Chapter Summary:
In this chapter, we continue our discussion of advertising by taking a closer look at the decisions involved in creating an advertising campaign. Whether a marketing organization employs a professional advertising agency to handle its advertising campaign or chooses to undertake all advertising tasks on its own, a successful campaign requires a number of critical decisions including: 1) setting the advertising objective; 2) setting the advertising budget; 3) selecting media for message delivery; 4) creating a message; and 5) evaluating campaign results. For leading consumer products companies, that spend large sums to promote their products, each of these decisions is intensely evaluated. Smaller companies with limited budgets may focus what little money they have on fewer decisions, such as message development and selecting media, and give less attention to other areas. No matter the organization’s size, knowledge of all advertising campaign decisions is crucial and should be well understood by all marketers.
Key Issues:
- Setting the Advertising Objective
- Setting the Advertising Budget
- Selecting Media Outlets
- Characteristics of Media Outlets
- Type of Media Outlets
- Creating a Message
- Evaluating Campaign Results
Cited References:
- For a listing of leading U.S. advertisers and the estimated yearly amount spent on advertising see: “Ad Age Leading National Advertisers 2020 Fact Pack.” Ad Age. https://s3-prod.adage.com/whitepapers/leading-national-advertisers-2020-fact-pack.html. (Note: Access may require providing personal information.)
- For a graphical view of how the price of 30-second Super Bowl ads have changed in recent years see: “Super Bowl Average Costs of a 30-Second TV Advertisement from 2002 to 2020.” Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/217134/total-advertisement-revenue-of-super-bowls.
- For more details on the auditing of media outlets and the value these services provide see: Alliance for Audited Media. https://auditedmedia.com.
- Delivery of ads using digital technology also occurs in other ways, such as through billboards; however, for the purpose of distinguishing different types of media outlets these are not included within digital media advertising but under other relevant outlets.
- Ethan Cramer-Flood. “Global Digital Ad Spending.” eMarketer, July 6, 2020. https://www.emarketer.com/content/global-digital-ad-spending-update-q2-2020.
- It should be noted that, as mentioned in the Ad Skipping and Ad Blocking discussion in Chapter 12, methods are now available for blocking website advertisements. As a result, a certain percentage of users’ experience with content-focused websites may not include being exposed to ads.
- For examples of how augmented reality (AR) advertising is used on Facebook see: “Success Stories – Augmented Reality Ads.” Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/business/success/categories/augmented-reality-ads.
- As was noted in Chapter 2, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) instituted by the European Union has impacted marketers’ ability to track customers. Consequently, this has made remarketing a more challenging advertising technique in EU countries.
- While the coronavirus pandemic affected advertising revenue across many media outlets it was particularly hard on print media as discussed here: Michael Barthel, Katerina Eva Matsa and Kirsten Worden. “Coronavirus-Driven Downturn Hits Newspapers Hard as TV News Thrives.” Pew Research Center, October 29, 2020. https://www.journalism.org/2020/10/29/coronavirus-driven-downturn-hits-newspapers-hard-as-tv-news-thrives.
- “Out-of-Home Media Formats.” Outdoor Advertising Association of America. https://oaaa.org/AboutOOH/OOHBasics/OOHMediaFormats/OOHMediaFormats.aspx.
- For more on how music product placement works see: “Music Placement Companies.” Bart Day Law. http://bartdaylaw.com/music-placement-companies.
- “Google Ads.” Google. https://ads.google.com.