Creating the Advertising Message
No matter how large the budget, advertising may succeed only if commercials achieve attention and communicate well. Good advertising messages are especially significant in today's expensive and cluttered advertising environment. If all of this advertising clutter bothers some consumers, it also causes large problems for advertisers. Until lately, television viewers were pretty much a captive audience for advertisers. Viewers had just a few channels from which to select. But with the growth in cable and, VCRs, satellite TV and remote-control units, today's viewers have various more options. They may avoid ads by watching commercial-free cable channels. They may "zap" commercials by pushing the fast-forward button at the time of taped programs. They can instantaneously turn off the sound during a commercial or "zip" around the channels with remote control to see what else is on. Actually, a recent study found that half of all television viewers switch channels now when the commercial break begin.
Therefore, just to gain and hold attention, today's advertising messages has to be better planned, more entertaining, more imaginative and more rewarding to consumers. Some advertisers even make intentionally controversial ads to break through the clutter and achieve attention for their products.
a) Message Strategy
The first step in making effective advertising messages is to choose what general message will be communicated to consumers-to plan a message scheme. The purpose of advertising is to obtain consumers to think regarding or react to the product or company in a sure way. People will react just if they believe that they will get benefit from doing so. Therefore, developing an effective message schema begins with recognize customer benefits that can be used as advertising appeals. Ideally, advertising message strategy will directly follow from the company's broader positioning schema. Message schema statements tend to be plain, uncomplicated outlines of benefits and positioning points that the advertiser desires to stress. The advertiser has to next develop a compelling creative concept-or "big idea"-that will bring the message scheme to life in a memorable and distinctive way. At this stage, easy message ideas become large ad campaigns. A copywriter and art director will usually team up to produce many creative concepts, wishing that one of these concepts will turn out to be the big idea. The creative concept can emerge as visualization, a phrase, or a mixture of the two.
The creative concept will guide the option of specific appeals to be utilized in an advertising campaign. Advertising appeals should have three characteristics: Firstly, they should be significant, pointing out benefits that make the product more interesting or desirable to consumers. Secondly, appeals have to be believable-consumers ought to believe that the service or product will deliver the promised benefits. On the other hand, the most meaningful and believable benefits cannot be the best ones to feature. Appeals should also be distinguishing-they should tell how the manufacture is better than the competing brands.
b) Message Execution
Now the advertiser has to turn the great idea into real ad execution that will capture the target market's interest and attention. The creative people must discover the best style, tone, words, and format for executing the message. Any of the messages can be presented in different execution styles like the following:
- Slice of life: This style indicates one or more "typical" people by using the product in a normal setting.
- Lifestyle: This style indicates how a product fits in with a specific lifestyle.
- Fantasy: This style makes a fantasy around the product or its use.
- Mood or image: This style builds image or mood around the product, like love, beauty or serenity. No claim is made regarding the product except through suggestion.
- Musical: This specific style shows one or more people or cartoon characters singing regarding the product.
- Technical expertise: This specific style presents the company's expertise in making the manufacture.
- Scientific evidence: This style presents scientific or survey evidence that the brand is better or better liked than other brands.
- Testimonial evidence or endorsement: This style features extremely believable or likable source endorsing the product.