The Changing Role of Advertising And Promotion in Consumer Markets - Essay Example

The Changing Role of Advertising And Promotion in Consumer Markets Introduction In today's consumer-driven economy, people no longer buy for economic value or reason but because of the influence of images created by advertisement in media, which has become a powerful determinant on the purchasing decisions of consumers (Chen-yu, J. & Seock, Y. (2000). This perception of present-day consumer behavior confirms that in the efforts of businesses to connect with consumer, it has come to a point where the quality of advertising is more important than the quality of a product. Thus, a product may fall short of standards and is inferior to its competitors, but if the advertising done to promote the product is clever and effective, business will be good for the company involved. But there is a growing consensus among top businessmen that the current crop of advertisements is not effective enough to cover for any shortcomings of a product. Nothing demonstrates this better than the amount of respect that advertising gets - or does not get - from business decision-makers. In a US survey of 18,000 business executives conducted by the American Advertising Federation (AAF), it was found that advertising is no longer held in high esteem by business. Of the respondents in the survey, 29 percent said the most important aspect of the business processes is product development, followed by strategic planning with 27 percent of the vote. Public relations got the nod of 16 percent, while 14 percent went for both R&D and financial strategies. Advertising and legal brought up the rear with 10 percent and 3 percent, respectively (Ries, A. & Ries, L., 2002). The image of advertising before company bosses has in effect plunged to the level of corporate lawyers, whose job has always been the favorite butt of jokes in company gatherings. While the AAF survey served to tarnish the credibility of advertising, it put a shine on the image of public relations. This strengthens the growing conviction that advertising can no longer influence consumers and generate sales on its own. No matter how you look at its miserable rating at the AAF survey, 10 percent is 10 percent and this is enough indication that it still counts as a promotional tool. The unmistakable message gleaned from the survey then is that advertising should now only be part of a marketing mix that ought to include public relations, first and foremost, and the other proven techniques such as sales promotions and personal selling. Marketing Adopting a combination of strategies to push a product or service is what marketing is all about. According to its textbook definition, marketing is "the whole process of storing, shipping, advertising and selling to promote and actualize a sales transaction." Getting the right marketing mix, however, is easier said done. Bedbury & Fenichell (2002) suggest that to get the right combination, companies must first identify their audience, then choose the right message for the right medium. The message must be new and personalized, not something that has been flogged to death by others. In choosing the audience, the selection must be based on such attributes as age, gender, income, married or single, family or couples, housing types, car ownership, hobbies, holiday preferences, attitudes. Don't emphasize the obvious and don't insult the intelligence of consumers with false offers, Bedbury & Fenichell advice. In the marketing strategy, positioning plays an equally important part. Positioning a product for a feasible market involves communication, which has become difficult in an "over-communicated" society (Ries, A. & Trout, J., 2000). But a firm can manage if it considers not only its own strengths and weaknesses but also those of its competitors. The reason is there just too many companies, too many products, and too much noise such that in the US alone, per capita consumption in advertising is placed at $200 per year. The easiest way to get into a person's mind is to be there first and to relate to customers in a personal way. MTV proved the validity of this theory when it prospered after changing its format and marketing message to focus on local artists in its service areas. When the music video show featured nothing but American and European artists, its business struggled in Asia, South America and other parts of the world. Marketing strategies in the past used to be underpinned by a principle set forth by Stanford psychologist Robert Zajonc to the effect that people are by nature leery of new and unfamiliar things. This view holds that consumers behave the same way about products or services they never heard about. The new configuration of the marketplace has since proven the Zajonc theory wrong, with the market successes of such "strange" products as Walkman, Absolut and the TV shows Bailey and Seinfeld (Tait, B., 2004). Before Walkman became popular, in the case of this Japanese contraption, who would have relished the idea of walking around with a record player stuck in their ears Obviously, these products generate sales because of innovative marketing that matches the creativity and adventurousness that went into their product development. Other than originality and daring to be different, emotions are also becoming critical to the buying routine at a time when products offer the same quality and in danger of becoming mere commodities in an overcrowded marketplace (Gobe, M., et al., 2003). Some companies learned this the hard way. Sales of Coke, for example, suffered tremendously in the whole of Europe in 1999 when a batch of spoiled Coke products made people sick in Belgium. This fed on the emotions of the Europeans who made out Coke as a villain. In its damage control, Coke leaned heavily on public relations to persuade consumers in the affected places that safety is part of its corporate credo. The same message is conveyed by the other promotional methods used in a marketing mix that sought to reverse the sentiment brought on by the Belgium incident. Tylenol used this kind of all-embracing marketing strategy in the 1960s when people died of tampered specimens. The marketing message later centered on a new tamper-proof design of the drug. Successful firms today develop innovative culture that serves as basis for real connection and open conduct to clients and consumers. The secret for their success is they try to help people. Having a great product or service is no longer enough in a market context where competition is getting fiercer by the minute, technology is changing at a dizzying rate, the consumers are becoming increasingly knowledgeable, and the marketplace is growing more sensitive to the effects of globalization (Bedbury & Fenichell). Advertising and Public Relations Advertising and public relations are the two major marketing tools that used to be at odds. There is a perennial debate as to which of the two methods is better (Bedbury & Fenichell, 2002). An advertising executive will say that PR offers short-term benefits while advertising is more strategic. If you ask a PR executive, he says PR offers both strategic and immediate impact. Steve Sawyer of the Institute of Public Relations in UK maintains that the two go together and reinforces each other: "Public relations lays the groundwork for advertising to work. Advertising makes you see