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Communication Strategies for the Asia Pacific

Asia-Pacific Marketing Federation
Certified Professional Marketer
Copyright
Marketing Institute of Singapore

Outline
* Developing an effective Marcom program
* Targeting the audience
* Designing the message
* Push and pull strategies
* Major advertising decisions
* Measuring communication effectiveness

Introduction
After you have selected the product positioning, you need to communicate it in o
rder to secure a place in the minds of the consumers. This is when you need to
decide on the communication strategies

Steps in developing an Effective Marcom Program

* Define the product and the target market segment
* Decide on the communication objectives
* Decide on the promotion mix
* Decide on the strategy for each component of the promotion mix
* Decide on the promotion budget

What information is needed for purchase decisions?

Consumer-adoption process model
Awareness=>
Interest=>
Evaluation=>
Trial=>
Adoption

Marcom Objectives
* Move the target audience to higher state of readiness to buy e.g. using Re
sponse Hierarchy Models
* Ultimate objective is to get customers to buy and to provide post-purchase
satisfaction
* Increase sales to new users, former users, users of other brands, switcher
s and current users
* Increase repeat purchase

Promotion Mix
* Advertising; Sales promotion; Personal selling; Public relations; Personal
selling; Direct Marketing
* The promotion mix is dependent on:
o The information needs of potential buyer
o The nature of the product and the market
o The resources available

Targeting the Audience

* Target audience = current and potential buyers of our products
* Measure the product image by
o Familiarity surveys (awareness)
o Favorability scale (disposition)
+ e.g. Coke and Pepsi used the Indian winner of Ms Universe and
Ms World respectively in their advertisement in India to win consumer preference
Designing the Message
* Message content
* Say what to whom, and for what response
* Demonstrate clearly the Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
* How?
o With rational appeals (claimed benefits)
o Emotional appeals (fear, guilt, shame, humor, love, pride etc) and
o Moral appeals (supporting social causes)

Designing the Message (cont d)

* Message Structure
o Use one-sided argument if audience is predisposed to your position o
r
o Use two-sided arguments if they are not
o Present the strongest argument first or last

Designing the Message (cont d)

* Message Format
o Choose headline, copy, illustration, and color suitable for the loca
l audience e.g.
+ In China, red represents prosperity
+ In ASPAC countries, any graphics that resemble the religious s
ymbols must not be used
+ Refrain from Sexy advertising

Selecting the Communication Channel

* Personal communication channels
o Either directly or indirectly e.g.
+ Opinion leaders: if the top echelon of government drives a ce
rtain make and model of car, it says a lot about that particular model

Selecting the Communication Channel (cont d)

* Non-personal communication channels
o Print media; electronic media; display media
o The servicescape the environment in which the product is sold or the s
ervice is being delivered conveys a powerful message
o Events such as news conferences, grand openings, and sport or race s
ponsorship is popular in ASPAC in recent years e.g. Emirates Airlines sponsored
the Derby (Horse Racing) in Singapore regularly

Promotion Budgeting
The budget to be allocated depends on:
* The geographic dispersion
* The stage of the PLC
* The communication activities, and
* The marginal costs of communication effectiveness

Promotion-Expenditure Strategy
* Percentage-of-sales approach
* Affordable approach
* Return-on-investment approach
* Competitive-parity approach
* Objective-and-task approach

Push Strategy
* Push through a distribution channel in a sequential manner
o Emphasis is on personal selling to wholesalers and retailers with tr
ade promotion
* When is it especially appropriate?
o When the product is an impulse item
o When there is low brand loyalty in a product category
o When brand choice is made in the store, and
o When the product benefit is well understood

Pull Strategy
* Creates initial interest in potential buyers
* How? By heavy end-user advertising
o e.g. free samples; coupons
* When is it appropriate?
o When primary demand is favorable
 o When the product has hidden benefits
o When the product can be differentiated
o When there are strong emotional buying motives such as health, beaut
y and safety

Major Advertising Decisions

* Advertising objective decisions e.g. create salient attribute
* Budget decisions
* Message decisions
* Media decisions
* Advertising evaluation

The Advertising Objective Funnel

Exposure
Awareness
Attitude change
Sales
Profit

The Advertising Objectives

As we move down the funnel, the objective becomes
* More relevant to decision making, but
* More difficult to measure
The issue is whether the objectives at each level are linked to the purchase dec
ision

Measuring Advertising Effectiveness

* To develop more effective advertisements and to determine the optimal leve
l of expenditures
* Commonly used measurements:
o Number of inquiries received, increase product knowledge, and attitu
de change towards the product. Sales are the best criteria

Measuring Advertising Effectiveness

* Tracking
o Qualitative research in the form of before-and-after brand image map
s e.g. Of all the advertising you ve seen, what, if anything, do you particularly r
emember from it?
* Carrying out experiments with test markets

Advertising Wear-out
* Over time, a decline in advertising effectiveness occurs due to repetition
and wearout
* How to reduce wearout?
o Change the advertisement structure
o Change the advertisement copy and
o Change the media regularly

Sales Promotion Strategy

* Promotion to consumer targets
* Promotion to industrial targets
* Promotion to middle men
* Promotion to sales force

Evaluation and Control

* Continuously monitor the execution of the communication plan or strategy t
o ensure objectives are met
* Evaluate the outcome against the planned budget and adjust as necessary