Public relations

Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds

mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their
publics." Public relations can also be defined as the practice of
managing communication between an organization and its publics.

Tools of Promotion - Advertising, Sales Promotion, Public

Relation & Direct Marketing
The 4 Ps of marketing are product, price, place and promotion.
All four of these elements combine to make a successful
marketing strategy. Promotion looks to communicate the
companys message across to the consumer. The four main
tools of promotion are advertising, sales promotion,
public relation and direct marketing.
Advertising
Advertising is defined as any form of paid communication or
promotion for product, service and idea. Advertisement is not
only used by companies but in many cases by museum,
government and charitable organizations. However, the
treatment meted out to advertisement defers from an
organization to an organization.
Advertising development involves a decision across five Ms
Mission, Money, Message, Media and Measurement.
Mission looks at setting objectives for advertising. The
objectives could be to inform, persuade, remind or reinforce.

Objective has to follow the marketing strategy set by the

company.
Money or budget decision for advertising should look at stage
of product life cycle, arket share and consumer base,
competition, advertising frequency and product substitutability.
Messages development further is divided into four steps,
message generation, message evaluation and selection,
message execution, and social responsibility review.
Once the message is decided the next step is finalizing the
media for delivering the message. The choice of depends on
reach of media, frequency of transmission and potential impact
on customer. Based on this choice of media types are made
from newspaper, television, direct mail, radio, magazine and
the internet. After which timing of broadcast of the message is
essential as to grab attention of the target audience.
Checking on the effectiveness of communication is essential to
companys strategy. There are two types of research
communication effect research and sales effect research.
Sales Promotion
Promotion is an incentive tool used to drive up short term sales.
Promotion can be launched directed at consumer or trade. The
focus of advertising to create reason for purchase the focus of
promotion is to create an incentive to buy. Consumer incentives
could be samples, coupons, free trial and demonstration. Trade
incentive could be price off, free goods and allowances. Sales

force incentive could be convention, trade shows, competition

among sales people.
Sales promotion activity can have many objectives, for
example, to grab attention of new customer, reward the
existing customer, increase consumption of occasional users.
Sales promotion is usually targeted at the fence sitters and
brand switchers.
Sales promotional activity for the product is selected looking at
the overall marketing objective of the company. The final
selection of the consumer promotional tools needs to consider
target audience, budget, competitive response and each tools
purpose.
Sales promotion activity should under-go pretest before
implementation. Once the activity is launched it should be
controlled as to remain within the budget. Evaluation program
is a must after implementation of the promotional scheme.
Public Relations
Companies cannot survive in isolation they need to have a
constant interaction with customers, employees and different
stakeholders. This servicing of relation is done by the public
relation office. The major function of the public relation office is
to handle press releases, support product publicity, create and
maintain the corporate image, handle matters with lawmakers,
guide management with respect to public issues.
Companies are looking at ways to converge with functions of
marketing and public relation in marketing public relation. The

direct responsibility of marketing public relation (MPR) is to

support corporate and product branding activities.
MPR is an efficient tool in building awareness by generating
stories in media. Once the story is in circulation MPR can
establish credibility and create a sense of enigma among sales
people as well as dealers to boost enthusiasm. MPR is much
more cost effective tool than other promotional activities.
Direct Marketing
The communication establishes through a direct channel
without using any intermediaries is referred to as direct
marketing. Direct marketing can be used to deliver message or
service. Direct marketing has shown tremendous growth in
recent years. The internet has played major part in this growth
story. Direct marketing saves time, makes an experience
personal and pleasant. Direct marketing reduces cost for
companies. Face to face selling, direct mail, catalog marketing,
telemarketing, TV and kiosks are media for direct marketing.
Advertisement, Promotional activity, Public relation and direct
marketing play an essential role in helping companies reaches
their marketing goals.
Event marketing
Event marketing describes the process of developing a
themed exhibit, display, or presentation to promote a product,
service, cause, or organization leveraging in-person
engagement. Events can occur online or offline, and can be
participated in, hosted, or sponsored.

Features of Event Marketing:

1. Wide range of events:
Event marketing encompasses a wide range of event
types:
a. Mega events and local events,
b. Exhibitions,
c. Trade shows,
d. Publicity stunts,
e. Themed and created events,
f. Corporate entertainment,
g. Award ceremonies.
In fact, there are very few events that cannot be used for a
marketing purpose, as all communicate something to the target
audience. Events can be used to perform a number of
marketing functions; for example, communications, relationship
and loyalty building, database compilation, targeting, brand
enhancement, and personal selling.
2. Goal oriented:
If the event and advertising objectives are not achieved
through the event, then no matter how much people enjoyed
the event or how much popularity the event got, it is a
complete failure on a commercial level.

3. Effective promotion and communication:

It is important to get the message across to the target
audience, and therefore enough research about the profile of
the attendees is important to be able to communicate
effectively about the product.
4. Proper evaluation:
Event evaluation is necessary to make the team more efficient
and effective, the next time it organizes an event. It helps in
finding mistakes and learning from them. Event evaluation
should be done immediately after the event is over or the next
day. A meeting should be conducted with the team members to
evaluate the event.
5. Feedback from clients:
One good way of getting feedback is through a feedback form.
To get feedback from the target audience/guests, make the
feedback form a part of the gift voucher. A guest can redeem
the gift voucher only when he/she fills the feedback form and
give it back to an attendant. These tactics are required to get
feedback, as people are generally reluctant to give any
feedback in writing.
6. Location:
The location chosen for the event is perhaps the most
important aspect. The most ideal locations in any exhibition

areas are found at the entryway to the event and near the
pathway to the food stations and restrooms.
Importance of Event Marketing:
1. It helps in brand building, that is, creating awareness about
the launch of new products/brands.
2. To highlight the added features of the product/services.
3. It helps in rejuvenating brands during different stages of
product life cycle.
4. Helping in communicating the repositioning of
brands/products.
5. Associating the brand personality of clients with the
personality of target market.
6. Creating and maintaining brand identity.

Trade Promotion
Trade Promotion refers to marketing activities that are executed in retail
between these two partners. Trade Promotion is a marketing technique
aimed at increasing demand for products in retail stores based on
special pricing, display fixtures, demonstrations, value-added bonuses,
no-obligation gifts, and more.

Methods of Measuring Advertising Effectiveness

There may be two types measures of advertising effectiveness
namely;

Direct measures and,

Indirect measures.

Direct Measures of Advertising Effectiveness

Under direct measures, a relationship between advertising and
sales is established. A comparison of sales of two periods or
two periods or two markets may be done and the corresponding
changes may be noted. The following are some of the methods
that are generally used in measuring that advertising effects.
i. Historical Sales Method
Some insights into the effectiveness of past advertising may be
obtained

by

measuring

the

relationship

between

the

advertising expenditure and the total sales of the product. A

multiple regression analysis of advertising expenditure and
sales over several time periods may be calculated. It would
show how the changes in advertising expenditure have
corresponding

changes

in

sales

volume.

This

technique

estimates the contribution that advertising has made to

explaining in a co relational manner rather than a casual sales,
the variation in sales over the time periods covered in the study
ii. Experimental Control

The other measure of advertising effectiveness is the method of

experimental control where a casual relationship between
advertising and sales is established. This method is quite
expensive when related to other advertising effectiveness
measuresyet it is possible to isolate advertising contribution to
sales. Moreover this can be done as a pre-test to aid
advertising in choosing between alternative creative designs.
Media schedules expenditure levels or some combination of
these advertising decision areas. One experimental approach to
measuring the sales effectiveness of advertising is test
marketing.

Before-after with Control Group Design: This classic

design uses several test and control cities in this design two
types of cities are selected. Cities in which advertising
campaigns are affected may be named as test cities and
other cities may be called central cities. First of all, the
normal sales level is calculated for both type of cities prior to
advertising campaign, and then the advertising campaign is
presented to the test cities and not the central cities. The
effect of advertising campaign, can then, be measured by
subtracting the amount of post campaign figure of sale from
the pre campaign sale figures in test cities

Multivariable

Experimental

Designs:

While

the

experimental design discussed above yields a reasonably

accurate estimate of the effects of the advertising on sales, it
is not successful in explaining the success or failure of the
campaign

itself.

