Professional English

Cambridge English for

Marketing
case study
UNIT 7
Part 1
Product launch and promotion

© Henrik Kettunen / Alamy

a Work in pairs. What communication channels and
tools can you think of? Make a list of methods
which are both new and traditional.

b You are going to read an article about the launch

of the Apple iPad (a small ‘tablet’ computer
which combines the technology of a smartphone

© PSL Images / Alamy

and a laptop computer). Look at the title of a
magazine article, below. Then in pairs, say what
you think the author might mean by ‘smart’
communications.

iPad: Mhave
ass communications doesn’t
to be massive, just smart

© Adrian Lyon / Alamy

c Now read the complete article. Which
communication channels and tools are mentioned?

Apple iPad 2
with Smart

B
Cover
y now, almost all the company that makes much use
western world — and of social media, yet check out
a good part of Asia the Twitter hashtag #ipad and
and Africa — have all end user blogs to get a sense for
heard of Apple’s latest the mountain of coverage and
breakthrough product, the iPad. interest generated for the iPad.
The sheer number of impressions How does it do this? Good
this launch has generated is old-fashioned smart PR and a
in itself impressive. But what is communications strategy that
even more impressive is the relies on the magnification
use of early adopters and key effect of early adopters and key
influentials to drive the story, influentials to amplify launch
enthusiasm, excitement and buzz noise via traditional PR, Word
for Apple, not the company itself. of Mouth (WoM) buzz, and
Remember that Apple is not a aspirational excitement.

Text adapted from Emilio Robles ‘iPad: Mass communications doesn’t have to be massive, just smart’ www.asiadigitalmap.com

d Read the text again and decide whether the following sentences true (T) or false (F).
1 The launch of the iPad has been a worldwide success.
2 Most of the PR for the product was created by Apple itself.
3 Apple’s marketing department is not very interested in using sites such as
Facebook or Twitter.
4 Apple’s communication strategy relied only on new communication techniques and
channels to reach its target audience.

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 UNIT 7 Product launch and promotion

e Match a word or phrase (1–10) to the correct definition (a–k).

1 breakthrough product a the amount of publicity a new product or
service has received
2 early adopters b an activity which causes an increase in interest
3 key influentials c a completely new type of product
4 buzz d desire for the product
5 social media e to make a large audience of consumers aware
of a new product
6 coverage f personal recommendation
7 magnification effect g excitement and interest in something
8 to amplify launch noise h the first people to use a new product or
technology
9 Word of Mouth (WoM) i people with the power to affect the buying
decisions of other consumers
10 aspirational excitement j websites or services (tools) which allow
consumers to interact with each other

Part 2
Work in small groups. Do you agree with the statement below? Why / why not?

“ Product information and PR generated from your own company

is not as believable and much less important than messages
spread by the general public.
”
Part 3
Work in groups. You have been asked by your Marketing Director to present
your ideas for a teaser campaign for the launch of an innovative product. Your
campaign should target key influentials (such as celebrities or opinion formers)
and early adopters to encourage them to write and talk about your product
publicly. In your groups, think about:
●● What your innovative product will be (see www.techcrunch.com for examples of this
kind of product)
●● Your promotional objectives
●● Your target audience
●● Ways of reaching this audience (your communication channels and tactics – think
about a range of traditional and non-traditional communication channels and tools /
promotional tactics for your launch campaign)
●● How you will measure the success of your campaign

Then prepare a presentation of your ideas to share with the rest of the class.

You may find the following language from Cambridge English for Marketing Units
6 and 7 useful:
●● Idea generation (pages 46–48)
●● Describing your target market (pages 54 and 55)
●● The promotional mix (page 57)
●● Giving a presentation (page 58)

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 Professional English
Cambridge English for

Marketing
TEACHER’S NOTES

UNIT 7
Before you begin …
Product launch and promotion
For the task in Part 3, students are asked to choose an innovative new product and
then give a presentation of ideas for a marketing campaign for it. If you think it is
unlikely that your students will know of any innovative new products, you may want
to ask them to find a product that interests on this website www.techcrunch.com
for their homework before the lesson in which they complete this case study
activity.

