Question

Topic: Student Questions

Advertising Campaign For A Student Bank Account

Posted by Anonymous on 12/4/2008 at 11:27 AM ET 250 Points
Hi
Im in my second year doing a graphic design BA degree and I have a brief asking me to use ambient media to encourage students about to start college/university to go in branch or online to discover how a X Bank account can be their bridge to the real world.
Im completely stuck on what I could do, any help will be much appreciated
Thank you for your time.
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  • Posted by wnelson on 12/4/2008 at 11:59 AM Accepted
    Hi, Rachael, welcome to MarketingProfs!

    Marketing is a lot like a graphic design project. The first thing to determine is the goal. In this case, we have the goal of the bank - to reach the students. So, like graphics design, once we have a goal, we pick the best media to meet that goal. Ambient media is a very broad area by nature, since it's comprised of anything that's not traditional media - e.g. placards on handles of shopping cards, projections on sides of buildings, etc. So what are media would be appropriate to students? Where can you "hang" an ad that would be untraditional and highly aimed at students? Brainstorm this and rank them in terms of effectiveness. Effectiveness would include the likelihood of the medium hitting the target, the likelihood that a student would read it, and the likelihood that they would act on it. These would all be expressed as a probability and the product of all three probabilities would be the total effectiveness of that medium. Don't get carried away with this - you can take a guess on the probabilities based on your experience as a student and some of your friends. Just come up with some guesses and use them to rank each medium. After you have the media ranked, you are in a position to choose which one to use.

    Then next area you address, like graphics design, is message. What are you doing to say in the ad with words and images? In marketing, you address the customer market segment's needs first. Needs relate to benefits of the product. And the ad will stress the benefits. A good ad will relate how this bank can address those needs with their benefits better than the competition. So that's the message overview. Additionally, you need to put that message into images and words that affect the target market segment to make a "buy" decision." You do that by using "influencers" - words and images that have that effect. So your task now is to understand what students need in a bank account, the benefits of the student accounts from this bank and how do they address the students' needs better than any other bank. Then, what images and words can you use to express those needs to emotionally connect with students? SInce the bank has mentioned bridging the student into the "real" world - apparently they believe that this is a student need and that they address it better than other banks. What images and words can you use to convey this?

    So for the purposes of the brief, this should give you a good idea on where to go next. I hope this helps.

    Wayde
  • Posted by mgoodman on 12/7/2008 at 7:34 AM Moderator
    Wayde has given you a great mental process. There are some particular reasons why you have a couple of advantages over marketers, though, in your assignment.

    First, you don't have to stick to a budget when you implement. If you come up with an outlandish idea, you don't have to shelve it because it costs too much. Let that open your mind to some wild possibilities.

    Second, you're being judged not on the effectiveness of the ad, but on your design skills. Typically design is a partner of copy -- the words that express the main idea in an ad. In your case, you don't really care what words, or even what positioning promise, will appeal to the target audience. You just need to be sure that you communicate them visually. Pick something that lends itself to visual interpretation, and don't worry about whether your target audience cares about the benefit or the "story."

    In some ways this makes the assignment more difficult because there are so many possibilities. In other ways it's easier than developing "real" advertising because you're only dealing with one aspect of marketing.

    Focus on the target audience and what would get to them, as Wayde suggests. Don't worry about the advertising strategy or what's affordable, or what message might appeal to them. This is a DESIGN challenge, not a marketing case.
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