To conclude, for Assessment Objective 3, I will work in a marketing team or individually to produce one example of direct advertising, indirect advertising and a promotion. As a member of the group I will produce a production diary showing that I took part in a meeting to choose the type of advertisement/promotion, produced ideas/material for content and edited material.
Section 4: Meet Assessment Objective 4
Present a new media product and adverts/promotions to an audience and gain feedback
The fourth section will meet Assessment Objective 4 to present a new media product and adverts/promotions to an audience and gain feedback. The knowledge, understanding and skills required to achieve this are shown below, and will act as evidence to meet the assessment objective.
- Preparing and delivering a presentation:
- Delivery style and technique
- Presentation delivery skills
- Research, planning
- Organisation of materials
The above will act as evidence to meet the fourth assessment objective. However, to furthermore achieve this, the following will need to be completed as evidence:
- Carry out a well planned and rehearsed presentation (equipment had been thoroughly checked), which displays the product attractively and considers the needs of the audience, which is evident from the layout of the room
- Listen to the feedback provided by the audience
- Lead the discussion and give informed answers
- Distribute a short questionnaire using a correct format and well presented that asks questions focused on specific elements of the product, advertisement or promotion
- Alternatively interview a member of the audience
- Ask a range of open and closed questions from the interviewee and prompt extended answers from the interviewee
To conclude, for Assessment Objective 4, I should present, as part of a marketing team, the media product and the adverts/promotions to an audience. The presentation will include:
- Feedback presented to a client
- A verbal introduction to the marketing plan
- An opportunity for the audience to read, view or listen to the adverts/promotions
- An opportunity for the audience to read, view or listen to the product
- The completion of short questionnaires by a section of the audience on the quality of the media product or an in-depth interview with a member of the audience
- A discussion on the effectiveness of the product and the marketing plan
Section 5: Meet Assessment Objective 5
Evaluate feedback about the new media product and the advertising campaign
The fifth section will meet Assessment Objective 5 to evaluate feedback about the new media product and the advertising campaign. The knowledge, understanding and skills required to achieve this are shown below, and will act as evidence to meet the assessment objective.
- Feedback evaluated in terms of:
- Changes to the product
- Changes to the marketing plan
- Feedback presented to a client:
- Verbally
- In a written report
- Using graphic formats e.g. charts and graphs
The above will act as evidence to meet the fifth assessment objective. However, to furthermore achieve this, the following will need to be completed as evidence:
- Identify potential improvements to the product and the marketing plan based on audience feedback in the client report
- Present the report well and make appropriate use of images, graphs and charts to convey meaning in an accessible and comprehensive format
To conclude, for Assessment Objective 5, I will make a written or verbal report to a client on the product and the marketing plan covering potential changes to the product and changes to the marketing plan.
RESEARCH APPROACH
To successfully discuss any topic, the research used to understand it must be from reputable sources. The research methods chosen will be appropriate and applicable to marketing media and audience feedback. Consideration will also be given to the fact that this is a relatively broad and often complex field. The fact that immense amounts of research exists means there is greater scope for new ideas and fresh thinking to be formulated. As with anything new with marketing media and audience feedback, progressions cannot be made unless there are sound foundations in the understanding of the building blocks of that subject.
This unit aims to provide some of that background and theory, and recognises the potential for the vast amount of further research that could be undertaken on the subject. It would be impossible to cover all principal areas regarding marketing media and audience feedback, and I acknowledge such limitations in this assignment.
I will ensure that research is conducted through the use of suitable resources, encouraged to gather information from a wide variety of publications and websites to guarantee an up-to-date approach to many of the key areas of this unit. The research will be broken down into two types, primary and secondary, and the following are the resources that will be used to research this assignment:
Primary Research
For the assignment’s main aim, to understand the different aspects of marketing and how it is done professionally whilst knowing how to investigate research by media producers and official research bodies, examining various surrounding issues, a good understanding of this area is essential. To achieve this, a selection of books will be chosen to read prior to beginning this unit to provide the fundamental grounding to explore the topic.
The books topics will be on marketing media and audience feedback, written by authors of good credentials in their relevant fields, also concentrating on other important topics from publications such as The Complete Guide to Advertising by Douglas, Planning and Managing a PR Campaign: A Step-by-Step Guide by Gregory, 101 Ways to Market Your Business by Griffiths and Channel 4 100 Greatest TV Ads by Robinson.
Case studies will be selected from the books to help reinforce topics and provide a clearer understanding of difficult reading. I want to be abreast of new developments and so have decided to subscribe to a number of specialists which will result in regular newsletters, journals and trade magazines, in addition to discussion forums made available by their online versions. I am anticipating that the discussion forums will be an unexpectedly reliable way of keeping in touch with news and I predict they will act as sources of information in regards to where to find trade tools to analyse for the assignment.
Secondary Research
The wealth of online material at my disposal will be utilised to further progress the learning, although with this form of research its validity will be examined to ensure the reliability of any information used for this unit.
Various websites will be used to extract information that can be used in the production of this assignment, including those from the government, news media, law enforcement, private and public sector organisations. I intend to access useful websites such as The Advertising Standards Authority, The Chartered Institute of Marketing, Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, History of Advertising Trust Archive and Advertising Association.
