Ad Analysis -- Need Recognition

Ad analysis -- Need recognition

For this magazine advertisement analysis report, this article utilized the Children's Claritin advertisement from Schering-Plough. When it comes to target market, we have two important facets of analysis. Firstly, understand that the product is made specifically for children (particularly those who are 2 years old and above) but we can also see that its target market are the parents segment who have children with allergies (mothers as the more pronounced target market in this case is highly plausible). Print media was the method by which this particular commercial message was disseminated.

Stage of the Consumer Decision Making Process

According to Babin & Harris (09), the consumer decision making process begin with the need recognition which is defined as the gap between the 'actual state' of the consumer and the 'ideal state' of the consumer. It is in this particular premise that this report argues that the Claritin advertisement that we are analyzing is in the need recognition phase.

Type of Influence Utilized in the Advertisement

In advertisements, we have two basic types of influence, i.e. The internal influence (which centers on consumer's cognitive skills which involves judgment, perception, memory as well as emotional and motivational factors) and external influence (which heavily draws upon the consumer's cultural patterns and imperatives as well as the influence of social groups) (ibid). The Claritin commercial capitalizes on internal influences that can drive consumption patterns for the product.

After establishing our basic observations on the Claritin advertisement, we shall now proceed to the substantiation of these findings.

Firstly, this paper argues that this advertisement is in the need recognition phase of the consumer decision making process for two particular reasons. Firstly, the advertisement has an identifiable 'actual state' which is mothers having children with allergy symptoms and an 'ideal state' which is mothers obtaining a powerful relief for their child's allergy symptoms. What bridges the gap between these two states is the term 'powerful relief'. But the detection between these two states can be easily identifiable for some mothers but not for others. Hence, we can also infer that the need recognition in this ad can also be the case whereby need is stimulated by the marketer through product information. The '#1 Pediatrician-Recommended Non-Drowsy Brand' label in the advertisement is already basic product information. The same holds true for the 'Only Children's Claritin Provides Non-Drowsy Allergy Relief' label. The parent is also informed of allergy symptoms that s/he may not be aware of in the first place as the many allergy symptoms are enumerated in the advertisement.

We also argue that this advertisement relies on internal type of influence as most of the product information mentioned earlier are in fact superiority claims (e.g. #1 Pediatrician-Recommended Non-Drowsy Brand, 'Only Children's Claritin Provides Non-Drowsy Allergy Relief) which rely on consumer judgment. The marketers believe that consumers, upon knowing about the product's exclusive features and brand positioning, will have high purchase intent translatable to actual purchase behavior.