Fblt055 Advertising And Marketing : Assessment Answers

Task 1

Task 2

1 Provide an explanation of the role that advertising could play in an integrated promotional strategy for Johnson and Johnson.

2 Explain the concept of branding and discuss how it can be used to strengthen Johnson and Johnson products.

3 Identify and review creative aspects of advertising in the context of Johnson and Johnson.

4 Examine and explain the various ways of working with advertising agencies. Include at least three ways in your answer.

Task 3

1 Explain below-the-line promotional techniques and how they can be used by Johnson and Johnson in an integrated promotional strategy to achieve their promotional objectives.

2 Evaluate other below-the-line promotion techniques that can be used in future by Johnson and Johnson. Include advantages and disadvantages of these techniques

Task 4

 Task 1: Understand the scope of marketing communications 

1.Market Communication is an important part of the organizational process. Under the process of advertising and promotion, communication is the process of sending a message and related media that is used by an organization to communicate with its target market. This process plays a vital role for influencing the buying behavior of customers and then it will impact the overall success of marketing process. It is very easy to state that marketing communication has a critical role in the growth and success of company (Armstrong, 2014). A communication process includes different components, like; sender, receiver, message, media, encoding, decoding, response, feedback and noise. Johnson & Johnson is adopting an effective market communication process for reaching to its customers. The communication process at Johnson & Johnson includes various activities, which begins with transforming the data into material information by marketing management. In the given case study, all the components of Johnson & Johnson’s communication process were managed very well.                   

In this process, Johnson & Johnson is the first party, which is sending the message to its prospects, so it is the sender in its process. The organization encoded its message “Girls Talking” to become its tagline, when they advertised the Clean & Clear with the vision that it will help the teenagers in getting rid of existing spots (Andrews and Shimp, 2017). The advertising by this tagline was accepted by the girls in United States, but it was viewed adversely by the teenagers in Britain. The message was not that much simple. The message that they sent to the people is that it is an organization with the ideas, which emphasize on the major concern among teenage girls. It has introduced a skin care product for treating spots. There are different communications channels, which are used by Johnson & Johnson to convey the message are television, press, websites of Johnson & Johnson, advertising campaigns, internet, magazines etc. These are the major media elements (Ashley and Tuten, 2015). Audiences of the company are the decoders of the message, sent by company. Potential customers are the receiver of that message. The response of public to the brand message of the Clean & Clear was not favorable to this brand. The feedback from public cleared that the tagline of company does not had an effective impact on the mind of customers and they take it negatively. The communication process at Johnson & Johnson is very dynamic.  It used various strategies to approach its customers about its new products and services (Baines, 2012).

2.Promotions and advertising sector has a comparatively complex structure that includes various organizations. These organizations can be divided in different parties, i.e. advertising agencies, media, Creative hotspot and marketing agencies (Baker, 2010). Each of them has different roles.

Advertising agencies:

Johnson & Johnson is offering its products and services in United Kingdom by taking assistance of different advertising agencies. In the United Kingdom, there are so many agencies, which can assist Johnson & Johnson organization in their advertising and promotion process (Barden, 2015). It had partnered with one of the most popular advertising agency in United States, i.e. UM’s J3. This advertising agency made it able to create new and innovative scripts, which included all the insights from actual conversations between teenage girls in United Kingdom. In addition, the advertising agency of this firm found some opportunities and advertised the products to Boyzone Concert.

Creative Hotspot:

It is a team that includes various experienced designers, visual experts and animators, who assist the organization in communicating their communication message and information to the public by using cyber hub. It is an effective tool in the area of online advertising. Johnson & Johnson is using this method in its online advertising. In the online advertisement, it is using animations, design, augmented reality and visual arts, which can attract teenage girls in UK. For this, it is hiring experts in this field (Berger, 2011).

Media channels:

Media channels are the channels, which offer direct communication with the potential customers. It includes the different TV channels and digital marketing agencies. The company has consolidated with a popular TV channel to give the advertisement on favorite TV program of teenage girls, like; The Big Breakfast. By using the media, the company is putting emphasis on customer behavior. It is the major marketing and promotion tool, which is used by Johnson and Johnson promoting its products to the customers (Boone, 2015).

