Managing Mass Communications: Advertising, Sales Promotions, Events and Experiences, and Public Relations

Advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of a product by an identified sponsor. In developing an advertising program, marketing managers must always start by identifying the target market and buyer motives. Then they can make the five major decisions, known as "the five Ms": Mission, Money, Message, Media, and Measurement.

Setting the Objectives

An advertising objective (or advertising goal) is a specific communications task and achievement level to be accomplished with a specific audience in a specific period of time. We can classify advertising objectives according to whether their aim is to inform, persuade, remain, or reinforce.

• Informative advertising aims to create brand awareness and knowledge of new products or new features of existing product.
• Persuasive advertising aims to create liking, preference, conviction, and purchase of a product or service.
• Reminder advertising aims to stimulate repeat purchase of products and services.
• Reinforcement advertising aims to convince current purchasers that they made the right choice.

Deciding on the Advertising Budget

Here are five specific factors to consider when setting the advertising budget.

1. Stage in the product life cycle -- New products typically merit large budgets to build awareness and to gain consumer trial.
2. Market share and consumer base -- High-market-share brands usually require less advertising expenditure as a percentage of sales to maintain share. 
3. Competition and clutter -- In a market with many competitors and high advertising spending, a brand must advertise more heavily to be heard.
4. Advertising frequency -- The number of repetitions needed to put the brand's message across to consumers has an obvious impact on the advertising budget.
5. Product substitutability -- Brands in less-differentiated or commodity-like product classes (beer,soft drinks), require heavy advertising to establish a unique image.

Developing the Advertising Campaign

In designing an ad campaign, marketers employ both art and science to develop the message strategy or positioning of an ad -- what the ad attempts to convey about the brand -- and its creative strategy -- how the ad expresses the brand claims. Advertisers go through three steps: message generation and evaluation, creative development and execution, and social-responsibility review.

Deciding on Media and Measuring Effectiveness

After choosing the message, the next task is to choose media to carry it. The steps here are deciding on desired reach, frequency, and impact; choosing among major media type; selecting specific media vehicles; deciding on media timing; and deciding on geographical media allocation. Then the marketer evaluates the result of these decisions.

Sales Promotion

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. Whereas advertising offers a reason to buy, sales promotion offers an incentive. Sales promotion includes tools for consumer promotion (samples, coupons, cash refund offers, prices off, premiums, prizes, patronage rewards, free trials, warranties, tie-in promotions, cross-promotions, point-of-purchase displays, and demostrations), trade promotion (prices off, advertising and display allowances, and free goods), and business and sales force promotion (trade shows and conventions, contests for sales reps, and specialty advertising).

Sales Promotion Objectives

Sales promotion can be used to achieve a variety of objectives. Sales promotions often attract brand switchers, who are primarily looking for low price, good value, or premiums. In addition to brand switching, consumers may engage in stockpiling -- purchasing earlier than usual (purchase acceleration) or purchasing extra quantitie\s -- although sales may then hit a postpromotion dip.

Advertising versus Promotion

Several factors have contributed to the growth of sales promotion expenditures as a percentage of the overall communication budget, particularly in consumer markets. Promotion became more accepted by top management as an effective sales tool, the number of brands increased, competitors used promotions frequently, many brands were seen as similar, consumers became more price-oriented, the trade demanded more deals from manufacturers, and advertising efficiency declined. Small-share competitors may find it advantageous to use sales promotion, because they cannot afford to match the market leaders' large advertising budgets, nor can they obtain shelf space without offering trade allowances or stimulate consumer trial without offering incentives. The upshot is that many consumer-packaged-goods companies feel forced to use more sales promotion than they wish.

 

Major Decisions

In using sale 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

Becoming part of a personally relevant moment in consumer's lives through events and experiences can broaden and deepen a company or brand's relationship with the target market. Daily encounters with brands may also affect consumers' brand attitudes and beliefs. Atmospheres are "packaged environments" that create or reinforce leanings toward product purchase.

