Advertising in Markstrat is mainly used to build brand awareness and to inform customers about products’ physical characteristics, but it can also be used to reposition a brand. Using advertising to reposition a product is a four step process:
•Identify your desired position on the perceptual map or on the semantic scales’ chart (for example, to reposition a brand closer to the Shoppers segment along dimensions Battery Life and Processing Power, first estimate the future ideal positions of that segment on these two dimensions, as explained in section VI.2).
•Enter the coordinates identified in the previous step in the perceptual objectives for the brand when making Marketing Mix decisions, as explained in section 0. You can choose to set perceptual objectives based on either semantic scales or MDS dimensions. Select the two chosen dimensions and enter the coordinates of the point that you want to reach. A maximum of two dimensions may be specified to keep the message simple and effective. Actually, there is no reason to communicate on two dimensions if repositioning is required on only one dimension; in such a case, select None for the second dimension and your communication message will be even clearer.
•Allocate an advertising media budget for the brand, to buy media space and time, and an advertising research budget. The effect of advertising research is two-fold. First, it makes your advertising campaign more effective, by a better selection of media and a better design of the advertising copy. Second, the repositioning impact will be higher in terms of reaching the perceptual objectives, although there will naturally be a limit as to how far and how fast advertising can change perceptions. It is considered that between 10% and 15% of your total advertising budget should be spend in advertising research for an effective repositioning to take place.
•Indicate how you want to allocate your advertising budget across consumer segments. The targeted segments must be consistent with the perceptual objectives that you have set. Please note that this decision alone is not sufficient to reposition a brand. Indeed, targeting specific segments is mainly done by selecting the most appropriate media to communicate the message, but it has little effect on the content of the message.
Finally, you will have to implement the same type of advertising program when you change the physical characteristics of a brand or when you change its price significantly.