Marketing Chapter 20 Homework The Static Nature The Visual Images Print

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

In this chapter, we will address the following questions:

1. What steps are required in developing an advertising program?

2. How should marketers choose advertising media and measure their effectiveness?

3. How should sales promotion decisions be made?

4. What are the guidelines for effective brand-building events and experiences?

5. How can companies exploit the potential of public relations?

SUMMARY

1. Advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas,

2. Developing an advertising program is a five-step process: (1) set advertising

3. Sales promotion consists of mostly short-term incentive tools, designed to stimulate

5. Events and experiences are a means to become part of special and more personally

6. Public relations (PR) includes a variety of programs designed to promote or protect a

company’s image or its individual products. Marketing public relations (MPR), to

support the marketing department in corporate or product promotion and image

making, can affect public awareness at a fraction of the cost of advertising and is often

much more credible. The main tools of PR are publications, events, news, community

C H A P T E R

20

MANAGING MASS

COMMUNICATIONS:

ADVERTISING, SALES

PROMOTIONS, EVENTS

AND EXPERIENCES,

AND PUBLIC

RELATIONS

OPENING THOUGHT

Students will be familiar with the major forms of advertising. What might present

challenges to some students will be the ideas surrounding the five-step process involved:

set advertising objectives, establish a budget, choose the advertising message and creative

strategy, decide on the media, and evaluate the effects. The instructor is encouraged to

present examples of differing advertising campaigns and differing forms of

TEACHING STRATEGY AND CLASS ORGANIZATION

PROJECTS

1. At this point in the semester-long project, students should submit their advertising

2. Sponsorships are an integral part of life in America today. The support of college and

university’s teams by various sporting goods companies and local vendors add

3. Sonic PDA Marketing Plan: Advertising, sales promotion, and public relations are

among the most visible outcomes of any marketing plan. These mass communications

tools provide support for branding, product, pricing, and distribution strategies. At

Sonic, you are starting to plan promotional support for launching the new PDA. After

reviewing your earlier marketing mix decisions and your current situation as a new

player in the PDA market, respond to the following questions about your promotion

strategy:

• What message(s) do you want to communicate to your target audience? What

media are most appropriate, and why?

• Should you use consumer or trade promotion or both?

• Should you use public relations to promote Sonic and its products? If so, what

objectives will you set for your public relations program(s)?

ASSIGNMENTS

Organizations handle advertising in differing ways. In this assignment, students should

contact different size companies in their community (one large, one medium, and one

small company) and find out who is responsible for working with their ad agencies and

how (and where) did they receive their training in developing advertising messages. Was

or did their training primarily consist of “on-the-job” training? Experience learned from

previous positions in larger firms? Or is their understanding of the operation of

advertising more of a “learn as I go” process? In compiling their data, can the students

identify any common elements? Can we draw any inference from or about advertising

from the data?

In small groups, have the students create an advertising campaign for a product/service of

their choosing, including ad copy and creative execution (mock-up print ads, a

the most. Have the students share their commercials with the other class members and see

if the other members share the same opinion(s). Finally, in light of the advertising

objectives presented in this chapter, can the students “pick out” the

message of the ad?

END–OF–CHAPTER SUPPORT

Marketing Debate: Should Marketers Test Advertising?

Advertising creatives have long lamented ad pretesting. They believe that it inhibits their

creative process and results in much sameness in commercials. Marketers, on the other

hand, believe that ad pretesting provides necessary checks and balances as to whether an

ad campaign is being developed in a way so that it will connect with consumers and be

well-received in the marketplace.

Take a position: Ad pretesting in often an unnecessary waste of marketing dollars vs. ad

pretesting provides an important diagnostic function for marketers as to the likely success

of an ad campaign.

Con: Pretest critics maintain that agencies can design ads that test well but may not

necessarily perform well in the marketplace. Proponents of ad pretesting maintain that

useful diagnostic information can emerge and that pretests should not be used as the sole

decision criterion anyway. Widely acknowledged as being one of the best advertisers

around, Nike is notorious for doing very little ad pretesting.

MARKETING DISCUSSION

What are some of your favorite TV ads? Why? How effective are the messages and creative

strategies? How are they building brand equity?

Student answers will differ depending upon their favorite TV commercials but all

answers should cover the major points of this chapter.

Marketing Excellence: Coca-Cola

1. What does Coca-Cola stand for? Is it the same for everyone? Explain.

2. Coca-Cola has successfully marketed to billions of people around the world. Why is it

so successful?

