Promotion and Action

Task One (A01)

a) Description of various forms of promotional activities.

Introduction

Promotion is a part of the marketing mix and basically shows how different businesses make their customers aware of their products and persuade them to buy their products by advertising them in various sources. The key in Promotion is to grab consumers’ attention and make them interested in your product. In order to this, businesses use above-the-line and below-the-line methods of promotional activity.

Above-the-line promotional activity involves advertising products to the public by using various media sources the examples of which are described below:

Using Television

Advantages:

• Allows targeting particular groups of people by advertising products in particular programs. For example, car producers might advertise their cars in the TV programs about the cars

• Attracting customers’ attention by the use of colours, funny pictures, videos and etc.-grabs people’s attention

• Businesses can demonstrate products in use and show how useful, necessary or desirable the products are.

• There can be millions of people watching the advert. Therefore, an advert can reach a vast audience.

• If the businesses continuously advertise their products few times a day during a certain period of time, then the message, which businesses are trying to send to the customers might be reinforced. People eventually become aware of the product, because they see an advert every day, which makes them more likely to go, buy and try the product and see whether they like it or not.

• Businesses can also use celebrities in their TV adverts, in order to grab people’s attention.

• Some advertisements of addictive or desirable products, like food can make you want to buy it. For example, Marks & Spencer and SAINSBURY’S advertise food on the TV in the very delicious way in order to make their audience hungry. When brewing companies advertise drinks, like beers or even products like Coca Cola, they are trying to make their audience feel thirsty.

• Even though the initial costs of TV advertising are relatively expensive, it can pay the businesses back, if it turns out to be very effective. Also, after the businesses have advertised their products and made people aware of their products, they don’t necessarily need to advertise as often as they used to, so they can decrease the costs of advertising.

Disadvantages:

• Businesses can only advertise the products on local or national channels like SKY, but not BBC

• Expensive initial costs of advertising. E.g. only relatively big companies with big budgets can afford to advertise their products on TV.

• The live cycle of the message depends, how often the business advertises it on a TV.

• Some consumers don’t watch commercials, because e.g. they want to have a break, see what other programs are on the TV, or they just don’t want to watch it.

• For businesses which produce high-tech products, it is more difficult to explain technical information about the functions of the product. Only a limited amount of information can be shown. Businesses pay for the time on TV which costs a lot of money. Also, if they tell too much of technical information, the consumers might not be able to remember it and it will lead to high costs, as it takes longer to explain them on TV.

• Businesses need to be very careful when advertising on TV. Some people can remember the advert or the catch phrase used in the advert, but cannot remember the name of the brand or product.

This method of promotion is appropriate for those firms that have huge budgets and are able to spend large sums of money on advertising on a TV. It is too expensive for small businesses and, therefore, is unlikely to be used.

Examples of TV promotion and their further description are given below:

Peugeot

This advert by “Peugeot” is about the man who wants to make a Peugeot 206 from a very old car somewhere in India. He looks at the Peugeot 206 car advert in the magazine and then tries to make a similar car from an old one by crushing it into the wall, using hammer and even an elephant. In the end, he gets the Peugeot 206 and drives it in the town, and every single citizen starts staring at the car. This makes this advert very funny and memorable. It shows emphasizes, that all cars look really old and ordinary, comparing to a new Peugeot 206, and shows how cool you would look like if you were driving a car like that.

Coca-Cola

T he Coca Cola TV advert shown on the left shows a good example of a very memorable advert due to its use of colours and idea of a Coke’s fairy factory. As soon as the man in the advert puts a coin into a coke machine, the coin gets into the Coke’s fairy factory where all fantastical processes take place, in order to deliver a high quality bottle of Coca Cola. This advert emphasizes how much effort is put in order to make one bottle of Coke. It shows the Coca Cola factory as if it was a fairy tale and it also shows that all the mechanisms used to make Coke are connected together, which makes it very memorable and effective.

