ROLE OF ADVERTISING AND SALES PROMOTIONS IN THE PURCHASE

DECISION OF COSUMER DURABLE PRODUCTS

Introduction

Companies always try to establish the contact with target market. This is a prestigious

status for company to address the customers. Company wanted to enhance its image in the

minds of common man so that in future, whenever it would be visited to customer court, it

would be having enough matter to communicate the customers. The company presents it’s

history products history and even national history. Companies have these processes in all

continuance and consistency. Promotion is a term which means the moving from one end to

another. In marketing, promotion means all those took that a marketer uses to take his

product from the factory to the customers and it involves the advertising sales promotion,

personal selling, public relations, publicity and merchandising. Promotions are result

oriented. Promotion system works with proper communication system. This has sender,

receivers and feedback system. Feed back is form of action which customer gives bark to the

company about product, advertisement or strategy.

Promotion involves the following steps :

(i) Common Understanding

(ii) Demographic and psychographic profile

(iii) Media habits

(iv) Level of Awareness.

 The ultimate expectation of the company is to make the people for purchase of

product. The AIDA Model work in this process.

The stages are Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. The concept can also be

explained through Levidge and Stonier model. The model states about the different stages i.e.

Awareness, Knowledge, Liking, Preference, Conviction and Purchase. The conclusivity ends

up with the purchasing of products.

The sales promotion and advertising functions and stimulate the customer purchase

decision in accordance with this model. Present research paper will examine the comparative

effectiveness issue of Sales promotion and advertising measures.

Objectives:

The research paper will high light the effectiveness and applicability factors of sales

promotion and advertisement techniques. How does this technique affect the cognitive,

affective and connative stages. The research study consists of empirical nature. It has

following objective

(i) To investigate the effectiveness of sales promotion technique on purchase decision.

(ii) To study the effectiveness of Advertising on same purchase decision.

(iii) To compare the effects of both techniques.

(iv) To suggest a balancing role of both the techniques in the promotion of products.

Review of Literature

The review of Literature provides the valuable and gainful insights on the research

topic. M. Rogers (1962) has give the Model of Hierarchy of Consumer response which
applies on sales promotion and advertising technique Brainsternthal and C Samuel Craig

(1973) have presented the role of appeal in achieving the goal of getting attention but also a

message can be block. Ray and Wilkie (1974) have focused on fact that after a certain time

appeal start loosing its impact.

David Ogilvy has indicated that the common man get the response quickly through

celebrities. Aaker, Batra and Myres (1992) have advocated the use of special testing methods

like theatre testing for success of any advertisement.

John David Son, Alice Tybout and Brain Sternthal (1978) have high lighted the

conditions of operations for sales promotions.

Communication plays a very crucial between customer and company. The

communication plays its role in duration of preselling, selling consuming and post

consuming stages with both customer and company. The issue remain that how company

reach to customer and how customer reach to the company. There are various communication

platforms both old V/s new.

By reduction in communication cost the companies are switching from mass

communication to one to one communication. The product’s style, price, package color

decoration of place play an important role in communication to buyers. Every frequency of

brand contact can view positive or negative message about the strategic positioning of brand.

One can start with talking to all the potential customers about their experiences with the

product. The marketers will have to pickup these experiences and impressions which

influence the buyer at every stage of purchasing.

For effective communication marketers need to follow the basics elements of

communication. The communication model exist with nine elements i.e. sender, Encoding,
message, Media, Decoding, Receiver, Response, Feedback and Noise. The senders must

follow that who are the audiences, what they want to send and what response that may

receive. There should be proper use of all the communication elements. The steps to be

followed are (1) Identify the target audience (2) Determine the communication objectives

(3) Design the message (4) Select the communication channels (5) establish the total

communication budget (6) Decide on communication mix (7) Measure the communication

results (8) Manage the integrated marketing communication process.

The process of communication starts with a clear identification of target receivers.

The target receivers will belong to ie potential purchasers, present users, decision makers,

influencers, individual groups, and general citizen. The important part to be start from

analysis of current image of company products and its competitors. There can be a use of

familiarity scale and favourability scale.

