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Geraldine Bell
GMS
Babak Taheri

THE GLOBAL MANAGEMENT SERIES

Marketing
Communications
An advertising, promotion
and branding perspective

Series Editors: Robert MacIntosh & Kevin O’Gorman

THE GLOBAL MANAGEMENT SERIES

Marketing Communications:
An advertising, promotion and
branding perspective

Geraldine Bell & Babak Taheri

(G) Goodfellow Publishers Ltd

(G)
Published by Goodfellow Publishers Limited,
26 Home Close, Wolvercote, Oxford OX2 8PS
http://www.goodfellowpublishers.com

First published 2017

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: a catalogue record for this title is
available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: on file.
ISBN: 978-1-910158-96-9
This book is part of the Global Management series
ISSN: 2514-7862

Copyright © Geraldine Bell and Babak Taheri, 2017

All rights reserved. The text of this publication, or any part thereof, may not be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system,
or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher or under licence from
the Copyright Licensing Agency Limited. Further details of such licences (for
reprographic reproduction) may be obtained from the Copyright Licensing
Agency Limited, of Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.

All trademarks used herein are the property of their repective owners, The use
of trademarks or brand names in this text does not imply any affiliation with or
endorsement of this book by such owners.

Design and typesetting by P.K. McBride, www.macbride.org.uk

Cover design by Cylinder

“A brand is not so much about rational arguments, but the

way that the company resonates with people emotionally”

Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

 Contents

Biographies v
Preface ix

1 Introducing Marketing Communications 1

Geraldine Bell

2 History of Advertising 21
Keith Gori

3 Marketing Discourse and Semiotics 39

Babak Taheri and Martin Gannon

4 Consumer Decisions in Marketing Communications 57

Christopher Dodd and Geraldine Bell

5 Marketing Communications Strategy 77

Geraldine Bell

6 Branding and Brand Communications 93

Ross Curran and Babak Taheri

7 Integrated Marketing Communications 113

Kitty Shaw

8 Creativity in Advertising and Promotion 131

Geraldine Bell

9 Digital Media and Marketing Interactivity 151

Kathryn Waite and Rodrigo Perez-Vega

10 International Advertising and Communications 167

Babak Taheri and Sean Lochrie

11 Marketing Communications Research and Evaluation 181

Geraldine McKay and Graham Pogson

12 Case Studies 201

Geraldine Bell, Kitty Shaw, Elaine Collinson and Kathryn Waite

Index 221
Acknowledgments

This book draws upon our own learning, practice, and in particular our
teaching and research experiences in marketing communications. We have
come to the conclusion that there is a genuine need for a guidance book to
help students not only navigate through the challenges of developing their
own interest in marketing communications, but also as they progress through
both their undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, and also in preparing
their future careers in business and maybe even in marketing communications!
Our expert marketing colleagues in the Department of Business Management
at Heriot-Watt University have very kindly contributed to this book, and
we thank you for your contribution in making it a richer resource. To our
colleagues at Goodfellow Publishers, we remain grateful. We also wish to
express our sincere thanks to Professor Kevin O’Gorman and Professor Robert
MacIntosh, for their constant support, encouragement and many pearls of
wisdom.

GB & BT

Dedication
To Alice with all my love as you embark on your own exciting future.

GB

To my beautiful wife, and my parents and brother. Thank you!

BT
 v

Biographies

Geraldine Bell BA (Hons) MBA ACIM is Assistant Professor, Marketing, with

25 years’ industry experience in marketing management and marketing com-
munications roles. With a degree in the History of Art, she started her career
as a graduate trainee in a global advertising agency in London working on a
variety of FMCG accounts including jeans, tights, toothpaste, whisky and lei-
sure. After a short stint at Revlon International, she handled the advertising and
PR for Scottish brands such as Harris Tweed and Shetland knitwear. She then
moved to British Airways Holidays, working on the Sovereign and Enterprise
brands – a brand portfolio that grew to include Falcon and Twenty’s after
acquisition by Owners Abroad – all of which is now consolidated in the First
Choice brand and owned by TUI. The mid-nineties, and into the noughties were
spent as UK Group Brand Manager at the Scottish Tourist Board/VisitScotland
managing Scotland’s Autumn Gold campaign, before moving into education.
She currently teaches Leisure Marketing, Marketing Communications and
International Marketing.

Elaine Collinson BA (Hons) MPhil is Associate Professor in the Department of

Business Management in the School of Management and Languages at Heriot-
Watt University. She is Director of Postgraduate Studies and Deputy Director of
Corporate Executive Development. With over 25 years’ experience in the Higher
Education sector, she has held roles in an academic and research capacity but
also in developing transnational education and industry links across the globe.
She teaches on the International Marketing Management suite of programmes,
specialising in Branding & Communications, Strategic Marketing Management
and Entrepreneurship. Working closely with industry, involving her wide
network of contacts on the programmes she ensures business relevance for
students. Throughout her academic career she has published in the areas of
Internal Communications, Small Business Marketing and Entrepreneurship.

Ross Curran is a final year PhD candidate at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh,

where he is a member of the Intercultural Research Centre. His primary research
interests focus on nonprofit marketing and volunteer management practices, as
well as authenticity and heritage in tourists’ experiential consumption. He has
published research in leading journals including Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector
Quarterly, Tourism Management, and the International Journal of Tourism Research,
as well numerous conference papers and book chapters.
vi Marketing Communications

Chris Dodd PhD is a consumer psychologist with a particular interest in the

social, psychological and experiential aspects of consumption. He has devel-
oped and delivered many courses within psychology, management, marketing
and communications, catering for both academic and practitioner audiences.
His research is particularly informed by a focus upon people and their relation-
ships with social and physical environments. His work has been published in
numerous international journals and he sits on the Editorial Advisory Board
of the journal Young Consumers. He is a chartered psychologist and Associate
Fellow of the British Psychological Society.

Martin Gannon is a Teaching Associate at the Hunter Centre for

Entrepreneurship, Strathclyde Business School (University of Strathclyde).
He holds a variety of research interests include entrepreneurial philanthropy,
family business governance and marketing, heritage marketing management,
tourism, and consumer behaviour.

Keith Gori is a PhD student in the School of Management and Languages at

Heriot-Watt University. His doctoral research centres on understanding the
social and cultural significance of consumption in historical context, with a
specific interest in the British home front during the Second World War. He is
involved in a range of marketing and consumer research projects utilising mul-
tiple theoretical and methodological approaches. He has published a number
of journal articles and chapters in edited texts and has presented at conferences
both in the UK and overseas. He teaches on management, marketing and meth-
ods courses in the Department of Business Management. He holds BA and MA
degrees in history from the University of Sheffield.

Sean Lochrie PhD is an Assistant Professor in Management at Heriot-Watt

University, Dubai. His primary research interest focuses on the creation of cus-
todianship behaviours within World Heritage Site management. Recent publi-
cations have explored stewardship and local community engagement in World
Heritage Site management. He has published research in journals including the
Journal of Marketing Management, and the International Journal of Contemporary
Hospitality Management.

Rodrigo Perez Vega PhD is a Lecturer in Marketing at Henley Business School.

