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Chapter 15: Marketing Communications
1
Chapter 15
Marketing Communications
This chapter begins with the learning outcome summaries followed by a set of lesson plans for
instructors to use to deliver the content.
• Lecture (for large sections) on page 4
• Company Clips (video) on page 5
• Group Work (for smaller sections) on page 8
Review and Assignments begin on page 10
Review questions
Application questions
Application exercise
Ethics exercise
Video assignment
Case assignment
Great Ideas for Teaching Marketing from faculty around the country begin on page 26
Chapter 15: Marketing Communications
2
Learning Outcomes
15-1 Discuss the role of promotion in the marketing mix
Promotional strategy is the plan for using the elements of promotion—advertising, public
15-2 Describe the communication process
The communication process has several steps. When an individual or organization has a message
it wishes to convey to a target audience, it encodes that message using language and symbols
15-3 Explain the goals and tasks of promotion
The fundamental goals of promotion are to induce, modify, or reinforce behavior by informing,
persuading, and reminding. Informative promotion explains a good’s or service’s purpose and
benefits. Promotion that informs the consumer is typically used to increase demand for a general
Chapter 15: Marketing Communications
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15-4 Discuss the elements of the promotional mix
The elements of the promotional mix include advertising, public relations, sales promotion,
personal selling, and social media. Advertising is a form of impersonal, one-way mass
15-5 Discuss the AIDA concept and its relationship to the promotional mix
The AIDA model outlines the four basic stages in the purchase decision-making process, which
15-6 Discuss the concept of integrated marketing communications
Integrated marketing communications is the careful coordination of all promotional messages for
a product or service to ensure the consistency of messages at every contact point where a
15-7 Describe the factors that affect the promotional mix
Promotion managers consider many factors when creating promotional mixes. These factors
include the nature of the product, product life cycle stage, target market characteristics, the type
Chapter 15: Marketing Communications
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© 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
decision is complex or routine. The amount of funds a firm has to allocate to promotion may also
help determine the promotional mix. Last, if a firm uses a push strategy to promote the product
or service, the marketing manager might choose to use aggressive advertising and personal
selling to wholesalers and retailers. If a pull strategy is chosen, then the manager often relies on
aggressive mass promotion, such as advertising and sales promotion, to stimulate consumer
demand.
Key Terms
Advertising
Integrated marketing
communications (IMC)
Promotional mix
AIDA concept
Promotional strategy
Channel
Interpersonal communication
Publicity
Communication
Mass communication
Public relations
Competitive advantage
Noise
Pull strategy
Decoding
Owned media
Push strategy
Encoding
Paid media
Receiver
Earned media
Personal selling
Sales promotion
Feedback
Promotion
Sender
Lesson Plan for Lecture
Brief Outline and Suggested PowerPoint Slides
Learning Outcomes and Topics
PowerPoint Slides
LO1 Discuss the role of promotion in the
marketing mix
15-1 The Role of Promotion in the
Marketing Mix
1. Marketing Communications
2. Learning Outcomes
3. The Role of Promotion in the Marketing
Mix
4. Promotion
5. Exhibit 15.1: Role of Promotion in the
Marketing Mix
6. Competitive Advantage
LO2 Describe the communication process
15-2 Marketing Communication
7. Marketing Communication
8. Communication
9. Roles of Marketers
10. Exhibit 15.2: Communication Process
11. Impact of Social Media and Internet on
Communication Model
Chapter 15: Marketing Communications
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Learning Outcomes and Topics
PowerPoint Slides
LO3 Explain the goals and tasks of
promotion
15-3 The Goals of Promotion
12. The Goals of Promotion
13. Tasks of Promotion
LO4 Discuss the elements of the
promotional mix
15-4 The Promotional Mix
14. The Promotional Mix
15. Promotional Mix
16. Exhibit 15.3:Digital Media Types
17. Exhibit 15.4: Characteristics of the Elements
in the Promotional Mix
LO5 Discuss the AIDA concept and its
relationship to the promotional mix
15-5 Promotional Goals and the AIDA
Concept
18. Promotional Goals and the AIDA Concept
19. AIDA Concept
20. Exhibit 15.5: The Promotional Mix and
AIDA
LO6 Discuss the concept of integrated
marketing communications
15-6 Integrated Marketing
Communications
21. Integrated Marketing Communications
22. Integrated Marketing Communications
(IMC)
LO7 Describe the factors that affect the
promotional mix
15-7 Factors Affecting the Promotional
Mix
23. Factors Affecting the Promotional Mix
24. Factors Affecting the Choice of Promotional
Mix
25. Exhibit 15.6: Product Life Cycle and the
Promotional Mix
26. Target Market Characteristics
27. Type of Business Decisions and
Promotional Mix
28. Available Funds
29. Exhibit 15.7: Push Strategy versus Pull
Strategy
30. Key Terms
31. Key Terms
32. Summary
33. Summary
Chapter 15: Marketing Communications
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Suggested Homework
• The end of this chapter contains assignments for the Pepe’s Pizzeria video and for the
Coors Light case.
