Advertising is primarily a communication process which provides the market with information on the availability and attributes of alternative products and services.
Advertising is a link between producers and consumers. It plays a role of imparting knowledge about the good or bad reactions of certain product or services to the consumers.
The objectives of advertising can be studied under the following heads: 1. General Objectives 2. Specific Objectives.
Some of the objectives of advertising are: 1. Building Awareness 2. Creating Favourable Attitudes 3. Maintaining Customer Loyalty 4. Increasing the Number of Customers
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5. Increasing the Consumption Rate among Present Consumer 6. Creation of Demand 7. To Support Salesmen 8. To Give Information about a New Product 9. Helpful in Facing Competition
10. To Increase Goodwill 11. To Reduce Marketing Cost 12. To Increase the Standard of Living 13. To Save from Risk 14. Informing the Change to Consumers 15. Barring New Entrants and a Few Others.
Objectives of Advertising for Business Enterprises, Firms and Company
Objectives of Advertising – Top 7 Objectives for Modern Business Enterprises
The fundamental purpose of advertising is to sell something, a product, a service or an ideas.
In addition to this general objective, advertising is also used by the modern business enterprises for certain specific objectives which are discussed below:
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i. To introduce a new product by creating interest for it among the prospective customers.
ii. To support personal selling programme. Advertising may be used to open customers’ doors for salesman.
iii. Enter a new market to attract a new group of customers.
iv. To fight competition in the market and to increase the sales.
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v. To enhance the goodwill of the enterprise by promising better quality products and service.
vi. To improve dealer relations. Advertising support the dealers in selling the product. Dealers are attracted towards a product which is advertised effectively.
vii. To warn the public against imitation of an enterprise’s product.
Objectives of Advertising
The basic purpose of advertising is to sell something – a product, a service or an idea. The advertisement seeks to influence the behaviour of potential customers in a manner that will benefit the advertiser.
In addition to this basic purpose, advertising may be used for the following functions:
i. To inform the prospective buyers about the availability of new products and improvements in existing products.
ii. To maintain sales volume and market share in the face of intense competition.
iii. To create demand and expand the market. Advertising promotes the sale of goods and services by persuading people to buy them.
iv. To create and enhance the goodwill of the firm. Through institutional advertising a firm can build a favourable corporate image which is a permanent asset.
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v. To warn the people against imitation and spurious products.
Objectives of Advertising – 3 Main Advertising Objectives
As with all marketing activities, objectives must be set for advertising and should include the following:
(i) Who and Where:
It is critical to define the target audience as exactly as possible. Defining the target audience allows the media buyers in the advertising agency to plan for an economical coverage and build up the media schedule to give a cumulative coverage of the desired audience. It is also important to agree what percentage coverage of this desired audience will be acceptable.
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(ii) When:
Liming needs to be balanced with the requirement for each separate campaign to have sufficient impact. Also, it is important to note the difference in seasons between the northern and southern hemispheres. In the northern hemisphere we enjoy a cold December, whereas people in the southern hemisphere celebrate their “green” Christmas in the midst of their summer.
(iii) What and How:
The message that the agency’s creative team will encapsulate has to be the right message for the product and the audience; thus, the impact required may also determine the medium used.
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The most important aspect of an advertising plan is that it should be quantified as much as possible so that the subsequent performance of the advertising itself can be measured. If affordable, both awareness and attitude should be measured after each campaign. Unless awareness was already very high, the advertising should have achieved a measurable increase; it should also have brought about the planned attitude shifts.
In general, there are three main advertising objectives:
1. Building awareness,
2. Creating favourable attitudes, and
3. Maintaining customer loyalty.
1. Building Awareness (Informing):
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The first task of any advertising is to make the audiences appreciate that the product or service exists and to explain exactly what it is. Spontaneous awareness is measured as the proportion of those who can remember the brand without a prompting.
Prompted awareness, which is usually much higher, measures the proportion who can recognize the brand when a prompt card (listing its name amongst other competitive brands) is shown to the respondents. Recall tests explore what consumers can remember about the elements within the advertising (in the case of aided recall, with the benefit of being shown the advertisement).
