Promotion Study Guide Answers
OBJECTIVE A
1. The purpose of promotion is to tell customers about a company’s goods, services, images, or
ideas and persuade them to buy or to form an opinion.
2. A blend of marketing communication channels that a business utilizes to send its messages to
customers is known as the promotional mix.
3. Any paid form of nonpersonal presentation of ideas, images, goods, or services, is advertising.
4. Answers should include any five of the following forms of mass media: Television, radio,
Internet, newspapers, magazines, out-of-home advertisements, direct mail, directories, and
catalogs.
5. Personal selling uses planned personalized communication to influence purchase decisions and to
enhance future business opportunities.
6. Advantages of personal selling are immediate feedback, flexibility, and increased credibility.
7. Any unpaid form of nonpersonal presentation of ideas, images, goods, or services is publicity.
8. Activities other than advertising, personal selling, and publicity that stimulate consumer
purchases are called sales promotions.
9. Answers should include any two of the following sales promotion techniques: displays, fashion
shows, contests, giveaways, sweepstakes, trade shows, demonstrations, exhibits, coupons, cash
discounts and price incentives, product samples, introductory offers, and free accessories.
10. The promotional mix plays a key role in obtaining and keeping customers. An appropriate blend
enables businesses to communicate effectively with customers about the existence of their goods,
services, or ideas and to persuade them to buy.
OBJECTIVE B
11. The four major categories of factors that influence the promotional mix are as follows:
• T h e product
• T h e product’s target market
• I t s channels of distribution
• T h e company
12. Wording of answers will vary; however, key points about product type are as follows:
Products are divided into three basic types: convenience, shopping, and specialty. The ease
with which these products are purchased varies; therefore, for some, more personal
assistance—and more personal selling—will be needed than with others. For example, because
customers are typically already familiar with convenience products, advertising and sales
promotion are used to promote them. Shopping products are usually purchased after a
customer has made comparisons of competing products. Personal selling and television
advertising are often used to promote shopping products. Specialty products typically
require more personal selling so that customers can learn about product features as well as
how to operate the products.
13. Wording of answers will vary; however, key points about the stage of a product’s life cycle are as
follows: As a product progresses from introduction to growth, to maturity, to decline, the type and
amount of promotion needed by the product varies.
14. The promotional mix for products to be used by industrial users must emphasize personal
selling, while products to be used by ultimate consumers can be effectively promoted through
advertising, sales promo- tion, and publicity.
15. If a product’s consumers are located close together, the product can be promoted through personal
selling. However, if the customers are widely spread out, then advertising and sales promotion would
probably be emphasized.
16. More personal selling is used when there are many intermediaries between a manufacturer and
a consumer.
17. Producers who utilize push strategies promote their products to intermediaries who then
promote the products to consumers. Producers who adopt pull strategies promote their products
directly to the ulti- mate consumer, who then puts pressure on intermediaries to offer the products.
18. By just adopting a previous promotion mix, a business limits the possibility of locating an even
more successful promotional mix.
19. Businesses that allocate small sums of money for promotion tend to rely on local advertising
and sales promotion. Businesses that devote large sums of money to promotion can effectively use
national advertising.
20. Businesses in the same industry tend to follow the leader in selecting a promotional mix to
avoid losing customers to the competition.