Question: Explain the roles of cross-promotion, public relations, publicity, and ethics in an organization's promotional strategy. Cross-promotion, illustrated by tie-ins between popular movies and fast-food restaurants, permits marketing partners to share the cost of a promotional campaign that meets their mutual needs. Public relations consists of the fi rm's communications and relationships with its various publics, including customers, employees, stockholders, suppliers, government, and the society in which it operates. Publicity is the dissemination of newsworthy information about a product or organization.

This information activity is frequently used in new-product introductions. Although publicity is welcomed by firms, negative publicity is easily created when a company enters a gray ethical area with the use of its promotional efforts. Therefore, marketers should be careful to construct ethically sound promotional campaigns, avoiding such practices as puff ery and deceit. In addition, negative publicity may occur as a result of some action a firm takes-or fails to take, such as a product recall.