108
Chapter 14: Promoting Products: Public Relations and Sales Promotions
Chapter Objectives
1. Understand the different public relations activities: press relations, product publicity,
corporate communications, lobbying, and counseling.
2. Understand the public relations process: research, establishing marketing objectives,
4. Explain how sales promotion campaigns are developed and implemented.
5. Implement a crisis management program in a hospitality business.
Teaching Suggestions
The following explanations and suggestions are outlined based on the Chapter Objectives.
1. Understand the different public relations activities: press relations, product
publicity, corporate communications, lobbying, and counseling.
Press Relations: The aim of press relations is to place newsworthy information
2. Understand the public relations process: research, establishing marketing
objectives, defining the target audience, choosing the PR message and vehicles, and
evaluating PR results.
Effective Public Relations is the result of a process a process that must be integrated
Research: Before a company can develop a PR program, it must understand the
bjectives, strategies, and culture
o Environmental scanning system is another important source of information
for the PR manager
109
Choosing the PR Message and Vehicles: The PR practitioner is now ready to
identify or develop interesting stories about the product or service (Ex. Papa
3. Explain how companies use public relations to communicate and influence
important publics.
Publications: Annual reports, brochures, cards, articles, audiovisual material,
company newsletters and magazines are all effective forms of print that spread the
word and create reactions
Events: Events can often be developed to offer companies opportunities to invite
110
4. Explain how sales promotion campaigns are developed and implemented.
Sales promotion consists of short-term incentives to encourage the purchase or sale of a
product or service and includes a variety of promotional tools designed to stimulate
earlier or stronger market response. In using sales promotions, a company must:
Setting Sales Promotion Objectives: Consumer promotions can increase short-
term sales or they can be used to help build long-term market share
o Sales promotions should be consumer franchise building; that is, they
5. Implement a crisis management program in a hospitality business.
Crisis management includes taking all possible precautions to prevent negative events
Chapter Outline
I. Public Relations. [Slide 14-3] The process by which a positive image and customer
preference are created through third-party endorsement. Social media has become an
important tool for public relations.
II. Major Activities of PR Departments [Slide 14-4]
T. Press relations. The aim of press relations is to place newsworthy information into
the news media to attract attention to a person, product, or service.
111
III. Publicity. Publicity is a direct function of PR. Publicity is the task of securing editorial
and news space, as opposed to paid space, in print and broadcast media to promote a
product or a service. Publicity is a popular PR tool used in the five activities described
earlier. Three other popular uses of publicity are new product launches, special events,
and crisis management.
IV. The Public Relations Process [Slide 14-5]
E.
communication.
F. Establishing marketing objectives [Slide 14-6]
2.Build credibility
4.Lower promotion costs
G. Defining the target audience
H. Choosing the PR message and vehicles
4.Publications. Companies can reach and influence their target market via
5.Events. Companies can draw attention to new products or other company
activities by arranging special events.
7.Speeches. Speeches create product and company publicity. The
8.Public service activities. Companies can improve goodwill by
112
B. Implementing the marketing PR plan
C. Evaluating PR results [Slide 14-7]
1.Exposures
3.Sales-and-profit contribution
VII. PR Opportunities for the Hospitality Industry [Slide 14-8]
I. Individual properties. Public relations is by far the most important promotional
tool available to entrepreneurs and individual properties, such as a single
VIII. Crisis Management
M. Take all precautions to prevent negative events from occurring.
N. When a crisis does occur:
2.Appoint a spokesperson. This ensures that the company is giving a
II. Sales Promotion [Slide 14-9]
A. Setting sales promotion objectives. Sales promotion objectives vary widely and
can include increasing short-term sales, increasing long-term sales, getting
B. Selecting sales promotion tools. [Slide 14-10] Many tools can be used to
113
C. Finding creative ideas
D. Developing the sales promotion program. The following steps are involved in
developing a sales promotion program:
1.Decide on the size of the incentive
E. Pretesting and implementing the plan. The marketer should pretest to determine
if sales promotion tools are appropriate and the incentive size is efficient and
effective.
III. Local Store Marketing. A good local store marketing campaign is an effective way for
both a chain and an individually owned restaurant or hotel to gain goodwill and exposure
in the community.
Answers to Discussion Questions
1. What is meant by the term public? Can a company have more than one public?
2. Why might it make sense for a hotel chain to shift some of its advertising dollars to
public relations?
Show your students an article or independent review about a hotel and an advertisement
3. Give some examples of how a hospitality organization might be able to gain
publicity.
This is a great topic for class discussion and could include such things as:
4. Is publicity free?
This is a good topic for class discussion to get your students thinking about the costs
5. Compare and contrast publicity with advertising. What are the benefits and
drawbacks of each?
This is a good question to discuss while covering #2 (above). Elements of consideration
6.
community?