MKTG 7326: Advertising & Promotion Strategy
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
[discussion questions to accompany syllabus]

Herbert Jack Rotfeld
Auburn University Alumni Professor
Department of Marketing
246 Lowder Hall
             rotfehj@auburn.edu

            http://webhome.auburn.edu/~rotfehj
            http://webhome.auburn.edu/~rotfehj/essays.html

As stated in the syllabus, a requirement for the class will be a commentary note on the topics. Students are required to email to the instructor comments that discuss the details of the articles and chapters for each topic area after watching all of the taped lectures on the topic. These should be composed of intelligent, thought-provoking comments or questions on the articles and their related discussions, and sometimes give your logical rationale for why they disagree with on campus students or the instructor. These should be about 700-1000 words each and serve as a substitute for "discussion" that would take place on campus, an essay that in the process of discussion answers one or all of the discussion questions for the topic. This will only be graded S-U, but you must have satisfactory work on all of them to receive a grade in the class.

The Prime Direction: All in-class discussions, test answers and homework assignments must be approached from perspective of decision makers who are presumed to not be dishonest, bigoted, lazy or dumb. This also requires recognition that decisions are made by people working in organizations, not anthropomorphic businesses or government agencies, and that consumers are not mindless gullible fools.

SUBJECT TOPIC #1: Definitions, history & nature of business organizations {return to syllabus}Sapolio Soap

  1. How is advertising different from publicity?
  2. In the 19th century, manufacturers of unbranded products sold everything they produced. To sell more, they would manufacturer more products knowing that it would all sell. Under these conditions, why did the first companies start to brand and advertise their products?
  3. What are the advantages to using a full service advertising agency? What discourages clients from hiring their own specialized experts instead of employing of full-service agency?
  4. What is the difference between push and pull distribution strategies in their use of communication tools? (It doesn't ask what is the difference between a push and pull strategy. The question is in their use of communications tools.)
  5. The American Association of Advertising Agencies likes to claim that agencies provide a value in an "objective viewpoint." How does an understanding of agency-client relationships prove that such objectivity does not exist? (Do any of the assigned readings list clients that fired their agencies for a lack of objectivity?)
  6. What is a "media rep" company and what does it do?
  7. In keeping with the Prime Direction, what is the false assumption behind "targeted" advertising agencies (or women or non-white employees working within full service agencies) only working on advertising for their demographic groups? (This leads into perspectives needed for understanding communications theory under Topic #3 and audience segmentation data under Topic #4.)
communications depends on the audienceTOPIC #2: Basic Theories {return to syllabus}
  1. Why does the contemporary "marketing concept" or "marketing orientation" provide a better basis for planning a marketing communications campaign than a "production orientation"?
  2. Many people like to assert that consumers are manipulated by advertising messages. Based upon what you know about communication theory, how can you explain that this is not true?
  3. Finish this sentence in three words or less: "The mass communications theory that provides a basis by which you would expect subliminal advertising to influence consumer purchases ______  _____ _____ ." (Yes, an answer to this only takes three words, or two if one is a contraction.)
  4. How do communications and persuasion theories explain why threats of death and destruction and heads rolling down the street might not be very persuasive to get young people to drive safely? (This is not about message tactics. It is about communications theory.)
  5. Inverted-Matthew Auto Repair has been running quarter-page ads in the local newspaper for months. The managers intuitively believe the ads get reader attention: models clad in form-fitting lycra exercise suits stand under headlines that proclaim, "We want your body." But newspaper reading potential customers mostly report that they do not recall having seen ads for the shop. Based upon communication theory -- such as the concepts of the frame of reference, meaning and signs -- explain how this can be happening!
  6. The communications model in the book states that there must be an overlap in experiences between a communicator and audience. Yet "affluent, well paid, college educated, white collar job holding, largest cities living, relatively young people," the description of the typical mass communications managers, is not a description of the typical advertising audience members. If targeted agencies are unnecessary attempts to create overlap between communicators and audiences, how does being different from an audience not foreclose a person's ability to communicate with those people.
