Creating Effective Product Benefit Advertising

Just as there isn’t only one way to skin a cat, there isn’t one way to create sales-effective advertising.  The approach taken for a particular campaign is influenced by a variety of factors, including but not limited to the equity of the brand, the specific attributes of the category in which it competes, the nature of the competitive environment and the brand’s position in it, and the specific product claims the brand is able to make.

Based on this taking stock of a brand’s heritage and current position in the marketplace, there are a variety of general advertising formats that can be employed within the campaign.  During the last four blogs we focused on one particular type of advertising – product benefits advertising.  We formally define this type of advertising as “brand promotion aimed at showing how a product can satisfy the articulated and tacit needs and wants of the target consumer.”  This format is related to the much-maligned “hard sell” format in that it doesn’t hide the fact that it is intended to sell the product.  Since selling the product is typically the ultimate goal of advertising, this format remains a significant presence on-air, if not necessarily on the rosters of advertising award winners.

For brands interested in deploying such an approach the question becomes, are there proven techniques for creating product benefits ads that sell?  Based on decades of research, the answer to this question is a resounding “yes!”  We provided practical and empirically based guidelines for achieving this goal “product benefits ads that sell” organized into four key essences of product benefits advertising:

1. The Product as Main Character
2. The Product Plays the Role of Hero
3. Speaking in a Convincing Voice
4. Presenters and Stagecraft in Supporting Role

Scroll down through the previous 4 blog entries for the full series.