Persuasive Advertising - J. Scott Armstrong [12]
There are three important and overarching conditions that I will now describe: the advertisers’ objectives, product offerings, and target markets.
Objectives
Don’t care how bright or how catchy … nor how much general interest.
The key is “does it sell?” What’s the profit of the ad investment?
L. Thomas of Lord and Thomas, the largest U.S. ad agency in 1905
The development of an effective advertising campaign should begin with a meaningful, complete, and clear statement of objectives. Although this might seem obvious, advertisers often plunge ahead without knowing what they want to accomplish. This happens even with prize-winning campaigns where the submission form had asked that the objectives be stated.
In one study, 68 entries in the print-ad classification from the annual Business/Professional Association Gold Key Awards were examined. Those who participated had been asked to include a statement of objectives and a summary of results. Two judges independently evaluated the entries’ objectives. None of the entrants specified the desired effect of the campaign in measurable terms or the time frame to achieve it. In addition, the assessments were seldom related to the statement of objectives; for example, of those entries stating that an objective was “to increase purchase rate,” only 12 percent measured purchase rates (Hartley and Patti 1988).
In another study, the 43 winners of the EFFIES1 were asked to share copies of their entries and 29 responded. The intent of the awards is to evaluate the effectiveness against the company’s objectives. Despite this criterion, of the 167 objectives stated by the winners, only 17 percent were measurable (Moriarty 1996).
Although there is much to admire in the bi-annual Advertising Works of the U.S. Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), the statements of objectives of the award-winning campaigns often fall short. As an example, consider this IPA submission by Levi Strauss for the objectives of its jeans campaign in Europe in 1988: a) maintain and increase brand share, b) maintain the 501 brand’s price premium, c) introduce and establish pan-American advertising support in Spain, and d) achieve the above using TV advertising (Baker 1993). Their “objectives” did not specify profits and timing. They do not take account of all stakeholders. They are not measurable. And they confuse strategies with objectives.
The statement of objectives is largely up to the advertiser to develop. The agency can contribute, but the responsibility falls on the advertiser. I suggest that you ignore mission or vision statements. As you will see, they typically fail to use evidence-based procedures for setting objectives.
Relevant objectives
Our job is to sell our clients’ merchandise … not ourselves.
Bill Bernbach
The objectives of an advertising campaign should be relevant to the ultimate objectives of the organization. One way to identify ultimate objectives is to keep asking “why?” until it is no longer sensible to ask. For example: Why would you want to increase market share?
For most companies, the ultimate objective for advertising should be to have a good return on the investment in the advertising campaign. One should also consider the impact of advertising on other stakeholders, such as creditors, employees, customers, suppliers, and retailers.
Advertising can lead directly to sales. It can help also with related sales efforts—such as making potential customers more receptive to sales calls. It can stimulate