Print Advertising   You may not think that print advertising is all that interesting, but there’s a great deal of really clever creative that’s been done with print ads

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Print Advertising

 

You may not think that print advertising is all that interesting, but there’s a great deal of really clever creative that’s been done with print ads. And we are going to look at some of those examples. We can do a basic split in terms of print advertising between product focused advertising, which has subcategories that we’ll take a look at, and then institutional advertising, which is sometimes cause related or specifically advertising the institution.

 

Pioneering Advertising

 

This is a basic informational or pioneer product ad. Used early in the product lifecycle when you’re explaining the features and benefits of a new product introduction. This is obviously a fairly dated ad because it’s introducing the new Casio Digital Camera. But if you could read the copy on the right hand side of the page, you’d find that what it’s doing is explaining the features of and benefits of this new product.

 

The other thing that I’d like to point out is the layout of the ad. The use of space in an ad, the header, the visual, all of those things are really very strategic. In this case we have a 2/3, 1/3. The couple and its picture is 2/3 of the ad. That’s the big part of the visual design to get your attention. The factual information is that 1/3 column on the right hand side. And they’ve actually bolded out the header, the top of the ad, by reversing it with white print on a black background, instead of the normal black on white. Again, that’s another way to catch attention and grab the consumer and get them to pay attention to the ad.

 

Comparative Ad

 

This is a persuasive or comparative ad where brand is being compared for its features. Obviously in this case its being the U.S. Postal Service and it’s comparing itself to FedEx and UPS. And obviously the point of differentiation is very simple. Its price. And then what’s your priority poses a question to engage the consumer to think about is that benefit really worth it to you? Once again look at the layout of the ad. It’s very simple. It’s very clean. There’s a lot of white space. But you very clearly get the point of differentiation and what they are trying to say. And you know who sponsored the ad. So that makes if a very clearly differentiated communication.

 

Reminder Ad

 

This is a reminder product ad. Basically it’s not giving you a lot of information. It doesn’t explain the product. It doesn’t explain the situation. All it does is sort of put the product brand name out there. Baccarat. If you know that Baccarat is a brand of high quality crystal, then that’s all you need to know. And it looks like maybe it’s a dinner party. The caption is life is worth Baccarat. Maybe because of the hearts it’s a Valentine’s ad. I don’t really know. And the point is I don’t have to know. I’m just being reminded about what the brand is.

 

Institutional A

 

I really like this ad. I think it’s rather clever for a corporate image ad. The company is Accenture, the Management Consultants. And the tagline says it all. Who says you can’t be big and nimble? What really works is the image. That’s very arresting. It’s going to catch your attention if you were flipping past it. And it gets something across about the company. It’s a big management consulting firm, but they can apparently act rather quickly as well.

 

Public Service Ad

 

This is an institutional ad on behalf of Make-A-Wish Foundation Canada. In this case the ad seems to be sponsored by the foundation but you’ve also got a lot of instances where for-profit organizations sponsor this kind of ad as part of their public service work and advocacy. And that is also another use for advertising.

 

Sales Promotion

 

We said that sales promotion was a short term inducement to buy, and that’s still true. The whole point of engaging in sales promotion is to stimulate sales. But there’s lots of other objectives you can do with using sales promotions. So let’s look at a few.

 

The first reason to obviously engage into sales promotion is to stimulate sales. So if you look at the example of the Coke Zero promotion, they’re offering free World Cup tickets. And the whole point of that particular promotion, which was run in 2010, was to actually attract male customers. There’s also the immediate sales boost that you get in something like the Ford promotion that says, I’ll give you a rebate if you’ll come and buy a Ford car, including all our hot brands. That one’s interesting because it requires that you trade in a hotter brand.

 

Another reason to use sales promotion is to introduce new products. This KFC popcorn chicken promotion actually does both stimulate people to come in and buy, and introduce a new product. They’re using the popcorn chicken as an inducement to come in on this particular day, which means they are controlling the traffic flow. The other one is the Apollo Tech gift with purchase. And they’re introducing their product by giving you a gift to stimulate your interest in getting you into the store to look at it.

 

Manufacturers and retailers both use sales promotion as a way to move older inventory. The Honda clearance shows you it’s the end of season before new models come out. And so is the end of quarter clearance for the flooring sale. In both cases what they are trying to do is move old stock so they can bring in new stock.

 

Sales promotion is also used to reward your existing customers. And in fact the big increase we’ve seen in loyalty cards to all kinds of retailers and brands is really exactly that. What they want to do is identify those customers, and frankly, give them special benefits or reasons to keep buying.

 

Promotions where you get extra product like the Carte D’Or 50% extra, or a BOGO, buy one get one, have double purpose. It rewards the franchise because you know they are going to buy it, but it also attracts swing buyers from competitors. And that’s a useful tool as well. So if someone doesn’t see a lot of incremental difference between brands, then they are probably buying on incentives. And a BOGO and an incremental offering of a product does exactly that.

