Promotion 423
2001, Chapters 4 and 8). That is a well inten-
tioned development, but it would be enough to
use existing terminology correctly.
Direct marketing
The definition of the third ingredient of the
promotional mix is in fact inaccurate, strictly
speaking. ‘Direct marketing’ should of course
encompass not only the delivery of the promo-
tional message to the audience, but also the
delivery of the goods or services themselves,
and more besides. In this context, however, it is
normally taken to refer to direct mail, direct-
response advertising and mail-order advertising,
via either traditional or new media. It could
therefore be argued that it does not deserve a
place of its own in the mix, being only a variety
of advertising that aims to ‘sell off the page’, via
a variety of response facilities, such as Freepost
or (not free) e-mail. However, it figures here in
concession to the fact that all the current
textbooks of marketing communications cited
here include it as a component of their own
version of the mix.
‘Promotions’
In practice, marketing managers will often
describe an individual sales promotioninitiative
as simply a ‘promotion’, inviting confusion
with the broader meaning of the term intended
by McCarthy. This is just another reason for
looking forward to the day when the fourth of
his Ps finally gives way to the altogether more
logical ‘marketing communications’.
Publicity versus advertising
Here, we turn from largely semantic distinctions
to one with important strategic implications.
The careful distinction drawn between advertis-
ing andpublicityis by no means universally
observed in practice, a tendency compounded
outside the English-speaking world by the fact
that ‘advertising’ in three major world lan-
guages is publicit ́e, publicidadandpublicidade.
Conversely, English speakers routinely describe
publicity as ‘free’ advertising, as distinct from
‘paid’ advertising. The danger in this usage is
that it conceals a fundamental strategic differ-
ence: users of publicity spend relatively little in
the hope that a third party will relay a version of
their message without adding a counter-pro-
ductive editorial spin, whereas users of advertis-
ing pay relatively heavily for the certainty that it
will appear where, when and how they
intended. Cost and control are thus traded off
against one another.
It is often assumed that favourable pub-
licity can be bought by taking advertising space
in a newspaper or magazine, but professional
etiquette in fact keeps such subterfuges to a
minimum. A published comment from the
editor of Cosmopolitan magazine made this
abundantly clear in 1994: ‘the marketing man-
ager quoted was incorrect in his/her assump-
tion that spending a significant amount on
advertising gives the right to demand editorial
coverage... [which is] judged purely on its
relevance and interest to our magazine’s 2.3
million readers’. There is one exception to this
rule, the advertisement features, or advertorials,
which are a familiar feature of many news-
papers and magazines. However, the code of
practice governing press advertising in the UK
requires that:Features, announcements or promotions that
are disseminated in exchange for a payment or
other reciprocal arrangement... should also
be clearly identified as such... Advertising
promotions, sometimes referred to as ‘adver-
torials’, should be designed and presented in
such a way that it is clear that they are
advertisements.
(Advertising Standards Authority,
1999, clauses 23.2 and 41.1)The equivalent code regulating television
advertising in Britain states explicitly that:Close similarity between a programme’s con-
tent and an advertiser’s advertising (or other
marketing activity) might constitute grounds