Question

The marketing manager is involved in the long-term sale of a product through effective advertising, but what about short-term growth through sales promotions? How are advertising and sales promotion similar? How are they different? What is the benefit and challenges associated with each?

Answer 1

Advertising and sales promotion similar in the sense that both advertising and sales promotion focusses on profitability , increasing sales. The marketing department plays a major role in advertising and sales promotion.Both advertising and promotion work in tandem to improve the brand image of the company.

Differences between advertising and sales promotion:

• Advertising has along term effect and it focusses on building a brand image.
• Sales promotion are short term strategies, which focusses on revenue infusion by pushing sales and affecting the prices of goods and services.
• Advertising is a part of promotion. Promotion helps keep the product in the minds of the customer and is a part of the marketing mix.
• The advertising has a long term effect, whereas promotion has a short term effect.
• advertising is highly expensive and sales promotion is cost effective.

Benefits and challenges associated with advertising and sales promotion:

Sales promotion benefits the firm but the effect of the promotional activities is only for the short term. This short term orientation can have negative effects on the long term profitability of the business. Use of heavy sales promotion activities can lead to product dilution.

Advertising helps in increasing sales, enhances good will , it eliminates the middle men. The costs of creating ads might increases the sales generated through these advertising campaigns. Sometimes, ad campaigns can invite legal lawsuits as the ads can be misleading and presents a rosy picture which might not actually be the case.