Multivariable

designs

Produce

these

explanations and are, therefore used by some very large firm

because

of

their

diagnostic

value.The

power

of

this

multivariable factorial design is explained by G.H.Brown,

former Fords Director of Marketing Research. For any single
medium, eight possible geographic areas have been exposed
and eight have not been exposed. Thus, in this experimental
model it is possible to evaluate how each individual medium
behaves alone and in all possible to evaluate how each
individual medium behaves alone and in all possible
combinations with other media.
Indirect Measures of Advertising Effectiveness
As it is very difficult to measure the direct effect of advertising
on companys profits or sales, most firms rely heavily on
indirect measures. These measures do not evaluate the effects
of advertisements directing on sales or profits but all other
factors such as customer awareness or attitude or customer
recall of advertising message affect the sales or profits or goals
of the business indirectly. Despite the uncertainties about the
relationship between the intermediate effects of advertising
and the ultimate results, there is no other alternative but to use
indirect measures. The most commonly used measures are;

Exposure to Advertisement: In order to be effective,

the advertisement must gain exposure. The management is
concerned about the number of target audiences who see or
hear the organization message set in the advertisement.
Without

exposure,

advertisement

is

bound

to

failure.

Marketers or advertisers may obtain an idea of exposure

generated by the medium by examining its circulation or

audience data which reveal the number of copies of the

magazine, newspaper or journal sold the number of persons
passing the billboards or riding in transit facilities, or the
number of persons living in the televiewing or radio listening
area, and the number of persons switching on their T.V. and
radio sets at various points of time. This number can be
estimated by interviewing the numbers of the audience for
different media.

Attention or Recall of Advertising Message Content:

This is one of the widely used measures of advertising
results. Under this measure, a recall of the message content
among a specified group or groups or prospective customers
is measured within 24 hours of the exposure of the
advertisement. Attention value is the chief quality of the
advertising copy the advertisements cannot be said to be
effective unless they attract the attention of the target
consumers. There are two methods for evaluating the
attention getting value of the advertisements. One is pre-test
and the other is post-test. In a pre-test evaluation, the
consumers are asked to indicate the extent to which they
recognize or recall the advertisement, they have already
seen. This test is conducted in the laboratory setting. Here
consumers read, hear or listen to the advertisement and
then researchers ask question regarding the advertisement
just to test the recall and then evaluate it. In post-test
method, the consumers are asked questions about the
indication of recognition or recall after the advertisement has
been run. These measures assume that customers can recall

or recognize what they have viewed or listened to. Various

mechanical devices are being used in the western countries
which provide indices of attention such as eye-camera etc.

Brand Awareness: The marketers who rely heavily on

advertising often appraise its effectiveness by measuring the
customers awareness about the particular product or brand.
The assumption of this type of measure is that there is a
direct relationship between the advertisements and the
awareness. This type of measure is also subject to the same
criticisms as is applicable to direct measures of effectiveness
(sales measures because awareness is also not the direct
result of the advertisements. It is also affected by many
other factors. But, for new products, changes in awareness
can often be attributed to the influence of advertising.

Comprehension:

Consumers

generally

use

advertisements as a means of obtaining information about

the product, brand or the manufacturer. They cannot be
informed unless they comprehend the message (grasp the
message mentally and understand it fully). Various tests for
valuating comprehension are available. One is recall tests
an indicator of comprehension because it is evident that
consumers recall what they comprehend. Another measure
of the variable is to ask questions about subjects how much
they have comprehended a message they have recently
heard or seen. One may employ somewhat imprecise test of
the comprehension of a newspaper and radio advertisement.
One may ask typical target consumers from time to time
such questions like what did you think of our new

commercial? and Did it get the message across? The

answers of these questions will provide sufficient insight into
advertising decision making.
Attitude Change: Since advertising is considered to be

one way of influencing the state of the mind of the audience

towards a product, service or organisation, the results are
very often measured in terms of attitudes among groups
exposed to advertising communication. Several measures
are used ranging from asking the questions about willingness
to buy the likelihood of buying to the measurement of the
extent to which specific attributes (such as modern or new)
are associated with a product.
Action: One objective of advertisement may be assumed

to be to stimulate action or behavior. The action or intention

to take an action may be measured on the intention to buy
measuring

instrument.

Under

this

type

of

measure,

consumers are asked to respond why they are interested in

purchasing the product or brand. One type of action that
advertisers attempt to induce is buying behavior. The
assumption is that if an increase in sales follows a decrease
in advertising expenditure, the change in sales levels are
good indicators of the effectiveness of advertising. Logic
suggests that measurement of sales is preferable to other
measurements.
Integrated marketing communications

Integrated marketing communications is an approach used by

organizations to brand and coordinate their marketing efforts across
multiple communication channels.

As marketing efforts have shifted from

mass advertising to niche marketing, companies have
increasingly used IMC to develop more cost-effective
campaigns that still deliver consumer value.
Benefits of Integrated Marketing Communications
With so many products and services to choose from, consumers
are often overwhelmed by the vast number of advertisements
flooding both online and offline communication channels.
Marketing messages run the risk of being overlooked and
ignored if they are not relevant to consumers' needs and wants.
One of the major benefits of integrated marketing
communications is that marketers can clearly and effectively
communicate their brand's story and messaging across several
communication channels to create brand awareness. IMC is also
more cost-effective than mass media since consumers are likely
to interact with brands across various forums and digital
interfaces. As consumers spend more time on computers and
mobile devices, marketers seek to weave together multiple
exposures to their brands using different touch points.
Companies can then view the performance of their
communication tactics as a whole instead of as fragmented
pieces.
The other benefit of integrated marketing communications is
that it creates a competitive advantage for companies looking
to boost their sales and profits. This is especially useful for
small- or mid-sized firms with limited staff and marketing

budgets. IMC immerses customers in communications and

helps them move through the various stages of the buying
process. The organization simultaneously consolidates its
image, develops a dialogue, and nurtures its relationship with
customers throughout the exchange. IMC can be instrumental
in creating a seamless purchasing experience that spurs
customers to become loyal, lifelong customers.

Surrogate advertising

Surrogate advertising is a form of advertising which is used to

promote banned products, like cigarettes and alcohol, in the disguise of
another product.
Types of ad agency
Role of Advertising Agencies
1. Creating an advertise on the basis of information gathered
about product
2. Doing research on the company and the product and reactions
of the customers.
3. Planning for type of media to be used, when and where to be
used, and for how much time to be used.
4. Taking the feedbacks from the clients as well as the customers
and then deciding the further line of action

All companies can do this work by themselves. They can make ads,
print or advertise them on televisions or other media places; they
can manage the accounts also. Then why do they need advertising
agencies? The reasons behind hiring the advertising agencies by the
companies are:
The agencies are expert in this field. They have a team of
different people for different functions like copywriters, art
directors, planners, etc.
The agencies make optimum use of these people, their
experience and their knowledge.
They work with an objective and are very professionals.
Hiring them leads in saving the costs up to some extent.
There are basically 5 types of advertising agencies.
1. Full service Agencies
Large size agencies.
Deals with all stages of advertisement.
Different expert people for different departments.
Starts work from gathering data and analyzing and ends
on payment of bills to the media people.

2. Interactive Agencies
An agency offering a mix of Web design/development, Internet
advertising/marketing, or E-Business/E-Commerce consulting.
Modernized modes of communication are used.
Uses online advertisements, sending personal messages
on mobile phones, etc.
The ads produced are very interactive, having very new
concepts, and very innovative.
3. Creative Boutiques
Very creative and innovative ads.
No other function is performed other than creating actual
ads.
Small sized agencies with their own copywriters, directors,
and creative people.
4. Media Buying Agencies
Buys place for advertise and sells it to the advertisers.
Sells time in which advertisement will be placed.
Schedules slots at different television channels and radio
stations.

