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Chapter 18: Advertising, Sales Promotion & Public Relations 18-1 KEEPING UP WITH ADVERTISING CHANGES AT BENETTON (483, 505) As you read in the case study for Chapter 18, many people felt that Benetton's advertising campaign, based on controversial social issues and shocking imagery, simply went "too far." To get a sense of how this company's advertising strategy has changed, take a look at the current Benetton homepage: Benetton http://www.benetton.com a) How would you characterize Benetton's image now? Do you think this is appropriate and effective for this company's product mix and target market? Has Benetton retained any of its social issue orientation? If so, how? In general, what are the advantages and disadvantages of associating your company with one side of a controversial social issue? b) Now take a look at one of Benetton's direct competitors: Armani Exchange http://www.armaniexchange.com How does Armani's advertising differ from Benetton's? Which company has done a better job of appealing to its target market? Explain your answer. Which types of advertising would you associate with the following homepages? Be as specific as possible using all of the relevant categories listed on pp. 486-487. Explain your answers. New England Business Services http://www.nebs.com American Egg Board http://www.aeb.org Clinique http://www.clinique.com Charles Schwab http://www.schwab.com 18-3 COOPERATIVE ADVERTISING (488-9) Each of the following Web pages provides an example of cooperative advertising. Publishers Marketing Association http://www.pma-online.com/coopads.html Lucent Technologies http://www.lucent.com/micro/K56flex/news/102797.html Imperial Graphics http://www.lenaliu.com/coopad.htm For each company, identify and summarize the cooperative advertising plan being presented. Be sure to indicate whether each example represents vertical cooperative advertising, horizontal cooperative advertising, or an advertising allowance. 18-4 CREATING A MESSAGE (489) Describe and evaluate the following Website in terms of creating and communicating a message. In general terms, what is the message here? Be sure to assess the effectiveness of this homepage in terms of attention, appeal, and execution. Reebok http://www.reebok.com After exploring this homepage, are you any more inclined to purchase Reebok's products? Explain your reaction. 18-5 SELECTING MEDIA (489-95) a) Evaluate the various media types as advertising channels for each of the following "products." Summarize the advantages and disadvantages of these advertising media in each case. If you had to select only one medium for each situation, what would it be? Explain your choices.
b) Using search engines and any other resources you need, find one real-world example on the Web for each of the categories listed above. Evaluate each example in terms of (1) whether or not the Web is an appropriate medium for advertising this "product" and (2) how effectively this homepage utilizes the unique advantages of the Web as an advertising medium. Can you suggest any improvements for this homepage? 18-6 INTERACTIVE MEDIA - BANNER ADVERTISING ON THE WEB (494-5) Banner advertising is one of the most common advertising methods on the Web. Put simply, a banner is a colorful graphic positioned prominently on a third-party homepage (usually a commercial site) that provides an eye-catching and "click-able" link to your own company's homepage. Banners are similar to magazine ads and highway billboards, but with one clear advantage: instant access! For example, if my company's banner pops up during a Yahoo! search session, all the user has to do is click on it and - voila! - they've made the jump to my homepage. Below are five major sites that feature banners prominently. Take a few minutes to peruse these sites (execute a couple of searches just for fun) and take note of the banners that appear. Magellan http://www.mckinley.com Yahoo! http://www.yahoo.com ZD Net http://www.zdnet.com Lycos http://www.lycos.com Excite http://www.excite.com a) Which industries or companies are most commonly represented in the banners? Did the banners change frequently during your session, or did the same one appear repeatedly? How many of these banners are of interest to you? In your past experience on the Web, have you clicked on many of the banners you have encountered? If so, describe a typical experience. If not, why not? b) What are the strategic advantages and disadvantages of banner advertising? More and more search engine Websites are linking user input to banner output (see Exercise 18-6 for more on banners). That is, certain search engines will show users different advertising banners depending on which keywords they submit. A good example of this is the Infoseek search engine. Go to the Infoseek homepage - http://www.infoseek.com - and perform a series of searches using a wide variety of keywords. For the purposes of this exercise, keep your keywords fairly general (e.g., "football" rather than "Joe Montana"). Don't worry about the search results, but instead, pay attention to the banner ads that pop up. a) Do different keywords trigger different banners? If so, what patterns can you identify? b) If you were to advertise on Infoseek, which keywords would you want linked to your banner? Make a keyword list for each of the following business types:
c) What are the potential advantages of this system for the advertiser? What are the drawbacks?
