Comm 41 - Critical Decision Making: Instructor Wrap Up - Boss ...

Chapter 10

Marketing and Advertising

Goals of this chapter:

1). Learn about the importance of marketing in business

2). Study marketing research strategies
3). Relate to SWOT model to marketing strategies
4). Consider the impact of marketing and advertising on the consumer
5). Look at the relationship between big business, advertising, and mass media
6). Examine the use of fallacious reasoning and rhetorical devices in advertising

Marketing in a Consumer Culture
Marketing a product or service is an essential component of doing business in a consumer culture like that of the United States.? A business's success depends on its ability to determine what customers want and then provide it at a reasonable cost.? To achieve these goals, businesses need to plan an implement effective strategies for marketing and advertising these products and services.? This involves identifying target markets and customer "hot buttons" through marketing research.

Approaches to Marketing Research
There are several approaches to marketing research, including surveys, observation, and experimentation, each of which requires proficiency in critical thinking and inductive logic.
*Survey Research: is used to collect information and opinions about a product.
*Observation: involves directly monitoring consumer buying patterns.
*Experimentation: measures cause-effect relationships between product purchases and selected variables such as packing, logo, or price.

Marketing Strategies
After gathering relevant information through marketing research, the next step is to engage in strategic planning.? A strategic plan is a method by which an organization deploys its resources to realize a goal or objective.? In business, strategic planning generally involves the use of a strategic model, defined as "a systematic list of policies that will guide the future specification on inputs, outputs, processes, and values of the complete operations of the business of the corporation."

The SWOT Model
*SWOT is an acronym for "strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.? The model is used for developing new marketing strategies, as well as by businesses and individual for making major life decisions.? The first two factors, strengths and weaknesses, require an internal assessment, while the last two, opportunities and threats, require external assessment.
*The key in using a strategic model like SWOT is to develop strategies that concentrate on a company's strengths and opportunities in order to overcome internal weaknesses and external threats.

Advertising in the Media
Advertising has three purposes:
1). To create product awareness
2). To inform customers about a product or service
3). To motivate customer demand and create brand loyalty.
*The ultimate aim of advertising is to make money, not advance truth.
*Most advertising reaches us through the mass media and the internet.

Product Placement
*Product placement involves embedding advertisements of targeted products within television shows, films or streaming video.? Often these product placements go unnoticed, especially by children.
*Research shows children under the age of eight lack the cognitive maturity to recognize either the intent of advertising or the fallacious reasoning and rhetorical devices that are frequently used in ads.? These problems persist through the teenage years.

Evaluating Advertisements
When evaluating advertisements, there are a number of questions we should ask:
1). Are scare tactics used to persuade us we need the product?
2). Does the ad provide credible evidence and/or statistics to support its claims?
3)? Does the ad rely on our tendencies of peer and group conformity?
4). Does the ad set up a desirable image or lifestyle unrelated to the product?
5). Does the ad employ other informal fallacies, such as hasty generalization?
6). Does the ad use emotive language, images, or euphemisms?
7). Is the grammar confusing or the wording misleading?
8). Is the language vague, ambiguous, or obscure?
9). Are the claims exaggerated?
10). Does the ad omit necessary information?
11). If the ad uses analogy, is the analogy relevant?

Conclusions:
Advertising influences a great deal of our buying habits and beliefs, often more than we are willing to admit.? Because of this, we need to be constantly vigilant in using critical thinking skills to identify and evaluate advertising messages.? Recognizing our tendencies and learning about advertising strategies makes us less susceptible to manipulative advertising.?

gene hackman pineda john edwards heart condition mena suvari joyful noise coachella one life to live