END OF CHAPTER MATERIAL
Discussion and Critical Thinking
Discussion Questions
12.1. Name and describe the five major promotion tools used in marketing. (AASCB:
Communication)
12-2. What is integrated marketing communications (IMC), and how does a company go about
implementing it? (AACSB: Communication)
12.3. Compare and contrast push and pull promotion strategies and discuss the factors
marketers consider when deciding which one to use. (AACSB: Communication;
Reflective Thinking)
12.4. What are the role and functions of public relations within an organization? (AACSB:
Communication)
12.5. Discuss the major public relations tools and the roles played by the Internet and social
media. (AACSB: Communication)
Critical Thinking Exercises
12.6. Marketers use Q Scores to determine a celebrity’s appeal to their target audience.
Research Q Scores and write a report on a specific celebrity’s Q Score for the past several
years. If the score changed considerably, what could be the reason? What other types of Q
Scores are there besides scores for celebrities? (AACSB: Communication; Reflective
Thinking)
12.7. Find three examples of advertisements that incorporate socially responsible marketing in
their messages. Some companies are criticized for exploiting social issues or
organizations by promoting them for their own gain. Do the examples you found do that?
Explain. (AACSB: Communication; Ethical Reasoning; Reflective Thinking)
12.8. The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) awards the best public relations
campaigns with Silver Anvil Awards. Visit www.prsa.org/Awards/Search and review
several case reports on previous winners. What does the field of public relations
encompass? Write a report on one of the award winners focusing on marketing-related
activities. (AACSB: Communication; Use of IT; Reflective Thinking)
Minicases and Applications
Online, Mobile, and Social Media Marketing: Native Advertising
Marketers have always advertised in traditional media such as newspapers, television, and
magazines, but today they are increasingly creating content for the online platforms of these
media through native advertising, also called sponsored content. This form of promotion is not
new. It dates back to the late 1880s as “reading notices” that placed information about brands and
companies in news stories, usually without indicating sponsorship. However, sponsorship of
today’s native advertising is often clearly labeled. Native advertising is growing quickly. It is
now offered by 73 percent of online publishers, and more than 40 percent of brands now use it.
For example, Forbes’s BrandVoice lets companies such as IBM and CenturyLink place content
both in the print magazine and on its digital platform at Forbes.com. Readers can learn from
CenturyLink about how big data will change travel marketing or from Samsung about how to
close the gender gap in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. Other
publisher sites, such as The Huffington Post, help marketers create sponsored content. Its
HuffPost Partner Studio provides writers, designers, and editors who assist business partners in
creating relevant content about their brands in the familiar HuffPost voice. Fiber One tells
readers “11 Diet ‘Rules’ You Can Absolutely Break,” IBM explains how businesses can use
social media, and Cottonelle tells readers how to fix the mistakes they are making in the
bathroom. Social media are also getting in on the action. For example, Facebook reaped more
than $1 billion in mobile native advertising alone in just one quarter. The rapid growth of native
advertising has also caught the attention of the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC recently
held a conference, “Blurred Lines: Advertising or Content? An FTC Workshop on Native
Advertising” to discuss the issues of blending advertising with news and other content, leaving
some to wonder if further regulations are forthcoming.
12.9. Find examples of native advertising on various publishers’ Web and mobile sites. Create a
presentation with screenshots showing the content and how it is identified. Has the
content been shared with others via social media? (AACSB: Communication; Use of IT)
12.10. Debate whether the FTC’s current regulations and guidelines regarding online advertising
are adequate for this nature of advertising promotions. Will the FTC likely issue new
guidelines or regulations? (AACSB Communication; Reflective Thinking)
Marketing Ethics: Amazon’s Dronerama
On the eve of the biggest e-commerce shopping day of the year in 2013, Amazon’s normally
secretive founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, scored a public relations home run by going on CBS’s
60 Minutes program to unveil the company’s Prime Air unmanned aircraft project to deliver
packages to consumers’ doorsteps. Forget that it couldn’t be implemented because the Federal
Aviation Administration does not allow such use of drones and that it will likely be 2026 before
drone delivery might even be possible. The interview set off “Dronerama,” as some have called
it. The next morning—Cyber Monday—the media were abuzz about drone delivery, with news
organizations and Internet sites replaying the video of Amazon’s cool drone delivering a
package. The normally hard-hitting 60 Minutes interview has been criticized because the
interviewer, the famous Charlie Rose, seemed to gush all over Bezos and ignore other
controversial issues, such as working conditions at Amazon. Rose further gushed over Amazon
during the 60 Minutes Overtime digital supplement to the show. Critics believe the normally
unattainable Bezos called the shots in return for appearing on the show. “Dronerama” not only
got Amazon on every cyber shoppers’ lips on that all-important online shopping day, it seemed to
take some of the wind out of the sails of a recently released book critical of Bezos at a time when
Amazon needed customers the most.
12.11. Watch the 60 Minutes interview at
www.cbsnews.com/news/amazons-jeff-bezos-looks-to-the-future/. Is it ethical for
companies to use the media in this way to gain favorable exposure? Did Jeff Bezos
acknowledge the fact that drones were not feasible at the time of the interview? (AACSB:
Communication; Ethical Reasoning; Reflective Thinking)
12.12. Create a presentation on the publicity Amazon received as a result of the 60 Minutes
interview and continues to receive over drone delivery. Would you judge this campaign a
success or failure? (AACSB: Communication; Use of IT; Reflective Thinking)
Marketing by the Numbers: Advertising-to-Sales Ratios
Using the percent-of-sales method, an advertiser sets its advertising budget at a certain
percentage of current or forecasted sales. However, determining what percentage to use is not
always clear. Many marketers look at industry averages and competitor spending for
comparisons. Web sites and trade publications publish data regarding industry averages to guide
marketers in setting the percentage to use. For example, firms competing in the toy and apparel
industries spend 10 percent or more of sales on advertising, whereas firms competing in the
mortgage servicing and insulation industries spend less than 1 percent of sales on advertising.
You read about GEICO at the beginning of the chapter. It is the number-two auto insurer with
$17 billion in revenue last year. It spent $1.1 billion on advertising that year and plans to
continue spending the same percentage of sales on advertising next year. The average
advertising-to-sales ratio for the insurance industry is 0.1 percent of sales.
12.13. If GEICO projects $19 billion in sales next year, using the percentage-of-sales method of
advertising budgeting, how much will the company budget for advertising if basing it on
projected sales? (AACSB: Communication; Analytical Reasoning; Reflective Thinking)
12.14. How much would GEICO budget if the company based its advertising spending on the
industry advertising-to-sales ratio? Is GEICO consistent with average industry ad
spending? (AACSB: Communication; Analytical Reasoning; Reflective Thinking)