Enrolled: 4 students
Duration: 14 weeks
Lectures: 6
Level: Intermediate

Advertising Today?

This chapter introduces you to some important themes of the text, including integrated marketing communications, and the importance of IMC to relationship marketing. The chapter also introduces one of the most important components of IMC, advertising, and distinguishes it from other forms of marketing communications.

Learning Objectives

After studying this chapter, your students will be able to:

LO1-1 Define integrated marketing communications.

LO1-2 Clarify what advertising is and how it differs from other forms of marketing communications.

LO1-3 Explain the importance of relationship marketing.

LO1-4 Depict the human communication process and demonstrate its usefulness in understanding how advertising communicates.

LO1-5 Define marketing and identify the four elements of marketing strategy.

LO1-6 Illustrate advertising’s role in marketing strategy.

LO1-7 Identify important categories under promotion: the communication element of strategy

 

What’s New?

A vignette about the Activia yogurt TV commercial featuring the popular singer Shakira. The advertiser downplayed the product and emphasized the celebrity in hopes that people would share the commercial via social media; the commercial was a resounding success. This strategy reflects both “old” and “new” strategies of advertising.   The vignette gives students a chance to anticipate themes that will be developed throughout the text.

This chapter also introduces the new “My IMC Campaign” feature.  Students can use the feature to work on a real IMC campaign throughout the semester.  The box in this chapter provides students an overview of the campaign process and gives a list of all of the topics covered in the feature. 

 

Teaching Tips and Strategies

 

Using the Chapter Opening Vignette in the Classroom

Ask students to consider the Activia campaign’s tactics and to offer opinions about: 1) why such tactics were chosen, and 2) whether the same tactics would have worked equally well for a different product.  Students may focus on two issues: 1) the importance of the youth market 2) the strategic use of social media as a marketing tool.   Students should consider the yogurt company’s strategy in terms of changing market conditions related to age, culture, scope, and region.

 

Other Tips and Strategies

A simple yet effective way I’ve found to help students develop a more sophisticated perspective on ads is to ask them to identify and then describe their favorite ads.  This activity helps to accomplish several important things.  First, because it is an enjoyable and easy activity, it is a great icebreaker!  Students quickly jump in with mentions of their favorite ads, usually with lots of laughing and merriment.  As they observe their own reactions and those of others, students begin to recognize how much they enjoy advertising when it is done well.  The activity also allows for follow–up questions, such as “Why do you like that one?” and “What makes that ad effective for you?” questions that encourage students to reflect a bit more deeply about how effective advertising works.  At subsequent points in the semester you might refer back to this activity as you explore more deeply the issues surrounding advertising effectiveness.

I then ask if advertising influences everything we buy. Students will tend to debate both sides. Some will maintain that advertising does not influence them in any way. I then write the following brands on the board (please adapt these to fit your style):

 

  • Rolex                                                                   Timex
  • Nike                                                                   New Balance
  • Apple                     Acer

 

 

I ask the students to tell me which are high-end or low-end brands. I then go down the list, writing beside each brand “high-end” or “low-end.” This facilitates a discussion of how we know this information and who put the idea in our minds that Rolex is better than Timex (does that mean surgeons only use Rolexes in complex procedures?). This is a great way to transition into discussing the communication process between the company and the customer. You will also want to discuss different methods of advertising, such as social media, TV, radio, etc. It is also a good opportunity to discuss the consumer and the different media they use to learn about the company, product, or service.

 

Web Resources for Enhancing your Lectures:

 

U Texas AdWorld

http://advertising.utexas.edu/world/

 

Advertising Lab

http://adverlab.blogspot.com/

 

Advertising Age

http://adage.com/

 

AdWeek News

http://www.adweek.com/aw/index.jsp

 

Lecture Outline

 

U   My IMC Campaign 1: Overview

 

  Ad Lab 1–A: Advertising as a Literary Form

 

 Ethical Issue: Ethics in Advertising: An Overview

 

   Portfolio Review:           Building Brand Value

 

u   People behind the Ads: Albert Lasker and Claude Hopkins.