Thus, the organizations in promotion and marketing industry play important role in the communication process of company.

3.As per the given case study, Johnson & Johnson had introduced Clean & Clear in United Kingdom, so it needs to comply with the related laws and regulations for the advertising and promotion of its products. Promotion is the process of increasing the awareness of buyers in the products and services, which are provided by an organization in the market. It assists to create sales, developing brand loyalty and some other advantages. Promotion regulation is the way, in which a company advertises its products in the perspective market with the compliance of imposed rules and regulations. There are so many regulations, which are imposed on advertising and promotion in United Kingdom and Johnson & Johnson needs to follow all the laws and regulations. The promotion process is controlled and regulated different legislations and code of practice (Cooke and Marion, 2015). To safeguard cheating people by fake promotion and publicity, there are several bodies, which regulate the promotional activities. Major regulatory bodies in UK promotion are;

Bar Standards Board:

It is a regulatory body, which was established in the year 2004. It operates its separate regulations on advertising activities. It makes sure that company is providing better quality and reliable products and provided information is consistent with the product’s quality.

Advertising Standards Authority:

Advertising Standards Authority is a regulator for advertising across all the media and advertising agencies in United Kingdom. This works on the complaints and supervises the media to take action against harmful, offensive and misleading ads, directing marketing and sales promotion. Johnson & Johnson needs to focus on offering real information about the products. The benefits and information about products should not be fake (Dhar and Varshney, 2011).

Commission of Advertising Practice:

It is a self-regulatory body in United Kingdom. It makes different codes for broadcast advertising, which are administered by Advertising Standards Authority.

4.The current trends in advertising and promotion are related to the implementation of technology for communicating the message to the target audiences. There are different current trends, which are promoting the process of promotion, which were used by Johnson & Johnson. These marketing and advertising trends are given below;

Television Advertising

In this era of technology, the organizations are using TV advertising for promoting their products to customers. The trend of watching TV is increasing with the time, which is helping Johnson & Johnson in fetching the customers and impacting their behavior. As new perception developed in today’s market that if its products and services are not displayed on television, then it has disappeared out of the market (Dissanayake and Wijenayake, 2016). Johnson & Johnson had chosen the television shows, which are most popular among teenage girls.

Internet

Johnson & Johnson has also exposed its interest in approaching the customer behavior with this media. The company is choosing this method, because most of the people are actively engaged in using internet. To impact the behavior of people, the company used web-advertising using Google ads and other web-sites.

Other current trends

Apart from above trends, the company had used social media sites, like; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, niche marketing, Press marketing, use of banners and posters etc. These trends in promotion are very important in order to influence the customer behavior.

ICT (Information and Communication Technology) has proven an important tool in the growth of any business. It is assisting Johnson & Johnson in going closer to its potential customers through digital marketing and internet. E-advertising display at public places is one of the major attractions for the people. It enables the sales personnel to directly interact with the customers for advertising and marketing of the products (Dibb, Simões & Wensley, 2014).

Task 2 Understand the Role and Importance of Advertising 

1.Advertising plays a significant role in the promotion and marketing of any product or service. It is very important for the growth of product in a selected market. An organization needs to pay for the advertisement but these costs and expenses are very justified by the sales return. Johnson and Johnson Organization have used effective advertising process under its integrated promotion strategy (Finne, & Strandvik, 2012). It assisted the organization in enhancing the brand image and its return for long term. By using advertisement and promotion, the company is fulfilling various objectives, like;

• Influencing the customer behaviour
• Creating awareness among people
• Communicate message behind the product, i.e. Clean & Clear
• Make favourable and positive impressions
• Satisfying the needs and requirements
• Strengthen customers attitudes
• Establish an effective brand image in the market

Thus, advertising and promotion played in important role in the integrated promotion strategy of Johnson & Johnson Corporation.

