Marketing Chapter 9 The Creative Side Other Message Approaches Addition The Basic Categories Selling

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Chapter 9: The Creative Side

Other Message Approaches

 In addition to the basic categories of selling premises, some common message

formulas emphasize different types of effects. The planner uses these terms as a way

to give direction to the creative team and to shape the executions. Here are some of

them:

 A straightforward factual or informational message conveys information without

any gimmicks, emotions, or special effects.

 A demonstration focuses on how to use the product or what it can do for you.

 A comparison is a contrast of two or more products to show the advertiser’s

brand superiority. The comparison can be either direct or indirect.

 In the spokesperson or endorser format, the ad features celebrities, created

characters, experts we respect, or someone “just like us” whose advice we might

seek out to speak on behalf of the product to build credibility. A recent FTC rule

makes endorsers as well as advertisers liable for false or unsubstantiated claims,

so spokespersons have to be very careful about what they say about products they

advertise.

 Teasers are mystery ads that don’t identify the product or don’t deliver enough

information to make sense, but they are designed to arouse curiosity. These are

often used to launch a new product.

 The use of celebrities as spokespersons, endorsers, or brand symbols is an

important strategy because it associates the brand positively – or negatively – with

a famous person and qualities that make that person a celebrity. Prior to Michael

Chapter 9: The Creative Side

 Another aspect of celebrity effectiveness is their appeal or influence. There are a

number of ways to measure a celebrity’s appeal or influence, such as the E score,

Matching Messages to Objectives

What types of messages deliver which objectives? The Facets Model can be helpful in

thinking through objectives and their related strategies.

 Messages that get attention. To be effective, an advertisement needs to get exposure

through the media buy and get attention through the message. Getting consumers’

attention requires stopping power. Creative advertising breaks through the old

 Messages that create interest. Keeping attention reflects the ad’s pulling power. An

interesting thought keeps reader or viewer attention and pulls them through to the end

of the message. Ads that open with questions or dubious statements are designed to

create curiosity.

 Messages that create believability. Advertising sometimes uses a credibility strategy

to intensify the believability of a message. Using data to support or prove a claim is

critical.

 Messages that are remembered. Not only do messages have to stop (get attention)

and pull (create interest); they also have to stick (in memory), which is another

important part of the perceptual process. Most advertisements are carefully designed

to ensure that these memory traces are easy to recall.

Chapter 9: The Creative Side

and interactive ads and most television commercials feature a key visual, a vivid

image that the advertiser hopes will linger in the viewer’s mind. Color may be a

memory cue, as with Wrigley’s Doublemint Gum.

 Messages that touch emotions. Emotional appeals create feeling-based responses

such as love, fear, anxiety, envy, sexual attraction, happiness and joy, sorrow, safety

and security, pride, pleasure, embarrassment, and nostalgia. Appetite appeal uses

 Messages that inform. Companies often use news announcements to provide

information about new products, to tout reformulated products, or even let consumers

know about new uses for old products. The news angle, which is often delivered by

publicity stories, is information focused. Comparison ads are often heavy on

information and used to explain a product’s point of difference and competitive

advantage.

 Messages that teach. People learn through instruction so some advertisements are

designed to teach, such as demonstrations that show how something works or how to

 Messages that persuade. Persuasive messages are designed to affect attitudes and

create belief. Endorsements by celebrities or experts are used to intensify conviction.

Conviction is often built on strong, rational arguments that use such techniques as test

 Messages that create brand associations. The transformative power of branding,

where the brand takes on a distinctive character and meaning, is one of marketing

 Messages that drive action. Even harder to accomplish than conviction is a change in

behavior. It often happens that people believe one thing and do another. Sales

promotion, for example, works in tandem with advertising to stimulate immediate

action using sampling, coupons, and free gifts as incentives for action.

Chapter 9: The Creative Side

 Most ads end with a signature of some kind that serves to identify the company or

brand, but it also serves as a call to action and gives direction to the consumer about

how to respond, such as a toll-free number, a website URL, or an email address.