Mark and Spencer’s advert

An example of the most recent Christmas 2008 advert by M&S shown below creates a very good Christmas atmosphere due to its use of music, snow, warm colours, big house with a fire place and Christmas tree and smiley happy people, who enjoy their life with some of the products that may be purchased from Mark and Spencer’s. It encourages people to buy their products as they might want to feel as well as those people in the advert and might want to create a similar Christmas atmosphere as shown in the advert.

H onda

This advert is firstly extremely memorable, because it’s very unusual and shows how one small circle part of the car starts off the whole chain process, in which one thing affects the other and it turns into the building process of Honda. It shows how clever each component of the Honda is. For example, it shows that as soon as one small drop falls on the windscreen, windscreen wipers turn on and start cleaning it. This identifies and promotes some of the functions of this, which may attract some customers to buy it, which works quite effectively.

Using Radio

Advantages:

• Products can only be advertised on local and national radio stations excluding all BBC channels.

• Use of catchphrases. Some companies use catchphrases on the radio, which remind consumer about the product.

• It’s cheaper to advertise on the radio

• However, it is also possible to target certain groups of people, because there’s a range of different radio stations. Some radio stations have political and business news. E.g. the employer might decide to advertise some of the jobs in his company on this particular radio stations. The majority of people who listen to such radio stations, are intellectuals, are interested in business and are likely to have more skills. E.g. music radio stations always advertise new CD albums, music players and other products, which are targeted on the young group of people, who are likely to listen to these radio stations. This helps businesses to select the most suitable radio station for advertising their jobs, goods and services.

Disadvantages:

• There’s no image, which means weaker visual effect.

• There’s no copy of the material being advertised, which means the customer cannot go back and listen to the message again. However, the adverts on the radio are usually repeated during the day.

• Audience might be concentrated on listening the music, and advert interruptions might be ignored, which makes it less effective.

• There might be too much advertising on one radio stations, so the listener may decide to change the radio station.

This method of advertising is also relatively expensive, but it would not be particularly useful for the niche products.

Using Cinema

Advantages:

• Captures audience’s attention and makes them watch an advert.

• Use of movement, colour and size of the picture in addition to the surround sound system can make an advert very effective.

• Depending on the film, different age groups may be targeted. Eg. If it’s a movie for kids, like ‘Ice age’, then the main impact will be on the children and their parents. Usually, after you finish watching a movie, on the way back there are many shops which sell toys with the main characters that played in some particular movies. Therefore, if you e.g. watched a new ‘Sponge Bob’, when you go out of the cinema theatre you can go into the shop and buy Sponge Bob toy.

• It is expensive, but costs less than advertising on TV.

Disadvantages:

• Although there may be a limited number of people (audience and potential consumers) coming to the cinema. Therefore, advertising in the cinema has a limited effect on the people.

• Not all products can be advertised in the cinema (E.g. cigarettes). For example, toilet paper or domestic products like ‘Tide’ wouldn’t normally be advertised in the cinema.

• Message being send to the audience might be short lived, so the consumer doesn’t remember what an advert was about. E.g. usually, after watching a great film, it is difficult to remember what was in the advert before the movie had started.

• Message can only be send once to the audience, unless he or she goes to the cinema again.

Examples of the cinema advert:

Orange mobile operator

T he “Orange” advert recently shown in the cinemas involves the use of such rap stars as Snoop Dogg, which attracts people attention. It is also quite funny, because when the “Orange guy” interrupts Snoop Dogg, there’s a kind of rap fight between them, as if it was somewhere in Brooklyn, and the “Orange guy” reads the rap against Snoop Dogg, which also make this advert quite memorable. The “Orange” suggests Snoop Dogg to rather use Short Messaging Service to text his women.

