Managing   Mass Communications

中国经济管理大学|中国经济管理大学培训|MBA实战_中国经济管理大学 WWW.EAUC.HK

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
In this chapter, we will address the following questions:
1. What steps are required in developing an advertising program?
2. How should sales promotion decisions be made?
3. What are the guidelines for effective brand-building events and experiences?
4. How can companies exploit the potential of public relations and publicity?
SUMMARY
1. Advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas,
goods, or services by an identified sponsor. Advertisers include not only business
firms but also charitable, nonprofit, and government agencies.
2. Developing an advertising program is a five‐step process: (1) Set advertising
objectives; (2) establish a budget; (3) choose the advertising message and
creative strategy; (4) decide on the media; and (5) evaluate communication and
sales effects.
3. Sales promotion consists of mostly short‐term incentive tools, designed to
stimulate quicker or greater purchase of particular products or services by
consumers or the trade.
4. In using sales promotion, a company must establish its objectives, select the tools,
develop the program, pretest the program, implement and control it, and
evaluate the results.
5. Events and experiences are a means to become part of special and more
personally relevant moments in consumers’ lives. Events can broaden and
deepen the sponsor’s relationship with its target market, but only if managed
properly.
C H A P T E R 18 MANAGING MASS
COMMUNICATIONS:
ADVERTISING, SALES
PROMOTIONS, EVENTS
AND EXPERIENCES, AND
PUBLIC RELATIONS

6. Public relations (PR) includes a variety of programs designed to promote or
protect a company’s image or its individual products. Marketing public relations
(MPR), to support the marketing department in corporate or product promotion
and image making, can affect public awareness at a fraction of the cost of
advertising and is often much more credible. The main tools of PR are
publications, events, news, community affairs, identification media, lobbying and
social responsibility (or the so‐called “PENCILS” of PR).
OPENING THOUGHT
Students will be familiar with the major forms of advertising. What might present
challenges to some students will be the ideas surrounding the five-step process involved:
set advertising objectives, establish a budget, choose the advertising message and creative
strategy, decide on the media, and evaluate the effects. The instructor is encouraged to
present examples of differing advertising campaigns and differing forms of
communication (print, electronic, Web-based, billboards, etc.) to show the various
opportunities and complexities involved.
The instructor is encouraged to use events and experiences (sponsorships of university or
college events are good examples to use) to demonstrate the effectiveness (or
ineffectiveness) of this media to build brand equity.
Public relations and MPR might be new material to students and the instructor is
encouraged to use professional public relations officers (university or college
representatives) as guest speakers to explain current developing practices and procedures
in this evolving specialty.
TEACHING STRATEGY AND CLASS ORGANIZATION
PROJECTS
1. At this point in the semester-long project, students should submit their advertising
program complete with objectives, budget, advertising message and creative strategy,
media decisions, and sales and promotional materials.
2. Sponsorships are an integral part of life in America today. The support of college and
university’s teams by various sporting goods companies and local vendors add
needed revenues to colleges and universities. In this project, students are to contact
their college or university’s sports management program and try to discover the dollar
amount that sponsorships add to the university. Secondly, contact as many of these
local sponsors as possible and try to see how these sponsors quantify their
expenditures (to the college and university) in terms of brand awareness, purchase
intent, or consumer product decision-making.
3. Sonic PDA Marketing Plan: Advertising, sales promotion, and public relations are
among the most visible outcomes of any marketing plan. These mass communications

tools provide support for branding, product, pricing, and distribution strategies. At
Sonic, you are starting to plan promotional support for launching the new PDA. After
reviewing your earlier marketing mix decisions and your current situation as a new
player in the PDA market, respond to the following questions about your promotion
strategy:
• Should Sonic use advertising to support the PDA introduction? If so, what
advertising goals will you set, and how will you measure your results?
• What message(s) do you want to communicate to your target audience? What
media are most appropriate, and why?
• Should you use consumer or trade promotion or both?
• Should you use public relations to promote Sonic and its products? If so, what
objectives will you set for your public relations program(s)?
Summarize your answers in a written marketing plan or type them into the Marketing
Mix section of Marketing Plan Pro.
ASSIGNMENTS
Organizations handle advertising in differing ways. In this assignment, students should
contact different size companies in their community (one large, one medium, and one
small company) and find out who is responsible for working with their ad agencies and
how (and where) did they receive their training in developing advertising messages. Was
or did their training primarily consist of “on-the-job” training? Experience learned from
previous positions in larger firms? Or is their understanding of the operation of
advertising more of a “learn as I go” process? In compiling their data, can the students
identify any common elements? Can we draw any inference from or about advertising
from the data?
In small groups, have the students create an advertising campaign for a product/service of
their choosing, including ad copy and creative execution (mock-up print ads, a
“homemade” television commercial for example). This campaign should contain each of
the elements of the chapter material and most importantly, define the 5Ms objectives.
The remainder of their class members should evaluate each group member as to the
effectiveness of their campaign.
It has been suggested that over 70 percent of all buying decisions are made in the store
and as a result, point-of-purchase advertising has grown in its appeal. Students should
give three examples of point-of-purchase advertising that they have recently come across
(ads in-store, personal selling by a cosmetic counter salesperson, etc.) and comment on
the effectiveness to them of this type of advertising. Did they buy the product? Did the
advertising annoy them? Moreover, in the role of a marketing executive, would the
student recommend spending part of their advertising budget on this form of media?
In the Marketing Memo entitled, Print Ad Evaluation Criteria, the author lists seven
questions that should be answered in the affirmative concerning the executional elements

