Understanding the Functions of Marketing and PR

Use this workbook to help you explain the functions of marketing and public relations. You should ensure you use additional examples to support your explanations.

MarketingExplain what market research is, how it can be carried out and why it could be important.Market research is about a company that gathers a lot of different information about their target market. This can be done through questionnaires, surveys and focus groups; from these different techniques you can see how the customers feel and what they think about the new product. This will help to give a variety of answers that will help to make the product a better quality and also to merge well with the target market. The further importance of the survey’s etc is to see what a certain age group are like at the moment, what they are interested in. If you are producing a product then it’s important to involve your website and business in a social networking site, this would be perfect for any target market as technology and social networking sites e.g. Twitter and Facebook are becoming more and more popular with Twitter getting 555 million people registered worldwide. The more you research about your target market, the more you know about them e.g. Company magazine uses more images than text on most of there pages within the magazine, this says that the audience might be in a rush and just want to see the latest trends or they shop in the high street and want to know what the high street clothing looks like on. Company magazine’s target market is 26+ this says that they are working women, so working around there schedule and social life is what ‘Company’ do best, within the magazine they show work clothes and party clothes, this shows that they know there target market has a double life of working at partying.Explain market analysis. Why is it done and who could carry it out for you?Market analysis is market research that produces and provides information about the market place. The aim of market analysis is to determine the appeal of a certain market and to understand the evolving opportunities and threats, as these are the things that will indicate the strengths and weaknesses of a company. It is basically a more in depth version of market research as it helps companies to understand their audience more and help them find out about their competition so that they can beat the competition and succeed.To carry out market analysis, a company could hire an independent investigator to look into competing companies and to find out more about what the target audience wants so you can get a leg up on the competition by finding out exactly want the audience wants. Explain marketing strategy using examples.A market strategy is a way of making a plan so that it can produce sales for a certain company. Every business should have a market strategy so that they can go and sell there product to new and targeted customers, to do this they will need to go back to there analysed information about there target market and then they will have to create a twist on the product so that it stands out from the crowd. An example of a company that has used a marketing strategy is ‘Music Magpie’ there strategy was to target a large audience and then pick out different aspects of how they live on a daily basis, one of there ideas was to target parents, they knew that parents find it hard to work and look after children so by having extra money it would help the families to get from A to B everyday. This is a clever strategy as the family market is massive for new products and business, by the business telling families that they are “easy, free and

intelligent” makes it more tempting for the families, they were prefer something to be fast and easy so that they can get on with it and the other activities that they have around them. By the company advertising the fact that you can get rid of old stuff for money is perfect for families because they can make there house safer and neat for the family and get money in return. For me the best strategy that they have used within there business Is to connect with the target market personally, they have produced a campaign called ‘Free kits’ that gives children the opportunity to plan sports and to meet new friends, this puts pressure of parents and will also put positivity on the business. Because of this parents will use the business to get money and the business will get the service that it needs.

Why is advertising so important to an organisation? Use examples to help you explain.Advertising is important to an organisation because it gets their product and/or campaign out into the world and creates and raises awareness within societies. By doing this you are getting people on your side and making profits, as people will be buying your product or supporting your cause. This way the company will be more successful and become one of the leading competitors in their specified field. An example of this could be a charity advert such as Unicef, they advertise very strong and emotive images and facts to get people to donate to their cause, making them be able to help solve the problem of which they are campaigning about. However, the more different your advert is the more it will stand out. Most charity adverts are pretty much the same so they all seem to blend in together and make less of an impact as they could.An example of a product advert that has a huge impact is the Coke adverts, especially the Christmas advert, one of the most iconic adverts in the world. Coke’s adverts are usually inspiring and happy and make you feel good. This way, their advert is more likely to stick in your head, as it is different to the majority of adverts shown. Having an advert that sticks in your audience’s head will make them more likely to go and buy your product or support your campaign. This will make your company successful and well known.What is brand promotion and what methods could you use to promote a brand?A brand is about a mark on your business, a symbol that represents the whole of what you are and what you are selling. The design involved with the brand will help it to look unique and to compete with logos and products. The more competitive your brand is the more the audience will recognise it that will help raise awareness for your business. A trademark is when a brand is official registered to that business. Brand promotion is exactly like this but instead it’s a method that tries to influence and brainwash you so you buy something from that business. An example of this would be Hollister, the target market only buy clothes from this company because it’s a rich brand, and it’s popular and classy to wear. The clothes are only expensive because the brand is so largely known and successful, the audience is only buying the brand not the quality of the clothing. Certain methods that company do are spreading there awareness through different media methods e.g. Kerrang. They are normally known to be a magazine company that is based on Rock music, they started producing magazines and once that become successful they branched out into different sections of media. They now have there own radio station, they sponsor different festivals e.g. Download festival and Leeds Fest, these are perfect types of brand promotion because they are constantly telling a mainstream audience about there brand and what there logo is. Because of this they will raise there awareness and constantly get people going on there website and listening to there radio or looking at events that are coming up. It’s a good way of bringing new and old people into the brand.

