IMPORTANCE OF DIFFERENT FORMS OF ADVERTISING SPOTS IN PROMOTION ACTIVITIES OF POLISH HORTICULTURAL SEED COMPANIES

Tomasz W. Bralewski, Roman Hołubowicz
Department of Horticultural Seed Science and Technology, August Cieszkowski Agricultural University of Poznan, Poland

ABSTRACT

In the years 2001-2003 the advertising policy of the 7 most important horticultural seed companies in Poland was investigated. The companies used both advertising spots in newspaper, horticultural magazines, catalogues, leaflets, brochures and posters and commercials (in radio and TV) as well as the Internet and other forms of advertising. The individual forms of advertising became a part of the company’s promotion campaign in different time. At the beginning it was based solely on the advertising printed spots, then included the commercials and the Internet. The advertising in printed spots (except daily newspapers) was more effective than the commercials emitted in radio and TV. The most important (effective) in the companies’ advertising policy were spots in horticultural magazines, then followed by catalogues, leaflets, brochures and posters. The least effective in terms of advertising were spots in daily newspapers, the Internet and other forms of advertising.

Key words: advertising, promotion, seed marketing, horticultural ceed companies, commercial, catalogue, leaflet.

INTRODUCTION

Advertising as on element of promotion enables to develop and direct a demand on the market [20]. It is a constant element of a marketing strategy of a company and the most popular element of promotion. Its goal is to encourage a client to buy [1, 13, 14, 16, 21] or, in a long-distance term, it can keep an image of the company [21]. As stated by Kieżel [9], in a market economy, a purchaser in his decision to buy more and more takes under consideration the marketing information, including advertising.

The goal of the carried out investigations was to describe what kinds of advertising policy and advertising spots have been used by Polish horticultural seed companies.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Data concerning advertising policy and forms of advertising in the promotion activity of the companies on the domestic seed market were taken from the following Polish horticultural seed companies: CNOS-Vilmorin, PlantiCo Zielonki, Polan, Spójnia, PNOS Ożarów Mazowiecki, Torseed and W. Legutko. The data were received based on indyvidual questionaires. They included the problems of specified advertising spots, e.g. printed spots (in daily newspapers and horticultural magazines, catalogues, leaflets, brochures and posters), emitted commercials (in radio and TV), the Internet and other activities. Based on these data the percentages of investigated seed companies using the indyvidual forms of advertising were calculated. They also included information when they were actually put into advertising campaign and which of them as considered by a company as the most effective.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The advertising forms of the investigated companies included both printed spots (in daily newspapers and horticultural magazines, catalogues, leaflets, brochures and posters), emitted commercials (in radio and TV), the Internet and other activities (fig. 1). The individual forms of advertising in the Polish seed companies became a part of the promotion activities in different time. At first, it was based solely on the advertising printed spots, then included commercials and the Internet (tab. 1).

The effectiveness of the used forms of advertisement by the seed companies was evaluated differently. The printed spots were found to be the most effective (except the ones in daily newspaper). The printed spots in horticultural magazines were found to be the most important element of the seed company advertising policy, then followed by catalogues, leaflets and brochures and then posters. The least important elements in this policy were spots in daily newspapers, the Internet and others (fig. 2).

The received results showed that the advertising printed spots were the most popular and, according to the seed companies, most important element of their advertising activities. This is in accordance with the observations of Hołubowicz [5] who reported this form of advertising in terms of seeds and cultivars on the world’s market, to be the most popular and effective. The elements of printed advertising such as: spots in magazines, catalogues, leaflets and brochures, in respect to promotion activities of seed companies, have already been reported in publications of other authors [2, 5, 6, 10].

The results of this research point out a significant role of advertising spots in horticultural magazines to promote seed companies. It comes out from the fact that seeds have always been a very specific product and their advertising must be directed to a concrete group of receivers. As reported by many authors, a big advantage of branch professional magazine is that they just reach such concrete groups of receivers [3, 4, 7, 11, 12, 17].

One of an important elements of the printed advertising were catalogues. Their role in promoting seed companies was pointed out by Lityński already in 1970 [8]. This form of promotion activity was also mentioned by Klarzak [10] when describing changes of the domestic seed sector in the economic changes of the Polish economy after 1989. The received results confirmed earlier observations of other authors concerning the form and the range of modern catalogues`use in the conditions of the free market economy by seed companies [5, 6]. As reported by Mruk [15], the observed increase of the marketing role of a catalogue is a global market tendency. Other important element of printed advertising activity in the promotion activities of the investigated companies, were leaflets, brochures and posters. Their importance in the promotion campaigns had been reported previously by others [2, 5, 6, 10]. As reported by Kall [7], these forms of printed advertising are an important element supporting other basic promotion activities of a company.

The radio and television commercials were also used by Polish seed companies in their promotion campaign. The phenomenon had been searched before by others [2, 5, 6]. The television advertising spots were, however, the least popular, deposit the fact the TV has been the most important mean of advertising in Poland [22]. It came out from the fact that the TV commercials are very expensive element of advertising [3, 4, 11, 12, 17]. In emitting radio commercial Polish seed companies used local stations. This is in agreement with the observations of Garbarski and others [4] who reported an increasing role of local radio stations on the advertising market mostly due to bigger difficulty to cover with such commercials the whole territory of the country.

In 2000, Siutaj and Duczmal [19] reported about just bearing in Poland interest of seed companies for the Internet. A year later Siutaj [18] mentioned a small number of domestic seed companies actually having a website. This observation has been confirmed by the authors who considered the year 2000 as a beginning of practical internet use for promotion activities of the seed companies in Poland.

CONCLUSIONS

1. The Polish horticultural seed companies used the following elements of advertising: printed spots, emitted spots, the Internet and others.

2. The individual elements of advertising were introduced into the investigated seed companies in different time. It began with printed spots and then was completed by emitted ones and the Internet.

3. The most important (effective) elements of an advertising policy were: printed spots in horticultural magazines, catalogues, then followed by leaflets, brochures and posters. The least important were found advertisements in daily newspapers, the Internet and other forms of advertising.

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