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Part Five Developing the Integrated Marketing Communications Program
Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
Exhibit 17-19 Advocacy
ads take a position on an
issue
V. Developing the
Integrated Marketing
Communications Program
17. Public Relations,
Publicity, and Corporate
Advertising
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
sampling are very effective ways to reach specific geographic, demographic, psychographic,
and ethnic markets.
Event sponsorship has become a good sales promotion tool for reaching specific
target markets. Golf tournaments are a popular event for sponsorship by marketers of
luxury automobiles and other upscale products and services. The golf audience is
affluent and highly educated, and marketers believe that golfers care passionately
about the game, leading them to form emotional attachments to brands they associate
with the sport.
Marketers can also turn their sponsorships into effective integrated marketing
opportunities. For example, Cadillac is an umbrella sponsor of the Senior PGA Tour,
which fits well with its attempt to target age 40-plus professionals with incomes
exceeding $60,000. On-site signage and vehicle displays are part of the sponsorship
deal. The Team Cadillac golfers, including such notables as Lee Trevino and Arnold
Palmer, wear the automaker’s logo during tournaments and also help in public relations
by giving media interviews and representing Cadillac at tie-in events. In the
weeks preceding an event, dealers send out as many as 20,000 direct-mail pieces to
owners and prospects inviting them to visit a dealership for a test drive and to pick up
tournament tickets and hospitality passes. Response to the direct-mail offerings averages
16 percent. Cadillac also gets automotive advertising exclusivity on the ESPN
telecasts and often airs commercials featuring the Team Cadillac members.
Cadillac attributes $250 million in vehicle sales directly to its involvement with the
tour since 1990. The dollar figure comes from tracking sales to prospects who respond
to Cadillac’s direct-marketing programs built around the tournament. 39
A major issue that continues to face the event sponsorship industry is incomplete
research. As marketers become interested in targeted audiences, they will want more
evidence that event sponsorship is effective and is a good return on their investment.
Measuring the effectiveness of event sponsorships is discussed in Chapter 19.
Advocacy Advertising A third major form of corporate advertising addresses
social, business, or environmental issues. Such advocacy advertising
is concerned with propagating ideas and elucidating controversial
social issues of public importance in a manner that supports the
interests of the sponsor. 40
While still portraying an image for the company or organization,
advocacy advertising does so indirectly, by adopting a position on a
particular issue rather than promoting the organization itself. An
example is shown in Exhibit 17-19. Advocacy advertising has
increased in use over the past few years and has also met with
increased criticism. The ads may be sponsored by a firm or by a
trade association and are designed to tell readers how the firm operates
or management’s position on a particular issue.
Sometimes the advertising is a response to negative publicity or
to the firm’s inability to place an important message through public
relations channels. Sometimes the firm just wants to get certain
ideas accepted or have society understand its concerns.
Advocacy advertising has been criticized by a number of sources
(including consumer advocate Ralph Nader). But as you can see in
Exhibit 17-20, this form of communication has been around for a long
time. AT&T engaged in issues-oriented advertising way back in 1908
and has continued to employ this form of communication throughout
the 20th century. Critics contend that companies with large advertising
budgets purchase too much ad space and time and that advocacy
ads may be misleading, but the checks and balances of regular product
advertising also operate in this area.
For example, an ad run by the seven regional Bell operating companies
that addressed the threat of Japanese technologies in the telecommunications
industry was perceived by some members of Congress
(the group the ads were designed to influence) as Japan-bashing and