What Factors Affect Print Advertising Sales?

Ad Performance

Advertising effect refers to the impact on the target consumer group after the company disseminates advertisements through the media. From the perspective of the formation of advertising effects, advertising effects can be divided into three levels: advertising cognitive effects, advertising psychological effects, and advertising sales effects. The characteristics of advertising effects include: lagging, cumulative, complex, indirect, and hierarchical. Therefore, we can define advertising effectiveness as: the direct or indirect impact of advertising on its recipients, and the overall effect achieved. Advertising Planning Higher Education Press 2006.05.

By coverage and reach

According to the content and scope of advertising, advertising effects can be divided into communication effects, economic effects and social effects. This is the most common division method.

(1) Advertising communication effect. Advertising communication effect, also known as the advertising effect or psychological effect. It refers to the audience s impression of the advertisement and the various psychological effects caused by the advertisement, which are expressed as the influence of the advertisement on the audience's perception, memory, understanding, emotion, attitude and behavior. Advertising campaigns can stimulate consumers 'psychological needs and motivations, cultivate consumers' trust and affection for brands, and establish a good image of the enterprise. The effect of advertising is the core of advertising effectiveness. It is an internal effect that can have a long-term impact, mainly the effect produced by the advertisement itself, and its size depends on the combined effect of the performance of the advertisement and the effect of the media.

(2) Economic effects of advertising. The economic effect of advertising refers to the economic gains or losses caused by advertisers through advertising campaigns, that is, the degree of change in the sales of goods and services and corporate profits caused by advertising campaigns. The economic effect of advertising mainly refers to the sales effect of advertising. Advertisers use various media to spread information about products, services, and ideas. The fundamental purpose is to stimulate consumer psychology, promote purchases, and increase profits. Therefore, the economic effect of advertising is the most important issue for advertisers. It is the most basic and important effect of corporate advertising campaigns, and it is also the main content of measuring advertising effectiveness.

(3) Social effects of advertising. The social effect of advertising is also called the acceptance effect of advertising, which refers to the influence and role of advertising on the whole society's morals, cultural education and ethics. It will have a certain social impact on the consumption concepts, ethics, and cultural awareness advocated by advertising. Therefore, the social effects of advertising cannot be ignored.

Time effect

From the overall process of advertising campaigns, advertising effects can be divided into pre-event effects, in-event effects, and after-effects. Corresponding to this, advertising effect measurement can be divided into pre-measurement, in-event measurement, and post-event measurement.

(1) Prior measurement. In addition to the product analysis, market analysis, and consumer analysis included in market research, you may also need to explore the psychology and motivation of consumers, and try to test what role information may play in the dissemination process in order to find creative ways. Pick the most appropriate information.

(2) In-process determination. In-event determination is the ongoing evaluation of the effectiveness of advertising. The main purpose is to make sure that advertising strategies and tactics can be executed in accordance with a predetermined plan without leaving the track, and to modify it in a timely manner.

(3) Post-measurement. Post-mortem measurement is the evaluation of the effectiveness of the advertising campaign after it is carried out. The focus is on analyzing and assessing the effects for managers' decision-making and planning.

Impact by Consumer

Advertising information is disseminated to consumers via the media, which can have various psychological effects and behavioral responses to it. According to its influence degree and expression, advertising effects can be divided into reach effect, cognitive effect, psychological change effect and action effect.

(1) Reach the effect. Reaching effect mainly refers to the effect of contact between advertising media and consumers, and is usually measured by indicators such as the circulation of advertising media, ratings, and coverage. The evaluation of the effectiveness of advertising can indicate the direction for the selection of advertising media. But this effect can only indicate the surface form of consumers' daily exposure to advertising media.

(2) Cognitive effect. Cognitive effect refers to the degree to which consumers can pay attention to and can remember advertising information based on exposure to advertising media. It mainly measures and analyzes the depth of impressions and memory levels given to consumers after the implementation of advertisements, and generally obtains relevant results through post-hoc surveys. The measurement of advertising cognitive effects is one of the important criteria for measuring the effectiveness of advertising.

