To provide some perspective, let’s consider in more depth the process by which marketing communications might affect consumers. A number of different models have been put forth over the years to explain communications and the steps in the persuasion process—recall the discussion on the hierarchy of effects model from Brand Focus 2.0. For example, for a person to be persuaded by any form of communication (a TV advertisement, newspaper editorial, or blog posting), the following six steps must occur:4

1. Exposure: A person must see or hear the communication.

2. Attention: A person must notice the communication.

3. Comprehension: A person must understand the intended message or arguments of the communication.

4. Yielding: A person must respond favorably to the intended message or arguments of the communication.

5. Intentions: A person must plan to act in the desired manner of the communication.

6. Behavior: A person must actually act in the desired manner of the communication.

You can appreciate the challenge of creating a successful marketing communication program when you realize that each of the six steps must occur for a consumer to be persuaded. If there is a breakdown or failure in any step along the way, then successful communication will not result. For example, consider the potential pitfalls in launching a new advertising campaign:

1. A consumer may not be exposed to an ad because the media plan missed the mark.

2. A consumer may not notice an ad because of a boring and uninspired creative strategy.

3. A consumer may not understand an ad because of a lack of product category knowledge or technical sophistication, or because of a lack of awareness and familiarity about the brand itself.

4. A consumer may fail to respond favorably and form a positive attitude because of irrelevant or unconvincing product claims.

5. A consumer may fail to form a purchase intention because of a lack of an immediate perceived need.

6. A consumer may fail to actually buy the product because he or she doesn’t remember anything from the ad when confronted with the available brands in the store.

To show how fragile the whole communication process is, assume that the probability of each of the six steps being successfully accomplished is 50 percent—most likely an extremely generous assumption. The laws of probability suggest that the likelihood of all six steps successfully occurring, assuming they are independent events, is 0.5 × 0.5 × 0.5 × 0.5 × 0.5 × 0.5, which equals 1.5625 percent. If the probability of each step’s occurring, on average, were a more pessimistic 10 percent, then the joint probability of all six events occurring is .000001. In other words, only 1 in 1,000,000! No wonder advertisers sometimes lament the limited power of advertising.

One implication of the information processing model is that to increase the odds for a successful marketing communications campaign, marketers must attempt to increase the likelihood that each step occurs. For example, from an advertising standpoint, the ideal ad campaign would ensure that:

1. The right consumer is exposed to the right message at the right place and at the right time.

2. The creative strategy for the advertising causes the consumer to notice and attend to the ad but does not distract from the intended message.

3. The ad properly reflects the consumer’s level of understanding about the product and the brand.

4. The ad correctly positions the brand in terms of desirable and deliverable points-of-difference and points-of-parity.

5. The ad motivates consumers to consider purchase of the brand.

6. The ad creates strong brand associations to all these stored communication effects so that they can have an effect when consumers are considering making a purchase.

Clearly, marketers need to design and execute marketing communication programs carefully if they are to have the desired effects on consumers.

Television is a powerful advertising medium because it allows for sight, sound, and motion and reaches a broad spectrum of consumers. Virtually all U.S. households have televisions, and the average hours viewed per person per week in the United States in 2010 was 34 hours, an all-time high.7 The wide reach of TV advertising translates to low cost per exposure.

Guidelines. 

In designing and evaluating an ad campaign, marketers should distinguish the message strategy or positioning of an ad (what the ad attempts to convey about the brand) from its creative strategy (the way the ad expresses the brand claims). Designing effective advertising campaigns is both an art and a science: The artistic aspects relate to the creative strategy of the ad and its execution; the scientific aspects relate to the message strategy and the brand claim information the ad contains. Thus, as Figure 6-3 describes, the two main concerns in devising an advertising strategy are as follows:

• Defining the proper positioning to maximize brand equity

• Identifying the best creative strategy to communicate or convey the desired positioning

• DEFINE POSITIONING TO ESTABLISH BRAND EQUITY

• Competitive frame of reference

• Nature of competition

• Target market

• Point-of-parity attributes or benefits

• Category

• Competitive

• Correlational

• Point-of-difference attributes or benefits

• Desirable

• Deliverable

• Differentiating

• IDENTIFY CREATIVE STRATEGY TO COMMUNICATE POSITIONING CONCEPT

• Informational (benefit elaboration)

• Problem–solution

• Demonstration

• Product comparison

• Testimonial (celebrity or unknown consumer)

• Transformational (imagery portrayal)

• Typical or aspirational usage situation

• Typical or aspirational user of product

• Brand personality and values

• Motivational ("borrowed interest" techniques)

• Humor

• Warmth

• Sex appeal

• Music

• Fear

• Special effects

Chapter 3 described a number of issues with respect to positioning strategies to maximize brand equity. Creative strategies tend to be either largely informational, elaborating on a specific product-related attribute or benefit, or largely transformational, portraying a specific non-product-related benefit or image.10 These two general categories each encompass several different specific creative approaches.

Regardless of which general creative approach marketers take, however, certain motivational or “borrowed interest” devices can attract consumers’ attention and raise their involvement with an ad. These devices include cute babies, frisky puppies, popular music, well-liked celebrities, amusing situations, provocative sex appeals, and fear-inducing threats. Many believe such techniques are necessary in the tough new media environment characterized by low-involvement consumer processing and much competing ad and programming clutter.

Unfortunately, these attention-getting tactics are often too effective and distract from the brand or its product claims. Thus, the challenge in arriving at the best creative strategy is figuring out how to break through the clutter to attract the attention of consumers but still deliver the intended message. Consider how the SNICKERS® candy bar achieved that.

Snickers® Brand

Facing slumping sales, SNICKERS® needed to build on its key point-of-difference as a deliciously filling hunger-satisfier to extend its reach beyond its core audience of young males. With a campaign theme of “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry®,” humorous ads were created that showed everyday people acting like—and literally becoming—different people in different situations because of their hunger. Only when they eat a SNICKERS® bar do they snap back to reality and become themselves again. In the high-profile 2010 Super Bowl launch ad for the U.S. market, a guy in a playground football game is snidely told he is playing like famed comedienne Betty White—who actually is shown playing—until he gets his bite of SNICKERS®. In a follow-up spot, one of four guys on a road trip is told he is acting like a diva in the form of legendary soul singer Aretha Franklin until he is given a SNICKERS® bar. Strong PR, complementary print, and extensive digital activation and Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter presence all further reinforced the message. The well-conceived and executed campaign received an EFFIE award from the American Marketing Association in recognition of its marketplace sales success.11

What makes an effective TV ad?12 Fundamentally, a TV ad should contribute to brand equity in some demonstrable way, for example, by enhancing awareness, strengthening a key association or adding a new association, or eliciting a positive consumer response. Earlier, we identified six broad information-processing factors as affecting the success of advertising: consumer targeting, the ad creative, consumer understanding, brand positioning, consumer motivation, and ad memorability.