 Finally supervises or checks whether the ad has been

telecasted at opted time and place or not.
5. In-House Agencies
As good as the full service agencies.
Big organization prefers these type of agencies which are
in built and work only for them.
These agencies work as per the requirements of the
organizations.
Advantage & disad of print media
Advantages
Both media outletsmagazines and
newspapershave a loyal readership. This can be
very useful for advertisers as compared to gaining
loyal customers or advertising on the Internet.
If you are targeting a particular geographical area,
you can do so with ease. For example, a local
newspaper would be a best medium to advertise
about a new shopping complex.
You can choose the size of the advertisement space.
This will help you to plan the budget of the exact
expenses to be incurred while advertising.
With loyal customers, comes the possibility of wordof-mouth marketing or advertising.

 Magazines and newspapers are always in the eye

among the public. Magazines are read for a period of
a month, which brings more attention to an
advertisement.
You can even advertise through brochures or leaflets
depending upon your target audience. If the
information is in detail, a brochure can prove to be an
apt option. A leaflet, in that case, would be useful for
a brief message or introduction of the organization
and/or services provided.
Disadvantages
The cost incurred can sometimes be expensive
considering the medium you choose.
The shelf-life of any particular print medium is
limited. Newspapers, for example, are among the
public eye only for a day.
This medium may not always give you a wide reach.
Internet, on the other hand, can target a global
audience.
There is a limitation in terms of the kind of people
who may actually read your message. The particular
newspaper may not actually be accessible every time
to your target group, which means, your message
may be missed! The Internet on the other hand, can
be accessed from anywhere.
You may have to plan months in advance to advertise
in print media. It does not offer you flexibility when
you are faced with a tight deadline.

 Advertisements may get lost in all the clutter of

editorial and ads by competitors.
Media planning
The process of establishing the exact media vehicles to be used
for advertising
The Process
Now that you understand what media planning is, it is time to
review the process. The process includes:
Market analysis
Establishing the media objective
Setting the strategy
Implementation
Evaluation and follow-up
Let's look at these steps in more detail.
Market Analysis
Performing a market analysis involves determining who your
audience is. The audience is the number and type of people
your advertising targets. The audience can be classified
according to age, sex, income, occupation, etc. Performing this
analysis will help you to project costs and determine the right
media for your campaign.

Establishing the Media Objective

The media objective is the goal of the media plan. To
establish this objective, you must determine your goal for
reach, frequency, circulation, cost, and penetration. Reach is
the amount of people the message is in front of over a period of
time. Frequency is the average number of times the message
is in front of those people.Circulation is used for printed
advertisements. This is the number of prints that are produced
and sent out.Cost is broken down into two different sections:
cost per thousand (CPM) and cost per person (CPP). It is
important to understand the cost as you are budgeting. The
cost will tell you which form of media is the best option for your
business. Penetration is the number of audience members
reached by the advertising. The company must determine if it
wants to take over a market or just reach a certain group prior
to setting the penetration goals and strategies.
Setting the Strategy
Now that you understand who you are marketing to and how
much it will cost you, you will need to make a decision about
what type of media you will use. Some options include Internet,
television, radio, newspaper, consumer and business
publications, and interactive media platforms. Which option
reaches the largest audience? How often will it reach the
audience? Does it fit in your budget?

Implementation
You have a plan. Now it's time to set it in motion. This is when
you buy media. Media buying is the purchasing of the space
in the selected media. This involves committing to the media
provider, submitting the ad, and paying the bill. This is the
exciting part. You see all your hard work come together.
Evaluation and Follow-up
After everything is said and done, it is time to see how
successful your media plan was. To do so, you need to follow-up
and evaluate the results. Ask yourself, 'Did we meet media
objectives? How successful were the strategies?' The success of
this media plan will determine future media plans.
Copywriting
Copywriting is the art and science of writing copy (words used on web pages, ads,
promotional materials, etc.) that sells your product or service and convinces
prospective customers to take action. In many ways, it's like hiring one salesman to
reach all of your customers.

Hierarchy-Of-Effects Theory - Lavidge and Steiner

A hierarchical representation of how advertising influences a consumer's
decision to purchase or not purchase a product or service over time. The
hierarchy-of-effects theory is used to set up a structured series of
advertising message objectives for a particular product, with the goal of
building upon each successive objective until a sale is ultimately made.

The job of the advertiser is to encourage the customer to go through the six steps
and purchase the product.

The six steps are as follows:

Awareness
The customer becomes aware of the product through advertising. This is a
challenging step, there is no guarantee that the customer will be aware of the
product brand after they view the advert. Customers see many adverts each day but
will only remember the brand of a tiny fraction of products.
Knowledge
The customer begins to gain knowledge about the product for example through the
internet, retail advisors and product packaging. In today's digital world this step
has become more important as consumers expect to gather product knowledge at

the click of a button. Consumers will quickly move to competitor brands if they do
not get the information they want. The advertiser's job is to ensure product
information is easily available.
Liking
As the title states, this step is about ensuring that the customer likes your product.
As an advertiser what features can you promote to encourage the customer to like
your product? This is where the consumer builds a liking to your

product. This is where your product is being considered for its

emotional benefits; be sure to make them prominent.
Preference
Consumers may like more than one product brand and could end up buying any
one of them. At this stage advertisers will want the consumer to disconnect from
rival products and focus on their particular product. Advertisers will want to
highlight their brand's benefits and unique selling points so that the consumer can
differentiate it from competitor brands.
Conviction
This stage is about creating the customer's desire to purchase the product.
Advertisers may encourage conviction by allowing consumers to test or sample the
product. Examples of this are inviting consumers to take a car for a test drive or
offering consumers a free sample of a food product. This reassures consumers that
the purchase will be a safe one.
Purchase
Having proceeded through the above stages, the advertiser wants the customer to
purchase their product. This stage needs to be simple and easy, otherwise the
customer will get fed up and walk away without a purchase. For example a variety

of payment options encourages purchase whilst a complicated and slow website

discourages purchases

Lavidge and Steiner further grouped these six stages into three main
stages of consumer behaviour:
1. Cognitive
2. Affective
3. Conative

1. Cognitive: Also called the thinking stage, this is where the

consumer gathers knowledge about the product and becomes aware
of it. This can be said to be a rational step where pros and cons,
product specifications etc. of a product are evaluated.
2. Affective: Also called the feeling stage is when the consumer
starts developing a liking for the product, and may even develop
strong positive (or negative) feelings toward it.
3. Conative: This is the behaviour stage of the process. This is when
the consumer, after weighing the pros and cons, and deciding
his/her preference actually buys the product.
Means-End theory
This approach suggests that an advertisement should contain a
message that leads the consumer to a desired end state. The
means-end theory sustains that the way consumers relate to
products can be represented by a hierarchical model of three

interconnected levels: product attributes, consequences of use

and personal values. It is a basis of a model called MECCAS =
means end conceptualization of Components for Advertising
Strategy
Verbal vs. Visual Imaging
1.

Verbal - The greater emphasis is given on words in some

of the advertisements in order to evoke the response from the

target market
2. Visual The visual imagery is considered to be more
effective than the verbal message. Visual imagery is stored
both as pictures and words in brain and this dual processing
increases recall level. Also the visual imagery is considered to
be a universal language for the advertisers as an image will
depict the same thing for audience belonging to different
geographical and cultural settings. However the meaning of a
word maybe different for different people. In this respect, the
visual imagery is very effective.
The Three Exposure Hypothesis theory
The Three Exposure Hypothesis was developed by Herbert Krugman. It
suggests that an advertising campaign only needs to be exposed to an
individual three times for it to be effective. According to Krugman, in the
first and initial instance when a consumer is confronted with an
advertisement they think, "what is this?" The second time they are
exposed to it they will think, "what of it?" When exposed to it for a third
time, they will be reminded of what they thought of in the first two

instances and this will jog their memory, making the advertisement more
effective.
Recency Theory
Recency theory refers to the belief that
advertisements and promotions are most
effective when they air immediately prior to the
time of decision, and that the influence of ad
exposure diminishes with time. Exposure to fast
food ads, for example, is optimal when it occurs
just before dinnertime, and exposure to movie
ads is best just prior to the movie release.
Media scheduling
Media Scheduling refers to the pattern of timing of an advertising
which is represented as plots on a flowchart on a yearly basis. The
plots in the flowchart indicate the pattern of periods that matches
with favorable selling periods. The classical scheduling models are
commonly known as continuity, fighting, and pulsing.
Media scheduling is simply a time-table showing:
(1) The time decision when to advertise,
(2) The duration/space decision how much to advertise each
time, and
(3) The frequency to advertise the message through different
media how many times in a year (or specified time period) the
message should be advertised in each of the media.

