Advertising Must Position the Brand

What is the role of advertising in the context of positioning? A landmark of advertising was developed for the Association of National Advertisers of the USA by Russel H. Colley. It bought a greater degree of clarity to management thinking on advertising decisions. It emphasized that advertising pulls a consumer towards purchasing action through changes in his or her knowledge and responses. It laid the foundation for a practical and widely used model – DAGMAR or Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results. Colleys’s definition is as

This is a comprehensive definition. But we could attempt another definition that is more operational, that specifically takes into account a competitive marketplace and that recognizes the increasing difficulty of creating distinct brand identities.

“Advertising is the discovery and Communication of a Persuasive difference for a brand to the target audience.”

There are three critical elements here. Advertising must communicate a difference for the brand. It must be competitive and persuasive difference. Such a difference may not fall into the communicator’s lap in the form of a readymade USP. In the absence of strong functional superiority or distinction, he must search and discover where such persuasive differentiation lies.

We could rightly say that the entire marketing mix should be geared up to serve our brand’s positioning objective. Advertising, however has to carry the major burden in packaged – goods marketing with decreasing product differences. A truly successful advertisement has to be strongly associated with its brand, be memorable and be influential enough to affect the final position of its brand.