3. Can Pepsi or any other company ever surpass Coca-Cola? Why or why not? What are

Coca-Cola’s greatest risks?

Suggested Answer: Student answers will vary based on their personal opinions and “tastes.”

Coke’s greatest risks have to be the managing of its mass communications strategy and

Marketing Excellence: Gillette

1. Gillette has successfully convinced the world that “more is better” in terms of number

of blades and other razor features. How did it do it? Why has that worked in the past?

Will it continue to work in the future? Why or why not?

Suggested Answer: The company’s impressive marketing knowledge and campaigns

have helped it reach an international level of success. Gillette uses one global marketing

2. Explain why Gillette’s sports marketing partnerships have been so successful.

Suggested Answer: Gillette was a pioneer in sports marketing, and selected highly

3. Some of Gillette’s spokespeople such as Derek Jeter and Tiger Woods have run into

controversy after becoming endorsers for the brand. Does this hurt Gillette’s brand equity

or marketing message? Explain.

Suggested Answer: In the long-run these spokespeople should not hurt the brand’s equity

4. Will Gillette ever become as successful at marketing to women as to men? Why or why

not?

Suggested Answer: Yes, the strategies, tactics, and communication message used to market to

DETAILED CHAPTER OUTLINE

Opening vignette: Despite the enormous increase in marketers’ use of personal

communications due to the pervasive nature of the Internet, mass media are still a vitally

important component of most marketing communications programs. To generate

consumer interest and sales, mass media must often be supplemented and carefully

integrated with other communications (like P&G’s “Thank You Mom” campaign).

I. Developing and Managing an Advertising Program

A. Advertising can be a cost-effective way to disseminate messages, whether to

build a brand preference or to educate people.

B. In developing an advertising program, marketing managers must always start

by identifying the target market and buyer motives.

C. Then they can make the five major decisions known as “the five Ms”:

i. Mission: What are our advertising objectives?

iii. We classify advertising objectives according to whether they aim to

inform, persuade, remind, or reinforce.

1. Informative advertising aims to create brand awareness and

2. Persuasive advertising aims to create liking, preference,

conviction, and purchase of a product or service.

4. Reinforcement advertising aims to convince current purchasers

they made the right choice

iv. The advertising objective should emerge from a thorough analysis of

the current marketing situation.

E. Deciding on the Advertising Budget

i. Although advertising is treated as a current expense, part of it is really

an investment in building brand equity and customer loyalty.

ii. Factors Affecting Budget Decisions

1. Stage in the product life cycle

3. Competition and clutter

5. Product substitutability

iii. Advertising Elasticity

2. When it is S-shaped, some positive amount of advertising is

necessary to generate any sales impact, but sales increases

eventually flatten out

F. Developing the Advertising Campaign

i. Advertisers employ both art and science to develop the message

ii. They use three steps: message generation and evaluation, creative

development and execution, and social-responsibility review.

iii. Message Generation and Evaluation

1. Advertisers are always seeking “the big idea” that connects

2. A good ad normally focuses on one or two core selling

propositions.

3. As part of refining the brand positioning, the advertiser should

5. Marketers can also cut the cost of creative dramatically by

6. Consumer-Generated Advertising can be pure genius or a

regrettable failure.

iv. Creative Development and Execution

1. The ad’s impact depends not only on what it says but, often

more important, on how it says it.

2. Every advertising medium has advantages and disadvantages.

a. Television is generally acknowledged as the most

powerful advertising medium and reaches a broad

spectrum of consumers at low cost per exposure.

i. TV can vividly demonstrate product attributes

and persuasively explain their corresponding

b. Print media can provide detailed product information

and effectively communicate user and usage imagery.

i. The static nature of the visual images in print

media makes dynamic presentations or

demonstrations difficult, and print media can be

fairly passive.

ii. Newspapers are timely and pervasive,

magazines are typically more effective at

c. Radio’s main advantage is flexibility—stations are very

targeted, ads are relatively inexpensive to produce and

place, and short closings for scheduling them allow for

quick response.

i. Radio can engage listeners through a

combination of popular brands, local presence,

3. Legal and Social Issues

a. Advertisers must not make false claims, use false

demonstrations, or create ads with the capacity to

G. Choosing Media: deciding on desired reach, frequency, and impact; choosing

among major media types; selecting specific media vehicles; and setting

media timing and geographical allocation.

