Marketing Communications

SELECTING MEDIA 271

Magazines

Magazines have the advantage that a large audience can be reached. Furthermore, special

interest magazines or magazines directed at a specific target group, such as females or

youngsters, create the possibility of a selective approach for different target groups. Depend-

ing on the type of magazine, a high-quality context can be offered, making it a good medium

for image building (e.g. Vo g u e). Special interest magazines, such as computer magazines, also

have the advantage of inducing a high involvement level and being perceived as highly credible,

adding a certain value to the inserted ads. For magazines in general, the quality of reproduc-

tion is high and a lot of information can be distributed. The message life is relatively long,

people can process the messages at their own pace, and the same message or ad may be seen

several times, since it is very likely that a reader does not read the magazine only once, but

rather takes it up several times before he or she disposes of it.

Major disadvantages are that it is a rather slow medium, which leads to a delay in reach.

People can buy a monthly magazine this week, but not read it for the next two weeks.

Furthermore, the medium is not so flexible in the sense that last-minute changes are not

tolerated and regional versions are impossible. Some magazines also suffer from high clutter,

rendering an advertising message less effective.

In November 2001, the beer brand Grolsch ran an integrated marketing communications campaign in the Netherlands.

The objective of the campaign was to increase home consumption of Grolsch in men aged between 20 and 34. To

reach this objective a sales promotion ran for three weeks (weeks 47, 48 and 49) consisting of a free lamp for every

case of Grolsch beer purchased. The sales promotion was supported by point-of-purchase material, information on

the website, TV advertising, an ad in a regional newspaper and an outdoor Abribus campaign. The Abribus campaign

ran for one week in the middle of the sales promotion campaign (week 48). During this week, media investments in

the product category amounted to €1.3 million, with the following shares of voice: Heineken 30%, Grolsch 25%, Amstel

13%, Brand 10%, Bavaria 3% and another six competitors 19%. Heineken, Grolsch and Amstel are also the largest

players in the Dutch beer market, each enjoying a brand awareness of over 97%. Did the outdoor campaign reach its

objectives? It sure did. Comparing top-of-mind awareness for Grolsch at the beginning and at the end of week 48

showed an increase from 25% to 31%. The spontaneous awareness of the sales promotion doubled from 15% to 30%.

Total awareness of the promotion amounted to 37%, while awareness in the target group reached 46%. As the source

of the sales promotion awareness, 41.3% of the respondents mentioned outdoor advertising, 46.0% in-store com-

munications and 23.8% TV advertising. Intention to buy Grolsch during the promotion action did not increase, though.^35

business insight

Grolsch: using outdoor to shine a light on sales promotions

Customer media, previously called ‘sponsored magazines’, are magazines that are produced to communicate

a company’s brands by featuring articles that endorse the brands and targeting the audiences that are target

groups for the brands. Also in-house magazines that are mainly targeted at internal stakeholders can be considered

business insight

Customer media magazines add experiences to a brand

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