Marketing communication: principles and practice

WHAT DO YOU THINK?
1 The verb ‘appreciate’ is defined in dictionaries as ‘recognize’, ‘understand’,
‘be sensitive to’. How might this concept be applied in setting
communication objectives?
2 Marketing thinking has long assumed that the supplier is dominant over
consumers and customers. Increasingly, such hierarchical asymmetrical
relationships are being replaced by symmetrical relating in which
consumers are active problem-solvers. Why is this happening? Identify
some market situations where customers are dominant.
3 Who needs to be the learner? How can marketing communication
management provide learning mechanisms for the truly exchange-
oriented business enterprise?
4 Much marketing activity would seem to be fairly superficial, even trivial.
In what ways may the broader view of communicating be integrated
into marketing management practices?
5 The broader range of marketing communication objectives suggested
in this chapter includes connection, informing, persuading, learning, and
inventing. All are aspects of cooperative interaction or interchange. Can
you suggest others that might apply in particular situations?
6 Why is so much that is passed off as marketing actually rather cynical
behaviour? How could this be avoided?
7 What are Benetton managers trying to achieve with their controversial
approach?
8 Think of a market relationship that you have currently in which the
intentions of the provider are more sophisticated than mere persuasion.
What do they gain from this? Ask them if you cannot answer this question
yourself.
9 What constitutes effective and efficient marketing communication?
10 Is (typically) mass communication theory appropriate in explaining and
guiding all marketing activity?
FURTHER READING
Back, K. and Back. K. (1982) 
Assertiveness at Work: A Practical Guide to Handling
Awkward Situations
, London: McGraw-Hill Book Co. (UK).
Fromm, E. (1942) 
The Sane Society
, New York: Rinehart & Co.
Fromm, E. (1978) 
To Have or to Be?
, London: Abacus Books.
Gummesson E. (1999) 
Total Relationship Marketing: Rethinking Marketing Manage-
ment – From 4Ps to 30Rs
, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.