 

Some Sales Promotion Options

 

We’ll talk about a lot of these examples in the slides that follow. But recognize, like other things in communication, there’s a lot of different ways to do it. And different premiums and different promotional tools yield different results. And again, strategically you need to understand what you’re trying to achieve and who you’re trying to address. And that’s really the upfront thinking. These are the tactical execution tools.

 

Coupons

 

One of the forms of sales promotion that consumers are most familiar with is the coupon. It’s a huge business. It’s sometimes effective. It’s going mobile. It’s best used for really inducing trial or frankly responding the competition. You can drop a coupon fairly quickly. It comes in a lot of different forms.

 

Some are known by their delivery method, the FSI’s and BFD’s. FSI stands for free standing insert, and I’ll show you an example on the next slide. BFD stands for best food day, which is usually a run of the newspaper. The Boston Globe it’s in Wednesdays where all the supermarkets put in their advertising. Although even those are switching to sort of an FSI format.

 

Then there’s something called an IRC coupon. It’s an instant redeemable. Manufacturers like them because they just stick them on the outside of the package and it’s up to the consumer to find them and peel them off and present them at checkout.

 

And then there’s something called a cross ruff coupon. The example with the Bumble Bee tuna if you actually look at the coupon that comes on the back of the label, it’s for Vlasic Pickles. And a cross ruff coupon means that it goes to another product. Not the same product. So there are lots of forms.

 

Coupons Redemptions Rates by Type

 

If you’re the manager considering using coupons for your particular product, one of the things to consider is that frequently the redemption rates aren’t very high. If you look at this particular chart of recent results, not surprisingly, the highest redemption rates go to things that are closest to the point of purchase. Things that make it very easy for the consumer to get the promotion. So for instance the instant redeemables, or a shelf pad, where you tear off an item and that’s the coupon. Or an electronic delivery system where it spits out at the point of purchase. But the point being that consumers don’t always think ahead, unless they’re on one of those couponing extreme shows. And most of us, really if we are going to get it, we want to get it close to hand.

 

FSI

 

This is the cover shot of an FSI, a free standing insert. They tend to get delivered with a Sunday newspaper or now we are seeing more delivery during midweek as well, so it’s twice a week. It puts all the promotions in one place and all the coupons. If you’re somebody big in consumer products like Proctor and Gamble, they actually put out their own FSI. It’s all their brands in one insert. And they can afford to do that. It’s efficient because consumers can find everything in one place. And like I say if you are as big as Proctor and Gamble, it’s cost effective because you can spread the production cost across a lot of different brands.

 

 

Premiums

 

If you’ve ever bought a McDonald’s Happy Meal, and gotten the toy inside, that’s a premium. A premium is an item that’s offered at no or minimal cost to help induce purchase or kind of reward the consumer. It’s a freebie, sort of. Comes in lots of different forms, and we are going to look at some in a minute. The cereal aisle is utterly covered in premiums. Kids that can’t read can figure out what the premium is in the box. And Cracker Jack’s made an entire brand over having the toy inside, and it was probably the first one that did it.

 

Premiums are also known by their relation to their product. So they come in in-pack, on-pack, and near-pack. In-pack is like the Cracker Jacks toy. It’s actually packaged with the product. And on-pack is like the spatula with Log Cabin Syrup. It’s actually shrink wrapped to the outside of the package. A near-pack is something that you get nearby. So you might get a redemption coupon for milk to go with your Oreo’s. It’s nearby because it’s in the same store and it’s an easy redemption to make. And that puts it in a different premium category.

 

Mail in SLO

 

The premium in this ad is called the self-liquidating offer. It’s self-liquidating because the manufacturer buys an inventory of the item, in this case the highly desirable Teddy Ruxpin watch, and the promotion lasts as long as the inventory does. It’s also low cost to the manufacturer, the consumer pays the $2.99, and that gets them the promotion. It induces purchase, it’s something novel, and it lasts for a relatively short time.

 

In Pack Premium

 

This is another highly desirable premium. It’s called an in pack premium because it’s actually packaged in the box. This is for the Shrek iron-on. So when you buy your box of cereal, you open it up, and inside you find a free iron-on that you can then press on to a t-shirt. That makes it attractive. Cereals are huge in using premiums. In this case they’ve also added a coupon of a fairly high value. But you will find if you read their fine print, that it probably requires you to buy multiple boxes of cereal in order to get the full value. That’s one way to keep the impact of the coupon down on the manufacturer.

 

In Pack Premium

 

Putting the last two slides together, what we have here is an in pack, self-liquidating offer. You get the Hot Wheels car inside the package of cereal. It’s a self-liquidating because they bought a finite inventory. They also probably require a proof of purchase and some kind of nominal payment. Once again, you have the high value coupon along with the premium, but it requires multiple cereal purchases.

 

POP & Mail In

 

This is a combination promotion. It’s got a free mail in and a near pack premium. The near pack premium is really that you get free tuna with a coupon and the purchase of the ReaLemon lemon juice. So they’re found in the same store relatively nearby and frequently used together. So it makes sense for the consumer. The free mail in is the seafood sampler cookbook, which is an additional promotion. And in fact beyond that on this particular promotion, there’s also a recipe card on how to use all these particular ingredients. So it’s a multidimensional benefit to the consumer to induce purchase.

