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COLLEGE OF MANAGEMENT IN TRENČÍN USING PR AS AN INNOVATIVE FORM OF MARKETING 2010 Matúš Novák COLLEGE OF MANAGEMENT IN TRENČÍN MARKETING AND PROMOTION: USING PR AS AN INNOVATIVE FORM OF MARKETING Bachelor Thesis Study program: Workplace: Thesis advisor: Consultant: College of Management, Trenčín prof. Ing. Dita Hekelová, PhD. Alan Dykstra, M.A. Trenčín 2010 Matúš Novák 2 3 Table of Contents List of Abbreviations …………………………………………………………………... 3 Introduction and Problem Statement ……………………………….... 4 1.1 Thesis Statement ……………………………………………………………. 4 Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Review of Literature ……………………………………………………. 5 2.1. Printed Sources …………………………………... ……………………........ 5 2.2. Online Sources ………………………………………. …………………….. 16 2.3. Summary of Literature ………………..……………………………………... 16 2.4. Definition of Terms ………………………………………………………… 17 Methodologies and Procedures used in the Study ………………….... 18 3.1 Kärcher International ……………………………………………………….. 18 3.2 Kärcher Slovakia …………………………………………………………… 22 Results …………………………………………………………………… 24 4.1. Kärcher Intrnational ………………………………………………………... 24 4.2. Kärcher Slovakia . ………………………………………………………….. 24 Discussion, Conclusion, Recommendations ……………………........... 26 Acknowledgement………..………………………………………………………........... 29 Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Literature ….….……..……………………………………………………………......... 30 Abstract ….…………………………………………………………………………….... 31 Anotácia …………………………………………………………………………………. 32 4 List of Abbreviations PR – Public Relations MPR - Marketing Public Relations CPR - Corporate Public Relations CR - Corporate Relations 4 P´s - Four Principles of Marketing CSR - Corporate Social Responsibility CR - Corporate Relations CRM - Customer Relationship Management CEE- Central and Eastern Europe 5 1. Introduction and Problem Statement The traditional view of corporate operations consists of two main activities. The first one is the core competency of the company, which is producing goods, or offering services. The second activity is based on addressing consumer groups and delivering the outputs to their recipients. However, increased market competition and changes in public perceptions of corporate behavior, set new requirements on the mutual affiliation between companies and their target audiences. These circumstances put increased importance on managing public relations and implementing public relations tools into company’s marketing and promotion activities in order to achieve business goals of a company. The markets and consumer preferences are rapidly changing in today’s world and it is of crucial importance that companies can quickly respond to the changes and ensure smooth and open communication with their target audiences. Including PR tools and activities into marketing strategies, is supposed to help build stronger relations with customers and increase the level of customer’s identification with the organization. This approach shall help create stronger connection among company and its target audiences and thus be able to better respond to changing preferences and market mood. Aim of this project lies in exploring how public relations turn marketing into a twoway communication channel and thus increases its trustworthiness and effectiveness. An important part is devoted also to stressing out the importance of public relations as a promotional tool and utilizing the unique capabilities of PR in developing a powerful marketing and promotional strategy. The project shall provide insight into fundamentals of marketing, promotion and PR activities and research their mutual interconnection. The theoretical part is based on practical example of company Kärcher, a world’s leader in cleaning equipment manufacturing. This company has been chosen for several reasons. The first one is that the unique market position and brand recognition Kärcher has managed to achieve over 75 years of its existence. Examined will be operations and activities of Kärcher worldwide as well as in Slovakia. Another reason for choosing this organization is my three years personal work experience with this company. 1.1 Thesis Statement Public relations turn company’s marketing and promotion strategies in two ways communication channels that add value to the process of addressing target audiences and represent a powerful and innovative way of achieving company’s business goals. 6 2. Review of Literature The study I had to undertake to support my thesis is based on both printed, as well as online sources. I have put a priority on printed sources written by experts in their respective fields, as they provide broad coverage of theories, opinions and case analyses. Online sources were used to illustrate the latest trends and developments in the field. Also the practical part of the thesis has been conducted mainly on the basis of online sources. It needs to be stressed out right in the beginning that the aim of this thesis is by no means to underestimate the importance of marketing and promotion, or to suggest it can not do without PR. But rather to demonstrate how can public relations enhance the marketing efforts of a company and make them more powerful in the process of attaining organizational marketing objectives. 2.1 Printed Sources This thesis deals with many concepts and theories, but in essence is based on three main business activities: marketing, promotion and public relations. The first step of the project is to clarify the main principles and functions of marketing and promotion and analyze their importance and meaning in corporate operations. It is very important to get familiar with these concepts and understand their traditional role in the process of delivering goods and services to their recipients. I have chosen the book Introduction to Marketing: Theory and Practice by Adrian Palmer, as the main source for clarification of basic marketing terms and practices. According to Mr. Palmer, marketing is composed of various activities aiming at discovering the needs and expectations of consumer groups that are further analyzed and transformed into products and services that are satisfying the market needs and as accurately as possible addressing potential customers (Palmer, 2004). The extend to which a company utilizes its marketing activities, determines its devotion to meeting consumer expectations or even exceeding them. It also shows what role play the customers and their wants in the hierarchy of organization’s priorities and how are these wants and needs influencing operations and values of the company. On page five of the book, author describes the difference between a marketing oriented company and a company that claims itself to be marketing oriented in a very interesting manner. True marketing is not composed only by certain activities and one department of the company, but rather by the way the organization values its customers and how well aware is of their importance. Therefore, if a company claims itself to be marketing oriented, it needs to be 7 reflected on overall behavior of the company and each employee should behave according to these principles (Palmer, 2004). Devotion to the marketing orientation can be further developed in the concept of relationship marketing. As the markets are becoming oversaturated with supply of various products and services and customers are becoming more demanding, also gaining new customers is a more challenging task. Therefore a company seeking to maintain and further increase its market shares shall focus not only on attracting new customers, but also on customer retention. The point is that a satisfied customer not only represents potential future profits himself, but usually significantly helps spreading good word about the company and helps in the process of gaining new customers. It can be said that a satisfied customer represents a marketing tools himself. The whole process is summarized in the example of ladder of loyalty. An undecided consumer represents a prospect for the company that can be turned into a customer. A long-term customer becomes after some time a client that further turns into a supporter and finally can become and advocate that spreads good word about the company and increases the company’s image (p.116, Palmer, 2004). This is a very important and sound concept how a customer can be viewed and approached and it will be further examined and assessed on the practical example of Kärcher. All of the marketing concepts that will be analyzed in the thesis are based on the marketing mix, or 4 P´s . The marketing mix is composed of four variables: product, price, place and promotion. The marketing mix determines what products is the company producing, to which price level, or category the products belong, where are the products being offered and what promotional tools are being used in order to get the products to final consumers. As there are four variables in the marketing mix, the mix can be different even for the same product in various parts of the world. If a company wants to become marketing oriented, it needs to be familiar with consumer needs and preferences and possibly even foresee them. Therefore a marketing research represents a crucial activity that is needed in order to be successful in the market. The marketing research deals with two areas. The first one focuses on the market and its characteristics and the other area of interest to the marketing researchers is an evaluation of company’s performance and current marketing activities (Palmer, 2004). Thus the research fulfills two roles, to obtain a conceptual basis for future marketing activities as well as to assess the effectiveness of ongoing activities. The research data can be gathered through various ways, such as questionnaires, sampling, observations, surveys and analyses (Palmer, 2004). The research can be carried out on quantitative or qualitative levels. 