From the marketing perspective, David W. Nylen (1986) argued that ‘different consumers may use particular products to satisfy a variety of needs. An advertiser may wish to specialize in serving the needs of one group of consumers rather than the whole groups’. Choosing a target group could help us finish our aims much better. We could segment people by three criteria: behavioral, psychological and profile variables. According to the following data, we find the research concentrating on the differences of area, gender and age; therefore, we could segment the audience from those standards.
Age: 0~14 15~24 25~34 35~44 45~55 above 55
Gender: Male vs. Female Area: the U.K vs out of the U.K
Probably the most important decision about our advertisements will be decision on what kinds of people we want to attract, namely, the target audience. Different groups of people have their own needs and concerns. We need to understand those different concerns and respond to them accordingly. Identifying the target audience and their needs is helpful to determine what information should be involved in message.
People now tend to have sex at an earlier age. That makes them threatened by the HIV/AIDS infection when they making love.
Every day, nearly 6,000 young people between the ages of 15 and 24, according to UNAIDS’s research, become infected with HIV because they are lack of knowledge about self-protection. Another report shows that Number of women who are AIDS infected from partner is increasing
. Keeping more young people away from AIDS is our aim. So, the young people, especial female from 15 to 24 in the UK are chosen to be our target audiences.
Age when having first sex
–1997 17-18
–1999 16.20
–2000 15-17
–2001 13-15
Source: Durex Survey 2002
Because young people, whether they are not yet sexually active or are embarking on their sexual lives, are more amenable to behavior change than adults. This situation could be averted through an effective education to teach young people how to protect themselves from becoming infected. Yes,
The message we wanted to convey is: using condom to protect yourself from HIV.
Consumer behaviour impacts
Consumer behavior of the target audience impacts the advertising strategy. The target audience at which our advertisements aim is the young females (15-24 years old) in Britain. What is the consumer behavior of the British young females and how does it impact on the choices of the advertising approaches?
Shopping No matter how old a woman is and what background she has got, “shopping is a leisure activity seen as complementary to female roles”. (J.R. Kelly, 1991) Therefore, the shopping center is the very place where women frequently appear. Large sized posters with an identified picture, no doubt, can catch their attention and give a deep impression on their minds. Moreover, young women are quite interested in the new and identified things.
Fashion is an everlasting topic for women, especially for the young females who will gather the information about fashion through every method they can get access to. Special-interest magazines, containing specialized information, appeal to particular target groups and meet their needs. (C. Fill, 2002, p.537) ‘Cosmopolitans’, ‘New Women’ and ‘19’ are three popular fashion magazines in Britain. Therefore, to advertise in such magazines can deliver high levels of information to the young females.
Entertainment There is another relaxing style that would strongly impact young people, such as watching television and listening to the radio.
- Advertising Methods and Schedules
Posters and public transportation advertising
G. Robert (1996) asserted that ‘Anyone who regards posters as untargeted, unaccountable and unsophisticated had better think again. The industry has tackled these perceptions head-on, and now claims to be as sophisticated as rival media in the way it targets the consumer and measures their response ’.
In this advertising plan, posters are used as a main tool to propagandize the image of protection from AIDS. Moreover, three hundred thousand pounds will be spent on putting posters and the scheduled time will last six months.
Advantage:
1)Location: Like the press it is visual only, and it is believed to be effective for reminder advertising. (D. Jobber, 2001, p.369) Therefore, the location where a large number of people pass daily is preferred. The shopping center, main road and the buses are chosen to put the posters. In details, one large poster is put in the shopping center of a certain city. Two large size posters are hung along two main roads of the city. Besides, the image of the posters is painted on the buses which shuttle around the city.
2)Message: As a method of outdoor advertising, a good poster can send the image and impress to more audience. D. Jobber (2001) argued that ‘Simplicity is required in the creative work associated with posters because many people (for example, car drivers) will have the opportunity only to glance at a poster.’ A picture and a few words may be enough to convey the information: protect yourself from AIDS.
Disadvantage: Any class of advertising has its advantage and disadvantage. Posters and transportation are the same. Though they can receive the high reach, high frequency and low relative costs, yet they are difficult to measure.
Magazines
Another approach is to advertise in magazines. David W. Nylen (1986) argued that ‘magazines, for the most part, are a more specialized medium in terms both of readers and advertisers’. Undoubtedly, magazine is an effective and efficient tool to communicate with the selected audience because magazine advertisement is by far the most specialized method of advertising. It can, therefore, communicate precisely to our target audience, namely, the British females between fifteen to twenty four years of age.
The next question to be asked is “which magazines to be selected?” David continued to assert that ‘magazine selectivity will be considered in terms of demographic selectivity first and then in terms of geographic selectivity’. From the demographic viewpoint, our target audience group are the young British girls chasing fashion, having lots of sex and lots of whom are cynical, hence some British magazines promoting and advertising fashion products with lots of sexy pictures and stories might be the good choices (e.g. ‘ 19’, ‘ Bliss’, etc). Meanwhile, the most famous female magazines (‘Cosmopolitan’, ‘New Woman’, etc) should be considered as well while launching our advertisements of creating and improving the awareness of AIDS/HIV in this group of people.
Advantage: Firstly, according to Frank Jefkins and Daniel Yadin, ‘the press is one of the cheapest means of reaching a large number of unknown or unidentified prospective target audience’. Looking back to our budget, 150 thousand pounds are allocated to the magazines which will be cost—effective compared with the outdoor and TV advertising.
Secondly, ‘advertisements can be inserted quickly, compared with the time required for making commercials for television or designing and printing posters’. This is another reason to choose magazines due to the fact that the advertisements on magazines may be launched immediately after our advertising plan, thus it has a priority in the scheduling process.
