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104 PART 2 • STRATEGY FORMULATION

TABLE 4-4 Desirable Characteristics of Ads in a Global Economic
Recession
1. Take direct aim at competitors, so leaner, meaner, and to the point.
2. Be less lavish and glamorous, requiring less production dollars to develop.
3. Be short and sweet, mostly 10- and 15-second ads rather than 30+ seconds.
4. “Make you feel good” or “put you in a good mood” because (a) ads can be more easily
avoided than ever and (b) people are experiencing hard times and seek comfort.
5. Be more pervasive such as on buses, elevators, cell phones, and trucks.
6. Appear less on Web sites as banner ads become the new junk mail.
7. Red will overtake the color orange as the most popular ad color.
8. More than ever emphasize low price and value versus rivals.
9. More than ever emphasize how the product/service will make your life better.
Source: Based on Suzanne Vranica, “Ads to Go Leaner, Meaner in ’09,” Wall Street Journal
(January 5, 2009): B8.

in a recession. Table 4-4 lists specific characteristics of ads forthcoming in late 2009 and
2010 in response to the economic hard times people nationwide and worldwide are facing.
Total U.S. online advertising sending is expected to decline 0.3 percent to $36.9 billion in
2009, after growing 8.5 percent in 2008.
A 30-second advertisement on the Super Bowl in 2009 was $3 million. The NBC net-
work airing the Super Bowl took in $206 million of ad revenue from the broadcast as just
over 95 million people watched the Pittsburgh Steelers defeat the Arizona Cardinals in
Super Bowl XLIII. The most watched television show in history was the 1983 season
finale of M*A*S*H, which drew 106 million viewers.
Visa in 2009 launched a $140 million advertising campaign that includes print, TV,
outdoor, and Internet ads designed to persuade consumers that debit cards “are more
convenient, safer, and secure than cash or checks.”
Pharmaceutical companies on average reduced their spending on consumer advertis-
ing of prescription drugs by 8 percent in 2008 to $4.4 billion. This was the first annual
decrease since 1997 in their efforts to get patients to request a particular medicine from
their doctor.
Determining organizational strengths and weaknesses in the selling function of
marketing is an important part of performing an internal strategic-management audit. With
regard to advertising products and services on the Internet, a new trend is to base advertis-
ing rates exclusively on sales rates. This new accountability contrasts sharply with tradi-
tional broadcast and print advertising, which bases rates on the number of persons
expected to see a given advertisement. The new cost-per-sale online advertising rates are
possible because any Web site can monitor which user clicks on which advertisement and
then can record whether that consumer actually buys the product. If there are no sales, then
the advertisement is free.

Product and Service Planning
Product and service planning includes activities such as test marketing; product and brand
positioning; devising warranties; packaging; determining product options, features, style,
and quality; deleting old products; and providing for customer service. Product and service
planning is particularly important when a company is pursuing product development or
diversification.
One of the most effective product and service planning techniques is test marketing.
Test markets allow an organization to test alternative marketing plans and to forecast future
sales of new products. In conducting a test market project, an organization must decide
how many cities to include, which cities to include, how long to run the test, what informa-
tion to collect during the test, and what action to take after the test has been completed.
Test marketing is used more frequently by consumer goods companies than by industrial