Introduction
Is advertising a necessity? Advertising campaigns are essential, since they help the respective companies, to create new markets for their commodity, retain existing customers, and boost their profits. In addition, they allow information to be quickly processed. They also generate strong mental images on the targeted consumer.
Understanding these images assists business prospectus to build a brand and enhance memorability on the part of the consumer. In the cookware arena, advertising helps to build lasting mental images, such that, as the client makes his/her decision to purchase an item, the images flip in short videos, at a very high speed.
These results from efforts made during advertisement campaigns to create a probability of either the company or the product, will be remembered.
Marketers of the various cookware items are supposed to have a deep understanding of the essentiality of the campaigns, functionalism of each campaign method, isolation of the sales period, and the critical time to change the campaign in order to enjoy the benefits of marketing (Bhatia 2000).
Discussion
Marketing has its benefits, which include increasing the company’s opportunities, to introduce a new brand in the market, determination of a niche in the market, and familiarizing consumers with the benefits of a specific product and its flaws, if any. A brand combines visual and verbal images, to transmit a mental image. Cookware items require to be advertised for a number of reasons.
First, there are varieties of cookware items produced by different manufacturers, hence, advertising is critical to survive in the highly competitive environment. As such, advertising campaigns assist the consumer, in quick decision making, on what brand to choose and what company to buy from.
They also equip the consumer with knowledge about the methods of application of each of the item and ways of maintenance. They also allow him/her to identify new products in the market, which would offer better services (Cook 2001).
Marketers are, thus, burdened with the responsibility of satisfying the needs of their target consumers. As such, to attract the consumers and convince them that the needs are well addressed, marketers employ advertisements campaigns, as tools to accomplish their goals.
There are varieties of campaigns, which a marketer may employ, in order to ensure that his/her cookware items are recognized in the market and bought by customers. Firstly, they may employ word hook. This is an appealing phrase, repeatable from ad to ad. A word hook is an effective campaigning method, that has seen several companies rise to the top, such as Absolute Manhattan.
The company made the longest word hook, that had more than 1500 ads (Joshi 2005). Absolute Manhattan, commanded 58% of the market, which was a big achievement. The word hooks are catchy, and entice people to play along.
Sometimes, people take marketing catch phrase as a joke when it reaches its peak and it may not be taken seriously in some particular cases. To achieve amicable results, the word hook must be designed to serve a specific purpose (Joshi 2005).
The character hook is another type of campaigning method. This method uses a hero, a villain or a victim, to exemplify an important aspect of the brand in question. Among the greatest heroic character hooks, is Ronald McDonald. Characters perform a vital role in developing emotional connections with clients or potential customers. They easily achieve this, by contravening the advertisement clutter.
Their vibrant captivating personality, enforces customers to care about them. It goes without saying that character is the first aspect to take care of before thinking about the brand itself.
The character hook method is effective, to both the specific business and the business sector in which the company advertising operates in. Also, it is effective to consumer sector. Metlife, the largest life insurer company in the US, is a proof of the effectiveness of this method (Kotler & Keller 2009).
The third campaigning method that cookware marketers may apply, is the repeatable theme method. This is the situation, where an advert plays out several times now and then; calling out the need for a company’s product, and it comprises the repeatable theme (McFall 2004). The “Got milk” ads by Lowe Worldwide, is an explicit example of a constant theme. Consumers are aware of the key statement that is to be presented.
They feel comfortable to be part of the joke, and anxiously wait to see the set-up played in varying situations. The method is effective, as it enables the target consumers, to have the feeling that they are inclusive of the play. They more so, feel somehow related to the brand being advertised, by playing along with the advert.
The repeatable theme method is repetitive in nature as the name suggests, and puts great and repetitive emphasis on the product being advertised. This makes the potential customers get used to seeing the adverts, hence, prompting them to purchase the product being advertised.
This method may be very efficient for cookware marketers, because most of the customers of the cookware items are women, who are usually attracted to the popularity of cookware items.
When an advert of a cookware item is constantly repeated, the cookware item becomes popular, and many people develop an interest to be associated with the cookware item, which makes them purchase the item. This, in turn, helps in promoting the sales of the company advertising the product using this method (McFall 2004).
