Chapter Five

Promotion Strategy in International Context

As you may recall from your principles of marketing module, promotion is one of the four mixes
of marketing. It is often referred to as ‘marketing communication’. In this section, you will be
learning about promotion from international marketing perspective. Promotion means
communication with the target customers. The creation of awareness, interest, desire and action is
the universal aim of the promotion mix. It also aims at informing, persuading and reminding the
customer about the item being promoted. It includes advertising, personal selling, sales promotion,
publicity, direct marketing and exhibitions and trade fairs.
The marketing communications mix (also called the promotion mix consists of five major modes
of communication:

Advertising: Any Paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or
services by an identified sponsor.

Sales promotion: A variety of short-term incentives to encourage trial or purchase of a product or

service.

Public relation & Publicity: A variety of programs designed to promote and/or protect a
company's image or its individual products.

Personal selling: Face -to -Face interaction with one or more prospective purchasers for the
purpose of making presentation, answering questions, and processing orders.

Direct Marketing: Use of mail, telephone, fax, e-mail, and other non-personal contact tools to
communicate directly with or solicit a direct response from specific customers and prospects.

The starting point in the communication process is thus an audit of all the potential interactions
target customers may have with the product and company. For example, someone purchasing a
new computer would talk to others, see television ads, read articles in newspaper and magazines,
and observe computers in a store.

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The marketer needs to assess which of these experiences and impressions will have the most
influence at the different stage of the buying process. This understanding will help marketers
allocate their communication dollars more efficiently.

5.1 Personal Selling

The goal of all marketing efforts is to increase profitable sales by offering want satisfaction to
consumers over the long run. Personal selling is by far the major promotional method used to reach
this goal. Personal selling can be defined as follows: “Personal selling is the personal
communication of information to persuade somebody to buy something". According to AMA,
personal selling is an “oral presentation in a conversion with one or more prospective purchases
for the purpose of making sales. Personal selling is more known commonly as salesmanship.
Personal selling is the individual, personal communication of information, in contrasts to the mass,
impersonal communication of advertising, sales promotion, and other promotional tools. This
means that the personal selling is more flexible than these other tools. Sales people can tailor their
presentation to fit the needs and behavior of individual customers.

Personal selling is two-way, personal communication between a company representative and a

potential customer. The salesperson's job is to correctly understand the buyer's needs, match those
needs to the company's product(s), and then persuade the customer to buy. Global marketing
presents additional challenges because the buyer and seller may come from different national or
cultural backgrounds. It is difficult to overstate the importance of a face-to-face, personal selling
effort for industrial products in global markets
The selling process is typically divided into several stages: prospecting, pre-approaching,
approaching, presenting, problem solving, handling objections, closing the sale, and following up.
The relative importance of each stage can vary by country or region. Experienced sales reps know
that persistence is one tactic often required to win an order in the market; however, persistence
often means tenacity, as in "don't take 'no' for an answer." Persistence is also required if a global
industrial marketing effort is to succeed; in some markets, however, persistence often means
endurance, a willingness to patiently invest months or years before' the effort results in an actual
sale. For example, a company wishing to enter the Japanese market must be prepared for
negotiations to take from 3 to 10 years.