Although managerial judgment using criteria such as these can and should be employed in evaluating advertising, research also can play a productive role. Advertising strategy research is often invaluable in clarifying communication objectives, target markets, and positioning alternatives. To evaluate the effectiveness of message and creative strategies, copy testing is often conducted, in which a sample of consumers is exposed to candidate ads and their reactions are gauged in some manner.

Unfortunately, copy-testing results vary considerably depending on exactly how tests are conducted. Consequently, the results must be interpreted as only one possible data point that should be combined with managerial judgment and other information in evaluating the merits of an ad. Copy testing is perhaps most useful when managerial judgment reveals some fairly clear positive and negative aspects to an ad and is therefore somewhat inconclusive. In this case, copy-testing research may shed some light on how these various conflicting aspects “net out” and collectively affect consumer processing.

Regardless, copy-testing results should not be seen as a means of making a “go” or “no go” decision; ideally, they should play a diagnostic role in helping to understand how an ad works. As an example of the potential fallibility of pretesting, consider NBC’s experiences with the popular TV series Seinfeld.

Seinfeld

In October 1989, The Seinfeld Chronicles, as it was called then, was shown to several groups of viewers in order to gauge the show’s potential, like most television pilot projects awaiting final network approval. The show tested badly—very badly. The summary research report noted that “no segment of the audience was eager to watch the show again.” The reaction to Seinfeld himself was “lukewarm” because his character was seen as “powerless, dense, and naïve.” The test report also concluded that “none of the supports were particularly liked and viewers felt that Jerry needed a better back-up ensemble.” Despite the weak reaction, NBC decided to go ahead with what became one of the most successful television shows of the 1990s. Although NBC also changed its testing methods, this experience reinforces the limitations of testing and the dangers of relying on single numbers.13

Radio is a pervasive medium: 93 percent of all U.S. consumers 12 years and older listen to the radio daily and, on average, for over 15 hours a week, although often only in the background.16 Perhaps the main advantage to radio is flexibility—stations are highly targeted, ads are relatively inexpensive to produce and place, and short closings allow for quick responses.

Radio is a particularly effective medium in the morning and can effectively complement or reinforce TV ads. Radio also enables companies to achieve a balance between broad and localized market coverage. Obvious disadvantages of radio, however, are the lack of visual image and the relatively passive nature of consumer processing that results. Several brands, however, have effectively built brand equity with radio ads.

Motel 6

One notable radio ad campaign is for Motel 6, the nation’s largest budget motel chain, which was founded in 1962 when the “6” stood for $6 a night. After finding its business fortunes hitting bottom in 1986 with an occupancy rate of only 66.7 percent, Motel 6 made a number of marketing changes, including the launch of a radio campaign of humorous 60-second ads featuring folksy contractor-turned-writer Tom Bodett. Containing the clever tag line “We’ll Leave the Light on for You,” the campaign is credited with a rise in occupancy and a revitalization of the brand that continues to this day.17

What makes an effective radio ad?18 Radio has been less studied than other media. Because of its low-involvement nature and limited sensory options, advertising on radio often must be fairly focused. For example, the advertising pioneer David Ogilvy believed four factors were critical:19

1. Identify your brand early in the commercial.

2. Identify it often.

3. Promise the listener a benefit early in the commercial.

4. Repeat it often.

Nevertheless, radio ads can be extremely creative. Some see the lack of visual images as a plus because they feel the clever use of music, sounds, humor, and other creative devices can tap into the listener’s imagination in a way that creates powerfully relevant and liked images.

Print media has taken a huge hit in recent years as more and more consumers choose to collect information and seek entertainment online. In response, publishers are doing their own digital innovation in the form of iPad apps and a stronger Web presence.

Print media does offer a stark contrast to broadcast media. Most importantly, because they are self-paced, magazines and newspapers can provide detailed product information. At the same time, the static nature of the visual images in print media makes it difficult to provide dynamic presentations or demonstrations. Another disadvantage of print advertising is that it can be a fairly passive medium.

Pros & Cons. 

The two main print media—magazines and newspapers—have many of the same advantages and disadvantages. Magazines are particularly effective at building user and usage imagery. They can also be highly engaging: one study showed that consumers are more likely to view magazine ads as less intrusive, more truthful, and more relevant than ads in other media and are less likely to multitask while reading.20

Newspapers, however, are more timely and pervasive. Daily newspapers are read by 30 percent of the population—although that number has been declining for years as more consumers go online to get their news—and tend to be used for local (especially retailer) advertising.21 On the other hand, although advertisers have some flexibility in designing and placing newspaper ads, poor reproduction quality and short shelf life can diminish some of the possible impact of newspaper advertising. These are disadvantages that magazine advertising usually doesn’t share.

Although print advertising is particularly well suited to communicate product information, it can also effectively communicate user and usage imagery. Fashion brands such as Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, and Guess have also created strong nonproduct associations through print advertising. Some brands attempt to communicate both product benefits and user or usage imagery in their print advertising, for example, car makers such as Ford, Volkswagen, and Volvo or cosmetics makers such as Maybelline and Revlon.

