Running head: PROMOTION AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 1
Promotion and Social Responsibility
Denyse Miskin
Liberty University
Busi 520 Strategic Marketing Management
Dr. Keith Bowery
March 1, 2020
PROMOTION AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 2
Promotion and Social Responsibility
Integrated Marketing Communication
Marketing communications “are the means by which firms attempt to inform, persuade,
and remind customers – directly or indirectly – about the products and brands they sell” (Kotler
& Keller, 2016, p. 558). Marketing communications helps a company by allowing them to
establish a dialogue and build relationships with the consumers as well as telling the consumer
basic information about their products. The marketing communications eight major modes of
marketing are advertising, sales promotion, evens and experiences, public relations and publicity,
online and social media marketing, mobile marketing, direct and data base marketing and lastly
personal selling. Each of the eight marketing tools has various platforms that are used to engage
the consumer to recognize and ultimately buying the company’s product (Kotler & Keller, 2016).
“Today, there are multiple digital options with a unified system for planning,
implementing, and measuring advertising, and sales promotion for brands. It is called Integrated
Marketing Communication (IMC)” (Juska, 2017, p. 1). When done well, IMC evaluates the
roles of various communications and works to seamlessly provide clarity, consistency, and
maximum communication impact. It is believed by the pioneer of IMC, Dr. Donald Schultz, that
consumer expectations can be shaped and built by essentially every place, person, and media
outlet (Kotler & Keller, 2016).
In the beginning the Hershey Company took a very submissive approach to advertise and
promote their products. The owner of the Hershey Company, Milton Hershey, decided early in
the 1900s that he would not promote any of the Hershey Company’s products to its consumers.
By 1906, the Hershey Company’s chocolate bars were so popular Mr. Hershey felt he dominated
the market and decided to not promote the Hershey Company’s products to consumers. At the
PROMOTION AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 3
time, the Hershey Company was producing about one-third of all chocolate and cocoa products
consumed in the United States, which accounted for about 40 percent of the consumption
worldwide. Since Mr. Hershey was raised in a Mennonite faith, he believed that self-promotion
was boorish and believed that helping others should be the philosophy of his business.
Today, the Hershey Company has a very modern form of IMC by using all the eight
modes of marketing communications, and the Hershey Company is constantly evaluating and
reevaluating their media communications to ensure they are effectively managing their strategies
and initiatives. In 2017, the Hershey Company decided to begin promoting their products as a
healthy treat. For example, the Hershey Company was promoting their Hershey Kisses as
“Healthy with a Kiss”, they also purchased the company, Amplify Snack Brands who product
products like Skinny Pop and Krave, both all-natural products that are low in calories and fat.
The Hershey Company changed their marketing approach to address a very health conscious
consumer. The Hershey Company focused all their advertising and promotional communication
toward chocolate being healthy treat. Focusing in on their Hershey Kisses having only 21
calories each, and the fact that the Hershey Company also offers bite sized candy bars
(Hershey's, n.d.).
Advertising Objective and Advertising Media Mix
Advertising objectives are based upon earlier decisions about the products target market,
brand positioning, and marketing program. “An advertising objective (or goal) is a specific
communication takes and achievement level to be accomplished with a specific audience in a
specific period of time” (Kotler & Keller, 2016, p. 587). Classification of advertising objectives
is done according to whether the advertising objectives aim to inform, persuade, remind, or
reinforce.
PROMOTION AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 4
The Hershey Company uses the advertising objectives of informing, reminding, and
reinforcing. By using informative advertising, which aims to create awareness and knowledge of
existing or new products, the Hershey Company, focuses its marketing strategy on their strong
brand equity, their product innovation, and their consistently superior product quality. The
Hershey Company also uses, reminder advertising, which aims to guide consumers to repeat
purchases of their products. The Hershey Company does this by repeatedly by advertising their
products in magazines, billboards and heavy advertising during most of the holidays.
