Category: Marketing and Advertising

With the growing influx of a variety of means of communication and varying consumer patterns, the term ‘cross-cultural’ has become more relevant in the world of today which has transformed into a global village. Here’s what it means: Cross-culture is an idea that perpetuates bridging of various mindsets, ideas, and lifestyles to connect people of various nationalities, ethnicities, and different parts of the world to new ideas, new environments, and new preferences. (Kopp, 2020)

According to Kopp (2020), the term cross-culture refers to connecting particular ideas, attitudes, and lifestyles to different cultures, nationalities and societal trends in different part of the world, thus bringing about new approaches, attitudes or general preferences among a certain group of people.

It is critical to note that human behaviour and culture have capacity to exert influence on consumer patters, therefore, marketers cannot neglect the significance of culture in marketing strategies as emphasized by various studies (Baek and Yu, 2009; Ji and McNeal, 2001). Marketing companies and their policy makers are now urgently required to make more efforts to appreciate their target consumer culture if they want their polices to be more effective and result oriented. In this regard, any marketing policies which are not in line with the target culture are less likely to meet their targets which then would result in the waste of resources, time and energy because cultures, as noted in McCarthy’s study (1994), differ from each other as each culture has its unique cultural and social contexts. If cultural question is not taken into account, it can have an adverse impact on financial might and reputation of a particular company. To meet cultural demands of the targeted audience it is imperative to conduct a cross-cultural research in order to understand the requirements of a specific society before launching marketing campaign. Such research will give a firm ground to any company and its policy to stand on without putting its financial and reputational stakes at risk. This research-oriented approach has also been endorsed by Khaled, R. et al., (2006 ).

There has been an ongoing debate as to what culture actually means and over the years, various approaches to define culture have been employed based on the mental attitude and behaviour of a specific people. In this regard, Hofstede’s study is an important step in this field and is based on a codification scheme that helps to classify various cultural extents using numerical indexes. For Hofstede, culture means a society’s adaptation to its environment. That is the reason Hofstede’s study has been endorsed by reputed marketing theorists like Sodergaard (1994) and Sivakumar and Nakata (1999) in their research. It must be noted that Hofstede, using the factor analysis methodology in order to monitor values of employees, examined IBM workers globally between 1967 and 1973, thus targeting a multinational workforce to authenticate his results. Since Hofstede’s research, this theory has received due appreciation from researchers in this field and has seen substantial acclaim.

Some other social scholars have also been working on culture since the first half of the twentieth century. For example, Linton (1945: 21) defined culture as a “configuration of learned behaviour and results of behaviour, whose component elements are shared and transmitted by the members of a particular society. It refers to the sum of human beings’ lifeways, their behavior, beliefs, feelings, thought; it connotes everything that is acquired by them as social beings.” On the other hand, culture for Hall (1997) is a set code of values and in a given society. Furthermore, for the purpose of understanding the term culture for marketing and advergaming, Rise (1993: 243) defined culture as “the values, attitude, beliefs, artifacts and other meaningful symbols represented in pattern of life adopted that help them interpret, evaluate and communicate as members of a society”, thus emphasizing a collective and shared norms of a given society.

Commenting on Hofstede’s definition of culture, some scholar (Hsu, Chen-Hsing, 2002) argue that culture means a union of individual members of a group by a collective mental programming, either held by the same members of that group or members of a different group. This criterion could bring ethnic or national groups or groups within a society at different levels under one umbrella of culture. However, in cross-cultural studies of global advertising, the term culture is mainly applied, at a country level, to the complex whole who make one taxonomy with same characteristics in a given country.

Recently, cultural aspects of using technology to persuade and their underlying benefits have gained momentum due to their extensive world-wide reach. It has also witnessed tremendous advantages in terms of revenue generation and a deeper impact of some of the huge companies in the world. It is because of the fact, which various studies have found as mentioned earlier, that the cultural perspective of a target audience, if duly taken into account after a thorough research, brings astonishingly positive and effective results of using technology persuasively.

In order to close this research gap, my cross-cultural study aims to provide empirical evidence illuminating the effects of culture on consumer-advergame engagement in Saudi Arabia and the UK. Although, in the cross-cultural literature, many cultural dimensions have been extensively examined for delineating cultural variations, such as individualism versus collectivism, time orientation, high versus low-context communication, preference of communication styles and the content of advergame in different cultures, yet the way culture drives consumer-advergame-engagement behaviour in different countries has not been systematically explored. This research is aimed at bridging this gap in the context of two different cultures: Saudi Arabia and the UK.

References

1. Baek, T. H., and H. Yu. 2009. “Online Health Promotion Strategies and Appeals in the United Statesand South Korea: A Content Analysis of Weight-Loss Websites.”Asian Journal ofCommunication19 (1): 18–38.
2. (3) (PDF) Consumer engagement with brands on social network sites: A cross-cultural comparison of China and the USA. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271993124_Consumer_engagement_with_brands_on_social_network_sites_A_cross-cultural_comparison_of_China_and_the_USA#fullTextFileContent [accessed May 14 2020].
3. Barnett, G. A., and E. Sung. 2005. “Culture and the Structure of the International HyperlinkNetwork.”Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication
4. Khaled, R. et al., 2006. Persuasive interaction for collectivist cultures. In The Seventh Australasian User Interface Con- ference (AUIC 2006). Hobart, Australia: Australian Computer Society
5. Triandis, H. C. 1995.Individualism and Collectivism. Boulder, CO: Westview.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to provide empirical evidence to support the role of sensory Marketing in the 5 stars hotels. Data were collected through a survey from the customers of the restaurants. A sample of 362 respondents was taken for the study. Hypotheses were tested through statistical tests using SPSS and SmartPLS 3.0. Empirical evidence supports the view that 5 stars hotels using sensory marketing techniques have more satisfied customers than otherwise. The sample was chosen on the basis of income of respondents. Data were collected from three major cities of Pakistan (Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad). The study should be replicated in different contexts to find the similarity of results along with finding new perspectives. The paper provides support for the significance of sensory marketing to enhance the satisfaction of customers and employees loyalty and commitment in restaurants by using service quality.

Introduction

Sensual advertising

In the time of creativity and advancement, sensual advertising is the paradigm change from traditional promotion. Advertising experts, the vital component of the association are applying whatever number of senses as could be implemented under the circumstances to be attractive, to pull the buyer for purchasing and recalling their items. The new model of emotional branding by means of sensory advertising has been grasped by most of organization (Gatchalian, 1999). They now look not only to build associations with their clients as well as to include them by involving their senses. Organizations’ Endeavour to distinguish themselves and their brands by making extraordinary qualities and offerings. Contrarily,it is once in a while possible for organizations to address all of the senses. Subsequently, Organizations ought to decide on the sensory appeals in connection with their specific fields of organizations. The capacity of the physical environment to impact behaviour and to make a picture is especially obvious for sensory organisations, for example, restaurants, hotels, banks, professional offices, hospitals and retail stores (Kotler, 1973).

During last decade there occur few changes in casual dining too. As the customer’ expectations and awareness is raising so restaurant industry has renovate itself according to it. Now customers have become more design savvy and health conscious due to food and design related TV shows and magazines as well as the internet (Ertzberger, 2009)

Industry practitioners also recognize the power of the narrative (Mogelonsky, 2015).Focusing on narrative persuasion, hotel marketers can encourage customers to immerse themselves in future hotel experiences. A gestalt image forms as customers imagine themselves as part of the narrative. Despite substantial interests in narratives as a persuasion mechanism (Hamby et al., 2017; van Laer, de Ruyter, Visconti, & Wetzels, 2014), little evidence exists to understand how their application creates positive customers’ responses in the hotel industry. Since many customers first search for information on hotels’ websites before they make their purchase decisions, a persuasive narrative serves as a catalylst to surface other stored memories and foster customers’ future experiences. Along with technological advancement, the service industry utilizes an e-commerce environment because websites provide unique attributes of “selling the experience” to prospective customers (Lai, Chen, & Lin, 2007).

Visual aesthetics have long been recognized as key determinants of ad effectiveness. In this review, we focus on how ad visuals can lead to spontaneous generation of imagery in the viewer’s mind with stimulus orientation [11] and perceived movement affecting the amount and the type of imagery generated. The content of these images, in addition to how the images are formed, plays a large role in affecting evaluations toward the ad and the product.

Theories

Total quality management theory

The idea for quality of service need rose up out of total quality management theory and presently it may be dealt with Likewise a key paradigm to powerful TQM execution. The writing survey suggested that administration personal satisfaction might be sorted under number from claiming approaches for example, client administration value; web administration caliber Furthermore robotized administration nature (Al-Hawari, Ward, & Newby, 2009; Jun & Cai, 2001) for the basic point on attain client satisfaction, moved forward Money related performance, and intensity. Service nature will be a multidimensional Develop instead of Hosting uni-dimensional intending. Also, writing Audit further reveals to that measuring administration caliber may be not a simple undertaking Further more quite a few issues need aid there done measuring it. Mossycup oak manifestations of estimation of administration nature keep tabs once client fulfillment.

