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JR Creative Studios
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Creative Solutions for Your Business

“Begin somewhere; you cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do.”
—Liz Smith

1. What makes JR Creative Studios different from an advertising agency?
2. Why should I use JR Creative Studios?
3. What is the difference between advertising and marketing?
4. What is branding?
5. What is meant by the term marketing mix?
6. What is the best form of media advertising?
7. How do I achieve success in media advertising?
8. What are the strengths and weaknesses of various advertising media?

Q1: What makes JR Creative Studios different from an advertising agency?
A: JR Creative Studios is different from an advertising agency for the following reasons:

  • FLEXIBILITY - No Contracts or Minimums. At JR Creative Studios, you are not locked into a 6-month or 12-month contract and you may outsource as many or as few advertising, marketing, art and design projects as you wish.
  • NO COMMISSION FEES. Advertising agencies typically charge a 15% commission fee or more on media buys, products and services. JR Creative Studios does not.
  • FAIR BILLING PRACTICES. Advertising agencies typically charge a full hour for only 15 minutes or less of work. JR Creative Studios charges in 15-minute increments.
  • REDUCED RATES FOR NON-PROFITS. JR Creative Studios recognizes budgetary constraints on not-for-profit businesses. JR Creative Studios will work with you to find a mutually agreeable rate that fits your budget.
  • CUSTOMIZED MESSAGES. Advertising agencies typically produce boiler-plate messages. At JR Creative Studios, we take pride in learning about your business and crafting customized messages to communicate your distinct product or service.
  • LOYALTY. Your business is important to us. JR Creative Studios will not work for your competitors.
  • GENUINE & RELIABLE CUSTOMER SERVICE. JR Creative Studios will treat you with courtesy, honesty and respect. Your projects will be delivered in a timely fashion.

Q2: Why should I use JR Creative Studios?
A: JR Creative Studios recognizes marketing and advertising your business is a full-time job. As a business owner, you must weigh whether your time—or that of your support staff—is best spent drafting text for brochures and writing scripts for electronic/broadcast media, learning design software and creating graphic design pieces, negotiating rates and placing buys with media outlets, reviewing media schedules and proposals, and staying current with statistics, trends, colors and styles, or focusing on the core of your endeavor.

JR Creative Studios will not only take care of your advertising, marketing, art and design projects so you can focus fully on your customers and other aspects of your business, but will also assist you in filtering out the media representatives that approach you, sometimes even on a daily basis, for your advertising dollars. Instead of many media reps interrupting your busy day, JR Creative Studios will be your representative for media outlets’ packages and proposals.

Outsourcing your advertising, marketing, art and design to JR Creative Studios makes sense. As a business owner, you have positioned yourself as the expert for your product or service. In turn, JR Creative Studios has positioned themselves as the expert in advertising, marketing, art and design. Choosing JR Creative Studios to coordinate the best advertising packages and creative solutions for your business can only take your business to the next level! Let JR Creative Studios produce high-quality, memorable messages positioned within the right media and demographic for your product or service.

Q3: What is the difference between advertising and marketing?
A: Advertising is the printed or broadcast material distributed to the public. This media showcases your brand to existing and potential customers. Advertising is just one element in marketing your brand. Marketing, however, is a methodical process that is planned to include selling, advertising, packaging, and pricing, and then implemented over a longer time frame.

The best way to distinguish between advertising and marketing is to think of marketing as a pie; inside the pie are slices of advertising, market research, media planning, public relations, product pricing, distribution, customer support, sales strategy, and community involvement. Advertising is just one piece of the pie. All of these elements must work independently and must work together towards the larger goal. Marketing is a process that takes time and can involve hours of research for an effective outcome.

Q4: What is branding?
A: The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines branding or brand as “a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.” The legal term for brand is trademark. A brand may identify one item, a family of items, or all items of that seller.

Branding is your identity in the marketplace. It is important to know that branding is not about convincing your target market to choose you over the competition; rather, it is convincing your potential customer to see you as the only one that provides a solution to their problem. A good brand will deliver a clear message, confirm your credibility, connect your target customer emotionally, motivate the buyer, and solidify user loyalty. A successful brand will speak to the needs and wants of your potential customer.

Q5: What is meant by the term marketing mix?
A: Marketing mix is a combination of marketing tools that are used to satisfy company and customers' objectives. Customers often call the marketing mix “the offering.” Your offer is controlled by following variables in marketing: Product, Price, Place (Distribution) and Promotion.

By using variations of these four components, you have the ability to reach multiple consumers within your target market. The key is to explore many avenues in creating your marketing mix. Combining and coordinating these elements will be more effective than depending on one.

Q6: What is the best form of media advertising?
A: No one method of advertising is the absolute best. Consider a few options that target your audience and work within your budget. Measure the results and reevaluate before moving forward. As your needs and goals change, so should your advertising.