One of the longest-running and perhaps most successful print ad campaigns ever is for Absolut vodka.22

Absolut

In 1980, Absolut was a tiny brand, selling 100,000, nine-liter cases a year. Research pointed out a number of liabilities for the brand: the name was seen as too gimmicky; the bottle shape was ugly, and bartenders found it hard to pour; shelf prominence was limited; and there was no credibility for a vodka brand made in Sweden. Michel Roux, president of Carillon (Absolut’s importer), and TBWA (Absolut’s New York ad agency) decided to use the oddities of the brand—its quirky name and bottle shape—to create brand personality and communicate quality and style in a series of creative print ads. Each ad in the campaign visually depicted the product in an unusual fashion and verbally reinforced the image with a simple, two-word headline using the brand name and some other word in a clever play on words. For example, the first ad showed the bottle prominently displayed, crowned by an angel’s halo, with the headline “Absolut Perfection” appearing at the bottom of the page. Follow-up ads explored various themes (seasonal, geographic, celebrity artists) but always attempted to put forth a fashionable, sophisticated, and contemporary image. By 2001, Absolut had become the leading imported vodka in the United States, and by 2006, it was the third-largest premium spirits brand in the world, with sales of 9.8 million nine-liter cases. Facing slowing sales in 2007, however, the firm launched its first new campaign in 25 years, “In an Absolut World.” The goal of the campaign was to focus on the uniqueness of the brand by showing a fantasy world where lying leaders are exposed by their Pinocchio noses, protesters and the police wage street fights with feather pillows, nice Manhattan apartments cost $300 a month, and it takes only one lap in a pool to turn fat into muscle. Later ads expanded the meaning of an “Absolut World” to include special, offbeat, or unusual events, people, and things by including celebrities such as Kate Beckinsale and Zooey Deschanel. In 2011, a new multimedia campaign, ABSOLUT BLANK, was launched with the tag line, “It All Starts with an Absolute Blank.” Twenty artists—from drawing, painting, and sculpting to film making and digital art—used the iconic Absolut bottle as a blank canvas and creatively filled it with their artistic expression.

In contrast to advertising in traditional broadcast and print media, which typically communicates to consumers in a nonspecific and nondirective manner, direct response uses mail, telephone, Internet, and other contact tools to communicate with or solicit a response from specific customers and prospects. Direct response can take many forms and is not restricted to solicitations by mail, telephone, or even within traditional broadcast and print media.

Direct mail still remains popular, with U.S. businesses generating $571 billion in sales from direct mail in 2010.23 Marketers are exploring other options, though. One increasingly popular means of direct marketing is infomercials, formally known as direct response TV marketing.24 In a marketing sense, infomercials attempt to combine the sell of commercials with the draw of educational information and entertainment. We can therefore think of them as a cross between a sales call and a television ad. According to Infomercial DRTV, a trade Web site, infomercials are typically 28 minutes and 30 seconds long with an average cost in the $150,000–250,000 range (although production can cost as little as $75,000 and as much as $500,000).25

Starting with infomercials, although now moving online and also employing social media, Guthy-Renker enjoys about $800 million in revenue from its Proactiv acne treatment, endorsed by celebrities Justin Bieber, Jennifer Love-Hewitt, Katy Perry, Avril Lavigne, and Jenna Fischer. Many infomercial products are now showing up in stores carrying little “As Seen on TV” signs. Telebrands has sold 35 million of the PedEgg used to smooth rough feet and generates 90 percent of sales of all its products from major retailers such as CVS and Target. By 2014, direct-response TV marketing is expected to drive sales of $174 billion—a 30% increase from 2010 levels.26

The last category of advertising is also often called “nontraditional,” “alternative,” or “support” advertising, because it has arisen in recent years as a means to complement more traditional advertising media. Place advertising, also called out-of-home advertising, is a

broadly defined category that captures advertising outside traditional media. Increasingly, ads and commercials are showing up in unusual spots, sometimes as parts of experiential marketing programs.

The rationale is that because traditional advertising media—especially television advertising—are becoming less effective, marketers are better off reaching people in other environments, such as where they work, play, and, of course, shop. Out-of-home advertising picked up as the economy started to pick up in 2010, when it was estimated that $6.1 billion was spent.28 Some of the options include billboards and posters; movies, airlines, lounges, and other places; product placement; and point-of-purchase advertising.

Billboards and Posters. 

Billboards have a long history but have been transformed over the years and now employ colorful, digitally produced graphics, backlighting, sounds, movement, and unusual—even three-dimensional—images to attract attention. The medium has improved in terms of effectiveness (and measurability), technology (some billboards are now digitized), and provide a good opportunity for companies to sync their billboard strategies with mobile advertising.

Billboard-type poster ads are now showing up everywhere in the United States each year to increase brand exposure and goodwill. Transit ads on buses, subways, and commuter trains—around for years—have now become a valuable means to reach working women. Street furniture (bus shelters, kiosks, and public areas) has also become a fast-growing area. In Japan, cameras and sensors are being added to signs and electronic public displays so that—combined with cell-phone technology—they can become more interactive and personalized.29

Billboards do not even necessarily have to stay in one place. Marketers can buy ad space on billboard-laden trucks that are driven around all day in marketer-selected areas. Oscar Mayer sends seven “Wienermobiles” traveling across the country each year. New York City became the

first major city to allow its taxi cabs to advertise via onboard television screens. Between 2009 and 2010, the number of taxi advertisers doubled, and included brands such as AOL, Citibank, and Sprint. Research has shown that passengers keep the TVs on 85 percent of the time.30

Advertisers can now buy space in stadiums and arenas and on garbage cans, bicycle racks, parking meters, airport luggage carousels, elevators, gasoline pumps, the bottom of golf cups, airline snacks, and supermarket produce in the form of tiny labels on apples and bananas. Leaving no stone unturned, advertisers can even buy space in toilet stalls and above urinals, which, according to research studies, office workers visit an average of three to four times a day for roughly four minutes per visit. At Chicago O’Hare airport, digital commercials are now being shown in 150 bathroom mirrors above lavatory sinks.31 Figure 6-4 displays some of the most successful outdoor advertisers.

Guidelines. 

Nontraditional or place media present some interesting options for marketers to reach consumers in new ways. Ads now can appear virtually any place where consumers have a

few spare minutes or even seconds and thus enough time to notice them. The main advantage of nontraditional media is that they can reach a very precise and captive audience in a cost-effective and increasingly engaging manner.

Because the audience must process out-of-home ads quickly, however, the message must be simple and direct. In fact, outdoor advertising is often called the “15-second sell.” In noting how out-of-home aligns with twenty-first century consumers, one commentator observed that with people on-the-go and wanting content in short bursts, “Billboards are the original tweets—you get a quick image or piece of knowledge than move on.”36 In that regard, strategically, out-of-home advertising is often more effective at enhancing awareness or reinforcing existing brand associations than at creating new ones.

The challenge with nontraditional media is demonstrating their reach and effectiveness through credible, independent research. Another danger of nontraditional media is consumer backlash against overcommercialization. Perhaps because of the sheer pervasiveness of advertising, however, consumers seem to be less bothered by nontraditional media now than in the past.

