COVER STORY continued

It is one thing to be able to talk to customers in new mediums and another to match the message to the customer you are talking to. As targeted marketing matures, it will become more of a science than an art. As a science, it must be developed as a tried-and-true formula for success. Using a national message in most of these targeted mediums is useless and counter-productive.

So, how do you decide on the right message for each audience? First, you must understand the target audience, what is important to them, why they are — or should be — interested, and what message is most relevant. To accomplish this, marketers must evaluate their audience(s) and understand how their messages are being received, not just their rational sale but emotionally as well.

Emotional communication is, and always has been, a key element to advertising success. Advertising builds brands over time, and this is largely due to customers emotionally bonding with the brand. However, research efforts have been largely confined to understanding the effects of rational benefits for the last 50-plus years.

With the pioneering of emotional testing, it is now possible to understand not only the reactions to rational benefits (normative ratings) and the communication of key benefits and features (communication check) but also the effects of these on the brand's equity and the emotional impact of the advertising. The ability to do all of these in one test provides, for the very first time, a holistic view all of the brand's communication efforts.

And, when combined with new targeted media capabilities, this means you can actually target both your rational and emotional messaging to your target customer, making them work together to have true impact and be convincing.

This targeted melding of the message with the audience can be especially important for global brands, which have the opportunity to target their messages by media method, country by country. Thus, the old ideas of developing one piece of advertising and "pooling it out" across media vehicles is as outdated as the idea of a "floppy" disc. •

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