From these sources, various research materials will be gained in the form of articles, reports, journals, white papers and laws specifically related to the topics being introduced. I expect that this will ultimately add a wide range of information from different perspectives. Consideration will be given to further ways of collecting research to use in this unit, with surveys, questionnaires and interviews providing options that can bring unique findings for the assignment. This is a viable option for the writing as the assessment objectives of the unit are not only to explain certain topics, but to obtain unique findings on the topic in which they will be provided.
SECTION 1: ASSESSMENT OBJECTIVE 1
ANALYSE THE MARKETING MIX FOR EXISTING MEDIA PRODUCTS
- Product – design/content
- Price – retail, ticket, subscriptions, special offers
- Place – distribution through retail outlets, television networks, cinemas, radio stations, Internet, locally, regionally, nationally, internationally
- Promotion – personal selling, advertising, publicity and PR, merchandising
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
For Assessment Objective 1, I will analyse the marketing mix campaign for one existing professional media product. The product I have chosen to analyse is the daily tabloid newspaper The Sun, published in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. The reason for this decision is based on the fact that it has the highest circulation of any daily English-language newspaper in the world. It stood at 3,107,412 copies daily in the first half of 2006 as well as being the best-selling US newspaper at 2,270,000 as cited from source statistics of USA Today.
In addition, The Sun has more than twice as many readers in the ABC1 demographic as its upmarket stablemate The Times with daily readership just over 7,800,000, although much less as a proportion of total sales. News Group Newspapers of News International, itself a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, publishes the newspaper. It is important to understand the fundamental elements of the marketing mix for this daily tabloid newspaper in terms of product, price, place and promotion.
INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING MIX,,,,,,,,
The initial component of this introduction concerns the marketing mix approach which is a model of crafting and implementing marketing strategies within the media.
It stresses how and why various factors are ‘mixed’ or blended in such a way that objectives are attained for both the organisation and consumer acting as target markets. Neil Borden (Borden N. 1964) developed the model and first started using the phrase in 1949, claiming that the phrase came to him while reading the activities of a business executive in a description by James Culliton:
(An executive is) “A mixer of ingredients, who sometimes follows a recipe as he goes along, sometimes adapts to the ingredients immediately available, and sometimes experiments with or invents ingredients no one else has tried”.
(Culliton, J. 1948)
The marketer(s) must consider their target market when blending the mix elements, understanding the wants and needs (Maslow) of the market (customer) and then construct (formulate) appropriate marketing plans and strategies that will satisfy these wants by using these mix elements. The objectives of the organisation must also be met or exceeded by the mix. As Borden put it:
“When building a marketing program to fit the needs of his firm, the marketing manager has to weigh the behavioural forces and then juggle marketing elements in his mix with a keen eye on the resources with which he has to work”.
(Borden, N. 1964 pg 365)
Depending on the organisational structure of the firm, a separate marketing mix is usually crafted for each market segment or for each product offering. Borden goes on to suggest a procedure for developing a marketing mix, claiming that you need two sets of information as a list of forces that influence these decision variables, and a list of important elements that go into the mix.
Generally reengineering theorists claim that, against the mix process, it re-enforces functional divisions within a company that lead to inefficiencies, rather than organising a firm into functional specialties (like marketing, sales, advertising, marketing research, new product development, to production, to marketing and distribution and customer satisfaction), according to James Champy and Michael Hammer (Champy, J. and Hammer, M. 1993).
The marketing mix approach leads to unprofitable decisions because it is not grounded in financial objectives such as increasing shareholder value, claims Peter Doyle (Doyle, P. 2000), who states that it has never been clear what criteria to use in determining optimum marketing mix. Adequate profit margins have not been generated with objectives such as providing solutions for customers at low cost.
Doyle argues that a net present value approach that maximises shareholder value provides a ‘rational framework’ for managing the marketing mix, as well as claiming that developing marketing based objectives while ignoring profitability has resulted in the dot-com crash and the Japanese economic collapse. In addition, he also claims that ignoring marketing objectives while pursuing a ROI approach is just as problematic.
Some claim that, against McCarthy’s four Ps, it is not an appropriate model for industrial product marketing and they are too strongly oriented towards consumer markets. Others claim it is not appropriate for the marketing of services and has too strong of a product market perspective.
INTRODUCTION TO MARKET ANALYSIS
The second component of this introduction concerns the planning activities of a firm in which market analysis plays a major part in its activities. A market analysis guides decisions on work force expansion or contraction, promotional activities, facility expansion, inventory, purchase, purchases of capital equipment and many other aspects of a company. These areas must have forecasts which are accurate and how they were derived must be understood by decision makers.
All managers must make decisions using the data of market analysis and understand how it was derived, but not all managers are asked to conduct this. However, an understanding of the tools most used for analysing markets and making sales forecasts is needed by all managers due to the fact that to understand a market analysis, managers need some knowledge of computers and a basic understanding of statistics.
Related to sales forecasting, there are a large number of market analysis techniques, where others are more general for analysing markets. Several areas in which market analysis is important is defined in the literature including market research, marketing strategy and sales forecasting, where market analysis and sales forecasting are complementary skills that should be possessed by any marketing manager.
INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING CAMPAIGN
The final component of this introduction concerns the marketing campaign which is essentially a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). Marketing campaigns appear in different media across a specific time frame. It is fair to say that the critical part of making a marketing campaign is determining a campaign theme, as it sets the tone for the individual advertisements and other forms of marketing communications, in relation to the central message and promotional activities.
MARKETING MIX: PRODUCT
The existing media product is a daily tabloid newspaper called The Sun. Product is the first of the Four Ps and the most important one because if the product is not good enough to satisfy the customer needs no marketing mix can make its sale. The functions of designing the product and its features, setting a quality standard, the branding, attractive packaging, added services, after sales, warranty, product life and returns fall under this head and the success or failure of the product highly depends on these functions.
The Sun is published and circulated in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, which affects the design and content to a certain extent due to the fact that it balances its focus on both British and International news and current affairs. It is also suggestive that the design and content of the newspaper, with its ease of reading used to represent the diverse number of news stories on a daily basis, are reasons as to why it has the highest circulation of any daily English-language newspaper in the world.
As previously established, The Sun has more than twice as many readers in the ABC1 demographic as its upmarket stablemate The Times, although much less of a proportion of total sales. It is a tabloid format which refers to a smaller newspaper format per spread, tending to emphasise sensational crime stories, gossip columns, repeating scandalous innuendos about the personal lives of celebrities and sports stars, and other so-called ‘junk food news’. It is a popular newspaper format in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland where it is published, with design and content contrasting to that of a broadsheet by not being traditionally associated with ‘higher-quality’ journalism as featured in The Times.
On a general scale, The Sun is a publication containing news, information and advertising, printed on low-cost paper called newsprint. It has, for many years, thrived in the face of competition from technologies such as radio, television and the Internet. Recent developments on the Internet are, however, posing major challenges to the business model of this newspaper in terms of design and content.
While The Sun is aimed at a broad spectrum of readers, usually geographically defined, it also focuses on groups of readers defined more by their interests than their location. For example, there is a varying degree of daily content surrounding business and sports. The design and content of The Sun newspaper is often described as being general-interest or journals of current news.
It often includes political events, crime, business, culture, sports and opinions in the form of editorials, columns and political cartoons. The newspaper uses photographs to illustrate stories and use editorial cartoonists to illustrate writing that is opinion, rather than news. These content features are carefully considered to ensure design is effective and achieves maximum efficiency.
Sections and supplements combine with features to create the content for the newspaper, where design refers to the order of items. An example includes the popular Sun Woman, covering diet and fitness on Monday, fashion on Tuesday, and a two-page spread on Wednesday. In addition, Supergoals and Midweek Supergoals provide coverage during the football season usually on a Monday, Thursday and Saturday. To increase the level of sports content in the newspaper, there is often extended sports coverage on Wednesdays which has proven very successful.
A fundamental aspect of the content of The Sun involves personalities Jane Moore,
Fergus Shanahan and Jon Gaunt with the Social Comment, as well as Ally Ross on TV, Sun Motors with Kevin Gibson, and weekend favourites Lorraine Kelly and Jeremy Clarkson who cover the main news. Content is important to the newspaper’s success, where design is particularly significant to the four-page health section printed once a week, as well as Fit Squad and Something for the Weekend.
In relation to Saturdays, content is very different with Sun World Travel, Sun Women Party Girls, Street Chic with Erica Davies, The Favourite during the racing season and TV Magazine being published to a large number of readers. On a Saturday, content is more specific but the design of the newspaper is adapted for the Social Comment by Lorraine Kelly, Travel with Lisa Minot at three pages long, Gardening with Peter Seabrook, and the popular classic Clarkson on Saturday.
The design of the newspaper is essential to its success in publication, circulation and overall sale. However, despite the many variations between weekdays and weekends evident in The Sun, daily content is quite possibly even more important to ensuring consistency of design. TV Biz and TV Today are read by a large number of audiences and Bizarre with Victoria Newton is a popular feature read by many. However, the type of content people read is clear with the Dear Deirdre Agony Aunt and Mystic Meg pages featured daily.
However, this newspaper seems to facilitate a certain degree of freedom for readers to contribute to the design and content with the Dear Sun Letters Page. In addition, the cartoons Premier and Hager help illustrate certain news or sport stories, with city and business news in Sun City adding to the variety of coverage featured within The Sun in which content is designed to fulfill the needs and wants of a number of different readers, with the design of the newspaper reflecting this fact very well.
The content of The Sun has been transformed to reflect the popular taste of readers and influencing public opinion. This often reflects the design of the newspaper as it has to accommodate such current issues where they purport to offer an ‘alternative’ viewpoint, either in the sense that the newspaper’s editors are more nationally-oriented or that the newspaper is editorially independent from major media conglomerates. Therefore it is important that the newspaper understands this.
Design often supports the content by providing a framework for which they are laid out, where the newspaper is commonly known to emphasise sensational crime stories, gossip columns about the personal lives of celebrities and sports stars, and junk food news. Often, newspaper allegations about the sexual practices, drug use or private conduct of celebrities is borderline defamatory where their design is often bold and realistically difficult ‘not to miss’. This is to ensure content attracts audiences to particular stories with reference to the design set by the tabloid press.
The Sun tends to simply and sensationally give more prominence than broadsheets to celebrities, sports, crime stories and even hoaxes. It also readily takes a political position on news stories as right-wing, nationalist and populist allegiance, ridiculing politicians as well as demanding resignations and predicting election results.