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Prospecting is the process of identifying potential purchasers and assessing their probability of
purchase. If Ford wanted to sell vans in another country where they would be used as delivery
vehicle, which businesses would need delivery vehicles? Which businesses have the financial
resources to purchase? Those businesses that match these two needs are better prospects than those
who do not. Successful prospecting requires problem-solving techniques, which involve
understanding and matching the customer's needs and the company's products in developing a sales
presentation.
The purpose of the pre-approach or problem solving stage is to gather information on a prospective
customer's problem areas and tailor a presentation that demonstrates how the company's product
can solve these specific problems. If a potential customer has a grocery business, their needs in a
van would be different from a customer who owns a carpentry business. The sales representative
would need to select the best models of Ford vans collect the appropriate model specifications, and
so on to prepare for an effective presentation.
The next two steps, the approach and the presentation, involve one or more meetings between seller
and buyer. In global selling, it is absolutely essential for the salesperson to understand cultural
norms and proper protocol. In some countries, the approach is drawn out as the buyer-gets to know
or takes the measure of the salesperson on a personal level with no mention of the pending deal. In
such instances, the presentation comes only after rapport has been firmly established.
During the presentation, the salesperson must deal with objections. Objections may be of business
or personal nature. A common theme in sales training is the notion of active listening; naturally, in
cross-cultural selling, verbal and nonverbal communication barriers present special challenges for
the salesperson. When objections are successfully overcome, the salesperson moves on to the close
and asks for the order. A successful sale does not end there however; the final step of the selling
process involves following up with the customer to ensure his or her ongoing satisfaction with the
purchase. Sales people can see their customer's' reaction to a particular sales approach and make
adjustments on the spot. Another advantage of personal selling is that it's goal is to actually make
a sale. Other forms of promotion are designed to more a prospect closer to a sale. Advertising can
attract attention, provide information, and arouse desire, but seldom does it stimulate buying action
or complete the transfer of title from seller to buyer.

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A major limitation of personal selling is its high cost. Even though personal selling can minimize
wasted effort, the cost of developing and operation sales force is high. Another disadvantage is that
a company often is unable to attract the quality of people needed to do the job.
5.2. Exhibitions and trade fairs
Trade shows and exhibitions are other promotion vehicles that are increasingly important in the
promotional mix, especially for industrial products and in the international marketplace.
International trade shows offer businesses the opportunity to identify and recruit
importers/exporters and agents and to make contact with trade bureaus of foreign governments.
They also offer an inexpensive and efficient way to meet -potential customers from other countries.
Trade shows differ from country to country. For example, in the United States printed material and
promotion giveaways are much more common than in many other countries.
5.3. Public relations/publicity
Like advertising and sales promotion, public relation is an important marketing tool. Not only must
the company relate constructively to its customers, suppliers and dealers, but it must also relate to
a large set of interested publics. Public relation may be defined as follows:
"A public is any group that has an actual or potential interest in or impact on a company's ability to
achieve its objectives. Public relations (PR) involve a variety of programs designed to promote
and/or protect a company's image or its individual products.
Public relation is a management tool designed to favorably influence attitudes toward an
organization, its products, and its policies. It is an often-overlooked form of promotion. In most
organizations this promotional tool is typically a stepchild, relegated far behind personal selling,
advertising, and sales promotion. Public relation departments perform the following five activities,
not all of which support marketing objectives.
1. Press relation -Presenting news and information about organization in the most positive light
2. Product publicity - Sponsoring various efforts to publicize specific products
3. Corporate Communication - Promoting understanding of the organization with internal and
external communications
4. Lobbying -Dealing with legislators and government officials to promote or defeat legislation
and regulation

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5. Counseling - Advising management about public issue and company positions and image. This
includes advising in the event of a product mishap when the public confidence in a product is
shaken.
Publicity is any communication about an organization, its products, or policies through the media
that is not paid for by the organization. Publicity usually takes the form of a news story appearing
in a mass medium or an endorsement provided by an individual, either informally or in a speech or
interview. Publicity is the non-personal stimulation of demand that is not paid for by a sponsor that
has released news to the media. Advertising and publicity are guile similar in the sense that both
require media for a non-personal presentation of the promotional message. One difference between
the two is that with publicity a company has less control over how the message will be used by the
media. Another difference is that publicity is presumed to be free in the sense that the media are not
paid for the presentation of the message to the public.
There are three means for gaining good publicity:
1. Prepare a story (called a news release) and circulate it to the media. The intention is for the
selected newspapers, television stations, or other media to report the information as news.
2. Personal communication with a group. A press conference will draw media representatives
if they feel the subject or speaker has news value. Company tours and speeches to civic or
professional groups are other forms of individual to group communications.
3. One on one personal communication often called lobbying. Companies lobby legislators or
other powerful people in an attempt to influence their opinions, and subsequently their
decisions.
Publicity can help to accomplish any communication objective. It can be used to announce new
products, publicize new policies, or report financial performance, if the message, person, or group,
or event is viewed by the media as news worthy.
5.4. Sales promotion
"Sales promotion consists of a diverse collection of incentives tools mostly short term designed to
stimulate quicker and/or greater purchase of particular products by consumer or the trade. "In other
words sales promotion is a demand stimulating devices designed to supplement advertising and
facilitate personal selling. Where advertising offers a reason to buy, sales promotion offers an
incentive to buy.

