Marketing communication: principles and practice

Figure 7.1
Marketing communication motives
News
Factual reporting of ‘real’ phenomena that break
the normal flow of events
Advertising and publicity
True accounts that often present a more
advantageous version than actual reality in order
to elicit consumption, biased to the interests of
the initiator
Commercial propaganda
Along with indoctrination, socialization to a
particular point of view, biased to the interests of
the initiato
Figure 7.2
Modes of marketing communication
BOX 7.1COMMENT: INFOMERCIALS AND ADVERTORIALS
Infomercials and advertorials have blurred the distinctions between what is reported
news, what is advertising, and what is merely commercial propaganda. Today, the
editorial process may be less an expression of the journalist’s views or an account of
‘fact’ than the painting of a company or product in favourable light.

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forward with the advent of the integrated marketing communication approach
(that begins to recognize a convergence of marketing and public relations
into a more strategic management framework).
The 4P system is the traditional classification of the marketing mix. It
reminds managers of some basic principles and is easy to remember. It is
also lacking in clarity. The ‘promotion’ (the Latin root ‘promo’ means to
bring forward) element really has two dimensions: communication and
persuasion (and not all communication has the purpose of persuading or
selling). Are the ‘mix’ elements activities or objects (i.e. tools or instruments)?
How are the properties or characteristics by which elements are classified
actually specified? Does not sales promotion overlap with advertising and
personal selling and with the product, price, and place categories? Should
product really cover products so as to reveal cost, sales, and competition
interdependencies among a range of products? Does the marketing mix
coincide with marketing functions and the associated marketing objectives? 
Grönroos (2000) explains the limits of the marketing mix way of thinking
about the marketing needs of a business. Efforts have been made to elaborate
usefully the 4P framework to better deal with the managerial problems of
service business (see, for example, the 7P model of Booms and Bitner). 
Mostly, even today, marketing communication is taken to be only
promotional and persuasive message-making and broadcast. We take a much
broader approach in this book (Box 7.2).