Personal Selling:

THE PROCESS THROUGH WHICH A SELLER PERSUADES THE CUSTOMERS TO BUY

THE PODUCTS OR SERVICES

Personal selling is a promotional method in which one party (e.g., salesperson) uses skills and
techniques for building personal relationships with another party (e.g., those involved in a
purchase decision) that results in both parties obtaining value. In most cases the “value” for the
salesperson is realized through the financial rewards of the sale while the customer’s “value” is
realized from the benefits obtained by consuming the product. However, getting a customer to
purchase a product is not always the objective of personal selling. For instance, selling may be
used for the purpose of simply delivering information.

Because selling involves personal contact, this promotional method often occurs through face-to-
face meetings or via a telephone conversation, though newer technologies allow contact to take
place over the Internet including using video conferencing or text messaging (e.g., online chat).

Among marketing jobs, more are employed in sales positions than any other marketing-related
occupation. In the U.S. alone, the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that over 14 million or
about 11% of the overall labor force are directly involved in selling and sales-related positions.
Worldwide this figure may be closer to 100 million. Yet these figures vastly under-estimate the
number of people who are actively engaged in some aspect of selling as part of their normal job
responsibilities. While millions of people can easily be seen as holding sales jobs, the
promotional techniques used in selling are also part of the day-to-day activities of many who are
usually not directly associated with selling. For instance, top corporate executives whose job title
is CEO or COO are continually selling their company to major customers, stock investors,
government officials and many other stakeholders. The techniques they employ to gain benefits
for their company are the same used by the front-line salesperson to sell to a small customer.
Consequently, our discussion of the promotional value of personal selling has implications
beyond marketing and sales departments.

Advertising:
Advertising is defined in Webster's dictionary "as the the action of calling something to the
attention of the public especially by paid announcements, to call public attention by emphasizing
desirable qualities so as to arouse a desire to buy or patronize: promote."

Advertising is a mass-mediated communication. For communication to be classified as

advertising it must be:

1) paid for,

2) delivered to an audience via mass media, and

3) be attempting to persuade.
In order to persuade, or be effective the advertisement must communicate to the audience the
message it wants to relay. If for example, the advertisement is trying to sell a particular product
than it must persuade the audience that for whatever functional or emotional reason they need to
purchase the product.

Not only must the advertisement effectively communication the desired message, but the
individual audience must be willing to "buy into" the desired message. In other words, for the
advertisement to be effective, the communication must be sent and received. Advertising is a two
way communication process.

The individual recipient is capable of interpreting the advertisement any way he/she wants. The
individual should realize that they have the ability and the power to interpret the advertisement
any way they so choose. They can either accept the message, ignore the message or rally against
the message. As a matter of fact, the consumer has more power than they often realize to dictate
what is communicated and what is not.

For example, a group of Boston-area women decided to do more than just complain about the
glossy magazine advertisements that display women as anorexic. These women formed BAM -
Boycott Anorexic Marketing . BAM boycotts products which feature women who are starving
themselves .

BAM has been successful in convincing advertisers to depict true characterizations of girls in
everyday life situations. For example, Kellogg Inc. has begun a new ad campaign which
substitutes healthy, sports-minded models for their thin counterparts . Due to BAM's protests,
Coca-Cola, which manufactures Diet Sprite no longer features a model nicknamed `Skeleton'.
The few advertisements which do portray women in sporting activities - like Nike, Playtex, and
Chapstick - are attempts to hit at the true essence of individual female strength and potential.

Cultural stereotyping and representations of beauty are often the result of “media gatekeepers”
such as advertisers. A call for action from organized women's groups such as BAM has forced
many “media gatekeepers” to be accountable for and to rethink their "what" their advertising
strategies produces.

The "what" of advertising is the effective transmission of a message which stimulates the desired
action i.e. purchase of a product, service, or idea. The "what" of advertising is the determination
of what is the intent of the advertising? "What" is the purpose of our advertising, "what" is it that
we want to communicate to the public?

BAM has been successful in convincing advertisers to not communicate a stereotypical thin
beauty myth. BAM has successfully realigned the "what" are we trying to communicate to "what
should we not" communicate? As consumers become more aware of and use their vast power,
advertisers will have to increasingly ask the consumer "what". No longer will consumers be
passively dictated to by an often out of touch, patriarchal, traditionally male-dominated corporate
America.
The "what" of advertising is the what is our intent or purpose for this communication? But more
importantly, as future advertisers we should never tire of asking ourselves "what effects do our
advertisements have on society?"