8 The book Introduction to marketing by Adrian Palmer deals also with the theme of promotion. Meanwhile marketing takes care of discovering and satisfying consumer needs and wants, promotion is based on making the customers interested in the company’s production portfolio and getting the products to their final recipients. Promotion represents one part of the marketing mix and is comprised of, or based on a promotion mix. The promotion mix includes advertising, selling, sales promotion, public relations, sponsorship, direct marketing, online marketing and word of mouth (Palmer, 2004). The first component of the promotion mix is advertising. It is a communication channel, usually paid, that is being used to deliver desired information to selected target audiences and form their opinions on the product, or services being advertised (Palmer, 2004). Advertising is usually executed through print, broadcasted, or internet media. Another promotion element is the direct selling. Mastering the selling process requires many skills and sets high demands on the sales personnel. A good sales person needs to posses a perfect knowledge about the company and its products, be patient, have excellent communication and negotiation skills, time management skills, be able to immediately identify customer’s needs, work under stress and many more (Palmer, 2004). The selling process will be analyzed in detail in the practical part, as it is of crucial importance for Kärcher, mainly in the area of commercial consumers. I will extensively use also my three years sales experiences for Kärcher in order to analyze this subject matter and provide concrete examples. Very important part of the promotion mix is represented also by the sales promotion activities. They are used to address the target audiences and increase the probability of executing future sales. According to Mr. Palmer, the most common sales promotion tools are free visits/consultations, money-off price incentives, coupons, gifts and competitions. As many of these tools are extensively used by the Kärcher Company, they will be described more in detail later on, in the practical part. Another component of the promotion mix is public relations. Mr. Palmer views PR in a more traditional way, as a tool used to improve image of a company, handle crises and gain publicity (Palmer. 2004). This approach suggest that PR is more of a corporate relations tool and underestimates the true marketing and promotional value of PR that this thesis is trying to point out. Sponsorship represents another way of improving the public awareness of the company and sometimes can be viewed as a way of promoting corporate social responsibility as well. Last, but not least important component of the promotion mix is direct marketing, which is a form of marketing that is steadily gaining on importance over the last years. It can be characterized as a direct communication among the company and its potential customers 9 and thus avoiding communication through media, or even retailers (Palmer, 2004). Direct marketing can take various forms, but is usually based on a database system that provides data such as names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses required to contact the consumers. The databases can be either used for contacting the consumers with an offer, or for keeping track of existing customers and evaluating performance of marketing campaigns (Palmer, 2004). Direct marketing can be executed through telemarketing, direct mail, door-todoor, newspapers and TV, or electronic media (Palmer, 2004). This form of marketing or promotion can be very effective, but it needs to be executed very carefully in order to meet the required goals through addressing the right target audiences in an appropriate way and not to become annoying. Direct marketing is being used also by Kärcher, either by the mother company, or by individual distribution centers/ retailers and therefore will be also analyzed in the practical part of the paper. A very important source of information directly related to the thesis statement of this study is the book The Marketer’s Guide to Public Relations written by Mr. Thomas L. Harris. This book provides a summary and a guideline of PR tools that can enhance the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and stresses out the increasing importance and benefits of such approach. The MPR concept is build on the premises of standard public relations tools and techniques that add value to the marketing mix used in the process of achieving desired marketing goals. Marketing public relations can therefore be defined as a set of processes with increased credibility and enhanced mutual communication aimed at meeting marketing objectives (Harris, 1991). The increased importance of including public relations concepts into the marketing mix can be tracked down to the changes in markets and consumer behavior in recent decades. Most of the markets for various products are becoming oversaturated with the supply of goods and services and customers are becoming more demanding, curious and harder to influence by standard marketing and promotional tools. A very simplified definition of marketing states that marketing is trying to force a consumer into a purchase of certain product, meanwhile the aim of public relations is to arouse interest in a consumer and navigate him to the purchase in a more natural way. The truth is that massive and often aggressive marketing campaigns used in the past, have caused a wave of reluctance among the consumers towards advertisements and some other traditional marketing techniques. Many people became fed up with the way marketers are trying to influence their minds and tell them what they shall do (Harris, 1991). This is a serious problem, if a company is spending significant amounts of time and financial means on campaigns that are missing their audiences. However it is important to bear in mind 10 that PR is by no means trying to replace marketing, but to enhance its effectiveness and power mainly in the area of advertising. Modern companies “must spend a great deal of time and energy anticipating or personally interacting with consumer advocates, environmentalist, political activists, legislators, and governmental agencies, whose influence on the marketing of their products is enormous” (p.38, Harris, 1991). This shows that public relations can be used not only to directly promote a company’s production portfolio, but also to prepare the ground for other marketing activities. The main advantage of MPR in this sense is that meanwhile marketing can effectively promote the goods and get them to their customers; standard marketing tools fail to respond to sudden changes in market mood and preferences that require immediate attention. In such cases, the MPR tools tend to have faster response time and higher influence. A model, in which a company experiences product launch difficulties because of objections from certain stakeholder group, and the company decides to respond to the situation through radio, can be used as an example. Standard marketing response would be to make a radio advertisement and air it in order to address the situation that incurred. The MPR response would be engage in a radio discussion aimed at addressing the problem that needs to be resolved, and further promote the product while stressing out its main benefits. This would give the company more space for responding, as well as more effectively promote the product through engaging in a public discussion and demonstrating the company’s interest in its customers. The key word for understanding the value of this concept is credibility. The information that come from trusted sources in an informative manner, tend to be much more respected and valued by consumers that a simple marketing message. As an advertising expert David Ogilvy states: “roughly six times as many people read the average article as read the average advertisement” (p.44, Harris, 1991). What shall not be overlooked is also the cost-effectives of marketing public relations actions compared to marketing and advertising campaigns. Doing business is always about costs and profits and therefore an approach that has the potential to decrease costs while increasing the value of the communicated message shall be considered interesting. It is usually much cheaper to achieve publicity through making an editor of a respected magazine interested and write about a product that to place an advertisement in the same magazine (Harris, 1991). And it is not only about cost, but also about increased exposure of potential customers to the article, compared to the time they would spend reading an advertisement. As far as advertising is concerned, the benefits of MPR driven approach are clearly visible. 