Planning for marketing

communication:
setting communication objectives
Setting communication objectives Marcom

 In planning developing a communication programme,

marketing communication managers are faced with
the responsibility of deciding the mission of
promotion and the money to be spent on it.
 If communication objectives are not properly
formulated or used as a guide for strategic planning,
communication programmers' can fail.
Contd..
 There are also several reasons why determining
communication objectives for a promotional
programme are an essential part are:
1) It provides a direction to the various people working
on the programme, and links them all through a
common goal. Coordination amongst various parties
like advertising, Sales promotion, PR, Publicity etc.
becomes easier and problems can be avoided if
common objectives are arrived at for a single
promotional programme.
Contd..
2) Communication objectives is an integral part of the planning
process that affects several strategic and tactical decisions
regarding the promotion design, the budget that is allocated to
the communication programme, and the evaluation of
promotional programmes.
 For instance, if a new product‘s objective is to gain maximum
awareness, communication managers might select media with
greater reach; if immediate sales is an objective, sales
promotion might be given more budgetary share than public
relations; and so on.
 Objectives also guide budget setting, and communication
managers can allocate budgets based on the extent of utility
they are likely to derive from their communication.
Contd..
 For example, it is useless for a retailer to spend lakhs of rupees
producing a television commercial for a Diwali sale if the
objective is to reach only the local market and the sale is likely
to generate only 10% extra sale for the reason. In most cases, he
cannot possibly sell enough merchandise to afford that kind of
expenditure. And it is equally useless to try to sell someone a
Rs. 10 lakh car with a brochure that costs a few rupees per copy.
 Objectives also serve as a yardstick or standard against which
results of a programme can be measured. Communication
managers are interested in measuring performance because it
tells them if their investment in promotions is generating any
returns, and which communication alternatives are producing
better results.
Sales Oriented Objectives
 Sales – oriented objectives are behavioral in nature.
 Goals can be set in terms of quality purchased, inquiries
generated, coupons redeemed, calls made, store visits made,
etc.
 Objectives for promotional tools such as sales promotion,
direct marketing or personal selling, are easier to set in terms
of sales or behavioral results, than that for other tools.
 Advocates of sales-oriented objectives argue that when
companies are increasingly spending huge sums on
promotions every year, the expense needs to be justified in
terms of return on investment, sales volume, market share, or
such other measurable results.
Contd..
 After all, ultimate objective of all communication is to get a
consumer to purchase the product. Often when expectations
for sales are low, communication budgets are the first to get
slashed
 Although sales-oriented objectives are easier to set and
measure, they may not be appropriate for many promotional
tools including advertising.
 A sale is a result of many factors besides communication –
product quality, distribution, price, competitive scenario,
economic conditions, etc. Hence, communication cannot be
solely made responsible for selling products.
 The process of being sold is continuous and marketing
communication is just one variable leading to the final goal.
Contd..
 often communication can have a delayed impact on sales (also called
carryover effect), which is another problem with objectives.
 Finally, having objectives in terms of sales do not guide
communication managers in terms of the strategies or actions they
need to take for developing and implementing a communication
programme.
 This is not to say that sales-oriented objectives are always
inappropriate. For certain promotional tools such as sales promotion,
direct marketing, retails advertising or personal selling, which often
strive for short-term and immediate results, sales objectives are
appropriate.
 For instance, a study done by John Philip Jones in 1989 revealed that
if a brand has an 8% market share, it has to overspend by about 2%
for its promotion to have any impact.
Contd…
 For instance, sales promotion is often used at a stage when
consumers already have awareness, interest and desire in the
product and all they require is a slight nudge to propel them into
buying.
 On the other hand, direct marketing and personal selling perform
the tasks of awareness and interest generation quickly, and in
much the same campaign, also ready the consumer for purchase.
 Thus the awareness to purchase cycle found in consumer
response hierarchies discussed earlier, is short when these tools
are used and it is hence appropriate to delineate their objectives
in terms of sales.
Contd..
 For example, when the retail chain Shopper‘s Stop did a
360-degree campaign using tools like advertising, out of
home, direct marketing point-of-purchase and public
relations during the festive season of 2001, it set the
following sales-oriented campaign objectives:
 To achieve the sales target of Rs. 80 Crores during the
promotion period of 19th October 2001 to 27th January
2002.
 To increase customer entry levels by 10% over last year‘s
customer entry target of 2 million.
 To increase cash memo size by 5% over last year.
Communication oriented objectives
 Communication objectives, on the other hand, talk about the specific
communication tasks that are to be achieved, and are outlined in
terms of awareness to be created, knowledge to be imparted, attitude
and behavior to be changed, image to be build, purchase intentions to
be created, etc.
 They are based on the belief that the most important role of
advertising and promotions is to communicate. A sale is a by-product
of these objectives, and is not expected to result immediately.
 Marketers and communication managers recognize the step-by-step
movement of consumers towards purchase as described in the
alternative models of consumer response hierarchies were purchase
results as a culmination of the entire communication sequence.
THE DAGMAR APPROACH
 Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results
(DAGMAR) is model devised by Russell H. Colley in 1961 in
which advertising objectives can be set in a way that the
results of an ad campaign can be measured and quantitatively
monitored.
 The key premise of the report is that advertising‘s prime job is