2. Creating Favourable Attitudes (Persuading):
The next objective, and the one that preoccupies most advertisers, is to create favourable attitudes toward the brand that will eventually lead the customer to switch their purchasing patterns. Most advertisements are normally designed to have an impact on specific attitudes. Ideally, in the most sophisticated approaches, the research should check that the brand has achieved the new position that was set as the objective.
3. Maintaining Customer Loyalty (Reinforcing):
One of the tasks that is often forgotten is maintaining the loyalty of existing customers, who will almost always represent the main source of future sales. It is known that maintaining loyal customers is more profitable than gaining new customers. The acid test of advertising is the additional sales generated. Due to the multitude of other factors usually involved, this is normally a difficult, if not impossible, causal measurement to make. However, it is an exercise that should be undertaken, no matter how approximate the results may be.
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The question “Just how effective is advertising?” is an age-old pursuit of any business organization. Lord Leverhulme, the founder of Unilever, had made the famous comment that he was sure that half of his advertising did not work—but the problem was that he did not know which half. This view is reinforced by Abraham and Lodish, whose research showed that only 46 percent of advertising campaigns for established brands showed a positive impact on sales, while this ratio was slightly higher at 59 percent for new products.
One researcher took the 200 most-praised ads from around the world for the years 1992 and 1993 to see whether they had increased sales, market share, or brand awareness. Overall he found that 80 percent of the ads were successful by using one of those measures. However, it should be noted with caution that most of the data from the study came from the ad agencies themselves.
Similarly, there is an increased public distrust of both the entertainment and news media, media that receive billions of advertising dollars every year. Parents are highly concerned about sex and violence on TV and in movies. An alarming 70 percent of the public think that those who control the TV industry do not share their moral values. And 63 percent said news reporting is often improperly influenced by the media’s desire to make a profit.
The big question that cannot be dodged by marketers is – How can trust be nurtured via media that are becoming saturated by mistrust? Marketers first need to think about how well the content of their advertising responds to consumer demand for honesty and impartiality.
As it stands, few measure up – Airline ads headlining one-way fares rather than round trips; car leasing deals where the catch is in the details of hidden costs and restrictions; telecommunications companies that sometimes steal our business without even telling us. Marketers are well advised to choose a medium based on its ability to reinforce the reliability, honesty, and integrity of the message.
Objectives of Advertising
The main objective of advertising is to increase sales to all customers-present, former and future. Advertising increases the present sales and potential demand of the product.
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I. Increasing the Number of Customers:
(a) By Increasing the Customers and Widening the Market:
Advertising through communication media informs consumers about the presence of a product in the market. This works in two ways, first it stimulates demand and then it strengthens the stimulated demand. Thus it serves to widen the market by increasing the buyers.
(b) By Developing a Brand Loyalty:
All manufactures aim to attract prospects in favor of their products and services. Development of loyalty to one’s brand among the customers is important. For example- if one is using a particular brand of soap, then advertising must aim at making him to use only this soap.
(c) Offset the Competing Brands:
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Advertising facilitates the creation, direction and extension of demand for the particular products or services. Many similar products are flowing towards the market and consumers are tempted to buy them through various promotional measures. By focusing the qualities and merits of the product in a better way than other similar products, the competitors can be defeated by capturing their share of the market.
II. Increasing the Consumption Rate among Present Consumer:
(a) Increasing Usage of the Product:
Advertising helps in explaining the multiple uses of product to the masses.
(b) Reminding the Consumers:
For products like woolen dresses, air-coolers etc. which are seasonal. During season they are saleable but during off season, nil sales may be possible. At the arrival of season, customers may not remember the brand used by them before. In these circumstances, advertising reminds the customers about the forgotten products.
(c) Educating the Public:
Advertising is a link between producers and consumers. It plays a role of imparting knowledge about the good or bad reactions of certain product or services to the consumers, e.g., shampoo, hair dye, soap, baby milk powder, hair oil, medicine etc. The understanding of the product, its uses, advantage etc. can be well educated through advertising.
(d) Shaping a Goodwill:
Almost every firm wants to establish a good name in the society. The consumer may prefer a product because of its low price, fashion, after sales service, multiple uses, quality etc. All these merits are known to the consumers through advertising and sales are boosted automatically. Thus a firm can build a goodwill for its products.
