Managing the Total Market Effort - Assignment Example

UpWords (Chapter 19 The advertisement is obviously (primarily) aimed at school children interested in the intellectual (word) game and by proxy (secondarily) their parents (they pay for it). The advertisement also attempts to convert other word game enthusiasts - those who are interested in cross word puzzles and scrambled word games in newspapers. The visual of the deer is suggestive of a leap forward, which appeals to the advertisement's secondary audience, the parents. The deer and a stroll in the sanctuary make a subtle appeal to the children's love of nature and spirit of adventure. These elements serve to attract attention, the cognitive stage in the response hierarchy of the communication process. The copy attempts to take the communication process forward through the affective stage and the all important behavior stage by subtle psychological appeal to the viewer's intelligence. It asserts the viewer sees things differently, likes challenges. There will be hardly anybody who disagrees with this. The affective stage is definitely crossed. There is a distinct possibility for crossing the behavior stage. The word flossing to replace crossing in the 'warning sign' of a wild life sanctuary has multiple connotations: the simplest meaning of the word flossing is using a fine silk thread for dental hygiene; other meanings relate to its use in crocheting, its use to describe fine engraving in sculpting (architecture) and finally for the modern technologically minded, its use in robotics. The leaping deer, the warning sign and the apparently incorrect word flossing in place of crossing are all incongruous with the word game and the caption You can always spot an Up Words player that is seen in the advertisement - these are designed to attract selective attention of the viewer. There is however the possibility that the advertisement may remind the viewer the current campaign/s for animal rights and wild life preservation (amplification). The viewer will then totally miss the point (leveling) - that the advertisement is for a word game UpWords - if he does not closely follow the copy in smaller print. In either case the viewer is likely to retain the apparently misspelled flossing for crossing and the predominance of the leaping deer. If the viewer reads the text in smaller print this will help the advertiser in creating a lasting impression. Otherwise the distorted image will wither away after some time. The communication objectives the game manufacturer may set for the advertisement may be based on two consumer attributes: high involvement (the buyer has a predisposition for intellectual games as against outdoor games like base ball) and high product differentiation (there are few players in the field). The six stages in the viewer's buying process will then involve awareness, knowledge, liking, preference, conviction and purchase. The advertisement under study creates awareness, knowledge, combines liking preference and conviction into one as we have detailed above and induces purchase. The communication then follows the sequence: what to say (content), how to say it logically (structure), how to say it symbolically (format) and who should say it (source). As we have seen the text has a psychological angle, it appeals to the ego of the viewer. The format is designed to arouse interest with a strong visual and optimal copy combining the relevant (the copy) with the symbolic (the visual of the deer, the park and the sign). The source of the message is the well-known word game manufacturers Scrabble that lends it credibility. Absolut Vodka (Chapter 20): Vodka is generally considered a commodity. Yet in the market there is an astonishing amount of brand loyalty and preference based on brand image. The image of a brand is how the consumer perceives it. The perception is based on practical experience and how well the experience meets expectations. For non-users it is based on uninformed impressions, attitudes and beliefs. A strong or favorable image therefore can be created by constantly delivering perceived value over a period of time. The identity of a brand is a composite of its name and visual appearance. This composite symbolizes its differentiation and helps the consumer distinguish it from others. In the case of a commodity like vodka, a marketer cannot hope to achieve much by way of brand differentiation. He has to therefore look for other attributes to create a successful brand. The first objective of the company is to focus its campaign on a targeted audience. The company aimed its campaigns towards the sophisticated, upwardly mobile and affluent drinkers. The next step after determining its target customers is focusing on the objectives of the advertisement. There are four options for this depending on the stage at which the product is being promoted: informative, persuasive, reminding and reinforcing. (Kotler 2003 591) The company is in a commanding position in this case with its product being the brand leader with a 65% market share. Therefore the company aimed at converting non-users as much as reassuring those who are already its customers. The objective of the current advertisement is twofold. It is both persuasive and reinforcing. Firstly it suggests to those who have not tasted Absolut vodka that it would be a fine invigorating experience to taste it, creating liking, preference and conviction to purchase. There is an implied message linking the brand with success: it is successful people that can afford an expensive holiday. The implied meaning of success here is financial success and who does not want financial success An expensive holiday comes with success. And cozy-ness comes with Absolut vodka. The same advertisement is reinforcing by reassuring those already using it that they made the right choice. They have already arrived at the expensive club. What better way to enjoy their expensive holiday than to have absolute cozy-ness with Absolut vodka The brand name lends itself to pun with absolute - meaning complete (undiluted). Keeping its target audience - sophisticated, upwardly mobile and affluent - in view, the tone and tenor of the advertisement is designed to subtly convey the message. It is not loud or garish to be offensive to really successful people. Secondly a good advertisement focuses on one of the three selling propositions: Dik Twedt suggested that an advertisement has to be rated on one of these attributes: desirability, exclusivity and