Introduction

Modern advertising faces severe challenges. A successful ad must cut through that clutter. To win a consumer's attention, advertiser must conduct extensive research on the client, product, competition and target audience. Different advertising professionals have different names for the document, including copy platform, creative work plan and strategy statement. A product feature that appeals to advertiser may have no value whatsoever to advertiser's ad's target audience. Benefits can build brands. A brand is a consumer's image of a product (a MacBook Air laptop), a product line (Macintosh computers) or a company (Apple Inc.). Although benefits usually are essential to successful advertising, they occasionally play only a small role—or no apparent role at all—in so-called image advertising. Consumers then automatically supply the well-known benefits and the positive brand image. Products that flourish with image advertising include market leaders in the soft-drink and athletic shoe industries.