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Chapter 12:
E-Marketing Communication: Owned Media
Review Questions
1. What is integrated marketing communication and why is it important?
2. Why do marketers keep the AIDA or hierarchy of effects model in mine when
planning social media strategy?
The traditional AIDA model (awareness, interest, desire, and action) or the “think,
feel, do” hierarchy of effects model guides marketers’ selection and evaluation of
MarCom tools for use on the Internet. Both the AIDA and hierarchy of effects
3. What are the five traditional marketing communication tools, and what are
some social media platform examples of each?
Advertising — Paid message placed in a YouTube video, Facebook or LinkedIn ad,
Google AdWords, promoted Tweets, paid product placement in virtual worlds or
online games, and ad sponsored content delivered to mobile phones.
Public relations — Company-created multimedia content (e.g., online videos, blogs,
wikis, photos, book/product reviews, podcasts, answering questions on sites such as
eHow and Yahoo! Answers), social
4. How do the reach and control of marketing communications in owned, paid, and
earned media differ?
Owned media carry communication messages from the organization to internet users
with a limited reach, on channels that are owned and, thus, at least partially
controlled by, the company.
5. What is marketing public relations (MPR), and how can an organization use its
Web site as owned media for this purpose?
Marketing public relations (MPR) includes brand-related activities and nonpaid,
6. Why would a company use e-mail or text messaging instead of postal direct mail
for marketing?
7. How are advergames used in marketing?
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8. What are the marketing benefits of initiating, participating in, and influencing
conversations on social networks?
The benefits are many. Social network activities can raise brand awareness, improve
favorable perception of a brand/product/service, increase customer acquisition,
9. How does natural search differ from paid search and vertical search?
Paid search occurs when an advertiser pays a reputation aggregator a fee for
directory submission, inclusion in a search engine index, or to display their ad when
10. Why is search engine optimization an important consideration for the
company’s owned media strategy?
Discussion Questions
11. Will It Blend? Story. What other owned media do you think this company could
use to build its brand online? Explain your rationale.
Answers will vary, as this is an opinion-based question. In addition to YouTube and
12. Will It Blend? Story. How do the videos create earned media? Are there any
other things the company could do to engage users to create more earned
media?
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The Blendtec videos create earned media are because in this case, individual
13. “Great products + Weak branding = Weak sales.” The CEO of Blendtec said
this before his Will It Blend? videos became an internet sensation. How does the
hierarchy of effects model explain the CEO’s comment and the sales results that
followed this marketing success?
The hierarchy of effects model contains both a “feel” and a “do” component, in
14. Why would a company prefer the control of owned media over the extended
reach of the “many to many” model?
15. What are the possible marketing consequences of not having an effective search
engine optimization strategy?
Search engines are reputation aggregators— Web sites that rank other Web sites,
16. As a consumer, how are you likely to react when you see that a company
representative tweets a comment about a specific topic after other consumers
have opened the conversation? What guidelines would you recommend that
marketers follow for joining such conversations?
Answers will vary, as this is an opinion-based question. It is extremely important to
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17. Have you scanned any QR codes? Do you think marketers should include QR
codes in their IMC plans? Why or why not?
Answers will vary, as this is an opinion-based question. Many believe that QR codes
18. Which could be more important to an airline selling seats on its flights: a general
search engine or a vertical search site? Explain your answer.
In this case, a vertical search site would help an airline sell more seats. A vertical