The objective of each advertising campaign differs from another. Keeping this point in mind, advertisers adopt various mediums of advertising which best suit the requirements of their brand promotion campaign. Outdoor advertising is one of the oldest mediums of brand promotion. Advertising brands through outdoor media vehicles such as billboards, hoardings, kiosks, posters etc have been in vogue ever since the advent of advertising in India. Five important features/ advantages of outdoor advertising are explained below-
-Cost efficiency: Out of home advertising methods are cost effective ways to promote a brand or service because OOH advertising is mostly one time investment. One outdoor ad can be kept for weeks, months or even years (provided the ad is not deteriorated by weather or alike factors). Hence, in out of home advertising one doesn’t need to invest again and again. Just invest once and wait and watch to observe the impact.
-Better reach: Outdoor ads provide better reach to customers as compared to other advertising practices. This is because outdoor ads cannot be switched off like television or print ads. One can avoid a television ad by changing the channel but one cannot avoid an outdoor ad by staying inside home and not going out. The bottom line is that everyone moves out of home and while moving out of home, one happens to watch all those outdoor ads about various brands. The compelling viewership provided to audiences is one of the major advantages or features of an OOH advertising campaign.
-Potential to reach intended customers: Outdoor brand promotion practices such as airport advertising, mall advertising etc have potentials to reach the targeted customers. Airport advertising is one of the most common practices of outdoor brand promotion. Any advertising campaign whether home based or outdoor is successful if it reaches out to the target audience. In such case, outdoor ads have the ability to reach and influence a defined target group with an affluent brand experience.
-Scope for creativity and longevity: Outdoor advertising provides more scope for creativity and longevity while promoting a brand, service, idea or business activity. This scope for creativity and longevity makes outdoor advertising an effective and reliable tool for brand promotion.
-Constant or non-stop exposure to public: Outdoor ads whether airport advertising or mall advertising provide constant exposure about the brand to the general public. This is another striking feature/ benefit of outdoor advertising. Maximum exposure in the market place means attracting a larger number of target audiences. Advertising is a customer-centric affair and attracting old/new pool of customers is equally important for an advertiser to promote his brand or service.
Outdoor advertising India is becoming trendy day by day. Especially with the advent of digital technology, outdoor advertising has undergone a radical change as compared to the conventional modes and techniques of brand promotion. The trends of outdoor advertising India are yet to revamp and renovate further with a touch of technological sophistication.
Reference Website: – www.tdiindia.com
Nikes marketing strategy rested entirely upon a brand image which is favourable and has evolved into a great multinational enterprise over time. The favourable brand image has been kept afloat due to the strong association with the Nikes logo which is quite distinctive and the slogan Just Do It which has been used in advertisement for quite some time. The company has been known to invest heavily in advertisements and brand promotion (Fill C, 2005 p.54).
Market Segmentation
Most of the consumers of Nikes products are mainly sportsmen. This is so because of the utility that comes with the products. An athlete is more likely to go a sports shoe designed and marketed by Nike more than a person who detests sporting and exercises. Nike targets these consumers by agreements between Nike and athletic teams, colleges athletic teams1 etc for product sponsorship and eventual promotion to the members of these teams. In this way, Nike is able to reach a wide number of consumers and consumers who are more likely to buy. Even though others are likely to buy the products, Nike pays specific emphatic targeting to the athlete more than any group of individuals even though it also targets the youth who have embraced the hip hop culture (Mercer David, 1996, pp 171).
Targeting strategies
Nike lays a number of strategies to target their immediate consumers; athletes and other sportsmen. The targeting strategies include among others the sponsorship of products by professional athletic teams, celebrity athletes and college athletic teams. This strategy is specifically successful because of its ability to reach a large number of athletes. If the athletic team manager prescribes a specific type of track shoes made by Nike, the trainees have no option other than to buy them. The teams can as well buy the track shoes in bulky and supply them to the team members.
The second strategy that Nike applies is the designing of product destination. It does this by associating success with the product. For example, when a celebrity athlete sponsors a specific brand of athletic shoes, the brand will be associated with success. This psychological effect is reinforced with advertisements that affirm this position.
Finally, Nike targets the consumers who are likely to develop product intimacy; those who care more about the utility and quality of the product than the price. In this way, the pricing is not affected too much in a bid to accommodate a large number of consumers. However, price has also been factored in Nikes marketing strategies as shall be seen later in this paper (Frank, 2004, p.173)
Pricing Strategies
As stated in the foregoing section, Nike targets the consumers who embrace product intimacy and thus care less about the product. This has enables Nike to set relatively higher prices than its competitors. This is a strategy that calls for higher pricing points so as to push the perceived product value. It has been established that consumers who consider a product to be of high quality are likely to pay the high price more often and consistently. Once consumers develop product intimacy, they come to associate their person with the product and will pay whatever price quoted on the product provided it has the Nike logo on it.