More realistically, today The Sun relies on stories about the entertainment industry, gossip concerning the British monarchy and sports, as well as news and politics for its content, with many items revolving around celebrities. In addition to writers covering celebrities-about-town and the latest soap opera storylines, it is always on the lookout for celebrities in trouble or scandal as its featured content.
With regards to the design of the newspaper, pictures are preferred and it often uses those taken by paparazzi which are usually laid out near the news or sports story it is covering. However, serious news stories frequently focus on themes of immigration, security scandals, domestic abuse and paedophiles. Much of the content of the newspaper has claimed to be jingoistic, racist and homophobic although the design of the newspaper has been highly recommended to other tabloids.
More generally, The Sun has been criticised since its launch for its sensationalism, which on occasion has led it to publish stories on the most spurious evidence, and for its focus on celebrities for its news and feature coverage content. It is important to understand that the content has been accused of appealing to the lowest common denominator and dumbing down public discourse. In addition, the design has been used to illustrate such coverage and to ensure it remains as Britain’s most popular daily newspaper, perhaps because of the perceived wittiness of its writing.
In both the design and content of The Sun, puns and word play are often employed to make light of situations. Quality design of this tabloid newspaper requires more than selecting modern typography, colours and image that engage savvy news consumers. This is the reason why it has a smart editing strategy combined with an effective tabloid design which serves both time-starved readers as well as those who also enjoy compelling longer narratives. It is obvious that in the design of The Sun, it aims to be influential, tough, newsy, sophisticated and elegant, but not too boring.
The Sun has design and content which shows front page variety. The newspaper made the decision to start the main headline story out front and this allows for ‘magazine style’ photo play and maximum flexibility. This is a provocative and controversial way to introduce readers to a story, where the redesign and editing strategy has radically upgraded the look of the newspaper as a graphically snappy tabloid with a focus on national and International news.
Thus far, emphasis has been around the content of the newspaper. However, it is fundamentally important to discuss issues surrounding design and how this is presented within the tabloid. This can refer to the newspaper makeup, an example being the front page focal point where the reader normally looks for the important story. With The Sun, this is usually the bottom half of the page as the chosen design, where top-half advertisements commonly dictate the focal points of the inside pages.
There are a number of lines used as design mechanisms within the newspaper. The vertical line is used to get the reader to read up and down the page, carried out on the page by displaying content such as stories, headlines and pictures vertically on the page. The diagonal line is used in the newspaper to get the reader to read through the page, carried out on the page by displaying headlines and pictures so together they form a diagonal line from the upper left-hand corner to the lower right-hand corner of the page.
Also, pages can contain a double diagonal by forming another diagonal in the opposite direction from the first, lending a sense of rhythm to the page and is characteristic of today’s issues of The Sun. The circular line is used in the newspaper design in an attempt to get the reader to read around the page, carried out by displaying stories, headlines and pictures on the page so the reader sees each as being equally important, creating a tendency on the reader’s past to read all the stories but used to a limited degree in modern issues of the newspaper.
The last horizontal line is used to get the reader to read back and forth on the page, carried out by displaying stories, headlines and pictures horizontally on the page. However, the design of The Sun actually encompasses a calculated art evidenced by the newspaper design concepts. An example is balance where the page designer tries to balance heads against heads, pictures against pictures, stories against stories and artwork against artwork. The design concept is a relative balance and is not measure although it is something gauged in the viewer’s mind.
The editor achieves contrast with pictures by using verticals with horizontals, small column widths with large column widths, or dark and light photographs. This is important for the design of the newspaper, where the editor also achieves contrast through colour by displaying black type with colour boxes, pictures and heads.
In addition, by using the rhythm concept, the editor tries to get the reader to move from one element to another on the page, achieved in newspaper design by staggering headlines, stories and pictures on the page. The unity concept of newspaper design is also used to tie the page together, and therefore the page is not divided into one, two or more sections. The Sun often uses design to ensure it does not lack unity by designing panelled pages, and crossing the column gutters with headlines and pictures in the middle areas of the page.
The harmony concept is also important to the design of the newspaper as it is used to give The Sun a standard appearance from day to day. Harmony generally refers to typographic harmony which means using one typeface for body type and a contrasting typeface for cutlines. In the newspaper, headlines can have the same typeface as the body type, maybe varied by weight and the use of italics on occasion.
It is important to also understand the components which help the reader identify the newspaper with its design, including nameplates, flags and mastheads. The nameplate is often simple in design, attractive and in harmony with the character of the newspaper, with its type either harmonising or contrasting with the headline type. The nameplate of The Sun combines type and artwork together, made to float on the page although in many issues it runs the entire width of the page and is made to float. This floating nameplate usually occupies two or three columns and is placed anywhere in the upper third of the page.
A flag of the newspaper is a display used to indicate section pages or special pages, such as editorial, sports and family pages. Just like nameplates, a flag does not dominate its page and does not appear above the fold. Another area of design used by The Sun is the masthead which is the statement that appears in every edition to give information about the publication. Headlines, or simply heads, also contribute to the concepts of newspaper design to link this with content.