(3) Effect of psychological change. Psychological change effect refers to the degree of change in consumer's preference for advertising goods or services caused by the impact and impact of advertising on consumers' exposure and awareness of advertising. The measurement of advertising psychological changes is mainly based on indicators such as awareness rate, understanding rate, like degree, and desire rate to compare and analyze consumers' attitude changes before and after advertising. This change in attitude is the brewing and preparation of consumers for purchasing action. Therefore, the evaluation of psychological changes is a content of great concern in the measurement of advertising effectiveness.

(4) Action effect. Action effect refers to the relevant behaviors of consumers in purchasing goods, receiving services, or responding to advertisements under the influence of advertisements. This is an external and can be grasped advertising effect, generally you can take relevant measures to obtain relevant data. However, in general, consumers may make purchases by a variety of factors, not just the effect of advertising. Therefore, the evaluation of such effects should also consider the impact of factors other than advertising.

In addition, advertising effects can also be divided into print media effects, electronic media effects, OD (outdoor) media effects, DM (mailing ads) effects, and POP (point of sale) advertising effects according to the specific media used for advertising.

Advertising effect measurement is to use scientific methods to identify the effectiveness of advertising.

Advertising benefits are mainly manifested in three aspects: economic benefits, social benefits and psychological benefits.

The economic benefits of advertising refer to the extent to which advertising activities promote the sale of goods or services and increase profits.

The social benefit of advertising refers to its social educational role.

The psychological benefit of advertising mainly refers to the degree of advertising's psychological response to consumers, and whether the brand impression established by the product can ultimately lead to purchase.

Experimental Method

This method is already involved in the ex-ante and inter-determination sections. This is almost the main method that must be used before and during the measurement.

To adopt the experimental method, it is necessary to select an experimental range and object that have similar characteristics to the target sales area or object. For the subject to accept the experiment, everything must be completely new, and accept the experiment without any imagination or even ignorance, so as to make the obtained results as close to the truth as possible.

Questionnaire

This can be done by mail, publicly collected reply letters from newspapers, or on-site visits by interviewers. Of course, if you can promise some benefit to consumers, the feedback rate is considerable. This is a time-consuming and laborious method, but the coverage of the measurement object is wide, and the problem can be understood more comprehensively. For example, consumers' brand recognition and brand loyalty can all respond. ? Both of these methods measure the effectiveness of advertising from a consumer perspective.

Analysis of product sales effect

This is measured from within the advertiser. This is also the most commonly used measure by advertisers to measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. Based on the ratio of product sales to advertising costs, the most direct and short-term effect of the advertising campaign can be seen. This excludes other factors that affect sales. Therefore, the increase or decrease in sales is only a reference for measuring the effect of advertisements, and it cannot fully reflect the effect of advertisements.

Description of market share changes

The position and power of the product in the market before the advertising campaign are compared with the position and power of the product in the market after the advertising campaign. This is already taking into account the relationship with competitors. This method is very similar to the sales analysis method and can only be used as a reference factor.

Comparison of changes in profit and profitability

Advertising is to promote sales, but in a further step, advertising should promote the profitability of products. Sales are flowers that float on the water, and profits really sink into the bottom. In fact, it is not sales that companies can enjoy, but profits. The profit margin is a scale that measures whether the pay and the pay are equivalent. Comparing the profit and profit rate before and after the implementation of advertising is, in a sense, sharper than sales analysis and market share description.

Advertising effect measurement direction

Advertising effect measurement needs to determine the direct effect of advertising behavior on a wide audience, that is, the communication effect of advertising. Need to determine the effect of advertising behavior on corporate promotions, that is, the promotion effect of advertising. Also determine the effectiveness of the advertising sales.

Advertising communication effect

The main purpose is to determine whether the advertising campaign has effectively transmitted advertising information and achieved effective communication. The specific evaluation methods are divided into two types: pre-evaluation and post-evaluation.

