 Advertising & Media  Unit 3 – Analyzing the customer

 Advertisers (and marketers in general) identify likely consumers for their products  Create wants  Consumers can be grouped by  Culture  Social Class  Community  Family  Gender  Differences in consumption between genders are not well defined

 Positioning is the process of making an advertiser’s product different from other products in the consumer’s mind  Figuring out how to convince a consumer to choose one product over a similar product offered by a competitor

 Providing consumers with reasons to purchase specific products  Substance: something must “back up” the strategy or claim in order for a positioning strategy to remain effective over time  Consistency: internally, across media and overtime  Simple, Distinctive Theme: Let the consumer understand what the product will do for them

 Themes create a focus for the advertising campaign  Physical positioning strategies emphasize the objective physical characteristics of the product  Perceptual positioning strategies emphasize emotional or subjective opinions about the product

The following basic themes can use physical or perceptual strategies with these basic themes:  Benefit Positioning – focusing on a specific benefit derived from the choice of that product  User Positioning – focus on the consumer. How will the product fit into their lifestyle  Competitive Positioning – emphasizing the difference between your product and similar products

 Starting over due to:  Loss of effectiveness over time  Change in the market  New entrant  Change in technology  Change in consumer taste  Unexpected events

 Research is conducted in the planning, preparation and placement of advertisements  Can happen multiple time at different points in the process of creating an advertisement:  Selecting the target market  Understanding the target segment  Evaluate an advertisement’s effectiveness  Evaluate the advertisement’s remaining effectiveness before it is withdrawn from the media

Help in creating the advertisement  Idea Generation – talk directly to consumers to find out why they might want to buy the product  Environmental Analysis – evaluate the potential influence of your environment (social & cultural trends, economics and politics) on purchasing decisions

 Audience Definition – Get to know your target market  Audience Profiling – Lifestyle research, surveys, and in-depth interviews to get a more complete picture of the individual consumer

 Provide Knowledge – recall and recognition tests will tell advertisers how much the audience remembers  Shape Attitude – does the advertisement change one’s opinion about one of the factors?  Attach Emotions – emotional impact can increase recall  Validate a Brand – does the advertisement resonate or feel true to the consumer

 A focus group consists of groups of six to twelve consumers  Used to obtain in depth information  Represents a small sample of the target market  Must be led by an experienced moderator to:  Remain on track  Avoid being dominated by one member

Testing an advertisement before it is released to the media  Communication tests – test the message the audience receives against the message the advertiser wants to send  Magazine Dummies – a mock-up magazine with the advertisement is sent to test market at their home. Test subjects answer questions about the content and the ads to gauge recall and feelings about the ad

 Theater Tests – Advertisements can be viewed in small theaters (usually near malls).  Thought Listings – After viewing an advertisement, small groups write down the thoughts they had during the advertisement

 Releasing the advertisement to a small potion of the target segment before it is fully released