Apple (iPhone)

The “iPhone” advert by Apple shown on the right, which is quite frequently shown in the cinemas, is relatively simplistic. It doesn’t involve any deep thinking and just shows some of the functions of the new iPhone and how necessary they can be in a normal life. It also shows how easy it is to access something on the iPhone if you need it. It shows the iPhone product in the hand on a simple black font. Because the background is so simple, it also makes the iPhone stand out and shows its colourful screen.

Lynx Chocolate Flavour Deodorant advert

This advert emphasizes that if the man uses new Lynx chocolate flavour deodorant, any girl will be attracted to him. It is very funny and memorable, because, as soon as the guy in the advert sprays some deodorant, he becomes a chocolate guy and everyone on the street wants to have a piece of this guy. This advert shows, how desirable the guy will feel if he uses a new Lynx chocolate flavour deodorant, which promotes this product quite effectively.

F ord advert

The Ford advert, shown on the left, shows how people should stick some balloons to their old versions of Ford Mondeo and let them fly away, and get a new Ford Mondeo model. It also shows a change in the Ford Mondeo generation, that the new model is bringing something completely different on the market. I this advert, people with old models of this car watch a new model slowly cruising in the city, and their models with a new one. This advert is also makes it very memorable due to its very sad music, as it encourages to say Goodbye to the old model, and it’s kind of sad that they people now have to change such a good car.

Using press (newspapers)

Advantages:

• Regional and local newspapers can be used to target particular area and groups of people. For example, ‘Hyundai’ motor company can target particular cities and towns in Britain, where people are more likely to buy their cars.

• Details and specifications of the product can be provided.

• The reader can refer back and read an advert again.

• Can target particular groups of people. For example, ‘The Guardian’ and ‘The Times’ newspapers are usually being read by intellectual and clever people and target older group of people. ‘The Sun’ newspaper might be more suitable for the young audiences.

• Newspapers are relatively cheap.

Disadvantages:

• No sound or movement.

• Newspapers can be easily lost or thrown away after being read.

• Some newspapers are only printed in black and white, which means they have less visual effect.

• Regional newspapers are less cost effective, because the cost per reader is higher than for national newspapers.

• Because there are so many newspapers being printed, the quality of the pictures in the adverts and layout may suffer.

• Because of the big size of some newspapers, it is more difficult to find the advert you were interested in. Might take a long time, before you read an advert or an article about particular product.

Examples:

Chopard watch advert in FT newspaper

This advert was found in the Financial Times Newspaper. It is on the front page of the newspaper, it is relatively big and has a colourful picture of the watch, which attracts attention. It shows such details of the watch as belt made of crocodile leather, and it also informs about its ‘split second’ function. It has a relatively simple design, because there’s simply a zoomed watch shown on the black background, and this simplicity may well attract a potential customer to pay extra attention to it.

EFG International Bank.

This advert was also found in FT newspaper. It is a small black and white advert in the left bottom of the second page of the newspaper near important articles. It advertises a private bank “EFG International” and has a slogan written: “A private bank unlike any other”, which is quite similar to the slogan used by “Sony”- ‘Like no other’. The advert itself isn’t very memorable, however, because it’s located near one of the most important articles in the paper just above it, and a News Digest info on the left side, at the bottom of the page, it is very likely that the reader will see this advert and it will work and attract his attention if he/she is interested in private banking. However, it is very simplistic, it isn’t on the front page and it is very small, which doesn’t make it very effective.

Travel advert to Lapland

This advert was also found in “The Commersant” newspaper. It was located in the “Life and Arts” section of the newspaper under the travel heading and Lapland. It is a relatively big advert. Although it isn’t colourful, it uses very big letters, with “LAPLAND” written in big capital letters, and big price tag of 599 pounds, which may well attract somebody’s attention who is interested in going somewhere for the Christmas, which also makes this advert very seasonal and most effective during this particular period only. It is also a short term advert, because after the Christmas it will be less likely that someone will go there.

