Understanding the Functions of Marketing and PR

Use this work book to help you explain the functions of marketing and public relations. You should ensure you use additional examples to support your explanations.

MarketingExplain what market research is, how it can be carried out and why it could be important.Marketing research is an organised process to collect information about customers or target markets. Market research is to maintain the competition over competitors. It provides all the important information to analyze the competition, market size and market. It also includes social and opinion research from organizations or individuals, using statistical and analytical techniques to help get an insight and make decisions.

Explain market analysis. Why is it done and who could carry it out for you?Market analysis is when a firm looks into detail of the characteristics of a market. Once they know the features of a market, the firm can plan what to do next. With a good understanding of markets, it is easier for them to target the right segments and market its products effectively. Marketing analysis is done because a lack of analysis would mean the marketing is wasteful because it was not targeted effectively, and it will mean that the wrong markets are selected. Ipsos MORI are a leading marketing company in the UK and could do the market research.

Explain marketing strategy using examples.A comprehensive plan is an organisations strategy that combines all of its comprehensive goals into one. A market strategy should sustain the business and achieve the profit potential. It is the foundation of a marketing plan. An example of marketing strategy is Primark. Primark are known for their cheap clothes yet people still go there for the fashionable yet cheap clothes that they sell. They advertise that the clothes are cheap but they still make lots of money from it. The same goes for McDonalds, they advertise cheap food, but people still buy it all because it tastes nice, yet cheap.

Why is advertising so important to an organisation? Use examples to help you explain.Most aspects of a business depend on the advertisement. Advertisement gets the word out; it needs to be known to the potential buyers. Once the advertisements are out, the sales get higher as the product starts selling. People start talking about it and other people may purchase it. The company’s reputation also comes out through advertisement, once the company has a good reputation, there will be more buyers, as people trust the company to deliver good products.If a company has a celebrity in their advertisement, people are more likely to want to see the advertisement and try the product they are using, e.g Cheryl Cole starts in the Loreal adverts, making women want to see the advert and try the same hair products as her to achieve the same healthy hair.Another example is putting a popular song onto the advert, like the John Lewis Christmas 2013 advert has the number one song in it and it has made the advert really popular.

What is brand promotion and what methods could you use to promote a brand?Brand promotion is to increase product awareness. It is a marketing strategy and helps competitiveness, customer loyalty and overall sales. Methods that could be used to promote a brand would be to put it in magazines. If it was a food product it could be put in a ‘Top Ten’ ready meals, deserts or snacks. If it was a clothing item it could be put in a magazine that women or men read, like Cosmopolitan has fashion pages and the brand name and price under the clothes.

PRWhat are some of the key principals involved in managing the message?There are 11 over all fundamental principles for effectively managing the message. A few are; communicate early and communicate often. To let everyone know what is happening and what they could possibly do to keep helping. Acknowledge and thank everyone who helped you in your success. Reinforce what is staying the same and discuss what may be changing. Create lots of audiences. Finally, continue to communicate after changes have happened and as long as the transition continues.

What is positive publicity? Find an example of it to help explain.Positive publicity is when a company, charity or organisation host an event or release something positive to help raise money/ gain new customers because of something good they have done. For example, Children in Need host a TV event yearly to raise as much money as they can. They have celebrities on and soaps creating their own little episode especially for the event. This is positive publicity as all the money goes to charity and it is a humorous and good event. This also goes for Comic Relief who host a Red Nose Day. People so sporting events and get sponsored for it and they also host a yearly TV show to gather as much donated money as they can.

In public relations terms, what is spin? Find an example to help you with your response.Spin is when there is a piece of information or someone does something and there is a positive and negative outcome, yet people say the positive thing to cover up the negative. For example when the figures for how many people are unemployed come out every 3 months, the government concentrate on how many people are now employed than the previous 3 months, rather than there are still 2 million people unemployed.

Why might a person or a company engage in damage limitation? Using an example will improve your grade. A person or company will do this because if/when something bad comes out, it will be all over the news and newspapers. To limit the damage, they will make a statement of a few pages for a print media and say sorry and it will be put around lots of positive stories to make it not seem as bad. The news are limited to what they can say and will tell the story without lying but not making it seem dramatic. An example is horse meat ad Tesco’s. Tesco made a 2 page spread apologising, so people who ship at Tesco carry on shopping there.

What benefit could there be to an organisation to create an event? Use an example of a marketing or PR event to support your responses. The benefits of hosting an event are for promotion and making people aware of your product. An example of this is Red Bull hosting the X Games. The X Games have people doing sports like skating, skate boarding and BMX. All of the people who are participating in the sports will have T-Shirts on that have the Red Bull logo and slogan on. People who just want to watch or compete will see Red Bull everywhere and as they make the event it makes them very popular, and they will have more people buying it as the promotion is good and people want to be part of the event.

What is lobbying and who is most likely to be influenced by it?Lobbying is people attempting to influence other people into an idea. It is based on the Government and politicians. An example of this is a company, such as a solar panel company, asking the government to think over the idea of solar panels on people’s roofs and saving energy and money. The people who are influenced by it are the politicians who them take it to the people higher in government and decide upon whether they will allow it or not.