Week 11 - March 28, 2012

Today we covered chapter 14. This chapter is about Promotion, though that is not the official title of the chapter. The official title is Integrated Marketing Communications. It was an interesting chapter. Like the chapter we covered last week, so many of the definitions are similar. Thus, it is easy to get confused.

I also volunteered to do a presentation on Facebook. I'm a bit nervous, but I'm looking forward to it.

One important thing in this chapter is the "promotional mix the combination of promotional tools-including advertising, public relations, personal selling, and sales promotion-used to reach the target market and fulfill the organization's overall goals." The chapter also discusses communication. This includes the communication process. It was nice reading/learning about this again as I took Interpersonal Communications a few semesters ago. So I guess in some ways it was a review and in some ways not as it is understanding communications from a business/marketing perspective. It really is interested how my classes seem to overlap.

The chapter also talks about "the goals and tasks of promotion" and "promotional goals and the AIDA concept". There are also sections about "factors affecting the promotional mix" and "integrated marketing communications". The chapter really covers a lot.

AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. As I've moved through the following chapters things are starting to make more sense, but I still feel a little bit confused.

Our case discussion was about Wicked and there was a question about it on the Class Involvement Quiz. I mean no offense to those who allowed me to be a part of their group that night, it was just different. A different dynamic.

My response to the question:

I didn't possibly understand the material as well as I thought I did. Also, I appreciate the group I usually discuss with. It was very different and I'm not sure how to compare the productivity, working with a different group. That push is more "aggressive", AIDA is important, there is a lot more to promotion than I thought. Having a good understanding of the terms is very important.

As I mentioned understanding the terms is important, as are the principles and other concepts. I'm going to try and find some time to review before the final exam. It's not easy managing my time as a college student, but I am learning.