How Communications Influence the Role of Promotion in Marketing

Mutually satisfying exchange being the ultimate goal of marketing, the role of promotion, therefore, is to encourage such an exchange through linking communications with the product adoption process of the buyer. Motivating the adoption of the promoted product as well as effecting the desired change in the consumer behaviour are the goals of the promotion function. The attainment of these goals presupposes that product  purchase process be understood by the marketers before marketing communications are designed. While there are many models that help to conceptualise the buying process, two very specific models that aid in understanding the buying process as well as in framing communication are: ‘AIDA’ and ‘Hierarchy-of-effects’ models.

The AIDA acronym stands for: Attention (also called awareness),
Interest, Desire and Action. According to AIDA model, a marketer should begin by winning attention or gaining awareness, creating interest, inspiring desire and precipitating the action for purchase, in the prospects in order to enable its product to be adopted by the target public.

Under the hierarchy-of-effects model, the buyer’s purchase decision is preceded by steps such as conviction about the product benefits,


preference for the brand, liking for the brand, knowledge relating to the benefits and features of the product, after an awareness of the product has been gained.


The basic implication of these models is that the function of persuasive communication or promotion should be handled deftly at every stage of the buyer’s adoption process. Based on Lavidge and Steiner’s research, Gaedeke and Tootelian illustrate the various promotional tools that might be relevant to each stage of the hierarchy-of-effects model that are available to marketers for making marketing communications.

The Promotion Mix

In our daily life, we all are exposed to various tools of promotion aiming at communicating one thing or the other to us. To illustrate this, while at home we come across advertisements when reading a newspaper,

watching TV, listening to radio or even examining the water, electricity or telephone bills; on our way to the office similar communications face us on bus panels, roadside hoardings, neon signs, posters and banners,


etc. At a retail shop, these take the shape of traffic builders, product displays, streamers, hangers, bins, etc., all sharing information relating to a specific product of a company.  Listed above are just few types of the various promotion tools available to a marketer. Before proceeding, let us take a look at the definitions of the four major methods of promotion.

 These are: advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and publicity. The committee on Definitions of the American Marketing Association defined these components as follows:

Advertising

Any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor. It includes the use of such media as magazines, newspaper, outdoor posters, direct mail novelties, radio, television, bus posters, catalogues, directories, programmes and circulars.

Personal Selling

Oral presentation is a conversation with one or more prospective purchasers for the purpose of making sales.

Sales Promotion

Those marketing activities, other than personal selling, advertising, and publicity, that stimulate consumer purchasing and dealer effectiveness such as non–routine selling efforts. These are usually short–term activities.

Publicity

Non-personal stimulation of demand for a product, service or business unit by generating commercially significant news about it in published media or obtaining favourable presentation of it on radio, television, or stage. Unlike advertising, this form of promotion is not paid for by the sponsor.

Determining the Promotion Mix

Marketers rarely rely on only one promotion method. They make use of two or more methods to accomplish promotion and marketing


objectives. When a firm makes use of more than one promotion method for one product, the promotion methods used constitute the promotion mix for that product. For example, while TV spots, newspaper and fashion magazine advertisements, and attractive festival displays at the authorised retail shops constitute the promotion mix of textile fabrics specialised industry magazines and participation in national and


international exhibition of clothing materials and cosmetics goods may constitute the promotion for women generally.

The promotion function being linked with the ever changing market environment is a dynamic function. The promotion mix, therefore, acquires the dimension of dynamism and varies from product to product over a period of time. Quite similar to the problems faced by a marketer in the determination of the optimal marketing mix are the problems faced in the determination of the promotion mix. The task involved is rather more complex due to cross-substitutability of the various


promotion methods (i.e. each method is capable of achieving what the other method may achieve) thereby making the measurement of promotional effectiveness more difficult. Notwithstanding these
difficulties, factors as mentioned below act as the major determinants of the promotion mix:

1 Type of product

2 Nature of market

3 Stage of product in its life–cycle

4 Available budget, and

5 Company policy.