Chapter 13: Advertising, Promotion, and Sales Flashcards
Marketing communications process
Slide 2
Planning promotional campaigns consist of seven stages:
- Determine the target audience
- Determine specific campaign objectives
- Determine the budget
- Determine media strategy
- Determine the message
- Determine the campaign approach
- Determine campaign effectiveness
The target audience
- Global marketers face multiple audiences beyond customers
- E.g., suppliers, intermediaries, government, the local community, banks, shareholders, and employees
- Expectations have to be researched to ensure the appropriateness of campaign decision making
- Need to determine multimarket target audience similarities
If such exists, pan-regional or global campaigns can be attempted
How might the standardization of the product and its positioning change in some cases?
In some cases, the product may be standard across markets but the positioning may be different
Subsequently marketing communications have to change
Campaign objectives
- Essential to have well-established, clearly defined, measurable objectives
- Can be divided into overall global and regional objectives as well as local objectives
- Local objectives are subject to headquarters approval, mainly to ensure consistency
Typical objectives
- To increase awareness
- To enhance image
- To improve market share
The budget
- The promotional budget links established objectives with media, message, and control decisions
- Ideally, budget would be set as a response to the objectives to be met
But resource constraints often preclude this approach - Budgets can be used as a control mechanism if headquarters retain final budget approval
Common budgeting methods:
- Objective and task
- Percentage of sales
- Executive judgment
- All-you-can-afford
- Matched competitors
The major factors determining the choice of the media vehicles to be used:
- Availability of media in a given market
- Product or service influences
- Media habits of the intended audience
Availability of media:
- Media type: newspapers, magazines, television, radio, cinema, outdoor, and Internet
- Conflicting national media regulations (e.g., comparative claims and using superlatives such as “best” not allowed in Germany and other countries)
- Need to make sure that advertising works not only within markets but across countries as well due to consumers’ access to broadcasting through cable or satellite
Product influences
- Marketers are frustrated by differing restrictions on how products can be advertised
- E.g., some countries have banned tobacco advertising altogether (e.g., France)
- Alternative solutions: corporate image advertising, or advertising of corporate’s other businesses
Audience characteristics
- A major objective of media strategy is to reach intended target audience with a minimum of waste
- E.g., BP’s corporate image campaign in China: target audience all read trade publications Petroleum Production and Offshore Petroleum
Developing the promotional message is referred to as…
Creative strategy
What must the marketer determine from consumers for the promotional message?
Marketers must determine what the consumer is buying – consumer motivations
Consumer’s motivations vary depending on:
- The diffusion of the product, service, or concept into the market
- The criteria on which the consumer will evaluate the product
- The product’s positioning
The campaign approach: Two decisions to be made
- What type of outside serves to use
- How to establish decision-making authority for promotional efforts
What type of outside services to use?
- Choice of agency depends on the quality of coverage the agency gives the multinational company
- The main concern arising from the use of mega-agencies is conflict (i.e., with only a few giant agencies to choose from, the global marketer may end up with the same agency as its main competitor)
How to establish decision-making authority for promotional efforts
Range from complete centralization to decentralization
Measurement of advertising effectiveness
Should range from pretesting of copy appeal to post-testing of recognition
The measures most used to measure advertising effectiveness are:
- Awareness
- Recall
- Executive judgment
- Intention to buy
- Sales
- Profitability
- Coupon return
Personal selling
Defined as a two-way flow of communication between a potential buyer and a salesperson.
Involve direct relations between the seller and the prospective buyer or customer.
Personal selling is designed to accomplish three tasks:
- Identify the buyer’s needs
- Match these needs to one or more of the firm’s products
- Based on this match, convince the buyer to purchase the product
Sales promotion
Used for promotion that does not fall under advertising, personal selling, or publicity
Consumer promotions
couponing, sampling, premiums, consumer education and demonstration activities, cents-off packs, point-of-purchase materials
Sales promotions directed at intermediaries include certain activities.