His research interests are in social media, digital marketing and social influ-
ence marketing. Prior to finishing his PhD, Rodrigo had marketing experience
in several digital marketing and brand management roles within FMCG and
service industries.
 Biographies vii

Biogr
Graham Pogson MBA has been a lecturer for 25 years, first in the field of Textile
Technology with the Scottish College of Textiles and for the last 14 years in
Business Management subjects with the School of Management of Heriot Watt
University. He is a generalist having taught subjects from introductory econom-
ics and finance to strategic management, with marketing and organisational
behaviour in between. Recent areas of interest have been in the field of employ-
ment relations within human resource management.

Kitty Shaw is an experienced marketing practitioner with 22 years’ experience

in the financial services sector, working in a variety of research, communica-
tions and planning roles, most recently in a senior role responsible for strategic
marketing planning in a FTSE 100 company. Having originally completed an
undergraduate degree in Politics at the University of Edinburgh, she took an
MSc in Marketing Management from the University of Glamorgan and also
holds post-graduate Diplomas from both the Market Research Society and
Chartered Institute of Marketing. Her current research interest include the
marketing of pensions in the UK corporate pensions market.

Babak Taheri PhD is an Associate Professor in Marketing Management. He

worked in industrial engineering and services marketing management areas in
the UK and Middle East. Babak has a PhD in services marketing (Strathclyde),
an MRes in management science (Strathclyde), a PgD in research methods
(Strathclyde), an MSc in information systems analysis (Glasgow Caledonian)
and a BSc in industrial engineering (Tehran), where he specialised in consumer
behaviour and services marketing management, putting his industrial experi-
ence and academic knowledge into practice. As a result, he has published over
60 academic articles, book chapters and conference papers in these areas. Babak
has been awarded a Horizon 2020 project involving a range of partners across
Europe.

Geraldine McKay is an Associate Professor in Marketing and chartered mar-

keter with a special interest in the impact of branding across stakeholder groups.
Following a career in marketing, she became a university lecturer, developing
and leading a number of postgraduate, undergraduate and professional pro-
grammes. She moved to New Zealand to manage an international education
project and on returning to the UK she became the academic head for the
globally delivered Heriot-Watt management programmes. She has previously
contributed to the Global Management series and is currently registered for a
PhD investigating transnational education and the teacher/student experience.

Kathryn Waite, BA (Hons), Dip CIM, MBA, MSc, PhD, is Assistant Professor
of Marketing in the School of Management and Languages at Heriot-Watt
viii Marketing Communications

University. Her research interests relate to information provision and use

within the online environment. Kathryn is interested in trust, engagement and
empowerment strategies used by organizations within the digital environment.
She is a member of the editorial advisory boards of the Journal of Financial Services
Marketing, Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing and the International Journal
of Bank Marketing. Kathryn teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in
digital marketing, which contain frequent references to Pokémon, 1970s science
fiction, chocolate and cats.
 ix

Preface

Overview
The most important task faced by a marketer is to identify and select an optimum
promotions mix to help achieve business objectives. And this design, develop-
ment and implementation of promotional campaigns, takes place against a
backdrop of considerable change. All of us, both marketers and consumers, live
and work in an information-obsessed world. We live in a media-saturated world
where there is such an incredible choice of brands available. These brands are
revolving around us because of the exceptional impact that technology has had
on the way we process (see and read) and think about (feel and believe) commu-
nication messages. To have a successful marketing communications campaign,
your brand must be engaging and compelling, yet empowering and inclusive
in such a way as to achieve stand-out amongst the plethora of activity. In this
book, we have not managed to cover everything, but we have given coverage to
what we think you need to progress through your studies. The following gives
you the structure for our book on marketing communications, and some details
of the contents.

Book contents and layout

Chapter 1: This attempts to tackle the existing theory of communications as it
applies to consumer and marketing communications in particular. In outlining
the topic of marketing communications, it details the marketing communication
mix and makes an attempt to explain the processes of communications using
the models which underpins of understanding of this topic. This is so that your
thinking evolves in such a way as to give you the confidence and skillset needed
to enable you to make the pre-requisite decisions relative to designing and plan-
ning for an integrated marketing communications mix.

Chapters 2 and 3: The cornerstone of these two chapters is to expand our

worldview of the subject of marketing communications, embedding it in both a
history timeline and giving advertising its position in social science. The history
of advertising can be traced back to medieval times and beyond, and Chapter
2 gives us a timeline. There’s no doubt that the internet has changed our daily
lives. Arguably, the introduction of the printing press in the 15th Century did for
renaissance Europe what the internet has done for modern communications in
the 21st century. Newspapers and magazines were, and still are, an important
feature of capitalist economies, just as today sees the prominence of emails,
websites and tweets which sway us to attend to information and persuade us to
x Marketing Communications

do something.

Whereas history gives us a sense of perspective from the past, advertising

as a discourse delves into the realm of languages as places, which helps us to
further our understanding of the present. Discourses are places which are the
means by which, according to Foucault, we ‘reproduce ideologies and interpret
cultural materials’, and nowhere is this more so than in advertising. Depth is
provided with a meaningful discussion on semiotics, which looks at the rela-
tionship between image and texts. The chapter also draws on the illustration
of political marketing and PR as an exemplar of marketing communications
discourse.

Chapter 4: The focus of this chapter is on consumer decisions when consum-

ing communications. It explores why consumers are driven to make certain
decisions, and how they manage their experiences before, during and after
consuming marketing communications. It draws on consumer values, motiva-
tions and involvement as a means of framing our understanding around what
consumers do in terms of behaviour, what they feel by way of emotion and
what they think in terms of cognition.

Chapters 5 and 6: A judicious approach to marketing communications calls

for an analysis of the tools available and planning for marketing communica-
tions looks at planning as a means to achieve the required outcome in terms of
marketing communications strategy. Chapter 5 argues that whilst there is no
particular distinction between the various parts of strategy, there is a need for a
structure in evaluating strategy and the discussion concludes with a suggested
framework for marketing communications planning. And whilst Chapter 5
provides an approach to planning for marketing communications, Chapter 6
outlines the key points to consider when not just planning for the short term
with brand communications, but when building long term brands. This chapter
draws on the science of semiotics outlined in Chapter 3 and makes the link to
how brands use signs and symbols to leverage advantage. This chapter also
draws on the concept of positioning, first posited in planning for marketing
communications, taking the concept deeper in order to further develop our
knowledge so that marketers can be more efficient in designing brand com-
munication strategies.

Chapters 7, 8 and 9: Chapter 7 gives us a more detailed look at the impact a

clear market positioning has on the promotions mix, and on integrating market-
ing communications. It examines the efficiency gained from market positioning
as it is used to maximise the effect of using multiple media platforms which also
allows managers to save on resources. And whilst Chapter 7 outlines the merits
 Preface xi

and limitations of the various degrees of integration, Chapter 8 explores the

nature of creativity within an advertising context, making the case for the one
‘big idea’ which can be translated from the positioning concept into a creative
platform of aesthetic values (content and appeals), which will further benefit
and deepen integration. Whilst the creative platform provides a framework
for understanding creativity in an advertising context, Chapter 9 explains the
importance of digital media within the multiple platforms available, saying that
digital marketing is a new and exciting phase in the development of marketing
communications. This section of our book looks at how to use digital media to
best effect when developing marketing communications. It aims to provide you
with core knowledge so that you can navigate this stimulating communications
landscape.

