Did you happen to catch the season finale of "Friends" on May 6th? "The exhaustively hyped series finale of "Friends" drew 52.25 million viewers for its extended 66 minute running time." A 30-second commercial spot garnered a cool $2 million, costing advertising heavyweights such as Allstate, Anheuser-Busch, Chevrolet, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, as well as Walt Disney and Universal Studios a mere four cents a head. For the purpose of this assignment I will characterize mass media's and telemarketing's role as part of the promotional mix, who pays for them, and how they are perceived by consumers with regards to their objectivity. I will also explain how traditional Word-of-Mouth works and round up the assignment discussing "buzz" advertising. First, let's discuss television mass media's role in the promotional mix.
Mass media's (television, radio, magazines, etc) role in the promotional mix is advertising. In particular, television commercial advertising is a paid form of non-personal communication.
Companies use commercial advertising because it is an effective means of mass-marketing as indicated by the "Friends" series finale. The objectives to advertising include: informing consumers of a new product, persuading the consumer to remain with or switch to a particular product, or remind consumers of the value of a product or where to locate it. The objective of mass-marketing is to reach out to as many consumers in one fail swoop to create brand awareness, brand interest, brand equity, to obtain competitive advantage, and to increase market share. The advertiser's ultimate goal is to accomplish the company's marketing objectives.
In regards to advertising, companies use a pull selling strategy, to "build up consumer demand." A typical commercial is comprised of the source (the company/distributor/retailer) whose product or service is featured) that encodes the message using symbols such as words, illustrations, or images; the message (the combination...