Events Objectives

Marketers report a number of reasons to sponsor events:

1. To identify with a particular target market or lifestyle -- Customers can be targeted geographically, demographically, psychographically, or behaviorally according to events.
2. To increase salience of company or product name -- Sponsorship often offers sustained exposure to a brand, a necessary condition to reinforce brand salience. 
3. To create or reinforce perceptions of key brand image associations -- Events themselves have associations that help to create or reinforce brand associations.
4. To enhance corporate image -- Sponsorship can improve perceptions that the company is likable and prestigious.
5. To create experiences and evoke feelings -- The feelings engendered by an exciting or rewarding event may indirectly link to the brand.
6. To express commitment to the community or on social issues -- cause-related marketing sponsors nonprofit organizations and charities. 
7. To entertain key clients or reward key employees -- Many events include lavish hospitality tents and other special services or activities only for sponsors and their guests, to build goodwill and establish valuable business contacts.
8. To permit merchandising or promotional opportunities -- Many marketers tie contests or sweepstakes, in-store merchandising, direct response, or other marketing activities with an event. 

Major Sponsorship Decisions

Marketing sponsorships successful requires choosing the appropriate events, designing the optimal sponsorship program, and measuring the effects of sponsorship.

• Choosing event opportunities -- The event must fit with the brand's marketing objectives and communication strategy, attract the desired target market, generate sufficient awareness and favorable attributions, posses the desired image, and be capable of creating the desired effects.
• Designing sponsorship programs -- Many marketers believe the marketing program accompanying an event sponsorship ultimately determines its success.
• Measuring sponsorship activities -- It's a challenge to measure the success of events. The supply-side measurement method focuses on potential exposure to the brand by assessing the extent of media coverage, and the demand-side method focus on exposure reported by consumers, as well as resulting attitudes and intentions toward the sponsor. 

Creating Experiences

A large part of local, grassroots marketing is experiential marketing, which not only communicates features and benefits but also connects a product or service with unique and interesting experiences. "The idea is not to sell something, but to demonstrate how a brand can enrich a customer's life." Consumers seem to appreciate that.

Public Relations

Not only must the company relate constructively to customers, suppliers, and dealers, it must also relate to a large number of interested publics. A public is any group that has an actual or potential interest or impact on a company's ability to achieve its objectives. Public relations (PR) includes a variety of programs to promote or protect a company's image or individual products. They perform the following five functions:

1. Press relations -- Presenting news and information about the organization in the most positive light
2. Product publicity -- Sponsoring efforts to publicize specific products
3. Corporate communications -- Promoting understanding of the organization through internal and external communicatons
4. Lobbying -- Dealing with legislators and government officials to promote or defeat legislation and regulation
5. Counseling -- Advising management about public, issues, and company position and image during good times and bad

Marketing Public Relations

Many companies are turning to marketing public relations (MPR) to support corporate or product promotion and image making. MPR, like financial PR and community PR, serves a special constituency, the marketing department. MPR goes beyond simple publicity and plays an important role in the following tasks:

• Launching new products.
• Repositioning a mature product.
• Building interest in a product category.
• Influencing specific target groups.
• Defending products that have encountered public problems.
• Building the corporate image in a way that reflects favorably on its products.

Major Decisions in Marketing PR

In considering when and how to use MPR, management must establish the marketing objectives, choose the PR messages and vehicles, implement the plan carefully, and evaluate the results.

 

Summary

Advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of a product by an identified sponsor. In developing an advertising program, marketing managers must always start by identifying the target market and buyer motives. Then they can make the five major decisions, known as "the five Ms": Mission, Money, Message, Media, and Measurement. 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. Becoming part of a personally relevant moment in consumer's lives through events and experiences can broaden and deepen a company or brand's relationship with the target market. Daily encounters with brands may also affect consumers' brand attitudes and beliefs. Atmospheres are "packaged environments" that create or reinforce leanings toward product purchase. Not only must the company relate constructively to customers, suppliers, and dealers, it must also relate to a large number of interested publics. A public is any group that has an actual or potential interest or impact on a company's ability to achieve its objectives. Public relations (PR) includes a variety of programs to promote or protect a company's image or individual products. 

Personal Point of View

These marketing and sale promotion are trying to related consumer's personal experiences and lifestyles. Consumers remembers brand images when it is related to their life experiences. Public relation is really important because a product needs to be place in the mind of consumers. Product placement comes in hand in hand with public relations. Events are as much important as experiences because consumers want to feel and experience personal in real life before they make their final decision.