Content Writing
Essentials of Effective Advertising (aka Creative / Message) Strategy
Writer / Author Christopher Vickers, Atlanta-based Brand, Advertising + Content Marketing & Communications Strategist & Creator
Advertising strategy, aka creative or message strategy, is the foundation for advertising effectiveness. It bridges the results of market, customer, competitor and internal research, analysis and insight, brand and business objectives, and products and services with customer wants and needs. It’s a process that combines rigorous analysis with creative thinking and intuition to develop messages and experiences which resonate with and move target audiences, build positive perceptions, and drive profitable customer action. In today's digital landscape, advertising strategy increasingly leverages AI-powered tools to enhance its effectiveness and precision.
The development process typically involves market research, product management and strategists collaborating with creative (writer / art director) teams. It begins long before the first concept is developed and continues through campaign launch, measurement, reporting, and optimization. At its core effective ad strategy is about understanding the complex interplay between customers and products within noisy, crowded markets to identify opportunities for engagement and influence.
Let's dive deeper into the key components and an approach to developing campaign strategy.
The Category: Understanding the Landscape One of the first steps in the process is to develop a thorough understanding of customers, the cultural context, category conventions and dynamics. For example, while developing an advertising strategy for a luxury car, category conventions - including empty winding roads and sleek urban environments - were readily apparent, enabling us to develop distinct communications.
Customers Understanding customers is crucial for developing relevant campaigns. This can involve conducting qualitative and quantitative research to understand customer perceptions and the key drivers which influence opinion, consideration, shopping, trial, purchase, and repurchase. While developing an message strategy for a residential service provider we conducted customer segmentation, focus group and in-depth interview research to better understand customers and their perceptions. We learned some segments preferred big regional and national companies with a large public entity “standing behind their service” while other segments preferred small locally owned “mom and pops” which they believed “cared more” than big competitors (because mom and pops have more to lose). All the segments wanted “effective service” but believed company size played a role in a company’s likelihood to deliver. A small but important insight for targeting and the campaign strategy. Today AI-powered sentiment analysis tools can process vast amounts of customer data, providing insights into customer preferences and behaviors.
Company This step involves assessing key personnel (e.g., a popular founder) the workforce (e.g., airline flight attendants) products, service delivery, pricing, distribution, company history, provenance, brand equity etc. In part this phase should help identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats and fodder for campaigns. While working with an electronics manufacturer (a challenger brand) we conducted research to better understand which attributes customers defined as most important, and were associated with our clients’ brand and competitive brands. While the category leaders’ products were closely associated with reliability, our clients’ were associated with innovation – a relevant and distinct advantage.
Competitors Understanding competitors is fundamental to identifying opportunities to differentiate, and engage customers. It includes analyzing competitors’ customers and how they differ from yours, competitive products and services, pricing, distribution, promotion, market share, brand equity and so on. While developing strategy for a client in the crowded quality-tier hotel category we discovered some customer segments perceived that most big national chains like Hilton, Marriott and Sheraton delivered uniform customer service experience consistently, a positive. Other segments felt the same uniform consistent service was akin to being treated “like a number”. Research also showed our clients’ brand got credit for delivering superior “personalized customer service and attention to detail” - a relevant and compelling benefit to specific segments, distinguishing it from most quality-tier competitors.
Synthesizing Insights: From Analysis to Strategy
SWOT Analysis A Strengths/Weaknesses (internal) and Opportunities/Threats (external) analysis is a useful tool for synthesizing research findings. It’s a structured method of identifying key areas of focus and opportunity for campaign strategy.
Uncovering Insight Identifying and developing insight is about making connections and seeing data in new and different ways which reveals differential advantage. A powerful insight can enable a breakthrough campaign. Insight can be as straightforward as leveraging a competitors’ weakness like Tide Pods advertising observes the “leading budget liquid detergent is 85% water”. Or when the agency for the California Milk Board recognized that no other beverage quenches thirst with cookies, cake, cereal and peanut butter quite like milk.
