given advertisement or message in a publication or broadcast medium, while the target market consists of all existing and potential consumers of a product, service or brand. Companies often develop different advertising messages and media strategies to reach different target audiences. For example, McDonald's Restaurants uses the anthropomorphic brand characters, Ronald McDonald and Hamburgler, in its advertising directed at children who are important brand-choice influencers. However, for adult target audience members, McDonald's uses messages that emphasise convenience and quality. Thus the target audience for a given advertising message may comprise only a subset of the total market as defined in the marketing plan. Careful perusal of the marketing plan will assist marketers in the process of defining the optimal target audiences for specific advertising objectives. Push vs pull strategy The communications objectives will, at least in part, depend on whether the marketer is using a push or pull strategy. In a push strategy, the marketer advertises intensively with retailers and wholesalers, with the expectation that they will stock the product or brand, and that consumers will purchase it when they see it in stores. In contrast, in a pull strategy, the marketer advertises directly to consumers hoping that they will put pressure on retailers to stock the product or brand, thereby pulling it through the distribution channel. In a push strategy the promotional mix would consist of trade advertising and sales calls while the advertising media would normally be weighted towards trade magazines, exhibitions and trade shows while a pull strategy would make more extensive use consumer-oriented advertising and sales promotions while the media mix would be weighted towards mass-market media such as newspapers, magazines, television and radio. Devising advertising objectives Setting advertising objectives provides the framework for the entire advertising plan. Therefore, it is important to specify precisely what is to be achieved and outline how advertising will be evaluated. Advertising objectives should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable and Time-dependent (SMART). Any statement of advertising objectives must include measurement benchmarks – that is the norms against which advertising effectiveness will be evaluated. One of the first approaches to setting communications-oriented objectives was the DAGMAR approach (Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results) developed in the 1960s. While memorable, the DAGMAR approach fails to provide concrete guidance on how to link advertising objectives with communications effects. In order to set realistic and achievable advertising objectives, most advertisers try to link advertising