Transportation theory

Prior studies apply transportation theory to different media contexts to understand whether or not customers enjoy the story and how their immersion processes occur (Hamby et al.,2017; Wang & Calder, 2009). Green’s (1996) Transportation-Imagery Model provides a fundamental stepping-stone for the narrative-based belief change. To explain the process of Transportation, Green and Brock (2000) propose “Pinocchio Circling” to evaluate questioning or doubtful reactions of the message toward a story by recipients. They demonstrate that Narrative persuasion leads to fewer counterarguments because highly transported readers process fewer false messages. Transportation theory focuses on customers’ immersion into the story and their subjective experience, enabling them to fill the gap and create their own meanings in the story. The notion of being transported also relates to the reader-response theory. The reader-response theory explains the reader’s active role, when (s)he interacts with the text (Athinodoros, Arnould, & Hampton, 2012). Many disciplines recognize the value of stories, such as communication (Green & Brock, 2002), consumer psychology (Nielsen & Escalas, 2010), marketing (Hamby et al., 2017; van Laer et al., 2014), and tourism (Martin & Woodside, 2011; Tussyadiah, Park, & Fesenmaier, 2011). Stories (narratives) serve as an effective persuasion strategy, since stories engage customers and influence customers’ behaviors (Arnould &Price, 1993; Arnould & Wallendorf, 1994).

Gaps

To date, however, research has paid relatively little attention to how acoustic, haptic, and olfactory sensory input affect consumer decision-making and attitude formation processes. More systematic research is also needed to expand our understanding of musical advertising .Another area worth investigating is sensory dominance. It is generally well-accepted that sensory marketing leads to service quality, only a handful studies have been attempted which empirically verify the sensory marketing-service quality link in restaurant context (Tešanovic, Krasavcic, Miro Kalenjuk, Portic, & Gagic, 2014). According to existing body of knowledge, no study has comprehensively investigated that relationship of sensory marketing with service quality.

Sensory marketing

Sensory information explains the descriptions that stimulate customers’ senses. A new marketing paradigm supports sensory marketing’s role in influencing customers’ behaviors after exposure to the advertisement or environment (Achrol & Kotler, 2012). Sensory marketing explains the marketing activities that engage the customers’ senses and further influences their perception, judgment, and behavior (Krishna, 2012). Prior studies indentify this role for sensory marketing (Kim & Perdue, 2013; Yoon & Park, 2012). For example, Elder and Krishna (2010) identify multi-sensory ads lead to higher taste perceptions than single-sensory ads. Investigating sensory appeals in advertisements, Yoon and Park identify sensory .Preferences enhance ad effectiveness and lead to favorable brand attitudes. Kim and Perdue Confirm sensory attributes influence customers’ choice behaviors in the hotel industry.

The extant literature suggests information exposure that stimulates all five human Senses helps customers to create vivid, concrete images of their future hotel experiences. Comparing customers exposed to sensory hotel information vs. no sensory information, the former group should have better persuasive, experiential, emotional, and cognitive responses, proposing the following hypotheses.

Hotel websites

Industry practitioners also recognize the power of the narrative (Mogelonsky, 2015).Focusing on narrative persuasion, hotel marketers can encourage customers to immerse themselves in future hotel experiences. A gestalt image forms as customers imagine themselves as part of the narrative. Despite substantial interests in narratives as a persuasion mechanism (Hamby et al., 2017; van Laer, de Ruyter, Visconti, & Wetzels, 2014), little evidence exists to understand how their application creates positive customers’ responses in the hotel industry. Since many customers first search for information on hotels’ websites before they make their purchase decisions, a persuasive narrative serves as a catalylst to surface other stored memories and foster customers’ future experiences. Along with technological advancement, the service industry utilizes an e-commerce environment because websites provide unique attributes of “selling the experience” to prospective customers (Lai, Chen, & Lin, 2007).

Musical advertising: A recent study from Nielsen noted that almost every television ad included music .Given the omnipresence of music, it is crucial to understand its effects. Music in advertising has been shown to impact ad persuasion by influencing mood and involvement. In addition, music itself can carry a meaning—both embodied and referential .In terms of embodied meaning (spontaneous feelings or reactions generated by the sounds of music, independently of context or semantic connotations), ads with a faster tempo can evoke more positive feelings. More abbreviated percussive sounds and a more repetitive rhythm generate more energy. In addition, auditory rhythms have a cross-modal influence on how one allocates visual attention; in other words, rhythmic auditory stimuli can direct attention rising:

Music in ads also has a referential meaning, which is context dependent and reflects a Listener’s personal associations. Most of the research on this topic focuses on context, transportation, and familiarity. With respect to the context, results generally show that music can improve message processing, brand recall, and brand attitude only when it fits (it is congruent) with features of the ad and brand .With respect to transportation, some research investigated the persuasive power of moving (i.e., emotional) music in audio-visual advertising.

The research showed the persuasiveness of such music is based on the listener’s ability to “get lost” in the ad’s story. Such narrative transportation reduces critical processing, thereby increasing behavioral intentions (e.g., purchase intentions or willingness to donate money) by leading viewers into the ad’s story. The author suggested that moving music should not be used when communicating a complex advertising message, as it appears to disrupt attention and critical Processing. Finally, music familiarity is another very important element to consider in advertising. Ward, Goodman, and Irwin[47] found that although consumers say they prefer listening to Accepted Manuscript unfamiliar music, familiarity with music positively predicts individuals’ preferences for songs. When determining whether consumers would choose a particular kind of music or playlist, marketers should bypass consumers’ ideas of what they want and instead ask about their familiarity with the music. Similarly, Stalinski and Schellenberg[48] investigated whether liking a song affects song recollection. They found that liking is directly associated with recognition. Listeners therefore tend to like music they remember and vice versa.

Final remarks and future directions

Sensory marketing is an emerging field of research. In this review article, we have presented a brief overview of how research in sensory perception can be applied to advertisement design and effectiveness, which we hope will spur, further exploration of this topic. Much of what we have learned in the sensory marketing literature has clear practical and theoretical implications. To date, however, research has paid relatively little attention to how acoustic, haptic, and olfactory sensory input affect consumer decision-making and attitude formation processes. More systematic research is also needed to expand our understanding of musical advertising .Another area worth investigating is sensory dominance; for example, does a specific sense have a greater impact on ad effectiveness depending on the advertising medium used? Addressing these (and related) questions will further advance our understanding of how sensory marketing impacts consumers’ thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Sensory marketing plays a role in making the environment more effective in which they are used. Findings of the study reveal that youngsters are more attracted towards the sensory marketing. They consider such restaurants as full of attraction and want to revisit them. The environment of such restaurants is fascinating and they leave better image on the consumers. The education of the consumers also plays a role in the liking of the restaurant. As supported from the results that consumers who have high level of education are more attracted towards restaurants using sensory marketing. This may be because of their environment catering to the highly sophisticated consumers.

Even though this study offers theoretical and managerial implications, the findings suggest future research opportunities. This research supports a role for story-format sensory information as a tool for narrative persuasion. Future research should examine other effects that promote envisioning future experiences. Different mental imagery techniques may trigger positive customers’ responses. For instance, mental simulation types (Zhao, hoeffler,ZauberMan, 2011) can examine how they foster customers’ website experience. In addition, this study focuses on the hotel industry, but narrative persuasion’s effect likely differs by context. Future research can incorporate different product types to fully understand proper narrative persuasion strategies by product category. Moreover, this study is limited to Pakistan hotel customers and further study is necessary to generalize the results. Future studies can investigate cultural effects in narrative persuasion because a compelling narrative likely differs depending upon the culture (Kim et al., 2016).

BACKGROUND OF THE COMPANY

Icebreaker was founded in the year 1995 by Jeremy Moon. The company was founded on the basic principle of innovating and replacing the petrochemical fibres with natural fibres. The main motto of the company is to value and encourage natural fibres and develop a sustainable business for a better future. All the products of “Ice-breaker” are made out of natural merino woollen fibre. It was also the first outdoor apparel company in the world to source merino directly from merino sheep farmers. Icebreaker merino clothing is for the outdoors and technical sports. Its lifestyle wear includes underwear, mid layer garments, outerwear, socks and accessories for men, women and children. Icebreaker is originally based in Wellington, New Zealand, and is market to more than 3000 stores in 43 countries. It all started in 1994 when a merino sheep farmer, gave a woollen t-shirt to Jeremy. He liked the soft and lustrous fibre and he found that it wasn’t scratchy, itchy like the wool he’s grown up with. It was also long-lasting and machine washable. Considering all the factors Jeremy was inspired to create an entirely new category around this product of “Merino Outdoor Apparel”. In 1995 the company was founded and the world’s first natural layering system is officially born. Merino wool’s amazing warmth to weight ratio and low bulk was the biggest inspiration behind this innovation.

KEY PRINCIPLES OF SUSTAINABLE MARKETING

Ice breaker is strongly founded upon the basement of sustainable marketing .The market researchers have found that one needs to adopt sustainable business practices to evolve and strengthen customer relationships.

