Understanding the Scope of Marketing Communications - Essay Example

Advertising and Promotions Table of Contents Task Understanding the Scope of Marketing Communications 3 a. Short Manager Report: Intended Advertising Campaign Message by Advertiser 3 1.b. Stakeholders List 4 1.c. Regulatory Processes That Need to Be Considered by CBS for Such a Campaign 5 1.d. Email to Marketing Manager- 5 Alternative Tools That CBS Could Have Utilized as Campaign Support 6 Task 2- Understanding Advertising’s Importance and Role 7 2.a. Promotional Activities Available to Marketer 7 2.b. Memo to New Marketing Executive: Branding Concept, Uses of Branding For Business or Product Strengthening in Campaigns 8 2.c. Online Campaign- Creative Brief for GreatCar Ltd.’s New Car 9 2.d. Working with Ad Agencies- Processes Explained in an Email to Friend 11 References 13 Task 1- Understanding the Scope of Marketing Communications 1.a. Short Manager Report: Intended Advertising Campaign Message by Advertiser This report details the rationale for the Look for Longer ad campaign that was run by the advertiser CBS Outdoor, named Look for Longer. That ad campaign, to recall, entailed placing posters through the London Underground tube system in order to catch the attention of the crowds who ride the tube. The campaign consisted of placing the poster as shown in the ad campaign’s web page, with the Twitter hashtag #lookforlonger printed prominently at the bottom right hand side of the poster (Joseph 2012; CBS Outdoor 2012): The ‘Look for Longer’ campaign…asks participants to solve the visual clues featured on a poster to name 75 tube stations across the London Underground network. The campaign runs for four weeks and spans Twitter and Virgin Media’s Wi-Fi tube network as well as traditional outdoor formats. Answers can be submitted via a campaign site and will be entered into a prize draw (Joseph 2012). With the presence of Wi-Fi in the tube, the intended message of CBS Outdoor is that advertising on the tube can be very interactive for riders while they wait for their trains to arrive. It is meant to entice advertising in the Tube, with the additional message being that interactivity in a meaningful fashion results in brand affinity in the positive sense, for those who advertise their products and businesses (Joseph 2012). In many different models of the communication process, this intention fits into that stage where the goal is to show the effectiveness of the medium and to entice advertisers to try the product, in this case the advertising medium made available in the tube (B2B Whiteboard 2011 ; CBS Interactive 2011) 1.b. Stakeholders List There are several stakeholders in a process such as running the ‘Look for Longer’ campaign. The London Underground is an involved stakeholder, because its properties are the staging ground for the advertising campaign. The end-users/commuters are an involved stakeholder group, because they are the ones who interact with the ads and determine its success. CBS Outdoor and its partners and suppliers are also stakeholders, as they are the ones to directly benefit or take a hit depending on whether the campaign sinks or swims. A fourth group of stakeholders consist of potential advertisers, who may be gauging the success of the campaign before plunging in and devoting serious money to the CBS Outdoor tube platform (Joseph 2012; CBS Outdoor 2012; Riggins 2009) The advertising industry in the United Kingdom is properly the marketing and advertising sector, and it is interesting that apart from the advertising agencies, there are two other pillars in the sector, and those are on the one hand the advertisers, and on the other hand the owners of the media. In the case of the Look for Longer campaign, these are represented by the business concerns in the UK, who are potential customers, and the London Underground as the “owner” of the media platform in the tube. CBS Outdoor is the advertiser. On the part of the media owners, in the association in the UK a prominent member are the Newspaper Publishers’ Association or NPA, Channels 4 and 5, BSkyB, and Internet giants Google and Facebook. On the part of the advertisers are the likes of Microsoft. Representing the adverting agencies are the Marketing Agencies Association or MAA, and the Cinema Advertising Association or CAA (Advertising Association 2011). 1.c. Regulatory Processes That Need to Be Considered by CBS for Such a Campaign There are draconian regulations numbering in the hundreds, some in the form of legally prescribed regulations etched in law, that are in place, and which need to be followed and gone through in the main, for advertisements to become legitimate in the UK. One estimate puts the number of regulations at 440 plus, which includes some highlight regulations and laws that are said to work against the interests of the marketing and advertising industry. Among the latter is the so-called TUPE regulations, or the 2006 Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment Regulations. The TUPE regulation, according to an industry insider, is meant to protect the rights of workers employed in a firm that had been acquired, or when an advertising piece becomes the subject of a transfer to another company. Among other things, TUPE mandates that advertising agencies that prevail in winning a project from another firm have to admit to their own staff those who were part of the original project or undertaking. This is said to go against the interest of the industry, because of the very nature of the industry as services-led and a very creative one. The argument is that regulation such as TUPE stifle creativity and stifle the industry as a whole (McElhatton 2013). There are so-called UK Advertising Codes that are in place, and the agency in charge of monitoring compliance with the codes is the Advertising Standards Authority. In terms of framework, for non-broadcast forms of ads, the operative framework is self-regulation. For broadcast ads, the operative framework meanwhile is co-regulation. The codes are separate from laws that are in place to regulate the industry, as discussed above. The agency also undertakes work relating to checking ads before they are published or aired, to ensure full compliance with the existing codes (Advertising Standards Authority 2012). 