Which of the following refers to a variety of programs designed to promote a companys image or its individual products?

How do you want to study today?

Review terms and definitions
Nội dung chính Show
Focus your studying with a path
Get faster at matching terms

The marketing communications mix consists of eight major modes of communication:
1. Advertising — Any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor via print, broadcast, network, electronic, and display media.
2. Sales promotion — A variety of short-term incentives to encourage trial or purchase of a product or service including consumer promotions, trade promotions, and business and sales force promotions.
3. Events and experiences — Company-sponsored activities and programs designed to create daily or special brand-related interactions with consumers, including sports, arts, entertainment, and cause events as well as less formal activities.
4. Public relations and publicity — A variety of programs directed internally to employees of the company or externally to consumers, other firms, the government, and media to promote or protect a company's image or its individual product communications.
5. Direct marketing — Use of mail, telephone, fax, e-mail, or Internet to communicate directly with or solicit response or dialogue from specific customers and prospects.
6. Interactive marketing — Online activities and programs designed to engage customers or prospects and directly or indirectly raise awareness, improve image, or elicit sales of products and services.
7. Word-of-mouth marketing — People-to-people oral, written, or electronic communications that relate to the merits or experiences of purchasing or using products or services.
8. Personal selling — Face-to-face interaction with one or more prospective purchasers for the purpose of making presentations, answering questions, and procuring orders.

In the introduction stage of the product life cycle, advertising, events and experiences, and publicity have the highest cost-effectiveness, followed by personal selling to gain distribution coverage and sales promotion and direct marketing to induce trial. In the growth stage, demand has its own momentum through word of mouth and interactive marketing. Advertising, events and experiences, and personal selling all become more important in the maturity stage. In the decline stage, sales promotion continues strong, other communication tools are reduced, and salespeople give the product only minimal attention.

Mobile phones have relatively short life cycles. In the introduction stage of the phones' life cycle, advertising, events and experiences, and publicity have the highest cost-effectiveness. In-store personal selling helps improve distribution coverage, while sales promotions such as discounted accessories, freebies etc., help induce trial. In the growth stage, demand has its own momentum through word of mouth and interactive marketing. Web sites are effective tools during the growth stage. As the phones reach the maturity stage, advertising, promotional events and experiences, and personal selling again become more important. As the phones enter the decline stage of their life cycle, sales promotion takes over as the most important tool in the marketing communications mix, even as other communication tools are reduced, and salespeople give the phones only minimal attention.

Senior managers want to know the outcomes and revenues resulting from their communications investments. Too often, however, their communications directors supply only inputs and expenses: press clipping counts, numbers of ads placed, media costs. In fairness, communications directors try to translate inputs into intermediate outputs such as reach and frequency (the percentage of target market exposed to a communication and the number of exposures), recall and recognition scores, persuasion changes, and cost-per-thousand calculations. Ultimately, behavior-change measures capture the real payoff.
After implementing the communications plan, the communications director must measure its impact. Members of the target audience are asked whether they recognize or recall the message, how many times they saw it, what points they recall, how they felt about the message, and what their previous and current attitudes are toward the product and the company. The communicator should also collect behavioral measures of audience response, such as how many people bought the product, liked it, and talked to others about it.

All of the four classic response hierarchy models assume that the buyer passes through cognitive (learn), affective (feel), and behavioral stages (do), in that order. Since buying a car, used or new, represents a significant investment for the buyer, it can be said that the buyer has involvement in the purchase decision and perceives high differentiation with the product category. Hence a "learn-feel-do" sequence is considered appropriate for the used-car showroom account. Similarly, a buyer intending to purchase home appliances, such as a dishwasher or a refrigerator, has high involvement in the purchase decision, even though he perceives little differentiation within the product category. Hence, a "do-feel-learn" approach may be appropriate when planning communications for the home appliances account. Finally, a buyer has low involvement in purchasing soap that has very little differentiation within its category. For the soap company account, Alan should consider a "learn-do-feel" sequence for planning communications.

Micromodels of marketing communications concentrate on consumers' specific responses to communications. All the response hierarchy models assume the buyer passes through cognitive, affective, and behavioral stages, in that order. This "learn-feel-do" sequence is appropriate when the audience has high involvement with a product category perceived to have high differentiation, such as an automobile or house. An alternative sequence, "do-feel-learn," is relevant when the audience has high involvement but perceives little or no differentiation within the product category, such as an airline ticket or personal computer. A third sequence, "learn-do-feel," is relevant when the audience has low involvement and perceives little differentiation, such as with salt or batteries. By choosing the right sequence, the marketer can do a better job of planning communications.

