Marketing 3001 Chapter 15
integrated marketing communications (IMC).
The concept of designing marketing communications programs that coordinate all promotional activities—advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations, and direct marketing—to provide a consistent message across all audiences.
Communication
the process of conveying a message to others, and it requires six elements: a source, a message, a channel of communication, a receiver, and the processes of encoding and decoding
Personal Selling
the two-way flow of communication between a buyer and seller designed to influence the purchase decision of a person or group.
Public Relations
A form of communication management that seeks to influence the feelings, opinions, or beliefs held by customers, prospective customers, stockholders, suppliers, employees, and other publics about a company and its products or services.
direct marketing
A promotional alternative that uses direct communication with consumers to generate a response in the form of an order, a request for further information, or a visit to a retail outlet
Sales promotion
A short-term inducement of value offered to arouse interest in buying a product or service.
15-9.Explain the differences between a push strategy and a pull strategy.
Answer: In a push strategy, a firm directs the promotional mix to channel members to gain their cooperation in ordering and stocking the product. In a pull strategy, a firm directs the promotional mix at ultimate consumers to encourage them to ask retailers for the product, who then order it from wholesalers or the firm itself.
15-8.Describe the promotional objective for each stage of the product life cycle.
Answer: Introduction—to inform consumers of the product's existence; Growth—to persuade consumers to buy the product; Maturity—to remind consumers that the product still exists; and Decline—to phase out the product.
15-4.Explain the difference between advertising and publicity when both appear on television.
Answer: Since advertising space on TV is paid for, a firm can control what it wants to say and to whom and how often the message is sent over a broadcast, cable, satellite, or local TV network. Since publicity is an indirectly paid presentation of a message about a firm or its products or services, the firm has little control over what is said to whom or when. Instead, it can only suggest to the TV medium that it run a favorable story about the firm or its offerings.
15-12.How have advertising agencies changed to facilitate the use of IMC programs?
Answer: Some agencies have adopted: (1) a total communications solutions approach; (2) an integrated perspective that includes all forms of promotion; (3) an IMC audit to analyze the internal communication network of the company to identify key audiences; evaluate customer databases; assess messages contained in recent advertising, press releases, packaging, websites, social media, direct marketing, etc.; and determine the IMC expertise of company and agency personnel; and (4) strategies to monitor consumer content, respond to inconsistent messages, and answer questions from individual customers
15-10.What are the stages of the hierarchy of effects?
Answer: The five stages of the hierarchy of effects are awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption.
15-11.What are the four approaches to setting the promotion budget?
Answer: The four approaches to setting the promotion budget are percentage of sales, competitive parity, all you can afford, and objective and task.
15-1.What six elements are required for communication to occur?
Answer: The six elements required for communication to occur are: (1) a source, which is a company or person who has information to convey; (2) a message, which is the information sent; (3) a channel of communication, which is how the information is conveyed; (4) a receiver, which is the consumer who reads, hears, or sees the message; and the processes of (5) encoding, in which the sender transforms the idea into a set of symbols; and (6) decoding, in which the receiver takes the symbols, or the message, and transforms it back into an idea.
15-13.The ability to design and use direct marketing programs has increased with the availability of ___________ and ___________.
Answer: customer information databases; new printing technologies
15-2.A difficulty for U.S. companies advertising in international markets is that the audience does not share the same ___________.
Answer: field of experience, which is a similar understanding and knowledge that is applied to a message
15-3.A misprint in a newspaper ad is an example of ___________.
Answer: noise—the extraneous factors that distort a message
15-5.Cost per contact is high with the ___________ element of the promotional mix.
Answer: personal selling
15-6.Which promotional element should be offered only on a short-term basis?
Answer: sales promotion
15-7.Promotional programs can be directed to _________, ___________, or both
Answer: the ultimate consumer; the intermediary (retailer, wholesaler, or industrial distributor)
Advertising
Any paid form of nonpersonal communication about an organization, product, service, or idea by an identified sponsor.
push strategy
Directing the promotional mix to channel members to gain their cooperation in ordering and stocking the product
LO 15-1 Discuss integrated marketing communications and the communication process.
Integrated marketing communications is the concept of designing marketing communications programs that coordinate all promotional activities—advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations, and direct marketing—to provide a consistent message across all audiences. The communication process conveys messages with six elements: a source, a message, a channel of communication, a receiver, and encoding and decoding. The communication process also includes a feedback loop and can be distorted by noise.
promotional mix
The combination of one or more communication tools used to: (1) inform prospective buyers about the benefits of the product, (2) persuade them to try it, and (3) remind them later about the benefits they enjoyed by using the product.
traffic generation
The outcome of a direct marketing offer designed to motivate people to visit a business
LO 15-4 Describe the elements of the promotion decision process.
The promotional decision process consists of three steps: planning, implementation, and evaluation. The planning step consists of six elements: (1) identifying the target audience, (2) specifying the objectives, (3) setting the budget, (4) selecting the right promotional elements, (5) designing the promotion, and (6) scheduling the promotion. The implementation step includes pretesting. The evaluation step includes posttesting.
LO 15-3 Select the promotional approach appropriate to a product's target audience, life-cycle stage, as well as stages of the buying decision and channel strategies.
The promotional mix depends on the target audience. Programs for consumers, business buyers, and intermediaries might emphasize advertising, personal selling, and sales promotion, respectively. The promotional mix also changes over the product life-cycle stages. During the introduction stage, all promotional mix elements are used. During the growth stage advertising is emphasized, while the maturity stage utilizes sales promotion and direct marketing. Little promotion is used during the decline stage. Finally, the promotional mix can depend on the channel strategy. Push strategies require personal selling and sales promotions directed at channel members, while pull strategies depend on advertising and sales promotion directed at consumers.
Lead generation
The result of a direct marketing offer designed to generate interest in a product or service and a request for additional information.
direct orders
The result of direct marketing offers that contain all the information necessary for a prospective buyer to make a decision to purchase and complete the transaction.
hierarchy of effects
The sequence of stages a prospective buyer goes through from initial awareness of a product to eventual action that includes awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption of the product.
LO 15-5 Explain the value of direct marketing for consumers and sellers.
The value of direct marketing for consumers is indicated by its increasing level of use. For example, during the past year, more than 114 million people made purchases online. The value of direct marketing for sellers can be measured in terms of three types of responses: direct orders, lead generation, and traffic generation.
LO 15-2 Describe the promotional mix and the uniqueness of each component.
There are five promotional alternatives. Advertising, sales promotion, and public relations are mass selling approaches, whereas personal selling and direct marketing use customized messages. Advertising can have high absolute costs but reaches large numbers of people. Personal selling has a high cost per contact but provides immediate feedback. Public relations is often difficult to obtain but is very credible. Sales promotion influences short-term consumer behavior. Direct marketing can help develop customer relationships, although maintaining a database can be very expensive.
Publicity
a nonpersonal, indirectly paid presentation of an organization, product, or service. It can take the form of a news story, editorial, or product announcement
15-14.What are the three types of responses generated by direct marketing activities?
answer: They are: (1) direct orders, the result of offers that contain all the information necessary for a prospective buyer to make a decision to purchase and complete the transaction; (2) lead generation, the result of an offer designed to generate interest in a product or service and a request for additional information; and (3) traffic generation, the outcome of an offer designed to motivate people to visit a business.
pull strategy
directing its promotional mix at ultimate consumers to encourage them to ask the retailer for a product