The budgetary allocation of many product groups is made long before the responsible advertising managers have decided on the allocation of sales promotion and advertising expenditures. This is the case with branded articles. With such goods both retailers - who prefer sales promotions - and the manufacturers - who prefer classical advertising - influence the budgetary allocation. With branded articles the stronger influence is obviously to be found with trade since two thirds or more of the total turnover of such products depend on such promotion activities. This paper will try to answer the following question: what is the economic situation of the retailers? why do retailers prefer promotions? what advantages do retailers actually receive with a power-shift to their advantage? what does such a power-shift imply for the industry? what advantages does brand advertising offer? what is the consumerâs attitude towards branded articles?
The object of this study is an attempt to answer this fundamental question, and to try to grasp and define the changing role of advertising campaigns. The first part will consist of an analysis of the changes in the 1970's, which can be understood through observations of certain advertisements presented as examples. The second part deals with the causes for these changes, which can be observed in the mechanisms of advertising campaigns. These transformations have important consequences on the attitudes of multinational corporations, political parties and administrative agencies. And finally, in the last part, we look at the results of these changes in a more long-term perspective and analyse the significance of this evolution in advertising as a cultural phenomenon in a turbulent environment in times of economic crisis.
This paper shows how a number of advertisers currently set advertising appropriations; examines alternative methods designed to guide the decision making process; and cites more case histories to indicate the implications of given budget levels in the market place. Despite the presence of numerous techniques, many of them complex and sophisticated, present practice generally favours a rule-of-thumb approach. As far as a conclusion can be reached with universal application, it can be fairly said that most companies could benefit by considering a more objective approach to budget setting, and at least more to the 'Task' or 'Total' methods reviewed in the paper. In essence, these approaches force disciplines on the budget setter, but are flexible and designed to relate to any individual company's circumstances and market situations. In the final analysis, however, advertising budgets represent only one element of marketing costs. In turn, these marketing expenses account for a proportion of variable costs which are adjusted with due regard for shareholders' returns. Invariably this regard for the central purpose of a company's operations will set practical parameters for budget level decisions.
A small-scale UK survey among leading advertisers and agencies to find out what research they conduct to evaluate their advertising campaigns is reported upon. The amount of such work was found to be surprisingly high but the amount of effort devoted to attempting to build generalisations was disappointedly low. Without such generalisations there can be no learning for the future. Developing this point, reference is made to an issue which is topical in the UK, namely the value of the low exposure to television campaigns received by Light Viewers. Material from two recently developed series of checks to evaluate campaigns is quoted to illustrate the potential of attempting to build generalisations, and also some of the dangers.
Corporate advertising requires a research-based approach just as much as product advertising. A good example is Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd., who have been using this approach in Britain since the 1940's. Following research in 1968, the campaign has been aimed not only at conventional "opinion-formers" through the press, but also at the general public through television. A continuous programme of opinion research has been used to identify the need for the campaign, to set targets, and to monitor its effects. Qualitative research is used to pre-test and modify the advertising. This paper proposes the thesis that corporate advertising is not a new type of advertising, but a relatively new application of normal advertising practice. It can successfully be planned and assessed with the techniques that have been developed for advertising intended to sell goods and services.
Anglo-Saxon accounting practice puts marketing expense within the framework of what is termed selling expense. Selling expenses consist of expenses for marketing, advertising and/or distributing the product, i.e. Salesmen's Salaries, Salesmen's Commission, Travel and Entertainment, Delivery Expense (freight out). Office Expense, Advertising, Miscellaneous (including research). The larger part of the above are fixed in character whereas, as most advertising agencies know, the classic marketing expenses provide the lionâs share of variable selling expenses.
This paper brief reviews some evidence often quoted in relation to quantitatively evaluating advertising expenditure. The need to relate quantitative methods to facts and theories of consumer behaviour is emphasised. A view of consumer buying behaviour is discussed and related to three possible kinds of advertising effects which are distinguished; immediate, medium-term and long-term effects. It is suggested that medium and long-term effects may be intermittent and questions are raised as to whether they are currently able to be measured by econometric analysis. A recent hypotheses that long-term effects, even if ignored, are unimportant is discussed and questioned. It is finally proposed that some important aspects of advertising strategy are best approached via area experiment. A longitudinal approach to studying the role of advertising in a brands' development is suggested to cover the investigation of the effects of different levels of advertising early in the development of advertising and for very long periods of time.
This paper presents an interim case history of the development of one such campaign for the Midland Bank targeted at the market for new personal accounts in England and Wales. It concentrates on similarities to rather than differences from other mass marketing problems and the use of research which is conventionally associated with their creative solution. The paper outlines the marketing context of our original brief and shows how our original strategy and creative thinking reflected this in a fairly straightforward way. The qualitative research feedback on this is described and the issues raised are discussed with particular reference to our specific interpretation of the findings and the basis on which this began to modify our understanding of the appropriate strategy i.e. our model of how advertising in this particular market might be expected to work.
In the case that I want to look at today, I plan to show how promotion was used in the successful development of a brand in a highly competitive market, and to describe an approach to measuring the value of a promotion both before implementation and evaluating it after. The example is the launch and development of a new brand in the U.K. Feminine Hygiene market - a market in which until recently Kimberly-Clark had only a relatively small share.
This paper deals with the case history of a corporate campaign for Hoechst U.K., the British subsidiary of the German chemical company, Hoechst A.G. Before 1975, corporate advertising for Hoechst U.K. had been an adaptation of an international campaign developed in Germany. It had been confined to the press medium and was conducted at a low level of expenditure. Research conducted in 1976 indicated that awareness of Hoechst U.K. in Great Britain was at an extremely low level and, because of this situation, the company had virtually no image. Given the situation, the Hoechst management decided to consider a campaign specifically designed for the circumstances of Great Britain rather than adapting the Germany campaign. In January 1976, Lintas London received a brief from Hoechst in which the main objective of the proposed campaign was described as 'to greatly improve company image and awareness'. Specifically it was required that the campaign should present the company as a dynamic component of the United Kingdom economy. Emphasis was to be placed on the fact that Hoechst U.K. was a British company with British staff engaged in the production and marketing of a wide range of high quality products.
In the paper I will describe the theories behind and the techniques of the market map, but the presentation of the technique (simple as it is) is not in itself the reason for writing this paper. The interesting point is that the market map is based upon individual human response and thus segments the population into groups with identical individual response functions with regard to the purchase of the product of interest. I hope to show that the line of reasoning that I will follow can ultimately lead to better understanding of how advertising works than can the traditional way of looking at average responses in a target group defined by demography.