Consistent layout, forms the other campaigning method. It entails the repetitive use of a unique design outlook at every vital point. It assists customers, to easily identify the marketing company immediately. The layout should be explicitly different from those of competitors, to stand out against the clutters of advertisements. The continental ads are one of the most outstanding consistent layouts ever made.
To successfully stand out a winner, a marketer using consistent layout method, ought to act differently from the others. He/she should be independent, and act according to their intuition rather than follow others blindly. Most importantly, one should work towards protecting their trademark. The consistent layout method serves to instill trust on the consumers.
Customers feel secure and much comfortable with a brand, with which the company maintains an outstanding and constant design look and feel. The advertisement campaigns ought to be part of every company, whether or not they are into serious advertising. At times when they are not into major advertisement, it is important to have techniques on brochures, websites and mails.
When a company uses the consistent layout method to advertise its products, many customers develop trust with the company and the products which the company is selling, and this helps in promoting the sales of the company. Most companies in the modern business world, prefer using this method, because it helps in making the potential customers develop trust in the companies and their products (Ulrich & Minjae 2009).
Marketers ought to build their campaigns out of the sales’ moment. The sales moment meets the customer’s unmet needs. Great marketers are able to read the customer’s mind and how it works. A short play runs through the mind of the marketer, which is what they build their campaign on. Thereafter, the marketer investigates the campaign type.
Finally, he/she evaluates the design that best draws people’s attention and, at the same time, exposes the aspects of the brand.
The sales moment is easily established, through identifying customers’ requirements, establishing strategic advantages, and identifying the weaknesses of competitors, which can be easily manipulated. Upon identification of the sales moment, the company is able to avoid marketing mistakes that are expensive.
Marketers are at free will, to change advertising campaigns. A number of factors may be reason for change. The greatest factor is failure of the current campaign to generate sales and, more so, if does not work towards achievement of the company’s goal. Other factors include failure to apply any of the campaign techniques, and the quality of the design executed.
Most importantly, the sales moment may not have been identified, or “has shifted due to factors such as changes in marketplace” (Ulrich & Minjae 2009). Changes in the market place, greatly affect the marketing strategies of many companies. This is because, when these changes occur, alterations in the market occur, and these alterations affect the market order.
For a marketer to succeed in marketing his/her products, he/she should be very careful with the market trends. Enough research should be done to ensure that the future market trends do not affect the advertising strategies put in place. In other words, marketing requires enough research to ensure that the company advertising the products does not undergo losses due to a failed marketing strategy or method.
To ensure that they do not make these mistakes, most companies in the modern world are hiring marketing consultants, to help them in drafting their marketing strategies for their products. This has led to a rapid growth of the companies which offer consultancy services in marketing.
Many companies that deal with kitchen utensils, have emerged in the modern world, mostly in the emerging Asian countries such as China and Japan. This increase in the number of cook ware manufacturers has, in turn, increased market competition for manufacturers of these utensils. Due to this, proper marketing strategies should be used for a company to survive in this highly competitive environment.
Conclusion
Marketing is a long process, which requires the marketer’s quality time and devotion. It requires application of critical thinking, in analyzing the available opportunities. Organizing resources for campaigning, techniques to use in the campaigning process and time required, is critical in marketing.
A successful marketing process requires one to identify the sales moment, and apply any of the types of advertising campaigns. As such, one will manage to obtain and maintain customers trust, identified a niche in the market, and determined how to work it out. In addition, marketing will make it easier for them, to introduce their new brands into the market, and monitor the performance of such products.
References
Bhatia, T 2000, Advertising in Rural India: Language, Marketing Communication, and Consumerism, Tokyo Press, Tokyo.
Cook, G 2001, The Discourse of Advertising, Routledge, London.
Joshi, R M 2005, International Marketing, Oxford University Press, New York.
Kotler, P & Keller, KL 2009, A Framework for Marketing Management, Pearson Prentice Hall, London.
McFall, L 2004, Advertising: A Cultural Economy, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks.
Ulrich, K & Minjae, S 2009, “Do media consumers really dislike advertising? An empirical assessment of the role of advertising in print media markets,” International Journal of Industrial Organization, vol. 27 no. 2, pp. 292–301.