Advertising Methodology - (4) Goals / Objectives

Now that you know the brand, you can learn and understand the campaign that you are being asked to run. What are the goals or objectives of the campaign (e.g. brand, retail, communication, etc.)? What does the client believe they need you to do? As part of the overall Strategy exercise, you might find that you need to help them learn about better objectives as you proceed through various iterations of this method:

• Who are they trying to communicate with?
• What are they trying to tell them?
• What do they want them to do?
• What is the time horizon for them to do it?
• What’s the urgency that a customer should respond to?
• Why?

As you learn more about the company, the brand, and their objectives, you may need to ask each of these questions several times (of both your client and yourself) in order to understand the branding, retail, or other communication goals of the upcoming campaign.

Advertising Methodology - (3) Understanding of business strategy and brand

The old adage of “you can’t manage what you don’t measure” is an important one. We’ll come back to that, but we’ll start with a new adage, “you can’t advertise what you don’t know”. What does that mean? Start at the top. Understand what the company is all about:

• What’s the overall business strategy? For instance, Porter’s generic strategies include: Cost Leadership, Differentiation, & Segmentation
• What is the brand all about? What are the marketing and brand plans, and how do they align with the business plan? What do Senior Management believe the company stands for? What does the company stand for in its constituents' eyes (customers, employees, suppliers, etc.) and how do they believe the company supports the brand promise?

Get to know that, and you're over the first hurdle to creating great advertising that works.

Advertising Methodology - (2) A "V-Model" for Advertising

The “V-model” for Advertising represents how strategy must be considered as a critical part of creating and executing an advertising campaign. Of course, depending on the Client, the campaign, the available budget, and so forth, this methodology would be customized for the Client. To that end, there may be fewer or additional steps to take throughout the Advertising Campaign method.

So, here it is ... the "V-model" for Advertising:

Weaknesses with Advertising usually happens before the Creative process takes place. So, over the next several days I'll focus on the things that happen up to the point that an Advertising Plan is created. Watch for:

• Understanding of business strategy and brand
• Goals / Objectives
• Target Market
• Purchase Funnel
• Media Influences
• Competitive Analysis
• Purchase Channels
• Message
• Advertising Plan

Advertising Methodology - (1) Introduction to the "V-Model"

Most advertising campaigns pull at a subset of activities that allow an Advertising Agency to produce a TV commercial, a newspaper ad, a banner ad, or some other “media insert”. Imagine if you will the conversation between the Advertising Agency and the Client,

• Client: I want more people to know what I sell, … I want a TV ad, … and my budget is $x.
• Advertising Agency: [pause on a brief consideration of the stated goal. Then, toss out easy or crazy creative first, second, third idea, etc.. Concepts that could win awards. Concepts that could change their world. Then ... Make a leap of faith at a Concept and heads for the Pitch.]
• Client: [Salivating] Let's do it.

After that, all that is left is the actual production of the creative and some media buying. No one ever measures the results. So, the campaign must be working.

Hmmm … There must be a better way!

There is, and it starts with a "V-Model". A "V-Model" is a representation of a project that aligns "Responsibility" for activities horizontally on the diagram. At the same time, as you step through it from left to right (i.e. from top to bottom on the left side of the "V", and the bottom to top on the right side), you get a clear representation of the steps necessary to deliver the project. Here's what a simplified "V-Model" might look like.
In this diagram the train of events for a project is simply:

1. Senior Management has a vision of what they believe they need to achieve results
2. Middle Management boils that concept down and provides instructions to their teams on what to build and potentially how to build it.
3. Workers (be they knowledge workers, laborers, or a combination) set out to design and build the "thing".
4. Workers (preferably other workers than those who designed and built the "thing") subsequently test the "thing" - perhaps by editing it, running it through a formalized test (e.g. a focus group or systematic IT testing) with the goal of ensuring the "thing" works or fails, and then getting the Builders to fix it as necessary.
5. Middle Management reviews the results of the test and makes the decision that what was built actually works as it was supposed to, is what they asked for, and more importantly, will deliver on the vision. They sign-off to put the "thing" into "production".
6. The "thing" produces results which either are satisfactory to the Senior Management or are not. If they aren't then the Senior Manager failed at any or all of (a) the vision, (b) ensuring a good system was in place to communicate the vision and requirements in order that the right "thing" was produced, or (c) creating, uniting, and aligning a great team that could produce.
   

... Next up in this series, we'll look at a "V-Model" for Advertising. Stay tuned.

Advertising Methodology?

The Information Technology world and software industry has the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC). The SDLC is a standard practice which helps to ensure success in imagining, defining, designing, building, testing, and deploying a new system. Every IT organization in the world has their own flavour of the SDLC. A common thread is that without a well managed SDLC a project is doomed from the outset.