Chapter 10: This chapter on international advertising presents you with

a global view of marketing communications. It covers the challenges that the
culture brings to the question of whether marketing communications should
be standardised or localised. It explores the degree to which country of origin
affects the perceptions and decisions consumers have about certain products
and services, and how marketing communications can exploit this and leverage
it to best effect.

Chapter 11: The profusion of new media opportunities has presented

marketers with a challenge in terms of measuring the effectiveness of market-
ing communications. Added to this are the numerous stakeholders who have
a vested interest and attempt to influence organisational goals. This chapter
explains how marketers research and evaluate marketing communications
activity both whilst they are implementing tactical campaigns and also whilst
planning campaigns for the future.

Chapter 12. This chapter holds several case studies for you to develop and
deepen your core knowledge, allowing you to gain insight by applying knowl-
edge to practice. This also gives you an idea of how some firms tackle marketing
communications in this modern communications environment.

We wish you all the best,

Geraldine and Babak. Eds
xii Marketing Communications
1 Introducing
Marketing
Communications

Geraldine Bell

One of the key features to managing marketing operations, and marketing com-
munications in particular, is how best to select an optimum promotions mix to
achieve your objectives. This implies that you know what your objectives are,
(which you may not know at this stage) and how the elements of the promo-
tions mix works best to deliver on your objectives (which you may have some
knowledge of already from previous feedback or again, you may not know).
Within the practice of promotion, a good starting point is to review the nature
of the communications process, so that you have an understanding of the role it
plays in shaping the thinking behind the choices you make (for example, media,
appeals and timing). Therefore it is useful to examine the theory of communi-
cation as it relates to both how it is reviewed, and how it influences decision
making. This introductory chapter attempts to do this.

Our journey starts with an outline of the topic of marketing communications

and takes us through to understanding the nature of the process of communica-
tions, and reinforces the insights that marketers need to draw on to help them
design and develop marketing communications. Finally, we acknowledge the
new marketing topic of WOMM (word of mouth marketing) and we recognise
that marketing communications cannot be accepted as separate from patterns
of consumption, hence we feature likely consumer responses. First though, let
us establish a baseline with this simple question: what exactly is marketing
communications?
2 Marketing Communications

What is marketing communications?

The purpose and intention of marketing, according to Baker, is “the creation
and maintenance of mutually satisfying exchange relationships” (2016: 5). The
inference here is that both parties enter into an exchange on a voluntary basis.
The value in the exchange is that both parties will be satisfied – so much so that
they will want to repeat the exchange and further the experience should the
need arise.

From a management perspective, marketing communications has a

prominent role to play in a range of other managerial domains, for instance, in
competitive strategy. Marketing communications is relevant when considering
the three resource-based marketing strategies – undifferentiated, differentiated
and concentrated. Take, for example, launching a new product or repositioning
an existing product, which suits the undifferentiated approach and requires
marketing communications effort. So does the differentiated approach whereby
products and services are modified to suit subgroups. This segmented tactic
requires a different approach to the marketing mix – pricing, distribution and
in particular promotion. For a smaller enterprise, a more concentrated strat-
egy may be appropriate because of resource allocation. In this case marketing
communications plays a key role in the promotion of its products and services.
Simply put, marketing communications is significant in terms of supporting the
marketing mix underpinning marketing strategy, and therefore has a prominent
role in generating value in achieving competitive advantage.

The job of marketing communications, as pointed out by marketing guru

Kotler, is to inform, persuade and remind customers (both internal and exter-
nal) either through direct (for example, TV or cinema advertising) or indirect
means (for example, giving a product away for trialling and PR purposes) about
the products, services and brands the enterprise seeks to exchange. Kotler et
al. go on to say that, in a way, “marketing communications represents the voice
of the company and its brands, and are the ways in which it can establish a
dialogue and build relationships with customers.” (Kotler et al., 2016: 630).
Marketing communications also has several functions surrounding the market
offering, which sends out a signal helping both the firm and customers to better
understand and further the exchange as clarified below:

„„ How and why a market offering is used; what type of person is it for/is
using it; where it can be used and also when it can be used
„„ Who is it that has designed, developed and produced the market offering
„„ What is the reward for me as the customer for usage
 Introducing Marketing Communications 3

„„ What are the opportunities for me as a business to get involved in

partnership with your products and services
In short, marketing communications plays a key role in contributing to brand 1
equity because its helps to:

„„ Establish the brand in our long-term memory

„„ Create a brand image
„„ Drive sales
„„ Affect shareholder value.

The marketing communications mix

Marketing communications works through a platform known as the marketing
communications mix, which is made up of methods that offer either one-to-one
communications, one-to-many or many-to-many forms of marketing communi-
cations activities.

Table 1.1: The marketing communications mix in general.

Marketing Communications objective(s) Marketing communications

comms mix methods & activities
Advertising Paid; non-personal; identified Product & services, direct response
sponsor designed in the main for advertising, corporate.
awareness.
Direct Communicate directly; solicit a Direct mail/email, telecon, mobile -
marketing response, prompted information information services (contact centres
& websites & mobile technology).
Sales promotion Short term incentives designed to WOM, trialling, packaging, point
stimulate trial and purchase, merits of of sale, promotions, exhibitions,
personal experiences. merchandising.
Public relations Project and protect image, WOM, sponsorship, publicity,
reputation, and market offerings stakeholder communications,
(products/services/ideas) – to gain corporate identity, lobbying,
positive editorial, to address crises, to familiarisation trips/trialling for
correct information editorial gain, event management.
Personal selling Company sponsored activities Direct sales, over-the-counter,
developed and produced to create telemarketing, trade fairs,
product/service or brand exchange factory tours, event experiences,
and interaction presentations.
4 Marketing Communications

Activity
List as many marketing communications methods and activities as you can. There are
some illustrations in Table 1.1 but these are generalisations. For example, what about
company museums, chatrooms, and annual reports?

The artistry in marketing communications is planning how best to use all

the different methods and activities to optimise effectiveness and to manage
resources in a competent manner. First we look at underpinning theory and then
we take a more detailed look at the effects the different methods and the subse-
quent consumer response models. This provides us with a platform for going
forward with this book.

Understanding marketing communications effects:

how does it work?
To help us better understand how marketing communications works, it is
beneficial to start with communications theory beacause it provides a rationale
for how and why certain marketing communication activities happen like
they do. The delivery of marketing communications involves processes and
corresponding complexities that need to be understood, and getting to grips
with the foundations of marketing communications means that you are more
more likely to be able to develop and shape dialogue because you are working
towards the key objectives of ‘sharing meaning’, as Baines et al. put it (2008:
433). If the purpose of marketing communications is to interact with an audience
and facilitate exchange (both now and in the future) then knowing more about
communications theory helps us to make sense of marketing communications
and moreover be able to exploit the opportunities available to managers and
marketers as the sender (the source).

„„ Forms of marketing communications

Communications can be interpreted through three models – the one-step or
linear model, the two-step or influencer model, and third the multi-step linear
and non-linear, better known as the interactive model.

