CHAPTER 16
Advertising and Public Relations
TEACHING RESOURCES QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE
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Purpose and Perspective
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Lecture Outline
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Discussion Starters
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Class Exercises
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Chapter Quiz
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Semester Project
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Answers to Issues for Discussion and Review
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Answers to Developing Your Marketing Plan
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Comments on Video Case 16
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PURPOSE AND PERSPECTIVE
This chapter presents a detailed discussion of two promotion mix ingredients—advertising and public
relations. The first part of the chapter focuses on the nature and types of advertising. It also analyzes the
major steps in developing an advertising campaign. Then, it discusses who is responsible for developing
advertising campaigns. The second part of the chapter focuses on the nature of public relations. It first
examines a variety of public relations tools. It then focuses on the specific public relations tools
associated with publicity. Finally, it explores the requirements for using public relations effectively and
dealing with unfavorable publicity.
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LECTURE OUTLINE
I. The Nature and Types of Advertising
A. Advertising is a paid form of nonpersonal communication transmitted through mass media, such as
television, radio, the Internet, newspapers, magazines, direct mail, outdoor displays, and signs on
mass transit vehicles.
1. Effective advertising can have a profound impact on how consumers view certain products.
2. Many nonbusiness organizations also engage in advertising to communicate with
stakeholders.
3. It is used to promote goods, services, ideas, images, issues, people, and anything else
advertisers want to publicize or foster.
B. Depending on what is being promoted, advertising can be classified as institutional or product
advertising.
1. Institutional advertising promotes organizational images, ideas, and political issues.
a. It can be used to create or maintain an organizational image, and it may aim to create a
more favorable view of the organization in the eyes of noncustomer groups.
b. Advocacy advertising is a type of institutional advertising that promotes a company’s
position on a public issue.
2. Product advertising promotes the uses, features, and benefits of products. There are two
types of product advertising: pioneer and competitive.
a. Pioneer advertising focuses on stimulating demand for a product category (rather
than a specific brand) by informing potential customers about the product’s features,
uses, and benefits.
(1) Sometimes marketers will begin advertising a product before it hits the market.
Product advertising that focuses on products before they are available tends to
cause people to think about the product more and evaluate it more positively.
(2) Pioneer advertising is also employed when a product is in its introductory stage.
b. Competitive advertising attempts to stimulate demand for a specific brand by
indicating a brand’s features, uses, and advantages, sometimes through indirect or
direct comparisons with competing brands.
(1) Comparative advertising compares the sponsored brand with one or more
identified brands on the basis of one or more product characteristics.
(a) Under the provisions of the 1988 Trademark Law Revision Act,
marketers using comparative advertisements in the United States must not
misrepresent the qualities or characteristics of competing products.
(2) Reminder advertising tells customers that an established brand is still around
and still offers certain characteristics, uses, and advantages.
(3) Reinforcement advertising assures current users they have made the right
brand choice and tells them how to get the most satisfaction from that brand.
c. Another growing trend is native advertising.
(1) Native advertising is digital advertising that matches the appearance and
purpose of the content in which it is embedded.
(a) The word “native” refers to the fact that this form of advertising is meant
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to resemble the content itself.
(b) However, native advertising can be potentially misleading when
consumers do not realize that a video or post is sponsored by an
organization.
(c) To avoid deception and possible legal repercussions, brands should
clearly identify sponsored content on digital media sites.
II. Developing an Advertising Campaign
A. An advertising campaign involves designing a series of advertisements and placing them in
various advertising media to reach a particular target audience.
1. The major steps in creating an advertising campaign are:
a. Identifying and analyzing the target audience
b. Defining the advertising objectives
c. Creating the advertising platform
d. Determining the advertising appropriation
e. Developing the media plan
f. Creating the advertising message
g. Executing the campaign
h. Evaluating advertising effectiveness.
2. The number of steps and the exact order in which they are carried out can vary according to
the organization’s resources, the nature of its products, and the type of target audience to be
reached.
B. Identifying and Analyzing the Target Audience
1. The target audience is the group of people toward whom advertisements are aimed.
2. A target audience may include everyone in the firm’s target market, but at times marketers
may wish to direct a campaign at only a portion of the target market.
