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Module 4 – Case

THE MARKETING MIX: PROMOTION STRATEGIES

Questions/Tasks

Assume that you are the newly appointed Promotions Manager for Anheuser-Busch. To quickly bring you up to speed on your product, your VP of Marketing has asked you to prepare a short report that answers the following question:

What should be the promotional mix AND the advertising mix for Anheuser-Busch?

The Situation

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Anheuser-Busch has, in recent years, walked away from a $20 million deal to be Nascar’s official beer because it said the money was better spent online; surrendered exclusive beer-sponsor rights with many major sports properties; and sold itself to one of the corporate world’s most notorious cost-cutters. Many observers concluded that the brewer’s days of shelling out huge sums to lock opponents out of key sports deals were coming to a close. Those observers, it turns out, were wrong.

Submit your 3-4 page paper when finished.

Assignment Expectations

In answering the question make reasonable assumptions, (clearly you won’t have the same information available to you as the actual manager, e.g. about competitors, but make some assumptions and follow through in your analysis).

You should also bear in mind that a fundamental goal, as with all the cases you build in MKT490, is to stimulate your learning. Your answers should therefore aim to demonstrate that learning.

In preparing your CASE4, ensure that you demonstrate your learning of the marketing concepts and frameworks for analysis outlined in the modular learning objectives by using and referencing the background and case material.

1. Identify factors that influence the promotional mix of a product/service.
2. Evaluate the promotional strategy for a brand.

In particular, in answering the question, ensure that you demonstrate your understanding of promotion and factors affecting promotion success, as well as your learning from previous modules.

In CASE4, as stated in the background readings, since the promotion mix (among other activities) includes advertising, personal selling, and sale promotion AND the advertising mix includes print media, TV, radio, and newer forms of communication such as e-media; your job is to prepare two budgets: one for promotion and one for advertising. In those budgets, you need to tell your instructor what the overall budgeted promotion and advertising dollars should be, what percent of sales those amounts should be, and the percentages that should be allocated for each of the promotion and advertising activities you choose. Note the complicating factor in your budgeting is the multitude of brands sold by Anheiser Busch. Defend your positions on any and all of the issues you tackle.

Note that this assignment does NOT require you to prepare a detailed essay. Instead use section headings for each of the topics you address in your paper followed by a discussion of that topic.

Readings

Mullman, Jeremy (2010). A-B’s return to NFL signals bet on big-event sponsorships. With MLB, PGA, NBA deals, brewer blankets sports marketing playing field. Advertising Age (May 10).

Available March 8, 2013 at http://adage.com/article?article_id=143774

Murphy, John H., and I.C.M. Cunningham (1993), Advertising and marketing communication management (Chapter 5), Oak Brook, IL: Dryden Press.

Available March 8, 2013 at http://web.utk.edu/~rhovland/budgethandout.html