Another very important thing to note is the fact that Nike uses the vertical integration pricing strategy in which they take ownership of the participants at channel levels that differ and they also engage in multifarious channel level operations both in a bid to control costs and thus influence pricing function (Goldman S, 2000, pp154)
Distribution Strategies
Distribution strategies embraced by an organization can either give them an edge in market or make them lag behind the winners in the market. The more efficient the product distribution is the more sales and thus more profits. The delivery of the right product and at the right time to the consumer not only effects utility but also leads to high degree of consumer satisfaction and loyalty. Nike distributes its products on level basis. The high priced premium products are given to certain distributors while leaving the low priced to be sold at highly discounted prices at mega retail stores such as Wal-Mart. Whereas Reebok embraced a limited distribution strategy Nike ventured more into a global3 market capitalization (Jeannet J, 2000, pp 44).
Promotional and Communication Strategies
Apart from Nike selling quality products which have lead to a high degree of customer loyalty, the promotional strategies that the company employs are simply superb. Nike has contracted a number of professional and celebrity athletes which have managed to draw a considerable attention to their products. Some of the sportsmen signed by Nike include soccer stars such as Ronaldinho, Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos, Basketballers such as Jermaine O’Neal and Lebron James2, triathlete Lance Armstrong and golf superstar Tiger Woods. This has created a relatively high degree of Nike products awareness. Besides the signing of celebrity sportsmen to promote their products, Nike has also employed a great deal of advertisements through the mass media. Nike employs a selective- demand advertisement focused on the high priced shoes used for traditional sports (Goldman S, 2000, pp154).
Conclusion
Nike has remained and continues to remain at the top of production and distribution of sports gear and equipment. However, it should be noted that competitive pressure cannot allow Nike to sleep at the top. The recent Reebok- Adidas merger poses a great challenge to devise new marketing strategies to continue leading or recede to oblivion. The following recommendations are suggested in a situation where marketing management is competent. These include:
Increased market share through a new product development, competent pricing strategies, advertisement and other sound promotional activities.
Restructure market dominance by driving away competitors mainly through fierce promotional strategy coupled by pricing function that will make the market quite unattractive for the competitors.
Increased social responsibility to strengthen the image of the company
Diversification of market through factoring the Asians and Black Americans in their product promotion besides doing a research to establish the tastes of these groups.
Venture into new distribution channels especially in international markets
Different pricing strategy so as to open up a new market segments.
All the above show a competent marketing management can hoist organizations top become market leaders and making the market leaders maintain their competitive edge in the market through adherence to marketing ethics, marketing plans and well thought out and formulated marketing strategies.
Mobile Advertising practices are increasingly adopted and implemented by emerging as well as established brand owners. SMS Advertising is becoming one of the latest trends of brand promotion for brand owners and advertisers. Affordable and targeted in nature, Mobile SMS Advertising is one of the easiest means of conveying the brand message to target customers. In this article, let us take a look at some reasons why mobile advertising practices are increasingly adopted by brand owners-
Tremendous increase in number of mobile phones- Today, almost everyone has a mobile handset. There are also various individuals who possess more than one handset. The craze for mobile phones as a portable communication device keeps increasing day by day. Brand owners avail of this opportunity by utilising the same mobile phones as advertising mediums for lakhs of customers. Also an affordable practice of brand promotion, advertising through mobile phone effectively communicates the brand message to those targeted customers who can benefit themselves from the brand messages.
Secondly, the launches of smart phones and embedded applications with various mobile phone devices have enhanced the craze of modern customers. A mobile phone is not just a communication device in todays world. Music, games, camera, internet and various applications are some embedded features of modern mobile handsets. Advertisers ensure that their brand messages reach those customers who continuously get themselves attached with their handsets (as their extensions). At one point of time, these customers will go through the brand message. If interested, they will consider of buying the product, if otherwise, a delete button helps them get rid of the unwanted message in their inboxes. The advertiser should hence provide an interesting brand message through the mobile SMS advertising campaigns. The brand message should be influencing enough to motivate those customers who read it through their own handsets. Brand advertising requires some tricks and tactics. Advertisers should therefore keep themselves updated about which trend and tactic of brand promotion can be used to influence customers buying behaviour.