3. Advertisers research and analyze target audiences to establish an information base for a
campaign.
a. Information commonly needed includes location and geographic distribution of the
target group; the distribution of age, income, race, gender, and education; lifestyle
information; and consumer attitudes regarding the purchase and use of both the
advertiser’s products and competing products.
b. Advertisers must be sure to use this information to create a campaign that will
resonate with the target market.
4. Generally, the more advertisers know about the target audience, the more likely they will
develop an effective advertising campaign.
C. Defining the Advertising Objectives
1. Because advertising objectives guide campaign development, advertisers should define their
advertising objectives carefully.
2. Advertising objectives should be stated clearly, precisely, and in measurable terms.
a. Precision and measurability allow advertisers to evaluate advertising success at the
campaign’s end in terms of whether the objectives have been met.
(1) To provide precision and measurability, advertising objectives should contain
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benchmarks and indicate how far an advertiser wishes to move from the
benchmark.
(2) An advertising objective should specify a time frame so advertisers know
exactly how long they have to accomplish the objective.
3. When an advertiser defines objectives in terms of sales, the objectives focus on increasing
absolute dollar sales, increasing sales by a certain percentage, or increasing the firm’s market
share.
a. When objectives are stated in terms of communication, they are designed to increase
brand or product awareness, make consumers’ attitudes more favorable, or increase
consumers’ knowledge of a product’s features.
D. Creating the Advertising Platform
1. An advertising platform consists of the basic issues or selling points an advertiser wishes to
include in the advertising campaign.
2. A marketer’s advertising platform should consist of issues important to consumers.
a. One of the best ways to determine those issues is to survey consumers about what they
consider most important in the selection and use of the product involved.
b. Research is the most effective method for determining the issues of an advertising
platform, but it is expensive.
3. Because the advertising platform is a base on which to build the message, marketers should
analyze this stage carefully.
4. If the advertisements communicate information consumers do not consider important when
they select and use the product, the campaign can fail.
E. Determining the Advertising Appropriation
1. The advertising appropriation is the total amount of money a marketer allocates for
advertising for a specific time period.
2. Many factors affect a firm’s decision about how much to appropriate for advertising,
including size of geographic market, distribution of buyers within the market, type of
product advertised, and the firm’s sales volume relative to competitors’.
3. Various techniques are used to determine the advertising appropriation.
a. In the objective-and-task approach, marketers determine the objectives that a
campaign is to achieve and then attempt to list the tasks required to accomplish them.
Once the tasks have been determined, their costs are added to ascertain the
appropriation needed to accomplish the objectives.
b. In the percent-of-sales approach, marketers multiply a firm’s past sales, plus a factor
for planned sales growth or decline, by a standard percentage based on both what the
organization traditionally spends on advertising and the industry averages. This
approach is based on the flawed assumption that sales create advertising rather than
the reverse.
c. In the competition-matching approach, marketers try to match their major
competitors’ appropriations in terms of absolute dollars or to allocate the same
percentage of sales for advertising that competitors allocate.
d. In the arbitrary approach, a high-level executive in the firm states how much can be
spent on advertising for a certain time period. This approach often leads to over– or
underspending.
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F. Developing the Media Plan
1. Advertisers spend tremendous amounts on advertising. Total spending continues to increase,
and digital advertising is growing rapidly.
2. To derive the maximum results from media expenditures, a marketer must develop an
effective media plan, which sets forth the exact media vehicles to be used and the dates and
times the advertisements will appear.
a. To formulate a media plan, a planner must first decide which kinds of media to use
and then prepare a time schedule for each.
(1) The media planner’s primary goal is to reach the largest number of people in the
advertising target that the budget will allow.
(2) A secondary goal is to achieve the appropriate message reach and frequency for
the target audience while staying within budget.
