F7-01: What is Communications Strategy?

Ask a roomful of people what marketers do, and most of them will describe communications. They will talk about adverts. Campaigns. Social media posts. Perhaps a billboard they noticed on the motorway. Maybe a clever email they received. In the popular imagination, marketing is communications — the visible, public-facing output that shows up on screens, in feeds, and on the sides of buses.

This is understandable. Communications is the most visible part of marketing. It is also, regrettably, the part that has swallowed the whole in most organisations. When a CEO says "we need better marketing," they almost invariably mean "we need better advertising." When a startup founder says "we need a marketing strategy," they almost invariably mean "we need a social media plan." When a board says "marketing is not working," they almost invariably mean "the ads are not generating enough leads."

All of these statements confuse a part for the whole. And that confusion is not merely semantic — it is strategically catastrophic.

This lecture will put communications back in its proper place: as one critical lever within the marketing mix, neither more nor less important than product, price, and distribution. Then — having cut communications down to size — we will give it the serious intellectual treatment it deserves. Because while communications is not everything, what you say, to whom, and how often matters enormously. Getting it right creates competitive advantage. Getting it wrong wastes money at industrial scale.

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1. What Communications Strategy Is — and Is Not

1.1 A Definition

Communications strategy is the discipline of deciding what to say, to whom, through which channels, and how often, in order to achieve specific marketing objectives.

That definition is deliberately plain. Let us examine what it contains and what it excludes.

What to say is the domain of messaging — the content of the communication. This encompasses the creative idea, the value proposition, the brand narrative, the call to action. It is the "what" of communications.

To whom is the domain of audience — who needs to hear this message. This is not simply "our target market" (that decision was made earlier, in segmentation and targeting). It is the specific question of which audiences, within the broader target, need to be reached by this particular communication, at this particular moment.

Through which channels is the domain of media — television, digital display, social media, out-of-home, print, radio, search, email, and every other vehicle through which a message can travel from sender to receiver. Media strategy is a sub-discipline of communications strategy, not a synonym for it.

How often is the domain of frequency — how many times does the audience need to be exposed to the message for it to have an effect? This is one of the oldest and most contested questions in advertising, and we will return to it repeatedly throughout this module.

To achieve specific marketing objectives is the critical qualifier. Communications strategy does not exist in a vacuum. It serves marketing strategy. If the marketing strategy says "grow penetration among light category buyers," the communications strategy asks "what do we need to say to those buyers, where do we need to say it, and how many times?" If the marketing strategy says "defend price premium in the premium segment," the communications strategy asks a different set of questions. The marketing objective comes first. Always.

1.2 What Communications Strategy Is Not

Communications strategy is not marketing strategy. This distinction was drawn in F1-03, but it bears repeating because the conflation persists at every level of organisations, from boardrooms to graduate programmes.

Marketing strategy is the broader discipline that encompasses market analysis, segmentation, targeting, positioning, and the orchestration of the entire marketing mix — product, price, place, and promotion. Communications sits within promotion, which itself is one-quarter of the mix. When someone says "our marketing strategy is content marketing," they have mistaken a communications tactic for a strategic framework. This is rather like saying "our military strategy is rifles."

Communications strategy is also not media strategy. Media strategy — the selection of channels, the allocation of budget across those channels, the scheduling of placements — is a component of communications strategy, not the thing itself. You cannot decide where to say something until you know what you are saying and why. Media without message is noise.

And communications strategy is not creative strategy. Creative strategy — the development of the idea, the execution, the craft — is another component. A brilliant creative idea deployed to the wrong audience through the wrong channels at the wrong frequency is a beautiful waste of money.

The relationship between these elements is hierarchical, and the hierarchy matters:

1. Marketing strategy — what are we trying to achieve in the market? (Grow share? Defend margin? Enter a new segment?)
2. Communications strategy — what role does communications play in achieving that? Who do we need to reach, with what message, how often?
3. Media strategy — which channels best reach those audiences at the required frequency and within budget?
4. Creative strategy — what is the idea that will make the message effective in those channels for those audiences?

Each level serves the one above it. Creative serves media serves communications serves marketing. When this hierarchy inverts — when the creative idea drives the strategy rather than serving it, or when the media plan dictates the message — you get work that may win awards but fails to move the business.

