copy of creative ad strategy analysis

Creative Ad Strategy Analysis

Aveeno’s Active Naturals Daily Moisturizing Lotion

By: Lindsey Gibson, Andrea Kulesz & Austin Mowell

December 3rd, 2015

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Aveeno Creative Ad Strategy Analysis Lindsey Gibson, Andrea Kulesz, Austin Mowell

Table of Contents

Reaching the Target Market 3

The Benefits 3

The Consumer Fit 3

Creative Ad Strategy 4

Communications and Objectives 6

The Objective 6

The Communications 7

TORA Analysis 7

Vehicle Effectiveness 8

Psychographic Fit 8

Forum Effectiveness 8

Demographic Fit 9

The MRI Data 9

Interpretation of the Data 9

Cost Considerations for the Vehicle 10

Other Things to Consider 11

Conclusion on the Vehicle Effectiveness 12

Closing Arguments for Analysis 12

Advertisement: Aveeno’s Active Naturals Appendix A

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Reaching the Target Market

For our analysis, we choose an Aveeno’s Active Naturals Daily Moisturizing Lotion

advertisement that appeared in the September 2015 issue of Health Magazine. Individuals who

subscribe to this magazine are health conscience consumers who are constantly looking for new

products to help them stay healthy and active.

The Benefits

Aveeno’s Active Naturals Daily Moisturizing Lotion moisturizes the user’s skin without

the heavy feel of a regular lotion. The advertisement states that the lotion “absorbs in seconds

with a powder-like feel,” providing dry skin with just the right amount of moisture without the

messy residue. Being “dermatologist recommended,” the user won’t have to worry about the

product causing unnecessary irritation either. Using healthy active ingredients, like “soothing

oatmeal,” Aveeno’s lotion works to leave skin looking healthy and refreshed.

The Consumer Fit

The advertisement for this product is targeting consumers who are health conscious and

live active lifestyles. They care about the way they look and feel, and are willing to spend

discretionary money on products that maintain a healthy lifestyle. From a VALS perspective,

their achievers. They are hard-working and dedicated to their craft. They work to maintain the

best version of themselves and look towards role models to gauge themselves. They want what’s

best for themselves and are willing to take the necessary steps to keep themselves where they

want to be. Demographically speaking, Aveeno’s target market for this product is more likely

than not married women ages 25-54 who have a higher discretionary income, aimed at both

generation X and Y consumers.

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The Creative Ad Strategy

The primary creative ad strategy used for Aveeno’s Active Naturals Daily Moisturizing

Lotion advertisement is brand image. The advertisement does not directly compare their brand to

a competitor. Aveeno makes a claim that any lotion brand could make: “Sheer bliss. Moisture

with a feather-light touch.” Since the lotion industry has many different brands that mostly

produce the same result, Aveeno wants consumers to see them as the natural skin care brand. The

claims they make are based on psychological differentiation, usually symbolic association to

develop their image.

“Aveeno” is mentioned in the advertisement four times, aiding their brand recall and

brand awareness between the brand and their new line of natural daily moisturizers. While

Aveeno has great brand recognition amongst consumers, the brand wants to shape that brand

image towards their new product offerings through this advertisement.

The advertisement features Jennifer Aniston, relaxing in a spa-type setting wearing a

sheer light blue cover up. She looks relaxed and comfortable in her skin, sporting a comfortable

smile while posing for this advertisement. While there is definitely a sex appeal that draws the

reader into this advertisement, the appeal doesn’t overwhelm the reader and ties in well to

Aveeno’s product. Her “feather-light” feel ties in perfectly to the “feather-like touch” messaging

of Aveeno’s advertisement. The line “sometimes less is more” also correlates to the image that

Aveeno wants to leave in the consumers’ minds. Using the large image of a natural Aniston

lightly dressed stimuli draws the reader in, but the correlation between Aniston and the brand

messaging of Aveeno’s advertisement leaves a positive message about the product’s light feel.

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Just in case Jennifer Aniston’s portrayal in the advertisement wasn’t enough, Aveeno

even included a feather perched against their lotion. This subliminal stimuli goes unnoticed at

first, but only further helps Aveeno’s brand image advertisement. Talk about subliminal

reinforcement.

Using Jennifer Aniston for Aveeno’s Active Naturals Daily Moisturizing Lotion makes

perfect sense. She lines up perfectly with Aveeno’s target audience and with the brand

messaging. While she is getting on up there in years, Aniston still looks amazing for her age. But

the advertisement makes it seem like a natural beauty, rather than some unachievable beauty that

most skin care products give off in their advertisements. Someone within Aveeno’s target market

can look at Aniston in this advertisement and feel as though their skin could look and feel that

soft. This ties in well to Aveeno’s “Naturally Beautiful Results” campaign slogan.

Aniston’s attractiveness and credibility to Aveeno’s target market for this product makes

perfect as well. From various hit roles, including the television show Friends, Aniston has a

strong following from Generation-X and Y women. Even though Aniston has always had a lot of

sex appeal, her brand throughout the years has always been perceived as though she is just her

natural self. Most people see Aniston as a role model, someone they would like to look like at

her age. She has a “good girl” status and keeps her image clean amongst viewers. This is exactly

the brand image that Aveeno wants to attach to their Active Naturals Daily Moisturizing Lotion.