to communicate to a specific target audience and bring them to
a state that stimulates action.
 Hence, communication-related objectives are the valid basis
for setting advertising goals, and it is against these objectives
that the effectiveness of advertising should be measure.
Contd..
 Colley has proposed that all commercial communication aimed at the ultimate
objective of a sale should move a prospect through four levels of
understanding:
1) Awareness: The prospect must be aware of existence of the brand or
company.
2) Comprehension: The prospect must understand what the product is and
what it will do for him.
3) Conviction: The prospect must develop a mental disposition to buy the
product.
4) Action: The prospect must stir himself into action, i.e. buy the product.
While the four-step hierarchical model was proposed by Colley to outline
the communications response process, he also developed a checklist of 52
specific advertising tasks that can be used in goal setting and in leading to
the ultimate objective of generating sales.
Standards for good objective-Colley
 Concrete and measurable communication tasks: Colley
proposed that communication objectives should precisely state
the task to be achieved.
 For instance, clear misconception regarding price among non-
users, get top-of-the-mind awareness in the top 3 slot, develop
conviction among target audience that brand A has ingredient Y,
(latest Ad of Bourn vita having ingredient to extract calcium in
milk) etc. are precise of concrete tasks.
 An emphasis on movement up the communications hierarchy
offered the advantage of being able to set more narrowly
defined advertising objectives, and to effectively measure
progress toward them.
Contd..
 For example, the users of FairGlow fairness soap were happy
with its performance, but were unclear about its unique
breakthrough ingredient Natural Oxy-G and how it worked.
Non-users were still wary of the product being able to deliver
on the promise of blemish-free fairness. To address this issue,
the communication objective set by the brand was: “To provide
complete confidence about the product‘s performance”.
 To explain the Natural Oxy-G process in a convincing and
appealing manner. The DAGMAR approach also required that
the objectives should be measurable and it should be possible
to specify the measurement procedure.
Contd..
 For example, if the ad message communicated that
brand X is the best on attribute Q, then a
questionnaire may include the request, ―rank the
following brands on best Q attribute.
 Measurement can be done by quantifying responses
to mean percentage of audience who rated brand X as
the best on attribute Q.
Contd..
 Well-defined target audience: Objectives should clearly
define the target audience for the communication based on the
situation analysis for the product.
 If the target audience is not well defined, entire promotional
effort may go waste. The audience specified in the situation
analysis may need to be more clearly refined in terms of their
characteristics.
 For example, users of a product may be further categorized as
heavy, medium or light users. Vodafone like other
telecommunication companies come with Ads targeting heavy
user of kind using social networking, message, 3G.
Contd..
 Fair Glow fairness soap, the brand defined its target audience as
follows to explain the Natural Oxy-G process of its soap in
convincing and appealing manner Users of beauty creams and soaps
and fairness products. Young girls in the age group of 18+, who
currently use products to enhance their complexion. They are very
rational in their choice of products and would try new products only if
they are completely convinced about them.
 The target audience for Mitsubishi Lancer, a luxury and premium car,
was defined as follows. The core target segments identified were:
Corporate Executive , Self-Employed ,Businessman. They were
current Esteem / Cielo / B-segment owners, successful, male, 30+ and
very focused about climbing upwards and pushing the envelope to its
limit. To be in control or on top of things was pre-requisite for them.
Contd..
 Benchmark and determination of degree of change sought:
Colley proposed that objectives should be based on knowledge
of the current status of response variables such as awareness,
liking, attitude, purchase intention, etc.
 For example, if it is known that currently only 10% of the
prospects are aware about the presence of ingredient Y in
brand A, it may be decided to increase this awareness level to
70%, which may be the required awareness level for a desired
sales goal. If on the other hand, 70% or more prospects are
already aware, the ad campaign need not focus on generating
awareness.
Contd..
 Pre-determined time period: Objectives should clearly
specify the time period in which the results are to be achieved.
Gaining 50% awareness in a year is not the same as gaining it
in 2 months.
 Campaigns that keep on running endlessly till results are
achieved are a drain on the company‘s resources. Timing for
most campaigns run from a few months to a year based on the
communication task and the circumstances. Achieving
objectives becomes more difficult as advertising takes
consumers up through the response hierarchy. Hence, the time
period required for achieving 90% awareness may be shorter
than for achieving 10% sales.
Limitations of DAGMAR Approach
 No consideration for atypical response hierarchies:
Consumers do not always go through the awareness-
comprehension-conviction-action hierarchy, and alternative
response models do exists. However, DAGMAR MODEL- II
does acknowledge this fact and proposes to identify the
sequence of decision-making steps applicable in a given
situation.
 No recognition of sales as an advertising goal: Although this
is one of the favourite accusations of those in favour of sales-
related objectives, it is baseless because Colley does recognize
purchase action as an eventual goal of communication.
Contd..
 Lack of practicality and high costs: it is argued that researching
the current level of response variables is neither easy nor
inexpensive. Disagreements over research method, measure, criteria,
etc. are likely. For instance, to measure awareness should brand
recognition or top of- the-mind awareness be considered? Should it
be measured through a survey or through a quiz? Due to the
practicalities, cost and time involved, it is argued that DAGMAR is
meant only for large companies with deep pockets.
 Inhibits creativity: Critics argue that there is an over reliance on
quantitative measures for judging variable such as brand name
recall, conviction, etc. This diverts the attention of creative personal
from making a creative campaign to ―passing the numbers test.‖