Mark Ritson (2024) has been characteristically blunt on this point: the number of organisations that have a genuine communications strategy, rooted in marketing strategy, informed by evidence, and connected to business objectives, is shockingly small. Most have a collection of tactical activities — social posts, email campaigns, programmatic buys — masquerading as a strategy. The activities may be individually competent, but without the strategic architecture above them, they are uncoordinated, unmeasurable, and largely ineffective.

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2. Communications Within the Marketing Mix

2.1 One Lever, Not the Whole Toolkit

The 4Ps framework (product, price, place, promotion) has been rightly criticised for many things — its firm-centricity, its age, its tendency to reduce complex strategic decisions to neat alliterative boxes. But it retains one crucial virtue: it reminds us that communications is one of four strategic levers, not four of four.

Consider Aldi. The German discounter has, over the past two decades, achieved one of the most impressive market share gains in British grocery history. How? Not primarily through communications. Aldi's success is built on product (a curated range of own-label products that match or exceed national brand quality), price (relentlessly low, supported by a lean cost structure), and place (a rapidly expanding store network that brought the brand within physical reach of an ever-larger proportion of British households). Communications played a supporting role — the "Like Brands" campaign effectively communicated the quality-price proposition — but it was not the primary growth driver. The strategy worked because all four Ps were aligned, not because the advertising was brilliant.

Now consider Apple. In popular mythology, Apple is a communications-driven brand. The "1984" commercial. "Think Different." The product launch keynotes. And indeed, Apple's communications have been consistently excellent — distinctive, emotionally resonant, and culturally significant. But Apple's market position is not built on communications alone. It is built on product (a tightly integrated hardware-software ecosystem that creates genuine switching costs), price (a premium pricing strategy that reinforces perceptions of quality and status), and place (a distribution strategy that spans owned retail stores, carrier partnerships, and online channels, all carefully controlled). Strip away the communications and Apple still has an extraordinary business. Strip away the product, price, or distribution and no amount of advertising saves it.

The point is not that communications does not matter. It matters enormously, as the rest of this module will demonstrate. The point is that communications cannot compensate for failures in the other three Ps. No amount of clever advertising will sell a bad product, sustain an unsupportable price, or overcome the absence of distribution. The most effective communications strategies in the world are the ones that communicate genuine product advantages, at supportable prices, to audiences that can actually buy the product.

Sharp (2010) makes this point with characteristic directness. He argues that the primary job of advertising is to refresh and build memory structures — mental associations that make the brand more likely to come to mind in buying situations. But memory structures are useless if the brand is not physically available when the buying situation arises. Mental availability without physical availability is potential without conversion. Both matter. Neither alone is sufficient.

2.2 When Communications Carries More Weight

Having established that communications is one lever among four, we should acknowledge that its relative importance varies. There are situations where communications carries a disproportionate share of the strategic load:

Parity product categories. When products are functionally interchangeable — laundry detergent, bottled water, basic banking — communications becomes the primary means of creating perceived difference. The product cannot do it (they are essentially the same). The price often cannot do it (price parity or near-parity prevails). Distribution is table stakes. What is left? The meanings, emotions, and associations created by communications.

New category entries. When launching a brand into a new category or market, communications is essential for establishing awareness and initial associations. Without communications, the brand relies entirely on distribution and word of mouth — which can work (see the early growth of many challenger brands) but works much more slowly and unpredictably.

Markets with high emotional involvement. In categories where purchase decisions are driven by emotion, identity, and self-expression — fashion, luxury goods, automotive, spirits — communications plays a central role in building the brand's emotional resonance. You are not just informing people about the product's features. You are building a world of meaning that the buyer enters through purchase.

Services. When the product is intangible, communications often becomes the primary means of making it tangible. Insurance, financial services, consultancy — these are categories where the product cannot be seen, touched, or tried before purchase. Communications must do the work of making the abstract concrete.

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3. The Three Core Questions

Every communications strategy must answer three questions. They are deceptively simple. Getting them right requires rigour, evidence, and strategic discipline.

3.1 Who Are We Reaching?

The audience question is the first and most important. Everything else follows from it.

There is a persistent myth in marketing that the answer to "who are we reaching?" is simply "our target segment." This is incomplete. The segmentation and targeting decisions made in the marketing strategy (F4) define the broad population of buyers the brand is trying to serve. The communications strategy must be more specific.