Putting a celebrity in their ad makes their brand more reputable as well. Aniston doesn’t

seem oversaturated in the consumers’ eyes. So readers of this advertisement can still feel that

Aniston is being honest about her backing of Aveeno’s product. The kind of support makes for a

stronger brand, which is why Aveeno has made Aniston the face of this campaign. She

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represents everything that the brand wants the target market to think of their product. She’s the

perfect fit for what Aveeno is trying to accomplish.

While the advertisement makes strong use of the brand image creative ad strategy, a

preemptive strategy shown in Aveeno’s advertisement. Aveeno’s use of the “Naturally Beautiful

Results” can be seen as making the claims that Aveeno gets the results that other brands cannot

offer. They are not comparing to another brand in their advertisement because they don’t have to.

Aveeno sees themselves as the big kids on the block. By using Aniston has a celebrity endorser

to tie to their branding for this product, Aveeno can convince consumers that their brand is

superior to others on the market.

Objectives & Communications

The Objective

Aveeno wants their brand and reputation to be all about the natural feel of their product.

They want their new product offering to be trusted by consumers. They want women to look at

the ad and have a desire to look just like her with this light to the touch lotion.

The message in the advertisement is that their product is a light and natural product with

an innovative formula that keeps you looking young and healthy. Aveeno wants their target

market to identify this product as one that will help them continue to look and feel good. By

using a celebrity as credible as Aniston in their advertisements, Aveeno accomplishes these

objectives. She is a perfect fit for the brand and helps Aveeno reach their natural feel brand

image objectives for this advertisement.

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The Communications

The communications of Aveeno’s Active Naturals Daily Moisturizing Lotion

advertisement center on the consumer processing model. They make calculated and cognitive

claims in the advertisement, such as “Moisture with a feather-light touch” and “absorbs in

seconds.” Showing and describing the benefits of their product through the image of Jennifer

Aniston and the accompanying text makes the reader understand what the product is there to do.

The behavior Aveeno wants to provoke through this advertisement is for consumers to think

about the health of their skin in a rational and highly cognitive way.

The communication comes off to the reader something like this: “You have dry skin now,

but you won’t once you use our Aveeno Active Naturals Daily Moisturizing Lotion. Plus, you

don’t have to deal with messy residue that lotion can leave behind.” Even though Aveeno uses

the look and feel of Aniston to grab the attention of the reader, this message is cold and

calculating. It wants the consumer to see their product as something that is going to fix their

problem, rather than an experimental product that will only make them feel good.

TORA Analysis

Johnson and Johnson, Aveeno’s parent company, should use the TORA model to receive

agreement and retention from their consumers. Aveeno is trying to convince the readers of

Health Magazine that their natural lotion is the right fit for them. They are attempting to grow

our beliefs (b1) that the Aveeno lotion is a natural alternative to the general attitude (e1) amongst

that most lotions can leave you feeling nasty. Aveeno promotes their active naturals ingredients

in a way that shows they are different from other products. These innovate ingredients

distinguish them from their competitors, along with the oat formula that is introduced in this

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advertisement. Qualitative messaging from the TORA model is a good way for Aveeno to better

understand their brand, their relationship with their consumers, and the way it is relayed.

Vehicle Effectiveness

Psychographic Fit

The vehicle chosen by Aveeno’s Active Natural’s Daily Moisturizing Lotion ad is a

strong source of information for the health conscious reader. The people within the target market

care about the way they look and feel, much like the audience of Health Magazine. The readers

of Health Magazine make it a high priority to take care of themselves and are willing to process

an ad more fully than in other mediums. Thus, without interpreting MRI data, the ad seems to

appropriately correlate well with the audience of Health Magazine.

Forum Effectiveness

Aveeno uses Jennifer Aniston to draw in the reader, but does an even better job using her

feather-like clothing to convey the feather-light touch of the lotion. While the sex appeal of

Aniston could sell on just about any platform, the magazine medium gives this ad the most

justice. Rather than only being able to take in the advertisement for a short period of time,

Aveeno allows the reader to think about the cognitive claims made by the advertisement. The

image draws in the health-conscious readers of Health Magazine, but the messaging of the

advertisement lead the consumer to believe that there is a healthier alternative to their daily

moisturizing needs. This is just not something that you could accomplish with a quick television

ad or a billboard going down the road. The more time the reader has with this advertisement, the

more time they have to process the benefits of Aveeno’s new product line. Magazine is an

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effective use for this advertisement because it allows the target audience the ability to process the

sexual stimuli and relate it to Aveeno’s product offering.

Demographic Fit

The vehicle for this advertisement reaches the younger demographic, targeting generation

X and Y women, which is the target audience that Aveeno is trying to persuade with this

advertisement.

