MARKETNG 2503 Marketing Communications : Advertisement Effectiveness

Read the following Chapters in Purvis, S. (2011), Which Ad Pulled Best, 10th Edition, McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Evaluate two assigned pairs of print ads applying concepts discussed in the above Chapters and lectures. You are required to address the following questions in your written essay:

Introduction

Advertising is mainly the process by which a company or an organization tries to placed its product or services in the market so that they can create the awareness about their brand and the product they offer in the minds of the consumer. An effective advertisement can actually persuade the consumer to buy the products or services offered by the company. The effectiveness of an advertisement refers to the level of the advertisement the company creates to promote its products and services so that they can be successfully placed in the minds of consumers (Aaker and Biel 2013).

 The reach of the advertisement is an important measure of effectiveness. The larger the number of people who watch the advertisement, the higher is the effectiveness of the advertisement. The main objective of an advertisement is to increase sales of the company. The target audience selected by the company should be apt. In this manner the company can ensure that the advertisement placed is suitable and is also effective in increasing the sales of the company (Belch et al. 2014).

In this report a comparison is done between four advertisements. The main points being tested are the identification of the target market, the measurement of the effectiveness of advertisement, theories and concepts used for the comparison of the advertisements.  

Advertising effectiveness

The two main measures of advertisement effectiveness are persuasion and brand recall. Brand recall is a way by which a brand manager can measure the extent to which the consumers are connected to the products and services of a particular brand (Buil, Chernatony and Martínez 2013). This test can be done with the help of interviews, surveys or questionnaires. This plays an important role to make sure that more and more consumers are sticking to the brand. The loyalty developed for a particular brand is also important in this case. In this manner a company can test the loyalty of their consumers and accordingly try to build more consumers who are loyal to the company.

There are two ways of brand recall. These are mainly aided recall and unaided recall (Mooij 2013). Aided brand recall is the way in which the consumer remembers the brand when it is brought into discussion. The unaided way is that the consumer remember the brand even if it is not mentioned in any discussion. This means that the consumer is well connected to the brand and the brand name is always fresh in his memory. This measure can help in determining the value of the brand in the market (Debasish and Muralidhar 2013).

The other important aspect of advertising effectiveness is persuasion. Persuasion in advertising is the process by which the company tries to influence to persuade the consumer to buy the product or service offered by the company. This process aims to change the behavior of consumers towards the product or service. Advertising helps the company to communicate with the consumer and further offer the products and services to the targeted consumers according to their needs. The process of persuasion is the way by which the company aims to receive the attention of the consumers and also to create the interest towards the product or service in the minds of the consumers (Drewniany and Jewler 2013).

Print advertisements also require these tools of measuring advertising effectiveness. In case of getting the attention of the consumers the print advertisements must be designed in such a way that it can be recognized individually among the various advertisements that are already present in the market. The presentation of the advertisement needs to be attractive so that it can capture the attention of the consumer and can overcome the other brand. The print advertisements should also have the capability to easily convince the consumers to buy its products and services.

This can be done by making the consumers realize the benefits of the product in comparison to the same product offered by other brands. The design of the print advertisements helps to create a flow that is effective and can flow to the eyes of the reader easily. Further, these aspects are kept in mind in the analysis of the four print advertisements (Fennis, Das and Fransen 2012).

The Evaluation Criteria of the ads

The evaluation criteria that is taken into consideration to compare the two pairs of advertisements is mainly based on the capability of the advertisement to grab the attention of the consumers, depicting the benefits of the product clearly, the ads needs to be attractive and clarity should be maintained, the believability of the ad campaign.

Print Advertisement A vs. Print Advertisement B

The two mentioned advertisements are promoting health drinks of two different brands. One is Tropicana and the other is Capri Sun Drink Mix. The product types are different in these cases.

Advertisement A

Main message of the advertisement- This advertisement is promoting the Tropicana Pure Premium Drink which contains Vitamin C and helps to maintain a healthy immune system.

Target audience of the advertisement- The target audience of the advertisement is all age groups and this mainly aims at the those people who are concerned about the health benefits when they choose a particular drink.

Persuasion tactics used in this advertisement- The advertisement mainly gives immense importance to the health benefits of the drink.

