Feb 12 10:59pm
Reply from Jonathan Vest
Promotion Strategy
Jonathan Vest
School of Business, Liberty University
BUSI 745: Marketing for Competitive Advantage
Dr. Fiacco
12 February 2026
Author Note
Jonathan Vest
I have no known conflict of interest to disclose. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jonathan Vest. Email: Jvest8@Liberty.edu
Promotion, the communication component of the marketing mix, has become increasingly complex as digital channels expand, consumer privacy expectations intensify, and selling roles evolve toward data-enabled, hybrid interactions. Contemporary scholarship suggests that effective promotion is no longer a matter of selecting a single best tactic (e.g., advertising or personal selling), but rather designing an ethical, coherent promotional mix that fits the customer journey while respecting stakeholder trust. This synopsis examines three peerreviewed articles that represent major promotion tools: sales promotion (mobile coupons), advertising (privacy and personalization), and personal selling (B2B sales role evolution). Synthesis of crossarticle insights integrate biblical worldview emphasizing truthfulness, stewardship, and respect for persons.
Article 1: Mobile Coupons and Behavioral Outcomes
Chu and Joo (2024) investigate trafficboosting mobile coupons using a randomized field experiment with over half a million consumers in South Korea. Their work is significant for promotion scholarship because it connects the design of a sales promotion (message content and timing) to downstream behaviors, coupon response, store visits, and purchase amount, rather than limiting effectiveness to redemption metrics. The authors highlight that mobile promotions should be measured across multiple points in the customer journey, especially because storing and redeeming mobile coupons can be behaviorally frictional, potentially causing a gap between initial engagement and store visitation.
Methodologically, the study employs experimental manipulation of message frames (e.g., making the discount value salient or building a personal connection) and varies the dayofweek distribution context. A key finding is that message content shapes store visits through responsetocoupon, suggesting that engagement is not merely an intermediate metric but a mechanism by which promotions translate into behavior. In doctoral terms, the study contributes to causal inference in promotional research by pairing field experimentation with multistage behavioral measurement, strengthening external validity relative to purely simulated experiments.
From a managerial standpoint, Chu and Joo (2024) imply that sales promotions are most effective when designed to reduce cognitive ambiguity (e.g., clearly communicating discount value) and increase relational warmth (e.g., personal connection), while also accounting for contextual timing effects. Theoretically, their use of contextual marketing logic underscores that promotions are interpreted within lived circumstances, time scarcity, attention constraints, and shopping rhythms, rather than in a vacuum.
Article 2: Privacy as a Constraint and Research Agenda
Boerman and Smit (2023) provide a systematic review of privacyfocused advertising research and outline a forwardlooking agenda relevant to promotion strategy in a privacybydesign environment. They conclude that privacy concerns intersect with numerous ad formats and are commonly framed in three ways: ethical/regulatory context, individual differences, and explanations for advertising responses and effects. This is especially relevant for modern advertising where personalization, targeting, and algorithmic optimization are dependent on consumer data.
The review notes that key theoretical lenses include the privacy paradox, privacy calculus, and persuasion knowledge model, indicating that consumers often weigh benefits of relevance against perceived surveillance costs. Importantly, Boerman and Smit (2023) argue that the field must address emerging topics such as personalization in public settings, privacy cynicism, and potential future constraints on personalization, issues that affect not only advertising outcomes but also brand legitimacy and trust.
This papers contribution is not a single effect size but an integrative scaffolding that clarifies how privacy constructs have been operationalized and where conceptual gaps persist. In promotion strategy terms, it implies that advertising effectiveness increasingly depends on a firms capability to earn permission (explicitly or implicitly) to personalize, and to communicate transparently about data use. This aligns with the growing need to treat privacy not merely as compliance, but as a relational and reputational asset within promotion.
Article 3: The Changing Competency Profile of B2B Sales
Elhajjar, Yacoub, and Ouaida (2023) examine the present and future of the B2B sales profession and how digitalization and analytics reshape personal selling. Their research is especially useful for the promotion mix because personal selling remains a core promotional element in complex, highinvolvement B2B contexts. The authors conduct three studies: (1) content analysis of 565 B2B job descriptions across multiple countries, (2) development of an updated sales position taxonomy based on a survey of 380 B2B salespeople, and (3) 33 semistructured interviews to predict future skill requirements.
They argue that AI and big data analytics are shifting selling work by automating both routine and more cognitively complex tasks, thereby changing what organizations expect from sales professionals. The study highlights growing demand for blended competencies, traditional relationshipbuilding plus analytical and technological fluency, suggesting that promotion via personal selling is increasingly techaugmented. Their discussion of updated taxonomies also matters: without modern classifications, sales education, hiring, and performance evaluation risk misalignment with actual role requirements.
Integrative Discussion
Taken together, these three articles suggest that promotion effectiveness hinges on mechanism clarity, trust stewardship, and capability alignment. First, Chu and Joo (2024) show that sales promotions work through measurable mechanisms (responsetocoupon mediating store visits), reminding scholars and practitioners that engagement must be conceptually tied to downstream behavior to avoid vanity metrics. Second, Boerman and Smit (2023) emphasize that advertising effectiveness is increasingly bounded by privacy perceptions and consumer meaningmaking, which implies that promotion cannot be optimized solely through targeting precision; it must be optimized through ethical legitimacy. Third, Elhajjar et al. (2023) demonstrate that personal selling is being reconstituted by AI and analytics, so promotional strategy must include humancapital development and technology enablement as strategic prerequisites.
Biblical Integration
A biblical worldview sharpens the ethical lens for promotion. Proverbs 11:1, The Lord detests dishonest scales, but accurate weights find favor with him. (New International Version Bible, 2011), warns that dishonest scales are detestable underscoring that promotional tactics must avoid manipulation, hidden costs, and misleading claims, particularly salient for discount framing and personalized persuasion. Likewise, Ephesians 4:25, Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body (New International Version Bible, 2011), calls for putting away falsehood and speaking truthfully, which directly challenges deceptive advertising practices and supports transparent data use and disclosure. Finally, Colossians 3:23, Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, (New International Version Bible, 2011), exhorts believers to work wholeheartedly as for the Lord, implying that promotional decisionmaking should reflect excellence and integrity rather than opportunism, relevant for designing promotions that respect consumers and for training sales professionals toward serviceoriented value creation.
References
Boerman, S., & Smit, E. (2023). Advertising and privacy: An overview of past research and a research agenda. International Journal of Advertising, 42(1), 6068.
Chu, W., & Joo, J. (2024). Targeting effectiveness of mobile coupons: From exposure to purchase. Journal of Marketing Analytics, 12, 342354.
Elhajjar, S., Yacoub, L., & Ouaida, F. (2023). The present and future of the B2B sales profession. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 44(2), 128141.
New International Version Bible. (2011). Zondervan. (Original work published 1978)
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