DAGMAR is a marketing expression that stands for “Defining Advertising Goals
for Measured Advertising Results”. It is a marketing tool to compute the results of an
advertising campaign. DAGMAR attempts to guide customers through ACCA model.
According to this approach, every purchase encounters four steps; Awareness,
Comprehension, Conviction, and Action. DAGMAR method is an established technique of
creating effective advertising.
HISTORY
DAGMAR is an advertising model proposed by Russell Colley in 1961.
Russell Colley advocated that effective advertising seeks to communicate
rather than to sell. Advertisers discover whether their message conveyed
enough information and understanding of a product to their consumers
and also its respective benefits from clear objectives.
The DAGMAR Model
1. AWARENESS
Awareness of the existence of a product or a service is needful
before the purchase behaviour is expected. The fundamental task
of advertising activity is to improve the consumer awareness of
the product.
Once the consumer awareness has been provided to the target
audience, it should not be forsaken. The target audience tends to
get distracted by other competing messages if they are ignored.
Awareness has to be created, developed, refined and maintained
according to the characteristics of the market and the scenario of
the organization at any given point of time.
The objective is to create awareness about the product amongst
the target audience.
2. COMPREHENSION
Awareness on its own is not sufficient to stimulate a purchase.
Information and understanding about the product and the
organisation are essential. This can be achieved by providing
information about the brand features.
Example: In an attempt to persuade people to budge for a new
toothpaste brand, it may be necessary to compare the product
with other toothpaste brands, and provide an additional usage
benefit, such as more effective than other toothpaste because it
contains salt or that this particular toothpaste is a vegetarian
toothpaste, which will, in turn, attract more customers.
The objective is to provide all the information about the product.
3. CONVICTION
Conviction is the next step where the customer evaluates different
products and plans to buy the product. At this stage, a sense of
conviction is established, and by creating interests and
preferences, customers are convinced that a certain product
should be tried at the next purchase.
At this step, the job of the advertising activity is to mould the
audience’s beliefs and persuade them to buy it. This is often
achieved through messages that convey the superiority of the
products over the others by flaunting the rewards or incentives
for using the product.
Example: Thumbs up featured the incentive of social acceptance
as “grown up”. It implied that those who preferred other soft
drinks were kids.
The objective is to create a positive mental disposition to buy a
product.
4. ACTION
This is the final step which involves the final purchase of the
product. The objective is to motivate the customer to buy the
product.
Advantages of DAGMAR Approach
A major contribution of Colley’s DAGMAR approach was a specification of
what constitutes a good objective.
According to Russell Colley, there are various advantages of well-founded
objectives. These are:
Be concrete and measurable
Have a well-defined target audience or market
Identify the benchmark and the degree of change
Specify a timeframe to accomplish the objective
TARGET AUDIENCE
DAGMAR claims the target audience is well defined. A group of
potential customers, who have the highest likelihood of
purchasing the product, is the target market. Identifying the
target market includes the process of demographic, geographic,
and psychological segmentation. Target markets can be
segmented into Primary and secondary groups.
Primary markets are the main target audience, on whom the
marketing efforts are mainly focused.
Secondary markets are the target audience on whom the
marketing efforts will focus after the primary market goals are
achieved. After identifying the target audience, the organization
devises objectives for advertising and later the objectives for
communication.
CONCRETE AND MEASURABLE
The objective of communication should be a precise and clear
statement of whatever message the advertiser wants to
communicate to the target audience.
The specification must include all the details and descriptions of
the measurement procedure.
SPECIFIED TIMEFRAME AND BENCHMARKS
A good objective has a specified time frame, during which the
objective is to be achieved. Understanding the specifications
enables advertisers to define goals that will yield the best result.
Setting a specific timeframe assures effective evaluation of
results. The timeframe should be realistic to prohibit skewed
results from static marketing.
Creating the benchmark is essential for an appropriate
measurement of the effectiveness of the advertisement.
WRITTEN GOAL
The goal should be committed on a paper. When the goals are
clearly written, basic shortfalls and flaws are exposed, it becomes
eventually easy to determine whether the goal contains the crucial
aspects of the DAGMAR approach.
OBJECTIVES OF DAGMAR APPROACH
Persuade a prospect to visit the showroom.
Growth in market share.
Improve sales turnover.
Perform complete selling function.
Advertise a special reason to buy.
Stimulate impulse sales.
Remind people to buy.
Create awareness about the product and brand existence.
Create favourable emotional disposition towards the product.
Impart information regarding benefits and distinctive features of
the product.
Combat and offset competitive claims.
Correct false impressions, wrong information and other
hindrances to sales.
Aid sales force with sales promotion and selling activities and
boost their morale.
Establish brand recognition and acceptance.
EXAMPLE OF DAGMAR APPROACH
Let’s suppose that an ABC company wants to evaluate the effectiveness of
marketing campaign for its latest product launched. The company starts
evaluating the commercial that is designed to persuade potential
consumers through the four stages of the buying process:
1. In the AWARENESS stage, company ABC spreads awareness
among the consumers about its new product launched in the
market.
2. In the COMPREHENSION stage, company ABC portrays to its
consumers the features and distinctiveness of the new product
and reminds the consumers of the company ABC’s logo and brand
name.
3. In the CONVICTION stage, company ABC attaches the consumer
emotionally to the new product so that the consumer establishes
an emotional preference for the company ABC’s brand.
4. In the ACTION stage, company ABC makes sales.
Company ABC then evaluates the success of the marketing effort using
DAGMAR. The company measures that how fast the customer processed
through the four stages of the purchase and how many sales were
generated. In cases where the customer is distracted and deviated from
buying the product, and the company doesn’t meet sales goals, the
company needs to change its ad campaign.
Advertising is strongly associated with economic cycles across major world
economies. The DAGMAR method is a long-established method of creating
effective advertising. The idea behind the method is to “communicate rather
than sell”.