Advertising pre-assessment is the evaluation before the ads are officially launched. There are three main types:

1. Direct scoring. A group of target customers or advertising experts will watch the upcoming ads, and they will fill out a rating questionnaire to evaluate the ads.

2. Combination test. After the target customer watches the advertisement, let them recall the content of the advertisement they are watching to judge the prominentness and memorability of the advertisement.

3. Laboratory testing. A variety of measuring instruments are used to test the response of target customers to advertisements. These reactions are mostly physiological responses. They can only measure the attractiveness of advertisements, but cannot measure the subjects' trust and attitude towards advertisements.

Advertising post-mortem evaluation is the evaluation after the advertisement is officially launched. There are two main methods:

1. Recall test. Remember the ads you saw.

2. Identification test. Indicate the ads you have encountered.

Historical analysis and experimental analysis are commonly used to measure the effectiveness of advertising promotions.

1. Historical analysis. The regression analysis method is used to link the historical sales of the company with the advertising expenditures and carry out related analysis to measure the impact of advertising expenditures on product sales.

2. Experimental analysis method. Advertise with different expenditure levels in different regions and observe the impact of different advertising expenditures on promoting product sales. For example, melatonin advertisements have different effects in each region. The same thing can be replaced with another method. It is not a problem for urban people to give gifts of 100 yuan. It can be seen that it is difficult to make good advertisements in different regions.

Advertising sales performance

It is mainly reflected in the proportional relationship between advertising costs and the amount of goods sold (amount), and its measurement is based on the increase or decrease in the amount of goods sold (amount) as a measure. There are five main measurement methods:

1. Advertising expense-to-sales ratio method. Used to determine the impact of advertising costs on product sales (amount) during the planning period. The smaller the ratio of advertising expenses to sales, the better the effectiveness of advertising promotion; otherwise, the worse.

The formula is: Advertising expense ratio = [Advertising expense / Sales volume (amount)] X100%

2. Advertising expense increase rate method. It is used to determine the impact of the increase or decrease in advertising costs on the sales volume (amount) of advertising products during the planning period. The greater the rate of increase in advertising costs, the better the effectiveness of advertising promotion; otherwise, the worse.

The formula is: advertising expense increase rate = [sales volume (amount) growth rate / advertising expense growth rate] X100%

3. Unit Expense Promotion Law. Used to determine the quantity or amount of promotional items per unit of advertising cost. The larger the promotion amount (amount) of the unit advertising cost, the better the advertising effect; the worse it is.

The formula is: unit advertising cost promotion amount (amount) = sales (amount) / advertising costs

4. Unit cost increase sales method. It is used to determine the degree of increase in unit advertising costs to product sales. The greater the increase in sales volume per unit of advertising cost, the better the advertising effect; otherwise, the worse,

The calculation formula is: unit advertising expenses increase sales volume (amount) = [reporting sales volume (amount)-base period sales volume (amount)] / advertising costs

5. Determination of elastic coefficient. The advertising promotion effect is measured by the ratio of the rate of change in the amount of advertising expense investment to the rate of change in the amount of sales (amount).

The formula is: E = ( S / S) / ( A / A)

Among them: S-sales volume (amount);

S--Sales increase (amount) after increasing advertising costs;

A--the original expenditure of advertising costs; A--the increased advertising expenditures;

E--elasticity coefficient, that is, advertising effectiveness. The larger the E value, the better the promotion effect of the advertisement

1. Late effect: It means that the effect of the advertising campaign can usually be fully expressed within a period of time after the advertising campaign is conducted. Under normal circumstances, most people do not buy the product immediately after seeing the advertisement. This is mainly because: a certain brand of products that the consumer is using can still be used; consumers usually have to confirm The use of advertising products can bring him more benefits. The delayed effect of the advertising effect prevents the advertising effect from being displayed quickly and clearly. Therefore, to evaluate the effectiveness of advertising, we must first grasp the cycle in which the advertising works, and determine the time interval at which the advertising effect occurs, so as to accurately evaluate the effectiveness of the advertising campaign.

