Chapter 11: Sales Promotion and Point of Purchase ❖ 12
A. Outdoor Signs and Billboards
Billboards, posters, and outdoor signs are perhaps the oldest advertising form. Posters
first appeared in North America during the Revolutionary War to keep the civilian
population informed.
More than $7 billion is spent annually to deliver marketers’ messages on the literally
hundreds of thousands of billboards in the United States.
1. Pros and Cons
Outdoor advertising offers several distinct advantages:
• Billboards also offer around-the-clock exposure for a marketer’s message
and are well suited to showing off a brand’s distinctive packaging or logo.
• Billboards are especially effective when they reach passersby with a
message that speaks to a need or desire that is immediately relevant.
Billboards have drawbacks:
• Long and complex messages simply make no sense on billboards; some
• Assessing locations is a tedious and time-consuming activity known in the
industry as riding the boards.
• The Institute of Outdoor Advertising rates billboards as expensive relative
to several other media alternatives.
• Environmentalists argue that billboards are a form of visual pollution.
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• Many websites now offer directory advertising. These are useful, but people
still want their paper-based directories.
D. Packaging
Packaging is considered a support medium because it carries important brand
information like the logo. Several firms have experienced both promotional and sales
impact from strategic changes in package design.
Packaging offers marketers several promotional benefits:
• The package carries the brand name and logo.
• The package can communicate “value.”
• The package can communicate “image” and “quality.”
E. More than Support
Sometimes the capabilities and economies of support media lead them to be featured
in a media plan. Sometimes the particular advantages of support media, such as
transit advertising, fit a marketer’s communication objectives so perfectly that this
medium will be used as the primary method for reaching consumers.
Edgy, clever, attention-attracting promotional efforts using a wide variety of support
media are referred to as guerrilla marketing. Some brands, including IKEA the
furniture retailer, have adopted a guerrilla marketing tradition for their promotional
efforts around the world. Another example is BMW, which mounted a Mini on top of
a truck and drove around urban areas to attract attention to the brand.
SOLUTIONS TO REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What characteristics of sales promotions account for the high levels of expenditures
that have been allocated to them in recent years?
2. Compare and contrast frequency-marketing programs (described in Chapter 10) with
sales promotions directed at consumers. What common motivators do these two types of
activities rely on? How are their purposes similar or different? What goal is a frequency-
marketing program trying to achieve that would not be a prime concern with a sales
promotion?
Chapter 11: Sales Promotion and Point of Purchase ❖ 15
3. What is brand proliferation, and why is it occurring? Why do consumer sales
promotions become more commonplace in the face of rampant brand proliferation? Why
do trade sales promotions become more frequent when there is excessive brand
proliferation?
Every year, thousands of new brands—many of them actually variations on old
brands—enter the marketplace. The drive by marketers to develop products for newly
4. What role does sales promotion play in the trade channel and in business markets?
Although sales promotion might be most commonly associated with the consumer
5. Why are sales promotions considered “risky” as a tool for integrated marketing
communication (IMC)?
While sales promotions can produce quick results in stimulating product demand,
marketers must balance those outcomes against some significant risks associated with
Chapter 11: Sales Promotion and Point of Purchase ❖ 16
6. Consumers often rationalize their purchase of a new product with a statement such
as, “I bought it because I had a 50-cent coupon and our grocery store was doubling all
manufacturers’ coupons this week.” What are the prospects that such a consumer will
emerge as a loyal user of the product? What must happen in order for such consumers to
become loyal?
When consumers explain their brand selections with a rationale such as “I had a
7. What factors contribute to the increasing power of large retailers such as Wal-Mart
in today’s marketplace? Explain how merchandise allowances and slotting fees are
connected to the growth in retailer power.
Retailers gain power in the marketplace as a result of unbridled brand proliferation.
8. What role does point-of-purchase advertising play as an IMC tool? In what ways can a
firm ensure coordination of its P-O-P with other promotional efforts?
Research indicates that some 70 percent of all product selections involve some final
deliberations by consumers at the point of purchase. P-O-P is used in the retail setting
Chapter 11: Sales Promotion and Point of Purchase ❖ 17
and cash register racks, and these many in-store options allow marketers to reinforce
9. What advantages do billboards and transit advertising offer a marketer as part of an
IMC program?
Out-of-home media, such as billboards and transit advertisements, offer marketers
10. How has use of the Internet as a research tool affected traditional business
directories such as the Yellow Pages?
