Marketing Communication
Discussing whether marketing communication should be related more to marketing or more to public relations doesn’t make a lot of sense nowadays.
For years, in fact, marketing has almost completely abandoned the mainly instrumental logic contained in the first formulations of the concept of marketing mix and has expanded its interests towards issues such as the creation of shared value.
At the same time, public relations too have freed themselves from the stereotype that placed them in a technical and tactical position within companies and today they are recognized as having both strategic and directional functions.
We can therefore observe a certain evolution in the relationship between marketing and public relations, which compared to the past becomes less and less conflictual and more and more intrinsic.
The Effects of Marketing Communication
Marketing communication acts in particular on the demand curve, generating two effects that usually occur jointly:
- The shift of the demand curve to the right, due to the fact that marketing communication allows an increase in sales volumes;
- Tightening of the demand curve, which allows the company that invests in communication to be able to charge higher prices, undergoing smaller decreases in sales volumes compared to price increases. In summary, marketing communication determines a stiffening of the demand curve when the price increases and greater elasticity when prices decrease.
In the context of market relations, on the one hand, marketing communication can expand the reference market, allowing the company to make its offer known to a larger number of customers, on the other hand it strengthens relations between product and brand. and customer, for which the latter remains more closely linked to the brand even in the presence of a price increase.
Effects of this type of communication are also visible on the distribution structure and on industry-distribution relationships : by determining the establishment of a direct relationship between company and customer, marketing communication modifies the role of distribution and allows industrial companies to assert knowledge. of its own brand directly to consumers.
At the same time, commercial distribution companies also implement policies aimed at building and consolidating relationships with customers and at affirming their reputation and image, for which they are increasingly encouraged to invest in marketing communication.
The phenomenon of the private label, for example, is the natural consequence of the increasingly widespread use of marketing communication by distribution companies.