CONSUMER ORIENTED MARKETING

Considering the customer’s point of view, Icebreaker has designed it’s products vividly. The apparels are designed keeping almost every kind of target audience. Customer feedbacks have been valued and the garments have been altered according to the consumer’s choices. The apparels of Icebreaker Company are suitable to withstand any weather and environmental conditions. The products are based on simplicity, logetivity, versatility, purposeful, natural and sustainable.

CUSTOMER VALUE MARKETING

The company has come up with the idea of creating a transparency report every year. They believe that being transparent and opening doors to consumers allows them to make more conscious decisions. The transparency report is the result of our long-term commitment to build an ethical and sustainable business. The transparency report is created to let the customers know where their clothes come from and how they are actually made. They also launched transparency@icebreaker.com to encourage people to ask anything and share ideas for strengthen the consumer value. The consumer value is built to have long term relationships with the consumer segments. Transparency enables the concerned consumers to make more informed decisions and thereby build trust and scrutinize brands.

INNOVATIVE MARKETING

The company has left no stone turned when it comes to the innovative marketing. They invented corespun, an innovative new technology that wraps merino wool around a high denier nylon filament to radically increase longevity. Also they launched COOL-LITE™ – a blend of merino and plant based TENCEL®. Made from eucalyptus (the most ecologically sustainable natural fibre available) It helps to cease heat and delivers an outstanding breathability.

PRODUCT, PROMOTION, DISTRIBUTION AND PRICING STRATEGY OF THIS ORGANISATION IN RELATION TO SUSTAINABLE MARKETING INTERESTS

Product, promotion, distribution and pricing strategy are the MARKETING ACTIVITIES that an organization can take for the purpose of facilitating commercial exchanges. They are also known as the FOUR ELEMENTS OF MARKETING MIX.

• PRODUCT: Icebreaker is extensively a design-led company. It believes that a design-led company requires an intuitive leap, not just trying to find out what people want, because most people don’t know what they want until they see it. It’s uniquely designed products are one of its kind. In the Icebreaker world, products are designed to transcend the basic need for warmth and relate to the customer on a broader level of values-based wants.
• PROMOTION: Icebreaker has always followed the strategy of collaborating with local markets for better promotion of their products. They accessed and joined hands with the local companies of France, Japan and China to extend their market and promote their products. Also, icebreaker has partnered with VF corporation, an American worldwide apparel and footwear company, to access and promote products in new markets.
• DISTRIBUTION: Although icebreaker is native to New-Zealand, it has extended its arms across the globe, for a better reach of value-based customers. In a bid to access the best technology, ethics and capacity they extended a global level collaboration of French, German, Japanese and Chinese companies to excel an and create an advanced manufacturing hub in Shanghai.
• PRICING STRATEGY: Icebreaker has always focused on branding. It is purely a VALUE-BASED PRICING. They highly believe that, once the brand is values by customers, pricing is not an issue. Also, they make every aspect of their product reflect their brand values. They have theorized that greater the distance between their ideas and those of competitors, the greater the uniqueness of their product and this results in price becoming less of a factor for customers. The increased priority placed on branding by marketers in recent years offers an opportunity for consumer researchers to provide valuable insights and guidance. In particular, in highly competitive marketplaces, marketers often must link their brands to other entities.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE STRATEGY

Although the marketing strategy used by the company of Icebreaker have been recorded to provide practical benefit to the same and also maintain its marketing activities in a significant manner, it does have some drawbacks that create a barrier for the same to be on the first paradigm. Thus, the given report tends to specify some strategic recommendations that will help the relevant company under discussion here in the paper to improvise the synergy of its marketing-mix strategies and satisfy both the customer as well as the organisational goals. Therefore, the study in question strongly suggests some strategic suggestions that will assist the appropriate business being discussed here in the paper adapt the cohesion of its marketing-mix policies and fulfill both the client and the organizational objectives.

• Recognition of the usefulness understanding of the consumer behaviour i.e to plan and manage the dynamic marketing environment) means marketing researches find up things such as :-
• what consumers think of the products
• How they use these products.
• What is their attitude towards icebreaker products and its advertising. (JP Peter, JC Olson, KG Grunert – 1999 )
• Market segmentation needs to be implemented. It involves identifying consumer groups with unique needs, purchasing processes and developing specific marketing programs for them.
• Studying their customers ‘ behavioral strategy by requiring input from them on each purchase made by the client (Melero, Sese, 2016).
• Pertain better production practices than its peer rivals and thus derive a power base in the company sector.
• Induce much sophisticated and innovative modifications in technology.

ANALYSIS OF THE SITUATION

Understanding competitors’ strengths and weaknesses is of paramount importance for marketers, developers, and planners involved in strategy development. Creating a competitive market position is vital to long-term success, and thus seizing market competitiveness should be of great interest to promoters. (Market positioning analysis , Joseph S. , Muzaffer Uysal ). This report conceptualises strategic market positioning as the ways in which firm‐specific resources and assets are deployed to build positional advantages in product‐markets. It also Presents analyses of data generated from high technology, medium and large, industrial manufacturing firms and discusses these results in the light of previous findings.

With the assistance of the research, it is evaluated that Icebreaker is in the synergy of keeping the quality of its product ahead of its peer rival (New-Zealand trade and enterprise). Moreover, the firm is also known to keep in an efficient manner both the quality and the pricing strategy of its products. Icebreaker’s main competitors are Ibex Outdoor Clothing, Smart wool and North Face. It is performing relatively great when compared to its competitors. After a detailed research, the following chart represents the annual revenue of icebreaker and its competitor companies.

Conclusion

Thus, with the assistance of the above research, it can be asserted that both feasible and recognizable critical sustainable principlesare used by the Icebreaker business.With the efficient use of manufacturing garments using natural fiber, the firm has been able to maintain its clients in the organization of the business.

References

1. JP Peter, JC Olson, KG Grunert – 1999Peter, J.P., Olson, J.C. and Grunert, K.G., 1999. Consumer behaviour and marketing strategy (pp. 329-48). London: McGraw-Hill.
2. De Mooij, M., 2019. Consumer behavior and culture: Consequences for global marketing and advertising. SAGE Publications Limited.
3. Keller, K.L., 2003. Brand synthesis: The multidimensionality of brand knowledge. Journal of consumer research, 29(4), pp.595-600.
4. Ravald, A. and Grönroos, C., 1996. The value concept and relationship marketing. European journal of marketing, 30(2), pp.19-30.
5. Kumar, V., Rahman, Z., Kazmi, A.A. and Goyal, P., 2012. Evolution of sustainability as marketing strategy: Beginning of new era. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 37, pp.482-489.
6. Baldassarre, F. and Campo, R., 2016. Sustainability as a marketing tool: To be or to appear to be?. Business Horizons, 59(4), pp.421-429.
7. Brooksbank, R., 1994. The anatomy of marketing positioning strategy. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 12(4), pp.10-14.
8. Fuller, D.A., 1999. Sustainable marketing: Managerial-ecological issues. Sage Publications.
9. Van Dam, Y.K. and Apeldoorn, P.A., 1996. Sustainable marketing. Journal of macromarketing, 16(2), pp.45-56.
10. Philip Kotler; Gary Armstrong; Valerie Trifts; Peggy H. Cunningham, Chapter 20 Sustainable marketing, Principles of Marketing MKTG2100, University of Newcastle (Australia), https://www.studocu.com/en-au/document/university-of-newcastle-australia/principles-of-marketing/summaries/chapter-20-sustainable-marketing/1181751/view
11. Robert M. Schindler, Robert Schindler (professor.), Pricing Strategies: A Marketing Approach, https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=EnV7ReVVmUUC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=Robert+M.+Schindler,+Robert+Schindler+(professor.),+Pricing+Strategies:+A+Marketing+Approach&ots=xAT8FuXE-h&sig=mBzbFMxMDRRugBqYdnmntGt2I7c#v=onepage&q=Robert%20M.%20Schindler%2C%20Robert%20Schindler%20(professor.)%2C%20Pricing%20Strategies%3A%20A%20Marketing%20Approach&f=false
12. Edited by Professor Raghu Garud, Raghu Garud, Praveen Rattan Nayyar, Zur Baruch Shapira, Technological Innovation: Oversights and Foresights, https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Sdmqyh1OrIQC&oi=fnd&pg=PA214&dq=Marketing+J.+Eliashberg+and+G.L.+Lilien&ots=mlQTisjRBL&sig=H5dcvI_Zph5szYW-ObRwsEz0Hi8#v=onepage&q=Marketing%20J.%20Eliashberg%20and%20G.L.%20Lilien&f=false

Introduction

The broad perspective of marketing communications presents an undertone and an understanding of the role of advertising in the contemporary communication environments in a more societal context. The dramatic changes in advertising across different platforms and spheres throughout the world is an indication of the dynamic and complex consumer behavior within the context of marketing and the strive for it to achieve its ultimate goal (Hansen & Christensen, 2003). The other important concern is the emergence of various media platforms on which advertising is presented. Such platform shapes the kind of message that the advertising content is destined to pass across and most important to kind of audience that it intended to address. Such aspect will automatically influence the value and role that advertising in the contemporary communications environment.

