by Gautam Banerjee

Created on: October 31, 2009

Timing plays an important role in the success of any advertising campaign. Certain businesses choose to advertise when their target audience is most likely to buy their product or service. It is worth identifying when the customers or potential customers will have the budget to spend. The element of seasonality for advertising a product or a service is best illustrated by two examples.

Toy retailers will focus their advertising efforts around the run-up to Christmas. The purchase activities for the toys generally begin quite a few weeks before Christmas. The store stock up with a whole range of toys much before. The advertising campaign's focus would of course be on the latest toys. The ad support for the stores selling them must begin by end November or earlier to help stores display. It can be done in stages regarding building awareness about features, point of sales and price.

Intensity of the call to action to purchase will peak, may be one or two weeks before Christmas. When it reaches the activity peak the ad message must be able to sustain it's momentum so as to clear the stocks and to meet sales target objectives. Thus the advertisement campaign during Christmas may be spread over 4 6 weeks across different media keeping the target audience in view.

A different approach would be needed to market family vacations. In this instance the timing for the advertising campaign could be much before the vacations start. Travel arrangements and hotel bookings are done much in advance. The call for action to the target segment for vacations must stress on early bookings to avoid disappointments of the last minute bookings.

Some businesses choose their ad campaigns to focus more attention on their quieter times. The logic for doing so is that the busier times will naturally see an increase in sales. Also advertising during quieter times might mean that the advertiser need not work as hard to stand out from other competitors, in the belief that they won't be advertising, What they mean is to avoid advertising clutter wherein an ad message may be lost, but there may be fewer customers to target.

However, gaining a greater market share during quieter does have some merit. These can help to develop a bigger customer base which not only help during the busier times but also minimize reliance on certain trading periods that help in healthier cash flow.

The reasons behind an advertisement campaign will vary from organization to organization and from product to product. Top of the mind recall of a brand or to increase it's awareness through advertisements may be long term objectives but when it comes to boosting sales the timing of the campaign is vital. Similarly the launch of a new product is intricately linked to timing. A good strategic timing of an advertising campaign can often preempt competitor activities and lead to a successful product launch.

Therefore, while planning for an advertisement campaign, the timing of it's launch must be keeping in mind the media vehicles to be used, cost factors, the seasonality of the product and or services, target audience and the duration of the campaign in relation to it's objectives.

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