MARKETING MATERIAL

9064 MARKETING MANAGER 6 - MASS ADVERTISING

We now move on to the opposite end of the spectrum, to the forms of marketing which deal with mass audiences; where the 'ideal' of simple face-to-face communication cannot be applied. The reasons are usually economic, where this form of communication simply cannot be afforded, but it would also be impractical in many of these markets; we have already seen the problems emerging in database marketing as a result of trying to handle large numbers of customers on an individual basis.

Having said all of that, many of the principles of face-to-face selling still apply to mass marketing. Indeed, sitting at home in front of your television bombarded by product commercials created by marketers in their remote headquarters offices, it may seem a strange concept to grasp, but the idea of the dialogue applies just as powerfully to mass advertising. What is very different is the way you go about this dialogue.

We have already seen how this dialogue starts - the 'listening' element provided by market research - but this listening aspect (usually through the various forms of such market research) must be continued into the 'talking' part of the dialogue (exactly as it is in selling). Not least, you need to check how well the messages you have created, and the media you are using to transmit them, are performing; to make certain that your 'campaign' actually is working. Once more, I should reiterate that advertising, this time, is just one part of the overall promotional mix. Your campaign will probably contain a number of different elements, but here - as the pre-eminent mass medium - advertising is likely to dominate the other elements.

Once more, in setting up your campaign, it is the decisions which should have already been made, those decisions on the overall shape of the marketing mix, which count. In particular the 'product' positioning, should define what your advertising needs to achieve. Indeed, the advertising message should emerge naturally from what you wish to say about the 'product', and the media will be defined by the target audience(s) you have selected. You will now understand why I stressed so strongly the lessons of positioning. But all of this will come as nasty surprise for many advertising people, especially the creative and media teams in agencies, who will still try to convince you that the choice of message and media starts with their own deliberations! You must ignore their seductive voices, and insist on advertising which does the job demanded of it - and continues the dialogue you have started. This is not to say that you should be too rigid in your views, I have many times relaxed the positioning requirements to allow creative campaigns which brilliantly conveyed something close to the message I wanted; but I have never totally abandoned my core positioning requirement, no matter how tearfully the creative teams pleaded.

ACTIVITY

In your opinion, to what extent does your organisation's advertising message naturally follow from the 'product' package', or does it reflect (advertising agency) creative decisions? What should it do?

ADVERTISING INVESTMENT

At this stage it is worthwhile bringing into the open another popular misconception, which is held especially strongly by agencies, and that is each advertising campaign - indeed each advert - stands alone. This is an understandable wish, again by agency creative departments who want to have a free hand (the artist, which still lives inside of many of them, facing the challenge of a blank canvas), but unfortunately it is not supported by customers; who are too well aware of what has gone before. Unless it is a totally new product, the campaign will have to allow for the 'product's' historical activities. But, first of all, let's look at the impact of advertising in general.

The comments, about the longer-term impacts which I am about to make, also apply to all other forms of marketing promotion (including selling). The notable exception is sales promotion, which, as we have seen, is determinedly short-term in its ambitions. All the evidence supports the notion that every other promotional activity,  advertising in particular, will have an impact over an extended period. Indeed, the evidence suggests that the 'sales' impact of most advertising campaigns peaks up to several months after the campaign is run; and, good news for those following the philosophy of the 'competitive saw' will then last for some months - perhaps even a year or more. But, whatever the timescale (and it obviously varies from 'product' to 'product'), advertising investment almost never has an immediate impact on overall sales. Furthermore, this investment is cumulative; your advertising now builds on that which has gone before it, in the past. It is that cumulative level which really counts.

Returning to the competitive saw, which we looked at earlier, I simplified matters somewhat when I suggested that 'performance' - specifically in terms of market share - increases immediately. It may be, and indeed should be, that 'awareness' rises immediately after the stimulus (an advertising burst, say) - and that is the performance by which you should judge your success - but overall sales growth will usually lag; which is one reason why researchers find it so hard to measure the sales-productivity of advertising.