Consumers must be favorably affected in some way to justify the marketing expenditures for nontraditional media, and some firms offering ad placement in supermarket checkout lines, fast-food restaurants, physicians’ waiting rooms, health clubs, and truck stops have suspended business at least in part because of lack of consumer interest. The bottom line, however, is that there will always be room for creative means of placing the brand in front of consumers—the possibilities are endless.

Consumer promotions are designed to change the choices, quantity, or timing of consumers’ product purchases. Although they come in all forms, we distinguish between customer franchise building promotions like samples, demonstrations, and educational material, and noncustomer franchise building promotions such as price-off packs, premiums, sweepstakes, and refund offers.41 Customer franchise building promotions can enhance the attitudes and loyalty of consumers toward a brand—in other words, affect brand equity.

For example, sampling is a means of creating strong, relevant brand associations while also perhaps kick-starting word-of-mouth among consumers. Marketers are increasingly using sampling at the point of use, growing more precise about where and how they deliver samples to maximize brand equity. For a $10 monthly subscription, one new firm, Birchbox, sends consumers a box of deluxe-size samples from such notable beauty brands as Benefit, Kiehl’s, and Marc Jacobs. Members can go to the Web site to collect more information, provide feedback, and earn points for full-sized products. The beauty brands like the selectivity and customer involvement of the promotion.42

Thus, marketers increasingly judge sales promotions by their ability to contribute to brand equity as well as generate sales. Creativity is as critical to promotions as it is to advertising or any other form of marketing communications. The Promotion Marketing Association (PMA) bestows Reggie awards to recognize “superior promotional thinking, creativity, and execution across the full spectrum of promotional marketing.” In 2011, Walgreens won the Super Reggie award for its highly integrated promotional program.

Walgreens

The main objective of Walgreens’s “Arm Yourself for the Ones You Love” campaign was to convince 5 million people to get their flu shots at Walgreens in the winter of 2010. Research uncovered a subset of untapped consumers most receptive to getting a flu shot at Walgreens: “Well-Intender Moms” were 15–18 percent of the female population who had every intention of getting a flu shot the previous year but did not follow through. Busy doing things for others (including making sure their family got flu shots), they gave less priority to getting a shot for themselves. The campaign aimed to show these moms that getting their shot was a real priority and just as important to the health and well-being of their families. Walgreens’s ad agency employed a holistic communication approach, using a range of communication options from broadcast media seen at home to the Web, circulars, outdoor ads, and in-store displays. The centerpiece was an “I got my flu shot for _____” bandage/sticker so people could proudly display that they had gotten their flu shots to protect themselves and a loved one. Here are some notable activation tactics:

• Thousands of photos of employees “showing their hearts” were used to kick off the campaign in Times Square.

• Walgreens pharmacists appeared on national TV (MSNBC, CNN, etc.) and popular shows like The Dr. Oz Show, administering flu shots to anchors and discussing the benefits.

• Zoned in-store messaging let shoppers know how and where they could “arm themselves.”

• Regional print ads showcased local heroes “arming themselves.”

• Digital and social media allowed people to show their love with their network of family and friends.

• Street-level outdoor media ads were placed where people were most likely to be thinking about getting exposed to the flu (bus stops, airports, and hospitals).

• “Arm Yourself” commercials brought the message to TV.

The “Arm Yourself for the Ones You Love” campaign far exceeded its goal, inspiring 5.4 million people to get their flu shot in just five weeks.43

Promotion strategy must reflect the attitudes and behavior of consumers. The percentage of coupons consumers redeem dropped steadily for years—in part due to the clutter of coupons that were increasingly being distributed—before experiencing an uptick more recently: redemption rates peaked in 1992 but fell for the next 15 years until experiencing an increase in the tough economic climate of late 2008. Almost 90 percent of all coupons appear in free-standing inserts (FSIs) in Sunday newspapers.

One area of promotional growth is in-store coupons, which marketers have increasingly turned to given that their redemption rates far exceed those of traditional out-of-store coupons. Another growing area is digital coupons, whose redemption rate (6 percent) is the highest of all types of coupons and 10 times higher than for newspaper coupons. Groupon created a clever promotional scheme that has met with some apparent success; the firm also turned down a $6 billion purchase offer from Google in 2010.44

Groupon

Groupon launched in 2008 as a company offering a new marketing vehicle to businesses. By leveraging the Internet and e-mail, the company helps businesses use promotions as a form of advertisement. Specifically, Groupon maintains a large base of subscribers who receive a humorously worded daily deal—a specific percentage or dollar amount off the regular price—for a specific branded product or service. Through these e-mail discounts, Groupon offers three benefits to businesses: increased consumer exposure to the brand, the ability to price discriminate, and the creation of a “buzz factor.” For these benefits, Groupon takes a 40–50 percent cut in the process. Many promotions are offered on behalf of local retailers such as spas, fitness centers, and restaurants, but Groupon also manages deals on behalf of national brands such as Gap, Southwest Airlines, and FTD. In 2010, Groupon expanded from 1 to 35 countries, grew its subscriber base from 2 million to over 50 million, partnered with 58,000 local businesses to promote over 100,000 deals, and saved consumers over $1.5 billion. Although some businesses complain that Groupon just attracts deal-seekers and is not as effective in converting regular customers, its 2011 revenue was reported to be between $3 billion and $4 billion. Groupon now faces several competitors in the market it helped create, including LivingSocial, Bloomspot, and Buywithme. Partly in response, Groupon Now was launched. Leveraging its massive sales force to sell Groupon Now, Groupon enlists local businesses to offer time and location-specific deals that customers can obtain via the Web or their smartphone. The iPhone app for the new service has two buttons, “I’m Bored” and “I’m Hungry” to trigger possible deals in real time. For businesses, the service is a way to boost traffic at otherwise slow times. Even a popular restaurant might still consider some midday and midweek discounts knowing the place is rarely full then.

Trade promotions are often financial incentives or discounts given to retailers, distributors, and other channel members to stock, display, and in other ways facilitate the sale of a product through slotting allowances, point-of-purchase displays, contests and dealer incentives, training programs, trade shows, and cooperative advertising. Trade promotions are typically designed either to secure shelf space and distribution for a new brand, or to achieve more prominence on the shelf and in the store. Shelf and aisle positions in the store are important because they affect the ability of the brand to catch the eye of the consumer—placing a brand on a shelf at eye level may double sales over placing it on the bottom shelf.45

Because of the large amount of money spent on trade promotions, there is increasing pressure to make trade promotion programs more effective. Many firms are failing to see the brand-building value in trade promotions and are seeking to reduce and eliminate as much of their expenditures as possible.