One-step or linear model of communications

Most marketing textbooks (see for example, Baines et al., 2008; Baker, 2016;
Fill & Turnbull, 2016; Smith & Zook, 2016) will give you a detailed outline of
Schramm’s 1955 linear model of communication and will pinpoint his approach
 Introducing Marketing Communications 5

as being that of “the process of establishing a commonness or oneness of

thought between a sender and receiver” (cited in Baker, 2016, p. 400) implying
that communication has a unified aspect to it. The more basic model consists of 1
only three elements:
Sender  MessageReceiver
This implies that both the source and the destination of the communication
are tuned into each other but, with humans, this isn’t the case. Schramm argued
that this was too basic in that it did notIntroducing
allow for the transference of thoughts
Management: Art or science 5
whereby ideas are translated into symbols for transmission – in other words
the conveyance of ideas and the translation into decipherable and meaningful
sense. He called this encoding and decoding and added to the basic model thus:
1
Sender (source) EncoderMessage (signal)  DecoderReceiver (destination)
Whereas in telecommunications, the encoder is the transmitting device, in
face-to-face both the source and encoder are the same person. Likewise, the
decoder and the destination are the same with the message substituting the
signal (which becomes the language used).

Area of experience Area of experience

and understanding and understanding

Source Encoding Decoding Receiver

Message
Feedback
Feedback
Noise Noise

Figure 1.1: The one-step linear model of communication

Source: Adapted from Baker, 2016: 400, Dahlen et al, 2010: 38 and Fill & Turnbull, 2016: 41.

Note the feedback loop in the above model. This tells us that through
feedback, the source can determine how its signals are being interpreted. In
personal communications, feedback is prompt and based on the words we
use in the message and the how we use them – signalling through the intona-
tion of our voice and/or gesticulation (nod, shrug and wave), whereas in the
impersonal communication through mass media, the effectiveness is indicated
through circulation figures, in the case of newspapers and magazines and in
audience size in the case of radio and TV. The UK programme, The Great British
6 Marketing Communications

Bake Off (#GBBO) had a domestic audience of 13 million (Sweney, 2015) and
this figure would have been used in its contractual negotiations with the BBC
over transmitting the show for the following years. As the model depicts, the
more that both sides are atuned to each other, the more likely there is to be
an overlap. And the bigger the overlap, the more likely there will be shared
meaning (the more effective the message is likely to be). The final point in the
model is the noise which surrounds the exchange of meaning or as Baker calls it,
the fields of experience (2014: 401) between the source and destination, which is
subject to not only the extent to which we are tuned in, but also environmental
disturbance. This disruption is prevalent between encoding the message, mes-
sage delivery (channel) and decoding the message. What’s important to note
is that there is no such thing as a perfect transmission – there is always noise
and some form of potential disruption to contend with, whether it be “selective
attention, distortion and retention” operating within the realms of experience
and understanding (Kotler et al., 2016: 634). As Dahlen et al. concur, this area
represents both the sender’s and receiver’s frames of reference (2010: 38)

Despite advances in marketing communications (see below), and along

with the cries that mass media is dead, there is still a valid role for this more
traditional form of mass communication. This is because advertisers can reach
large audiences very quickly, at reasonable cost, and through a medium which
provides a dynamic, filmic environment where the creative appeal is often more
compelling than any other medium. For example, we can progress the narra-
tive surrounding #GBBO! The BBC has announced (13.09.2016) that it can no
longer compete with commercial broadcasters to transmit this popular show.
The producers of #GBBO have decided to move to Channel 4, which is report-
edly paying in excess of £25million a year to transmit the show. This follows on
from ITV, another commercial broadcaster, poaching BBC’s The Voice. And why
are these popular entertainment programmes so highly prized by commercial
broadcasters? Because they can command huge advertising airtime costs. From
2017, UK audiences will be viewing #GBBO with several advertising breaks.
The format will also include the patronage of products and services related to
baking, such as small and large electrical items, along with kitchenware. This
proves that despite audience fragmentation, there is still a big role for mass
communications, especially in television, where the programming provides an
environment, where airtime can be commercialised through advertising to a
mass audience.

The one-step linear model is the most basic of models in helping us to under-
stand communications, but is a two-way process in that communication travels
from the source to destination with feedback. The next model develops this into
 Introducing Marketing Communications 7

a two-step model to include personal influencers, of which there are two key
types which filter communications.
1
Two step or influencer model of communications
The influencer model of communications assumes that there are two key filters
in mass communication – opinion leaders (OL) and opinion formers (OF). Katz
and Lazarsfeld’s (1955) hypothesis argues that whilst the sender directs com-
munication to a target as in the linear model, there are also personal influencers,
in the form of opinion leaders and formers, who act as intermediaries and filter
messages, altering the shared meaning between sender and target destination.
(Smith & Zook, 2016: 151). In short opinion formers are formal experts whose
opinion has influence through their authority, and opinion leaders may be
amateurs, but who are connoisseurs who have profile and a status that gives
them a view, which makes them in demand and results in them being given
airtime. So on the one hand there are specialists (OF) such as governors, judges,
MPs, journalists, analysts, critics and even some academics, and on the other
hand there are other notables (OL) such as celebrities, bloggers, early adopters
as triallists, reviewers, seniors, and other confidentes. Both formers and leaders
are sanctioning the communications by endorsing it with either a positive or
negative spin – the key point being that communications through these two
filters are more persuasive and thus credible. For example, the London Evening
Standard fashion critic may dislike Victoria Beckham’s (VB) new fashion collec-
tion and write about it to say so, and meanwhile, Cameron Diaz in Hollywood
has been leant a VB dress from the new collection by VB’s fashion PR team and
chooses to wear it to the Academy Awards ceremony on the night, hence being
seen to support the new VB collection! In this case, the fashion critic is the OF
whilst Cameron Diaz is the OL, both of whose opinions and views carry weight.
Fashion firms regularly send shoes and handbags to both journalists, critics,
and celebrities in the hope that they will either write or wear the article to give
it editorial profile. This influencer model of communications can be visualised
below in Figure 1.2.

The two-step model, which as mentioned above is more commonly known

as the influencer model of communications, tells us that the power of commu-
nication is not just with mass media which gives us information, but is also
subject to personal influences which tells us information in a more persuasive
way, exerting influence over us, the target audience. (Fill & Turnbull, 2016: 48).
The merit of this form of communication can be illustrated by the coffee brand
Nespresso, whose George Clooney TV commercials are well known globally.
A rival brand called the Espresso Club, has used a George Clooney look-a-like
8 Marketing Communications

in their advertising, leaving the original creators and producers to sue the
8 Marketing Communications
imposter firm for misleading its target audience. This indicates the power of
persuasion that George Clooney has, as the face of Nespresso, as an opinion
leader in communications. (Associated Press, 2016)
R
OL
R

R
OF
R

R
Sender Message
R
R
OL
R
R
OF
R

Figure 1.2: Two-step influencer model of communications.

Source: adapted from Smith and Zook (2016:152)

Multi-step or interactional model of communications

The next thought in the progression of our understanding about communica-
tions comes from the fact that interaction takes place amongst and between all
parties in the communication process. This is refered to as the multi-step model
and/or the interactional model of communications.