2. Cumulative: Most advertisements are usually not immediate, and their effects are cumulative. In other words, the period from the beginning of the advertisement to the actual purchase of the consumer is the accumulation period of the advertisement. Without the accumulation of "quantity", it would be difficult to have an effective "real manifestation". For example, an enterprise broadcasts five consecutive advertisements in a period of time, but the market has no response. It does not have a more obvious response until the sixth advertisement, which does not mean that the sixth advertisement is better than the previous ones. Times. The value of the Coca-Cola brand is close to $ 43.5 billion, which is accumulated over the past 100 years with the same or even more than that amount of advertising costs, and it will play a promotional role of reminding purchases for a considerable period of time. This characteristic of advertising effectiveness shows that companies cannot be too quick to make a profit.

3. Indirectness: Due to the "trapezoidal transmission" of advertising information among consumers, those who directly receive the advertising information will pass the information to relatives, friends, and colleagues, "one pass ten, ten pass one hundred", and This affects the latter's attitude towards advertising products and forms a preference for advertising products.

4. Complexity: refers to the presentation of advertising effects that is reflected by the interaction between the advertising activities of an enterprise and other marketing activities of the enterprise or a competing enterprise. Main performance: The overall advertising effect of the enterprise is the result of the combined effect of the use of multiple advertising expressions, multiple media, and other factors; the corporate advertising campaign and other marketing activities (such as public relations, sales promotion, etc.) carried out at the same time are They complement each other, so the advertising effect will inevitably be strengthened or weakened due to the effectiveness of other marketing activities; the advertising of similar products or other marketing activities carried out by other competitors in the same industry will also bring the effect of the advertising activities of the company's products influences. If the competitive advertising power of the product is strong, it will have an impact on the sales of the company's advertising products, while the advertising investment of the competitive product is small and lacks new ideas, which will contrast the characteristics of the company's advertising products.

Advertising effects usually consist of 4 aspects: target consumers, which focus on a communication effect; corporate investors, which focus on whether the investment in advertising has achieved the intended purpose; advertising operating units, including creative units and production units; and finally One is the public.

1. Target consumer effect

Target consumers are the main targets for advertising. After the target consumers watch the advertisement, they will consider whether to accept the content of the advertisement and whether they need the product promoted in the advertisement. If it is really needed, the target consumer will really have the motivation to buy. Therefore, the first constituent of the advertising effect is the target consumer, and the advertisements produced by the company must be acceptable to the target consumer in order to produce the due effect.

2. The effect of corporate sales

The effect of advertising depends on the effect of corporate sales, or to achieve a certain strategic purpose of the enterprise. For example, before a company goes public, it usually needs to publicize it in order to obtain good results in the stock market. Therefore, the sales effect achieved by advertisements may be aimed at consumers, or it may be to complete certain tasks of the enterprise, and to shape a stronger corporate image, thereby attracting the attention of upstream and downstream enterprises.

3 Effectiveness of advertising units

Advertising agencies or cooperation units often conflict with advertisers. Advertisers are concerned about whether they can improve their sales performance by publishing advertisements, and the production units of advertisements may focus on whether the advertising production process is more artistic. Because the evaluation of advertising effectiveness can be carried out from multiple angles, there are often conflicts between different positions.

4 Public effect of society

Another major effect of advertising is the effect of the public. People who see the ad may never be the buyer of the product promoted by the ad, but they have the right to indicate their preference or boredom with the ad. Therefore, the public is also one of the important components of advertising effectiveness.

Advertising effectiveness is often the result of a combination of creative strategies. American advertising consulting expert ClydeBedell believes that the positioning of advertising themes, the effect of advertising itself, and marketing factors other than advertising are the three factors that affect the effectiveness of advertising. Based on the views of ClydeBedell and the opinions of other experts, this article reviews the factors that affect the effectiveness of advertising.

