BUCKS NEW UNIVERSITY
Managing The
Commercial
Communications Process
MG510: CW2 Individual Report
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The purpose of this report is to investigate and critically evaluate how the roles of Advertising and
Public Relation agencies affect their respective client brands in terms of development and promotion.
The report will look to assess how a modern day agency carries out these tasks and how this reflects
in the work the agency produces for their clients. The report will give an in-depth analysis into the
strategies and techniques implemented by the agencies such as the relationship between theories,
models and practices, and how that relates to wider issues of marketing and business.
“Advertising is usually defined as non-personal or one-way form of communication conducted through
paid media under clear sponsorship, communicating rapidly with many people at the same time,
presenting a totally controllable message.” (Chernatony, L. Creating Powerful Brands pg 409)
The role of an advertising agency is to actively engage with the client in order to produce an
advertising campaign that meets the needs of the client, the demands of the market, and the
expectations of the consumer.
“As markets became more competitive, brands had to become more sophisticated. Threats like new
technology; product parity and own-label brands put more pressure on premium brands to
differentiate themselves” (What is account planning 1986).
Thus the creation of the Account Planner within the advertising agency, first introduced in the late
1960’s by the late Stanley Pollitt. “The planner was charged with ensuring that all the data relevant to
key advertising decisions should be properly analysed, complemented with new research, and
brought to bear on judgements of the creative strategy and appraisal of the ads.” (What is account
planning 1986).
Additionally Public Relation agencies also have an effect on their respective client brands in terms of
development and promotion. “Public Relations is about reputation - the result of what you do, what
you say and what others say about you. It is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of
earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and
sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation
and its publics.” (CIPR 2014)
Over time both the Advertising and Public Relations agencies began to implement new methods and
ideologies in order to match the client’s needs, the markets became more competitive, forcing brands
to be more sophisticated with their approach when carrying out tasks such as; producing an
advertising campaign for Television, Internet, Radio, or constructing a press release for a client.
Given the multichannel nature of the UK’s leading grocery retailers, there is often little distinction to be
made between a dedicated store-based campaign and one aimed purely at pushing online grocery
operations.
However Sainsbury’s are currently using numerous innovative technologies to improve consumer
experience and escalate sale. Sainsbury’s online business and digital presence continues to grow
and to expand at more than 20% (Campbell, L 2012), with weekly grocery orders frequently
surpassing 190,000, adding to that, they were the only supermarket to increase market share in 2013
according to the share data provided by kantar media in 2013 (thegrocer.co.uk).
This online success gave the Sainsbury’s the reassurance to launch their trial basis mobile app
Mobile Scan & Go service in selected stores, which lets consumers to scan items with their mobile
phones as they walk around the shop. They then progress to pay at the checkout using a single QR
code. The app syncs with your Nectar card so at the checkout you only just scan your card and it
catalogues all the items you have scanned (Moth, D). Payment is then conducted in the usual way.
According to Sainsbury’s store consumer’s responded positively to the app claiming it helped them
“main their budget”. But further research (Moth, D) revealed that the app was regarded as being “too
slow” especially the process of removing unwanted items from the shopping cart.
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Online retail channels are growing in popularity thanks to a rise in device ownership coupled with
improved connectivity on the go, the time-pressed nature of our increasingly 24/7 lifestyles and the
rise in popularity of online payment systems. And online grocery shopping is no exception: According
to Mintel’s Supermarkets: More Than Just Food Retailing UK November 2013 report, 34% of people
say they are using more online-only grocery retailers. (Mintel 2013)
Online shopping/delivery/home delivery brand adspend gives a more precise indication of how much
grocery retailers spend on advertising their online delivery operations. (See figure 1)
The advertising and public relation agencies strategically use data provided by the client in order to
create successful campaigns, the data gathered from Mintel based upon Online
shopping/delivery/home delivery brand adspend shows that Sainsbury’s spent the least amount of
money out of the leading supermarket chains, although Sainsbury’s online grocery business has seen
6% year-on-year growth.
Sainsbury’s have used social sites such as Facebook to encourage store traffic an example of this
was promotions of its Live Well for Less campaign. And research revealed that, 91% of female
consumers aged 20 and above who saw the campaign, through a mixture of Facebook and TV
adverts (Thompson, V).