This model centres around a network of interactions suggesting that influ-

ence and persuasion is not just OFs and OLs, as in the influencer approach to
communications. Whilst persuasion and inducement is exerted through these
types of personal influences, the volume of interactions suggest that there are
many more types of influences eliciting different responses. Fill and Turnbull
suggest that the influence is not only coming from people but is also relative
to machines, commenting that communications are increasingly “characterised
by attributing meaning to messages that are shared, updated and a response to
other messages”. (2016: 49). These exchanges of dialogue, or ‘chats’ and reviews,
are conversations that are interactional in nature, as depicted in Figure 1.3.

The internet brought with it a much more useful way of facilitating customer
communities, where all customers and stakeholders can talk and chat away to
each other. This has given more weight to relationship marketing, which is now
the dominant approach to marketing along with ‘recombined’ and integrated
marketing communications (Baker, 2016: 402).
 Introducing Management: Art or science 9
Introducing Marketing Communications 9

1
Electronic 1
sources
T3

T2 Opinion leaders

Personal
T4
sources

Mass
media

Opinion formers
T1

Figure 1.3: The multi-step or interactional model of communication.

Source: adapted from Fill & Turnbull (2016); Smith & Zook (2016) and Kotler et al (2016).

Firms now look to being a key participant in the conversations taking place
– so much so that they like to steer the conversations so that the flow of chat is
built around the brand and therefore deepens relations. They do this through
newsgroups and discussion rooms sponsored by the brand, set up to discuss
the brand, its applications, problems, issues, ideas, improvements and also
include a broader aray of topics that can be linked either directly or in some
cases indirectly to the brand (Smith & Zook, 2016).

Evian’s babies make us ‘Live Young’!

There can be nothing more emotional than being at one with our inner-child and
#evianbabyandme does just that. “Rollerbabies” was Danone’s first taste with its Evian
‘Live Young’ brand where it reached almost legendary status within the digital-marketing
landscape in 2009. Rollerbabies featured computer generated imagery (CGI) babies doing
some rather extreme stunts. The clip went viral and made history by being recorded in
the Guinness World Records as being the most viewed online ad, with up to 25 million
views over a two month period.

Danone’s water brand, Evian, has continued with the CGI-aided baby concept where the
infants continue to perform hair-raising stunts – as in “Baby Inside” in 2011. Then, in 2013,
came Evian’s “Baby & Me” which recorded 50 million YouTube views and 100 million total
10 Marketing Communications

views over several weeks and was seen on 4oD and Videology, supported with a Face-
book page as well as a raffle draw along with other traditional broadcasts such as TV
(during Britain’s Got Talent) and cinema (during The Great Gatsby run) across 15 countries
including USA, UK, Germany, France, China and Russia. The advert, or viral clip, featured
adults looking into baby-versions of themselves where the CGI-baby copied their grooves
and moved in tandem with them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfxB5ut-KTs

The campaign was strengthened by more innovative online promotion, with the intro-
duction of a mobile app which allowed users to upload their photos of themselves and
get ‘baby-fied’ revealing their inner-child, and to share the results across Facebook, Insta-
gram and Twitter through #evianbabyandme. Most viral campaigns are ‘done’ and gone
but Evian’s babies continue to hold good because they never seem to grow old!

Adapted from various sources including Ankeny (2014) and Ridley (2013).

As the example illustrates, there are different means of channeling messages

which can lead to a a web of many and different conversations circling around
the brand and not just at one time, but at many different times. The key charac-
teristic here with the revolving conversations is that the chat is accelerated by
customers themselves becoming advocates. This extends the interaction model
to include customers as thought leaders, and they too are facilitating conversa-
tions – either being more positive, leaning more towards the brand values or to
detract from them, creating a challenge for brands. Of note is that all marketers
need to understand more than just the feedback loop in the two-step commu-
nications model. The modern communications environment now includes, with
the multi-step interactional approach, customer responses, and it is up to the
company to turn this into a positive form of communication.

„„ Word of mouth marketing

There is a new topic within marketing communications which needs to be
considered, due to the prominence of the interactive form of communications
enabled by new technologies. This is word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM).
Understandably, this topic has gained significance since the advent of the
internet and the resultant usage by both marketers and customers alike, leading
to conversations being accelerated by customers themselves, hence the notion
of amplification where customers can accelerate the chat – the degree of accel-
eration depending on the level of relationship with the brand, with the most
intensive amplification coming from the ‘tribal fanatic’.

WOMM is where firms deliberately shape consumer-to-consumer commu-

nications with purpose and intent. On its own, word-of-mouth is seen to be an
 Introducing Marketing Communications 11

organic activity because there is no “prompting, influence or measurement”

by marketers, and is thus considered to be a naturally occurring phenomenon
(Kozinets et al, 2010: 72). However, with intent, comes an active attempt by 1
marketers to affect and change WOMM through deliberate marketing com-
munications strategies. This links directly to the Management:
Introducing previous discussion on the11
Art or science
two-step influencer model of communications, whereby unwilling consumers
are socially engineered into buying through OFs and OLs as a persuasive means
of marketing practice. Following on from this is Kozinet et al’s “network copro-
duction model” which draws on the multi-step model discussed previously 1
(see Figure 1.3) but which has one key element of importance within the topic
of WOMM, and that is ‘seeding’.

Consumer

Marketing message
Consumer & meanings Consumer
Direct influence (seeding, one-to-one)

Consumer

Marketing Mix
elements

Marketer

Figure 1.4: How WOMM communications are co-produced in consumer networks - the role of
‘seeding’ . Source: adapted from Kozinet et al., 2010:72.

A seeding strategy is where marketers initiate the communications through

the various means available in the marketing mix, and in the marketing com-
munications mix, in particular as depicted in Figure 1.4. In essence, WOMM is
concerned with amplifying a message and content so that it penetrates the com-
munications network – either naturally or judiciously (Fill & Turnbull, 2016:
60). There’s no doubt that social media platforms have led to an exponential
12 Marketing Communications

increase in the volume of conversations and chat as the multi-step or network

communication model explains. But whilst most consumer communications
occur spontaneously, many conversations are deliberate and are a direct result
of a marketer’s seeding strategy.

How we brought Trek America to the UK

I Trek Here was an innovative campaign designed to encourage social influencers and
TrekAmerica customers to build excitement around their leisure product – adventure
tours to the USA.
It was a tailor-made, content-led social campaign aimed at TrekAmerica’s core target audi-
ence, where the leisure firm employed 10 high-profile, influential bloggers, sent them on
a TrekAmerica trip and created social buzz around them experiencing their first trek in
Southwest USA.
Source: The Drum Social Buzz Awards.
http://www.socialbuzzawards.com/social-buzz-awards-2015/best-travelleisuresports-social-
media-strategy/how-we-brought-trekamerica-to-the-uk

Marketing practice suggests targeted one-to-one seeding within marketing

communications programmes as illustrated by Trek America. This depicts the
network approach to communications and reminds us that consumers are co-
producers in creating value and meaning on the one hand, whilst marketers
use innovative tactics and metrics to shape the communications put out by the
opinion leaders on the other. What stands is the implication that marketing
messages are traded amongst and between members within and around the
network.

