Guinness - Promotion

Promotion refers to "the entire set of activities, which communicate the product, brand or service to the user. The idea is to make people aware, attract and induce to buy the product, in preference over others" (Bennett, 2016).

Communication and Target Market:

Without communication with customers it would be quite difficult for any company to keep a product alive, especially one such as Guinness. Guinness utilises a communication strategy. Communication refers to “the act or an instance of communicating; the imparting or exchange of information, ideas, or feelings” according to McDermid V. (2016). This could be verbally, nonverbally, or visually. The reason behind Guinness using this strategy is that they wanted to dominate the market and ensure that potential consumers were aware that their brand existed.

Guinness has strong communication with customers. As Guinness is an alcohol, which cannot be sold to anyone under the age of eighteen, it is clear that their target audience ("the section of the potential market at which a product or service is aimed" - Collins, 2016) is anyone over the legal age to buy and consume alcohol. It is important for any company to understand their target market in order for their product to be effective. It is also not just about knowing your audience. In this day and age it is about building relationships with consumers which are strong, loyal and long lasting. Everything should and can be planned around a target market. For instance, what time you send them promotional emails, when you interact on social media or when your advertisement is shown on the television. As Guinness targets those above legal age to drink, their ideal time to show television advertisements is in the evening or after the watershed. For social media users, the early evenings or first thing in the morning would be ideal as assuming people check their phones on the way to university or work.

While Guinness' target market is those over the legal buying/consumption age, they can also specify who they target within this group, in other words they can segment this broad market that they have. This is known as market segmentation. Market segmentation refers to the "aggregating of prospective buyers into groups, or segments, that have common needs and respond similarly to a marketing action" (Investopedia.com, 2003). Figure 4.0 displays different categories in which markets can be segmented. For example, Guinness' market could be subdivided by age, gender, location or ethnicity. This helps Guinness to understand the needs of customers better and therefore improves their advantage over competitors.

Figure 4.0

Promotion Methods:

Guinness has been innovative in the way that their products are promoted. A myriad of promotion methods have been used and uniquely, Guinness has ensured that through promotion their heritage still remains. This myriad of promotional methods includes advertising, direct marketing, publicity, personal selling and internet promotion. Guinness tries to incorporate all of these aforementioned methods of promotion into their promotional mix.

Advertising:
Advertising can be reffered to as "a means of communication with the users of a product or service" (Bennett, 2016). Advertising is costly yet the price may be worth it as it can have big impacts on consumers. Types of advertising include brand advertising, cooperative advertising and corporative advertising. Guinness uses brand advertising. Brand advertising is the proccess involved in exposing the public to a unique name and image through advertising campaigns. Guinness has reached large geographically dispersed audiences through advertising. In the early advertising days for Guinness, consumers perceived the advertised good of stout as legitimate due to the brand image and name being exposed frequently to potential consumers. Although it is an expensive way to get their brand across, advertising has been a success medium of communication for Guinness. Below are two different advertisements by Guinness - one being very old and one being much newer. The newer advertisement can be seen to focus more on the heritage of Guinness and on a young target audience of around the 20-30 age mark. Guinness is one of the few companies who have successful understood the need of promotion in order to reach a wide section of society.

References:

1)      Bennett (2016) Definition of ‘advertising’ - the economic times. Available at: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/definition/advertising (Accessed: 19 November 2016).

2)      Bennett (2016) Definition of ‘promotions’ - the economic times. Available at: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/definition/promotions (Accessed: 19 November 2016).

3)      Collins, H. (2016) ‘Definition of target market’, in Available at: http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/target-market (Accessed: 19 November 2016).

4)      Investopedia.com (2003) ‘Market segmentation’, in Available at: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketsegmentation.asp (Accessed: 19 November 2016).

5)      McDermid, V. (2016) ‘Definition of communication’, in Available at: http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/communication (Accessed: 15 November 2016).