Chapter 18: Managing Mass Communications: Advertising, Sales Promotions, Events, and Public Relations
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, students should:
q Know what steps are involved in developing an advertising program
q Know how sales promotion decisions should be made
q Know what are the guidelines for effective brand-building events and experiences
q Know how companies can exploit the potential of public relations and publicity
CHAPTER SUMMARY
Advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor. Advertisers include not only business firms but also charitable, nonprofit, and government agencies.
Developing an advertising program is a five-step process: (1) set advertising objectives; (2) establish a budget; (3) choose the advertising message and creative strategy; (4) decide on the media; and (5) evaluate communication and sales effects.
Sales promotion consists of a diverse collection of incentive tools, mostly short term, designed to stimulate quicker or greater purchase of particular products or services by consumers or the trade. Sales promotion includes tools for consumer promotion, trade promotion, and business and sales-force promotion (trade shows and conventions, contests for sales reps, and specialty advertising). In using sales promotion, a company must establish its objectives, select the tools, develop the program, pretest the program, implement and control it, and evaluate the results.
Events and experiences are a means to become part of special and more personally relevant moments in consumers’ lives. Involvement with events can broaden and deepen the relationship of the sponsor with its target market, but only if managed properly.
Public relations (PR) involves a variety of programs designed to promote or protect a company’s image or its individual products. Many companies today use marketing public relations (MPR) to support the marketing department in corporate or product promotion and image making. MPR 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, speeches, public-service activities, and identity media.
OPENING THOUGHT
Students will be familiar with the major forms of advertising. What will perhaps, present challenges to some students will be the ideas surrounding the five-step process: 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 communication (print, electronic, Web-based, billboards, etc.) to show the various opportunities and complexities involved.
The instructor is encouraged to use events and experiences (sponsorships of university or college events are good examples to use) to demonstrate the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of this media to build brand equity. Sponsorships allows for good in-class discussion(s) as to the value of this form of media.
Public relations and MPR might be new material to students and the instructor is encouraged to use professional public relations officers (university or college representatives) as guest speakers to explain current developing practices and procedures in this evolving specialty.
TEACHING STRATEGY AND CLASS ORGANIZATION
PROJECTS
1. At this point in the semester-long project, students should submit their advertising program complete with objectives, budget, advertising message and creative strategy, media decisions, and sales and promotional materials.
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 needed revenues to colleges and universities. In this project, students are to contact their college or university’s sports management program and try to discover the dollar amount that sponsorships add to the university. Secondly, contact as many of these local sponsors as possible and try to see how these sponsors quantify their expenditures (to the college and university) in terms of brand awareness, purchase intent, or consumer product decision-making.
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:
· Should Sonic use advertising to support the PDA introduction? If so, what advertising goals will you set, and how will you measure your results?
· 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)?
Summarize your answers in a written marketing plan or type them into the Marketing Mix section of Marketing Plan Pro.
ASSIGNMENTS
Small Group Assignments
1. 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?
2. 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 “home made” television commercial for example). This campaign should contain each of the elements of the chapter material and most importantly, define the 5Ms objectives. Each group then should be evaluated by the remainder of their class members as to how effectively their campaign achieved their stated advertising objectives.
Individual Assignments
1. It has been suggested that over 70 percent of all buying decisions are made in the store and as a result, point-of-purchase advertising has grown in its appeal. Students should give three examples of point-of-purchase advertising that they have recently come across (ads in-store, personal selling by a cosmetic counter salesperson, etc.) and comment on the effectiveness to them of this type of advertising. Did they buy the product? Did the advertising annoy them? Moreover, in the role of a marketing executive, would the student recommend spending part of their advertising budget on this form of media?
2. In the Marketing Memo entitled, Print Ad Evaluation Criteria, the author lists seven questions that should be answered in the affirmative concerning the executional elements of print advertising. Selecting two print advertisements, one that the students believe meet all or most of these criteria, and one that does not meet any or most of these criteria, students should comment on what works and what does not work and why.
Think-Pair-Share
1. This assignment should be a favorite one for the students to complete. Breaking the class up into groups, assign a different television channel (cable and network) to each group. Have the students’ record all the television commercials shown during prime time for a particular night (say for a Thursday night). After watching the commercials, students should list their favorite ones, their not so favorite ones, and the ones that annoyed them 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?
2. Events, experiences, and sponsorship advertising is increasing. The chapter outlines eight reasons given for sponsoring events. Students should choose an event or sponsorship (recent activity on campus, attendance by students at an event etc.) and evaluate how effective they feel the event is/was towards achieving these eight objectives. Students should also be able to comment on why they feel that the sponsorship event did not achieve some of these stated objectives.