 Ultimately, advertisers want loyal customers who purchase and repurchase the

WHAT ISSUES AFFECT THE MANAGEMENT OF CREATIVE STRATEGY

AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION?

Next, let’s look at three management issues that affect the formulation of creative

strategies: extension, adaptation, and evaluation.

Extension: An Idea with Legs

 One characteristic of a Big Idea is that it gives legs to a campaign. By that we mean

that the idea is strong enough to serve as an umbrella concept for a variety of

executions in different media talking to different audiences. It can be endlessly

extended. Extendibility is a strength of the Chick-fil-A, Geico, and Frontier Airlines’

talking-animal campaigns.

Adaptation: Taking an Idea Global

 The opportunity for standardizing the campaign across multiple markets exists only if

the objectives and strategic position are essentially the same. Otherwise a creative

strategy may call for a little tweaking of the message for a local market or even major

revision if there is a great deal of cultural and market difference.

 In a case in which core targeting and positioning strategies remain the same in

different markets, it might be possible for the central creative idea to be universal

across markets. Although the implementation of this idea may vary from market to

Evaluation: The Go/No-Go Decision

 How do you decide if the creative idea is strong enough to justify the expense of

creating a campaign based on it? Whether local or global, an important part of

managing creative work is evaluation, which happens at several stages in the creative

process. Everyone can learn to be more critical about the brand messages that they

see. The first question to ask is, Is it on strategy?

Chapter 9: The Creative Side

Structural Analysis

 The Leo Burnett agency utilizes a three-step approach for analyzing the logic of the

creative strategy that goes beyond just evaluating strategy. It is used to keep the

message strategy and creative concept working together, along with the head and the

heart appeals. This method, called structural analysis, relies upon three steps:

1. Evaluate the power of the narrative or story line (heart).

3. Consider how well the two are integrated—that is, how the story line brings the

claim to life.

END-OF-CHAPTER SUPPORT

REVIEW QUESTIONS

9-3. This chapter argues that effective advertising is both a science and an art.

Explain what this means and give examples of each.

Effective advertising is a product of both science (persuasion) and art (creativity). The

message plan, for example, is a rational analysis of a problem and what is needed to solve

that problem. However, this logical plan must be translated into a creative idea that is

9-4. How do various strategic approaches deliver on the objectives identified in the

Facets Model of Effects?

Common message objectives that relate to the Facet Model of Effects are listed below:

 See/hear—create attention, awareness, interest, recognition

 Feel—touch emotions and create feelings

 Think/learn/understand—deliver information, aid understanding, and create recall

 Connect—establish brand identity and associations, transform a product into a

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189

 Step 4: Incubation. Try to put your conscious mind to rest to let your subconscious

take over.

 Step 5: Illumination. Embrace the unexpected moment when the idea comes, often

when your mind is relaxed and you’re doing something else.

 Step 6: Evaluation. Does it work? Is it on strategy?

9-9. Explain how brainstorming is used in IMC.

As part of the creative process, some agencies use a thinking technique known as

brainstorming, in which a group of 6 to 10 people work together to come up with ideas.

One person’s idea stimulates someone else’s, and the combined power of the group

associations stimulates far more ideas than any one person could think of alone. The

9-10. List four characteristics of creative people. How do you rate yourself on those

factors?

Research indicates that creative people tend to be independent, assertive, self-sufficient,

persistent, and self-disciplined, with a high tolerance for ambiguity. They are also risk

takers with powerful egos that are internally driven. They don’t care much about group

standards and opinions and typically have inborn skepticism and strong curiosity.

Following is a list of key characteristics of creative people who do well in advertising:

 Problem solving. Creative problem solvers are alert, watchful, and observant, and

reach conclusions through intuition rather than through logic. They also tend to have

a mental playfulness that allows them to make novel associations.

 The ability to visualize. Most of the information we accumulate comes through sight,

so the ability to manipulate visual images is crucial for good copywriters, as well as

designers.

Chapter 9: The Creative Side

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

9-11. Divide the class into groups of 6 to 10 people and discuss this problem: Your

community wants to encourage people to get out of their cars and use alternative forms

of transportation. Brainstorm for 15 minutes as a group, accumulating every possible

idea. How many ideas are generated?

Here’s how to run a brainstorming group:

 Appoint one member to be the recorder who lists all the ideas as they are mentioned.

 Appoint another member to be the moderator and suggest techniques described in this

chapter as idea starters.

When all the groups reconvene in class, each recorder should list the group’s best ideas

on the blackboard. As a class, pick out the three ideas that seem to have the most

potential. Analyze the experience of participating in a brainstorming group and compare

the experiences of the different teams.

9-12. The following are from actual brand communication campaigns. If you were

involved in a go/no go decision, what would you decide? For each idea, explain your

analysis.

 You are assigned to develop a Super Bowl ad for the Groupon internet coupon

website that advertises daily deals in local media. The company has been using a

“Save the Money” campaign with Hollywood stars talking about a cause they support

and then connecting that to a deal they got off Groupon. So, what to do for the Super

Bowl? A colleague suggests using a star speaking about the plight of the Tibetan

people and their culture with pictures of snowcapped mountains and dancing children,

followed by a scene with the star in a Himalayan restaurant talking about what he

saved on his meal. What do you think about this idea?

Chapter 9: The Creative Side

 Zappos, an online apparel retailer with a quirky, brash culture, has received a

proposal from its agency. You are on the Zappos management team. The idea is to

show naked models doing everyday things, such as jogging, playing Frisbee, hailing a

cab, and riding a Vespa – all with censor bars strategically placed. Although using

naked people to sell clothing is a little literal, the agency argues that it also is highly

attention getting. What do you think?

This question requires students to evaluate the strength of two creative ideas. Deciding if

TAKE-HOME PROJECTS

9-13. Portfolio Project: Find at least two newspaper or magazine advertisements that

your team believes are bland and unexciting. Rewrite them, first to demonstrate a hard-

sell approach, and then to demonstrate a soft-sell approach. Explain how your rewrites

have improved the original ad. Also explain how hard-sell and soft-sell appeals work.

Which do you believe is the most effective for each ad? If you were a team of

professionals working on these accounts, how would you go about evaluating the

effectiveness of these two ads? In other words, how would you test your intuitive

judgment of which one works best?

9-14. Mini-Case Analysis: Summarize the creative aspects of the REI “#OptOutside”

effort. What makes this effort and its promotion creative? Brainstorm on an idea for a

new commercial that would extend the campaign’s theme and develop this new Big Idea

as a proposal to present to your instructor.

This promotion exemplifies each of the terms used to define the word creative – it was

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192

world is fighting it out in the aisles, we hope to see you in the great outdoors.” Because

of its startling willingness to buck the retail industry’s Black Friday tradition, the

promotion earned tremendous amount of free media exposure that further reinforced the

brand and what it stands for.

Students will be challenged as they attempt to extend the campaign’s theme in a way that

matches the creativity of the current one, yet remains on strategy.

TRACE NORTH AMERICA CASE

Creative Multicultural Communication

Read the TRACE North America case in the Appendix before coming to class.

9-15. What is the Big Idea behind the “Hard to Explain, Easy to Experience” campaign?

9-16. How would you describe the campaign’s message strategy?

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

ASSIGNMENTS

Individual Assignments

1. Visit www.effie.org and peruse some of the IMC campaigns that have won this

prestigious award over the past few years. Choose three campaigns to compare and

contrast in terms of the various creative strategies used. For each, discuss its message

objectives and message strategies, and identify the Big Idea. Prepare a 15-minute

2. Read again “A Matter of Principle” by Professor Ronald Taylor in this chapter.

Working with a partner, use his framework to generate six potential different message

strategies for a new line of washers and dryers that your client plans to launch in the

Think-Pair-Share

1. In this chapter, Professors Mark Stuhlfaut and Margo Berman tell us that creativity is

directed at achieving objectives and solving problems. With this in mind, review

some of the classic advertising campaigns mentioned on page 256, such as Smokey

Bear, Clairol’s ‘Does she or doesn’t she?’, Apple’s ‘1984’, and Nike’s ‘Just Do It.’