• This chapter’s online study tools include flashcards, visual summaries, practice quizzes,
and other resources that can be assigned or used as the basis for longer investigations into
marketing.
Lesson Plan for Video
Company Clips
Segment Summary: Pepe’s Pizzeria
Pepe’s Pizzeria is a popular restaurant located in Connecticut. The CEO discusses the thought
process behind their marketing strategy, how promotions work for Pepe’s and the general
location strategy that comes into play when opening new locations.
These teaching notes combine activities that you can assign students to prepare before class, that
you can do in class before watching the video, that you can do in class while watching the video,
and that you can assign students to complete as assignments after watching the video in class.
During the viewing portion of the teaching notes, stop the video periodically where appropriate
to ask students the questions or perform the activities listed on the grid. You may even want to
give the students the questions before starting the video and have them think about the answers
while viewing the segment. That way, students will be engaged in active viewing rather than
passive viewing.
Pre-Class Prep for You
Pre-Class Prep for Your Students
Chapter 15: Marketing Communications
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• Preview the Company Clips video segment
for Chapter 15. This exercise reviews
concepts for LO1–LO7.
• Review your lesson plan.
• Make sure you have all of the equipment
needed to show the video to the class,
including the DVD and a way to project
the video.
• You can also stream the video HERE
• Have students review and familiarize
themselves with the following terms and
concepts: competitive advantage, elements of
the promotional mix, the communication
process, the goals and tasks of promotion, the
AIDA concept, factors that affect the
marketing mix, and integrated marketing
communications.
• Have students bring written definitions of
three of the above terms to class.
• Ask students to monitor their mail (or a
friend’s mail) for two weeks. Have them
collect all the mail that pertains to restaurants
in those two weeks, and bring it to class.
Video Review Exercise
Activity
Warm Up
Briefly discuss students’ findings. What types of restaurants are sending out
mailers? Are they national chains, local chains, independent restaurants, delivery
only, dine-in promotions? Ask students about their restaurant dining habits: how
often do they dine in? Carry out/eat delivered food? Have them classify the types
of restaurants they eat at in an average month. Based on the results, discuss
student perceptions on the mailers they brought in and why they do/don’t eat
there.
In-Class
Preview
• Remind students about the elements of promotion while you Exhibit 15.1 (the
role of promotion in the marketing mix) onto the board.
• Discuss Exhibit 15.1, Role of Promotion in the Marketing Mix. Point out that
promotion does not simply refer to advertising, but the whole of an
organization’s communication strategy.
• Discuss Exhibit 15.2, Communication Process. Select either a mailer brought
in by a student or a promotion for a well-known product to use as an example,
and discuss how noise can adversely affect the desired effect of a message.
Also, note that marketers are increasingly relying on individual consumer
feedback to adjust their marketing mixes.
• Have copies of the Company Clips questions available for students to take
notes on while viewing the video segment.
Viewing
(Solutions
below.)
1. What are the goals for Pepe’s promotions? Explain your reasoning.
2. Discuss how the factors that affect the promotional mix affect how Pepe’s
promotes its various locations.
Chapter 15: Marketing Communications
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Follow-up
• In class, divide students into groups of three to five students and have them
prepare a short report on how Pepe’s Pizzeria integrates its marketing
communications.
Solutions for Viewing Activities
1. What are the goals for Pepe’s promotions? Explain your reasoning.
Student answers will vary. They could address how Pepe’s integrates its atmosphere into
2. Discuss how the factors that affect the promotional mix affect how Pepe’s promotes
its various locations.
Student answers will vary. The following are some possible answers for each of the factors
affecting the promotional mix.
Nature of the product: Pepe’s is a consumable, and is restricted to areas where customers
can come eat in or pick up their pizza. It is viewed as a consumer product, but could also
Chapter 15: Marketing Communications
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© 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
Lesson Plan for Group Work
In most cases, group activities should be completed after some chapter content has been covered,
probably in the second or third session of the chapter coverage. (See “Lesson Plan for Lecture”
above.)
