Extract
Media selection decision in social system: a fuzzy goal programming approach.
ABSTRACT
Media selection has been a perennial problem with any communication mix and this is more of a resource allocation exercise than anything else. Traditionally, the media researchers use the available forecasting model their long-term experience or intuition to select the media mix for any promotional campaign. This process may not be that scientific and effective all the time. Specifically, when the case considered here is social science based; that of a disintegrating cottage industry in the handloom sector of undivided Ganjam district of Orissa State in India and the available resources is too few. The handloom sector has got its rich cultural heritage and some cross-cultural products have been suggested as a solution to their existing problem. But none of the product design can ever be successful without an adequate positioning theme and promotion is the key ingredient in it. The current paper aims to design an optimal media plan for the cross-cultural product keeping the cultural background of the target consumer in mind. Obviously this involves managerial decision-making and any management decision-making can be viewed as a multi-criteria decision situation with multiple, conflicting and non-commensurable objectives seeking simultaneous solution. Various methodologies have been devised to solve this class of problems viz., vector maximization method, goal programming etc ... But, when the imprecision in the decision variables/ environment is more due to fuzziness than randomness; most of the existing methodologies fail to give satisfactory solutions. Hence, fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic are applied here, specifically with fuzzy goal programming, to provide an implementable solution procedure. Actually, the use of fuzzy goal programming has got added significance when culture is defined in a holistic manner in the consumer society for better differentiation, proper segmentation and effective positioning. 1. INTRODUCTION Promotional media selection system is nothing but a communication mix so far as modern marketing is concerned. Developing a quality product as demanded by the market, pricing it attractively and making it accessible to the target customers, do not necessarily create a successful marketing system and it may so happen that most of the marketing objectives are not satisfied by it. Marketers need to effectively communicate about their product's status, benefits and attractive advantages over the competitors to the present and potential customers so as to develop a need, convert it to an obsessive positive predisposition and terminate it with sales. The art of generating requisite information and making it available to the right person at the right time in the right format is the key to finding right opportunities and optimally utilizing it to fulfill the marketing objectives. Hence, marketing would be successful only if the communication process between the producer and the consumer is most powerful, active and effective and this is because demand is created with information crossover and again, an inherent human need of cognitive knowledge accumulation is realized with the same information flow. Advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and publicity work as an integrated system of message outflow from producer to consumer as the reason for the development of any positive predisposition of the consumer and finally actual sales of the product i,e., consumer response and feedback on the brand from the market to the producer that act as the message inflow. ...See the full content of this document
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