Question

Q5. Please define and describe each of the five promotion mix tools for communicating customer value. Please illustrate with examples of how companies use these parts of IMC effectively and the two main principles used as well as the two main types of appeals.   

Answer 1

1. Advertising: any paid form of nonpersonal presentation of ideas, goods, and services by identified sponsor (example: Super Bowl TV ads).
2. Sales promotion: short term incentives to encourage purchase or sale of product (example: McDonald’s Dollar Drink Days).
3. Personal selling: personal presentation by firm’s sales force to make sales and build customer relationships (example: mini makeovers at Sephora stores to inform and demonstrate how to use the product).
4. Public relations: building good relations with the company’s publics through good publicity, building good corporate image, and handling unfavourable publicity (example: CIBC’s Run for the Cure gives them a good reputation).
5. Direct marketing: direct connections with carefully targeted consumers to obtain immediate response and cultivate lasting customer relationships (example: Avon catalogues which are sent right to consumers’ homes).

The 2 main principles are consistency and complementarity. Throughout all the tools companies should make sure not to contradict themselves (as to not lose credibility)—be consistent—and to make sure that each message sent out strengthens the overall message (messages should compliment each other).

The 2 main types of appeals are cognitive/rational and affective/emotional. Rational appeal focuses on the consumer need for functionality, companies using this type of appeal also use more facts and offer proof to back their claims up. An example is the Bounty paper towel advertisements which have a demonstration showing that their paper towels absorb more than the next leading brand. Emotional appeal creates some kind of emotional response to the product (usually humour, sex, or fear). Companies will try to make consumers associate the product with a good feeling or create fear of what may happen if they don’t use the product. Example is Excel’s “Bad Breath Isn’t Sexy” series of TV ads which create fear of embarrassing bad breath which can lead to social isolation.