Product placement

Product Placement

Literature Review

The marketing mix is traditionally defined as gathered information that serves to help an organization to make appropriate product and service, pricing, delivery, and promotional decisions. The analysis of the marketing mix serves to provide information for use to effectively introduce a product or service into the marketplace. The marketing mix, known as the four Ps of marketing, includes product, price, place, and promotion.

The product includes the total tangible or intangible outputs of an organization. Tangible products are referred to as “goods,” while intangible products are called “services.” A sport good is an item utilized in the production of sporting business industry operations or for the personal satisfaction of a sport consumer. This can range from facilities and equipment to sporting goods and retail merchandise. A sport service is the process of providing quality, value, and satisfaction to the sport consumer by providing a quality standard work and/or service generally expected by the sport consumer. In sport marketing, intangible products may be also referred to as the “experience.”

Price is the value a consumer equates to a good or service or the amount of money or goods asked for in exchange for something else. It is argued that this is the most important element of the marketing mix because there are costs associated with producing, delivering, and promoting products, and it also directly affects the bottom line, or financial profitability, of an organization.

Price is directly affected by fixed and variable costs, targeted consumers and their ability and desire to pay, company goals and objectives, competition, and positioning strategies employed. Price is also affected by the type of pricing strategy implemented, including penetration pricing (low price to increase market share and sales), skimming pricing (high price that is reduced slowly to increase market share and sales), competition pricing (price is set in comparison to competitors), or premium pricing (high price that articulates the exclusiveness of the product).

Place deals with the methods of distributing the product to consumers. Product placement, or distribution, focuses on the logistical aspects of purchasing and supply chain management to get the product or service from the manufacturer to the customer. Traditional distribution channels involve a manufacturer working with a wholesaler to sell products to retailers, who then sell those products to consumers. Other distribution channels eliminate the wholesaler, allowing manufacturers to deal directly with retailers. With the advent of new technologies, another distribution channel has become more prevalent: manufacturer directly to the consumer.

Promotion represents how information about the product is communicated to customers, with a goal of receiving positive response from the consumer, and results in product sales. Promotions are articulated through the elements of the promotional mix, including advertising, sponsorship, public relations, licensing, personal contact, incentives, and atmospherics.

Introduction

The prevalence of advertising and its overt nature have caused many marketers to look for more subtle ways to promote their product. Increasingly, sport marketers are generating brand exposure by using product placement, whereby the organization supplies some unique form of content that is placed in ...