Advantages
- Advertising can be seen anywhere, which means this is an easy way for customers to know more ‘news’ about the company or products.
- A good advertising can let customers have a good impression, especially new products.
Disadvantages
- A poor advertising can’t let the customers have a good impression, sometimes could be even worse
- The expenditure on advertising is too much. It is not guaranteed to make profits if company can’t provide a good advertising
Promotions and advertising analysis
Below-the-line
Figure 14: Below-the-line promotional activity
From above table I can see that promotions on make-up are run regularly by the major retailers and take a variety of forms, ranging from discounted prices to free product or unrelated free giveaways, such as Max Factor's free travel clock promotion in Sainsbury's. Boots frequently links promotions to its Advantage Card, offering free points when a certain amount is spent on a brand. This helps the retailer gather information about the purchaser and tie them into buying from Boots.
Figure 12: Main monitored media advertising expenditure on make-up, 1999-2003
According to this figure, the main media expenditure on make-up rose strongly in 2003 after dipping in 2001, partly due to P&G's decision to withdraw Olay Colour from the market. At that time the advertising to sales ratio fell and although it has recovered in 2003, it is still below the level recorded in 1999, reflecting the growing dependence make-up brands are placing on PR and other below-the-line activities.
Only the very largest companies can afford to support their brands with advertising, such as L'Oréal, P&G and Coty, which use advertising to build awareness and promote new product lines. The vast majority of make-up brands rely heavily on PR and gaining valuable column inches in all consumer titles, from the women's weeklies and monthly glossies to weekend newspapers such as ‘You’ magazine in the Mail on Sunday and ‘Style’ in the Sunday Times. A product mention or recommendation can result in a dramatic increase of sales and is considered by many brands to be far more influential than above-the-line advertising.
Figure 13: Main monitored media advertising expenditure on make-up, by brand, 1999-2003
From the table which shown above I can see that L'Oréal is the main advertiser within the make-up market, investing some £17 million across its L'Oréal Paris, Maybelline and Lancôme brands. Advertising is used primarily to build awareness for new products, such as Maybelline Water Shine Lipstick (£1.1 million), L'Oréal Paris Invincible Lipstick (£1.2 million) and Lancôme Adaptive foundation (£0.5 million).
In 2003, Max Factor focused on advertising 'star' products in the range, including Lipfinity (£1.6 million), Hypersmooth Foundation (£0.9 million) and Lasting Foundation (£0.9 million). Rimmel was the third most heavily supported brand and the only mass-market one to use a well-known celebrity to endorse the range. Supermodel Kate Moss is used to reinforce the English credentials of Rimmel as well as to emphasize its glamorous.
Estée Lauder is the most heavily supported premium brand, but lags some way behind its mass-market competitors. Together with Clinique, Estée Lauder make-up brands received £4.6 million of investment.
Conclusions
From all the tables I find that although Lancôme have not spent a lot of money on advertising as others, they still had some good promotions. As a result of a quite good advertising Lancôme might increase their sales and shares in the market since more people are buying them as they have now aware Lancôme more through promotions and advertising.
Government statistics & Target market
Government prepares statistics and the Central Statistical Office (CSO) publishes both a monthly and annual analysis. This provides me with information about the different markets.
Televisions
The advertisements are sold in spots and the daytime spots cost less because there are little audiences. In the evening between 5.30p.m. to 10.30p.m, there is a much bigger audience because people have finished work, school or whatever they are doing to relax and watch television. And this would be the appropriate time for me to advertise Lancôme.
In the UK, ITV (including GMTV), channel 4 and channel 5 (1997), show advertisements between programs and in intervals within the programs themselves. Advertising time on TV is sold in ‘spot’ ranging from one minute down to seven seconds. Daytime spots, when audiences are less, it cost less than those in the ‘peak time’ – the evening when millions of people may be watching Independent Television. Usually between 5.30p.m. to about 10.30 p.m. is peak viewing time when TV audiences are largest. The ITV companies usually show the same programs, though they may show different advertisements. TV advertising time in Britain is sold on the ‘spot’ system. A ‘spot’ can last for a few seconds as with many of the ‘still’ advertisements for local stops or for a minute or even occasionally more. ‘spot’ are bunched into breaks which may contain just one advertisement, though this is rare, or several. Each of the program companies charge different rate, or prices, for its spot time. It is not hard to see why. One company, Grampian Television, serves only about 2,023,000 homes, but the London Region, whose programs are provided by Charlton Television during the week and by London Weekend Televisions at weekends, has about 5,491,000 homes – 2 and half times as many. A half-minute spot in mid-evening on a weekday could cost £1,250 on Grampian Television whereas a similar spot time cost on Carlton Television might be £23,000.
