ABSTRACT
Advertising, sales promotion and public relations form three elements of the 'marketing communications mix'. Sales promotion also includes the area of 'direct marketing'. This is a contemporary area of marketing that has increased in popularity because of the development of effective databases and improved information technology. Encoding and Decoding are mental processes. Promotion is seen as only one element of an organisation's effort to communicate with customers and to view it simply as promotion is to take too narrow a perspective. Marketing mix variables, as well as other actions, must be seen as part of the total message the company conveys to consumers about its 'offerings'. Advertising is a visible form of mass communications that is non-personal and paid for by an identified sponsor. Like advertising, publicity is a form of non-personal communication to a large group of people.
