Basic Marketing: A Global Managerial Approach

Perreault−McCarthy: Basic
Marketing: A
Global−Managerial
Approach, 14/e

16. Advertising and Sales
    Promotion

Text © The McGraw−Hill

Companies, 2002

Advertising and Sales Promotion 451

agencies. See Exhibit 16-1. We’ll talk about these decisions in this chapter. We’ll

also consider how to measure advertising effectiveness, and legal limits on adver-

tising, in an increasingly competitive environment.

After we discuss advertising, we’ll go into more detail on sales promotion. We’ll

discuss the great variety of sales promotion approaches, how they typically vary for

different target markets, and their basic benefits and limitations.

The basic strategy planning decisions for advertising and sales promotion are the

same regardless of where in the world the target market is located. However, keep

in mind that the look and feel of advertising and sales promotion vary a lot in dif-

ferent countries, in part because choices available to a marketing manager within

each of the decision areas may vary dramatically from one country to another.

The target audience for advertising may be illiterate—making print ads useless.

Commercial television may not be available. If it is, government rules or censors

may place severe limits on the type of advertising permitted or when ads can be

shown. Radio broadcasts in a market area may not be in the target market’s lan-

guage. Access to interactive media like the Internet may be nonexistent. Cultural,

social, and behavioral influences may limit what type of ad messages can be com-

municated. Ad agencies who already know a nation’s unique advertising

environment may be unwilling to cooperate.

International dimensions may also have a significant impact on sales promotion

alternatives. For example, in countries with a large number of very small retailers

some types of trade promotion are difficult, or even impossible, to manage. A typi-

cal Japanese grocery retailer with only 250 square feet of space, for example, doesn’t

have room for anyspecial end-of-aisle displays. Consumer promotions may be affected

too. Polish consumers, for example, are skeptical about product samples; they don’t

have a lot of experience with sampling and they figure that if it’s free something’s

amiss. In some developing nations samples can’t be distributed through the mail—

because they’re routinely stolen from mailboxes before they ever get to the target

customer. Similarly, coupons won’t work unless consumers can redeem them, and in

some regions there are no facilitators to help with that effort. Similarly, some coun-

tries ban consumer sweepstakes—because they see it as a form of gambling.

Product Place Promotion Price

Personal

selling

Mass

selling

Sales

promotion

Advertising Publicity

Media

types

Copy

thrust

Who will do

the work

Kind of

advertising

Target

audience

Target market

Exhibit 16-1 Strategy Planning for Advertising

International

dimensions are

important