In most cases, for mature brands, the competitive saw looks much like the basic version we have talked about earlier, a series of fluctuations around a level (horizontal) average. In other words, there may be temporary ups and downs in the fortunes of the brand, but over time these will even out. The exceptions to this rule are, however, important; especially in the context of advertising/promotional investment.

As you can see, from this example, the fluctuations can hide a declining trend over the longer-term. What is being done in the shorter term is simply not sufficient to keep the brand alive - it really is in terminal decline.

This may be because, over time, there is a slow drift away from the ideal position - as the customers' needs and wants change and/or competitive positioning improves. This slow drift is easy to miss. As we have seen, the lag in advertising impact is difficult to track. Thus, many organisations simply do not realise it is happening; they save money in the short-term and unknowingly mortgage their position in the longer term.

Your response to this may take two forms. The first, and perhaps the most effective, is that of dynamic repositioning - the change in relative positions should be regularly tracked and the brand's position readjusted to take account of this; exactly as the basic competitive saw suggests.

If such dynamic repositioning is not possible, perhaps because the necessary product changes come in discrete steps, then periodic readjustments may be needed. This is where the concept of advertising depreciation - allows the build-up of reserves to cover the significant costs of such major repositioning exercises.

In the opposite direction, if you increase your on-going investment levels - in the spend on each advertising burst or on the frequency of these - you should be able to grow your long term position. This does, however, depend upon what others are doing at the same time; so the concept of share of advertising, your relative advertising level (against competitors), may be more important than its absolute level.

The second aspect of advertising over time is that, except for a totally new product where there really is a clean slate, any advertising campaign must always be linked - in the customer's mind - to what went before. I suspect that, when you think about your favourite brands, you probably think about them in terms of the advertising campaign which caught your imagination; no matter how long ago. How many of you remember the Coca Cola 'I want to teach the world to sing' campaign? Again, this is a fact that many agencies, or at least their creative teams, can't seem to grasp. They are too prone to assume they have a blank slate on which to show their creative genius. At a more mundane level, most of the marketing people who commission and create advertisements become bored with them far too quickly. They forget that they have been examining them day after day, in rough and proof form, for months before the customer sees them. As a result far too many effective campaigns bite the dust before they have proved their worth. On the other hand, the most successful advertising campaign I ever instituted ran for the best part of a quarter of a century almost unchanged!

In this way, often the most important - and certainly the most neglected - aspect of any new campaign should be how well it builds on the previous ones. Unfortunately, in practice they are too often contradictory; which means that the new campaign doesn't just have to build the brand's position, it has to fight its way through the legacy of the old campaign(s) before it can even start! So you must be aware of the advertising history - which in the old days of press advertisement was loving preserved in the aptly named 'guard books' ('family albums' of carefully preserved advertisements).

ACTIVITY

Can you roughly trace the impact of your organisation's advertising over time? How well have the various advertising campaigns built on each other? Were any of them contradictory?

THE MESSAGE

As we have seen, the offer you will be able to make in all your promotional campaigns, not just in your advertising, should have already been defined by the work we have looked in the earlier chapters of this book. The promotional message is inherent in the 'marketing mix' you have specified. Indeed, I cannot over-stress just how important it is to start with some form of positioning exercise as the framework for  your advertising - otherwise you may be at the mercy of the agency's creative department! In this context the message is not added as free-standing ornamentation by the advertising agency. It is, instead, an integral part of the package. To try to add anything to that would not merely be to gild the lily but to reduce the impact of the main message. Indeed, what best meets the needs and wants of the customer, the 'product' offer, should be the most powerful message you can convey to the customer.  All that remains thereafter is to deliver that message to the customer.

