MarketingManagement.pdf

a deal and shipping the surplus to their stores to nondeal regions. Manufacturers are
trying to handle forward buying and diverting by limiting the amount they will sell
at a discount, or producing and delivering less than the full order in an effort to
smooth production.^56
All said, manufacturers feel that trade promotion has become a nightmare. It con-
tains layers of deals, is complex to administer, and often leads to lost revenues. Kevin
Price describes trade promotion in the following way:

A decade ago, the retailer was a chihuahua nipping at the manufacturer’s heels—

a nuisance, yes, but only a minor irritant; you fed it and it went away. Today it’s

a pit bull and it wants to rip your arms and legs off. You’d like to see it roll over,

but you’re too busy defending yourself to even try.... Today management of trade

promotions is a president-level issue.^57

Selecting Business- and Sales Force Promotion Tools
Companies spend billions of dollars on business- and sales force promotion tools (Table
5.11). These tools are used to gather business leads, impress and reward customers,
and motivate the sales force to greater effort. Companies typically develop budgets
for each business-promotion tool that remain fairly constant from year to year.

Developing the Program
In planning sales-promotion programs, marketers are increasingly blending several
media into a total campaign concept. Kerry E. Smith describes a complete sales-
promotion program:

A sports trivia game to create pull-through at taverns for a premium beer brand

would use TV to reach consumers, direct mail to incentivize distributors, point-of-

purchase for retail support, telephones for consumer call-ins, a service bureau for

call processing, live operators for data entry, and computer software and hardware

603

Major Business- and Sales-Force

Promotion Tools

TABLE 5.11

Trade Shows and Conventions: