CEE Marketing Managers use the economic recession to reconsider its approach. A recent survey done among CEE marketing directors (Central and Eastern Europe) showed that recent economic pressure has not only cut short-term budget, but it shows that economic pressure has led to reassessment of their approach to marketing. The biggest challenge the marketers have to face in a recession is the budgetary constraints. In this context more and more managers are considering the integration and the development of direct marketing activities in their organizations.direct marketing, mobile marketing, sms promotion, campaign

Gherman Cristina

English

Research Papers in Economics

716 
 
NEW TRENDS IN THE ADVERTISING POLICY OF ROMANIAN AND UE 
COMPANIES 
Gherman Cristina 
”Transilvania” University of Bra ov 
Faculty of Economic Sciences 
 
CEE Marketing Managers use the economic recession to reconsider its approach. A recent survey done 
among CEE marketing directors (Central and Eastern Europe) showed that recent economic pressure 
has not only cut short-term budget, but it shows that economic pressure has led to reassessment of their 
approach to marketing. The biggest challenge the marketers have to face in a recession is the budgetary 
constraints.  In  this  context  more  and  more  managers  are  considering  the  integration  and  the 
development of direct marketing activities in their organizations. 
 
Keywords: direct marketing, mobile marketing, sms promotion, campaign. 
 
JEL code: M37 
 
Introduction 
Promotion seen as a key tool of the marketing mix includes a wide range of activities which has to be 
closely  correlated  with  other  elements  of  marketing  mix,  such  as  product,  price  and  distribution.  
There is a great diversity of views regarding the criteria of structuring the promotional means, but it 
seems that the most suggestive and practical are those of referring to:
507 
- the intention of persuasion; 
- the way of achieving the target goal. 
Taking in consideration this point of view, some promotional means such as packaging, brand, price 
and the image of the point of sale are unpersuasive media; they belong to the other elements of the 
marketing mix. 
In turn, persuasive means of communication can be classified according to the second criterion, namely 
how to achieve target goals in two big categories:  
- means of direct communication (personal) – that means that rely on sales forces and other means of 
establishing direct relationships, specific direct, marketing with customers;  
- indirect communication means (non-personal) – including advertising with its two forms (advertising 
and free advertising), public relations and sales promotion.  
In another reference work in this field
508, promotional methods and techniques are classified into two 
basic categories, namely: 
1. promotional communication techniques, including: advertising, sales  promotion, public relations, 
sales force and direct marketing; 
2. continuous communication techniques, including: brand, design, packaging etc. 
The strategic way in which they are combined by the firm, the various components of the promotion in 
order to achieve the given objectives generate the creation of ”promotional mix”. This, viewed from the 
perspective of various companies, is structured and sized differently, depending on the nature, extent 
and diversity of each promotional component. ”The differences in the composition of the promotional 
mix are determined, in general, by the nature of products and services, by the profile of businesses 
                                                       
507 Adăscăli ei V. – ”Promotional Techniques. Fundamentals”, ”Transilvania” University of Bra ov, 1994, p. 22. 
508 Popescu I. C. – ”Marketing Communication”, Uranus Publishing House, Bucharest, 2003, p. 25. 717 
 
(manufacturing,  commercial,  of  services),  by  the  characteristics  and  trends  in  markets  where  they 
operate, by the specific purchasing and consumption behaviours.
509 
 
Direct marketing – a specific way of making marketing 
The biggest challenge the marketers have to face in a recession is the budgetary constraints. 
A study made by Linea Directa Communications in 2009 shows that Romania is among the last states 
regarding the preference for direct marketing. These two trends, that of overcoming the importance of 
direct marketing over other marketing instruments and to ignore from the start that strategy, ranked 
Romania on the last place among European countries, the other countries investigated being Hungary, 
Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia. 
Most of the companies (in the study were considered only those companies which attained annual 
revenues of over one million euros) directs to the direct marketing activities a smaller percentage of 
10% of marketing budget, the average of a marketing budget in Romania being at the most 250,000 
euros. This is because direct marketing is not yet part of the organizational culture of most companies, 
although  the  effectiveness  of  direct  marketing  has  been  demonstrated  for  some  time  for  other 
international business environments.  
The current financial crisis could restore the direct marketing position in Romania by doubling its 
allocated share from an average of 4% to an average of 8% for 2010. One Hit Mail officials gave for 
comparison the Hungary, with an average of 12% allocated to direct marketing and the United States, 
where it exceeds 50% of a marketing budget. The highly personalized direct communication with the 
client, the pursuit of real and optimized database that can provide real and effective information to the 
organization, all these attributes or benefits of direct marketing will begin to gain ground in the old 
situation of world crisis in which the power of purchase is decimated, Romania not being an exception. 
 
The impact of financial crisis on direct marketing practices 
According  to  a  survey  made  in  the  summer  of  2009,  in  the  CEE  region,  by  Linea  Directa 
Communications (part of Studio Moderna Group, one of the largest direct marketing, call – center and 
fast-growing company; the group covers 19 CEE markets and ensure the provision of services in 22 
international languages), companies with small marketing budgets dominate the study, budgets under 
250,000 euros being reported especially in Hungary (89.4%), Russia (88.6%) and Romania (85.4%).
510 
Budgets that exceed 1 million euros are in small percentages in the Czech Republic (5.4%), Slovakia 
(4.9%), Poland (4.5%) and Slovenia (4.3%).  
In 2009, the biggest reductions of the marketing budgets were made in Russia (28.6%) and in Romania 
(22.7%), the companies reaching a 30% reduction of the budget. Similar budgets with those from 2008 
were registered in Hungary (44.4%), Slovenia (43.9%) and Poland (43.4%). On the other hand, there 
are companies that have invested in marketing communication – Russia (19.6%), Poland (19.2%) or 
Slovenia (16.2%). 
From 30 to 70% of this money is spent for internet promotion (banners, blogs, social networks etc.), 
catalogues, mass marketing (TV, newspapers, radio), and for organizing events and fairs. The smaller 
budgets (more than 30% of marketing budgets) are allocated for sending SMS for mobile marketing, 
telemarketing, direct mail and email.  
The most used communication channels are the Internet (banners, blogs, social networks etc.), e-mail, 
distribution catalogues, fairs and events.  
These data indicate that companies are focused on marketing activities that can be measured in order to 
become effective, but not too much. There are less popular channels, such as telemarketing, mobile 
                                                       
509 Florescu C. & collective – ”Marketing”, ”Marketer” Academic Group Publishing House, Bucharest, 1992, p. 
415. 
510 http://www.iaa.ro/Articole/Analize/Impactul-crizei-financiare-asupra-practicilor-de-marketing-in-europa-
centrala-si-de-est/3153.html 718 
 
marketing that are not used so much. The advantages of these channels consist not only in direct 
interaction with customers but also in the use of a wide range of services. Thus, telemarketing is an 
important tool not only for increasing sales but also for testing new offers and for market research in 
order to measure customer satisfaction. Telemarketing can be used also to generate sales opportunities, 
to establish business meetings or to provide customers with specific information about a particular 
product or service.  
According to the survey, companies organize marketing campaigns in order to increase the number of 
customers, to increase their loyalty and to maximize the profit obtained from the existing customers 
through additional sales. Also, companies take into account the creation of databases, used later in their 
communication campaign, to create an awareness, but also for a brand or product repositioning.  
For  direct  marketing  companies,  2009  has  meant  the  continuation  of  the  collaboration  started  in 
previous years, but also the development of new projects with large and medium companies.   
In the CEE region is increasingly speaking about the services outsourcing as a cost saving measure:  
- the Czech Republic recorded the highest percentage of companies that outsourced direct marketing 
activities (74.4%), followed by Poland (61.5%) and Romania (36.5%); 
- 84.8% of companies don’t outsource services in Hungary, 74.6% from Slovakia, 68.6% from Slovenia 
and  46.7%  from  Russia  these  companies  don’t  use  the  outsourcing  of  direct  marketing  activities 
because they have internal resources to do these operations or they can’t afford them because they have 
low  communication  budgets;  there  are  also  companies  that  don’t  have  enough  information  about 
outsourcing, about the meaning of this term (outsourcing) and its benefits. 
The most outsourced direct marketing activities are really the new communication channels such as 
Internet promotion (banners, Google Adwords, blogging, social networking), training events and fairs, 
as well as mass marketing (TV, Billboard newspapers), direct mailing and distribution catalogues. 
The study was conducted in 7 countries: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia 
and Slovakia. Managers from different industries such as IT, finance, FMCG, pharma, automotive, 
retail, telecommunications, tourism and utilities participated at this study. 
 
The trends on the Romanian direct marketing market – SMS promotional campaigns 
SMS promotional campaigns have stood in 2009 under the sign of the cost and resource efficiency. 
However, this kind of communication has grown not only in the number of new brands involved, but 
also in the value of prizes awarded, in the number of contributions and in terms of costs involved. 
The reason for this increase was that in a year of crisis the actual results materialized in sales and their 
rapid  and  accurate  quantification  yielded  a  high  return  on  investment.  This  is  one  conclusion  of 
monitoring the SMS promotions market in 2009, by Voxline Communications Company, founded in 
1998  with  French  capital,  benefiting  from  the  very  beginning  of  technical  support  and  Western 
European  know  –  how  in  telecommunications  services  with  value  –  added  solutions  and  in  the 
interactive services.  
In over 10 years of activity on the Romanian market Voxline recorded numerous premiers of which 
three can be mentioned: in 2002 was the first alternative telecommunications operator which created 
services of SMS and voice mobile support; in 2004, the Voxline developed the application of the first 
mobile marketing campaign in Romania, for Chipita brand; in 2005 became the first operator of value 
added services which obtained ISO 9001:2000 certification issued by TUV Thuringen.  
The services offered by Voxline Communications cover a wide range of mobile marketing applications 
(campaigns of sending and receiving SMS messages, mobile advergames) call center (normal numbers 
and  green  numbers),  Web  applications  (promotion  sites,  flash  advergames)  micropayment  services 
through mobile telephony and value added services (televotes, contests, digital content). Among the 
customers  for  which  Voxline  Communications  has  conducted  campaigns  over  time  are  important 
players  in  the  local  market,  such  as  Quadrant  Amroq  Beverages  (Pepsi),  Star  Foods  (Lays),  JTI 
(Winston), Unilever (Dove, Cif & Domestos), Chipita Romania, URBB (Carlsberg, Tuborg), Western 719 
 
Union, Duracell, Braun, Dr. Oetker (Ristorante Pizza, Pudding) Fabryo (Savana), Wrigley, Charm, LG 
Prod 94 (Stalinskaya, Wembley), Porsche Romania.  
One of the reasons for which the SMS promotions were increasing in 2009 is that the restriction of 
marketing and advertising budgets has led to concrete results orientation and Mobile Marketing remains 
one of the tools that offer the possibility of achieving the brands objectives having a personal character 
and  a  multiple  applicability  and  being  on  hand.  Last  year,  the  interest  towards  direct  marketing 
activities increased a lot, being targeted especially to boost sales and the participation mechanisms via 
SMS have been very well received by buyers. 
 
