 As-Salaam-Alaikum-Khawatin-Oh-Hazrat. Wasim Ahsan welcomes you to the virtual University of Pakistan. The courses, the Brand Management, and they're getting into lecture number 33. In the previous lecture, I was talking about the guiding principles of Vagadir Communication. And just to give you a recap, the three fundamental principles are that communication strategy are strategies that must fit into the overall brand vision, brand strategies, and the corporate strategies. Principle number two is that communication strategy is basically driven by the brand picture and brand positioning. And guiding principle number three is that all the communication strategies have got to be integrated so that they carry the same message and they create a punch which is desired in order to reach our target market. It was in relation to this guiding principle number three that I was talking about different methods which lead us toward integrating the various tools that we have at our disposal to make our strategy effective. And one of the methods that I was talking about toward the end of the previous lecture was appropriations for budget. Budget making is something that you're going to be involved into when you are working as the brand manager. Whatever the budgets and the further subdivisions are, what is important is that all the tools of communication have got to fit into the brand-based strategies, meaning whether it is advertising or promotions and different forms of promotions, whatever tools that you have must fit into your overall brand strategies. Having talked about the guiding principles and the forces which really drive strategy making, let us now start talking about all the tools that you have at your disposal, the one by one. Advertising. Advertising is the most important, the most visible and the most dynamic tool of communication. It is something which attracts everybody. It is captivating because of its basic nature of emotionalizing facts. A good ad turns facts into feelings, good positive feelings which appeal to our emotions. And while they appeal to our emotions, they really actuate us into taking an action for buying. And that is the basic responsibility of a good ad. So in other words, a good ad is more about sales than about stirring emotions. We can put it like this, that emotionalizing facts is a means toward the end which is to achieve sales. So any campaign or any advertising for that matter which cannot really generate sales, meaning the desired level of sales is not a good ad. There are many ads which are very attractive and very memorable, but then at the same time they are not the ones which really generate the desired level of sales. And in order for an ad, what it takes to achieve that end, which is what we call sales, we have to look into how we make good ads and how we execute those ads. So let us now talk about the two major components of this tool that we call advertising. The one is developing advertising and the other is executing advertising. Developing advertising is very strategic, just like all the elements within the ambit of the brand management. And advertising is caught to stem from the brand's picture and brand's positioning. And you will recall from the previous lecture that the brand's picture relates with the present and the brand's positioning relates with the future. So in other words, the gap between the picture and the positioning is a reflection of the sales volume that we are wanting to achieve. I will explain this phenomenon in different words. You already have developed the brand picture and you are very clear about the associations to which the brand is going to generate in the minds of the consumers. And if you succeed in developing the associations to which you think brand should be developing, then you have achieved the brand's positioning in the minds of the consumers. Now the question is the journey between the brand picture and achievement of the brand's positioning is a little long. And the phase is that you have to cross from one point to the other. The meaning from the brand's picture to brand's positioning comprises of awareness, retention, meaning comprehension, and then intention to buy, and then the final action to buy. So in other words, you have got to be able to understand where you really stand in terms of the response effects on part of the customers. If you are dealing with a new brand, then of course the foremost objective is going to be creation of awareness. And if you are dealing with an established brand, you have got to be very clear about the level of the response effect which needs your attention and therefore needs to be fortified with the help of advertising. So this is what I mean by the gap between the brand's picture and brand's positioning. Once you really have achieved all those associations which need to be developed in the minds of the consumers, the position is achieved and the advertising has done its job. In relation to the phases or the response effects, advertising or communication for that matter has to go through. I did talk about a couple of examples in the previous lecture and I hope very much that with the help of those examples the relationship of advertising and the response effects should be very clear in your minds. And therefore you shouldn't really have any doubts in your mind as to what should be the strategic intent of your advertising when you are going to craft your strategy. Now the question is what is the starting point when you have undertaken an advertising campaign? Any advertising always starts with a copy. This is a concept which you already are aware of. The reason I am going to talk about copy is that we have to look at the strategic side. So in other words, if you are out to develop the copy in order to start the process of advertising we have got to be clear about the strategic side of copy making and copy generation. It is the most essential part of advertising and like you already know it is that part which deals with all that information which has to be communicated to your target market through advertising. So in other words, the space that you have to yourself in terms of the print ads may that be the papers, may that be magazines, may that be any other means of the print, the media the space is not limitless. If you are dealing with television commercial you call copy storyboard and storyboard basically is what copy is for the print media. The essence remains the same. Now in terms of the storyboard or for that matter television commercial again you do not have infinite amount of time. Whatever you are going to talk about has got to be talked about very briefly and within that the brief commercial you have got to convey the message that you are the wanting to convey. The question is what is it that you have to convey? And I think that we have developed our understanding by now that what really is to be communicated is again your brand