PROPOSAL NOTES

Materials needed for the senior proposal

• History: origin before establishing the company or the product.
• Background: launching and development; e.g. Pepsi – bottling.
- Global: international distribution.
- Local: national or regional distribution.
- Product: like drinks.
- Brand: like different tastes.
- Company: manufactory launches and implements agents.
- Holder: numbers of companies.
• Different promotional items that are already used by the product.
• Previous adv. Campaign.
• Main aim of the company or product.
• Objectives, which are set by the company, the adv. Agency, and the marketing
department.
• What marketing and creative strategy they are following
• Which stage the product reached in the product life cycle (PLC) in the market now a
days?

Research plan
• What methods you are going to use for your research?
- Documentary
- Internet
- Books
- Brochures
- CD
- Catalogues
- Periodic (magazine, newspaper)
• Internet
- Mail interview
• Questionnaires
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Report structure
• Introduction
- History
- Background
• Competitor
• Marketing study of the SP’s (product, price, place, promotion, package)
- Consumer
- Creative strategy
- Media strategy
- Budget
- Evaluation
• Creative structure or design brief.
• Action plan of schedule that you adjust to execute the creative strategy or adv. Campaign.
It includes dates, weeks, or months.
• Evaluation analysis that you might face during your study obstacles and opportunities
(advantages & disadvantages).
• Competitor
- Minor competitor
- Major competitor (make a study on it)
• Consumer
- Who is buying it?
- Where it is found in the market?

Psychographic Segmentation Demographic Segmentation

Income Culture
Age Traditional
Gender (Sex) Habits
Education Beliefs
Status ( Married or Single) Life style (Adventurous or Ambition)
Language Religious
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Project proposal
• Aim: main statement that summarize the main topic of the project (subjective).
• Objective: kind of the product and defining it
• Product content
• Kind of market you are aiming
• Kind of consumer
• Kind of campaign
- Pioneer stage (introductory campaign)
- Competitive stage (competitive campaign)
- Retentive stage (reminder campaign)
- Explain why?
• Why you tend to test or investigate?
• Why do you think this product is important in the market? Alternatively, why is it interested
to the consumer?
• Clarify the problem that you are trying to solve?
• What do you hope for the future?

Marketing research
• Study the competitor, in order to compare it with your chosen brand (define and specify
the competitor).
• Product
- Product content and specification
- USB (Unique Selling Proposition)
- Support them with visual aids
• Price: clarify why the price is high or low compared to the market competitor.
• Place: distribution, aria, store display product, and POP (product of purchase).
• Promotion items: POP, premium, specialty adv, business gift, sampling, event marketing,
sweepstakes, contest, tradeshow, or exhibitions.
• Package: Describe the package and its flexibility in comparison to the competitor (visual is
important).
 PROPOSAL NOTES

• Consumer segment is defined within its community, relative to:

- Product content (creating a need for the consumer)
- Area (distribution channel)

Marketing concept and target group

When advertiser and marketers have all the required information then they are ready to
set their concept strategy relative to the target market strategy.
• How to identify the target group or target market segment?
- A product characteristic can help in studying the general specification of its
category and more details are identified from certain brands that differ from each
other in their ingredients or USP. This can specify the needs of the consumer
relative to what the brand offers to its target market segment. Ex: the category of
shampoo has brands that give volume to the hair or removes dandruff.
- Area the manufacturer directs the product is selling area relative to the most
selling regions. Most companies cannot sell equally in all the regions. In the
introductory stage, they usually choose the most selling region, such as the
capitals. Other companies in the competitive stage look for brand preference or
label branding; where as in the retentive stage they look for brand loyalty or brand
switcher.
• Demographic segmentation
- Adults: In general, they are not self confident, yet they know very well what they
are aiming for their lives. They work on individual basis.
- Boomers: They are self confident, mostly educated with more experience aware
of everything new. They know they are sophisticated for the reason of being the
vital part of the society.
- Matures: in general, they become classical with great esteem, ethics, values,
traditions, self-sacrifice, etc…
 PROPOSAL NOTES

