There are many ways to promote or market products and services, we will talk about a few of them in this presentation. Advertising may be the first thing that comes to mind when someone says marketing or promotions. Of course, it is not the only thing. Here, we can see there's advertising, product placement, and press releases, all forms of promotion that we will talk about today. But let's first review some of the basic forms of advertising. The first is traditional print advertising. Billboards are the large signs we see outdoors, along roads, and on buildings, print media advertising is found in newspapers and magazines, advertising posters, we can see in public transportation, at train stations, bus stops, and subways, advertising banners are found on buildings, sports stadiums, and flying after small airplanes, direct market advertising comes in our mail; in the United States, we call it junk mail. There's also broadcast online and cell phone advertising, these are also called over-the-air advertising. We can see broadcast advertising on television and hear it on the radio, we see this in pop-ups and banners on the Internet, and advertising direct to cell phones through text messaging and instant messaging. Please note that in the United States, we say ad as the short form of the word advertisement, in the United Kingdom, advert is the word that is used. Product placement is another method of promoting goods and services. In this presentation, we will talk about three types of product placement: product placement in movies and on television, in places, and in the mind of the consumer. Product placement in movies and on television. Have you ever watched a movie and thought that there was so much focus on the hero's sunglasses, shoes, or cool car that it seemed it was more of an advertisement than a movie? The focus on the product is intentional, this is a kind of product placement. It encourages us to buy these sunglasses, buy these shoes, and buy one of these cars. Let's look at an example of product placement in movies. Let's say there is a bicycle company that wants to promote its new mountain bike, they look for a movie or a TV show which features a hero who rides a bike in wilderness areas and looks for and finds The Bad Guys. The bike company will provide their bikes and pay the movie company with the agreement that special features of the bike are prominently visible during the best chase scenes in the movie, while the hero is demonstrating the best features of the bike. Wow, so many cool features. If people admire the character who uses the product, many consumers will think they will also be admired if they use the same product. The bike company would be very pleased to have its bike showcased in this type of film. More bikes are sold, and this product placement brings greater brand recognition to their bike at a much lower cost than by doing a traditional TV advertisement. In addition, the bike company and the movie company may do a joint advertising program further connecting the product with the film. Both companies benefit from these promotions. Product placement also happens in TV shows. Many TV programs show people or animals eating or drinking certain products. Sometimes the characters are not actively consuming the product, but there are soda bottles, snacks, or cereal boxes in view in the scene in which the actors are appearing. Can you recognize any brands in these photos without their brand names visible? Companies spend a lot of money to ensure that their brand is easily recognized. Brand recognition includes name, packaging, color, shape, and logo. Often in these TV product placements, the packaging may be visible with its distinctive colors or shape, yet it is still enough for the audience to recognize the product even without the product name. Just like in movies, if the TV characters are popular, many consumers will want to use the same products in the hopes of being seen as having a similar lifestyle as the characters have. Product placement can also refer to location. Many marketing professionals plan the geographical area in which their products will be made available. Location product placement also refers to the types of stores or the vendors who will carry a company's products. These could be small specialty shops, supermarkets, produce stands, big city department stores, or specialty malls. Marketing professionals also plan the physical location of products inside stores and they want their products to have the best locations. Here we see produce in a supermarket, produce departments, and bakery, and the aisles. Of course, this refers to other stores as well, not just supermarkets. Even the location on a shelf inside the stores, supermarket or other kinds of store, is important for marketing. The prime location that most companies want for their products is to be on eye level and easy to reach shelves. They do not want their products to be at the very top, out of reach, nor on the lowest shelves where customers need to bend down not only to reach them, but even to see them. The third way the phrase product placement is used in regards to marketing is the attitude of the consumer about products or services. Many marketing research surveys are done every year to determine the ideas and feelings of consumers about products or brands. The surveys ask if the person has used the product, how they feel about one product compared to other similar products, and if they would purchase that item again. Today we have discussed some basic ideas of advertising and product placement as strategic activities related to marketing. These have costs and must be included in the budget of the marketing department. But on this chart, you see there's something coming up that's free. Let's look at this type of promotion. The final type of promotion we'll talk about today is the press release, which is also called a news release. When a new product or service is launched, the marketing department will send information to news outlets like television, radio, newspapers, and magazines. If a news organization picks it up or picks up the story, then you have just done some promoting with no cost to the budget of the marketing department. Woohoo, that's great. No cost there. What are the benefits of a press release? Well, a news story can feel like a positive recommendation from somebody other than the company. There may be multiple stories from one press release. Press releases sometimes result in more purchases than those from ads. Let's look at some suggestions for press releases. Before you launch your product or service, prepare your press release, however do not send it out until your product or service is truly ready to launch. The press release should be newsworthy of interest to many people. It should sound like a news story, not like an ad, and it should be written to sound like a reporter wrote it. We have covered some of the basic activities a marketing team does as part of their strategies towards promoting products and services. There are more promotional activities than these presented here and many variations on the ones we have looked at today. Naturally, there is a lot of analysis and planning involved in all of these activities too. Be sure to review the vocabulary and practice activities for this presentation as well.
