Powerade is a sports drink that is manufactured and promoted by the Coca-Cola Company more than 30 years. Although this product is quite popular on the market, it requires to be advertised to attract and keep new and existing customers. Despite the common opinion that the terms “sales promotion” and “advertising” are synonyms, it is not entirely true as those two notions have a different meaning related to the process of promotion of the good.
Sales promotion is a set of stimulating techniques, mostly short-term, that have a mission of fastening or enlarging the acquiring of chosen goods by customers or middlemen. Advertising is any paid form of infinite representation and promotion of goods, services, and ideas that is ordered and sponsored by the client in order to acquaint customers with it, form the demand on those goods, services, ideas. Hence, basically, those notions are completely different as advertisement is the process of introducing goods to the market, and sales promotion is a combination of various methods that aim to heighten the demand for those goods and fasten the production process. According to Proboyo (2019), advertising provides a potential customer with a reason to buy while sales promotion gives an incentive to buy. Powerade’s advertisement is quite creative as the company utilizes various ways of keeping its audience and encourages customers to buy their product.
Powerade implements both sales promotion and advertisement in its marketing activities, however, it faces both challenges and benefits while utilization. As a technique of sales promotion the company uses its Instagram and Facebook accounts where it gains followers, posts new products, announces upcoming sales, and fulfills giveaways. It is a good source of finding new customers as more than half of teenagers daily check social networks for updates. Hashtags are a good example of sales promotion as well, for example, according to Brownbill (2018), Coca-Cola used the #colouryoursummer hashtag in association with the company’s specific marketing campaigns. Advertisement is shown on various social platforms as well in a form of short video clips or banners.
Sales promotion, as well as advertisement, is usually associated with some challenges and benefits. For example, nowadays in a world crowded with advertisements, it is hard to stand out, therefore, the process of creating the message for the customer seems to be exhausting. Additionally, the placement and creation of the advertisement are associated with huge costs that cause budget problems for some companies especially startups. Sales promotion requires additional money for souvenir production, presents, and giveaway goods as well. However, both marketing tools bring such benefits as new customers, a chance to estimate the audience’s reaction, maintaining the company’s good image.
In the short term, such sales promotion tools as coupons, lotteries, souvenirs, giveaways, and gifts to regular customers are implemented. The basis of this method is the short-term increase in sales by presenting any kind of profit to the potential or existing customer. For example, during the FIFA 2018 World Cup, the Coca-Cola company implemented various sales promotion techniques along with the advertisement. Ireland (2020) states that the repeated exposure of some brands such as Powerade, Coca-Cola, or McDonald’s on huge digital displays on pitch perimeters led to some changes. They included liking of those brands by the audience, the creation of positive associations with the companies which made an impact on the consumers’ behavior. Therefore, such event as the World Championship helped in increasing the demand for Powerade drinks during the time of the competition. However, some other practices such as sales, installments, coupons, cashback, and various contests are used by the product marketing managers. Sales promotion and advertisement are important aspects of marketing that help companies gain popularity on the market and increase the short-term demand for their goods.
References
Brownbill, A. L., Miller, C. L., & Braunack-Mayer, A. J. (2018). The marketing of sugar-sweetened beverages to young people on Facebook. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 42(4), 354-360. Web.
Ireland, R., Muc, M., Bunn, C., & Boyland, E. (2020). Marketing of unhealthy brands during the 2018 Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup UK broadcasts – a frequency analysis. Journal of Strategic Marketing. Web.
Proboyo, A., & Kusuma, B. I. (2019). The impact of product attributes, price, place, advertising, and sales promotion: a case of kids shampoo in Indonesia. International Journal of Business Studies, 2(2), 59-70. Web.