Promotion and IMC
Advertising and promotion are two factors that determine the economic growth of this or that enterprise. Aimed at informing potential customers about products, product lines, brands, companies, services, and how to obtain them, advertising, and promotion are the best ways to influence public opinion.
Media remains the most influential type of advertising. It can include wall paintings, billboards, web banners, shopping cards, newspapers, cinema and television ads, etc. The TV commercial is one of the most effective advertising formats. World Wide Web advertisements become more and more successful, advertising through e-mail is a modern phenomenon, ”guerrilla promotions ” is a recent advertising innovation.
News, analysis, and data on marketing and media are frequently discussed in ‘Advertising Age’, the United States’ weekly magazine. The authors of the articles for this magazine conducted numerous researches concerning viewers’ engagement in advertising. The findings suggest that most of the viewers remain in a constant state of partial attention and always seek some interesting object to focus on. Therefore, advertisers need to create these objects to draw viewers’ attention. A recent article in Advertising Age states that, according to the research conducted by Omnicom Group’s OMD, “One engaged viewer is worth eight regular viewers” (Gerbal 2007). In the article we find:
… not only does consumer engagement with media and advertising drive sales, but it also can drive sales more than media spending levels. That suggests even a relatively small media outlay could work wonders should the ads draw keen attention from consumers within media they also find engaging… (Gerbal 2007).
The golden rule “engage the viewer and he or she will buy your product” was successfully followed by such an award-winning advertising campaign as an advert of Honda’s production (2004). This is a multi-award-winning television commercial known as “Grrr” and “Hate/Change”. The concept of the advertisement is based on the engineers’ hate for the diesel engine that led to the invention of a new diesel car engine. The two peculiar features of the advertisement were: 1. it concerned not only the product that was advertised but also the problem of environmental protection; 2. the campaign came out with an online flash-based game.
One more example of a successful marketing campaign is the Mango airlines ad campaign which won an international award (2007). The African airline “made use of outdoor, print, digital media, broadcast, literature dissemination and activations to both acquaint consumers with the brand and educate the market on the airline’s affordable travel offering”.
The result of the effective promotion was that “Mango carried its one-millionth guest in record time; had one of the largest e-commerce launches in South African online history; successfully launched Mango Plus – a world-first SMME business travel product and activated the unflown market that accounts for more than 20 percent of guests carried at this point”.
Modern society is so overfilled with various types of advertisements that one can hardly imagine his or her life without them. Judging from my personal observations I may say that print, radio, TV, video, and other advertisements have both positive and negative impacts on customers’ purchase behavior and attitude towards products and services advertised. I am inclined to believe that the effectiveness of this influence depends much on the quality of the advertisements made and the reasonable occurrence of this or that advertisement in front of the customers’ eyes.
Selling by Salkever
For years technology companies have been trying to transform selling from art into a science. Science works effectively only if it is grounded on established principles and credible technologies. Alex Salkever in his article ‘Make the Buyers Come to You’ suggests effective technologies that help the companies to launch their sales force into the future. The author’s advice includes the steps like:
Build a Better Rolodex – the author claims that the more contacts the salesperson has, the more opportunities to succeed in business he or she has.
Network more efficiently – actually, this advice comes logically from the previous one. Contacting other salesmen increases one’s chances to succeed.
Find Better Sales Lists – sales lists with extreme wariness help to maintain an effective sales system.
Make the Buyers Come to You – the author stresses the importance of advertising emphasizing the effectiveness of online advertising.
Salkever also suggests that the companies should focus on their best prospects, to get more out of their salespeople, and to turn new clients into repeated customers.
The pieces of advice that Salkever gives are confirmed by practical examples that combine theoretical issues with practical experience. I consider the rules proposed by Salkever to be a real method guide for those striving for their business success.
References
Honda diesel engines say grrr in award-winning TV ad. Web.
Mango ad campaign wins international award. (2007) South Africa. The Good News. Web.
Gerba, B. (2007). Measuring the value of an engaged viewer. Digital Signange News. Web.
Salkever, A.(2006) Make the buyers come to you. Inc. Magazine. Websitepros. Web.