy of advertisement is very crucial. It is called the Heart of the AD. It is so, since it directly communicates the ad-message to the consumers.
The staff of this department includes copywriters, copy-supervisors, and others. They use their talent of imagination, skill of putting flair and fluent language while preparing a copy.
The advertising will be a failure if the copy is not appealing to consumers. The copy-staff works in close co-operation with the staff of the art and visualization branch.
The head of copy department is a Copy Chief. He directs the functioning of it.
The copy branch is perhaps the largest department of ad agency. It comprises of a hard-working team of qualified professionals and experienced staff.
Some agencies have a creative branch instead of it that does the entire work of preparing an advertisement. Here, preparing an ad copy, artwork and actual production of ad are all linked together and executed completely by this department alone.


4. Art department



art department of advertising agency
Art department of advertising agency uses the power of creativity and to make ad more appealing and agreeable. Its activity is not a mechanical one. It uses the principles of real art (that works) as a guideline or base to present a product to the targeted audience.
Generally, the art department carries out following work:
  1. Transform the ad-message into a self-communicating and mind-stimulating imagery.
  2. Prepare visuals and layouts for press advertisement.
  3. Make painted bulletins, posters, car cards, illustrations, slogans, etc.
Art Director heads this department of ad agency. He is assisted by an assistant-art director, artists, visualizers and layout men.
The artists of art department work together with copywriters to make the final copy of advertisement more attractive.
Both departments of art and copy operates under the overall guidance and supervision of vice-president of creative services.
Not all ad agencies have a separate art department. Some prefer to outsource their art-related work to freelance artists.


5. Production department



production department of advertising agency
The copy of advertisement is finalized by artists and copywriters. It is then sent to the production department of an advertising agency for its further processing.
As the copy reaches this department, its proper mechanical production begins.
The main role of a production department is to process & produce a final ad.
This department's traditional work activities usually are as follows:
  1. Keep in contact with printing press, typographers, photo engravers, etc.
  2. Assemble the typographic design patterns, engraved photos, illustrations, copy, etc. and prepare the final advertisement.
  3. Show it to the client (advertiser) and get his approval for its release.
  4. Send it (after approval) to print media like magazines, newspapers, etc. for advertising.
With advancements in technology, the use of print media is gradually slowly down. The digital media is now an emerging trend. As a result, some production houses have started adapting to this change. Now their work also includes activities like:
  1. Keep in contact with digital artists, web designers, etc.
  2. Assemble the work of digital art and prepare a final digital-ad.
  3. Seek approval of it from an advertiser.
  4. Send it (after approval) to digital media like the Internet, e-magazines, web videos, etc. mainly for online advertising.
This department is headed by a production manager.
Production department of ad agency comes under creative services.
Not all ad agencies have a separate production department. Some prefer to outsource their production-related work to others.


6. Research department



The success of an advertising agency greatly depends on the success of the client's ad campaign. Today, achieving success is not an easier task. It is getting very difficult now-a-days because of rising market competition. With so many alternatives and choices at hand, already well-established goodwill and trust on older brands, it is now tougher to attract and convince consumers. However, against all odds hope still exists.
To stand out from the plethora of availability and make the client's products and/or services attractive, needs not only huge amount of tedious work but also some good amount of research to begin with.
One must remember that without knowing, What to do? How to do? When to do? And where to do? Nothing can be achieved. However, with right direction and approach, everything can be made possible.
Therefore, the importance of research department in advertising is rising.
research department of advertising agency
The main function of research department of advertising agency is to:
  1. Carry out research and obtain the necessary information.
  2. Engage in a rigorous and critical analysis of the obtained information.
  3. Use the findings (results) in different ways to achieving objectives.
Generally, this department collects information about:
  • Market,
  • Market competition,
  • Market trends,
  • Products and/or services,
  • Competitors,
  • Consumer behavior,
  • Media trends,
  • New trends in advertising, so on.
Agency makes use of above information for executing a good ad campaign.
The team of a typical research department usually comprises of:
  • Investigators,
  • Field workers,
  • Analysts,
  • Marketing assistants,
  • Statisticians,
  • Librarian and the staff of library, etc.
This team works under the guidance and direction a Research Director, who is the head of research department.
Research department comes under marketing services of ad agency.
Although research activities are highly beneficial, they do consume an ample amount of time, money and resources. Generally, small ad agencies can't afford such resource-intense activities and therefore, prefer not to keep a separate research-branch. They either do research on a smaller scale or use the data obtained by others. On its contrary, large-agencies prefer to maintain their own research-subsidiaries and don't take the risk compromising with the quality and genuineness of the obtained data.


7. Accounting and finance department



accounting and finance department of advertising agency
The main duty of accounting and finance department of advertising agency is to look after its financial and accounting matters.
The work activity of this department is usually as follows:
  1. Generate or raise invoices (bills) on clients (parties).
  2. Send regular reminder to the client for collection of unpaid dues.
  3. Book the expenses of vendor parties on a timely basis.
  4. Issue payments to vendor parties within or on the due date.
  5. Doing reconciliation (compare) of banks, vendors and customers' ledger accounts regularly.
  6. Deposit government dues on a timely basis in authorized banks.
The main staff of this department usually comprises of:
  1. Chief financial officer (CFO),
  2. Accounts receivable manager,
  3. Accounts payable manager,
  4. Accounts supervisors and
  5. Accounts executives.
This staff works under the guidance and supervision of vice-president of accounting services. He is the head of this department.


8. Public relations department



public relations department of advertising agency
The main responsibility of a public relations (PR) department is to maintain cordial relationship between advertising agency, clients and media.
Generally, the PR department carries out following work:
  1. Address the complaints of the customers.
  2. Solve their complaints as soon as possible.
  3. Be a link between ad-agency, clients, media and society.
  4. Create goodwill and maintain the reputation of ad agency.
Public Relations Officer (PRO) is the head of this department, and his subordinates assist him regularly to maintain a cordial environment.
The PR department functions under the authority of management.


9. Office Management



office management
The definition of office management according to Mills and Standingford,
“The art of guiding the personnel of the office in the use of materials, methods, machines and equipment appropriate to their environment in order to achieve its specified purpose.”
Generally, office management involves following important activities:
  1. Recruit office staff.
  2. Training and development of new joined staff.
  3. Promotion of an existing staff.
  4. Transfer of a timely salary and perquisites (perks) to staff.
  5. Providing welfare facilities to staff.
  6. Correspondence to various internal and external parties.
  7. Filing and record keeping of all the important documents.
Office-management of advertising agency operates under its management services.

COURTESY : http://kalyan-city.blogspot.com/2013/08/departments-and-organizational.html
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UNIT IV

Client brief: Statement of the problem/opportunity. Emphasis on clarity and a succinct summation of the brand's current position, its marketing strategy and where it wants to get to.  Should always be written by the client.                  
Creative Strategy: An outline of what message should be conveyed, to whom, and with what tone. This provides the guiding principles for copywriters and art directors who are assigned to develop the advertisement. Within the context of that assignment, any ad that is then created should conform to that strategy.
Also Known As: Copy Platform       
In advertising, different creative strategies are used in order to obtain consumer attention and provoke shoppers to purchase or use a specific product. Advertisers use different ways of thinking to create catchy slogans that capture consumer attention. Creative strategies promote publicity, public relations, personal selling and sales promotion.
These ways of thinking are divided into three basic descriptions: Weak strategies, mid-strength strategies and strong strategies. The strategies labeled "strong, mid-strength, and weak are generic phrases used in the text books referenced below to help students understand the intensity of each different type of advertising strategy. Advertisements, weak, mid-strength, and strong can be found in television, radio, and magazines/print.
Since the beginning of advertising, strategies have been created, starting with the simplest (weak) strategies in the 1940s. 
Creative brief: The beginnings of the creative solution.  Emphasis on crystallising the strategic ideas to provide a springboard that will inform and inspire creative ideas.  Usually written by the agency
creative brief is a document used by creative professionals and agencies to develop creative deliverables: visual design, copy, advertising, web sites, etc. The document is usually developed by the requestor (in most cases a marketing team member) and approved by the creative team of designers, writers, and project managers. In some cases, the project's creative brief may need creative director approval before work will commence.
The creative brief, consisting of a series of simple questions asked by the creative team and answered by the requestor, becomes the guidepost for the development of the creative deliverable. As with many strategic documents, if the project goes off track referring back to this mutually agreed upon document to see where the divergence began is helpful.
Creative briefs can come in many flavors and are usually tailored to the agency or group that is developing the creative deliverable. They know which questions (and answers) are of paramount importance to them in order to deliver a high-quality creative execution.
A creative brief may contain:
§  Background — what is the background of the project? Why is it being done?
§  Target audience — what do they already think about this subject? Is there anything that should be avoided?
§   
§  Objectives — what is to be accomplished? How will this be measured and success understood?
§  Single message — what is the one thing to tell the audience? What is the single thing they should remember about the offering? How will they believe what we say?
§  Mandatory elements — mandatory elements such as the client's logo, address, phone number and so forth.
§  Deliverables — what is to be used to give the audience the message? What is the best way or place to reach this audience?
§  Timeline — how soon is this needed? When is it expected to be done? How many rounds (revisions) will this project undergo?
§  Budget — how much can be spent to get this developed? Is there any budget needed to publish/flight the creative?
§  Approvals — who needs to give the "okay"?

Why write a brief?  
There are three compelling reasons why it is worth writing a brief for every piece of work that you commission an agency to do:

It leads to better, more effective and measurable work
It saves time and money
It makes remuneration fairer
1  BETTER WORK
A brief is the most important piece of information issued by a client to an agency. It’s from the brief that everything else flows. Therefore it’s essential that every effort be taken to prepare the best possible documentation of what is required.

It’s in the nature of creative thinkers that giving them the tightest of parameters will often stimulate the most inventive of responses – and 79% of clients and agencies agreed that: “It is difficult to produce good creative work without a good brief”.

The client brief can be considered the platform for a communications campaign. The better a company’s corporate or brand position is defined and the more thoughtfully its key business issues are described, the more likely it is that strategic and creative thinkers in agencies will be able to apply their specialist skills to produce great solutions.

“The whole idea is to stimulate the creative imagination, not to restrict it. Ultimately you are buying creative ideas. Procurement people can sometimes write briefs as though they were buying copper piping or paperclips. But selling is an art. It’s more like briefing an architect. We need agencies to feel inspired so they can do their best work.”
‘BRIEFING’ RESEARCH 2002: AGENCY SAMPLE


2  SAVING TIME AND MONEY
The biggest waste of agency resources is to put them through the process of developing a solution repeatedly without concrete direction. It wears on relationships and is costly in wasted staff time (on both sides).

“We need agencies to get more work right first time. That saves time and money. A proper written brief makes the process more efficient – that's good for clients and good for agencies.”
‘BRIEFING’ RESEARCH 2002: CLIENT SAMPLE

Research revealed that 99% of agencies and 98% of clients agree that: “Sloppy briefing and moving goal posts wastes both time and money”. A clear written brief can minimise this wastefulness and maximise the chances of a ‘right first time’ agency response to the client.

“The written brief instils a discipline on my team and the agency to be very clear about what the objectives and expected outcomes are.”
‘BRIEFING’ RESEARCH 2002: CLIENT SAMPLE

Both clients and agencies say that ‘time pressures’ are the main reason for inadequate client briefs. But in fact not writing a brief to save time is a false economy, as more often than not it leads to re-working. Worryingly, 75% of agencies and 55% of clients agreed that: “The briefs that we work on are often changed once the project has started”. Worse, 79% of agencies reported that: “Clients often use the creative process to clarify their strategy”, and even 35% of clients agreed with this. It’s like using your first set of curtains merely to define how big your windows are!


3  FAIRER REMUNERATION
One of the criticisms that marketing people face from their colleagues in finance and in the boardroom in general is that they lack accountability for the very significant sums of money they spend.

The caricature of the flash and superficial marketing executive will only be dispelled by a more professional approach. Ensuring that briefs are written for every project from every agency is an essential place to start.

Over 90% of agencies and 84% of clients agree that: “Payment by results is impossible without fully agreed business objectives”. Given the increasing prevalence of a PBR component in so many remuneration agreements, this is another compelling reason for a proper written brief.

Clearly the scale of the project will dictate the depth and complexity of your brief – one for a major new brand launch will obviously be much more detailed than one for a small tactical advertisement within an existing campaign.

But, whatever the task, a written brief that includes ‘objectives’ and ‘success criteria’ is the foundation stone for accountability and demonstration of the effectiveness of advertising, media, PR, direct marketing, sales promotion and indeed all forms of commercial communications. And without the ability to demonstrate our effectiveness, none of us will receive the remuneration that we deserve.


Principles of a Good Brief  
There are three key principles behind a good brief:

Written briefs
Clarity of thinking
Clearly defined objectives
1 WRITTEN BRIEFS
Research shows that 94% of clients and 98% of agencies believe: “A combination of written and verbal briefing is the ideal”. Both parties see enormous benefits in starting with a written document produced by the client, which is then analysed by the agency and debated between the two teams.

“We prefer a written brief because this forces the client to consider their request. The discipline of writing a brief ensures some rigour on their part. The opportunity to discuss this at a subsequent verbal briefing usually allows us to cover any inconsistencies and, if necessary, develop focus through mutual agreement.”
‘BRIEFING’ RESEARCH 2002: AGENCY SAMPLE

The process of developing, discussing and agreeing the brief in this manner in itself adds value. And if more than one agency is involved in developing the campaign (as is often the case with media and creative agencies) it is advisable to brief all parties together – with one written brief and one subsequent briefing meeting.

“By writing a brief we have focussed on what it is we are expecting from our activity and what we expect our agencies to contribute/come back with. By discussing this written brief, each party has the opportunity to build on the written brief, challenge it and buy into it. It assists clarity and helps build an effective team.”
‘BRIEFING’ RESEARCH 2002: CLIENT SAMPLE

A written brief is also vital in ensuring the ‘buy-in’ of other key people in your company. This buy-in is essential in order to avoid the significant waste of time and resources that can happen when senior executives – often outside the marketing department – challenge key assumptions in the brief, leading to belated changes in direction. Written briefs should have the buy-in of all interested parties before they are delivered to your agency.

Nowadays, when you may retain three, four or more agencies to work on different aspects of your organisation’s corporate or brand communications, the premium on convening a key meeting to enable all parties to debate and contribute to the brief has never been greater. Having people with advertising, media, direct marketing, public relations, sales promotion and other communications skills together in one room at the beginning of the project will add enormous value and set the shared agenda for the work ahead.

"It is difficult to produce good creative work without a good brief."
79% agreement by both clients and agencies: ‘BRIEFING’ RESEARCH 2002

"Sloppy briefing and moving goal posts wastes both time and money."
Over 98% agreement by both clients and agencies: ‘BRIEFING’ RESEARCH 2002

"Working to a clearly written brief gets the right results: be clear on where you are now, where you want to be, and then employ the best agency people to get you there."
Alan Bishop COI – Chief Executive

"We need agencies to get more work right first time. That saves time and money. A proper written brief makes the process more efficient – that's good for clients and good for agencies."
Client quote: ‘BRIEFING’ RESEARCH 2002

"A combination of written and verbal briefing is the ideal."
Over 94% agreement from clients and agencies: 'BRIEFING' RESEARCH, 2002

2 CLARITY OF THINKING
A good brief is not the longest or most detailed, it’s the one whose clarity and focus creates the platform for a great strategic leap, a blinding customer insight and an effective solution.

Briefs are called ‘briefs’ because they are meant to be brief. They are a summation of your thinking. Try to attach all relevant supporting information as appendices.

As Blaise Pascal put it in his Lettres Provinciales of 1657: “I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter”. Too much information can fog the process. Relevance and context are more important than reams of data.

“The main difference between good briefs and bad briefs is that good briefs leave you with a clear understanding of what you are trying to do. Bad briefs drown you in contradictory information and objectives.”
‘BRIEFING’ RESEARCH 2002: AGENCY SAMPLE

The client brief should therefore be a concentration of your current thinking, it should contain key nuggets of information and it should focus on setting out the objectives of your product or service that commercial communications can play a key role in achieving.

This appeal for clarity and objectivity, however, is not an attempt to reduce your creativity. For instance, often your dramatisation of the brand’s situation and the key issues it faces can spark off great creative thinking. The tried and trusted ‘factory visit’ should not be forgotten and there may be other more innovative ways that you could light the creative fuse.

“Clients should not underestimate how much a good brief, written with real flair and delivered with belief, can help enthuse and inspire the agency.”
‘BRIEFING’ RESEARCH 2002: AGENCY SAMPLE

Remember that briefing your agency is a joint and dynamic process. Whilst this site encourages a formalised approach to briefing in order to create clarity, this should never be at the expense of additional, more dynamic and inspirational briefing methods.

"The key to effective briefing is to provide a simple insight that can be dramatised memorably. Ensure that you know exactly what you want. Then tell the agency as clearly as possible."
Alan Doyle Volkswagen UK – Communications Manager

3 CLEARLY DEFINED OBJECTIVES
“Ultimately the point of communications is to get people to do things. Which people? What things? You’ve got the basis of the brief right there. Everything else is detail.”
‘BRIEFING’ RESEARCH 2002: AGENCY SAMPLE

Start by making sure that your objectives are crystal clear. Use concrete business objectives rather than vague terms such as ‘to improve brand image’. (And remember, every objective starts with the word ‘to’…)

If your objective is indeed to improve your brand image, then go further. Explain the desired improvement that you want to achieve. From what to what? What will it do for your business? (eg so IFAs will recommend your brand, etc). What’s your business rationale for spending £xm to achieve this? Concrete business objectives rather than woolly intermediate objectives are essential.

“The clarity of the objectives is the most fundamental part of a good written brief. The single greatest frustration is when there isn’t a clear and credible problem to solve.”
‘BRIEFING’ RESEARCH 2002: AGENCY SAMPLE

Almost all agencies and 82% of clients believe that: “Client briefs should focus on making sure the business problem is properly defined”. Furthermore, 72% of agencies and 84% of clients say: “All briefs should have effectiveness criteria and evaluation methodology written into them”.

Since no remuneration agreement that contains a performance related element can be made to work without appropriate measures of performance, quantifiable objectives should always be set.

So, clearly defining the objectives to establish the project’s ‘success criteria’ (what will success look like and how will it be measured?) is the number one principle of writing a good brief.

"Establishing a clarity of purpose through the definition of objectives which are outcome focused and measurable is clearly at the heart of the briefing process."
ANDREW NEBEL Barnardo’s – UK Director of Marketing & Communications
Try this workshop on creative brief

Communication planning: is the art and science of reaching target audiences using marketing communication channels such as advertising, public relations, experiences or direct mail for example. It is concerned with deciding who to target, when, with what message and how.
The communication plan serves as a guide to the communication and sponsorship efforts throughout the duration of the project. It is a living and working document and is updated periodically as audience needs change. It explains how to convey the right message, from the right communicator, to the right audience, through the right channel, at the right time. It addresses the six basic elements of communications: communicator, message, communication channel, feedback mechanism, receiver/audience, and time frame.
A communication plan includes:
“Who” - the target audiences
“What” – the key messages that are trying to be articulated
“When” – timing, it will specify the appropriate time of delivery for each message
“Why” – the desired outcomes
“How” - the communication vehicle (how the message will be delivered)
“By whom” - the sender (determining who will deliver the information and how he or she is chosen)
Many agencies, PR, advertising and media alike, claim to have this capability.
TYPES OF HEADLINES:
A headline has 5-7 seconds to get the attention of a reader. Not only that, but statistics show that only 2 out of 10 readers will read past your headline. That means if you’re going to hook your reader, you need to do it right away.
To give you a more concrete example of just how powerful a headline can be, John Wesley submitted an article to several social networking sites, including Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc. The headline read “The Two Types of Cognition”. With this headline the article generated about 100 visitors. Nothing spectacular. However a couple days later, and after some work rewriting his headline, John resubmitted it with a new headline. With the new headline it got about 5000 visitors. A very significant difference, 50 times more visitors. What was the difference? Only the headline. The article was exactly the same. The headline went from “The Two Types of Cognition” to “Learn to Understand Your Own Intelligence“. You can find the details of his case study here.
Headlines can and do have a significant impact. It might only be one line, but it can easily make or break your articles success.
In addition to grabbing the person’s attention, the headline must offer some value to the reader in exchange for them taking the time to read your content (article, press release, etc.). According to the legendary copywriter Robert Bly, there are eight categories of headlines that compel readers to take action and read your article. They are:
Direct Headline: These are straight forward headlines that state exactly what they want, they make no attempt whatsoever to be clever. An example is “LandlordMax – 30% off today only”
Indirect Headline: These headlines are subtle, what could be considered as link bait. They usually try to generate curiosity by the reader, or offer a double meaning in their headlines. In others words the classic link bait approach.
News Headline: This is a direct news announcement. For example “LandlordMax releases version 6.05″.
How to Headline: This is exactly as you would expect, it’s a headline that offers you an article on how to do something. For example how to fix a broken faucet.
Question Headline: This category of headlines ask a question that the reader can relate to, that they can empathize with, something they would like answered. A classic example is “Who else wants to make a million dollars in the stock market?”
Command Headline: This headline states what the reader of the article needs to do. For this headline to work the first word needs to be a strong and commanding word. For example “Buy this EBook now!”
Reason Why Headline: This is basically a list of why something is good or bad. For example “3 ways to be more productive with your time”.
Testimonial Headline: In this case the headline is a customer testimonial. This is done to offer outside proof, otherwise known as social validation. You’re validating through social proof that your article (or product) is great and worth the readers time. After all it’s not just you who says so, someone else is saying it too.
For further reading on headlines I recommend any book by Robert Bly. As well the book Advertising Headlines that Make You Rich contains a list of good and usable headlines (with a short explanation on how to use each headline). And don’t forget to check out Brian Clark’s blog CopyBlogger.com, he’s got a lot of amazing articles on how to write headlines. Good luck and good writing!
Body Copy
Base Lines
Slogans: Advertising slogans are short, often memorable phrases used in advertising campaigns. They are claimed to be the most effective means of drawing attention to one or more aspects of a product. Its purpose is to emphasize a phrase that the company wishes to be remembered by, particularly for marketing a specific corporate image or connection to a product or consumer base.
Some slogans are created just for specific campaigns for a limited time; some are intended as corporate slogans, to be used for an extended period; some slogans start out as the former, and find themselves converted to the latter because they take hold with the public, and some are memorable many years after their use is discontinued.

Advertising slogans often play a large part in the interplay between rival companies. An effective slogan usually:
states the main benefits of the product or brand for the potential user or buyer
implies a distinction between it and other firms' products - of course, within the usual legal constraints
makes a simple, direct, concise, crisp, and apt statement
is witty
adopts a distinct "personality" of its own
gives a credible impression of a brand or product
makes the consumer feel "hot" or...
makes the consumer feel a desire or need
is hard to forget - it adheres to one's memory (whether one likes it or not), especially if it is accompanied by mnemonic devices, such as jingles, ditties(short simple songs), pictures or film.
Taglines, tag lines, or tags are American terms for short advertising slogans. In the UK they are called end lines, endlines, or straplines. In Japan, they are called catchcopy or catch phrase
Some popular examples:
Virgin Atlantic, more experience than our name suggests
- Virgin Atlantic
World class, worldwide.
- Air Canada
Making the sky the best place on Earth.
- Air France
Something special in the air
- American Airlines
The proud bird with the golden tail
- Continental Airlines
We’ll take more care of you
- British Airways
The world’s favourite airline.
- British Airways
Avoid drunken driving:
You can hand over your keys or your life. Make the right choice.
Cars
Drivers Wanted
-Volkswagen
The power of Dreams
-Honda
Never Follow
-Audi
Built Ford tough!
-Ford
Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet
-Chevrolet

Engineered to move the human spirit
-Mercedes-Benz
Have a break, have a Kit Kat
- Kit Kat
Think.
-IBM
Think Different
-Apple
Making it all make sense
-Microsoft
Think outside the box.
-Apple
Macintosh. It Does More. It Costs Less. It’s that Simple.
-Apple
Solutions for a small planet
-IBM
Take Toshiba, Take the World.
-Toshiba
Where do you want to go today?
-Microsoft
We Make IT Happen
-IBM
Choose Freedom
-Toshiba
Empowering People.
-Acer
Acer. We hear you.
-Acer
The computer for the rest of us.
-Apple
Get more out of now
-Dell
Dell. Purely You.
-Dell
Easy as Dell
-Dell
Be direct
-Dell
Coffee at its Best
-Nescafe
Good to the last drop
-Maxwell House
Finger-lickin’ good
-KFC
Buy a bucket of chicken and have a barrel of fun
-KFC
I’m lovin’ it
-McDonalds
Make.believe
-SONY
Life’s Good
-LG
We Bring Good Things To Life
-G.E.
sense and simplicity
-PHILLIPS
Ideas for life
-PANASONIC
A diamond is forever
-De Beers
No bottles to break – just hearts.
-Arpege
Between love and madness lies obsession
-Calvin Klein’s Obsession
For list of Ad slogans

TRADEMARK: A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or services from those of other entities.
A trademark may be designated by the following symbols:
™ (for an unregistered trade mark, that is, a mark used to promote or brand goods)
(for an unregistered service mark, that is, a mark used to promote or brand services)
® (for a registered trademark)
A trademark is typically a name, word, phrase, logo, symbol, design, image, or a combination of these elements. There is also a range of non-conventional trademarks comprising marks which do not fall into these standard categories, such as those based on color, smell, or sound.
The owner of a registered trademark may commence legal proceedings for trademark infringement to prevent unauthorized use of that trademark. However, registration is not required. The owner of a common law trademark may also file suit, but an unregistered mark may be protectable only within the geographical area within which it has been used or in geographical areas into which it may be reasonably expected to expand.
The term trademark is also used informally to refer to any distinguishing attribute by which an individual is readily identified, such as the well-known characteristics of celebrities. When a trademark is used in relation to services rather than products, it may sometimes be called a service mark, particularly in the United States.
Typography: Typography (from the Greek words τύπος (typos) = form and γραφή (graphe) = writing) is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading (line spacing), adjusting the spaces between groups of letters (tracking) and adjusting the space between pairs of letters (kerning). Type design is a closely related craft, which some consider distinct and others a part of typography; most typographers do not design typefaces, and some type designers do not consider themselves typographers. In modern times, typography has been put into motion—in film, television and online broadcasts—to add emotion to mass communication.
Typography is performed by typesetters, compositors, typographers, graphic designers, art directors, comic book artists, graffiti artists, clerical workers, and anyone else who arranges type for a product. Until the Digital Age, typography was a specialized occupation. Digitization opened up typography to new generations of visual designers and lay users, and it has been said that "typography is now something everybody does."

Writing style: Writing style is the manner in which an author chooses to write to his or her audience. A style reveals both the writer's personality and voice, but it also shows how she or he perceives the audience, and chooses conceptual writing style which reveal those choices by which the writer may change the conceptual world of the overall character of the work. This might be done by a simple change of words; a syntactical structure, parsing prose, adding diction, and organizing figures of thought into usable frameworks.
Amul, Air India catchy comments and satires are examples of writing styles?

Formal vs. Informal Writing Styles

Before you start writing any article, one of the first things you need to ask yourself is “Who’s my audience?”

Here’s a quick primer to help you answer that question (which can be quite a complicated one):

Is there a level of familiarity between you and your audience?
Are you writing for colleagues or someone else?
How do they expect to receive this message?
Are they looking for some level of interaction?
Are they more interested in being spoken to with direct messages?
What’s their connection to the topic?
Is it for their business/livelihood?
Answering each of these questions will put you on course to figuring out how formal (or informal) your writing ought to be.

An informal writing style shows a level of familiarity and personality that sets it apart. Meanwhile, formal writing most often takes place on serious topics in a direct and succinct way.

Each of these styles has their own merits. Their usage depends on the tone you’re trying to set. To get a better understanding of the differences between formal and informal writing, here are some things to consider:

Informal

Colloquial – Informal writing takes on the characteristics of a spoken conversation. Informal writing includes things like slang, figures of speech, broken syntax, etc. It also takes on a personal tone whereby you speak directly to your audience. You can use first OR third person point-of-view, and you’re likely to address the reader using second person pronouns (e.g. you, your).

Simple – Short sentences are acceptable and sometimes essential to making a point in informal writing. Thus, there may be incomplete sentences or ellipsis to make points. Also, try to save your “five dollar words” for a more formal setting. If you use any industry jargon, explain it.

Contractions/Abbreviations – Words can be simplified using contractions (e.g. you’re, couldn’t, it’s) and abbreviations (e.g. TV, photos) whenever possible.

Empathy/Emotion – The author can show empathy toward the reader regarding the complexity of a thought and help them through that complexity.
Formal

Complex – Longer sentences are likely to be more prevalent in formal writing. You need to be as thorough as possible with your approach to each topic when you are using a formal style. Each main point needs to be introduced, elaborated on and concluded.

Objective – State main points confidently and offer full support arguments. A formal writing style shows a limited range of emotions. It avoids emotive punctuation like exclamation points, ellipsis, etc., unless they are being cited from another source.

Full Words – No contractions or abbreviations to simplify words.

