Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning pdf ebook

Which media to use: The media available for marketing communications vary across 
different countries, as do their effectiveness. Relevant media include press, television, 
cinema, posters, Internet, radio, post box (email inbox as well as the physical letterbox 
still used for direct mail), point of sale, fax machines and mobile phones.
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How much to spend on communications: Setting a communications budget is notori-
ously difficult. Years ago a marketing executive said, ‘Half my advertising budget is 
wasted – the trouble is, I don’t know which half!’ Advertising effectiveness modelling by 
leading firms such as Millward Brown can assess the levels of awareness created through 
promotional campaigns (see Maunder et al., 2005) by surveying the target audience 
regularly and modelling the relationship with advertising activity.
11.3.4 Communications tools
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Advertising: Advertising is particularly effective at creating awareness. It can have 
high visual impact, wide reach and is easily repeated to reinforce messages. Its disad-
vantages are that it is impersonal, lacks flexibility, is generally not interactive with 
the customer (questions cannot be answered, objections cannot be overcome) and has 
a limited ability to close the sale on its own. Total media ad spending worldwide rose 
7.4 per cent to $628.63 billion in 2018, 44 per cent of which was via digital media due 
to rising global ecommerce spending and shifting viewership from traditional TV to 
digital channels. It is expected that, by 2020, digital’s share of total global advertising 
will be 50 per cent. 
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Public relations: PR can be more credible than advertising as it uses a third party, 
the reporter and the medium used, to convey the message – the final message to the 
customer does not come directly from the marketer. As such it can have a higher 
impact than advertising for a fraction of the cost, and may also reach audiences that 
would be difficult or impossible to reach otherwise. The major disadvantage, however, 
is the loss of control. Once a press release has been issued there is no guarantee that it 
will be taken up and acted on by the media, and it is quite possible that the message 
will be distorted so that it does not get across as intended. It may also reach the wrong 
audience.
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