Intermediary promotions:
trade shows, trade discounts, and cooperative advertising
What must a campaign gain in order to be effective?
To be effective, the campaign must gain support of local retailer population
Sales promotion tools fall under varying regulations:
- E.g., every promotion has to be approved by a government body in Northern European countries
- E.g., in France, a gift cannot be worth more than 4% of the retail value of the product being promoted
- Regulations such as these make truly global sales promotions rare and difficult
Trade shows
An event where manufacturers, distributors, and other vendors
- Display their products
- Describe their services to current and prospective customers, suppliers, other business associates, and the press
Marketing communications
Marketing communications function charged with executing programs to earn public understanding and acceptance
Internal public relations
Internal communication is important to create an appropriate corporate culture
- E.g., the Japanese firms promote a wa (“we”) spirit
External public relations
Focused on the interaction with customers.
- Publicity is the securing of editorial space (as opposed to paid advertising) to further marketing objectives
- Sponsorship involves the marketer’s investment in events and causes
Effective communication requires three elements:
- The sender
- The message
- The receiver
Encoding the message
Means converting it into a symbolic form that is properly understood by the receiver
The message channel
The path through which the message moves from sender (source) to receiver.
Face-to-face contact is still necessary for two basic reasons:
- The need for detailed discussion and explanation
- The need to establish the rapport that forms the basis of lasting business relationships.
Decoding
Transforming the message symbols back into thought.
The communication process has worked when…
If there is an adequate amount of overlap between sender characteristics and needs reflected in the encoded message and receiver characteristics and needs reflected in the decoded message
Noise
Influence of extraneous and distracting stimuli, which interfere with the intended accurate reception of the message.
What are examples of noise in the international marketing context?
failure to express a quotation in the inquirer’s system of currency and measurement, or lack of understanding of the recipient’s environment—for example, having only an English-language website.
What might cultural noise look like?
The lack of language skills may hinder successful negotiations, whereas translation errors may render a promotional campaign or brochure useless. Similarly, nonverbal language and its improper interpretation may cause problems.
How is the success of the outcome determined?
By how well objectives have been met in generating more awareness, a more positive attitude, or increased purchases
Why is the collection and observation of feedback necessary?
To analyze the success of the communications effort.
What are examples of concrete ways in which feedback can be collected?
Are inquiry cards and toll-free numbers distributed at trade shows to gather additional information. Similarly, the Internet allows marketers to track traffic flows and to install registration procedures that identify individuals and track their purchases over time
Who are the publics with whom communication is necessary?
- Suppliers
- Intermediaries
- Governments
- The local community
- Bankers and creditors
- Media organizations
- Shareholders
- Employees
Cause-related marketing
A combination of public relations, sales promotion, and corporate philanthropy.
- The company, or one of its brands, is linked with a cause such as environmental protection or children’s health.
Grey advertising
Checks for commonalities in variables such as economic expectations, demographics, income, and education. Consumer needs and wants are assessed for common features.
Corporate image advertising
Especially for multidivisional companies, an umbrella campaign may help either to boost the image of lesser-known product lines or make the company itself be understood correctly or perceived more positively. Companies may announce repositioning strategies through image campaigns to both external and internal constituents.
What do objectives set at the local level look like?
Are more specific and set measurable targets for individual markets. These objectives may be product- or service-related or related to the entity itself. Typical goals are to increase awareness, enhance image, and improve market share in a particular market. Whatever the objective, it has to be measurable for control purposes.
How are local objectives typically developed?
As a combination of headquarters (global or regional) and country organization involvement. Basic guidelines are initiated by headquarters, whereas local organizations set the actual country specific goals. These goals are subject to headquarters approval, mainly to ensure consistency. Although some campaigns, especially global ones, may have more headquarters involvement than usual, local input is still quite important, especially to ensure appropriate implementation of the subsequent programs at the local level.
The promotional budget links established objectives with…
- Media
- Messages
- Control decisions.