English National Ballet

That was another seasonal advert that I found in the newspaper, from which it can be clearly identified that the ballet is from the 2-11 January 2009. It is located on the fifth page of the newspaper, in the bottom corner. This advert is black and white, however, it has a picture of the woman with a card, dressed like she’s going for a very special event. It also has three quotes about the ballet from the world known newspapers: “Friendly acrobatic” from The Times newspaper, “simply stunning”- from the Sunday Express, and “irrestible”- from the Sunday Telegraph. In addition to this, it has the information about the prices of the tickets, the colour of the text of which is slightly deemed, just so it doesn’t look as much. It also provides the contact telephone number and website address as well as some information about the sponsors at the bottom of the advert. Although, it isn’t very big the design of this advert is quite memorable, because it reminds about the 1960’s times and the popularity of the ballet, which make this advert quite effective.

Using magazines

Advantages:

• Can have colourful advertisements, which have a great visual effect on the consumer.

• It might be more comfortable for some people to buy a magazine, because it’s easier to read and it is smaller in size than the newspapers, so you can take it with you all the time.

• Certain magazines are specialized target particular people. E.g. those people who read ‘Forbes’ magazine are more likely to buy some particular products, like: ‘Breitling’ watch, or a new BMW being advertised in the magazine.

• There can be specialist magazines, like ‘Spectator’, which is mainly about politics and ‘Man’s Health’, which is about fashion, health, sport and many other general things.

• It’s cheaper advertising in the magazines than advertising on TV or in the cinema.

• Advertising can be linked to features of the product.

• The reader can refer back to the article or an advert he was interested in.

Disadvantages:

• Advertising in the magazines is more expansive than advertising in the newspapers.

• By using different articles can target different socio-economic groups of people.

• Magazines are usually issued once a month, so it takes a long time to put your advertisement in the magazine. Also, there are not as many places for adverts in the magazine as in the newspaper. Because there may be many businesses who want to advertise their product, there’s a competition for getting a place for advertising your product in the magazine. Therefore, if the business wants to advertise its products in the magazine, it might need to reserve a place in the magazine in advance, which is expansive. In addition to this, there are different places in the magazines, which have stronger or weaker effect on the reader. For example, it would cost more money to advertise the product on the front cover of the magazine, than somewhere in the middle or the end of the magazine.

• Competitor’s products can be advertised. Sometimes next your products.

• There’s no movement or sound. However, some magazines include a CD or DVD, which has promotional videos, trial programs and sound tracks.

This method of promotion seems to be the most appropriate, because it is times cheaper than advertising on a TV, Radio or big newspapers, which can help to save my budget and minimize the costs of introduction and promotion of my cakes for my business. This is method is also more useful, because it encourages a group of audience/readers who are specifically interested in either buying a particular product.

Examples of magazine adverts with a further description are given below:

The advert shown above is very memorable and attracts consumers’ attention, because it’s funny but, at the same time, it shows the sportive ness of the BMW’s M5 car, emphasizing that it’s so fast that it can squeeze into the back of the seat, which works quite effectively.

The Rolls-Royce advert shown above not only has a logo and makes this car more recognisable, on this advert there two cars shown the very first model of Rolls-Royce on the left and the very new one on the right. It is aimed to show that, Rolls-Royce continues with its traditions from the very early years of car production, and it has always been an outstanding high quality car. It also informs the consumer that the Rolls-Royce saloon is located on the Red Square in Moscow. The Government’s “Kremlin” building is also located on the Red Square, which also shows the group or a class of the customers targeted.

B MW’s magazine advert shown on the left demonstrates the label of the BMW, which makes it more recognizable. Also it shows a fast moving roadster, which also creates for BMW an image of the fast car producer. This advert was found in one of the car magazines. It doesn’t tell much the customer about the price and performance of the car, but provides contact details. Although this advert is not very informative, it encourages the customer to go onto the BMW website, come to their saloon or contact them by phone in order to find out more details about the car shown or even find out about any other cars produced by BMW, which provides BMW with a potential customer, who is actually interested in the product, which will make it easier for them to target this customer, as they will know what he/she wants.

