Understanding Promotional Strategies

This assignment delves into the world of promotional strategies. It examines different types of promotion, including advertising, below-the-line promotions, exhibitions, and events. The assignment analyzes push and pull marketing strategies and the importance of the communication process in marketing. Ethical considerations, such as consumer protection regulations, are also discussed.

Advertising and Promotion
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................................3
TASK 1.................................................................................................................................................3
AC 1.1 Communication process that applies to advertising and promotion...................................3
AC 1.2 Organisation of the advertising and promotions industry...................................................4
AC 1.3 assessment of promotional regulation.................................................................................4
AC 1.4 Current trends in advertising and promotion, including the impact of ICT........................5
TASK 2 ................................................................................................................................................6
AC 2.1 Role of advertising in an integrated promotional strategy for Coca-Cola.........................6
AC 2.2 Branding for strengthen a business or product....................................................................7
AC 2.3 Review of the creative aspects of advertising....................................................................7
AC 2.4 Ways of working with advertising agencies........................................................................8
TASK 3 ................................................................................................................................................9
AC 3.1 Primary techniques of below-the-line promotion with integrated promotional strategy for
Coca-Cola........................................................................................................................................9
AC 3.2 Other techniques used in below-the-line promotion...........................................................9
TASK 4...............................................................................................................................................10
AC 4.1 Process for the formulation of a budget for an integrated promotional strategy..............10
AC 4.2 Development of a promotional plan for Coca-Cola.........................................................11
AC 4.3 Plan of integration of promotional techniques into the promotional strategy for Coca-
Cola................................................................................................................................................11
AC 4.4 Techniques for measuring campaign effectiveness...........................................................12
CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................................12
References..........................................................................................................................................14
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INTRODUCTION
Advertisement is a kind of communication which is used in marketing by the organisations
for promoting their products and services. On the other hand, promotion is a process of influencing
people and increasing awareness about different product or service. It is also a part of marketing
mix elements. Both advertisement and promotion are used by the firms for increasing their sales,
demand for product, market position, brand awareness, brand image, etc. among the customers.
Various tools and techniques that are used by the companies for effective advertisement and
promotion of their products and related services (Bova, 2011).
The present study consists of the communication process for advertisement and promotion,
current trends, impact of ICT, , branding, and its uses. Along with these points, file also consist
creative aspects of advertising, different ways of working with advertising agencies, primary
techniques of below the line promotion, process for formulation of budget and appropriate
techniques for measuring campaign effectiveness. In the end, conclusion is explained with effective
key findings.
TASK 1
AC 1.1 Communication process that applies to advertising and promotion
Communication process plays an important role in advertising and promoting a product for
the company. It is used for for influencing people and creating awareness among them about the
product. The communication process is explained below. It is as follows: Source/ Sender: It is a company or a brand agency who wants to send its messages
regarding the product or service to the market or to the buyers. Companies plays role of
sender by sending its message of new products, services, offers, etc. to the customers,
suppliers, distributors, etc (The Communication Process, 2016). Message: In this stage, message about the product and services are encoded by the sender.
Firms encode their strategies, planning and other related information about the product and
services which they want to share it with their customers (Korda and Itani, 2013). Channel: In this, firm decides the channel through which the message can be shared.
Organisations use newspaper, mails, newsletters, magazines, radio, television, internet, sales
person, agents, etc. to advertise and promote their new product and services to their
customers. To influence old age buyers, firms promotes its product through radio and
newspaper. On the other hand, for young ones it uses internet, e-mails and for middle aged
consumers it uses television, sales person, customer service, etc.
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 Receiver: The target audience works as a receiver in this step. They decode the encoded
message by understanding them as per their perception, needs, desires and expectations. Feedback: In this organisations takes the feedback of the customers about the product.
 Noises: Poor television, radio signal and low speed of internet works as a disruption of a
message for the company in their communication process (Nicholas and et.al.,, 2012).