On a weekday evening when a very popular program is being shown on the whole ITV network, as many as 20 million people may be watching. On Sunday morning the audience may only be a few thousand. Round about teatime during the week, a high proportion of the audience will be teenagers and children. Earlier in the afternoon in term-time, most viewers will be housewives, elderly people or shift workers. This information allows me to select my audience. It allows me to advertise to the correct audiences.
Radios
There are now over 240 commercial stations, licensed and regulated by the Radio Authority, that pay for themselves by taking money from advertising. There are now national, regional and local commercial stations broadcasting. Commercial radio stations, unlike TV stations, are no longer restricted to a limit on how much advertising they can take per hour – however they normally stick to 9 minutes as viewers tune elsewhere. They are sold on ‘spot’ basis. Peak audience time is different, however, with radio at breakfast period and evening rush hour has its largest audiences. From this I know that it’s best if I advertise my adverts in the morning and evening rush hours as this will be the time when most people listening to radio.
Posters
Point of sale (POS) advertising includes posters for the shop window, complete window displays for the advertiser’s products, ‘open’ and ‘closed’ notices for the door with a product name on them, and the various other small advertising items that you see in shops. These are sometimes part of a short-term advertising campaign, but more often they are used to keep an advertiser’s name in the minds of shoppers.
Newspapers and magazines
There are a variety of newspapers and magazines to choose from and they are all targeted to different readers. E.g. I would want to advertise on Glamour magazine since my product is mainly aimed at young woman. And because my product is not aimed at man so men properly would not like to read woman magazine ‘Glamour’.
Generally
In 2003, over £17,000 million was spent on advertising in Britain. 76 per cent of this was spent on display advertising of goods and services in the press, on television, radio, posters, direct mail, cinema and the internet. The remaining 24 per cent bought classified advertising (small ads), financial and legal notices, company announcements, recruitment advertising (job ads) and advertising in the business and professional press.
Companies also spend substantial sums on other forms of communication but statistics are not always available such as exhibitions, sponsorship, sales promotion, mail order and other forms of activity.
This is where the money was spent:
Who are the advertisers?
The table below shows the amount spent on advertising in 2003 by various product groups and by other groups of advertisers.
How Advertising Pays For the Media
If the media did not accept advertising we would have to pay a good deal more for our newspapers and magazines and without advertising Independent Television would not exist at all. The table below shows the proportions of their income that different types of publication obtain from advertising and from sales:
Examples of newspaper and magazine circulations
Television
The United Kingdom is divided into 14 TV regions. (For more details about Independent Television, including GMTV and Channels 4 & Five, see the Briefing on . The table below shows some of the companies, the regions they serve, and the number of homes with television, in each.
Identifying the Audience
The owners of media need to be able to identify the kinds of people who read their newspapers and magazines or watch their programs. This information is essential if an advertiser is to choose the right media for his message.
One simple and obvious means of identifying an audience is by age. Magazine A which contains articles on such subjects as cooking, home-making and child care, will be read by a different group from Magazine B, which concentrates on teenage fashion and pop music. The age-groups normally used in advertising are up to 15, 15-24, 24-35, 35-55, and 55 plus. Magazine A would be read mainly by women in the 24-35 and 35-55 age-groups, and Magazine B by the 15-24 groups.
Another means of identification used in advertising is 'social grade'. This is a classification based on the occupation of the head of the household, and it indicates the household's spending power. The table below shows the special grades, the occupation to which they refer, and the approximate proportions of each grade in the total UK population:
A Higher managerial, administrative and professional 3.3%
B Intermediate managerial, administrative and professional 21.6%
C1 Supervisory or clerical and junior managerial, administrative and professional 28.9%
C2 Skilled manual 20.8%
D Semi-skilled and unskilled manual 16.3%
E State pensioners or widows (no other earnings), casual or lowest-grade workers 9.1%
So if I wanted to advertise say, Lancôme juicy tubes, I would look for a newspaper or magazine with a high readership of fairly rich woman 24 - 45 year-olds - in other words, an AB readership aged 24-45. As the same time I want to attracts other readers as well, because there are plenty of younger and older people, and plenty of C1s, C2s and Ds, who like to read about expensive makeup even if they can’t afford it. But then those younger people will get older, and some of the C1s, C2s and Ds may get promotion to the point where they can afford buying fewer luxury goods. Age and social grade classifications do not work precisely but they help me to get reasonably close to the audience I wants to reach.