Planning the advertising

After advertisers collect all the information from the statistical company, a plan is set to hit
the market. Marketers should study and specify the target group by dividing the entire market into
marketing, demographic and psychographic segmentations.
• Marketing segmentation: it means the area or place that the product is needed, i.e. a
market with high selling. There for, advertisers make their plan upon a study on analyzing
the previous situation of the market, ex. Economic condition.
• Geographic segmentation: is chosen relative to regions where there is growth and
development, ex. Rebuilding Beirut allowed many companies to work to the government.
For this reason, we specify the place of lunching a product related to the nature of the
geographic places. In addition, weather is another factor to identify the selling items, such
as, winter or summer clothes – so forth with the 4wd that can be sold in mountain and
desert places at a higher rate.
• Psychographic segmentation: people differ in their lifestyle which includes the way of
living, habits, values, traditions … this could be the personal identification in order to
specify the market consumer segmentation. At this point, the psychographic segmentation
can divide the market into different target group segments that specify its market.
• Demographic segmentation: advertisers study the way consumers’ use the product
relative to their attitude, which is specific relative to gender, race, status, income, and
others… consumer’s attitude can differ between religions and nationalities. In statistics,
that advertiser starts their survey with this basic column.

Repositioning market
It is when the company cannot afford designing or redesigning a new concept of the
brand. The solution is when a company tends to change the whole market segment by changing
the completely geographic segmentation and repositioned in another sector.

Positioning market
It is when the product meets the needs of the consumer either by designing the product
upon the needs of a selected segment or by creating an advertising campaign that attracts his
 PROPOSAL NOTES

attention. This is done by stressing on the product’s ingredients, which satisfies his expectations;
ex. Aspirin of 325 mg normal differs from Bayer Entire Aspirin 81 mg.

Niche market
Advertisers try to reach through a specific survey in order to reach in understanding their
target group. It is necessary to study the consumer behavior with respect to the competitor. It is a
strategy that the advertisers use to hit the week point of the competitor and emphasize on
revealing it in their campaign, ex. Arial versus Persil. This kind of marketing is called Niche
Market.

Methodology
• Cover
- Title of the report
- Subtitle
- Author
- Major
• Title page / front page
- Date and semester
- Instructor’s name
- Name of course
- Title and sub title / slogan
• Acknowledgement (optional)
• Abstract (summary): that explain the topic of your subject and research.
• Table content (index or outline)
• Introduction
- History and background
- Aim, Objective
• Marketing research
• Primary research
- Consumer study
 PROPOSAL NOTES

- Audience analysis
- Primary research (result or data)
- Data analysis
• Creative strategy & Tactics
• Media strategy
• Budget of the Adv. Campaign
• Implementation and Evaluation (steps to be considered in the future)

Hints about the Methodology

• Space between lines: 1.5 pts
• Margin from all sides: 2.5 cm to 3 cm
• Space between topics: double the lines
• Quotations: “---------------“ (name of the interviewee, 2003)
“---------------“(name of the author, 1999)
• Paraphrasing: ------------- (name of the author, 1982)
• Appendix: anything offered from the company or collected during the research that is
minor in its importance to the research and you wish to document in your paper should go
in the appendix. For example: thank you letter or the permit letter from the course leader,
etc.
• Bibliography
1. Russell, T., 1999, Kleppner’s Advertising Procedure, 4th Ed., Prentice Hall
International Limited, New Jersey, USA, Ch. 14-17 .
2. Rifaii, M., 1992, The Authority of Love and Money, Hasnaa, Vol. 1, Issue 125,
p.10
3. Ayache, J., 2002, ’Creative Strategy Interview,’ Persil Global Advertising
Campaign, Creative Manager of Saatchi & Saatchi-Levant Area, Beirut Lebanon,
date.
4. IAA, 2002, How to Develop Your Creative Brief, The Official Site of the
International Advertising Association, WWW.IAAGLOBAL.COM, P.3.