TOPIC #3: Communications Goals/Objectives {return to syllabus}
  1. Describe and explain a situation in which, after delineating your possible target audiences, your best target is neither the possible audience segment of the product's heavy users, nor the segment of present and potential customers with the most people. If not, who is the target and why should it be selected?
  2. Why must all national advertisers include demographic data as part of their audience segmentation definition? Why are such data grossly insufficient for other advertising-communications decisions?
  3. What is the difference between a stereotype and a market or audience segment? 
  4. What is the immediate, primary and pragmatic value in setting goals? If attaining communications goals does not always mean that sales goals will be attained, why bother to set them? If they do have a close relationship to sales, why not just measure sales directly?
  5. When advertising is the only marketing mix element that differs between firms, it is intuitively obvious that differences in sales must be the result of advertising, yet the text implies that communications goals would still be useful. Why?
  6. Apply the principles of a good objective in writing a communications objective for a leading brand of bicycles, and explain why it meets the text's criteria for good goals.  Is a good objective "To tell as many people as possible that bicycle riding is inexpensive fun for the whole family." Is this a good objective for a marketing communications campaign? Why? (Assess this by criteria for communications goals, NOT as a message strategy.)
TOPIC #4: Budget Setting {return to syllabus}
  1. Explain why a budgeting method like objective-and-task is more "information oriented" while percentage of past or future sales and affordable methods are more "judgment oriented."
  2. If a manager states "I never know how much to spend on advertising. My brand managers ask for a certain amount and I never know if I am spending too much or too little."  Similarly, John Wanamaker, retail magnate of a time long ago, famously said, "I know half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, but I can never find out which half." Address his comment in relation to various budget setting methods, noting how (or if) one budget method is better than others to help address this management issue?
  3. What does a "share of voice" approach to budget setting presume about the spending levels of other companies in your industry?
  4. How does the nature of advertising organizations and agency-client relations help explain why most firms take a top-down approach to decision making instead of assessing the cost of attaining goals? This requires taking some of the materials from topic 1 and applying it to the lectures and content here. To answer this, you need to first be able to answer this: (a) state how a budget would be calculated by a task-objective approach; such as (b) what type of information would be needed for this calculation; then indicate (c) what type of expertise (i.e. job titles) would be best able to gather and interpret that information; and therefore (d) assess how modern agency-client relations play a role in this?
  5. Communications goals must be "realistic." What does this requirement indicate in the following two situations:
    a) You have carefully calculated the necessary advertising appropriation (also called a budget) by an objective-and-task approach and have come up with a figure that is grossly more than the firm can afford to spend in the coming year (i.e. there is no way the money can be obtained it is so out of line with current resources). What do you do?
    b) Is it situation any different when you are only slightly higher than what financial officer and senior marketing managers are willing to allocate? Why? What are your options?
TOPICS #5: Creative Strategy (& Tactics as examples of strategy) {return to syllabus}
  1. Many advertising writers complain that research data inhibit the production of "creative" advertising in that it imposes restrictions on their creative work; to meet research-based directives, they might not be able to win a creative award. They say the most "creative" ads get the most reader attention possible and therefore are the "best." Why are they right or wrong?
  2. Why do the people in charge of making creative decisions make so many expensive campaigns that fail to sell the product?
  3. Message strategy and tactics is known as the "creative function." Does this mean that the best marketing communication messages are prepared by the most entertaining and creative people? For example, should Spike Lee, Woody Allen or other successful and creative movie makers be given free reign to plan message strategy and write/produce the resulting television commercials? Why or why not?
  4. Based on basic concerns of creative strategy discussed in class, what determines if an advertising idea would be the basis for a good message strategy?