The advertisement is published in the People’s Magazine which is a general magazine read by both males and females. The magazine is mainly focused on the famous personalities and celebrities. The readability of the advertisement is low. The benefit of the drink is mentioned quite clearly. This helps the target audience of the advertisement to link themselves easily with the brand. The main tagline of the advertisement is also not clearly visible to the audience (Heerde et al. 2013). This decreases the effect of the advertisement to some extent. The benefits of the drink is mentioned in the advertisement, but not in a convincing or visible manner.

With reference to the AIDA model which depicts the Attention, Interests, Desire and Action this advertisement can be analyzed. The advertisement fails to get the attention of the target audience as the tagline and benefits which are mentioned are not readable by the audience. The interest is developed to some extent in the advertisement. This development does not help in creating desire of the product in the minds of the consumer. This results to lack of action from the end of the consumer regarding the purchase of the product. The placement of the advertisement is also not suitable (Kilbourne, J., 2012). The reason being that the magazine in which the ad is placed is in no way related to any health aspect. It is a magazine focused on celebrities and famous personalities.

Advertisement B (More effective)

Main message of the advertisement- This advertisement is promoting the New Capri Sun Drink Mix.

Target audience of the advertisement- The target audience of the advertisement are children of a particular age group.

Persuasion tactics used in this advertisement- The advertisement mainly gives importance to the desire of children for more drinks that are natural.

The advertisement is published in the Ladies’ Home Journal which is totally a women’s magazine. This magazine is mainly focused on articles regarding fashion, beauty, designing of homes, nutrition and food, health. The placement of the advertisement is fruitful because the magazine is mainly a ladies magazine and also focuses on health and nutrition. This will help in providing the ladies or moms the knowledge about this natural health drink and how it is useful for their kids.

The tagline of the advertisement “New Capri Sun Drink Mix The All Natural Crowd Pleaser” is mentioned clearly in the advertisement and helps the target audience to understand it easily. The benefits of the drink is also mentioned clearly in the advertisement itself. This helps the ladies to understand the use of this natural drink for their children (Wells 2014).

With reference to the AIDA model, the advertisement is successful in creating attention regarding the product in the minds of the target consumer. Further, interest is developed about the product, which leads to the desire to buy the product and this in turn leads to the action taken by the consumer, which is actually buying the product. This can be summed up by saying that the advertisement is much more effective in the way it can create awareness about the product in the minds of the consumers as compared to the previous advertisement (Olsen et al. 2012).

Table 1: The two advertisements are rated based on their effectiveness on the scale of 0 to 5.

Print Advertisement C vs. Print Advertisement D

The two advertisements mentioned in this case are related to the promotion of zip lock bags. The first one is Glad Head Stand and the other one is Ziploc EZ (Kotler 2012).

Advertisement C (More Effective)

Main message of the advertisement- This advertisement promotes The Glad Head Stand Zip bags which stand straight while they are being filled.

Target audience of the advertisement- The target audience of the advertisement are people of all age groups who love to travel with food and snacks.

Persuasion tactics used in this advertisement- The advertisement mainly gives importance on the ability of the zip bags to stand without any help, so that it can be filled easily.

The advertisement is placed in the magazine named “Bon Appetit” which is a monthly magazine and mainly focuses on cooking, travelling and different types of restaurants and home decoration alternatives. The placement of the advertisement is suitable for this magazine. The reason behind this is, the magazine is focused on both food and travelling and is read by both males and females (Lee and Ahn 2012). This helps the brand in creating awareness about the product in all types of people of different age groups.

The benefits of the product is also mentioned in bold and innovative manner and this ensures the creation of awareness about the product in the minds of the target audience. With reference to the AIDA model, the Attention of the consumers is gained easily with the help of the innovative tagline “Don’t Get Mad, Get Glad”. This helps in creating interest in the consumer minds and in turn creates the desire to buy the product. This whole process leads to the action taken by the consumer which is mainly the purchase of the said product (Moriarty et al. 2014).

The advertisement thus proves to be effective in all ways for the company. The readability of the advertisement is also quite high.

Advertisement D

Main message of the advertisement- This advertisement promotes the Ziploc EZ zip bags. The main aim of the advertisement is to promote the product on the basis of its size.

Target audience of the advertisement- The target audience of the advertisement are people who require to travel with food or store food easily.