T he Benetton advert shown on the left is a very typical advert for Benetton which emphasizes ethical image of the company, as they make clothes for all people no matter what their nationalities, races and colours are. Benetton adverts are also very memorable due to their unusual design and people of different nationalities together, which is unusual today’s society.

Examples of Linked Promotion are described below:

Lufthansa

The enclosed flight ticket by Lufthansa includes a lot of promotional material as well. As we can see, on the cover page it has the Lufthansa logo and theirs slogan and contact information. This makes the customer aware of the airline he’s flying and also makes him recognize Lufthansa’s brand and logo. On the inside of the ticket we can find a “Warsteiner” beer advert, which is very effective, because almost all flights operated by Lufthansa are operated through German cities such as Munich and Frankfurt, and in each of these airports, there’s always an opportunity to try this beer, or even try it on the place, and it is also made in Germany. This allows the customer to try “Warsteiner” beer straight after he sees this advert, without having to remember the name of the beer and waiting to land in Germany, which makes it very effective. In addition to this, on the outside cover of the ticket there’s a “Europe car” car rent advert, which not only promotes the brand of the company and the services they provide, but also encourages to fly with Lufthansa, because if you a Lufthansa’s frequent flier and Milers and More member, you can receive a 10% discount on all car rent services provided by “Euro car” and use their Miles & More card instead of money to pay for the car rent.

“3” mobile operator

The enclosed promotion is an advert sheet which was found in the car magazine. It is a two-sided offer, advertising that they give a laptop worth £399 for free, if you’re on a £25 per month 24 months contract. They also show that the price that has to be paid per month has been reduced from £35 to £25. It includes details of the contract and the picture of the laptop on the front side, and also, a big picture showing a contact number, by calling which the customers can find out more details about this and other offers. On the second side of an offer there’s additional information about the contract, and it also advertises that if you purchase a mobile phone from “3” you will receive a 50% discount on the Mobile Broadband.

Another type of the linked type of promotion that has been described below is direct mailing. If you e.g. have a customer or discount card, the business can such promotion to you directly.

Marks & Spencer

It is made in the form of the folded booklet, which firstly has a welcome letter, describing the content of the booklet and the promotion that has been included. When the booklet is unfold, it contains pictures of the products they offer and vouchers, which can be used to during a certain period of time to receive a credit on the Marks and Spencer’s frequent buyer card, or receive a discount on some of the products that you can buy in their shops.

Alton Towers

An example of the Alton Towers’ advert enclosed, shows that if you leave your contact at Alton Towers, they are likely to send you some of their promotions such as discounts for the tickets, information about any competitions and other attractions of Tussaud’s group. On the front cover it shows that you can save up to 50% off the price of the ticket to Alton Towers, and discounts for group days, and it also has many logos promoting and making more recognizable Alton Towers as well as their other attractions. It is a relatively effective method of promoting their services, because the booklet and promotional offers they send, is for targeted customers who have already been to Alton Towers at least once. The booklet itself also has many pages inside as well as Marks and Spencer’s when unfolded. Although this method is not unique, it actually helps Alton Towers to save some space and costs, as they don’t have to send several promotional offers separately.

Using Posters

Advantages:

• There’s usually a big number of people and most groups being covered.

• It can be advertised in the whole country.

• Has a big size and high visual impact.

• May be placed on the highway next to the shops and restaurants. E.g. poster saying: ‘McDonald’s-400 m on the right.

• Can be seen several times.

Disadvantages:

• There’s a limited amount of information, which can be put on.

• It might be q need to do further research in order to find out the effectiveness of a particular poster.

• Sometimes, potential consumers don’t have enough time to look at the poster. For example, car drivers are likely to be concentrated on the road, rather than posters.

• It can be affected by bad weather (snow, rain, wind) conditions and small minorities of people who vandalize posters by graffiti.