11 Marketing public relation should be considered a vital addition to advertising and promotion and can either enhance, or substitute them (Harris, 1991). Marketing public relations have many tools and functions. Some of them are unique, some of them are similar to traditional marketing and corporate relations. Basically it can be said that MPR chooses the best of both worlds in order to produce a persuasive mix of credible communication strategies aimed at achieving sales and business objectives. The MPR tools and functions include: product publicity, special events, sponsorship, news conferences, media publicity, seminars, contests, demonstrations, exhibits, presentations and many more (Harris, 1991). These are all methods supposed to improve the image of a company, increase its credibility, demonstrate expertise in the subject matter, present company’s interest in its customers and other stakeholders group and use it for achieving organization’s marketing and business goals. An important role in the marketing mix is assigned also to advertising. I have decided to use the book Strategic Advertising Management written by Larry Percy and Richard Elliott to outline the basic concepts of advertising. According to the authors, advertising can be described as a way of dragging attention of the target audiences towards a brand or a product and making the public interested in the subject matter being advertised (Percy & Elliott, 2009). From all the tools obtained in the marketing mix, advertising in its essence is probably closest to promotion. The book devotes some space also to various forms of promotion; however these two concepts can not be considered the same. It needs to be distinguished between the longterm orientation of advertisement and its lasting impact on modeling public attitudes and the short-term orientation of promotion usually aimed at achieving concrete sales targets (Percy & Elliott, 2009). Advertising and promotion should also go in hand with public relations and direct selling techniques in order to create a powerful and effective product oriented communication. These four strategies play an important role also in the Kärcher marketing mix and their real life applications in this company will be further analyzed in the practical part of this thesis. A more detailed definition of advertising suggests that it is a brief and powerful message communicated towards the customers in order to shape their opinions and attitudes on a brand or a product. Choosing the right channel through which the message will be communicated and selecting a proper form of the message is therefore of crucial important to make sure the information reaches its audiences. The key terms for understanding the concept of advertising are attitude and creating needs. A powerful advertisement has the potential not only to influence people’s attitude towards a certain product, but also to create the impression 12 in someone that he needs, or wants a subject that the did not even think about previously. And as an advertisement can often be the outcome to which many other marketing efforts lead, it needs to be executed really properly in order to make sure all the previous efforts that led to the message obtained in the advertisement are not wasted. An advertisement can therefore not be made without a previous research about the needs, preferences and available choices of the target audience and careful selection of the communication channels to make the ad appeal to the audience (Percy & Elliott, 2009). The history shows that an immensely important premise for the success of and advertisement is also assessing the cultural, lingual, religious, social and ethnic background of each area where the advertisement shall be presented. It is very important to always bear this in mind mainly for international companies. Sometimes, they need to at least modify their promotional and advertising strategies, if not change them completely to fit various specifics of certain markets. A failure to consider this issue, can lead to a failure of the whole marketing campaign and the company may sometimes block out itself from the market for many consecutive years. Important is also the consistency of advertising and promotion in the context of brand’s positioning and other marketing strategies. This can be an issue for a large multinational company with regional headquarters, branches and systems of official retailers and distributors, which is for example also the case of Kärcher. The organization has certain strategies outlined globally, some are determined more closely based on regions, such as CEE and some forms of advertising and promotion are carried out directly by the official distribution centers. This will again be discussed more in detail in the practical part. The book Strategic advertising management describes the advertising strategic planning process in five steps. The process starts with selecting the target audience, understanding target audience decision making followed by determining the best positioning, developing a communication strategy and finishes with setting a media strategy (Percy & Elliott, 2009). Each message and information makes sense and fulfils its role only when received by the right recipient who is able to process its meaning and understand its value and then transform it into an action, or knowledge. Selecting a target audience is thus a logical first step. Understanding the way the target audience thinks and makes its decisions, is then needed for correct formulation of the message to make it appeal to its recipient. Third step is not related to positioning the brand in the market as such, but rather about assigning a role the advertisement in the context of overall marketing strategy for the brand, or product (Percy & Elliott, 2009). The data gathered in previous three steps are then used to develop a communication strategy. 13 The communication strategy is directly linked to the brand awareness strategy and determined upon the objectives of either creating a need for a certain product among the customers, or driving attention of customers to the brand, or product while satisfying their already existing needs (Percy & Elliott, 2009). The last step is to choose the right media and media strategy based on the selection of target audiences and character and objective of the message. The authors of this book devote some pages also to evaluating the role of public relations in the context of achieving advertising and promotional goals and put it in one subchapter together with sponsorship. They distinguish between proactive PR that is aimed at gaining publicity and attention of consumers towards a brand or product, an reactive PR that shall fix public perception of the brand when something goes wrong (Percy & Elliott, 2009). They even mention Mr. Harris and his concept of marketing public relations. In general however is this book concerned with PR only marginally and while acknowledges the contribution of PR towards building brand name and improving image of a company, it rather underestimates the concept of MPR and the value of using PR as a promotional tool (Percy & Elliott, 2009). As for sponsorship, the book gives credit to its brand awareness building value, but views the role of sponsorship as a way of promoting sales for the brand with strong skepticism. The book however rather cleverly points out the importance of the need for existing link among the subject