Marketing communication: principles and practice

IMPLICATIONS FOR MARKETING
COMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT
With the continuing development of multimedia, mediated marketing
communication activity will merge into a TV/PC environment that will 
see TV, the Internet, radio, telephone, etc. operating as a single connection.
Marketing communication managers and their servicing agencies and
advisors must recognize that marketing communication includes, but is not
merely, advertising. Rather than thinking in terms of separate media, planners
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BOX 9.19
FALLING FOUL OF THE NEW TECHNOLOGY
In 1996, Virgin Atlantic Airways failed to update the prices shown on their website
and were fined $14,000 for violation of advertising regulations, according to the 
Wall
Street Journal
, March.

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and designers will have to deal with the concept of a range of media
environments. 
Consumer experiences and emotions have been given a central role in
consumer behaviour theory for some time. With the advent of artificial agents,
how will such factors be dealt with? 
One person may be represented by many agents, and many people may
choose to have a single agent to do their shopping. Agent behaviour may
become much more significant than consumer behaviour.
The traditional distinction between ‘above-the-line’ and ‘below-the-line’
promotion is far better recast as marketing communication, including various
forms of advertising, direct marketing communication, interactive marketing
communication, personal negotiation, publicity, sponsorship, and various
forms of supporting sales promotion.
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CASE STUDY 9
MARKETING CREDIT CARDS: DIRECT
COMMUNICATION FOR THE LAUNCH OF RBS ADVANTA
a
In the early to mid-1990s, the UK credit card market was believed, by the major card
companies, to be mature. The number of new card issuers was stagnant and the value of
account balances was growing slowly. The whole market worked on ‘inertia’ – the fact that
once you’d attracted a customer to take ‘your’ card, they would stay loyal – mainly due 
to the hassles involved in ‘switching’/cancelling one credit card and going through the credit
approval process all over again for another one. Yet, across the Atlantic in the USA, the 
credit card market was buoyant with much activity: new cards were being launched and
customers were switching to new accounts often in search of good and better deals (termed
‘card surfing’).
In the USA, around 75 per cent of adults held at least one credit card, while the uptake in
the UK remained under 40 per cent. The major high-street banks saw the situation as
unattractive, while other financial businesses eyed the UK with plans to exploit a substantial
growth opportunity. In 1990, Save & Prosper (eventually taken over by Flemings) dipped
into the ‘low APR’ market and launched a credit card with a low rate – around 14 per cent,
when the market was at 23 per cent. This was backed with low-key advertising in London
and the south-east of England. This was followed rapidly by Chase Manhattan who launched
a low APR card in the UK – and put substantially more marketing and advertising behind
their entry. This included national press advertising, direct mail and ‘image advertising’ in
the weekend newspaper colour supplements. Just as this card was beginning to take off
(200,000 cards issued within 18 months) Chase Manhattan experienced economic difficulties
in its home markets and cut all ‘overseas projects’. The card was sold on to Girobank and
then onto Alliance & Leicester and has not been promoted since. Save & Prosper and Chase
Manhattan had been the first to launch low-cost credit cards in the UK – neither had significant
sustained success at that time. In 1993, MBNA established a UK office in Chester, while other
US companies began to look seriously at the UK, e.g. The Associates, Capital One, etc.
During 1994, senior executives from the Royal Bank of Scotland visited the USA to observe
the market at first-hand. Meanwhile the Advanta Corporation of Pennsylvania had sent

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