Multimedia Marketing/Marketing.iso/market/chapter7.2p

Text File | 1996-08-22 | 14KB | 294 lines

SECTION 7.2  The Communications Process

INSTRUCTIONS Try to define all of the variables that are included in the process
where people communicate with one another. Then go into this section to review and analyze this process.

EXAMPLE

A new development in marketing communications is the audio-visual
point-of-purchase display. These use filmstrip projectors coupled
with product displays to sell products. Normally, these are placed
at the end of aisles. Heat sensors in the units detect the presence
of people when they come within nine feet of a unit. This activates
the audio-visual display. The sales gains can be dramatic. In a
market test, for instance, a windshield cleaner for auto headlights
enjoyed sales gains of 2,695 percent. The tests have been so positive
that numerous retailers are investigating their immediate installation.

DETAILS

Once a company's objecives are set, management is ready to design a
promotional program. When designing the program, much can be
gained by keeping the findings of communications researchers in
mind. A conceptual model of the communications process is:

          SOURCE--ENCODING--CHANNEL--DECODING--RECEIVERS

Effective promotion begins by learning as much as is possible about
the intended receivers, also called the audience, as is practical.
This group is usually composed of the target market. This is not
always the case, however. Sometimes the two groups differ. Saturday
morning commercials for expensive toys have an intended receiver
group made up of children, for instance, while the target market
consists of parents.

PROBLEM 1

A producer of men's dress clothing would be most successful in aiming
at an audience made up of:

A. Retailers who sell men's clothing.
B. Men.
C. Women.
D. Buying clubs that purchase clothing for men.

WORKED

A producer of men's dress clothing would be most successful in aiming
at an audience made up of women. Women are the major purchasers of
men's dress clothing. In some cases the clothing is a gift. In other
cases, women do the shopping when men's clothing become outdated or
worn. This pattern seems to be changing somewhat, as many women are
in the labor force,  and do not have time to do the shoppping, but
the practice still exists.

ANSWER  C
INSTRUCTIONS Try to define all of the variables that are included in the process
where people communicate with one another. Then go into this section to review and analyze this process.

EXAMPLE

A new development in marketing communications is the audio-visual
point-of-purchase display. These use filmstrip projectors coupled
with product displays to sell products. Normally, these are placed
at the end of aisles. Heat sensors in the units detect the presence
of people when they come within nine feet of a unit. This activates
the audio-visual display. The sales gains can be dramatic. In a
market test, for instance, a windshield cleaner for auto headlights
enjoyed sales gains of 2,695 percent. The tests have been so positive
that numerous retailers are investigating their immediate installation.

DETAILS

Insights into the intended audience's media consumption habits,
brand preferences toward the product, and attitudes toward the
company help managers in recognizing what information should
be available.

It is especially important not to overlook key attitude information.
Research might indicate that prospective customers are confused about
certain of a product's attributes. Promotional messages can then
be designed (or encoded) to overcome this difficulty. A personal
computer producer, for example, discovered that numerous target
consumers were intimidated by computers. Accordingly, it designed
an advertising campaign framed around the machine's user-friendliness.

Communications channels are means of carrying messages to receivers.
The major ones are:

1. Advertising--any paid form of nonpersonal promotion of ideas,
   goods, or services by an identified sponsor.
2. Personal selling--personal communication with one or more
   prospective buyers for the purpose of making sales.
3. Publicity--Nonpersonal promotion of a product, service, or business
   unit resulting from planting commercially significant news about
   it in a published medium or by obtaining favorable unpaid for
   presentations on radio or television.
4. Sales promotion--promotional activities, other than personal
   selling, advertising, or publicity that stimulate customer
   purchasing and dealer effectiveness, such as displays, packaging,
   demonstrations, and various nonrecurring selling efforts not in
   the ordinary routine.

PPROBLEM  2
A dairy has a limited promotion budget. One way to overcome this is
to employ:

A. Advertising.
B. Personal selling
C. Sales promotion.
D. Publicity

WORKED

If a dairy has a limited promotion budget, one way to overcome this
is to employ publicity. This type of promotion does not have any
direct costs--it is provided by the media. What is necessary is to
derive news that the media will find to be interesting and to convince
the media to carry the message. These efforts may require some time
and expense on the part of company personnel, but they can be much
less costly than the other promotion messages. Further, many consumers
believe that messages about a company and its products that they hear
about in the media are more credible than messages received from the
other sources.

ANSWER  D
INSTRUCTIONS Try to define all of the variables that are included in the process
where people communicate with one another. Then go into this section to review and analyze this process.

EXAMPLE

A new development in marketing communications is the audio-visual
point-of-purchase display. These use filmstrip projectors coupled
with product displays to sell products. Normally, these are placed
at the end of aisles. Heat sensors in the units detect the presence
of people when they come within nine feet of a unit. This activates
the audio-visual display. The sales gains can be dramatic. In a
market test, for instance, a windshield cleaner for auto headlights
enjoyed sales gains of 2,695 percent. The tests have been so positive
that numerous retailers are investigating their immediate installation.

DETAILS

The most important aspect of developing effective messages is for
management to grasp the intended audience's mental frame of reference.
Audiences interpret (decode) communications from their own perspectives,
based upon past experiences, needs, and interests. The problem is that
managers tend to design (encode) messages from their perspectives,
which are likely to differ significantly from that of the audience.