PRWhat are some of the key principals involved in managing the message?

Key principles involved in managing the message include clear communication and positive outlooks.Clear communication is important because people need to know what’s happening, why it’s happening and basically all the information someone may need to know about the situation. For example, if a website is down, a message will be present on the screen stating that there is a maintenance issue and that the people running the website are working on fixing it, apologising for any inconvenience caused. This way people will be more trusting of the company and be more appreciative of being informed of a situation.Positive outlooks are important to reassure the customers that everything is going to be restored back to what it was (if a website is down) and basically just having a good outlook on anything that happens so that it rubs off on the audience to make them feel positive about the company.What is positive publicity? Find an example of it to help explain.Positive publicity is when someone, group or business etc have been put in a good light, something that’s made them stand out for there achievements for either ideas or getting an award etc. For example a celebrity would get positive publicity if they did a marathon to raise money for charity or they got a Oscar at a film awards, any thing that is achievable or helping others would help someone be in positive publicity. If someone had positive publicity then a mass audience would look at that person in a good way and would want to research and know more about that person and what they do. If they received bad publicity then people would suddenly change there views just because the media e.g. newspapers said so, either way publicity automatically brain washes you into feeling a certain mood when you find out something about someone. An example of a person getting positive publicity is Jennifer Lawrence, she has won a Oscar for the best leading actress in the hunger games, this is positive publicity because they are putting her in the lime light for being successful and achieving the highest award when it comes to acting. The audience will automatically think she is one of the best actresses just because of the award she has received.In public relations terms, what is spin? Find an example to help you with your response.A spin is when multiple facts are argued for different sides of a case. An example of this is if unemployment figures are high, someone could argue that employment figures have risen in the past year, adding a positive to the situation but then someone could argue that unemployment is still too high and more action needs to be taken to prevent unemployment figure increases, creating an even more negative approach to the subject. It is essentially having two different ways to look at a situation; you can either take the positive or the negative side of things. A real life example of a spin occurred when Jo Moore sent an email an hour after the 9/11 attacks stating ‘It’s now a very good day to get out any thing that we want to bury.’ People argue that if the email hadn’t have gotten out to the public, there would not have been uproar about it. However, it was still seen as very damaging to the government and she got fired for the remark. Why might a person or a company engage in damage limitation? Using an example will improve your grade. Someone may engage in damage limitation so that their company’s reputation or general reputation is not damaged by anything bad that happens in relation to these things. This way the person or company will still maintain a good reputation despite having something bad happen related to them, damage limitation will make it so that the damage is not as bad as it could have been.An example of this is when Prime Minister of the time Gordon Brown was out campaigning for people’s votes as it was near election time and he called an elderly woman a ‘bigot’ without realising he was being recorded and still had his microphone

