Advertising & Promotion Hackley eBook covers_pj orange.indd 88 26/4/08 15:36:30 R2011046ch-FM.qxd 21/12/2004 5:04 PM Page i Advertising and Promotion R2011046ch-FM.qxd 21/12/2004 5:04 PM Page ii Chris Hackley, PhD, is Professor of Marketing at the School of Management, Royal Holloway University of London. He has published research on advertising, consumer research and marketing communication in many leading journals including Journal of Advertising Research, International Journal of Advertising, Admap and Journal of Business Ethics.qxd 21/12/2004 5:04 PM Page iii Advertising and Promotion Communicating Brands Chris Hackley R2011046ch-FM.qxd 21/12/2004 5:04 PM Page iv © Chris Hackley 2005 First published 2005 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, only with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. SAGE Publications 1 Oliver’s Yard 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP SAGE Publications Inc 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd B-42, Panchsheel Enclave Post Box 4109 New Delhi 110 017 Library of Congress Control Number: 2004114267 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 7619 4153 3 ISBN 0 7619 4154 1 (pbk) Typeset by Selective Minds Infotech Pvt Ltd, Mohali, India Printed and bound in Great Britain by Athenaeum Press, Gateshead R2011046ch-FM.qxd 21/12/2004 5:04 PM Page v This book is dedicated to Suzanne, Michael, James and Nicholas.qxd 21/12/2004 5:04 PM Page vi R2011046ch-FM.qxd 21/12/2004 5:04 PM Page vii Contents Acknowledgements viii Chapter 1 Introducing Advertising and Promotion 1 Chapter 2 Theorizing Advertising and Promotion 25 Chapter 3 Advertising and Promotion’s Role in Brand Marketing 55 Chapter 4 The Business of Advertising and Promotion 78 Chapter 5 Promotional Media 106 Chapter 6 Sponsorship, Brand Placement and Evolving Aspects of Integrated Marketing Communication 136 Chapter 7 Advertising Brands Internationally 157 Chapter 8 Advertising and Ethics 182 Chapter 9 Advertising Research 209 Chapter 10 Cognitive, Social and Cultural Theories of Advertising and Promotion 231 References 239 Glossary 247 Index 255 R2011046ch-FM.qxd 21/12/2004 5:04 PM Page viii Acknowledgements I am grateful to the advertising agencies in the UK, USA and Thailand which have kindly answered my calls and taken the time to talk to me.
I have referred to many UK Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) award-winning cases which have been published in full by WARC in the IPA’s series of books Advertising Works. This book has evolved from my teaching and benefits from countless conversations with colleagues, postgraduate and undergraduate students from many countries at the Universities of Birmingham, Aston and Oxford Brookes. Several students whose research dissertations I have supervised are cited in the text. They include PhD student Rungpaka (Amy) Tiwsakul who contributed to the sections on product placement and Thai advertising in Chapters 6 and 7.
Professor Arthur Kover, former editor of the Journal of Advertising Research, and David Brent, former Unilever researcher and pioneer of the account planning discipline in Australia, kindly contributed case vignettes. My thanks also to Delia Martinez Alfonso of SAGE Publications and Chris Blackburn of Oxford Brookes University. I also offer my thanks to the following for kind permission to use or adapt copyright material: the IPA, Roderick White at Admap, Mary Hilton at the the American Advertising Federation (AAF), Publicis Thailand and St Luke’s, Dentsu Thailand for generously providing mate- rial that I have adapted in the case of their successful campaign for the Tourism Authority of Thailand, many people at DDB London (formerly BMP DDB) for kindly granting me interviews and access to case material over some eight years, and Harrison Troughton Wunderman of London for permission to adapt their award-winning M&G case material. I have also referred to numerous practical examples drawn from websites and print sources which I have cited in the text.
Where reproducing or adapt- ing copyright material I have made every effort to obtain permission from the appropriate source. However, if any copyright owners have not been located and contacted at the time of publication, the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.qxd 1/1/2005 07:44 PM Page 1 Introducing Advertising and Promotion Chapter Outline 1 Few topics in management or social studies attract such fascinated attention, or elicit such wide disagreement, as advertising and promotion. This opening chapter sets a course through this complex area. It explains the book’s intended audiences, aims and main assumptions.
The subtitle ‘Communicating brands’ is explained in terms of the book’s pre-eminent, though not exclusive, emphasis on the role of advertising and promotion in the marketing of branded goods and services. The chapter draws on many practical illustrations as the foundation of a theoretically informed study of contemporary advertising and promotion practice.0 Communicating Brands: Advertising, Communication and The Social Power of Brands The meaning of a brand is not necessarily limited to the functionality of the product or service it represents. Advertising is central to the creation and maintenance of the wider meaning. Brands such as Marlboro, Mercedes-Benz, Gucci, Prada and Rolls-Royce have powerful significance for non-consumers as well as for consumers.