To set the scene for the case study, ask students to look at the logo(s) and tell
you what products they associate with them e.g. personal computers, mobile
phones, etc. Ask them to decide which of the companies have brought out
breakthrough products (completely new product types) e.g. the Apple iPod,
iPhone and iPad.

Ask students if they know what is meant by the terms early adopter and late
adopter (or late majority) and ask them to decide which term applies to them
when thinking about purchasing breakthrough products. Ask students to think
about who the early adopters are for the products/services created by their own
organisation or for an organisation they know well.

You could also ask students which marketing approaches most often influence
their own purchasing decisions for innovative products (such as personal
recommendation, TV advertising, online discussion forums, etc.)

Note: early adopter and late adopter

The terms early adopter and late adopter (or late majority) come from the theory
of diffusion of innovation – a theory which is interested in how new ideas and
technologies spread across (and adopted by) cultures around the world. An early
adopter is someone who is keen to adopt new ideas or technologies and who
actively seeks out information about new products in specialist journals, etc. An
early adopter is often also an opinion former who has an influence on the way others
behave. Early adopters are also likely to have greater exposure to the mass media.
A late adopter (a member of the late majority) is the early adopter’s opposite: this
person is often sceptical about new and innovative products and consequently
slower to take up new ideas and technologies. Late adopters tend to be very
cautious purchasers and are likely to need persuading before they buy a product or
service.

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 UNIT 7 Product launch and promotion

Part 1
a Students work in pairs to brainstorm new and traditional communication
channels and tools.

Suggested answers
New channels: satellite TV, Internet/websites
New tools: email communication, blog posts, interactions via social media
Traditional channels: corporate advertising and brochures, publications, press
releases, TV channels, cinema advertising, outdoor advertising
Traditional tools: events, sponsorship, sending out press releases to newspapers
and magazines

b Students discuss their ideas in pairs.

Suggested answers
intelligent; targeted communications; cost-effective ways of achieving objectives
using a combination of traditional and more contemporary marketing techniques.

c Students scan the text quickly looking for examples of communication channels
and tools mentioned in the text. You could tell students that the text probably
includes some words and phrases that are new to them. Tell them that they will
look at vocabulary in the text in more detail later on.

Answers
social media, Twitter, end user blogs, old-fashioned/traditional PR (public
relations), launch, Word of Mouth (WoM)

d Students answer the questions. You could tell students that the answers to the
questions can be found text.

Answers
1 True
2 False. Early adopters and opinion leaders talked about the product and so
carried out PR for them
3 True. The messages on the Twitter hashtag #ipad have not been written by
employees of Apple, but by enthusiastic and satisfied customers.
4 False. Metrics (measures of the success of marketing activities e.g. number of
enquiries per advert) used included: number of impressions, coverage on social
media sites such as Twitter; blogs, amount of publicity generated (launch noise)

e Students match the words and phrases to the correct definitions. You could tell
students that the words and phrases in 1–10 appear in the same order as they
appear in the text.

Answers
2 h   ​3 i   ​4 g   ​5 j   ​6 a   ​7 b   ​
8 e   ​9 f   ​10 d

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 UNIT 7 Product launch and promotion

Part 2
Students discuss the question in groups, justifying their answers with real world
examples where possible. Go around the classroom monitoring each group’s
discussion. If students don’t have much to say about the question, you could
prompt them by asking them to think about:
●● the problems associated with negative PR which can arise when consumers have a
bad experience with a company, its products or its services
●● the increasing significance of WoM (word of mouth) marketing as consumers find
new ways of communicating with each other (such as Twitter).

Part 3
Students brainstorm ideas in groups. Allow 30 minutes preparation time for
students to think of a product and generate ideas for a campaign. You could
extend the activity by asking students to prepare powerpoint slides of their
presentation as a homework activity.

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