attached to him. This caused uproar within the papers so to limit the damage that could have been caused he went back to the town and apologised to the old woman. However, he still lost the election as a possible outcome of the insult.What benefit could there be to an organisation to create an event? Use an example of a marketing or PR event to support your responses. Creating an event could either be really good, boosting your company even more and gaining more success or it could have no effect at all. It all depends on how well it is advertised and promoted and how well it captures the interest of your target audience.An example of this would be Kerrang. They started out as a magazine and then branched into television and radio. In recent years, they created an event called ‘The Kerrang Tour’, an event where they get four bands that would feature in their magazine and send them off on tour together. They get the latest up and coming band and rank their way up to the hottest act of the year. By doing this tour, the better the line up is, the better ratings Kerrang gets and the more success they gain. To host a successful event, an organisation should make it fun, relevant to the company and advertise it well, making sure their audience gets the right information so that they can attend and want to attend.What is lobbying and who is most likely to be influenced by it?Lobbying is when a person influences another person into making a decision about a subject. There are many events that involve influencing the government, one of them in Greenpeace, they are a large organisations that has constantly pressured the government into making the planet a protected and well looked after environment. In this case Greenpeace has asked for a person to lobby the government, this person will try and debate about why we need to protect the environment and what improvements can be made. This has made several influential steps like producing a ‘world park’ in Antarctica in 1991, they have helped people to receive minerals and oils form that area, from lobbying and negotiating they have done there goal which was to get involved with Antarctica and to receive there natural goods. The most influential groups would definitely be charities, they always want something new to change so that it helps people in need but also brings new change so that they can develop and grow as a charity, governments would listen to charities because they are strong in what they believe and they would have the facts to back up their work.Fields of marketing and public relationsMedia, celebrities and entertainment- Miley Cyrus is a class act when it comes to playing her cards right through a PR organisation, from her poor single ‘can’t be tamed’ she has come back with the song ‘we can’t stop’ the fact that the video was controversial has made the public to constantly talk about her, through her magazine pictures and music performances she has always done something outrageous to get the magazines talking and the public. Miley has said that her image isn’t just about getting attention, it’s all about PR and making a bigger and extravagant look of herself, she said: ‘To me, a movement is bigger than just a record,’ this tells people that she think that her image and style is more important than the record because it’s her personality that will be known across magazines and TV interviews. Miley uses four strategies to make herself constantly noticed which is:Looking confident and sexy - to cause controversy and attention to her look most of the time.Be memorable all the time – this is done by making big scenes a music awards like the VMA’s by dancing with a foam finger, this is what people will see when they think of her.Social media – this is really important as millions of people around the world use this sight to look at different celebrities and what they do in their lives. If Miley constantly posts images or messages about herself then journalists and the public will always want to know what she is talking about incase it’s a good story line or controversial e.g. twerking etc.

Finally know your target market – Miley knows her target market well as these are teenagers who love her stunts and likes her confidence, the only people that don’t like it is people that are 40+. They think that she is a bad influence to children for when they grow up, Miley doesn’t care because of the fact that her target market is only young people and she inspires to market herself to that age.Business- Businesses will use marketing to find out more about their target audience and their rivals so that they become the best that they can be and beat the competition. An example of this is when Pepsi tried to get the recipe for leading soft drink brand Coke so that they could become the bigger and better company. This example would also come under why a business would need PR as well to deal with damage limitations after the story hit the media. A business would need PR to succeed and to limit any bad press they receive and gain more positive press. Government and public services- Governments use Public relations in different ways, they would use it to promote new candidates in government to see who can be the next prime minister so by campaigning for attention and to talk about what ideas they have then new people will either want to know about the party or see what new ideas they have instead. Parties makes sure that they travel around different cities so that they are promote there power and to constantly tell the public about how they can improve the country and what changes they can bring to people from different backgrounds. An example of this would be David Cameron (Conservative), Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrats) and Ed Miliband (Labour); they travelled around the whole country to find their new voters and old voters so that they can be chosen to be the Prime Minster. They would use PR to constantly talk about this through newspapers and the TV, this would keep people in the loop and to understand what is going on within the three parties and to see if they agree with any police or idea that they have.Charities and pressure groups- Charities would be the main ones for marketing so that they can advertise their cause and get the donations to come in so they can help the situation that they are appealing for. They would also need marketing to find out what other charities are doing so that they aren’t supporting a common cause of charities because if they did this then they wouldn’t be as successful as supporting a cause with not many other charities supporting that same cause. Pressure groups may take the opposite approach to guide the government into making a change because the more pressure that is added, the more likely the change is going to be made. Both of these groups need PR in case they receive bad press so that any damage done will be limited. An example of this could be the charities or pressure groups holding protests and something bad occurring the event. PR would also promote the good press received such as a success in pressure groups or events held by charities.Sports- Sports needs marketing to advertise their events and to sell tickets to fund the events and make profits. By advertising the event, the audience will be told when, where and what the event is and also who it’s between. This will then lead to mass sales of tickets, leading to success for the arena hosting the event. An example of this is the Super Bowl, the world’s largest and most popular sporting event. People from all over the world travel to see this event. This is also an example of why sports would need PR as in the 2013 Super Bowl there was a power cut so they would need PR for damage limitations. Sports in general would need PR to limit negative news on any bad things that happen (such as injuries) and to promote the good things about clubs and events (for example, a popular team winning will boost the positives for a club and their fans).