Free samples and point of sale promotion

This method of promotion is particularly useful for those businesses which produce food products, because people can actually try the product, and if they like it, there’s a high chance that they will buy this product. Due to the fact that this method isn’t suitable for such products as electronics, there are points of sale in some places such as shipping centers and airports where people can also try the product, e.g. try a new Playstation 3 and actually play with it. This allows showing and promoting the main features of the product as well as allowing people to try or use the product, which increases the effectiveness of such promotion and chances of people buying the product.

Using Internet

Advantages:

• Can be easily spread through a big number of people, by using sending e-mails and advertising on websites.

• Can be advertised on specialist websites. E.g. program software for businesses is usually being advertised on Financial Times, Forbes and Harvard Business Review websites. Mobile phones with classical-business design and cars are also being advertised on the websites which have something to do with business. Companies do that, because they know that their potential customers-people, who are willing to spend a lot of money to buy their goods, usually work in the business and go to these types of websites. Therefore, advertising on the specialist websites makes it more effective.

• Most businesses now advertise their products and services in the internet, because for some people it’s much easier to obtain the information they need from this particular source.

• Businesses who advertise their products in the internet can maintain a statistics of how many people actually look at their adverts in the internet by recording every click on their advert. Then, by using special programs in the internet, they can find out how long the people who click on their page spend time on their website. This helps to find out on what websites their adverts work more effectively and also find out what particular types of adverts attract consumers’ attention best.

Disadvantages:

• Some people put filters on junk mail. Even some good and important adverts can be considered to be a junk. The message being sent might be ignored and so is not very effective.

• It’s relatively cheap to advertise products in the internet. It also works more effectively when businesses advertise their products on the search portals, like ‘yahoo’, where every time the person is trying to find something, he looks at the adverts displayed on the ‘home page’.

• There might be many other firms-competitors, which produce similar products, advertising their goods on the same website. If the business makes products, which are easy to be switched from one to another, then it creates a problem. For example, if there’s

Example of Internet promotion:

The advert shown above was shown on some of the UK government websites. It is very graphical with the use of people (in my case-young girl) in the advert. It discourages young people from smoking, by emphasising that smoking is addictive and is similar to being caught as if you were a fish. It doesn’t have a lot of text, but it does inform people, that an average smoker needs over five thousand cigarettes to get cancer. The fact that the design of the advert itself is very unusual and relatively shocking, it effectively encourages people’s attention.

Andrex advert

The internet advert of ‘Andrex’, given above, are very colourful and encourage consumers’ attention by using a ‘cute’ Andrex’s puppy in their adverts. It is very colourful, which also encourages people’s attention as well as informing well about the product itself and all current offers- e.g. the advert informs that Andrex will donate 1.50 pounds from every Andrex Winter puppy that people buy to help teenagers with cancer. Although, it’s a donation, this type of advertising still effectively encourages people to buy ‘Andrex’s’ products. The initial first advert by ‘Andrex’ actually links to a website where people can play a game with an ‘Andrex’ puppy, which should supposedly encourage even higher interest in the brand and its popularity, which makes the whole ‘Andrex’ puppy advertising campaign very effective.

Yellow Pages’ advert

F rom the example of internet advert shown on the left, we can clearly see a typical example of an internet advert- a small window with a picture and a bit of text which contains a short message to the potential consumer, which supposedly should encourage him/her to click on the button below, in order to find out more about a particular product or service. In our case, the advert shown on the left, promotes a service for people who have just set up their business and seek to make their business well known, and try to find new customers. It is fairly simple, as it only involves a picture with some text and link to another website where more detailed information can b provided, and a fairly simple design and layout of the advert, which implies it’s not very expensive. However, due to its simplicity and the fact that it’s easy to understand it, difficult to misinterpret and the message is fairly straightforward, it makes this advert found on the ‘Yellow Pages’ website relatively effective.