Please note: According to AdAge.com, “Despite all the chaos and innovation in marketing today, the all-important media mix did not change much:

  • TV spending represented 43.7% of the pie—up a bit from 43.2% in 2005.
  • The Internet reached 6.5%—up from 5.8%.
  • Magazines nabbed 19.9%—essentially unchanged from 20% the year before.
  • Newspapers (18.7%)
  • Radio (7.4%) stayed about where it was in 2005.”

Source: Nat Ives, AdAge.com. March 14, 2007

Q7: How do I achieve success in media advertising?
A: Repetition spells success in your media advertising plan. Ads do not create brand awareness or establish a business identity after just one impression. It takes multiple impressions over a long period of time to accomplish sufficient market penetration. Your message must be repeated to prevent it from being overridden by competing messages. Your advertising dollar is an important investment that will establish your identity and product awareness.

Q8: What are the strengths and weaknesses of advertising mediums?
A: Let us look at the strengths and weaknesses of the following eight, major advertising mediums: Broadcast television, cable television, internet, magazine, newspaper, radio, direct mail and outdoor. Other mediums like the Yellow Pages and a myriad of mini-media are also available to meet your needs.

BROADCAST TELEVISION
Strengths

  • Allows for creativity and engages multiple senses: sight, sound, motion and emotion
  • Single exposure reaches a large audience
  • Advertising messages can be heard, even if the viewer is in another room
  • Advertisers can be his or her own spokesperson
  • TV ads can be visually stimulating, adding credibility to the business

Weaknesses

  • Audience is fragmented. Station loyalty is lowering, and program loyalty is increasing
  • 37% of adults are light TV viewers, investing only an average of 34 minutes per day with TV
  • Viewers are primarily in the home
  • Prime time availability is limited
  • Spot costs are very high
  • Production costs are continually growing
  • Ads cannot be pulled off the air or revised at the last minute

CABLE TELEVISION
Strengths

  • Targets groups by program interest
  • Lower cost ad rates on local systems allow frequent ad repetition
  • Less restrictive creatively: longer commercials, more "edgy" content
  • High inventory of availability
  • Subscriber counts are growing

Weaknesses

  • Ad effectiveness depends on market penetration of cable
  • Non-cabled markets disrupt effective mass marketing
  • Audience is fragmented
  • Competition with broadcast TV
  • Poor research available for viewership to understand target audience

INTERNET
Strengths

  • Extremely selective targeting opportunities
  • Interactive, engaging capabilities
  • Accessible any time
  • Creative graphics
  • Ability for cross-media tie-ins
  • Allows consumer to interact/learn about the product or service immediately
  • Creative can carry detailed messages

Weaknesses

  • Fragmented users
  • Users can be annoyed by ads
  • Declining click-through rates
  • Effective new ad units not yet fully developed
  • No standardization in accountability

MAGAZINE
Strengths

  • Offers unique opportunities to segment markets, demographically and psycho graphically
  • Reader involvement with editorial
  • Ads can be studied and reviewed at leisure
  • High impact can be attained with good graphics and literate, informative copy
  • Offers opportunity of repeat exposure

Weaknesses

  • Reader controls ad exposure, can ignore campaign, especially for new products
  • Difficult to exploit “timing” aspects
  • High competitive clutter for select product categories
  • Takes time to build reach
  • High out-of-pocket cost

NEWSPAPER
Strengths

  • High single-day reach opportunity to exploit immediacy, especially on key shopping days
  • Editorial compatibility
  • Geographical flexibility by market and zone
  • Reader often shops ads for specific information when ready to buy
  • Ads can carry detailed messages

Weaknesses

  • Lack of demographic selectivity: many markets have only one paper
  • High cost for large-size units
  • Presumed lack of creative opportunities for “emotions” selling campaigns
  • Low-quality reproduction and lack of quality color
  • Space is shared with competitors
  • Difficult to target a specific audience
  • Doubling size of ads does not double readership, though generally doubles the cost

RADIO
Strengths

  • Target selective demographic by station format
  • Intrusive and local
  • Mobility
  • Allows advertisers to employ time-of-day or day-of-week scheduling to exploit timing factors
  • Station loyalty
  • Copy can rely on the listener’s mood or imagination
  • Low production costs

Weaknesses

  • Lack of visual
  • Audience surveys limited in scope and do not provide socio-economic demos
  • Major investment on many stations is needed to build reach
  • Copy testing is difficult, as there are few statistical guidelines
  • Fractionalized audience due to same formats

DIRECT MAIL
Strengths

  • Capability of targeting a specific market
  • Production costs can be controlled, to a certain degree
  • Can cover every household
  • Response rate can be easily measured
  • Mailer can be personalized

Weaknesses

  • Mailing lists become inaccurate quickly
  • Mailing costs continue to rise
  • Printing and production costs continue to rise
  • Difficulty coordinating delivery with sales dates
  • Low response rate
  • Inflexible: requires maximum preparation and lead time

OUTDOOR
Strengths

  • Broad audience reach
  • Offers geographic flexibility
  • Superior graphics capability

Weaknesses

  • Short exposure time totaling only a couple of seconds
  • Limited message capability
  • Affected by weather and environment conditions
  • Low recall
  • High out-of-pocket cost