Answer to Question 1
d
Answer to Question 2
The four budgeting methods are:
1 . Percentage-of sales budgeting. A company sets a brand's advertising budget by simply establishing the budget as a fixed percent of past or anticipated sales volume. What percentage to use is highly variable, however, and varies by industry. This method has been criticized as being illogical because it reverses the logical relationship between sales and advertising. Instead of Sales = f(Advertising), this method says Advertising = f(Sales). Thus if sales are expected to increase, the budget also increases; when sales are expected to decline, the budget is reduced. However, in an economic downswing, increasing advertising expenditures might be more appropriate to prevent further sales erosion.
2 . Objective-and-task budgeting. This is generally regarded as the most sensible and defendable advertising budgeting method. In using this method, decision makers must specify what role they expect a marcom element to play for a brand and then set the budget accordingly. The steps involved are: (1) specify the marketing objectives (i.e., sales volume, market share, profit contribution), (2) assess the communication functions that must be performed to accomplish the marketing objectives, (3) determine advertising's role in the total communication mix, (4) establish specific advertising goals in terms of measurable communication responses, and (5) establish the budget based on estimates of expenditures required to accomplish the advertising goals.
3 . Competitive parity method. This method sets the budget by examining what competitors are doing. A company may decide not merely to match but to exceed its expenditures. Deciding what to do depends on your market share and your competitor's share of voice.
4 . Affordability method. A firm spends on advertising only those funds that remain after budgeting for everything else. This method relegates marcom elements to a position of comparative insignificance (vis-s-vis other investment options) and implicitly considers them unimportant to a brand's present success and future growth.