Marketers have opined that mobile advertising provides more ad spaces for CPA Publishers. This again attracts the attention of those publishers who are keen to partner with mobile advertisers for various promotion campaigns. The advertisers also avail of various benefits by partnering with the publishers.
Last but not the least; mobile advertising is considered one of the bespoken modes of communication for various brands. Brand messages through mobile media reach customers right in their palms or pockets thereby providing easy accessibility to the brand ad. Considering all the above mentioned factors, mobile advertising practices are increasingly implemented by various brand owners/advertisers.
With a high delivery rate is low and CPM two advantages, outdoor media 2005 has become the most fastest growing advertising media. According to leading market research firm CTR data show that in 2005, appeared in the newspaper 1%-negative cases, outdoor media growth rates of up to 79%, 5% per cent of the market share, but will also maintain the momentum continues to grow strong.
As society advances in technology and the development of outdoor advertising, people increasingly higher requirements for outdoor media, conventional signs, light boxes, neon lights, single column and other manifestations of a single outdoor media have been unable to meet the needs of the audience. Outdoor advertising market competition will be on brand value, customer management and professional quality, so the LED begins to emerge. blue led strip large screen is the perfect combination of technology and media, can give full play to the idea, to become the future development trend of outdoor media yield to nobody.
LED full color display is a 1990 new information display developed rapidly in the global media, which uses light emitting diodes led dot matrix or pixel units consisting of large areas of display screens, combines micro-electronics, optics, computers, information processing, and many other modern high technology, has a strong environmental adaptability, high energy saving, long life, many changes, Lee Green, high-tech tip and a series of advantages.c
Its features apart from advertising, also may release information, rich cultural and entertainment life of the people, was the audience favorite medium of information dissemination, popularization and application of large cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, and has received very good results. Recently, the famous Oriental Pearl mobile advertising company focus media, enter the outdoor LED Bulbs market, demonstrates the vitality of the market.
Experts forecast that global demand for various types of LED display screen in the coming years is expected to reach billions of dollars a year, and every year. And in China, according to national optical photoelectron industry association LED display branch statistics, last year LED display full industry of sales about for 4 billion yuan, as joined WTO, and with 2008 games and 2010 Shanghai Expo brings more of eye economic, and national on environmental problem of attention, multiple good factors of effect Xia, LED display in sports, and outdoor advertising, and traffic, many area of market will has significantly of increased. Experts forecast that: LED full color in the domestic market demand growth rate to as high as 30%.
World famous manufacturers of 12v led spotlight display screen has Belgium’s Barco and the United States of Daktronics and the Lighthouse, better think twice in Shanghai in China, Shenzhen, Dalian lumi, Boe, Huizhou desay. Technology of the LED display industry in China is relatively advanced, key products and key technologies consistent with the international advanced level of the same industry, technological level is relatively backward, in the overall system design, product standardization, reliability, manufacturing process, inspection testing means, and international advanced level there are significant gaps
Guild recruiters cannot be shy. Post in recruiting forums, erect a guild Web site, use in game recruiting tools, such as those in EQ2, these activities all promote your guild and you probably should avail yourself of them. However the fastest, cheapest, easiest most effective way to get new members for your guild is to simply ask in a general chat channel.
Before You Hit the Chat Channels You Need to Know…
…what benefit people will receive by joining your guild and at what cost? Do you provide help with grouping? Do you help people level? Are you a PvP guild? If so what kind of PvP guild? If you provide groups for members is joining guild groups required? If you help people level, is helping other members required? If you are an MMORPG PvP guild, does this mean you don’t do content or that you do organized battlegrounds?
Once you know the major benefit of joining your guild, create your message around that. Know the cost however, because you’ll need new members to understand that if you want to retain themmore about that in my next article for PlayerVox.
To construct your message take the big focus on your major benefit and combine it with one of two possible actions you want the interested party to take:
1. PST for membership info. Contact you immediately in (PST for Please Send Tell is fairly universal).
Be prepared to answer questions and potentially talk to multiple people at the same time. I like to either use a text file to cut and paste common answers, or setup macros when available.
2. URL. Save yourself a lot of typing by sending people to a special recruiting page setup in advance. Lazy people won’t take the time to go look however, so if you are zerg recruiting, don’t use this method. Using a Web page is ideal if there is a lot of information for potential members to consider.
* Present your guild as active and up-to-date. Do NOT send potentials to your inactive guild forums or glommed together site for info. Instead create a special page just for potential new recruits.
* Get the easiest URL possible. Example: “s1.guildcafe.com” is the domain name I use for the Section One guild.