 

  1. Vignette: The Shakira Activia commercial

            The Activia yogurt commercials with Jamie Lee Curtis were very effective. Why did the
            company replace the actress with Shakira? What trends underlie the company’s shift in
            strategy?

  1. LO1-1

            One way to demonstrate how marketing communications work, and at the same time        introduce some important concepts, is to tell a story about an ordinary person, perhaps           someone similar to yourself. How did Sharon’s story helps introduce the modern practice            of marketing communications?

III. What is Advertising?

Many people simply refer to all commercial messages as “advertising,” but in fact, the           correct term for these tools is marketing communications. Advertising is just one of        these tools.

Advertising is a paid, mediated form of communication from an identifiable source,             designed to persuade the receiver to take some action, now or in the future.

Analysis:

  1. Advertising is a type of communication, which is commonly defined as the process

through which meaning or information is exchanged between individuals using some system of symbols, signs, or behavior.

  1. Advertising is a very structured form of applied communication, employing verbal and nonverbal elements that are composed to fill specific space and time formats determined by the sponsor.
  2. Advertising is directed to groups of people, usually audiences, rather than individuals. These people could be consumers, who buy products for their personal use.
  3. Most advertising is paid for by sponsors; but some sponsors don’t have to pay for their ads. Many organizations whose public service messages are carried at no charge because of their nonprofit status.
  4. Most advertising is intended to be persuasive – to make audiences more favorably disposed toward a product, service, or idea.
  5. Advertising promotes tangible goods (e.g., oranges, oatmeal, and olive oil), publicize intangible services (e.g., bankers, beauticians, bike repair shops) and advocate a wide variety of ideas (concepts based on economics, politics, etc.). In this book the term product encompasses goods, services, and ideas.
  6. Advertising identifies its sponsors (whereas public-relations activities often refrain from open sponsorship).
  7. Advertising reaches us through a channel of communication referred to as a medium (such as radio advertising, TV advertising, newspaper ads, Google ads, etc ). Word-of-mouth (WOM) advertising is a communication medium; it has not generally been considered an advertising medium. Historically, advertisers used mass media (the plural of medium) to deliver their messages.  Other types of media include:
  8. Addressable media (direct mail)
  9. Interactive media (Internet and kiosks)
  10. Nontraditional media (shopping carts, blimps, and DVDs)
  11. In this chapter, therefore, we’ll briefly examine two of the most important dimensions of advertising the communication dimension first to better understand how advertising is actually a form of structured, literary communication. Then the marketing dimension will explain the important role advertising plays in business. In Chapter 2, we look at two more dimensions. The economic dimension shows how and why advertising evolved as it did. And the social and ethical dimension considers the impact of advertising on consumers, businesses, and society.
  12. Relationship Marketing

            Customers, not products, are the lifeblood of the business. This realization has created a          trend away from simple transactional marketing to relationship marketing -creating, maintaining, and enhancing long-term relationships with customers and other stakeholders       that result in exchanges of information and other things of mutual value.

            Companies that commit to relationship marketing are generally trying to accomplish three         things: (1) identify, satisfy, retain, and maximize the value of profitable customers; (2)        manage the contacts between the customer and the company to ensure their effectiveness;          and (3) develop a full view of the customer by compiling and acquiring useful data.

  1. The Importance of Relationships

  2. To succeed, companies must focus on managing loyalty among carefully chosen customers and stakeholders (employees, centers of influence, stockholders, the financial      community, and the press).
  3. This is important for a number of reasons:
  4. The cost of lost customers. The real profit lost is the lifetime customer value (LTCV) to a firm.
  5. The cost of acquiring new customers.
  6. The value of loyal customers.
  7. Levels of Relationships
  8. Kotler and Keller distinguish five levels of relationships that can be formed between a company and its various stakeholders, depending on their mutual needs.
  9. Basic transactional relationship. The company sells the product but does not follow up in any way (Target).
  10. Reactive relationship. The company (or salesperson) sells the product and

encourages customers to call if they encounter any problems (Men’s Wearhouse).

  1. Accountable relationship. The salesperson phones customers shortly after the

sale to check whether the product meets expectations and asks for product

improvement suggestions and any specific disappointments. This information

helps the company continuously improve its offering (Acura dealers).