Objectives of Advertising – Important and General Objectives
The purpose of advertising is nothing but to sell something — a product, a service or an idea. The real objective of advertising is effective communication between producers and consumers. According to F.E.L. Breach, “The purpose of advertising is to reduce percentage costs of production and distribution.”
The important objectives of advertising are described below:
1. Creation of Demand:
The main objective of the advertisement is to create a favourable climate for maintaining or improving sales mainly in the growth and maturity stages of the life-cycle of a product. Customers are to be commonly reminded about the product and the brand.
It may induce new customers to buy the product by informing them about its qualities since it is possible that some of the customers may change their brands. Thus, in other words, advertisement may bring new areas and customers to the company’s product thereby increasing the company’s share in the total market.
2. To Support Salesmen:
Advertising creates awareness about the product and convinces the prospective buyer by telling about the features and benefits of the product. Thus, it assists the salesman in his work.
3. To Give Information about a New Product:
The aim of advertising is to inform the people about new products and services and to inspire them to purchase them. When a new product is manufactured, it can be advertised through the medium of an effective advertisement. The purpose is to inform and motivate people so that the demand of that product may be increased.
An advertisement provides information to the businessman about the manufactured product and its utility and inspires the common man to purchase that product. Vicco Turmeric Vanishing Cream with flavour of turmeric and sandalwood has been a successful advertisement.
4. Helpful in Facing Competition:
One purpose of advertising is to end the feeling of competition. The products which are advertised, have generally fixed prices and buyers will have to pay the same prices to any sellers. Sometimes, the collective advertising puts a complete end to competition. Customers can buy products from any advertised sellers and the prices will be the same.
5. To Increase Goodwill:
Large-scale advertising is often undertaken with the objective of creating or enhancing the goodwill of the producer company. This, in turn, increases the market receptivity of the company’s product and helps salesmen to win the confidence of customers easily.
6. To Reduce Marketing Cost:
Due to advertising the demand for a product is increased and it acts as an incentive to manufacture goods on a large scale. As a result, the cost per unit of a product is reduced. Middlemen too become ready to sell the product on the lower rate of commission because of its sale in bulk.
7. To Increase the Standard of Living:
The object of i advertising is also to increase the standard of living of the public. Advertising informs consumers about various products available in the market and encourage them to use these new products.
8. To Save from Risk:
Advertising reduces the risk to manufacturers. Whenever a producer produces a new product, advertisement helps create demand, and increase demand for existing products, thus eliminating risk.
9. Informing the Change to Consumers:
Advertising informs consumers about the changes in a product. Whenever changes are made in prices, the channels of distribution or in the product by way of any improvement in quality, size, weight, brand, packaging etc., they are communicated to the public through advertising.
10. Barring New Entrants:
An advertiser builds an image through repetitive advertising. It helps keep new entrants away from the market. The regular advertising builds up certain types of monopoly in the market.
As per William J. Stanton, “It is a sole objective of an advertisement to sell a product or service.”
The following are the general objectives of advertising:
(i) To introduce a new product by creating interest for it among the prospective customers.
(ii) To generate demand for the product and services and capture the market.
(iii) To build a company’s prestige and goodwill.
(iv) To introduce a new product by creating interest for it among the prospective customers and to teach them how to use the product.
(v) To support personal selling programmes.
(vi) To enter a new market or attract a new group of customers.
(vii) To fight competition in the market and to increase sales.
(viii) To enhance the goodwill of the enterprise by promising better quality products and services.
Objectives of Advertising – 7 Major Objectives
It is important to review the communication objectives established during the Integrated Marketing Communication Program (IMC) so as to select the media which would be most suitable for the advertiser. These objectives not only guide media selection but also help in designing the message for the audience.
These objectives are:
1. Reach:
Reach is the key ingredient which features in the advertising program. Reach is the number of households, people, business houses in a target audience should the message be exposed during a given period of time. A time period is normally four weeks. The objective should be to see how many targeted buyers should the ad reach. If the number of target buyers is more then, the media should be different from the other situations when target audience is very specific or few.
2. Frequency:
Frequency is the average number of times an individual, a household or a business house within a particular target market is exposed to a particular advertisement within a specific period. The more frequently the ad is seen by target audience, the more is its effectiveness.