Amazon’s advert

The clothing advert given above, which I found on a UK’s Amazon website, is fairly simplistic in the design, however, it’s very clever in terms of its layout, as we can clearly see the big letters and text used to get the message about the 50% discount on baselayers as quickly and in the most efficient way to a potential customer as possible. The advert has some pictures about products clearly identifying some variety in the colours of the available products, as well as advertising some sellers such as ‘La Redoute, ‘Promod’ and ‘Fashon union’ who also offer the products promoted in this advert. In addition to this, this advert is also fairly effective, because it mentions the main feature or function of the product being advertised, in our case- to keep warm, and has s link saying: “Shop now” which directs the customer to the page where he/she can actually choose the product he/she wants and purchase it.

Below-the-line promotion

These are basically all other types of promotion excluding advertising.

This is the list of examples of below-the-line promotion:

• Sponsorship- TV programs, sports teams

• Direct Mailing-junk mail, spam

• free samples

• exhibitions

• free gifts

• 3 for 2- BOGOF

• 25% extra free

• trade catalogues

• Offering a discount, if the customers recommend the product to a certain number of their friends.

• Discount or priority cards for customers

• Money off coupons, vouchers

These types of promotion are usually very expensive, but may change the behavior in the short term. If the consumer has brand loyalty, then they are more likely to return to their preferred brand.

There are sales promotions, which include things like BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free), free gifts, ‘better value’, 25% extra of the product and etc. There also can be some competitions. E.g. Pepsi Co. introduced a competition where you had to collect certain number of ‘Pepsi’ bottles, which you could then change to a ‘Pepsi’ t-shirt, pen, radio, calculator and etc. These things help to encourage more sales of the products.

E.g. in the supermarkets it is very easy to find some points of sales, where you can try a new product and get a prize (pair of sleepers with the company logo). Trade-in is a very popular method in mobile phone warehouses and car saloons, where you can trade the product that you already have for something else. For example, in some mobile phone stores you can trade any mobile phone for the new one. Depending on the type of phone you have, they can give you a maximum discount of 20%. In some food stores, you may be offered to buy 52 packs of crisps for only 3pounds. Some companies do this to get rid of the old stock. Other businesses do this, in order to encourage more sales for the new products. These types of sales promotions are usually directly aimed at customers. However, there are also some other promotions, when suppliers give special offers to their retailers.

b) How and when each form of promotional activity is used

Such promotional activities as advertising the product on the TV and radio and internet are usually used to make people aware of the new product or promoting the brand or the product and making it more popular amongst the other products available on the market, without actually encouraging people to buy it. However, it depends on the type of TV or radio advert used, because some adverts are not necessarily aimed to make the brand more popular, but to inform the potential consumers about any special offers and encourage them to actually go and buy the product. In addition to this, if the product or service is in the niche market, TV and Radio can be used to target particular groups of the people, who are more likely to be potential customers. For example, if we look at the Honda’s TV advert, it is trying to use a clever, memorable advert, which is different to the other TV adverts about cars shown on a TV. In addition to this, Honda often shows this advert on the TV channels such as ‘Dave’ in the UK, before or after the ‘Top Gear’ TV programme, which allows Honda to target those people who may be more interested in cars or maybe buying one, which increases the effectiveness of such advertising on a TV.

For instance, from the FT newspaper advert that I have provided, it is evident that advertising in the newspapers such as Financial Times, as shown in one of my examples also gives an opportunity to target particular groups of people as well as include some booklets and sheets with the information about special offers, like the one shown in my example from the FT newspaper advertising ‘Chopard’ watch. Although FT newspaper is not as expensive as some other magazines and newspapers, it is still aimed at those people who are interested in business and economics, and these people are often the ones who are on a relatively high wage, who are quite likely to afford such an expensive watch as ‘Chopard’, and therefore advertising and targeting this particular group of people makes more sense and is more effective, than if it was advertised in a teenage magazine or a woman’s magazine such as ‘Cosmopolitan’, because the watch shown in this advert is initially aimed at men rather than women. There may also be discount cards, or trials (samples) e.g. a CD album, a sample of shampoo or a stripe of a new fragrance in the magazines. Such adverts are either aimed to encourage people’s attention by making the advert memorable with the aim to promote the brand, or encourage consumers to try a new product.

