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.