Digital Plan
From the data gathered it is clear to see, online retail channels have grown in stature the challenge
will be to implement a new user interface for online use. The campaign will bring an overhaul to
Sainsbury’s consumer experience on the webpage. Data analysed from Mintel relating to satisfaction
ratings relative to supermarket averages shows that consumers are not best pleased with the prices
of products in the Supermarket. (See figure 2)
With price such an important factor, the problem needs to be resolved “Sainsbury’s is the best
performer among the leading superstore groups at present and given its satisfaction ratings, that is
hardly surprising. But it still scores badly on prices and that is in spite of its price matching.” (Mintel
2014).
With this being said the obvious plan of action would be to implement price cuts in store and online.
“Sainsbury’s has always been the better quality retailer and has been recognised as such. But its
success must be based on a consumer perception that even if its prices are higher, they are worth
paying up for.” (Mintel 2014).
The aim will be to successfully implement price cuts in store and online in order to better satisfy the
consumers. Although the perception is that Sainsbury’s is a better quality retailer, so the issue of
price is expected to be more significant than that of Tesco and Asda likewise, but nevertheless
engaging competitors in a price war, could lead to substantial promotions from comparison
websites like mysupermarket.co.uk, which would have a positive effect on sales figures during the
campaign.
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Strategic Communications Plan for Sainsbury
Sainsbury is one of the UK’s largest supermarket chains. Its main operations consist of supermarket
and convenience retailing. It also provides financial services.
In designing a Communication Strategy for a client, an advertising agency needs to take into account
what sector the business operates in, its business model, and its customer base. When all of this is
taken into account regarding Sainsbury’s it is recommended that Sainsbury’s should look to
strategically implement a price cuts promotion that will drive online activity whilst building in store
traffic, numerous marketing communications can be used to devise this plan, but with the requirement
of building upon online activity with a price cuts promotion, Sainsbury’s will use Mobile marketing,
Loyalty marketing and Social marketing to target and engage their consumers for the campaign.
Those that are existing clubcard members of Sainsbury’s will be given further discount during the
campaign. “Information collected from loyalty cards, as seen with Sainsbury’s checkout coupon
scheme, would allow for the promotions to be tailored beyond the product matching” (Mintel 2013).
The consumers have shown brand loyalty and rewards of this nature further build a better B2C
relationship between the brand and the consumer.
Branding holds various benefits for any agency constructing a campaign for a client. Branding
enhances product recognition, helps build brand loyalty, helps with product positioning, aids in
introduction of new products, and builds brand equity. Branding can also create the perception that
the brand is an acceptable choice. Additionally, branding can enhance the experience of the brand, by
highlighting positive product experiences.
On the other hand there are limitations in any industry in terms of branding, the business could
change its goals and aim for more short term success by reducing its adspend, and focusing on
strategies such as promotion, advertising builds brand longevity if done successfully, however “If
advertising is subsequently stopped, there may be only a small reduction in sales for several months
while the stock of goodwill is depleting, but then there will be a rapid fall in sales. Furthermore, a
disproportionately large spend is needed to raise a fallen brand back to its original position.”
(Chernatony, L. Creating Powerful Brands pg 392)
“As a consequence of the increasing pressure on brand managers to achieve short-term goals, there
is a temptation to cut back on advertising support, since it is viewed as a long-term brand building
investment, in favour of promotions which generate much quicker short-term results.” (Chernatony, L.
Creating Powerful Brands 391).
Similarly the roles carried out by the agency for Sainsbury’s have been undertaken by Raine Mark in
marketing communications projects throughout the course of the year in particular BM514: Enterprise
project. From meetings with team members to meetings with clients, Raine has experienced a live
client brief that has run the course of the year, within this time his consultancy group; Diversity have
produced several successful campaigns for the Arts4every1 charity arts centre. Raine has taken part
in creating documents such as; profromas and project plans (See figure 3).
Work carried out by the Diversity consultancy group, conducting primary research into the media
platforms that the centre use, and successfully implementing the use of Social media briefing
documents in order to help the client better engage with their audience and to generally create a
better online presence via the use of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Tasks were delegated between
group members for the sheer amount of projects the consultancy group were signed off with by their
client respectively.
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Time management within the industry is crucial, knowing when the client is expecting work from the
agency helps to keep everyone involved up to date with proceedings, in the Enterprise project Raine
and peers from the Diversity consultancy group used a Gantt chart (See figure 4) in order to track
progress of work completed between each other and also keep the client updated simultaneously.
