Promotional Practice Report Objectives of the campaign

Promotional tools

Media used in the campaign

Promotional Campaign

Communication is as the passage of messages from the source, who is the sender, to the target who is the receiver. The sender encodes the information into symbols which are understandable by the receiver thus enabling decoding of the original message and giving of feedback. These symbols are to convey thoughts, and the required meaning between the sender and recipient and they include pictures, words and music. In marketing communication theory, the rationale behind marketing communication is the use of different modes to communicate. Each mode used has significance in capturing the recipient's attention. Note that, each recipient has a distinct mode through which to get information about a certain product. Therefore, the sender sends the same message via various routes with the explanation that, through these dissimilar paths, the meaning of the message is to be implicit ( Portugal, 2012, p. 212-234).

Costa Coffee is a multinational coffeehouse company with its headquarters in Dunstable, United Kingdom. It is the biggest coffee house in the UK and second-largest in the globe after Starbucks, by having 1,375 shops in the United Kingdom and 800 shops overseas. This report is about a promotional campaign by Costa Coffee promoting the Costa Coffee Christmas drinks and foods. This campaign aimed at promoting only seven Christmas drinks where a customer would buy any Medio Christmas drink and get one for free. The seven drinks in the range were Salted Caramel Latte, Praline & Cream Latte, Gingerbread Latte, Creme Brulee Latte, Brackforest Hot Chocolate, Frosted Mint Hot Chocolate and Honeycomb Chocolate.

Objectives of the campaign

For a successful promotional campaign, clear objectives need to be set to clarify on the expected results. They should also be specific, measurable, accurate, realistic and time bound. Costa Coffee Christmas drinks and food promotion campaign had set several objectives. Firstly, it aimed at increasing awareness of Costa Coffee products among its prospective customers. Secondly, the campaign aimed at widening the business' customer base by reaching more people who would be prospective consumers of the drinks. Thirdly, the campaign aimed at encouraging its customers to reinvest their dividend cash by buying more shares from the company. Finally, the campaign aimed at increasing sales by having a wide customer base.

Target Audience

Costa Coffee Christmas drinks and foods targeted students in universities, people in transport interchanges and workers and patients in hospitals. The reason behind this was these areas are always occupied, and they provide a wide market for the drinks. Also, these areas mostly the transport interchanges and universities have new people in some intervals. This allows Costa Coffee to be able to increase the awareness of its products.

Promotional tools

Advertising, for example, consumer advocacy

Sales promotion, for example, use of coupons

Public relations and publicity, for example, use of feature articles

Personal selling, for example, live interactions

Direct marketing, for example, use of the direct mail and emails

Media used in the campaign

Print media, for example, newspapers, magazines

Broadcast media, for example, television and radio

Display media, for example, billboards and signs

Electronic media, for example, internet, videotapes, audiotapes

In the Costa Coffee Christmas drinks and foods promotional campaign, several promotional tools and media were used to communicate with customers. Sales promotion was a promotional tool that was largely used by Costa Coffee. It is a process that persuades potential customers to buy a certain product. Sales promotion includes several methods, for example, money off coupons where customers use coupons that enable them to buy the product at a reduced price. Competition is another example of sales promotion where when the customers buy a product, they get a chance to participate in a chance to win a prize. Another example of sales promotion is the use of free gifts where a customer gets a free product on buying another product. In the Costa Coffee Christmas drinks and foods promotional campaign, sales promotion was used through the giving of money off coupons and free gifts. Vouchers were available on the internet, and a customer would use it to buy a drink and get one free. This thus brought about giving of gift where a customer got a free drink on buying one. The suitability of this promotional tool is that, it attracted many customers who would not afford two drinks and thus there was an increase in sales during the...

69-91).
The second promotional tool used was advertisement. It is a mode of communication in marketing that aims at persuading customers to buy a certain product. Advertisements are through print media, broadcast media using television and radio commercials, display media and electronic media. It is a suitable promotional skill because it reaches a wide pool of consumers who are geographically dispersed at a lower cost. Advertising also has the suitability of, the message can be repeated several times. This enables consumers to understand the message and give feedback either by buying the product or by ignoring it. Costa Coffee used advertisements in promoting its campaign. Television commercials were aired through broadcast media billboards were set up, and ads were placed on the business's website.

The third promotional tool used by Costa Coffee was personal selling. This is a promotional tool used to sell a product by meeting face-to-face with the customer. It is common where home, and business premises deliveries of the product are done. The businesses use people to sell their product to a range of customers. The suitability of this method is due to the advantage that, there is high customer attention since the seller is communicating face-to-face. Also, there is high persuasive impact and this leads to a high opportunity of closing the deal. Another advantage of personal selling is there being potential of developing a relationship between the business and consumers. Costa Coffee used personal selling in promoting its campaign for the Christmas drinks and foods. Delivery persons passed the message to the potential buyers in homes and business premises. Therefore, due to many people having wide knowledge of the campaign, the sales increased.

The fourth promotional tool used was direct marketing. Direct marketing includes use of direct mails, magazine inserts, telemarketing and emails. It establishes an individual relationship between the consumer and the business offering the product. This promotional tool uses the past, and current details of potential customers, which are in mailing databases, and this enables the business to send promotional messages to the potential customers. The suitability of this method is that the business focuses on the most prospective customers and with development of relationships a long-lasting market is created. Costa Coffee used direct marketing to promote its campaign where direct mails were sent to its customers. It focused on the most prospective customers, which lead to a higher turn out, resulting in an increase in sales of the Christmas drinks.

The final promotional tool used by Costa Coffe was public relations or publicity. Public relations is a tool used by businesses to enhance the image and reputation. It is by the public relations department in the business. Public relations present businesses in the most favourable way, an act that creates an image for the business among its clients. An image is significant because it allows the business to stand out among the competitors in the same industry. Public relations through positive publicity is essential because it increases the company's sales. Public relations uses tools like news releases through the broadcast media, newsletters sent to the customers and appearances at public occasions like trade fairs. Costa Coffee successfully used public relations as a promotional tool in its campaign by sending newsletters to potential buyers of its drinks. As a result of its good reputation as the best coffee house in United Kingdom, many customers responded to the campaign and came out in large numbers to purchase its drinks. This led to a boost in its sales during the Christmas season.

Costa Coffee used media in promoting its campaign of Costa Coffee Christmas drinks and foods. The widely used media were broadcast media. It used the televisions and radios to communicate to the potential buyers of its drinks. The suitability of this media is that, it reaches a wide range of customers. This is due to many citizens' ability to purchase a television set or a radio. Also, potential buyers get the message even when they are at work or driving when the information is through a radio. When a wide customer base is created, there is more turn out which leads to increase in sales. Therefore, by using this media, Costa Coffee was able to reach many potential buyers who responded by buying the drinks leading to increased sales. The second media used was display media. This uses billboards, posters and signs. These are masted and stuck in the streets where there are many prospective buyers of the product. Billboard captures the attention of people due to use of famous people and attractive pictures and thus enabling the message to pass to a wide customer base. On the other hand, posters can be used in schools, business premises…