Билет №7

1. What is the difference between functional and general managers?

2. What does the promotions mix include? Describe the main mass-promotion tools.

Marketing communications have their own ‘promotions mix.’Some of the elements of the promotions mix are:

1. Personal Selling

2. Sales Promotion

3. Public Relations

4. Publicity

5. Direct Mail

6. Trade Fairs and Exhibitions

7. Sponsorship

8. Advertising

The three mass-promotion tools are advertising, sales promotion and public relations.

Advertising is the use of paid media by a seller to inform, persuade and remind target audiences about its products or organization. It is a powerful promotion tool. Advertisements take many forms and have many uses.

Sales promotion covers a wide variety of purchasing incentives - coupons, premiums, contests, buying allowances - designed to stimulate consumers, the trade and the company’s own sales force. In general, sales promotions should be about consumer relationship building. In many countries, sales promotion spending has been growing faster than advertising spending in recent years. Sales promotion calls for setting sales promotion objectives, selecting tools, developing, pre-testing and implementing the sales promotion program, and evaluating the results.

Organizations use public relations to obtain favorable publicity, to build up a good ‘corporate image’ and to handle or head off unfavorable rumors, stories and events. Public relations involves setting PR objectives, choosing PR messages and vehicles, implementing the PR plan and evaluating PR results. To accomplish these goals, PR professionals use a variety of tools, such as news, speeches and special events. Or they communicate with various publics through written, audiovisual and corporate identity materials, and contribute money and time to public relations activities.

Билет №8

1. Explain the difference between functional, divisional, and matrix structures.

2. How should companies market their products if they go global?

Companies cannot simply stay domestic and expect to maintain their markets. Despite the many challenges in the international arena (shifting borders, unstable governments, foreign-exchange problems, corruption, and technological pirating), companies selling in global industries need to internationalize their operations.

In deciding to go abroad, a company needs to define its international marketing objectives and policies. The company must determine whether to market in a few countries or many countries. Then it must decide on which types of countries to consider. In general, the candidate countries should be rated on three criteria: market attractiveness, risk, and competitive advantage.

Once a company decides on a particular country, it must determine the best mode of entry. Its broad choices are indirect exporting, direct exporting, licensing, joint ventures, and direct investment.

In deciding on the marketing program, a company must decide how much to adapt its marketing mix (product, promotion, price, and place) to local conditions. At the two ends of the spectrum are standardized and adapted marketing mixes, with many steps in between. At the product level, firms can pursue a strategy of straight extension, product adaptation, or product invention. At the promotion level, firms may choose communication adaptation or dual adaptation. At the price level, firms may encounter price escalation and gray markets, and it may be very difficult to set standard prices. At the distribution level, firms need to take a whole-channel view of the challenge of distributing its products to the final users. In creating all elements of the marketing mix, firms must be aware of the cultural, social, political, technological, environmental, and legal limitations they face in other countries.