Once your organization's homepage is up and running, how can you rate its effectiveness? Some vital pieces of this puzzle are 1) determining how often your site is accessed and by whom, 2) identifying the common paths people take to get there, and 3) describing typical internal navigation patterns among visitors to your homepage. As you can imagine, this information is especially important when determining the effectiveness of externally placed advertising banners (see Exercises 18-6 and 18-7 for more on banners). For example, how can I tell if my company banner on Lycos is eliciting the response I'm after? The first step in making these assessments is understanding the terminology used by Web publishers and advertisers to describe various access processes. Here is a list of common access statistics terms you should know: Hits Click Session Raw hits Click rate Impression HTML hits Click throughs CPM Page load Using the following homepages for reference, create a concise definition for each of the above terms. http://www.miri.net/BANNERAD.HTM http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt/issue16.htm http://www.netgravity.com/solutions/measuring_wp.htm http://www.whitepalm.com/fourcorners/definitions.shtml What are the limitations of evaluating Web advertising effectiveness in this way? What important considerations of advertising assessment are not addressed by these statistics? To gain a better understanding of the various services provided by independent advertising agencies, follow the Yahoo! link sequence below: Yahoo! http://www.yahoo.com Business & Economy ® Companies ® Marketing ® Advertising a) The resulting list will contain hundreds of advertising agencies and related organizations. First, peruse the brief descriptions provided with these links. Based on what you see here, prepare a summary of the different kinds of advertising agencies. Some issues to consider are 1) what kinds of organizations these firms cater to, 2) the specific services they provide, and 3) differences in geographical scope. b) Choose three agencies that are very different from one another and describe these firms according to the variables in part (a). c) What are the advantages and disadvantages of using independent advertising agencies?
a) For the first part of this exercise you will need to find a Website that is being used - at least in part - to execute a sales promotion. There are two ways we suggest you go about this. First, you can visit one of the many search engines you are familiar with (e.g., Yahoo!, Lycos) and scan the advertising banners for promotional ads. Banners are a common method for spreading the word about company promotions like contests and giveaways. If this process does not yield an appropriate homepage, try one of the sites listed below: Coca Cola http://www.cocacola.com Pepsi http://www.pepsi.com Acme Markets http://www.acmemarkets.com CompuServe http://www.compuserve.com McDonald's http://www.mcdonalds.com Nike http://www.nike.com Reebok http://www.reebok.com If you still have no luck (which is quite unlikely), we suggest you try other companies similar to those listed above - i.e., fast food, grocery chains, soft drinks, on-line services, etc. Once you have found an appropriate Website, identify and describe the sales promotion. b) Classify this promotion according to the categories listed in Table 18-5. Finally, discuss the factors that most likely contributed to the selection of this promotional device. Be sure to address all of the relevant factors listed on p. 499. All of the following company homepages include elements that can be described as public relations tools. While many firms include such features as a matter of course, all of these companies have a particular reason for bolstering this aspect of their Websites. Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com Philip Morris http://www.philipmorris.com Brown & Williamson http://www.brownandwilliamson.com R.J. Reynolds http://www.rjrt.com a) First, identify and describe all of the different public relations features you can find at each Website. How are these different from the advertising and promotional elements? Secondly, summarize the particular events or circumstances behind each company's need to improve its standing with the general public (some outside research may be necessary here). Are these factors addressed directly or indirectly on each homepage? Evaluate each company's effectiveness in dealing with these issues. b) Evaluate the Web as a vehicle for public relations. What are the challenges involved in differentiating between advertising, promotion, and public relations when using this medium? |
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