3. Opportunity to See (OTS):
In media planning, instead of frequency; opportunities to see (OTS) is commonly used. Opportunities to see refers to the cumulative exposure achieved in a given period of time by the target audience e.g., if a company puts two ads on a television show that is televised weekly, then during one month period there will be eight OTS i.e., 4 shows multiplied by 2 ads per show.
4. Gross Rating Point (GRP):
Gross rating point means the impact or intensity of media. GRP give the advertiser an idea about the odds of the target audience actually viewing the ad. By increasing the OTS or frequency of an advertisement, the chances of a magazine reader seeing the advertisement increase.
It means that an advertisement in each issue of TIME magazine during four week period is more likely to be seen than advertisement that appears only once in a monthly periodical. Thus, greater the frequency and opportunity to see, the better will be the intensity of an ad. The main goal of the advertiser should be to go for that media which gives greater impact.
5. Cost per Rating Point (CPM):
Cost is a measure of overall expenditure associated with the advertising program or campaign. We can calculate programs cost per thousand i.e., CPM is the rupee cost of reaching thousand members of the media vehicle’s audience.
The cost per thousand is calculated by using the following formulae:
CPM = (Cost of media buy/Total audience) x 100
According to this criteria the media which is most cost effective should be chosen by the advertiser. The CPM is a relative measure of the efficiency of a media vehicle related to a firm’s target market.
6. Continuity:
Continuity is the exposure pattern or schedule used in an advertising campaign. The three types of patterns used are continuous, pulsating and discontinuous. A continuous campaign uses media time in a steady stream. The ads could be shown on a continuous schedule so the advertiser would buy media for a period of one or two years. By using different ads and rotating them, the advertiser will make an impact on target audience as they will see more than one and for the same product for a long time.
In pulsating schedule, the advertiser does minimal level of advertising at all times but there is an increase in advertising efforts at periodic intervals. A retailer may advertise minimally throughout the year but increase the number of advertisements in small, short bursts around holidays including Diwali, Christmas, and New Year etc.
The goal of pulsating advertising is to reach consumers when they are more likely to make purchases or buy special merchandise such as during holidays or festival season. Thus, blockbuster advertisements just before a festival can encourage consumers to purchase blockbuster gifts for celebrations.
A flighting schedule or discontinuous schedule places advertisements at special intervals with no advertising in-between. A Ski resort is following a flighting schedule for advertising when it runs several ads during winter season but none during the summer season.
7. Impressions:
The final objective the advertisers consider is the concept of impressions. The number of gross impressions is the total exposures of the audience to an advertisement. It does not take into consideration what percentage of the total audience may or may not see the advertisement. If the readership of National Geographic is twenty lakhs and if six insertions were placed in national geographic, multiplying the insertion by readership would yield a total of one crore twenty lakh impressions.
Thus, these are the major objectives used by the advertiser while choosing the advertisement program. They are crucial and technical in nature which should not be ignored by the marketer when he is making an integrated communication program.
Objectives of Advertising – General and Specific Objectives
The ultimate objective of advertising is to sell something—a product, service or idea. However, advertising by itself cannot make sales. Therefore, the real objective of advertising is to influence the behaviour of prospective buyers in a manner that will lead to higher sales.
In addition to this general objective, advertising is also used for certain specific objectives which are given below:
1. To introduce a new product by creating awareness and interest for it among the prospective customers.
2. To enter a new market or attract a new group of customers.
3. To fight competition in the market by reminding users to buy the product.
4. To create brand preference and brand loyalty.
5. To support personal selling by opening customer’s doors for salesmen.
6. To enhance the goodwill of the firm by promising better quality at fair prices.
7. To improve dealer relations because dealers prefer to sell products which are effectively advertised.
8. To reach people inaccessible to salesmen.
9. To warn the public against imitations or spurious products.
Objectives of Advertising – Specific Objectives
The specific objectives are statements of the desired or needed results to be achieved within a specified time. These specific objectives may be enhancement of sales, effective communication and establishing advertising objective criteria.
I. Increased Sales:
Advertising aims at increasing sales. The short-term goals are also established by fixing the aim at 20 per cent increase in sales within one year in one district. The target is determined by taking note of the community, social class, etc., to be approached by advertising. The objectives are the broader framework of aims; the goals are for a short period and the targets are consumer classification and behaviour.
