While the ultimate goal of all marketing communications is to drive sales, each piece of communication has – or should have – one objective, one reason for being, one goal it's trying to achieve. This singular focus is what makes an ad powerful. It also makes life easier for the agency team and the client.
The challenge often becomes agreeing on one objective.
Along with the proliferation of media it seems there has also been a proliferation of objectives. Phrases like, "create buzz" "spark engagement," "leverage our network," "enhance our pop culture cred," and a lot of other nonsense appear all the time in Ad Age and Adweek.
Essentially, though, there are really only two objectives for commercial communication:
- Generate trial for your product or service
- Convince those who've tried your product to continue to buy it
Too many campaigns seem to lack a clear idea of what they want the viewer to actually do. Awareness is great. Affinity is great. Facebook "likes" are great. Twitter followers are great. Brand esteem is great.
Ultimately, however, it's all about action that generates revenue.
If your 'buzz' isn't connected to an objective that makes the cash register ring, it's worthless.
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Too true. Bob Scarpelli at DDB used to say "you should be able to write that "one thing" on the back of a business card. Try getting a roomful of MBAs with short-term objectives to do that. But when they do, it can be brilliant.
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