  1. Proactive relationship. The salesperson or company contacts customers from

time to time with suggestions about improved product use or helpful new

products (Verizon).

  1. Partnership. The company works continuously with customers (and other

stakeholders) to discover ways to deliver better value (Nordstrom’s Personal

Shopper).

  1. High-profit product or service categories make deeper, personal relationships more desirable (see Exhibit 1–2).
  2. The concept of integration is wholeness. Achieving this wholeness in communications creates synergy —the principal benefit of IMC—because each element of the communications mix reinforces the others for greater effect.
  3. The Evolution of the IMC Concept
  4. The IMC approach focuses on four related tactics:

-less emphasis on advertising relative to other promotional tools

-heavier reliance on targeted messages and on reaching smaller segments

-increased use of consumer data

-changed expectations for marketing communications suppliers

 

  1. Nowak and Phelps noted that IMC is used by some to mean “one voice” (i.e., ensuring all elements of the marketing mix converge on a single idea), by others to mean integrated communications (that advertising can and should achieve both

action and awareness objectives simultaneously), and by still others to mean coordinated marketing communications (ensuring the various marketing mix elements such as advertising direct-response, sales promotions, and the like, work together).

  1. IMC is best defined as “the concept and process of strategically managing audience- focused, channel-centered, and results-driven brand communication programs over time.
  2. How the Customer Sees Marketing Communications
  3. Various communications or brand contacts, sponsored or not, create an integrated product in the consumer’s mind.
  4. IMC gives companies a better opportunity to manage or influence those perceptions and create a superior relationship with those stakeholders.
  5. The Four Sources of Brand Messages

To influence customers’ perceptions, marketers must understand one of the basic premises of IMC: that everything we do (and don’t do) sends a message. There are 4 types of company/brand-related messages stakeholders  receive:

  1. Planned messages: traditional promotional messages (advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, merchandising materials, publicity releases, event sponsorships); have the least impact because they are seen as self-serving.
  2. Product (inferred) messages: messages from the product, price, or distribution elements; includes packaging; have great impact.
  3. Service messages: employee interactions send messages to customers; have greater marketing impact than the planned messages.
  4. Unplanned messages: emanate from employee gossip, unsought news stories, comments by the trade or competitors, word-of-mouth rumors, or major disasters; company has no control over
  5. The Integration Triangle
  6. The integration triangle developed by Duncan and Moriarty is a simple illustration of how perceptions are created from the various brand message sources (see Exhibit 1–3).
  7. Planned messages are say messages – what companies say about themselves.
  8. Product and service messages are do messages because they represent what a company does.
  9. Unplanned messages are confirm messages because that’s what others say and confirm (or not) about what the company says and does.
  10. Constructive integration occurs when a brand does what its maker says it will do and then others confirm that it delivers on its promises.
  11. The Dimensions of IMC
  12. To maximize the synergy benefits of IMC an organization should first ensure consistent positioning, then facilitate purposeful interactivity between the company and its customers or other stakeholders, and finally actively incorporate a socially responsible mission in its relationships with its stakeholders.
  13. IMC offers accountability by maximizing resources and linking communications

activities directly to organizational goals and the resulting bottom line.

  1. Communication: What Makes Advertising Unique
  2. The Human Communication Process

The first scholars to study human communication formulated a model like the one in Exhibit 1–3.

  1. The human communication begins with:
  2. Source – party who formulates an idea, then
  3. Encodes – idea as a message
  4. Message – sends it via some channel to another party
  5. Receiver – the party who receives the message
  6. Decode – the message to understand it
  7. Feedback – a message that acknowledges or responds to the original message; affects the encoding of a new message.
  8. Noise – the distracting cacophony of many other messages being sent at the same time by other sources.
  9. Exhibit 1– 6 shows, the path from sponsor to consumer can be long and circuitous.
  10. Applying the Communication Process to Advertising

The Stern model, a sophisticated communication model specific to advertising, reminds us that advertising, sources, messages, and receivers have multiple dimensions of advertising:

  1. Source Dimensions: Sponsor, Author, Persona

Who is the source of the communication? The sponsors (who are legally responsible for the communication); the authors (people outside the text of the message, such as a creative team or ad agency); and the persona (the source of the within-text  message).