Advertisers also frame the budget and the expected returns on it. The objectives are based on the available budget. The advertising business is a very lucrative business in the sense that it increases its profit as well as the profit of the producer. However, if sales do not increase at the initiative of the advertiser, the producer shifts to another.
The objectives, goals and targets should be clearly defined and formulated to achieve the feasible aims. The advertising campaign is launched to increase the use of product, the frequency of use, the variety of use, the frequency of replacement, and so on. The buying season is lengthened by granting discount, allowances, etc.
For example, the purchase of a fan can be stimulated in the winter season by an offer of a 20 per cent discount in price. Advertising campaigns are developed to introduce and support other marketing programmes. An advertisement may announce the facilities available for sales promotion and publicity.
The products of a company are recognised by the name of the company. Negative attributes are turned into positive attributes. These are some of the sub-objectives, known as the goals of advertising, which are specifically determined by the management. The behavioural dynamics and behavioural variables can be used to step-up sales.
i. Behavioural Dynamics:
The behavioural dynamics has three objectives, viz., to increase new customers, increase the loyalty of existing customers and induce existing customers to use the product more extensively.
a. New Customers:
Some customers are unaware of products or brands. They are told through advertising that new products are available and that they have been used by many leading customers. Some customers may be quite indifferent to the product. They are educated by advertising that the products would be very useful for them.
The users of other brands may be motivated to shift to the advertised product or brand. People may be motivated to try the product. Thus, new customers can enter the market for the product. People not using any product or brand may be motivated to start using a particular product or brand.
b. Brand Loyalty:
Consumers may be buying the product or the competitor’s products. There may be some customers who are extremely loyal to the product. The advertiser should try to attract those customers who are using the competitors’ products and persuade them to buy the advertised products. The customers exclusively using a brand should be persuaded to retain loyalty to it. They are reminded of the attributes of the product of brand by periodical advertisements.
c. Increasing Usage:
The usage of existing customers has to be increased by advertising. The goal should be to reduce the time between purchases. Product use can be expanded by educating people in the new uses of the product. Several varieties of uses of the product may be suggested. The increased usage should be the objective of advertising, which may be quantified by the management.
ii. Behaviourable Variables:
The Behaviourable variables are the basis of specific sales objectives. The desired behaviour is identified for achieving the overall sales objective. Each variable is known as a variable goal for the purpose. Consumers are enticed to the variables and identified as the target group.
Advertisements should aim at increasing customer awareness of the brand, the attributes of the product and corporate image. They are motivated to develop an attitude toward the product and persuaded to make trial purchases.
Advertising identifies and selects the appropriate behaviour variables to achieve trial purchases, loyalty, increased use and sales leads. Brand awareness and attribute-knowledge and attitudes are used to motivate trial purchases. The existing attitudes and interest are exploited to maintain loyalty.
Knowledge of new applications assists in stepping up the sales of the product. The company image assists in this process. Advertising objectives are based on intervening such variables as awareness, interest, desire and attitude which are used to step up sales. Consumer behaviour is stimulated by awareness and trial purchases.
Brand loyalty is maintained by repeat purchases. A change is effected in the attitudes and behaviour of the people so that they may know the new uses of the product. Short-term measures are aimed at reminding people of the uses of the product.
II. Effective Communication:
Advertising achieves the objectives of communication and marketing. The communication should mobilise potential customers through the hierarchy of effects so that he gets closer to the stage of purchasing the product. The advertising objectives should be made operational, i.e., those advertising campaigns should be developed which can effectively achieve what the objectives are designed for.
The communication effects are more operational in the development of an advertising strategy than simply assigning vague objectives of communication. Awareness and knowledge, related to information or ideas, liking and preference have to do with favourable attitudes or feelings towards the product. The conviction and purchase issue out of produce-action.
The advertising objectives may be cognitive, affective and connative. Cognitive actions are related to the intellectual, mental or rational state. They are related to the realm of thought advertising by announcements, descriptive copy, and slogans provide information and facts about the product. The affective actions are emotional actions.