being sponsored and its connection to the organization. In this sense, it would not be wise, or meaningful, for a company producing maintenance tools to sponsor a beauty convention. Mr. Percy and Mr. Elliott provide an insight also on the commonly believed negatives of advertising. They mention most importantly creating needs that people do not really have, being annoying and ignored by the market, lack of trust towards the brand, misleading the customers in certain way, the risk of creating an unsuitable advert and thus missing its target audience (Percy & Elliott, 2009). Despite of that, the authors still seem to overlook the point of MPR and the value of public relations in overcoming, or softening these commonly known and still more and more visible disadvantages of advertising. Next source is represented by the book Image Marketing: Using public perceptions to attain business objectives written by Joe Marconi. The relevance of this source in my thesis is underlined also by the importance of image building in the Kärcher marketing mix. The concept of image marketing deals with cultivating the way people perceive a brand in the sense of associating the brand name with certain message that shall be instantly recognized once the public hears the name. Again, the image needs to be built in accordance with the organization’s overall marketing strategy and positioning of the brand in order to make sure the image that is 14 being created corresponds with other marketing and promotion strategies. This process is mainly about differentiating the brand from its competitors and making it instantly recognizable by the target audiences (Marconi, 1997). The marketers however need not only to consider the current marketing objectives, but most importantly the overall positioning of the company and its long-term goals and vision. This is important as the image crated and public perceptions of the company often tend to be long lasting and create also an expectation towards the future production. For example Volvo which has been for decades establishing itself as a producer of safe and practical estate cars, would most probably encounter a market misunderstanding if they suddenly switch to production of sport cars. The objectives in the image building process therefore need to be stated very carefully, as the company’s image and recognition can not only represent an advantage, but also represent a potential threat of unacceptance for new products that do not fit the public expectation based on the known image of a company (Marconi, 1997). The latest development in marketing and PR are summarized in the book The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott. I have used the Czech edition of this book with a headline “Nová pravidla marketingu a PR”. There is no doubt that internet and all it has to offer have completely changed our lives. For a vast majority of people that want to gather certain information, or find out more about a new product, the web is a first place to search. It has become a natural choice and almost an automatic process. And it is true not only for private customers, but nowadays also for corporate customers. For many companies, online communication with their customers has become an inseparable part of their marketing mix and it would not be wise for anyone to ignore this trend. Internet is offering an immense quantity of new marketing tools and each marketer shall consider how using these tools can enhance the traditional marketing mix (Scott, 2008). The book The new rules of marketing and PR is by no means trying to underestimate the importance and benefits of traditional marketing, advertising and promotion, but provides a guideline for evaluating the old methods and discovering the marketing value of being on the web. The tools used under the new rules are not only internet advertisements, but most importantly blogs, podcasts, social webs, videos and viral marketing (Scott, 2008). The main idea of these new rules is direct communication with customers. Mr. Scott describes the traditional ways of gaining publicity and evoking public interest through various media channels and compares them to the concept of communicating with the customers directly through web (Scott, 2008). The old way is based on inserting, or publishing a message through certain media, which based on the media selected and its appropriateness for selected 15 target audiences, can be an effective way of delivering the message to its recipients and there is nothing bad to it. However, once the message is sent out, marketers usually loose control over it and can only hope the recipients get the message right and thus achieve their goals. Monitoring of how the target audience responds to the message is a bit more difficult and more time consuming in that case and the message itself can not be modified while in progress, it only needs to be reissued. The idea behind the new rules of marketing and PR is hidden in the possibility of direct communication with target audiences through internet (Scott, 2008). It may seem awkward to keep repeating this, but it is the key to understanding this concept and the benefits it offers. Internet gives the marketers and PR practitioners the amazing possibility of communicating with their customers and holding the success of their marketing campaigns in their hands, instead of relying on someone else. It is important to understand that internet is not just a place where a marketing message can be displayed, but it is also a place where many people come to seek and advice. Curious customers read blogs, engage in discussions, read reviews and opinion forming articles and basically conduct a research upon which they form their purchasing habits and decisions. And therefore the marketers need to decide whether they want to be a part of this process and influence directly influence it with their own efforts. Because they can not stop this trend. They can just decide whether they want to be an active part of it, or not. Blogging has become a very popular way of presenting personal opinions and impressions and respected bloggers posses the ability to influence other people’s minds. From the marketers’ point of view, issuing news releases and articles directly by an organization, can either provide a topic for bloggers to write about, or through issuing certain message influence the way the bloggers will write about the company, or product. The company can also decide to provide its own blogging platform and thus be able to better observe public opinions and interact with their audiences (Scott, 2008). Blogs and discussion portals represent also an important research tool for a company as it helps collecting information on what the perception of the brand is, what are the needs of their customers and what the customers suggest and criticize about the company. Blogs however do not represent only a source of information for the company, but represent a way of delivering information to the customers in a way that enables the company to profile itself as an expert on the topic and then suggest how the customers can benefit from the company’s production portfolio. Blogs are usually viewed as websites administered by experts in their respected fields and thus the informative value of the blog’s content is highly valued by many customers and can significantly push an undecided 16 customer towards purchasing, or rejecting a product. Internet has changed also the opportunities for marketing oriented public relations activities in the sense of issuing news releases. Internet makes it much easier to aim a news release directly on customers, instead of making it available only to journalists (Scott, 2008). The point is that journalists usually modify the content of a press release and present it to the public in a way they consider appropriate. Another limitation is that each media will devote to your press release only a limited space and influence also the frequency of publishing or broadcasting the information coming from certain company. The advantage of issuing a press release directly to the customers is that the message gets to its recipients undiluted and in way the marketer or public relations practitioner considers the best. It also allows publishing the information as often as the company likes and the more often it is the better of course (Scott, 2008). Another new important tool is viral marketing. Viral marketing can take form of an article, but most often is represented by a video. Broadcasting video advertisements has its limitations and disadvantages. The broadcasting time is often expensive, the duration of the video is therefore very limited and TV ads also need to meet content related