Chapter 18 Sales Promotion and Personal Selling

Sales Promotion- The marketing communication activities, other than advertising, personal selling, and public relations where a short-term incentive motivates the consumer or members of the distribution channel to purchase the good or service immediately, by either lowering the price or adding value. Sales promotion targets two different markets, consumer sales promotion and trade sales promotion.

Consumer Sales Promotion- The sales promotion activities that target the ultimate consumer.

Trade Sales Promotion- The sales promotion activities that target a marketing channel member, such as a wholesaler or retailer.

Disney's Sale Promotion

The Walt Disney Company has been engaging in consumer sales promotion targeting their ultimate loyal customer, children and their parents. Some of the ways Disney has offered sales to their consumers is through coupons, promo codes, contests and sweepstakes. You are able to find a vast selection of coupons and promo codes online for Disney products and vacation trips on sites such as, mycoupons.com, mousesavers.com and many others. You are also able to get a chance to win Disney's contests and sweepstakes through various sites as well as through their radio station, Radio Disney AM 1560. Radio Disney for example offers contests and sweepstakes to children each week, you can participate by either calling Radio Disney or submitting an online entry. Some of these prizes includes attending concerts, a free Disney vacation and money to sponsor a birthday party.

Loyalty Marketing Programs

Loyalty marketing programs or frequent buyer programs rewards their loyal customers for making multiple purchases. The objective of this program is to build long-term, beneficial relationships between a company and its key customers. An example of a popular loyal marketing tool is co-branded credit cards. The company Chase has released the co-branded Disney credit card with reward earnings and redemption perks. All of the Disney card members are eligible for a private character meet and greet, 10% off merchandise of $50 or more on the Disney site, store and resorts as well as 20% off guided tours.  

The Disney company believes in constant advertising, online and offline to always remain in the consumers mind. Disney believes they can uniquely connect with their fans through social media and increase customer loyalty; they have more than 38 million likes on facebook,  over 1 million followers on twitter as well as over a million views on YouTube promoting the company and their rewards.

Personal Selling is a purchase situation involving a personal, paid for communication between two people in an attempt to influence each other. Personal selling becomes important when the number of potential customers decreases as the complexity of the product increases as well as the price. The Walt Disney Company does not participate in personal selling because most of their products are at low value and easy to understand and the number of their potential customers steadily increases.

Chapter 17 Advertising and Public Relations

Advertising

Advertising is defined as an impersonal, one-way mass communication about a product or organization that is paid for by a marketer; this is a popular form of promotion. Advertising has an effect on consumers’ daily lives by constantly informing them about products and services as well as influencing their attitudes, beliefs and purchases. The major types of advertising include Institutional Advertising and Product advertising.

Institutional Advertising- Designed to enhance a company's image rather than promote a particular product.

Product Advertising- Advertises the benefits of a specific good or service.

Disney's Product Advertising

In The Walt Disney Company corporate responsibility report they state that their guidelines have high standards that require advertising to children to not be deceptive, inappropriate, unfair or explicit. Their guidelines include maintaining the appropriateness of products and services being advertised, accuracy of descriptions of features and benefits and fairness of tactics given the child's age, maturity and emotional vulnerabilities. Disney has dedicated their company's advertising to be both truthful and respectful of the unique sensibilities of children. Disney may be one of the most popular brands for children, but they are not the only brand which will lead the company to use competitive advertising. This is a form of advertising that is designed to influence demand for a specific brand. The promotion will appeal more to emotions while creating a favorable attitude toward the brand. As The Walt Disney World theme park expands to different states and countries they are now in competition with other theme parks and must be able to show their unique magical qualities that set them apart from the other theme parks. Below this Disney ad shows the excitement that comes to kids’ faces when they find out they are going to Disney as well as showing the magic and happiness associated with each Walt Disney World experience setting them uniquely apart from the other theme parks.     

Advertising Campaign and Advertising Objective

An advertising campaign is a series of related advertisements focusing on a common theme, slogan, and set of advertising appeals. An advertising objective is a more specific communication task that the campaign should accomplish for the target audience during a specified period. Disney's common theme and well known slogan, "Where dreams come true" have been incorporated in their advertising. Disney's advertising objective has been to continually remind the consumers of the happiness and magic that happens at Disney.

Disney's Sponsorship

A sponsorship is a public relations strategy where the company spends money to support a cause, issue or event as well as improving brand awareness or enhancing corporate image. The Walt Disney Company announced their plans to only advertise healthier foods to kids on its TV channels, websites and radio. Disney has been the first major company to set a standard for food advertising. The chairman and CEO of Disney, Robert Iger stated, "Parents can be confident that foods associated with Disney characters or advertised on Disney platforms meet our new, healthier guidelines." The Walt Disney company has now been supporting the awareness of bringing healthier food to kids diets.

Chapter 15 Retailing

What is the Role of Retailing?