promise, brand contract and brands positioning. So a copy or a storyboard is a reflection of all these strategic elements. The copy strategy from that point of view is an extension an elaboration of the brand's marketing strategy into the area of advertising of that matter, copymaking. You have the marketing strategy and you also have the marketing strategy statement in which it is just about two or three sentences and which explains what your strategy is in order to reach certain goals meaning strategic goals that you are wanting to achieve. The copy strategy is an elaboration of that in terms of copymaking. It is simple and you talk about the ways and means that you are going to develop that copy in order to be able to achieve the same objectives which basically are the brand's objectives. So copy strategy from that point of view is a long term document which states the net impression that you want your consumers to have about your brand. The question which really comes into our mind is what does that net impression consist of? Well the net impression consists of the basic selling idea or the end result the brand is promising to the consumer and the end result which constitutes the principal reason for the consumer to buy your brand in preference to competition. I will rephrase the whole thing all over again. A copy strategy is a long term document which states the net impression that you are wanting to create in the minds of your consumers and that net impression consists of the basic selling idea or the end result that you really want your consumers to have in order for them to make the final decision for your brand in preference to competition. So in other words if you succeed in creating that net impression you are successful and if you do not succeed in creating that impression you are not successful and therefore you have got to get back to the hierarchy of customer response effects and analyze and dissect the whole situation in relation to those response effects. Where do you stand? Where did you go wrong? If you thought that you had to make an advertising campaign based on retention were you right in doing so and so on and so forth to give you a few examples of the net impression that you would like to create while putting together an advertising campaign let's talk about a soap in which you are marketing. You can position the soap from so many different angles. It could be mild, it could be having superior cleansing properties giving you softer skin and it could be something medicated. So these are the kinds of net impressions which you would like to create through your advertising and as a part of departure you have got to be clear about the net impression that you are going to create which is the basic selling idea so for a soap it is extra mildness and maybe that is intended for babies. For a soap it could be cleansing properties, it could be intended for female segment for a soap it could be total cleanliness and medicated properties health reasons, vigor and it could be intended for workers people who work in the factories or work the sweat out and after working the whole day they have to take a shower and the need to have a soap which really does a neat job. So depending upon the target market and depending upon the brand position and depending upon the promise with which you are going to deliver you create the basic selling idea and based on that basic selling idea of that basic content that you come up with your advertising campaign this is the starting point meaning the statement which creates the net impression copy strategy also is a statement of principal characteristics of the product and therefore talks about the reasons why the promise is deliverable you have talked about I mean you have considered already extra mildness or superior cleansing properties or the medicated properties or for that matter for a detergent you already have taken into account the washing properties it gives you a cleaner wash now you have to talk about that in ways which are convincing for your consumers who must understand that the promise you are making is deliverable so you have to tell them why it is deliverable well for the soap which is extra mild you have to talk about the ingredient which creates that mildness if you are selling a toothpaste you have to talk about the fluoride content or maybe clove oil or something like that which gives cleaner teeth and which takes care of cavities and so on and so forth meaning the basic selling idea has got to be supplemented by the content by that ingredient which makes the promise deliverable for a detergent which gives a cleaner wash you have to talk about the extra strength of chlorine or bleaching or the disinfecting agent which makes your detergent that much more effective that your consumers must prefer your brand to competition so this statement which deals with why the promise is deliverable is as much important as the first one which states the basic selling idea about the net impression that you want to create these two statements have got to be supplemented by another statement which is about the character and the personality of the brand meaning the persona because we are out there striving to build for the brand something which has to be taken the way it is intended and therefore in the context of advertising in this part of the strategy you are dealing with what advertising experts call the mood atmosphere or the tone of voice the one and the same thing of advertising again to give you the example of a soap which is meant for workers you have to build a character through your advertising which really reflects your soap as something wholesome as something which is honest in the sense that it really does the job which you are promising and that promise is delivered you already have taken into account what you are going to talk about in terms of selling the point that the promise is deliverable so when your campaign is kicked off whether it is through the print medium or through the television medium meaning through the total media you have got to create the brand personality in the way it was created and it was intended you have created the identity now for them to take it the way that you have created it is a question of image and image is going to be created in their mind only if the promise is deliverable and it is delivered and the people really think that whatever you are talking about through your communication appeals to their common sense and appeals to them in a way that they really take it very seriously it is a simple plain logic but it is something which has to be very coherent and very cohesive and all the elements they have got to fit into the one place and converge at one particular point only then your advertising campaign is going to be effective to give you another example of the brand persona let us talk about a tea brand the advertising may talk about vitality and vigor because that is the kind of brand personality the company is wanting to create and the meaning of wanting the consumers to have in the mind because if the company really succeeds in creating that impression within their minds it really has made a home in there and it has successfully achieved the positioning for the brand and the chances are that the sales are going to be positive so the company decides to talk from the standpoint of vitality and vigor and also from leadership in advertising you do not talk about these things you give these impressions and that is the beauty of advertising meaning the beauty of that communication and the elements the basic ideas that you have to consider before you put the campaign together I already have talked about and I hope that you will not have any difficulty in understanding what it takes to come up with an advertising campaign of course it is not something which is going to be created by you to begin with it is a learning process but the basics which you must understand are the ones which I just talked about and the question which comes to the mind now is whose responsibility is it to develop the copy which is so very strategic and the elements of which depend on three different statements that you have to make while you are putting your strategy together talking about the responsibility and effectiveness of the copy or the copy strategy it basically is the responsibility of the ad agency meaning the effectiveness of the copy strategy but then at the same time making sure that the copy strategy is effective is the responsibility of brand managers it is very interesting if effectiveness of the strategy is the responsibility of the ad agency to ensure that the ad is effective is the responsibility of brand managers I repeat so in other words there's got to be some fundamentals and certain guidelines which guide us to see to it that the strategy which is developed by the ad agency is effective let us now talk about those guidelines and those factors which we really have to consider to make sure that whose responsibility is it and what are the factors we have to look into to make sure that that responsibility by the ad agency is executed in the most effective form first of all you have to define the marketing problem while you are talking about your strategy meaning when you are talking about the strategy statements which I talked in three different parts you have to support those with the help of marketing problem now you may support those as the starting point of the total strategy statement and let me tell you that this kind of strategy statement consists of a couple of pages and you may also call it an outline so do not be confused between two different terminologies strategy statement or strategy outline so in this particular context we are talking about something which is going to be a little comprehensive you define the marketing problem and by definition of the marketing problem what I mean is that you talk about the need and you talk about how you plan to fulfill that need and you talk about the product which you have come up with the product that you have come up with carries certain promises and the set of promises forms one particular contract and while you think that the contract is deliverable these are the points which you have to talk you define with your market and you define your market one by one point by point so that it becomes very clear to the reader of your strategy statement what you really are up to and what your plans are all that has gone so far into the strategy statement will sum up in the form of the position which you intend occupying in the minds of the consumers so you also talk about the positioning statement now this statement is going to be just about two sentences and it is going to be kind of culmination of all the marketing definition points that you have talked about so far so in other words what you are doing is you are giving your reader a complete breakup and a complete dissection of the market situation for them to fully understand your plans and then come up with a campaign to give good ad agencies can also do the homework well as a matter of fact all of them do the homework but the good ones do extra homework how they do that I will talk about that but the starting point is that you have to define the marketing problem and then develop your copy strategy accordingly so that the ad agency fully understands what you want and it is here that the interaction between you and ad agency is going to be of paramount importance it is a very very productive process because the agency is going to give you their viewpoint which is going to be very incisive and which is going to be based on the very experience which the agency has gained by working with so many different clients and by working into so many different situations at your end you are the expert of your brand because you have created it and you have defined the marketing problem and therefore with your perspectives when converge at a common point it should create something very effective so the agency is going to create something very effective and it is your responsibility to see to it that it really is effective meaning it is very much in line with your objectives and very much compatible with the strategy which you have set in place the second point is that once you have done all that you have to gain the management approval in order to start executing or in order to start developing the timetable for execution management approval is going to give you a lot of confidence into what you have done so far and you now are all set to start working on the program which deals with the tactics and executions and so on and so forth another guideline which you must have in consideration when gauging the effectiveness of the advertising campaign is that you have to ensure that the agency is working on longer range experimental copies in view of the evolution that you envisage you should not really have any difficulty in understanding this statement because evolution is something which I talked about in detail in my lectures about the brand associations and the brand promise and positioning and all that and you know very well that you have got to have all the innovations in mind which you will be carrying out which you will be creating from time to time in order to adapt your brand to the changing needs of your consumers in the marketplace not only that you have to bring about those changes in relation to the changing needs you also need to do all that in order to stay in competition and you would like to have some kind of a competitive advantage by creating something from time to time or by adding some extra benefits from time to time which really give your brand a competitive advantage and there are certain things which are very obvious when you start with one particular stage in the life of a brand and you know what is going