Are we reaching current buyers (to reinforce loyalty and increase purchase frequency)? Light buyers (to convert occasional users into more frequent ones)? Non-buyers (to drive trial and penetration)? Trade audiences (to secure distribution and shelf space)? Internal audiences (to align employees around the brand proposition)?

Sharp (2010) demonstrated that brand growth comes primarily from acquiring new and light buyers, not from increasing the loyalty of existing heavy buyers. This has profound implications for communications strategy. If growth comes from light buyers, then communications must reach light buyers — and light buyers, by definition, are not paying much attention to the category. They are not seeking out the brand. They are not reading the blog. They are not following the Instagram account. They are out there, living their lives, occasionally buying from the category, and the job of communications is to make sure the brand is available in their memory when that occasion arises.

This is why reach — the proportion of the target audience exposed to the message — is such a critical metric in communications planning. Frequency matters too, but reach comes first. A message seen once by ten million people is, for brand-building purposes, generally more valuable than a message seen ten times by one million people. We will explore this in detail when we reach media strategy (F7-07), but the principle belongs here because it shapes the entire communications strategy.

3.2 What Are We Saying?

The messaging question is where most marketers want to start — and where, paradoxically, they should be most disciplined about not starting until the audience question is resolved.

"What are we saying?" encompasses several sub-questions:

What is the communication objective? Are we trying to build awareness? Create or refresh associations? Drive immediate action? Change a perception? Each objective demands a different message.

What is the core proposition? What single idea do we want the audience to take away? Note the word "single." The most effective communications are built on one clear idea, not a committee-approved list of features and benefits. As Ritson (2024) puts it, if you cannot write the proposition on a Post-it note, it is not a proposition — it is a paragraph.

What is the emotional register? Are we going for warmth, humour, provocation, inspiration, fear, nostalgia? The evidence from the IPA Effectiveness Databank (Binet & Field, 2013) is clear that emotional approaches tend to outperform rational ones for brand-building communications, but that rational approaches are effective for activation. The choice of emotional register should be strategic, not arbitrary.

What are the distinctive brand assets? Every communication is an opportunity to reinforce the visual and verbal cues that link the communication to the brand — the logo, the colour palette, the sonic identity, the brand character, the tagline. Romaniuk's research (explored in F5-08) demonstrates that these distinctive assets are what enable the audience to attribute the communication to the correct brand, even when they are paying minimal attention. Communications that fail to deploy distinctive assets may be entertaining, but they are building equity for the category, not the brand.

3.3 How Often Are They Seeing It?

The frequency question is one of the most debated topics in advertising, and it sits at the intersection of communications strategy and media strategy.

The classical view, often attributed to Herbert Krugman's (1972) work, held that three exposures were the minimum for advertising to have an effect: the first creates awareness, the second generates recognition, the third triggers action. This "effective frequency" model dominated media planning for decades and provided a convenient planning heuristic — but it was always more rule of thumb than rigorous science.

More recent evidence, particularly from Nelson-Field (2020), suggests that the relationship between frequency and effect is more nuanced. In attention-scarce environments — which is to say, in essentially all modern media environments — a single exposure may have a measurable effect, but the effect accumulates with additional exposures up to a point, after which diminishing returns set in rapidly. The optimal frequency depends on the medium, the creative quality, the audience's relationship with the brand, and the communication objective.

What matters for communications strategy is the principle, not the specific number. Communications must be seen with sufficient frequency to have the desired effect, but the budget spent on excessive frequency for one audience could be better deployed extending reach to additional audiences. This is the reach-frequency trade-off, and it is one of the most consequential resource allocation decisions in the entire marketing budget.

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4. The Both/And: Persuasion AND Memory-Building

4.1 The Persuasion Model

For most of the twentieth century, the dominant model of how advertising works was persuasion. Advertising presents a message — a reason to buy, a unique selling proposition, a compelling argument — and the consumer is persuaded. They change their mind, update their preferences, and choose the advertised brand on their next purchase occasion.

This model has deep roots. It is implicit in the AIDA framework (Attention → Interest → Desire → Action), in Rosser Reeves's "Unique Selling Proposition," and in much of the direct response tradition. It assumes that advertising works through the active processing of information — that the consumer pays attention, processes the message, evaluates the argument, and forms or revises an attitude.