Familiarity scale

Never Heard of Heard of Only Know a little bit Know a fair Know very well

amount

Favourability Scale

Very Some what Indifferent Some what Very Favourable

Unvavourable Unvavourable Favourable

After the identification of target market and the perceptions which are driving in the

minds of customer, marketer will have to decide what does he desires to seek from consumers

mind. The response may follow cognitive, affective or behavioral stages. These can be a role

of three stages i.e. learn – feel – do, learn – do – feel and do- feel- learn etc. The objectives
can be decided from following (1) Awareness (2) Knowledge (3) Liking (4) Preference (5)

Conviction (6) Purchase.

The communicator will also have to depend on the role of message. The contents of

message many involve appeal, theme, idea (unique selling proposition) Rational appeals will

speak of self interest and benefits. Emotional appeals will strike about negative and positive

emotions. Sometime humor, love, pride and joy play a very important role in communicating

the whole theme to customers. The message can be of two type i.e. One sided presentations

and two sided presentations. The message format also plays a very important role. For a print

copy, Words, headlines, color etc. are important features. The radio message will have words,

voice qualities are important factors. The television message will have facial expressions

gestures, dress, posture and hairstyle as important factors. Color also decides the importance

of situation. In a variety of products the color will play an important liking and disliking role.

Always the popular and attractive sources gather higher attention and recall for the message.

Credibility, likability and expertise are the important role for message sources.

Personal communication channels are engaging two or more persons communicating

directly with each other face to face, person to audience over the phone or e-mail. The

company may hire advocate channels, Expert channels and social channels. The word of

mouth sources also deliver some results. Non personal channels may include media,

atmosphere and events. The big question remains that how do companies decide the

communication budget. A brand team will be formed. They will do situation analysis,

forecasting etc and decides the budges for advertising sales promotions and trade promotion.

Low and Mohr in the study (1980) found that

1. As brands move to the more mature phase of product life cycle. Manager allocates

less to advertising and more to promotions.

2. If a brand is well differentiated then advertising will get preference.

3. When focus is for short term then promotion gets wehightage.

4. If retailers are having mere influence then promotion gets priority.

Advertising and sales promotions can be two promotions. Advertising consist of (i)

Pring and brand cast ads (ii) Packaging outer (iii) Packaging – inserts (iv) Motion pictures (v)

Brochures and Booklets, (vi) Posters and leaflets (vii) Directories (viii) Reprints of ads (ix)

Bill boards (x) Display signs (xi) Point of purchase (xii) Audiovisual material (xiii) Symbols

and logos (xiv) Video tapes, Sales promotions consist of (i) Contests, (ii) Games

(iii) Premium (iv) gifts (v) sampling (vi) fairs and trade shows (vii) Exhibits (viii)

Demonstrations (ix) Coupons (x) Rebates (xi) Low- interest financing (xii) Entertainment

(xiii) Trade in allowance (xiv) Continuity programs.

There is a role of push V/s pull strategy. Push strategy involves the manufacturer

using sales force and trade promotion to induce intermediaries to carry, promote and sell the

product to end users. Push strategy is useful when there is low brand loyalty. Pull strategy

involves the use of consumer advertising and promotion to present product to the customer

for purchase when the brand loyalty is high. The buyers readiness stage also very important

for selecting advertising and sales promotion. When there is awareness building stage the

advertising is the appropriate. When the product is known then mostly the sales promotion is

beneficial.

The companies keep focus on market in building the brand image. They remain with

focused attitude to remain at the top position. Price reduction can improve the brand cavity

with the increase ad spend. Point of purchase plays on crucial role in advertising. The POP

materials are used in following

 Posters

Danglers

Sign boards

Streamers

In-store closed circuit T.V.

Merchandizing.

Window Displays.

When printed matter is directly dispatched to customer it is called direct advertising.

These could be sent to following locations 1. At homes, 2. At retail shops, 3. On the streets,

4. Sent by mail. Direct mail gives the best description about the colour, graphics and data.

Use of colours, glossy paper gives a best touch to readers. It also gives personal impression to

customer.

Outdoor advertising could be considered as traffic seeking attention. Highways and

main routs are with hoarding and bill boards. The site is chosen on the basis of give

consideration on the basis of no of vehicles are passing from the route. Pole signs are placed

on electric, telephone or special poles meant for the advertisement. Mobile bill boards are

also useful for this purpose. Many vehicles are used to these advertisements. Even the

animals like camels and elephants are in use for outdoor advertising.