criteria. Publishing videos on internet is bypassing all of these issues. There are still the costs for creating the video, but publishing in on the internet through web sites like youtube is usually for free. The duration of the video can be longer and also the criteria for form and content of the video are less strict. The idea of viral marketing is that it is catchy, original, often funny, arouses interest and creates buzz (Scott, 2008). It is based on creating interest in people and spreading among the public like a virus. Yet another advantage of viral marketing is that is often also very fast in terms addressing target audiences compared to traditional paid video ads. A significant phenomenon is also a marketing use of wide spread social networks. Best known social networks are facebook, myspace, twitter and hundreds of others (Scott, 2008). The marketing potential of these networks lies in the fact that they join millions of people that tend to spend quite a lot of time logged on these portals. The fact that people spend significant amounts of time on these social networks increases the exposure of target audiences to paid advertisements that are being displayed on these web pages. It also allows the marketers to join social networks users into groups and use those groups for delivering messages to their members, observe their mood and reactions and communicate with them through articles, news releases, viral marketing and direct discussions. It basically allows the marketers and PR officers gather prospective customers and brand supporters in one place and communicate with them via the new marketing and PR tools. I have used also a book Marketing to the Social Web 17 by Larry Weber to conduct a research on social networks, but Mr. Scott provides a better and more up to date summary of information on this topic. 2.2 Online Sources As for the online sources, they have been used mainly to contribute to the practical part of the thesis and will be present later on. For the sake of the theoretical part, as an addition to the books that represent a backbone in the pursuit of conducting a theoretical research for my thesis, has been selected and article Two disciplines on same road; PR and marketing must be co-pilots of brand reputation written by Peter Debreceny and Lisa Cochrane. This article directly contributes to the title of my thesis and underlines the concepts presented in my study. It emphasizes the importance of interconnecting marketing with public relations in order to effectively address the issues and challenges of our age and explains the value of marketing going hand in hand with PR in the pursuit of achieving marketing goals. The authors point out benefits of the MPR concept and consider integration of marketing and PR representatives into cross functional teams a vital premise for success of marketing and PR campaigns (Debreceny, P. & Cochrane, L., 2004). They rather interestingly stress out than not only marketing can benefit from cooperation with PR, but the model is valid also vice versa. The writers perceive MPR an inevitable new trend and a way how to effectively cope with market challenges and secure corporate image (Debreceny, P. & Cochrane, L., 2004). 2.3 Summary of Literature The second chapter of the thesis has provided a summary of basic marketing, promotion and public relations terms and concepts. It has also gathered respected expert opinions on the importance of interconnecting marketing with public relations in accordance with the headline of the thesis. Important section of literature review is devoted also to informing about newest trends in the area of marketing and promotion and suggesting how to get the best out of these techniques. 18 2.4 Definition of Terms Advertising - is a form of product/service promotion addressed to the public and trying to deliver certain message from the company to its target audiences. It is usually a long term process (Palmer, 2004) CRM - (customer relationship management) Strategies used for maintaining good relationships with customers Marketing - a communication channel and set of activities aimed at identifying customers´ needs, creating needs in customers and satisfying those needs (Palmer, 2004) Marketing mix - the pillars of effective marketing communication, including product, price, place, physical evidence, processes, people, promotion (Palmer, 2004) Promotion - component of a marketing strategy, a communication channel used for delivering information about a specific product, or service to its target audiences. It is usually a short term action (Palmer, 2004) Public relations - a tool used for closer communication among a company and its target audiences, for building long lasting relationships and overcoming psychological barrier between public and organization (Palmer, 2004) 19 3. Methodologies and Procedures used in the Study As for the methodology used, the best for my project is to focus on the development project. The thesis focuses on fundamentals of marketing, promotion and public relations and explores their main principles and tools and procedures used to achieve desired goals. Core of the paper is based on evaluating the tools and techniques of public relations as an innovative and effective marketing strategy. The project examines the level to which these three systems can be integrated and suggest an ideal combination of marketing, promotion and PR tools. This chapter analyzes the marketing, PR and promotion activities of Alfred Kärcher GmbH and defines marketing activities the company uses at the moment. If there are any of the suggested solutions already being used in the company, I will analyze how the benefits of respective solutions later on. The practical part determines also the marketing needs of Kärcher and position of the company in the market. Afterwards, a custom solution will be designed for the company based on the research executed in the theoretical part. The company Alfred Kärcher Vertriebs-GmbH has been selected because of my personal experience with the company and familiarity with many of its marketing strategies and activities. This chapter focuses on Kärcher’s international operations on the basis of information available to general public, as well as on inside marketing and PR information presented in the press section of Kärcher international’s website. Another section provides a closer look on marketing activities of Kärcher Slovakia and the information provided in this section are based mainly on my personal three years work experience on the position of sales representative/ sales manager for one of the official Kärcher distribution centers in Slovakia. 3.1. Kärcher International Prior to examining the marketing activities of Alfred Kärcher Gmbh, a brief introduction to the company and description of the market in which Kärcher operates is needed. Kärcher operates in the market of cleaning equipment and appliances and constantly positions itself as a leader and worldwide biggest manufacture of cleaning equipment (Kärcher, 2010). It is a global company with headquarter in Winnenden, Germany, that does business in most countries in the world. In year 2008, Kärcher has achieved an annual turnover of 1,4 billion EURO and directly employed 6859 employees (Kärcher, 2010). An interesting figure that demonstrates the strive to maintain the position of market leader and innovator is that the company employees about 550 engineers in the research and development department which is 20 a totally unique number in its field. An important message is transmitted to the customers also through Kärcher´s claim to achieve a 0 defect target. Kärcher claims itself to be a marketing oriented company and the market orientation can be documented on the guiding principles published at the company’s website. The most important principles will now be described more in detail. The first guiding principle is customer orientation (Kärcher, 2010). Customer orientation means that the company is aiming at exact fulfilling of consumers needs and thus creating a premise for maintaining long lasting relationship. Second guiding principle is the focus on employees (Kärcher, 2010). Having satisfied and competent employees is beneficial not only to the company in the sense of assuring smooth operations, but it also increases the probability that the employees will approach the customers in a similar manner and take good care of their needs and wants. Another principle is the market position (Kärcher, 2010). As has been mentioned earlier, Kärcher positions itself as a leader in its industry. Being a leader is a big responsibility, as it evokes certain public expectations towards the company. Being aware of these expectations is an important