The evolution of SMS Promotions in 2009:  
Communications Voxline monitored  during  2009  over  60  marketing  SMS campaigns,  made  by  35 
companies, similar number with the promotions conducted in 2008. 
In 2009 brands have invested increasingly more in the consumer viewing experience with the brand, 
adding  dedicated  websites  to  traditional  SMS  promotions.  Thus,  55%  of  campaigns  have  been 
accompanied by such sites, on which the consumer behaviour didn’t resume only to the registration; 
there  were  various  ways  of  retaining  the  consumers  on  the  sites,  such  as:  games,  auctions,  user-
generated content, RSS feeds from blogs etc. Most times, these additional activities were rewarded with 
additional prizes. However, the interest for the cost reduction determined 44% of promotions to use 
only the component registration via SMS. Some brands that used only the SMS channel for registration, 
had avoided the printing of unique codes on products, asking the customers to send the number of 
payment ticket or the brand’s name, or the answer to a question. In 2009 the specialists observed the use 
of the same phone number for more simultaneous promotion of the same brand.  
The  year  2009  brought  a  real  growth  among  campaigns  conducted  for  food  (both  in  number  of 
campaigns and the number of companies), alcoholic beverages, as well as for cigarettes. However, 
collapse was observed in the number of companies in the electronics/appliances, cosmetics/detergents 
and  construction  domains.  It  was  also  noted  the  first  campaign  which  offered  the  possibility  of 
registration through mobile site and the fact that some brands have been returned to the classic coupon 
promotions  or  instead  of  participation  through  SMS,  either  as  an  alternative  to  registrations  via 
SMS/Web/call centers. Although it was considered a year of crisis, there were companies that have 
developed sms promotions for the first time in 2009. These were: Albalact (Zuzu), AGRANA (Pearl), 
Macon  Deva,  SOLLERS PPD  (J&B),  Carolli  Prod 2000  (Carolli),  Nordic  Import  Export  Co.  (Rio 
Mare), Cotnari (Grasa Cotnari), United Euro Distributions (Murfatlar), Ringier (TvMania), the same 
number of new companies registered in the monitoring of 2008, year of growth. In terms of awards, in 
2009  they  exceeded  the  value  registered  in  2008,  reaching  the  value  of  accumulated  awards  of 
approximately 25 million EUR (VAT included). In terms of traffic generated by the campaigns, it can 
be estimated a total of over 20 million SMS, the most numerous participations being on cigarettes and 
soft drinks.  
The  value  of  the  sms  promotions  market,  reported only  to  the  number  of  sent  messages,  plus the 
average cost of making applications and the average cost of monthly subscription has exceeded in 2009 
1 million euros, the highest annual amount recorded for such actions using mobile marketing.  
 
Some  companies  which  made  SMS  promotions  for  the  first  time  in  2008,  have  repeated  these 
promotions in 2009: Colgate - Palmolive, Petrom and Cris Tim. Poiana (”Choose Poiana!”) was the 
promotion  with  more  than  one  way  of  registration:  SMS,  Web,  mail,  e-mail.  Murfatlar  used  the 
registration through call center, primarily for Romtelecom network users and other fixed networks. The 
company with most promotions (7) belonged to the Dr. Oetker brand. The brands with the biggest 
budget for awards were Murfatlar, Kent, Winston, Coca Cola and Pepsi (which, in total, have almost 
50% of the prize budget).  
 
Estimates for 2010:  720 
 
In 2010 it is estimated that the brands known for their dynamism (Pepsi, Coca Cola, some brands of 
cigarettes, some alcohol brands) will continue to innovate the methods of registration to promotions, 
creating a bridge between the registration and the consumer experience with the on any channel. The 
year 2009 was distinguished by the introduction of new ways of registration, based on mobile phone: 
the registration through a mobile site. It is estimated that in 2010 will be at least 5 brands that will also 
use this channel for registration to promotions. 
 
References 
1. Adăscăli ei V. – ”Promotional Techniques. Fundamentals”, ”Transilvania” University of Bra ov, 
1994. 
2. Florescu C. & collective – ”Marketing”, ”Marketer” Academic Group Publishing House, Bucharest, 
1992.  
3. Popescu I. C. – ”Marketing Communication”, Uranus Publishing House, Bucharest, 2003. 
4.***http://www.iaa.ro/Articole/Analize/Impactul-crizei-financiare-asupra-practicilor-de-marketing-in-
europa-centrala-si-de-est/3153.html 
 
 
 
   

collective – ”Marketing”,

NEW TRENDS IN THE ADVERTISING POLICY OF ROMANIAN AND UE COMPANIES

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NEW TRENDS IN THE ADVERTISING POLICY OF ROMANIAN AND UE COMPANIES

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