One further point put forward by Kozinets et al. (2010:74) is the fact that whilst
co-produced narratives are shaped by character narrative (personal stories/
expressions), communication forum (bogs, social networking sites), communal
norms (age, lifestyle, interests, ethnicity, social class) and the nature of the mar-
keting promotion (type of product/service, compelling nature of message/visual
eg humour, hard sell or soft sell, aim/objectives), marketers need to be aware
that marketing messages and meanings are also altered systematically when
embedding them into the narrative. They are altered in a way that is ‘attuned’
to the consumer’s own likes/dislikes when operating either as an individual or
in a communally appropriate context. This is familiar in that in more traditional
communications, such as PR, the control and shape of the message is with the
journalist as intermediary. In the online world, the consumer now has control
and is the intermediary, and the consumer’s approach and context matters.
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
 “There is a rale-road here that runs up in the air, and rale-roads
on the groun that go all the time, day an nite. I want to see you and
the bears and Sams grave. And I want to be in the woods where
there are no rale-roads.”
The evident homesickness of this letter touched the Rose deeply.
The “rale-road in the air” made her marvel.
The next letter contained further information.
“Wim-men here do not smoak. And they do not say dam. I mean
wim-men like Miss Schofield.”
The Rose had never been given to profanity. It had been a luxury,
to be indulged in on rare occasions. She could forego it easily. Her
pipe would be a harder matter. Harder even than her toddy—yet, she
must do it—she would begin at once. She resolved that nothing
should stand between her and a share in that higher life for which
Peanut was destined.
Later in November there came a letter in which he said:
“The people here have white stones at their graves in-sted of
boards. They call them marble. They put their names on them, and
when they was born and was kild, or died. They are not alwis kild
here. I wish Sam had a white mar-ble stone with his true name on
it. We could keep the other too. They have one at each end. When I
come back I will by one.”
The Rose toiled earlier and later than before. She no longer had
time for solitaire. She also grew thinner, and a new look had come
into her face. The possibility of former beauty could be more easily
accorded. A miner from the camp came one day and wanted to
marry her. Some trace of a far-off former life of coquetry made her
laugh and say to him:
“You’re too late. I’ve a sweetheart already. He’s coming in a
buggy, with fine clothes on, and a high hat.”
The miner went back to camp and reported that the Rose had
caught a speculator, who would take her to Ogden in the spring.
 Autumn became winter. The bears went to sleep in their cave, and
came no more to the cabin. Blazer Sam’s grave was lost in folds of
white, and at times the lone woman above the clearing was shut in
for days. But though alone, she was no longer lonely. With work and
the letters upon the wall her days had become as dream-days, her
nights brief periods of untroubled sleep. It was only when the passes
were blocked and detained the stage with Peanut’s letter that she
minded the storm. At one time the delay was long. Then she
received two, and was proportionately gratified. In the longer of
these he wrote:
“Miss Schofield gives shose. She has a lant-ern that makes pic-
tures on a big sheet. They are seens of where she goes. Last night
she shode the mines and told about them. Then she shode Sams
grave with me a-sleep on it, and it was as big as it is there. She
came and took my hand and led me up in front of the peo-ple and
told them it was the grave of the cel-ib-ra-ted Sam Hopkins, and
that he had been called Blazer Sam, and how she found me asleep
on his grave, and how he used to make me whissels and go with me
over the mount-ins. And how he must have had a good hart to care
so much for a lit-tle boy. And when I saw the picture so big and plain
and heard how much she liked Sam too, I had to cry, and Miss
Schofield says that then all the peo-ple cried, and that she must not
do it again. If Miss Schofield was not so good I would come back. I
think about the bears up in their cave a-sleep, and how the snow is
on Sams grave, and how lonesome you must be there alone. She is
almost as good as Sam, and I know now that Sam belonged to the
hire life. I guess he lerned it when he was away so much.”
It is doubtful if Miss Schofield saw all the letters which Peanut
wrote to the Rose. I have reason to believe that she saw none of
them after the first, and that one only to be sure that it was legible
and properly addressed. She meant to be liberal, and was so,
according to her lights. Her favorite word was “spontaneity” and she
was eager to allow the boy his own privacy and expression—any
form of freedom, indeed, that did not conflict with the lives of others
or with his spiritual development.
 Concerning his former guardian and beloved hero, she carefully
avoided any suggestion that would tend to destroy a beautiful
illusion of childhood. In the boy’s dream-life Sam had been all that
he appeared, and there must be no rude awakening. Little by little,
as we learn the truth about Santa Claus and fairies, and never
wholly lose faith in them, so in due course and almost imperceptibly
would come enlightenment and a truer understanding.
But this attitude did not prevent Miss Schofield from dilating upon
the lurid history of Blazer Sam in her entertainment, as usually
given. Peanut was absent at such times, and the audience unknown
to him. It was one of her choicest bits, and the grim humor of it was
only heightened by the touch of pathos supplied by the picture of
the grave with the sleeping figure of Peanut, the story of his
devotion to the outlaw, and his present relation to herself. As I have
said, Miss Schofield was, before all, the artist.
Nor would it be fair, I think, to attach blame to Miss Schofield for
what the super-sensitive reader might regard as a certain disloyalty
to Peanut. Certainly it was proper to leave his faith in Sam’s
goodness undisturbed, at least through the boy’s trusting childhood;
while it was no less justifiable to make such use of the facts as
would best serve their artistic presentation. The ends of art have
justified conditions far more questionable than these, and her error,
if there was an error, would seem to have been an earlier matter—
committed on that August day when, following a sudden half-
romantic, half-philanthropic impulse, she was prompted to
transplant, to a crowded and noisy environment, a life so essentially
a thing of the open sky and the wide freedom of the hills. But
perhaps there are no mistakes in this world. A good many otherwise
reasonable persons hold by this doctrine.
 V

M ISS Schofield had been careful to see that Peanut was in bed
and asleep on that night in June when the schools closed and
she was giving a cozy supper to her fellow-teachers. Ever since the
breaking of the buds in the park the boy had been restless, and she
did not wish him to be disturbed by the voices and merriment of her
company. Then, too, a little private exhibition of some of her
choicest “in-gatherings” would follow, and it would not do for her
group of special friends to be deprived of any feature of her
collection. They would be quite sure to want the outlaw’s grave and
her picturesque narrative accompaniment.
She bent over the sleeping boy and listened to his heavy
breathing. What a joy and comfort he was to her! She had felt his
hunger for the open air and the breath of the mountains. Yet how
faithful he had been to his books—how little he had mingled with the
sports of other children! He was of different fiber. And what progress
he had made! Some day the world would honor and claim him. Now
he was all hers—her captive wood-creature—her dreamer, her poet!
She bent over and lightly kissed his hair. Sometimes she had strained
him to her bosom. She longed to do so now, but a moment later was
stepping silently to the door, then as silently she closed it and drew
the heavy curtain without.
Miss Schofield was not mistaken in the expectations of her guests.
Like their pupils, the merry teachers rejoiced in a newly acquired
freedom and wished to be amused. In the darkened parlor they
forgot the year’s restraints and labors and gave themselves up to
luxury of enjoyment.
 As the gem of the programme, the Blazer’s grave was held for the
last. When at length it was thrown upon the sheet there was a
chorus of approval and a round of applause. And Cynthia Schofield
rose to the occasion. She had never been so full of joy in the
present, so satisfied with what life had brought to her in the past, so
pleased with the outlook ahead. The picture on the screen was a
part of these happy conditions, her audience inspiring. Her friends
expected the best, and they should have it. With what subtle art she
led up to the incident: The stopping of the stage, the driver pointing
up the hillside with his whip. Then the scaling of the steep ascent,
the pausing here and there to look down upon the scene of the
outlaw’s former crimes, which she recalled, as she had heard them,
in the vernacular of the hills. Next, her entrance to the little clearing
about the grave—the black stumps, the flowers—and Peanut on the
grave, asleep. And her interview with Peanut! She made it a
masterpiece! She even may have colored it a little—the ends of art
would justify that, too. The imitation of Peanut’s voice, and his
monotonous reading of the profane and half-comprehended epitaph
—she gave them with a fidelity that startled even herself. Her friends
became hysterical. At one moment sobbing and wiping their eyes, at
the next laughing, the tears still running down their cheeks. And
then the picture she drew of the Rose of Texas, and of Peanut when
he sat waiting for her to take him away. “Worthy of Dickens!” they
cried out to her. “You must write it, Miss Schofield! You must
certainly write it!”
But Miss Schofield will never write that scene, and those of us who
listened that night in June heard not only its greatest presentation,
but its last. A moment later the lights went up, and she turned for
congratulations. Then she saw him. He stood just inside the door,
and his face was like death.
The prolonged merriment had found its way through the heavy
curtain and closed door. Unable to sleep, he had dressed and come
out to find the cause. He had never been forbidden any part of the
house, and at the entrance of the darkened parlor had listened in
silence to the entertainment that ended with ridicule and defamation
of his hero, with jeers of laughter for himself and Rose. Once more
he had met with deception—this time in one whom he had trusted
and loved, even as he had loved and trusted Sam—in her, of all
others, who had promised to lead him to the higher and better life.
As white and death-like as himself, Cynthia Schofield led him back
to his bed. There she tried to speak to him.
Peanut turned his face to the wall.
 VI

