BRAND COMMUNICATIONS DR SOTIRIS T LALAOUNIS

& THE ATTENTION ECONOMY

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Session Plan

• Understand how organisations can planning and implement brand IMC programmes.
• Explore traditional and online brand communications options and their contribution to
consumer-decision making process.
• Discuss the characteristics of traditional and digital media platforms.
• Explain how TV advertising can be designed and evaluated.
• Discuss the concepts of co-creation, prosumption, self-branding, and attention economy.
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Module Overview
Developing Brand Equity, Positioning, Personality and Values
Identifying and Developing
Brand Plans
Strategic Brand Management Process

Creating Brand Identity: Brand Aesthetics and Symbolism

Brand Communications and the Attention Economy

Holistic Brand Experiences and Emotional Branding

Designing and Implementing
Brand Marketing Programmes Consumer Collectives, Brand Avoidance, and Political
Consumption

Brand Ethics, Social Responsibility, and Sustainable Consumption

Measuring and Interpreting

Brand Performance and Metrics
Brand Performance

Brand Growth:
Brand Architecture and Brand Extensions
Growing and Sustaining
Brand Equity
Brand Futures:
Technology and Innovation in Branding Strategies

(Lalaounis, 2020, based on Keller & Swaminathan, 2020)

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Question

Which social media platform

do you now use the most…?
1. Facebook.
2. Instagram.
3. Twitter.
4. Snapchat.
5. TikTok.
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Brand IMC Programmes
Consumer Knowledge

CURRENT BRAND DESIRED BRAND

KNOWLEDGE KNOWLEDGE
BRAND
IMC PROGRAMMES
Understand consumers’ Define the desired
current knowledge by consumer knowledge
developing the mental about the brand by
map (associations) determining the optimal
POPs and PODs

(Keller et al., 2012)

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Brand IMC Programmes
Budget Allocation

Stage of Brand Communications Product

Lifecycle Objectives Characteristics

BUDGET ALLOCATION

Size of Budget &

Size of the Company’s Media Strategy of
Target Segments
Overall Budget Competitors

(Keller et al., 2012)

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Traditional Communications Options

Advertising
• “The paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods or services by an
identified sponsor” (Keller & Swaminathan, 2020, p. 218).
• Creates brand associations, and positive judgements and feelings.

Sales Promotions
• “…temporary and tangible monetary or nonmonetary incentives” (Chandon et al., 2000, p. 65).

• Caution about the frequency and extent of sales promotions.

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Traditional Communications Options

Direct Marketing & Personal Selling

• Direct marketing: reach consumers to generate direct response – requires database management.

• Personal selling: face-to-face interactions to answer queries and generate orders for expensive &
complex products.

Public Relations & Publicity

• “….a distinctive management function which helps establish and maintain mutual lines of
communication, understanding, acceptance, cooperation between an organisation and its publics”
(Harlow, 1976, p. 36).
• Requires effective media relations and leads to unpaid publicity.
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Traditional Communications Options
Contributions
Sales Promotions
.
Advertising Direct Marketing

Awareness Knowledge Liking Preference Conviction Purchase

Public Relations
Personal Selling

(Lalaounis, 2020)
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Online Communications Options
Mobile Marketing

• “[Mobile marketing includes activities] conducted through a ubiquitous network to which consumers
are constantly connected using a personal mobile device” (Kaplan, 2011, p. 130).
• Two variables: degree of consumer knowledge and trigger of communication.

(Kaplan, 2011)
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Question

When one scans a QR code to download a

brand advertising video - what type of
mobile marketing is it?
1. Push and low consumer knowledge.
2. Push and high consumer knowledge.
3. Pull and low consumer knowledge.
4. Pull and high consumer knowledge.
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Online Communications Options
Social Media, SEO, PPC

Social Media and Influencer Marketing

• “…the group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations
of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of user generated content” (Kaplan & Haenlein,
2010, p. 61).
• Influencer marketing: organisations can engage with social media influencers (bloggers) in paid
sponsorship.
• Authenticity: influencers should combine transparency and passion (Audrezet et al., 2020).
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
• Optimise scope of search engines to direct traffic to organisation’s webpages (driven by web analytics).
Pay-per-click Advertising (PPC)
• Organisation pays the host (e.g. Google) a fee every time a visitor clicks on an advert on the search
results page.
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Online Communications Options
Contributions

Social Media and Influencer Marketing

Mobile Marketing

Awareness Knowledge Liking Preference Conviction Purchase

Search Engine Optimisation Pay-per-click Advertising

(Lalaounis, 2020)
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Traditional Media Platforms
Traditional
TV Advertising:
• Multisensory and creates imagery and brand personality/values associations.
• Expensive to produce and place.
• Creative strategy must not distract from message strategy.
Radio Advertising:
• Pervasive medium, relatively inexpensive, and local.
• Tap into listeners' imagination.

