Marketing communication: principles and practice

Focus group 
A quick, relatively cheap way to assess response and 
and interview
meanings, but lacks validity and reliability
Case study
An illustrative, but not representative, way to understand
campaign development and its effects
Experiment
Allow inference of causal relationships by controlling
extraneous influences, but laboratory findings may not apply
in normal conditions
Survey
Particularly valuable when data about consumer/buyer
characteristics are generated, allowing demographic, usage
and viewing pattern analysis to be added 
Consumer data 
Diaries and bar code scanning can reveal purchase patterns 
panel
that can be related to advertising schedules
Econometric 
Various mathematical techniques can be applied to survey 
analysis
and panel data
Data fusion
Combines data from two sources using common elements,
for example television viewing from one panel and purchases
from another
Figure 16.10
Techniques for measuring advertising response

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Each marketing communication activity (subsystem) can be assigned a
customer response index, based on historic data on impact and predictions
of future cost-effectiveness. This would provide a dynamic decision-support
tool for prioritizing the allocation of effort to specific communication
objectives.
CONTROLLING COMMUNICATION EFFORT
The control responsibility of the management system commissions evaluation
research and takes the findings into the decision-making process.
The basic process for controlling the communication system is common
with that for all management functions. Specific and appropriate performance
standards have to be set and responsibility assigned for accomplishing the level
of performance determined. Actual performance has to be evaluated and
compared with the standards and corrective action taken if deemed necessary.
Of course, this is the appreciative system we have also applied to the marketing
system as a whole. This basic process is illustrated in Figure 16.11.
Many ‘creative’ people will resist the notion of control. The purpose is
not to constrain overly marketing management, but to ensure ‘good
housekeeping’ for the benefit of all stakeholders.
The marketing plan is a tool for coordination but also a control device.
This is designed to ensure that the organization of activities takes account of
changes in: competitor actions; buyers’ willingness and ability to buy; and
other environment factors such as developments in communication systems,
media, and evaluation techniques. It must also provide data to help to answer
the question: how productive are the marketing communication programmes
in accomplishing marketing objectives?