reading task #3

Summary
“Planning Creative Strategy” is a section from the text book “Advertising & Promotion” (Belch, G., Belch M., Guolla, M., 2003, p306) which was published in Canada. In this section, the authors, Belch, G., Belch, M. and Guolla, M., explore the three primary decision, which are “creative theme, message appeal, and source” (Belch, G. et al, 2003, P145) that are required for a complete creative strategy. First of all, the authors introduce several approaches of searching for “creative theme” (Belch, G. et al, 2003, P146) and offer solutions for making effective advertising that are “using a unique selling proposition, creating a brand image, finding the inherent drama, and positioning” (Belch, G. et al, 2003, P147-149). In addition, the authors define “message appeals” (Belch, G. et al, 2003, P149) as “the approach used to attract the attention of consumer and to influence their attitude toward the product, service, or cause” (Belch, G. et al, 2003, P149). Importantly, the authors introduce five types of “message appeal” (Belch, G. et al, 2003, P149) that are “rational appeals, emotional appeals, fear appeals, humor appeals, and combining rational and emotional appeals” (Belch, G. et al, 2003, P149-p155). Moreover, the authors state the third creative strategy decision that is the source of the “message appeal” (Belch, G. et al, 2003, P149). Also, the authors point out that source characteristic includes “source credibility, source attractiveness, and source power” (Belch, G. et al, 2003, P157). Especially, the authors play emphasis on source attractiveness which frequently used by advertisers. In conclusion, the author reveal the theory of creative strategy of advertising and the authors explore various approaches for determining the creative theme; they also indicate different types of “message appeals” (Belch, G. et al, 2003, P149) and the source characteristics.

Critique
The article is a section from the academic book, “Advertising & Promotion” (Belch, G., Belch M., Guolla, M., 2003). Introducing the theories of advertising and promotion are purpose of the authors, since the authors present the theories clearly and exactly. Meanwhile, the authors give appropriate pictures of advertisements as examples to support the theories. For example, the authors give the accurate definitions of “advertising appeal” (Belch, G. et al, 2003, P149) and “campaign theme” (Belch, G. et al, 2003, P145). In addition, the text is well-organized and easy to read, for it is easy to find the topic sentence in each paragraph. For instance, the fonts of several significant words are bolded. Furthermore, the vocabularies of the article are formal, such as compliance, execution. Finally, the text is quite useful for helping me to understand the subject. To illustrate, the authors not only present the importance of creative theme, but also guide several approaches of searching for creative theme.