 

Contest

 

Contests and sweepstakes are frequently used with mature products. It’s partly to attract swing buyers and partly to give some life to the product. Usually it’s got a big number, and yes they really do give the prize away, it’s required. What’s the difference between a contest and a sweepstake? Well if you read the fine print, a contest requires that you do something, even if it’s only something very nominal like match a game piece to a display in the store. That gets you very close to the product, and it requires you to do something. A sweepstakes, on the next slide, is really luck of the draw.

 

Sweepstakes

 

This is that luck of that draw sweepstake. You submit your entry, and if your number comes up, you win the prize. What’s interesting about this one, is it’s very cost effective for the manufacturer. If you look at that bottom line of the picture, there’s a whole variety of brands that are actually being included in the sponsorship. And that means that the cost of the promotion is going to be allocated across all those brands. They probably couldn’t afford it individually, but collectively they can.

 

Trade Promotions

 

As the title indicates, trade promotion is targeted to the trade. It’s really to generate support by the trade intermediaries. So the retailers, the wholesalers, the distributors. And it’s frequently a straightforward financial support in terms of promotional monies. But sometimes it’s some other form of support that allows the manufacturer to have an interaction and show support for the retailer.

 

Aside from case allowances to stock up on inventory, or some kind of promotional support in terms of dollars, anything in the way of incremental display and promotion also reflects trade promotion. Then the manufacturer pays for it, and then the store allows it to be put in their store. So shelf-talkers, or coupon dispensers, or freestanding displays. The manufacturer pays for all of those and the store allows it to be put in, but usually for some kind of compensation. And then there’s having a sales contest. They are incentivizing the retail trade sales personal to move the product.

 

Co-Op Advertising

 

Co Op advertising is one of the most popular forms of trade support. And a lot of retailers definitely take advantage of it. It’s a win-win. Basically it takes advantage of the fact that the price charge for local advertising to a local retailer, in this case, Shaw’s, is lower than the cost to Kleenex to put in an ad in say the Boston Globe. So in co-op advertising, what happens is, Kleenex says to Shaw’s, if you’ll place the ad, we’ll pay for it. And so Shaw’s gets the port because they’re store name is on the promotion, and Kleenex gets a lower cost to get their ad in.

 

Trade Giveaways

 

This is a catalog of trade giveaways. These kinds of things still get used, particularly in B to B. It’s that little something you leave when you make a customer call that’s a freebie. It’s a goodwill gesture. But think about that little 4x4 memo cube. It’s sitting on the customer’s desk and it’s very useful to them because it’s a very useful little memo cube. But it’s got your name and number and everything right there in front of your competition and it’s like having a mini billboard on the person’s desk.

 

 

Publicity vs Content

 

I like this visual because it gives some of the contrast between traditional publicity and today’s more current content marketing. One is basically an outbound phenomena, and one is really much more about creating a relationship.

 

Traditional publicity is an unpaid communication about the firm or its products that appears in mass media. And it tends to get used to introduce or influence or advocate or even crisis manage the image of the company or the product.

 

Content marketing is a little different. It’s the creation and sharing of content that lives on owned media, usually owned by someone else. It consistently offers valuable information to the buyer and seeks to establish relationship trust by attracting and engaging customers. And that’s the difference. It’s that processes of engagement that really says, I want you to be part of this process.

 

Publicity Interrupts

 

Traditional publicity, as the slide says, is meant to interrupt to get your attention. And the list of tools and techniques that are available to do that are pretty long and fairly creative. The problem with it is that it may only get the attention briefly. And with a very cluttered and 24/7 news cycle, it’s hard to get seen. It interrupts but it doesn’t necessarily create that relationship or value add. And frankly it can be expensive to do and manage if it isn’t successful in converting customers to the product.

 

Responses to Ad Age Survey Question

 

Content marketing is the current hot topic in communication. Almost every major company is devoting some of their current budget to content marketing. But the downside risk is they don’t really know what they are doing, why they are doing it, except everybody else is doing it, or what it’s doing for them. As you can see from the slide, there’s lots of ways to do it, but tracking that and determining what that’s doing for the company, is still a work in process. And so that’s really the issue at this state of the game. People are experimenting; people think they should be in this space in terms of communication. But they’re not quite sure what it’s doing for them, and it’s getting tough to justify if it doesn’t yield results.

 

The Content Marketing Matrix

 

While this is a somewhat cluttered slide, I think it’s a useful model to look at which content marketing tools you can use to influence what stages of customer behavior. So on one axis, you’ve got customer purchase intent. Somewhere between generating awareness to actually getting them up to the point of purchase, or actual purchase, even better.

 

And then on the other axis you’ve got the customer decision style. Are they an emotional consumer? Or are they a rational consumer? So looking at those two axes, you can see that there are different goals for each quadrant. If you’re looking at entertainment to sort of get them engaged, then you’ve got one set of tools. If you’re looking to persuade them, you’re talking about a rational consumer who’s getting close to purchase and really wants the specifics. So it’s worth taking a look at this particular model to see which tools work where.