 As-Salaam-Alaikum-Khawwateen-Hazrat. Masim As-Salaam welcomes you to lecture number 34 of Brand Management, MKT 624 at the Virtual University of Pakistan. I was talking about the copy strategy in the previous lecture and had covered topics like what a copy strategy is, what is its importance and where it stems from and where it leads us to and the guiding principles that we need to have in order to develop a copy strategy and then the capabilities and the guidance that we need in order to assess that a copy strategy is just about the rightmost compatible strategy fitting into the overall strategic framework that the time ended and I'm going to pick up the threads from the way I left in the previous lecture. So let us develop an understanding of what specific purpose a copy strategy serves. I did talk about one or two points which fall in this ambit, one being that a copy strategy provides continuity to the company in its relations with the agency and also within the company. The company can maintain consistency in terms of all the advertising efforts and the plans and executions. In the absence of the well-structured copy strategy, the chances are that we shall be wandering off and going straight and hidden there in terms of all these strategic shifts. So it really binds us to the course of action that we have taken and it really keeps us related to that course of action which is going to lay the foundation for the changes in a way that are compatible with our strategic moves. It also helps your brand achieve distinctiveness and the stature in a competitive market only because it gives the brand a very specific character and that character is developed in the minds of the consumers with the help of your consistent actions that you take, the actions which are meaningful, the actions which are easily understandable by customers and consumers. So this also is an extension of the purpose which I talked earlier, the meaning, maintaining continuity. So out of that continuity and consistency stems this very purpose which gives your brand a level of distinctiveness. It also provides the ad agency, the direction and the guidance within prescribed limits. You define all the parameters in terms of the brand's positioning and when I talk about brand's positioning it goes without saying that all other elements have to be taken into account and that defines all the parameters and the limits within which the agency will always exercise its creative imagination. If you think that the agency is transcending those limits and going into areas which are not really relevant to the brand or which are the ones which are to be tackled somewhere down the line then you might as well like to keep those as those areas meant for the evolutionary process and like to deal with those one by one as the time warrants and not immediately. So this is another thing which is a good copy strategy that does to you and a very specific purpose that it serves. You may look upon yourself as one of the architects of the branding decisions and the branding strategies but the fact remains that in order for consistency to take place in the company it is of utmost importance that the strategies are defined and laid down in a very well structured way because who knows whether you are going to be there or not. Who knows whether your marketing manager is going to be there or not. Also who knows you are going to savor your relationship with the agency and may appoint a new agent. So in those circumstances and keeping in view these kind of possibilities it is always good to have your copy strategy in a structured, well-defined form which is understandable by anybody who reads that. And not only the copy strategy but you must also be recording all the results that you achieve as a consequence of execution of that strategy because a record of all that leads you to make the right most decisions under changing circumstances. So we can say about a copy strategy that while it is very concrete and specific about the brand's objectives it also is the flexible. The meaning it also carries an element of flexibility so that it provides latitude toward the changing decisions in view of the changing circumstances because it is the copy strategy which is the backbone of all the changes which you are going to incorporate in the framework. So it has to be able to a little flexible also to deal with the changing needs and expectations for which the process of evolution goes on and on. In this connection I would like to talk about a few of the factors which are very closely related here and which are the ones I have been talking about earlier also but since they belong here at this stage they are very well so I think it will not be just as done if I did not talk about these all over again in this very context. It serves the purpose of defining the basic selling idea in very clear terms. It makes sure that it is new and it makes sure that it is a solution which is being offered to a problem and it makes sure that the selling idea which the copy is talking about is thought provoking and it causes consumers to think about your brand and then adopting it for a long time. So this is one of the basic purposes which the copy strategy serves. It is only because of that. Now this is not to say that if there was no copy strategy this purpose is not going to be served. What I am saying is that you have got to be very logical and consistent when you develop a copy strategy and you certainly will be much better off if you developed this kind of copy strategy statement for the sake of consistency and for the sake of continuity and for the sake of making sure that all the elements that you have considered really fit into one cohesive whole and that is the beauty of this strategy and that is the purpose it serves. Now as an extension of this continuity and consistency what I can say is that it is the naturalness which comes to the surface and it is the natural virtues of the product which come out of this kind of a strategy because whatever you are talking about are not only facts are those facts which are common sensible and are those facts which are related to the associations not only that you are trying to develop but which are the ones which are going to be accepted by your consumers and you are talking about the promises and the delivery of the promises in a way which really makes the whole thing deliverable. So you are not communicating something which seems to have been extracted in an unnatural way or in an artificial way. You are talking about something which the consumer can relate to himself or herself immediately so that is the purpose which the copy strategy serves because it has come to the surface after taking into consideration so many different strategic elements and making sure nothing is unrelated nothing is haphazard nothing is ad hoc. Another purpose which the copy strategy serves is it makes sure that it appeals to the self-interest of the consumer which essentially means can the consumer associate the product with some service to him or her if the consumer can develop some kind of an attitude toward the product he is going to buy that and that is what is meant by the developing self-interest. So this is another purpose which a good copy strategy serves and again there are a few guidelines which you have to keep in mind to make sure that all this does take place and I will talk about all those when I summarize the whole concept in a short file. Another purpose which a good copy strategy serves is that it makes the whole strategy and it makes the whole campaign look like your own custom made. The campaign never looks like the one copied from some other competitors. It really gives the impression to the consumers that it is something very original and it is very distinctive and thereby it remains very memorable and the memorable in the sense that it creates an action because it delivers a promise. It makes sure that it is an idea that really can be associated with your product and not those of competitors. Meaning very distinctive and that the distinctness gives it the colors of something which is custom made especially for the purpose of your brand and your company. A good copy strategy could also serve the purpose of not letting you wander off. It really keeps you focused on the point of significance It talks about the reasons for the why consumers should prefer your product with the two those of competitors and it does keep the campaign very close to the attributes which are promised. That is what is meant by not wandering off. This again is a very important purpose which a good copy strategy serves. A copy strategy that provides us with a common benchmark which everyone within the company and the agency uses to evaluate the advertising submissions. Those advertising submissions that may relate to the total campaign are the submissions that may relate to the individual ads from time to time forming a part of the total campaign. The effect remains that we have the benchmark and we have standards in other words against which we can gauge the level of the properties of the campaign which the agency has come up with. Another purpose served by a good copy strategy is that it lets us save a considerable amount of time meaning creative time which otherwise is wasted by getting into the minor details. This relates to something which I talked about earlier what this means is that through a copy strategy statement we are in a position to make decisions on the basic copy matters and once we have those basic copy decisions we view them every time we are working at an individual piece of advertising that may form a total campaign. There is so much for the purposes that a copy strategy serves and after having developed an understanding of what a copy strategy is what are the fundamental drivers that let us craft this strategy and what are the considerations and whose responsibility it is to develop it and whose responsibility is it to see to it that it is very effective. Let me now summarize the whole concept by talking about the fundamental considerations which are the backbone of a good copy strategy. Now this summary is going to be very simple but nevertheless very important. Number one point which we must keep in our mind all the time while we are dealing with copy strategy that our communication has got to be simple. This is what we have learned. Number two is that this communication has got to portray the real character of the product and number three consideration is that it has to be interesting enough for the reader and for the viewer and it is going to be interesting for them only if we are focusing on the main product identity and if we are very accurate in talking about the real character of the product and the benefits which it delivers because if we do that it means we have been very focused and we had considered all the elements in the totality the way they fit into the overall whole. So it has to be a very cohesive whole. Another consideration which is number four is that we have got to take the full advantage of the medium that we are using. The press and magazines, the television, whatever we have got to fully capitalize on the power of the medium. Number five consideration is that our communication and the copy strategy has to be able to demonstrate the real point. If we were to summarize the whole thing as one point we have to look for that whether we are talking about it or not. And lastly we have to make sure that the copy strategy and whatever has gone into it do talk about something very specific and something very thought provoking so that your consumers really can relate the product to themselves by thinking that this product is of some service to them and once they have developed that kind of an attitude or that kind of a feeling the chances are that you have made your sales. So that is all for the copy strategy and the points which I have summarized are the basic constituents of a good strategy and if you think that these constituents are performing their functions very well because they fit into each other very well then the copy strategy is going to be a true reflection of the brand persona and the brand's positioning and that is what the good brand managers are out to achieve. With this discussion on the development side of advertising stands concluded and we have seen very comprehensively that it deals with the brand persona and brand's positioning. I pointed out in the beginning of this discussion that advertising deals with the two different steps or phases. One is the developmental side and that is what I have talked about. Let us now move on to the other side which is the execution side. The executing advertising is as important as developing advertising is because it is through execution of advertising that we make sure where we stand on the customer response effect and also make sure that every response that is intended to be evoked with the help of advertising is very effective and it takes place very effectively and there is the desired action on part of the consumer to go for the final sale. Executing advertising deals with the target market reach, media selection, media coverage, message frequency and the ad content are copied which I just talked about earlier. While executing advertising the biggest question which must flash into our minds should be the why not factor meaning why is it that so many campaigns do not succeed and why is it that such a tremendous amount of work which has gone into the advertising has not been fruitful. To be able to answer this question the fact is that we have to go back to our understanding of the customer response effects meaning the hierarchy of the customer responses. You will recall that the process starts with the stage of awareness and the fact is that awareness is the most important starting point unless awareness on part of the consumers is there there is no way that we really can proceed further meaning the other response effects are not going to take shape unless awareness is there. Let me explain this concept with a different kind of illustration and you will see that this definitely relates with the one which was exhibited in one of the earlier lectures but nevertheless this is the one which really demonstrates a very close relationship between the first effect which is awareness and the last effect which is action. We certainly have effects in between and the effects of comprehension, retention, no question but this illustration basically develops the relationship between awareness and action. Now if you take a look at this you will see that at every stage of the response effects we are showing two different bars the one is dark blue and the other is light blue and you can see the successive stages and with every successive stage the bars kind of recede meaning they decline and the reason is that you have to have a high level of awareness or in other words the highest level that you see is at the stage of awareness and the lowest level that you witness is at the stage of purchase which is the final action. So this is a conclusion that when we start with the first stage of effects and which is awareness it is at the highest level and the moment we go up the hierarchy you will see a reduction of those effects in relation to those particular phases with the meaning awareness has got to be the highest and comprehension which is the next step has to be lower than that and intention which is the next one lower than that and the purchase or the action has to be the lowest so this is the one conclusion which we can very easily draw from this illustration. Now if you take a look at this in an inverse fashion the meaning if we go back from the purchase stage back to the awareness stage it means that in order to have a higher level of purchase we have to increase the level of awareness and we can also conclude that in order to increase the level of purchase we not only have to increase the level of awareness but the level of awareness has also got to increase in a bigger proportion because the level of awareness is eventually going to recede. Let me phrase the whole thing let me put it in very simple words and that is in order to have a certain level of purchase we have to have a level of awareness which is higher than that. If you want to increase the level of purchase by say five units if we were to translate that into units then the level of awareness could not increase by five units rather it should increase maybe by ten units or fifteen units because there has to be a very high level of awareness in order to have a decent level of purchase. What is going to happen? From awareness it is going to go down while it passes through comprehension it will go further down while passing through intention and it will go further down when it reaches the purchase stage. We have got to make sure that the awareness has got to be at a very high level whether there is no method to my knowledge which really can quantify as to what should be the level of awareness a certain level of purchase meaning I am at a loss to develop a mathematical relationship between the two all I can tell you is that the level of awareness has got to be very high so that what you extract out of that level in terms of purchases should be at a decent level that is the lesson. A higher level of purchase brings you to the more usage it is a reflection of the fact either you are gaining the more customers or your existing customers are using your product more and more or a combination