Third Person – Not a personal writing style, the formal writer is sort of disconnected from the topic to make observations.
So, which of these labels fits your writing style? Again, there’s no “right” or “wrong” answer, it’s an exercise to get you thinking about your own writing style.
Script: A road map for a play, movie, or broadcast.
A script is a written version of a play or movie. If you're auditioning for a movie, you'll get the script to practice a scene or two.
Script comes from the Latin scrībĕre, meaning "to write," and all its meanings have to do with something written. Your handwriting is your script. The written version of what you're supposed to say, whether for a wedding toast or a play, is a script. And if you were feeling old-fashioned you could call the grocery list you just wrote a script. It's also a verb. You can script a play.
Story Board: Storyboards are graphic organizers in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence.
The storyboarding process, in the form it is known today, was developed at the Walt Disney Studio during the early 1930s, after several years of similar processes being in use at Walt Disney and other animation studios.
Case Study: A case study is an intensive analysis of an individual unit (e.g., a person, group, or event) stressing developmental factors in relation to context. The case study is common in social sciences and life sciences. Case studies may be descriptive or explanatory. The latter type is used to explore causation in order to find underlying principles. They may be prospective (in which criteria are established and cases fitting the criteria are included as they become available) or retrospective (in which criteria are established for selecting cases from historical records for inclusion in the study).
Thomas offers the following definition of case study: "Case studies are analyses of persons, events, decisions, periods, projects, policies, institutions, or other systems that are studied holistically by one or more methods. The case that is the subject of the inquiry will be an instance of a class of phenomena that provides an analytical frame — an object — within which the study is conducted and which the case illuminates and explicates."
Rather than using samples and following a rigid protocol (strict set of rules) to examine limited number of variables, case study methods involve an in-depth, longitudinal (over a long period of time) examination of a single instance or event: a case. They provide a systematic way of looking at events, collecting data, analyzing information, and reporting the results. As a result the researcher may gain a sharpened understanding of why the instance happened as it did, and what might become important to look at more extensively in future research. Case studies lend themselves to both generating and testing hypotheses.
Another suggestion is that case study should be defined as a research strategy, an empirical inquiry that investigates a phenomenon within its real-life context. Case study research can mean single and multiple case studies, can include quantitative evidence, relies on multiple sources of evidence, and benefits from the prior development of theoretical propositions. Case studies should not be confused with qualitative research and they can be based on any mix of quantitative and qualitative evidence. Single-subject research provides the statistical framework for making inferences from quantitative case-study data. This is also supported and well-formulated in (Lamnek, 2005): "The case study is a research approach, situated between concrete data taking techniques and methodologic paradigms."
The case study is sometimes mistaken for the case method, but the two are not the same.
Sample Case Study:
Case Study - Brand Amul The Taste of India

AMUL- The Taste of India
Born: 1946, christened in 1955
History: Originally marketed by the Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union, Anand, it was taken over by the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) in 1973

Status: Has a 15% market share in the Rs15,000 crore milk category, and a 37% share in the Rs900 crore organized ice-cream segment.

Starting with milk and milk powder, the Amul brand today covers a range of dairy products—from chocolates to cheese and, of course, butter

Brand story: If a brand’s value is to be judged by the ease with which it can be recalled, then Amul’s marketing campaign wins hands down.

With its clever use of topical events, Amul’s utterly butterly campaign—it has the distinction of entering the Guinness World Records as the longest running campaign—has won the brand several accolades.

Playing the role of a social observer, its weekly comments have tickled India’s funny bone since 1967, when Sylvester Da Cunha’s irrepressible Amul girl first had her say.

But what’s kept the brand going all these years? “We have changed the packag ing, our technology and our approach to mar keting based on the changing taste buds of our consumers.

However, the only thing that has helped us sail smoothly is that we have not changed our core values—give the best quality product to the consumer, and the best possible price. It holds true in any era,” says B.M. Vyas, managing director, GCMMF.

In fact, it is not just the core values at Amul that have remained the same; the core team associated with the brand is still the same. Even the advertising agency hasn’t changed, and Da Cunha and FCB Ulka, have played a pivotal role in the growth of Amul.

“This has helped us maintain consistency in our communication. Our strategy of umbrella branding has also helped establish our brand firmly in people’s minds. This, despite the fact that we do not spend more than 1% of our turnover for marketing, compared with 7-8% (spent) by most of the food and consumer product companies,” R.S. Sodhi, head of marketing, GCMMF, says.

From Utterly butterly delicious Amul to The Taste of India, Amul continues to be the toast of the country.
List of Advertisement Case studies @
Cavinkare's Innovative Marketing Strategies
Case Details:

Price:

Case Code       :           MKTG092      For delivery in electronic format: Rs. 400;
For delivery through courier (within India): Rs. 400 + Rs. 25 for Shipping & Handling Charges
Themes

NULL
Case Length    :           15 Pages
Period  :           1991-2004
Pub Date         :           2004
Teaching Note :           Not Available
Organization   :           CavinKare
Industry          :           FMCG
Countries         :           India
Abstract:

The case examines the evolution of a small regional player - CavinKare Pvt. Ltd., from a one-product company to a multi-product company with nation-wide presence in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry in India.

It discusses in detail the brand-building, promotion and distribution strategies adopted by CavinKare, which enabled its product brands to compete directly with market leaders such as HLL, P&G, Godrej and Henkel successfully.

The case traces the launch and growth of CavinKare's successful brands such as Chik, Nyle, Meera, Fairever and Spinz.



It also discusses the company's brand extension efforts and takes a look at the company's entry into other segments of the Indian FMCG market in the early 21st century and critically analyses the rationale for this move. Finally, it explores the future of the company in the light of increasing competition in the FMCG market and its limited resources in comparison to FMCG majors such as HLL, P&G and Henkel.

Issues:

• Innovation, brand-building, pricing and promotion for the success of a product, Diversification

Contents:

Page No.
Cavinkare in the Food Business         1
Background Note       2
The Marketing Strategy          3
Brand Extensions & Business Diversification            7
The Future       9
Exhibits           12
Keywords:

CavinKare, FMCG Company, Marketing Mix, Pricing Strategy, Brand-building, Product Mix, Distribution Strategies, Brand Extensions, Business Diversification, Innovation, Rural Marketing


UNIT V


Conceptualization and Ideation: The act of formulating or making a concept of something. Inventing or contriving an idea or explanation and formulating it mentally.
The formation of ideas or mental images. The process of forming and relating ideas. Ideation means to conceive or generate an idea and implement it. Ideas are the result of mental activity that can be based on past or present knowledge, thoughts, opinions, convictions or principles.
Ideation means to conceptualize an idea. It is the thought processes involved in apprehending and expressing a new concept, often in a graphical format.
Translation of Ideas to Campaigns
A significant challenge in the marketing arena rests with developing novel advertising ideas. To be sure, there are countless tried and true tactics that always merit consideration. However, the most successful businesses are those that think outside the box, and strive for creativity and innovation in their advertising endeavors.

If you look online or consult a basic marketing text, you are likely to be struck by the uniformity of basic advertising techniques. By and large, marketing companies rely on the same limited array of strategies, hoping that artful application will be the key to success. There is nothing wrong with this approach; however, it is unlikely to set you apart from the competition.

Developing Advertising Ideas That are Different
The key is to find unique, novel advertising ideas that can be translated into effective marketing campaigns. This requires foresight and creativity, and the willingness to take risks. Clearly, this is no easy endeavor, and it underscores the need for high quality professional consultation.

An experienced ad agency can help you to generate creative advertising ideas. Moreover, they can help you to translate these ideas into fruitful, effective marketing campaigns. You can do some things on your own, but novel advertising is best approached with the proper professional guidance. The secret lies in how good one in translating ideas in to good advertising campaigns.

Visualization: Visual image: a mental image that is similar to a visual perception.
The following are three minimal criteria that any visualization has to fulfill to be considered a pragmatic visualization. A good visualization certainly has to do more, but these criteria are useful to draw the line between a lot of things that are often called visualization and what we consider visualization in this field.

Based on (non-visual) data. A visualization’s purpose is the communication of data. That means that the data must come from something that is abstract or at least not immediately visible (like the inside of the human body). This rules out photography and image processing. Visualization transforms from the invisible to the visible.
Produce an image. It may seem obvious that a visualization has to produce an image, but that is not always so clear. Also, the visual must be the primary means of communication, other modalities can only provide additional information. If the image is only a small part of the process, it is not visualization.
The result must be readable and recognizable. The most important criteria is that the visualization must provide a way to learn something about the data. Any transformation of non-trivial data into an image will leave out information, but there must be at least some relevant aspects of the data that can be read. The visualization must also be recognizable as one and not pretend to be something else (see the discussion of Informative Art).
Designing and Lay out : Graphic design is a creative process—most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form (i.e., printers, signmakers, etc.)—undertaken in order to convey a specific message (or messages) to a targeted audience. The term "graphic design" can also refer to a number of artistic and professional disciplines that focus on visual communication and presentation. The field as a whole is also often referred to as Visual Communication or Communication Design. Various methods are used to create and combine words, symbols, and images to create a visual representation of ideas and messages. A graphic designer may use a combination of typography, visual arts and page layout techniques to produce the final result. Graphic design often refers to both the process (designing) by which the communication is created and the products (designs) which are generated.
Common uses of graphic design include identity (logos and branding), publications (magazines, newspapers, and books), advertisements and product packaging. For example, a product package might include a logo or other artwork, organized text and pure design elements such as shapes and color which unify the piece. Composition is one of the most important features of graphic design, especially when using pre-existing materials or diverse elements.
Master plan or blueprint of a printed or published work (such as an advertisement, book, magazine, newspaper, or website) that lays out the arrangement of its different graphic elements (such as body copy, colors, headlines, illustrations, scale). It establishes the overall appearance, relative importance, and relationships between the graphic elements to achieve a smooth flow of information (message) and eye movement for maximum effectiveness or impact. Often alternative layouts (called roughs) are prepared to explore different arrangements before the final layout is made for printing or production.

