PUBLICITY
“The Only Bad Press is NO Press”. Dennis Rodman
PROMOTIONAL MIX: (see green chart)
1)Sales-Persuades (face to face?) and sometimes informs.
2)Sales Promotion- Persuades with things like coupons and contests
3)Advertising-use imagery to persuade and sometimes to inform
4)Publicity-Main function in the promotion mix is to improve image using “NEWS”.
PUBLICITY: the 4th type of promotion. Promoting using “news” and/or word of mouth.
Informing and/or persuading and /or improving public image about a company or product.
Types: 1) Public Relations (events or stunts)
2) Sponsorships
3) Endorsements
4) Guerilla Marketing
5) Viral Marketing
4 things that help define PUBLICITY:
1) PRICE-Publicity has to be free. The “event” can cost$ but the news created from it is free or
it would be called “advertising”. It is redundant to say “free publicity”.
2) BELIEVABILITY-People are more inclined to believe publicity.
3) CONTROL-You give up control when you use publicity because people and the media can
say what they want about you.
4) RISK-Because of the lack of control publicity is riskier than other forms of promotion.
1) Public Relations: Activity designed to create publicity (goodwill) for a firm.
Events: Planned and organized activities that a marketing person uses as a vehicle
to promote their company such as: A) Charity Events (golf tournaments, ski races, bowling
tournaments, etc.) or B) Open Houses, grand openings, product launches, etc.
Stunts: “Planned” but seemingly spontaneous events used to get buzz.
Sometimes this is used as damage control; (what can we do to minimize this problem? Act like
we were promoting something). Examples: Kanye West and Taylor Swift at the MTV awards or
“Balloon Boy” (parents promoting reality show); Michael Jackson hanging baby over balcony.
2) Sponsorships: Examples-Brought to you by…., “Tostitos” Cotton Bowl, Official Car of
the US Ski Team..
3) Endorsements: Tiger Woods and NIKE, Apolo Ohno/Miley Cyrus and Microsoft Kinect
4) Guerilla Marketing: Selling to people without them knowing you are selling to them
(pictures) or product placement in movies .
5) Viral Marketing: Using pre-existing SOCIAL NETWORKS, something transmits like a
virus, usually to ultimately generate media coverage via offbeat stories. Examples?
Pass Along-encouraging people to send message along to others.
Incentivized-offers rewards to do so.
Undercover-not knowing right away that it is marketing.
Buzz marketing-creating things that are talked about.
TRANSMISSION-by Word of Mouth, Word of Web, Word of Email, or social networks.
Publicity can also lead to the following:
Increased sales
Reinforcing a firm’s good reputation
Increase how receptive people are to ads
Condition customers to expect a certain thing
Reduce impact of problems
Get favors from government