Consistency; the best campaigns are the ones that are sustainable over time. The campaign has to be useable when translated to different audience and that the main message is still the same.
These things could be achieved through advertising strategies. In advertising, creative strategies are used to obtain consumer attention and provoke shopper to purchase or use a specific product. Some common strategies which are used are;
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Ideal kids; the kids in adverts are often a little older and a little more perfect than their target audience, this is done so the children see them as role models for what they want to be like
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Heart strings; adverts often create an emotional character that draws you into the advertisements and makes you feel good. We the audience are more attracted by products that make us feel good
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Cute celebrities; a way of making the audience identify with the product
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Selective editing; showing only the good experiences of the product. Some sports adverts only show brilliant kicking of the ball.
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Star power; sports heroes, movies stars, and teenage heart throbs, makes you think that you could be like them if use the product and makes you aspire to that lifestyle.
Some creative strategies are use to promotes publicity, public relations, personal selling and sales promotion. The three significant strategies that helps promote these things are weak strategies, middle-strength strategies and strong strategies. Advertisements contain these strategies could be found in radio, television, and magazines.
Weak strategies
Generic and pre-emptive strategies are the strategy that describes the weakest form of advertising. A generic (general) strategy gives a product attribution. When this strategy is used, the consumer does not really learn anything new about the product. Pre-emptive strategy is another form of weak advertising that makes a general claim stronger.
Middle strength strategies
Three forms of middle strength strategies are unique positioning strategy, brand image and position. Unique positioning strategy is used in advertising to persuade the consumer that something about the product being advertised is truly unique and different. Brand image is also another very common way advertisers choose to advertise. They do this by using a celebrity as spokesperson and they strive to create emotion and give a brand a personality. A good example is the L’Oreal advert for elvive smooth intense; the product is advertised by Eva Longoria, Kerry Washington, this gives the brand a face people want to be. Positioning is one the most common forms of advertising, in positioning one brand will takes its product and position it against another.
Strong strategies
The strongest forms of creative strategy are affective advertising and resonance advertising. Affective advertising are the ones that makes people feel really good about a product. Resonance advertising is a way of identifying with the consumers, by creating campaigns that certain target audience identify with.
Case study; Weetabix
The Weetabix brightens up breakfasts with the Weetabix week campaign is great example of resonance advertising. Weetabix is a moderately plain product, a biscuit of whole grain goodness. The focus was to create a campaign that communicates the versatility of making Weetabix part of a health breakfast. They wanted their target audience to try a range of different toppings during the course of a Weetabix week. The campaign’s aim is to revive the morning routine.
The target audience for the campaign was incredibly broad, in line with Weetabix’s existing customers. The main part of this target audience was housewives with children, as this is where Weetabix had great potential. The advertiser did a lot of things which made this campaign a good example of resonance advertising. Firstly, the adverts ran on channel four, ITV, GMTV and multichannel; they did this because these were all family viewing channels and they wanted to emphasis on shared family viewing occasions. Secondly, the advertiser created an advert that the consumer can identify with. They did this by using characters that were similar to their target audience. Examples of these are a young family, an older couple, some students and a young couple all trying different ways of to eat their Weetabix and talking about the benefits.
I would say that this campaign worked really well and it’s a very good example of resonance advertising and alongside the TV was a tactical press campaign around key sporting events such as Wimbledon and the World Cup, with relevant toppings such as strawberries and cream for the tennis and a St George’s cross of yoghurt and strawberries for the football, helping to get more consumer without losing the main message that they wanted to get across to.