of both the chances are it is a combination of both and in both the cases what you are doing is you are developing loyal customers. So the basic objective of communication is creating awareness and increasing awareness and then maintaining awareness until the time we have a very high level of awareness regarding any brand there is no way that we can go through these successive stages of the consumer response effects and thereby creating or actuating the very final action which translates in terms of sales. In order to achieve that we have so many different tools at our disposal and whatever tools we are going to use keep one thing in your mind that these tools are going to be used for your target market. These tools are not meant for general public and these tools are the television channels and in the newspapers not only newspapers but the different parts of newspapers because you are dealing with the target market and the target market in relation to your tools to reach them you have to be very clear about what parts of newspapers really are compatible with the brand's positioning. You have a section on sports, you have a section on business you have a section on international politics and so on and so forth. So all these sections can have a direct relationship with the brand's positioning and therefore target market. So be very careful about choosing the tools because you are passing through now a stage of execution. And execution is something I did talk about this factor in one of my lectures earlier that the execution of not only advertising all the functions of management is taking on an added importance because there is a general thinking and the strategies can be formulated by creative people who have no question about that but when it comes to the execution everyone has got to be very, very alert and very sensitive to timetables and timelines and the time frameworks within which you've got to produce results. So whether you are a genius or just an average worker everybody has got to take the objectives which have been broken down into so many different units and subunits very effectively and efficiently. Back to the tools which we have at our disposal in order to execute the advertising campaign which we developed as the first phase of advertising another tool which we have is magazines. And when it comes to magazines again you've got to be very careful about which part of the magazine you place your ad into. I know there are so many cost constraints anybody would like to go on the cover the back cover for example if not that inside of the back cover or inside of the front cover the question is do we have the resources to afford that and we've got to be able to answer all those questions and then look for answers which are best suited in light of our circumstances. You must look at the radio not only the radio as a medium but the timings your target market are far off because they know what program is being aired at what time and with the growth of quality radio stations in our country this medium really has taken on and added importance. And starting with the youngsters right up to those segments which could be very serious in terms of their habits and the social cultural values you really can pick up a good program well suited to your target market. You must also be mindful of the one fact how your target customers travel and commute to the place of work while they go to the place of work what kinds of channels they tune to and what kinds of advertising they get exposed to for example if they travel by a bus you have advertising inside of the buses or you have advertising outside of the buses whether they travel by buses or motorbikes or motorcars it's not really material what is material is the kind of media they get exposed to the on-way to work and then back home hoardings, advertising on buses and there are so many different forms of advertising that manifest themselves in the outside environment you've got to be mindful of that. Another factor which you have to take into consideration is your target market hooked on to the internet if they really are into surfing then you've got to be careful and mindful of that because that might help you if you are doing something in relation to direct marketing for example. The question here is all of the factors and all of the tools that you have at your disposal you have to choose a mix of all those in the most optimal way given your resources and given the kind of punch which is your objective given the level of the consumer response effects that you are dealing with that you are going to make your decisions because everything that you choose means cost and all costs add up if you end up with a mixed bag which is not affordable then it is no good you've got to stay within your financial limits and you've got to make the whole communication very effective and therefore advertising while it is being considered for execution it has got to be given special attention because like I said it is the most visible the most dynamic and it is something which really emotionalizes the facts and those facts get translated into actions so you've got to be very careful about that you also have to be very careful about the message frequency because once you have chosen a combination of the tools you've got to consider the frequency with which advertising is going to be kicked off if it is radio, how many spots a day or how many spots within one hour and in what time if it is television commercial how many spots again if it is print media how many assertions which papers, which magazines and all these details the important thing to consider here is that the frequency matters a lot if because of the paucity of funds we think that we should be distributing our campaign in a way that we cover the most parts of the year maybe it is not a good decision