One of the earliest and best-established forms of online marketing communications for brands is company-created Web sites. By capitalizing on the Web’s interactive nature, marketers can construct Web sites that allow any type of consumer to choose the brand information relevant to his or her needs or desires. Even though different market segments may have different levels of knowledge and interest about a brand, a well-designed Web site can effectively communicate to consumers regardless of their personal brand or communications history.

Because consumers often go online to seek information rather than be entertained, some of the more successful Web sites are those that can convey expertise in a consumer-relevant area. For example, Web sites such as P&G’s www.pampers.com and General Mills’s www.cheerios.com offer baby care and parenting advice. Web sites can store company and product information, press releases, and advertising and promotional information as well as links to partners and key vendors. Web marketers can collect names and addresses for a database and conduct e-mail surveys and online focus groups.

Brand-building is increasingly a collaborative effort between consumers and brand marketers. As part of this process, there will be many consumer-generated Web sites and pages that may include ratings, reviews, and feedback on brands. Many consumers also post opinions and reviews or seek advice and feedback from others at commercial sites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Epinions. As will be discussed in greater detail below, marketers must carefully monitor these different forums and participate where appropriate.

In creating online information sources for consumers at company Web sites, marketers must provide timely and reliable information. Web sites must be updated frequently and offer as much customized information as possible, especially for existing customers. Designing Web sites requires creating eye-catching pages that can sustain browsers’ interest, employing the latest technology and effectively communicating the brand message. Web site design is crucial, because if consumers do not have a positive experience, it may be very difficult to entice them back in the highly competitive and cluttered online world.

Internet advertising comes in a variety of forms—banner ads, rich-media ads, and other types of ads. Advertising on the Internet has grown rapidly—in 2010 it totaled $26 billion in the United States, surpassing newspaper advertising ($22.8 billion) to rank second behind TV advertising ($28.6 billion).47

A number of potential advantages exist for Internet advertising: It is accountable, because software can track which ads went to which sales; it is nondisruptive, so it doesn’t interrupt consumers; and it can target consumers so that only the most promising prospects are contacted, who can then seek as much or as little information as they desire. Online ads and videos also can extend the creative or legal restrictions of traditional print and broadcast media to persuasively communicate brand positioning and elicit positive judgments and feelings.

Unfortunately, there are also many disadvantages. Many consumers find it easy to ignore banner ads and screen them out with pop-up filters. The average click-through rate for a standard banner ad in the United States was 0.08 percent in 2010, although that number increased to 0.14 percent for an expandable rich media banner. Similar percentages could be found in European and Latin American countries. Even in ad categories drawing exceptional interest from consumers, the percentages barely increased (to 1.02 percent for auto in Italy, 1.9 percent for health and beauty in Poland, and the biggest percentage, almost 8 percent for restaurants in Belgium).48

Increasingly, Web messages like streaming ads are drawing closer to traditional forms of television advertising. Videos take that one step further by virtually becoming short films. BMW, one of the pioneers, created a series of highly successful made-for-the-Web movies using well-known directors such as Guy Ritchie and actors such as Madonna. The advantage of videos is the enormous potential pass-along that exists if an imaginative video strikes a chord with consumers, as was the case for Coke.49

Coke’s “Happiness Machine”

Coca-Cola’s “Open Happiness” global brand slogan and platform lends itself to many different creative ideas and executions. Besides its usual iconic ads, the company decided it also wanted to activate the idea digitally in an equally inspired way. To do so, Coca-Cola rigged up a special vending machine at St. John’s University in Queens, New York, dubbed the “Happiness Machine.” The back of the machine was connected to a storeroom filled with all the people and props necessary to execute the stunt. When unsuspecting students started to use the machine, they first just received Cokes, but after that, all kinds of goodies began to appear—a bouquet of sunflowers, balloon animals, six-foot subs, and even a hot pepperoni pizza. Their astonished and gleeful reactions were caught by hidden cameras and fed into YouTube videos that received millions of hits and even became the basis of a 30-second TV spot shown all over the world.

As suggested by the Coke example, the Google-owned YouTube video-sharing Web site has become an especially important vehicle for distributing videos and initiating dialogue and cultivating a community around a brand.

With Internet-connected HDTV sales climbing, video opportunities for brand building can only continue to grow.50 Any size brand can benefit. Tipp-Ex’s “A Hunter Shoots a Bear” campaign became a viral YouTube sensation with millions and millions of views. In the video, a hunter finds a bear approaching his tent but decides not to shoot it. Using Tipp-Ex, he whites out the verb “shoot” and invites viewers to add their own verbs. For each inserted verb, a stored video response is played to humorously depict the action.51

As a manifestation of permission marketing, e-mail ads in general—often including advanced features such as personalized audio messages, color photos, and streaming video—have increased in popularity. E-mail ads often receive response rates of 20–30 percent at a cost less than that of banner ads. Tracking these response rates, marketers can fine-tune their messages. The key, as with direct marketing, is to create a good customer list.

Another alternative to banner ads that a great many marketers employ is search advertising, in which users are presented with sponsored links relevant to their search words alongside unsponsored search results. Since these links are tied to specific keywords, marketers can target them more effectively than banner ads and thus generate higher response rates. Almost half of all Internet advertising in 2010 (over $12 billion) was devoted to search.52

Google pioneered search advertising and helped make it a cost-effective option for online advertisers by offering “cost-per-click” pricing, wherein advertisers were charged based on the number of times a sponsored link was actually clicked. Companies have developed extensive search advertising strategies, based, for example, on how much to bid for keywords.

Social media is playing an increasingly important brand communication role due its massive growth. Social media allows consumers to share text, images, audio, and video online with each other and—if they choose—with representatives from companies. Social media comes in many forms, but six key options are: (1) message boards and forums, (2) chat rooms, (3) blogs, (4) Facebook, (5) Twitter, and (6) YouTube.

The numbers associated with social media are truly staggering. In November 2010, nearly one in four page views in the United States took place on Facebook. One forecast projected that by 2014, roughly two-thirds of U.S. Internet users will be regular visitors to social media networks.53

Social media offers many benefits to marketers. It allows brands to establish a public voice and presence on the Web. It complements and reinforces other communication activities. It helps promote innovation and relevance for the brand. By permitting personal, independent expression, message boards, chat rooms, and blogs can create a sense of community and foster active engagement.