  1. Message dimensions: Autobiography, Narrative, and Drama

Advertising messages use one or a blend of three literary forms:

  1. autobiographical messages (author tell own story)
  2. narrative messages (third-person persona tells story about others to imagined audience)
  3. dramatic messages (characters act out events as though in a play).
  4. The creators of ads must make important decisions about what kind of persona and which literary form to use to express the message.
  5. Key considerations are the emotions, attitudes, and motives that drive particular customers in their target audience .
  6. Receiver Dimensions: Implied, Sponsorial, and Actual Consumers
  7. Implied consumers who are addressed by the ad’s persona, are not real.
  8. The sponsorial consumers are the gatekeepers who decide if the ad will run or not. c. The actual consumers (equivalent to the receiver in oral communication) are people in the real world who make up the ad’s target audience.
  9. The sponsor’s messages must compete with hundreds of competing commercial and noncommercial messages every day, referred to as noise. So the sender doesn’t know how the message is received, or even if it’s received, until a consumer acknowledges it.
  10. Exhibit 1–5 presents an interactive model of communication.
  11. Feedback and Interactivity

Feedback verifies that he message was received. Feedback employs the same sender-message-receiver pattern, except that it is directed from the receiver back to the original source. Feedback can take many forms (e.g., redeemed coupons, Web site visits, phone inquiries, visits to the store, tweets, Facebook posts, increased sales, responses to a survey or an e-mail inquiries). Low responses to an ad indicate a break in the communication process. Feedback offers companies the chance to nourish relationships with their customers.

  1. Marketing: Determining the Type of Advertising to Use

            Every business performs a number of diverse activities, typically classified into three broad functional divisions:

-Operations (production/manufacturing)

-Finance/administration

-Marketing

  1. What is Marketing?
  2. Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
  3. Marketing is a process a sequence of actions or methods – aimed at satisfying customer needs profitably.
  4. This process includes developing products, pricing them strategically, making them available to customers through a distribution network, and promoting them through sales and advertising activities.
  5. Advertising and the Marketing Process
  6. Advertising is an important IMC tool that can help the organization achieve its marketing goals.
  7. The marketing strategy will determine who the targets of advertising should be, where ads should appear, what media should be used, and what advertising should accomplish.
  8. Exhibit 1– 7 shows some of the ways advertising can be classified, based on these strategic marketing elements.
  9. Identifying Target Markets and Target Audiences

            A firm’s marketing activities are aimed at a particular segment of the population, its target market. Advertising is aimed at a particular group called the target audience. There are two main types of target markets: consumers and businesses.

  1. Consumer Markets
  2. Consumer advertising, usually sponsored by the producer (or manufacturer) of the product or service, are typically directed at consumers (people who buy the product for their own or someone else’s personal use).
  3. Retail advertising is advertising sponsored by retail stores and businesses.
  4. Consumer advertising can include public service announcements (PSAs) from organizations such as the American Cancer Society.
  5. Consumer behavior is the province of another specialty in marketing.
  6. Industrial/Business Markets
  7. Companies use business advertising to reach people who buy or specify goods and services for business use. Also called business-to-business advertising (B2B). There are three types of business advertising:
  8. Trade advertising targets resellers (wholesalers, dealers, and retailers) to obtain a greater distribution of their products.
  9. Professional advertising is aimed at teachers, doctors, dentists, architects, engineers, lawyers and the like. Three objectives in professional advertising; to convince professional people to recommend or prescribe a specific product or service to their clients, to buy particular brands of equipment and supplies for use in their work, or to use the product personally.
  10. Agricultural (or farm) advertising promotes products and services used in agriculture to farmers and others employed in agribusiness.
  11. Implementing Marketing Strategy

After selecting a target market for its products, an advertiser designs a strategy to serve that market profitably. Marketing strategy is a mix of the 4Ps of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion.

