Friday, February 7Lecture 9Strategic PlanningBrands and planningKey considerationsKey parts*Feb 13 and 14  attend presentations and can earn .5 extra credit points*3 studies posted on SONACampaign components (this is what a campaign is )1. Objectivethe objective is the goal of the campaign2. Strategy (the plan)this is the overall plan for reaching the goal you set3. Tactics (the execution)these are the actual ads that you are going to dothese are the specific steps you are going to use to deliver the strategy important that these 3 components link like a chainWhy brands are valuableThe brand differentiates products from competitorsEx: Super bowl product about cokeIt was all about brand advertising  they didn’t talk about the product (calories, etc., anything about the product), it was all about the brand, they were selling the brand not productInstant recognitionWhen effectively publicized, creates instant recognition, visually (logos)You don’t need any wordsEx: Starbucks logo, you can automatically tell without words, this is why brands are valuableStrategic planning: key parts (on cultivating brand)Think about it as a triangle turned sideways Start with all these research, etc.  then boil it down to a single page of what you’re going to doBrand equity audit analysis (first stage)Main question this first stage answers is where is our brand now? How do people feel about our brand now?Strategic options and recommendations (second stage)Once you figure out where your brand is now, need to figure out how you want to change brand to achieve goals?Brand equity research (third stage)What specific aspects of the brand do we want to change?Here you specify the key aspects of the brand to changeCreative brief (last stage)What is our resulting plan of action?Based on all the done research, this is what you’re going doBest ones are one side of one piece of paperCreative brief:A good one is really hard to doSingle page that summarizes:Product and its competitorsWhat do we want the campaign to accomplish? (objective)Who are we talking to? (target market)What do they think now about the product or service? (current brand or positioning)What do we want them to think about the product or service? (desired brand or positioning)Why should they think this? (key features and benefits)This is where you throw in the benefits of these features as evidence for why people should believe what you’re telling themWhat is our message? (the “one thing”)The one main thing you want people to understand after seeing your adProductProducts have a life cycle (they are born, live, then are gone)Useful for thinking about it like this for advertising because if you can pin down the life cycle stage of what life cycle your product is in you have a good idea of how you should advertise itDetermines the best kind of advertisingThis life cycle idea suggests that there are specific stages in the life of the product that happen in the same sequence.Life cycle:Pioneering stageStage in product when it is first introduced or marketed to a particular target marketCompetitive stageWhere the product already has some market awareness and it is competition nowRetentive stageThis is when the product has been around for a while, not trying to get new markets, but hang on to the market that it hasExample: PCs1980s: IBM (retentive stage)at the time, IBM was the only game in townlimited appeal—you could only see characters and letters, you had to type in commands to make machine workadvertising matched the target market, being dry dull and technical (very producer led advertising)Apple Macintosh (pioneering stage)Menu and icon interfaceBroader potential appealAPPLE:Ads: Pioneering stageApple was a new and innovative productProducts in terms of marketing objective—need to create the marketApple needed to create the market who would buy this productSo their communications objective was to create awareness in this pioneering stage, show that this thing is out thereBy doing so you are also trying to identify the need that this product can address that people weren’t even aware ofAds: competitive stageApple moved into this stage after, now it was in head to head competition with Windows PCsSo its marketing objective was not to create the market but now to increase sales and market shareCommunications objective now was for their advertising to position this productPositioning in advertising means placing your product in relation to your competitorsUnique features of your product that make it more desirableHead to head ads, calling out competitorAds: retentive stageMarketing objective here is to maintain market share and consumer loyalty, hang on to what you haveObjective for your campaigns is largely to brand and continue to build and maintain these preferred associations people have about your product, such ads are highly visual (irrelevant for info b/c target market already knows that)Stage determined by markethow you establish which stage your product is inWhich target market you are selling to determines which stage you are inPioneering stage is determined if you are selling to new buyers, a target market that has never thought about buying your productCompetitive stage is when you are selling to undecided buyers (people who aren’t brand loyal yet), also a lot of competition in marketRetentive stage is when you are talking to brand loyal buyers, you don’t have to convince themLife cycle: not linear, but cycleProducts are often reinvented in this retentive stage and start the whole process all over againEx: cars*each product could be talking to a different market, for one may be competitive, one may be pioneeringCompetitorsCompetitor is any force that inhibits the sale of yoursCompetitors are typically put into being a direct competitor or indirect competitorDirect is a force inhibits sale of your product in the same product category as yoursIndirect competitor inhibits your sale but is in a different product category than yours each could be more important for differing campaignsCampaign for Carmike movie theater, direct competitors are other movie theaters in town; indirect competitors would be like movie streaming (Netflix)Creative brief usually lists the most important direct and /or indirect competitorsObjectivesknow difference between marketing objective and communications objectiveMarketing objective is what people doMeasure of this is salesTracking buyer behavior over timeCommunications