AC 1.2 Organisation of the advertising and promotions industry
All kind of companies are somewhere attached to the advertising and promotions industry as
these agencies help them in better marketing of their products and services. The organisation of
this industry is divided into the following types. They are: Advertising Agencies: The role of this service based industry is to develop, plan and control
the advertisements for its customers. It sometimes handle overall marketing, branding and
promotional strategies for its clients. Different types of advertising agencies are: media
independents, in-house organisations, creative hot shops, full service, marketing agencies
and many more. Each agency perform different functions in relation to advertisement and
promotions (Rizwan and et.al., 2013). Client Companies advertisers: These are the companies which demand for the advertising
and promotions of their product, service or brand from the advertising agencies. By making
use of skilled and talented employees these firms are able to develop proper advertising and
promotional plan for their products and services. At the time of hiring any advertising
agency, client need to explain their requirements, wants and desires to them properly for an
effective promotion of their goods or services (Burtenshaw, Mahon and Barfoot, 2011). Media suppliers: Media plays an important role in promoting and advertising of products,
services and brands of the company. It is one of the fastest and useful tool of advertisement.
There are various companies which are selected by media suppliers for the effective
advertisement of customer's product. These companies are commercial television company,
Radio Company, owners of the newspaper, books and magazines, company of posters and
many other companies (Ha and et.al., 2011).
 Promotional material suppliers: These are those agencies which carry out additional work
related to the advertising and promotional campaign. promotional material suppliers
includes printers, co-ordinators, exhibition companies, etc.
AC 1.3 assessment of promotional regulation
Advertising and promotional industries need to regulate their promotional work properly and
for this, it follows various acts and regulations which are as follows.
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 Consumer Protection From Unfair Trading Regulations 2008: This regulation prohibits
promotional industries to use unfair commercial practices for misleading people. By
following this regulation, advertising and promotional industries always represents real and
true information about the product and services (The consumer protection from unfair
trading regulations 2008, 2016).
 Data Protection Act 1998: Promotional companies follow the data protection act 1998 for
preventing the information of the client or of the products and services from the wrong
person. Firm takes care of the confidential information and secures it by using appropriate
software, antivirus, etc (Nicholas and et.al.,, 2012).
Along with the above regulations, there are some regulatory bodies also which monitors the
working and activities of the advertising and promotional industries. These regulatory bodies are as
under: Advertising Standards Authority (ASA): It is one of the independent regulatory body for
advertising the products and services across all media. It monitors the work of advertising
companies properly and takes action against them on receiving any complaint. It takes
action against the misleading and harmful advertisements and promotions (Osinga and et.al.,
2011). Bar Standards Board: This regulatory body is for monitoring the promotional activities of
the related companies. It checks the quality, quantity and reliability of the product and
service with the information given by the companies for its promotion among the people.
 Committee of advertising practice (CAP): The work of this committee is to create different
broadcast and non-broadcast advertising codes which are administrated by the ASA. It helps
ASA in revising and enforcing those codes (Buil, Chernatony and Martínez, 2013).
AC 1.4 Current trends in advertising and promotion, including the impact of ICT
The current trends in advertising and promotion industry are explained below. QR Codes: It is a quick response code which evoke a digital action at the time of scanning
with the help of QR Code reader. Consumers can get additional information about the
product by scanning these codes which is a simple and easy process (Davis, 2013). Co-Branding: This advertising strategy is a joint venture in which two or more brands use
their adversing efforts together for creating a new product. These new products raise the
brand awareness among the people with their interest. Example of co-branding are Apple
and Nike, Ford F150 and Harley Davidson bikes (Osinga and et.al., 2011).
 Content Marketing: This advertising strategy gets popularity due to the increasing use of
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social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. This strategy includes blogs, articles and
other type of content which is published for the purpose of promoting products and services
on the web. Brand storytelling is one of the creative way of using content marketing which
results in creating awareness among the people about the products and services.
Impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) :
Companies are using ICT for advertising and promoting their products its impact are as
follows.
 It helps in proper management of time, utilisation and allocation of resources.
 It leads to make proper connections with the customers by communicating them and
understanding their needs and expectations.
 It helps in storing all the data securely and safely.
 It has provided creative and innovative ideas to the companies for better advertising of their
products (Hing and et.al., 2014).
TASK 2
AC 2.1 Role of advertising in an integrated promotional strategy for Coca-Cola
Advertising plays essential role in the success of any product or service. Sales, brand image,
market position, trust of the customers, etc all depends upon the advertisements of the product.