  1. Product: Categories of Goods and Services
  2. For mass-merchandised grocery brands such as Wrigley’s gum or Tide laundry detergent, companies use a type of advertising called “consumer packaged-good                                           advertising.”
  3. A MINI dealer’s service center or tax preparation firm is likely to use “service advertising.”
  4. Price: Strategies for Pricing
  5. Consumers view value as the ratio of a brand’s quality to its price.
  6. Some products (Suave personal care brands, No-Ad lotions) are publicized using price advertising, in which an ad claims the product is equal in quality to higher                                       priced brands.
  7. Image advertising, which creates a perception of a company or a personality for a brand, is rarely explicit about price.
  8. Sale advertising is used most often by retailers, dealers, and shops to call attention to a recent drop in the price of a brand or service.
  9. Place: The Distribution Element
  10. Global marketers such as Coca-Cola, Toyota, and IBM may use global advertising in which messages are consistent in ads placed around the world.
  11. Other firms may promote their products in foreign markets with international advertising, which may contain different messages and even be created locally in                                each geographic market.
  12. Companies that market in several regions of the U.A. and use the major mass media are called national advertisers, and their promotion is called national advertising.
  13. Some companies sell in only one part of the country or in two or three states; they use regional advertising.
  14. Businesses and retailers that sell within one small trading area typically use local advertising placed in local media or direct mail.
  15. Promotion: The Communication Element
  16. Marketing Communications (marcom) refers to all the planned messages created  support marketing objectives and strategies. In addition to advertising, major                                                             marketing communication tools include personal selling, sales promotion, public                                            relations activities, and collateral materials.
  17. Personal selling salespeople deal directly with customers either face-to-face or via telemarketing, offers the flexibility possible only through human interaction
  18. To promote their goods and services, companies use product advertising.
  19. To sell ideas, organizations use nonproduct advertising.
  20. Noncommercial advertising is used around the world by governments and nonprofit organizations to seek donations, volunteer support, or changes in consumer                                  behavior.
  21. The objectives of awareness advertising , for example, are to create an image for a product and to position it competitively with the goal of getting readers or viewers                               to select the brand the next time they shop.
  22. A direct-mail ad, on the other hand, exemplifies action (or direct-response ) advertising because it seeks an immediate, direct response from the reader.
  23. Sales promotion is a communication tool that offers special incentives to motivate people to act right away.
  24. Public relations (PR) is an umbrella process – much like marketing – responsible for managing the firm’s relationships with its various publics. These publics may                                        include customers but are not limited to them. Public relations is also concerned with                                employees, stockholders, vendors and suppliers, government regulators, interest                                               groups, and the press. So PR is much larger than just a tool of marketing                                                                    communications.
  25. Marketers use a number of public relations activities because they are so good at creating awareness and credibility for the firm at relatively low cost.
  26. Marketing public relations [MPR] include publicity, press agentry, sponsorships, special events, and a special kind of advertising called public relations advertising,                          which uses the structured, sponsored format of media advertising to accomplish public                        relations goals.
  27. Companies use a wide variety of promotional tools other than media advertising to

                        communicate information about themselves and their brands. These collateral                                            materials include fliers, brochures, catalogs, posters, sales kits, product specification                                sheets, instruction booklets, and so on.

  1. Integrating Marketing Communications

            In recent years, as new media have proliferated and the cost of competition has             intensified, sophisticated marketers have searched for new ways to get more bang (and        accountability) from their marketing communications buck.

            The result has been a growing understanding on the part of corporate management that (1)   the efficiencies of mass media advertising are not what they used to be; (2) consumers are             more sophisticated, cynical, and distrusting than ever before; (3) tremendous gaps exist          between what companies say in their advertising and what they actually do; and (4) in the            long run, nourishing good customer relationships is far more important than making    simple exchanges

VII. Chapter Summary

  1. Integrated marketing communications involves strategically managing and coordinating the sources of information consumers have about brands.
  2. In the IMC model, all marketing becomes communications and all communications become marketing.
  3. Advertising, one type of marketing communications, is a paid, mediated form of communication from an identifiable source, designed to persuade the receiver to take some action, now or in the future.
  4. Advertising is first and foremost communication. The basic human communication process begins when a source formulates an idea, encodes it as a message, and sends it via some channel or medium to a receiver.
  5. Marketing’s primary role is to attract revenues, so advertising is important.
  6. A firm’s marketing mix—or strategy—establishes the type of advertising needed and the skills required to implement it.
  7. The distribution strategy dictates the firm’s use of local, regional, national,

or international advertising.