the content of the product, while PR makes you believe in the content of the advertisement." An advertisement is designed to attract public attention to a product or service by means of paid announcements, broadcasts or printed material. The admen plan, write, design and schedule these materials for placement on TV, radio or newspapers. An advertising strategy starts by setting an objective, the clearer and easier to measure, the better (Bedbury & Fenichell, 2002). This objective may be creating a direct sale, building the brand or company image, communicating specific messages, blunting the effects of a negative publicity or addressing a competitor's activity. The experts advise against asking for the moon, such as getting people to change brands or their consuming habits. There are two schools of thought on the value of advertising. One says that present-day realities have turned advertising into a discipline as demanding as the other art forms. Alvin Toffler in his 1970 best-selling Future Shock says that advertising men today fight for the consumer's fleeing attention, to "communicate maximum imagery in minimum time." Thus, advertising needs to cram as much messages into an individual's mind that it can within a 60-second span of time. An example is the ad that urges car owners to put a "tiger" in their tank, which makes use of the symbolic techniques of the arts. This single word transmits to audience a distinct visual image associated since childhood with power, speed and force. But Ogilvy, D. (2000) disagrees with this view, insisting that advertising is not an art form but a medium of information. This has not changed much, he says. Consumers all over the world still buy products whose advertising promises them value for money, beauty, nutrition, relief from pain and, social status and so on. Ogilvy argues: "People say any advertising technique that has been in use for two years is obsolete. But the old slice-of-life commercials, demonstrations and talking heads still make the cash registers ring. Advertising has evolved into a means for efficiently creating consumers and as a way of homogeneously controlling the consumption of a product." Advertising on TV and radio follow the same pattern and rely on repetition for effectiveness. The more TV and radio audiences see or hear the advertising message, the greater the chance that they will buy the product or service. But advertisement placed on newspapers yield the opposite effect (Desmond, J., 2003). As the print ads get repeated, its audience impact diminishes. Print ads are the most common advertising medium for small businesses because it requires the least resources and effort. The usual outlets include local, regional and national newspapers, trade journals and directories, telephone directories, calendars, etc. The publications to avoid are those without audited data and newspapers and magazines distributed free. As for techniques, prints ads need those that convey strong and positive claims since these would appeal to the emotion. Instead of saying that a personal care product reduces wrinkles, say it will make you look 20 years younger. Going to public relations, the functions of this method include writing news releases and pamphlets, conducting plan tours, organizing trade fairs and exhibits of a company's goods or services. It also involves arranging for luncheons, seminars, etc. which have to do with improving a company's image and profit. Under the present dispensation, PR is mostly about persuasion, as it departs from the traditional systems-based approach, which called for nothing more than adapting PR to the environment. In UK, the PR industry grows by 20 percent yearly. Adrian Wheeler, chairman of the PR Consultants Association of UK says: "Return on investment from public relations is like 100 percent for start-ups. If you're starting a firm, PR is the way to get maximum impact from a minimum outlay." PR uses media as marketing tool and is also about repetition and making friends with journalists and opinion makers. The purpose is to earn understanding and support and influencing opinions and behavior. It is a planned effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organization or individual and the public. Good PR can turn a bad situation into something better. PR also includes sales promotions and personal selling, while telemarketing falls under the purview of advertising. All these marketing techniques is used in one package by P&G through its "surround-sound" strategy that does everything from holding in-store demos to making pitches at Wal-Mart. It sometimes moves from one marketing method to another as the situation dictates. When research showed that girls wanted to know more about Tampax, P&G shifted the chunk of its advertising from TV to print and also created a website called Beiinggirl.com, explaining that it's hard to convey a lot of information that's personal in a 30-second TV ad. The strategy worked. Apple Computers took the same tack when, finding that its competitors were doing better, it projected itself in its advertising as a computer firm not for desk-top computing but for imagination and fun (Byrnes, N., et al., 2005). The sales turnover for the computers became faster. In using the marketing mix strategy, it is important that consumer response is monitored and tested periodically to see where adjustments can be made. The results can be measured in terms of orders or inquiries. Though these benchmarks, the company will to see what happens if the advertising for the product is moved to a different slot, if the size, length and working of the ad is changed and if a different medium is chosen. Conclusion The need for integrating advertising with other promotional techniques is underlined by the changing character of the market, in which consumers buy less for necessity and value than the influence of media images they see everyday. Efficiency and flexibility are also guaranteed if a company uses advertising, public relations, sales promotions and personal selling. Of these techniques, advertising is the most resource-intensive and is advisable only if one's marketing budget is large. Public relations, sales promotions and personal selling are less expensive. But using them altogether ensures better results, because then you reach all the segments of the market that need to be reached. The less personal TV and radio ads can be reinforced by public relations, sales promotions and personal selling, which personalize the company's message. It would also be wise to harmonize the marketing effort with the company's image since studies show that a stain in a firm's reputation tells on the credibility of sales and promotion. For example, when Nike was accused of using sweatshop to manufacture its products, its bottom line suffered because of a manufacturing decision, not marketing. But the marketing aspect suffered too, thus emphasizing the need for manufacturing and advertising to be in lockstep (Tait, B., 2004). References: Bedbury, S. & Fenichell, S. (2002). "A New Brand: 8 Principles for Achieving Brand Leadership in the 21st Century." Viking Books, 2002. Belch, G. (2001). " Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communication Perspective." 5th ed., NY; McGraw-Hill ISBN 0071180265. Berger, A. (1998). "Media Research Techniques." SAGE Publication. 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