The work produced by Raine on the enterprise project would be that of a planner in an advertising
agency. “Planners are in a unique position because they (should) have a detailed understanding of
the audience and the market context through research expertise AND an appreciation of how this can
be applied to their client’s business. Planners must provide the crucial bridge between the two worlds
in order to get customers to engage profitably with the brand, at the core of the Planner’s task, is the
need to understand the consumer, (and how they perceive the brand and the market), in order to
unearth a key insight for the communication solution (Relevance).” (What is account planning 2008)
This relates to Raine’s role within the enterprise project where he looked to interact with consumers
using social media optimisation in order to get customers to engage profitably with the brand. The
structure of the diversity consultancy group varies to an actual agency in the respect that, we did not
have an account manager as a go between our account planners, each sector of the consultancy
group reported back to the client when necessary or when meetings were scheduled.
Problems are always liable to happen especially as none of the students in the Diversity consultancy
group have previously worked on a live client brief or had worked with each other for that matter,
clashes of personality sometimes occurred when the pressure levels were raised. The fear of late
submissions when someone has been tasked to submit the work for the entire group led to
disagreements via communication channel Whatsapp messenger, these issues were overcome with
the successful use of team and project management. The aid of a supervisor throughout the
Enterprise project ensured that the consultancy group stayed on task with the goals that were set
from the project plan.
There are several tools to help with management, whether it is time, project, team or personnel
management. “Project management is the application of processes, methods, knowledge, skills and
experience to achieve the project objectives, a project is usually deemed to be a success if it achieves
the objectives according to their acceptance criteria, within an agreed timescale and budget.” (APM
2014)
Appendix
APM. (2014). What is project management?. Available: http://www.apm.org.uk/WhatIsPM. Last
accessed 27th Apr 2014.
Baskin, M. (2007). What is Account Planning? ( and what do account planners do exactly?) A Revised
Millennium Definition. Available: https://my.bucks.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/pid-356489-dt-content-rid457609_1/courses/MG510-13SB/WhatIsAccountPlanning_Nov2007revised%5B1%5D.pdf. Last
accessed 27th Apr 2014.
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Bucks. (1986). What is Account Planning?. Available: https://my.bucks.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/pid356487-dt-content-rid-457608_1/courses/MG510-13SB/WhatIsAccPlan1986%5B1%5D.pdf. Last
accessed 27th Apr 2014.
Chernatony, L & McDonald M (2003). Creating Powerful Brands. 3rd ed. Oxford: Elsevier. 391-392.
Chernatony, L & McDonald M (2003). Creating Powerful Brands. 3rd ed. Oxford: Elsevier. 409
CIPR. (2014). What is PR?. Available: http://www.cipr.co.uk/content/careers-cpd/careers-pr/whatpr. Last accessed 27th Apr 2014.
Mintel. (2013). Market Application: Looking for Help. Available:
http://academic.mintel.com/sinatra/oxygen_academic/display/id=691303?highlight#hit1. Last
accessed 27th Apr 2014.
Mintel. (2013). Trend Observation: Take It to the Streets. Available:
http://academic.mintel.com/sinatra/oxygen_academic/display/id=690634?highlight#hit1. Last
accessed 27th Apr 2014.
Mintel. (2014). Food and Drink Retailing - UK - March 2014 - The Consumer – Satisfaction with
Retailers Used. Available: http://academic.mintel.com/display/699714/#hit1. Last accessed 27th Apr
2014.
Mintel. (2014). Online Grocery Retailing - UK - March 2014 - Brand Communication and Promotion.
Available: http://academic.mintel.com/display/699229/#hit1. Last accessed 27th Apr 2014.
Moth,D. (2012 ). Sainsbury's 'Scan & Go' mobile app is too slow. Available:
https://econsultancy.com/blog/11129-sainsbury-s-scan-go-mobile-app-is-too-slow. Last accessed 27
feb 2014.
Thompson, V. (2012). Sainsbury's redesigns marketing emails for mobile. Available: http://www.retailweek.com/technology/technology-blog/blog-sainsburys-redesigns-marketing-emails-formobile/5040125.blog. Last accessed 26 feb 2014.
Figure 1
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Figure 2
Figure 3
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Figure 4 – Time plan