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One of the types of promotional campaigns which encourages repeat purchases, as shown on the example above, is when the firm, such as Coca Cola informs consumers that under each lid of the bottle, there might be a special sign, and if you collect a certain number of such special lids, you may win a prize such as radio or a Coca Cola glass. Such promotional activity as the one used by Coca-Cola encourages customers to buy the product again and again, which increases both sales and the popularity of an already well-established brand, and giving customers out prizes for that they consume their products or drink Coca-Cola, is also encouraging people to buy more of their products and creates a certain brand loyalty, because customers may have purchased similar products from the other companies which didn’t give them out any prizes.

Another example is giving out discount and loyalty cards. Such things encourage repeat purchases, because in case with the discount card the more you buy, the higher the percentage discount you get on the products. With loyalty cards, it encourages consumers to think they’re special customers, so that they come to the place or buy the product more often, which also guarantees them the best offer.

Other promotional methods such as ‘BOGOF’, or buy 3 for the price of 2 encourage consumers to buy a product, usually until a certain date, and get a free product or a complimentary product, e.g. buy a box of chocolates and get a free coffee cup. From the example of the ‘BOGOF’ advert by ‘Johnsmiths’ shown on the left, we can clearly see that a great use of colours, making the advert looking funny and attractive encourages consumers’ attention and such promotional activity as giving customers out a free product if they buy one, is mainly used to encourage stockpiling and encourage people to buy more of the product as in our case, as well as getting rid of what the company doesn’t need any more or is struggling to sell. Such promotional activities may also help businesses to increase their sales quite rapidly in the short period of time. For example, due to dramatic decrease in a car selling industry crisis and stock piling, there has recently been an advert by Peugeot that was giving a second car you buy from Peugeot for free, so basically ‘BOGOF’. Although, such promotional methods are not normally used in such industries, it has helped Peugeot to get rid off additional stock relatively quickly with much lower costs, if it didn’t sell any cars at all. Similarly in Russia ‘Lexus’ car company was offering a 5500 pounds package of options such as bigger rims, winter tyres, sat navigation, DVD screens in the seats and a lower insurance for the first year, if you bought the RX 350 model before the 1^st January.

Such promotions as e-mailing consumers who have, for example, previously bought something from the company, allows to inform consumers about special offers and provides them with the links to buy particular products, so that they can go straight on to the website and buy products on-line.

This method of promotion can be effective if only the customer is actually interested in the products and reads the e-mails he/she receives. This type of promotion is often associated with sending spam, and people often delete such e-mails without even reading them, or new spam filters may consider a promotional letter to be spam and delete it automatically, which doesn’t make this method of promotion very effective. However, big numbers of people can be targeted and even particular age, gender, and interest groups of people.

From the examples of the e-mails and letters from ‘Amazon’, given above, we can clearly identify how often tries to advertise the products that a customer can buy on their website. Due to the fact, that you need to have an account with ‘Amazon’ in order to be able to buy anything on their website, they have all information about the products you buy, so that even when they send you a confirmation about your previous order, below they can put some adverts or links, or send you promotional offers about similar products that a customer has ordered before or similar products or products in the same category, which a customer might be interested in. Also, due tot the fact that if you decided to become an ‘Amazon’ customer you need to go through the registration process, it makes this method of promotion even more effective, because they have all the information about your age, gender, home address, your main interests, and there’s also a higher chance that the customer will stick with this particular company when he/she will be buying any products, as he/she is already registered on their website and might not bother to go and register on another on-line shopping website.