  1. To achieve consistency in all the organization’s messages, sophisticated companies seek to integrate their marketing communications with all other corporate activities through a process called integrated marketing communications.

 

Review Questions

  1. What is IMC and how is it different from advertising?

IMC is both a concept and a process that draws on management skill at strategic planning. IMC places greater emphasis on audiences, channels, and results as compared with traditional promotional approaches. Finally, IMC represents a broadened view of brand promotion.

  1. What kinds of relationships do brands have with consumers?
  2. Basic transactional relationship. The company sells the product but does not follow up in any way.
  3. Reactive relationship. The company (or salesperson) sells the product and

encourages customers to call if they encounter any problems.

  1. Accountable relationship. The salesperson phones customers shortly after the

sale to check whether the product meets expectations and asks for product

improvement suggestions and any specific disappointments. This information

helps the company continuously improve its offering.

  1. Proactive relationship. The salesperson or company contacts customers from

time to time with suggestions about improved product use or helpful new

products.

  1. Partnership. The company works continuously with customers (and other

          stakeholders) to discover ways to deliver better value.
3.       What are the advantages of the interactive communications model over the traditional
          one?

The interactive model allows companies and consumers to build relationships. Consumers feel like they are part of the brand in a unique way. No single entity operates as a source or receiver. The model better represents marketers’ understanding of their relationships with consumers today. 

  1. In the marketing communication process, what are the various dimensions of the source, the message, and the receiver?

The communication process begins when one party, called the source (the sponsor), formulates an idea, encodes it as a message (the ad), and sends it via some channel (medium) to another party, called the receiver (the consumer or prospect). The Stern model proposes a more sophisticated communications model; it is derived from the traditional model, but it acknowledges that the source, the message, and the receiver all have multiple dimensions. The source dimensions are the sponsor, author, and persona. The message dimensions are autobiography, narrative, and drama. The receiver dimensions are implied, sponsorial, and actual consumers.

  1. Who else besides consumers do brands sometimes seek to develop relationships with?

Companies must build loyalty with stakeholders including employees, centers of influence, stockholders, financial community, and the press.

  1. What are the two broad categories of target markets?

The two broad categories of target markets are consumer markets and industrial/business markets.

  1. In addition to consumer advertising, what specific form of business advertising would a pharmaceutical company likely employ?

Professional advertising is used to convince physicians to prescribe the pharmaceutical company’s products to the physician’s patients.

  1. What are the four elements that compose a company’s marketing strategy and how do they affect the type of advertising a company uses?

Product concept, pricing, place, and promotion are the four elements that compose a company’s marketing strategy. The type of advertising used depends on the company’s marketing strategy.

  1. What is the purpose of awareness advertising?

The purpose of awareness advertising is to create an image for a product and to position it competitively with the goal of getting readers or viewers to select the brand the next time they shop.

  1. What important activities does a company engage in under the heading of “promotions”?

Promotion activities include personal selling, advertising, sales promotion, public relations, and collateral materials.

U   My IMC Campaign: Overview

  1. Welcome to My IMC Campaign, a new feature of this text. My IMC Campaign, should be useful in any of the following situations:

            -Your instructor has asked students in your class to work on part or all of an ad campaign,       either individually or in groups.

            -You are doing an internship and want practical advice on how to help your company         advertise.

            -You want to try to apply the concepts and ideas that you are reading about in this book in     the real world.

