YOUR ROLE: Your advertising plans should be written as a presentation to the management

ASSIGNMENT DELIVERABLE
I. YOUR ROLE: Your advertising plans should be written as a presentation to the management of your selected company (The selected company is DICKIES) to gain approval for your plan. You should take the perspective of advertising, the marketing manager hired by your selected company to develop a comprehensive advertising plan to launch your company’s new product.
II. TIME FRAME: Your plan strategies should be planned around a 6 to 12month period.
III. SELECTED PRODUCT: You are to assume that your selected company just created a new product that did not exist and their goal is to launch and market this new product to an entirely new target market, an audience to which they do not currently market to.
IV. WRITTEN PLAN OUTLINE/ ORGANIZATION
1. Title Page – include report name, course name, student names, organization name, instructor name, and date
2. Table of Content
3. Company Overview — provide a brief description of the company, including the company mission statement, background, and competitive advantages.
4. Executive Summary of Advertising Plan, (not the company) – This section is a summary of your advertising plan, not the company. It should include highlights of key sections of your plan, such as
• Brief description of product/service
• Brief description of the target market
• Brief description of advertising objectives
• Competitive advantage
• Positioning statement
This could be the only section read, so it needs to be complete, compelling, and concise (maximum two pages).
5. SWOT ANALYSIS: Write a concise SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis is used to create a company’s goals and strategies, aid in decision-making, and create an understanding of a company and/or its product.
* Strengths describe the positive attributes, tangible and intangible, internal to a company or brand. They are within a company’s control.
* Weaknesses are aspects of a company or brand that detract from the value the company or brand offers or place where the company or brand is at a competitive disadvantage. A company will need to enhance these areas in order to compete with its best competitor.
* Opportunities are external attractive factors that represent reasons a company is likely to prosper.
* Threats also include external factors beyond a company’s control that could place a company strategy, or the business itself, at risk. A company has no control over these but may benefit by having contingency plans to address them if they should occur.
6. ADVERTISING PLAN OBJECTIVES: You must specify what advertising you want to accomplish with your advertising plan. Advertising objectives should be specific, realistic, and measurable. Objectives should be a clearly stated measurable result of an advertising message or message. Usually, the objective is measured in terms of a change in awareness, preferences, convictions, or other communication effects. Typically, the advertising objective would be communication objectives, such as creating top-of-mind awareness, increasing consumers’ understanding of the brand benefits, creating brand preference, maintaining brand loyalty, etc. The advertising objectives should be clear concise statements.
Examples:
• To position product as ___?
• To strengthen the image of a product in the consumers’ mind
• To create continuity within the campaign
• To differentiate the product by ___?
7. ADVERTISING PLAN STRATEGIES: How objectives will be achieved:
i. Target Market Strategy: To create the most effective communications, you must have a clear picture of who you’re talking to. This section must identify your target market, audience in terms of to whom the advertising will be directed, and potential customers most likely to buy your product or service. It should include as much detailed information as possible about your customers and may include the following:
a. Demographic Profile: pick one of the groups from your consumer evaluation.
b. Psychographic Characteristics: description of a market based on factors such as attitudes, opinions, interests, perceptions, and lifestyles of consumers comprising that market.
ii. Creative Plan Strategy: This explains “what” you will be saying in the advertising campaign. The creative strategy is one of the most important elements in the entire plan. If you select the wrong, approach or feature as an unimportant benefit, no matter how much media you buy or how creative your other communication ideas may be, the advertising campaign will likely fail. It usually includes the following elements:
a. Objective Statement: Specific, concise description of what the advertising is supposed to accomplish or what problem it is supposed to solve. For example: Are you trying to create a new image? Convey uniqueness or superiority? Introduce a new product? Create excitement to induce trial? The objective statement also includes the name of the brand and a brief, specific description of the target consumer
b. Key Benefit: What is your primary message, which will define your position in the marketplace in relation to your competition? What is your unique selling proposition (USP)? What is different about you? What kind of unique approach can you take?
c. Tone or Brand Character Statement: A brief statement of either the advertising’s tone or the long-term character of the brand. Tone statements are emotional descriptions of the advertising strategy. Brand character statements are descriptions of the enduring values of the brand. On the other hand, a brand character statement might be phrased:
d. Target Reaction/Response: Define how you want the target audience to feel after the communication and the response you want them to have after being exposed to your communication, promotion, advertising materials – whether you’re changing their mind, reinforcing a current attitude, educating them about something new, making them excited, etc.
iii. Media Plan Strategies: This section covers the specifics of the media plan. That means each of the media proposed should be listed and then supported with research, and rationale, as to why the selected media is being used to reach the target market. The strategies should include the following:
1. Media selected (e.g., network TV, magazines, social media, billboards, etc.)
2. Local and/or National strategies
3. Specifications of the size of media units to be used (15 or 30-second spots, full or fractional pages)
4. Research, the rationale for EACH strategy statement
5. Explanations of EACH media strategy (Descriptions of each type of media used, why, how often, etc.
8. MEDIA EVALUATION OF PLAN/ASSESSMENT: This is where you detail how you plan to track and measure your campaign’s effectiveness. This could be as simple as sales growth or more complex, like a pre/post-attitudinal study. This section defines the criteria for the success of the plan, specifically how advertising strategies will be measured to determine if the strategies established are successful. By regularly monitoring activities/strategies, it can be determined what strategies are working and which may need to change to ensure the goals of the plan are met. How do you plan to assess the effectiveness of your media plan once it is approved and carried out? In other words, how would you know the media objectives have been met?
9. CONCLUSION: Be short and to the point. This section should not repeat the material previously included. Create a summary of the main points that you want to focus on, especially the problems and opportunities the product or service faces.
10. APPENDIX: This section should include any pictures/objects that are not in the text form you refer to in the actual written plan. Things like:
– Charts, Graphs, Logos, Advertisements, Story Boards, Surveys, Product Designs, Packaging Specs, Mathematical Calculations, etc.
– Forecasts/Market Analysis
– Pro Forma Financial Statements
– Action Plan Analysis
– Media Plans
11. REFERENCES: Research materials should be high-quality sources such as those available through the library online databases.
V. WRITTEN PLAN GUIDELINES/FORMAT
• Length: 10 pages maximum, 7 pages minimum double-spaced, typed, 12 pt. font, 1” margins.
• APA format
• Supplementary materials (such as tables, figures, screenshots), can be present in appendices that are not included in the page limit, but their contribution to the report should be integrated into the main text.
• Research materials should be high-quality sources such as those available through the library’s online databases.
ASSIGNMENT DO’S AND DON’TS:
*Do Not: Write a research paper based on your selected company and/or product.
*Do Not: You must not write a business plan, a business plan describes the overall
direction a company/organization will pursue within its environment and guides its
allocation of resources.
*Do Not: Write, develop a marketing plan; a marketing plan focuses on expanding a
specific product or service.
*Do: Write, complete an advertising plan, an advertising plan is an outgrowth of the
marketing plan of how a company will use advertising to promote company business,
product, or service and reach new customers. An advertising plan ensures that a
company’s advertising money is spent well and reaches the correct audience.
* Do: Read, review advertising plan assignment guidelines and the e-text as you write
your advertising plans.
Remember, you are expected to include course materials i.e., advertising and
marketing concepts, methods, and theories learned and discussed in class, and
evidence of your understanding of the same.
When researching, I was surprised to learn that I couldn’t locate any leather pants sold by Dickies. So, the new product that I would like to offer consumers would be leather pants.