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Whether in modern or ancient warfare, tactical application often excels at "befriending the distant" and "attacking the near," i.e., "air strikes" and "ground attacks." Only by scientifically combining these two tactics at the "right time and place" can the final victory be achieved. In modern marketing activities, "advertising" and "sales promotion" share the same relationship and function. If "advertising" is the "air force" of modern marketing, then "sales promotion" is the "ground troops." If "advertising" is likened to a "long spear," then "sales promotion" is the "dagger." Only by flexibly combining them after selecting the right "time, place, and opponent" can we achieve or even exceed expected goals.
We often hear business owners lament: "We invest more in advertising than our competitors, and we run no fewer sales promotion activities than they do. Why is our market share or sales volume still not as good as theirs?"
Here, let's assume these companies are not inferior to their competitors in terms of "product, price, channel, sales force, and management," or even superior. So why do they pour large sums of money into advertising and sales promotion without seeing results?
I believe that only by clearly understanding competitors and mastering the "befriend the distant, attack the near" tactics—i.e., advertising and sales promotion activities—appropriate for different stages of the product life cycle can we achieve the desired results.
Align Advertising Activities with Sales Promotion Activities
According to data, the average New York City resident is surrounded by about 720 advertising messages daily, but very few truly create memory or even association. The reason is simple: advertising messages lack the opportunity for secondary communication with the audience. There are many ways to communicate, and sales promotion is one of the most important. After advertising messages are transmitted through the air into consumers' minds, they may only leave an impression for a while, but without prompting, most will not remember. At this point, ground activities are needed to support and effectively align with the advertising information, deepening consumers' understanding and memory. Subsequently, different sales promotion activities should be planned and executed according to the advertising schedule at different periods. In this way, advertising information and sales promotion can work together as "befriending the distant" and "attacking the near" to create memory, association, interest, and purchase among consumers. Sales promotion activities act like a strong accent in a musical score, continuously stimulating consumers' auditory system throughout the advertising message dissemination.
Before P&G entered the Chinese market, it conducted extensive advertising education for Chinese consumers in stages: not using shampoo harms hair quality → not choosing high-quality shampoo is detrimental to healthy hair → choosing shampoo suitable for your hair type is better for healthy hair. They used advertising closely tied to their market cultivation stage, single-brand operation stage, and multi-brand operation stage to educate consumers. After completing the dissemination of advertising messages, they launched large-scale new product sampling and distribution activities, achieving true communication between advertising messages and consumers, effectively aligning "air power" with "ground activities." Subsequently, they timely carried out other forms of sales promotion activities to coordinate with advertising operations, keeping the brand at the strongest voice in consumers' minds.
Know "When, Where, and for Whom" to Advertise
We say advertising is not omnipotent, but it is indeed the vanguard in marketing activities. If the 4Ps are compared to an iceberg, advertising is the part above the water, the most beautiful and visible part. Product, price, and channel are the underwater part of the iceberg, invisible but the solid foundation on which advertising effectiveness relies.
Therefore, many business owners easily recognize the importance of advertising but do not know how to do it. They follow competitors' ads and invest accordingly, or blindly invest: when sales are good, they do nothing, thinking advertising is wasteful; when sales decline, they desperately invest in advertising without any strategy. They fail to realize that advertising investment is closely related to the product life cycle, and its density and rhythm must be targeted. Although sometimes it is necessary to run follow-up ads against competitors, the overall advertising strategy should follow these principles:
Understanding where (what media) to advertise is equally important; media selection directly determines the effectiveness of advertising communication. First, you must clarify the purpose of each advertising investment and the target audience. For example, there are different media selection ranges for the general public versus target consumers. In daily media planning, "Cost Per Rating Point (CPRP)" and "Cost Per Thousand (CPM)" are two valuable tools and important decision-making bases. However, they are not "golden rules." When we overly consider the "economic efficiency" of media, we often overlook other important factors. If we insist on choosing media with low CPRP and CPM, it will inevitably affect the accurate and effective delivery of advertising messages. Therefore, media selection must consider multiple factors.
For instance, mass media investment aims to solve brand image and awareness, while communication to target consumers must choose media that target consumers like and frequently contact. At this point, defining the true target consumers becomes crucial. I believe the so-called target consumers are the "heavy users" of the product, as illustrated below.
Therefore, when conducting advertising communication to target consumers, of course, choose media that the 30% heavy users like or frequently contact. At this time, even if the CPRP and CPM are high, the advertising effectiveness is proportional.
Know "When, Where, and for Whom" to Conduct Sales Promotion Activities
"Sales promotion is a marketing activity that, within a certain time (budget period), in a specific target market, quickly stimulates, drives demand, and closes deals." Compared with other marketing measures, the main characteristics of sales promotion are: short-term, emphasis on diversity and creativity of activities and tools, strong stimulation, and quick results. Like advertising communication, sales promotion also emphasizes the selection of "time, place, and target." We know that sales promotion activities target two major segments: "internal" and "external." Internal sales promotion activities target salespeople; external sales promotion activities mainly target consumers and intermediaries. Different targets have different sales promotion methods, but all sales promotion activities involve close contact with the target, using spiritual, material, monetary, and other benefits to promote product sales. Coordinating with product advertising activities, sales promotion also has different targets and content depending on the product's stage.
The sales promotion activity forms listed above are for reference only. In fact, during market operations, we will seize opportunities to conduct sales promotion activities through different channels.
Admittedly, advertising and sales promotion cannot represent the entirety of marketing activities, but recognizing the relationship between advertising and sales promotion in marketing, organically combining them, complementing each other's strengths, and fully leveraging their "befriend the distant, attack the near" functional characteristics will yield twice the results with half the effort.