- Based on the target demographics mentioned in Sonic's marketing plan, what do you find to be the most affective strategy when attempting to create brand awareness?
- When evaluating Sonic's Marketing plan and overall goal as an organization, do you think they would be more effective spending their marketing dollars on social media advertising, mobile marketing, or both?
Using Internet or library sources (or both), locate information to answer the following questions; be certain to explain your reasoning:
- What communications objectives are appropriate for Sonic's initial campaign?
Marketing communications is an "attempt to inform, persuade, and remind consumers about products and brands" (Kotler and Keller, 2016, p.558). Currently, Sonic does not have brand awareness. To increase this, their focus should be on increasing brand awareness. By increasing Sonic's brand awareness, this will also create brand loyalty. By having a strong mix of marketing communications, this should help reach Sonic's goal of becoming more well known.
Sonic's target demographics are professionals, students, corporate users, entrepreneurs and medical users (Kotler and Keller, 2016). Due to this, Sonic should focus on three major models of communication; advertising, sales promotion and social media marketing.
Sonic's outer packaging should be the focus of their presentational advertising. In the Journal of Consumer Marketing, Ampuero and Vila's research supports the idea that packaging influences consumers' perception of the product (2006). Sonic needs to create visually appealing and recognizable packaging. By creating this, Sonic will have a "marketing weapon" (Ampuero and Vila, 2006). appealing and recognizable packaging. By creating this, Sonic will have a "marketing weapon" (Ampuero and Vila, 2006).
Sonic needs to offer a great sales promotion to generate brand recognition. They can d this by creating a sweepstakes. Sonic can use social media platforms as a "ticket" to be in the drawing. Companies have been successful by offering free items if you retweet, repost, hashtag and tag the product in consumers individual social media accounts. This method will help create nd build brand awareness.
Lastly, Sonic should focus on social media marketing. The Nielsen Company reported that from 2014 to 2016, consumer's source of new product awareness increased by 11% when using social media marketing (2015). By implementing a social media marketing campaign, Sonic will have an increased consumer reach.
- Which social media platforms and networks should Sonic pursue based on their target audiences?
Considering Sonic is attempting to reach those at the corporate and professional levels, they should utilize LinkedIn since this site is growing in popularity among those groups. Also, since they are trying to reach students, they will be successful if they market themselves through Facebook and Instagram. They need to follow the examples of other companies by making posts with catchy hashtags, eye- catching pictures/videos, and tactful use of emojis. Since students, typically the younger generation, uses these platforms on a regular basis, they are likely to catch their attention and at a very low cost.
As for medical users, there is not a social media platform that directly relates to the group. However, since both Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn are so popular, they would be able to use these for that group as well. There are ways to target the ads on Social Media which would allow Sonic to focus on people with certain preferences, of a certain age or location. All of these platforms are relatively inexpensive and effective compared to other forms of marketing.
- What should be the goals of consumer advertising?
Consumers increasingly want to know where, when, how they can get a product and why they should buy the product (Kotler and Keller, 2016, p.85). When determining the goals of consumer advertising we need to break down the market. We need to look at the potential market: set of consumers with a sufficient level of interest in a market offer, the available market: set of consumers who have interest, income, and access to a particular offer, the target market: the part of the qualified available market the company decides to pursue, and the penetrated market: the set of consumers who are buying the company's product (Kotler and Keller, 2016, p.86).
Sonics goals of consumer advertising should focus on the target market before moving to the other markets, brand positioning, and the marketing program (Kotler and Keller, 2016, p.587). Sonic's goals should develop around what the current marketing situation is. Since Sonic is a new company and trying to compete with already established companies, they need to follow the hierarchy of effects model focusing on informative, persuasive, reminder, and reinforcement advertising. They need to be informative by creating brand awareness and knowledge of their new company and their new phone. Sonic needs to be able to stand out compared to their competitors and create persuasive advertising to "create liking, preference, conviction, and purchase of their new phone," by comparative advertising, (Kotler and Keller, 2016, p.587). Lastly they will need to remind their target markets to purchase the phone and if they have consumers that have purchased, they need to reinforce them that they made the right decision. The overall goal in each of these advertising strategies needs to grab attention of the consumers. If Sonic follows the Hierarchy of effect model and "the brand contains all the textual and pictorial signs that uniquely identify the brand, such as its name, logo and trademark," (Pieters and Wedel, 2007, p. 225) then they can have effective advertising campaigns.
- Is mobile marketing a viable strategy for Sonic's smart phone? Why or why not?
Mobile marketing is an important aspect of an overall promotional strategy as marketers can measure time spent on mobile media, number of searches, and direct and indirect mobile-generated sales (Berman, 2016). Benefits of mobile marketing are the fact that the devices are rarely turned off and continuous connection with consumers is available. In addition, organizations can reach potential consumers via mobile marketing to influence target markets through ads, promotions and informational messaging, and marketers are able to send personalized messages (Kotler and Keller, 2016, p. 18). For these reasons, mobile marketing is a viable strategy; however only as a part of the overall marketing mix as the ability to identify exact locations of consumers is advantageous to markets via GPS technology since they are close to the point of sale (Kotler and Keller, 2016, p. 18). A concern with mobile marketing is over targeting consumers or targeting them at the wrong moment, which can be detrimental as ads need to be relevant. Recipients need enough time to respond given their distance from the promoted venue, but too much time may reduce response rates. This information can help marketers to deliver the right mobile ad to the right person at the right time at the right place in the right context (Andrews, 2017).
Sonic has multiple target markets it is attempting to attract so mobile marketing may appeal more to the secondary consumer target of the high school, college and graduate students. For Sonic, the primary consumer target is middle to upper income professionals who are looking for the simplicity of one device that is fully loaded in order to accommodate their every need; from managing busy schedules and seeking entertainment while traveling, as well as connecting personally with family and friends. Mobile marketing may speak to individual consultants but Sonic will need more than the proposed 6 month marketing mix currently scheduled. Seeing as the primary business target are medium to large corporations that want to find ways to support their workforce while working remotely, it is recommended to engage in face to face interactions, personal selling to companies, that may provide better customized information for potential buyers representing organizations; trade shows will help, however they will be at a disadvantage due to lack of brand awareness in the market place.