I said maybe and if we decide to concentrate our advertising the frequency in a way that we end up talking about the whole campaign within just about a couple of months or a few months maybe it will work better so it is here that you have to decide given your circumstances whether you would like to go for something in a concentrated or you would like to go for something with a frequented basic principle that we have to keep in mind especially in relation to consumer items that there has to be a base frequency which allows us to keep talking with our target market around the year if it is not possible given our financial circumstances that is something else but preferably we should try to do that and then we make decisions to concentrate our communication because if you are dealing with the seasonal item for example which sells very well during the month of Ramadan you have to start communicating about that before the month sets in this is one example if you are dealing in the line of the cold drinks the you know when to advertise I don't have to tell you about that so similarly if you are dealing with the items which are kind of hot sellers during the winter months then you should concentrate your advertising and communication in those very months rather before those months could have set in so this basically is the concept of concentration versus the distribution of your communication trust the fact is that the strong brands keep talking around the year regardless of seasonality and regardless of the low months and the high months those are the brands which are very strong and which are very powerful and those are the brands which you see a lot of hoardings of around the year all around the country and that shows us the significance of the concept of communication not to be there out in the field in the market talking with your target market in one way or the other just to be in their minds otherwise they are going to forget you that's a very important lesson the next question which should come into our minds is how to make sure that the copy that we have put together is really going to be effective when it goes into the execution stage we have talked quite a bit about the awareness and comprehension and awareness and comprehension they were really taken into consideration why we developed our advertising and now it is going to be the stage when that piece of advertising is going to be tested one approach is to test the copy of advertising before running it nationwide if it's a press ad you can go for one of the magazines or one of the papers and keep it very limited in scope and see the response of your customers if it really comes up to your expectations and shows you the potential of taking you all along that hierarchy of the customer's response effects you should look upon that as something very viable and something workable if it is a television commercial I would say that the fragmented the media really has given us the advantage of the testing TV commercials also this was not the case like 10 to 15 years ago you had to go for the national network and whether it worked or not worked there was a question of your fate whether the fragmentation of the media this is a tremendous opportunity for people like us to test our TV commercial to go to one of the channels and test it there see the customer's response and make the final decision the chances are if you had made the television commercial based on all the considerations which I talked about in the previous lecture relating to the copy strategy then it will be okay but you never know that something may go wrong and even if something is not wrong you may like to bring about certain improvements and you may get some very interesting and fascinating kind of observations from your customers which you may not have taken into consideration while you made it so wait until you get the results of that test and then go nationwide and kick off your campaign it is needless to say that any copy which is really based on needs of the customers is going to help you in the marketplace and like that we are now going to talk about how to reinforce the message we have talked about the different tools that we have at our disposal and we have talked about the testing the copy which is in place and let us now talk about the need about how much to reinforce the message so frequently to reinforce that that is what it really means this is a hard fact of the communication that the message of communication has got to be continuous has got to be repetitive and it has got to be reinforcing building awareness comprehension and intention will bring in a good customer response no question about that but it will diminish in its effect if we stop talking with the customers you will recall the examples of the cars and sunglasses and the printers which I talked about in the previous lecture and we analyzed how important it is to look into every phase of the response effects and then reinforce our message in relation to that particular phase so that says it all in terms of reinforcing the message and maintaining a high level of awareness what you really have to consider is what could be the least expensive tool of reinforcing the message you may have spent a lot of money when you kicked off your campaign but when it comes to repeating it and reinforcing it you can do a lot of different things you can bring about a change in the mix of your tools and you also can do something with your TV commercials you can go for adaptations instead of showing the complete commercial you can show relevant portions in a very brief form reminding the customer of your presence so reinforcement is of utmost importance because it keeps the level of awareness and comprehension alive and if these two levels are alive then the chances are the customers are going to retain that information