The Creative Side and

Message Strategy

Part 4: Effective Advertising

Messages
Chapter 12

Wells, Moriarty, Burnett & Lwin - Xth Edition ADVERTISING Principles and Effective IMC Practice 1
 Key Points

 Define creative advertising and explain

how it leads to a Big Idea
 Describe the characteristics of creative
people and their creative process
 Discuss key creative strategy approaches
 Outline the key parts of a creative brief

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 The Art & Science of Creative Advertising
 Creative ad: fresh, unexpected, unusual ad
 The ROI of effective advertising
 Relevant: means something to the target
 Original: one of a kind
 Impact: ad gets attention & sticks in memory

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 The Big Idea or Creative concept

 Implements the advertising strategy so that

the message is both attention getting and
memorable
 Expressed visually and verbally

Wells, Moriarty, Burnett & Lwin - Xth Edition ADVERTISING Principles and Effective IMC Practice 1-4
 Examples: Creative Idea (Big Idea)

 Colgate: keep the good breath

 Darlies: gives freshness
 Pepsodent: keep the teeth whitest

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 Head and Heart Strategies

Two basic creative strategies

Rational Approach/Hard Sell: touches
the mind and creates a response based
on logic e.g. tangible product
feature(benefits)
Emotional Approach/Soft Sell: uses
emotional appeals or images to create a
response e.g. attitude, mood, dream, feeling

Wells, Moriarty, Burnett & Lwin - Xth Edition ADVERTISING Principles and Effective IMC Practice 1-6
 Tangible and Intangible Features
Ad Objective

Big Idea

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 Creative Strategy

 Creative strategy
=Message Strategy
 What the advertisement says
 Creative execution
 How it is said

Wells, Moriarty, Burnett & Lwin - Xth Edition ADVERTISING Principles and Effective IMC Practice 1-8
 Message Objectives

1. Perception: create attention, awareness,

interest, recognition, and recall
2. Cognitive: deliver information and
understanding
3. Affective: touch emotions and create feelings
4. Persuasion: change attitudes, create
conviction and preference
5. Transformation: establish brand identity and
associations
6. Behavior: stimulate some form of action
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 Facets of Message Strategy
1. Drive Perception (attention getting
+memorable)
 Attention and awareness
 Stopping power
 Interest: keep attention
 Pulling power
 Teaser ad
 Memory
 Repetition
 Jingle, Slogan, Color

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 Facets of Message Strategy

2. Drive Cognition
 These messages get consumers to learn
about products by focusing on a product’s
features (give info.)
 Differentiation
 Claim, Infomercial (Long copy approaches)

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 Facets of Message Strategy

3.Touch Emotions
 Highlight psychological attraction of the
product to the target audience through
emotional responses e.g.love, fear,
pride, freedom etc.
 A general emotional goal is to deliver a
message that people like in order to
create liking for the product (like ad
like product)
Wells, Moriarty, Burnett & Lwin - Xth Edition ADVERTISING Principles and Effective IMC Practice 1-12
 Facets of Message Strategy

4. Persuade (believe)
Consumer committed to something., prefer it, probably intend to buy it
Appeal: Psychological of product
Conviction
 Testimonial; Test result; Before-after visual; Demonstaration,
Endoesement, Product placement

Wells, Moriarty, Burnett & Lwin - Xth Edition ADVERTISING Principles and Effective IMC Practice 1-13
 Facets of Mesage Strategy
 Types of Selling Premises
 A proposition on which an argument is based or a
conclusion is drawn
O Benefit strategy:
translate features and attributes into promise of
what product can do for consumers e.g. gasoline economy
O Promise: a benefit statement to show consumer about
future rewards from using products e.g insurance co.,
whitening product
O Reason why: show the reason for buying e.g. cheap
O Unique selling proposition:
a promise that consumer will get a unique benefit by
using this only one product
-It must be one that other product cannot or does not offer
-It must be strong enough to pull over new customers to the
brand e.g. Clinic Clear shampoo
Wells, Moriarty, Burnett & Lwin - Xth Edition ADVERTISING Principles and Effective IMC Practice 1-14
 Facets of Message Strategy

5. Transform Product
 Branding
 Image advertising is used to create a
representation in the customer’s mind
 Associations: a brand with a certain type
of person, lifestyle, or other
characteristic

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 Facets of Message Strategy

6. Drive Action
 A signature that serves to identify the
company or brand
 Also serves as a call to action if it gives
direction to the consumer about how to
respond
 Reminding ad strategy

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 Message Approaches
(message format/message formula)

 Straightforward :convey communication without any gimmicks,

emotion, or special effects.
 Demonstration :focus on how to use the product or service.
 Comparison: Show consumer that our product is superior than
others.
 Problem solving/Problem avoidance: Show problems and what
products can do and help to avoid the problem e.g p/d stops
Wrinkle
 Humor : get attention
 Slice of life: Like problem solution but in drama form.
 Spokesperson ( Endorsement) : Use celebrity, experts, etc. to
show that they use our product.
 Teasers: mystery ads that don’t identify the product or deliver
enough message to make sense but just for some period of time
to create curiosity and appeals.
 Shockvertising: grab attention and generate buzz

Wells, Moriarty, Burnett & Lwin - Xth Edition ADVERTISING Principles and Effective IMC Practice 1-17
 Summary

 Creativity is the essence of effective

advertising
 Creativity is the combination of the image
and the copy (or either one)=message in
the ad.
 Balance between creativity and
commerciality is required.

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