Copy Writing: Copywriting is the act of writing copy (text) for the purpose of advertising or marketing a product, business, person, opinion or idea. The addressee (reader, listener, etc.) of the copy is meant to be persuaded to buy the product advertised for, or subscribe to the viewpoint the text shares.
Copywriters are used to help create direct mail pieces, taglines, jingle lyrics, web page content (although if the purpose is not ultimatpeepeely promotional, its author might prefer to be called a content writer), online ads, e-mail and other Internet content, television or radio commercial scripts, press releases, white papers, catalogs, billboards, brochures, postcards, sales letters, and other marketing communications media. Copy can also appear in social media content including blog posts, tweets, and social-networking site posts.

Brand Management: http://www.managementstudyguide.com/brand-management.htm (Excellent  Source)
Brand management begins with having a thorough knowledge of the term “brand”. It includes developing a promise, making that promise and maintaining it. It means defining the brand, positioning the brand, and delivering the brand. Brand management is nothing but an art of creating and sustaining the brand. Branding makes customers committed to your business. A strong brand differentiates your products from the competitors. It gives a quality image to your business.

Brand management includes managing the tangible and intangible characteristics of brand. In case of product brands, the tangibles include the product itself, price, packaging, etc. While in case of service brands, the tangibles include the customers’ experience. The intangibles include emotional connections with the product / service.

Branding is assembling of various marketing mix medium into a whole so as to give you an identity. It is nothing but capturing your customers mind with your brand name. It gives an image of an experienced, huge and reliable business.
It is all about capturing the niche market for your product / service and about creating a confidence in the current and prospective customers’ minds that you are the unique solution to their problem.
The aim of branding is to convey brand message vividly, create customer loyalty, persuade the buyer for the product, and establish an emotional connectivity with the customers. Branding forms customer perceptions about the product. It should raise customer expectations about the product. The primary aim of branding is to create differentiation.

Strong brands reduce customers’ perceived monetary, social and safety risks in buying goods/services. The customers can better imagine the intangible goods with the help of brand name. Strong brand organizations have a high market share. The brand should be given good support so that it can sustain itself in long run. It is essential to manage all brands and build brand equity over a period of time. Here comes importance and usefulness of brand management. Brand management helps in building a corporate image. A brand manager has to oversee overall brand performance. A successful brand can only be created if the brand management system is competent.

Following are the important concepts of brand management:
            Definition of Brand
            Brand Name
            Brand Attributes
            Brand Positioning
            Brand Identity
            Sources of Brand Identity
            Brand Image
            Brand Identity vs Brand Image
            Brand Personality
            Brand Awareness
            Brand Loyalty
            Brand Association
            Building a Brand
            Brand Equity
            Brand Equity & Customer Equity
            Brand Extension
            Co-branding
Definition of  Brand:
Brands are different from products in a way that brands are “what the consumers buy”, while products are “what concern/companies make”. Brand is an accumulation of emotional and functional associations. Brand is a promise that the product will perform as per customer’s expectations. It shapes customer’s expectations about the product. Brands usually have a trademark which protects them from use by others. A brand gives particular information about the organization, good or service, differentiating it from others in marketplace. Brand carries an assurance about the characteristics that make the product or service unique. A strong brand is a means of making people aware of what the company represents and what are it’s offerings.

To a consumer, brand means and signifies:

Source of product
Delegating responsibility to the manufacturer of product
Lower risk
Less search cost
Quality symbol
Deal or pact with the product manufacturer
Symbolic device


Brands simplify consumers purchase decision. Over a period of time, consumers discover the brands which satisfy their need. If the consumers recognize a particular brand and have knowledge about it, they make quick purchase decision and save lot of time. Also, they save search costs for product. Consumers remain committed and loyal to a brand as long as they believe and have an implicit understanding that the brand will continue meeting their expectations and perform in the desired manner consistently. As long as the consumers get benefits and satisfaction from consumption of the product, they will more likely continue to buy that brand. Brands also play a crucial role in signifying certain product features to consumers.

To a seller, brand means and signifies:

Basis of competitive advantage
Way of bestowing products with unique associations
Way of identification to easy handling
Way of legal protection of products’ unique traits/features
Sign of quality to satisfied customer
Means of financial returns
A brand, in short, can be defined as a seller’s promise to provide consistently a unique set of characteristics, advantages, and services to the buyers/consumers. It is a name, term, sign, symbol or a combination of all these planned to differentiate the goods/services of one seller or group of sellers from those of competitors. Some examples of well known brands are Mc Donald’s’, Mercedes-Benz, Sony, Coca Cola, Kingfisher, etc.

A brand connects the four crucial elements of an enterprise- customers, employees, management and shareholders. Brand is nothing but an assortment of memories in customers mind. Brand represents values, ideas and even personality. It is a set of functional, emotional and rational associations and benefits which have occupied target market’s mind. Associations are nothing but the images and symbols associated with the brand or brand benefits, such as, The Nike Swoosh, The Nokia sound, etc. Benefits are the basis for purchase decision.

Brand Name:
Brand name is one of the brand elements which helps the customers to identify and differentiate one product from another. It should be chosen very carefully as it captures the key theme of a product in an efficient and economical manner. It can easily be noticed and its meaning can be stored and triggered in the memory instantly. Choice of a brand name requires a lot of research. Brand names are not necessarily associated with the product. For instance, brand names can be based on places (Air India, British Airways), animals or birds (Dove soap, Puma), people (Louise Phillips, Allen Solly). In some instances, the company name is used for all products (General Electric, LG).

Features of a Good Brand Name
A good brand name should have following characteristics:

It should be unique / distinctive (for instance- Kodak, Mustang)
It should be extendable.
It should be easy to pronounce, identified and memorized. (For instance-Tide)
It should give an idea about product’s qualities and benefits (For instance- Swift, Quickfix, Lipguard).
It should be easily convertible into foreign languages.
It should be capable of legal protection and registration.
It should suggest product/service category (For instance Newsweek).
It should indicate concrete qualities (For instance Firebird).
It should not portray bad/wrong meanings in other categories. (For instance NOVA is a poor name for a car to be sold in Spanish country, because in Spanish it means “doesn’t go”).
Process of Selecting a renowned and successful Brand Name
Define the objectives of branding in terms of six criterions - descriptive, suggestive, compound, classical, arbitrary and fanciful. It Is essential to recognize the role of brand within the corporate branding strategy and the relation of brand to other brand and products. It is also essential to understand the role of brand within entire marketing program as well as a detailed description of niche market must be considered.
Generation of multiple names - Any potential source of names can be used; organization, management and employees, current or potential customers, agencies and professional consultants.
Screening of names on the basis of branding objectives and marketing considerations so as to have a more synchronized list - The brand names must not have connotations, should be easily pronounceable, should meet the legal requirements etc.
Gathering more extensive details on each of the finalized names - There should be extensive international legal search done. These searches are at times done on a sequential basis because of the expense involved.
Conducting consumer research - Consumer research is often conducted so as to confirm management expectations as to the remembrance and meaningfulness of the brand names. The features of the product, its price and promotion may be shown to the consumers so that they understand the purpose of the brand name and the manner in which it will be used. Consumers can be shown actual 3-D packages as well as animated advertising or boards. Several samples of consumers must be surveyed depending on the niche market involved.
On the basis of the above steps, management can finalize the brand name that maximizes the organization’s branding and marketing objectives and then formally register the brand name.
Brand Attributes :
Brand Attributes portray a company’s brand characteristics. They signify the basic nature of brand. Brand attributes are a bundle of features that highlight the physical and personality aspects of the brand. Attributes are developed through images, actions, or presumptions. Brand attributes help in creating brand identity.

A strong brand must have following attributes:

Relevancy- A strong brand must be relevant. It must meet people’s expectations and should perform the way they want it to. A good job must be done to persuade consumers to buy the product; else inspite of your product being unique, people will not buy it.
Consistency- A consistent brand signifies what the brand stands for and builds customers trust in brand. A consistent brand is where the company communicates message in a way that does not deviate from the core brand proposition.


Proper positioning- A strong brand should be positioned so that it makes a place in target audience mind and they prefer it over other brands.
Sustainable- A strong brand makes a business competitive. A sustainable brand drives an organization towards innovation and success. Example of sustainable brand is Marks and Spencer’s.
Credibility- A strong brand should do what it promises. The way you communicate your brand to the audience/ customers should be realistic. It should not fail to deliver what it promises. Do not exaggerate as customers want to believe in the promises you make to them.
Inspirational- A strong brand should transcend/ inspire the category it is famous for. For example- Nike transcendent Jersey Polo Shirt.
Uniqueness- A strong brand should be different and unique. It should set you apart from other competitors in market.
Appealing- A strong brand should be attractive. Customers should be attracted by the promise you make and by the value you deliver.
Brand Positioning :
Brand positioning refers to “target consumer’s” reason to buy your brand in preference to others. It is ensures that all brand activity has a common aim; is guided, directed and delivered by the brand’s benefits/reasons to buy; and it focusses at all points of contact with the consumer.

Brand positioning must make sure that:

Is it unique/distinctive vs. competitors ?
Is it significant and encouraging to the niche market ?
Is it appropriate to all major geographic markets and businesses ?
Is the proposition validated with unique, appropriate and original products ?
Is it sustainable - can it be delivered constantly across all points of contact with the consumer ?
Is it helpful for organization to achieve its financial goals ?
Is it able to support and boost up the organization ?
In order to create a distinctive place in the market, a niche market has to be carefully chosen and a differential advantage must be created in their mind. Brand positioning is a medium through which an organization can portray it’s customers what it wants to achieve for them and what it wants to mean to them. Brand positioning forms customer’s views and opinions.