Competitive advertising, argumentative copy, image building and status conciseness assist in bringing about a change in attitudes. The connative is in the realm of motives. Point-of-purchase, retail store advertising, price appeals and testimonials, these stimulate or direct desires towards conviction and purchase. Advertising moves the audience along a kind of continuum, starting them through the process of creating interest in and favourable attitude towards, the product and ultimate action.
Advertising is primarily a communication process which provides the market with information on the availability and attributes of alternative products and services. The main advertising objective is to motivate people to purchase the product over and over again.
III. Establishing Advertising Objective Criteria:
The specific advertising objectives are developed for the effective utilisation of the budget, message and media. The advertisers should design the basic message to be sent, determine the intended audience, intended effects of the message, as well as evaluative criteria for the success of the campaign.
The functions of objectives are effective communication, determining the criteria for decision-making and the evaluation of results. Measurement standards are developed to evaluate the effectiveness of advertising. The actual market share, brand awareness and the product are compared with the objectives and performance.
Objectives of Advertising – Specific Objectives and Functions
A crucial step in any management effort is the establishment of operational objectives. In order to determine criteria for decision-making and measurement standards for evaluating the advertising effort, management must first establish advertising objectives. But, there is a wrong feeling that the effect of advertising could be measured in terms of product sales. Reaching the sales goal alone is not an indication of advertising effectiveness. Because, many other factors influence product sales including product availability, price, etc.
It is in this connection that the principle of DAGMAR becomes relevant. The DAGMAR — Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results—approach defines an advertising goal not as a sales quota but as a specific effect on a target audience. In terms of the effect produced, an advertisement can either make the consumer aware of the existence of a product, provide the consumer with information about it, convince the consumer of the product’s advantages over competitive offerings, or actually encourage the consumer to purchase the product.
In Marketing – An Introductory Analysis, Mathews, Buzzell, Levitt and Frank list the following specific objectives of advertising:
1. To make an immediate sale.
2. To build primary demand.
3. To introduce a price deal.
4. To inform about product availability.
5. To build brand recognition or brand insistence.
6. To help salesmen by building an awareness of a product among retailers.
7. To create a reputation for service, reliability or research strength.
8. To increase market share.
9. To modify existing product appeals and buying motives.
10. To inform about new product’s availability or features or price.
11. To increase the frequency of use of a product.
12. To increase the number or quality of retail outlets.
13. To build overall company image.
14. To effect immediate buying action.
15. To reach new areas or new segments of population within existing areas.
16. To develop overseas market.
Some authors prefer to have the functions of advertising grouped under the following headings:
1. Primary function—aspects relating to sales function.
2. Secondary function—aspects relating to helps rendered to the firm.
3. Psychological function—persuasive efforts of advertising.
4. Economic function—economic advantage gained by consumers.
5. Social function—societal gains.
Effective advertising management requires the establishment of goals as the first step. These goals will provide a basis for planning and evaluating advertising efforts. The objectives can either be communication goals or sales goals. In a way, both are complementary. A communication goal would be to convey information or to maintain ‘top of the mind awareness’. This is done by Informing, Persuading and reminding the potential customers.
Objectives of Advertising – Essential for the Success of an Advertising Campaign
The objectives of advertising include those sets of steps and tasks that can help in successful launch of products and can help the firm to garner maximum profits. Just like every company has various goals and objectives to achieve, the objectives of advertising are to help the product gain maximum success.
Without proper advertising objectives, advertising agencies won’t be able to thrive in the tough competition and they may also fail to impress its clients. In essence, objectives of advertising are essential for success of an advertising campaign and an advertising program.
1. Basic Objectives:
Advertising has evolved to become one of the most important industries. The basic objectives of advertising are to secure, develop, innovate and create advertisements to sell a product. All advertising techniques and strategies that are required for making a product successful stem from basic objectives of advertising.
So in essence, objectives of advertising are in line with objectives of firm’s plans and marketing campaigns to generate maximum profits and provide quality service to its customers.
2. Informative Objectives:
One of the first objectives of advertising campaigns is to inform customers about products and its development. Through informative objectives, customers are informed about the product, its working, pricing and cost standards. Besides these, informative advertising objectives include developing awareness about the product and the company among consumers. Now, these objectives are achieved during launch and re-launch of a new or an already existing product.