• Lacks visual image / passive nature of consumer processing the results.

Print Advertising:
• Self-paced nature, timely, pervasive, and local.
• Magazines: building using & user image.
• Static nature and passive medium.
• Poor reproduction quality & short shelf-life.
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Print Advertising
Absolut Vodka
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TV Advertising
Designing and Evaluating TV Adverts

MESSAGE STRATEGY
CREATIVE STRATEGY
The positioning of the
TV ADVERT How the advert
advert – what it conveys
expresses the brand.
about the brand.
(Artistic)
(Scientific)

Identify creative strategy

Define positioning to
to communicate
establish brand equity.
positioning concept.

(based on Keller et al., 2012; Meenaghan, 1995; Rossiter & Percy, 1987)
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Message Strategy

COMPETITIVE FRAME Nature of competition

OF REFERENCE Target market

POINT OF PARITY Necessary

ASSOCIATIONS Competitive

POINT OF DIFFERENCE Desirable

ASSOCIATIONS Deliverable

(based on Keller et al., 2012; Meenaghan, 1995; Rossiter & Percy, 1987)
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Creative Strategy
• Brand information and functional benefits.
INFORMATIONAL • How the product or service provides a solution to a problem.
(BENEFIT ELABORATION) • Product comparisons.
• Testimonials about product legitimacy and quality.

• Image in consumers’ minds - symbolic benefits.

TRANSFORMATIONAL • Typical or aspirational usage associations.
(IMAGE PORTRAYAL) • Typical or aspirational user associations.
• Brand personality and brand values.

• Humorous messages.
MOTIVATIONAL • Warmth and emotional appeals.
(CREATE MOTIVATION • Sex appeal.
AMONG CONSUMERS) • Special effects (e.g. music and animation) to grab attention.
• Fear (e.g. for use in social marketing campaigns).

(based on Keller et al., 2012; Meenaghan, 1995; Rossiter & Percy, 1987)
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TV Advertising
Creative Strategy
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Question

What type of creative strategy

did this advert involve…?
1. Informational and transformational.
2. Informational and motivational.
3. Transformational and motivational.
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Digital Media Platforms
TYPES OF DIGITAL MEDIA PLATFORMS
PAID MEDIA
These are the platforms the organisation pays to
carry its messages (e.g. paying Google a fee for
sponsored links).

OWNED MEDIA
These are the platforms which the organisation
controls (e.g. its own webpages and social media
pages).

EARNED MEDIA
These are the platforms which are consumer-created
and consumer-controlled (e.g. online fan pages run
by brand enthusiasts).

(Edelman, 2010)
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Brand Marketing in the Digital Age
• Think about the whole • Inspire the consumer
experience of the to engage with the
customer. brand.
• Map out the customer • Evangelists:
journey. Consumers seek to
• Examine every brand convince others.
touchpoint! • Requires emotion and
EXPERIENCE EVANGELISM passion.

• No more mere focus • Brands meet the

on price. consumer on various
• Customers’ attention, EXCHANGE EVERYPLACE platforms.
engagement & • Consumers create
permission. their own platforms.
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Social Media & Democratisation of Marketing
Rise of social media
• Reason for increased use: humans are social animals.
• Social media communications require a sender (willing to share) and a receiver (willing to listen).
Why do people share?
• Self presentation & self-disclosure: people reveal information about themselves if this is consistent with the
way they want to be seen.
• Impulsiveness theory: constant struggle between displaying long-term control and giving into short-term
temptations.
Why do people care to listen?
• Ambient awareness: regular & constant reception of fragmented information reveal a lot about a person.
Democratisation of marketing:
• Brand information generated by organisation and consumers within marketplace on social media.
• Relationship of equals. (Kaplan, 2011)
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Social Media & Democratisation of Marketing
AGENTS PROMOTION MIX MARKETPLACE

Advertising

Personal Selling Social Media

ORGANISATION

Advertising
Agency Consumers
PR & Publicity

Marketing Direct Marketing

Research
Sales Promotion Consumers
PR Agency
Social Media

(Mangold & Faulds, 2009)

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Co-creation & Prosumption

• Encourage and facilitate customer engagement - develop Products

Collaborative
strong loyalty.

