Topics
promotion, advertising budget, ROI, objectives, marketing plan, repositioning
Review the activity below or download the PDF student worksheet
- Student Worksheet: Setting the Promotional Objectives
- Instructor Solutions (Members Only): Setting Promotional Objectives = Solutions
Student Discussion Activity
It seems fairly obvious that the goals/objectives of a promotion would be to increase sales and profit. And, of course, you would usually need to achieve those goals to justify the cost of the campaign.
But take a look at the list of possible promotional goals listed below. Assume that you were responsible for the promotion of McDonald’s ‘healthy menu’ campaign (designed to reposition the brand to some extent), which of the following goals might be appropriate?
Your Choice of Objectives
- To increase sales by…
- To increase profit by…
- To enhance overall positioning
- To gain new customers
- To increase overall brand equity
- To change attitudes towards McDonald’s
- To increase average profitability of customers
- To increase percentage of ‘heavy users’ (frequent customers)
- To win back ex-customers
- To increase the cross-selling of products (more products per visit)
- To enhance customer loyalty (of existing customers)
- To improve staff morale
Student Discussion Questions
- From the above list, what goals you think McDonald’s would have as part of its repositioning project?
- What would be their main two goals?
- What are the dangers of simply limiting promotional objectives to just sales goals?
- Is it possible that some firms would implement a promotional campaign that would have a negative profit impact in the short term? Why?