believability. (Ibid. 593) A product that is aimed at sophisticated, upwardly mobile and affluent people should be naturally projected as desirable to them. There is a spacious, cozy apartment, the lamps are lit and there is a bottle on the table waiting to be opened. The ambience is expensive - and so is the holiday - both are desirable. By association of ideas, so is Absolut vodka. The visual of the bottle in the advertisement with a stag on it is specially designed (the company commissioned well-known artists including Warhol, Haring, Scharf for the designs). Finally the impact of an advertisement depends not only on what it says but what is left unsaid. What it does not say in so many words but implies is: while the brand is desirable for successful people, the converse - enjoy the vodka and success will be yours. The most striking part of the advertisement is its minimal copy making the visuals speak. A deductive framework is used in leaving a lot of what is left unsaid in the message to the viewer's imagination. The advertiser has indeed taken a huge risk in leaving much to the viewer's imagination. There is an even chance that the advertisement may fall flat and defeat its purpose as much as it being a runaway success by hitting the bull's eye. By hindsight the advertiser's gamble seems to have paid off. Saab Convertible (Chapter 21): While the advertisement published in national business magazines is expected to drive prospects to the dealers' show rooms, the essential job of selling is with the sales person. This involves communicating, selling, servicing and gathering information that may be immediately useful during the sales call or that helps the company in its future design, marketing or sales campaigns. The role of the sales person in this case is that of a missionary (educate the actual or potential user), technician (consultant) and solution vender (solving the customer's problems) combined with the other normal duties of like order taker and demand creator. The sales person should always be conscious of the fact that a satisfied customer means not only immediate sale but also free advertisement by means of referrals. The Saab Convertible has, in addition to soft features like the color, upholstery and contours, technical features like 'OnStar' navigation system which is standard equipment for the convertible, '230 hp turbocharged engine' and 'triple insulated fully automatic top' which the sales person has to thoroughly understand before he convinces his customers to make the buying decision. The customers especially those who intend buying high value items like the Saab convertibles expect the sales persons to be honest, reliable, knowledgeable and helpful. While training time varies across companies and the complexities of business, usually for consumer products it lasts for 4 weeks. The objective of the training program is to teach the sales person to know and identify with the company and its products, understand the needs of the customers by interacting with them, understand the features of the competitors' products, make effective sales presentations, understand procedures and responsibilities and develop an ability to come to quick decisions. The customer-oriented approach to selling trains people to understand customer needs and offer practical solutions. This involves listening skills and framing the right questions that will elicit the right answers. The successful sales person has to have a very positive outlook, an abiding, infectious cheerfulness and innate self-confidence. These qualities can be cultivated and the organization should exercise judgment in the selection and investment in training to convert calls into sales. The first part of qualifying prospects for the convertible is to obtain leads to them. The dealers may be having existing customers who may be interested in buying an additional car or to trade in an existing car. They can also request their customers for referrals to others who may be interested in the type of cars (convertibles), obtaining customer lists through phone directories, banks, clubs, trade shows, promotional booths, organizations to which they belong, cultivating referral sources and using telephone, mail and internet to contact them for canvassing. The leads may then be filtered into hot prospects, warm prospects, and cold prospects. The hot prospects may be turned over to the sales people and the warm prospects to the telemarketing people for further action. The sales person should not consider his job done as soon as the order is written. Follow up and maintenance are necessary in order to ensure the customer is satisfied, which is necessary for a possible repeat sale or a referral to others. Immediately after writing the order the sales person should finalize delivery schedule, payment terms and any other details that may be necessary to the customer. Immediately after delivery he should schedule a visit to ensure that the customer does not have any problems with the new car all accessories are properly functioning and the customer is happy with the delivery. This conveys to the customer the sales person's seriousness in the transaction and his professional approach. This will further help the sales person develop a bond and even a growth plan with the customer. For the customer may not immediately need another car but he may in due course need spares and there is the bonus of referrals. Iomega (Chapter 22): Globalization of businesses and manifold increase in the number of marketing organizations resulted in intensified competition. Initially the media coined the term marketing warfare to describe the intensified competition, but marketing textbooks have been forced to acknowledge this term. Warfare is a costly affair and if organizations are keen to hold the bottom line they should keep a track on where the millions spent are going and if indeed they are producing the results expected. While it is difficult to measure the exact impact of an advertisement in terms of a 'cause and effect' analysis, Iomega's marketing department can conduct audit its campaigns to ascertain: Advertising cost per thousand target buyers reached by media vehicle Percentage of audience, who noted, saw or associated and read most of each print ad Consumer opinions on the ad's content and effectiveness Before and after measures of attitude toward the product Number of inquiries stimulated by the ad Cost per inquiry (Kotler 2003 694) This analysis will help Iomega to improve advertising efficiency, review