It is crucial that understanding is established of the relationship between design and content of the newspaper. For example, the headline for one story should be separated from that of another, and when headlines and pictures are used together they are placed so the reader is not confused by their positions. The Sun ensures it does not place a picture between a headline and a story because the reader might begin reading the cutline, thinking it is the first paragraph of the story.
Readability studies have shown that pictures are one of the most popular elements in The Sun, and therefore they are large and positioned in a manner that maximises their display. The column and cutoff rules are also used, where widows are avoided at the tops of columns. The design of the newspaper also uses a wrapping copy for stories and several folio lines. A front page folio line joins the nameplate and consists of the volume number, issue number, command, location and date of publication.
The inside page folio line, on the other hand, generally runs at the top of each page. It can also run as part of a flag that appears on special pages or within the masthead on the editorial page. The inside page folio line consists of the publication date in the left corner of the page, name of the newspaper which is The Sun centered and the page number in the right corner of the page. The inside page folio line is normally separated from the rest of the page by a cutoff rule.
Now that an understanding of some of the elements of design have been explained, content will now be linked to this important aspect of The Sun newspaper. The quality of the design and makeup of the inside pages of the newspaper tries to receive the same attention as the front page. The editorial page is different in its design from other inside pages as the content uses pictures and artwork, white space, odd-column sets and other elements of design to give the page its own special traits.
Similarly, the design of the sports pages are attractive as the content includes masculine type, white space, odd-column sets and large, bold headlines to complement the flavour of this popular newspaper feature. The other news and feature pages, on the other hand, are as attractive as the front page within the limitation of available space. The Sun uses design elements such as pictures, white space, multicolumn heads, artistic designs and groupings of related news and features on these pages with regards to increasing readability of content.
Finally, the design of The Sun uses a lead and last picture to attract the reader’s attention and shows the subject or theme of the story in a graphically interesting form. The body, which shows important scenes of the subject in action, is also varied and lively in visual presentation. Headlines, cutlines and text have double functions too, the first to give the reader facts that supplement the pictures editorially with regards to the design and to graphically serve as elements of compositions that contribute to the organisation of the picture story.
MARKETING MIX: PRICE
Once the product is ready for sales, the process of determining price follows. It is a very crucial part as it is one of the factors that affect the consumers buying decision to a great extent. This factor also covers the decisions of offering discounts, allowances, determining the payment terms that is will the payment be in cash or on credit and the credit terms.
At present, The Sun is priced at 35p Monday to Friday, and 55p on Saturdays. The reason for the increase in price on a weekend is due to the fact that more content and features are included, such as free sections and supplements such as The Favourite and TV Magazine. However, price is also determined or influenced by retail, ticket, subscriptions and special offer considerations. However, you cannot subscribe to The Sun nor are they sold on a special offer basis.
It is clear to say that The Sun has an important objective in determining how it is to set its prices. The objective is to maximise profit and to raise market share by introducing realistic retail pricing as an example. Inserts are frequently supplied with the newspaper which also means that The Sun needs to compensate for these advertisements by setting the price. Most importantly, market structure as well as the newspaper’s objective is very important to influencing pricing. As The Sun is in a perfectly competitive market, prices will be lower relative to costs than for monopolists.
Due to the fact that The Sun newspaper has perfect competition prices, these are determined by the forces of demand and supply. However, in reality, a totally perfect market does not exist and therefore this pricing level is most often never met. It is fair to say that The Sun cannot choose to set its own price and output levels, where these are set at a high output level and low price, as there is a large amount of competition to influence what it should set, such as competition from tabloids.
A central idea on the pricing of the newspaper is that it is not so much the demand side of the market that affects price, but rather the supply side through costs of production. A method called cost-plus pricing is used by The Sun whereby price is closely related to the costs of production and printing the actual newspaper daily.
The Sun has used product differentiation when setting prices, especially between the 35p issues Monday to Friday, and the 55p edition on a Saturday. Because the newspaper is relatively homogeneous to that of its competitors, these prices have to be set at fairly similar levels as most people would choose the cheaper alternative if The Sun was higher than another. This is true in the sense that you will never see a huge price difference between particular tabloid newspapers, where a large majority are priced at around 35p to 70p although broadsheets are known to be higher.
It is realistic to say that if The Sun was to drop its prices, it would attract many customers away from its competitors such as The Times, unless this newspaper also did the same. In addition, the position of the newspaper in its life cycle will also influence the price it sets for the product. However, The Sun has a large amount of control over its pricing as it has the highest circulation of any daily English-language newspaper in the world, daily readership is high and is Britain’s most popular daily newspaper. It is important to understand the three main stages of the product life cycle which are growth, maturity and decline.
The Sun has priced its newspaper according to the impact of the three main stages of the product life cycle. In the growth stage, the total market size was increasing for the newspaper as a replacement for the Daily Herald in 1964. During this stage, decline in circulation was overcome and ownership of the market was increased. The growth stage saw the newspaper making decisions as to its pricing whilst adopting a ‘skimming’ strategy charging a high price which eliminated a small but lucrative part of the market. However, this was soon removed and The Sun adopted a ‘penetration’ strategy charging a lower price and raising market expenditure in order to establish a much larger market presence.
