Principles & Practice of Marketing Tutorial: Managing Promotion

1. Consider the four main categories of marketing communication objectives

and ensure that you understand how these differ from each other.
Reminder:
Cognitive;
Affective;
Behavioural;
Corporate.
2. Reflect on the Starbucks advertising campaigns shown in class. Determine
their likely objectives and analyse the content / structure of the adverts.
Reminder:
Content can be rational (functional appeals to the head) and / or emotional
(psychological appeals to the heart).
Structure refers to the how / what is said and may be conclusive / humorous /
comparative / slice of life / controversial etc.
Are these campaigns judged to be appropriate to their target audience?
Is there any evidence within the campaigns that factors in the external environment
have been taken into account?
How effective do you think these campaigns are?
3. Reflect on the Costa / Caffe Nero advertising campaigns determine their
likely objectives and consider their potential to impact on the Starbucks
brand.
4. Read the article overleaf and:
a) categorise this as a form of promotion;
b) consider the effects that an article such as this could have on the target
customer (reference to your previously created customer profile would be
useful here).

Self Study Activity:

You should be able to develop these points and include them in the third part of your
assignment. Are the marketing communications appropriate given a) the findings of
your macro environmental analysis and b) the needs of the target customer?

Coffee boss gets all frothed up

Does Starbucks make you want to vomit? Only when its chief executive bangs on
about his "social conscience". Howard Schultz was at it again yesterday, declaring:
"We are not just a coffee chain. We are a performance-driven organisation through
the lens of humanity" (report, page 31).
Yeah, right. Is that the taxavoiding lens of humanity? Not that Mr Schultz doesn't
blame the tax row on the UK media, which "took on a life of its own and portrayed us
in a pretty bad way" - even though Starbucks had "done the right thing with regards
to the tax issue". Well, that's beastly British journos for you. Where did he say all
this? Monaco.
Still, every boss with a $2.5 billion fortune is entitled to turn up in a tax haven and
preach do-goodery. We just don't have to believe a word he says. Not when the
official line for Starbucks paying almost no UK tax for 17 years is that Mr Schultz, the
creator of a $78 billion business since taking charge in 1987, couldn't make a UK
profit. Funny that.
Didn't stop him opening 800 stores.
Too many expensive leases, is the company's line for that. Yet, there are other
theories for Starbucks paying just 8.6 million tax in its first 14 years in the UK when
sales totalled 3 billion. One is a former corporate structure that made the owner of
the large UK operation a network of Dutch companies now under investigation by the
EU for sweetheart tax deals. Another is that any profits from the UK business were
massaged away by steep royalty charges to the US parent for using the Starbucks
name and mark-ups on the price it paid for coffee from Starbucks' Swiss trading arm
- claims the company denies.
Tax avoidance is not illegal. And, now Starbucks has moved its European HQ to
Britain, the tax bill is likely to rise, and not just due to Schultz stunts, like that 20
million he volunteered to pay, as if tax was some charitable donation. Indeed, there
was a teensy bit of real tax last year when Starbucks actually declared a 1.06
million UK profit. Still, we can do without Mr Schultz's moralising. He should save his
froth for the cappuccinos.
Osborne, A. (2015) Coffee boss gets all frothed up, The Times, 5 June, p.29