Managing the Advertising Campaign

Creative Options

An advertisement has the potential to appeal to four senses – sight, sound, smell and touch.  (It should be noted that promotion can also appeal to the sense of taste but generally these efforts generally fall under the category of sales promotion which we will discuss in a later tutorial.)  However, not all advertising media have the ability to deliver multi-sensory messages.  Traditional radio, for example, is limited to delivering audio messages while roadside billboards offer only visual appeal.  Additionally, some media may place limits on when particular options can be used.  For instance, some search engines or websites may only accept graphical-style ads, such as images, if these conform to certain large dimensions and limit small advertising to text-only ads.

Creative Cost

The media type chosen to deliver a marketer’s message also impacts the cost of creating the message.  For media outlets that deliver a multi-sensory experience (e.g., television and Internet for sight and sound; print publications for sight, touch and smell) creative cost can be significantly higher than for media targeting a single sensory experience.  But creative costs are also affected by the expectation of quality for the media that delivers the message.  In fact, media outlets may set minimal production standards for advertisements and reject ads that do not meet these standards.  Television networks, for example, may set high production quality levels for advertisements they deliver.  Achieving these standards requires expensive equipment and high cost labor, which may not be feasible for small businesses.  Conversely, creating a simple text only Internet advertisement requires very little cost that almost anyone is capable of creating.