Brand Positioning can be defined as an activity of creating a brand offer in such a manner that it occupies a distinctive place and value in the target customer’s mind. For instance-Kotak Mahindra positions itself in the customer’s mind as one entity- “Kotak ”- which can provide customized and one-stop solution for all their financial services needs. It has an unaided top of mind recall. It intends to stay with the proposition of “Think Investments, Think Kotak”. The positioning you choose for your brand will be influenced by the competitive stance you want to adopt.

Brand Positioning involves identifying and determining points of similarity and difference to ascertain the right brand identity and to create a proper brand image. Brand Positioning is the key of marketing strategy. A strong brand positioning directs marketing strategy by explaining the brand details, the uniqueness of brand and it’s similarity with the competitive brands, as well as the reasons for buying and using that specific brand. Positioning is the base for developing and increasing the required knowledge and perceptions of the customers. It is the single feature that sets your service apart from your competitors. For instance- Kingfisher stands for youth and excitement. It represents brand in full flight.

There are various positioning errors, such as-

Under positioning- This is a scenario in which the customer’s have a blurred and unclear idea of the brand.
Over positioning- This is a scenario in which the customers have too limited a awareness of the brand.
Confused positioning- This is a scenario in which the customers have a confused opinion of the brand.
Double Positioning- This is a scenario in which customers do not accept the claims of a brand.
Brand Image :
Brand image is the current view of the customers about a brand. It can be defined as a unique bundle of associations within the minds of target customers. It signifies what the brand presently stands for. It is a set of beliefs held about a specific brand. In short, it is nothing but the consumers’ perception about the product. It is the manner in which a specific brand is positioned in the market. Brand image conveys emotional value and not just a mental image. Brand image is nothing but an organization’s character. It is an accumulation of contact and observation by people external to an organization. It should highlight an organization’s mission and vision to all. The main elements of positive brand image are- unique logo reflecting organization’s image, slogan describing organization’s business in brief and brand identifier supporting the key values.

Brand image is the overall impression in consumers’ mind that is formed from all sources. Consumers develop various associations with the brand. Based on these associations, they form brand image. An image is formed about the brand on the basis of subjective perceptions of associations bundle that the consumers have about the brand. Volvo is associated with safety. Toyota is associated with reliability.

The idea behind brand image is that the consumer is not purchasing just the product/service but also the image associated with that product/service. Brand images should be positive, unique and instant. Brand images can be strengthened using brand communications like advertising, packaging, word of mouth publicity, other promotional tools, etc.

Brand image develops and conveys the product’s character in a unique manner different from its competitor’s image. The brand image consists of various associations in consumers’ mind - attributes, benefits and attributes. Brand attributes are the functional and mental connections with the brand that the customers have. They can be specific or conceptual. Benefits are the rationale for the purchase decision. There are three types of benefits: Functional benefits - what do you do better (than others ),emotional benefits - how do you make me feel better (than others), and rational benefits/support - why do I believe you(more than others). Brand attributes are consumers overall assessment of a brand.

Brand image has not to be created, but is automatically formed. The brand image includes products' appeal, ease of use, functionality, fame, and overall value. Brand image is actually brand content. When the consumers purchase the product, they are also purchasing it’s image. Brand image is the objective and mental feedback of the consumers when they purchase a product. Positive brand image is exceeding the customers expectations. Positive brand image enhances the goodwill and brand value of an organization.

To sum up, “Brand image” is the customer’s net extract from the brand.
Brand Personality:   
Brand personality is the way a brand speaks and behaves. It means assigning human personality traits/characteristics to a brand so as to achieve differentiation. These characteristics signify brand behaviour through both individuals representing the brand (i.e. it’s employees) as well as through advertising, packaging, etc. When brand image or brand identity is expressed in terms of human traits, it is called brand personality. For instance - Allen Solley brand speaks the personality and makes the individual who wears it stand apart from the crowd. Infosys represents uniqueness, value, and intellectualism.

Brand personality is nothing but personification of brand. A brand is expressed either as a personality who embodies these personality traits (For instance - Shahrukh Khan and Airtel, John Abraham and Castrol) or distinct personality traits (For instance - Dove as honest, feminist and optimist; Hewlett Packard brand represents accomplishment, competency and influence). Brand personality is the result of all the consumer’s experiences with the brand. It is unique and long lasting.

Brand personality must be differentiated from brand image, in sense that, while brand image denote the tangible (physical and functional) benefits and attributes of a brand, brand personality indicates emotional associations of the brand. If brand image is comprehensive brand according to consumers’ opinion, brand personality is that aspect of comprehensive brand which generates it’s emotional character and associations in consumers’ mind.
Brand personality develops brand equity. It sets the brand attitude. It is a key input into the look and feel of any communication or marketing activity by the brand. It helps in gaining thorough knowledge of customers feelings about the brand. Brand personality differentiates among brands specifically when they are alike in many attributes. For instance - Sony versus Panasonic. Brand personality is used to make the brand strategy lively, i.e, to implement brand strategy. Brand personality indicates the kind of relationship a customer has with the brand. It is a means by which a customer communicates his own identity.

Brand personality and celebrity should supplement each other. Trustworthy celebrity ensures immediate awareness, acceptability and optimism towards the brand. This will influence consumers’ purchase decision and also create brand loyalty. For instance - Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra is brand ambassador for J.Hampstead, international line of premium shirts.

Brand personality not only includes the personality features/characteristics, but also the demographic features like age, gender or class and psychographic features. Personality traits are what the brand exists for.

Brand Equity:
Brand Equity is the value and strength of the Brand that decides its worth. It can also be defined as the differential impact of brand knowledge on consumers response to the Brand Marketing. Brand Equity exists as a function of consumer choice in the market place. The concept of Brand Equity comes into existence when consumer makes a choice of a product or a service. It occurs when the consumer is familiar with the brand and holds some favourable positive strong and distinctive brand associations in the memory.

Brand Equity can be determined by measuring:
            Returns to the Share-Holders.           
            Evaluating the Brand Image for various parameters that are considered significant.
            Evaluating the Brand’s earning potential in long run.
            By evaluating the increased volume of sales created by the brand compared to other brands in the same class.
            The price premium charged by the brand over non-branded products.
            From the prices of the shares that an organization commands in the market (specifically if the brand name is identical to the corporate name or the consumers can easily co-relate the performance of all the individual brands of the organization with the organizational financial performance.
            OR,  An amalgamation of all the above methods.
Factors contributing to Brand Equity
Brand Awareness
Brand Associations
Brand Loyalty
Perceived Quality: refers to the customer’s perception about the total quality of the brand. While evaluating quality the customer takes into account the brands performance on factors that are significant to him and makes a relative analysis about the brand’s quality by evaluating the competitors brands also. Thus quality is a perceptual factor and the consumer analysis about quality varies. Higher perceived quality might be used for brand positioning. Perceived quality affect the pricing decisions of the organizations. Superior quality products can be charged a price premium. Perceived quality gives the customers a reason to buy the product. It also captures the channel member’s interest. For instance - American Express.
Other Proprietary Brand Assets: Patents, Trademarks and Channel Inter-relations are proprietary assets. These assets prevent competitors attack on the organization. They also help in maintaining customer loyalty as well as organization’s competitive advantage.

Brand Loyalty:
Brand Loyalty is a scenario where the consumer fears purchasing and consuming product from another brand which he does not trust. It is measured through methods like word of mouth publicity, repetitive buying, price sensitivity, commitment, brand trust, customer satisfaction, etc. Brand loyalty is the extent to which a consumer constantly buys the same brand within a product category. The consumers remain loyal to a specific brand as long as it is available. They do not buy from other suppliers within the product category. Brand loyalty exists when the consumer feels that the brand consists of right product characteristics and quality at right price. Even if the other brands are available at cheaper price or superior quality, the brand loyal consumer will stick to his brand.

Brand loyal consumers are the foundation of an organization. Greater loyalty levels lead to less marketing expenditure because the brand loyal customers promote the brand positively. Also, it acts as a means of launching and introducing more products that are targeted at same customers at less expenditure. It also restrains new competitors in the market. Brand loyalty is a key component of brand equity.

Brand loyalty can be developed through various measures such as quick service, ensuring quality products, continuous improvement, wide distribution network, etc. When consumers are brand loyal they love “you” for being “you”, and they will minutely consider any other alternative brand as a replacement. Examples of brand loyalty can be seen in US where true Apple customers have the brand's logo tattooed onto their bodies. Similarly in Finland, Nokia customers remained loyal to Nokia because they admired the design of the handsets or because of user- friendly menu system used by Nokia phones.

Brand loyalty can be defined as relative possibility of customer shifting to another brand in case there is a change in product’s features, price or quality. As brand loyalty increases, customers will respond less to competitive moves and actions. Brand loyal customers remain committed to the brand, are willing to pay higher price for that brand, and will promote their brand always. A company having brand loyal customers will have greater sales, less marketing and advertising costs, and best pricing. This is because the brand loyal customers are less reluctant to shift to other brands, respond less to price changes and self- promote the brand as they perceive that their brand have unique value which is not provided by other competitive brands.

Brand loyalty is always developed post purchase. To develop brand loyalty, an organization should know their niche market, target them, support their product, ensure easy access of their product, provide customer satisfaction, bring constant innovation in their product and offer schemes on their product so as to ensure that customers repeatedly purchase the product.
Brand extension or brand stretching is a marketing strategy in which a firm marketing a product with a well-developed image uses the same brand name in a different product category. The new product is called a spin-off. Organizations use this strategy to increase and leverage brand equity (definition: the net worth and long-term sustainability just from the renowned name).