Advertising dealing with the people, logic and emotions. In many products there is a

talk of applying sense and understanding. In some product ads talk is to focus on watching

common sense. Many times emotional seen are presented to the company like valve for
money. Quality appeal, indirect appeals etc. Most advertisers like to present the unique

selling proposition. Many products are having many features like problem solving,

demonstration, testimonials or endorsements by the celebrities presenting the product from

various criterias and Idea push is the situation with the advertising. The visual ad is the full

of art and creativity. Lines, shapes, colour, size, sound, texture is important areas. Designing

and formatting plays on important role in total presentation of add. The new Traffic

technology is very useful in this regard

The role of advertising is great. It's a chance for a brand to speak itslif story life directly

to the consumer, to build information and project a powerful brand image, to image creation

and build brand equity, to bypass the distribution and circumvent competitors. In reality,

however, the part of advertising is seldom realized. In fact, the opposite is true. Media

advertising is problematic in the terms of productive expenditure First, few companies start

with basic strategy research to develop a creative platform to follow the development of their

advertising. Second, few companies pretest their advertising creative to make a sure it has a

chance to work. Third, even fewer companies track their advertising once it's "on air" to

measure the effects of the advertising over time. Advertising tends to be created in an

informational vacuum and is rarely evaluated in any consistent, systematic way thereafter. In

effect, there is no reliable fault in feedback system,

No wonder that many companies have grown weary of traditional advertise in have

confidence media dollars into sales promotion and direct-response marketing activities -

where effects are easy see, and easy to measure. The strategic role of advertising is jugreat is

greater.

To successfully utilize advertising in the marketing mix, three types of research are

compulsory
-- Strategy research. How advertising works differs from one product category to other

product category, and from brand to brand within a category. -- Advertising pretesting. Once

the advertising creativity is finalised, it's really important to test the advertising. Pretesting

helps in knowing outstanding the effects of commercials and flags under-performing

commercials. In the importance criteria, pretesting provides help to the improvement of the

ad, and to the improvement of all future ads.

Tracking research is the only way to know if the advertising is working. It's the way

to know about advertising effectiveness. The term tracking research refers to telephone

interviews to a representative sample of target-audience consumers. These interviews can be

taken ina continuous manner.

The tracking questionnaire

Tracking questionnaire:

-- 1Unaided and aided brand awareness. brand awareness.

-- 2Advertising message recall.. –

-- 3Brand image –

-- 4Brand trial and usage. –

-- 5 Demographics..

-- 6 Aided advertising message recall. consumers have a tendency to claim that they recall all

aided messages - even messages not actually in the advertising itself.

--7 Aided commercial recall performance.

-- 8 Market segment characteristics.

-- 9 Media habits.

It is wise to decide your sample in a general manner.. The broader definition of the

sample is a safe aspect as per the demographics of a market can alter over time. If you define

your sample in a too narrowly, you run the risk of the sample becoming non operative.

Continuous and consistant interviewing offers a number of advantages. The standards

of interview seemed to be high with continuous surveys. Continuous tracking dismiss out the

effects of short-term disturbances such as adverse publicity, new product introductions, bad

weather, etc. Continuous tracking is a better indicator of competitive information.

sales promotion is one of the important aspect of promotion. Sales promotions are non-

personal promotional efforts that are designed to have an immediate impact on sales. Sales

promotion is media and non-media marketing communications employed for a pre-

determined, limited time to increase consumer demand, stimulate market demand or improve

product availability. Examples include:

 coupons

 discounts and sales

 contests

 point of purchase displays

 rebates

Sales promotions can be focusedat either the customer, or to sales staff, or distribution

channel members (such as retailers). Sales promotions targeted at the consumer are called
consumer sales promotions. Sales promotions targeted at retailers and wholesalers are called

trade sales promotions

Consumer Sales Promotion Techniques include:

 Price work: A temporary reduction in the price

 cents-off deal: offers a brand at a lowe price. Price decrease may be a percentage

marked on the package

 price-pack deal: The packaging presents a consumer a certain percentage more of the

product for the same price (eg: 25% more free)

 Coupons: coupons have become a standard dealfor sales promotions.

 Free Standing Insert (FSI). A coupon booklet is fixed into the local newspaper for

delivery

 on-shelf couponing: Coupons are placedat the shelf where the product is available.

 checkout dispensers: On leaving storet the customer is given a coupon based on

products purchased

 on-line couponing: Coupons are available on line. Consumers print them out and take

them to the store.

 Rebates: Consumers are presented money back if the receipt and packaging is mailed

to the producer.

 contests/sweepstakes/games: The consumer is automatically entered into the event by

purchasing the product.