(a) Reach is the percentage of consumers in the target audience actually
exposed to a particular advertisement in a stated period of time
(b) Frequency is the number of times these targeted consumers are exposed
to the advertisements
3. Media planners must consider many factors, moving from broad decisions at the beginning
to very specific ones, when formulating the media plan.
a. They should analyze the location and demographic characteristics of people in the
target audience because people’s tastes in media differ, according to demographic
groups and locations.
b. They should consider the sizes and types of audiences for specific media reach.
c. Declining broadcast television ratings have led many companies to explore alternative
media, including ads on cell phones and product placements in video games.
d. New media like social networking sites are also attracting advertisers due to their large
reach.
(1) When advertising is a part of a social networking site, consumers need to see
the advertising as beneficial, or it may lead them to abandon the site.
4. The content of the message sometimes affects media choice.
a. Print media can be used more effectively than broadcast media to present many issues
or numerous details.
b. When colors, patterns, and textures are important, media which yields high-quality
reproduction, such as magazines or television, should be used.
5. Media planners should try to obtain the best coverage possible for each dollar spent.
a. There is no accurate way to compare the cost and impact of a television commercial
with the cost and impact of a newspaper advertisement.
b. A cost comparison indicator lets an advertiser compare the costs of several vehicles
within a specific medium relative to the number of persons reached by each vehicle.
6. Media scheduling decisions are affected by numerous factors. There are three general types
of media schedules: continuous, flighting, and pulsing.
a. In a continuous schedule, advertisements run at a constant level with little variation
throughout the campaign period.
b. In a flighting schedule, advertisements run for set periods of time, alternating with
periods in which no ads run.
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c. A pulsing schedule is a combination of continuous and flighting schedules: during the
entire campaign, a certain portion of advertising runs continuously, and during specific
time periods of the campaign, additional advertising is used to intensify the level of
communication with the target audience.
G. Creating the Advertising Message
1. The basic content and form of an advertising message are influenced by several factors.
a. A product’s features, uses, and benefits affect the content of the message.
b. The intensity of the advertising and consumer acceptance of push advertising affects
the form of advertising and its content.
c. Characteristics of people in the target audience, including gender, age, education, race,
income, occupation, lifestyle, life stage, and other attributes, influence both the
content and the form.
d. To communicate effectively, advertisers use words, symbols, and illustrations that are
meaningful, familiar, and appealing to people in the target audience.
e. An advertising campaign’s objectives and platform also affect the content and form of
its messages.
(1) If a firm’s advertising objectives involve large sales increases, the message may
have to be stated in hard-hitting, high-impact language and symbols.
(2) Choice of media obviously influences the content and form of the message.
(a) Effective outdoor displays and short broadcast spot announcements
require concise, simple messages.
(b) Magazine and newspaper advertisements can include numerous details
and long explanations.
(c) Some magazine publishers print regional issues, in which advertisements
and editorials vary between geographic regions. Precise message content
can be tailored to a particular geographic section of the advertising target.
H. Copy
1. Copy is the verbal portion of the advertisement and may include headlines, subheadlines,
body copy, and signature. Not all advertising copy contains all of these copy elements.
a. The headline is critical because it is often the only part of the copy people read. It
should attract readers’ attention and create enough interest to make them want to read
the body copy or visit the website.
b. The subheadline links the headline to body copy and sometimes helps explain the
headline.
c. Body copy consists of an introductory statement or paragraph, several explanatory
paragraphs, and a closing paragraph. Some copywriters have adopted guidelines for
developing body copy systematically:
(1) Identify a specific desire or problem
(2) Recommend the product as the best way to satisfy that desire or solve that
problem
(3) State product benefits and indicate why the product is best for the buyer’s
particular situation
(4) Substantiate advertising claims
(5) Ask the buyer to take action
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d. The signature contains the firm’s trademark, logo, name, and address, identifying the
sponsor. It should be attractive, legible, distinctive, and easy to identify in a variety of
sizes.
2. Radio copy should be informal and conversational and consist of short, familiar terms to
attract listeners’ attention and result in greater impact.
3. In television copy, the audio material must not overpower the visual material, and vice versa.
a. A storyboard depicts a series of miniature television screens showing the sequence of
major scenes in the commercial.
I. Artwork
1. Artwork consists of an advertisement’s illustration and layout.
a. Illustrations are often photographs, but they can also be presented as drawings,
graphs, charts, and tables. They are used to spark audience interest in an
advertisement.
b. The layout is the physical arrangement of an advertisement’s illustration and the copy
(headline, sub-headline, body copy, and signature).
