Brand Creative strategy, Message Strategy, Media Strategy
It is important to look at what creativity means, how it can be used in marketing communication, and the difficulties businesses face when they try to come up with creative and effective marketing communication.
One of the most common words in marketing communication is “creativity.” People who come up with marketing messages are often called “creative types,” and agencies get known for being creative. People who write marketing messages are faced with the challenge of being creative, which is why the idea of creativity gets so much attention. People are creative when they can think of new ways to handle situations, which usually leads to better and new ways to solve problems.
Different Views on Marketing and Communication Creativity
Different people have different ideas about what creativity means in marketing communication. Some people say that marketing communication is only creative if it helps sell the product. On the other end of the spectrum are people who think creativity should be judged by how beautiful or artistic it is. They say that creative marketing communication should be new, original, and different. What is creative in marketing communication? The answer is probably somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.
We’re interested in marketing communication creativity, which is defined as “the ability to come up with new, original, and useful ideas that can be used to solve communication problems.” From this point of view, creative marketing communication ideas are those that are new, unique, and useful. A creative idea must be useful or important to the people it’s meant for in order to be appropriate.
Planning a creative plan
People who are in charge of coming up with new ideas for marketing communications often have a tough job. They need to turn the research, creative briefs, strategy statements, communication goals, and other information they have into a marketing communication message. Their job is to write copy, make layouts and drawings, and make commercials that get the message across. Marketing communication agencies are usually hired by marketers to plan and carry out their campaigns because they are experts at the creative side of marketing communication. It’s important to note, though, that the creative staff isn’t the only ones who work on the creative strategy. There are also people from the client side and other staff members in the agency.
The Challenge of Creativity
The creative people who work in marketing communication are in charge of coming up with a good way for marketers to get their message across to customers. A lot of information about the target audience is often given to the creative person or team, such as how they live, what they want, why they want it, and what they want to communicate. But each marketing situation is unique and needs a different approach.
Taking risks with creativity
A lot of creative people who work for agencies say that when they make ads, they stick to tried-and-true methods or formulas because they are safer and less likely to fail. When it comes to marketing, they say that their clients often don’t like taking risks and don’t like it when the message is too different. It’s important to remember that companies that are good at creative marketing are more likely to take risks. Then again, a lot of managers feel more at ease with marketing communication that talks straight to customers and gives them a reason to buy.
People who are creative
Most people think that people who work in marketing communication who are creative are somewhat different from people who work in management or business on the same topic. It’s worth talking about some of the traits of creative people who work in marketing communication and how to make a space that encourages and supports the growth of creative marketing communication.
How to Be Creative
A lot of people who work in marketing communication have said that creativity in marketing communication is best seen as a process and that the best way to be creative is to follow a plan. Most people who work in marketing communications don’t agree with or support attempts to standardise creativity or make rules or guidelines that people should follow. However, most creative people do follow some kind of process when they are making an ad.
There are five steps in the creative process:
- Immersion
- Digestion
- Incubation
- Illumination
- Truth or confirmation
- One more model:
- Preparation, incubation, and illumination are all parts of the creative process.
These models of the creative process give you a structured way to solve a communication problem in marketing. Both models stress that the first step in the creative process should be to get ready or gather background information that is relevant to the problem. At each stage, different kinds of research and information can help with the creative process of marketing communication. The creative specialist can get background information that is useful for the marketing communication problem in a number of ways. Some of these are:
Background research includes informal ways to find facts and general input for planning. Different ways of getting background information could be talked about. ti
For example, attitude, market structure and positioning, perceptual mapping, and psychographic studies are some of the different types of research that are used for product-specific research.
For qualitative research, methods like in-depth interviews, focus groups with customers, or ethnographic studies are used.
Verification/Revision: In the creative process, the verification/revision stage is where ideas from the illumination stage are looked at, any that aren’t good enough are thrown out, and the ideas that are left are improved and given their final form.
At this point, some of the methods used are:
- Panels of people
- Look at the messages
- Tests of portfolios
- Pretesting of ads in the form of storyboards or animatics
- Coming up with creative strategies
When it comes to marketing communication, the creative process is guided by clear goals and objectives, and it needs to come up with a creative strategy or plan of action to reach those goals. The first step in coming up with a creative strategy is to carefully look at the marketing and advertising situation and figure out what the marketer needs to say to their target audience. But the creative strategy should also be based on a number of other things that are written in the creative or copy platform.
Platform for writing: A platform for writing gives you a plan or a list that can help you make your marketing message or campaign better. This document is made by the agency team or group that is in charge of the account. It may include creative staff, the account coordinator, and people from media and research. Also, the marketing communication manager and/or the marketing and product manager from the client will be a part of the process and need to agree with the copy platform.
Campaigns for marketing and communication
A marketing communication campaign is made up of different messages, often in different forms of media, that all have the same main idea or theme. Most ads are part of this campaign. Finding the main theme, idea, position, or image is an important part of the creative process because it tells the people who are making the ads what they should be like and how they should be made.