In a more precise perspective value creation is a key aspect of advertising to organizations. That is, companies and firms are more interested in the value that they derive out of advertising initiative as indicated by Eric, John, & Nicolas (2016). Therefore, it is fundamental that the advertising process translates into successful business performance. Just like product and services which need to uphold high of quality in order to enhance value creation to consumers, advertising’s quality must also meet the highest level of standards so that it can contribute hugely in the sales of the products and services that a company provides, as it increases the performance level of the company as well as its bottom line across the industry nationally and internationally. The consumer landscape is a growing paradigm from the different perspectives of online consumers, digital content marketing, therefore a more appropriate advertising platform is critical in impacting on consumers and thus boosting the performance levels of a company.

Foster Consumer Engagement

Advertising has played a critical role in fostering consumer engagement. The successful implementation of digital content marketing (DCM) across the different companies as Random House, Coca-Cola, and Role has resulted in creating consumer awareness, loyalty among consumers, and sales lead conversation (Hollebeek & Macky, 2019). DCM can be attributed to a management process in which its undertakings involves anticipating, identifying an ensuring satisfaction of customers through most appropriate digital content. DCM is a fundamental marketing tool in which information about a firm’s product or service is formulated and disseminated across the different consumers across the globe as noted in the research by Hollebeek and Macky (2019). Additionally, the tool aids the process of developing consumer connections and create a greater level of consumers being attached to brand, and thus contributing to the increased performance and competitiveness of that particular company in its industry of operation locally and internationally (McCoy & Course (2017).

Well-designed advertising contents try to create value to customers by being the source of information about a brand that they need. That is, the advertising put much emphasis on making the consumers to continuous appreciate the brand or the company itself. It focuses on achieving this by ensuring that it adds value to the lives of these consumers, for instance, by providing a short information and message that can educate the consumers about the product, its use, its importance, and the possible side effects that the come with the use of such a product or service (Hollebeek & Macky, 2019). The authors further acknowledge that advertising will ultimately boost the sales levels of a product or a service, but this can only be achieved through boosting consumer perspective of the brand.

Interpretation of Quality of Intangible Services

According to Spotts, Weinberger and Weinberger (2019), consumers would make rational judgment on products since they can see, feel and touch them: therefore, assess their quality and quantity as well. However, in case of intangible services, there is a problem since when a consumer may have not experienced it first-hand or be informed by another consumer then such lack of knowledge creates a huge gap between the consumers and a possible move to consume the product (Spotts et al., 2019). Advertising is bridging this gap. It is unveiling the content of the service, its attributes among other components that the customer need to know. That is, advertising gives an insightful perspective of some of the professional or consumer services, for instance, consulting, medical care, and teaching. Spotts et al. (2019) posit that these services are highly intangible and consumers would only assess them on basis of subjectivity. Therefore, Spotts et al. (20019) posit that advertising becomes the most reliable platform on which the consumers can base their understanding and make rational decisions after being provided with accurate information through the advertising content as provided the company about a particular product. the consumers would only understand the quality and quantity of the services through the information they get from the advertisement of the product.

Enhancing Brand Equity

Advertising not only advances the awareness aspect among the consumers but it also ensures that such awareness creates a positive brand attitude (Hansen & Christensen, 2003). With a positive brand attitude among consumers is known among marketers to result in the creation of brand equity. The more advert informs the consumers about the aspect of the product or the service that would result in creating value to their lives, the more the product elongates and expands the ground to be accepted across a wide range of customers. According to (Hansen & Christensen, 2003, p. 13), such value addition should be depicted in the advertisement to be over and above what the product or service is objectively characterized to achieve. That additional value that the product or service adds is basically embodied in the attitudes of the consumers towards that particular brand. The brand equity is one aspect that is subject to change as time goes. It primarily leans on the brand name, as it provides an up-to-date summary of thee feelings, experiences and knowledge of the customers about the company’s product or service (Buil, De Chernatony & Martínez, 2013). Companies need to understand that the process of enhancing brand equity calls for an effective advertising process which meets the set objectives, that is, ensuring that the consumers have a positive attitude towards the product or service (Spotts et al, 2019). Therefore, they need to undertake a well-framed brand management process on a continuous basis in order to ensure that there is a continuing positive brand attitude among consumers. On this aspect of brand equity as a key role that advertising plays, Buil, De Chernatony and Martínez (2013) further supports this perspective by stating that it is a key concern in marketing though it remains a multi-faceted construct.

Conclusion

Many agencies and organization devote much of their budget to develop insights to enhance their advertising process. The role and value of advertising across different industries cannot be overestimated at any point in the organization life span. That is, a similar perspective id evidenced in the research undertaken by McCoy and Course (2017) that advertising has been associated with boosting consumers awareness and thus increasing sales output of the product or service being promoted through the advertising content. The authors allude the value of the advertising process by gauging the benefits against the costs that are incurred in rolling out such a project (McCoy & Course, 2017, p. 18). The value and role that advertising creates on the company’s bottom line basically is not only pegged on the budget amount that is allocated for the undertaking of such a project but also the quality of advertising the company undertakes. Moreover, advertising enhances brand equity which entails the additional value that the consumers of the product or service would be able to derive as a result of suing it. The understanding the brand equity among other aspect of advertising as a key measure of brand success is a concrete basis to advance the advertising undertaking of a company from time to time. The emphasis is increasing the budget allocation of the advertising will never be unrewarded is executed in the most effective way.

References

1. Buil, I., De Chernatony, L., & Martínez, E. (2013). Examining the role of advertising and sales promotions in brand equity creation. Journal of Business Research, 66(1), 115-122.
2. Eric, A., John, S., & Nicolas, B. (2016). The Elements Of Value Measuring—And Delivering—What Consumers Really Want.
3. Hansen, F., & Christensen, L. B. (Eds.). (2003). Branding and advertising. Copenhagen Business School Press DK.
4. Hollebeek, L. D., & Macky, K. (2019). Digital content marketing’s role in fostering consumer engagement, trust, and value: Framework, fundamental propositions, and implications. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 45, 27-41.
5. McCoy, R., & Course, S. S. (2017). The Nature f Value and Understanding Its Impact on the Sales Experience.
6. Spotts, H. E., Weinberger, M. G., & Weinberger, M. F. (2019). Advertising and Promotional Effects on Consumer Service Firm Sales: Media Ad Spend and Quality Matter For Driving Restaurant Sales. Journal of Advertising Research, JAR-2019.

Introduction

(Arthur Rooney, 1995) states the brand owner must allocate more resources to promote through advertising if they want to make a product successful. It is simply because advertising can expose potential consumers to the brand and accept it. As advertising has always been one of the most important marketing tools for enterprises to deliver messages to the target audience, (Marshall, 2015) explains that most Americans are exposed to around 4,000 to 10,000 advertisements every day. Therefore, not only a brand owner should dedicate more resources to advertising but its advertising campaigns should be able to cut through noises and resonate with the target audience. In this essay, I will discuss how creative Leo Burnett London makes people think about McDonald’s without mentioning McDonald’s in the new outdoor campaign and provide reasons why it is considered an outstanding advertising campaign.

Brand Self Confidence – McDonald’s

When I first looked at the campaign, it significantly drew my attention as it cannot be distinguished which brand is it. Therefore, I had to rethink what is the campaign conveyed, then I supposed the brand of the campaign is McDonald’s by its ingredients, colours, “Iconic Stack” and the font design. The features of the campaign have successfully created people’s association back to McDonald’s products. However, advertising a product without mentioning the brand’s name may be achieved in only a few international brands. Since McDonald’s is widely recognisable and most of the people may have had consuming experience in there, it has demonstrated the brand self-confidence. For example, when I paid attention to the above image, I understood that was the Sausage& Egg McMuffin since I have had the product many times. As a result, it can be seen consumers have a strong relationship with McDonald’s.

The design of the campaign

Colour

The advertising campaign was created by Leo Burnett London, in collaboration with David Schwen, who is a renowned designer due to his famous work called “Type Sandwiches”. “Type Sandwiches” means a typeset poster enumerating the ingredients of sandwiches as “word stacks” in the order they would be in real life. Thus, recreating the meal in type form without images (Brewer, 2020). In terms of the design originality of the advertising campaign is attributed to the colours, the ingredients, Iconic Stacks, and the Helvetica typeface which made the campaign creative, memorable and engaging. An advertising message must include these three elements (Marshall, 2015). First and foremost, the colour palette is moderate and vivid which gives viewers a refreshing feeling instead of forced or aggressive. Moreover, the colour of each word stack represents the colour of the ingredient. For example, the text colour of the bun is light brown whereas the text colour of the beef is dark brown. This not only provides food values to viewers but also enables viewers creating their imagination.

Iconic Stacks

Iconic Stacks is the text-centric advertising tool typically used for food and restaurant marketing. To decode the text of food ingredients into consumers’ mind, it will make consumers salivate. It is how McDonald’s build a relationship with the target audience. From my perspective, it is similar to a menu in an Italian restaurant as I often read the description of the dish before what to order.