reminder for the company to maintain the position and fulfill, or even exceed those expectations in order to retain the trust of customers. With another guiding principle, Kärcher positions itself as an innovation leader (Kärcher, 2010). It is again not only a big responsibility, but also a marketing signal towards the customers, telling them that Kärcher is constantly trying to improve the high quality of its production portfolio and introduce new cutting edge technologies that will provide additional benefits for the users. It is another practical demonstration of the customer orientation. Guiding principle number seven identifies the cornerstones of the company’s marketing strategy as quality, excellent performance and innovation (Kärcher, 2010). Number nine deals with the social responsibility (Kärcher, 2010). High level of social responsibility and environmental responsibility are also a way of appealing to the prospective customers and helps improving the image of a company, which always helps the business. Last guiding principle states that Kärcher is a family owned business and intends to keep it like that (Kärcher, 2010). As the headquarters of the company is located in Germany, also the core of marketing activities is determined through the central. However being a global brand with many branches and subsidiaries located in various countries around the globe, the marketing activities can slightly vary depending on the country and prevailing culture. Most of the strategies are though naturally being set in Germany and then can be slightly adjusted based on the geographical location, demographic and social composition of citizens, cultural and legislation backgrounds etc. Therefore the marketing and PR departments do not look the same in each country. As the 21 German headquarters is responsible for determining main marketing and PR strategies, it logically employs more employees that other national subsidiaries. Meanwhile the German headquarters employs seven officers solely in the press office, in Switzerland and Austria are the marketing and PR tasks carried out only by one person. Based on the information I received from the German headquarters, the marketing and public relations departments are separate from each other and handle different tasks. Kärcher therefore at least formally appears to perceive marketing and public relations as two separate functions. The press office employs also two people who are in charge of visitors coordination (Kärcher, 2010). As previously explained in the literature review section, a marketing oriented company needs to be precisely familiar with its market and customer needs and preferences. As stated in the corporate film hosted on the Kärcher international website, it is of crucial importance or Kärcher not only to know its customers and involve them in the product development cycle, but also to get detailed feedback from customers (Kärcher, 2010). Strong emphasis on communication with customers and active involvement in the development process is also on of the points of difference that sets Kärcher apart from its competitors and helps the company maintain a position of industry leader. Kärcher assigns a very important role to design; in the sense of the saying “design sells”. As the design of Kärcher cleaning equipment is really outstanding compared to its competitors Kärcher constantly manages to win numerous design awards based not only on pure looks, but also on the functional aesthetics and user friendliness. These achievements are then heavily communicated to the customers and represent one of the points of difference that sets Kärcher apart from its competitors. The promotion mix plays a very important role in the context of company’s sale oriented activities and involves many tools. Advertising is executed mainly through TV ads, billboard campaigns and print ads. A sign of a MPR approach can be seen in a recent article issued by the Kärcher´s British subsidiary, which is advertising on the web page UK´s newspaper Telegraph, through a paid press release promoting Kärcher´s new range of high pressure cleaners (Telegraph, 2010). Even though it is clearly visible that the article is listed in the sponsored section, it appeals to the consumer much more as a standard ad, as it is a full article published in a respected British newspaper. The concept of direct selling is also important for Kärcher, mainly in the area of commercial products. The sales are being promoted for example through participating in conventions, or distributing leaflets with special limited time actions offering lower prices, or other bonuses on selected product range. The marketing related public relations activities of Kärcher include product publicity, sponsorship, exhibits, or demonstrations. The product publicity is being achieved mainly 22 through press releases, however in a more traditional way, where the press release is either sent o journalist and the company expects whether the journalists will, or will not write about the product. Or some of the press releases are published as paid articles. New products are being presented also on the company’s website, but Kärcher is not actively using social networks, or blogs for communicating various messages in accordance with the new rules of marketing. Many interesting information about the company and its products is published only in the press section of Kärcher international websites and thus are available only to a very limited audience. This section could use also a more frequent updating, as some of the information are fairly old and new ones are coming rather slowly and sporadically. Kärcher is traditionally taking part in various industry related exhibitions, as exhibitions represent a great way for introducing new products to the market and for holding discussions. As for sponsorship, the company is sponsoring football events and the Ford rally team (Kärcher, 2010). However probably the most important and interesting concept that fits the definition of MPR, is what Kärcher call a cultural sponsorship (Kärcher, 2010). Through this program, Kärcher is being involved in cleaning and preserving historical monuments around the world. To the monuments that have been cleaned within this program belong Mount Rushmore, the statue of Jesus Christ in Rio, the Brandenburg gate and many more. It is a unique program and an exceptional MPR tool through which the company achieves great publicity, shows its social responsibility values and demonstrate it class leading competence in high pressure cleaning. Kärcher is also intensively using the image marketing concept and lays huge emphasis on building an instantly recognizable image. It is a consistent effort that has lead into a creation of very strong brand awareness and some of the cleaning equipment products, most importantly the high pressure cleaners, are inseparably connected to the Kärcher name in minds of many consumers. The concepts introduced under the new rules of marketing and PR is however still missing in the Kärcher marketing mix. Kärcher does not use blogs on its websites, is absent on facebook and other social networks and does not have a youtube channel, apart from the US division for professional high pressure washers that feature three videos on you tube (Kärchercommercial, 2010). Some Kärcher ads and product application demos can be found of course on youtube, but they are not published directly by Kärcher. Kärcher also does not currently feature any real viral marketing videos. The benefits of direct communication through internet are mostly utilized on the US division’s Kärcher commercial website, which features a couple of videos and articles providing information on product applications. 