creative message strategies

Techniques in Print & Broadcast Advertising

Creative Message Strategies

Message Strategy

• An idea about how to creatively and persuasively communicate a brand message to a target audience

• A message has to have an appeal- an idea that motivates an audience to respond

Advertising Message Strategy

The advertising message strategy describes what is to be communicated and how it is to be communicated. It consists of the:

Message idea: the main theme, appeal, or benefit to be communicated in the message.

Copy platform: a written statement that fully describes the message idea.

Message or creative format: a broad creative approach used to communicate the message idea to the target audiences.

• To popularize SAB Miller India's new brand of non-alcoholic beer, Indus Pride, as a refresher and thirst quencher, we chose low-cost handles of airport transit buses as our medium. It was released in March '10, a peak vacation season when travel via airports increases by 50%.

Categories of Advertising Objectives

1. Reminder advertising 2. Informative advertising.3. Persuasive advertising.

RIP acronym = Remind - Inform - Persuade

Advertising Objectives

Reminder advertising: To introduce customers of the brand To remind customers the positioning of the brand To remind customers of availability- time and place To remind customers of the brand.


Informative advertising: To create awareness of the organization. To explain the characteristics of the organization. To correct false impressions about the

organization. To reduce peoples’ apprehensions or fears about

visiting the organization. To build or enhance the organization’s image or

position.


Persuasive advertising: To increase customer preference for brand To increase customer loyalty to the brand. To encourage customers to switch from

competitors’ brands To change customers’ perceptions

Creative Brief

• Statements about a brand that summarizes the research and insights for the creative team.

• Also known as IMC Message Strategy Brief, Creative Platform, Creative Plan or Work plan, Creative Strategy or Copy Strategy

Three basic Steps in Developing a Message

Strategy Brief• Step 1: Determining communication

objectives: What type of impact does the message need to achieve?– Sample Marketing Communications

Objectives:• Cognitive: awareness, educate, explain, brand

knowledge• Affective: image or personality, attitudes & brand

liking, desire or need, strike emotional chord• Behavioral: increase trial, purchase, repurchasing


Strategy Brief…Cont’d

• Step 2: Customer Insight: Finding diamonds in the data– Customer insight: below-the-surface

attitudes & beliefs that influence customer’s behavior.

– “Metrosexual” men compared to the conventional men – Fairness cream for men

– Decreasing gap between genders – TVS Wego



• Step 3: Selecting a Selling Strategy– Benefit: how a product satisfies

customers’ needs, wants & desires; promise: what good things will happen if a person buys this product; reason why: substantiation, support or proof that explain why a product will provide the promised benefit



• Step 3: Selecting a Selling Strategy– Feature: attributes that give a product a

distinctive difference– Value-pricing: offers the best quality

product you can buy for that price. There may be better-quality products but it would cost more. Price is fixed, value is not. Value is a perception of what something is worth in terms of quality and price.



• Step 3: Selecting a Selling Strategy– Unique-selling proposition: selling strategy

based on a product’s most distinctive difference from competitive products; provide reason or proof on which a claim, benefit or proposition rests

– Generic: stresses a basic feature or benefit of a product that is not brand specific



• Step 3: Selecting a Selling Strategy– Pre-emptive: focuses on an attribute or

benefit that any other product on the category could have claimed but did not.

– Informational: based on going facts about a brand & its attributes

– Credibility: heightens conviction & decreases perception of risk; use of endorsers, PR, testimonial



• Step 3: Selecting a Selling Strategy– Emotional: connects with customers &

prospects at the affective level & moves them to respond with feelings

– Association: psychological connection between a brand & its customers & prospects



• Step 3: Selecting a Selling Strategy– Lifestyle: Uses situations & symbols of

lifestyles that the target audience can identify with or aspire to.

– Incentive: Creates a sense of immediacy & rewards customers for responding quickly



• Step 3: Selecting a Selling Strategy– Reminder: Keeps a brand top-of-mind with

the target. Used by mature brands with established brand identity & designed to jog the customer’s memory at point of purchase.

– Interactive: Creating two-way communication in order to open up communication with customers & capture their feedback

Selling Strategies

Type of Response

Message Objective

Message Strategy

Think Awareness, brand knowledge, understanding, conviction

Info, generic, pre-emptive, credibility

Feel Brand image & personality, liking, desire, self identity

Emotion, association, lifestyle

Do Buy, try, repeat, visit, contact

Incentive, reminder, interactive

The Big Idea

• Simple• Has legs: can cater to difference

audiences or media or versions• ROI: relevance, originality &

impact

The Creative Process

• Formal procedure for increasing productivity & innovative output by an individual or a group

• Step 1: Exploration– Brainstorming: gather to generate many

new ideas– Lateral thinking: bouncing from one

thought to another in free association; look for metaphors of what the product is like

The Creative Process…Cont’d

• Step 2: Insight– Reviewing all info, analyzing the problem,

identifying patterns and searching for a key verbal or visual concept to communicate what needs to be said

• Changing patterns• Looking at things in different ways• Adaptation- change context• Imagining- what if?• Reversal- opposite, negative effect (what would

happen if you did not use the product?)


• Step 2: Insight– Reviewing all info, analyzing the

problem, identifying patterns and searching for a key verbal or visual concept to communicate what needs to be said• Connection- join 2 unrelated ideas• Comparison- metaphor• Elimination- subtract or break rules• parody- make fun of something


• Step 3: Execution• Step 4: Evaluation & Copy testing

– Copy testing: testing the effectiveness of a brand message, a creative concept, or elements such as a headline, slogan, or visual for creative impact and understandability

Creative Brief (Mccann-Ericson 7-question

format)1. Who is our audience?2. Where are we now in the minds of our

target audience?3. Where are our competitors in the minds

of our target audience?4. Where do we want to be in the minds of

our target audience?5. What is the consumer promise or the

big idea?6. What is the supporting evidence?7. What is the tone of voice of the ad?

Difference between Consumer and Trade Advertising

Consumer advertising: aimed at the customers who will actually use the product/ service promoted.

Trade advertising: aimed at the trade intermediaries who will influence customers’ buying decisions.

Message or Creative Formats

Testimonial. Slice of life. Analogy, association and symbolism. Trick photography or exaggerated situations. Word plays or made-up phrases. Honest Twist. Fear. Comparisons.

creative message strategies

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