2.Branding is a particular attribute of the product, which attach the company with its potential customers. It assists the organization in developing trust among the customers, employees and customers about the products and services. It can be processed by using any symbol, image, logo and slogan. The major objective of this process is to serve the people by making differentiation in the products. By considering the brand, customers develop trust in their preferred brand as they have idea about that what they are purchasing and what to suppose (Finne, Finne, Grönroos & Grönroos, 2017). So for Johnson & Johnson, developing strong branding is very much effective for making influence on customers.

At Johnson & Johnson, the company is using effective tagline to attract the customers and enhances trust and confidence for the company. This assisted the company in influencing not only consumers but also its employees, stakeholders and other parties, which are related to organization. It is very true that organization uses branding as a major strategy for strengthening its products because it enhances the value and goodwill of the company. The branding of Johnson & Johnson is very strong, so the demand is still stable with the increase in its prices. The people can look at the company’s branding by looking at its name, logo and stripling. The people identify Johnson & Johnson by its logo (Funk, 2013). It assists its products to stay apart from intense competition in the industry and develops exclusive brand image, which helps it in creating more loyal customers and enhance the value of company.

3.Creativity is an important factor in the process of advertising and promotion process, because it plays a significant role in developing a brand image of company’s products and services in the minds of customers. If the company includes creative messages in its advertising, then it will assist the organization in getting more attention and direct to the positive perception about the products (Gerson and Gerson, 2014). Creative aspects of advertisement emphasize on developing a sharp and intelligent advertisement that will inspire the customers to purchase the products. Under this, the company needs to focus on four major aspects, such as; manufacturing the products related to the needs of customers, co-operate with the brand message, committing value to the potential customers and emphasizing on the products as the center of advertisement. A successful promotional campaign includes some effective strategies to create brand awareness among people. Johnson & Johnson is also developing a creative message, i.e. “Real Girls” to promote its products in the country (Jensen, 2013). Prior to this campaign, the Clean & Clear brand was unable to meet its goals and objectives. By developing this creative theme, the company was able to change its image in UK. Johnson & Johnson can use this effective advertising campaign for branding and rebranding of the products. This was the best creative aspect to attract the teenage girls towards Clean & Clear product of Johnson & Johnson Company. In addition to creative message, the company can use creative language, graphic designs, visual aids etc. It will attract the customers towards its products and services (Gupta, and Shukla, 2017).

4.In today’s business world, the organizations work hard to make sure that they offer excellent goods and services to the potential market. These companies hire advertising agencies to assist them in communicating the advertisement messages to people. For these companies, it is significant to develop better relations with them, so it can be mutually profitable. In order to communicate with the customers, they need to advertise and promote the products and services. When an organization avails the services of advertising agencies, it needs to develop better relations with these agencies (Hackley, 2015). There are different ways, which can be used for working with advertising agency. Three of the right ways are stated below;

Know the needs of customers:

When a company takes the assistance of advertising agencies, first it assumes the needs and wants of their customers. Sometimes, organizations think that they understand their customers as their product sales are going very well. It is a common mistake. In this process, the advertising agencies may advise to conduct marketing research to know about needs of customers and how they can reach to them. However, it will incur higher costs, but it will be beneficial to the promotional campaign (Hybels, 2014). For example, Johnson & Johnson needs to conduct the market research to understand the needs of customers then it should introduce its products in market.

Inclusion of technology:

Working with advertising agencies, the company should emphasize on making the advertisement more attractive and creative. There would be the need of science and technology behind advertisement and promotion. The color collaboration and words with attractive pictures contributes the organization in enhancing the effectiveness and attractiveness of ads (Luxton, Reid and Mavondo, 2015). Although Johnson & Johnson understands about the creativity of the advertisement, but its advertising agencies have expertise in this area and they know how a company can advertise its products. With the assistance of advertising agencies, the company can make the ads more attractive.

Analyze the effectiveness of Advertising campaigns:  

After giving an advertisement, the company can evaluate the effectiveness and success of its promotional campaign. Sales are the best dimension to measure the effectiveness of ads. Apart from this, the advertising agency of the company can conduct interview and survey of its customer base to analyze what is going right or what is not. Johnson & Johnson can evaluate and monitor the effectiveness of its advertising campaign along with its advertising agencies.