3. Persuasive Objectives:
When a firm focuses its marketing strategies on very highly competitive markets, it involves tools of persuasive marketing to go ahead of its competitor by adopting methods of ‘comparison advertising’. This is a very common observation in day-to-day life. Firms with same brands are often seen proving their products better than their rival.
4. Reminder Objectives:
Some products that have become legends are always in the mind of customers. However, it doesn’t mean that advertising firms don’t work on advertising those products. One of the objectives of advertising, called as reminder advertising is done by firms that have to retain some of their brands in the market. Such advertising technique is used by firms like Reebok, Nike, and Coco Cola etc. to maintain their position in the market.
5. Advertising Message:
An appealing message to the audience is the most essential part of every advertising campaign. Without an effective advertising message, it’s impossible for any firm to succeed and achieve its objectives. Due to immense information that is projected on the minds of consumers, striking and impressing the consumer is very difficult. Hence, advertising messages become extremely crucial.
6. Communicate Effectively:
Now a days just being an inexpensive product and with quality features may not be enough for the success of a product. The product must establish an emotional connection with the consumer. Through series of market research, it has been proved that products that are able to influence consumers at emotional level are always best sellers. So the bottom line of advertising objectives is to communicate effectively.
Objectives of Advertising
The objectives of advertising refer to the intention of the advertiser. Advertising has several objectives.
Its main objectives are:
1. To create demand for a new product by informing the prospect of the existence of the product, its special attributes, uses, etc.
2. To maintain the demand for an existing product by explaining the merits of the product.
3. To extend the market, i.e., to increase the demand, for an existing product by emphasing the superiority of the product over the other products and weaning (i.e., taking) the customers away from the rival products.
4. To warn the public against the imitation of the particular product by others (i.e., other producers) through precise description of the special features of the product.
5. To assist the salesmen in their efforts to promote sales.
6. To popularise and establish an image of the product and build up reputation and goodwill for the producer.
7. To induce the dealers (i.e., wholesalers and retailers) to stock the goods advertised.
8. To help the dealers to sell the products without much difficulty and expense.
Objectives of Advertising – Customer-Oriented Objectives, Exposure-Oriented Objectives and Other Specific Objectives
This is an area in which the product manager plays a vital role.
He can set as follows:
i. Customer-oriented objectives,
ii. Exposure-oriented objectives and
iii. Other specific objectives.
i. Customer-Oriented Objectives:
Advertising has to sell, and therefore sales leading to profits are the most obvious objectives. Ad agencies create ads at great cost to generate demand for the products. Sales objectives are however problematic. Advertising, first of all, is not the variable that contributes to sales. There are multiple variables. Besides, ads show effects after a period of time.
Advertising has to aim at creating interest and awareness. It has to induce positive attitudes leading to an intention to buy. Products could be low-involvement products and marketing efforts including advertising lead to direct purchase. Products could be high involvement products and here product evaluation is a laborious process. There could be either direction action (purchase) or no action. It all depends on product evaluation.
Foot, Cone and Belding (FCB) model examines how advertising works differently for different products. The FCB grid classifies the products into thinking and feeling products and uses a 2×2 matrix to help direct the communication package. There are low involvement and high involvement products. Low involvement products do not engage customers cognitively or emotionally. High involvement products occupy customers both cognitively and emotionally.
It is also important while selecting ad objectives to understand the target audience – current customers, competitor’s customers or non-customers. These different targets influence the objectives chosen.
ii. Exposure-Oriented or Media-Planning Objectives:
These media-related objectives are expressed in terms of reach, frequency or GRPs. Reach denotes the number of persons receiving at least one exposure. Frequency denotes the average number customer. GRPs or reach multiplied by frequency are the total number of advertising exposures received. Ad these objectives are defined in terms of a target audience.
Reach and frequency are arrived at by assessing the number of exposures needed to make the advertising effective. The overall constraint operating on these objectives is the advertising budget.
iii. Specific Objectives:
Ads can aim at increasing the awareness level from X per cent to Y per cent. They can improve favourable attitude towards a brand by one point on 1-7 scale. They can improve the usage from X units to Y units per year. They can generate X number of enquiries or X number of footfalls for a retailer. In terms of exposures, ads can aim at reaching X per cent of target audience at least once in a quarter of a year and 7 per cent at least four times.