Although Internet-based directories might appear to be in direct competition with
print directories, consumers have demonstrated that they still want their old-style
11. How does packaging function as a support medium? What sort of “message” does a
consumer get from a package?
While not a support medium in the classic sense, packaging nonetheless plays a vital
Chapter 11: Sales Promotion and Point of Purchase ❖ 18
SOLUTIONS TO EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISES
1. Working in small teams, imagine that you have been hired by a major American
automaker to design a sales promotion campaign to stimulate sales of its newly
developed economy car, known as the Zoom. Identify which of the sales promotion
techniques described in the chapter could be most effective and why. Your answer also
should outline for the manufacturer what potential risks the firm takes in incorporating
sales promotions into its IMC campaign.
Students should demonstrate an understanding of the various methods of sales
promotion and the appropriateness of specific methods for a product like an
2. Working in the same teams, imagine that you have been hired by the Gap to develop a
support media campaign in Washington, D.C., intended to stimulate sales among young
professionals, ages 22 to 30. The clothing manufacturer is particularly interested in
developing an edgy, out-of-home media campaign that can capture the attention of the
large population of young professionals who work in the city and are frequent users of
the Washington subway system. What would you develop, and why do you think it would
be effective?
This exercise should allow students to show some creative flair while also
demonstrating their understanding of the powerful influence that out-of-home media
can have on a brand. Look for ideas about storytelling between subway station
3. Visit any major retailer or supermarket, and see how many point-of-purchase displays
you can find. Note which advertiser uses which displays, and evaluate each display’s
likely usefulness as a sales promotion tool.
Chapter 11: Sales Promotion and Point of Purchase ❖ 19
Answer sheets for this exercise should be overflowing with examples, from dump
bins of crackers to giant inflatable beer bottles near coolers, to the ubiquitous
4. As brand managers struggle to capture consumer attention through traditional mass-
media advertising, they are increasingly turning to packaging innovations to draw
consumer interest and stimulate sales. Research the packaging changes and evolution of
three common items: Kleenex tissues, Pepsi soda, and Coors beer. Describe the various
packaging changes experienced by each brand. What reasons might have prompted the
changes? How could the packaging changes stimulate sales?
Students should report back on some fairly significant packaging changes in recent
years for these three brands: the introduction by Kleenex of a sleek oval box for
POWERPOINT PRESENTATIONS
Use the Instructor PowerPoint files to pace your instruction and provide class notes on
key ideas and themes. Each presentation provides a slide-by-slide coordination with the
chapter’s learning outcomes, definitions, and visuals. Encourage students to use the
accompanying Student PowerPoint presentation to align and reinforce classroom
instruction with studying outside of the classroom.
VIDEOS
To view the two videos for this chapter, go to the PROMO book companion website,
www.cengage.com/login.
(*) Indicates the correct answer in the multiple-choice video questions.
Gap: Upside Down
1. What is the primary message transmitted in the Gap “Upside Down” promotion?
Chapter 11: Sales Promotion and Point of Purchase ❖ 20
d. Gap is turning its sales force upside down by encouraging them to give away every
fifth purchase in selected stores.
2. To dramatize the concept that Gap is turning shopping upside down, what tactics did
Gap use?
a. They had all of their store clerks wear special upside-down hats.
3. In the Gap “Upside Down” promotion, how were customers drawn into the concept?
d. Customers coming into the store received a goofy upside down mini-hamburger as
a reward.
4. In the Gap “Upside Down” promotion, what elements of sales promotion and point-of-
purchase were used? List at least two elements and explain how they were used.
5. In the Gap “Upside Down” promotion, what was the factor that “turned shopping
upside down?” Explain specifically what Gap did to its store and describe the promotion
that accompanied it.
Nordstrom Rack: Union Square Peepholes
1. What type of communication does the Nordstrom Rack “Union Square Peepholes”
videos represent?
Chapter 11: Sales Promotion and Point of Purchase ❖ 21
2. The Nordstrom Rack “Union Square Peepholes” videos represent aspects of sales
promotion and point-of-purchase tactics. What specifically do the videos show
Nordstrom doing? What was the goal of the Peepholes effort?
3. When passersby look into the Nordstrom Rack peepholes, what do they see?
a. Construction workers dressed in bright yellow Nordstrom jumpsuits.
4. The Nordstrom Rack “Union Square Peepholes” videos show:
a. Famous scenes from New York City including Central Park
5. The Nordstrom Rack “Union Square Peepholes” videos are likely aimed at:
d. Encouraging a safer environment for children