MEMO STRATEGY
You are a new advertising executive at Advertising RUS, a global advertising company. Subway released an ad for its new Refresh campaign and a major competing product has hired your company to analyze the ad strategy of Subway as the first step to crafting their own counter-campaign. THIS IS AN INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT, NO PARTNERS. The ads that you are assigned to analyze is from the new Subway ″Refresh″ ad campaign. There are three ads in total that keep a running thread. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v＝ksYUZb6-0vw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v＝9Aorn6vLyF8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v＝rMJUS2hK98A Your goal is to use the knowledge you have gained about consumer decision-making, response, sources, message design, and creative strategies to analyze the commercials listed above (available for viewing on YouTube) for your company. In a 3-5 page (suggested, not firm) double-spaced memo to your supervisor you are to analyze all the following components of the ad campaign and provide insights on both the message content, structure, creative strategic and target audience. In your brief, be specific as possible when referring to elements of the ad (wording, images, segments, etc.) Your brief should be structured to add key components of the ad strategy in the following sections. A. Branding : What are the physical and psychological characteristics of the brand presented/represented in the advertisement? How does the ad campaign integrate these two dimensions of the brand and give specific examples? How does the ad position the brand in the mind of the target audience and what is their positioning strategy? What target/demographic market segment are they targeting with this ad. B. Sources: What sources are presented in the ad? Are they direct or indirect sources? Based on what you have learned in your strategic communication course when you were a student about the three major types of sources, what are the primary attributes/characteristics of these sources and how do you assume they influence audience attitudes about the brand? How does the ad present /communicate that source attribute/characteristic – give examples? Why do you think Subway picked that/those particular source (s)? C. Ad Structure and Audience Response: Does the commercial structure promote a primacy or recency effect? – explain why? Does the ad have a firm or open conclusion? Is it a one-sided or two-sided message? Does the ad assume central, peripheral, or both types of message processing? What specific elements of the ad lend themselves to either a central or peripheral processing route? Why did the advertising make these choices about ad structure and what do these choices tell us about the audience they are targeting with the ad (hint review the assigned readings from the book). D. Creative Strategy: In your expert opinion is this ad a ″hard sell″ or ″soft sell″? What are the “rational” arguments presented, if any? Are there emotional components to the ad – if so, what types of feelings or emotions does the ad want audiences to feel? How do the emotional components benefit or enhance the ad specifically – why did they add them? Is there a unique selling proposition in the ad campaign – if yes, what is it? E. Overall Assessment: Integrating what you have analyzed above, overall, do you believe this is an effective ad campaign? Please discuss specifically why or why not?
