When the average person thinks of marketing, they are usually thinking of advertising. Advertising is just one small step of the marketing process and is used  as non-personal communication of a product or service from a marketer to a consumer. Having a well done advertising plan is crucial for a successful product.

The advertising plan consists of setting objectives, setting a budget, developing an advertising strategy, and evaluating advertising campaigns. When setting objectives, the company has to consider what they want to accomplish both sales- and communication-wise with their advertising campaign. Next, they need to know how much they will want or need to spend to reach these objectives. The budget could be affordable, a percentage of sales, or even match what the competitors are spending. The biggest part of making the advertising plan is developing a clear advertising strategy. This consists of two major components: message decisions and  media decisions. With message decisions, advertisements are designed to gain attention and communicate to the consumers well. Media decisions design the reach, frequency, and impact an advertisement should have, what types of media it should be sent through and the timing the ad should reach the public. The last part of the advertising plan is an advertising evaluation. This is the most important, but most difficult to measure, part. This can be measured through communication impacts or sales and profits. The best way to fully understand the importance and effects of a good advertising plan is to evaluate a real world example.

Old Spice is a P&G deodorant brand for men. When the product can into existence, there was little to no male hygiene products for men. However, over the last several years, men’s hygiene has become a bigger deal and many companies started extending their product lines to include more “manly products.”  Due to this Old Spice’s sales began to drop and the company needed to find a new campaign to revitalize their market share. The advertising objectives of this new campaign were to get the product name back out and more popular through communication and ultimately increase sales. Next, because Old Spice is owned by P&G, they could afford to have an extremely high advertising budget: roughly $7.5 million in 2009 and increasing to $11.4 million in the first quarter of 2010 (Newman, “Old Spice”). This budget was aimed to accomplish the objective by creating a unique campaign. Third, Old Spice designed an advertising strategy that would memorable, eye-catching, and funny to the viewer. They wanted to gain the attention of women who shop for men so they created colorful ads with attractive men. The message decisions Old Spice utilized became memorable and furthered the success of the campaign. First, they advertised during the Superbowl, where ads are known for being very catchy and get much attention, next, they had their commercials accessible on the internet through their website and YouTube. These set of variable created a viral marketing campaign that millions of people viewed and made popular. Rounding out the advertising strategy, the success of the new Old Spice campaign can be seen though an evaluation of the company. According to Newman, sales grew roughly 51% from 2004 to 2009, this cannot be directly quantified in relation to the ad campaign but it is most likely that it did have an impact. Also, more people in the younger generations know about Old Spice because of the famous ads.  Old Spice launched a very successful campaign by creating and implementing a well-designed advertising plan to revamp products. This shows that even if a product may seem unsuccessful at first,  it may just be how it is communicated to the consumer is wrong.

Newman, A. (July 15, 2010). Old Spice argues that real men smell good. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/business/media/16adco.html?_r=0