positioning of the product, defining objectives and pre-testing messages. Modern computer technology facilitates these audits to help the company select the right media, looking for better media buys and in post advertising testing. (Ibid.) Marketing implementation is the process of converting marketing plans into action. Each plan is broken down into its component parts or assignments. This will enable marketers to monitor their execution for accomplishing the overall objective. While strategy specifies the what and why of marketing activities, implementation addresses who, where, when and how the plan should be implemented. Iomega should consider whether the company has allocated the right amount of budget to its advertising campaign. Budgetary allocation has implications in choosing the advertising agency, the right magazine or magazines, the size of the advertisement/s and the frequency of advertisement/s. The success of the campaign depends on Iomega's ability to build the company's marketing organization: that will concern itself with such issues as product, price, promotion and place. The company's marketing arm should have the talent to conceive and position its products strategically vis--vis competition. The company's sales arm should concern itself with the preparation of target customer lists, plan sales calls, convert these calls into orders and filling these orders on time - not to forget following up with the customers to solve any technical problems they may encounter especially because Iomega's products are highly technical in nature. The company should focus on developing interaction skills of its marketing and sales people that will ensure functioning like a well oiled machinery internally but helps it in winning customers. Finally the company needs to develop an evaluation system that constantly monitors and suggest correctives as and when problems arise rather than waiting for entire marketing plan to be implemented. If there is a shortfall between marketing objectives and the result Iomega should review the company's Advertising policy and ask these questions: what are the advertising objectives Are they sound and realistic and set on what basis Was the budgetary allocation sufficient Whether the theme of the ad - in this case quick transfer of data focused the product attributes properly to attract attention of the right customers What do the target audiences think of the ad Was the media chosen the right one Do we have adequate internal advertising staff Was the advertising followed by sufficient number of sales calls If so what was the result Was the sales promotion budget adequate Were the sales promotion tools such as samples, coupons, displays and any others effective What job did the public relations staff do Were they competent and creative to complement the efforts of marketing sales departments Did the company make enough use of direct, online and database marketing Topic: Various Marketing Management Topics Instructions: I need a two page response per chapter. If more is required to answer the question then I would be open to purchasing additional pages. The writing must simply answer the questions below... there is no need to structure in essay form. I have scanned the required chapters and questions below into Adobe PDFs which I will upload ASAP. Chapter19: Managing Integrated Marketing Communications The magazine ad in figure 1 promotes UpWords, a game marketed by the manufacturer of the Scrabble word game. Although the game is portrayed in the ad, other elements are more prominent. You can always spot an UpWords player. You know who you are. You see things differently than most people. And you like your word games to be challenging. So you play UpWords from the makers of Scrabble, where you can make new words or change them by stacking letters up. The challenge lies on more than one level, taking word games to a whole new dimension. How do you stack up a. Who is the target audience for this advertising message What image of the game would the advertiser like to create with this ad b. How do selective attention, selective distortion, and selective retention apply to the advertising message c. What communication objectives might the game manufacturer set for this advertising message Chapter 20: Managing Advertising, Sales Promotion, Public Relations, and Direct Marketing Absolut Vodka's ads always feature its distinctive bottle, as show in Figure 1. For this holiday ad, the company commissioned a specially designed bottle cover to suggest that sipping Absolut Vodka is a warm holiday experience, and photographed the ad in the knit designer's New York City apartment. a. How would you classify this magazine ad in terms of its advertising objective b. Analyze this ad in terms of message execution, style, tone, and format. c. What is the most striking part of the ad Would the ad be as effective if the headline and copy were more prominent Why Chapter 21: Managing the Sales Force Saab uses ads such as the one in Figure 1, which appeared in a national business magazine, to bring prospects into its dealers' showrooms. Note that Sweden-based Saab, owned by General Motors, is promoting GM's OnStar navigation system as a standard feature in this convertible. a. What kind of training do you think Saab's dealers' sales reps need to successfully sell to consumers b. How can Saab dealers qualify prospects for this convertible c. Why are good follow-up and maintenance skills important for dealers' sales reps Chapter 22: Managing the Total Market Effort The ad in Figure 2 uses a first-person story to show how Iomega's Zip technology can help a company move more quickly - and make the employee look good, as well. a. What measurements could Iomega use to determine the efficiency of its print advertising campaign b. What implementation issues would Iomega's marketers need to consider when planning this advertisement c. What questions should Iomega marketers ask in determining whether corrective action is needed if this advertising campaign does not meet expectations Required Text (Uploaded to you in PDFs): Kotler, P. (2003). Marketing Management (11th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Instructions files attached: 1.Chapter19.pdf.zip 2.Chapter20.pdf.zip 3.Chapter21.pdf.zip 4.Chapter22.pdf.zip Created:2005-11-17 21:35Deadline: 2005-11-20 19:35 Time Left: 66 hours Style:APALanguage Style: English (U.S.)English (U.S.)Grade: n/aPages:8 Sources: 1 1 Order: Total Price: $56 Messages: 0 total Read More