to come one year down the line or two years down the line and things like that when you already know that and the ad agency also is fully in the picture you certainly talk about those possibilities and you talk about the process of evolution which is in a way around the corner and you have got to start working today for something which is going to come like 6 months or 12 months down the lane and that is what I meant by advertising agency coming up with alternatives and coming up with a few variations of the copy strategy which you are going to make use of in coming days, months and years because talking about the strategy statement talking about the basics all over again whenever there is a need for bringing about a little change is time consuming and it is a waste of the creative energies it is good on part of the agencies and it is good on your part to make that sure that agencies do have a few longer range experimental copies and you keep working with those you keep testing those with the head and there just to see which one fits best with your emerging needs the fourth guideline is that you have to develop an understanding of the basic principles of good copy so as to assess and evaluate the copy submissions very effectively now this is the final step you are talking with the agency you are looking at the campaign which they have come up with and the fact is that the agency would like you to be very critical because they would like to have a critique on your part of the campaign that they have come up with and therefore you have got to be very knowledgeable of all the basic principles that you require in order to evaluate the work done by the agency so far what you have to look into is that the campaign has got to be an attention getting campaign meaning it must create an attention getting value if you think the campaign is very well connected with the positioning and they just talk about the delivery of the promise and the contract and so on and so forth and the whole thing is done so beautifully in precise terms but it doesn't really have the punch and it is not something which is immediately going to get attention of the readers or the viewers then you must talk about that very candidly and openly with the agency you must be very clear about another principle which is the principle of relevance you must be hearing a lot about the brand being relevant or not being relevant what is relevant because we have got to be clear about that relevance is all about the relationship of your product with the target market if you are selling cars and you are selling an economy car you rather should be talking about the CNG feature and mileage per liter and things like that you will not be talking about features which basically relate a car which is full of performance or which is a sports car so that is what is meant by relevance you have got to be very relevant I mean the brand has got to be very relevant the campaign again has got to be very relevant with the brand and the target market it has to use the kind of language which is in vogue and it has to make the use of those visuals and the colors and all those elements which are very much compatible with the target market so that is what I mean by relevance the other principle is this campaign has got to be simple the principle of simplicity this is I would say is extremely important you must be watching many ads on the television and also looking at ads in the print or the medium which are very creative but then you see they challenge your intelligence and you start thinking about the ad what the whole thing is all about what is it that the brand manager is trying to convey or what is it that the brand is talking about it does look into my eyes very forcefully but then you see I do not seem to get the basic idea I don't think that kind of an ad is good it may be very creative but by simplicity what is meant is that you should not be leaving too much to the imagination of your target market it is very important keep it simple that should be the principle in relation to so many different strategies complexity here is not the name of the game simplicity, straightforward things with which really talk in very plain terms and even an average consumer well I would go to the extent of saying that even a less than average consumer should be able to fully understand immediately what is it that you are trying to communicate another principle which you have to consider is the visualization of story this basically relates to television and the story board so the visualization has got to be effective and it has got to be very coherent it has got to be based on all the principles that I have talked about so far meaning the visualization should get attention it should be relevant and it should be based on simplicity the last principle the list is not exhaustive there could be so many different principles but generally speaking I would say the last principle that you must consider is the integration of audio visual elements to make sure that the copy has the competitive bite it must bite into competition and it must be very effective that is what I mean so you have to integrate your audio things and the visual things so that whatever you are showing as part of the total visualization is very coherent and it really has a punch another guideline is that you evaluate the total effectiveness of the commercial and the basic selling idea without getting stuck into minor details if you really involve yourself in the minor details which already have been taken care of by the experts at the agency end that may amount to utilizing your time and not the best possible creative way that's what I would say so do not really get stuck into something which is minor, which is trivial if the job is already done and it is done in an effective way you should be satisfied with that it is not a match between the brand managers and the agency to see who is more creative and who can be more critical of the whole strategic process it is something which is complementary you have to complement each other's efforts and it is a game which depends on convergence you have to have convergent viewpoints for that the principle of complementarity is very important another principle is that you must analyze the copy related research before you give your final approval or ok to the campaign it is in this connection that I was talking about some agencies being very good and some agencies not being that good good agencies could also carry out some level of market research at their own now that research may not be very comprehensive because the context is very different they carry out that research just in order to make sure that whatever you have said as part of the strategy statement spread over like two or three pages by defining the market by talking about the different parts of the statement the basic intent, the selling idea and the promise and the