High-Tech Advertising: A Status Report

In a study, a questionnaire was designed to obtain information on the importance of advertising to high-technology firms. The first major area of inquiry involved comparing senior managers' perceived importance of advertising and other promotional methods with other strategic and operational factors to their companies' success. The 2nd goal of the questionnaire was to gather information on senior managers' views comparing the importance of advertising with other promotional methods. A total of 164 usable responses were received from chief executives and marketing vice-presidents of high-technology firms. Product image emerged as the most important strategic and operational factor as perceived by executives to the firms' success, followed by having state-of-the-art technology and personal selling. Sales and sales management was ranked first among the promotional techniques. Additional findings highlighted the distinctiveness of high-tech firms and the impact of such differences as size and the nature of the business on advertising budgets, strategic and operational factors, and perceptions of the importance of promotional methods.