The Five Ms Of Advertising

The organizations handle their advertising in different ways. In small companies,

advertising is handled by someone in the sales or marketing department, who works with
an ad ageny. A large company will often set up its own advertising department or else hire
an ad agency to do the job of preparing advertising programmes.
In developing a program, marketing managers must always start by identifying
the target market and the buyers motives. Then they can make the five major decisions in
developing an advertising program, known as the five Ms, viz.
Mission: what are the advertising objectives?
Money: how much can be spent?
Message: what message can be sent?
Media: what media should be used
Measurement: how should the results is evaluated?
The above mentioned can be explained by the diagram given below

The 5Ms of Advertising

Checklist for planning of a marketing or advertising campaign.
Mission

What are the objectives?

What is the key objective?

Money

How much is it worth to reach my objectives?

How much can be spent?

Message
Media
Measurement

What message should be sent?

Is the message clear and easily understood?
What media vehicles are available?
What media vehicles should be used?
How should the results be measured?
How should the results be evaluated and followed up?

MISSION

Sales goals
Advertising objectives

MONEY

Stage in PLC
Market Share and Consumer Base
Competition and Clutter
Advertising frequency
Product substitutability

MESSAGE

Message generation
Message evaluation & selection
Message execution

MEASUREMENT

Communication impact
Sales impact

MEDIA

Reach, Frequency & impact

Major media types
Specific media vehicles
Media timing
Geographical media allocation

1. MISSION OR SETTING THE ADVERTISING OBJECTIVES

Advertising Objectives can be classified as to whether their aim is:
To inform: This aim of Advertising is generally true during the pioneering stage of a
product category, where the objective is building a primary demand.
This may include:
Telling the market about a new product
Suggesting new uses for a product
Informing the market of a price change
Informing how the product works
Describing available services
Correcting false impressions
Reducing buyers fears
Building a company image
To persuade: Most advertisements are made with the aim of persuasion. Such
advertisements aim at building selective brand.
To remind: Such advertisements are highly effective in the maturity stage of the product.
The aim is to keep the consumer thinking about the product.

2. MONEY
This M deals with deciding on the Advertising Budget
The advertising budget can be allocated based on:

Departments or product groups

The calendar

Media used

Specific geographic market areas

There are five specific factors to be considered when setting the Advertising budget.

Stage in PLC: New products typically receive large advertising budgets to build
awareness and to gain consumer trial. Established brands are usually supported
with lower advertising budgets as a ratio to sales.
Market Share and Consumer base: high-market-share brands usually require
less advertising expenditure as a percentage of sales to maintain their share. To
build share by increasing market size requires larger advertising expenditures.

Additionally, on a cost-per-impressions basis, it is less expensive to reach

consumers of a widely used brand them to reach consumers of low-share brands.

Competition and clutter: In a market with a large number of competitors and

high advertising spending, a brand must advertise more heavily to be heard above
the noise in the market. Even simple clutter from advertisements not directly
competitive to the brand creates the need for heavier advertising.
Advertising frequency: the number of repetitions needed to put across the brands
message to consumers has an important impact on the advertising budget.
Product substitutability: brands in the commodity class (example cigarettes,
beer, soft drinks) require heavy advertising to establish a different image.
Advertising is also important when a brand can offer unique physical benefits or
features.

3. MESSAGE GENERATION
Message generation can be done in the following ways:
Inductive: By talking to consumers, dealers, experts and competitors. Consumers are the
major source of good ideas. Their feeling about the product, its strengths, and weaknesses
gives enough information that could aid the Message generation process.
Deductive: John C. Meloney proposed a framework for generating Advertising
Messages.
According to him, a buyer expects four types of rewards from a product:
Rational
Sensory
Social
Ego Satisfaction.
Buyers might visualize these rewards from:
Results-of-use Experience
Product-in-use Experience
Incidental-to-use Experience
The Matrix formed by the intersection of these four types of rewards and the
of experiences is given below.
POTENTIAL TYPE OF REWARD (Sample Messages)
Rational
Sensory
Social
Result-of-Use 1. Gets Clothes 2. Settles Stomach 3. When you care
Experience
Cleaner
upset completely
enough to serve the
best
Product-in5. The flour that 6. Real gusto in a 7. A deodorant to
Use
needs no sifting great light beer
guarantee
social
Experience
acceptance

three types
Ego Satisfaction
4. For the skin you
deserve to have
8. The store
young executive

for

Incidental-toUse
Experience

9. The plastic 10. The portable

pack keeps the television thats
cigarette fresh
lighter in weight,
easier to lift