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Sales promotion consists of those promotional activities other than advertising, personal selling,
and publicity. As such, any promotional activities that do not fall under the other three activities of
the promotion mix are considered sales promotion. The techniques of sales promotion are varied
and numerous. The common ones used are coupons, games contests, price-offs, samples, money,
refund offers, point of purchase displays, and demonstrations. Sales promotion is a key ingredient
in marketing campaign.
Generally, Sales promotion refers to any consumer or trade program of limited duration that adds
tangible value to a product or brand. The tangible value created by the promotion may come in
various forms, such as a price reduction or a "buy one, get one free" offer. The purpose of a sales
promotion may be to stimulate customers to sample a product or to increase consumer demand.
Trade promotions which forwarded to mainly for the distributors of the firm’s product designed to
increase product availability in distribution channels.
5.5. Advertising in the global situations
"Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or
services by an identified sponsor."
Advertising, sales promotion, and public relations are the mass communication tools available to
customers. As its name suggests, mass communication uses the same message for everyone in an
audience. The mass communicator trades off the advantage of personal selling, the opportunity to
tailor a message to each prospective customer, for the advantage of reaching many people at a
lower cost per person. Advertising is one of the most common tools companies use to direct
persuasive communication to target buyers and publics.
The purpose of advertising is to sell something a good, service, idea, person, or place either now
or later. This goal is reached by setting specific objectives that can be expressed in individual
advertisement that are incorporated into an advertising campaign. Thus, the immediate objective
of an advertisement may be to move target customers to the next stage in the hierarchy say, from
awareness to interest. Advertising objectives can be classified according to whether their aim is to
inform, persuade, or remind:
1. Informative advertising: - figures heavily in the pioneer stage of a product life category, where
all objectives are to build primary demand.
2. Persuasive advertising: - becomes important in the competitive stage, where a company's
objective is to build selective demand for a particular brand. Some persuasive advertising has

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moved into the category of comparative advertising, which seeks to establish the superiority of
one round through specific compression of one or more attributes with one or more brands in the
product class.
3. Reminder Advertising: - is highly important with mature products. A related form of
advertising is reinforcement advertising, which seeks to assure current purchasers that they have
made the right choice.
Advertising Media
Media selection involves finding the most cost effective media to deliver the desired number of
exposure to the target audience. Here are some general factors that will influence media choice: -
1. Objective of the advertisement
The purpose of a particular advertisement and the goals of the entire campaign influence which
media to use.
2. Audience Coverage
The audience reached by the medium should match the geographic area in which the product is
distributed. Furthermore, the selected medium should reach the desired types of prospects with a
minimum of wasted coverage. Wasted coverage occurs when an advertisement reaches people
who are not prospects for a product.
3. Requirements of the message
The medium should fit the message. For example, food products, floor coverings, and apparel are
best presented visually. If the advertiser can use a very brief message, as is common with reminder
advertising, billboards may be a suitable medium.
4. Media Cost
The cost of each medium should be considered in relation to the amount of funds available to pay
for it and its reach or circulation.
Advertising can be affected in several ways by local regulations. The availability of media (or the
lack of it) is one example, when and how much media time and spaces are made available, if at
all, is determined by local authorities. Belgium prohibits the use of electricity for advertising
purposes between midnight and 8:00 AM.
The advertising media widely in use are:
1. Television