J. Executing the Campaign
1. The execution of an advertising campaign requires an extensive amount of planning and
coordination.
2. Implementation requires detailed schedules to ensure various phases of the work are done on
time. Advertising management personnel must evaluate the quality of work and take
corrective action when necessary.
K. Evaluating Advertising Effectiveness
1. There are a variety of ways to test the effectiveness of advertising.
a. Measuring achievement of advertising objectives
b. Assessing the effectiveness of copy, illustrations, or layout
c. Evaluating certain media
2. Advertising can be evaluated before, during, and after the campaign.
a. Evaluations performed before the campaign begins are called pretests.
(1) To pretest advertisements, marketers sometimes use a consumer jury, which is
a panel of existing or potential buyers of the advertised product.
(2) During such a test, jurors are asked to judge one or several dimensions of two or
more advertisements.
(3) Such tests are based on the belief that consumers are more likely than
advertising experts to know what will influence them.
b. To measure advertising effectiveness during a campaign, marketers usually rely on
inquiries or responses.
(1) In the initial stages of a campaign, an advertiser may use several advertisements
simultaneously, each containing a coupon, form, toll-free number, QR code,
social media site, or website through which potential customers can request
information.
(2) The advertiser records the number of inquiries returned and determines which
advertisement generated the most responses.
c. Evaluation of advertising effectiveness after the campaign is called a posttest.
(1) Advertising objectives often determine what kind of posttest is appropriate.
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(a) If the objectives focus on communication, then the posttest should
measure changes in product awareness, brand awareness, or customer
attitudes.
(b) For campaign objectives stated in terms of sales, the posttest should
measure changes in sales or market share attributable to the campaign.
(2) Because it is difficult to determine advertising’s direct effects on sales,
advertisers may evaluate advertisements according to how well consumers can
remember them.
(3) Posttest methods based on memory include recognition and recall tests.
(a) In a recognition test, individual respondents are shown the actual
advertisement and asked whether they recognize it.
(b) Recall can be measured through either unaided or aided recall methods.
An unaided recall test is a post test that asks subjects to identify recently
seen ads but does not provide any clues. An aided recall test is a post
test that asks subjects to identify recently seen ads and provides clues,
such as a list of products, brands, company names, or trademarks, to jog
their memories.
(c) The major justification for using recognition and recall methods is that
individuals are more likely to buy the product if they can remember an
advertisement about it than if they cannot.
(4) Researchers also use a technique called single-source data to evaluate
advertisements.
(a) With this technique, individuals’ behaviors are tracked in ways ranging
from television viewing habits to checkout counters.
III. Who Develops the Advertising Campaign?
A. In very small firms, one or two individuals are responsible for performing advertising activities.
1. Usually, these individuals depend heavily on local media (TV, radio, and newspaper) for
artwork, copywriting, and advice about scheduling media.
B. In certain large businesses, and especially large retail organizations, advertising departments or
separate advertising agencies create and implement advertising campaigns.
1. Depending on the size of the advertising program, an advertising department may consist of
a few multi-skilled individuals or a sizable number of specialists, such as copywriters, artists,
social media experts, media buyers, and technical production coordinators.
C. When an organization uses an advertising agency, the development of the advertising campaign is
usually a joint effort of the agency and the organization.
1. The degree to which each participates in the campaign’s total development depends on the
working relationship between the organization and the agency. The organization ordinarily
relies on the agency for copywriting, artwork, technical production, and formulation of the
media plan.
2. An advertising agency can assist a business in several ways.
a. An agency, especially a large one, can supply the services of highly skilled
specialists—not only copywriters, artists, and production coordinators but also media
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experts, researchers, and legal advisers.
b. Agency personnel often have broad experience in advertising and are usually more
objective than the organization’s employees about their products.
c. The services of an advertising agency can be obtained at a low or moderate cost
because the agency usually receives its compensation through a 15 percent
commission paid by the media from which it makes purchases.
IV. Public Relations
A. Public relations is a broad set of communication efforts used to create and maintain favorable
relationships between an organization and its stakeholders, both internal and external.