23 3.2 Kärcher Slovakia An analysis of the Slovak division of Kärcher has been chosen because of my professional background and personal experience with this division. As Kärcher Slovakia is a relatively small division with limited market and marketing opportunities, this section will rather analyze the sales promotion tools and customer relationship management. Kärcher Slovakia is a direct subsidiary of Alfred Kärcher Gmbh that oversees authorized Kärcher dealerships operating on the Slovak market. The sales promotion activities can be divided into two groups. The first bunch of sales promotion activities is executed directly by Kärcher Slovakia, and these activities include distribution of leaflets with time limited action offers for certain products that are aimed at promoting, or stimulating sales of selected products through price discounts, promoting the brand on industry specific exhibitions, or organizing road shows that give the customers the possibility not only to discuss their requirements with the sales representatives, but most importantly to demonstrate the machines live in action. All of those three activities are aimed mainly on professional users and commercial product range. In order to promote the sales of hobby product range aimed at home users, Kärcher Slovakia advertises in relevant media and organizes a live demonstration of the product portfolio in cooperation with selected dealerships. The second bunch of promotion activities can very in its content and it is being chosen and implemented directly by the official dealerships directly in their own competence. The ways of executing the customer relationship marketing can be again brought up into two sections, CRM by Kärcher Slovakia and CRM by individual dealerships. In general the customer relationship management in Kärcher Slovakia and in the official dealerships is based individual approach towards each customer and stressing out the points of difference. Kärcher positions itself not only as an innovative, market leading and quality brand, but also as a premium brand. The level of CRM and therefore needs to be adequate to the brand’s positioning. Exceptional and professional service with excellent customer care can be viewed as yet another point of difference that adds to the brand’s value and further improves public perceptions of the brand. Such approach in combination with outstanding products contributes to the concept of ladder of loyalty introduced in the theoretical part and helps spreading good word about the company and attracting new customers. And based on my personal sales experiences, I can verify that this often really works. It also helps retain the existing customers which are also very important as the pool of potential customers has its limits and retaining a 24 customer is usually much cheaper than finding a new customer. Probably also the service contracts offered to important corporate customers can be considered of a way of CRM and customer retention. Another CRM tools used by Kärcher Slovakia are service questionnaires that are supposed to gather feedback from customers that is further analyzed and used for improving the services or various contests for the customers that can win Kärcher products or trips. 25 4. Results 4.1 Kärcher International The analyses in chapter three has shown and Kärcher has the right to consider itself a marketing oriented company. Unlike some other companies, the marketing orientation is visible on all levels within the company. It is reflected not only in the structure of marketing and public relations strategies, but also in the approach of the company towards its employees and in the approach of employees towards the customers. The guiding principles have been selected carefully and are relevant to the mission of the company and Kärcher also sticks to these principles. The cultural sponsorship program together with the values and approaches described among the guiding principles significantly contribute to the process of building brand image and increasing brand awareness. The company has a centralized planning and determining of marketing and PR strategies that are later on adjusted to suit the needs of different regions where Kärcher operates. The organization is distinguishing between marketing and PR and even though there are some indications of using the MPR concept, a clear interconnection between marketing and PR is missing. The role of Public Relations in Kärcher is still assigned more to the traditional PR activities such as press relations, exhibitions and sponsorship and the marketing potential of PR remains rather undiscovered. Very important role is being paid to the points of difference that Kärcher believes to set it apart from its competition. The points are outstanding quality, exceptional design, innovative technical solutions and unquestionable level of customer care. The company still heavily underestimates the new rules of PR and marketing and the value that is hidden in utilizing the opportunities of extensive use of online communication channels. In general, the overall Kärcher marketing strategy can be characterized as being based on creating powerful image and strong brand awareness on one side, and personal face to face communication in the sales process on the other side. 4.2 Kärcher Slovakia The main marketing strategies of Kärcher Slovakia are based on sales promotion and customer relationship management. The sales promotion is based on seasonal action offers providing certain products and discounted prices and live demonstrations of products, either in 26 the commercial or home users segment. These demos are a great way of combining promotion and public relations tools, as their meaning is to demonstrate the products, provide the target audiences with specialist advices and gain important feedback from existing customers, while having chance to directly discuss possible issues and resolve various situations. Customer relationship management is probably the most important marketing tool used by Kärcher Slovakia to differentiate itself from competitors. Very high level of customer care and professional competency of the sales staff accompanied with world class products are the key premises to high market penetration, customer retention and identification of customers with the brand. 27 5. Discussions, Conclusion, Recommendations During my management bachelor studies, the main focus has been placed on effective running of a business and making decisions that will lead to meeting the needs of customers. Each business and company would be pointless, if it did not listen to their customers and meet their needs. Marketing used to be the most conventional form of communication with customers. However, a relative disadvantage of classical marketing approach is that it tends to be mainly a one-way communication channel, with most of the information flowing from the organization towards the customer and only a little information flowing vice versa. If taken too aggressively, this kind of communication can lead to customers’ resistance against the marketing tools and thus it looses its points. On the other hand, public relations represent mainly a two-way communication channel and bring the organization closer to its target audiences. It is also a more natural form of creating awareness of the company, as its purpose lies not only in communication with customers, but also in evoking interest in the company based on own decisions of the target audiences. It can be considered also a more responsible way of propagation of the company, as it lets people create their own opinions instead of marketing campaigns that are often forcing the customers what the company wants them to believe. Corporate responsibility is also a concept that has been brought up in many classes during my study and represents another link to one of the most important concepts that nave been stressed out in my study program. Another logical connection among marketing, promotion and public relations and my bachelor business program is that each company operates in order to provide a service, or sell a product and no company would be able to do so without some publicity and their potential customers aware of their business. Marketing and promotion is therefore a necessary activity for every company. I have chosen company Alfred Kärcher GmbH, a manufacture of cleaning equipment. I have based my decision to pick up this company on my personal experiences, as I work for a company selling Kärcher products for three years and thus have corresponding insight information about the company. My practical experiences with Kärcher allow me to asses the implications of applying a PR driven marketing approach in the company and identify expected benefits for the company of choosing this approach. Evaluating the marketing, promotion and public relations strategies of Alfred Kärcher Gmbh, has revealed that the company posses a powerful marketing mix, knows how to address its target audiences and over the last three decades consistently increases its market share and 28 revenue turnover (Kärcher, 2010). Despite of that the company is still falling behind in the use of new marketing tools and concepts. They are most importantly online marketing strategies and marketing pubic relations. The question is, whether Kärcher should be concerned, as the business results shows the company is doing fine. I say they should. The history shows us that even bigger companies have encountered serious problems, when they were ignoring latest trends and developments in the business world. We are standing at the beginning of a brand new era and many of the old principles and market patterns will not be valid anymore