Studies indicate that perhaps 30 percent or more of all messages
tend to be misinterpreted because of this problem. For example, a
producer of computer software promoted one of its products as a
"fluid format, personal information manager". Most people had no
idea what this meant and the promotional expense was wasted.

Designing effective messages requires that management become
intimately familiar with the target audience's needs, experiences,
attitudes, language, and other factors. A private university,
for example, recently had some difficulty in attracting good students.

A naive promotional approach probably would have involved messages
telling people about the school's solid reputation, but this would
have been inappropriate; the school's reputation was already known.
The problem stemmed from the school's high tuition. Accordingly,
the school's administration developed a program for tuition loans
to be repaid by students after graduation on a scale adjusted to
earnings. Promotions for this program were very effective in reversing
the declines, since they focused on the key problem restricting
the applications.

Ads featuring fear appeals for certain products also illustrate
the point of emphasizing key perceptions. For example, breath
freshener ads that ask "Will he be able to smell my breath?" focus
on key social cognitions and are effective as a result.

Other important message ingredients to consider are timing of the
important points to be mentioned and whether or not both sides
of the issue should be mentioned. Research indicates that the major
points should be mentioned first when it is necessary to capture
the audience's fleeting attention. Statements such as "Our store
drastically cuts the price of ..." and "What if you want to improve
your cash flow..." are often desirable.

Further, one sided arguments (avoiding any mention of negatives)
tend to be best when the audience's attitudes are already positive.
Two sided arguments, on the other hand, tend to be more effective
when the message conflicts with existing cognitions. To illustrate,
antidrinking ads probably would be more effective if they also
acknowledged the realistic pleasures that drinkers do receive from
consuming alcohol.

PROBLEM 3

The most important aspect of developing effective messages
by a  designer of men's deoderant advertisements should be target
customers'

A. Mental frame of reference
B. Demographic characteristics.
C. Cultural heritage.
D. Income and social class status.

WORKED

The most important aspect of developing effective messages by a
designer of men's deoderant advertisements should be target
customers' mental frame of reference. In turn, the frame of reference
depends on the experiences, needs, and interests of the target
audience. If the target audience consists of men who want to be
attractive to women, the ads should stress that theme. On the other
hand, the target audience may want to project a pleasant aroma to
other people in general, and the message can portray users of the
deoderant as being liked by others. It is sometimes necessary to
conduct marketing research to discover the appropriate frame of
reference.

ANSWER  A
INSTRUCTIONS Try to define all of the variables that are included in the process
where people communicate with one another. Then go into this section to review and analyze this process.

EXAMPLE

A new development in marketing communications is the audio-visual
point-of-purchase display. These use filmstrip projectors coupled
with product displays to sell products. Normally, these are placed
at the end of aisles. Heat sensors in the units detect the presence
of people when they come within nine feet of a unit. This activates
the audio-visual display. The sales gains can be dramatic. In a
market test, for instance, a windshield cleaner for auto headlights
enjoyed sales gains of 2,695 percent. The tests have been so positive
that numerous retailers are investigating their immediate installation.

DETAILS

Above all, the source should be perceived as credible, which means
that receivers perceive it as being expert, trustworthy, and likeable.
The media itself can inpart a degee of credibility. Favorable
publicity from news columnists, for instance, offer an advantage
here, and business ads appearing in highly-regarded business trade
magazines connote trustworthiness. Likewise, firms located in certain
countries (such as Japan) have more credibility than those
headquartered in others (such as Italy).

To build credibility, companies often hire spokespersons to tell
their stories. But this can be very costly, involving initial fees,
with royalties to follow. Further, studies indicate that in many
situations what is most important is a moderate level of credibility,
not necessarily notoriety.

Consequently, some companies have avoided the use of celebrities
because of the high cost. Others have been dismayed when they used
celebrities to endorse their products and later discovered that
the celebrities were involved in criminal or unethical behavior,
with negative press coverage. A pharmaceutical company successfully
uses past customers for its ads.

Finally, feedback--getting information that messages were received
as intended by the audience--is important for communication to be
effective. The entire communications process is laced with noise,
or interference, which may lessen the message's impact, including
conflicting messages by competitors, poorly selected channels, and
poorly designed messages. Thus, it is important to assure that
the messages were perceived by the audience as intended.

Personal communications methods are superior in this regard,
because feedback can be elicited during the presentation. Accordingly,
many companies provide salespeople with extensive training in
listening. With nonpersonal communications, marketing research is
needed to provide the feedback.

PROBLEM  4
A magazine publisher wants to sponsor advertisements that are
credible. Which of the following is not an ingredient of
credibility?

A. A likeable spokesperson.
B. An expert spokesperson.
C. An appeal that is based on the needs of the target audience.
D. A trustworthy source (such as a prestigious magazine).

WORKED

A magazine publisher wants to sponsor advertisements that are
credible. In order to do this, the company could use a likeable
and expert spokesperson and a trustworthy source (such as a prestigious
magazine). Basically credibility means that the message can be trusted.
Research has shown that when trust is lacking, the promotion is
bound to be a failure. What is interesting is that credibility demands
that all three ingredients--likeability, expertise, and trustworthy
source--must be in existence. If only one or two are apparent, there
may be  little or no credibility.

ANSWER  C