The persuasion model is not wrong. It is real. It describes how some advertising works in some situations. Specifically, it describes how activation advertising works — advertising that aims to drive an immediate behavioural response (visit the website, use the coupon, click the link). When a consumer is actively in the market for a product, actively comparing options, and actively seeking information, a persuasive message that presents a compelling reason to choose Brand A over Brand B can be genuinely effective.

4.2 The Memory-Building Model

But the persuasion model does not describe how most advertising works most of the time. Most people, for most categories, are not actively in the market at any given moment. They are not comparing options. They are not seeking information. They are watching television, scrolling through their phone, driving past a billboard, or half-listening to a podcast. They are not in "persuasion mode." They are in "life mode."

This is where the memory-building model enters. Sharp (2010), building on decades of work by Andrew Ehrenberg (1974) and the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, argues that advertising's primary mechanism is not persuasion but memory refreshment. Advertising works by creating, maintaining, and strengthening mental structures — the networks of associations, impressions, and cues that make a brand more likely to come to mind in a future buying situation.

In this model, the consumer does not need to be "persuaded" in the classical sense. They do not need to process an argument, evaluate a proposition, or form a revised attitude. They just need to notice the brand and encode some associations — even at low attention, even peripherally, even without conscious engagement. The effect accumulates over time through repeated exposure, building the brand's mental availability: the probability that it comes to mind when the consumer eventually enters the market.

The memory-building model explains phenomena that the persuasion model cannot. It explains why advertising works even when people cannot recall seeing it. It explains why emotional advertising — which does not present a rational argument — is more effective at building brands than informational advertising. It explains why consistency of brand assets matters so much: because the job of advertising is not to persuade on any single occasion but to build a cumulative deposit of associations that the brand can draw on across thousands of future buying moments.

4.3 The synthesis

Here is where this school earns its name — again.

The marketing world has waged a needless civil war between these two models. The direct response tradition says "advertising is persuasion — if the ad does not give a reason to buy, it is wasting money." The brand-building tradition says "advertising is memory-building — if the ad tries to argue rather than emote, it will not create lasting effects."

Both are right. And both are incomplete.

The evidence, particularly from Binet and Field (2013), suggests that effective communications strategies deploy both mechanisms — but for different purposes, in different proportions, at different times.

Brand-building communications work primarily through memory-building. They aim to reach the broadest possible audience, create emotional associations with the brand, and build mental availability over time. They do not ask for an immediate response. They are slow-acting, broad-reaching, and emotionally driven. Their effects compound over months and years.

Activation communications work primarily through persuasion. They aim to reach people who are in or near the market, present a specific reason to act now, and drive an immediate behavioural response. They are fast-acting, tightly targeted, and rationally driven. Their effects spike and decay quickly.

The evidence-based communications strategist does not choose between these modes. They deploy both, in a deliberate ratio, informed by evidence. They understand that brand building without activation fails to convert mental availability into sales. And they understand that activation without brand building is increasingly expensive, progressively less effective, and ultimately unsustainable — because you are harvesting a crop you are not replanting.

This ratio — and the evidence behind it — is the subject of Lecture F7-03. But the principle belongs here, in the opening lecture, because it is the intellectual foundation of everything that follows.

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5. Practical Application: The Hierarchy in Action

John Lewis: From Marketing Strategy to Christmas Ad

The John Lewis Christmas campaign has become a cultural institution in the United Kingdom — but examining it through the lens of communications strategy reveals the hierarchy at work.

The marketing strategy is to position John Lewis as the emotionally resonant, quality-assured department store for considered purchases, particularly gifts. The brand competes not primarily on price but on the meaning and thoughtfulness of the shopping experience.

The communications strategy follows: reach the broadest possible audience of gift-givers during the peak emotional period of the year, with a message that reinforces the association between John Lewis and the emotional significance of giving. The audience is broad (all potential gift-buyers, not just existing John Lewis shoppers). The message is emotional (the feeling of giving, not the features of any specific product). The frequency is concentrated (a single high-impact campaign with sustained media weight over the Christmas trading period).

The media strategy serves the communications strategy: a tent-pole television spot for maximum reach and emotional impact, supported by digital, social, and out-of-home for extended reach and frequency.