Helvetica typeface

The campaign adopted the Helvetica font because it is one of the most common and popular typefaces in the world. Due to its minimalist concept, It has been largely used in many brands and social media platforms, such as Burberry, Off-white™, NASA, Knoll, and Remowa, and Facebook and Instagram’s posts (HYPEBEAST ZH, 2020). Technically speaking, Helvetica is sans-serif, which means it does not contain the small lines or end strokes so that it is not referencing any language or era. One advantage of using Helvetica font is because it gives no meaning, which can fit in a part of our culture and daily lives (‘The Simplicity of Helvetica | Webdesigner Depot’, 2010). Think about whether Times New Roman can achieve the same result? Another advantage of adopting Helvetica typeface is that viewers can concentrate on the text rather being distracted or bored by the font. Therefore, it is widely used in aeroplanes logos, sneakers, product logos, coins, websites, packaging, and numerous other items. Besides, versions of Helvetica are even available in Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Greek etc. The simplicity and minimalist of Helvetica have made the McDonald’s campaign more readable and noticeable.

References

1. Arthur Rooney, J. (1995). Branding: a trend for today and tomorrow. Journal Of Product & Brand Management, 4(4), 48-55. https://doi.org/10.1108/10610429510097690
2. Marshall, R. (2015). How Many Ads Do You See in One Day?. Red Crow Marketing. Retrieved 19 March 2020, from https://www.redcrowmarketing.com/2015/09/10/many-ads-see-one-day/.
3. Brewer, J. (2020). This McDonald’s campaign depicts its menu in typographic form. Itsnicethat.com. Retrieved 20 March 2020, from https://www.itsnicethat.com/news/leo-burnett-london-david-schwen-iconic-stacks-mcdonalds-advertising-300120.
4. (2020, March 11). Helvetica 字體為何受到諸多奢侈品牌的青睞？| Behind The HYPE [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVkRjSXZ7mI
5. The Simplicity of Helvetica | Webdesigner Depot. Webdesigner Depot. (2010). Retrieved 20 March 2020, from https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2010/01/the-simplicity-of-helvetica/.
6. Hitti, N. (2020). McDonald’s latest ads sub out its brand name for ingredients lists. Dezeen. [Photograph]. Retrieved 20 March 2020, from https://www.dezeen.com/2020/02/12/mcdonalds-advertisement-leo-burnett/.

China is one of developed countries in the world that being successful in the field of business. It makes other countries try to understand and learn about China’s business, aimed to make their business as successful as China’s business. It leads many researchers around the world try to identify the key points of successful China’s business related to the business relationships. Generally, marketing plays an important role as business function to create a good business to establish the relationship between customer and firm’s organization and marketing is a discipline that is continually developing (Mckeage & Gulas, 2013). Kotler & Armstrong (2012) described that marketing is not only selling and advertising, but it is all about satisfying customer needs and managing profitable customer relationship to create value for customers and capture value from customers in return. The art of marketing lies in adding the value to make their market different to the competitors, this strategy also can be done by other competitors, but good marketing relationships are difficult to be imitated (Yau, Lee, Chow, Sin & Tse, 2000). Yau et al. (2000) argued that every business will inevitably face relationship dynamics related to the concept of relationship marketing in order to do the interactive process in society where relationship building is a vital concern.

Relationship marketing is the process of attracting a new customer and retaining customer (Schumann, 2009) as a firm’s strategy to change the marketplace and external business environment (Palmer, 1999) for the long-term oriented and emphasizes cooperative behaviors (Wang, 2007). A relationship or connection can be translated into Chinese language as guanxi. In Chinese culture, especially in Chinese business culture, guanxi is complicated item that used for describing personal relationships between people, but this simple translation can never fully explain the exact meaning of guanxi in Chinese culture (Yang, 2011). Guanxi is the traditional Confucian concept of a personal relationship and it defines the Chinese moral code (Wong & Leung, 2012). Chinese people using guanxi when they face non-routine problem that cannot be solved easily through normal channel (Bu & Roy, 2015). In China’s business, guanxi treated as a business practice guidance and it is one of the most critical factors for the successful China’s business (Chang, Chou, Huang & Wang, 2016).

Chinese culture is one of the world’s oldest cultures that have big influences in the East Asia culture and also influence to some of Southeast Asia culture. Chinese culture is different with Western culture, it creates business cultural diversity that affect to the international or global marketing. The international marketing approach is primarily based on the USA’s markets and it may not applicable under a different culture and tradition, so a relational marketing approach is better suited to the culture of most countries (Arias, 1998). The combination between the uniqueness of Chinese culture and some Western relationship marketing principles is absorbed, guanxi using some relationship marketing principle to be a key determinant of a successful business in China (Wang, 2007). Western relationship marketing and guanxi have to do with managing relationship network and interaction (Arias, 1998) using basic characteristics such as mutual understanding, cooperative behavior and long-term orientation (Wang, 2007).

Exchange and fulfilment of promise and development of trust are the central importance steps of guanxi and relationship marketing (Arias, 1998). In Chinese business, the existing relationship still applying guanxi approach to maintain the firm’s performance, but for newcomers, they should focus on performance to earn the buyer’s trust before performing the guanxi tie (Chen, Huang & Sternquist, 2011). Although trust is the important aspect in both guanxi and relationship marketing, but those approaches have different practice of trust in business interactions. Western relationship marketing using a system trust rather than personal trust that used in guanxi practice in business interactions (Leung, Lai, Chan & Wong, 2005). Related to the guanxi, there is another Chinese cultural variable that useful in Chinese business which is xinyong. Xinyong can be translated from Chinese language as credit, but the meaning of xinyong in business practice is closer to the Western version of trust that related to the personal trust in the term of Chinese business relationship (Wang, 2007; Leung et al., 2005). Leung et al. (2005) found that there is no significant relationship between xinyong and customer satisfaction, when customer satisfied with the product or the service, it does not mean that the customer has xinyong to the supplier.

Developing trust in a relationship is one of expressive interaction to move the guanxi parties closer each other (Bu & Roy, 2015). High level of particularistic trust in relationships with kith and kin, a Chinese buyer may scarify business profits for personal friendship (Bu & Roy, 2015; Leung et al., 2005). Kith and kin (qinyou) associations is traditional source to get a partner in guanxi tie (Bu & Roy, 2015). Using pre-existing kith and kin association to get business partner will make the relationship closer and easier to get the trust from partners rather than building a new relationship with strangers. In fact, trust each other is really important to maintain the good relationship in every kind of social relationship, but once he/she failed to maintain partner’s trust and failed to fulfill the promises, he/she will no longer in the relationship circle.

Chinese businessmen are preoccupied with developing and maintaining guanxi relationship across organizational boundaries such as business-to-business and business-to-government (Bu & Roy, 2015). Maintaining good relationship in guanxi will generate good benefits for the firm, such as connect to partnership firm and government offices, gain access to “insider” information, decode government policy intents and open up needed resources that are otherwise unavailable (Gu, Huang & Tse, 2008). It shows the great power of guanxi in Chinese business, guanxi not only supporting the business through the relationship with customers like relationship marketing does, but guanxi also supporting the business through the relationship with the government that give so many benefits for firm’s performance. Gu et al. (2008) argued that guanxi are relevant to the three issues; market performance, corporate level to influence performance and potential damaging effect on firm performance. Each system have a bright and a dark side, Gu et al. (2008) argued that the dark side of guanxi can be found when the guanxi network fails, by that moment it will give an overburdening of corporate obligation, domino effects, overreliance and collective biases.

The fact that China is a country with one fifth the world’s consumers attracts a large number of business people to enter China’s market (Yang, 2011). The international competition and the globalization cause the number of suppliers and buyers to increase and the competition tend to become fierce (Kleinaltenkamp, Plinke & Sӧllner, 2015). To face the fierce competition in international competition, Morgan & Hunt (1994) suggest that multinational companies must collaborate to compete. For multinational companies from the West conducting business in China might be challenging, because they need to deal and understand the Chinese business culture (Yang, 2011). To face the global market, especially with target markets in China, companies must understand the key aspects in Chinese business. Guanxi is one of the key successful Chinese businesses that share same purpose with relationship marketing in the business relationship, but both approaches have different practice. This article aims to further understanding regarding the differences of guanxi and relationship marketing with a bright and dark side of both in Chinese market.

According to Merriam-Webster’s Advanced Learners’ English Dictionary the verb to advertise means to make the public aware of something, to cause people to notice something. – page 25, 2008, USA Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. The origin of the word can be traced back from the early 15th century and it means ‘to take notice of’ (a sense now obsolete), from Old French advertiss-, present participle stem of advertir (earlier avertir) ‘make aware, call attention, remark; turn, turn to’ (12th century ), from Latin advertere ‘to direct one’s attention to; give heed,’ literally ‘to turn toward,’ from ad ‘to, toward’ (see ad-) + vertere ‘to turn’.

Early forms of advertising can be traced to ancient civilizations. An early form of advertising, “criers”, originated in Babylonia in 3000 B.C. when people used to go on streets carrying their merchandise and shouting so that they could draw attention. Egyptians used papyrus in order to create sales messages or they used to carve advertising messages on stone slabs and place them along the main roads for people. The most interesting thing is that in Europe, during the Middle Ages, when people were unable to read the words, the merchants used to use an image associated with their trade. For example, instead of a sign that read “tailor” one could use an image of a suit. Modern advertising began taking a more contoured shape with the newspapers and magazines from the 16th and 17th century while the commercial advertisements were for books and medicines. One must keep in mind that the newspapers were not the newspapers that we know in the present days but rather they were in the shape of news-letters.