Retailing is all the activities that are directly related to the sale of goods and services to the consumers for personal non business use. All of the goods and services that are provided to us through retailing mirrors the needs and styles of U.S. society. The U.S economy heavily depends on retailing which helps the gross domestic product. Although there are many retailers that are small, a few retail giants such as Target have been dominating the industry.

The Role of the Retail Giant Target

The classification of this retail operation is a chain store. Chain stores are owned and operated as a group by a single organization. Throughout the years the company Target has grown to become the largest division of Dayton Hudson Corporation resulting in the company being renamed Target Corporation in August 2000.

                    Product Assortment and Price

Target carries a broad variety of products at discounted prices. Typically it will only carry between four or five different brands for a product, as oppose to speciality stores with a more concentrated product assortment that will carry more brands. Discounters, factory outlets and off price retailers such as Target use low prices to lure shoppers. Stores will lower prices causing competition with competitors, and is also a technique in an effort to win more customers.

Electronic Retailing (Online Retailing)

Online retailing is a type of shopping method available to consumers with personal computers and access to the Internet, which is more than 70% of Americans. Since the use of technology and Internet has been on the rise with consumers, Target has taken notice by creating their online site and mobile app. This online retailing method has been proven to be more convenient and less costly.

Promotion Strategy at Target

Promotion strategy includes advertising, public relations, publicity and sales promotion. The promotion strategy's goal is to help position the store in consumers minds. Target has used advertisements similar to high end designer fashion advertisements to depict high quality goods. Their tag line "Expect more. Pay Less" is showing consumers products that they aspire to own are at prices they can afford at Target. Another Promotion strategy that Target uses is hiring popular young designers for temporary partnerships where they develop reasonable priced products exclusively available at Target stores.

Disney at the Retail Target

The Disney Artist Collection for Target is a clothing line for women, men, kids and babies. Most of the items range in price from $12.99-24.99 and the inventory will vary from each Target location. Target was the perfect company for Disney to team up with because their franchise aims at the whole family with retail at low prices.

Chapter 6 Consumer Decision Making

What is the Consumer Decision Making Process?

       As customers we base our decisions following the consumer-decision making process. This process includes, need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase and postpurchase behavior.

Need Recognition- The first step has the consumer realize whether the need is triggered to either an internal or external stimulus. Internal stimuli relates with hunger and thirst as oppose to external stimuli which deals with recommendations, design and advertisement.

Information Search- After the consumer is able to realize whether it is a need or want they search for information and look for alternatives that will be able to satisfy it.

Evaluation of Alternatives- After the consumer gathers their information they are able to now choose between a set of alternative products and is now ready to make a decision.

Purchase- Consumers will evaluate each alternatives advantages and disadvantages along with the important attributes of the product. When the consumer is buying an expensive item their purchase is often fully planned based upon a lot of information. However some consumers will have an unplanned purchase which is when people buy on impulse.
Postpurchase Behavior- This behavior is the certain outcome consumers expect from their purchase.

Disney's Role in the Consumer Decision Making Process

      One of the things that the Disney company is most recognized and remembered for is their classic Disney Movies that generations have continue to watch and enjoy. Disney movies have been so popular that they have been re-released in the movie theaters in 3D to give their consumers a more new and advanced way to enjoy their classic movies.

The first stage in the consumer decision making process is the need recognition and for Disney this needs stems from external stimulus through their advertisements and the constant positive reviews from Disney Customers. When advertisements are made to broadcast the more new and exciting take on the original Disney movies the need recognition will occur.

The second stage is the information search. Although Disney's core audience is to children the parents play an important role in this step. When most parents were kids they enjoyed Disney movies themselves and are now able to make Disney movies an alternative for their kids to watch when they are advertised to be re-released.

The next stage is evaluation of alternatives. The Walt Disney company along with their Pixar and Marvel companies are not the only ones marketing to children's movies, one of their competitors include Warner Brothers. When consumers evaluate their alternatives they will consider past experiences and information from outside sources that will set up their criteria in which they choose. An example of this evaluation of alternatives taking place is when Disney's The Lion King 3D was in the movie theaters at the same time as Warner Brother's The Dolphin Tale. Consumers are now faced with different animal children's movie alternatives.

The fourth stage is purchase, when the consumer either research and evaluates their alternatives to make a decision or they make an unplanned purchase based on impulse. Most newly released Disney movies are based on unplanned purchase since the consumer does not know about the film till advertisements and trailers then leading to the customer buying a movie ticket on impulse since no immense research had an affect on this purchase.

The last stage is postpurchase behavior which is the outcome that the consumer expected from their purchase. According to box office reports The Lion King remained at the top spot for two weeks earning 22.1 million and they also extended their two week only showing in the movie theaters due to consumers reactions. Their newly improved 3D imax version of the Lion King was a success with consumer reactions.

Disney has taken notice to customer reactions and have released Finding Nemo in 3D which as been successful taking a 2nd place in the box office. Not only has Disney been re-releasing movies in the theater, they have also re-released the high definition blue ray DVD versions of their classic Disney movies which has been successful as well.