T HE letter which the postmaster handed to the Rose of Texas

seemed heavier than usual. The Rose hugged it all the way up
the mountain. Then out on the doorstep, where he had said good-
by, she opened and read it. The first sentence made her heart leap:
Dear Rose,—I am coming back. I will start before morning. If I go west and
keep on every day, some day I will get there. Miss Schofield told me once that
it was fifteen hundred miles, so if I can walk fifteen miles a day it will take me
a hundred days to get to the cabin and Sam’s grave. The money you gave me
is not enough to come on the cars. I will spend it for things to eat. At ten
cents a day it will last till I get home. Perhaps some days I won’t need to
spend so much. I will wear the clothes you made me and my own hat and
shoes. I have them all on now, and the lether sack with Sam’s ambertipe and
the whissel, and the money. I would like to take the picture of the grave, but
I shall leave it on the wall.
I wrote you how Miss Schofield showed the picture of the grave and told
about Sam’s good heart. When I am not there she tells how he had a cruel
heart and was only good to me. And it is not true, and when she told how she
met me at Sam’s grave she told other things that were not true, and that did
not happen at all. She laughs at Sam and the grave and at you and me. And
she makes other people laugh. That is all she cares for. I thaut she was like
Sam, but she is not and I could not be good here either, where there are so
many bad people and nothing is clean. The snow is so dirty here they take it
right away and you can never hear the wind and rain. They have trees in the
park and animals and birds in cages, but they make me cry because they are
so homesick, like me. I want to come back to the hills where there is just you
and the bears and Sam’s grave. If I start to-night and it takes a hundred days
it will be more than a year since I went away. I will never leave you any more.
I am obliged to Miss Schofield for sending me to school, but I cannot stay
here now. I was yours before I was hers, and I will be yours again. Perhaps I
can get some books and study lessons there with you and learn to be a
naturallist, when I grow up, which means to live in the woods and know
 about the birds and animals, and I will dig gold out of the mines for us and I
will put a white stone at Sam’s grave so we can see it from every-where.
Now I am going to start. I am going to slip down-stairs and I will be out in
the country before morning. Sam taut me how to hide, and how to keep in
one direction. Perhaps I will write to you on the way, but I must not buy many
stamps or paper. Anyway I will be coming all the time, and some day I will be
there the same as ever.
Yours,
Peanut.