Scheduling Strategies:

1. Continuous Advertising:
This model is primarily valid for non-seasonal products and some
kind of seasonal products. Advertising usually runs steadily with little
variation or change over the campaign period. There might be short
gaps between advertising at regular intervals and also long gaps, for
instance, one advertising every week for 12 months and then pause
for a while. This pattern of media advertising prevalent in service and
packaged

goods

requires

continuous

reinforcement

on

the

customers for top of mind recollection at point of purchase.

The advantages are as follows It works as a reminder.
It covers the entire purchase cycle.
It helps in achieving cost efficiencies in the form of large media
discounts.
It helps with positioning advantages within media.
It incorporates a program or plan that helps identifies the media
channels used in an advertising campaign, and specifies insertion or
broadcast dates, positions, and duration of the messages.

2. Concentrated Advertising:
This scheduling involves giving all the advertisement in a single
period. Thus, the concentrated advertising means to spend the
entire advertising budget within one flight. It is applicable when
product is sold in one season, event, festival or holiday. For
example, the company advertises 48 spots within four days
during Diwali festivals, 12 times a day.
3. Flighting Advertising:
This scheduling involves giving advertisement at specific
intervals. Company advertises for some period, followed by
break of no advertisement, followed by the second flight of
advertisement and likewise. Company with seasonal, cyclical,
or infrequently purchase products follows such scheduling.
Company with a limited fund prefers to advertise during a
specific season or festival only.
Advantages:
For a relatively shorter period of time, the advertisers buy heavier
weight than competitors.
It results in little wastage, since this type of advertising concentrates
on the best purchasing cycle period.
The series of commercials as unified media campaigns appear on
different media vehicles.

4. Pulsing Advertising:
This scheduling is the combination of both continuous and
flighting advertisements. It includes continuous advertising at
low-weight level, reinforced periodically by waves of heavier
activity. In other words, the company spends certain portion of
advertising fund for continuous advertising, and the remaining
fund for fighting advertisement.
For example, the company may advertise once in a day with a
brief advertisement message. And, its detail advertisement
appears for a week regularly after every three months. This
timing is preferred by the financially sound companies.
By using low advertising all the year round and heavy advertising
during peak selling periods, Pulsing combines both flighting and
continuous scheduling. The product categories that experience a
surge in sale at intermittent periods are good candidates for pulsing
product categories that are sold year round. For instance, under-arm
deodorants, sell all year, but more during the summer months
Advantages:
It covers different market situations possible
It combines advantages of both continuity and flighting possible

What Are The Functions of Public Relations?

Community Relations. Any organization must be seen as a good
community citizen and should have the goodwill of the community in
which it operates. An effective community relations program will need to
be continuing and comprehensive.

Organizations can implement various programs to improve community

relations on a regular or even ongoing basis. So, clearly, one of the
major functions of public relations is to bridge the business/community
gap. When organizations support activities and programs that improve
quality of life in their communities their image and reputation will be
enhanced.
Employee Relations. Maybe the most important resource that a
company has are its employees and the customer service they provide.
The functions of public relations in regards to the companys employees
is the maintenance of employee goodwill. The image and reputation of a
company among its employees is also another responsibility of public
relations in its function of employee relations.
Product Public Relations. When new products are introduced to the
market the role that public relations plays is crucial for creating
awareness and differentiating the product in the publics eyes from other
similar products. When existing products need a push public relations is
often called on the improve product visibility.
Sometimes there are changes instituted in existing products and public
relations has to focus the attention of consumers on the product. If a
product needs to be positioned in the market a properly executed public
relations campaign, much like an effective viral marketing campaign, it
can overcome buyer inertia and remove negative perceptions on the part
of the public.
Financial Relations. This function involves communication with the
wide variety of individuals and groups that the company deals with in the

course of its operations. This includes the stockholders and investors but
is not limited to them.
Financial analysts and potential investors have to be informed about the
companys finances. A well planned and executed financial relations
campaign can increase the value of the companys stock because of
improved image and reputation. This improved image can also make it
easier to gather additional capital.
And if you are seeking free money for your small business, your pr will
put you in a better position to be seen in a good light, by the people that
write the checks.
Political and Government Relations. The wide range of activities that
public relations has to cover in the political arena includes influencing
legislation that can be hindrances to the proper operation of the
company. Public relations in politics may have to stage debates and
seminars for government officials.
So one of the functions of public relations can actually be to not only
change the way your community works, but your state, and even your
nation.
Crisis Communications. When anything untoward happens like an
accident in a production plant it is the job of public relations to provide
honest and accurate information so that the uncertainty by the people
involved directly or indirectly can be assuaged. Natural disasters,
management wrongdoings, bankruptcies and product failures are crises
which public relations must play a large part.

Advertising Department Responsibilities

Advertising departments are responsible for measuring the
effectiveness of their ads.

Advertising departments play crucial roles in building revenue,

profits and market share in small companies and corporations.
Most advertising departments have advertising managers or
directors who create and manage department budgets and
oversee all advertising functions. Creative staff members,
including copywriters, artists and graphic designers, provide
the written content, images and graphics for various ads. All
advertising department employees are expected to work
cohesively to meet their core responsibilities and accomplish
key objectives.
Creating the Right Message
Before ad departments meet any of their objectives, they must
create the right messages for their target audiences. Target
audiences are consumers who are most likely to buy specific
products or services. Consumers have primary motives for
buying products or services, and advertisers must appeal to
those motives to get consumers to make purchases. For
example, consumers who want to lose weight are likely to
respond to an ad that shows how other satisfied customers
have lost weight using certain products.
Building Brand Awareness

Building brand awareness is an important responsibility of

corporate advertising departments. Companies must get the
message out to consumers that their brands exist before
people can buy them. Ad departments use characters, slogans,
logos and stories in their ads to build the awareness of their
brands. Brand-awareness building is challenging because many
messages get lost amid the glut of commercials and
promotions. That's why many advertisers use the AIDA principle
to get noticed. AIDA stands for attention, interest, desire and
action. The most effective ads get readers' or listeners'
attention by appealing to their needs. They then interest
consumers by offering viable solutions to those needs. Ad
departments may create desire and action in their advertising
by showing how their products work, and offering special deals
if people purchase within particular time frames.

Scheduling Advertising
Advertising managers or coordinators determine when certain
ads will appear, whether they're using TV commercials,
magazines, direct mail or social media. Many work with ad
agencies or media companies when setting advertising
schedules. Most advertising is scheduled months in advance to
provide media sources with enough time to create ads,
complete commercial shootings or print their publications.
Advertising must be timely to elicit the desired results. For
example, the advertising department of a toy manufacturer
may start advertising in early November for Christmas.

Measuring Advertising Effectiveness

An advertising department usually allocates specific amounts of
money for each type of advertising, but it must ensure that its
advertising is effective to maximize returns on investments.
Many companies measure advertising effectiveness through
market research. They conduct surveys among consumers to
determine who's heard or seen their advertising and whether it
prompted them to buy their products or services. Generally, the
more a consumer can recall about an ad, the more effective it
is, as long as it meets other essential criteria: reaching the right
target audience and increasing sales.

Rationale of sales promotion

Rationale of sales promotion may be analysed under the following
points.
Short-term results
Sales promotion such as coupons and trade allowances produce
quicker, more measurable sales results. However critics of this strategy
argue that these immediate benefits come at the expense of building
brand equity. They believe that an over emphasize on sales promotion
may under mine a brands future.
Competitive Pressure
If competitors offer buyers price reductions, contest or other
incentives, a firm may feel forced to retaliate with its own sales
promotions.

 Buyers expectations
Once they are offered purchase incentives, consumers and channel
members get used to them and soon begin expecting them.
Low quality of retail selling
Many retailers use inadequately trained sales clerks or have switched
to self service. For these outlets, sales promotion devices such as
product displays and samples often are the only effective promotional
tools available at the point of purchase.