of print advertising. Have the students select two print advertisements, then ask them to
evaluate each of them in regards to the criteria stated in the Marketing Memo.
This assignment should be a favorite one for the students to complete. Breaking the class
up into groups, assign a different television channel (cable and network) to each group.
Have the students’ record all the television commercials shown during prime time for a
particular night (say for a Thursday night). After watching the commercials, students
should list their favorite ones, their not so favorite ones, and the ones that annoyed them
the most. Have the students share their commercials with the other class members and see
if the other members share the same opinion(s). Finally, in light of the advertising
objectives presented in this chapter, can the students “pick out” the message of the ad?
Events, experiences, and sponsorship advertising is increasing. The chapter outlines eight
reasons given for sponsoring events. Students should choose an event or sponsorship
(recent activity on campus, attendance by students at an event, etc.) and evaluate how
effective they feel the event is/was towards achieving these eight objectives. Students
should also be able to comment on why they feel that the sponsorship event did not
achieve some of these stated objectives.
END-OF-CHAPTER SUPPORT
Marketing Debate: Should Marketers Test Advertising?
Advertising creatives have long lamented ad pretesting. They believe that it inhibits their
creative process and results in much sameness in commercials. Marketers, on the other
hand, believe that ad pretesting provides necessary checks and balances as to whether an
ad campaign is being developed in a way so that it will connect with consumers and be
well-received in the marketplace.
Take a position: Ad pretesting in often an unnecessary waste of marketing dollars vs.
ad pretesting provides an important diagnostic function for marketers as to the
likely success of an ad campaign.
Pro: Most advertisers try to measure the communication effect of an ad—that is, its
potential effect on awareness, knowledge, or preference. They would also like to measure
the ad’s sales effect. Communication-Effect Research called copy testing seeks to
determine whether an ad is communicating effectively. Marketers should perform this
test both before an ad is put into media and after it is printed or broadcast.
Many advertisers use posttests to assess the overall impact of a completed campaign. If a
company hoped to increase brand awareness from 20 percent to 50 percent and succeeded
in increasing it to only 30 percent, then the company is not spending enough, its ads are
poor, or it has overlooked some other factor, giving them valuable information at a
reasonable cost.
Con: Pretest critics maintain that agencies can design ads that test well but may not
necessarily perform well in the marketplace. Proponents of ad pretesting maintain that

useful diagnostic information can emerge and that pretests should not be used as the sole
decision criterion anyway. Widely acknowledged as being one of the best advertisers
around, Nike is notorious for doing very little ad pretesting.
MARKETING DISCUSSION
What are some of your favorite TV ads? Why? How effective are the messages and creative
strategies? How are they building brand equity?
Student answers will differ depending upon their favorite TV commercials but all
answers should cover the major points of this chapter.
Marketing Excellence: COCA-COLA
1) What does Coca-Cola stand for? Is it the same for everyone? Explain.
Suggested Answer: Because Coke believed early on that to gain worldwide acceptance, it
needed to connect emotionally and socially with the masses and be “at arm’s length” with
everyone.
Coco-Cola must understand and recognize that “refreshment” means different things to
different people around the world. One of Coke’s strengths is how well it weaves the soft
drink, Coke, into people’s definitions of refreshment no matter where in the world they
live.
2) Coca-Cola has successfully marketed to billions of people around the world. Why
is it so successful?
Suggested Answer: Coke has created a highly-current, uplifting global campaign that
translates well into different countries, languages, and cultures. Coke’s advertising has
primarily focused on the product’s ability to quench thirst.
3) Can Pepsi or any other company ever surpass Coca-Cola? Why or why not? What
are Coca-Cola’s greatest risks?
Suggested Answer: Student answers will vary based on their personal opinions and “tastes.”
Coke’s greatest risks have to be the managing of its mass communications strategy and
reaching the brand’s target market—it is so massive that the right media and marketing
message is critical.
Marketing Excellence: GILLETTE
1) Gillette has successfully convinced the world that “more is better” in terms of
number of blades and other razor features. Why has that worked in the past?
What’s next?
Suggested Answer: The company’s impressive marketing knowledge and campaigns
have helped it reach an international level of success. Gillette uses one global marketing

message around the world and is closely aligned with sports and sports figures worldwide.
2) Some of Gillette’s spokespeople such as Tiger Woods have run into controversy
after becoming endorsers for the brand. Does this hurt Gillette’s brand equity or
marketing message? Explain.
Suggested Answer: In the long-run these spokespeople should not hurt the brand’s equity
due to the extensive use of sport figures world-wide, and the integrated marketing
communication strategy—aligning itself with not only sport figures but musicians, video
games, and movies/videos.
3) Can Gillette ever become as successful at marketing to women? Why or why
not?
Suggested Answer: Yes, the strategies, tactics, and communication message used to market to
me, Gillette can begin to market to women—women who buy personal care products for
“their man”!
DETAILED CHAPTER OUTLINE
Although there has been an enormous increase in the use of personal communications by
marketers in recent years, due to the rapid penetration of the Internet and other factors, the fact
remains that mass media, if used correctly, is still an important component of a modern
marketing communications program.
The old days of “if you build a great ad, they will come,” however, are long gone. To
generate consumer interest and sales, mass media must often be supplemented and carefully
integrated with other communication; other marketers are trying to come to grips with how to
best use mass media in the new—and still changing—communication environment.
DEVELOPING AND MANAGING AN ADVERTISING PROGRAM
Advertising can be a cost-effective way to disseminate messages, whether to build a brand
preference or to educate people.
A) In developing an advertising program, marketing managers must always start by
identifying the target market and buyer motives.
B) They can then make the five major decisions known as “the 5Ms”:
1) Mission: What are the advertising objectives?
2) Money: How much to spend?
3) Message: What message should be sent?
4) Media: What media should be used?
5) Measurement: How should the results be evaluated?

Setting the Objectives
The advertising objectives must flow from prior decisions on target market, brand
positioning, and the marketing program.
A) An advertising objective (or goal) is a specific communication task and
achievement level to be accomplished with a specific audience in a specific period
of time.
B) Advertising objectives can be classified according to whether their aim is to:
1) Inform
2) Persuade
3) Remind
4) Reinforce
C) Each aim at different stages in the hierarchy of effects discussed in Chapter 17.
D) Information advertising aims to create brand awareness and knowledge of new
products or new features of existing products.
E) Persuasive advertising aims to create liking, preference, conviction, and purchase
of a product or service.
F) Reminder advertising aims to stimulate repeat purchase of products and services.
G) Reinforcement advertising aims to convince purchasers that they made the right
choice.
H) The advertising objective should emerge from a thorough analysis of the current
marketing situation.
Deciding On the Advertising Budget
How does a company know if it is spending the right amount?
A) Although advertising is treated as a current expense, part of it really is an investment
in building brand equity.
Factors affecting budget decisions
Here are five specific factors to consider when setting the advertising budget:
1) Stage in the product life cycle
2) Market share and consumer base
3) Competition and clutter
4) Advertising frequency
5) Product substitutability
Advertising Elasticity
The predominant response function for advertising is often concave but can be S-shaped.
When consumer response is S-shaped, some positive amount of advertising is necessary to
generate any sales impact, but sales increases eventually flatten out.

Developing the Advertising Campaign
In designing and evaluating 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, its creative strategy and how the ad expresses the brand claim.
Message Generation and Evaluation
Advertisers are always seeking “the big idea” that connects with consumers
rationally and emotionally, sharply distinguishes the brand from competitors, and is
broad and flexible enough to translate to different media, markets, and time periods.
Fresh insights are important for avoiding using the same appeals and position as
others.
A good ad normally focuses on one or two core selling propositions.
A) Creative brief
B) Positioning statement
1. Includes considerations such as key message, target audience, communications
objectives (to do, to know, to believe), key brand benefits, supports for the brand
promise, and media.
Creative Development and Execution
The ad’s impact depends not only on what is said, but often more importantly, on how it says
it.
Execution can be decisive.
B) Every advertising medium has specific advantages and disadvantages.
Television Ads
Television is generally acknowledged as the most powerful advertising medium and reaches a
broad spectrum of consumers.
A) The wide reach translates to low cost per exposure.
B) From a brand-building perspective, TV advertising has two particularly important
strengths:
1) It can be an effective means of vividly demonstrating product attributes and
persuasively explaining their corresponding consumer benefits.
2) TV advertising can be a compelling means for dramatically portraying user and
usage imagery, brand personality, and other brand tangibles.
C) Television advertising also has its drawbacks.
1) Because of the fleeting nature of the message and the potentially distracting
creative elements, product-related messages and the brand itself can be
overlooked.
2) The large number of ads and non-programming material creates clutter that makes
it easy for consumers to ignore or forget ads.

3) TV advertising has high costs in production and placement.
D) Properly designed and executed TV ads can improve brand equity and affect sales and
profits.
1) A well-done TV commercial can still be a powerful marketing tool.
Print Ads
Print media offers a stark contrast to broadcast media.
A) Print media can provide much detailed product information and can also effectively
communicate user and usage imagery.
B) However, the static nature of the visual images makes it difficult to provide dynamic
presentations or demonstrations.
C) It can also be a fairly passive medium.
D) The two main print media—newspapers and magazines—have many of the same
advantages and disadvantages.
1) Newspapers are timely and pervasive.
2) Magazines are more effective at building user and usage imagery.
E) Format elements such as ad size, color, and illustration affect a print ad’s impact.
F) Researchers studying print advertisements report that the:
1) Picture
2) Headline
3) Copy (are important in that order)
Marketing Memo: Print ad evaluation criteria
This marketing memo lists the 7 questions marketers should consider when evaluating
whether or not their printed ad was executed for effectiveness: 1) Is the message clear at a
glance? Can you quickly tell what the advertisement is all about? 2) Is the benefit in the
headline? 3) Does the illustration support the headline? 4) Does the first line of the copy
support or explain the headline and illustration? 5) Is the ad easy to read and follow? 6) Is the
product easily identified? 7) Is the brand or sponsor clearly identified?
Radio Ads
Radio is a pervasive medium.
A) Radio’s main advantage is flexibility:
1) Stations are very targeted.
2) Ads are relatively inexpensive to produce and place.
3) Short closing allow for quick response.
B) Radio is particularly effective in the morning.

1) It allows a company to achieve a balance between broad and localized market
coverage.
C) The obvious disadvantages of radio are:
1) The lack of visual images.
2) Relatively passive nature of the consumer processing that results.
Legal and Social Issues
To break through clutter, some advertisers believe they have to be edgy and push the
boundaries of what consumers are used to seeing in advertising.
Advertisers and their agencies must be sure advertising does not overstep social and legal
norms. Public policy makers have developed a substantial body of laws and regulations to
govern advertising.
A) Under U.S. law, advertisers:
1) Must not make false claims
2) Must avoid false demonstrations
3) It is illegal in the United States to create ads that have the capacity to deceive
a. The problem is how to tell the difference between deception and “puffery”—
simple exaggerations not intended to be believed that are permitted by law.
4) Sellers are legally obligated to avoid bait-and-switch advertising that attracts
buyers under false pretenses.
5) Advertising can play a more positive broader social role. The Ad Council is a nonprofit
organization that uses top-notch industry talent to produce and distribute public
service announcements for non-profits and government agencies.
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.
Deciding On Reach, Frequency, and Impact
Media selection is finding the most cost-effective media to deliver the desired number and
type of exposures to the target audience.
A) What do we mean by the desired number of exposures?
1)) The advertiser is seeking a specified advertising objective and response from the
target audience.
B) The next task is to find out how many exposures, E*, will produce a level of audience
awareness.

C) The effect of exposures on audience awareness depends on the exposures.
1) Reach
2) Frequency
3) Impact
There are important tradeoffs among reach, frequency, and impact, namely budget dollars.
D) The relationship between reach, frequency, and impact is captured in the following
concepts:
A) Total number of exposures (E) is reach times the average frequency: E = R x F
2) Weighted number of exposures (WE) is the reach times average frequency times
average impact: WE = R x F x I
E) The media planner has to figure out the most cost-effective combination of reach,
frequency, and impact.
F) Reach is most important when:
1) Launching new products
2) Flanker brands
3) Extensions of well-known brands
4) Infrequently purchased goods
5) Going after an undefined target market
G) Frequency is most important where:
1) There are strong competitors
2) A complex story to tell
3) High consumer resistance
4) A frequent-purchase cycle
H) A key reason for repetition is forgetting.
1) The higher the forgetting rate associated with a brand, the higher the warranted
level of repetition.
2) Ads wear out and viewers tune them out so repetition is not enough.
3) Advertisers should insist on fresh ads.
Choosing Among Major Media Types
The media planner has to know the capacity of the major advertising media types to
deliver reach, frequency, and impact.
A) Media planners make their choices by considering the following variables:
1) Target audiences’ media habits
2) Product characteristics
3) Message characteristics

4) Cost
B) Given the abundance of media, the planner must first decide how to allocate the
budget to the major media types.
C) The distribution must be planned with the awareness that people are increasingly timestarved.
D) Attention is becoming a scarce currency, and advertisers need strong devices to
capture people’s attention.
E) Marketers must also recognize that consumer response can be S-shaped: An ad
threshold effect exists where some positive amount of advertising is necessary before
any sales impact can be detected, but sales increases eventually flatten out.
Alternative Advertising Options
In recent years, reduced effectiveness of traditional mass media has led advertisers to
increase their emphasis on alternate advertising media.
Place Advertising
Place advertising, or out-of-home advertising, is a broadly defined category that captures
many different alternative advertising forms.
A) Marketers are using creative and unexpected ad placement to grab consumer’s
attention.
B) The rationale is that marketers are better off reaching people in other environments,
such as where they:
1) Work
2) Play
3) Shop
C) Some of the options available include:
1) Billboards
2) Public places
3) Product placement
4) Point-of-purchase
There are many ways to communicate with consumers at the point of purchase (P-O-P).
In-store advertising includes ads on shopping carts, cart straps, aisles, and shelves, as well as
promotion options such as in-store demonstrations, live sampling, and instant coupon
machines.
Some supermarkets are selling floor space for company logos and experimenting with talking
shelves. P-O-P radio provides FM-style programming and commercial messages to thousands
of food stores and drugstores nationwide.
Programming includes a store-selected music format, consumer tips, and commercials.

Evaluating Alternative Media
Ads can now appear virtually anywhere consumers have a few minutes or even seconds
to notice them.
The main advantage of non-traditional media is a very precise and captive audience in a
cost-effective manner.
A) Unique ad placements designed to break through clutter may also be perceived as
invasive and obtrusive, however.
B) Consumer backlash often results when people see ads in traditionally ad-free spaces,
such as in schools, on police cruisers, and in doctors’ waiting rooms.
C) The challenge with non-traditional media is demonstrating its reach and effectiveness
through credible, independent research.
D) These new marketing strategies must be judged on how they contribute, directly or
indirectly, to brand equity.
E) Perhaps because of the sheer pervasiveness of advertising, consumers seem to be less
bothered by non-traditional media now than in the past.
F) Consumers must be favorably affected in some way to justify the marketing
expenditures for non-traditional media.
Marketing Insight: Playing games with brands
Many advertisers have adopted an “if you can’t beat them, join them” attitude and are
advertising in online games. Marketers are also playing starring roles in popular video games
by having their product featured in the games. The growing popularity of Second Life and
other virtual communities is creating new placement opportunities for marketers.
Selecting Specific Vehicles
The media planner must search for the most cost-effective vehicles within each chosen
media type.
A) In making choices, the planner has to rely on measurement services that provide
estimates of audience size, composition, and media cost.
B) Audience size has several possible measures:
1) Circulation
2) Audience
3) Effective audience
4) Effective ad-exposed audience
C) Media planner calculates the cost per thousand persons reached by a vehicle.
D) Several adjustments have to be applied to the cost-per-thousand measure:
1) The measure should be adjusted for audience quality.
2) The exposure value should be adjusted for the audience-attention probability.
3) The exposure value should be adjusted for the magazine’s editorial quality
(prestige and believability).

4) The exposure value should be adjusted for the magazine’s ad placement policies
and extra services.
E) Media planners are using more sophisticated measures of effectiveness and employing
them in mathematical models to arrive at the best media mix.
Deciding On Media Timing and Allocation
In choosing media, the advertiser faces both a macro scheduling and a micro-scheduling
problem.
A) The macro-scheduling problem involves scheduling the advertising in relation to
seasons and the business cycle.
B) The micro-scheduling problem calls for allocating advertising expenditures within a
short period to obtain maximum impact.
C) The most effective pattern depends on the communication objectives in relation to the:
1) Product
2) Target customers
3) Distribution channels
4) Other marketing factors
D) The timing pattern should also consider three factors:
1) Buyer turnover: the higher this rate, the more continuous the advertising should
be.
2) Purchase frequency: the higher the purchase frequency, the more continuous the
advertising should be.
3) Forgetting rate: the higher the forgetting rate, the more continuous the advertising
should be.
E) In launching a new product, the advertiser has to choose among:
1) Continuity
2) Concentration
3) Flighting
4) Pulsing
F) A company has to decide how to allocate its advertising budget over space as well as
over time:
1) Areas of dominant influence (ADIs)
2) Designated marketing areas (DMAs)
Evaluating Advertising Effectiveness
Most advertisers try to measure the communication effect of an ad—that is, the potential
effect on awareness, knowledge, or preference. They would also like to measure the ad’s
sales effect.

Communication-Effect Research
Communication-effect research seeks to determine whether an ad is communicating
effectively. Called copy testing, it can be done before an ad is put into media and after it
is printed or broadcast.
There are three major methods of pre-testing:
A) The consumer feedback method asks consumers for their reactions to a proposed ad.
B) Portfolio tests ask consumers to view or listen to a portfolio of advertisements, then
consumers are asked to recall all the ads and their contents.
C) Laboratory tests use equipment to measure physiological reactions to an ad.
Many advertisers use post-tests to assess the overall impact of a completed campaign.
Sales-Effect Research
The fewer or more controllable other factors such as features and price are, the
easier it is to measure advertising’s effect on sales. The sales impact is easiest to
measure in direct marketing situations and hardest in brand or corporate imagebuilding
advertising.
A) Sales are influenced by many factors:
1) Features
2) Price
3) Availability
4) Competitors’ actions
B) The sales impact is easiest to measure in direct-marketing situations.
C) It’s harder to measure in brand or corporate image-building campaigns.
D) Companies are generally interested in finding out whether they are overspending or
under spending on advertising.
E) A company’s share of advertising expenditures produces:
1) A share of voice
2) Earns a share of consumers’ minds and hearts
3) Ultimately a share of market
F) Researchers try to measure the sales impact through analyzing historical or
experimental data.
G) The historical approach involves correlating past sales to past advertising
expenditures.
H) Other researchers use an experimental design to measure advertising’s sales impact.

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.
A) Where advertising offers a reason to buy, sales promotion offers an incentive to buy.
B) Sales promotions include tools for:
1) Consumer promotion
2) Trade promotion
3) Business and sales-force promotion
Objectives
Sales promotions tools vary in their specific objectives:
A) Sellers use incentive-type promotions to:
1) Attract new users.
2) Reward loyal customers.
3) Increase the repurchase rates of occasional users.
B) Sales promotions are often used to attract brand switchers.
C) Sales promotions used in markets of high brand similarity can produce a high sales
response in the short run.
D) In markets of high brand dissimilarity, sales promotions may be able to alter market
shares permanently.
E) In addition to brand switching, consumers may engage in stockpiling during sales
promotions.
Advertising versus Promotion
Sales promotion expenditures increased as a percentage of budget expenditure for a
number of years, although its growth has recently slowed.
A) Several factors contributed to this growth, particularly in consumer markets.
B) Promotion became more accepted by top management as an effective sales tool;
C) The number of brands increased; competitors used promotions frequently;
D) Many brands were seen as similar;
E) Consumers became more price-oriented;
F) The trade demanded more deals from manufacturers;
G) Advertising efficiency declined.
H) The rapid growth of sales promotion created clutter.
I) Loyal brand buyers tend not to change their buying patterns as a result of
competitive promotions.

J) Price promotions may not build permanent total-category volume.
K) The upshot is that many consumer-packaged-goods companies feel forced to use
more sales promotion than they wish. They blame heavy use of sales promotion
for decreased brand loyalty, increased price sensitivity, brand-quality image
dilution, and a focus on short-run marketing planning.
Major Decisions
In using sales promotions, a company must establish its objectives, select the tools, develop
the program, pretest the program, implement and control it, and evaluate the results.
Establishing Objectives
Sales promotion objectives are derived from broader promotion objectives that are derived
from more basic marketing objectives developed for the product.
A) For consumers, objectives may include:
1) Encouraging purchase of larger-sized units
2) Building trial among non-users
3) Attracting switchers away from competitors’ brands
B) Ideally, promotions with consumers would have short-run sales impact as well as
long-run brand equity effects.
C) For retailers, objectives include persuading retailers to:
1) Carry new items
2) Higher levels of inventory
3) Encourage off-season buying
4) Encourage stocking of related items
5) Offset competitive promotions
6) Build brand loyalty
7) Gain entry into new retail outlets
D) For the sales force, objectives include:
1) Encourage support of a new product or model
2) Encourage more prospecting
3) Stimulate off-season sales
Selecting Consumer-Promotion Tools
The promotion planner should take into account the type of market, sales-promotion
objectives, competitive conditions, and each tool’s cost effectiveness.
A) We can distinguish between manufacturer’s promotions and retailer promotions.
1) Manufacturer’s promotions are illustrated by use of rebates and gifts.

2) Retailer promotions include price cuts, feature advertising, coupons, contests, or
premiums.
B) We can also distinguish between sales-promotion tools that are consumer-franchise
building and reinforce the consumer’s brand preference and those that do not.
C) Consumer franchise-building promotions offer the best of both worlds—they build
brand equity while moving product.
D) Sales promotion seems most effective when used together with advertising.
E) Digital coupons eliminate printing costs, reduce paper waste, are easily updatable, and
have higher redemption rates.
Selecting Trade-Promotion Tools
Manufacturers use a number of trade-promotion tools; a higher proportion of the
promotion pie is devoted to trade-promotion tools than to consumer promotion.
A) Manufacturers award money to the trade:
1) To persuade the retailer or wholesaler to carry the brand
2) To persuade the retailer or wholesaler to carry more units than the normal amount
3) To induce retailers to promote the brand by featuring, displaying, and reducing
prices
4) To stimulate retailers and their sales clerks to push the product
B) The growing power of large retailers has increased their ability to demand trade
promotions at the expense of consumer promotion and advertising.
C) Manufacturers face several challenges in managing trade promotions:
1) They often find it difficult to police retailers
a. Manufacturers are increasingly insisting on proof of performance before
paying allowance
2) More retailers are doing forward buying—buying a greater quantity during the
deal period than they can sell during the deal period
3) Retailers are doing more diverting
a. Manufacturers are trying to handle forward buying and diverting by limiting
the amount that they will sell at a discount
Selecting Business-and Sales-Force-Promotion Tools
Companies spend billions of dollars on business- and sales-force-promotion tools. These tools
are used to gather business leads, impress, and reward customers, and motivate the sales force
to greater effort.
Developing the Program
In planning sales-promotion programs, marketers are increasingly blending several media into
a total campaign concept.
A) In deciding to use a particular incentive, marketers have several factors to consider:

1) The size of the incentive
2) The conditions for participation
3) The duration of the promotion
4) The distribution vehicle
5) The timing of the promotion
6) The total sales-promotion budget
Implementing and Evaluating the Program
Marketing managers must prepare implementation and control plans for each individual
promotion that cover lead-time and sell-in time.
A) Lead-time is the time necessary to prepare the program prior to launching it.
B) Sell-in time begins with the promotional launch and ends when the merchandise is in
the hands of consumers.
C) Manufacturers can evaluate the program using three methods:
A) Sales data
B) Consumer survey
C) Experiments
D) Additional costs beyond the cost of specific promotions include the risk that
promotions might decrease long-run brand loyalty.
a. Promotions can be more expensive than they appear. Some are inevitably
distributed to the wrong consumers.
b. Costs of special production runs, extra sales-force effort, and handling
requirements.
c. Finally, certain promotions irritate retailers, who may demand extra trade
allowances or refuse to cooperate.
EVENTS AND EXPERIENCES
The IEG Sponsorship report, projected that $17.1 billion will be spent on sponsorships in
North America during 2010.
68% going to sports; another 10% to entertainment tours and attractions;
5% to festivals, fairs, and annual events;
5% to the arts; 3% to associations and membership organizations;
and 9% to cause marketing.
By becoming part of a special and more personally relevant moment in consumers’ lives,
involvement with events can broaden and deepen the relationship in consumers’ lives.
A) Daily encounters with brands may also affect consumers’ brand attitudes and beliefs.

B) Atmospheres are “packaged environments” that create or reinforce leaning toward
product purchase.
More firms are creating on-site or off-site product and brand experiences.
Many firms are creating their own events and experiences to create consumer and media
interest and involvement.
Events Objectives
Marketers report a number of reasons why they sponsor events:
A) To identify with a particular target market or lifestyle
B) To increase awareness of company or product name
C) To create or reinforce consumer perceptions of key brand image associations
D) To enhance corporate image dimensions
E) To create experiences and evoke feelings
F) To express commitment to the community or to social issues
G) To entertain key clients or reward key employees
H) To permit merchandising or promotional opportunities
I) Despite these potential advantages, there are a number of potential disadvantages to
sponsorships:
1) The success of the event can be unpredictable and out of the control of the
sponsor.
2) Some consumers may still resent the commercialization of events.
Major Sponsorship Decisions
Making sponsorships successful requires choosing the appropriate events, designing the
optimal sponsorship program for the event, and measuring the effects of sponsorship.
Choosing Events
Because of the huge amount of money involved and the number of events, many marketers
are becoming more selective about choosing sponsorship events.
A) The event must meet the marketing objectives and communication strategy defined for
the brand.
1) The audience delivered by the event must match the target market.
2) The event must have sufficient awareness.
3) Possess the desired image.
4) Be capable of creating the desired effect with that target market.
5) Consumers must make favorable attributions to the sponsor for its event involved.

B) An “ideal” event is also unique but not encumbered with many sponsors, lending itself
to:
1) ancillary marketing activities,
2) reflect or enhance the sponsor’s brand or corporate image.
Designing Sponsorship Programs
Many marketers believe that it is the marketing program accompanying an event sponsorship
that ultimately determines its success.
A) At least 2 to 3 times the amount of the sponsorship expenditure should be spent on
related marketing activities.
B) Event creation is a particularly important skill in publicizing fundraising drives for
non-profit organizations.
C) More firms are now using their names to sponsor the arenas, stadiums, and other
venues that hold events.
Measuring Sponsorship Activities
It is a challenge to measure the success of events.
1) The supply-side method focuses on potential exposure to the brand by assessing
the extent of media coverage.
2) Demand-side method focuses on reported exposure from consumers.
B) Supply-side methods attempt to approximate the amount of time or space devoted to
media coverage of an event.
1) This measure of potential “impressions” is then translated into an equivalent
“value” in advertising dollars according to the fees associated with actual
advertising in the particular media vehicle.
C) The demand-side method attempts to identify the effects sponsorship has on
consumers’ brand knowledge.
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.
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) A public is any group that has an actual or potential interest in or impact on a
company’s ability to achieve its objectives.
B) Public relations (PR) involves a variety of programs designed to promote or protect a
company’s image to its individual products.

C) The wise company takes concrete steps to manage successful relations with its key
publics.
D) Most companies have a public-relations department that monitors the attitudes of the
organizations’ publics and distributes information and communications to build
goodwill.
E) PR departments perform the following functions:
1) Press relations
2) Product publicity
3) Corporate communications
4) Lobbying
5) Counseling
Marketing Public Relations
Many companies are turning to marketing public relations (MPR) to support corporate or
product promotion and image making.
A) The old name for MPR was publicity that was seen as the task of securing editorial
space to promote or “hype” a product, service, idea, etc.
B) MPR goes beyond simple publicity and plays an important role in the following tasks:
1) Launching new products
2) Repositioning a mature product
3) Building interest in a product category
4) Influencing specific target groups
5) Defending products that have encountered public problems
6) Building the corporate image in a way that reflects favorably on its products
C) As the power of mass advertising weakens, marketing managers are turning to MPR
to build awareness and brand knowledge for both new and established products.
D) MPR is also effective in blanketing local communities and reaching specific groups.
E) MPR must be planned jointly with advertising.
F) Creative public relations can affect public awareness at a fraction of the cost of
advertising.
G) Some experts say that consumers are five times more likely to be influenced by
editorial copy than by advertising.
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.

Establishing Objectives
MPR can:
A) Build awareness by placing stories in the media to bring attention to a product, service,
person, organization, or idea.
B) It can build credibility by communicating the message in an editorial context.
C) It can help boost sales-force and dealer enthusiasm with stories about a new product
before it is launched.
D) It can hold down promotion costs because MPR costs less than direct mail and media
advertising.
Choosing Message and Vehicles
The MPR manager must identify or develop interesting stories about the product.
A) Each event is an opportunity to develop a multitude of stories directed at different
audiences.
B) The best MPR practitioners are able to find or create stories even for mundane or outof-
fashion product.
Implementing the Plan and Evaluating Results
MPR’s contribution to the bottom line is difficult to measure, because it is used along with
other promotional tools.
A) The three most commonly used measures of MPR effectiveness are:
1) Number of exposures
2) Awareness, comprehension, or attitude change
3) Contribution to sales and profits
B) The easiest measure of MPR effectiveness is the number of exposures carried by the
media.
1) This measure is not very satisfying because it contains no indication of:
a. How many people actually read, heard, or recalled the message
b. What they thought afterward
c. Information on the net audience reached
(i) It would be better to know the number of unduplicated exposures
C) A better measure is the change in:
1) Product awareness
2) Comprehension
3) Attitude resulting from the MPR campaign