The Rose of Texas was a bundle of conflicting emotions by the

time she reached the end of this letter. But out of it all came one
dominant joy. Peanut was coming back to her—he was already on
the way. Whatever resentment she may have felt toward Miss
Schofield was swallowed up in this great fact.
As to Peanut’s ability to make the long journey, she did not
question it—not yet. She knew, of course, that the way was long,
and would be hard in places. How long or how hard, neither she nor
any one could know. She realized much more fully Peanut’s subtle
knowledge of outdoor life, his persistence, and the endurance of his
wiry little frame. She forgot that a winter of comparative inaction
and close mental application might have told on his physical powers.
It would be a weary journey, but with the long days of summer-time
at hand he would not fail, and September would bring him back to
her.
She would begin preparing for him at once. She would make up
one of the new dresses, and leave off her second toddy to-morrow.
Then there was another purpose, which must be accomplished now,
sooner than she had expected. Her boy was coming back to her—
not as she had once dreamed, in a buggy, and wearing a tall silk hat
—but, better still, the boy who had gone away. He would find her
ready to receive him.
But one thing troubled the Rose—the amount of Peanut’s
resources. With the aid of her fragmentary arithmetic she verified his
calculation that if a little boy traveled fifteen miles a day, and
traveled a hundred days, he would travel fifteen hundred miles; also,
if the same little boy had ten dollars, and spent ten cents of it every
day, he would have enough to last him through the journey. Only,
she wished that he might have more than ten cents a day. It seemed
to her so little—she wondered what he would buy with it. Crackers,
mostly, she thought, and cheese. The Rose thought of the eatables
kept at the camp store, and sighed as she remembered how little of
them could be had for ten cents. If she only knew where to send
him more money. But she remembered hearing that things were
cheaper beyond the mountains, and this thought consoled her.
As the days passed, her confidence in Peanut’s ability to make the
long trip began to wane. Chicago lay far to the eastward, across
rivers and beyond mountains. She reasoned that there must be a
road and bridges between, but in her imagination she began to see
the dusty little figure toiling along in the sun, overcome by thirst and
heat, where the prairies were wide, and the houses far apart. At
times she pictured him as being run down by those terrible railroad
trains, as waylaid and robbed of his little store of money and left by
the roadside to die. Almost clairvoyantly, at night, she saw him
asleep in fence-corners, in haystacks, under bushes and ledges of
rock—anywhere that afforded shelter to the friendless little wayfarer
toiling back to his beloved hills. When the storm raged down the
mountains she would open the door and, looking out into the
mystery of blackness, fancy she heard his thin voice calling to her
above the roar of the torrent and the wail of the tree-tops. However
busy her days, they no longer seemed brief, her nights were no
longer untroubled. She knew that he was still far away beyond the
mountains, yet twenty times a day she hastened to the door to look
and listen, while at night wild dreams brought her bolt upright to
answer to his call.
When two weeks had passed the stage one day brought her two
letters. One of them from Miss Schofield—written from a sense of
duty, we may believe—told, briefly and guardedly, of the strange
disappearance of Peanut. The writer assured the Rose that there
was no cause for uneasiness, that every effort was being made to
find the missing boy and that he was certain to be discovered in a
brief time. The Rose smiled grimly as she read this epistle, for the
other one had been from Peanut—just a line on a bit of wrapping-
paper, to tell her that in seven days he had reached Iowa, which was
farther than he had expected to be at that time. People had asked
him to ride, sometimes, on their wagons. There were nearly always
good places to sleep—mostly in the woods, where he had the birds
and squirrels for company. He was well, and happier than he had
been for a year.
The Rose did not know where Iowa was. When she asked the
postmaster he showed it to her on the map. Then she did not know
any better, but she was comforted. Peanut wrote again when he
reached Nebraska, but that was nearly three weeks later, and the
Rose had become almost desperate. Now she was made briefly
happy by the statement that he was still well, and had money, and
that he had found there were only two more states to cross,
Nebraska and Wyoming, and then a little more and he would be
home.
To the Rose a state was a state. That the distance yet to be
traveled was double that already covered, and many times more
difficult, did not occur to her. But when two weeks more had passed,
and yet two more, and brought no further word from the little
wayfarer, her heart grew very heavy again, and she haunted the
camp post-office with each arrival of the stage.
And still another two weeks went by, and yet he did not come,
and the days brought her no word. She did not know that the
number of crackers obtained by Peanut for five cents had been
reduced in his westward march from ten to eight, from eight to six,
and that the bit of cheese received in exchange for the other five
cents had grown so small that the little boy, alarmed, had feared to
spend even the money necessary for another letter. The Rose did
not know these things, and even had she known, it would hardly
have lessened her anxiety.
 She spent most of her time now in watching for him. The hundred
days had by no means expired, but his letters had led her to hope
that he had gained time and would be there sooner than he had
calculated. According to her count, if a little boy could cross two
states in four weeks, he could cross four states and something over
in about nine weeks, and now twelve weeks had gone by and he
had not come. The fact that he no longer wrote encouraged her to
believe that at any moment he might walk in upon her.
But now came an added anxiety. A letter, indeed, not from Peanut,
but a broken-hearted confession from Cynthia Schofield, who, good
woman that she was, acknowledged everything, begging the Rose to
forgive her, and to write if she knew aught of their little lad.
“It was all so strange and unsuited to him here,” she wrote. “I can
see, now, how he belonged only there in those beautiful hills and
how his life there would mean more to him, and to others, too, I
believe, than here in the sordid clatter and struggle and deception
that he could not endure—” Then, in closing, she added:
“Sometimes I think he must have started home, and I am having
notices posted and published all along the way, so that somebody
may find him and keep him safely until I come. Poor little fellow!
Where is he, and what is he doing to-night, out all alone in this great
wicked waste of a world?”
The Rose comprehended little more than the grief of this letter,
and she pitied Miss Schofield, as one woman may pity another when
there is but one heart’s desire for both; but her sympathy vanished
in the fear that Miss Schofield’s agents with their wide knowledge
and ample resources would find the boy after all and that to her, the
Rose, he would now be lost forever.
She was in a frenzy of suspense. A hundred times she would have
closed the cabin and gone to meet him, but feared she might pass
him by a different way, and so wander on and on helplessly. Her
anxiety at last overcame her secretiveness, and she one day partially
unburdened herself to the postmaster, who informed her that for at
least fifty miles to the eastward there was but one road. This was in
September, more than three months from the night that Peanut had
left Miss Schofield’s apartment in Chicago. The Rose could wait no
longer. She set out to meet him the same afternoon.
She put on one of her new plain gowns, and a new, though not
altogether plain bonnet which the storekeeper had ordered for her
from Ogden. She started to put on her new shoes, too, but,
remembering that she might have far to walk, held to the old ones.
Then she packed a basket with eatables—good things such as
Peanut had always liked. He would be tired of the things he could
buy with his ten cents a day along the road. Tired? dear heart! As if
a little boy trudging over range after range of lofty mountains, only
to find range after range of still loftier ones beyond, could be tired of
any kind of food! The Rose imagined how he would welcome the
freshly cooked bread, and the coffee which she would make in the
little pail. She felt much less unstrung now that she was really going
to meet him, and more nearly happy than she had been for weeks.
Only, she must hurry, and get as far as possible before nightfall.
Over her arm she threw a thick army blanket, for sleeping on the
ground.
It was well on toward two o’clock when she started. The path led
by Sam’s grave, and she paused an instant to regard the place with
a new pride. Then she pressed on—there would be time enough for
this afterward.
The Rose of Texas found it hard climbing the mountain road. She
began to realize now why it was that Peanut might be longer than
he had counted on, and her heart ached for him more, and her arms
ached, too, under the heavy load of blanket and basket. When she
had been toiling up the hill for perhaps three hours she wondered
how many miles she had come. But at a high turn of the road she
paused to look back, and was surprised to see—almost behind her, it
seemed—her own steep hillside, with the little clearing about Sam’s
grave. It was fully six or seven miles away, but in that clear air it
seemed almost as if she might reach out and touch it. Wearily she
pushed on. Dark fell, and she halted for the night.
 It grew very cold. The Rose attempted to kindle a fire, but she
could not find dry pieces, and the matches flickered and smoldered
to blackness. She huddled down in her blanket at last, realizing what
this night must mean to a hungry little boy with nothing but the sky
to cover him. Perhaps experience had taught Peanut a better means
of providing, but the Rose did not consider this, and through the
bitter night saw him crouching in the dark, shivering with cold and
exposure. She did not sleep, and before daybreak was toiling up the
long incline.
The way grew ever steeper: she was nearing the mountain-top. It
grew lighter, too, and presently she noticed that the trees ahead
were fringed with morning. The sun was coming.
The fringe crept lower, the woods on either side turned to
amethyst, a spot of radiance lay on the high trail between. The Rose
paused and, looking up, gave welcome to the new day.
Then, all at once, in the patch of sunrise ahead, something dark
appeared; something that moved, hesitated, moved again, stopped.
The woman’s knees began to tremble exceedingly. Hastily shifting
her burdens, she shaded her eyes and looked steadily into the
brightness. Then she was sure. It was Peanut, and the glory behind
him set a halo upon his faded hair.
The wayfarer had returned. Who shall say across what desert
wastes, through what dark gorges, and by what dizzy heights the
long path had led him home—had brought him nearer to the abiding
comfort of Sam’s quiet grave and the rest of the enduring
mountains? Who shall determine what unseen power had sustained
that frail body and guided those wandering feet?
He had not seen her. She was in the shadow beneath, and he
seemed looking over her head to some faraway point beyond. For
one supreme instant the woman lingered to drink in the vision. Then
basket, blanket, and old restraints fell away as she pressed up the
slope, the new dawn shining in her face. He looked down then and
saw her. These two had never embraced, but a moment later he was
in her arms and their tears mingled.
“Peanut, oh, my poor little boy, how thin you are!”
“Oh, Rose, Rose! You bought it for him, didn’t you?”
For behold, from that high point the steep clearing on the far-off
hillside was once more visible. But the black stumps were no longer
to be seen, and in their place a white stone gleamed with the
radiance of morning.

THE END
Transcriber’s Notes:
Missing or obscured punctuation was
corrected.
Unbalanced quotation marks were left as the
author intended.
Typographical errors were silently corrected.
Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were
made consistent only when a predominant
form was found in this book.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "PEANUT": THE
STORY OF A BOY ***

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