Uses and Functions of Teaser Campaigns in Advertising and Promotion: A Content Analysis of Newspaper and Television Advertisements in India

Abstract

Introduction India with its wide and diverse consumer base became the most potent market. As product continued to multiply, need for promotion heightened. Advertising emerged as the primary driver of promotion in the mass mediated environment. Advertising with its multidimensional nature and scope has been able to perform the functions of promotion across product categories and consumer needs, interests and motives. Diverse roles of advertising expanded its creative spectrum leading to continuous development of newer forms of advertising either on the basis of its area, purpose or the creative execution format. Advertising has evolved from direct sell product advertising to innovative forms like teaser advertising in order to create a unique perceptual space in the minds of the audiences. Teaser advertising is a term used for an advertising campaign where series of ads are presented to the consumer without revealing the complete identity of the product or brand till the last ad. Teaser advertising campaigns consist of two parts: series of teaser ads (one or more than one) and a revealer ad. The series of advertisements building the systemic excitement around the brand are called teaser ads and the final advertisement disclosing the identity and characteristics of the brand is called the revealer. According to the Business dictionary, "a teaser ad is an ad that does not reveal full information about the advertiser or the product; teaser ads may consist of an unfinished ad story or a partial view of the advertised product, and may even pertain to an unspecified product category". Review of Literature Kover [1] finds strong mention of teaser advertising to hook the viewers by the creative professionals in his studies. He noted that 'a teaser gives incomplete information that entices another to seek to unravel or to trap the concealer into subsequent acts of discovery'. Vallalderas in her book [2] categorises teaser as a separate type of advertising. While enlisting the types of print ads in India, she states that the teaser are a series of ads that may appear in the same newspaper on the same day or on consecutive days which reveal the advertisers message in stages. Teaser appeals were analysed in various product categories in USA (Belch 2003). Yeshin [3] categorises teaser advertising as a creative execution style, commonly used by new products to create an element of intrigue and curiosity to build anticipation and excitement. For practical application and theoretical uniformity, the researcher regards teaser advertising as a creative execution format and curiosity [4] as an appeal. Kardes [5] categorised types of advertisements on the basis of attention function. According to him, teaser ads are prevention focused ads that use ambiguity, confusion and uncertainty to reduce resistance to persuasion. These ads gain consumer attention and encourage open mindedness through building curiosity and interest, introducing a surprising piece of information or creating confusion. Hung [6] in his examination of music-visual relationship in audiovisual advertising, television in particular studied how music (element of TV advertising) influences communication of ad messages in teaser ads. Menon and Soman [7] studied the cues of curiosity and its impact on consumer motivation and learning in relation to internet advertising. The study shows that ad strategies using curiosity as the dominant message strategies result in better and more focused memory and comprehension of new product information the findings suggest that a moderate time gap is optimal for curiosity generation, elaboration and learning. PSI [8] commissioned a study on post campaign impact evaluation of the Balbir Pasha Teaser campaign on AIDS awareness in the country. Balbir Pasha-a fictional character was created for a four month long teaser campaign. The campaign was run in newspapers, radio, television and outdoor media in Mumbai, the epicenter of HIV-AIDS in the country. The impact study revealed that the campaign had Abstract The paper attempts to analyze the significance of teaser advertising in integrated brand promotion. This study examines the communication objectives and functions of teaser campaigns in above the line media. A critical exploration of the nature, composition and uses of the campaigns provides significant indications towards the scope of teaser advertising in particular and novel creative executions in general. The results suggest that teaser campaigns now, extend themselves beyond their principle function of 'curiosity' and are created largely with the twin objective of arousal of interest and consumer engagement. Both newspaper and television campaigns show use of both verbal and visual elements to tease the audience.