i. Reach, Frequency, and Impact

1. Media selection is finding the most cost-effective media to

3. Reach is most important when launching new products, flanker

4. Frequency is most important where there are strong

5. A key reason for repetition is forgetting. The higher the

ii. Choosing Among Major Media Types

1. Media planners make their choices by considering factors such

Table 20.1 Profiles of Major Media Types

Medium

Advantages

Limitations

Newspapers

Flexibility; timeliness; good local

market coverage; broad

acceptance; high believability

Short life; poor reproduction

quality; small “pass–along”

audience

Television

Combines sight, sound, and

motion; appealing to the senses;

high attention; high reach

High absolute cost; high clutter;

fleeting exposure; less audience

selectivity

Direct mail

Audience selectivity; flexibility; no

ad competition within the same

medium; personalization

image

nonstandardized rate structures;

fleeting exposure

Magazines

High geographic and demographic

selectivity; credibility and prestige;

high-quality reproduction; long

life; good pass-along readership

Long ad purchase lead time; some

waste in circulation

Outdoor

Flexibility; high repeat exposure;

low cost; low competition

creative limitations

Yellow Pages

Excellent local coverage; high

believability; wide reach; low cost

High competition; long ad purchase

lead time; creative limitations

low costs

Brochures

Flexibility; full control; can

dramatize messages

Overproduction could lead to

runaway costs

Telephone

Many users; opportunity to give a

personal touch

Relative high cost; increasing

consumer resistance

Limited audience selectivity;

2. Place advertising, or out-of-home advertising, is a broad

category including many creative and unexpected forms to grab

consumers’ attention where they work, play, and, of course,

shop.

a. Billboards use colorful, digitally produced graphics,

iii. Evaluating Alternate Media

1. Nontraditional media can often reach a very precise and

2. Ad placements designed to break through clutter may also be

3. The challenge for nontraditional media is demonstrating its

reach and effectiveness through credible, independent research

iv. Selecting Specific Media Vehicles

1. The media planner must choose the most cost-effective

vehicles within each chosen media type.

2. Media planners rely on measurement services that estimate

3. Marketers need to adjust the cost-per-thousand measure.

4. Media planners are using more sophisticated measures of

v. Media Timing and Allocation

1. The advertiser makes both a macroscheduling and a

microscheduling decision.

2. The chosen pattern should meet the marketer’s

communications objectives and consider three factors.

a. Buyer turnover expresses the rate at which new buyers

enter the market; the higher this rate, the more

continuous the advertising should be.

3. In launching a new product, the advertiser must choose among

continuity, concentration, flighting, and pulsing.

a. Continuity means exposures appear evenly throughout a

given period.

4. A company must allocate its advertising budget over space as

well as over time.

H. Evaluating Advertising Effectiveness

i. Communication-effect research, called copy testing, seeks to

determine whether an ad is communicating effectively

2. Proponents maintain that useful diagnostic information can

1. The fewer or more controllable other factors such as features

2. The sales impact is easiest to measure in direct marketing

situations and hardest in brand or corporate image-building

advertising.

II. Sales Promotion

A. Sales promotion, a key ingredient in marketing campaigns, consists of a

collection of incentive tools, mostly short term, designed to stimulate quicker

or greater purchase of particular products or services by consumers or the

trade

i. Sales promotion expenditures increased as a percentage of budget

expenditure for a number of years, their growth has recently slowed.

1. Some sales promotion tools are consumer franchise building.

2. Sales promotion tools that are typically not brand building

include price-off packs, consumer premiums not related to a

product, contests and sweepstakes, consumer refund offers, and

trade allowances.

ii. Sales promotions in markets of high brand similarity can produce a

high sales response in the short run but little permanent gain over the

B. The fastest-growing area in sales promotions is digital coupons, redeemed via

smart phone or downloaded to a consumer’s printer.

i. Digital coupons eliminate printing costs, reduce paper waste, are easily

updatable, and have higher redemption rates.

ii. Many retailers are now offering customized coupons based on

consumer purchase histories

C. Major Decisions: Establish objectives, select the tools, develop the program,

implement and control it, and evaluate the results.

i. Establishing Objectives—Sales promotion objectives derive from

communication objectives, which derive from basic marketing

objectives for the product.

