Managing mass communication
Download as DOCX, PDF1 like1,629 views
This document provides an overview of different mass communication strategies including advertising, sales promotions, events and experiences, and public relations. It discusses the objectives and goals of each strategy, how to develop effective campaigns, choose appropriate media and measure results. Specifically, it outlines how to set advertising budgets and goals, develop messaging, select media channels, and evaluate effectiveness. It also explains how companies can use sales promotions, sponsor events, create experiences and use public relations to engage customers, build brands and drive sales.
Managing mass communication
- 1. Managing Mass Communications: Advertising, Sales Promotions, Events and Experiences, and Public Relations Advertising can be a cost-effective way to disseminate messages, whether to build a brand preference or to educate people. Even in today’s challenging media environment, good ads can pay off. P&G has also enjoyed double-digit sales gains in recent years from ads touting the efficacy of Olay Definity antiaging skin products and Head & Shoulders Intensive Treatment shampoo. 1. Mission An advertising objective (or 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, remind, or reinforce.
- 2. Informative advertising aims to create brand awareness and knowledge of new products or new features of existing products. 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. Expensive, four-color Coca-Cola ads in magazines are intended to remind people to purchase Coca-Cola. Reinforcement advertising aims to convince current purchasers that they made the right choice. Automobile ads often depict satisfied customers enjoying special features of their new car. 2. Money Deciding on the Advertising Budget How does a company know it’s spending the right amount? Although advertising is treated as a current expense, part of it is really an investment in building brand equity and customer loyalty. When a company spends $5 million on capital equipment, it may treat the equipment as a five- year depreciable asset and write off only one-fifth of the cost in the first year. When it spends $5 million on advertising to launch a new product, it must write off the entire cost in the first year, reducing its reported profit, even if the effects will persist for many years to come. 3. Message Developing the Advertising Campaign In designing and evaluating an ad campaign, marketers employ both art and science to develop the messagestrategy 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. 4. Media Deciding on Media and Measuring Effectiveness After choosing the message, the advertiser’s next task is to choose media to carry it. The steps here are deciding on desired reach, frequency, and impact; choosing among major media types; selecting specific media vehicles; deciding on media timing; and deciding on geographical media allocation. Then the marketer evaluates the results of these decisions. 5. Measurement Evaluating Advertising Effectiveness Most advertisers try to measure the communication effect of an ad—that is, its potential impact on awareness, knowledge, or preference. They would also like to measure the ad’s sales effect. a) COMMUNICATION-EFFECT RESEARCH Communication-effect research, called copy testing, seeks to determine whether an ad is communicating effectively.
- 3. b) SALES-EFFECT RESEARCH What sales are generated by an ad that increases brand awareness by 20 percent and brand preference by 10 percent? The fewer or more controllable other factors such as features and price are, the easier it is to measure advertising’s effect on sales. 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. Samples: Offer of a free amount of a product or service delivered door-to-door, sent in the mail, picked up in a store, attached to another product, or featured in an advertising offer. Coupons:Certificates entitling the bearer to astated saving on the purchase of aspecific product: mailed, enclosed in other products or attached to them, or inserted in magazine and newspaper ads. Cash Refund Offers (rebates): Provide a price reduction after purchase rather than at the retail shop: Consumer sends a specified “proof of purchase” to the manufacturer who “refunds” part of the purchase price by mail. Price Packs (cents-off deals): Offers to consumers of savings off the regular price of a product, flagged on the label or package. A reduced-price pack is a single package sold at a reduced price (such as two for the price of one). A banded pack is two related products banded together (such as a toothbrush and toothpaste). Premiums (gifts): Merchandise offered at a relatively low cost or free as an incentive to purchase a particular product. A with-pack premium accompanies the product inside or on the package. A free in-the-mail premium is mailed to consumers who send in a proof of purchase, such as a box top or UPC code. A self-liquidating premium is sold below its normal retail price to consumers who request it. Frequency Programs: Programs providing rewards related to the consumer’s frequency and intensity in purchasing the company’s products or services. Prizes (contests, sweepstakes, games): Prizes are offers of the chance to win cash, trips, or merchandise as a result of purchasing something. A contest calls for consumers to submit an entry to be examined by a panel of judges who will select the best entries. A sweepstakes asks consumers to submit their names in adrawing. A game presents consumers with something every time they buy—bingo numbers, missing letters—which might help them win a prize. Patronage Awards: Values in cash or in other forms that are proportional to patronage of a certain vendor or group of vendors. Free Trials: Inviting prospective purchasers to try the product without cost in the hope that they will buy. Product Warranties: Explicit or implicit promises by sellers that the product will perform as specified or that the seller will fix it or refund the customer’s money during a specified period.