Trade Sales Promotion Techniques include:

 Trade Allowances: short term incentive offered to induce a retailer and stockist to

stock up on a product.

 Dealer Loader: An incentive/offer given to induce a retailer to purchase and display a

product.

 Trade Contest: A contest or compettion to reward retailers that sell the most product

 Point-of-purchase displays: Extra sales tools given to retailers to boost sales

 Training Programs: dealer employees are trained in selling skills the product

Trade Sales Promotion Techniques

Push Policy emphasizes promotions targetedon the next intermediary.

Trade Sales Promotion Techniques-influences distribution members to takeproducts and to

market them aggressively. Producers use sales promotion techniques to encourage

distribution members to carry their products and to promote them more effectively.

o Allowances and Discounts:

 Merchandise.

 Finance....

o Cooperative Advertising:

Manufacturer agrees to pay a certain amount of distributionmedia.

o Training of Sales Staff

Research Methodology :

The Research exercise has been accomplished with the sample size of 300 customers

and 100 retailers. The questionnaire method was applied for this exercise. The Research

design was a blend of descriptive and exploratory research design. The respondents have

been selected through a stratawise and cluster sampling method. The customers have been

presented with an advertising campaigns and sales promotion schemes.

The Research problems have been identified in a process are following:

1) Confusion and reminding problems in an advertising campaign and sales promotion

schemes.

2) The role of controllable and uncontrollable variables in both the process.

3) The longevity and continuity of advertising and sales promotional tools.

The research study has investigated the effect of advertising in both test marketing

stage and post launch stage.

Data Collection and Analysis :

The age factor was an important issue. The age wise variations have been highlighted

in the research process. The age factor has become a factor for the comparative analysis of

advertising and sales promotions.

Age wise Opinion of Customers about Sales Promotion and Advertising

Sales Promotion Advertising

Age in years Like Dislike Like Dislike

Below 25 35% 65% 55% 45%
25-35 38% 62% 65% 35%
35-45 42% 58% 52% 48%
45-55 51% 49% 53% 47%

The table is showing the variations in response as per agewise situation. At below 25

years dislike factor for sales promotion is in higher proportion. The dislikeliness factor for

advertisement is also moderately higher. The age group at 45-55 years has a closed situation

for like liness and dislikeliness.

Sales Promotion Advertising

Gender Like Dislike Like Dislike

Male 60% 40% 55% 45%
Female 43% 57% 53% 47%
Focus Group 33% 67% 63% 37%

The Males have a likeliness figure of 60% and dislikeliness for 40% for sales

promotions. Males have less likeliness for Advertisement as (55,45) The Female (43,57) for

Sales Promotion and (53,47) for advertisement. Focus Group approach has also given the

varied results.
 Consumers perceived Sales Promotion as a purchase decision factor

Sex

Perceived Status Male Female

Heavy 23% 77%

Moderate 55% 45%

Non affected 35% 65%

The perception is in effective stage. Female have 77% as a heavy perceived mind with

the selection of consumer durable. The Non affected stage is also very high in this regard.

Perceived Status of advertising with consumer

Sex

Perceived Status Male Female

Heavy 44% 56%

Moderate 36% 64%

Non affected 40% 60%

Advertising present the perceived state of mind of the consumers. It affect the Male

and Female in the different propositions.

Conclusion

(1) Advertising and Sales Promotion play and important role.

(2) The Age factor plays and important role for the selection of products w.r.t. advertising

and sales promotion.

(3) The Gender factor also plays an important role in the selection of sales promotion and

advertising.

(4) The Sales promotions and advertising are not affective at some purchase stages.

References

(1) Brain sternthal and C Samuel Craig – “Humour in Advertising” Journals of Marketing

Oct.73, pp 17-18.

(2) Joe David son Alice Tybout and Brainsternthal “Impact of Deals and Deal Retraction

in Brand Switching” Journals of Marketing Research, Feb. 1978, pp 72-81.

(3) Aaker, David, A. Batra, Radeev and Myers, John G “Advertising Management”,

Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1992, p.196.

(4) Evesett M Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations Free Press, New York, 1962 pp 79-86.

(5) Brain Strenthal and C Samuel Craig “Humour in Advertising”, Journal of Marketing,

Oct. 1973, pp 17-18.

(6) www.quirks.com
(7) www.tutor2u.net/business/