Reading: The Relationship between Product and Promotion

Product and promotion in global marketing can work together effectively with proper market research and communication techniques.

KEY Points

  • The “Four P’s” of marketing—product, price, placement, and promotion—are all affected as a company moves through the different phases to become and maintain dominance as a global company.
  • It is the job of global marketers to create and place product advertisements in settings where local consumers will be most receptive to receiving and acting on those messages.
  • Promotion is one crucial component of the global marketing mix that enables a global company to send the same message worldwide using relevant, engaging, and cost-effective techniques.

Term

  • Integrated marketing communications: An approach to brand communications where the different modes work together to create a seamless experience for the customer and are presented with a similar tone and style that reinforce the brand’s core message.

The Relationship Between Product and Promotion

With the rapidly emerging force of globalization, the distinction between marketing within an organization’s home country and marketing within external markets is disappearing very quickly. With this in mind, organizations are modifying their marketing strategies to meet the challenges of the global marketplace in addition to sustaining their competitiveness within home markets. These changes also have prompted brands to customize their global marketing mix for different markets, based on local languages, needs, wants, and values.

Tena for China
Product for Chinese Market
An effective global marketing plan enables brands to tweak products for local markets while using the most effective promotional channels to reach consumers.

The Marketing Mix in Global Marketing

The “Four P’s” of marketing—product, price, placement, and promotion—are all affected as a company moves through the different phases to become and maintain dominance as a global company. Promotion becomes particularly important for positioning the company in such a way that a single product can be tweaked instead of revamped for different markets. Coca-Cola is one strong example of global marketing. The drink brand uses two formulas (one with sugar and one with corn syrup) for all markets. The product packaging in every country incorporates Coca-Cola’s contour bottle design and signature ribbon in some shape or form. However, the bottle can also include the country’s native language and appear in identical sizes as other beverage bottles or cans in that country’s market.

Promotion and Product

Before launching promotional programs, global companies must first define their target markets and determine the products that will resonate most with those consumers and businesses. In addition to pinpointing which price point and distribution channels would best serve those country markets, global marketers must decide how to introduce their products. Promotional tactics for global audiences can range from television commercials to social media marketing on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other channels. It is the job of global marketers to create and place product advertisements and/or other promotional information in settings where local consumers will be most receptive to receiving and acting on those messages.

After product research, development, and creation, promotion is generally the largest line item in a global company’s marketing budget. Integrated marketing communications can significantly increase efficiency and reduce promotional costs. Moreover, promotion is one crucial component of the mix that enables a global company to send the same message worldwide using relevant, engaging, and cost-effective techniques.

While global promotion enables global brands to engage in uniform marketing practices and promote a consistent brand and image, marketers also face the challenge of responding to differences in consumer response to marketing mix elements. Promotional and product marketing challenges also come into play when dealing with differences in brand and product development and fending off local or global competition.

GLOSSARY

Advertisement
A commercial solicitation designed to sell some commodity or service.

Brand

A name, symbol, logo, or other item used to distinguish a product, service, or its provider. The reputation of an organization, a product, or a person among some segment of the population.

Budget

An itemized summary of intended expenditure; usually coupled with expected revenue. The amount of money or resources earmarked for a particular institution, activity, or time-frame. An itemized summary of intended expenditure, usually coupled with expected revenue.

Channel

The method a sender uses to send a message to a receiver. The most common channels humans use are audtiory and visual. A distribution channel.

Communication

The concept or state of exchanging information between entities. an instance of information transfer; a conversation or discourse the concept or state of exchanging data or information between entities.

Consumer

Someone who acquires goods or services for direct use or ownership rather than for resale or use in production and manufacturing. The consumer is the one who pays to consume the goods and services produced. As such, consumers play a vital role in the economic system of a nation. In the absence of their effective demand, the producers would lack a key motivation to produce, which is to sell to consumers.

Development

Development is the application of research findings to a plan or design for the production of new or substantially improved materials, devices, products, processes, systems, or services, before the start of commercial production or use. Human resource development consists of training, organization, and career development efforts to improve individual, group, and organizational effectiveness. The process of developing; growth, directed change. The complete process of bringing a new product to market. The process of soliciting and gathering voluntary contributions of money or other resources by requesting donations from individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies.