- 4. Tie-inPromotions:Twoor more brands or companies teamup on coupons, refunds, and contests to increase pulling power. Cross-Promotions: Using one brand to advertise another noncompeting brand. Point-of-Purchase (P-O-P) Displays and Demonstrations: P-O-P displays and demonstrations take place at the point of purchase or sale. Events and Experiences The IEG Sponsorship Report projected that $17.1 billion would be spent on sponsorships in North America during 2010, with 68 percent going to sports; another 10 percent to entertainment tours and attractions; 5 percent to festivals, fairs, and annual events; 5 percent to the arts; 3 percent to associations and membership organizations; and 9 percent to cause marketing.70 Becoming part of a personally relevant moment in consumers’ lives through events and experiences can broaden and deepen a company or brand’s relationship with the target market. EventsObjectives 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. Old Spice sponsors college sports and motor sports—including a 10-year deal with driver Tony Stewart’s entries in the Nextel Cup and Busch Series—to highlight product relevance and sample among its target audience of 16- to 24-year-old males. 2. To increase salience of company or product name—Sponsorship often offers sustained exposure to a brand, a necessary condition to reinforce brand salience. Top-of-mind awareness for World Cup soccer sponsors such as Emirates, Hyundai, Kia, and Sony benefited from the repeated brand and ad exposure over the one month–long tournament. 3. To create or reinforce perceptions of key brand image associations—Events themselves have associations that help to create or reinforce brand associations. To toughen its image and appeal to America’s heartland, Toyota Tundra elected to sponsor B.A.S.S. fishing tournaments and a Brooks & Dunn country music tour. 4. To enhance corporate image—Sponsorship can improve perceptions that the company is likable and prestigious. Although Visa views its long-standing Olympic sponsorship as a means of enhancing international brand awareness and increasing usage and volume, it also engenders patriotic goodwill and taps into the emotional Olympic spirit. 5. To create experiences and evoke feelings—The feelings engendered by an exciting or rewarding event may indirectly link to the brand. Audi models featured prominently in the 2010 blockbuster Iron Man 2, including main character Tony Stark’s personal R8 Spyder, the A8, Q5 and Q7 SUVs, and A3 hatchback. Backed by a month-long marketing blitz, surveys revealed that positive word of mouth doubled for the brand. 6. To express commitment to the community or on social issues—Cause-related marketing sponsors nonprofit organizations and charities. Firms such as Timberland, Stonyfield Farms,
- 5. Home Depot, Starbucks, American Express, and Tom’s of Maine have made cause-related marketing an important cornerstone of their marketing programs. 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. These perks engender goodwill and establish valuable business contacts. From an employee perspective, events can also build participation and morale or serve as an incentive. BB&T Corp., a major banking and financial services player in the South and Southeast United States, used its NASCAR Busch Series sponsorship to entertain business customers and its minor league baseball sponsorship to generate excitement among employees. 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. Ford, Coca-Cola, and AT&T Mobility have all used their sponsorship of the hit TV show American Idol in this way. 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. In one survey, four of five respondents found participating in a live event was more engaging than all other forms of communication. The vast majority also felt experiential marketing gave them more information than other forms of communication and would make them more likely to tell others about participating in the event and to be receptive to other marketing for the brand.85 Companies can even create a strong image by inviting prospects and customers to visit their headquarters and factories. Ben & Jerry’s, Boeing, Crayola, and Hershey’s all sponsor excellent company tours that draw millions of visitors a year. Companies such as Hallmark, Kohler, and Beiersdorf (makers of NIVEA) have built corporate museums at or near their headquarters that display their history and the drama of producing and marketing their products. 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 in 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. The wise company takes concrete steps to manage successful relationships with its key publics. Most companies have a public relations department that monitors the attitudes of the organization’s publics and distributes information and communications to build goodwill. The
- 6. best PR departments counsel top management to adopt positive programs and eliminate questionable practices so negative publicity doesn’t arise in the first place. 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 communications 4. Lobbying—Dealing with legislators and government officials to promote or defeat legislation and regulation 5. Counseling—Advising management about public issues, and company positions 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. The old name for MPR was publicity, the task of securing editorial space—as opposed to paid space—in print and broadcast media to promote or “hype” a product, service, idea, place, person, or organization. MPR goes beyond simple publicity and plays an important role in the following tasks: • Launching new products. The amazing commercial success of toys such as LeapFrog, Beanie Babies, and even the latest kids’ craze, Silly Bandz, owes a great deal to strong publicity. • Repositioning a mature product. In a classic PR case study, New York City had extremely bad press in the 1970s until the “I Love New York” campaign. • Building interest in a product category. Companies and trade associations have used MPR to rebuild interest in declining commodities such as eggs, milk, beef, and potatoes and to expand consumption of such products as tea, pork, and orange juice. • Influencing specific target groups. McDonald’s sponsors special neighborhood events in Latino and African American communities to build goodwill. • Defending products that have encountered public problems. PR professionals must be adept at managing crises, such as those weathered by such well-established brands as Tylenol, Toyota, and BP in 2010.
- 7. • Building the corporate image in a way that reflects favorably on its products. Steve Jobs’s heavily anticipated Macworld keynote speeches have helped to create aninnovative, iconoclastic image for Apple Corporation.