Companies use advertisement to entice them to go into stores and purchase
products. For instance, coffee is a very popular and fast selling consumer good,
which will always be in demand. A popular commercial and slogan was used by
Maxwell Coffee to differiante them from other coffee companies. “A Cup of
Instant Culture” was the slogan the company used earlier this decade. With
coffee drinking on the wane, coffee makers can no longer simply offer satisfied
faces grinning over cups of steaming java. Coffee, like lifestyles, must be
exotic and sophisticated. P&G's Folger's and Kraft General Food's Maxwell House
have spent bundles not only to keep their jingles alive but to show that they
fit into a thirty something mindset awash with babies, careers and an amateur’s
appreciation for those fresh-roasted grounds. Ironically, the most efficient
performers were two Nestle brands that don't offer the fresh-ground variety:
Nescafe and Taster's Choice.
Both reduced their spending and increased their
efficiency dramatically. For Taster's Choice, the trick may have been its
allusions to elegance: Is this one too good for your guests? A handsome neighbor
asks a well-coiffed hostess who's looking to borrow some coffee. Nescafe evokes
the exotic with scenes of tropical splendor. Hills Brothers, which kept both
spending and efficiency relatively static, goes even further, taking viewers on
a jungle expedition filled with toucans and rain forest haze, all to the strains
of melodies familiar to fans of Paul Simon. To improve the selling of consumer
goods companies are reevaluating their advertising techniques and promotions.
Online advertising revenue grew 66 percent between the first and second quarters
of this year, with significant gains made in the consumer-goods business. Those
are among the findings of a report based on a survey of major advertising sites
that the Internet Advertising Bureau released last week. The study, conducted by
Coopers & Lybrand's New Media Group, found that total spending rose to $214.4
million in the quarter ended June 30, up from $129.5 million in the March
quarter.
These are the strongest results we've seen yet, said Rich LeFurgy, chairman
of the IAB and senior vice president of advertising for ESPN/ABCNews Internet.
The advertising bureau is a trade group whose primary members are sites that are
ad-supported. The bureau's numbers reflect self-reported revenue figures from
more than 800 sites, each of which has at least $5,000 a month in online ad
revenue. The survey gets a 90 percent response rate, according to Peter Petrusky,
who oversees the study for Coopers & Lybrand. The growth of ads for consumer
goods was particularly noteworthy given that ads for computers and related
products had been dominant since the Web's inception. Ads for consumer goods
were responsible or 30 percent of revenue in the second quarter, up from 17
percent in the first quarter. Following consumer goods were financial services
(22 percent of total spending), computer goods (21 percent), and new media and
telecommunications (7 percent each). LeFurgy said the growth demonstrated that
consumer-goods companies were moving out of an experimental mode and into a
commitment mode on the Web. In conclusion, the client above used this
information to evaluate the effectiveness of the advertising. They determined
that the advertising was memorable, but that the public tended not to recall the
message the client was trying to portray. They were able to make changes to the
advertising to better communicate the intended message. All of these types of
marketing are attempts to find and reach the elusive and demanding consumer.
However, one of the most interesting of these responses is it grows out of the
conviction that the only way for marketing to be effective with the consumer of
today is to radically change and become subversive. The marketing techniques,
advertising, and promotion used by today’s companies help consumer goods and
services sell quickly.
Bibliography
Atiyah P.S. The Sale of Goods London: Pitman: London, 1990. Dobson A.P. Sale of
Goods and Consumer Credit. London: Sweet & Maxwell Limted 1989. Jobber, David
Principles and Practice of Marketing. London: McGraw Hill 2nd ed, 1998 Mowen,
John C. and Minor, Micheal. Consumer Behaviour 5th ed New Jersey: Prentice Hall,
1998 Woodruffe, Helen Services Marketing. M&E Pitman: London, 1995
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