11. The furniture 12. Stereo for the

that identifies the man
with
home of modern discriminating taste
people

Message evaluation and selection

The advertiser needs to evaluate the alternative messages. A good ad normally
focuses on one core selling proposition.
Messages can be rated on desirability, exclusiveness and believability. The message
must first say something desirable or interesting about the product.
The message must also say something exclusive or distinct that does not apply to
every brand in the product category. Above all, the message must be believable or
provable.
Message execution.
The messages impact depends not only upon what is said but also on how it is said.
Some ads aim for rational positioning and others for emotional positioning.
While executing a message the style, tone, words, and format for executing the message
should be kept in mind.
STYLE. Any message can be presented in any of the following different execution styles,
or a combination of them:

Slice of life: Shows one or more persons using the product in a normal setting.
Coke 1litre ad, showed a family enjoying Coke, with a game of antakshari when
there is a power failure.

Lifestyle: Emphasizes how a product fits in with a lifestyle.

Asmi and Platinum ads, that focus on lifestyle of persons using their products.
Fantasy: Creates a fantasy around the product or its use.
VIP Frenchie ads, showing a woman thinking of the Frenchie man saving her
from a villain.
Mood or image: Evokes a mood or image around the product, such as beauty,
love, or serenity. No claim is made about the product except through suggestion.
Kingfisher Beer ads, saying the King of Good Times.
Musical: Uses background music or shows one or more persons or cartoon
characters singing a song involving the product.

Nescafe, Bacardi usually use Music as the main theme of communication

Personality symbol: Creates a character that personifies the product. The character
might be animated
Ronald McDonald for McDonalds
Technical expertise: Shows the companys expertise, experience, and pride in
making the product.
GE and Skoda ads
Scientific evidence: Presents survey or scientific evidence that the brand is
preferred over or outperforms other brands. This style is common in the over-thecounter drug category.
DuraCell Ads, claiming the battery lasts 6 times longer than ordinary batteries
Testimonial evidence: This features a highly credible, likable, or expert source
endorsing the product. It could be a celebrity or ordinary people saying how
much they like the product.
In ads for Sunsilk, they had hair expert Coleen, endorsing the product.
TONE: The communicator must also choose an appropriate tone for the ad.
Procter & Gamble is consistently positive in its toneits ads say something
superlatively positive about the product, and humor is almost always avoided so as
not to take mention away from the message. Other companies use emotions to set the
toneparticularly film, telephone, and insurance companies, which stress human
connections and milestones.
Words: Memorable and attention-getting words must be found. The following themes
listed on the left would have had much less impact without the creative phrasing on
the right:
Theme
Creative Copy
You wont have to stay at home because Get Out, Get Going
of bad hair
Format: Format elements such as ad size, color, and illustration will make a
difference in an ads impact as well as its cost. A minor rearrangement of mechanical
elements within the ad can improve its attention-getting power. Larger-size ads gain
more attention, though not necessarily by as much as their difference in cost. Fou r-

colour illustrations instead of black and white increase ad effectiveness and ad cos t. By
planning the relative dominance of different elements of the ad, optimal d elivery can
be achieved.

4. MEDIA
The next M to be considered while making an Advertisement Program is the Media
through which to communicate the Message generated during the previous stage. The
steps to be considered are:
Deciding on
Geographic
media
allocation
Step V

Deciding on
media timing
Step IV

Selecting
specific media
vehicles
Step III

Choosing
among major
media types
Step II

Deciding reach,
frequency and
impact
Step I

5. MEASUREMENT
Evaluating the effectiveness of the Advertisement Program is very important as it helps
prevent further wastage of money and helps make corrections that are important for
further advertisement campaigns. Researching the effectiveness of the advertisement is
the most used method of evaluating the effectiveness of the Advertisement Program.
Research can be in the form of:
Communication-Effect Research
Sales-Effect Research
There are two ways of measuring advertising effectives. They are:
Pre-testing
It is the assessment of an advertisement for its effectiveness before it is actually used. It is
done through
Concept testing how well the concept of the advertisement is. This is be done by
taking expert opinion on the concept of the ad.