Differential Advantage Based on results of the SWOT analysis, insight and by looking at the problem from different angles strategists articulate something unique, relevant and compelling about the product, service, company or brand. It typically includes finding a sweet spot between what the company or product does ‘best’, what ideal customers want and what competitors don’t deliver.
Developing Advertising Strategy The culmination of the strategic process is the advertising strategy – a 1-2 page “creative brief” that distills the results of research and strategic thinking into clear, inspiring direction for creative teams. A good brief is informative and inspirational, providing creative teams with insight, fertile soil to till and parameters to develop breakthrough ideas. While there are dozens of formats, below are the key components of a sound campaign brief.
Key Basis for Opportunity - what is the opportunity and/or problem which communications must address? Use the customers point of view - not “sales are down” but rather “customers are choosing these competitors / alternatives” and why.
Target Audience - describe the target group in useful detail, including psychographic and lifestyle dimensions.
Customer Barrier - what do customers believe (correctly or erroneously) about the product which prevents them from considering, shopping, trying, buying or repeat purchase? (Habit and inertia are also powerful barriers.)
Comms Objective - what do you want the advertising to do, i.e., educate, remind, persuade / change perceptions etc. ?
Customer ‘Benefit’ - what about the company or product could be said or done to achieve the objective? (Customers don’t buy, they choose between competing alternatives, so try to make the ‘benefit’ relative to competitors’ benefits.)
Reason to Believe - why should customers believe it, i.e., what evidence supports the ‘key benefit’? Not a laundry list, one to three compelling reasons.
Desired Response - what will customers, think, feel and do as a result of having experienced the communication? Realistic and specific. How does this connect to trial, purchase or repeat purchase?
Brand Personality / Tone - most categories and brands within them adopt a similar tone, serious vs. humorous etc. While these could be upended there may be a good reason.
Mandatories - the fewer the better, none if possible. Only what must be done or not done. Legal and medical, corporate considerations, spokesperson or slogans that must be continued, tone and manner mandatories.
Bringing Strategy to Life Two popular real-world examples of ad strategy excellence include Apple’s “Get a Mac” campaign and Dove's "Real Beauty" campaign. Below are summaries of both.
Apple's "Get a Mac" Campaign This iconic campaign was built on the insight that many PC users were frustrated with the complexity and unreliability of their PCs. The strategy positioned Mac as the simple, cool alternative to PCs. The execution brilliantly personified this contrast through the human characters of "Mac" and "PC”. The actors who were cast resembled exaggerated versions of Steve Jobs (intelligent, self-aware, hip) and Bill Gates (a bumbling idiot) respectively. The campaign was entertaining, persuasive and highly effective.
Dove's "Real Beauty" Campaign Dove’s groundbreaking campaign was based on the insight that the vast majority of women were dissatisfied with their appearance due to unrealistic beauty standards in advertising. The campaign strategy challenged these decades old conventions by celebrating and featuring authentic, diverse real women of all shapes, sizes and ages, sparking a global conversation about beauty and self-esteem.
Tools and Technologies There are a variety of tools and technology which can help. Customer research platforms like Qualtrics and Survey Monkey facilitate large-scale quant studies. Social listening tools like Brandwatch and Sprout Social provide real-time insights into customer conversations at scale. Data visualization software like Tableau and Power BI enables analysis and presentation of large amounts of data clearly, making the identification of patterns and trends over time easier.
The Ongoing Evolution of Campaign Strategy Developing effective advertising strategy for companies, products, and brands is a continuous process of learning, adapting, and optimizing, requiring monitoring of the evolving cultural landscape. Ai and machine learning are increasingly playing a role, offering real-time data analysis and predictive modeling to inform strategy decisions. Staying attuned to the zeitgeist and how it can be used to get attention and/or influence target group perceptions and behavior can contribute to campaigns which are relevant and commercially successful. Though the zeitgeist is constantly changing, the fundamental principles of effective ad strategy remain the same: understand the audience, find meaningful insight, and translate insight and differential advantage into relevant compelling communications.