Marketing Exam Notes

Last Lecture Overview

• This is the last lecture with this instructor; Emily will handle course revision in week 12.

• Attending the week 12 lecture is strongly recommended for exam preparation, question answering, and content review.

• No lecture next week due to room assignment issues.

Contemporary Media and Promotional Tools

• Two major shifts shape modern marketing:

  • Digital Disruption: Technology transforms marketing practices.

  • Ethical Disruption: Marketers consider the broader impact of their work on society and the environment.

Technology's Impact on Promotion

• Expansion of media channels beyond traditional TV and radio to search and social media.

• Rise of social media flips the script from brands talking at consumers to two-way conversations.

• Brands must be more creative and interact with customers 24/7.

• Shift towards ethical and brand marketing, with expectations for brands to be responsible and transparent.

• Ethical missteps can cause viral reputational damage.

• Marketing now operates in a multichannel, always-on, consumer-driven environment.

Social Media

• Definition: Digital platforms allowing users to create, share, and interact with content in real time.

• Examples: Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, LinkedIn.

• Strategic Approach for Marketers:

  • Social Listening and Intelligence Gathering: Superhearing for brands to track sentiment, trends, and pain points.

    • Used for data-driven decisions.

  • Consumer Insight: Social media as a goldmine of data on consumer behavior, likes, and expectations.

    • Helps inform the entire marketing mix.

  • Support Marketing Goals: Build brand awareness, drive sales, boost customer service, and manage PR crises.

    • Brands should be at the forefront and responsive.

  • Data Analysis: Analytic dashboards provide real-time feedback on performance.

  • Strategic Planning: Social media requires a plan and should not be ad hoc.

  • Social media is a power tool that listens, learns, connects, and converts.

• Advice for Brands: Use it smartly, experiment, adapt, and tailor content to each platform.

PEO Model

• Paid: Paying for ads to be shown (e.g., in-feed, story, reels).

  • Using platforms like Meta Ad Manager.

• Owned: Content controlled by the brand (e.g., Instagram page, LinkedIn, TikTok).

  • Brands control content without paying.

• Earned: When people talk about the brand without the brand paying or asking (e.g., tags, reviews, memes).

  • Owned is what you post, paid is what you promote, and earned is what others share.

Examples

• Paid in-feed ads.

• Paid story content.

• Sponsored posts.

• User-generated content (earned if from a personal account, owned if from a brand).

Formulating Social Media Content

• Social media platforms are cluttered, leading to ad fatigue.

• Hard-sell tactics are losing effectiveness; brands are moving towards soft-selling strategies.

• Content marketing: Creating valuable and compelling content for consumers.

• Goal: Create ads that don't feel like ads (native content).

• Four Types of Social Media Content:

  • Informational: Updates, facts, news (e.g., product launches, service updates).

  • Entertaining: Enjoyable, humorous content (great for visibility and viral potential).

  • Remunerative: Discounts, giveaways, rewards (incentivizes engagement).

  • Relational: Creating connections, building community and loyalty.

Broad Categories

• Rational: Informational and remunerative (driving active engagement).

• Emotional: Entertaining and relational (passive engagement; effective short-term).

Real-World Examples

• Canadian Club campaign (win a trip): Remunerative or relational.

• Carton deli post (simple, clear info): Informational.

• Crocs meme (playful, humorous): Entertaining.

• Singapore travel video (useful travel tips): Hybrid informational and entertaining.

Tips

• Content types can overlap, but be cautious not to overwhelm.

• Stay consistent with brand message.

• Align content with brand voice, audience needs, and platform strategy.

• Consider - Is it informing, entertaining, rewarding, or connecting.

• Craft content with purpose and clarity.

Advantages of Social Media for Promotion

• Increases brand visibility (consumers use platforms as search engines).

• Improves brand reputation (brands can issue statements and control the narrative).

• Builds an image and a story (consistent storytelling across platforms).

• Attracts traffic to your website.

• Supports other parts of the promotional mix.

• Enables highly targeted advertising through behavioral tracking.

• Faster one-to-one communication (community management).

• Builds trust and rapport with the audience.

• Co-creation (consumers provide feedback and suggestions).

  • Example: Frank Green creating a car cup holder based on fan demand.