Persuasion tactics used in this advertisement- The advertisement mainly gives importance mainly to the size of the bag and its ability to stand when it is being filled.

The advertisement is placed in the Ladies’ Journal Magazine which is a monthly published magazine specially for ladies. This magazine focuses on the different aspects related to women which include, fashion, beauty, health, nutrition. The placement of the advertisement is not suitable with respect to the target audience (Tucker 2012).

The benefits of the product are not mentioned clearly in the advertisement. These are mentioned in a short message in the advertisement. The readability of the ad is also quite low. The benefits do not reach the target audience effectively.

This advertisement also does not prove to be effective based on the AIDA Model. As the benefits are not mentioned clearly, the attention of the audience is not grabbed properly. This leads to lack of interest of the consumers towards the product and further the desire to buy the product is not generated. This leads to the lack of action taken by the consumers to buy the product (Pilelien? and Grigali?nait? 2014).

It can be deduced from the above discussion that the Advertisement C is more effective in creating awareness as compared to Advertisement D.

Table 2: The two advertisements are rated based on their effectiveness on the scale of 0 to 5.

Recommendations

The analysis shows that it is important for an organization to place the advertisement in such a way so that it can aim at the correct target audience and also get their attention. This makes the advertisement successful. Advertisement A and D need improvement in this case.

The main problem with Advertisement A is the readability of the ad and the placement. This can be improved with the help of correct color choice and size of the font. The problem related to Advertisement D is the choice of the correct magazine for placement of the advertisement and the tagline. The tagline needs to be made more innovative and appealing. The advertisement should be placed in such a magazine which has a greater reach.

Conclusion

Print advertisements are still effective in creating awareness about a brand in the minds of a consumer. Even in this digital era, print advertisements have not lost its position. The effectiveness of an advertisement helps in the strong positioning of the brand in the market. This further leads to the purchase of the products by the target consumers.

References

Aaker, D.A. and Biel, A., 2013. Brand equity & advertising: advertising's role in building strong brands. Psychology Press.

Belch, G.E., Belch, M.A., Kerr, G.F. and Powell, I., 2014. Advertising: An integrated marketing communication perspective. McGraw-Hill Education.

Buil, I., De Chernatony, L. and Martínez, E., 2013. Examining the role of advertising and sales promotions in brand equity creation. Journal of Business Research, 66(1), pp.115-122.

De Mooij, M., 2013. Global marketing and advertising: Understanding cultural paradoxes. Sage Publications.

Debasish, S.S. and Muralidhar, M., 2013. Print Advertising: Consumer Behaviour. SCMS Journal of Indian Management, 10(1), p.78.

Drewniany, B.L. and Jewler, A.J., 2013. Creative strategy in advertising. Cengage Learning.

Fennis, B.M., Das, E. and Fransen, M.L., 2012. Print advertising: Vivid content. Journal of Business Research, 65(6), pp.861-864.

Heerde, H.J.V., Gijsenberg, M.J., Dekimpe, M.G. and Steenkamp, J.B.E., 2013. Price and advertising effectiveness over the business cycle. Journal of Marketing Research, 50(2), pp.177-193.

Kilbourne, J., 2012. Can't buy my love: How advertising changes the way we think and feel. Simon and Schuster.

Kotler, P., 2012. Kotler on marketing. Simon and Schuster.

Lee, J. and Ahn, J.H., 2012. Attention to banner ads and their effectiveness: An eye-tracking approach. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 17(1), pp.119-137.

Moriarty, S., Mitchell, N.D., Wells, W.D., Crawford, R., Brennan, L. and Spence-Stone, R., 2014. Advertising: Principles and practice. Pearson Australia.

Olsen, G.D., Pracejus, J.W. and O'Guinn, T.C., 2012. Print advertising: White space. Journal of Business Research, 65(6), pp.855-860.

Pilelien?, L. and Grigali?nait?, V., 2014. Complexity of print advertising: theoretical insights. Organizacij? vadyba: sisteminiai tyrimai, 2014, nr. 70, p. 65-77.

Tucker, C.E., 2012. The economics of advertising and privacy. International journal of Industrial organization, 30(3), pp.326-329.

Wells, W.D., 2014. Measuring advertising effectiveness. Psychology Press.