Task: Ms Printup is considering placing an advertisement in a general sport magazine that will help introduce the product to the market. You have suggested to her that before embarking on this path a thorough media plan is required. Present Ms Printup with your recommendations on a suitable media strategy for Green Cow, including justification of suggested primary medium and secondary media. In doing so, make sure your guidance generates the right balance between reach and frequency and ensuring that the reach is effective. As you are a firm believer in a contemporary approach to integrated marketing communications it is suggested that you structure your response to include integrated guidance on facets of earned, owned and paid media. Assuming the ad in the sport magazine goes ahead, the brand manager for Blue Cow has approached you and Ms Printup suggesting that Stem Christie should also be the celebrity endorser for Green Cow and appear in the advertisement. Outline the advantages and disadvantages of this and make a recommendation as to whether you would accept this suggestion.

Topic:

Hoppcow is a successful Swiss alcoholic beverages manufacturer that markets its products across the world. Its flagship brand is "Blue Cow" a traditional mass-market beer brand that accounts for the vast majority of the company's sales and revenues. Recently the organisation has been involved in a series of embarrassing media stories. These included reports that one of the company's Blue Cow bottling plants in China was polluting a local river and that Blue Cow global advertising spokesperson, Stem Christie, a world champion snowboarder and X-Games participant from Canada, was cheating on his wife.

As part of its efforts to restore some positive image and growth, the company has conducted an extensive market research study to determine the value of developing a new, environmentally friendly product. These reports have indicated that there is an untapped market of young, environmentally- aware consumers and that these consumers would be likely to buy a drink that "benefited the environment in some way." The research also indicated that many of these consumers were also part of the growing market for energy drinks. As a result, the company is about to launch "Green Cow", a new formula energy-enriched beer to be produced in state-of-the-art carbon-neutral factories across the world, including one in Geelong (Victoria). The product will be made using the latest environmental processes, including using fully renewable and recyclable materials.

The new "Marketing Communications Manager" in Australia for Green Cow is Barbara Printup, who left CSP after the unfortunate failure of Metabical. Despite this, Ms Printup remains a fan of your insight and is seeking your counsel and input. This is an important role and your contribution to the following issues will be particularly valuable as Australia has been chosen as the test market for the new drink to establish its global potential.