At the other extreme, the message must not offer more than you can in reality deliver. We have seen that satisfaction equals perception minus expectation. If you raise the customer's expectations too high, his or her perceptions of the actual performance will almost certainly fall short of these; resulting in disappointment. On the other hand, if you don't raise expectations high enough you may not make the sale in the first place - hence the need to achieve exactly the right balance.

Having nailed down what it is that actually you offer, however, the secret of great promotion is then to communicate that as brilliantly and powerfully as you can. That is where, at long last, the all important creative element should enter, where the real creativity in the advertising agency should pay dividends. Unfortunately, in terms of the advice I can offer, apart from rather mundane descriptions of the communication process, described earlier, there is remarkably little suitable theory around to help you with this. Practice is dominated by creative solutions. This is inevitably where the task is to make your offering stand out from the many others which confront the customer; to make even detergents seem interesting and important. But at least you can then test how impactful it is, and how well it conveys your chosen message, by using market research to test it. Before we move on, however, let me reiterate the message above: no matter how creative the final message is it must match the needs of the product/service package.

There is though a progression of types of 'copy': starting say with the (press advertisement) headline, this necessarily has to be short - and impactful - since it has to grab your attention as you leaf through the newspaper; then, next step up, there is the 'body copy', the longer selling message which is built into the smaller type in the rest of the ad, and this has to get you interested in the 'product' and start to change your attitudes so you will be persuaded to buy (a monumental task in a few dozen words, which is why good copywriters are worth so much!); then are the brochures, which spell out the message in even more detail'; and the pack itself, at the point of sale, which must also demand your attention and then - in its own body copy - continue the selling; and finally there are the instructions on the leaflet inside the pack - which are almost invariably forgotten as a sales message, but which can convert the purchaser into a loyal recommender (to all their friends). This takes us back to the, often overlooked point, that advertising has to develop the peer group influences as much as making the direct impact on potential customers - so much of your advertising needs (primarily) to reinforce the attitudes of existing users.

At all of these levels, perhaps the best advice of all is KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). This another way of saying 'less is more', a philosophy  which is especially relevant in the case of advertising (or any other form of promotion). The simpler the message the greater the impact it will make and the greater the attention it will receive.

ACTIVITY

How effectively are these various levels of 'copy' used by your own organisation? How well does it support existing users?

THE IDEAL MEDIUM FOR THE MESSAGE

Let us now look at the vehicle, the medium, which will be chosen to carry the message. In the wider context, this can extend from the face-to-face selling which we looked at in the last chapter, through to the advertising we are examining here. In practice, as we have seen, it will be a mix - the promotional mix - of a number of these elements. When we come to the specific choice(s), though, the single most important factor is frequently the size of the budget - though most theory would hold otherwise. At one extreme, if you have a small budget you may be restricted to appearing in a range of very specialist media (possibly just in the small ads). At the other, with a multi million dollar budget, only television may be big enough to absorb it.

Even then, most advertising is in practice concentrated into bursts; where it achieves the higher impact needed to overcome the customer's inertia, rather than being shown continuously. Indeed, even the heaviest advertisers use this approach, since the impact is not just determined by the absolute levels but also depends upon the levels relative to competitors.

Within the limitations set by the budget there are two dimensions by which the pattern of delivery is judged. The most basic of these is coverage; for the cost of reaching the last few per cent of the population grows exponentially. It is convenient to think of it as a variant of the 80:20 Rule - though in this case quite simply the 80% Rule. Anything over 80% coverage of any market or segment rapidly becomes prohibitively expensive. At the other extreme, the requirement for coverage of very specialised segments is precision. There is simply no justification for coverage of those not in the target segment; though specialist markets will be much more difficult to reach without such wastage.

The other dimension is that of the degree of the individual's exposure to the campaign. It is not sufficient to provide the customer with just one opportunity to see your advertisement. Indeed, it is generally agreed that the customers need to see any advertisement a number of times before it has any significant effect. The usual rule of thumb is that 5 O.T.S. (Opportunities To See) are needed to achieve adequate impact. This may mean that you will need to 'air' your commercial, say, up to twenty or thirty or more times; far more than most people would imagine - which explains why, if you are unlucky, you always seem to be seeing the commercial you hate most!