  1. Let’s begin with a definition. An IMC campaign involves the creation and placement of a series of strategic communications that are unified by an underlying theme or core message.
  2. The My IMC Campaign topics are listed below. You may find it useful or necessary to jump around as you develop your own campaign.
  3. Overview
  4. Tools for Teamwork
  5. Your Assignment
  6. Understanding Your Client
  7. Understanding How Consumers Respond to Advertising
  8. Segmenting the Audience
  9. Research
  10. The Situation Analysis; The SWOT Analysis; Developing Advertising Objectives
  11. Media Strategy
  12. The Creative Brief
  13. Product Facts for Creatives; Creating Great Headlines, Copy, and Visuals; Design Principles
  14. Producing Ads
  15. Evaluating Print Media
  16. Evaluating Electronic Media
  17. Evaluating Digital and Other Media
  18. Proposing Evaluation Programs
  19. Introducing Social Media
  20. Creating a Plans Book
  21. Creating Your Client Presentation

  Ad Lab 1–A: Advertising as a Literary Form

  1. Can you identify which two literary forms appear in example 4? Does it have a persona and/or an implied consumer? If so, describe their use.

Example 4 combines autobiography and drama, because it is a fictionalized representation of Eminem, an actual person. The Eminem character in the ad is a persona, who represents the advertiser.

 Ethical Issues: Ethics in Advertising: An Overview

Sample outline for discussing ethics:

  1. What is “ethics?”
  2. Dictionary definition: moral philosophy
  3. Related words: conscience, principles, high standards, integrity, system, moral belief   system, honesty, propriety, decency, various religious beliefs, the golden rule
  4. Ethics needed in societies where litigation is frequent.

III.       Differentiating an ethical dilemma from an ethical lapse.

  1. Definitions:
  2. Ethical dilemma—a crisis due to unresolved interpretation of an ethical issue.
  3. Ethical lapse—the behavior that overlooks or fails to apply an applicable ethic                       (and thereby may well be unlawful because laws are based on ethical judgments).
  4. Guidelines:
  5. In advertising, “truthfulness” is typically the major issue.
  6. Distinction must be made between “having a right” and “the right thing to do”—                            e.g., should advertisers persuade a poor, inner-city juvenile to buy a $170 pair of                                          sneakers?
  7. Ethics takes over where laws end.
  8. Advertising professionals largely find ethics synonymous with legality.
  9. “You can be ethical only when you have the option of being unethical,” according              to Ivan L. Preston, University of Wisconsin professor.

Note: Because ethical issues are not always clear-cut, in-class discussions are encouraged to help students refine their understanding of ethics. The questions below are designed to serve as starting points.

This methodology allows the free flow of ideas, so students typically bring up other ethical dilemmas not described in the assigned Ethical Issue box. One way to overcome this variation is to review each chapter’s Ethical Issue box in advance. A comprehensive list appears on page 15.

A more subtle challenge is to understand when and how to use an ethical principle. A good way to begin is to first determine who’s responsible for applying or defining the ethical issue. As we mention in the chapter, there are three levels of responsibility: the society (the group), the individual, and the accepted philosophy that describes the ethical concept and suggests its proper use. You may wish to review this section before initiating any discussion about ethics.

It is also important that each student be expected to defend his/her position with a well-thought-out answer.

ETHICAL ISSUES

  1. Would you mind bending your moral rules a little to sell a product with a misleading comparison or a visual distortion? What could justify such a decision? Where would you draw the line?

Answer guidelines:

  1. If an ad is misleading, it has broken the law. (Chapter 2)
  2. Visual distortions are typically used to create attention and emphasis and may be illegal. (See Chapters 2 and 10 for more details.)
  • Does the distortion actually apply to the content or meaning of the ad or is it merely creative license or puffery?
  • If distortion does affect the content, is it truthful?
  • Does the distorted photo, illustration, or graphic chart mislead people?
  • Is an image distorted to hide the fact that it was stolen from a copyrighted source?
  1. Justifications for “bending” moral rules

There is no justification for misleading people or for being untruthful.

Because puffery—claims that are empirically hard to prove (the brightest whites or the cleanest dishes)—is legal, advertisers may justify the use of visual and verbal distortions.

  1. Although puffed claims are legal, consumers may not feel that they are honest—the negative effects of a misinterpretation and a subsequent backlash should be considered in advance.
  2. Because the company’s credibility is at stake, puffery could enhance—or tarnish—an entire line of products.
  3. The next time you watch TV commercials, think ethics. Look for both good and bad examples of ethical presentations of the advertised products. What ethical issues might have been discussed before the ads were approved?