Guerrilla Marketing: Guerrilla marketing is an advertising strategy in which low-cost unconventional means (graffiti, sticker bombing, flash mobs) are utilized, often in a localized fashion or large network of individual cells, to convey or promote a product or an idea. The term guerrilla marketing is easily traced to guerrilla warfare which utilizes atypical tactics to achieve a goal in a competitive and unforgiving environment.
The concept of guerrilla marketing was invented as an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional, potentially interactive, and consumers are targeted in unexpected places.
The objective of guerrilla marketing is to create a unique, engaging and thought-provoking concept to generate buzz, and consequently turn viral. The term was coined and defined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his book Guerrilla Marketing. The term has since entered the popular vocabulary and marketing textbooks.
Guerrilla marketing involves unusual approaches such as intercept encounters in public places, street giveaways of products, PR stunts, or any unconventional marketing intended to get maximum results from minimal resources. More innovative approaches to Guerrilla marketing now utilize mobile digital technologies to engage the consumer and create a memorable brand experience.
Guerrilla marketing focuses on low cost creative strategies of marketing. Basic requirements are time, energy, and imagination and not money. Sales do not compose of the primary static to measure business but is replaced by profit. Emphasis is on retaining existing customers then acquiring new ones.
Advertisement Campaign:
From Conception to Execution
Taking on your own advertising campaign is no easy task. You can do it on your own but get ready to roll up your sleeves and get to work.

Your Marketing Plan
Nothing can help you identify your goals more than your marketing plan. You learn a lot about your company, your competitors and your long-term goals by creating and following your marketing plan. This is crucial to knowing what type of advertising is best for you.

Create a Plan of Action
Once you have your marketing plan, you must create a plan of action. This model shows you how freelancers and agencies put their own plan of action in place. Your plan of action also gives you crucial info you can use in executing your ad strategy.

Define Your Advertising Budget
How you advertise depends on your ad budget. You need to strategically use your advertising money. If you're only allowing a small portion of money to advertising, you wouldn't want to throw it all into the production of one commercial that runs at 2 a.m. Know exactly how much you will spend on your advertising first so you can make wise decisions in the creation and placement of all ad mediums.

Hunt for Affordable Opportunities
Running your own ad campaign means you have to be your own media director. You've got to find the best ad placement and the most affordable opportunities to fit into your budget. If you're limited to a very small budget, you can find many ways to bypass high advertising costs.

Know Your Target Audience
You can't advertise effectively if you don't hit your target audience. Know who they are before you start creating your ads. If your company sells scooters to seniors, you don't want to invest in cable ads to run on MTV.
Advertise in Appropriate Mediums
Of all the different advertising mediums you can use, you have to be able to use these mediums to your benefit. Spending all of your money on a direct mail campaign when your ad dollars would be better spent on print ads is going to limit how many customers you could've gained. Take a look at each medium, think about your target audience, take a look at your marketing plan and your plan of action and decide which medium(s) will be best for your ad dollars.

Don't Be Afraid to Hire Freelancers
If you can't turn your advertising over to an agency, still consider hiring a freelance copywriter and/or graphic designer. These professionals know what makes a good advertisement. Many freelancers have worked in advertising agencies so you get the benefit of their expertise. Plus, freelancers can give you professional copy and materials at an affordable cost.

Consistency is Key
If you're running TV and radio commercials, print ads and a direct mail campaign, keep them consistent. Use the same announcer and music for your commercials. Print materials should use the same colors and fonts. Use the same tag line. You want to keep everything consistent so your potential customers start identifying your tag line, your colors, your font, your announcer, jingle - everything - that relates to your company's ad campaign.

Frequency
Buying space for one radio commercial that airs once at 4:30 in the morning isn't going to get much of a response. You want commercials to have a larger frequency so you can increase your chances of hitting that target audience. If you're running a direct mail campaign, decide the frequency of your materials up front. Once you send your initial materials out, how many times will you send out follow up materials? Know the answers before you begin to help maximize your strategy's success.

In one of his recent presentations, Frans Johansson explained why groundbreaking innovators generate and execute far more ideas than their counterparts. After watching his presentation The Secret Truth About Executing Great Ideas, my thoughts began to surface about how meaningful the presentation was regardless of a persons industry, culture, field or discipline. Anyone can come up with an amazing idea but how you execute the idea will determine your success.
Ideation: Idea Conception
Coming up with an innovative idea will require some methods of generating ideas from brainstorming to mind mapping that can help conjure up useful ideas. During this process one must make sure to keep focused on a goal. If you have no goal, how will you know when you have reached the finish line and are ready for refinement? Start out with a few thoughts or themes and see what you can come up with.
Don’t get stuck on trying to come up with different variations of the same idea as you will want to develop ideas further later. While there is no exact path in ideation or other creativity techniques from start to finish, creating an idea you are happy with and feel has innovative potential is the key. Believing in your ideas innovative ability will give the confidence you will need later on during pitch time.
Disposable Cup Holder Improvement
Is this new disposable cup holder an improvement or an innovation?
Many people have tried to innovate, but because something similar had already existed, it’s merely an improvement. When designing within familiar bounds, you can still create something amazing but your audience will not likely be astonished at the sight of it. It is easy to see the particular innovative idea as something that was so simple to come up with but if that’s the case, then why didn’t you do it? The trick is to come up with thembefore. That’s the challenge. Once you find that special seed of an innovative idea, try to avoid key mistakes that will stop your idea from ever seeing the light of day.
As interesting as some ideas may be, that is not always enough for consumers. Getting the message out that your new idea is imperative will gain more consumer attention, especially in more difficult economic times. Always having a short and clear value proposition with an inescapable feeling of necessity can help gain capital, exposure and consumers. Do not wait until everything is “perfect” as they may never be and this will only further delay your ideas release. Act, do not sit idle!
Nurture New Ideas
Think of your typical cup holder from a fast food restaurant or coffee house made of cardboard. They are rigid with no handle and have been cause of drink spills and panic attacks for years. Recently a new cup holder has come about that is more mobile and has a handle (see image above). These changes have made it easier to transport drinks and prevent spills. This idea in itself is only an improvement on what was there previously.
To truly be innovative, you should take opposing thoughts and combine them, which increases the innovative potential of your idea (see image below). Think of the invention of the Burqini that combines the idea of a burqa that Muslim women wear and the flexibility of a swimsuit at the beach. Innovative ideas can sometimes be explosive but many potential barriers will arise and just having an innovative idea is not always enough.
Innovative Idea Diagram
Groundbreaking and innovative ideas come from combining ideas from different industries, cultures, fields, and disciplines.
In order to take an innovative idea from the embryo of a concept to market, you need to have the determination to push through failure. The odds are against you no matter the idea and statistics say you are going to fail a few times on your road to success. Knowing this, you have to hedge your bets more effectively so you can adjust your path and continue forward.
Don’t be intimidated by the perceived brilliance of innovative designs, because you are typically seeing the last iteration that has changed compared to its original concept. This happens with adjustment through failure. As Johansson mentioned, Picasso had made around 20,000 (as high as 50,000) works of art in his lifetime and Einstein published 240 papers with a short number of successful creations. Innovative success happens in volume (see image below).
Idea Success Rate Diagram
Stevens, G.A. and Burley, J., “3,000 Raw Ideas = 1 Commercial Success!”
How To Pick A Successful Idea
Don’t put everything behind your first idea! You wouldn’t go to the racetrack and put your life savings on 1/3000 odds, would you? Even though we are taught that all innovations come from a visionary who predicted a need for the future, this is usually not the case. Naturally, most inventions come from necessity and others from creative spark. When executing a creative idea with the resources you have available, you will have to make adjustments along the way that may not have been accounted for originally. Johansson suggests that you take the smallest executable step (smallest bet) so you don’t risk everything on your original idea.
Once you define the smallest step, you know your scope of risk. This is very important because you can then take baby steps to overcome challenges and utilize resources more efficiently on your road to success (see image below). While strategy is paramount, one shouldn’t get lost in planning and take too long to execute. Stay motivated to move forward, because forward motion even through failure is the key to success.
Idea Pathway to Success Diagram
“Nearly every major breakthrough innovation has been preceded by a string of failed or misguided executions.” — Frans Johansson.
When implementing strategy, whether it is used to free up resources or define a path to move forward, do not plan on coming up with the ultimate plan that will carry your idea to the finish line. Coming up with a base and enabling yourself to act will help to get things done and eventually discover the final solution that goes to market. You will need to bring yourself to an idea intersection where you can pick and choose the best ideas. This intersection can be used to generate extraordinary, electrifying and trendsetting ideas.
Exploring Innovation Deeper
The Devotion of Pablo Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish artist that had a unique talent in painting by combining different techniques, theories and ideas making him one of the most well-known figures in 20th century art. Picasso had always shown a passion for art from a very young age and was determined to express his passion to the world. Overcoming high and low barriers, he achieved much success and fortune in his life. As Pablo Ruiz Picasso said, “action is the foundational key to all success.” Continuing to move forward by taking action and not sitting idle will create momentum for success.
Early in his life, Pablo Picasso slept during the day, worked at night and persevered through poverty, cold and desperation. He was known to have burned much of his early work just to keep warm at night. Picasso motivated himself through passion to push forward and eventually made luxurious connections. Constantly updating his style from the Blue Period, to the Rose Period, to the African-influenced Period, to Cubism, to Realism and Surrealism, he was a pioneer with a hand in every art movement of the 20th century.
Picasso was extraordinarily abundant throughout his long lifetime. A skillful self-promoter, he used politics, whimsicality, and harassment as a selling tool. The total number of artworks he produced has been estimated at 50,000, comprising 1,885 paintings; 1,228 sculptures; 2,880 ceramics, roughly 12,000 drawings, many thousands of prints, and numerous tapestries and rugs. From all of these works, only a few dozen have been regarded as a great success, leaving thousands in museums for viewing after his death and even more collecting dust. Picassco dedicated his life to art and has very influential with his portrayal of Cubism.
Frank Epperson’s Juice on a Stick
Frank Epperson was an average American who at a young age discovered a “frozen drink on a stick” that would later become an innovative idea. In his life he dabbled in real estate before discovering how to take his idea to market.
At the age of 11 Frank Epperson invented the “Epsicle” that is now known as the “Popsicle”. He was mixing powdered soda with water to make soda pop and accidentally left the mixing bucket outside on an unusually cold night. During the night the mixture froze solid, with the wooden stirring stick standing straight up. There was one huge problem: you can’t start an Epsicle production line on your back porch because the weather didn’t allow for such a thing. Epperson overcame this hurdle by gaining access to a commercial freezer, stamped his name on the sticks and wanted to sell his idea.
Unfortunately for Epperson, ice-cream makers were not interested and he did not share his idea again until a fireman’s ball years later. He pushed through rejection and failure without burying all of his resources until he had achieved a solid idea. While he discovered this wonderful treat early on in life, it took him 16 years to introduce the idea and 7 years more to sell his Popsicle patent. The popsicle can be credited for the entrance of tasty frozen deserts into the mainstream and happy children’s faces around the world. Today hundreds of millions of Popsicles are eaten in the United States each year, and there are more than thirty flavors available.
Alexander Graham Bell’s Modern Communication
Alexander Graham Bell was a scientist from Scotland (originally) that had always had a natural curiosity for the world. This resulted in experimentation with inventing at a young age, most notably a simple dehusking machine at age 12.
Due to the gradual deafness of his mother starting at a young age, he was led to study acoustics which eventually led to the invention of the telephone. Bell’s telephone grew out of improvements he made to the telegraph. He had invented the “harmonic telegraph” which could send more than one message at a time over a single telegraph wire. His path to success was not as clear as one might think and is surrounded by past failures and controversy.
Bell’s first serious work with sound transmission used tuning forks to explore resonance. Unfortunately, this groundbreaking undertaking had already been completed worlds away in Germany. A short change in path led Bell to transmit sound through electrical means. He experimented first by trying to transmit musical notes and articulate speech.
Alexander Graham Bell had not set any clear destination and became overwhelmed with his experiments. After many sleepless nights he created a harmonic telegraph which became the first stepping stone to the creation of the telephone. After entertaining other possibilities such as the phonautograph and sending multiple telegraph messages on a single line, Bell refined the idea of acoustic telegraphy.
By recognizing progress and changing his path, Bell (with the help of Thomas Watson) was able to invent the sound-powered telephone. By starting with the idea of transmitting a voice through electricity, Alexander Graham Bell was able to, through a series of refinements, invent technology that is used around the world even today. Bell continued to test out new ideas involving kites, airplanes, tetrahedral structures, sheep-breeding, artificial respiration, desalinization and water distillation, and hydrofoils.
Jack Dorsey’s Micro Communication
Jack Dorsey is an American software architect that had an interest in making “instant messenger” updates available for friends to see. This was a refined concept that eventually grew into what we now know as Twitter. Three guiding principles of this innovative idea are simplicity, constraint and craftsmanship.
Jack had an early fascination with cities and how they work, so he would always carry maps around with him. His attraction with mass-transit and how cities function led him to taking advantage of public transit databases in Manhattan. He built off of his original idea that gave meaning to his overall concept. His idea make clear though working on dispatch software, programming real-time messaging systems for couriers, taxis, and emergency vehicles.
Jack Dorsey’s experience helped him see his idea in a completely new perspective. Taking his seedling of an idea that would update friends of his status, Dorsey completed several field tests before recognizing that the technology available didn’t support his innovative idea. There are times when putting off a project is irrefutable. Jack Dorsey originally came up with his idea in the year 2000 but wasn’t able to execute effectively until 8 years later. Jack was effective in not letting his idea sit for too long but instead taking action when technology would let it thrive.
Conclusion
Making ideas happen isn’t easy and requires patience, determination and hard work. The most important part of it is not just coming up with a promising concept, but rather rethinking it over and over again, implementing it and then putting it to practice.
Most inventions come from necessity, so pay attention to small problems in your environment and find simple solutions to these problems. Do not sit idle on the idea — act instead. Take opposing thoughts and resolve them in your innovative designs. And keep innovating all the time, one step at a time. The time will pass, and if you have some luck, you will see your idea growing, flourishing and maybe even turning into a real success. …So what are you waiting for?