The skill of the agency's media planners is in balancing these contradictory requirements. On the other hand, by the time your agency's media buyers have taken advantage of all the special offers put out by the media owners, your final schedules may look very different to those decided purely on such targeting. So, once more, the answer is that you must be pragmatic, and leave this to the best experts; just as long as you are sure you really have the best experts in your team! Your own contribution is in choosing the right advertising agency, and then working with them.

MEDIA SCHEDULES

To build the desired patterns a mix of specific media is often used. Which ones you use will depend upon the  specific audience you need to reach, but the broad performance of the main types, against some key dimensions, is shown below;

In terms of overall advertising expenditures, media advertising is dominated by press and television; which are of comparable size (by value of 'sales'). Posters and radio follow some way behind, with cinema now representing a very specialist medium. Spending in the press is dominated by the national and regional newspapers; with the latter taking almost all the classified advertising revenue.

National newspapers are obviously best matched to national advertisers who are happy with black and white advertisements (which can still carry quite detailed messages). They are supposed to carry more 'weight' with their readers (since they are deliberately read, not treated just as 'background'). Regional newspapers may be dailies, which look and perform much like the nationals, or weeklies, but are rather more specialised - and are often supposed to carry less weight - and they dominate the market for classified advertising. Indeed, there is usually much more advertising competing for the reader's attention, and the weekly newspaper is fast becoming the province of the 'free-sheets'; which are typically delivered free to all homes in a given area - obtaining all their revenue from the very high proportion of advertising which they carry, and accordingly having the least 'weight' of all.

The magazines and trade/technical journal markets are about the same size as each other, but less than half that of the newspaper sectors. Magazines offer a more selective audience (which is more 'involved, with the editorial at least) and are traditionally categorised into general interest, special interest and trade/technical. The advertiser will, therefore, be able to select those which match the specific profile demanded by the advertising strategy. The audience is usually concentrated, containing only those with that specialist interest. Their weight, or 'authority', is correspondingly high; and they can offer excellent colour. In the trade and professional fields there are now a significant number of 'controlled circulation' magazines; which like the 'free press', are paid for entirely by advertising revenue.

Television is the most important mass medium, albeit a rather transitory one. It is normally the most expensive medium, and as such is generally only open to the major advertisers (though some regional contractors, TV media; offer more affordable packages to their local advertisers). It offers by far the widest coverage, particularly in the peak hours (roughly 7.00 - 10.30 p.m.); and especially of family audiences. Offering sight, sound, movement and colour, it has the greatest impact, especially for those products or services where a 'demonstration' is essential; since it combines the virtues of both the 'story-teller' and the 'demonstrator'. To be effective, however, these messages must be kept simple - and have the impact to overcome the surrounding distractions of family life. The price structures can be horrendously complicated, with the 'rate card' (the price list) offering different prices for different times throughout the day; and this is further complicated by a wide range of special promotional packages, and individual negotiations! It is truly the province of the expert media buyer.

Posters represent something of a specialist medium, which is generally used in support of campaigns using other media. The use of radio has increased greatly in recent years, with the granting of many more licenses. It typically generates specific audiences at different times of the day - for example, adults at breakfast, housewives thereafter, with motorists in the rush hours - and it can be a very cost effective way of reaching these. Although the numbers in the national cinema audience are now small, this may be the most effective medium for extending coverage to the younger age groups - since the core audience is aged 15 - 24.

ACTIVITY

What media mix does your organisation use? Why? Does it get the coverage it needs, with sufficient Opportunities To See (OTS)?

