9_Hard_Managing Marketing Communications

• Marketing communications informs, persuades, and reminds consumers about products and brands.

Marketing Communications Role

• Establishes brand meaning by illustrating how, why, and by whom a product is used.
• Links the brand to events, places, people, or feelings to create a memorable image.
• Encourages consumers to try or buy the product.
• Moves consumers through a hierarchy of effects: awareness → knowledge → liking → preference → conviction → purchase.

Communication Process Models

• Macromodel emphasizes sender, receiver, message, media, encoding, decoding, feedback, response, and noise.
• Micromodel focuses on individual consumer cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses (awareness, liking, preference, etc.).

Developing Effective Communication

• Set objectives to build awareness, foster liking/preference, or spur purchase.
• Identify the target audience, pinpointing those whom the message addresses.
• Craft the message, tailoring content, structure, and format.
• Select channels, choosing media that effectively reach the target (traditional, digital, etc.).
• Ensure the offering delivers value, aligning communications with the product's deliverables.
• Measure effectiveness, evaluating if the campaign achieved its set objectives.

Meaningful Communication Objectives

• A communication objective is a specific task for a target audience, within a set timeframe.
• Three main focuses of communication objectives include: creating awareness, building preferences, and inciting action.

Creating Awareness

• Establish or reinforce the brand in the consumer's memory.
• Awareness relates to the need (primary demand) or the brand (selective demand).

Building Preferences

• Communicate an offering's benefits to address consumer needs.
• Emphasize problem removal or pleasure/experience.
• Persuasive messaging included is used with comparisons to highlight differentiation.

Inciting Action

• Motivate consumers to purchase or take a purchase-related step.
• Promotional deals spur final commitment.

Setting Benchmarks

• Quantitative benchmarks define the needed impact, i.e., “increase brand recall from 10% to 30% among the target market.”
• Temporal benchmarks specify when the impact should be achieved, i.e., "in six months”.
• Benchmarks guide communication design and allow companies to measure success.

Determining Budget

• Objective-and-task budgeting defines objectives, identifies tasks, estimates costs, and sums to get the budget.
• Key budgeting ensures alignment with desired outcomes and helps track ROI.

Common Influences on Budget

• Product life-cycle stage, differentiation level, market share status, message complexity, reach needed, competitive spending, and available resources influence a budget.
• Avoid purely relying on “competitive-parity” or “what-we-can-afford" which risks misalignment with actual communication goals.

Identifying the Target Audience

• Identifying the target audience starts with the overall target market.
• The target audience for communications usually overlaps with the target market for the product or service.
• Usage and Loyalty can be very important.
• Different communication strategies are needed depending on if the audience is new, current, or loyal to the product category.

Accounting for Decision Roles

• Purchase and usage decisions involve multiple people.
• Communication targets influencers, deciders, or users.
• The target audience differs from the end-user or purchaser.

Crafting the Message

• Focus on one or two core appeals highlighting a brand's core selling propositions.
• Appeals are functional/rational (product benefits, problem-solving) or emotional (style, image).

Big Idea Development

• Seek a concept that resonates rationally and emotionally, differentiates from competitors, and is adaptable.

Creative Brief Development

• Articulate the key message, target audience, objectives, brand benefits, support points, and media considerations.
• Creative briefs ensure consistency in all resulting communications.

Testing Mutliple Messages

• The more concepts explored, the higher the chance of finding an excellent one.
• In-house marketing teams, agencies, or crowdsourcing are options, but caution is advised.
• Tie-in with brand positioning which can highlight product performance or extrinsic aspects.
• You should aim to reinforce points of parity or points of difference identified in the brand strategy.

Defining the Communication Media Mix

• Companies allocate budgets across nine major communication modes: advertising, online & social media, mobile communication, direct marketing, events & experiences, word of mouth, publicity & public relations, personal selling, and packaging.
• Different modes may substitute for each other but coordination is crucial.

Media Formats Work Together

• Integrated campaigns reinforce brand positioning across each medium.
• It is important to create consistent messages that address brand awareness, image, loyalty, and customer equity.

Evaluating Media

• Paid media (TV, magazine ads), owned media (websites, brand blogs), and earned media (word of mouth, social sharing) exist.
• Each type has unique reach, impact, credibility, and cost factors.

Determining Cost Effective Vehicles

• The audience size, composition, and media cost are assessed for each chosen medium, i.e., TV, radio, magazines, digital.
• You should compute cost per thousand (CPM) and consider audience attention and editorial context.

Deciding on Reach, Frequency and Impact

• Reach (R): The % or the number of unique persons/households exposed at least once in a time period.
• Frequency (F): How many times the average person/household is exposed.
• Impact (I): Qualitative value of an exposure in a given medium.
• Aim for the desired level of audience awareness by balancing R × F × I.

Scheduling

• Macroscheduling considers times of year/seasonality, i.e., heavier ad spend before a product's prime selling season.
• Microscheduling allocates expenditures over shorter periods, i.e., monthly, which is a type of allocation.
• Continuity: Even distribution of communication over a period.
• Concentration: Heavy spending in a single period.
• Flighting: Intermittent bursts of communication, then none.
• Pulsing: Ongoing low-level communication with occasional heavier waves.

Geographic Allocation

• National buys use national networks or publications.
• Spot buys use specific regions or local markets.
• Local buys use hyper-local media, such as local newspapers and billboards.

Message Appeal

• Informational Appeals focus on product attributes or benefits in a rational format.
• Comparison ads, problem-solution ads, and testimonials are all examples of Informational appeals.
• Transformational Appeals emphasize non-product-related benefits or experiences.
• These appeals often stir positive emotions or negative ones to motivate behavior change.
• You can incorporate attention-getting tactics but avoid overshadowing the actual product message.

Message Source

• Expertise, trustworthiness, and likability are all credibility dimensions for a Message Source.
• Celebrity/Influencer endorsements can boost attention/recall but must maintain congruity.

Attention (ADPLAN)

• The ad must capture and hold consumer interest.

Distinction (ADPLAN)

• The ad must be unique in its category, setting it apart with thematic elements.

Positioning (ADPLAN)

• The ad must communicate the right category and core benefit effectively.
• Desired parity and difference points should be reinforced.

Linkage (ADPLAN)

• The consumer must remember the brand and message.
• Any entertaining elements on the ad cannot overshadow the brand.

Amplification (ADPLAN)

• Are viewers' thoughts positive or negative after seeing the ad.
• Encouraging positive reaction reinforces brand attitudes and buying intention.

Net Equity (ADPLAN)

• The ad must fit with the brand's heritage and previous associations.
• You must avoid contradicting established brand equity.

Measuring Communication Effectiveness (Supply Side)

• Media Coverage: Column Inches in print media mentioning the brand and Seconds of Visibility on broadcasts are supply side measurements.

Measuring Communication Effectiveness (Demand Side)

• Recognition: Determines whether the audience acknowledges having seen or heard the message.
• Recall: Determines whether the audience can bring the message to mind without prompts.
• Frequency of Exposure: How many times an average consumer saw or heard the message.
• Message Recall Details: Which points or benefits people remember.
• Attitudinal Shifts: Changes in feelings about the brand or perceptions of product benefits.
• Behavioral Outcomes: Purchase or intent to purchase, product trials, or positive word of mouth. Posttests: Assess campaign's overall impact.
• Market share, Share of voice, and Share of mind/heart are included in market performance.