Branding has existed since the prehistoric era. From cave paintings and cattle branding to symbols used by humans, branding was different from what we know today. Today we define it as a process that takes part in creating a unique name and image for a certain product in a consumer’s vision, solely through marketing campaigns in order to establish a unique presence on the market that the product represents. “Advertising and communication agencies produce cultural texts that portray consumption by drawing on social practices and symbols extant in wider, non-consumption culture. For example, at the most simple level, a promotion that pictures people riding on a public bus cannot communicate anything unless viewers of the ad are familiar with the cultural practice of riding on a public bus. Riding on a bus is not merely an act: it is a cultural practice because it is subject to agreed rules that are never actually stated.”

What we can notice nowadays is that culture represents the basis of every advertisement that a company chooses to make. Advertisers must pay attention to the uses of gestures in general because they can lead to a failure if not used properly within one’s cultural frame of reference. This is can be the beginning of a downfall for a lot of powerful companies when they do not respect one’s cultural limits. From broadcasted to social media, we see and hear advertisements everywhere: on our phones, on the billboards from the center of the city, on our TV. Being exposed to all the products we tend to consume more and to buy more. Consumerism has its own part in the results of a good marketing campaign. It represents a function of cultures and it is strongly related to globalization, which has created the opportunity of purchasing goods by the consumers.

However is not always enough just to create the advertisement. A company must always take into account the country in which it chooses to broadcast it, its culture, its history and the people that live in that country. Signification must always occur in the context of behavior or gesture that offers the meaning required. Advertisers must be sensitive to the uses of gestures in general because they can lead to a failure if not used properly due to lack of thinking outside the planners’ cultural frame of reference.

Over the years, advertising has never failed to draw public attention. With the development of technology, advertising has become one of the most integral parts to improve the sales of businesses. Performing an effective advertising is important for businesses to create brand equity, maintain the brand loyalty and achive success (Keller & Kotler, 2016). It is true that advertising is a form of marketing which reach the viewers through various traditional media such as TV ads, newspaper, or modern media such as email marketing, blogs, websites. Furthermore, the technological advancements have made advertising become more prevalent and influential in its impact on the society. This evolution has led to the fact that many organizations have a tendency to use unethical advertising which can be considered unethical advertising in order to reach new potential customers and gain higher profits. The growing trend of fraudulent advertising can seriously affect consumers’ health, especially children and women. Furthermore, this phenomenon also have a detrimental effect on gender stereotypes, not to mention children’s perspective on gender roles in the society. Clearly, unethical advertising have negative consequences not only on health but also on gender equality.

Advertising is a tool for businesses to market their products or services as well as to remain consumers loyal to their brands. It is spread through television, newspapers, magazines and social networks. Basically, advertising take an important role in improving the communication between businesses and communities through mass media channels. Because of the constant change of advertising, there are a majority of the rules that advertisers should follow in order to protect consumers’ rights. However, most of the organizations tend to produce advertising that have morally wrong content without considering the ethical issue or the severe consequences they may cause to people. Advertising is unethical when it is creating and misrepresenting false messages or inaccurate information to people through social media. These unethical advertisements include exaggeration, unverified claims, comparative advertising and unethical stereotyping gender. Exaggeration is false statements to attract people to buy the companies’ products or services. Advertisers tend to exaggerate in their advertisements to promote the benefits of the products. They also use unverified claims of the product’s quality such as food, drink, or beauty products without proving any scientific evidence. Another unethical type of advertising is comparative advertising between companies. Comparative advertising is a marketing strategy that a company attempt to convince consumers that their products or services have a better quality than its competitor’s products. As a result, this type of advertising may cause customer to have difficulties in selecting products from different companies. Moreover, advertisers also use stereotyping advertising to draw attention to their brand as well as to generate sales , including underrepresent women as sex objects or domestic servants, describe women to be associated with their families and men. It is clear that stereotyping advertising is unethical advertising because of enhancing stereotypical gender roles. In fact, there are various marketing practices that demonstrate the existence of such deception, and it is true that purchasers may be aware of this, but they are unable to discover it. Consequently, it is difficult for customers to avoid these unethical advertising, so they are exposed to it and affected directly to their purchasing decisions one way or another.

It is irrefutable that misleading advertisements have a negative influence on consumers, especially health. Nowadays, many businesses tend to intend their marketing for the different age groups. To be more specific, there are a large number of advertising companies make junk food seem irresistible as they are conscious of the fact that children can easily be affected by advertisements and become physically addicted to junk food. This is because children are inclined to lack of knowledge and experience to understand and evaluate thoroughly the purpose of the persuasive advertising appeals, they are unable to distinguish between commercials and programmes as well as to discriminate between reality and fantasy. Therefore, these unethical advertising have influenced negatively not only on the eating habits but also the health of children. For instance, nowadays, due to the mass commercial of high-calorie foods and unhealthy beverages as tasty and spectacular meals, children have propensities to consume the large amount of these kinds of food that have highly saturated fat, rather than nutritious and healthy food. Furthermore, according to BBC news, 35% of children all over the world have long-term problems with obesity, diabetes, heart problems and many other severe diseases. This confirms the fact that one of the main factors that is partly responsible for the increasing number of child obesity is advertising. Additionally, unethical advertising has a significant impact not only on children but also on women. In recent years, women are more likely to use skin-lightening creams or fat burning products due to unethical advertising (Newaz 2017). That means these types of advertising mainly make unproven claims that by using such beauty products, women can easily lighten their skin colour or even burn fat with a remarkable speed. In contrast, such chemicals are responsible for illnesses such as skin cancer and heart diseases. Moreover, according to the Guardian, most of the creams traded in the market have been found to contain dangerous compounds such as hydroquinone, steroids and mercury, which can not only cause skin damage by poisoning and thinning of the skin but also lead to liver and kidney malfunction. Thus it is evident that fraudulent advertising have damaging effects on customers’ health, especially children and women.

In addition, misleading advertising not only have a damaging effect on health, but also on gender stereotypes. Due to the availability of similar products from different companies in the market, the purchasers have a wide range of commodities to select. As a result, most of the companies have a tendency to publicize their products in such a way that can attract attention to more consumers to generate higher profit. This is the reason why sexual appeal and content have been used as a common marketing strategy, especially the female body is increasingly used as eye-catcher. Most false advertisements have inclination to generate a limited representation of social role as well as to create negative and unrealistic portrayals (Kosunnen at al. 2017). Nowadays, women are more likely than men to be shown wearing revealing clothing or performing as sex acts, or be described as objects or animals. Moreover, women represented in different kinds of ads are shown to be beautiful and exceptionally thin. This common phenomenon has created a negative effect on women’ image in society. These unethical advertisements increase tremendous impact on men’ mind that women are objects, who can be exploited easily as they are weak physically as well as need a man for their protection. For example, according to The Conversation, Sofitel Brisbane central had showed a couple eating breakfast in bed. While a man is reading the Australian Financial Review, a woman is reading a Chanel coffee table book. This example confirms the fact that women continue to be shown in stereotypical roles such as housewives, and the products associated with them are appliances, furniture or commodities related to health, cleaning or beauty. In contrast, men typically represented as powerful, intelligent and responsible, as well as associated with top-level corporate management positions or financial products. Additionally, misleading advertising also has a significant impact on children’ understandings of gender roles in society. By targeting dolls, clothes and cosmetics towards girls and action figures, video games, and sporting equipment towards boys, the false advertising constricts children into stereotyped roles and socialize them to accept these categorization. The promotion of these stereotypes has lead to an unhealthily prescriptive situation that children realize the toys they see advertised are only for one gender. Through advertisements, children learn lo categorize themselves by gender. Girls absorb that they are supposed to be attractive and caring, while males familiarize that they are expected to be ambitious, independent and strong. This sets a detrimental precedent for child development and socialization skills.

ABSTRACT

When it comes to media advertising and programming, there are basic factors to consider. These factors include; target audience, time of airing, gender, age and most importantly the adverts to run during the breaks and sponsors of a show.

Most media organizations rarely bother with programming. Most shows in our televisions and radio stations have been running for almost ten years. Citizen TV has had shows like Inspector Mwala, Mother-in-Law, Machachari and Papa Shirandula for so long that even the kids who started watching them have grown fed up with them.

It is important for media organizations to do an audience analysis before the beginning of every New Year to determine popularity of a show instead of relying on information from Geo-poll or even Info-trak. This will help tell whether the show should be scrapped of the station or renewed for a new season. This paper shows the importance of programming and advertising in media organizations. It also showcases some of the issues of advertising in today’s media.

Introduction to the study

Broadcast programming or scheduling is the practice of organizing television shows or radio programs in a daily, weekly, or season-long schedule. Modern broadcaster use broadcast automation to regularly change the scheduling of their programs to build an audience for a new show, retain that audience, or compete with other broadcasters’ programs.

