Marketing communication: principles and practice

WHAT DO YOU THINK?
1 Even supermarkets now capture customers’ details and mail out product
catalogues. ASDA, for example, recently ran a George clothing compe-
tition and have built a mailing list. How do you see this developing?
2 To what extent are knowledge and experience really the same thing? How
do advertising agencies manage their knowledge capital?
3 Likeable advertisements seem to sell more products. Try to explain this
finding from advertising research.
4 Advertising has been called the ‘strategy of desire’. What is meant by this?
5 William Randolph Hearst once said: ‘News is something someone is
trying to hide. Everything else is just advertising’. What did he mean?
6 Despite US advertising spend increasing by almost 75 per cent in the
period 1986–96, more people than ever believe that most products in
most categories are exactly alike. How can this be? What does this say
about the role of advertising media?
7 Internet advertising accountability is being measured by ‘click-throughs’.
How is this threatening traditional media?
8 When advertising can be linked directly to purchases, it is termed ‘retail’.
When, and how, is ‘image’ advertising justifiable?
9 We should not concern ourselves with what advertising does to people,
but rather with what people do with advertising? What is meant by this?
10 Advertising is used for propaganda and persuasion in commercial and
political arenas. One encourages product consumption, while the other
encourages conformity to ideology. How do these perspectives differ? 
FURTHER READING
Blythe, J. (2000) 
Marketing Communications
, London: FT Prentice-Hall.
East, R. (1997) 
Consumer Behaviour: Advances and Applications in Marketing
, London:
Prentice-Hall.
Fill, C. (1999) 
Marketing Communications: Contexts, Contents, and Strategies
, 2nd
edn, London: Prentice-Hall Europe, chapters 13 and 14.
Jefkins, F. and Yadin, D. (2000) 
Advertising
, 4th edn, London: FT Prentice-Hall.
Leiss, W., Kline, S. and Jhally, S. (1986) 
Social Communication in Advertising: Persons,
Products, and Images of Well-Being
, London: Methuen Books.
Moran, W. T. (1990) ‘Brand presence and the perceptual frame’, 
Journal of Advertising
Research
30 (5), October–November, pp. 9–16.
Rust, R. T. and Oliver, R W. (1994) ‘The death of advertising’, 
Journal of Advertising
23 (4): 71–7.
Smith, P. R., Berry, C. and Pulford, A. (1997) 
Strategic Marketing Communications:
New Ways to Build and Integrate Communications
, London: Kogan Page, chapter
11.
Sutherland, M. (1993) 
Advertising and the Mind of the Consumer
, St Leonards, NSW:
Allen & Unwin.
Tapp, A. (2000) 
Principles of Direct and Database Marketing
, 2nd edn, London: FT
Prentice-Hall.