The advert of
choice for this assignment is burger king’s posters for their BK Super Seven
Incher that was ran in Singapore. This advert leaves little to imagination or
interpretation. As can be observed from the poster, the woman in the
advertisement is about to go down on the Super Seven Incher with a suggestive
tagline that uses the word "blow." The text at the bottom of the
advert proceeds to take the whole thing even further: the text reads, “Fill your desire for
something long, juicy and flame-grilled with the NEW BK SUPER SEVEN INCHER,"
"Yearn for more after you taste the
mind-blowing burger that comes with a single beef patty, topped with American
cheese, crispy onions and the A1 Thick and Hearty Steak Sauce” (Nedeau, 2009).
The advert in itself is quite clear
and comprehensive in describing the product that is on sale. It clearly
indicates the size of the burger which is seven inches long. It then goes ahead
to give the details of other ingredients in the product which are the beef
patty, the American cheese, the crispy onion rings and the steak sauce. This
specification in the products size and ingredients is a way of differentiating
the product from their competitors, for example, mc Donald’s, whose burgers are
a bit smaller than the BK Super Seven Incher. The advert also effectively
communicates the product benefits, describing it as juicy and long. They further
describe it as mind blowing (Nedeau, 2009).
The super seven incher advertisement
is clearly targeting the male market segment. This can be deduced from the
sexual innuendo on the poster. Its obvious references to “fill your desire” in
the right corner, and the big heading with a clear sexual connotation, leave no
room for doubt. The heading is: “it’ll blow your mind away”, which comes after
a picture of a beautiful woman, who appears to be very sensual and is about to,
it seems, give “oral sex” to the super seven incher. The advert further
specifies the male segment to between the ages of thirteen onwards as they are
the ones that can interpret this, specifically, young people, including college students and
working professionals. It is the opinion of this writer that the advert is
directed to the right market segment, which is, the young people.
However,
the contents of this advert are controversial to some extent. It has been
suggested and argued that the advert is very sexual sexist and demeaning to the
value of a woman. Some people feel that it is offensive and sanction burger
king to stop using these posters for advertising. They feel that is
inappropriate since families with kids go to eat at their establishments.
Another argument that has been put across is that sex is a reality and it is
much publicised. Therefore it is only fair that corporations will utilize it to
promote and try and attract clientele for their products. This aspect has
resulted in many women protesting over burger king and the product, and has
therefore refused to purchase the product.
Budget allocation decisions should
consider the long-run effectiveness of the different media employed to increase
the productivity of advertising campaigns. Burger King intends to raise its United States advertising expenditure
so as to promote value offerings, marketing promotions and to hold up the
launch of new “flame-broiled” fare. The company estimates between a twenty to
twenty five percent raise in its 2010 national media presence from 2009. This
will be through the incremental allocation of restaurant-level funds to the
national level combined with the current deflationary media buy environment.
The president said that they were confident that this increase should
facilitate the brand to carry on its good positive comparable sales growth
trend. The success of advertiser campaigns is determined, first and
foremost, by adequate management. This has to do mostly with reach and
frequency. A campaign’s objectives can be more focused on brand development or
direct response. In nearly all cases, it is in the advertiser’s best interest
to have the highest number of people see the campaign (“reach”) at the best number of exposures to
the advert per person (“frequency”)
(Mullins, Walker, & Boyd, 2010).
There is a proportional
relationship between reach and frequency. Every advert impression in a campaign
is directed either to a person who has not yet seen the campaign, thus increasing
its reach, or to a person who has, rising the campaign’s average frequency. The
optimal frequency is the theoretical number of times consumers should be
exposed to the campaign’s adverts and is indefinite. This subject has not been
well researched. However, results will differ according to the product,
campaign objectives and other factors. Conventional wisdom has it that the ideal
frequency for the majority of campaigns is between four to seven advert
exposures. More exposure beyond that results in a point of diminishing returns
for both brand and direct response objectives (Bruner & Gluck, 2006).
A
major problem for advertising campaigns is that most agencies own one team, or a
subsidiary company, which does the creative design of adverts, and another
one that buys posts on media properties. This kind of division of labor is
advantages in terms of concentrating fields of expertise
and cost efficiencies. The down side however is that the creative is
not always
ideally suited for the target audiences and the setting in which they see
it. Eliminating
that difference and better presentation of creative executions to the appropriate
segment and environments can have a huge difference
on campaign effectiveness. Geo-targeting
is an extensively used form of market targeting. Usually, geo-target is used by
organizations whose products or services are consumed only in regional or local
markets. Nevertheless advertisers should also evaluate what percentage of their
untargeted advertising is made up of international audiences. It is very common
for example, for many popular U.S. media companies to have twenty five percent
or more of their market comprised of international audience (Bruner & Gluck, 2006).
References
Bruner, R. E., & Gluck, M. (2006). Best practices for
optimizing web advertising effectiveness. New York: Doubleclick Inc.
Levitt, T. (1975). Marketing myopia. Harvard business
review , 26-40.
Mullins, J. W., Walker, J. O., & Boyd, H. W. (2010). Marketing
management:a strategic decision making approach. Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Nedeau, J. (2009, June 24). Burger king ad goes seven
inches too far. Retrieved September Friday,10, 2010, from Change.org:
http://womensrights.change.org/blog/view/burger_king_ad_goes_seven_inches_too_far
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