1.d. Email to Marketing Manager- 5 Alternative Tools That CBS Could Have Utilized as Campaign Support The advertising campaign mainly used Twitter, as well as the campaign website, in order to promote the CBS Outdoor advertising platform in the tube. This is all well and good, as it was able to successfully raise awareness of the value of the interactive possibilities of the platform, in conjunction with the Wi-Fi service there. The passengers are a captive audience, and the interactivity ensures positive brand boost for potential advertisers (Joseph 2012; CBS Outdoor 2012). On the other hand, targeting the audience of tube commuters between the ages of 16 and 35, we see that there are many alternative tools that can equal or better the achievement of the current campaign that utilized Twitter and the website. ICT plays a key role here, as the alternative tools are heavily tied to current and emergent social media platforms. Offhand, there is room here to leverage the power of other social media, to reach this young audience. The reasoning is that this young age demographic is also the most social media savvy, the most exposed to emerging technology, and the least established in terms of their ways of consuming media content. Emerging social media platforms are also hip, and likely to attract their attention. These other tools include Facebook, Pinterest, MySpace, Google Plus, and Vine. The first four are well-known, and Vine meanwhile is a new and exciting platform that can allow CBS Outdoor to promote the campaign making use of short viral videos. The hip nature of these emergent tools ensures that the right audience is reached, and in this case the tools are a good fit with the young target demographic (Price 2013; eBizMBA 2013). Task 2- Understanding Advertising’s Importance and Role 2.a. Promotional Activities Available to Marketer The gamut of promotional activities that can be utilized by a marketer is indeed very large, and as myriad and plentiful as the different promotional strategies that give birth to them, or that classify them into particular groupings. Taking the current product or service tied to the ‘Look for Longer’ campaign, namely the ad platform in the tube, there are several apt promotions activities, among them tied to the use of social media and the Internet, as has been done by CBS Outdoor, and as recommended earlier, in the form of such established platforms as Facebook, and emergent platforms such as Pinterest and Vine (Price 2013; eBizMBA 2013; Joseph 2012; CBS Outdoor 2012). Taking a step back, when we talk of an integrated promotional strategy we are really talking about an integrated marketing strategy, and advertisements in this sense play the role of reinforcing the common message that has been determined when the marketing strategy was crafted for a product or service. On the other hand, within the context of promotions, this means that advertising reinforces and complements the other promotions activities tied to the marketing campaign. Underlying that is what is identified in the literature as the identity of a particular product, service, which in this case is the advertising platform in the tube. Complementing advertising is a host of other promotions activities at the point of consumption, for instance, via direct communication with potential advertisers on one end, and direct point of consumption promotions with the commuters (McKee 2012). 2.b. Memo to New Marketing Executive: Branding Concept, Uses of Branding For Business or Product Strengthening in Campaigns TO: New Marketing Executive FROM: Expert RE: Branding This memo discusses branding, brands, and the myriad ways branding can be utilized in marketing campaigns, with the aim of strengthening businesses and products. There are many definitions of brand and branding, and a functional one is that of considering a brand as a kind of construct that is a vehicle for marketing messages, aimed at establishing and furthering seller and buyer relationships that are based on values that are based on function as well as emotion. Branding is the set of activities tied to creating a brand. Facebook is a brand, and so is Coca Cola. The consumer market as a whole is based on the foundation of brands (Daye 2011). There are several types of branding associated with different kinds of products, some cyclical and having a definite time of maturation and death, as in the case for instance with films and other forms of creative content, and some are perpetual, including some mainstay consumer products represented by perennial brands, such as Coke, McDonald’s, and Pepsi. Some brands have brief lives, but live on to become part of the culture, as icon artifacts. This can be said of artist identities that take on the aspect of brands, such Elvis (Cohen 2011). Branding supports marketing campaigns by conveying a differentiated identity, that helps an offering stand out from the others. That identity is its source of differentiation and also the vehicle for the promises of the brand. For instance, Coke is different from Pepsi, and those two brands each have their own relationships with their patrons. By fortifying the brand identity and the brand’s likability to its target market, a product or business facilitates the successful forging of appropriate buyer and seller relationships. Buyers in essence establish relationships with brands as if they are persons or places to which they ascribe certain attribute that they like or look for in functional terms (Cohen 2011; Daye 2011). 