Examples of Advertising Rates
The media fix their advertising rates according to the size of their audience and its age and social profiles. The rates are highly negotiable depending on numerous factors including possible large discounts. Here are some examples of 2004 rates:
From the table above we can say that:
Television
Carlton’s spot time advertising is more expensive than Grampian spot time as it cost £30,500 to advertise on Carlton but only cost £790-990. That’s about £29710 -£29510 differences. From this dramatic difference of price, I need to really think about which company I want to place my adverts on as I would probably place my important adverts on Carlton even though they are more expensive because there are people watching the channel so my product is more likely to be aware by the general public.
Newspapers
I really need to consider the popularity of the newspaper, the time read by people and the size of the newspaper. For example most working class people tend to read ‘the Sun’ and higher class people tend to read the ‘Times’. So when I advertise Juicy tubes I would tend to advertise on more quality paper since these are the people who are likely to buy my products.
Magazines
I need to also consider which magazine I would advertise my products. The cost of advertising of Girl Talk and Go Girls is much cheaper than the TV times as it only cost about £2400-£3100 on Girl Talk and Go Girls compare to £18,500 on TV times. Nevertheless I would like to advertise my product on TV times because my products are mainly aimed at adults so advertise on TV times seems to be appropriate.
Cinemas
Cost in advertising on cinema screens are also varied, this is properly due to the popularity of the cinema. E.g. London Odeon Leicester Square costs £1160 but it only cost £192 on the regional cinema is properly due to London’s cinema is more popular than the regional one. Also I need to take the average costing to live in London into consideration as whatever you buy it’s always more expensive in London compare to other parts of the country. So this is maybe why it cost more to advertise in London Odeon cinema.
Radios
Radios in different places cost different rates. For example, it cost less on the National and regional radio compare to London radio, once again because it cost more to buy anything in London so cost is higher than other parts of the country. Also London has biggest population in the country which in turns mean that the biggest audiences so advertising in London would cost more. So if I really want my adverts to be heard throughout the country then London radio will be the place to advertise on.
Analysis of the imported products (data 2002)
Below is a table which shows the Top 20 Magazine Advertisers for Imported products 2002
From this table I can see that chanel has the biggest Magazine imported products and Lancôme has the 2nd biggest. This indicates that Lancôme has advertise a lot in the magazine of imported goods.
Top 9 Industrial Categories in Terms of Share of Total Spending on Magazine Advertising for Imported Products in 2002
Recent adverts for Lancôme
From the graph last page I can see that advertising has spent generally on cosmetics as it has 26.1% overall. It also indicates that people aware the makeup and cosmetics are now a growing market.
Cosmetics
Cosmetics adverts (ad) placed in women's magazines attracted an average of 50% of the readers.
With regard to an adverts' position in a magazine and its main means of expression (photograph, illustration, words, etc.), inside front cover spreads proved extremely effective at attracting attention and apprising readers of a product, while advertorials were highly effective at conveying an understanding of such things as a product's method of use, and at arousing interest.
*Inside front cover spreads are generally centered on photographs or illustrations. In terms of conveying an understanding of the product, they thus scored low compared to advertorials, which contain much explanatory information. However, rather than seeing inside front cover spreads as being ineffective at conveying understanding, whether they convey understanding or not is probably something that should be considered impossible to judge.
Below are the graphs and tables which show the results.
<Cosmetics> Women's Magazines (134 Ads)
<Cosmetics> Inside Front Cover Spreads in Women's Magazines (29 Ads)
<Cosmetics> Inner-Page Advertorials in Women's Magazines (67 Ads)
Lancôme promotion Timeline
Below are promotions which are made for Lancôme perfumes from 1935 to 1988
1935 1940 1945
1947 1949 1950
1951 1968 1988
Recent promotions
Recent promotions include January 2005- Beauty in French Riviera and new Lip-duo lipstick.
Lancôme will launch a 300 million dollar global advertising campaign this year. The ultra-glamorous and artistic new print campaign is designed to spark a personal connection with women through its exceptional macro-photography camera-work, eye-popping colors, clear and concise vocabulary, and products that showcase what they are and what they do.
"Lancôme is always evolving as a brand," states Edgar Huber, President of The Luxury Products Division, L'Oreal USA. "We know the importance of keeping our image fresh and as a leading luxury brand we have an obligation to continuously surprise, astonish and reinvent. This new campaign clearly conveys the current image of Lancôme."
The recent promotions are successful or not, we have to wait and see. But my new Juicy Tubes should be successful as it has already built its own reputations so it will be easier to influence the people to buy my products.
Also from the secondary data it has been very useful to my marketing strategies as I would then know where to advertise and what’s the best method for advertising my products.
Recent Media Schedule Advertising for Lancôme- February/March (2005)
Makeup
Skincare