The Hershey Company’s advertising objective during Valentine’s Day, Easter, and
Christmas is to welcome back loyal consumers and gather new consumers. Every Valentine’s
Day, Easter, and Christmas, the Hershey Company customizes their Hershey Kisses in foil colors
for the particular holiday. They advertise in magazines, on billboards, and during Christmas on
television. The Hershey Company believes that their chocolate Kisses should go hand and hand
with the celebration of the holidays. The advertising during the holidays is a representation of
reinforcing advertising, the Hershey Company runs the same Christmas holiday commercial
every year in the hopes of drawing in new consumers to purchase their Hershey Kisses and other
chocolate products.
The Hershey Company has a range of over 80 different products and should utilize the
following types of advertising for their products, print, broadcast ads, network media, outer
packaging, packaging inserts, and display media. Their products range from chocolate to pasta
and each of the aforementioned types of advertising to reach all types of consumers. Since the
Hershey Company’s target market is both children and adults, their advertising should generally
be focused around print and display media for the more modern consumer (Kizil, Eddy, Clary, &
Crowell, 2013).
PROMOTION AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 5
Back in the early 1900’s the Hershey Company began some low-cost advertising. They
decided that they could use their chocolate products to advertise their other products. Therefore,
they did some of their advertising in the inside of their chocolate bars. The Hershey Company
used the inside of the chocolate wrapper to advertise other Hershey products, their amusement
park, and the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania. This is a primary example of packaging inserts
(Lamme & Parcell, 2013).
Internet Marketing Possibilities
“The newest and fastest-growing channels for communicating and selling directly to
customers are digital. The Internet provides marketers and consumers with opportunities for
greater interaction and individualization” (Kotler & Keller, 2016, p. 615). Advertising over the
internet has exploded during the past several decades and continues to grow exponentially. The
need for advertising via the Internet is essential for any company.
In 2011, the Hershey Company was one of the top 100 advertisers in the United States
according to Advertising Age magazine. The magazine reported that the Hershey Company
spent $62.2 million dollars over the past year on advertising and the company’s prime mode of
advertising was television. However, more than six decades earlier, the Hershey Company felt
no need to advertise due to the popularity of their chocolate products. The same has been true
for the Hershey Company’s approach to internet marketing. The Hershey Company’s internet
marketing seems to have grown slowly. It was not until 2018 that the Hershey Company readjust
their product packaging to be seen on a 5-inch screen. The Hershey Company also spent a year
and a half, redesigned their product packaging to be viewed well on a digital screen (Lindell,
2019).
PROMOTION AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 6
Web sites, search ads, display ads and email are the four main categories of online
marketing communications. Online marketing communications have many benefits, marketers
can further target interested consumers by choosing website advertising on popular sites. Online
advertising can also offer a marketer real time information about their marketing strategies and
the consumer. There are some disadvantages to online marketing since consumers can
effectively screen out most messages and mislead the marketers. Marketers must also be aware
of the rules and regulations of online advertising and collecting consumer data. But the pros to
online advertising most definitely outweigh the cons.
The Hershey Company currently maintains an interactive website which is used for
everything from company information to nutritional information about their products. The
website is also a retail site selling some of the Hershey Company’s products directly to the
consumer. The Hershey Company could also utilize email, click ads, and blogs for their
advertising. All which would be very effective for all their products. Currently, Hershey has a
very active Facebook page and utilizes Twitter for ongoing advertisement and consumer contact.
The Hershey Company has a unique venue to advertise their products regularly. The
Hershey Company is associated with the Hershey Amusement Park which utilizes all of the
Hershey Company’s products and uses the venue to advertise. The Hershey Company also uses
the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania to advertise their products. The town of Hershey has
streetlights made to look like Hershey Kisses and when you are traveling through the town you
can smell the Hershey chocolate products. The town of Hershey is a very popular tourist
destination (Newquist, 2017).
Personal Selling
PROMOTION AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 7
“Personalizing communications and saying and doing the right thing for the right person
at the right time are critical for marketing effectiveness” (Kotler & Keller, 2016, p. 635).