PUBLIC RELATIONS

One of the most powerful forms of promotion, the most efficient but often the most neglected, is that of PR. This is variously said to be Public Relations, which may include a wide range of activities, or Press Relations, which concentrates on the more direct promotional aspect; paralleling advertising - placing stories in the editorial matter rather than the advertising space. Whatever, and I prefer to think of it simply as PR, it can be a very effective, and certainly the most cost-effective, part of the any marketing mix; and my recommendation would be that PR should always be first on your list of budget priorities. In the narrower context of press relations, it is often a particularly valuable promotional device for services; since the 'authority' offered by independent recommendations in editorial matter can add vital credibility to an intangible service. It can, similarly, be especially important in building credibility for a new product.

There are a wide range of vehicles available for press relations, but the most important task of the PR professional is to maintain contact with the key journalists in the media (usually national press, journals, radio and television). It is not just sending out packages of pretty pictures, or inviting journalists to a free lunch, as many organisations seem to think. In reality, it is a sophisticated two way process, which needs to be the province of experts (often from an outside agency). The PR professional learns about, and can contribute to, features which will be appearing in the media; while, in the other direction, the journalists become more receptive to news stories from that PR professional. It is, once more, an 'investment' process; you can't start with a clean slate and immediately get good editorial coverage - as too many marketing people expect. The relationship with the media (and especially with individual journalist) has to be cultivated - over months and years - until a mutual trust has been earned. This is, when working properly, not a process of exploitation - by either side - but of mutual respect.

The backbone of PR is the news item, either genuine or 'manufactured', which shows the client product or service in a good light (and, most important, is interesting and entertaining enough to be run by the news media). Such stories are best placed, as described above, by personal contact. The most important aspect of an story, though, is that it should be 'newsworthy'. In general you get the PR coverage the story is worth. Consequently you need the professional (journalistic) experience to recognise just what is a newsworthy story (which may not be what the amateur would expect), and then to be able to present it in a way that interests a (very cynical) press corps. On the other hand, you need your own most senior managers (who have been very carefully briefed!) to front the story - the press are much more impressed by them than by PR departments. But it is like any other form of marketing. You must know the customers (here the journalists) and provide (and sell) the right 'product' (the story they want).

It is just as important that you are able to react to press enquiries. Investing in a continuously manned press office, which can handle immediately handle any level of question from journalists and is almost effusively enthusiastic to help, is essential if PR is to be taken seriously. Again, professionalism is essential. Not least is the ability to find answers very quickly, to meet the urgent deadlines - by which almost all journalists are driven - you can't ask them to 'hold the front page'. This is not an easy task, where they think in terms of hours, and sometimes of minutes, but your own managers - outside of the press office - will think in terms of days. Time really is of the essence.

Press Relations is very cost effective and the amount which can be spent on it is relatively low, in comparison with the other promotional spends - and is self-limiting (there are just so many events you can arrange, and just so many journalists you can entertain). Thus, there is a good argument for saying that, in setting budgets, PR should come at the head of the queue.

As a footnote, it is worth mentioning than many organisations leave the PR to their trade associations. Wrong; these are often not as well respected by the media as they claim (they are, rightly, seen as lapdogs) and their agenda may not be the same as your own (they are often captured by pressure groups within the industry).

ACTIVITY

How does your organisation manage its press relations? How effective is it in obtaining valuable editorial coverage?

CORPORATE RELATIONS

PR is often, though, used as a global term to cover a wider range of activities. Of these perhaps the most important may be that of acting as the formal corporate interface with the outside world. This aspect of PR is much more likely to be the province of internal corporate PR personnel rather than an external agency. The organisation may find itself exposed to the activities of external pressure groups and the corporate PR department, if one exists, will typically be the one that 'defends' the organisation against these onslaughts, and handles the external interface with such groups. Rather fewer organisations use PR to positively influence 'external' activities, such as those in the political arena, to their advantage; though this can prove very effective for those organisations which can afford it - and can recruit the lobbyists who run such campaigns.

