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Hello class, and welcome back to Marketing Strategies. This week I will expand upon last week’s lecture by talking about factors you should consider when creating advertising materials and the effects they can have on your product sales.
Lesson one: limit your advertising to the geographic area of your target market. Though you may have a product that people want in a large area, the distance that customers are willing to travel is a significant factor in their choice of where to purchase that product. Take this example — if you are really hungry and decide you want a burrito, would you choose the restaurant that is a block from your apartment, or the one that is just as good —or even slightly better — across town? Of course, you’ll pick the closer restaurant.
Next, there’s the method of communication to your target market. How do you decide among radio ads, TV commercials, fliers, or even word of mouth? While we often think of the visual presentation of ads, there is much more to advertising than the look. Studies show that consumers are much more likely to remember advertising slogans if there is also a sound played.
Did you know that your sense of smell is closely linked with memory? Think about Mandy’s Candy Store up the road. Every time you walk past it, you can just smell the chocolate, right? I bet you can almost smell it now. Just mentioning the name brings about the smell memory and in turn a chocolate craving. What better way to sell chocolate bars?
Obviously sometimes appealing to the senses isn’t the most practical way to advertise. For example, it is a good idea to come up with a marketing strategy that adapts to the product, especially digital products. The flexibility of this kind of product is extremely important, so it is very common for advertisers to form one single layout for all of their ads — the visual, the medium, even the majority of the content — and simply update the ad each time they come out with a new version. Remember, advertising is all about stirring up the right feeling in your potential customers, whether by stimulating the senses, appealing to intellect, and so on. Once the customer experiences the ad, the important thing is his or her reaction. Someone could love the ad you made, but unless he or she considers buying the product, you have failed to get the reaction you were looking for.
So once you have successfully reached your target customer and you have his or her business, often you will want to expand to a larger market. More often than not, the same marketing strategies you used in your small campaign may not work for a larger audience. The larger you scale your product, the more factors you must consider. For instance, Apple operates worldwide, so they must tailor their advertising for each market they enter. Often you’ll see Apple ads on international flights that appear not only in English, which is the lingua franca of most regions, but also in the native language of the majority of passengers. I travelled to Russia last week, and it was really interesting to see the same Nike ad that I have seen a hundred times — except this time it was in Russian!
Okay, going back to the medium of the advertisement, even after choosing to create print ads (instead of radio announcements, television commercials, etc.) there is more to consider. If you print your ad in a newspaper, it will be read by a far different audience than if you print your ad in a popular magazine. Would you put an ad for the new Justin Bieber album in a newspaper? Probably not, because that product is most suitable for youths. Let’s face it — do you know anyone under the age of 25 that buys a newspaper? No!
Now let’s try a few strategy exercises. Imagine you are a company that is aiming to improve the environment by making products that reduce human waste. How would you advertise your product? Clearly, it would send the wrong message if you put up fliers or other materials that cause lots of waste paper. Consider instead putting commercials on the Health Channel, or buying ad space on websites like UNESCO.
Or here’s another example: What is one great place to advertise suntan lotion? How about a swimming pool? It has the exact group of people that need the product.
Alright, one last thing. Let’s say you’re filming a commercial for a water filter pitcher. What would be good scenery to use for the background? Think about somewhere calm and relaxing with clean, fresh water. Can’t you see how much more effective a commercial with the beautiful scenery and flowing rivers of a national park would be than, say, water dripping from a tap?
So to wrap things up today, think about the geography of your target market, the type of marketing material you should use, and the most effective way to appeal to the customer in order to make a successful ad campaign. That is all I have for you all today. Make sure to read through chapter 8 for Monday if you have not done so already. OK, now I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have...