Personal selling is intertwined with effective marketing, company salespeople can make or break
a company with either their knowledge or lack of knowledge. Companies spend hundreds of
millions of dollars to develop methods for training and training salespeople (Kotler & Keller,
2016).
When Mr. Hershey first started selling chocolate in the early 1900s, he had salesmen who
traveled all over the country selling their chocolate products to grocery stores. Mr. Hershey
demanded that his salesmen visited their designated stores at least once a month to make sure
that the Hershey product was placed correctly, and the owners of the grocery stores were happy
with the Hershey products (Newquist, 2017). Today, the one on one personal selling is not
something that the Hershey Company does however, they do have trained employees who deal in
their customer service area that know all about their products (Hershey's, n.d.). The customer
service staff should be trained in everything there is to know about all the Hershey’s products so
they can properly manage all questions and requests as well as be evaluated on a regular basis to
determine their success.
Social Responsibility
Social responsibility is defined as an ethical framework and suggests that an entity, be it
an organization or an individual, has an obligation to act for the benefit of society at large.
“Taking a more active, strategic role in corporate social responsibility is thought to benefit not
just customers, employees, community, and the environment but also shareholders” (Kotler &
Keller, 2016, p. 663). In today’s world, social responsibility, more specifically corporate
responsibility is very important to a company’s image and has a lot to do with how the consumer
PROMOTION AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 8
views the company. There are rationale reasons for investing in corporate social responsibility.
Companies need to not only differentiate themselves; they need a framework for facing requests
for local donations, and they need to build up public goodwill for not only their employees but
their investors, and partners (Kotler & Keller, 2016).
The Hershey Company is uniquely very socially responsible in many ways. One topic
near and dear to Mr. Hershey’s heart was that of children. Never having a child of his own, Mr.
Hershey adored children and always wanted to help them in any way he could. From the
beginning, the Hershey Company recognized itself as an important part of the community that
Mr. Hershey helped build and Mr. Hershey felt very responsible to society. Therefore, in 1909
the Hershey Company and Mr. Hershey opened the Milton Hershey School for Orphans. The
school was established to house and help young orphaned boys. Today, the Milton Hershey
School has had more than 10,000 students enrolled and more than that the school has helped.
Initially the school only accepted boys but today the school helps low income families educate
their children (Kurie, 2018).
The Hershey Company has an entire department designated for Corporate Social
Responsibility. They believe that social responsibility positively effects the company’s
stockholders and they believe in the betterment of society. Therefore, the Hershey Company is
owned by a Trust that is set up for all the proceeds from the business to fund the Milton Hershey
School (Kurie, 2018).
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References
Hershey's. (n.d.). www.hersheys.com
Juska, J. M. (2017). Integrated marketing communication: Advertising and promotion in a
digital world. New York, NY: Routledge.
Kizil, C., Eddy, V., Clary, L., & Crowell, K. (2013). Hershey's entry to the australian market with
a new brand: An accounting and marketing perspective. Emerging Markets Journal, 3(2).
http://dx.doi.org/10.5195/emaj.2013.43
Kotler, P., & Keller, K. L. (2016). Marketing management (15th ed.). Upple Sadle River, NJ:
Pearson.
Kurie, P. (2018). In chocolate we trust: The hershey company town unwrapped. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Lamme, M. O., & Parcell, L. M. (2013). Promoting hershey, the chocolate bar, the chocolate
town, the chocolate king. Journalism History, 38(4), 198-208. Retrieved from
http://ezproxy.liberty.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-
com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/docview/1321663294?accountid=12085
Lindell, C. (2019). How the 125-year-old hershey company continues to innovate. Retrieved
from https://www.candyindustry.com/articles/88674-how-the-125-year-old-hershey-
company-continues-to-innovate
Newquist, H. (2017). Book of chocolate: The amazing story of the world's favorite candy (First
American ed.). New York, NY: Viking .
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