MKT 1200 - final individual assessment:

promotional strategy Overview

Your final assessment is designed to consider the 'P' for Promotion in the Marketing Mix:

Promotional messages are ubiquitousthat is, they are constant and always present. They surround us in our lives through television, mail, computers, mobile devices, events, paper coffee cups, restaurant menus, and even public restroom stalls. These messages have become so commonplace that many people are numb to them, no longer aware of their significant exposure to this communication.

Why is there so much emphasis on promotion in today's marketplace? Savvy marketers know that simply presenting a brand in promotional messages on a large number of occasions may make an individual's attitude toward the brand more positive. Therefore, repeating an ad or brand name could increase liking and subsequent purchase of the brand without changing a person's knowledge of that brand.

your assignment

Your task is to experience the effects of promotions in your daily life by observing the different types of promotional activities happening around you.

Specifically, you will:

Part i:

1.Write down all the possible media that expose you to promotional messages for one week. This could be promotional messages embedded in television programs, in video games and on clothing. Or, it could be a social media influencer promoting a new product on Instagram, emails that you receive from businesses you've purchases from, ads you see while on the bus, etc. Note all of the sources that you are exposed to.

2.Count the number of promotional messages you are exposed to for one day.

3.Assess whether or not you had the ability to choose to avoid each message (i.e. could you skip an ad on YouTube or did you have to watch it in full to see your intended video?).

4.Write down what impact these experiences have had on your perceptions and attitudes during this week. How did it make you feel once you saw all of the messages you were exposed to?

Part iI:

Select one advertisement from the week and evaluate its effectiveness using the marketing communication process. Specifically,

1. Identify the source, the medium and describe the ad (include the ad, link to it, or photo of it, if possible).
4. What methods were used in encoding the message? How effective were they?
7. Who is the audience (target market)? Describe who the ad is trying to reach.
10. What form of feedback does the source expect to get from its audience (i.e. what is the call to action? What is the ad asking you to do?). Does the ad is an effective job of communicating the type of feedback it wants to the audience?
13. Overall, how effective or ineffective is this ad, and why? How would you improve the company's communication process to make the ads more effective?