Some social networks, such as Sugar and Gawker, provide an easy means for consumers to learn from and express attitudes and opinions to others. They also permit feedback that can improve all aspects of a brand’s marketing program. Dr. Pepper has an enormous 8.5 million fan base on Facebook. Careful tracking and testing with Facebook users who state that they the “like” the brand has allowed the brand to fine-tune its marketing messages. With consumers increasingly avoiding surveys, many marketing researchers are excited about the potential of social networks to yield market insights.54

Social media clearly offers enormous opportunities for marketers to connect with consumers in ways that were not possible before. Although some marketers were uncertain as to whether they should engage in social media, many have come to realize that online conversations will occur whether they want them to or not, so the best strategy seems to be to determine how to best participate and be involved. Accordingly, many companies now have official Twitter handles and Facebook pages for their brands.

Different social media can accomplish different objectives. Landor’s Allen Adamson views the chief role of Twitter—with its 140 character text-based limit for posting—as an “early warning system” so marketers know exactly what is happening in the marketplace and how to respond at any one point in time. For example, when a customer tweeted about a bad customer experience with Zappos, because the company was monitoring social media, it was able to immediately send an explanation, apology, and coupon.55

Facebook, on the other hand, is more about long-term relationship building and can be used to engage consumers and delve more deeply into their interests and passions. As popular as Facebook is, it is not the only game in town. Special-interest community sites such as GoFISHn, with over 150,000 loyal anglers, and Dogster, with over 600,000 dog lovers, present even more focused targets.56

Some brands have fully embraced social media. Lego has always involved lead users and fans in its brand marketing activities, so it is no surprise it has thousands of YouTube videos and Flickr photos. Even top executives of some brands, such as Virgin’s Richard Branson and Zappos’s Tony Hsieh, weigh in with their comments. When companies choose to engage in social media, speed of response and the proper tone is critical.

There is no question that some consumers are choosing to become engaged with a brand at a deeper and broader level, and marketers must do everything they can to encourage them to do so. P&G invested heavily in 2010 to expand its Facebook presence with its brands. Fifteen of its brands quickly gained over 100,000 followers, and Pringles and Old Spice gained 9 million and 1.3 million, respectively. Its “Mean Girls Stink” antibullying Facebook app for Secret deodorant was downloaded more than 250,000 times.57

As exciting as these kinds of prospects are, marketers must also bear in mind that not everyone actively participates in social media. Only some of the consumers want to get involved with only some of the brands and, even then, only some of the time. Understanding how to best market a brand given such diversity in consumer backgrounds and interests is crucially important and will separate digital marketing winners and losers in the years to come.

Interactive marketing communications work well together. Attention-getting online ads and videos can drive consumers to a brand’s Web sites, where they can learn and experience more about the brand. Company-managed bulletin boards and blogs may then help create more engagement. Interactive marketing communications reinforces other forms of marketing communications as well.

Many experts maintain that a successful digitally based campaign for a brand often skillfully blends three different forms of media: paid, owned, and earned media. Paid media is all the various forms of more traditional advertising media described above, including TV and print. Owned media are those media channels the brand controls to some extent—Web sites, e-mails, social media, etc. Earned media are when consumers themselves communicate about the brand via social media, word-of-mouth, etc. It should be recognized that the lines sometimes blur, and communications can perform more than one function. For example, YouTube costs marketers to maintain, is under their control, but is also importantly social.

The interplay between the three forms of media is crucial. As one critic noted, “Paid media jump starts owned; owned sustains earned; and earned drives costs down and effectiveness up.”58 Procter & Gamble’s highly successful “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” starring ex-football player Isaiah Mustafa started with humorous tongue-in-cheek ads (paid media) that migrated online to YouTube, Facebook, and a brand microsite (owned media) before gaining heightened public attention via word-of-mouth, media reports, and social network interactions (earned media).

It is important to track all form of social media formally and informally. A number of firms have popped up to assist firms in this pursuit. For its Gatorade brand, PepsiCo actually created its own “Mission Control” where four full-time employees monitor social-media posts 24 hours a day. Any mention of Gatorade on Twitter, Facebook, or elsewhere is flagged, allowing the company to join conversations when needed and appropriate, such as when a Facebook poster incorrectly noted that Gatorade contains high-fructose corn syrup.59

Marketers have become more thoughtful about how to measure social media and classify interactive marketing success. The fact is, no matter how many they are, Facebook fans and Twitter followers will not matter if they are not engaged with the brand. Popular viral videos—like Burger King’s “Subservient Chicken”—will mean little if they don’t help to drive sales in some way.60

Event sponsorship provides a different kind of communication option for marketers. By becoming part of a special and personally relevant moment in consumers’ lives, sponsors can broaden and deepen their relationship with their target market. Marketers report a number of reasons why they sponsor events:62

• To identify with a particular target market or lifestyle: Marketers can link their brands to events popular with either a select or broad group of consumers. They can target customers geographically, demographically, psychographically, or behaviorally, according to the sponsored events. In particular, marketers can choose events based on attendees’ attitudes and usage of certain products or brands. No athletic event in the United States attracts more “pentamillionaires”—those with a net worth of more than $5 million—than the U.S. Open tennis tournament. Perhaps it is no surprise that its sponsors include luxury brands such as Lexus, Tiffany, American Express, and Heineken, which largely target affluent customers.63

• To increase awareness of the company or product name: Sponsorship often offers sustained exposure to a brand, a necessary condition to building brand recognition. By skillfully choosing sponsorship events or activities, marketers can enhance identification with a product and thus also brand recall. Waterford Crystal is well known for providing the crystal ball that drops down at midnight in New Year’s Eve in Times Square.

• To create or reinforce consumer perceptions of key brand image associations: Events themselves have their own associations that help to create or reinforce brand associations. Seiko has been the official timer of the Olympics and other major sporting events for years. Subaru believes there is a match in interests between skiing events and potential buyers of its all-wheel-drive vehicles.

• To enhance corporate image dimensions: Sponsorship is a soft sell and a means to improve perceptions that the company is likable, prestigious, and so forth. Marketers hope consumers will credit the company for its sponsorship and favor it in later product choices. Mountain Dew created the multicity Dew Tour, in which athletes compete in different skateboarding, BMX, and freestyle motocross events to reach and make a favorable impression with the coveted but fickle 12- to 24-year-old target market.

