Advertising Campaign Strategy
A Guide to Marketing
Communication Plans
These are exciting and
challenging times. New ideas, new media, and new technology are having a profound effect
on the way advertising is conceived, created, and delivered. We are in the midst of a true
communications revolution. Changes are taking place seemingly everywhere and everyday. The
challenge to educators is to understand exactly what is changing and sort out what is
effective and what may be simply a passing trend.
Because of the speed with
which many changes take place today, neither educators nor students can afford the luxury
of gradually learning about new developments. Technology, especially with respect to the
Internet, is swiftly and dramatically changing the way companies are doing business.
Companies and individuals that proceed slowly run the risk that their knowledge will
quickly become dated. Many changes are translated into buzz words that are used as a
lilmus test to discover whether someone is current on the change dujour.
It is not enough, however, to
identify and understand change, one has to figure out how to thrive in the new marketing
environment. Yet, one gets the distinct feeling that many changes are occurring faster
than the field's ability to fully evaluate their effectiveness. One common occurrence is
that students often readily adopt changes or new approaches faster than their instructors.
Students see what's going on in advertising, but usually they do not have the analytical
tools or the knowledge to judge whether what they see is effective. Educators, on the
other hand, are much more likely to evaluate new developments or approaches in terms of
their experience For example, many highly creative image-oriented commercials are widely
admired by students. These same ads are sometimes viewed more skeptically by educators,
especially when these ads either ignore or are contrary to many of the principles that
have been widely accepted over the years. Among advertising practitioners, it's easy to
find conflicting opinions about the relative merits of a specific advertising campaign or
approach.
We offer no easy solutions.
Our approach is to offer a detailed examination of the campaign process with a special
emphasis on the analytical and strategic elements that are likely to lead to effective
campaigns. We know there will always be advertising that works for reasons that resist
analysis. But we do believe that if you understand the concepts that underlie successful
advertising, when changes occur in the marketplace you will be in position to better
understand and exploit them.
In the first edition of this
book, we were sensitive to titling the book Advertising Campaign Strategy even though it
was clear to us the book was all about marketing communication strategy. We pointed out
then that the advertising emphasis in the title was more a reflection of tradition than a
belief that advertising can or should be prepared apart from other marketing communication
tools such as sales promotion or public relations. We believe that the title and the
orientation of the book have been well received. We continue to stress that smart
companies begin with the premise that they are planning a marketing communication
campaign-not an advertising campaign. This assumption not only helps companies avoid any
over-reliance on advertising, but it also helps them proactively consider
other promotional options as part of a unified selling strategy.
Contents in Brief
Chapter 1 Advertising from a
Marketing Communications Perspective
Chapter 2 The Research
Foundation I: Understanding Clients and Buyers
Chapter 3 The Research
Foundation II: Market, Product, and Competitive Analyses
Chapter 4 Equity, Problems,
Opportunities, and Objectives
Chapter 5 Building the
Marketing Communication Strategy
Chapter 6 Developing a
Creative Strategy that Moves People
Chapter 7 Media Strategy and
Tactics
Chapter 8 Related Marketing
Communication
Chapter 9 Enhancing the
Marketing Communication Mix
Chapter 10 Evaluating the
Effectiveness of the Campaign
Chapter 11 Preparing the
Plans Book
Chapter 12 Preparing a
Winning Presentation
368 pages