There are many companies which invest a lot on the advertisement and promotions of their products
for influencing customers to purchase them. One of such company is Coca Cola which invests over
6 million dollar only for the advertisement and promotions of its soft drinks. It uses advertising
strategies which includes traditional advertising, online promotions, sponsoring of sports and
events, local promotions which are held by the bottlers or other retailers, selling the collections of
the Coca-Cola, etc. One of the new technique used by the Coca Cola for its promotions is
advertisement through animations and cartoon images (Rizwan and et.al., 2013).
Company changes its tag line with the time to impress its customers and to maintain the
position and reputation among the people. For example, In 1982 it promote its brand by the tag line
of Coke is it! Which was for representing the new taste and concept of the firm among the people.
In 1993, it changes the tag line to Always Coca Cola. The animated polar bear of this advertisement
became popular which results to increase in sales of Coca Cola. The firm has also represent the
CSR activities with the help of its advertisements and promotions which attracts many people. It
tries to covey good and welfare messages to the people through its advertisement campaigns which
makes this brand different from other brands (Modig, Dahlén and Colliander, 2014).
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AC 2.2 Branding for strengthen a business or product
Branding is a process of creating a unique and creative name and image for a product or a
service in the mind of customers with the help of innovative campaigns of advertisements. The
main aim of branding is to develop a significant presence of the product in the market which
attracts, influences and retains the trustworthy and loyal users of that product (Shimp and Andrews,
2013).
Branding helps in developing the trust and loyalty among the customers by providing them
high quality products and services. It is important to create strong branding in the market for
influencing customers towards the product. While purchasing the product of specific brand,
customer trust it and due to this trust they purchase it next time again. Branding helps in creating
good, reputed and valuable image of the company in the mind of people which results in creating
full trust and loyalty in them. With the customers, it also influence the employees, supplies and
other shareholders to join that firm which results to increase its value and goodwill (Nicholas and
et.al.,, 2012).
A good and strong branding makes a special place of that firm in the mind of people which
never changes. Firms can conduct branding by using creative name, logo and stripling which makes
people to recognize it. Name and logo of the organisation helps its product to keep itself separate
from the competition. Sometimes people purchase brands and products of high price due to the
strong branding of the enterprise. Therefore, strong branding results to make a good and
unrepeatable image of the firm in the mind of the people which results in creating trust and loyalty
for the products (Rizwan and et.al., 2013).
AC 2.3 Review of the creative aspects of advertising
Advertising plays vital role in forming a good image of the firm and in effective marketing
of products and services. Creativity in advertising makes it more effective, unique, innovative and
impressing. It requires strategic thinking for generating fresh and new ideas with respect to the
advertisement of the product. Creative advertising improves the communication between brand and
customer. There are some rules also for it which are as follows.
 Formation of product should be relevant to the user.
 Keep the product in the centre of commercial.
 It should fulfil the expectations of the users (Korda and Itani, 2013).
Creative advertising involves three stages for bringing creativity in advertising which are
create, creation and creativity. There are three aspects of the creative advertising which are as
follows.
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 Creative Process: It consists of focusing on the strategies, mechanisms and different phases
at the time of developing creative process. Creative Person: The persons required for implementing creative advertising should be
talented, skilled and have creative traits. The two functions of the creative persons or
creative team are art directions and copy writing. In which art direction refers to the
development of visual design elements and copy writing refers to the verbal text which
represents the qualities of the product.
 Creative Situations: The criteria and characteristics of the creativity should be considered as
acceptable, practical and workable for the aspect of situation.
AC 2.4 Ways of working with advertising agencies
Companies need to influence people to purchase their product and to aware them about the
benefits and qualities of it. For this, they hires advertising agencies which helps them by creating
effective and creative advertisements which helps in enhancing the demand and sales of the
respected product or service (Austin and Pinkleton, 2015). For working with these agencies and
getting most of them, firms need to work with proper cooperation and coordination other ways are
explained below.
Flexibility:
Firms should be flexible enough to work with the advertising agencies. They need to
cooperate them properly for achieving the goal and target. The reason behind hiring an advertising
agency should be in the mind of organisations so that they can give their best for effective
advertisement (Rosengren, Dahlén and Modig, 2013).
