Persuasive Advertising - J. Scott Armstrong [15]
I am not suggesting firms should ignore their competitors’ actions; they might have some good ideas about how to better satisfy users. However, you should ignore them when setting objectives; a firm’s aim should not be to defeat its competitors. This does not apply however, to all organizations. For example, it does not apply to political organizations.
Comprehensive objectives
To specify comprehensive advertising campaign objectives, consider all stakeholders—stockholders, employees, suppliers, retailers, customers, and local community members who might be affected by an ad. What are the ultimate objectives for each of these groups?
Stockholders benefit because advertising could attract more buyers, induce buyers to pay more for the product, or reduce the costs of getting needed product information to customers, thus increasing profits and the value of their stock.
Customers gain from advertising because it helps them find better products, reassures them that their decisions were sensible, and increases their enjoyment in using a product. Here’s an experiment that demonstrated the importance of advertising in enhancing customers’ experience. Three jars of peanut butter were given to subjects. One brand was familiar; the other two were fictitious. In fact, the peanut butter in the three jars was identical. Nevertheless, three-quarters of the subjects preferred the known brand; the remaining quarter were split between the two unidentified brands (Hoyer and Brown 1990). Experiments with beer have shown similar findings (Allison and Uhl 1964).
Distributors can also benefit from advertising. When Kellogg advertised its Nutri-Grain bars in the United Kingdom in 1997, many independent retailers called, asking whether they could stock them. Moreover, advertisers should ensure that a campaign helps its distributors. And certainly the campaign should not harm distributors. For example, a Subaru dealer in Chicago did not want to run the manufacturer’s “Lack of Pretense” campaign. He asked, “Does this mean that we were pretentious before and now we’re not?” (Rothenberg 1994, p. 337).
Advertising might also affect employees. In 1997, the Co-op Food Retail Stores in the United Kingdom was one of a dwindling group of cooperatives (the number of cooperatives had fallen by 90 percent from 1960 to 1996). It was suffering from declining sales and low staff morale. As a result, the company decided to emphasize its benefits (convenience, honesty, and a decent way to run a business) in its campaign: “Business with the values of today’s family.” The campaign’s objectives were not only to increase sales but also to reduce employee turnover. Employee surveys showed improvement, with comments such as “It [the campaign] makes you feel a bit more proud to work for them.” The employee turnover fell by about a quarter. The campaign won an IPA Advertising Effectiveness Award (Broadbent 2000).2
Finally, advertisers should consider the desires and needs of the community. For example, might a campaign cause visual or noise pollution? Long ago, Ogden Nash captured one such concern when he said: “I think that I shall never see a billboard lovely as a tree—indeed, unless the billboards fall I’ll never see a tree at all.”
Explicit, challenging, and achievable objectives
An advertising campaign should be centered on explicit written objectives. They should be challenging but achievable.
It is often difficult to state