in the future. The current economic crises has rewritten many business rules, the emerging economies of China and India are starting to demonstrate their power and impact and through aggressive pricing and marketing strategies are starting to take over positions of old market leaders. The companies that want to survive and continue growing in the next decade must be dynamic, innovative, be able to respond to the market changes in a timely manner or possibly even forecast and influence the changes and carefully observe all the new trends. Because even though online marketing may seem inappropriate to Kärcher at the moment, it may soon change and it could be already too late for Kärcher to fully respond and defeat its position. I therefore recommend Kärcher to focus more closely on the value that public relations can give to marketing. To evaluate mainly the benefits of a more effective mutual communication, on the fantastic opportunity to directly communicate with the consumers without having to rely entirely on the media that can often miscomprehend and modify that message that are marketers trying to get to their customers and to start utilizing the benefits of online marketing channels. During my three year sales experience with Kärcher, I have also underestimated the role of online marketing in this industry. However, once I started paying more attention to it, I was amazed how many customers and even big corporate customers have contacted me based on the information they found on the internet. Internet is playing a very important advisory and guidance function and its significance in this context is still increasing. Of course also the traditional media like TV, newspapers and magazines offer counseling, test and reviews, but undoubtedly the biggest advantage of online based information is that they are available anytime, from anywhere and for anyone. Therefore also the exposure time to the message published on the internet is usually much higher compared to a message aired on TV. As for Kärcher Slovakia, the most attention needs to be paid to the control of the level of service offered and to increase the support for authorized dealerships from side of the Slovak and CEE headquarters. It is important to receive sufficient and immediate support and have stable background, in order to able to adhere to all the points of difference and without 29 doubts fulfill customers expectations connected to the brand name. Because all marketing efforts are wasted, if something fails in the sale process. Otherwise the recommendations presented for Kärcher International apply also to the Slovak market. Practical application of the project is believed to increase profits and market share of the company through improved effectiveness of marketing and promotion campaigns. Using PR driven marketing is expected to create strong and long lasting relationships with customers, get closer to the customers and other target audiences, create better image and awareness of the organization and help better understand the market needs. Including PR in promotional strategies is meant to improve image of the company and increase the effectiveness of promotion strategies through higher significance of promotion due to better mutual communication. 30 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I want to devote a special thanks to Mr. David Wickel, a Press and Public Relations Officer of Alfred Kärcher GmbH & Co. KG, Winnenden, for immediate response to my application and granting me an exclusive access to the press section of the Kärcher International web page. 31 Literature Alfred Kärcher Gmbh. (2010). About Kärcher. Retrieved March 10, 2010 from http://www. karcher.com/int/about_kaercher.htm Alfred Kärcher Gmbh. (Producer). (2010). Corporate Film. [Motion picture]. Germany Alfred Kärcher Gmbh. (2010). Kärcher Helpful Hints Enhance Your Cleaning Experience. Retrieved March 23, 2010 from http://www.karchercommercial.com/HelpfulHints.aspx Alfred Kärcher Gmbh. (2010). Presse International. Retrieved March 25, 2010 from http://www.karcher.de/print/startpage.htm Debreceny, P., & Cochrane, L. (2004, November 8). Two disciplines on same road; PR and marketing must be co-pilots of brand reputation. Advertising Age, 28. Retrieved March 21, 2010, from LexisNexis Academic Database. Elliott, R., & Percy, L. (2009). Strategic Advertising Management (3rd). New York: Oxford University Press Harris, T.L. (1993). The Marketer’s Guide to Public Relations. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Marconi, J. (1997). Image Marketing: Using Public Perceptions to Attain Business Objectives. Chicago: NTC Business Books Palmer, A. (2004). Introduction to marketing: Theory and practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press Scott, D.M. (2008). Nová pravidla marketingu a PR [The new rules of marketing and PR]. Brno, Czech Republic: Zoner Press Weber, L. (2009). Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business (2nd). Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. X Design Pressure Washers from Kärcher hit the spot for spring cleaning. (2010, March 1). The Telegraph. Retrieved March 27, 2010 from http://www.telegraph.co.uk /sponsored/lifestyle/karcher/7543650/X-Design-Pressure-Washers-from-Karcher-hitthe-spot-for-spring-cleaning.html 32 ABSTRACT Marketing and Promotion: Using PR as an Innovative Form of Marketing Name of Student: Matúš Novák Name of Advisor: Alan Dykstra, M.A. New technologies that emerged over the recent three decades, have significantly changed the ways of production, communication and through instant availability of resources and information have pushed the markets for various goods to a brand new level. The markets have become oversaturated with the supply of products and customers have become more curious and demanding. Companies that want to succeed in the market can not rely only on an appealing production portfolio, but need to be able to effectively communicate with their customers and convince them they are the best. However, to be able to do so, also their marketing and communication strategies need to be adjusted to keep up with the market changes and new consumer preferences. This thesis is evaluating the traditional marketing and promotional strategies that have been used by the companies and discusses the benefits of enriching those strategies by new approaches. The new trends are marketing interconnected with public relations and using online marketing communication channels. The perceived benefits of this new view on marketing lie in a more direct, more credible and more effective communication with customers. The practical part of the thesis examines the marketing and promotion strategies of the market leader in production of cleaning equipment, the company Alfred Kärcher Gmbh. The information summarized in the theoretical part of the thesis are then applied on the example of Kärcher and recommendations on how can this company benefit from utilizing these marketing concepts are drawn in the final section of the thesis. Student’s Signature: Date: 33 Anotácia Marketing a Podpora Predaja: Využitie PR Nástrojov ako Inovatívna Forma Marketingu Meno Študenta: Matúš Novák Meno Poradcu: Alan Dykstra, M.A. Nové technológie ktoré sa objavili za posledných 30 rokov, významne zmenili spôsoby výroby a komunikácie a vďaka okamžitej dostupnosti surovín a informácií, posunuli rôzne trhy na úplne novú úroveň. Trhy sa stali presýtené ponukou tovarov and zákazníci sa stali zvedavšími a náročnejšími. Firmy ktoré chcú na trhu uspieť, sa nemôžu spoliehať len na žiadúce portfólio produktov, ale musia byť schopný efektívne komunikovať so svojimi zákazníkmi a dokázať ich presvedčiť, že práve oni sú tí najlepší. Aby však takéhoto cieľu mohli dokázať, ich marketingové a komunikačné stratégie, musia byť schopné držať krok s trhovými zmenami a novými požiadavkami zákazníkov. Zmyslom tejto bakalárskej práce, je zhodnotiť konvenčné stratégie marketingu a podpory predaja ktoré firmy v súčasnosti používajú a preskúmať výhody obohatenia týchto stratégií o nové riešenia. Novým trendom je prepojenie marketingu s PR nástrojmi, ako aj využitie on-line komunikačných kanálov. Výhody tohto nového pohľadu na marketing spočívajú v priamočiarejšej, dôveryhodnejšej a efektívnejšej komunikácii so zákazníkmi. Praktická časť bakalárskej práce skúma marketingové stratégie a spôsoby podpory predaja u lídra v oblasti čistiacej techniky, firmy Alfred Kärcher Gmbh. Informácie obsiahnuté v teoretickej časti práce, sú následne aplikované na príklade firmy Kärcher a v závere práce sú uznesené odporúčania ako môže daná spoločnosť profitovať z využitia nových marketingových konceptov opísaných v tejto práci. Dátum: Podpis Študenta: 34