1. Objectives for consumers include encouraging more frequent

2. Retailer objectives include persuading retailers to carry new

items and more inventory, encouraging off-season buying,

3. For the sales force, objectives of promotion include

encouraging their support of a new product or model,

ii. Selecting Consumer Promotion Tools—The promotion planner should

take into account the type of market, sales promotion objectives,

competitive conditions, and each tool’s cost-effectiveness.

1. Samples

3. Cash Refund Offers

5. Premiums

7. Prizes

9. Free Trials

11. Tie-in Promotions

13. Point-of-Purchase displays and demonstrations

iii. Selecting Trade Promotion Tools

Award money to the trade to

1. Persuade the retailer or wholesaler to carry the brand

3. Induce retailers to promote the brand by featuring, display, and

price reductions

5. Tools include

a. Price-Off

b. Allowance

c. Free Goods

iv. Selecting Business and Sales Force Promotion Tools

1. For many new businesses that want to make a splash to a

2. Major Business and Sales Force Promotion Tools

a. Trade Shows and Conventions

v. Developing the Program

1. In deciding to use a particular incentive, marketers must first

determine its size.

3. Decide on the duration of the promotion

5. Establish the timing of promotion

6. Establish the total sales promotion budget

vi. Implementing and Evaluating the Program

1. Marketing managers’ implementation and control plans must

cover lead time and sell-in time for each individual promotion.

2. Manufacturers can evaluate the program using sales data,

consumer surveys, and experiments.

a. Sales (scanner) data help analyze the types of people

who took advantage of the promotion, what they bought

III. Events and Experiences

A. Events Objectives—Marketers report a number of reasons to sponsor events:

i. To identify with a particular target market or lifestyle

ii. To increase salience of company or product name

iii. To create or reinforce perceptions of key brand image associations

iv. To enhance corporate image

B. The result of an event can still be unpredictable and beyond the sponsor’s

control.

C. Major Sponsorship Decisions

i. Choosing events: Because of the number of sponsorship opportunities

and their huge cost, many marketers are becoming more selective.

1. The event must meet the marketing objectives and

communication strategy defined for the brand.

3. The audience must match the target market and make favorable

attributions for the sponsor’s engagement.

4. An ideal event is also unique but not encumbered with many

ii. Designing Sponsorship Programs: Many marketers believe the

marketing program accompanying an event sponsorship ultimately

determines its success.

2. Event creation is a particularly important skill in publicizing

fund-raising drives for nonprofit organizations.

3. Fund-raisers have developed a large repertoire of special

events, including anniversary celebrations, art exhibits,

iii. Measuring Sponsorship Activities: It’s a challenge to measure the

success of events.

2. Define and benchmark objectives on the front end.

4. Measure behavior.

6. Research the emotional identities of customers and measure the

results of emotional connections.

8. Include cost savings in ROI calculations.

10. Capture normative data

11. Supply-side methods for measuring an event’s success assess

the media coverage

way

12. Demand-side method identifies the sponsorship’s effect on

consumers’ brand knowledge.

D. Creating Experiences

i. Experiential marketing not only communicates features and benefits

but also connects a product or service with unique and interesting

IV. Public Relations

A. Public relations (PR) includes a variety of programs to promote or protect a

company’s image or individual products.

B. PR departments counsel top management to adopt positive programs and

eliminate questionable practices so negative publicity doesn’t arise in the first

place and perform the following five functions:

i. Press relations—Presenting news and information about the

organization in the most positive light

ii. Product publicity—Sponsoring efforts to publicize specific products

C. Marketing Public Relations support corporate or product promotion and image

making and serves the marketing department.

i. Used to be called publicity, the task of securing editorial space—as

opposed to paid space—in print and broadcast media to promote or

hype a product, service, idea, place, person, or organization.

ii. MPR goes beyond simple publicity and plays an important role in the

following tasks:

2. Repositioning mature products.

4. Influencing specific target groups.

6. Building the corporate image in a way that reflects favorably

on its products.

D. Major Decisions in Marketing PR: establish the marketing objectives, choose

the PR messages and vehicles, implement the plan, and evaluate the results.

i. Major tools

1. Publications

3. Sponsorships

5. Speeches

7. Identity Media

ii. Establishing Objectives:

2. Build credibility by communicating the message in an editorial

context

4. Hold down promotion cost because MPR costs less than direct-

mail and media advertising

iii. Choosing Messages and Vehicles

iv. Implementing the Plan and Evaluating Results

1. Easiest gauge of its effectiveness is the number of exposures

carried by the media, but it contains no indication of how many

2. A better measure is the change in product awareness,