• To create experiences and evoke feelings: Events can be part of an experiential marketing program. The feelings engendered by an exciting or rewarding event may indirectly link to the brand. Marketers can also use the Web to provide further event support and additional experiences. At the “LG Experience” at the NCAA Final Four Bracket Town Fan Experience in March 2011, LG showcased its new line of 3-D televisions, mobile phones, and home appliances. The goal was to tap into the passion of spectators and transfer that passion to its brands and products. A bar-coded, scannable Fan Pass allowed LG to track attendees and what they saw and for how long.64

• To express commitment to the community or on social issues: Often called cause-related marketing, sponsorships dedicated to the community or to promoting social issues create corporate tie-ins with nonprofit organizations and charities (see Chapter 11). For over 20 years, Colgate-Palmolive has sponsored the Starlight Children’s Foundation, which grants wishes to young people who are critically ill.

• To entertain key clients or reward key employees: Many events have lavish hospitality tents and other special services or activities that are available only for sponsors and their guests. Bank of Boston’s sponsorship of musical performances and Bank of America’s golf tournament sponsorship include special events for clients. Involving clients with the event in these and other ways can engender goodwill and establish valuable business contacts. From an employee perspective, events can build participation and morale or create an incentive.

• To permit merchandising or promotional opportunities: Many marketers tie in contests or sweepstakes, in-store merchandising, and direct response or other marketing activities with their event. Warner-Lambert sponsors the “Taste of Chicago” promotion in part so it can gain shelf space in stores and participate in retailer co-op advertising.

Despite these potential advantages, there are a number of potential disadvantages to sponsorship. The success of an event can be unpredictable and out of the sponsor’s control. There can be much clutter in sponsorship. Finally, although many consumers will credit sponsors for providing necessary financial assistance to make an event possible, some consumers may still resent the commercialization of events through sponsorship.

Developing successful event sponsorship means choosing the appropriate events, designing the optimal sponsorship program, and measuring the effects of sponsorship on brand equity.

Measuring Sponsorship Activities. 

There are two basic approaches to measuring the effects of sponsorship activities: the supply-side method focuses on potential exposure to the brand by assessing the extent of media coverage, and the demand-side method focuses on reported exposure from consumers.

Supply-side methods attempt to approximate the amount of time or space devoted to the brand in media coverage of an event. For example, we can estimate the number of seconds the brand is clearly visible on a television screen, or the column inches of press clippings covering an event that mention the brand. Then we can translate this measure of potential impressions delivered by an event sponsorship into an equivalent value in advertising dollars, according to the fees associated with actually advertising in the particular media vehicle.

Although supply-side exposure methods provide quantifiable measures, equating media coverage with advertising exposure ignores the content of the respective communications that consumers receive. The advertiser uses media space and time to communicate a strategically designed message. Media coverage and telecasts only expose the brand, and don’t necessarily embellish its meaning in any direct way. Some public relations professionals maintain that positive editorial coverage can be worth 5–10 times the advertising equivalency value, but it is rare that sponsorship affords the brand such favorable treatment. As one group of critics noted:

Equating incidental visual and audio exposures with paid advertising time is, we feel, questionable at best. A commercial is a carefully crafted persuasive declaration of a product’s virtues. It doesn’t compete for attention with the actual on-camera action of a game or race. A 30-second exposure of a billboard in the background can’t match the value of 30 seconds in which the product is the only star.66

An alternative measurement approach is the demand-side method, which attempts to identify the effects that sponsorship has on consumers’ brand knowledge structures. Thus, tracking or custom surveys can explore the ability of the event sponsorship to affect awareness, attitudes, or even sales. We can identify and survey event spectators after the event to measure recall of the event’s sponsor, as well as attitudes and intentions toward the sponsor as a result of the event. We can also conduct internal tracking to see how different aspects of the sales process are impacted.

Nationwide

Nationwide Insurance has a highly successful partnership with NASCAR racing. It sponsors the NASCAR Nationwide Series of stock car races and is also the official auto, home, and life insurance partner of NASCAR. After the third year of a seven-year deal, Nationwide research showed that the insurance company was up 183 percent on lead generation, had raised brand awareness among NASCAR fans by 50 percent, and had increased buying rates for three consecutive years. Nationwide had anticipated NASCAR fans’ legendary loyalty, but its executives were still surprised by the quality and profitability of the relationships they built. As one executive noted: “They’re a higher-value consumer. They tend to buy more than one product and be more responsible, resulting in fewer claims.” Nationwide has also developed business-to-business relationships with other sponsors, racing teams, and tracks. As a result of all these developments, the sponsorship broke even early in the third year of the sponsorship, sooner than expected.67

Coverage is the proportion of the audience reached by each communication option, as well as how much overlap exists among communication options. In other words, to what extent do different communication options reach the designated target market, and the same or different consumers making up that market? As Figure 6-6 shows, the unique aspects of coverage relate to the direct main effects of any communication; the common aspects relate to the interaction or multiplicative effects of two communication options working together.

The unique aspect of coverage is the inherent communication ability of a marketing communication option, as suggested by the second criterion, contribution. If there is some overlap in communication options, however, marketers must decide how to design their communication program to reflect the fact that consumers may already have some communication effects in memory prior to exposure to any particular communication option.

A communication option can either reinforce associations and strengthen linkages that are also the focus of other communication options, or it can address other associations and linkages, as suggested by the third and fourth criteria, commonality and complementarity. Moreover, if less than perfect overlap exists—which is almost always the case—marketers can design a communication option to reflect the fact that consumers may or may not have seen other communication options, as suggested by the fifth criterion, conformability. Finally, all of these considerations must be offset by their cost, as suggested by the sixth criterion.

Contribution is the inherent ability of a marketing communication to create the desired response and communication effects from consumers in the absence of exposure to any other communication option. In other words, contribution describes the main effects of a marketing communication option in terms of how it affects consumers’ processing of a communication and the resulting outcomes. As we noted earlier, marketing communications can play many different roles, like building awareness, enhancing image, eliciting responses, and inducing sales, and the contribution of any marketing communication option will depend on how well it plays that role. Also as we noted earlier, much prior research has considered this aspect of communications, generating conceptual guidelines and evaluation criteria in the process. Given that overlap with communication options exists, however, marketers must consider other factors, as follows.

Regardless of which communication options marketers choose, they should coordinate the entire marketing communication program to create a consistent and cohesive brand image in which brand associations share content and meaning. The consistency and cohesiveness of the brand image is important because the image determines how easily consumers can recall existing associations and responses and how easily they can link additional associations and responses to the brand in memory.