The first task of such corporate PR is to determine what 'issues', relevant to the future (survival) of the organisation, are likely to emerge over the next few years. As in 'scanning' the environment (which we will look at in the last chapter) this is not an easy task. It can be directly based upon opinion research - though this may be expensive - or it can be obtained by buying syndicated reports from the specialist consultancies. Such research is important, however, in that it is much more effective to 'nip it in the bud' before a problem develops. Once the issues have 'emerged', or at least have been detected, it is important to try and understand them; and, in particular, to obtain political input on their perceived importance. It is also important to start 'lobbying' (possibly on an international scale) as soon as possible.

ACTIVITY

How does your organisation organise its formal (corporate) interface with outside groups? How effectively does it do this?

DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS

I said I would eventually come to 'Place', so I suppose I had better deliver on my promise by providing some coverage; albeit briefly. You will remember that this is the catch-all element of the 4 Ps. Its importance is most justified, however, in the field of retailing. Here the famous saying used to be 'what you need is Location, Location, Location'; if your shop was literally on the wrong side of the high street it could cut your sales by half. Now, with out-of-town developments dominating much of retailing, the elements of this are different; and with remote trading rapidly increasing (by telephone or increasingly by Internet) this saying has lost a lot of its validity - accessibility is now the key. No longer is your telephone directory operator located at you neighbourhood telephone exchange, he of she is much more likely to be found on a remote Scottish island (or, increasingly, in India where labour costs are much lower)!

More widely, one special category of customers, those who control the distribution channels (be they retailers, or wholesalers or agents), have requirements which are likely to be quite simple, but very different to those of other customers; the maximisation of profit, and the minimisation of risk, from the business arising from your own organisation. These 'customers' are also special, however, in that they also become, in effect, members of your sales-force! 'Place' is often also extended to cover the whole logistics of distribution, from inventory control of warehouse stocks to scheduling your transport - and for some products (such as fresh food being brought from the other side of the world) the advent of the 747 cargo airliner has revolutionised marketing -  but, you will no doubt be glad to hear, this is beyond the scope of this book!

ACTIVITY

What distribution channels, if any, does your organisation use? How productive are they? What 'channels' does your own group use?

CONVICTION MARKETING

So far we have assumed that there is just one category of marketing; albeit that it takes many forms. On the other hand, 'Conviction marketing',  which follows almost none of the basic rules of traditional marketing,  is probably used more widely than pure marketing; and often is just as successful. Indeed, the majority of the few truly global brands have embodied it to some degree; IBM, with its philosophy of 'Customer Service', Coca Cola, with its embodiment of the American teenage dream, Marlboro, and the wide open spaces of the frontier! Unlike 'selling', which is conventionally seen as the main alternative to marketing, it is very firmly centred on the consumer; as all marketing is supposed to be. On the other hand, conviction marketing's focus is still one-sided; there is little attempt to find out what the consumers' needs or  wants are Instead, it is based on the powerful idea (the 'conviction'), to which the organisation believes the consumers also are (or should be) committed. Its essence is the power it gives to the marketing organisation; to 'evangelise'. This power derives from a number of factors:

The concept must be distinctive. Beyond that, it has to be based on an identity, a strong brand personality, which adds the necessary richness. It also has to be instantly communicable, which demands that it be clear; and preferably simple. It is, above all, dependent upon the consumers belief in what its communicators say. So, the 'vision' of the 'product' (of its identity) has to be conveyed to the target audience. Although customer needs are at the heart of conventional marketing, they are only an 'enabling' factor in the case of conviction marketing. If the 'vision' is too far removed from the consumer's view of reality it will not be accepted.

At the end of the day, the basic justification for conventional marketing, in the absence of the vision of the conviction marketer, is simply that - for most of us - it is still the most successful approach to product or service management. Giving the customer what he or she wants rarely fails!