positioning and by the promises deliverable and all those related items that I talked about earlier the agency would like to make sure that whatever you have talked about is really relevant and if they have any divergent the point of view they will come back to you and talk about that very candidly and they will give you kind of a positive challenge to think about that and the basic idea there also is to complement and supplement your efforts just in order to come up with something which is very effective so ad agency there fulfills its role of being very effective and it also lets you fulfill your role which is to make sure that the agency is effective in relation to this the guiding principle there are a few more factors that you must consider because you are at the final stage discussing the whole campaign with the agency and therefore you must see to it no stone is left unturned while you finalize the whole thing you have got to take into consideration the product its appearance the form and the basic characteristics the meaning all these things have been taken into account or not but maybe there is an important side of the brand appearance which does not talk to the show itself anywhere in the ad it does happen at times so you have got to make sure that all those things are present there now this is not to say that every dimension of the product is to be highlighted but what I am saying is that there are certain important features which anyone later on in a retrospect that can point out hey listen you just missed that very important point so these are a few of the elements of the product side which you have to consider while finalizing the whole campaign another thing which you must consider in relation to the market research carried out by the brand agency the competitive situation in nature of other brands in the field and what they are offering to their consumers so in other words you have got to talk about the communication campaigns carried out by others if at all others are doing that exercise if some of the players are not really advertising and they are doing something else and still are successful by your perspective in the marketplace you must look into that one more thing which you have to carry out while you finalize this thing you should carry out blind tests or what they call in the marketing research usage and attitude studies just in order to make sure what is the usage of your product and whether or not the usage is being perceived by your customers the way you have created your product there have been situations in which a brand was introduced with one set of promises but it ended up fulfilling a few other promises as well with the delight of the brand managers and that gave the brand managers to come up with something new so what I am saying is you have got to be fully aware of the usage of your product and the attitude which your consumers have towards your product and that is something which comes your way by way of carrying out marketing research at your end so what I am saying is that you have got to take into consideration a complete marketing situation of your brand in terms of the consumer behavior because through advertising you are going to talk very very directly with your consumers and any mistakes or any lapses there are going to be expensive and you may not be able to afford those so the campaign is going to be created given the overall marketing climate of not only your brand but also competitive brands and you must also be very clear about what they are doing with your actions so much for the copy of what it is and whose responsibility is it now the next question which comes to the mind is what purpose does a copy really serve it serves too many different purposes well one of the basic purposes is that it puts everything on record and your thoughts about the marketing strategy and the brand strategy and the communication strategy are very well structured and it allows you to make sure that everything fits with everything else and all the points of view are convergent and they create one single point which is the point of advertising campaign required for the brand you might think that being one of the creators of the total campaign that there is no need to have these things in writing and therefore you may like to have a meeting with the agency and give the agency go ahead with developing the campaign that has been the traditional way and there are companies that indulge into this kind of a practice but one must never approve of that you must try to come up with a copy strategy and the copy strategy is a very important document which maintains the continuity and that degree of continuity is important from the point of view of the evolution because you always will know that this is the way that you started off and this is where you have reached and this is where you want to go and everything done by the company and by the agency is on record it is something which really gives your brand a very specific character and that specific character emerges out of the consistency which is exhibited in all the efforts undertaken by the marketing department and by the agency based on the copy strategy so it really leads toward development of a very specific image of the brand in the minds of the consumers and that is the final objective of any marketing of the persons the other purpose which the copy strategy fulfills is that it brings your brand a certain level of distinctiveness and a stature in the competitive market and this distinctiveness and a good stature in the marketplace again it depends on that specific identity which you have been wanting to create and you have created that with the help of all the elements you have been very very consistent and you have been very consistent because you put everything down and while going through that in a structured way you succeeded in developing the right most relationships between different elements another purpose it serves as it goes without saying it provides a lot of guidance to the agency about the limits which the agency has to exercise its creative imagination so to say you must prescribe those limits you are not to go outside of those limits because the agency might like to talk about something which you consider as a part of the coming developments like six months down the road or a year down the road so you might like to hold on to those for the time being and that is what is meant by prescribing limits and there are so many other things which are to be considered while you define these parameters the point is that it is the job of the copy to prescribe all that so that the agency operates within those limits having talked about these couple of purposes which the copy strategy statement serves I would like to bring this lecture to an end because of the shortage of time and I will start talking about this very concept in the next lecture until then thank you very much