The MRI Data

Spring 2014 Product: Health & Beauty Aids Hand & Body Cream, Lotion Or Oil Used in last 6 months Total AdultsMagazine Total '000 Proj. '000 % Across % Down Cost of Ad* CPM-TMHealth 8,501 7,008 82.4 4.1 $142,200 $20.29Better Homes & Gardens 39,617 33,070 83.5 19.5 $601,000 $18.17Cosmopolitan 16,969 14,363 84.6 8.5 $268,515 $18.69Family Circle 18,114 16,014 88.4 9.5 $330,100 $20.61Glamour 12,161 10,690 87.9 6.3 $251,942 $23.57Good Housekeeping 17,084 14,911 87.3 8.8 $470,470 $31.55O, The Oprah Magazine 11,889 10,399 87.5 6.1 $168,880 $16.24Southern Living 16,335 13,749 84.2 8.1 $236,700 $17.22Taste of Home 12,568 10,793 85.9 6.4 $124,000 $11.49Vogue 12,663 10,923 86.3 6.4 $145,636 $13.33Woman's Day 18,935 16,940 89.5 10 $300,790 $17.76Women's Health 11,077 9,740 87.9 5.7 $205,600 $21.11*Approximate cost based on the magazine media kit rate for a full-page, 4-color ad for the time period closest to the data. These rates may be overstated, depending upon differences in readership and the purchasing power of Aveeno's parent company, Johnson & Johnson.

Interpretation of the Data

While Health Magazine may seem like an effective medium based solely on the

physiographic fit of the audience to the advertisement, the metrics say otherwise.

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Using MRI data for adult users of hand and body cream, lotion or oil in the past six

months, Health Magazine does not stack up well against other vehicles. The percent across for

the magazine is 82.4% and the percent down is 4.1%. Reaching 7,008,000 adult lotion users in

the past six months is nothing to complain about. But, the advertisement could have gotten more

bang for its buck if Aveeno had placed the advertisement in magazine.

Ranking Health Magazine against 202 different magazines, they rank 61st in percent

across (though a statistical majority of those magazines are within a 10 point spread). But the

more concerning metric for the magazine is percent down, where it ranks 48th, with a much larger

spread amongst the different magazines. This means that 47 other magazines reach a larger

percentage of adult users of hand and body cream, lotion and oil than Health Magazine.

From these metrics, we sorted the MRI data based on point across first, then pulled the 10

best comparison magazines based on a higher percent down score as compared to Health

Magazine. The magazines listed above would all be more effective modes of reaching more adult

users than the magazine chosen by Aveeno’s Active Naturals Daily Moisturizing Lotion based

solely on reach.

Cost Considerations for the Vehicle

At this point, we got a little curious. “Doesn’t cost play into consideration when picking

which magazine to place the advertisement in?” So we decided to dig a little deeper and actually

pull close projections of how much it would cost Aveeno to run this advertisement in each of the

magazines listed in the chart above.

In order to run a fair cost analysis, we used each magazine’s media kit that was closest to

the date of the MRI data used for analysis while maintaining the same rate year for all

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magazines. From there, we pulled the rate to run one full-page, 4-color advertisement. This

analysis could be a little skewed based on this and the unknown purchasing power of Aveeno’s

parent company, Johnson & Johnson.

Taking the cost of placing the advertisement and dividing it by the projected users for

each magazine, we were able to determine an approximate cost per 1,000 reached for the target

market. Based on this analysis, the cost to reach 1,000 members of the target market for Health

Magazine is $20.29. Of the 10 magazine chosen from the table above, six (Taste of Home,

Vogue, The Oprah Magazine, Sothern Living, Women’s Day, Better Holmes & Gardens and

Cosmopolitan) provide a cheaper means of reaching the target market.

Other Things to Consider

What if Health Magazine reaches a unique group of people who would most relate to

Aveeno’s advertisement? Health conscious people would be more likely to care about the way

their skin looks and feels, which would make them easier to convince to by a daily moisturizing

lotion than other people.

So why not put the advertisement in Health Magazine? It is an effective psychographic fit

for the audience that Aveeno is trying to reach with this product offering. So why not put the

advertisement in there?

Even by that train of thought, the answer is still doesn’t make since. Placing the

advertisement in Women’s Day, among other vehicles, would reach more like-minded

individuals in the target market at a cheaper price than Health Magazine.

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Conclusion on the Vehicle Effectiveness

Health Magazine is not a great fit statistically for Aveeno’s Active Naturals Daily

Moisturizing Lotion because it doesn’t reach the target market as efficiently as other magazines.

The ad should only be run in this magazine as part of a greater brand awareness campaign that

uses multiple vehicles across multiple platforms to grow the brand image.

Closing Arguments for Analysis

Aveeno’s Active Naturals Daily Moisturizing advertisement in the September 2015 issue

of Health Magazine makes effective use the brand image creative ad strategy to convince

consumers that the product is the natural choice for their skin care needs. After analyzing the

goals and objectives that this advertisement is trying to reach, we decided that Health Magazine

was not an effective choice for this advertisement because of the cost to reach too few people in

the target market.

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