Test commercials - test trial of the advertisement to the sample of people

Finished testing

Post-testing
It is the assessment of an advertisements effectiveness after it has been used. It is done in
two ways
Unaided recall - a research technique that asks how much of an ad a person
remembers during a specific period of time
Aided recall - a research technique that uses clues to prompt answers from people
about ads they might have seen

THE 5 Ms OF ADVERTISING WITH RESPECT TO THE DOODH DOODH

CAMPAIGN
MISSION:
A survey among 1,00,000 households in 1995 showed that there was a decrease
inthe direct consumption of milk because of the following reasons:
1. Milk took a backseat when compared to soft drinks when it came to
teenagers.
2. Adults believed that milk was essential for growing children but not for
them.
Thus the mission of the ad agency was to make aware the consumers about the
benefits of milk for youngsters as well as elederly pople. Their mission was to create a
communication plan that milk was not a boring conservative drink but a youthful,
exciting and nutritional, exciting energy drink

MESSAGE
The writers hit upon the idea of using Hindi word for Milk i.e. doodh doodh in
the form of a musical note. This musical note was in the form of sa-re-ga-ma which
was remembered by the consumers a lot and was also top of mind when they were
asked to comment on milk. The commercial as well as the print ad showed not only
kids and youngsters but also elderly and old people whereby it targeted all age
groups giving the benefits of milk as well.

MEDIA:
Television was chosen as the primary media because of its popularity and the fact
that an audio visual medium lends itself to demonstration of high energy, fun
and youthfulness more vividly.
The print medium was also used as reinforcement message deliver backing the TV
commercials.

The first round had concentrated on channels such as DD1, DD2 and the star plus.
For every spot that they bought, there were four spots given as a bonus to be aired
on the same programme. This made the commercial highly visible in terms of
frequency as well as the reach.

MEASUREMENT:
Any effort to bring about an attitudinal change takes time. A measure of effectiveness
of the communication was that the TV commercial was voted by viewers of Indias
one of the best commercials aired. The communication has definitely made the
youngsters make sing the song doodh doodh, in addition to the cola songs.
Qualitative research showed that there was a tremendous popularity of the
commercial across all the age categories. Kids in the age group of 10-12 were not
very resistant in their attitudes towards drinking milk. Mothers took advantage of the
commercial among the children to make them consume milk. There was a rapid
increase in consumption of milk across all age groups. The consumption of milk in
1995 was 198 gm/per day which has gone up to 250 gm/per day in 1998.
THE 5 Ms OF ADVERTISING WITH RESPECT TO THE SUNDROP
CAMPAIGN
MISSION:
Sales goals: Leadership in the edible refined oil segment
Advertising Goals:
Communication task
1. Position Sundrop as the healthy oil for healthy people
2. Ensure that this did not erode the delivery of the taste benefit.
3. Positioning had to be perceptually as far away from Saffola.
4. Young, modern and premium feel
5. Execution had to be distinct and original to stand out from the clutter
MONEY:
o Stage in PLC: Introductory, therefore relatively large expenditure
o Market share: new product
o Competitors:
Saffola (Safflower oil) also used the health platform but was associated
with heart patients and less taste
Flora and Sunola (Sunflower oils)
MESSAGE:

Health was chosen as the platform, along with a supporting claim for taste. People who
were healthy and energetic were concerned about the long-term prospects of their health.
Thus Health
Was related to maintenance of good health
Was applicable to all members of the family
Was characterized by lively energetic people
Thus the message and (positioning): The Healthy Oil for Healthy People
MEDIA:
Primary media: Television ad 30 seconds.
Print ad
MEASUREMENT:

Within 6 months, Sundrop became the largest selling refined sunflower oil.
Redefined the category and expanded the Sunflower oil segment from 2.71% to
23% in 6 months, and 42% in 1997
Still the largest selling sunflower oil brand holds 15% of branded oil market.
The ad was shown for over 10 years as the main theme film.