Marketing Communications & Brand Promotion

• Marketing communications and brand promotion entails informing wholesalers, distributors, retailers, and consumers about product offerings.
• A push strategy is used to convince wholesalers, distributors, and retailers to sell products.
• Advertising and promotions inform consumers about product availability, focusing primarily on selling to intermediaries.
• The push strategy tends to overlook user needs.
• Coca-Cola shifted from a push to a front door strategy.
• Textbook publishers need to rethink sales and marketing due to rising prices and fewer student purchases.
• Jeff Shelstad and Eric Frank launched a textbook publisher, adding value to textbooks through a unique marketing channel.
• A pull strategy creates consumer demand, influencing businesses to sell the product.
• The pharmaceutical industry uses both pull and push strategies, promoting drugs to pharmacies and doctors while persuading consumers to inquire about benefits.
• Joint promotion involves multiple organizations responsible for different communication channels, like ads from Target, Walmart, and direct manufacturer-retailer partnerships.
• The forms and styles of communication will be further discussed in the promotions and sales section.

Sorting and Regrouping Products

• Wholesalers and distributors break down large quantities of products into smaller units, providing businesses with an assortment of goods.
• Cranberry farmers sell their produce to a coop, where larger berries are sorted by size, and smaller ones are used for juice or sauce.
• The sorted cranberry products are then sold to juice and sauce producers.

Storing and Managing Inventory

• Channel members reserve inventory to prevent lost sales.
• Storage costs include expenses for buildings, rent, heating, cooling, and employee compensation.
• Companies like Walmart have suppliers manage inventory and ship products when needed.
• Commodities like corn and wheat are stored until processors need them, ensuring freshness in grocery stores.

Distributing Products

• Physical goods need to be moved within a channel.
• Large wholesalers, distributors, and retailers either own truck fleets or hire third-party transportation.
• Tracking merchandise is critical; loss or damage can impact profits.
• Failing to deliver products on time poses a threat when competitors can.

Assume Ownership Risk and Extend Credit

• Ownership risk is distributed among channel members based on contracts and free on board provisions.
• Free on board (FOB) provisions define shipping costs and ownership of goods.
• Factors like product type, demand, marketing conditions, and marketing channel impact contract terms.
• Companies sometimes delay product ownership to avoid storage costs.
• Economic downturns often lead to less inventory to avoid obsolescence.

Share Marketing and Other Information

• Channel partners share data on product demand, trends, inventory levels, and competition.
• Trust and information sharing enhance performance and competitiveness.
• Confidentiality issues arise from extensive sharing of sales and inventory data.
• Nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) are required to protect proprietary information, specifying what the information is and how it can be used.