Practical Thinking:
Organisations are able to create effective marketing plan for their products or brands with
the help of skilled employees but if it has hired an advertising agency then they should not disturb
them in their work processes. Agencies hold expertise in their work and they knows how to give
their best for the effective advertisement. So all a company needs is a practical and logical thinking.
Know the customers:
Advertising agencies suggest their companies to conduct a research for understanding the
expectations, desires and wants of the customers. This process can cost more but will provide a
huge benefit to the advertising campaign of the firm. This helps agencies in representing the
products in the manner customers want and expect from the particular enterprise (Moriarty and
et.al., 2014).
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TASK 3
AC 3.1 Primary techniques of below-the-line promotion with integrated promotional strategy for
Coca-Cola
Below-the-line marketing techniques consists of the short time marketing techniques which
helps in generating immediate response of the users. These below-the-line techniques results in
providing an opportunity to direct communication. These techniques provides various ways to
create links with the target audience in effective manner. Below-the-line promotion techniques are
as follows.
Direct Mail:
Through this technique, companies create an attractive message for informing customers
about the new products or services. It helps in promoting the product by directly contacting with the
people which also helps in maintaining good relations with them. The mail should be professional
and informative that customers can not able to ignore it. Coca-Cola uses this strategy for the
promotion of its soft drinks which helps in maintaining good relations with the customers and also
results to influence them (Belch and Belch, 2013).
Door to door technique:
In this technique, sales person sales the product by going person to person. This helps in
improving the image of the brand by solving the queries of the customers. It is one of the common
and popular technique used by the enterprises for influencing people personally to purchase their
products (Below-the-line promotion, 2012).
Exterior Location Marketing:
Through this technique, companies tries to draw more attention of the people to a particular
location. The employees of Coca-Cola dress themselves in a costume at a specific location for
grabbing attention of the people and their main motto behind it is to aware them about the product
and brand. This technique is generally used by the small scale enterprises (Modig, Dahlén and
Colliander, 2014).
AC 3.2 Other techniques used in below-the-line promotion
There are other below-the-line techniques also which are used by the firms for influencing
their customers. These techniques are as follows. Personal Selling: In this technique, companies hire sales person for selling their product to
the people after meeting face to face. The promotion of the product is takes place by the
attitude, personality, product specialisation, proper communication and appearance of the
seller. The reason behind this technique is to encourage people to purchase that product or at
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least give a trial to it (Burtenshaw, Mahon and Barfoot, 2011). Word of mouth: In this, an organisation seed a message in a network for encouraging people
to buy the product. It is one of the most common and effective technique which helps in
improving the brand image and influences people to buy the product or service. Sometimes
companies reward their regular clients to engage in this activity for attracting people
towards the brand or product (Nicholas and et.al.,, 2012).
 Exhibitions and events: This is one of effective technique for promoting the products ad
brands among the people. This provides an opportunity to develop networks by
communicating face to face with the customers. Along with the users, this technique also
enables firm to meet suppliers, advisers, prospects, investors, etc with respect to the
business. Customers generally participate in these exhibitions and events, give their time by
proper analysing and understanding the products or brands and mostly make their mind to
buy those products which influence them the most (Exhibition and events, 2016).
TASK 4
AC 4.1 Process for the formulation of a budget for an integrated promotional strategy
Budget refers to the financial plan which is formed by the organisations for a particular
period of time. Appropriate process for the formulation of a budget for a integrated promotional
strategy is as follows. Selecting objectives and define goals: The first step for forming promotional budget is to
decide what type of promotion technique company wants to use?, which type audience it
wants to target? , etc while deciding the objectives which it wants to achieve from this
promotional budget (Advertising budget. 2016). Collective information about the source of money: After deciding the objectives, next step
is to get all the financial information about the firm for knowing the sales revenue. After
this, firm needs to find out the sources of money for the promotional budget(Smith and
Zook, 2011). Determining future challenges: In this step, organisation tries to determine the future
challenges that can be occurred at the time of promotion by analysing the past marketing
records and performances. This helps in preparing alternative options for the future issue or
problem. This also results in preventing time, money and resources. Implementation of the budget according to the plan: In this, company implements the
budget as per the marketing and promotional plan. This helps in proper budgeting by
analysing each and every promotional activity carefully.