Co-Creation
Brands
• Ideal customer: brand evangelist and ambassador.
• Move customers up the ladder - co-creators. Adverts
• ‘Creation’ in co-creation “is not simply about creation of
things, it is also about interpretation and meaning making. Ideas
Meaning is always co-created” (Ind & Coates, 2013, p. 87).
Discussions
• Co-creation leads to prosumption.
• Characteristic of the pre-industrial (first wave) and the Reviews
post-industrial society (third wave).
Ratings

(Smith & Zook, 2011)

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Self-branding & Attention Economy
Attention economy
• Communicators (e.g. organisations) compete across many screens/platforms for attention.
• Organisations must create content and attract following in the attention economy.
Social media and self-branding
• Social media provide platform for self-branding - ordinary people become micro-celebrities.
• Reasons for rise: promise of fame, rewards, practices can be replicated (Khamis et al., 2017).
• Conceptual issue: branding requires consistency – impossible when branding oneself (Khamis et al.,
2017).
• Ethical issue: leads to an epidemic of self-obsession and a narcissistic society (Khamis et al., 2017).
• Question of control: a way to retain and assert personal agency and control but are we in control?
• Selling the self as a commodity for attention.
• Is anyone listening?
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Extra Materials & Reading
Extra Materials:
• Week 4 Extra Notes (Word document) [Available on ELE].

Core Reading:
• Chapter 4 in Lalaounis, S.T. (2020). Strategic Brand Management and Development: Creating and Marketing
Successful Brands. London: Routledge.

Supplementary Reading:
• Keller, K. L. (2001). Mastering the marketing communications mix: Micro and macro perspectives on
integrated marketing communication programs. [Available on ELE]
• Khamis, S., Ang, L., & Welling, R. (2017). Self-branding, ‘micro-celebrity’ and the rise of Social Media
Influencers. Celebrity studies, 8(2), 191-208. [Available on ELE]
• Ritzer, G., & Jurgenson, N. (2010). Production, consumption, prosumption: The nature of capitalism in the
age of the digital ‘prosumer’. Journal of consumer culture, 10(1), 13-36. [Available on ELE]
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References
• Audrezet, A., De Kerviler, G., & Moulard, J. G. (2018). Authenticity under threat: When social media influencers need to go beyond self-
presentation. Journal of Business Research, 117, 557-569.
• Chandon, P., Wansink, B., & Laurent, G. (2000). A benefit congruency framework of sales promotion effectiveness. Journal of Marketing, 64(4), 65-
81.
• Edelman, D. C. (2010). Branding in the digital age. Harvard Business Review, 88(12), 62-69.
• Fournier, S., & Avery, J. (2011). The uninvited brand. Business Horizons, 54(3), 193-207.
• Harlow, R. F. (1976). Building a public relations definition. Public Relations Review, 2(4), 34-42.
• Kaplan, A. M. (2011). If you love something, let it go mobile: Mobile marketing and mobile social media 4x4. Business Horizons, 55(2), 129-139.
• Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media. Business Horizons, 53(1), 59-68.
• Keller, K. L. (2001a). Mastering the marketing communications mix: Micro and macro perspectives on integrated marketing communication programs.
Journal of Marketing Management, 17, 819-847.
• Keller, K. L., Apéria, T., & Georgson, M. (2012). Strategic brand management: A European perspective. London: Pearson Education.
• Keller, K. L., & Swaminathan, V. (2020). Strategic brand management: Building, measuring, and managing brand equity. (5th edition). London:
Pearson Education.
• Khamis, S., Ang, L., & Welling, R. (2017). Self-branding, ‘micro-celebrity’ and the rise of social media influencers. Celebrity Studies, 8(2), 191-208.
• Lalaounis, S. T. (2020). Strategic brand management and development: Creating and marketing successful brands. London: Routledge.
• Meenaghan, T. (1995). The role of advertising in brand image development. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 4(4), 23-34.
• Rossiter, J. R., & Percy, L. (1987). Advertising and promotion management. London: McGraw-Hill.
• Smith, P. R., & Zook, Z. (2012). Marketing communications: Integrating offline and online with social media. Philadelphia: Kogan Page.
DR SOTIRIS T LALAOUNIS