Multimedia Marketing/Marketing.iso/market/chapter7.3p

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SECTION 7.3  The Promotion Mix

INSTRUCTIONS Try to imagine how companies can determine the best promotion
methods to use in carrying out their marketing missions. Then go into this chapter for further insights.

EXAMPLE

Department stores can achieve success through promotion in a number
of ways. Some stress attractive advertisements which enhance the
images of their stores. Others attempt to feature special programs,
such as fashion shows, that attract publicity. Still others stress
sales promotion, as through devoting considerable attention to
developing attractive displays.

A department store chain in the Pacific Northwest stresses personal
selling. Sales personnel are carefully selected, trained, and
motivated. They are taught to pay considerable attention to customer
satisfaction and the stores have developed a very good reputation
among consumers in this regard. Some salespersons have even been
known to make deliveries to customers on their own time.This devotion
to serving the customer through personal selling has made the company
very successful and prospects for the future are bright.

DETAILS

It is generally best to use a mix of promotional channels (called
a promotion mix) to communicate messages. This is to achieve
promotional synergy, where each type of promotion used complements
each other.

Management makes two fundamental types of decisions when designing
a promotion mix: deciding how to integrate each of the promotions
(the campaign), and determining the relative emphasis to place on
each medium (the mix).

A promotional program is integrated through a campaign--a unified,
organized series of promotional messages which has one theme or
central idea. A cereal producer, for example, used a campaign featuring
"the all American breakfast" with appeals to health and vitality
through a nutritious breakfast. Within a campaign, management
integrates advertising, package design, point-of-purchase displays,
and dealer incentives around the central theme to gain a cumulative
impact.

Coordination is very important in a promotional campaign. When an
automobile producer brings out a new model, numerous promotion
efforts must all work together. The producer might announce the new
introduction on television, hold a news conference later, follow
this by television advertisements, follow this by exhibits in malls
and dealerships, follow this with newspaper advertisements, etc.
Some of these activities go on at the same time, while others precede
or follow other events. But it is important that all of them tell
the same story--carry the same theme

The appropriate duration of a campaign depends on its success and
whether or not its theme becomes stale to the audience. An unduly
long running time results in lost impact. A new campaign may be
just the ticket for restimulating excitement about messages among
customers, management, and dealers.

PROBLEM 1

A watch manufacturer is bringing out a new model and wants to
support it with a major promotion campaign. What should the most
important priority be in developing the campaign?

A. Coordinate all the elements of promotion.
B. Conduct research to determine retailer ideas for the campaign.
C. Conduct research on the price of the new product.
D. Keep advertising expenditures low

WORKED

If a watch manufacturer is bringing out a new model and wants to
support it with a major promotion campaign, the most important
priority would be to coordinate all elements of promotion. The
campaign may involve numerous advertising messages in different
media, an aggressive effort by company sales representatives to
convince retailers to stock the product, press releases, news
conferences, coupon offers, and the like. It is essential that all
of these carry the same message, for an integrated effort and that
they all support one another. If they do not, the product introduction
may be a failure.

ANSWER  A
INSTRUCTIONS Try to imagine how companies can determine the best promotion
methods to use in carrying out their marketing missions. Then go into this chapter for further insights.

EXAMPLE

Department stores can achieve success through promotion in a number
of ways. Some stress attractive advertisements which enhance the
images of their stores. Others attempt to feature special programs,
such as fashion shows, that attract publicity. Still others stress
sales promotion, as through devoting considerable attention to
developing attractive displays.

A department store chain in the Pacific Northwest stresses personal
selling. Sales personnel are carefully selected, trained, and
motivated. They are taught to pay considerable attention to customer
satisfaction and the stores have developed a very good reputation
among consumers in this regard. Some salespersons have even been
known to make deliveries to customers on their own time.This devotion
to serving the customer through personal selling has made the company
very successful and prospects for the future are bright.

DETAILS

Regarding the mix of promotional vehicles to use, there are five
factors which are centrally important. These are the target, the
budget, the competition, the product, and media cost.

The nature of the target audience is an important factor to consider
in choosing particular media to use. Consumers, for instance, are
widely dispersed geographically, tend to buy in modest quantities,
and are quite varied in many ways. A general promotion aimed at a
large number of consumers, therefore, is typically weighted heavily
toward mass communication media such as TV.

PROBLEM 2

A company sells plastic cleats that are screwed into the bottoms of
chair legs, to protect floor surfaces and allow easy moving of the
chairs. The market is national. What medium would most likely be the
most effective?

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

WORKED

A company sells plastic cleats that are screwed into the bottoms of
chair legs, to protect floor surfaces and allow easy moving of the
chairs. The market is national. The medium that would most likely
be the most effective is sales promotion. People probably would not
notice advertisements for this product. Rather, when they have the
need for it, they would go to retail stores and seek it out. If
the producers have good displays and packages the product will help
sell itself. Advertising and personal selling would not be needed.
It is doubtful that a product such as this would be able to get
much publicity, as few consumers would consider it to be newsworthy.

ANSWER C
INSTRUCTIONS Try to imagine how companies can determine the best promotion
methods to use in carrying out their marketing missions. Then go into this chapter for further insights.

EXAMPLE

Department stores can achieve success through promotion in a number
of ways. Some stress attractive advertisements which enhance the
images of their stores. Others attempt to feature special programs,
such as fashion shows, that attract publicity. Still others stress
sales promotion, as through devoting considerable attention to
developing attractive displays.

A department store chain in the Pacific Northwest stresses personal
selling. Sales personnel are carefully selected, trained, and
motivated. They are taught to pay considerable attention to customer
satisfaction and the stores have developed a very good reputation
among consumers in this regard. Some salespersons have even been
known to make deliveries to customers on their own time.This devotion
to serving the customer through personal selling has made the company
very successful and prospects for the future are bright.

