1. Who is the audience for the ad exactly?

2. Is it man, woman or both?

3. Are they married, single, divorced, widowed?
4. What age range do they represent?
5. Where do they live?
6. Can they affort the product or service?
7. How does it differ from the competitors?
Messages are the focal point in the
whole creative process. It is also
the most important element of an
ad strategy. The essence of
message strategy is to design an
effective message that reaches the
target audience in the intended
form and make the desired impact
on the audience.
 Personal
 Powerful
 Permanent
 Performance
 The concept of USP was developed by Rooser
Reeves, former chair of the Ted Bates agency
,USA in his book “Reality in Advertising”
 USP is a single thing that the advertiser can
say about its product or service that has the
strongest appeal to the target audience.The
common USP are packages, low price,
discount sales, latest design, time saving,
durability, comfort, after sales services etc.
 Promise
 Unique
 Mass appeal
 Magee: Two minutes noodles
 Complan: 23 vital nutrients
 Colgate : It has salt
 Dove : It is not a soap .It has 20%
moisturiser
 Surf ultra : It is stain digester
 Zhandu Bam: Ek bam teen kaam and
so on.
 Head and Heart model
 Advertising Effectiveness model ( Hierarchy
of Effects :HOE model )
 Means End Conceptualization of
Components for Advertising strategy
(MECCA).
 Head and Heart model of message design
emphasizes that the message should be
designed to touch the head or heart or both
of the target audience. The message based
on logic and reason influences the head
(thinking process) of the targeted audience ,
while the messages based on emotions are
likely to touch the heart(feeling process).This
is also known as the “hard sell and soft sell”
approaches to message design”.
I. Hard selling approach – In hard
selling, the target audience is
presented with informational
messages to appeal the logical
and rational thoughts. The
method assumes that buyers
are capable of making sound
decisions based on the products
attributes and benefits
presented in the message.
I. Soft selling approach- In soft selling
advertisers use emotions and
images to create buyers response
based on moods, attitudes and
feelings. This approach believes
that consumer do not usually
search the information and are
generally influenced by messages
touching their emotions.
In terms of the involvement levels of consumers
in buying process and the head and heart
approaches, the model divides consumers into
four categories and they are :

 The Thinkers
 The Doers
 The Feelers
 The Reactors
Involvement Head Heart
Level

The thinkers The feelers

Message path Message path
HIGH Learn- Feel- Do Feel- Learn-Do

The doers The reactors

LOW Message path Message path
Do-Learn-Feel Do-Feel-Learn
Consumers who use their head in high-involvement
situation use logic in buying. They use their head
wisdom to make a rational choice. For this group,
the message design should focus on promoting
trial of the product for personal learn. After the
learning experience, they develop a feeling for he
the product, and finally take the purchase action.
The message strategy for thinkers uses
information reasons, news, facts, details and
demonstration. Product like: music system,
automobiles, TV’s etc. are designed by this
approach.
In how involvement situations consumers who use
their head mostly first take action, and then learn
from the experience, and ultimately feel how good
or bad the experience had been. Therefore, the
message should invite the doers to take action by
offering incentives such as price off’s, premiums,
and coupons.
Consumers who use their heart facing a high-
involvement situation primarily use their
emotions or feelings to show attitudes, then
learn about the product features and
benefits, and finally take the purchase action.
This group needs to be approached by
emotional messages built around emotinal
appeals.
Consumers who primarily use their hear in
low-involvement situations first buy the
product, then develop the feelings towards
the product, and finally learn from the
experience. For this group of consumers, the
reminder message becomes very effective as
the target group is ready to action first and
then only react. Messages for product such as
fast food, soft beverages, readymade snacks
etc.
 This model was proposed by Robert J Lavidge
ang Gary A Steiner in around 1961 in the
book journal of marketing. This model
suggests that message should be designed
according to the stage of buyer action. There
are six stages in the model and they are:
 1) Awareness
 2) Knowledge
 3) Liking
 4) Preference
 5) Conviction
 6) Purchase
Stages Buyer actions Message strategy

Awareness The buyer first becomes Provide announcement

aware of existence of brand. Messages.

The buyer gathers information Provide informational and

Knowledge from various sources. Educative messages focusing
on the product.

Liking The buyer develops feelings Provide emotional messages

of likes and dislikes of the
brand.
The buyer develops a prefere
nce over one brand against
Preference other brands.
to develop feelings of the
Product.
Provide rational messages to
influence buyer judgment in
Favor of the brand.

The buyer develops favorable Provides incentives to buy at

Conviction attitude towards the brand an earlier date.
and decides to buy it.
Purchase The buyer actually makes the Provide reassurances and
purchase. Support purchase decision.
This theory suggests that an advertisement
should contain a message to lead a consumer
to a desired end state(personal values).
Personal values may be of various types:
comfortable life, pleasure, excitement etc.
The ad is targeted at having a chain reaction
in which viewing an advertisement leads the
consumer to believe that she/he will achieve
some of the personal values.
The MECCA model uses five elements in creating
an advertisement:
1. The product attributes: Set of attributes
present in the product.
2. Consumer benefits: Set of direct consumers
are likely to receive from the use of the
product.
3. Leverage points: Feature of the ad that leads
the viewer to transform the benefits to
personal values.
4. Personal values: End benefits the consumer is
likely to receive.
Product attributes Consumer Benefits Personal Values

Low fat Healthy life Self-respect, Wisdom

Calcium Strong, Healthy bones Comfortable life,

Wisdom

Ingredients

Good taste Pleasure, happiness

Enhanced sexual ability Excitement,

Vitamins Pleasure
Preemptive messages are claims of superiority
based on the specific attribute or benefits of
the product . Once the claim is made by an
advertiser is prohibits competition from
making similar claim. Close-up toothpaste’s
or Liril soaps “freshness” based messages are
the examples of preemption. Even when
competitors make similar claims they will be
perceived by competitors as copycats.
USP is an explicit , testable
claim of uniqueness or
superiority that can be
supported or substantiated in
some manners.
It is an untestable claim based on some
product attribute or benefits .This is
equivalent to ‘puffery’ that is tolerated in the
world of advertisement . Example could be
Saffola message that claims it to be
“cholesterol free”.
Comparative advertisement
directly or indirectly compares
the firm’s product with that of
competitor’s .
Affective message strategies are targeted at
invoking feelings and emotions of
consumers. They try to enhance the like
ability if the product, recall of the appeal and
overall comprehension of the advertisement.
Affective messages are of two types and they
are:
1. Resonance advertising: Resonance advertising
tries to build a linkage between the product
and consumer’s experience with a view to
develop the tie between the product and the
consumer. Use of old music (close-up) is
targeted to bring old memories back.

1. Emotional advertising: It tries to connect

powerful emotions with the product. Positive
emotions such as happiness, love, passion,
security, friendship etc and negative emotions
such as fear, envy, insecurity, embarrasment
etc.
Conative strategies are designed to
lead the consumer to some type
of purchase behavior. It’s goal is
to elicit behavior (action).
Consumers feelings of curiosity,
greed and excitement are
capitalized in conative strategies.