1. Advertising strategy factors

Advertising strategy is the grasp of advertising on the macro level by advertising, and it is a long-term overall plan from a global perspective after thorough investigation and research. The famous British advertising scientist John Philip. Jones once metaphorized strategy like this: "Strategy is like a diving platform built on a swimming pool. It should be firmly built on the deep end of the swimming pool, so as to provide the best conditions for diving athletes to safely and gracefully dive. "Scientific and creative advertising strategy is the key to the success of advertising communication, and also the key to the success of the overall market strategy. In the mid-to-late 1990s, once the most popular CCTV kings, most of them are like meteors. One important reason is that these companies have problems with their advertising strategies. Lack of research on advertising strategies often makes decisions based on feelings or experience. Some international brands such as Coca-Cola and Unilever have clear advertising strategies in the Chinese market. For example, during the Spring Festival in 2000, Coca-Cola launched an advertising image rich in traditional Chinese culture-Brother and Sister Puppet Afu. The scene of brothers and sisters welcoming the New Year makes people feel the real traditional Chinese culture.

2. Market positioning factors

The essence of market positioning is to make the company clearly distinguished from other companies, and to make customers feel and recognize this difference, so as to leave a special impression in the minds of customers. Advertising communication activities are based on positioning themes to strengthen customers' products. impression. Due to the serious homogeneity of similar products in the modern market, the brand differences are also shrinking, and the surge in the amount of information in the media, it is becoming increasingly difficult for advertisements to establish a unique and clear brand image. Consumers often prefer those brands with a clear positioning. Positioning theory believes that consumers have a mental model of "mental ladder". When buying a certain category or characteristic product, consumers always have a preferred brand sequence, and in general, they always prefer to buy the upper layer of the ladder. The brand, Australian advertising scientist Max Sutherland called it "Agenda Sorting." Therefore, before marketing a company's products, it should first define its own position, which is the basis of effective advertising.

3 Advertising media selection factors

Advertising media is the material carrier and intermediary for the dissemination of advertising information. Modern advertising media presents a trend of diversification and fragmentation, and audiences are clearly diverged. In addition to the traditional four major media and networks, more outdoor media and mobile media have been developed . In recent years, with the increasing popularity of mobile phones and the advent of the 3G era, mobile phones have become an emerging advertising medium. In the age of single media, advertisers have less choice and media decisions are relatively simple. With the diversification of media and the diversion of audiences, on the one hand, it has brought more choices to advertisers, and at the same time, it has made it more difficult for advertising to make media decisions. The characteristics of various media and media combination strategies have been analyzed in detail in the previous chapter on advertising media, and will not be expanded here.

4 Advertising creativity and performance factors

Advertising creativity and performance directly affect the effectiveness of advertising. The core of modern advertising lies in creativity, and its charm lies in creativity. According to the characteristics of advertising products, creating advertising works that combine artwork and touching plots is the basic task of advertising creativity. Creativity not only directly determines the taste of advertising campaigns and the resulting market appeal, but also indirectly affects the shaping of corporate image. The well-known American advertising master William Bernbach said that creativity is the soul of advertising. He emphasized that advertising creativity must be "relevant, original, and shocking" in order to make a deep impression. David Ogway emphasized that good ideas should direct consumers' attention to the product, and even sell the product without attracting the attention of the audience. Therefore, the quality of advertising creativity and performance will directly affect the effectiveness of advertising.

5. Integrated communication factors

The author of the theory of integrated marketing communication, American marketing scientist Don Schultz, believes that in a chaotic and complex market environment, it is important to make a single, integrated message to consumers, dealers, or retailers. Only after comprehensive integration can the information be consistently delivered to the target audience, and the use of integrated communication can improve the effectiveness of advertising.

Modern market information is massive, coupled with the diversion of audiences, and the situation of mutual interference of information is becoming increasingly serious. It is very difficult for enterprises to achieve the desired results through a single transmission. Therefore, we should make full use of a variety of communication tools, such as public relations, event marketing, promotional activities, CI, packaging, new media, etc., to make the best combination to give play to the overall effect, so that consumers on different occasions and in different ways Access to information on the same subject matter. Mengniu carried out integrated marketing communication activities through Hunan TV s Super Girl Voice program in 2005 and achieved very good results.