Customers can be of following types:

1. Loyal Customers- These types of customers are less in
numbers but promote more sales and profit as compared to
other customers as these are the ones which are completely
satisfied. These customers revisit the organization over times
hence it is crucial to interact and keep in touch with them on a
regular basis and invest much time and effort with them. Loyal
customers want individual attention and that demands polite
and respectful responses from supplier.
2. Discount Customers- Discount customers are also frequent
visitors but they are only a part of business when offered with
discounts on regular products and brands or they buy only low
cost products. More is the discount the more they tend towards
buying. These customers are mostly related to small industries

or the industries that focus on low or marginal investments on

products. Focus on these types of customers is also important
as they also promote distinguished part of profit into business.
3. Impulsive Customers- These customers are difficult to
convince as they want to do the business in urge or caprice.
They dont have any specific item into their product list but urge
to buy what they find good and productive at that point of time.
Handling these customers is a challenge as they are not
particularly looking for a product and want the supplier to
display all the useful products they have in their tally in front of
them so that they can buy what they like from that display. If
impulsive customers are treated accordingly then there is high
probability that these customers could be a responsible for
high percentage of selling.
4. Need Based Customers- These customers are product specific
and only tend to buy items only to which they are habitual or
have a specific need for them. These are frequent customers
but do not become a part of buying most of the times so it is
difficult to satisfy them. These customers should be handled
positively by showing them ways and reasons to switch to other
similar products and brands and initiating them to buy these.
These customers could possibly be lost if not tackled efficiently
with positive interaction.

5. Wandering Customers- These are the least profitable

customers as sometimes they themselves are not sure what to
buy. These customers are normally new in industry and most of
the times visit suppliers only for confirming their needs on
products. They investigate features of most prominent
products in the market but do not buy any of those or show
least interest in buying. To grab such customers they should be
properly informed about the various positive features of the
products so that they develop a sense of interest.
Sales Promotion Strategies and Practices
The sales promotion strategy is an important element in
overall marketing strategy. Sales promotion strategy involves
identification

of

objectives, effective

communication for

attracting attention, allocation of budget, determining the

correctpromotional mix, introduction of strategic approach and
finally evaluation. Each one of them are briefly explained here.
1. Sales Promotion Objectives
The marketer should determine his sales promotion objectives.
He should determine what is to be accomplished and what kind
of buyer responses are desired. Sales promotion tasks should
be objective oriented. These tasks are informing, persuading
and reminding the customers about the products. The sales
manager should inform consumers about his product and
should highlight its special features. He has not only to inform
the customers but persuade them to buy it.

2. Communication
Sales promotion should attract the attention of the target
audience. If the prices, discounts, off season facilities etc, are
not adequately and effectively communicated, the effort of
sales promotion would be wasted. A point to be noted here is
that the audience evaluates not only the message but also the
source of the message in terms of its credibility. The purpose of
communication is to persuade potential customers to purchase
the product.
The sales manager determines the message to be aimed at the
target

market

to

gain

product

acceptance.

The

overall

marketing objectives define the role of communication in sales

promotion. Identifying the target audience is the main task of a
sales promotion communication. The audiences response to the
message source helps determine the effectiveness of the
message.
3. Medium of Reach
Sales promotion may adopt different methods for approaching
people. Strategic variables are taken into account while
deciding a particular method of sales promotion. Consumer
promotion has been considered a very effective mode of sales
promotion; potential consumers are offered samples, coupons,
etc; to promote sales. The point of purchase display is a silent
strategy to trigger off buying decisions. Retailers rely on instone displays to familiarize customers with their product. A

showroom display makes it easy for prospective buyers to

familiarize themselves with the different features of the
product. Trade promotion through buying allowance, free goods,
merchandise allowances, push money etc; help to enhance
sales by retailers and traders. Packaging is another important
form of promotion, particularly for consumer goods. It may
carry selling messages and information about the product. A
good package design attracts the shoppers attention away
from other products. It is a proper of blend of colour, design and
shape.
4. Budget
One of the most difficult marketing decisions facing companies
is how much to spend on promotion. It is not surprising that
industries and companies vary considerably in how much they
spend on promotion. It is important to determine sales
promotion

budgets

before

resorting

to

sales

promotion

activities. The resources and sales potentials are estimated

before

the

budgets should

formulation
be

of

adequate

budgets. Sales
so

that

they

promotion
achieve

the

promotion objective.
1.

Affordable Method: Many companies set the promotion

budget at what they think the company afford. This method
of setting budgets completely ignores the role of promotion
as an investment and the immediate impact of promotion on
sales volume. It leads to an uncertain annual promotion
budget, which makes long range market planning difficult.

2.

Percentage of Sales Method: Many companies set their

promotion expenditures at a specified percentage of sales or
of the sales price. Automobile companies typically budget a
fixed percentage for promotion based on the planned can
price. A number of advantages are claimed for this method.
The percentage-of-sales method means that promotion
expenditures are likely to vary with what the company can
afford which satisfies the financial managers, who feel that
expenses should bear a close relation to the movement of
corporate sales over the business cycle. This method also
encourages management to think in terms of the relationship
between promotion cost, selling price and profit per unit. The
major drawback of this method is that it does not provide a
logical basis for choosing the specific percentage except
what has been done in the past or what competitors are
doing. It also does not encourage building up the promotion
budget by determining what each product and territory
deserves.

3.

Competitive-Parity Method: Some companies set their

promotion budget to achieve share-of-wise parity with their
competitors. Two arguments are advanced for this method.
One is that the competitors expenditures represent the
collective

wisdom

of

the

industry.

The

other

is

that

maintaining a competitive parity helps prevent promotion

wars. There are no grounds for believing that the competition
knows better than the company itself what it should be
spending on promotion. Company reputations, resources,
opportunities, and objectives differ so much that their

promotion budgets are hardly a guide. Further more, there is

no evidence that budgets based on competitive parity
discourage promotional wars from breaking out.
4.

Objective-and-Task-Method:

The

objective-and-task

method calls upon marketers to develop their promotion

budgets by defining their specific objectives, determining the
tasks that must be performed to achieve these objectives
and estimating the costs of performing these tasks. This
method has the advantage of requiring management to spell
out its assumptions about the relationship between rupees
spent, exposure levels, trial rates and regular usage.
5. Promotional Mix
Companies face the task of distributing the total promotion
budget over the four promotion tools of advertising, sales
promotion, publicity and sales force. With in the same industry,
companies can differ considerably in how they allocate their
promotional budget.
Companies are always searching for ways to gain efficiency by
substituting one promotional tool for another as its economics
become more favourable. Many companies have replaced some
field sales activity with ads, direct mail and telemarketing.
Other

companies

have

increased

their

sales

promotion

expenditures in relation to advertising, to gain quicker sales.

The trial and error method, past performance and corporate
policies may influence the appropriate promotional mix. Many
firms have increased their sales with the application of

appropriate combinations of the promotion media, sales

promotion and personal selling are supported with publicity.
The promotion mix is a variable in the marketing strategy. It
should be clearly decided how fare a particular element should
be used in combination with other promotional methods.
Cross-promotion
Cross-promotion is a form of marketing promotion where
customers of one product or service are targeted with
promotion of a related product. A typical example is crossmedia marketing of a brand, for example Oprah Winfrey's
promotion on her television show of her books, magazines and
website.[1] Cross-promotion may involve two or more companies
working together in promoting a service or product, in a way
that benefits both. For example, a mobile phone network may
work together with a popular music artist and package some of
their songs as exclusive ringtones; promoting these ringtones
can benefit both the network and the artist. [2] Some major
corporations, for example Burger King, have a long history of
cross-promotion with a range of partners (see Burger King
advertising). The Disney Channel has also made extensive use
of cross-promotion.[3]Movie tie-ins are good examples of crosspromotion.[4] On occasion, badly planned cross-promotions can
backfire spectacularly such as 1992 Hoover free flights
promotionfiasco.
Advantages of cross-promotion

Cost of promotion is less

Win-win situation for both parties

Cross-promotion marketing is the easiest and often one of

the most successful marketing strategies

Both businesses can promote themselves simultaneously

Cross-promotion Benefit #1: It builds that your business

credibility
When you decide to go with cross-promotion you team up with
another business and this business is basically backing-up the
products and services you are trying to offer when they
advertise your business on their website.
As their partner of course you will do the same thing for them,
you back-up whatever products and services they sell. Because
they are respected and valued by their customer base, your
offering will garner added interest and consideration, too.
Cross-promotion Benefit #2: This venture lets you save money
In a venture like cross-promotion you save money because the
expense and resource is split two-ways. You and your partner
split the costs of a common offer. This can be promotional
cards, free gifts, etc. When you partner with another company
for cross-promotion, you are combining your marketing efforts
and budgets to reach the same market.
So, basically with cross-promotion you are spending half the
amount for double the impact.