Disadvantages of Social Media

• Negative word-of-mouth spreads quickly.

• Security and privacy laws concerns (misuse of data).

• Time and resource intensive (community managers).

• Loss of control over messaging (viral moments can shift away from intended messaging).

• Ethical concerns with influencer marketing (content inappropriate for children).

• Decreasing attention spans (harder to communicate depth).

Key Takeaway

• Social media is a powerful tool but it's not effortless.

• Balance reach with control, targeting with ethics, and real-time engagement with long-term strategy.

Social Marketing

• Goal is to influence behavior change to produce societal and individual gain.

• Marketing decisions impact the environment, social structures, and public well-being.

• Intentional use of the marketing mix to solve problems and promote responsibility.

• Objective to influence, educate, and empower.

Comparison Chart

Examples

• Motor Accident Commission ads (behavioral change, safer driving).

• Campaign for the Western Australian Clear Lease Union to address government inattention to police needs.

Four Areas of Social Marketing

• Health-based: Improve health outcomes (anti-smoking, COVID-19).

• Injury prevention-based: Prevent physical harm or fatalities (road safety).

• Environmental-based: Protect the environment (anti-littering, recycling).

• Community-based: Address societal issues (racism, domestic violence).

Example Campaigns

• Bring your own cup: Environmental (reducing waste).

• Road safety ad with the dead body: Health (reducing accidents).

• I've armed myself with the country: Health campaign, protecting community.

• Gillette The Best Men Can Be: Community-based for harmful societal norms.

Streams of Social Marketing

• Downstream: Focus on individual behavior change (e.g., quitting smoking).

• Midstream: Focus on collective groups (family, friends, workplaces).

• Upstream: Focus on systems and structures (government policies).

Keep Cup Example

• Downstream: Encouraged individual BYO.

• Midstream: Asked cafes to offer discounts for reusable cups.

• Upstream: Advocated for government bans on disposable cups.

Choose the stream based on the scale of the issue, power to change behavior, and available resources.

The Four P's

• Product might be a behavior or benefit

• Price might be the cost, which includes effort, time, or social discomfort

• Place, not being the access points.

• Promotion involves a clear and compelling communication that motivates and educates our audience.

Pickup

• Product: Initially a reusable coffee cup, positioned as ethical and environmentally responsible.

• Price: Involves carrying and cleaning the product but offset by cafe discounts.

• Life: Initially available on the Keep Cup website, select cafes, then everywhere.

• Promotion: Emotional appeal, then encouragement of cafes, lastly lobbying for governmental bans.

Take away that pickup is a great example of social marketing done well.

Jul

• Originally health based behavioral change campaign aimed at helping adults quit tobacco cigarettes.

• Products, distribution, pricing all great

• Promotion used youth and influence, very teenager targeting

• The whole thing backfired completely into what is now a massive youth vaping crisis

Green Marketing

• Extension of Social marketing but primary goal is behavioral change driven by brand image, consumer demand or corporate responsibility

• Positioning self as sustainable by tweaking the four p's to align with environmental values

Four P's

• Product will use sustainable materials, eco packaging, price, often higher up front, but it's promoted as longer lasting so people are willing to pay a little bit more. Place, so we'll do eco friendly logistics, electronic delivery systems, sustainable supply chains.

• Promotion:

  • Green color

  • Recyclable Materials

  • When it's done well, it will improve brand image, corporate responsibility, and consumer loyalty. But if it is done poorly, it will back fire, and greenwashing allegations will be.

Examples

• Starbucks and Colgate

Diversity Marketing

• Intentionally including different identities in your marketing mix, often to address historic exclusion or discrimination.

Diverse Identities

• Anyone who has been historically disadvantaged

• Can improve societal values, normalise inclusion, strengthen brand relationship and shape the advertising campaign to show this

Fit To Four P's

• Ensure Band Aid products have different skin tones, fashion brands having inclusive sizes

• Tech or packaging that works with a device.

• Store Physically accessible

• Stories that are real life

Wokewashing

• When the product completely underminds the social justice that is being applied

• The brand is not walking the walk

There are brands such as Victoria secrets as an example where this doesn't happen, brands like fatty beauty and additus walk the walk

Marketing Agency

Areas

• Brand

• Digital

• Media