Promoting Business Activities. For this assignment I am going to use a small business in this case Mucklow and Hardy Opticians, which is situated in Lincoln.

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Stuart Turner 5167

Mr Sutton-Reeves

Branston Community College 26102

AVCE Business Studies: Unit Eight: Promoting Business Activities.

For this assignment I am going to use a small business in this case Mucklow and Hardy Opticians, which is situated in Lincoln. Due to being a small business there are limits in which advertising and promotional activites can occur.   There are many ways to go about improving a businesses status by advertising and promotions.  The ways of which I am going to for fill this goal is to use many different types of media, aimed at all different social classes.   An example of this is for the lower class of citizen would receive post cards advertising promotions, while the high class would receive e-mail and be able to access the web site.  Advertising to all the different classes would improve the variety of customers also an increase customer count will occur.  

Questions I need to ask myself before starting:

“What is Promotion?”

-    Promotion is the attempt to draw attention to a product or business.

“The objectives of promotion?”

  • To make consumers more aware of a product,
  • To reach a targeted audience which might be geologically dispersed,
  • To remind existing customers of a product so they might re-purchase the product,
  • To show there product is better than that of a competitor,    
  • To develop or improve the image of the business,

Methods of Promotion:

Mucklow and Hardy face many constraints one main one being that they have a small advertising budget. So with this small budget the advertising must be a mixture between cheap and efficient.  Another main constraint is that Keith Tomlinson is the owner of the company and he decides single handed what the business should do, with little help from outside sources. This hampers the company due to not having a wider range of people and ideas to turn to.  

Advertising is a major part of the promotion of a product and has been use for many years. It is still difficult to say with any certainty what promotional activities can actually achieve and how. The strategy chosen by the business should have objectives and methods of carrying them out.

It used to be that a ‘small business' best low-cost advertising bet was radio. Radio is still quite affordable in many communities, but rates have gone through the roof in many others.

This leaves lots of small businesses with nowhere to go for local advertising. Fortunately, Britain’s oldest form of mass media is coming to the rescue. Many cities are seeing a big return of local newspapers. In the area that Mucklow and Hardy are situated the local papers are the Lincolnshire Echo, The Target, and the Chronicle.

Small neighborhood papers focus on a particular part of town. They carry news on events within a few miles radius of their readers. Neighborhood papers also work hard to appeal to businesses in their immediate area.

One consumer told me she pays closer attention to ads in her neighborhood paper. "I know they're all a very short drive away. The big daily paper is advertising stores that are an hour or more away," she said.

Neighborhood papers not only feature far lower rates than larger papers, they let you tightly focus on a particular part of town. Due to Lincolnshire being a rural county the Echo and such papers are widely distributed. With Lincoln being the dominant city in the county any rural villagers will travel a fair distance to get the quality and service that Mucklow and Hardy provide. This is supported by the wide distribution of the local papers.  Specific neighborhoods feature specific income levels and lifestyles. This helps you target your ads more than you can with other kinds of local advertising. Being that the Papers are low in price this does not really have too much effect.

Using the AIDA advertising model, before a customer decides to buy the product, he or she goes though four stages of consciousness.  

Small business owners tend to have a common problem: where can they go to find effective cheap advertising?

The AIDA model:

  • Attention, must be attracted,
  • Interest, must be maintained,
  • Desire, must be aroused,
  • Action, must be taken.

Choosing a promotional media taking into account the ADIA model:

Types of promotional media:    

  • Television,
  • National Newspaper,
  • Regional Newspaper,
  • Magazines,
  • Cinema,
  • Radio,
  • Posters,
  • The Internet.

Types which would apply to Mucklow and Hardy:

  • Regional Newspaper,
  • Radio,
  • Magazines,
  • Posters,
  • The Internet.

All of the above are all legitimate and affordable ways that promotional advertising is available.  

The main three that would be used by a small business would be:

  • Regional Newspaper,
  • Radio,
  • Posters,
  • The Internet.

These three are the most financially viable and have a high degree of effectiveness. Any other ways are more expensive and do not have the desired effect for the business.

        There are many Advantages and Disadvantages of the three listed on the above page, below I have just listed a few for each:

        

Costs of advertising:

        Small firm’s main concerns lie with what media they can afford. Larger firms look at cost effectiveness of the advertising media and which one is best for their money.  Television is the most effective and most expensive medium, it can reach huge numbers of consumers in all geographical environments. Due to being very expensive this is why it is not an option for Mucklow and Hardy Opticians.

The Impact:

        The greatest impact is what the company is aiming for. Different products require different media to get the most out of the advertising. Products such as sports equipment benefit from them being shown in use, to gain maximum impact upon the audience.   The main choice for this would then be television and cinema commercials.  The same would apply to glasses, the advertising media should show customers wearing the glasses from Mucklow and Hardy.

Ethics:

        How provocative and advert can be, without fear of offence or accusation or explanation, is a very difficult judgement to make. No one has objected to the trend for a more hard-hitting approach in the ‘Don’t drink and drive’ campaigns that feature each Christmas. Many of the scenes that are shown for this are brutal, but necessary, if the campaign is to work.

The Law:

        There are legal restrictions to what can be advertised on British television. Then main restriction is the ban on the advertising of tobacco on the television.  There are no restrictions directly aimed at opticians so there is a pretty free market on advertising.  

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA):

        The role of this independent body is to ensure that all adverts are ‘legal, decent, honest and truthful’. The ASA also attempts to ensure the adverts do not cause offence to anyone.

        If any member of the public takes offence at any advertisement, reporting this to the ASA will lead to the body investigating the claim. If the ASA receives several complaints about the same advert it is more likely to make a recommendation that the advert is to be altered or be stopped from being shown or announced.  The ASA now has the power to check poster adverts before being displayed if the company in question has previously had a complaint against on of its adverts upheld.

Join now!

        The ASA did receive a lot of complaints about an advert shown on Channel 4 which showed scenes of gunfights as part of an advert for Film Four. A picture of a man pointing a gun at the reader of a newspaper adverts placed in The Times and The Sunday Times alongside a man lying in a pool of blood was found offensive by the ASA. It was considered that scenes appearing in newspapers would probably be seen by children. The organisation also prevents the continual appearance of certain brands placed in strategic positions in film scenes, in order to ...

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