Discussion response

Reply from Terrence Anderson

Week 4 Discussion: Promotion

Introduction

Among the four elements of the marketing mix, promotion is the primary mechanism through which organizations communicate value, shape customer perceptions, and cultivate long-term relationships. While product, price, and place determine what an organization offers, promotion determines how that value is understood and ultimately accepted in the marketplace. Lang, Lim, and Guzmán (2022) examine the promotion mix as a driver of consumer-based brand equity. Urbiztondo (2025) studies how micro and small enterprises deploy marketing communications when resources are thin. Nahm et al. (2022) narrow the lens to the individual sales call. Together, they show that promotion is not a single lever but a portfolio whose effectiveness depends on message, organizational capability, and execution.

Promotion Mix and Brand Equity

Lang et al. (2022) observe that research linking the promotion mix to brand equity has remained fragmented, and that no prior study had examined the two jointly in a low involvement product setting. Using Kotler’s promotion mix categories of advertising, sponsorship, sales promotions, and public relations alongside Aaker’s brand equity dimensions of brand awareness, brand associations, perceived quality, and brand loyalty, the authors applied a mixed-methods design that combined in-depth interviews, focus groups, and a survey in the soft drinks category. They reconciled measurement scales for advertising, sales promotions, and the brand equity dimensions, which had drifted apart across prior studies. They developed and validated new scales for sponsorship and public relations, two constructs that had lacked established measurement items. Finally, they modeled relationships among these constructs in a category where consumers deliberate very little before purchasing. The managerial implication is that promotion should be treated as an integrated system rather than a set of independent tactics, because the elements build enduring brand equity instead of isolated sales lifts.

Marketing Communications Under Resource Constraints

Urbiztondo (2025) shifts attention from established brands to micro and small enterprises in Mindanao, Philippines, using a mixed-methods design that paired quantitative assessment of communications practice with interviews of business owners. The findings are equally notable for what they did not show. Advertising assessments differed significantly when firms were grouped by years of operation, classification, nature, form of business, and frequency of marketing communication. Sales promotions, direct marketing, personal selling, and public relations showed no significant differences across those same profile variables. One interpretation of these findings is that advertising is the element small firms most visibly scale as they mature, while the relational elements are practiced fairly uniformly regardless of firm age or type. The study also gives overdue attention to hybrid businesses spanning more than one classification and argues that rural enterprises can strengthen sustainability by adopting modern communications practices and appropriate technology. The study has two limitations worth carrying forward: limited treatment of external adoption factors, and a sample restricted to firms operating longer than one year.

Momentum in Personal Selling

Nahm et al. (2022) treats personal selling at the most granular level available. Most sales research treats sales calls as discrete, independent events. They instead examine performance momentum, defined as clusters of outcomes above or below a salesperson’s long-term expected performance. Using 74,062 calls from 113 agents across two call centers of a large European firm and applying a clumpiness statistic borrowed from research on binge consumption, they found that 81 of the 113 salespeople experienced momentum. Positive momentum raised the probability of success on the following call, and negative momentum lowered it.

The moderators make the findings managerially useful. The firm had independently run a natural experiment across two facilities. One was built for social interaction, colocating agents in a single large room with communal relaxation and kitchen space. The other divided agents across small, separated rooms with no shared facilities. The social center weakened the damage of negative momentum and strengthened the benefit of positive momentum. Timing mattered as well, since midday, early week, and late week calls mitigated the harm of negative momentum. Gender did not moderate the effect, overturning a finding carried over from sports research. A simulated decision system that detected momentum and assigned breaks accordingly would have improved performance by 18.4 percent.

Synthesis

The studies describe promotion at levels managers rarely consider together. Lang et al. (2022) show that promotional elements compound into an asset the firm carries forward. Urbiztondo (2025) shows that the mix a firm can actually execute is bound by its size, maturity, and capability. Nahm et al. (2022) show that even a well-designed program depends on people whose performance moves in waves, and that the physical and temporal conditions of their work materially change results. Managers focusing only on the first study might overinvest in message design while underinvesting in the conditions under which messages are delivered.

Biblical Integration

These managerial insights also invite reflection from a biblical worldview, where communication is evaluated not merely by its effectiveness but also by its truthfulness and its service to others. Keller and Alsdorf (2012) argue that work is a form of service to neighbor, and that the gospel supplies not merely a new ethic at the margins of a profession but a new understanding of the work itself. Applied to promotion, this reframes persuasion as service. If the purpose of work is to serve and empower others, then advertising, sales promotion, public relations, and personal selling are legitimate insofar as they help a person find something that genuinely serves them, and illegitimate insofar as they manufacture a desire the product cannot satisfy. Keller and Alsdorf also warn about the integrity gap between what a believer professes and how that believer practices a craft. That gap appears whenever marketers accept inflated claims because the market tolerates them.

Scripture addresses each element of the mix. Public relations and word of mouth appear in Ruth, where Boaz tells her that all she has done for her mother in law “has been fully told to me” (Ruth 2:11, English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016). Her reputation opened doors she never sought, which is precisely what earned brand equity accomplishes in Lang et al.’s (2022) model. Persuasive appeal appears in Nehemiah, who surveyed the ruined wall, named the problem plainly, and made his case: “Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem” (Nehemiah 2:17). He supplied evidence, a shared benefit, and a call to action, and the people answered. Nehemiah also marks the boundary, refusing to meet Sanballat’s fabricated report with fabrication of his own (Nehemiah 6:8). Job supplies the audience side of the exchange: “Does not the ear test words as the palate tastes food?” (Job 12:11). Consumers evaluate claims. Promotion that ignores this disrespects those it serves.

The Nahm et al. (2022) findings on the social call center invite theological reflection. A workplace built for human interaction outperformed one that isolated workers in small rooms. Keller and Alsdorf (2012) would locate this within the creation mandate, where work is cultivation carried out in community rather than efficiency extracted from an individual. That a firm gains roughly eighteen percent by treating salespeople as people rather than as call units is a striking convergence of stewardship and profitability.

Conclusion

Promotion research increasingly resists the idea that any single element carries the load. Brand equity accumulates across promotional elements, organizational capability determines which tools firms can realistically employ, and human performance shapes execution at the point of customer interaction. Ultimately, effective promotion is measured not simply by persuasion but by communicating truthfully, serving others faithfully, and honoring God.

References

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Keller, T., & Alsdorf, K. L. (2012). Every good endeavor: Connecting your work to God’s work. Dutton.

Lang, L. D., Lim, W. M., & Guzmán, F. (2022). How does promotion mix affect brand equity? Insights from a mixed-methods study of low involvement products. Journal of Business Research, 141, 175–190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.12.028

Nahm, I. Y., Ahearne, M. J., Lee, N., & Tirunillai, S. (2022). Managing positive and negative trends in sales call outcomes: The role of momentum. Journal of Marketing Research, 59(6), 1120–1140. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437221095097

Urbiztondo, M. E. A. (2025). Marketing communications mix practices among micro and small-scale enterprises. The South East Asian Journal of Management, 19(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.7454/seam.v19i1.1777