For many consumers branded items carry a promise of quality and value. But the symbolic meaning the brand may have for friends, acquaintances and strangers cannot be discounted as a factor in its appeal. For example, a simple item of clothing such as a shirt will sell in far greater numbers if it is bedecked with a logo that confers a symbolic meaning on that item. Wearing a Tommy Hilfiger branded shirt is said to confer R2011046ch-01.qxd 1/1/2005 07:44 PM Page 2 2 Advertising and Promotion prestige on the wearer because of the values of affluence and social privilege the brand represents (Schor, 1998: 47, cited in Szmigin, 2003: 139).
Anthropologists have long noted the importance of ownership and display of prized items for signifying social identity and status in non-consumer societies. In economically advanced societies brands take this role as a ‘cultural resource’ (Holt, 2002: 87; see also Belk, 1988; Elliott and Wattanasuwan, 1998; McCracken, 1988) that enables and extends social communication. The influence of brands is such that even resistance to brands has become a defining social position. The ‘social power’ of brands (Feldwick, 2002: 11) refers to the meaning that goes beyond functionality and is a symbolic reference point among consumers and non-consumers alike.
This symbolic meaning is powerfully framed by advertising and sustained through other forms of communication such as word-of-mouth, public relations, product and brand placement in entertainment media, sponsorship and package design. Aims of the Book Advertising and promotion: Communicating brands is written primarily for those studying advertising, promotion and related topics, such as brand marketing, as part of taught academic programmes at advanced undergraduate and postgraduate level. The book introduces intellectual perspectives on advertising and promotion from cultural and social stud- ies within a detailed account of how and why contemporary advertising is created. Many cultural studies of advertising focus on the textual analysis of ads: in other words, they look at the consumption of adver- tising while giving less attention to the material conditions that give rise to its production.
But many managerial texts offer accounts of the mar- keting context for advertising and promotional campaigns while giving only arm’s-length treatment to the ways in which these campaigns are understood and consumed. This book offers a basis for an intellectually informed treatment of advertising and promotion that builds on an inside view of the management practices in the field. Advertising and promotion: Communicating brands will also be of interest to the general reader. Prior knowledge of advertising and mar- keting is not assumed but some acquaintance with marketing basics will be useful for readers who are interested in the management perspective.
Those readers not acquainted with the field should, in any case, soon grasp the concepts of positioning, targeting and segmentation that are central to understanding the way advertising is used to accomplish brand R2011046ch-01.qxd 1/1/2005 07:44 PM Page 3 Introducing Advertising and Promotion 3 marketing ends. To aid study important concepts are highlighted (in bold type) in each chapter and explained in a glossary at its end. Review exercises, questions and short cases are provided as material for reinforcement and reflection. There are also explanatory notes and references for those wishing to acquire deeper knowledge of particular topics through more specific reading.
The book uses many international examples to illustrate particular aspects of practice. Underlying its practical perspective is a strong sense of how advertising can be understood in intellectually viable ways that connect management practice, consumer experience and other fields of social study. Outline of the Book Chapter 1 sets the scene for the academic study of advertising and promotion and explains the major assumptions the book makes. For convenience, the practical descriptions of how the promotional communication indus- try does its work usually adopt the perspective of the full-service adver- tising agency.
Full-service agencies, as the phrase suggests, provide any marketing communications service a client requires. They are pretty self- sufficient in all communications and related disciplines (research, strate- gic planning, media, art production). The self-sufficiency of such agencies can, however, be illusory because of the extent of sub-contracting that goes on,1 especially on big accounts. However, the major advertising agencies remain hugely influential as umbrella organizations operating at the centre of marketing, corporate and brand communications practice.
As the book explains, the dominance of the traditional advertising agency over the marketing communications industry is being challenged by media agencies, and direct and other below-the-line marketing agencies, as integrated communications solutions are increasingly required by clients. Chapter 2 introduces the theoretical themes that are drawn on throughout to understand the engagement between advertising and its audiences. The book begins its detailed consideration of the advertising and promotion business in Chapter 3, which explains the management context for mar- keting communication by describing its influential role in brand marketing. Chapter 4 describes the personalities, roles and processes of a typical agency.
Chapter 5 describes the media planning task and reflects on the rapid changes that have taken place in the media infrastructure. Chapter 6 develops some of the implications these changes have had for media strategy in advertising and promotion and discusses the evolution of hybrid forms of promotion such as sponsorship and brand placement in entertainment communications. Many of the practical illustrations in the book are international in scope but the cultural and commercial importance of international promotion in brand marketing justifies the dedicated examination of the topic in Chapter 7.qxd 1/1/2005 07:44 PM Page 4 4 Advertising and Promotion Chapter 8 explores some of the many contrasting arguments in the contentious and complex topic of advertising ethics. While the ethics of advertising is a major concern for many consumers and other groups, within the advertising industry the role of research creates far more heat- ed argument.
Chapter 9 describes the main kinds of research and indicates why advertising professionals feel so strongly about what kinds of research are deployed and how research findings are used. Chapter 10 draws the book’s theoretical themes together and synthesizes the various levels of theory. Advertising and promotion: Communicating brands seeks to promote a greater understanding of the subject area both as a managerial discipline and as (arguably) one of the most far-reaching cultural forces of our time. To this end the book offers a thorough descriptive account of how adver- tising and promotional campaigns are devised and executed and the role they play for international brand marketing and other forms of organization such as charities and government agencies.