1. Public relations can be used to promote people, places, ideas, activities, and even countries.
2. Public relations focuses on enhancing the image of the total organization.
3. Because the public’s attitudes toward a firm are likely to affect the sales of its products, it is
very important for firms to maintain positive public perceptions.
B. Public Relations Tools
1. Companies use a variety of public relations tools, using written material and digital media, to
convey messages and create images.
a. Public relations materials such as brochures, newsletters, company magazines, news
releases, websites, blogs, and annual reports reach and influence the various
stakeholders.
b. Corporate identity materials such as logos, business cards, stationery, and signs are
created to make a firm immediately recognizable.
c. Speeches are another public relations tool and can affect the organization’s image.
d. Event sponsorship, in which a company pays for part or all of a special event, is an
effective means of increasing brand recognition with relatively minimal investment.
2. Publicity, which is a part of public relations, is communication in news-story form about an
organization, its products, or both, transmitted through a mass medium at no charge.
a. The most common publicity-based tool is the news release, or press release, which is
usually a single page of typewritten copy containing fewer than 300 words and
describing a company event or product.
b. A feature article is a manuscript of as many as 3,000 words prepared for a specific
publication.
c. A captioned photograph is a photograph with a brief description explaining the
picture’s content.
d. A press conference is a meeting called to announce major news events.
e. Publicity-based public relations tools offer several advantages, including:
(1) Credibility
(2) News value
(3) Significant word-of-mouth communications
(4) A perception of being endorsed by the media
(5) A relatively low cost.
f. Publicity-based public relations tools also have some limitations.
(1) Marketers cannot control whether the media choose to publish them at all.
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(2) Media personnel must judge company messages to be newsworthy if the
messages are to be published or broadcast at all. Consequently, messages must
be timely, interesting, accurate, and in the public interest.
C. Evaluating Public Relations Effectiveness
1. Because of the potential benefits of good public relations, it is essential that organizations
evaluate the effectiveness of their public relations campaigns.
2. Research can be conducted to determine how well a firm is communicating its messages or
image to target audiences.
a. Environmental monitoring identifies changes in public opinion affecting an
organization.
b. A public relations audit is used to assess an organization’s image among the public or
to evaluate the effect of a specific public relations program.
c. A communications audit may include a content analysis of messages, a readability
study, or a readership survey.
d. A social audit measures the extent to which stakeholders view an organization as
socially responsible.
3. One approach to measuring the effectiveness of publicity-based public relations is to count
the number of exposures in the media.
a. Although counting the number of media exposures does not reveal how many people
have actually read or heard the company’s message or what they thought about the
message afterward, measuring changes in product awareness, knowledge, and attitudes
resulting from the publicity campaign can provide this information.
D. Dealing with Unfavorable Public Relations
1. Many companies will have to deal with unplanned and unfavorable publicity resulting from
unsafe products, accidents, controversial employee actions, or some other negative event or
situation.
2. A single negative event that produces unfavorable public relations can wipe out a company’s
favorable image and destroy positive consumer attitudes that took years to build through
expensive advertising campaigns and other types of promotional efforts.
a. To protect its image, an organization needs to take steps to prevent misconduct and
unfavorable public relations, or at least lessen its effect should it occur.
3. Because negative events can happen to even the most cautious firms, organizations should
have predetermined plans in place to handle them when they do occur to reduce the adverse
impact.
4. By being forthright with the press and public and taking prompt action, firms may be able to
convince the public of their honest attempts to deal with the situation, and news personnel
may be more willing to help explain complex issues to the public.
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DISCUSSION STARTERS
Discussion Starter 1: Dove Campaign for Real Beauty
ASK: How many of you feel that most beauty advertising conveys an impossible standard for women to
achieve?
Unilever, Dove’s parent company, conducted a study about women’s attitudes toward their own physical
Discussion Starter 2: BMW Advertising Movies
ASK: How is the Internet driving new advertising concepts?
Students should be able to provide a variety of examples of how the Internet has transformed traditional
Discussion Starter 3: Pros and cons of using celebrities in advertisements
ASK: What are the pros and cons of building an advertising campaign around a celebrity?
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