The Search for the Killer Idea
Figuring out the main idea that will be the ad campaign’s main selling point is an important part of coming up with a creative strategy. There are a number of different ways to come up with big selling ideas and inspiration for creative strategies. Here are some of the most well-known and talked-about approaches:
The thing that makes it special
Rosser Reeve’s Reality in Marketing Communication talks about this idea, which was mentioned in the first vignette. It has three qualities, which are:
- Every advertisement has to make a promise to the viewer.
- The offer has to be something that the competition either can’t or doesn’t have.
- The offer has to be strong enough to get new people to buy your brand.
- Building a brand image
Some competing brands are so much alike that it’s hard to find or make a unique feature or benefit. Because of this, the creative strategy is based on using image marketing communication to give the brand a strong, memorable identity.
Find the drama that’s already there
Leo Burnett thought that marketing communication should be based on the benefits to the customer, with a focus on using drama to show these benefits.
Positioning
It is basically thought that marketing communication places the product or service in the mind of the consumer in a certain way.
These ways of coming up with big selling points, which we talked about above, are very popular and are often used as the basis for marketing communication campaigns’ creative strategies. These creative approaches are known as “creative styles” and are linked to some of the most successful marketing communication creative minds and the firms that work with them. It’s important to note, though, that there are a lot of other creative approaches and styles that can be used in marketing communication. For the creative team, the challenge is to come up with a big selling idea that they can use to build a good creative strategy around.
How to design and place messages
Message is the idea or other piece of information that the marketer wants to get across to the customer. This shows how important message design is.
It’s true that positioning and promise are more than half the battle, as Ogilvy said in his original magic lantern. But it’s not easy to find the unique quality or connection of the product that will help the advertiser and win a place in the mind of the consumer. Maggi instant noodles are a great example of how to position a brand. Subrato Sengupta writes about this success in his book Brand Positioning:
“Consumer research showed that Food Specialities Limited thought Maggi would make the most money as a tasty, instant snack that could be made at home and was first marketed to kids.” The target market was people who eat very substantial snacks at home. This choice about positioning automatically set the competition, which in this case was all snack foods in general. These could be ready-to-eat snacks like peanuts, wafers, and cookies, or they could be ready-made snacks like samosas. All of them were bought out.
“Traditional pastas like Chinese noodles and macaroni were thought to be close by.” Competitors are making a product group that is growing quickly. They were always used for meals, though, and they took a long time to cook and needed lots of toppings.
The first Maggi Noodles were sold in Delhi in January 1983, and they were an instant hit. Market data shows that Maggi Noodles snatched up a strong, empty spot and sat on it as “the good to eat, fast to cook anytime snack.”
Message Design and Marketing Goals
A message is the thought, ideas, attitude, picture, or other piece of information that the sender wants the receiver to understand. The marketer’s goals tend to change depending on the audience. When talking to customers, for instance, your goals could be any or all of the following:
- letting them know what’s for sale
- Making people aware of a brand,
- Getting them to buy the thing
- Making them feel better after they’ve bought something.
When marketing to intermediary customers, the goal is to get them to stock the product. When marketing to other manufacturers, the goal is to get them to buy the product and use it to make their own. For tourism, the message may have more goals, such as promoting a place to visit, creating an image for the whole country, explaining what makes the product or service special, and so on.
Senders also need to know about the education, interests, needs, and levels of experience of the people they are writing to. Then, they have to try to code or phrase their message in a way that falls within the familiarity and understanding zones of the consumers.
For instance, AB Group of Hotels’ ads are mostly aimed at the business class and say that all of their guests’ needs are met without being in the way. The message that is sent is that AB hotels are the best at meeting the needs of business travellers.
Plan for the media
According to some definitions, media strategy is using the right mix of media to get the best results from an advertising campaign. It is a very important part of advertising. Media strategy isn’t just about getting people to buy their products or use their services; it’s also about getting the right message to the right people at the right time and making sure that the message is relevant and convincing. The goal of the media strategy is to reach that goal, but the budget is always taken into account.
Everything that needs to be done has to have a plan so that it can be done the right way. How you use media is a big part of advertising. It is the job of media strategy to figure out the best way to get the message to the right people.
You can read, hear, or see a lot of ads and promotions. How many people actually buy the product or service? Media strategy isn’t just about getting people to buy a product; it’s also about getting the right message to the right people at the right time. Of course, that message needs to be convincing and relevant. These are the people who plan how the organisation will use media, always keeping the budget in mind.
There are three “W”s to choose from. These are:
Where should I put ads?
To find out where the ad should be shown to current and potential customers is the question. Some of the most common choices are TV, radio, newspapers, blogs, billboards on the side of the road, sponsorships, movie theatre breaks with ads, and so on. Based on what the brand needs, it can be done at the international, national, state, or city level.
When to put up ads?
When you advertise something is very important, especially when it comes to seasonal goods. It doesn’t make sense to show ads for room heaters in the summer. It should be shown right when the monsoon season ends and winter starts.
In what kind of media should I use?
It’s very important to send the message through the right type of media. There are two basic ways to deal with the media the following:
I The Media Concentration Method
To reach their target customers, companies only use a few types of media (usually two or three) in this strategy. They don’t use a lot of different types of media.
(ii) Approach to Media Dispersion
To reach the target customers, the media dispersion approach uses a lot of different types of media. It’s used when a few types of media can’t reach the whole consumer base..