The creative strategy serves the media strategy: a cinematic, emotionally rich narrative that is designed to work on television first and generate social sharing second. The distinctive brand assets (the John Lewis logo, the tagline, the use of a reinterpreted popular song) ensure brand attribution.

Note what makes this work: every level of the hierarchy serves the one above it. The creative does not drive the strategy — the strategy drives the creative. The Christmas ad is not the marketing strategy. It is the most visible expression of a communications strategy that serves a marketing strategy that serves a business strategy. The hierarchy is intact.

Aldi: When Communications Supports the Other Ps

Aldi's communications strategy in the UK illustrates a different configuration of the hierarchy. The marketing strategy is built primarily on product (quality own-label) and price (aggressive discounting). Communications plays a supporting role: its job is to overcome the perception barriers that prevent middle-class shoppers from trying a discounter.

The "Like Brands. Only Cheaper." campaign accomplished this by directly addressing the quality objection — placing Aldi own-label products next to their branded equivalents and demonstrating comparable (or superior) quality at lower prices. This is persuasion-model advertising: rational, comparative, proposition-led. And it worked brilliantly — not because communications was doing all the work, but because it was doing the right work: removing a specific barrier to trial for a specific audience.

Once trial happened, the product and price did the rest. Communications unlocked the door. The other Ps pulled the customer through.

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Key Takeaways

• Communications strategy is the discipline of deciding what to say, to whom, through which channels, and how often — in service of marketing objectives. It is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

• Communications is one lever within the marketing mix, not the whole toolkit. Product, price, and distribution often contribute more to business outcomes than communications. The most effective communications amplify genuine advantages in the other Ps; they cannot compensate for their absence.

• The hierarchy matters: marketing strategy → communications strategy → media strategy → creative strategy. Each level serves the one above it. When the hierarchy inverts — when creative drives strategy rather than serving it — the work may be aesthetically impressive but strategically incoherent.

• Every communications strategy answers three questions: Who are we reaching? What are we saying? How often are they seeing it? These questions must be answered in this order, and each answer constrains the next.

• Advertising works through two mechanisms: persuasion (changing minds through argument) and memory-building (creating and refreshing mental structures). The persuasion model describes how activation works. The memory-building model describes how brand building works. Effective communications strategies deploy both.

• The Synthesis: persuasion AND memory-building, creative AND media, brand building AND activation. The false dichotomies collapse under the weight of evidence. The job of the communications strategist is to deploy the right mechanism for the right objective, in the right proportion, at the right time.

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Sources

Binet, L. and Field, P. (2013). The Long and the Short of It: Balancing Short and Long-Term Marketing Strategies. London: IPA.

Ehrenberg, A.S.C. (1974). Repetitive Advertising and the Consumer. Journal of Advertising Research, 14(2), pp. 25-34.

Fill, C. (2013). Marketing Communications: Brands, Experiences and Participation. 6th ed. Harlow: Pearson.

Kotler, P. and Keller, K.L. (2016). Marketing Management. 15th ed. Harlow: Pearson.

Krugman, H.E. (1972). Why Three Exposures May Be Enough. Journal of Advertising Research, 12(6), pp. 11-14.

Nelson-Field, K. (2020). The Attention Economy and How Media Works: Simple Truths for Marketers. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan.

Percy, L. and Elliott, R. (2016). Strategic Advertising Management. 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ritson, M. (2024). Marketing Week Mini MBA Lectures. Marketing Week.

Sharp, B. (2010). How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don't Know. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

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Discussion Questions

1. Think of a brand that has grown significantly in your market over the past five years. To what extent was that growth driven by communications versus the other elements of the marketing mix? Where would you place communications in the hierarchy of importance for that brand's success?

2. The hierarchy (marketing strategy → communications strategy → media strategy → creative strategy) implies that creative serves strategy. But some of the most successful campaigns in history appear to have been driven by a "big creative idea" that then shaped the strategy. Is the hierarchy descriptive of best practice, or prescriptive of an ideal that rarely exists in practice?

3. Sharp argues that advertising primarily builds memory structures rather than persuading. Ehrenberg went further, suggesting that advertising mostly reinforces existing behaviour rather than changing it. If these claims are correct, what does it mean for the way organisations measure advertising effectiveness? Are most measurement frameworks testing the wrong thing?