DETAILS

Specialized markets such as an industry group (steel
mills, for instance) tend to be localized, relatively few in number,
buy in larger quantities, and tend to select suppliers on the
basis of how well they can adjust their marketing mixes to meet the
group's particular needs. Consequently, sales representatives may be
a better choice than mass media for such a market. Thus, marketers
who sell computers to industry extensively use sales representatives
for their promotions. They normally are backed up by other promotion
media, however.

The size of the company's budget has an effect on the composition of
the promotion mix. Mass media campaigns are usually inexpensive on
a per-person-contacted basis, but expensive in total. Just one minute's
worth of prime-time TV, for instance, can cost up to a million dollars.
(This figure is for Super Bowl coverage. The cost is more like ,50,000
for normal prime time). A full page ad in a popular magazine can cost
over ,100,000. And many ads are usually needed, as each one only
makes a limited contribution by nudging the consumer along the path
of adoption. Consequently, many companies are forced to select
promotional tools within their financial reach.

Companies sometimes use promotion as a principal weapon in their
competitive battles. Thus, management must anticipate the promotional
efforts of competitors when making its promotion decisions. But
relying on promotions to offset product vulnerability is a mistake.

The analgesic industry provides an illustration. Aspirin substitutes
were unheard of prior to the mid 1970's. One producer of a substitute
moved into the adult market with heavy advertising expenditures and
sales soared at the expense of aspirin producers, who, in turn,
increased their advertising expenditures. Some of the substitute
producers claimed that their products had anti-inflamatory benefits,
since they contained aspirin. The courts ruled that this claim was
ill-conceived, however. A more logical strategy would have been for
the substitute product producers to introduce a line of aspirin--a
solid rounding out policy. Thus, promotions should not be considered
to be an alternative for a poor marketing strategy.

PROBLEM 3

Pipeline companies sometimes experience difficulty detecting small
leaks in their lines. A firm has developed a "smart" device that
travels in the pipeline and detect leaks. What promotion media would
be most effective in appealing to pipeline companies?

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

WORKED

If a firm has developed a "smart" device that travels in pipelines
and detects leaks, the promotion media that would be most effective
in appealing to pipeline companies is personal selling. Most of
the pipelines, especially the bigger ones, are owned by a few large
oil companies. This is a very concentrated industry. A good strategy
would be for the firm's sales representatives to make a concentrated
effort to call upon the pipeline executives. They can explain how
the product works, demonstrate its use with prototypes, and obtain
feedback from prospects. Some advertising support for the sales force
would be helpful. Trade magazines would be useful media, in this regard.
Still, the thrust of the promotion effort should come from the sales
force.

ANSWER  B
INSTRUCTIONS Try to imagine how companies can determine the best promotion
methods to use in carrying out their marketing missions. Then go into this chapter for further insights.

EXAMPLE

Department stores can achieve success through promotion in a number
of ways. Some stress attractive advertisements which enhance the
images of their stores. Others attempt to feature special programs,
such as fashion shows, that attract publicity. Still others stress
sales promotion, as through devoting considerable attention to
developing attractive displays.

A department store chain in the Pacific Northwest stresses personal
selling. Sales personnel are carefully selected, trained, and
motivated. They are taught to pay considerable attention to customer
satisfaction and the stores have developed a very good reputation
among consumers in this regard. Some salespersons have even been
known to make deliveries to customers on their own time.This devotion
to serving the customer through personal selling has made the company
very successful and prospects for the future are bright.

DETAILS

The characteristics of the product should be considered when
developing a promotional program. Consumers carefully deliberate
over expensive items before they make a purchase. Consequently,
personalized messages may be very important to answer questions,
arrange delivery, and handle other details. Sales personnel are
important elements in the sale of refrigerators, washing machines,
and clothing dryers in retail stores.

The complexity of the product is also a consideration. If lengthy
messages are needed, such as for computers, print is probably a
better choice than TV or radio if mass communications are used. In
contrast, frequently purchased durables that are simple to understand
and are aimed at large markets, such as a new deodorant, can probably
be best promoted through rapid-paced mass communications such as TV
or radio.

Finally, the cost of each medium should be considered when determining
a promotional program. Ideally, the budget should be allocated in a
way that the marginal benefit divided by the marginal cost of each is
equal. In reality, this is impossible to measure. All promotional
efforts interact with each other, and with other marketing mix elements,
in a unique way for each company and each promotion objective. Thus,
selecting a particular mix tends to be more of an art than a science.

Each channel has both strengths and weaknesses that make it advantageous
to use in certain situations. Advertising and personal selling are
the major means of promoting products. Accordingly, these topics are
treated in greater depth in forthcoming sections.

PROBLEM 4

A travel agency that specializes in family vacations is planning a
promotion mix. Which channel would be most effective in promoting
to target customers.

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

WORKED

For a travel agency that specializes in family vacations, personal
selling would be the most effective channel. Most family vacations
that are booked through a travel agency are relatively expensive.
Consumers carefully deliberate before a commitment is made. Personalized
messages can be used to answer questions, make suggestions, overcome
objections, and handle other details. Many consumers feel that there is
risk involved in vacations. This includes financial risk (most are
expensive), psychological risk (the vacations may not be as enjoyable
as expected) and even physical risk (some destinations are marked by
crime and other physical dangers). Sales representatives can assist
in guiding vacationers to sites where they are comfortable with respect
to risk. Travel agencies are well-advised to recruit, train, and
motivate a highly qualified group of agents. Their efforts can be
backed up by advertising.

ANSWER  B