The Marketing Communications Mix

The Marketing Communications Mix

A Consumer Service

I have chosen to investigate Vodafone and their marketing campaign of the new 3G service. With 3G you can send and receive larger pieces of information. Not just voice, text messages and pictures, but video and music too.

3G allows you to:

* Make video calls

* Send video messages

* Play the latest games

* Listen to full music tracks

* Watch TV on your phone

To market this new service Vodafone are using various methods of communication. Firstly they have created a variety of television adverts which will be shown during commercial breaks of most top television channels. They will be put in commercial breaks of popular TV shows to maximise the audience, however it is more expensive the more popular the show. One advert consists of a couple parting at an airport and then having a video call to each other. The advert is supposed to show that with 3G you can stay together. Another of their adverts features David Beckham (see fig 1.1) watching football highlights on his mobile.

Fig 1.1

Vodafone have also taken images from these adverts (see fig 1.2) and turned them into posters which will be put in places around cities and towns where they can be seen by a large number of people. The posters have also been strategically put on road sides particularly in cities where traffic is likely so that road users see them while stuck in traffic as they have time to look at them in detail.

Fig 1.2

Sponsorship deals also assist the Vodafone marketing campaign. Having their logo on the shirts of top European football teams like Manchester united (see fig 1.3) and Benfica improves brand image and ensures there are very few people who have not heard of Vodafone.

Fig 1.3

Vodafone also attend various exhibitions around Europe where the target audience (mobile phone users) are likely to attend. They will also take along working models of their mobile phones with the services working so that people can try before they buy. The launch of Vodafone live with 3G was a big PR event designed to raise awareness of the new service. Vodafone management executives attended the launch to raise the profile (see fig 1.4).

Fig 1.4

An Industrial Durable Product

I have chosen to investigate Documentum software. They produce information management software for other companies, for example the MI5 use Documentum software to manage their records.

Documentum use various methods of marketing to promote their products. Firstly PR plays a major role in their campaign. PR activities include, targeted press mainly using customer testimonials as this raises awareness and credibility of Company & products and targeted invites to executive briefings breakfast/lunch/dinners.

Documentum also attend exhibitions, mainly general IT industry exhibitions. There they will display examples of their products and IT solutions.

Another method of marketing used by Documentum is Telemarketing, outbound telephone calling to either own or purchased list of contacts to promote specific offerings.

Documentum also use e-Marketing, use of a combination of e-mail and web presence, they use emails with hyper-links to lead the target to a page on a web site with offer or invite to a marketing event.

Television advertising is a very affective as it allows the company to reach a large number of people on a national or regional level in a short period of time. Also with cable channels they can pinpoint their audience, for example a sports equipment manufacturer might put their advert in the middle of a sports event. Companies can also give a much clearer message with television using moving images, colours and sound: Television permits you to reach large numbers of people on a national or regional level in a short period of time. Independent stations and cable offer new opportunities to pinpoint local audiences. Television being an image-building and visual medium, it offers the ability to convey your message with sight, sound and motion.

PowerHomeBiz.com (2003)

However this form of marketing can be very expensive, with the preferred ad times sold out far in advance. There is also the problem of having to fit all the information you want to include into around 30 seconds of ad time. For Vodafone I feel this is a very good way of advertising. They are a big corporation and can clearly afford the high cost of television advertising. Also with the vast increase in mobile phone users their target audience is now huge and therefore will not be hard to reach.

Poster advertising is another affective way to advertise however at a much lower cost. It is affective as posters are very difficult to ignore whilst walking to work, to the shops, stuck in traffic etc. There is also the opportunity to specifically target your geographical area and reach a very large number of people. The major disadvantage of poster advertising is that there are so many other posters we see every day, often at high speed travelling by car, bus or train. So for the poster to actually be remembered it must stand out from the rest, often with little words but strong graphics: Of course the major disadvantage is the fact that posters are usually seen on the move, often at 40 mph, and of the hundreds we pass in any given week very, very few are actually looked at. Good posters demand strong graphics and few words!

Marketing for Profits Ltd (2004)

This type of advertising will work well for Vodafone as they're target audience is huge. Also they are linking the posters in with the TV adverts and including a famous face in David Beckham. This will give consumers a sense that if Vodafone are good enough for David Beckham they are good enough for me.

Advertising through sponsorship is often seen as a gamble. As by associating a product/service with a certain sport/team/event means the company are relying on this sport/team/event to provide a good public image for them, so should this sport/team/event