When producing ads, two approaches generally take place that help eliminate ethics problems:

  1. The ethical issues are discussed—in an order much like the answers to question one above—by the managers and creatives involved in producing ads.
  2. Procedural steps employed to evaluate ethical issues may include:
  • Sending all materials for review by the advertiser’s legal department or the agency’s legal consultants.
  • Market testing (one-on-one interviews, focus groups, etc.) to reveal potential ethical problems.
  • Showing the proposed ads to organizations that are sworn to uphold ethical standards such as a professional group (Better Business Bureau, American Association of Advertising Agencies), a governmental agency (FDA, FCC, etc.), or other groups (a national or local church board, PTA, school board, etc.).

   Portfolio Review:           Building Brand Value

Great ads speak to consumers in a way that helps them see value in a brand. Study the array of ads in this portfolio and consider how well each one illustrates the contemporary definition of advertising presented in this text. Next, select one ad from the portfolio and analyze the multiple dimensions of the communication process as they apply to that ad. Finally, select a different ad from the portfolio and determine which of the six functions of advertising are applicable to the ad.

u   People behind the Ads: Albert Lasker and Claude Hopkins.

Lasker’s persuasive talents were rooted in his gifts as both a leader and a visionary. Impressing everyone he worked with, Lasker was quickly promoted through the agency ranks. He was still in his early twenties when he bought Lord & Thomas and began creating the first true “modern” ad agency.

Hopkins believed advertising had one function: selling. Hopkins advocated finding a “preemptive claim” for each brand, an attribute that could be used to distinguish the brand from its competitors.

The Advertising Experience

  1. Ad Action: Strategy and the Marketing Mix

This chapter has emphasized building relationships as an important objective for IMC. Think about your favorite brands. Do you feel as though you have a “relationship” with any? What do the companies that support these brands do to ensure you are happy in the relationship? And are you an advocate for any brand? How and when do you communicate to others your positive feelings or excitement about the brand?

 

  1. Role of Advertising

In Chapter 1, you learned about the standard definition of advertising and the various roles and forms that advertising can take. Browse through the following Web sites and discuss what type of advertising each uses and what the purpose of the advertising is:

  1. American Cancer Society: www.cancer.org
  2. Amazon: www.amazon.com
  3. Nike: www.nike.com
  4. Ford: www.ford.com
  5. McDonald’s: www.mcdonalds.com
  6. MINI: www.MINIUSA.com
  7. United Parcel Service: www.ups.com
  8. Literary Forms in Television Ads

Watch three television ads and examine them for literary form. Do they take the form of autobiography, narrative, or drama? For each ad, discuss why you think its creator chose this particular form over another.

  1. Reread the brief account of Sharon and her discovery of a new clothing store. How do you think Green Threads used IMC in its communications with consumers like Sharon? What kind of message would threaten the brand image of Green Threads? How might the retailer deal with such a message?
  2. Activia’s brilliant video featuring Shakira has generally drawn praise. What made this video effective given the realities of advertising as it is practiced today? Based on what you know about IMC, what other messaging activities should Activia be engaging in to ensure the success of the video?

 

PowerPoints

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Chapter 2 PowerPoint

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Chapter 3 PowerPoint

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Chapter 1

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Week 1- Quiz Chapter 1
1 question
This quiz should be completed in 30 minutes.
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PowerPoint 1
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Lecture Video
Please review the video and answer the relevant discussions here.
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Week 1 Assignment – Define benefits of marketing

Week 2 - Lecture

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Video- Lecture2
Please watch this online video about mindset.
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PowerPoint 2
Hello class, please watch the video in this preview before you begin your discussions.
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Week 2- Quiz chapter 2
20 questions
This is to be completed in 30 minutes.

Week 3- lecture

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PowerPoint 3
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Week 3- Quiz chapter 3
20 questions
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Week 3- Quiz chapter 4
20 questions
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Discussion – COVID-19
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Lecture Video3
This is week 3. Please watch the video and read the lecture note.
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