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Television combines motion, sound, and special visual effects. Products can be demonstrated as
well as described on TV. It offers wide geographic coverage and flexibility in when the message
can be presented. However, television is a relatively expensive medium.
2. Radio
A radio set is inexpensive and affordable – even among poor people. It is virtually a free medium
for listeners: the programs are free and the costs of operating and maintaining a radio set are almost
negligible. Furthermore, illiteracy poses no problem for this advertising medium. As a
communication medium, radio is entertaining, up-to-date and portable. The medium penetrates
from the highest to the lowest socio-economic levels, with Fm stations being preferred by high-
income and better-educated listeners. Not surprisingly, radio commands the largest portion of
advertising expenditures in a great number of markets.
Radio is the most effective media that has enjoyed a rebirth as an advertising and cultural medium.
When interests on television increased, radio audiences (especially for national network radio)
declined so dramatically that some people predicted radio's demise. Radio makes only an audio
impression, relying entirely on the listener's ability to retain information heard and not seen. Also
audience attention is often at a low level, because radio is frequently used as background for
working, studying, or some other activity.
3. News Papers
Press advertising includes advertising in newspaper, magazines, trade journals, & business
directory. The newspaper is the most popular form of advertising. It constitutes a valuable
medium for disseminating news and molding public opinions and therefore plays an important role
in social and political life.
As an advertising medium, newspaper is flexible and timely. Advertising can be inserted or
cancelled on very short notice, and can vary in size from small classifieds to multiple pages. Pages
can be added or dropped, so newspapers are not limited. Newspapers can be used to reach an
entire city, or, where regional editions are offered, selected areas.
4. Screen (Cinema)
In virtually all countries, the cinema is a favorites activity for social gathering. People are avid
moviegoers because of the limited television broadcasting and because of people’s natural desire
to go out to place of social gathering. Cinema advertising has several advantages. It has impact of

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outdoor advertising without the drawback of being stationery. It has sight and sound like television
but with better quality. Furthermore, cinema advertising has a true captive audience.
5.6. Advertising standardization versus local adaptation
A major decision for an international marketer is whether the firm should use national or
international advertising appeals- a localized or standardized approach. Many marketers strongly
believe that a successful advertising concept will do anywhere. Critics of standardization in
advertising argue, however, that cultural differences require a campaign to be tailored to each
country. Media strategy is also concerned with availability, coverage and cost of the media.
According to the standardization argument, because people everywhere want the same products
for the same reasons, companies can achieve great economies of scale by unifying advertising
around the globe. Advertisers who follow the localized approach are skeptical of the global village
argument. Even Coca-Cola, the most global brand in the world, records radio spots in 40 languages
with 140 different music backgrounds. Coca-Cola asserts at consumers still differ from country to
country must be reached by advertising tailored to their respective countries. Proponents of
localization point out that most blunders occur because advertisers have failed to understand and
adapt to foreign cultures.
Certain consumer products lend themselves to advertising extension. If a product appeals to the
same need around the world, there is a possibility of extending the appeal to that need. The list of
products "going global," once confined to a score of consumer and luxury goods, is growing.
Global advertising is partly responsible for increased worldwide sales of disposable diapers,
diamond watches, shampoos, and athletic shoes. Some longtime global advertisers are benefiting
from fresh campaigns. The basic issue is whether there is in fact a global market for the product.
If the market is global, appeals can be standardized and extended. Soft drinks, Scotch whiskey,
Swiss watches, and designer clothing are examples of product categories whose markets are truly
global.
What is needed for successful international advertising is a global commitment to local vision. In
the final analysis, the decision of whether to use a global or localized campaign depends on
recognition by managers of the trade-offs involved. On the one hand, a global campaign will result
in the substantial benefits of cost savings, increased control, and the potential creative leverage of
a global appeal. On the other hand, localized campaigns have the advantage of appeals that focus
on the most important attributes of a product in each nation or culture. The question of when to

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use each approach depends on the product involved and a company's objectives in a particular
market.
Whatever the case is these mitigating factors can be called "noise" and have an effect on the
decision to "extend", "adapt" or "create" new messages. Language differences may mean that
straight translation is not enough when it comes to message design. Advertising may also play
different roles within developed, between developed and underdeveloped and within
underdeveloped countries. In developing countries "education" and "information" may be
paramount objectives. In developed countries, the objectives may be more persuasive. Cultural
differences may account for the greatest challenge.
Three major difficulties occur in attempting to communicate internationally: the message may not
get through to the intended recipient, due to a lack of media knowledge; the message may get
through but not be understood, due to lack of audience understanding and: the message may get
through, be understood but not provoke action. This may be due to lack of cultural understanding.
Media availability is a mitigating factor.

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