Content Focus. Task 1. It is very important to understand the concept of marketing mix when talking about marketing

Task 1. It is very important to understand the concept of marketing mix when talking about marketing. Marketing mix helps define the marketing elements for successfully positioning a product or service.

Read the text below about the marketing mix. Before reading the text answer the following questions:

· Give your opinion as to what marketing mix is?

· Think of any strategies how to differentiate a product from its competitors (You have 5 minutes for answering the questions and 10 minutes for reading the text).

Marketing mix

Marketing mix is a broad concept that includes several aspects of marketing which are related to creating awareness and customer loyalty. The term is often summarized as referring to the "four P's": price, promotion, product, and placement.

Product. It is a tangible item or an intangible service that is mass produced or manufactured on a large scale with a specific volume of units. Typical examples of a mass produced tangible object are books, other printed materials. Packaging also needs to be taken into consideration. Every product is a subject to a life-cycle including a growth phase followed by an eventual period of decline as the product approaches market saturation. To retain its competitiveness in the market, product differentiation is required and is one of the strategies to differentiate a product from its competitors.

Price. The price is the amount a customer pays for the product. The business may increase or decrease the price of product if other stores have the same product.

Promotion represents all of the communications that a marketer may use in the marketplace. Promotion has four distinct elements: advertising, public relations, personal selling and sales promotion. A certain amount of crossover occurs when promotion uses the four principal elements together, which is common in film promotion. Advertising covers any communication that is paid for, from cinema commercials, radio and Internet adverts through print media and billboards. Word of mouth is any apparently informal communication about the product by ordinary individuals, satisfied customers or people specifically engaged to create word of mouth momentum. Sales staff often plays an important role in word of mouth and public relations.

Placement. – A way of getting the product to the consumer and/or how easily accessible it is to consumers.

In recent years the four P's have been updated to include several more factors. Some people even go up to as many as 27 P's.

(The text is borrowed and modified from http://www.scribd.com/doc/78960356/Seminar-Ski-Marketing-Mix-Engleski-Jezik-II: as of 25 September 2011)

 

Task 2. Answer the following questions to the text (You have 5 minutes for answering the questions):

1. How can we differentiate a product from its competitors?

2. How does the price of a product differentiate in accordance with the existence of the same products at the market?

 

Task 3. Look at the underlined words in the text and give your own understanding of them (You have 5 minutes for the entire task).

Task 4. Say whether the statements from the text are true or false (You have 5 minutes for the entire task).

1. Product should be competitive in order to retain in the market.	T/F
2. Not every product is a subject to a life-cycle including a growth phase followed by an eventual period of decline as the product approaches market saturation.	T/F
3. The business may increase or decrease the price of a product if other stores have other products.	T/F
4. Promotion represents all of the communications that a marketer may use in the marketplace.	T/F
5. Sales staff never plays an important role in word of mouth and public relations.	T/F

 

Task 5. In the text “ Marketing Mix” the terms “ tangible goods ” and “ intangible service ” were used. While choosing the right marketing strategy it is important to understand the difference between the terms.

Write the terms in a corresponding column.

Tangible goods	Intangible service

· consultation with authors about the publication;

· printing on-line publication;

· printing recipes book;

· book cover creation;

· book printing planning;

· printing products distribution;

· personal cards publishing;

· creation of personal cards design;

· brochures printing.

Give some other examples of tangible goods and intangible services in printing/publishing industry (You have 5 minutes for the entire task).

 

Task 6. Work in small groups of two. As you already know there exist a lot of marketing concepts. On the diagrams given below you can see different kinds of marketing concepts. In pairs discuss which concept you think is the best? Explain your answer. Draw your conclusions in the form of a two- or three-minute presentation (You have 10 minutes for discussion and preparing your presentation).

A B C D

Task 7. Every small group is now supposed to report their conclusions to the whole class making a short presentation prepared by them (every student from the small group is due to deliver some part of the presentation). Other students should comment on the conclusions they have heard, say whether they agree or not, with what they agree or disagree and why (3 minutes for every small group to speak, 15 minutes for the activity as a whole).

 

Task 8. As you might know, advertising agency is a service provider that helps its clients by developing suitable ad campaigns for them. Answer the following questions (You have 5 minutes for this task):

· Have you ever heard how advertising agencies help publishing companies to improve their sales?

· What do you know about the services advertising agencies provide?

· When a company hires an advertising agency, what are the roles of both parties?

· Can you name any famous Ukrainian advertising agencies?

 

Task 9. Read the text below about advertising agencies and decide whether your answers for the previous task were correct (You have 5 minutes for reading the text).

Advertising agencies

An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising (and sometimes other forms of promotion) for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services. An agency can also handle overall marketing and branding strategies and sales promotions for its clients.

Typical ad agency clients include businesses and corporations, non-profit organizations and government agencies. Agencies may be hired to produce television commercials and radio commercials as part of an advertising campaign.

Ad agencies come in all sizes and include everything from one or two-person shops (which rely mostly on freelance talent to perform most functions), small to medium sized agencies such as Traction (agency), large independents such as SMART and multi-national, multi-agency conglomerates such as Omnicom Group, WPP Group, Publicis, Interpublic Group of Companies and Havas.

(The text is borrowed and modified from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_agency: as of 29 September 2011)

Task 10. Advertisement size has much bearing on advertisement success. Look through the table given below and answer the following questions: (Information search) (You have 10 minutes for the entire task)

1. The advertisement of which size has a unique size but may end up further back?

2. The advertisement of which size requires minimal investment, but can get lost?

3. The advertisement of which size creates the perception of a "big" company?

SIZE	BENEFITS	DRAWBACKS
1/8 PAGE	· Minimal investment	· Limited space for information · Can get lost · May not have enough presence to make an impact · You're perceived as "small," which could work against you · Often found only on a shared page or within a marketplace/classified section
1/4 PAGE	· Minimal investment · You can convey a short message	· Very common size may detract from effectiveness · Another ad will probably be above, below or next to your ad, competing for attention · Perception of your company may suffer due to the "averageness" of the ad size
1/3 PAGE (vertical, horizontal, or square)	· Unique size can be more effective than 1/4 or 1/2 · Often runs next to an article rather than other ads	· May end up further back in the publication
1/2 PAGE (vertical, horizontal, or "digest")	· More space to communicate your message and stand out	· Another ad may be placed above or below your ad, competing for attention
M PAGE OR SUPER JUNIOR PAGE	· Slightly smaller than a full page and less costly · Guaranteed only ad on page at lesser cost	· Found only in tabloid-sized or other "oversized" publications
FULL PAGE	· Creates the perception of a "big" company · Only ad on the page · Provides enough room to communicate a strong message	· Considerable investment

Task 11. Choose one of the following tasks (You have 10 minutes for the task.

1. If you had a minimal sum of money to invest into your company advertisement, would you choose a 1/4 page size advertisement or a 1/8 page size advertisement? Use the table from Task 12 to decide. Explain your choice.

2. A small publishing company decided to start its advertising campaign with placing their ads in 3 different newspapers. Their marketing manager decided to choose “full page” as the size for the advertisements. What do you think about his decision? Is it wise? Why? Give some arguments using the information from the Table in Task 12. Offer your option for advertisements’ placement.