Cross-promotion Benefit #3: It lets you expand the current

database that you have
The good thing about cross-promotion is that you can make use
of your own database and at the same you can also make use
the other companys database. Whenever you decide to start a
cross-promotion strategy remember that you have the
opportunity to reach out to more customers compared to when
you were doing it alone.
Cross-promotion gives you the ability to target customers,
including those you have not considered in the first place. This
means you are able to increase your chances of gaining more
customers who might be interested in your online business;
hence, you will also be able to broaden your market reach.
Cross-promotion Benefit #4: It lets you save time and save your
resources
Like what I have said earlier, by using cross-promotion you get
in contact with your target market at a much quicker phase
because it is not only you that are working but all the other
members in your team as well. Your team includes the other
company you are doing cross promotion with.
Your task is to not only promote your own products and services
but also the other companys products and services too. The
workload is equally shared and fairly distributed; therefore you
get to finish tasks faster.
Cross-promotion Benefit #5: Provides your business with better
exposure

By using cross-promotion you are able to promote your

products and services well because there are many people
working on the same goal. Hence, you get better advertising
exposure with cross-promotion.
Say for example an owner of a dry-cleaning business agrees to
do cross-promotion with an entrepreneur who runs a formal
wear business; each individual business is basically advertising
for both parties at the same time.
Cross-promotion Benefit #6: It builds trust
Cross-promotion is a marketing strategy that helps your
customers to see for themselves that other businesses trust
you. Other businesses trust you enough to get them to market
even your products and services.
This particular move will make your business look good. What
you are doing is basically having another business put in a good
word for you. If other online entrepreneurs believe in you so
much that they actually made business with you then
customers will also think that they can rely on your business as
well.
Cross-promotion Benefit #7: This type of strategy stands-out
Cross promotions stand out. Why? Because this type pof advertisement is more
eye-catching and this not like any other advertisements people see. People will
be more interested to know the benefits of both businesses and of course they
will be curious as to who are the businesses involved.

Departments of Advertising Agency

The different departments of advertising agency:

Contact Department,
Media Department,
Copy Department,
Art Department,
Production Department,
Research Department,
Accounting and Finance Department,
Public Relations (PR) Department, and
Office Management.
Now let's discuss main departments of advertising agency
along with specialized functions assigned to each of them.

1. Contact Department
Contact department of advertising agency keeps contact with
their prospective clients, who are mostly advertisers.

The functions of Contact Department are as follows:

Contact Department supplies the necessary information to the
clients.
It tries to increase and retain the number of clients of the
agency.
It brings new customers, and this is crucial for increasing
revenue, expansion, and growth.
It acts as a liaison authority (connection) between the
advertising agency and its clients.

It serves as a sales promotion department of the ad agency.

It finds out new clients and promotes the business of the ad
agency.
The Contact Department of ad agency comes under accounting
services. Account Executive is the head of it.
Efficient working of this department results in the quick growth
of an ad agency.

2. Media Department
Media Department of advertising agency selects the best media
for advertising the products and services of the clients.

While selecting a media for advertising it must consider the

following:
The product's nature,

The market competition,

Advertising budget of the client,
Media trends, etc.
The functions of media department are as follows:
Select and use the best media possible to communicate the ad
message to the consumers. It is a crucial function because a
wrong selection will result in the failure of an advertised
product.
Prepare a media plan for clients.
Media scheduling.
Supervise the execution of the schedule.
Buy or book an advertising time and space in media for the
client.
Keep contact with various media.
Media Department of ad agency comes under marketing
services.

3. Copy Department
The primary function of a copy department of an advertising
agency is to prepare an attractive copy-of-ad.

The copy of the advertisement is very crucial. It is called the

Heart of the AD. It is so since it directly communicates the ad
message to the consumers.
The staff of this department includes copywriters, copysupervisors, and others. They use their talent of imagination,
skill of putting flair and fluent language while preparing a copy.
The advertising may fail if the copy is not appealing to
consumers. The copy-staff works in close co-operation with the
staff of the art and visualization branch.
The head of the copy department is a Copy Chief. He directs
the functioning of it.
The copy branch is perhaps the largest department of an ad
agency. It comprises of a hard-working team of qualified
professionals and experienced staff.
Some agencies have a creative branch instead of it that does
the entire work of preparing an advertisement. Here, making an

ad copy, artwork and actual production of the ad are all linked

together and executed entirely by this department alone.

4. Art Department
The Art Department of advertising agency uses the power of
creativity and to make the AD more appealing and agreeable.
Its activity is not a mechanical one. It uses the principles of real
art (that works) as a guideline or base to present a product to
the targeted audience.

The art department usually carries out the following work:

Transform the ad message into a self-communicating and mindstimulating imagery.
Prepare visuals and layouts for press advertisement.
Make painted bulletins, posters, car cards, illustrations, slogans,
etc.

Art Director heads Art Department of an AD agency. He gets

assistance from the assistant art director, artists, visualizers
and layout men.
The artists of art department work together with copywriters to
make the final copy of advertisement more attractive.
Both departments of Art and Copy operate under the overall
guidance and supervision of vice-president of creative services.
Not all ad agencies have a separate art department. Some
prefer to outsource their art-related work to freelance artists.

5. Production Department
The copy of the advertisement is finalized by artists and
copywriters. Afterward, it is sent to the production department
of an advertising agency for its further processing where its
proper mechanical production begins.

The principal role of the production department is to process

and produce a final ad.

Following are the traditional work activities or functions of

production department:
Keep in contact with the printing press, typographers,
photoengravers, etc.
Assemble the typographic design patterns, engraved photos,
illustrations, copy, etc. and prepare the final advertisement.
Show it to the client (advertiser) and get his approval for its
release.
Send it (after approval) to print media like magazines,
newspapers, etc. for advertising.
With advancements in technology, the use of print media is
gradually slowly down. The digital media is now an emerging
trend. As a result, some production houses have started
adapting to this change. Now their work also includes activities
like:
Keep in contact with digital artists, web designers, etc.
Assemble the work of digital art and prepare a final digital-ad.
Seek approval of it from an advertiser.
Send it (after approval) to digital media like the Internet, emagazines, web videos, etc. mainly for online advertising.
A production manager heads this department.
Production dept., of the ad agency, comes under creative
services.

Not all ad agencies have a separate production unit. Some

prefer to outsource their production-related work to others.

6. Research Department
The success of an advertising agency greatly depends on the
success of the client's ad campaign. Today, achieving success is
not an easier task. It is getting very difficult now-a-days
because of rising market competition. With so many
alternatives and choices at hand, already well-established
goodwill and trust on older brands, it is now tougher to attract
and convince consumers. However, against all odds hope still
exists.
To stand out from the plethora of availability and make the
client's products and services attractive, needs not only an
enormous amount of tedious work but also some good amount
of research.
One must remember that without knowing, What to do? How to
do? When to do? and Where to do? Nothing is possible to
achieve. However, with right direction and approach,
everything can be made possible.
Therefore, the importance of research department in
advertising is rising.
The function of research department of advertising agency is
to:

Carry out research and obtain the necessary information.

Engage in a rigorous and critical analysis of the collected
information.
Use the findings (results) in different ways to achieving
objectives.
The research department collects information about:
Market,
Market competition,
Market trends,
Products and services,
Competitors,
Consumer behavior,
Media trends,
New trends in advertising, so on.
Agency makes use of above information for executing an
excellent ad campaign.