  5. What do the initials USP stand for, both literally and what does it mean for determining a creative strategy? How does it guide a decision for creative strategy to determine if and when (in terms of strategy, not tactics): (A) When should a celebrity be used as part of the message strategy -- this means a star presenter, not an endorser, which is a tactic -- and when should they be avoided? (It is not how they relate to the product itself) (B) What makes a product appropriate for use of a sex appeal or sexual images in the advertising? (It is not how the product is "used.") (C) How can humor used as a tool of message strategy?
  6. In his reviews of the advertising in "Advertrocities," Bob Garfield found a common (and very basic) problem of strategy no matter how well produced the ads might prove to be. What are their problems? How do various awards for advertising contribute to the problem?
TOPIC #6: Media Strategy {return to syllabus}
Remember, when studying topics #6, 7, 8 and 9: For any advertising-supported vehicle, audiences have value only insofar as they able to attract advertisers who might wish to reach them. The success of a cable-TV network, radio station format, special content magazine, ethnic newspaper or some web delivery of news or entertainment is determined by their advertising support. For this course, you must view the media alternatives as a communications decision maker, not as an audience member.
communications is not the same as "reach"
  1. Explain how the following are properly used in making advertising decisions (some are repeated in later media topics.): Gross Rating Points (GRP) in broadcasting vs. TRP; circulation vs. readership; program rating; gross impressions; CPM; TCPM.
  2. For just this room shown in the picture at the right, what is the reach of your commercial if it is running at this time? In terms of their usage in the business, what is the difference between "reach" and "communications?"
  3. When a subscriber takes several days to read a magazine, what does a media planner consider as the frequency of individual ads in that magazine?
  4. Many advertising people feel media strategy is easy, and buying is just a matter of being a good negotiator with the guidance of an optimizer computer program. Why are such views based on a mistaken view of media decision making?
  5. Assume a future time in which a media planner has direct access to all available data, uses widely accepted standardized terminology, and possesses the ultimate in computer computation capability, thus eliminating any problems of information overload, confusing data or conflicting terms. Why is it that even in this situation, actual media strategy decisions would not become straight-forward applications of the data in that media strategy still require the insight of specialized experts? 
  6. How and when would a CPM comparison be improper?
  7. Why is it be easier to describe the characteristics of the kind of people to be reached than to find an efficient media plan to communicate with them?
TOPICS #7: Media Selection--Broadcast & Cable {return to syllabus}
  1. Briefly discuss the fragmentation of radio and cable television audiences and its implications as both a problem and as an opportunity for media planning and tactics.
  2. How does audience fragmentation in broadcasting effect audience measurement of these vehicles and potential "problems" with the data. How does cable television complicate the measurement of television audiences? (This is not a question of the research method, or that people have remote controls to flip channels!)
  3. "A national advertiser might buy spot TV spots." Define and distinguish between the two underlined words. (What is the difference between "spot tv" and "TV spots"?)
  4. You have decided to run a series of local radio advertisements, using the same commercials and have to decide between two options with the exact same total costs: (1) Average frequency of target audience = 1.4, with a reach of 95% of the target audience; or (2) Average frequency of target audience = 6.65, with a reach of 20% of the target audience. Which schedule should you purchase?
TOPICS #8: Media Selection--Print {return to syllabus}
  1. What is the difference between magazine audience and magazine circulation? Of what importance is this distinction? How may applications of the two lead to difference conclusions about the viability of different vehicles?
  2. Purchase of space that will only appear in the regional edition of any magazine is more expensive in than a purchase of the full national run in that it will have a higher CPM. So how can this be quantitatively justified?
  3. Cover 4 of any publication will cost more than page 54 or any inside page, so by definition, this is a higher CPM purchase. How can this be quantitatively justified? (Remember, this is not about individual users of the vehicle, but what the media buyer is purchasing.)
TOPICS #9: Media Selection--Supplemental Media {return to syllabus}
Unlike magazines, newspapers, TV and radio – what are increasingly referenced as the "old media" – the audiences for the supporting vehicles are not gathered for some interest or purpose other than advertising. Except for the Internet, any of these vehicles potentially purchased would contain advertising without any editorial content. can you hear me now, G*D??
  1. Why do the non-traditional media defy audience measurement? How are the measurement possibilities miseading for Internet, buzz agents or other up-and-coming vehicle options?
  2. What is the difference between GRP statements for outdoor advertising and those for broadcasting?
  3. Assume that after you graduate you set yourself up in a direct mail advertising-service business. You offer to plan and execute direct mail advertising campaigns for retailers, local clubs, hospitals and other local organizations. At lunch one fine day, a local businesswoman tells you that she thinks that most of the money spent on direct mail is wasted because most of the mail that comes to her is immediately thrown in the wastebasket. She is confident that the same practice is followed by the great majority of people. If that is true, she reasons, advertisers would be foolish to spend much (if any) money in direct mail. What is your response?
  4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of advertising specialties as an advertising medium. How does communication theory apply to the selection of an "optimal" specialty for a firm? What if the product carrying the message is not one that is useful for the target audience? And just what is meant by "useful?"
TOPICS #10: Sales Promotion & Publicity {return to syllabus}
  1. What is meant by the distinction between sales promotion moving the product toward the consumer while advertising moves the consumer toward the product and how does this distinction help guide determining the "value" of a planned sales promotions effort?
  2. How does a publicist measure his or her effectiveness in the job and how is this comparable to advertising time or space buyers' reach estimates?
  3. What determines if communications strategy can make use of publicity as an effective sales tool? Explain.
  4. Why do many public relations specialists consider their job to mostly involve publicity control and why are they wrong?
TOPIC #11: Research--Measuring Effects & Effectiveness {return to syllabus}
  1. Commercial A copytested slightly better than copytest B, but the creative director believes that, unlike A, the animatics do not give a good representation of what commercial B would look like after final and production. What research terminology explains what she is saying about the copytest? How would you choose which commercial to produce and use in the campaign?
  2. Weilbacher ("The Enigma of Copytesting" electronic handout) describes a common basis for selecting a copytest method that he also says does not have them always selecting the method which would provide the most important information for decisions.  How did he say they usually select the research approach for copytesting, (from his comments and, more broadly, from class and lecture supplements), what should be the basis for choosing the research methodology used to ascertain potential effectiveness for any particular marketing communications effort, and why might a research method chosen in this fashion provide a valid reason for creative people to ask that resulting data be ignored?
  3. While he concedes that there is a common basis for selecting a research method for copytesting might be an exhibition of  industry wisdom, yet he immediately notes from industry practice that disproves this as a possibility. What would show industry-wide wisdom and what reality illustrates that it does not exist?
  4. Discuss a proper use (and limitations) of the following devices:  How or when are (or are not) devices such GSR meter; brain-wave meter; eye-movement camera valid measures of advertising effects and effectiveness?
  5. What is the difference between media reach numbers and a "noted" or "seen associated" score?
TOPIC #12: Government Regulation & Business Self-RegulationAdventures in Misplaced Marketing {return to syllabus}
  1. As the economy hit the skids in 2008, the housing bubble popped and financial markets imploded, former Federal Reserve Board chair Alan Greenspan went before Congress to apologize. As an advocate of blanket and deregulation of financial businesses of the prior two decades, he was "surprised" that competition and self-regulation were inadequate to prevent financial product businesses from acting improperly. Why should he not have been surprised? What is power of self-regulation when government regulation does not exist?
  2. Your advertising campaign is ready for launch. The NAD has contacted you with a complaint that your ads are deceptive. You reply that the claims in question are adequately substantiated, but the NAD does not accept your arguments. What are your options and how do you evaluate them?
  3. Your new national advertising campaign that is planning on heavy use of television is ready for launch. However, CBS has decided that they will not run your commercial because they consider it deceptive, even though there isn't the slightest indication from your legal staff that the ads would run afoul of the FTC. You show all of your substantiation to the Standards and Practices Vice-President, but that person does not consider it adequate. What are your options and how do you evaluate them?