Task 3 Understand Below-the-line techniques and how they are used 

1.Below-the –line promotion is a short term marketing practices, but these practices are primarily targeted the customers. When an organization wants to attain its communication objectives successfully, but has low budget, then it should use below-the-line promotion techniques. It includes the different forms of non-media advertising and non-media communication. This type of promotion is becoming very important within the promotion mix of several companies, not only for the FMCG goods, but also for manufacturing products. These techniques assist in approaching the potential customers directly and more quickly (O'guinn, Allen, Semenik, & Scheinbaum, 2014).

In the given case, Johnson & Johnson can use below-the-line promotion techniques, so that it can connect with the customers directly. Apart from advertising agencies and media channels, the company can use some other methods for promoting its products to the customers. There are some forms of communication, which can be used by Johnson & Johnson, such as; direct mails to customers, e-mail marketing, sales promotion and price promotion techniques. By creating an attractive mail, Johnson & Johnson can inform its regular customers about its new products and services. This mail should be very professional and explanatory, so that customer cannot avoid their message (Okazaki, and Taylor, 2013). Under below-the-line promotion, price promotion is one of the major techniques, which can be used by this organization. The company can offer discounts on existing products and more products on existing price and it can cut the prices of products. It will assist the company in enhancing its sales for a short duration. So, company needs to implement this technique very carefully.

2.There are some other techniques of below-the-line promotion, which can be used by Johnson & Johnson in the future. These techniques can be useful for the growth of organization and its products and services. Johnson & Johnson can implement various techniques under this promotion, like; coupons, sponsorship, free gifts with their purchases, Point of Sale displays etc.

Coupons:

Coupons are the useful way of providing discount on the products. It increases the redemption rate. It is necessary when any person desires to introduce new products and services in marketplace but ensure that he has enough coupons. Coupons have their benefits as well as their disadvantages. The companies have the advantage of passing along savings directly to the consumers (Pearson, 2016). Customers identify the discounted coupons as temporary offer than reduction in the prices, so it does not have negative impact on sales. Apart from this, extreme distribution of coupons increases the chances of mis-redemption and fraud. The clutter of coupons can lessen the effectiveness of the company.

Sponsorship:

Johnson & Johnson can use sponsorship as its promotional strategy, in which the organization can make investment in organizing various events and educational plans. It can be very effective and ethical for the organization. Sponsorship can assist Johnson & Johnson in approaching a maximum customer base and informing about their products. Apart from this, there are some disadvantages of this technique as it is very expensive. The company needs to invest a huge amount on sponsoring an event. There will be need of better presentation of organization and its business, it means the logo, colors and fonts should be designed effectively, and otherwise it will have adverse impact on the image of company.

Point-of-sale displays:

Point-of-sale display is the form of sales promotion, which is found near and next to the check-out counter at store. They are used to drive the attention of customers towards its products. Johnson & Johnson can use this form of promotion at its stores. The check-out counters of Johnson & Johnson stores can be cluttered with small size cosmetics and other products displays.

There are so many advantages of this promotion technique, such as; it will attract the people into the stores of Johnson & Johnson by advertising it through offers and unique selling. It will assist the organization in effectively communicate the message to the people (Teck Weng, and Cyril de Run, 2013).

Apart from this, there are some disadvantages of this technique, like; it is very expensive as the company needs to use some innovative techniques to display the products. Sometimes, it needs to hire IT experts and who have the knowledge about the visual graphics.

Thus, most of big companies are using these promotion techniques as they are cheaper than media based techniques.

Task 4 Be Able to Plan Integrated Promotional Strategies 

1.Creating a budget for integrated promotional strategy is very important for each and every company. Budget is a financial plan for a specific period that includes all the expenses, which can be incurred in order to promote the products. This budget assists to carry out all the advertising activities effectively. So, Johnson & Johnson has to become very careful and must follow a specific process to develop a budget for its promotion strategy. The organization should go through the below-given process;

Determining the goals and objectives

Before developing a strategy, the company needs to determine its goals and objective for the promotional activities.

Gathering information about the sources of funds

In this step, the company will collect the information about the sources of funds, which are available to the company. By looking at the sources, it will try to develop the budget.