Moving on to the maturity stage, The Sun and its pricing decisions largely depended on the market share which they had already established during its growth phase and also on the quality of the product maintained. Pricing decisions are also influenced by its sister newspaper News of the World in which the two newspapers are managed together at senior executive levels. During the maturity stage, prices were set as the newspaper proved very profitable. The Sun began introducing retail pricing which was realistic and special offers which included the newspaper being sold for 20p during specific times of the year. It is realistic to say that the pricing policy of the newspaper does not represent a large investment for the potential reader.
In the decline phase, The Sun tried to maintain its high price, although in reality it was forced to low the pricing and to bring out newer designs. This was the case during the years in which it changed track and caused a small stir by endorsing Margaret Thatcher in the 1979 general election, where sales fell drastically and forced the newspaper to reduce price in the process. The newspaper’s pricing has also been influenced by market segmentation, where it sets relatively low prices for each issue as it is aimed at a large section of the market and everyone in general.
An important point to make concerns the elasticity of the newspaper involved. This is a very important factor that The Sun must consider when making its pricing decisions. By working out the price elasticity of demand, the newspaper will then know just how much control it will be able to exert over the price it charges at 35p weekdays and 55p weekends. Due to the fact that The Sun has a relatively high price elasticity of demand, it is not able to make significant price changes without losing a vast part of its market.
For example, if the price of the newspaper increased, the demand would change a lot as people do not need this specific newspaper to live their lives and would find alternative means of locating news, weather and sport in cheaper newspapers or via online resources. However, even a small change in the price charged for the newspaper can result in a much larger change in demand, such as if the price rises the demand may fall as people could start to buy fewer newspapers. As a general rude, when the demand for The Sun increases, the price seems to fall.
Many points have been discussed about the factors which influence the price which The Sun charges, being 35p Monday to Friday, and 55p on a Saturday. It is clear that many different situations take place regarding the environment the newspaper is set in, the main ones being the differing objectives and the different market structures of the newspaper. There are many combinations of these for the newspaper, and therefore the pricing decision made by the newspaper is often complicated and its decisions are often individual and different to those even in the same market.
The Sun has realistic retail prices, with special offers on the price during certain times of the year. Subscriptions are very rare as the newspaper is sold 35p Monday to Friday, and 55p Saturdays, where there are also rare instances of ticket pricing due to the fact that the newspaper relies on additional extras to set a price.
MARKETING MIX: PLACE
Since the target market is already located and the product is ready to sell, the question of how the customers can reach the product is answered here. Decision on which channel of distribution needs to be used is determined, which also covers the decision on a number of intermediaries involved such as the retailer or wholesalers, the mode of transportation to be used, the inventory to be managed and warehousing. The placing of a product is where the product will be sold.
The Sun is primarily sold and distributed through retail outlets, with examples ranging from corner shops to large supermarket chains. Motorway service stations and street traders are also popular forms if distributing the newspaper as they are convenient to locate and easy to find. They place their ‘booths’ along busy high streets to attract customers, where motorway service stations tend to be equally successful as many motorway drivers often visit them during different times of the day.
Examples of distribution through retail outlets include Morrisons, ASDA, Tesco and Sainsbury’s. This indicates that retail outlets essentially refer to supermarket chains and small shops. In addition, many television networks actually ‘sell’ the newspaper in terms of advertising its publicity although to a limited extent as you cannot purchase The Sun through the television. This is similar for radio stations as they can merely advertise the newspaper but cannot directly circulate or distribute it.
A popular form of distribution is the Internet, where many readers are starting to download The Sun from the website, and more commonly actually reading it online through navigation menus and up-to-the-minute coverage. This means that news, sport and weather is continuously updated and refreshed, unlike the traditional print newspaper which is sold in a large majority of retail outlets at the beginning of the day where it is almost impossible to redistribute with the timescale given.
Therefore, The Sun is also distributed locally, regionally and nationally, although not necessarily internationally due to the fact that it is published in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. This is important to targeting a wider spectrum of readers and for increasing profit margins in terms of maximising sales of consumption on a daily basis.
When distributing the newspaper through retail outlets, this reaches a local, regional and national audience. When distributed through the Internet, on the other hand, this targets a possible international audience. This is due to the fact that retail outlets are located across the country but the Internet is made available around the world. The place affects circulation of the newspaper, where it is primarily distributed in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland with respect to other methods available.
The demographic profile of the newspaper supports the above. It is distributed to greater locations in the London and Central regions, where The Sun uses this information to locate a greater number of locations for distribution. On the other hand, the newspaper is distributed equally throughout the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland as it is difficult to discriminate a particular area in terms of sales.
The place plays a critical part in the marketing mix, as people within the target market need to be able to get hold of The Sun easily, and they don’t want to have to travel to an outlet on the other side of the county every day for a copy of the newspaper. This theory is reflective of the fact that the newspaper is distributed locally, regionally as well as nationally. It could also prove to be beneficial for The Sun to have agreements with other companies dealing with the same target market, where it could pay for newspaper stalls to be placed in large central venues.
However, there are constraints to types of product placing. These are that special licenses are required to sell newspapers to prime locations or in the city centre. It also means that there will be a large cost involved in supplying daily issues of The Sun with its venues with stands, although this is not a huge cost as supermarkets, for example, already has the shelf space needed for simple distribution. The newspaper is locally, regionally or nationally directly supplied to retail outlets for distribution to the customers, although not directly in terms of door-to-door or mail ordering.