* Always use the http:// so that people understand it is a web site you want them to look at.
Recruiting Message Samples
Helper PvE guild:
Learn the ropes and level fast with XYZ guild. PST for membership info.
Guild with funny people:
Laugh your way to level 50 with XYZ guild. Casual players welcome. PST for membership info.
Guild with serious PvErs:
XYZ guild seeks pro-PvE members. Do dungeons right with us. Ventrilo required. PST for membership info.
End game looters:
The PvE veterans of XYZ raid guild LFM for teamwork and achieving long term goals. http://www.blahblah.com
Adult social guild:
Like to play and chat? Join the lively world of XYZ guild on Ventrilo. http://www.blahblah.com Not kid friendly.
Crafting guild:
Attention crafters: Join with other crafters in XYZ guild to build an economic powerhouse and rule the server. PST for more info.
Player-killing guild:
Join for the Rep. Stay for the people who’d rather fight than switch. RPK all the way. PST for membership info.
Advertise, but don’t spam
Some old fashioned net-etiquette should be employed while advertising in chat channels:
* Use appropriate channels. Find out what channels are acceptable for guild recruiting. It’s different in every game. For instance, in Guild Wars, one uses the all channel. In some MMORPGs the regional chat channels are acceptable. Some games have special recruiting channels.
* Keep it short and sweet. Don’t attempt to explain every membership detail in your message. Things scroll away fast and people don’t have time to deal with long textheck, they don’t even read quest descriptions most of the time! More on this later.
* Don’t spam. The reason you repeat your message is to give busy people another chance to read it as well present yourself to new people who haven’t seen it. It is not to bore and aggravate people with your endless droning of e-garbage.
o How often you repeat your message is game dependent. In games like WoW, EQ2 and Vanguard, the number of new people coming into and going out of a channel is small, so repeat sparingly. Observe how frequently others repeat and repeat less than they do. If you get complaints, reduce your frequency even more. Being perceived as spam will get you on people’s ignore-list.
o In Guild Wars where people hop in and out of districts constantly, your best bet is to move around from place to place, repeat your message once per district then move on, repeating your cycle every five minutes or so.
* Change it up. Vary your message from time to time, test new messages, be clever, entertain. Boring messages equates to a boring guild.
Advertise eloquently…
…or at least avoid looking stupid:
* DON’T USE ALL CAPS.
* Do not load up your message with **l337** symbols and other #$%^& crap. Your potential recruits don’t have time or desire to decipher, so just use plain English.
* Stay away from over-used terms so ubiquitous that they are now meaningless. Ever seen anyone advertising for unfriendly, immature and inactive members? Almost all guilds are friendly, mature and active, so don’t use up precious space talking about it.
* Use goood speeling. You may not care about every day chat spelling and grammar, but nothing makes you look more like a stupid n00b than spamming the same error over and over. Check it first then store it in a macro or text file.
People want to join guilds that are active. They like to be able to login and find things are happening. One of the best things to do recruiting-wise is put together PUGs, then pitch guild membership to the better players.
You can take this idea a step further by organizing server events and advertising them in spam. Depending on how much creativity the game supports you can do a lot. Character weddings, PvP king of the hill events, PvP tournaments, PvE and PvP raids, crafting fairs, scavenger hunts, races and costume contests are all popular.
Worst Guild Recruiting Spam Ever
XYZ GUILD RECUTING friendly active players. All levels, races, classses and ages. Mature PvE and PvP. Have hall and cape. –
This is a pretty typical zerg guild spamhard to read, packed full of errors and easy to ignore. It attempts to attract people by sounding friendly, but undermines itself by trying to be all things to all peoplewhich equates to nothing for nobody. If you want to offer zillions of players a temporary spot in your revolving door clan, use this ad. (The have hall and cape is a Guild Wars thing. Since every guild has those, it amazes me that people even mention it. If they advertised a guild hall with all perks or silver cape that would be different.)
XYZ guild looking for members. 50 gold paid on joining.
Why not just say, attention leeches, come get 50gp then leave me for another guild If you are this desperate for members, consider calling it quits and joining an established guild.
UberAwesome guild looking for members. Raiding right now, come get your endgame loot!
This ad isn’t much better than the previous one. It’s just another opportunity for people to leech off your generosity. Inviting people to join your raids is a good way to impress people, but it’s best to keep those opportunities and your recruiting separate.
Conclusion
Don’t be shy! Speak up and use chat to let people know that you’re out there. Be wise with your messages, don’t abuse it, and you’ll be rewarded with plenty of interest.