• For “Class Activity—Promotional Mix,” provide the information and the questions asked
by the class activities.
• The first Application Exercise is extremely well suited to group work. Form students into
teams of no more than four students. Each team must create a print advertisement for a
given product without using a set of words generally used in association with the product.
This is a variation on the Hasbro game Taboo. Full information on setting up the exercise
can be found later in this manual.
Class Activity—Promotional Mix
The purpose of this exercise is to emphasize the effect of various factors on the strategy of
choosing a promotional mix. The main factors that affect the promotional mix can be classified
into three major categories: 1) product related, 2) market related, and 3) organization related.
Product-related factors include product type, product costs and risks, product life cycle stage, and
amount and complexity of product information. Market-related considerations are target market
characteristics and the type of buying decision involved. Organization-related factors are the
availability of funds and feasibility of a push or pull strategy.
Divide the class into teams and give each team one of the following situation descriptions:
Situation 1
Consumer durable product that is slightly complex
Introductory stage of product life cycle
Chapter 15: Marketing Communications
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Selective distribution
Large firm
Highly concentrated market (in large urban areas only)
Situation 2
Convenience item
Growth stage of product life cycle
Intensive distribution
Small firm
Non-concentrated, large market
Situation 3
Industrial product that is large, complex, and expensive
Introductory stage of product life cycle
Small company (few available funds)
Small market, highly dispersed
Situation 4
Consumer food item
Mature stage of product life cycle
Intensive distribution
Large company
Non-concentrated market
Each team should present a plan that outlines the promotion ingredients to be used and the
relative importance of each element in the promotional mix. The team should be able to explain
which factors were most important and how the team arrived at its decisions.
Review and Assignments for Chapter 15
Review Questions
1. What is a promotional strategy? Explain the concept of a competitive advantage in
relation to promotional strategy.
Although students’ answers will vary, they should address some of these points: The role
of promotion strategy is to convince target customers that the firm’s product offerings
© 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
2. Why is understanding the target market a crucial aspect of the communication
process?
Successful communication requires a degree of a common “language” or overlapping
frames of reference between the source and the receiver. Even people who speak the same
3. Discuss the attention, interest, desire, and action (AIDA) concept. How do these
different stages of consumer involvement affect the promotional mix?
The AIDA concept was developed to explain the process through which consumers reach
4. Explain the difference between a “pull” promotional strategy and a “push”
promotional strategy. Under what conditions should each strategy be used?
“Push” strategies are commonly used for new products for which consumers have little
5. Discuss the importance of integrated marketing communications. Give some current
examples of companies that are and are not practicing integrated marketing
Chapter 15: Marketing Communications
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communications.
Integrated marketing communications carefully coordinate all the promotional activities to
Application Questions
1. As the promotional manager for a new line of cosmetics targeted to preteen girls, you
have been assigned the task of deciding which promotional mix elements—
advertising, public relations, sales promotion, and personal selling—should be used in
promoting it. Your budget for promoting the preteen cosmetics line is limited. Write a
promotional plan explaining your choice of promotional mix elements given the
nature of the product, the stage in the product life cycle, target market
characteristics, type of buying decision, available funds, and “pull” or “push”
strategy.
Answers to this question will vary greatly.
2. Why might a marketing manager choose to promote his or her product using
persuasion? Give some current examples of persuasive promotion.
Persuasive promotion is typically used to build customer loyalty for a product in the
growth stage of the product life cycle. At this point in a product’s development, the target
3. Choose a partner from the class and go together to interview the owner or manager of
several small businesses in your city. Ask them what their promotional objectives are
and why. For example, are they trying to inform, persuade, or remind customers to
do business with them? Also determine if they believe they have an awareness
problem or whether they need to persuade customers to come to them instead of
Chapter 15: Marketing Communications
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competitors. Ask them to list the characteristics of their primary market, the
strengths and weaknesses of their direct competitors, and how they are positioning
their store to compete. Prepare a report to present in class summarizing your
findings.
Students’ reports will vary greatly.
4. How does a website’s ease of use affect its ability to create attention, interest, desire,
and action? Visit the kitchen and bath pages of Kohler’s website
(http://www.kohler.com) and determine how successful the company is at moving
consumers through the AIDA process.
Students’ answers will vary.
5. Use Radioguide.com (http://www.radioguide.com/) to find a listing of radio websites
in your area. View several of the stations’ sites and compare the promotions featured.
What conclusions can you draw about the target market of each station based on the
types of promotions they are currently running? Would any of the promotions entice
you to tune to a station that you normally don’t listen to?
Students’ answers will vary.
6. Visit teenresearch.com. What research can this company offer about the size and
growth of the teen market, buying power of teenagers, and their buying habits? Why
might these statistics be important to a company targeting teenagers in terms of
marketing communications and promotional strategy?
7. What do you think is the role of Hallmark’s website (http://www.hallmark.com/) in
the company’s integrated marketing communications plan? What seems to be the
marketing function of the site? Do you think the site is effective?
Students’ answers will vary.
Application Exercises
Application 1
Chapter 15: Marketing Communications
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Many people are not aware of the rationale behind certain advertising messages. “Why do
Infiniti ads show rocks and trees instead of automobiles?” “If car safety is so important, why do
automobile ads often show cars skidding on wet, shiny surfaces?” “Target’s ads are funky, with
all the bright colors and product packaging, but what’s the message?”
One way to understand the vagaries of the encoding process is to think of the popular board
game Taboo by Hasbro. In this game, each team tries to get its members to guess a word without
using obvious word clues. For example, to get the team to guess “apple,” you may not say such
words as red, fruit, pie, cider, or core. Sometimes advertising is like Taboo in that advertisers are
not allowed to use certain words or descriptions. For example, pharmaceutical companies are not
permitted to make certain claims or to say what a drug treats unless the ad also mentions the
potential side effects. Language choices are also limited in advertising. To appreciate this, you
can apply the Taboo game rules in an advertising format.
Purpose: Many students are unclear as to the rationale behind certain advertising messages, so
this exercise is designed to help students understand the artistry inherent in the encoding process.
Setting it Up: This works as an individual assignment, but is an exceptional group project. This
is because it blends many modalities, is an engaging activity, and provides students with what
may be considered a welcome change from the text-based learning that is the norm for most. If
you choose to assign a group project, then it is suggested that you allot a class period for students
to present their work.
Activities
1. Select a product from the list below, and then create a print advertisement or a television
storyboard for that product. As part of the exercise, give your product a brand name. Taboo
words, visuals, and concepts are given for each product type. Taboo items cannot be
present in your work.
Product Taboo Words, Visuals, and Concepts
Deodorant Odor, underarm, perspiration, smell, sweat
Pain reliever Pain, aches, fever, child-proof cap, gel
Soft drinks Sugar-free, refreshing, thirst, swimwear, any celebrity
2. Now create a second ad or storyboard for your product. This time, however, you must use
all the words, visuals, and concepts that are listed in the right column.
Product Must-Use Words, Visuals, and Concepts
Chapter 15: Marketing Communications
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Deodorant A romantic couple, monster trucks
Pain reliever A mother and child, oatmeal, homework
Soft drinks A cup of coffee, cookies, birthday cake, wine
This exercise was inspired by the following Great Idea in Teaching Marketing:
Lynn R. Goodwin, University of St. Thomas
Taboo or not Taboo, That is the Question
When discussing the communication process in my advertising class, many of my students have
some difficulty understanding the artistry inherent in the encoding process. More precisely, many
students are unclear as to the rationale behind certain advertising messages. “Why did Infiniti ads
show rocks and trees instead of automobiles?” they ask. Or, “Why did MCI show a waif with a
funny accent and hat jumping around on a rock strewn beach?”
Many of us, not being privy to the innermost workings of certain ad agency brains, may have no
answer to these types of questions. Here is an exercise that helps students understand the
vagaries of the encoding process.
Begin by bringing a copy of Taboo (Hasbro’s well-known game) to class. The object of the game
is simple: each player must get the other members of his or her team to say a particular word.
The catch is that certain other words cannot be used during this process. These words are taboo
(hence the game’s name). For example, in attempting to elicit the word apple, players are
prohibited from using the words red, fruit, pie, cider, and core.
Following the playing of Taboo, enter into a brief discussion of how the game relates to the
communication process (specifically encoding and decoding). Subsequently discuss the rationale
behind many advertisers’ less than straightforward messages.
Use ethical (prescription) pharmaceuticals as an example and point out that certain health claims
are not permitted in advertisements unless accompanied by the legally mandated detailed
prescribing information. This effectively limits what can be said regarding a drug’s benefits in
the broadcast media. Other reasons behind either internally imposed or externally imposed
limitations on advertising messages are also covered. Product deficits that might preclude a focus
on certain features or aspects of the product are a frequently discussed internally mediated
limitation, while ethical restrictions imposed by professional organizations on advertising are a
frequently discussed externally mediated limitation. In addition, I usually remind the students
that advertising may be affective in nature or have as its goal less direct objectives such as
communicating a lifestyle.