However, as The Sun is produced, the method of distribution is important as it could affect how this newspaper is received and how it sells. The Sun seems to have successfully overcome the expense of distributing to retail outlets on a national scale, selling to existing retail outlets which are most commonly supermarkets or corner shops to cover a greater region of sales. In addition, Internet archives and newspapers are made available to meet the national target in which the newspaper is able to increase its market position and improve its economic stability.
MARKETING MIX: PROMOTION
After determining the pricing of the product, there arises a need to generate awareness among the target market about the product, and its unique features which can be done through advertising and sales promotion. Deciding the advertising media, the offers and promotion, public relations and direct sales all fall under this factor and are equally important in order to make the product a success. It refers to informing customers of the product and to make them aware that it actually exists.
The Sun is promoted effectively but limited in a number of ways. The newspaper itself and its TV Mag are advertised on the television, at newsstands and national supermarkets, and throughout a number of local and regional retail outlets. The television networks provide a visual means of advertising the newspaper which reaches a large number of readers, although this is expensive as advertising on television is a national activity. However, many advertisements of The Sun are print and cost a lot less, attracting a local, regional and national audience.
When The Sun advertises, it also uses the Internet to a great extent. Over the past few years there has been a shift from traditional print media advertising to electronic. Although you still see the newspaper being advertised in retail outlets throughout the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, this is far less popular than advertising through television networks and the Internet, where radio advertising has also been ignored to focus on new media technology. The Internet targets a national audience and even a possible international reading group. It is effective as The Sun’s website not only advertises the newspaper but enables people to read it online.
The Sun also promotes itself using non-personal communication including persuasion advertising such as competitions and free samples. For example, the free TV Mag is a massive success with readers and ensures the newspaper creates and sustains its number of readers. This means that people find the newspaper value for money and continue to invest in each daily release, cutting costs with the need to purchase a separate television guide or magazine on a weekend. Competitions regularly include those for a car or holiday, where Sun Holidays once or twice a year attract a large number of people and promote the newspaper locally, regionally and nationally at different holiday locations resulting in good feedback.
However, promotion needs to be carefully planned and the newspaper usually decides on a new promotional plan each year. There is one main objective to the promotion campaign of The Sun and that particular emphasis is projected during a certain time to a certain market segment. The newspaper has a number of ways in which it is marketed and an advertising agency is used, consisting of specialised people who are able to promote The Sun’s campaign more effectively.
The ways in which the newspaper has been advertised are effective. Television is effective in the sense that it attracts a national audience, but on the other hand it is difficult to advertise the newspaper as you need to consider the time period of advertising, when to advertise, which network to advertise on and it is difficult to determine the effectiveness. This is similar for radio advertising as consideration needs to be made into time, network and date of advertising.
On the other hand, retail outlets and the Internet are very effective means of advertising The Sun as they are relatively cheap and can target local, regional and national readers. The majority of newspapers are sold at supermarkets and small outlets, where advertising is often self-contained. The Sun also promotes itself using celebrity association to give it product appeal, such as a famous celebrity promoting the Sun Holidays or Jeremy Clarkson and Lorraine Kelly covering news stories. This creates publicity for the celebrities and the newspaper simultaneously.
The Sun uses a particular form of merchandising during specific times of the year, consisting of free CDs or DVDs with, for example, special episodes of television programmes or promotional compilations of music. These are often provided of a weekend to tie-in with the free weekly supplement or pull-outs. Publicity also helps promote the newspaper by use of arranged talks, event sponsorship, conducted poll or survey or staged debate, often given by celebrities or even MPs. For example, publicity is made by Jeremy Clarkson debating certain issues or Dear Deirdre acting as agony aunt to readers.
It is fair to say that The Sun has successful marketing, whether print or electronic. However, PR could be used to greater extent to manage communication between the newspaper and its readers. Advertising is effective as each form is aimed at different audiences including posters, retail outlets, television networks, radio stations and the Internet. Publicity is fast becoming a successful form of marketing as well.
SECTION 2: ASSESSMENT OBJECTIVE 2
PRODUCE A MARKETING PLAN FOR A NEW MEDIA PRODUCT
- One marketing plan to be produced
- Identify product
- Describes aims of a new campaign
- Reviews current situation
- Identifies target audience
- Identifies the potential market (niche, local and national or global)
- Describes advertisements and promotions
- Gives schedule
- Identifies ways to sample audience or consumer feedback
- Identify official research bodies that provide information for advertisers: about user group profiles, about popularity of products
- Major official bodies include:
- BARB
- RAJAR
- Audit Bureau of Circulation
- CAVIAR
- Legal and ethical constraints identified: including the role of the ASA and other official bodies controlling advertising
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
For Assessment Objective 2, I will produce a marketing plan for one new media product. I have decided to relate this to the analysis of the marketing mix for The Sun newspaper product already established in the first assessment objective. By means of basing my marketing plan on previous information and research already obtained, this will enable me to produce a marketing plan for a new media product which has a supportive framework on which I can make decisions or generate ideas.
Therefore, I have decided to produce a marketing plan for a new newspaper. When creating the marketing plan, I will need to consider the type of the newspaper and whether its format is tabloid or broadsheet, as well as its political allegiance etc.
INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING PLAN
A marketing plan is a written document that details the actions necessary to achieve a specified marketing objective(s). It can be for a or , a , or a . It can cover one year (referred to as an annual marketing plan), or cover up to five years. A marketing plan may be part of an overall . Solid marketing strategy is the foundation of a well-written marketing plan. While a marketing plan contains a list of actions, a marketing plan without a sound strategic foundation is of little use. A typical marketing plan is based on where are we now, where do we want to go, how can we go there and how can we control it.
The contents of a very basic marketing plan include an executive summary, situational analysis, SWOT analysis, objectives, strategy, action programme, financial forecast and controls. It is important to know your business, know your market, understand your strengths and weaknesses, and find the opportunities within those strengths and weaknesses in order to plan your marketing and make it happen. It is equally important to consider content and presentation, measurement of progress, performance analysis and budgets as managerial tools.
SECTION 3: ASSESSMENT OBJECTIVE 3
PRODUCE ADVERTISING AND PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS FOR A NEW MEDIA PRODUCT
- Produce one example of direct advertising, one example of indirect advertising, one example of a promotion
- Generate ideas
- Design
- Prepare story/concept boards
- Production
- Post-production
- Direct advertising such as:
- Trailers/posters
- Television/radio commercials
- Sponsorship
- Indirect advertising such as:
- Feature articles
- Guest appearances on chat shows
- Competitions/sponsorships
- Merchandising
- Road shows
- Legal
- Ethical
- Meet the standards of the ASA and other official bodies controlling advertising
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
For Assessment Objective 3, I will produce advertising and promotional materials for a new media product. As previously established, the new media product is a newspaper called The Daily. A poster will be produced for direct advertising, a feature article for indirect advertising and a competition for promotion. In addition, I will work in a marketing team or individually to produce these examples, also producing a production diary as well.
INTRODUCTION TO ADVERTISING,,,,,
Advertising is paid communication through a non-personal medium in which the sponsor is identified and the message is controlled. Variations include , , , , , and . Every major medium is used to deliver these messages including television, radio, movies, magazines, newspapers, the Internet and billboards. Advertisements can also be seen on the seats of grocery carts, on the walls of an airport walkway, and on the sides of buses, or heard in telephone hold messages or in-store PA systems.
While advertising can be seen as necessary for , it is not without . and other forms of have become so prevalent as to have become a major nuisance of users of these services, as well as being a financial burden on . The impact of advertising has been a matter of considerable debate and many different claims have been made in different contexts. According to many sources, the past experience and state of mind of the person subjected to advertising may determine the impact that advertising has.
INTRODUCTION TO PROMOTION,,,,,
Promotion is one of the four aspects of . The other three parts of the are , , and . Promotion involves disseminating information about a , , , or company.
Promotion is comprised of subcategories:
- Personal selling
- Non-personal selling
-
-
-
and
-
-
-
The specification of these four variables creates a or promotional plan. A promotional mix specifies how much attention to pay to each of the four subcategories, and how much money to budget for each. A promotional plan can have a wide range of objectives, including: sales increases, new product acceptance, creation of , , competitive retaliations, or creation of a .
DIRECT ADVERTISING: POSTER
INDIRECT ADVERTISING: FEATURE ARTICLE
BRAND NEW BRITISH NEWSPAPER TO HIT THE SHELVES THIS YEAR!
By Dean Hill
PROMOTION: COMPETITION
SECTION 4: ASSESSMENT OBJECTIVE 4
PRESENT A NEW MEDIA PRODUCT AND ADVERTS/PROMOTIONS TO AN AUDIENCE AND GAIN FEEDBACK
- Preparing and delivering a presentation:
- Delivery style and technique
- Presentation delivery skills
- Research, planning
- Organisation of materials
WITNESS STATEMENT HERE
SECTION 5: ASSESSMENT OBJECTIVE 5
EVALUATE FEEDBACK ABOUT THE NEW MEDIA PRODUCT AND THE ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN
- Feedback evaluated in terms of:
- Changes to the product
- Changes to the marketing plan
- Feedback presented to a client:
- Verbally
- In a written report
- Using graphic formats e.g. charts and graphs
WITNESS STATEMENT HERE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
-
Adapted from Kotler, Armstrong, Brown Adam & Chandler, (1998) Marketing 4th edition, Pearson Education, Australia
-
- “Dictionary of Marketing Terms" from marketingpower.com
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"Swarming the shelves: How shops can exploit people's herd mentality to increase sales?", , -, p. 90
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Marketing Nutrition: Soy, Functional Foods, Biotechnology, and Obesity (2005), , Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press
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Adapted from Kotler, Armstrong, Brown Adam & Chandler, (1998) Marketing 4th edition, Pearson Education, Australia
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“Swarming the shelves: How shops can exploit people's herd mentality to increase sales?”, , -, p. 90
“The Customer Driven Company: Moving From Talk to Action” R.C. Whiteley, Pfeiffer & Company, 2000
Brown, Stephen (1993), “Postmodern Marketing?”, European Journal of Marketing Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 19-34
Brown, Stephen (1998), “Post-Modern Marketing 2 – Telling Tales”, Thomson Business Press
Adapted from Kotler, Armstrong, Brown Adam & Chandler, (1998) Marketing 4th edition, Pearson Education, Australia