COARSE MARKETING

Real-life marketing needs to handle a limited number of factors based on imperfect information and using limited resources. Thus, for example, new products will emerge from irrational processes and the rational development process may, as we have seen, be used (if at all) to screen out the worst non-runners. The design of the advertising, and the packaging, will be the output of the creative minds employed; which management will screen, often by 'gut-reaction', to ensure that it is reasonable. Indeed, the most successful marketer is often the one who trains his or her 'gut-reaction' to simulate that of the average customer! This, almost instinctive management, is what I would call 'coarse marketing'; to distinguish it from the refined, aesthetically pleasing, form favoured by the theorists. On the other hand, it is the real-life world of most marketing!

ACTIVITY

How, in this context, would you characterise your organisation's approach to marketing: traditional, conviction or coarse? How about you and your group?

INTERNATIONAL MARKETING

One  aspect of marketing which preoccupies many books is that of the international dimension. In reality, depending upon the form of your organisation, the important fact to note is that even this typically follows the same rules; which I have described in the rest of this book.

There are various definitions of the various types of organisations offered by different commentators, but the main types of structure, in terms of handling international business, are;

TRANSNATIONALS - these are the organisations, such as IBM or Shell Oil, which operate in most countries; with marketing organisations in all of these, and production units (and even development laboratories) in a fair number. These organisations can afford to view national markets as purely regional affairs; with each region having its own marketing characteristics - but with, otherwise, no special marketing problems.

MULTINATIONALS - these organisations, such as Unilever and General Mills, also operate in many countries. On the other hand, they tend to have individual operating companies in each country, which market to (and 'manufacture' for) just that market. Country organisations are, therefore, subsidiaries of international organisations; which control their own country operations largely independently of the other country organisations. The marketing process is, thus, almost a purely national operation; with the parent only controlling the operations at the group level (and then typically only in terms of the flow of funds).

INTERNATIONAL TRADERS - these are organisations, like Renault and Cinzano, which are typically based in one country, and produce most of their output there. In other countries they have sales subsidiaries. They are largely in the business of export. On the other hand, they already have the international structure which compartmentalises them - so that they too may be largely seen to be part of  normal marketing activities.

EXPORTERS - these represent the majority of those organisations trading internationally; though only a small part of the volume of such trade. Their main base, often overwhelmingly so, is their 'domestic' (home) market. For them, exporting really is a very different activity.

DOMESTIC PRODUCERS; - it should not be forgotten, however, that these form the largest number of organisations in any national market. They do not in any way involve themselves in overseas markets; perhaps wisely so, where many small export operations are loss-makers.

STANDARDISATION VERSUS ADAPTATION

For almost all these various types of organisation, therefore, there is nothing special about international marketing - it is business as usual. Indeed, for those who operate in this way across national boundaries there is just one extra question, with two possible answers; should we choose 'standardisation' (that is the standardisation of products across all markets) or 'adaptation' (the classic marketing approach to the individual needs of markets/consumers separately in each national market). Thereafter, they can get on with marketing as usual!

EXPORT OR NOT?

For the organisations which do see international marketing as something rather different, the exporters, in general there three main initial decisions for their international marketing operations;

1. Whether to undertake international marketing operations at all?

2. If yes, then in what individual country markets?

3. And by what means?

The first question to be asked therefore, of organisations which are currently limited to their national market, is quite simply whether they should export at all. There is often a considerable amount of 'emotional' pressure on medium sized firms, not least from governments which want to improve their sagging balances of trade, to 'export'. The reality is that, apart from the ubiquitous multinationals, probably very few organisations benefit significantly, at least in financial terms, from their 'international operations'. If the answer to this first question is yes, then you need to get expert help in answering the other two! There are many specialist books written on the subject, the co-author  of my own US textbook, Michael Czinkotta, has written one of the best-selling of them, but - since you can lose large amounts of money on such ventures - please do get the best possible (independent) advice.

ACTIVITY

How does your organisation handle international operations? Does it 'standardise' or 'adapt'? How different, in practice, is its international marketing to its equivalent domestic (hone market) operations?

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