The Biscuit Barrel - Episode 3 – An Advertising plan
NELLIE’S OFFICE.
Nellie: So Andrea, we’ve got our work cut out. I’ve looked though last year’s report and the advertising plan, but you are going to have to tell me how it all went down in practice. Was it successful?
Andrea : Well I’ve got last year’s sales figures here I think – from Kevin.. yes here we are. You see on the whole sales were significantly up, by as much as ,…er… 17% on some ranges.
Nellie: Hmm, pretty good. And that was through a mixture of press and billboard campaigns in the main yes? No radio , no TV advertising?
Andrea : No I don’t think we ever considered those – at least not last year. You’ ll have to check with Maria though. I suppose apart from the press and billboards the main element in our success is Kevin’s sales team. He’s got 35 reps under him and they cover the whole of our sales area very well and very thoroughly. They know their customers well and are extremely good at getting repeat orders.
Nellie: Yes, but that doesn’t help us with a new product does it?
Andrea: Well no but it gives Kevin’s team a head start in getting their trust to go with a whole new range. They know that what we sell them is good quality at a fair price and so would be pretty well-disposed to take on a new range from us – when they might be more reluctant to take the same sort of thing from a bigger, more faceless supplier – do you see what I mean?
Nellie: Yes, that makes a great deal of sense. We need to capitalize on all our strengths and assets and that’s certainly one. I do think we ought to be thinking more widely though – more “out of the box”. I know we’ve never done TV or radio advertising before but it may just be the time to change that.
Maria: Hi Nellie, have you got a moment?
Nellie: Sure Maria. We were just talking about the possibility of maybe doing some TV or radio advertising to help launch the new range. What do you think?
Maria: Well I don’t think the budget we’ve got would allow us to do much TV advertising – even with the level of finance the Chairman has sanctioned. But radio advertising is a distinct possibility. It could back up our press and billboard campaigns, and if we do get the tie-in with Superkor we could link it in to their campaigns as well – they advertise pretty heavily on national and local radio here.
Nellie: Well OK then, we need to think of some sort of brief we can give the advertising people – what sort of things to home in on and what we want to get out of the advertising campaign – apart from sales of course!
Maria: Yes, brand awareness being one of course. OK, I’ll get on to our usual. agency. I think they’ve got pretty good contacts with some radio commercials production companies. And of course they can give us suggestions as to how we can tie those in to the press and poster campaigns .
Andrea: Don’t forget my husband works for Thistle TV. He might be useful.
Maria: But he’s in the news department isn’t he?
Andrea: Yes, he’s one of the OB cameraman for their children’s news round-up programme. But he’s got a lot of contacts in the company.
Maria: Well thanks Andrea, but that’s not really in the advertising area we are interested in at the moment, is it?
Andrea: Ok. Just a thought.
Maria: So. Nellie. Let’s see if we can come up with some ideas to push this new line, shall we? Something that’s going to get the public interest and get the brand of Country Crumbles firmly in their mind…..
