Source : Fixing the Marketing-CEO Disconnect

Source : Fixing the Marketing-CEO Disconnect
By Sean Silverstone
Harvard Business School Working Knowledge

In most companies, no one knows and understands your customers and their changing needs better than the marketing department. Certainly that knowledge should be routinely presented and understood by the chief executive and board of directors, right?
A CD-based program called Measuring Marketing Performance which developed by Gail McGovern, a professor of management practice asked to discuss the CEO-marketing rift in more detail and describe the benefits of the tutorial. According to him, in many companies, marketing exists far from the executive suite because the CEO perceives that there is not the same pressing need to master the marketing discipline as there is. Oxley. Unlike operations where there are established techniques in inventory management and reengineering, there are no obvious and permanent cost-cutting results to be gained through marketing, short of simply slashing the advertising budget. In addition, marketing is not naturally inherent in a CEO's day-to-day job as is organizational behavior/leadership. Part of the problem is the current corporate climate, in which questions of governance and financial purity dominate CEOs' and boards' attention.
The key challenge is to develop a set of metrics that measure the impact of marketing activities against the goals of the corporation. Many marketing managers will tell you that marketing performance can't be measured. It's not that managers are short on measurement tools, or that marketing metrics lack utility. The problem is that these managers don't know what metrics to measure or how to interpret the results. They may collect all manner of plausible marketing-performance metrics, from customer satisfaction to retention, but if these can't be correlated with marketing activities and revenue results, the data aren't very helpful
The tutorial provides instructions as to how to improve the link between high level corporate strategy and the marketing function.
Selecting the wrong metrics can actually cause firms to lose ground with customers.
First, participants are exposed to three companies in which marketing programs are tightly aligned with corporate strategy. Second, the CD explains how to create a marketing dashboard that can reveal the true performance of a company's marketing activities. The resulting dashboard can be used to inform boards of directors and senior leaders as to how well their marketing efforts are supporting customers' needs. Unlike isolated measures of marketing performance that are often insufficient, irrelevant, or misleading, this dashboard allows the board to quickly and routinely assess how effectively marketing is supporting corporate strategy and determine when marketing and strategy are misaligned. Armed with a clear understanding of marketing's role and performance, the board can optimize this critical function in the organization.
Lastly, the tutorial takes participants into the Harvard Business School classroom, where they can experience first-hand how other executives learned to master the marketing dashboard creation process.

Onur Sevgili, 107604031

Source : Television Advertising: Sights, Sounds & Sales! (http://advertising.about.com/od/televisionandradio/a/tvadvertising.htm )

Most companies look at television commercials as an advertising vehicle for "the other guy." The corporate giant. The big business with lots of disposable cash. In fact, TV is a very affordable medium that can increase your company's profits greatly.
Before you make an investment in television advertising, there are certain key elements you need to consider. Once you understand the process of writing, creating and producing a commercial, you're ready to hit the airwaves.
Effective TV commercials merge video and audio into a powerful sales tool. But don't think one is more important than the other. Audio and video go hand-in-hand.
For example, turn down the volume on any commercial. You should be able to identify the benefits of purchasing a product just from the video.
The same holds true for audio. Close your eyes and listen to the announcer. If the audio doesn't explain the product in detail, then the commercial isn't effective. Potential customers should be able to hear your message even if they're not in the room to see it.
Always use a strong audio and video combination when creating your own commercial.
Say you're selling a handheld vacuum cleaner. Your video could actually demonstrate the product vacuuming the stairs, hard to reach places and inside a car. You'd also use video to show someone struggling with a regular, bulky vacuum cleaner - fussing with cords and heavy equipment.
Use your audio to explain the advantages of owning your product. You'd use words like "convenient, portable, lightweight."
However, there are no words more important than your call to action. What do you want your viewer to do? Tell them to call now. Order now. Visit their local dealer.
Your video must match your audio to drive home your selling points. For instance, you wouldn't want to see video of a woman struggling with a large vacuum cleaner while you hear audio claiming, "Our handheld vacuum cleaner is great for cleaning the inside of your car!"
Your message gets distorted. The viewer gets confused. And you lose the sale.
Think of television as an intimate medium. If you're advertising a restaurant, don't just use a shot of your building's exterior. Use a close-up of your food in your commercial. And show people eating your food. If you're producing a Public Service Announcement (PSA) about drunk driving, don't just use a shot of a crowd of people at a funeral. Show a tear streaming down a child's face.
Combining sight and sound should spark your viewers' emotions and help them identify with your product. And if they can identify with your product, you're more likely to get the sale!

Comment:

In the first years of broadcasting, commercials were given to customers via radios. People were only hearing informations about products in the radios. In that moment, words were too important, because companies wanted customers to imagine the right object about product.In the begining of those years, ear was indispensable organ for companies because customers must hear the sounds about commercials. Otherwise adverstising would be useless and be unsuccessful. Technology increased quickly as time goes on. People met with the product of bradcasting technology in last fifty years.."Television." After televison, people started to get information with two organs: ear and eyes-.Commercial producers wanted to emphasize the importance of products with eyes besides ears. They thought that if customers get the informations from two organs -ear and eye-, commercials effectiveness would be higher.And also after some years, it was found that this idea was true. In the light of i mentioned above, commercial producers aim to give rightest message to the customers with using visual and audible media.According to my opinion, producers will start to use the sense of touch in their commercial but i dont know how.We will see in future.