MARKETING TODAY—CLASS DISCUSSION TOPICS
Place advertising is a broadly defined category that captures many different alternative advertising forms such as billboards, public places, product placement, and point-of-purchase. One of areas of responsibility for advertisers and their agencies is to ensure that advertising does not overstep social and legal norms. Yet firms are under increasing pressure to “get the message out”.
Question: Is the recent trend and proliferation of “place advertising” (including rest rooms) running the risk of being socially irresponsible? Is “place advertising” an over step in social (and perhaps legal) norms? Will advertisers whose products continually use place advertising run the risk of consumer backlash because of “visual pollution”?
END-OF-CHAPTER SUPPORT
MARKETING DEBATE—Has TV Advertising Lost Power?
Long deemed the most successful advertising medium, television advertising has received increased criticism as being too expensive and, even worse, no longer as effective as it once was.
Critics maintain that consumers tune out too many ads by zipping and zapping and that is difficult to make a strong impression. The future, claim some, is with online advertising. Supporters of TV advertising disagree, contending that the multisensory impact of TV is unsurpassed and that no other media option offers the same potential impact.
Take a position: TV advertising has faded in importance versus TV advertising is still the most powerful advertising medium.
Pro: Marketing managers must begin with an identified target market and the strategic direction of the brand before choosing the advertising program. The selection of TV advertising as the medium should be as a function of: the mission, money, message, media, and measurement. In addition, the marketing manager must understand where the product is in its product life cycle and how the hierarchy of effects affects his products. If these factors are known then the marketing manager can decide if informative advertising, persuasive advertising, reminder advertising, or reinforcement advertising is necessary. Television through its multisensory impact is the best medium for these advertising conditions. In addition to the product’s life cycle, the products market share and consumer base, competition and clutter, advertising frequency, and product substitutability affects decisions to use TV.
Properly designed and executed TV programs can improve brand equity by vividly demonstrating product attributes and persuasively explaining consumer benefits, portraying user and usage imagery, brand personality, and other brand intangibles. Critics of TV advertising may be focusing on the “messenger” rather than on the “message.”
The proliferation of TV channels, technology (VCR and TIVO), has shown that marketers must be better at what they do rather than using TV to cure poorly planned or executed marketing programs. Bottom line: The effectiveness of TV advertising still depends upon the proper identification of its objectives and creative execution.
Con: Consumers have changed. We are now into the fourth generation of consumers using TV as a marketing communications medium. The proliferation of new technologies has shifted the “power” to the viewer rather than the “transmitter.” Current generations receive information through numerous media channels: the Internet, cell phones, satellite, cable, radio, and others. The influence that TV once had to stimulate, interest, and build brand loyalty due to its exclusivity is gone. Today, buyers are more likely to review product performance on the Internet or to ask opinion leaders than they are to “act” because they saw a clever commercial. As a result, with the exception of certain product categories or product lines, TV advertising no longer reaches target consumers. More importantly, TV commercials do not reach opinion leaders who are increasingly influencing consumer-buying decisions on a greater scale. To reach this important group, companies must target messages through combinations of other media and product usage.
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 SPOTLIGHT—Virgin Group
Discussion Questions:
1) What have been the key success factors for Virgin?
a. They have an integrated marketing communications program and identifiable name: Virgin.
b. A branded venture capital organization.
c. Use of publicity, MPR, events and experiences to distinguish its brand from competitors.
2) Where is Virgin vulnerable?
a. Overexposure of the trademarked name
b. Danger of the name becoming “common speech” (aspirin) thereby losing their competitive advantage in the naming.
c. Use of events, experiences, publicity, and public relations for marketing purposes can backfire as they are generally uncontrollable events that do not have consistent and constant messages and meanings within.
3) What should Virgin watch out for?
a. That the consumer will tire of the exclusive use of PR, events, and experiences for the brand.
b. The loss of Richard Branson—the “messenger” for the firm will leave it with no marketing communication “message” to continue with.
4) What recommendations would you make to senior marketing executives going forward?
a. Begin the process of developing marketing strategies to capitalize on your brand name—ones that define its positioning and contain consistent consumer messaging.
b. Find an effective appeal for different companies and tailor messages to those appeals.
5) What should the company be sure to do with their marketing?
a. Develop the identity of “Virgin” separate from the personality of Richard Branson.
DETAILED CHAPTER OUTLINE
Marketers of all kinds are trying to come to grips with how to best use mass media in the new communication environment.