2.c. Online Campaign- Creative Brief for GreatCar Ltd.’s New Car Summary of Project GreatCar Ltd., based in the United States, is on the verge of the launch of a new car. It is a family saloon, a hybrid, and friendly to the environment. The task is to come up with an online advertising/marketing campaign with a budget of £100,000. The assumption is that the campaign is for the UK market. The goal of the campaign is to successfully launch the new car, and establish and fortify the GreatCar brand, in the UK. Successful launch means establishing brand and product awareness, and getting traction in terms of sales. The online campaign is mindful of the budget constraints, and is geared towards getting maximum bang for the buck, making use of online promotional and advertising platforms that cater to the target market for the new car (Gotomedia 2011). Target Audience The target audience for this is the target market for the saloon and the brand. This being a family saloon, the target market includes families who are conscious about energy efficiency, savings, and the environment impact of their daily choices. They are also internet savvy, and makes use of available online media on a regular basis. This would be young families with parents between the ages of 25 and 45 by assumption (Gotomedia 2011). Guidelines on Tone and Perception 1. Emphasis on important car features and benefits for families 2. Value for money, efficiency 3. Environment benefits 4. Makes use of the language of young people, references to pop culture (Gotomedia 2011) Communication Strategy The communication strategy hinges on a common identity and a common message across several online media platforms chosen for maximum impact and reach to the target market. The chosen platforms are Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Ads will take the form of YouTube videos, made viral via Twitter, and Facebook. Twitter campaigns shall reinforce the key message. Facebook pages shall be offshoots of existing pages for GreatCar, and will likewise carry the same message. A website shall be used to stage the new car, together with a virtual drive and tour. The website shall be a key feature of all communications and social media campaigns (Gotomedia 2011). Positioning This car is to be positioned as a value for money proposition, relying heavily on its pro-environment and fuel-saving credentials to boost its standing as the transport of choice for young families (Gotomedia 2011). Message Environment-friendly, fuel-efficient family vehicle. 2.d. Working with Ad Agencies- Processes Explained in an Email to Friend The advertising industry in the UK is complex, challenging, creative, and rewarding. It tries to secure as much autonomy as it can from regulators, even as it also tries to fortify its own ranks via a strong association. The ASA (McElhatton 2013; Advertising Standards Authority 2012; Advertising Association 2011). The Advertising Association represents the industry, and it is worth noting that the ad agencies form a tightly-knit group with some major business concerns forming the bloc of advertisers on the one hand and the owners of the media on the other. This speaks of the kind of power too, that the ad industry wields. It is a powerful organization that establishes agenda for the entire industry, and has a high degree of organization and clout among the different players occupying the above-mentioned roles (Advertising Association 2011). The ad industry is characterized too by regulations, and by the way the ad industry is both shaped by the regulations as well as the attempts by the insiders to break free from some of the most crucial ones relative to the ability of the ad industry players to maximize their creative and financial potentials (McElhatton 2013). Taking a step back, industry insiders note that the ad industry is heavily reliant on creative talent in order to continue thriving, an aspect of the industry highlighted by the fresh emphasis placed by industry leaders on the need for new talent. As a highly creative and specialized field, it requires the inputs from fresh people who have expertise in emerging technologies tied to media and information technology, together with intangible creative skills necessary to be able to keep the ad industry in the UK differentiated from the rest of the world. Navigating through the industry means knowing the leaders of the industry, what the industry requires, and what the regulations and laws are relating to the creation of ads across all kinds of media (IPA 2011; Advertising Association 2011; McElhatton 2013). References Advertising Association 2011. Our Members. 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APCO Worldwide [Online] Available at: http://apcoworldwide.com/content/pdfs/PRNews_Stakeholder_Measurement_Phil_Riggins_August2009.pdf [Accessed 8 February 2013] Read More