Distribution channels

Distribution of products takes place by means of channels. Channels are sets of interdependent organizations (intermediaries) involved in making the product available for consumption.

Global marketing

Global marketing is marketing on a worldwide scale, reconciling or taking commercial advantage of global operational differences, similarities and opportunities in order to meet global objectives.

Globalization

The process of international integration arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture. The process of international integrating arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture. The process of international integration arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture; advances in transportation and telecommunications infrastructure, including the rise of the Internet, are major factors that precipitate interdependence of economic and cultural activities. A common term for processes of international integration arising from increasing human connectivity and the interchange of worldviews, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture. A common term for processes of international integration arising from increasing human connectivity and interchange of worldviews, products, ideas, and other cultural phenomena. In particular, advances in transportation and telecommunications infrastructure, including the rise of the Internet, represent major driving factors in globalization and precipitate the further interdependence of economic and cultural activities. The process of international integration arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture.

Image

An attitude or lifestyle advertisers attempt to link to a product.

Integrated

Composed and coordinated to form a whole.

Market

A group of potential customers for one’s product. One of the many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange.

Market Research

The systematic collection and evaluation of data regarding customers’ preferences for actual and potential products and services.

Marketing

The process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers. Marketing is the process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers. The promotion, distribution and selling of a product or service; includes market research and advertising.

Marketing mix

A business tool used in marketing products. The marketing mix is often crucial when determining a product or brand’s unique selling point and is often synonymous with the four Ps: price, product, promotion, and place. The marketing mix is often crucial when determining a product or brand’s unique selling point (the unique quality that differentiates a product from its competitors), and is often synonymous with the four Ps: price, product, promotion, and place.

Marketing strategy

A process that can allow an organization to concentrate its resources on the optimal opportunities with the goals of increasing sales and achieving a sustainable competitive advantage.

Media

The journalists and other professionals who comprise the mass communication industry. Means and institutions for publishing and broadcasting information. General term for different types of materials. In communications, media (singular medium) are the storage and transmission channels or tools used to store and deliver information or data. It is often referred to as synonymous with mass media or news media, but may refer to a single medium used to communicate any data for any purpose. The mass media are all those media technologies that are intended to reach a large audience by mass communication. In communications, media (singular medium) are the storage and transmission channels or tools used to store and deliver information or data.

Placement

The process of making a product or service accessible for use or consumption by a consumer or business user, using direct means, or using indirect means with intermediaries.

Positioning

The act of positioning; placement. Positioning involves ascertaining how a product or a company is or should be perceived in the minds of consumers. Positioning is the underpinning of messages created to promote a product or company in order to generate positive perceptions in the minds of consumers.

Price

The price is the amount a customer pays for the product. The quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for goods or services. The cost required to gain possession of something.

Price point

The price of an item, especially seen as one of a number of pricing options. Price points are prices at which demand for a given product is supposed to stay relatively high.

Product

Any tangible or intangible good or service that is a result of a process and that is intended for delivery to a customer or end user. Anything, either tangible or intangible, offered by the firm as a solution to the needs and wants of the consumer; something that is profitable or potentially profitable; goods or a service that meets the requirements of the various governing offices or society.

Promotion

Promotion represents all of the methods of communication that a marketer may use to provide information to different parties about the product. Promotion comprises elements such as: advertising, public relations, personal selling and sales promotion. dissemination of information about a product, product line, brand, or company. The advancement of an employee’s rank or position in an organizational hierarchy system.

Social media

Social media refers to interaction among people in which they create, share, and/or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. Interactive forms of media that allow users to interact with and publish to each other, generally by means of the Internet.

Strategy

A plan of action intended to accomplish a specific goal.

Tactics

The achievement of objectives through strategy.

Target

A person (or group of people) that a person or organization is trying to employ or to have as a customer, audience etc.

Target market

A group of people whose needs and preferences match the product range of a company and to whom those products are marketed. A target market is a group of customers that the business has decided to aim its marketing efforts and ultimately its merchandise toward.

Value

The degree of importance given to something. A customer’s perception of relative price (the cost to own and use) and performance (quality). A value is extremely absolute or relative ethical value, the assumption of which can be the basis for ethical action.