The mass media has social responsibility to the public as the consumers. According to McQuail (1992), the freedom of mass media or the press should be directed properly in order to give real benefits to the community and their audiences, not just to liberate the mass media and its owners from liability, expectations, and demands of society. In this case, the mass media do not only have the right but also the obligations to the public. Thus, freedom of the media should also tie to public’s rights and the existence of social responsibility (Masduki, 2007).

As a social institution and a vehicle for public communication, the mass media bridges the relationship between the media, the public, the state and the market, and adheres the principle of balance between freedom and responsibility. The public interest and primacy should be the references in implementing media freedom. In this case, the media should take into account the basic principles of public broadcasting; i.e. PICON (public’s importance or interest, public’s convenience, and public’s necessity and need).

Besides, the media has the role to educate in order to be able to give enlightenment, intellectuality, and make people understand their rights and obligations as citizens. Many of TV programs contain low tastes and tend to be commercialized for mere entertainment industry. In this situation, the theory of free and responsible media is required.

PROJECT BACKGROUND

According to Encyclopedia of Communication and Information COPYRIGHT 2002 the Gale Group Inc.)While the television set and the radio receiver are considered to be ‘hardware,’ programming is the essential ‘software’ that actually tempts people to use these devices. The primary function of the station or network is to provide programming content that will appeal to some segment of the audience. The ability of a station to reach its desired audience will determine its success. Its programming mission and strategy are critical to its viability. As such, programming is the most visible and most vital commodity of television.

When it comes to programming, you need to consider the genre, time of air, target audience and also the advertisements and promotions. There are some basic programming strategies that are common to both radio and television. A station or network must analyze the audiences that is available during a given time of day, examine its own schedule as well as that of the competition, determine the budget and revenues that are available for that time, and with its ultimate goals in mind make programming decisions.

What program comes on before and after each show is another important factor, as well as what the other networks are offering in the same time slot. Added to this are target audience demographics (characteristics such as age, race, sex and economic level), program promotions, and advertiser appeal. Each of these factors is crucial for having a successful show and a successful season.

LITERATURE REVIEW

According to (Programming and Advertising Competition in the Broadcasting Industry Jean J. Gabszewicz, Didier Laussel and Nathalie Sonnac) The extent to which advertising influences media content has been under close scrutiny for several decades.

Steiner (1952) was the first to open the debate in a precise manner, when conjecturing that competition among private broadcasters could lead to insufficient program diversity, due to the search for advertising revenues. His argument was based on the idea that popular programs could be duplicated excessively in order to attract larger audiences and thereby more advertisers.

Pure duplication of the channels’ programs never is observed at equilibrium: without differentiating their programs, channels would enter into cutthroat competition through ad broadcasting time reductions in order to increase audience; this competition leads to zero advertising profits. Without publiphobia, or with a weak publiphobia, the model even predicts maximal program differentiation of the channels. With a more significant publiphobia, channels continue to differentiate their programs so as to increase advertising broadcasting time without losing too much audience. But the extent of this differentiation is limited by publiphobia: “excessive” ad broadcasting time leads to audience losses that are incompatible with advertising profits maximization. We show that the degree of program differentiation decreases with the size of publiphobia.

There are several papers closely related to the present analysis. Vaglio (1995) proposed a Hoteling type model of the audience for TV broadcasting that shares several properties.

In particular, he supposed that consumers are advertising averse and notices that, due to this aversion, TV channels face the dilemma of either making money with a low ad to program ratio in order to keep large audiences, or doing it with a high ad to program ratio, which entails audience losses. Also, he tried to analyze how the fact that ad to program ratios are subject to government’s regulation could affect the behavior of TV channels when selecting their programs.

According to Anderson and Coate (2000), TV and radio broadcasts constitute a specific type of public good. Then they questioned the ability of the market to provide broadcasting efficiently in a context where broadcasters earn revenue by selling time to advertisers. They concluded that, depending on the parameter values, there may be under as well as overprovision of programming and advertisements.

According to ( Anderson, Simon P. and Stephen Coate. ‘Market Provision Of Broadcasting: A Welfare Analysis,’ Review of Economic Studies, 2005, v72(253,Oct), 947-972) Its main focus is to explore the ability of the market to provide broadcasting efficiently in a world in which broadcasters earn revenues by selling time to advertisers and advertisements provide information to consumers about new products.

The paper shows that market provided broadcasts may feature too few or too many commercials, depending on the relative sizes of their social benefit and their nuisance cost to viewers. In addition, the market may provide too few or too many types of programs, depending on the relative size of viewing benefits and the benefits to advertisers from contacting viewers.

The possibility of both under and over-provision of advertisements and programming, means that there are ranges of the parameters for which the market provides broadcasting close to efficiently.

According to research on (Advertising, Competition and Entry in Media Industries, by Claude Crampes, Carole Haritchabalet and Bruno Jullien) Recent innovations, such as digitalization or the Internet, have considerably reduced the limitation on transmission channels, providing new opportunities for entry. New media, new business models and media convergence have drastically changed the media market conditions.

In a context where the number of media platforms that can be distributed increases, socially excessive entry may become a real concern. My paper is intended to illuminate the on going process by discussing the role of advertising from a two sided market perspective.

Digital technologies have also deeply changed both the way information is transmitted and the way a specific audience can be targeted. The model we use in this paper takes account of this technological advance by assuming that the returns from advertising for broadcasters and the disutility of advertising for households are not necessarily linear functions of the number of announcements. With a linear advertising technology, the revenues from advertising are competed away through lower subscription prices and equilibrium profits are the same as in models with no advertising.

This profit equivalence breaks when the advertising technology is not linear: profits are higher and there is more entry if the advertising revenue per subscriber decreases with the audience. We then analyze the implications for entry and efficiency, and extend the analysis to various relevant contexts, incorporating price setting in the advertising market, free media and endogenous content.

The literature on financing media from two sides includes content by Gabszewicz, Laussel and Sonnac [2001] and Dukes and Gal‐Or [2003] who analyze the impact of advertising on the level of differentiation. They find that advertising reduces differentiation between media platforms. More recently, Peitz and Valletti [2004] compare both the advertising intensity and the level of differentiation when media platforms offer free services and when the subscription price is positive. Our model does not allow for endogenous differentiation apart from the impact of entry, but we also conclude that free services are associated with larger advertising levels when customers dislike advertising.

The analysis of Anderson and Coate [2005] focuses on welfare issues. They show that equilibrium advertising levels can be above or below socially optimal levels and that media platforms can provide too many or too few programs. Armstrong [2006] compares an advertising quantity game and an advertising price game in the Hoteling model.

When it comes to programming and advertising, the media organizations are able to use different platforms and methods as strategies to promote new shows. According to a (curata blog) an employee advocacy program is one way of leveraging communities. It allows you to utilize the strength in numbers approach to promote your content to more social media users. However, you first have to have a community in order to do so. There are already more than two million communities within LinkedIn alone.

Not to mention additional communities in the form of Twitter chats, Google Plus communities, shared Pinterest boards, and even Facebook Groups. Joining and becoming an engaging member of relevant communities allows you to promote your content to a much targeted audience of social media users.

Such groups could be in the hundreds, thousands, or even more—the largest LinkedIn Group has more than one million members! (There’s even a community for content marketing and promotion: The Content Marketing Forum.) For the youth, they are most likely to be found on YouTube and Instagram, the 35-50 generation is on Facebook while older than that read the newspaper, listen to the radio or watch television. Most corporates are on LinkedIn and Google Plus.

Some of the most commonly used strategies used during programming and advertising of new programs include:

Bridging

Bridging is being used when a station tries to prevent the audience from changing channels during a junction point – the main evening breaks where all channels stop programs and shift gear (Ellis, 2000). This is achieved in a number of ways including:

• a) Having a program already underway and something compelling happening at a junction point,
• b) Running a program late so that people ‘hang around’ and miss the start of other programs, or
• c) Television advertising the next program during the credits of the previous.

Stacking

According to Whitakerd 2018, when a station or network schedules a number of programs consecutively that have a similar demographic appeal, this is referred to as stacking. Often, networks will stack a series of sitcoms together, assuming that audience flow will hold viewers for several hours. Back in the 90’s and early 2000’s ABC was using this method of stacking for their TGIF (Thank God It’s Friday) lineup.

It was a series of funny, light-hearted, comedies that appealed to a large target audience and was very successful lasting for many years. ABC has pulled this idea back out with their TGIT lineup on Thursday nights with Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away With Murder. The target audience for these drama’s would be largely Women 18-49.

Stacking is a technique used to develop audience flow by grouping together programs with similar appeals to ‘Sweep’ the viewer along from one program to the next (Vane and Gross, 1994, p.175).

Counterprogramming

Whitekerd 2018, if you are scheduling a program for a network or local station that’s opposite ‘Monday Night Football’ (an extremely popular TV series with men), you will probably not chose another program that appeals to men.

Unless you have something that will draw more men than the major football teams — and that would be difficult you would probably be better off scheduling a program that appeals to women who may not be interested in watching football.

