Advertising and promotion - Essay Example

Structure, Roles and Relationships Between the Parties in the Communication Industry Marketing communication industry consists of client companies or the advertising party, the advertising agency and the media and other service or production agencies. The advertising agency plays the role of an intermediary, linking the advertisers with the media and other service providers. With the advent of the Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) approach, more and more companies choose to appoint an advertising agency and coordinate and direct all marketing communications through the agency (Kotler & Amstrong, 2000). Figure 1 reflects the relationship between the key parties in the communication industry. Production houses, other support service providers & media houses liais with the agency, who is appointed to represent the needs of the advertising client. Figure 1 – Relationship between the parties in the Marketing Communications Industry Modern advertising agencies operate on a hybrid system of matrix and functional organizational structure. The client service department consist of account managers and account executives that are in charge of client accounts and coordinate the work between the client, the internal departments and the external service providers. For key accounts, teams are formed with members from Client Servicing, Creative, Production and Media departments (Linton & Morley, 1995). Production house are structured to reflect their key functions. Media houses are structured to reflect their services. The organization structures of these establishments are provided in Appendix 1. Current Trends in Advertising and Promoting and their Impact Over the last decade the advertising and promotions industry has changed dramatically and media choices available today are diverse. With the advent of the web, Internet marketing now accounts for a significant share of world advertising spend. The traditional dominance of mass media such as TV, Radio and press is reduced, though it remains an important component. Due to the increase adaptation of a differentiated marketing strategy in place of mass marketing, more weightage is given to direct marketing and promotions than mass media advertising (Belch & Belch, 2004). To site some statistics to indicate these changing trends, the annual total US advertising and promotional expenditure has risen from US$ 88,010 million in year 1984 to US$ 263,766 million, which is a 200% growth over the 2 decades. In 1984, 28% was spent on TV and 27% on Press, which has reduced to 17% each by year 2004. Internet advertising accounts for 3% of 2004 spending and has the highest growth rate of 21% over previous year.1 The impact of these changes has greatly reduced cost per reach and widened the reach of the audience dramatically. Intent advertising enable marketing communications to reach across national and geographic boundaries, which may have legislature prohibiting foreign advertisements through other media. New trends indicate that advertising communications are increasingly customized and very focused in its targeting. Some of these trends also carry adverse impacts such as advertising clutter and ethical issues involved in unregulated advertisements in the web. The Role, Organisation and Functions of Agencies in the Advertising Process In their role of an intermediary and an appointed agent, agencies carry out a host of key functions within the advertising process. These include the creative content development, execution of the creative themes in chosen modes and then communicating these creative communications to the target audience through the use of selected modes of media. In developing creative content that would effectively convey the client company’s desired image and positioning, the agency is expected to play not only a creative role but also be investigative and advisory role. In designing communication campaigns, it is an ad agency’s function to research on the consumer perceptions and the gap between the desired image and existing image. An agency plays an advisory role at certain times when their expertise and knowledge in the field indicate that client’s instructions may be ineffective (Coulson-Thomas, 1983). The responsibility of the agency does not limit to the execution but also include gathering and evaluating feedback on the communications and proposing future action. This aspect involves monitoring of media ratings and gauging of consumer awareness and top of mind recall rate pertaining to the advertisements. The liaison between external service providers such as media houses, production houses and other service providers is also the responsibility of the agency and in this function, the agency assumes a role of negotiator on behalf of the client company so that best rates and benefits can be derived. The agency is also responsible for coordinating promotional events, arranging publicity and designing outdoor advertising material as well as direct marketing campaigns. An “account service teams” of an agencies consist members from client service, creative and media planning divisions and they are organized as teams to carryout a host of multifunctional activities that will yield the results desired by the client company. Appendix 1 References Armstrong, G. and P. Kotler. Marketing: An Introduction, 5th ed, Person Education Inc, Singapore, 2000. Belch, G.E. and M. Belch. Advertising & Promotion: An Integrated Marketing communication perspective, Irwin, Illinois, 2004 Coulson-Thomas, C.J. Marketing Communications, Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd, Oxford, 1983 “Estimated Annual U.S. Advertising Expenditures,” Trends in Advertising Volume http://www.tvb.org/rcentral/mediatrendstrack/trends/trends.asp?c Fitzgerald, J. “Integrated Communications,” Advertising Age, 1988, February, p.18. Linton, I. and K. Morley. Integrated Marketing Communications, Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd, Oxford, 1995. Action plan 1 - Design a ground floor graphic plan for research project unit. The project required acquiring a working knowledge of Smart Draw 7 software package to design and draw the floor plan. Although I was in possession of average computer literacy skills, they were main limited to spread sheet and word processing applications. Initially the expectations were to acquire the skills in a short period of time. The existing computer skills were acquired through formal training skills at school and collage level and learning was quick. However, the familiarizing process for the Smart Draw on self-study basis with trial and errors was time consuming. At the initial phase there was difficulties in mastering scaling and measurement labelling for the floor plan, using the software. The overall experience proved that human nature’s curiosity if unhindered by other influences such as lack of time and resources allows for mastering many new talents and skills. This is in fact the basis of self-development and should be nurtured and developed by all individuals. Action Plan 2 - Design a business leaflet This projects challenged not only the digital designing skills but also the creativity of the executor. Use of a digital camera for capturing the required images for the leaflet proved challenging and the poor lighting and framing was only evident when captured images were placed in the designing panel. However, some of the designing tools allowed images to modified and light and contrast levels to be adjusted. Importance of high photo quality images in the designing process, to ensure high quality in the reproduction process (printing stage) was only realized when some of the scanned images with low pixel count resulted in blurred images, when enlarged. Copy writing proved to be the most difficult. Proficiency in language does not necessarily means creativity in expression and using limited space to convey the desired message in a catchy and clear manner proved a hard task. Action Plan 3 - Design a business leaflet This task called in the analytical skills of a person, in identifying a problem worth researching on and then deciding on what questions need to be asked to get answers that identify the root of the problem. Issue of Low customer complaint handling skills of the staff was taken up and the questionnaire was drawn up using MS Word. Drawing up a questionnaire seemed a simple task but in reality, it proved to be a task needing great in-depth understanding of the subject being surveyed. If the understanding is lacking, the quality of survey feedback will not provide the true picture of the situation. The methodology of the research should be pre planned so that the questionnaire design will reflect this. In practice, quantitative research proved more viable, in terms of time and execution as qualitative research requires special interviewing, observation and interpretation skills. Analysis tool for quantitative data will differ from that of qualitative data. A research is as good as the final report and the need for acquiring and developing one’s report writing skills was realized in the process of completing this project. Read More