MARKETING & ADVERTISING

The aim of this tutorial is to help you learn to identify and evaluate marketing strategies and advertisements.

What statement is this man making?

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Why has GEICO been so successful in its marketing and advertising?

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Marketing in a consumer culture

Marketing a product or service is an essential component of doing business in a consumer culture like that of the United States. A business’s success depends on its ability to determine what customers want and then provide it at a reasonable cost. To achieve these goals, businesses need to plan and implement effective strategies for marketing and advertising these products and services. This involves identifying target markets and customer “hot buttons” through marketing research.

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Marc Ecko

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Hot or Not?

What do you see as today’s consumer “hot buttons”?

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Approaches to marketing research

There are several approaches to marketing research, including surveys, observation, and experimentation, each of which requires proficiency in critical thinking and inductive logic.Survey research is used to collect information and opinions about a product.Observation involves directly monitoring consumer buying patterns.Experimentation measures cause-effect relationships between product purchases and selected variables such as packaging, logo, or price.

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Marketing strategies

After gathering relevant information through marketing research, the next step is to engage in strategic planning. A strategic plan is a method by which an organization deploys its resources to realize a goal or objective. In business, strategic planning generally involves the use of a strategic model, defined as “a systematic list of policies that will guide the future specification of inputs, outputs, processes, and values of the complete operations of the business of the corporation.”

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Walmart has an aggressive and effective marketing strategy.

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The SWOT model

SWOT is an acronym for “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The model is used for developing new marketing strategies, as well as by businesses and individuals for making major life decisions. The first two factors, strengths and weaknesses, require an internal assessment, while the last two, opportunities and threats, require external assessment.

The key in using a strategic model like SWOT is to develop strategies that concentrate on a company’s strengths and opportunities in order to overcome internal weaknesses and external threats.

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For his Los Angeles Angels, Arturo Moreno used a marketing strategy that appealed to families and the Hispanic market.

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Andrea Jung

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Advertisements appear on television, in magazines, on the Internet, on billboards, store displays, buses, taxis, school bulletin boards, and even people’s clothing.

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Advertising and the media

Advertising has three purposes: To create product awareness To inform customers about a product or service To motivate customer demand and create brand loyalty

The ultimate aim of advertising is to make money, not advance truth.

Most advertising reaches us through the mass media and the Internet.

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The Internet has provided marketers with new opportunities for reaching consumers.

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Hot or Not?

Have you ever changed product loyalty as a result of an ad campaign?

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Product placement

Product placement involves embedding advertisements of targeted products within television shows, films or streaming video. Often these product placements go unnoticed, especially by children.

Research shows children under the age of eight lack the cognitive maturity to recognize either the intent of advertising or the fallacious reasoning and rhetorical devices that are frequently used in ads. These problems persist through the teenage years.

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Young children are vulnerable to advertising images because of their undeveloped critical-thinking skills.

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American Idol judges are seen here with their “favorite” beverage.

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Evaluating advertisements

When evaluating advertisements, there are a number of questions we should ask. Are scare tactics used to persuade us we need the product? Does the ad provide credible evidence and\or statistics to

support its claims? Does the ad rely on our tendencies of peer and group

conformity? Does the ad set up a desirable image or lifestyle unrelated to the

product? Does the ad employ other informal fallacies, such as hasty

generalization?

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Evaluating advertisements (continued)

When evaluating advertisements, there are a number of questions we should ask. (continued)

Does the ad use emotive language, images, or euphemisms? Is the grammar confusing or the wording misleading? Is the language vague, ambiguous, or obscure? Are the claims exaggerated? Does the ad omit necessary information? If the ad uses analogy, is the analogy relevant?

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Snob appeal and the fallacy of false cause

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Fallacy of appeal to inappropriate authority

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Conclusions

Advertising influences a great deal of our buying habits and beliefs, often more than we are willing to admit. Because of this, we need to be constantly vigilant in using critical thinking skills to identify and evaluate advertising messages. Recognizing our tendencies and learning about advertising strategies makes us less susceptible to manipulative advertising.

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Perspectives on advertising and children

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