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 Evaluation and controlling of the budget: At this stage, firm checks the budget whether it
is as per the planed activities or not. And controls the problems and issues that occurs at the
time of promotion of products or brands (Bova, 2011).
AC 4.2 Development of a promotional plan for Coca-Cola
Development of a promotional plan is as follows. Define a specific objective: In this, any firm defines its objective for the promotional
campaign. Coca-Cola firstly, clarify its purpose of conducting promotional program.
Whether it can be enhancing the sales, earning profit or targeting new audience, etc but it
should be clear. Determine a workable distribution plan to a targeted audience: Distribution plays
important role in promotion of a product. Coca-Cola develops its distribution plan for the
targeted audience to influence them and to increase the effectiveness of its promotional
product i.e. soft drinks. Create a central theme: Coca-Cola decides the theme for the promotion of product. It
selects the attractive and recognizable logo and colour for the attention of the people
towards it. The packaging of the products also helps in attracting people towards to product. Develop a message to support the theme: In this, Coca-Cola develops its message for
supporting the theme. The message developed by the Coca-Cola are generally for the
welfare of society which results in grabbing the attention of people. It also uses creative tag
lines which helps in making that promotional campaign more effective. Selection of promotional product which have natural relationship with the theme: Coca-
Cola decides the promotional product with respect to the theme. This promotional product
helps in communicating its message to the people and make them to purchase those products
(Ha and et.al., 2011). Implement the promotional plan: After proper planning, promotional plan is implemented
for influencing customers in most effective way.
 Evaluation and Controlling: Plan is properly evaluated that whether it is targeting the
audiences as per the expectations or not. Improvements are take place on the basis of
requirements (Triplett, 2010).
AC 4.3 Plan of integration of promotional techniques into the promotional strategy for Coca-Cola
Promotional techniques are used by the companies for attracting the customers towards the
product or brands (Buil, Chernatony and Martínez, 2013). Coca-Cola uses various kinds of
promotional techniques and integrates them with promotional strategies for effective outcomes. The
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promotional techniques used by it are as follows. Positioning: This marketing strategy is used by the companies for creating an identity of the
product in the mind of customers. Coca Cola tries to present its products in best possible
way to the targeted audience. After proper market segmentation, firm creates the creative,
attractive and impressive messages to reach that particular segment. It uses social welfare
messages, attractive packaging, etc by targeting non-alcoholic market (Shimp and Andrews,
2013).
 Push-pull strategy: In push strategy, Coca-Cola take its product, service or brand directly to
the customers by using various means. It helps in encouraging retail demands, direct selling,
effective packaging design for attracting users, etc. On the other hand, pull strategy helps in
motivating clients to search the brand of company in an active process. For example, sales
promotion, word of mouth, customer relationship management (CRM), etc (Push and pull
marketing strategies, 2016.).
AC 4.4 Techniques for measuring campaign effectiveness.
Techniques for measuring campaign effectiveness are as follows. Recall: Companies need to use photographic images or video clips of the product
advertisement for testing the awareness and recall of customers. Firms can use a video clip
or image of an ad without any sound for knowing that whether audience recall that ad or not.
They can also use ad messages for knowing the reactions of the people towards it (Osinga
and et.al., 2011). Inquiries: Firm can calculate the effectiveness of the advertisement campaign by the total
amount of inquiring it had obtained at the time of whole campaign period. They can also
measure by number of clicks on the website by the people for getting information about the
product (Hing and et.al., 2014).
 Conducting Survey: Effectiveness of the advertising campaign can be measured with the
help of surveys. Enterprise can conduct survey after the end of campaign for knowing the
customer responses towards the particular product or service.
CONCLUSION
From the above study, it is concluded that advertising and promotions plays important role
in influencing the people to buy the products and services. Various advertising and promotional
techniques used by the companies for making their promotional campaign effective. They also hires
advertising agencies for promoting their products among targeted audience in best possible manner.
Promotional plan is created by the companies before starting any promotional campaign with the
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help of which they tries to grab the attention of the audience. Coca-Cola is one of the best firm
which invests a lot in advertisement and promotion of its product by using creative and innovative
techniques. At the end, whole promotional campaign is measured with the help of inquiries,
surveys, recalls, etc.
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