Communicators use negative appeals such as fear, guilt, and shame to get people to do things (brush their teeth, have an annual health checkup) or stop doing things (smoking, abusing alcohol, overeating). Fear appeals work best when they are not too strong, when source credibility is high, and when the communication promises, in a believable and efficient way, to relieve the fear it arouses. Messages are most persuasive when moderately discrepant with audience beliefs. Stating only what the audience already believes at best just reinforces beliefs, and if the messages are too discrepant, audiences will counterargue and disbelieve them.
Communicators also use positive emotional appeals such as humor, love, pride, and joy. Motivational or "borrowed interest" devices — such as the presence of cute babies, frisky puppies, popular music, or provocative sex appeals — are often employed to attract attention and raise involvement with an ad. These techniques are thought necessary in the tough new media environment characterized by low-involvement consumer processing and competing ad and programming clutter. Attention-getting tactics are often too effective. They may also detract from comprehension, wear out their welcome fast, and overshadow the product.

Student answers will vary. Negative appeals such as fear, guilt, and shame are used by communicators to get people to do things (brush their teeth) or stop doing things (smoking). The cooking oil ad can use fear appeals to get consumers to start using its product. This can be achieved by depicting health risks associated with using cooking oils other than Savola, such as hypertension, heart attacks, etc. Guilt appeal can be used to depict a family grieving the death of someone who did not use Savola. Shame appeal could illustrate the case of a parent who cannot play catch with his kids because his fitness is compromised by not using Savola. However, the ad agency should take care to ensure that the negative appeals do not come across as too strong to the audiences, the credibility of the source in the ads is high, and the ad promises to relieve fears of health risks in a believable and efficient way. The ad is most persuasive when moderately discrepant with audience beliefs. If the ad merely says that using unhealthy oil leads to health risks, it only serves to reinforce the belief, and if the message exaggerates the health risks of not using Savola, audiences will only counterargue and disbelieve the ad.

Personal influence carries especially great weight when products are expensive, risky, or purchased infrequently, and when products suggest something about the user's status or taste. On that count, life insurance, real estate, health services, automobiles, luxury items, consultation services, etc. can be expected to be significantly influenced by word-of-mouth and endorsements by credible sources.

Personal influence carries especially great weight when products are expensive, risky, or purchased infrequently, and when products suggest something about the user's status or taste. People often ask others to recommend a doctor, plumber, hotel, lawyer, accountant, architect, insurance agent, interior decorator, or financial consultant. If we have confidence in the recommendation, we normally act on the referral. Service providers clearly have a strong interest in building referral sources.

Using the objective-and-task method, Marco can arrive at the marketing communications budget by following these steps:
1. The company estimates 50 million potential users and sets a target of attracting 8 percent of the market — that is, 4 million users.
2. The percentage of the market that should be reached by advertising is determined. Marco hopes to reach 80 percent (40 million prospects) with his advertising message.
3. The percentage of aware prospects that should be persuaded to try the brand is then calculated. Marco would be pleased if 25 percent of aware prospects (10 million) tried Glazers. He estimates that 40 percent of all triers, or 4 million people, will become loyal users. This is the market goal.
4. Next, the number of advertising impressions per 1 percent trial rate is estimated. Marco estimates that 40 advertising impressions (exposures) for every 1 percent of the population will bring about a 25 percent trial rate.
5. The number of gross rating points that would have to be purchased is now calculated. A gross rating point is one exposure to 1 percent of the target population. Because Marco wants to achieve 40 exposures to 80 percent of the population, he will want to buy 3,200 gross rating points.
6. Finally, the necessary advertising budget on the basis of the average cost of buying a gross rating point is estimated. To expose 1 percent of the target population to one impression costs an average of $4,500. Therefore, 3,200 gross rating points will cost $14,400,000 (= $4,500 × 3,200) in the introductory year.

Many companies still rely on only one or two communication tools. This practice persists in spite of the fragmenting of mass markets into a multitude of minimarkets, each requiring its own approach; the proliferation of new types of media; and the growing sophistication of consumers. The wide range of communication tools, messages, and audiences makes it imperative that companies move toward integrated marketing communications. Companies must adopt a "360-degree view" of consumers to fully understand all the different ways that communications can affect consumer behavior in their daily lives. The American Marketing Association defines integrated marketing communications (IMC) as "a planning process designed to assure that all brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time." This planning process evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communications disciplines — for example, general advertising, direct response, sales promotion, and public relations — and skillfully combines these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency, and maximum impact through the seamless integration of messages.

Sets with similar terms