Commonality is the extent to which common information conveyed by different communication options shares meaning across communication options. Most definitions of IMC emphasize only this criterion. For example, Burnett and Moriarty define integrated marketing communications as the “practice of unifying all marketing communication tools—from advertising to packaging—to send target audiences a consistent, persuasive message that promotes company goals.”88

In general, we learn and recall information that is consistent in meaning more easily than unrelated information—though the unexpectedness of inconsistent information sometimes can lead to more elaborate processing and stronger associations than consistent information.89 Nevertheless, with inconsistent associations and a diffuse brand image, consumers may overlook some associations or, because they are confused about the meaning of the brand, form less strong and less favorable new associations.

Therefore, in the long run, marketers should design different communication elements and combine them so that they work effectively together to create a consistent and cohesive brand image. The more abstract the association to be created or reinforced by marketing communications, the more likely it would seem that we could effectively reinforce it in different ways across heterogeneous communication options.90

For example, if the association we desire is “contemporary,” then there may be a number of different ways we can make a brand seem modern and relevant. On the other hand, if our desired association is a concrete attribute, say, “rich chocolate taste,” then it may be difficult to convey it in communication options that do not permit explicit product statements, such as sponsorship.

Take Heineken. The brand seeks to achieve a strong premium image and positioning in it communications. Heineken’s “Walk-In Fridge” campaign started as a video and then a TV ad that first showed a group of girlfriends jumping up and down and shrieking with joy when one of them gets a walk-in wardrobe closet, followed by a group of guys equally ecstatic over a walk-in refrigerator lined with Heineken. Heineken next placed gigantic cardboard boxes labeled “Walk-In Fridge” all over Amsterdam as if put out in the trash. Finally, Heineken placed real walk-in fridges at various beer festivals, allowing groups of friends to mimic the ad and video and upload their own video to YouTube.91

Finally, another commonality issue is the extent of executional consistency across communication options—that is, the extent to which we convey non-product-related information in different communication options. The more coordinated executional information is, the more likely it is that this information can serve as a retrieval cue to other communication effects.92 In other words, if a symbol is established in one communication option, like a feather in a TV ad for a deodorant to convey mildness and softness, then marketers can use it in other communications to help trigger the knowledge, thoughts, feelings, and images stored in memory from exposure to a previous communication.

Communication options are often more effective when used in tandem. Complementarity describes the extent to which different associations and linkages are emphasized across communication options. The ideal marketing communication program would ensure that the communication options chosen are mutually compensatory and reinforcing to create desired consumer knowledge structures.

Marketers might most effectively establish different brand associations by capitalizing on those marketing communication options best suited to eliciting a particular consumer response or establishing a particular type of brand association. For example, some media, like sampling and other forms of sales promotion, are demonstrably better at generating trial than engendering long-term loyalty. Research with some industrial distributors has shown that follow-up sales efforts generate higher sales productivity when firms have already exposed customers to its products at a trade show.93

The Science of Branding 6-2 describes how communication options may need to be explicitly tied together to capitalize on complementarity to build brand equity.

Conformability refers to the extent that a marketing communication option is robust and effective for different groups of consumers. There are two types of conformability: communication and consumer. The reality of any IMC program is that when consumers are exposed to a particular marketing communication, some consumers will have already been exposed to other marketing communications for the brand, and others will not. The ability of a marketing communication to work at two levels—effectively communicating to both groups—is critically important. We consider a marketing communication option conformable when it achieves its desired effect regardless of consumers’ past communication history.

Besides this communication conformability, we can also judge a communication option in terms of broader consumer conformability, that is, how well does it inform or persuade consumers who vary on dimensions other than communication history? Communications directed at primarily creating brand awareness, like sponsorship, may be more conformable by virtue of their simplicity.

There seem to be two possible means of achieving this dual communication ability:

1. Multiple information provision strategy: Provide different information within a communication option to appeal to the different types of consumers. An important issue here is how information designed to appeal to one target market of consumers will be processed by other consumers and target markets. Issues of information overload, confusion, and annoyance may come into play if communications become burdened with a great deal of detail.

2. Broad information provision strategy: Provide information that is rich or ambiguous enough to work regardless of prior consumer knowledge. The important issue here is how potent or successful marketers can make that information. If they attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator, the information may lack precision and sufficient detail to have any meaningful impact on consumers. Consumers with disparate backgrounds will have to find information in the communication sufficiently relevant to satisfy their goals, given their product or brand knowledge or communications history.

Finally, evaluations of marketing communications on all of the preceding criteria must be weighed against their cost to arrive at the most effective and efficient communication program.

We can judge marketing communication options or communication types according to the response and communication effects they can create, as well as how they rate on the IMC choice criteria. Different communication types and options have different strengths and weaknesses and raise different issues.

Several points about the IMC choice criteria are worth noting. First, there are not necessarily any inherent differences across communication types for contribution and complementarity, because each communication type, if properly designed, can play a critical and unique role in achieving those communication objectives. Similarly, all marketing communications appear expensive, although some differences in cost per thousands can prevail. Communication types vary, however, in their breadth and depth of audience coverage, and in terms of commonality and conformability according to the number of modalities they employ: The more modalities available with a communication type, the greater its potential commonality and conformability.

Arriving at a final mix requires making decisions on priorities and tradeoffs among the IMC choice criteria, discussed next.

The IMC program a marketer adopts, after profiling the various options, will depend in part on how he or she ranks the choice criteria. Because the IMC choice criteria themselves are related, the marketer must also make tradeoffs. The objectives of the marketing communication program, and whether they are short run or long run, will set priorities along with a host of factors beyond the scope of this chapter. We identify three possible tradeoffs with the IMC choice criteria that result from overlaps in coverage.

• Commonality and complementarity will often be inversely related. The more various marketing communication options emphasize the same brand attribute or benefit, all else being equal, the less they can effectively emphasize other attributes and benefits.

• Conformability and complementarity will also often be inversely related. The more a communication program accounts for differences in consumers across communication options, the less necessary it is that any one communication be designed to appeal to many different groups.

• Commonality and conformability do not share an obvious relationship. It may be possible, for example, to develop a sufficiently abstract message, like “Brand X is contemporary,” to effectively reinforce the brand across multiple communication types including advertising, interactive, sponsorship, and promotions.