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Glossary of Advertising Terms
Term Definition
Account The relationship between agency and client - an account may cover one campaign or many years of advertising, and may include all the products marketed by a client or just one
Advertorial An paid-for advertisement which includes editorial content; normally identified in a print magazine with the word "Advertisement" printed as a head across the top of the page to distinguish it from genuine (in theory unbiased) editorial content
Agency The organisation that takes care of advertising for clients.
Anchorage The 'pinning down of meaning' that a caption provides when coupled with an ambiguous image - or vice versa
Animatic A filmed storyboard, where stills or short extracts are put together as a rough edit to show the client prior to the filming and editing of a full quality (and therefore expensive) TVC
Benefits The features of a product that are highlighted to customers in ads. There are only two real benefits: better and cheaper. An ad may highlight the supposed emotional benefits of owning a product (eg you'll be happier, more attractive)
Billboard Space for outdoor advertising
Brand See definition on main page
Brief The outline of a campaign's purpose given to the agency by the client. The brief is then developed further by the agency for internal use
Campaign A time-limited set of ads - campaigns may run across different media, and for one month or ten years, but can be categorised together as they are the execution of a central idea
Client The organisation who pays the agency
Coverage calculated in percentages, the proportion of a target audience who has the opportunity to see an ad once
Creative The creative ideas behind an ad, or the person/team who comes up with them
Classified advertising which does not used pictures, and is generally not produced by an agency. A good example of how vendors can communicate directly with buyers
Copy The text created for an ad
Demographics Describing an audience by age, gender, ethnicity, location - ie the facts about them
Focus Groups Small, select groups representing a target audience who are paid to answer questions at the behest of a market research organisation
Frequency The number of times an audience get the opportunity to see an ad
Pitch The communication by the agency of a campaign strategy to the client
Penetration The proportion of a potential market that is actually using a particular brand
Product Placement The practice of paying for a branded product to be used by a character in a movie - eg James Bond driving a BMW Z3
Product Positioning Establishing the market niche of a product - which may not be as the brand leader - and advertising to the appropriate segment of the audience
Propaganda The deliberate manipulation of information in order to achieve certain objectives - NB this is RARELY used in connection with modern advertising
Psychographics Describing an audience by their shared psychological profile (likes, dislikes etc)
Reach Similar to coverage
Slogan Line of copy which encapsulates the campaign strategy
Space The pages in a magazine or newspaper which can be sold (as double spreads, foldouts, full, half and quarter pages) to advertisers
USP< Unique Selling Proposition/point - a highlighted benefit of a product which makes it stand out from all rival brands.
Advertising's 15 Basic Appeals, by Jib Fowles

1. Need for sex- surprisingly, Fowles found that only 2 percent of the television ads he surveyed used this appeal. It may be too blatant, he concluded, and often detracts from the product.

2. Need for affiliation- the largest number of ads use this approach: you are looking for friendship? Advertisers can also use this negatively, to make you worry that you'll lose friends if you don't use a certain product.

3. Need to nurture- every time you see a puppy or a kitten or a child, the appeal is to your paternal or maternal instincts.

4. Need for guidance- a father or mother figure can appeal to your desire for someone to care for you, s you won't have to worry. Betty Crocker is a good example.

5. Need to aggress- we all have had a desire to get even, and some ads give you this satisfaction.

6. Need to achieve- the ability to accomplish something difficult and succeed identifies the product with winning. Sports figures as spokespersons project this image.

7. Need to dominate- the power we lack is what we can look for in a commercial "master the possibilities."

8. Need for prominence- we want to be admired and respected; to have high social status. Tasteful china and classic diamonds offer this potential.

9. Need for attention- we want people to notice us; we want to be looked at. Cosmetics are a natural for this approach.

10. Need for autonomy- within a crowded environment, we want to be singled out, to be a "breed apart." This can also be used negatively: you may be left out if you don't use a particular product

11. Need to escape- flight is very appealing; you can imagine adventures you cannot have; the idea of escape is pleasurable

12. Need to feel safe- to be free from threats, to be secure is the appeal of many insurance and bank ads

13. Need for aesthetic sensations-beauty attracts us, and classic art or dance makes us feel creative, enhanced

14. Need to satisfy curiosity-facts support our belief that information is quantifiable and numbers and diagrams make our choices seem scientific

15. Psychological needs- Fowles defines sex (item no.1) as a biological need, and so he classifies our need to sleep, eat, and drink in this category. Advertisers for juicy pizza are especially appealing late at night.


Advertising Bits


What is known as a "Bridge" in Television commercials?
Transition from one scene to another
Vorsprung durch technik 
Audi
The mark of a man 
Old Spice
The world's favourite airline 
British Airways
Infomercial
A television commercial that is similar in appearance to a news program or talk show format, usually 30-minutes in length.
Media Mix
The distribution of time and money allocated among TV, radio, print and Internet advertising that makes up the total advertising budget of an advertiser, agency or media buyer.
Piggyback
The back-to-back scheduling of two or more brand commercials of one advertiser in network or spot positions.
Pre-emption
An omission of an announcement from a previously confirmed broadcast schedule; the advertiser is either offered a make-good or takes a credit.
Psychographics
Audience analysis on the basis of psychological factors such as lifestyles, values, and interests and how they affect purchase behavior.
Run-Of-Schedule (ROS)
Scheduling of commercials at any time of a station's choosing.

Road Blocking
The scheduling of a brand's commercial at approximately the same time on all networks, or all stations in a given market.
Target Audience
The audience most desired by advertisers in terms of potential product/service usage and revenue potential.
Billboard (BB) - In broadcast, (usually) free airtime (generally 2-10
         seconds in length) given to an advertiser, generally to one that
         purchases multiple commercials within a program (i.e., a "sponsor"
         of the program).
Vignette - 
A technique used in
         commercial production where several situations that emphasize the
         qualities of a product are shown in rapid sequence.
Voice Over - The part of a TV commercial that is spoken by an announcer who
         is heard but not seen on the screen.








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