What does the advertising community have? The software industry is rich with engineers and people who like a clearly defined process. The advertising industry is rich with creative people who want the space and place to be random to a fault in order to allow creativity to blossom. Consequently, the advertising community doesn't appear to have any common creative practice like the SDLC which ensures that the business rationale for a campaign is well understood, that the campaign is designed to meet the business rationale, or ultimately that it is ever measured back against the rationale.

Over the next week or more I'm going to layout a framework for an Advertising Development Life Cycle (ADLC). Check back often to find out what that looks like.

GM's blaming the unions and pensions? What the???

I just heard that GM is blaming the unions and their ridiculous pensions for their failures. Why don't they haul their brand managers out and flog them!

They should consider cutting their brands. That will help them focus their efforts, cut their costs ... and save themselves from failure.

Kellogg's Guidelines for Ethical Advertising to Kids

Kellogg's has published a lot about their ethical guidelines for advertising - particularly to children (i.e. people 12 years old and younger). They have various sites which provide a whole bunch of good guidelines:

• Their overall advertising purpose and standards
• Marketing to Children Practices

Kellogg's advertise across media, but its core focus is on TV. Their TV ads focus on individual brands, and TV ads are targeted based on shows, time, and consequently audience to aim the message directly at the target market. On top of that the in-store advertising is predominantly the packaging. Again - and not surprisingly - the packaging is designed to appeal to the appropriate target market.

Back in 2007, Kellogg's changed their advertising principles when targetting children. Among other things, their new policy was aimed at ensuring that their breakfast cereals met specific minimum nutrition guidelines. If they didn't then Kellogg's determined not to advertise the product.

Kellogg's did this voluntarily. Did Kellogg's do this just because they are good people? Well, it would be nice to think they did. But the impetus to doing it was that they were threatened with a lawsuit for their advertising practices.

One thing that I really respect about Kellogg's is that they published their Marketing to Children Practices. This is good because with Kellogg's model in hand, other companies can benefit from their deep thinking.

(If you want a brief backgrounder on Kellogg's advertising or background you can find it on Kellogg's site or in an article in the New York Times, or some general information on Wikipedia, or you can watch David MacKay, their President & CEO talk about this in 2007, below.)

Kellogg Strengthens Marketing To Children Practices - Free videos are just a click away

Another one begins to bite the dust

The National Post will stop publishing their Monday edition throughout the summer. Will anyone notice? Will Tuesday be next? Followed by Wednesday ...

Their competition doesn't seem to mind:

• The Globe & Mail bragged about it,
  
• CBC.ca reported on it,
• CTV.ca didn't miss it.

I feel bad for the old traditional media. It is a dead business model. But, it is dying a slow and painful death.

Here's a great (and green) idea

Mannequin Madness in Oakland, California sells and rents used mannequins.

Their business strategy seems sound, following Porter's generic business strategy of cost leadership. Mix in a green and fun brand, and you get a great business. Plus, you get to hang out in an office full of co-workers like this:

I added the bikinis using The Gimp. Hey, this is a family-oriented blog (most of the time).

Another bad move by GM?

Yesterday GM announced that they are going to axe the Pontiac brand.
My guess is that it won't take long for two things to happen:

• GM will notice that it no longer has a "sporty" line.
  
• GM will increase the line-up of Chevrolet cars to compensate for not having the crazy variety of vehicles they currently sell.

That is to say that the Chevy line (entry-level family cars) will suddenly have more sporty cars. Existing models will be supplemented with new models. The Buick line (um ... upscale family? ... really, what does Buick stand for? ... what the hell are they thinking with keeping that alive?) will suddenly have more sporty cars. The Buick line-up will get bigger. The Cadillac line (snobby luxury, which is just what it ought to be) will have cheaper sporty cars added to it, perhaps as an "entry level Caddy" (anyone remember the Cimarron? Watch for an instant replay). In every case my money would be on GM growing the line-up of each of these brands. In the end, they won't narrow their focus and win the markets. They will extend these brands to death.

GM has lost touch with their brands. I don't think they need to cut their sub-brands as dramatically as they need to cut hard at the models in each of those sub-brands. What they should do is carefully and tightly define what each of their main sub-brands is all about, then hack out everything in the brand line that isn't inside the very tight definition of that brand.

GM needs to apply the "Keep it Simple Stupid" principles. There are two things that really define a company. The first is the brand - what does the company stand for and how do they support that on a daily basis. The second is the basic business strategy - cost leadership, segmentation, or differentiation.

At this point, I'd recommend that the GM management team should read:

• 22 Immutable Laws Of Branding by Al Ries, and
• Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors by Michael Porter.

Then again, I think it's too late. Maybe they should be reading What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles.