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The Marketing Mix - Promotion (marketing communications) (The…
The Marketing Mix - Promotion (marketing communications)
Key points
Also referred to as
marketing communications
It represents the range of ways in which an organisation can communicate with its target audiences
Def - An audience-centred activity, designed to engage audiences and promote conversations.
See more in depth definition in Book 1 p 66
The promotion mix
The various communication techniques publicity available to a marketer that are combined to achieve specific goals
Direct marketing, digital marketing and sponsorship are also recognised as part of the promotional mix
Marketing communication techniques
Advertising
Paid, mass communication through mass media
+ve Builds wide awareness
-ve Impersonal, one-way
-ve Limited flexibility
Personal selling
Oral communication between a salesperson and a customer
+ve Personal, interactive and flexible
+ve builds relationships
-ve Expensive
-ve Dependent on salesperson’s skills
Direct marketing
Communication delivered directly to targeted consumers to elicit an immediate response
+ve Targeted
+ve Can be personalised
+ve Unseen by competitors
+ve Easy to measure a response
-ve Low response rates
-ve Can cause annoyance if poorly targeted
Digital marketing
Communication using digital channels
+ve Global reach
+ve Can be personalised, targeted and interactive
+ve Flexible
-ve Set up costs can be expensive
-ve Can be intrusive
-ve Security risks
Sales promotion
Purchase incentives
+ve Can promote sales
-ve Potential damage to brand perceptions
-ve Short-term effects
Sponsorship
Paid association with an event, organisation or person
+ve High visibility
+ve Positive association
-ve Association can backfire if sponsored entity attracts bad publicity
Public relations
Non-paid, third-party communication
+ve High credibility
+ve Potential reach and relevence
-ve Lack of control over communication
Criteria for choosing a marketing communication mix (Fill and Turnbull, 2013)
Extent of desired control over the message sent
Level of financial resources for investment
Size of the target audience and its geographic spread
Target audiences’ preferences and behaviour with respect to media
Goals of the communication
Activities of competitors
Cost of the media
An organisation’s and marketing agency’s preferences
An organisations marketing strategy
Integrated marketing communications
‘A cohesive combination of marketing communications activities, techniques, and media designed to deliver a coordinated message to a target market with a powerful or synergistic effect, while achieving a common objective or set of objectives
Important that all forms of marketing communications convey a consistent and coherent message
Mixed messages can impair perceptions of a brand.
Celebrity endorsements
Can be good until something is released in the press about them
Can be effective at transferring cultural meanings to a brand from the personality traits and lifestyle meanings associated with the celebrities
Grant McCracken (1989) - Meaning Transfer Model
For the risks associated, companies may include a ‘moral turpitude clause’ in the contract
Dropping celebs can be reflected badly on brands
Inconsistent messages
Can be apparent if a customer service experience conflicts with values conveyed by the brand identity or in advertising messages
The communication process
Communication techniques
Designed to transmit a marketing message from an organisation
(the ‘source’) to a target ‘receiver or audience’
Uses a particular medium of transmission
Messages can be designed in many ways
May be factual and provide information
Use humour
Use emotion to appeal to target audiences
Factual communications
Helpful when launching a new product that is revolutionary and consumers need to be educated with information about it in order to grasp its concept
Emotion can be used here as well
Humour
Can be risky because not everyone will find the same thing
funny
Can also encourage sharing and discussion of a message by
receptive receivers
The communication process is subject to three potential problems (Shannon and Weaver, 1998)
Technical problem
The accuracy of the coding of the message
Semantic problem
The accuracy of the decoding of the intended meaning of the message
Effectiveness problem
The effectiveness of the decoded message in eliciting the intended response
Noise
Anything in the transmission environment that disrupts the reception of the message
Originally conceived by Shannon and Weaver (1998) as being
technical distortions in the media signals themselves
Most media today are generally reliable and other forms of potential sources of noise are considered to be competing marketing messages and receiver distraction.
Models
See Book 1 p 70 (for diagram)
Linear process of communication dates back to a paper by
Claude Shannon in 1948
More complex models of communication recognise the existence of multiple message sources and interactions between receivers
Communications can be weakened with spread through informal social media networks
Communications that take place in one medium can jump to discussion in another medium
Macro level model of communication
See Book 1 p71
Illustrates the complexity of communication and the different ways in which target audiences experience a brand
Fill and Turnbull (2013) three
forms of engagement
Cognitive
Being absorbed and intellectually immersed
Relational
Feeling connected
Behavioural
Feeling involved and joining in activities
AIDA - Strong (1925)
Attention, Interest, Desire, Action
The combined communication activities of the promotion mix should aim to do this
Variation by ’ (Dibb et al., 2016, p. 471)
Awareness, Interest, Evaluation,Trial, Adoption