The team of a typical research department usually comprises

of:
Investigators,
Field workers,
Analysts,
Marketing assistants,
Statisticians,
Librarian and the staff of the library, etc.
This team works under the guidance and direction a Research
Director, who is the head of the research department.
Research department comes under marketing services of an ad
agency.
Although research activities are highly beneficial, they do
consume an ample amount of time, money, and resources:
Usually, small ad agencies can't afford such resource-intense
activities and, therefore, prefer not to keep a separate
research-branch. They either do research on a smaller scale or
use the data obtained by others.
On its contrary, large-agencies prefer to maintain their
research-subsidiaries and don't take the risk of compromising
the quality and genuineness of the obtained data.

7. Accounting and Finance Department

The role of accounting and finance department of an

advertising agency is to look after its financial and accounting
matters.

The work activity of this dept., is as follows:

Generate or raise invoices (bills) on clients (parties).
Send a regular reminder to the client for the collection of
unpaid dues.
Book the expenses of vendor parties on a timely basis.
Issue payments to vendor parties within or on the due date.
Doing regular reconciliation (compare) of banks, vendors, and
customers' ledger accounts.
Deposit government dues on a timely basis in authorized
banks.
The staff of this department usually comprises of:
Chief financial officer (CFO),
Accounts receivable manager,
Accounts payable manager,

Accounts supervisors, and

Accounts executives.
This staff works under the guidance and supervision of vicepresident of accounting services. He is the head of this
department.

8. Public Relations Department

The chief responsibility of a public relations (PR) department is
to maintain a cordial relationship among three parties, namely,
advertising agency, clients, and media.

The PR department carries out following work:

Address the complaints of the customers.
Solve their complaints as early as possible.
Be a link or intermediary between ad-agency, clients, media
and society.
Create goodwill and maintain the reputation of the agency.

Public Relations Officer (PRO) is the head of this department,

and his subordinates assist him regularly to maintain a cordial
and healthy environment.
The PR department functions under the authority of
management.

9. Office Management
The definition of office management according
to Mills and Standingford,
The art of guiding the personnel of the office in the use of
materials, methods, machines and equipment appropriate to
their environment in order to achieve its specified purpose.
Office Management involves following significant activities:

Recruit office staff.

Train and develop newly joined staff.
Promote existing staff.

Transfer of a timely salary and perquisites (perks) to staff.

Provide welfare facilities to staff.
Correspond to various internal and external parties.
Filing and record keeping of all the essential documents.
The office management of advertising agency operates under
its management services.
Advertising will be the funding and implementation of placing the advertising in various
medias. The advertisement will be the end product that is viewed through these medias. In
other words advertising is one of the vehicles for the advertisement.

What Are the Different Types of Advertising?

Small businesses can use different types of advertising to

achieve specific marketing communication objectives.
Advertising can communicate the benefits of a product,
generate leads for sales follow-up, build the reputation of a
company or compare a companys products and brands against
its competitors. It also forms part of an integrated marketing
program when used in conjunction with direct sales, public
relations campaigns, social media or online marketing tools.
Product Advertising
Product advertising communicates the features and benefits of
a product to customers and prospects. Companies use product
advertising when they want to launch new products, announce
changes to existing products or increase sales of those

products. Product advertisements must reflect the interests of

the target audience. An advertiser developing a campaign for a
food product, for example, would create messages and select
media that appeal to a wide consumer audience. A campaign
for a business product, such as a machine tool, would use
media that appeal to different groups influencing the decision
to buy, including plant managers, production engineers and
finance directors.
Corporate Advertising
Corporate advertising campaigns play an important part in
business-to-business marketing, particularly for companies
trying to win a major sale or contract. Prospects evaluate the
company as well as the product when they are choosing a
supplier. They look for suppliers that have the capability to
deliver quality products on time. Corporate advertising helps to
build confidence among customers and prospects by
communicating messages about your companys capability and
resources, your market position and financial stability.
Direct Response Advertising
Direct response advertising encourages prospects to register
their details, typically in return for an incentive offer, such as a
free gift, special discount or a copy of a business report for
business prospects. The advertisement includes a response
mechanism, such as a reply coupon, telephone number, email
address or website address. The information that you capture
from responses provides leads that your sales force or

telemarketing team can follow up to create news sales

opportunities. You can also use direct response advertising to
sell products directly to customers. Include information on the
product, together with a price and contact details for ordering
the product.
Financial Advertising
Financial advertising can help your company attract funds if
you are planning to grow your business or make a major
investment. Advertising in the financial or business sections of
newspapers and magazines can raise awareness of your
company among analysts, shareholders, potential investors and
advisers. Publishing financial results, together with important
developments, such as major contracts or new product
launches, keeps your audience up to date with the companys
performance.
Economic role of Advertising
Value of Products:
The advertised products are not always the best products in the
market. There are some unadvertised products also present which
are good enough. But advertising helps increase value for the
products by showing the positive image of the product which in turn
helps convincing customers to buy it. Advertising educates
consumers about the uses of the products hence increasing its value
in minds of the consumers. For e.g. mobile phones were first

considered as necessity but nowadays the cell phones come with

number of features which makes them mode of convenience for
consumers.
Effect on Prices:
Some advertised products do cost more than unadvertised products
but the vice versa is also true. But if there is more competition in the
market for those products, the prices have to come down, for e.g.,
canned juices from various brands. Thus some professional like
chartered accountants and doctors are not allowed to advertise.
But some products do not advertise much, and they dont need
much of it and even their prices are high but they are still the leaders
in market as they have their brand name. e.g., Porsche cars
Effect on consumer demand and choices:
Even if the product is heavily advertised, it does not mean that the
demand or say consumption rates will also increase. The product has
to be different with better quality, and more variety than others. For
E.g., Kelloggs cornflakes have variety of flavors with different ranges
to offer for different age groups and now also for people who want
to loose weight thus giving consumers different choices to select
from.
Effect on business cycle:

Advertising no doubt helps in employing more number of people. It

increases the pay rolls of people working in this field. It helps
collecting more revenues for sellers which they use for betterment of
product and services. But there are some bad effects of
advertisements on business cycle also. Sometimes, consumer may
find the foreign product better than going for the national brand.
This will definitely effect the production which may in turn affect the
GDP of the country.
The economic aspects are supported by the Abundance Principle
which says producing more products and services than the
consumption rate which helps firstly keeping consumers informed
about the options they have and secondly helps sellers for playing in
healthy and competitive atmosphere with their self interest.

Social role of Advertising:

There are some positive and some negative aspects of advertising on
the social ground. They are as follows.
Deception in Advertising:
The relation between the buyers and sellers is maintained if the
buyers are satisfied with what they saw in advertise and what they
got after buying that product. If seller shows a false or deceptive
image and an exaggerated image of the product in the

advertisement, then the relation between the seller and buyers cant
be healthy. These problems can be overcome if the seller keep their
ads clean and displays right image of the product.
The Subliminal Advertising:
Capturing the Minds of the consumers is the main intention of these
ads. The ads are made in such a way that the consumers dont even
realizes that the ad has made an impact on their minds and this
results in buying the product which they dont even need. But All ads
dont impress all consumers at all times, because majority of
consumers buy products on basis of the price and needs.
Effect on Our Value System:
The advertisers use puffing tactics, endorsements from celebrities,
and play emotionally, which makes ads so powerful that the
consumers like helpless preys buy those products.
These ads make poor people buy products which they cant afford,
people picking up bad habits like smoking and drinking, and buy
products just because their favorite actor endorsed that product.
This affects in increased the cost of whole society and loss of values
of our own selves.
PR process

1. Research An initial fact-finding stage defines the problem

areas and differentiates between publics.
2. Planning Once the facts have been gathered from the
various publics, decisions must be made regarding their
importance and potential impact on the organization. After
these decisions are made, strategies must be developed
to enable the organization to achieve its goals.
3. Action and Communication Strategies are implemented
as new organizational policies and/or projects. Messages
are then constructed to reach target publics.
4. Evaluation Once a public relations campaign is
developed and implemented, it should be followed by an
evaluation of its effectiveness in meeting the criteria that
were set. The results of the evaluation are used both to
assess the effectiveness of the effort and to plan future
action.