Conducting the market research

The company will conduct market research, which includes analyzing the industry, competitors, target market, needs and wants of customers (Westberg, and Pope, 2014). It will assist the organization in manufacturing the products according to the needs and expectations of their potential customers.

Developing marketing mix

Under this step, the company will formulate different strategies for promoting the products and services. It will include the integrated communication strategy of the company, which will be used in the future. These activities will come together in bringing the products to the market.

Formulate the budget for promotion

After deciding on above activities, it will formulate the budget accordingly, like; how much it will invest on social media promotion or print media. It will classify the expenses on different sources of promotion (Van Heerde, and Neslin, 2014). This budget plan will assist the company in attaining its sales objectives. The example for promotional budget is given below;

Evaluate and control the budget

After implementation, it is essential to evaluate the effectiveness and success of budget and related strategies. The company will evaluate the budget that whether it is sufficient for completing all the activities (Vernuccio, and Ceccotti, 2015).

Thus, the company can follow these steps to formulate its budget plan for integrated promotional strategy.

2.Promotion is the most suitable way for increasing the sales on products in the market. Johnson & Johnson can adopt different techniques to communicate the customers about its new products. There are some techniques, which can be used to promote the products and increase its sales in the market;

Advertising

Advertising is the best way of promoting the products to the market. It is an appropriate way to communicate with the customers. The company can do advertising via newspapers, television, banners, hoardings etc. It will assist Johnson & Johnson in interacting with large number of buyers and enhance the sales of a particular product.

Social Media

Johnson & Johnson should advertise the products through social media networking sites that can assist it in increasing the number of customers. Social media is an efficient tool for developing a brand image among customers. There are different platforms, like; Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc. where company can promote its products (O'guinn, Allen, Semenik, & Scheinbaum, 2014).

Sales Promotion

In addition, other mode is sales promotion, by which the customers can purchase the products and enhance their revenues. Johnson & Johnson is adopting various techniques, like; cash discount, free gifts, special discounts etc.

3.Johnson & Johnson can adopt promotion technique, i.e. social media through which it can approach a maximum customer base (Vernuccio, and Ceccotti, 2015). It can promote the brand with different promotional techniques, which will be integrated in its promotion strategy. Integrated marketing strategy includes different communication tools and strategies to spread the information related to products of Johnson & Johnson. The process of marketing for company’s products is planned below;

Environmental Analysis

In this industry, there are different types of external and internal factors in the environment, which may impact the manufacturing of products and prices of the products. Competition is an important factor in this context.

Target Audiences

In this step, the company will select its target audience for creating its promotional strategy of the products. In this process, female group, especially teenage girls play important role as target customers.

Formulate pricing strategy

Johnson & Johnson will formulate an effective pricing strategy, so that the product penetrates in the market and is not avoided due to higher costs.

Establishing distribution channels

This step will assist the organization in selecting effective distribution channel to introduce its products in country. For cosmetic products, retailers and wholesalers will work ass distribution channels.

Integrated Market Communication

It will include a huge investment on advertising and promotion process. It includes the mixture of manufacturing of the products along with the advertising of the products to create strong demand from customers (Illia, & Balmer 2012). This step will consist of creative message strategy and promotional strategy.

4.Promotional campaign is one of the most significant parts of advertising and promotional activities. The company organizes the process for enhancing the sales from a particular product segment. Johnson & Johnson is needed to measure the effectiveness of campaign for understanding whether the results has occurred according to the plan. the techniques for measuring its effectiveness are stated below;

Measuring the marketing performance:

Under this process, Johnson & Johnson can use Google analytics for measuring the traffic and data on the website of company (De Chernatony, 2010). In addition, the company will consider the different search functions, like; pay-per click ads, SEO position etc.

Social media marketing effectiveness:

By looking at the number of people on social media networking sites, the performance can be measured.  All these sites have analytics, which assist in tracking effectiveness of promotional campaign.

Thus, measuring the effectiveness of above mentioned sources can assist the organization assessing the effectiveness and results of promotional and advertising campaign of Johnson & Johnson Organization.  

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