You are the marketing communications director for a new brand of energy drink, and you have just run a communications campaign to launch the new product. The CEO tells you that she will be using sales or sales-based metrics, such as return on investment (ROI) or lifetime value of the customer, as the only measure for assessing the effectiveness of the communications campaign. How do you argue that a sales-only approach is not appropriate?

The brand positioning statement for Mountain Dew (a lemon-lime-flavored, highly caffeinated, carbonated soft drink) is: "Mountain Dew is the great-tasting carbonated soft drink that exhilarates like no other." Explain the role of this positioning statement in the development of the brand's advertising message.

A pharmaceutical company is launching a new anti-blood-clotting drug with a push and pull communications campaign aimed at end users and doctors. The company requires at least a 5% marketing return on investment (ROI) over the first five years of the product's commercialization. Cumulative unit sales for the first five years are forecast to be 7,061,146 units. The unit contribution or contribution margin per unit is $74.80. Cumulative marketing costs over the five years total to $489,000,000. Will the company meet its ROI hurdle rate?