The Changing World of Advertising and Promotion
No industry is more creative, exciting, rewarding, and challenging than advertising and promotion! This industry is unique because it puts everything it does on stage for the world to see and respond to—loving it, hating it, being moved by it.
Not long ago most client companies and agencies cared only about creating and sending brand messages in order to sell products. Today, companies also engage in dialogue with their customers, and increasingly customers themselves initiate these conversations. Companies realize that building a relationship and trust are more likely to boost sales and profits than is "talking at" customers and prospects. Selling additional products to current customers is significantly less costly than selling to a new customer for the first time.
Another change is the increasing amount of new information and communication technology. New media, such as the internet, cellular phones, and wireless computing, make marketing communication programs ever more complex. That's why it is useful to approach advertising and promotion from the integrated marketing communication (IMC) perspective.
The most important things that you will learn from this chapter are that successful companies use many types of communication, not only to win new customers but also to keep them, and that communication—the sending and receiving of messages—is at the heart of all relationships, including our relationships with our favorite brands.
So, welcome to the new integrated world of advertising and promotion.
