MARLBORO x
Do research on Phillip Morris (Marlboro). Now focus your research on this company’s promotion and communications strategy. Find out as much as you can about the company’s promotion mix.
Before starting on your paper make sure you are familiar with the five main aspects of the promotion mix – advertising, public relations, personal selling, sales promotion, and direct marketing. Review all of the background materials regarding these five aspects. When you have finished researching your company’s promotion strategies and thoroughly reviewed the main promotion strategies covered in the background readings, write a two to three page paper addressing the following questions:
- What kind of advertising campaigns is this company currently engaged in? What kind of media do they advertise in, for example television, the internet, etc.?
- What kind of public relations efforts does this company engage in?
- Does this company ever use sales promotions such as coupons, giving away free samples, etc.?
- Does this company use personal selling at all? If so, did you ever deal with one of this company’s salespersons when you purchased their product?
- Does this company use direct marketing? For example, do they send out emails to customers? Or use telemarketing?
Assignment Expectations
- Answer the assignment questions directly.
- Stay focused on the precise assignment questions, don’t go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials.
Running Head:
1
PHILIP MORRIS MARLBORO
PHILIP MORRIS MARLBORO
STUDENT NAME
PROFESSORS NAME
COURSE TITLE
DATE
Most tobacco companies focus on marketing attributes of their products such as flavor, strength and taste so as to be able to distinguish themselves from other competitors in the market. Although they don’t create a need to smoke, they work hard towards creating an interest in their brands by providing differentiated products to each of their target markets. Philip Morris’ Marlboro brand is one of the successful brands in the market and this success is partly attributed to the promotion strategies employed by the company.
Philip Morris International just like any other tobacco company operates under strict social and government regulations. The company therefore relies on in-store promotions, advertisements and mail coupon promotions. Most store advertisements are usually placed at checkout counters where customers who would like to purchase must go and ask for the cigarettes. Some of the campaigns that have been conducted in the past by this company include the controversial ‘Be Marlboro’ campaign, ‘You are the target’ among others that were later clarified by the company (Smith & Malone, 2003).
Despite the growing awareness of the negative effects that tobacco products have on those that consume them, Philip Morris international has engaged in a number of public relations efforts such as community service in order to be viewed as a good corporate citizen. The corporation spends a fortune helping families and children’s homes in the United States of America. However, the same investment is also put into buying television airtime to publicize these public relations activities and their products. As a result, a lot of children and young teens become addicts of these tobacco products every day (Hafez & Ling, 2005).
The company also uses sales promotions and gives away free samples to promote its products to both the smokers and non-smokers. An instance is where one has to subscribe to their mailing list and then he or she gets entitled to free coupons and other exclusive offers some of which include invitations to special events, tents, zippo lighters among others. The company has also invested in sponsoring events which have a mass appeal such as motorcycle racing and brands like the Ferrari. All this is targeted at improving sales value. It has also ventured into being the industry innovator through coming up with slow burning papers and the Flip Top Box.
The company has no record of using personal selling as a promotion strategy. I think this could be attributed to the fact that it is difficult to distinguish a smoker from a non-smoker to be able to approach them and sell the products. It would also be expensive to conduct personal selling as this would have a great impact on the operational costs of conducting the business in that manner.
As mentioned earlier under sales promotions, the company does use direct marketing which also includes telemarketing. They basically encourage their online clientele to subscribe to their mailing list so that they receive free coupons and other stuff. This strategy targets everyone including those that do not smoke. It is a chance to market their products to the non-smokers and eventually influence their attitude towards smoking so that they convert them into customers (Hafez & Ling, 2005).
References
Smith, E. A., & Malone, R. E. (2003). The outing of Philip Morris: advertising tobacco to gay men. American Journal of Public Health, 93(6), 988-993.
Hafez, N., & Ling, P. M. (2005). How Philip Morris built Marlboro into a global brand for young adults: implications for international tobacco control.Tobacco control, 14(4), 262-271.