and based on that retention there will be action another consideration that you must take into account while you go through this process of reinforcement is what marketing people call a copy where out when you talk about something repetitively and over and over again that thing loses its originality and charm so what I'm saying is that at that stage you've got to bring about a certain change in the copy of your strategy it doesn't mean and it must not mean that you change the strategy you keep the strategy the same if you think customers are getting kind of bored then you must change those tactics and you must bring about some level of change in the copy strategy and here I would like to take you back to my lecture on responsibilities of the ad agency you will recall I talked about the need for the ad agency to bring you a few alternatives because among those alternatives you're going to keep some for the future in relation to innovations in relation to this kind of a scenario where you seem to be running into a copy wear out scenario so that's a consideration which has to be kept in mind a very important one so much for advertising as a tool of communication and that takes us to the next one which is promotions promotions are the ones which really stimulate action on part of customers no matter how good is the copy and the response effects like kindness and comprehension it may still not actuate the customer to take the final action and buy your brand so what do you do there it is at this point that the promotions come in and promotions really supplement what has been done by advertising if the role of advertising is to create the pull and advertising seems to be creating that pull then the role of promotions is to create the push so that the customers and the consumers really feel pushed to go to the product and buy that promotions play a very dominant role when it comes to introducing new products because you're out there to create the trial on part of the consumers who must try your product and you get into this activity in the hope that that will automatically bring your consumers to a higher level of the response effects but do not forget that the advertising is there and it is already working and playing its role now you have your promotions working but on the other end and these two coming together are maintaining a balance between that pull and push so the role of promotions from that point of view cannot be overemphasized it has to be there in order to make sure that the push is created and a trial is generated so that the consumer knows what the product is all about and if the product really is worth its salt and it carries all the promises and delivers those then the consumer who has tried the product is going to come back we have seen advertising and promotions do complement each other and we also are clear that advertising and promotions must work together in order to create the maximum amount of promotional mileage for the brand to have more and more power but before the brand can amass that power we have got to make sure that the brand has a very good level of awareness and comprehension and the brand is pride in the marketplace because the ones that trial takes place and the customers are going to get hooked on to your brand and it is only at that stage that they make up their mind to come back and back to your brand so promotions while working at the time of advertising taking place play a very important role promotions have two different types one is the trade promotions and the other is consumer promotions why is it that we really have to get into trade promotions and why is it that we also have to get into consumer promotions and why is it that we really have to conduct these promotions at the same time is going to be the topic of discussion in my next lecture I for the time being would like to wrap up whatever I have talked about and to give you a recap of the topics discussed in today's lecture I started talking about advertising as one of the tools of communication and not only the one of the tools but also the most dominant the most dynamic and the most visible tool what it takes to develop advertising I told you that there are two different phases that we go through the one is developing advertising itself and the second phase is execution while we develop advertising we have to be very clear about the copy strategy because copy is something which is the dominant part of advertising itself and there are certain fundamentals that we have to take into consideration before we come up with the copy strategy but the fundamentals are that we have to create a net impression which is based on the idea that we have to talk about the brand persona which basically is the personality and character of the brand and that we also have to base everything on the brand's positioning because that is the main thing which we would like to be in the minds of the customers and then we talked about the effectiveness of the copy strategy and in relation to the effectiveness the responsibilities discussed in the terms of the ad agency's responsibilities and in terms of the company's responsibilities it is the responsibility of the ad agency to see to it that the ad campaign is very effective and it is the responsibility of the company to see to it that it really is effective there are certain fundamentals and principles that you have to consider for that and then I talked about executing advertising in terms of the tools, the meaning television and newspapers and magazines and a host of other media that you have at your disposal that brought the discussion on advertising to an end and I had just started talking about the topic of promotions when the lecture seemed to come to an end I will pick up my lecture from where I am leaving it the next time Allah Hafiz and thank you very much