Corporate advertising
Advertising that is more public relations than sales promotion.
Its objective is to build a firm's corporate image, reputation,
and name-awareness among the general public or within
an industry
Types of advertising budget

1. Affordable method:
This is a very simple method of budget allocation. After the budget has
been allocated in all the areas i.e. all the other expenses have been taken
care of the company then allocates the left over money for the
advertisements. This method is also called All you can afford. Those
companies, which follow this method, consider advertisement as an
expenditure and no expectations on returns are associated with this
method.
These firms believe that advertising is tactical and not strategic and hence
does not need much attention. Companies use this method, at the level of
their affordability. Small businesses often use this method with the logic that
the company cannot spend more on advertising than the amount it has left
after the other expenses.
Another logic is that the products should be good in itself and then it will
sell automatically without much of advertisements. This method is clearly
an outcome of no sound decision making. The company could be
overspending or under spending a well. The fact that some firms follow this
method is a clear indication of their lack of knowledge and poor
understanding of the role of advertisements.

Percentage of Sales method:

This is the most commonly used method for budget setting. Large firms
generally go by this method. According to this method, advertising and
promotions budget is based on sales of the product. Management
determines the amount by either.
i. By taking a percentage of the sales revenue

ii. Assigning a fixed amount of the unit product cost to promotion and
multiplying this amount by the number of units sold.
Some companies instead of considering the past sales consider the
percentage-of-projected future sales as a base. This method also uses
either a straight percentage of projected sales or a unit cost projection. In
the straight-percentage method, the marketing manager estimates
projected sales for the coming year. The budget is a percentage of these
sales, often an industry standard percentage.
In its simplest application, a fixed percentage of last years sales figure is
allocated as the budget. For example, suppose the total sales of a
company ABC Pvt. Ltd. in 2005-2006 were Rs 20, 00,000. Now according
to this method the simplest calculation for advertisement budget is say 10%
of the last years sales. So the advertisement budget for the year 20062007 is 10% of Rs 20, 00,000 i.e. Rs 20,00,00.

competitive parity method:

Advertising-expense budgeting method based on what
a brand's or firm's competitors are estimated to be spending.
This method assumes the other firms have the same marketing
objectives and know what they are doing.
objectives and task method:
Advertising expense budgeting method based on the
(1) results to be achieved,
(2) strategies and tactics required to achieve those results, and
(3) costs associated with those strategies and tactics.

Persuasive Advertising is a type of product promotion that aims to

persuade a consumer for buying a particular product, especially in
the presence of several similar products in the same category. In
addition to encouraging trial purchase, persuasive advertising can
also be used to coax consumers to add and retain a particular brand
in their consideration set, thereby increasing the chances of
customer loyalty.
Informative advertising is advertising that is carried out in
an informative manner. The idea is to give the ad the look of an official
article to give it more credibility. Also, informative ads tend to help
generate a good reputation.
In some circumstances a business might be required to run informative
advertising as part of resolving a lawsuit. Tobacco companies are one of
the more notable examples of this.
Alcohol producers have been running advertisements with the general
message being don't drive drunk.
reminder advertising
marketing strategy typically consisting of brief messages sent
with the objective of reminding a target consumer group about
a product or service or of introducing a new theme into an
existing marketing program. Reminder advertising might be
used by a business that has already invested
considerable resources in initially promoting their product or
service and still wishes to maintain its competitiveness.

Reinforcement advertising
Advertising that aims to ensure that people who have already purchased
the company's product have made the right choice, as well as how to
best take advantage of the product.

Criticism against ads

Shock advertising or Shockvertising is a type of advertising that
"deliberately, rather than inadvertently, startles and offends its audience
by violating norms for social values and personal ideals".
Subliminal advertising
Promotional messages the recipient is not aware of, such as
those played at very low volume or flashed on a screen for less
than a second. Its effectiveness is not supported by scientific
evidence, and its use is considered a deceptive business
practice in some jurisdictions.
Types of appeal
Advertising Appeal is an igniting force which stimulates the
customer mindset towards the product or services. It not the
only factor in the marketing mix which initiates a consumer for
buying the product but it is certainly one of the advertisers'
most important creative strategy decisions involves the choice
of an appropriate appeal.
There

are

three

types

Rational or Informational Appeal

of

appeals:

Emotional Appeal

Moral Appeal

Rational or Informational Appeals

This is generally product oriented appeal, highlights the
functional

benefits

like-

quality,

economy,

value,

or

performance of a product. Following are different types of

rational appeals:
Feature Appeal - Advertisements based on such appeal

are

highly

informative,

provides

information

of

product

attributes or features that can be used as the basis for rational

purchase decision. Technical and high involvement product
often uses this appeal.

Competitive Advantage Appeal - Such appeal is used

to compare the product with the competitor's product directly
or indirectly and advertiser try to present his product superior
then competitor's product on one or more attributes.

Favourable Price Appeal - Here price offer is considered

as the dominant point of the message.

News Appeal - Some type of news or announcements

about product or company dominates the advertisement.

Product
considered

as

Popularity
the

Appeal -

dominant

point

Product
of

popularity

advertisement

is
by

highlighting the increasing number of users of brand or the

number who have switched to it.

High Quality - Some products are preferred for their

quality not merely because of their taste or style, such products

are

advertised

by

highlighting

the

quality

attribute

in

advertisement .

Low price - Many people prefer low priced goods. To

target such audience products are advertised by highlighting
the low price tag of the product.

Long Life - Many consumers want product of durable

nature that can be used for a long period, in advertisement of
such product durability is the dominant point of the message.

Performance -

Many

advertisements

exhibit

good

performance of product.

Economy - Many customers consider savings in operation

and use of product, for example in case of automobile the
mileage is considered while selecting the brand or model.

Scarcity - Another appeal that is occasionally used is

scarcity. When there is a limited supply of a product, the value
of that product increases. Scarcity appeals urge consumers to
buy a particular product because of a limitation.

Other Rational Appeals - Other rational appeals include

purity,

more

profits,

time

saving,

multifunction,

more

production, regular supply and availability of parts, limited

space required, artistic form, etc. that can make advertising
effective.
Emotional Appeals
An emotional appeal is related to an individuals psychological
and social needs for purchasing certain products and services.
Emotions affects all type of purchase decisions. Types of
emotional appeals are as follows:

Positive Emotional Appeal - Positive emotions likehumour, love, care, pride, or joy are shown in advertisements
to appeal audience to buy that product. For example- Jonson
and Jonson baby products.

Negative Emotional Appeal - This includes fear, guilt,

and shame to get people to do things they should or stop.

Fear - Fear is an emotional response to a threat that

expresses some sort of danger. Ads sometimes use fear
appeals

to

evoke

this

emotional

response

and

arouse

consumers to take steps to remove the threat. For exampleLife Insurance

Anxiety - Most people try to avoid feeling anxious. To

relieve anxiety, consumers might buy mouthwash, deodorant, a
safer car, get retirement pension plan.

Humour -

Humour

causes

consumer

to

watch

advertisement, laugh on it, and most important is to remember

advertisement and also the product connected with humour.
For example- Happydent, and Mentos.
Moral Appeals
Moral appeals are directed to the consumes sense of what is
right and proper. These are often used to exhort people to
support social and ethical causes. Types of Moral Appeal are as
follows:

Social awakening and justice

Cleaner and safe environment

Equal rights for women

Prohibition of drugs and intoxication

Adult literacy

Anti-smuggling and hoarding

Factors Affecting ad budget

1. Frequency of the Advertisement
This means the number of times advertise has been shown
with the description of the product or service, in the granted
time slots. So here, if any company needs more advertising
frequency for its product, then the company will have to
increase its advertising budget.
2. Competition and Clutter
The companies may have many competitors for its product.
And also there are plenty of advertisements shown which is
called clutter. The company has to then increase their
advertising budget.
3. Market Share
To get a good market share in comparison to their competitors,
the company should have a better product in terms of quality,
uniqueness, demand and catchy advertisements with resultant
response of the customers. All this is possible if the
advertisement budget is high.

4. Product Life Cycle Stage

If the company is a newcomer or if the product is on its
introduction stage, then the company has to keep the budget
high to make place in the market with the existing players and
to have frequent advertisements. As the time goes on and
product becomes older, the advertising budget can come down
as then the product doesnt need frequent advertising.