Thirdly, magazine advertisements may contain more information and thus can communicate more effectively meanwhile may arouse the sympathy, love and other feelings that are quite important goals of our advertising. John W. Oller and J. Roland Giardetti (1999) argued that ‘to win the audience, it is necessary to get them into the story. If the message causes them to laugh, cry, and shout, they are involved. Plausible conflict, doubt, and surprise are needed, but not to worry, conflict abounds’. In order to get this effect, the magazines are good communication vehicle.
Aim: Our aim in the magazine advertisements is to send out comparably more information, data or even short stories which can really attract our target audience, meanwhile we may choose the ‘perfect continuity’ approach in these advertisements in our selected magazines, namely, ‘19’, ‘Bliss’, ‘Cosmopolitan’ and ‘ New Woman’, because our 150 thousand pounds budget will be enough to do so.
Exhibitions
A third method in our advertising campaign which will last half a year is the exhibition. According to Frank Jefkins and Daniel Yadin, ‘exhibitions are the face-to-face confrontation, in the exhibitions, confidence, credibility and goodwill can be established by meeting potential customers face-to-face.
Honestly, exhibitions are a more straight forward approach compared with the outdoors and magazines.
However they are more costly and can only attract audience in a particular region, thus a higher budget was assigned to the exhibitions, namely, 350 thousand pounds. This amount of money still does not seem to be enough if we pay the expensive fees for using exhibition halls.
Location:
We may choose the major cities in UK from the south to the north, London, Birmingham, Nottingham, Manchester, York, Edinburgh and Glasgow. For that they may have a bigger influence to the society in UK as a whole.
We can alternatively exhibit in streets of city centers where lots of business are undertaken everyday. These locations may attract more people while they are shopping or just wandering in the city centers.
Contents:
The contents of the street exhibitions are lots of pictures, stories which may illustrate the cause of AIDS, the danger of it and the ways to avoid it. In addition, leaflets about raising people’s awareness of AIDS can be distributed in the exhibitions in those business areas as a supplementary method of communication.
Schedules
The following issue after determining the contents of those advertisements and the methods to carry them, the next step might be the scheduling and implementation. In terms of scheduling, we are more concerned with the question ‘how often should we launch the advertisements and what kind of method are used at what time?’ Erwin Ephron and Conlin Mcdonald (2002) asserted that ‘The idea here is the "advertising pressure" (as measured by response) does not end as soon as the advertisement has been seen, but decays over time back to its base level, unless or until this decay is reversed by a new exposure.’ In order to avoid the ‘decay effect’ during our half-a-year advertising campaign, all the three methods selected should be scheduled as following:
Outdoor advertising can be kept for the whole period, while the magazines advertisements will be implemented continuously in the selected four female magazines throughout this period, and the exhibitions in the nine cities mentioned above will be held every ten days throughout the six months’ time, which is twice for every city at an interval of nine weeks.
Determining the advertising budget is important because all organizations tend to ensure that they achieve the greatest efficiency with each pound they spend on the communicational activities. ‘Neither can afford to be profligate with scarce resources, and each is accountable to the owners of the organization for the decisions it makes’ (Chris Fill, 1999). As a charitable organization, AVERT has two main sources of funds, public donations, and the income on some investments on the charity. AVERT receives no government funding as well. According to the financial feasibility, we decide to invest one million pounds on these communication activities. About 30% (￡300,000)is on outdoor advertising, 15% is on the magazines(￡150,000), 35%(￡350,000) is on the public exhibitions, 10%(￡100,000) is on leaflet and 10%(￡100,000) is left on implementation.
Control and evaluation provide the necessary feedback required to ensure that communications continue to be appropriate and relevant to our target audiences. There are several areas in which the advertiser should control. It is essential that the effectiveness of the advertising programs in meeting advertising plan objectives is evaluated (David W. Nylen, 1986, p.569). Fill and Chris (2002) argued that ‘Advertisements can be researched prior to their release (pre-test) or after they have been released (post-test). One of ways to determine whether advertising is effective is by asking target audiences if they recognize our advertisement. By asking them which parts of the magazine or layout were seen or read, we can know that whether or not they usually look at that sort of advertisement. (Fill. Chris, 2002, p. 742) in addition, as the result that the questioning process is simpler and quicker, the advantage of recognition test is the high reliability and the lower costs. Apart from above method to control our plan, questionnaire and mall-intercept interview also are good ways. Although we can use different methods to control or evaluate advertising plan, we must take into account all the relevant factors to ensure that significant results are obtained and that communications efforts are adjusted accordingly.
Reference
Erwin Ephron & Conlin Mcdonald, 2002, Media scheduling and carry-over effects: Is adstock a useful TV planning tool, Journal of Advertising Research, Jul/Aug, 2002, New York
David W. Nylen, 1986, Advertising planning, implementation &control, South-western Publishing Company
Fill, Chris, 2002, Markting communications
David. Jobber, 2001, Principles & Practice of Marketing. McGraw-Hill.
Frank Jefkins & Daniel Yadin, Advertising, 4th edition, Prentice Hall.
John W. Oller Jr. & J. Roland Giardeth, Images that work – Creating successful messages in marketing and high stakes communication, Quorum Books, Westport, Connecticut, London
G. Robert, 1996, Putting the show on the road in Marketing, London, June 20th, 1996.
E.J. Betts and P.J. McGoldrick, 1996, Consumer behaviour and the retail "sales" Modelling the development of an "attitude problem", European Journal of Marketing, Bradford , Vol 30. issue 8. p40.
J.R. Kelly, 1991, Commodification and consciousness: an initial study in Leisure Studies. Vol. 10, p7
C. Fill, 2002, Marketing Communications: contexts, strategies and applications. FT Prentice Hall. P537
Electronic Resources:
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