Counterprogramming can also involve other demographic characteristics. For a program that appeals to an older audience you might want to counterprogram with something that appeals to a younger audience. For a program that appeals to a sophisticated audience, think about a program that appeals to a not-so-sophisticated audience.

Deciding on a target audience also involves your advertisers. A show that has commercials for expensive cars, designer clothes, exotic vacation spots, and upscale restaurants will have to appeal to an audience that can afford these things.

If you are trying to sell designer jeans, you don’t want to buy commercial time in a show that appeal primarily to an older audience. As mentioned earlier, advertisers are interested in the number of viewers that watch a show but they are even more interested in the show’s demographics. In fact, demographics are important to advertisers in any area of mass media: TV, radio, newspapers, online, magazines and books.

Demographics, again, refers to statistical data relating to the population and particular groups within it. This would include data on your audiences Age, sex, education, income, etc. Again the Nielsen Company are the ones that gather this data and provide their results to local and network stations who in turn use the data to make programming decisions and to sale commercial time.

Unusual strategies used to promote a show will include;

• Memes. The younger generation is obsessed will all things internet and memes have become a norm in their daily lives. A meme advertising a show can be passed from one WhatsApp group to another and from Instagram and snapchat to Facebook. People will upload it to their status thus giving the show free advertising amongst one’s peers.
• Promotions. Whereby, the cast offers prizes to loyal viewers and give out t-shirts and caps as an advertising strategy. There can also be roadshows to different counties and especially the major ones. During this period, the cast could act out scenes in their upcoming show to the people to get them sold on to the idea of a new program.

Pick a fan each day the program films to be a guest on the show and to allow them to visit the whole set. This will have more and more people watching hoping for the chance to be on television.

Nudity

A very common phrase in Kenya is sex sells. This applies all over the world and having a cast that oozes sex appeal will attract more viewers and of different demographics. Also, get a cast that is not afraid to use their own social media to advertise the show.

Get ideas from kids

According to Frank Armstrong from PR Daily, Kids have so much creativity. They say things with innocence and clarity, often out of curiosity and the struggle to understand new things by associating them with what they already understand. (They do this to a degree that most adults cannot.)For businesses that pay attention, children’s advice is free, unfiltered and often valuable.

It can lead to new talent acquisition.

CONCLUSION

And to conclude, I’d say that our media is severely lacking when it comes to prioritizing the younger generation when it comes to programming. There are more adult appropriate shows than there are kids’ shows. I mean what happened to the time where the children would come from school and watch cartoons as they took their snack??? The only station still airing cartoons at 4pm is KTN and even they are showing cartoons like SpongeBob, Sofia the first or even Elena of Avalor, all this can be found on Nickelodeon and Disney Junior.

Media organizations could do better and should strive to do so because as seasons change, so do people and we don’t want to wake up one day and realize no one watches local stations anymore.

REFERENCES

1. https://etsumcom.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/212867867-TELEVISION-PROGRAMMING
2. https://www.nber.org/papers/w7513 the national bureau of economic research
3. https://www.encyclopedia.com/media/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/television-broadcasting-programming-and encyclopedia.com
4. http://www.curata.com/blog/11-effective-ways-to-use-social-media-to-promote-your-content/
5. 11 Effective Ways to Use Social Media to Promote Your Content https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6451.2009.00368.x
6. ADVERTISING, COMPETITION AND ENTRY IN MEDIA INDUSTRIES https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1430-9134.2004.00027.x
7. Programming and Advertising Competition in the Broadcasting Industry
8. Jilid 32(1) 2016:207-231 Jurnal Komunikasi Malaysian Journal of Communication

In a world where money is king, advertising has become the seller’s best friend. But has it become the buyer’s worst enemy? Some studies suggest that we are exposed to as many as twenty thousand adverts per day. Some of these are subliminal, and most people won’t pay attention to more than one percent of all the ads that they see. But that still leaves an astounding two-hundred adverts seen by every person, every day. Adverts are everywhere. Anything that catches the eyes of potential buyers is likely to contain some form of advertisement. We are constantly bombarded with adverts, but how many of those are harmless and how many are dangerous?

One of the main concerns with advertisement is the way that they can manipulate our brains. Advertisers on the internet are able to have their products seen by millions every day, whether it be through websites or social media such as Facebook or Twitter. By associating a product with things that carry positive connotations, advertisers can convert these positive feelings that we have to positive feelings towards their product. Advertising creates a “fake need” in a person’s brain. It induces a desire for a product which they probably didn’t even know existed 30 seconds ago. Successful advertisers have found that a sense of fear and urgency is the most powerful form of advertising, and it effectively out-prioritises any other emotion which someone may feel towards a product. This shows that advertising is dangerous as it controls the subconscious of the brain and shepherds consumers towards buying products that they don’t need and may even be better off without.

The magnitude of this problem increases when the realisation that the majority of internet and social media users are young, impressionable children. These children are exposed to countless adverts per day, each one more enticing than the last. Advertising inspires and promotes impulse buying rather than evaluative and critical thinking. Marketing teaches children to buy based on the face of the brand while ignoring any negative effects that the product may have. Children are obsessed with their favourite celebrities and want to be like them in every way possible. If they see the celebrity that they idolize endorse a product, they are much more inclined to buy that product. This shows that we are causing problems for the younger generation by bombarding them with constant advertisement.

Seeing adverts online is bad enough, but when companies such as Facebook store your personal information to tailor ads to your ‘interests’ or ‘hobbies’, a much more serious problem begins to arise. In 2015, Facebook were taken to court over claims that they tracked the online browsing of not only Facebook users, but also those who don’t even own Facebook accounts. Targeted Advertisement is not only infringing the privacy of internet users, but it is also being used to promote political views. In early January, Facebook allowed ads to be shown on their website from Britain First, a far- right activist group best known for their harassment of Muslims in England, who were protesting against an “upgraded mosque” in Maidstone, England. Facebook insisted that the advert did not initially violate it’s policies, but were pressured to take down the ads due to Britain First being banned from the site several months earlier. Britain First have previously invaded multiple mosques and have attempted to convert those inside the mosques to Christianity by handing out bibles and claiming that they should “reject the false prophet Muhammad and read the bible”. Online adverts have a strong influence and need to be monitored to prevent promotion of wrongful ideals and morals.

Unfortunately, the tragedy of advertising doesn’t end there. The most prominent and powerful form of advertisement lies within gambling ads, which have proven their power to ruin lives and families. Gambling ads are all but inescapable. These ads have taken over television, in fact, it is not uncommon to see five or six betting ads in a row. But why are there so many? Research shows that last year the gambling industry spent over £1.5 billion on marketing and advertisement, and they do this because they make a lot of money from it. Gambling appeals to the side of a person that wants to be successful. They see it as a way to get rich without any effort or spending any time and that is exactly what the industry wants people to see. They want people to see the light at the end of the tunnel, that huge, illustrious jackpot while hiding the victims of gambling, the people who were encouraged to keep betting until they lost everything. These victims are much more common than people seem to believe. Over 400,000 people in the UK alone have a serious gambling addiction, while a further two million are at risk or on the brink of developing one. The industry won over £13.8 billion from UK gamblers in 2016 yet pay a measly £10 million in compensation to the government to help with problem gamblers. But those four-hundred thousand people don’t cover the full problem. It’s not just the population of over 18’s who’ve been affected by the allure of gambling.

Teenagers, 11 to 18-year olds, are exposed to just as many gambling advertisements as adults are, or possibly even more. Gambling ads are unrelenting, teenagers were found to be getting targeted ads from betting companies. This has been resolved in February of 2019 following a new ruling by the CAP. These ads have been shown to be detrimental to children’s welfare. A survey suggested that around 14% of children in the UK gamble on a somewhat regular basis and 1.7% of children had severe gambling problems. Studies have shown that online purchases, often found in video games, have seen an influx in buyers. These purchases are seen to be a “safe” and “child-friendly” form of gambling, but that is unfortunately not the case. Research clearly defines the relationship between gambling and responsiveness. The more times someone gambles, the less of a thrill they get from it, leading them to seek further heights to sate their gambling appetite. People who gamble have also been shown to have less control over their impulses than people who don’t gamble, whether it is a cause, or a consequence of gambling has yet to be determined fully. Advertisements influence impressionable teenagers and have shown to damage and eventually ruin young people’s lives.

Advertising, of course, isn’t all bad. Adverts can help spread the word about possible disease treatment, charities and many healthcare options for the elderly to name a few. Adverts even contribute massively to funding some of the world’s biggest companies such as ITV. Thanks to advertising, companies are forced to stay on their toes to keep their prices competitive, and consumers are able to see the best offers without much effort. Without advertising, local businesses would have a very difficult time opening and spreading the word about their services.

Therefore, it is clear that adverts and the industry of advertising shares a love-hate relationship with society. Although it helps in some key areas, the negative effects which it is having on our society – and more importantly our children – are far from ideal, and ultimately very harmful. A world in which advertising is allowed to run rampant brings about many doubts about our future. This is the question we must ask ourselves as this epidemic rears its ugly head; do we leave advertising how it is and suffer the consequences, or do we tackle this problem head on and confront it before it gets out of hand?