Marketing Costs

[LemonButt]

Sami--please check out my airline in MT7.  I cancelled a marketing campaign 6 game weeks ago with a CI of 70, reducing my marketing costs about 20%, and my CI has remained constant for 6+ weeks now.  Unless there is a factor I'm ignorant of, my CI should be going down, but it has actually fluctuated between 69.5 and 70.5--actually rising slightly despite the reduced expenditure.  I think something might be broken   Check out the CI graph and marketing expenditure graph and you'll see the reduction in week 24 of 1997.

[Sami]

Nothing has changed there recently.

However, there's a possibility that you were "over marketing" with that additional campaign. Putting "endlessly" more money is not always effective (though that is the main principle).

[LemonButt]

Would it not be possible to achieve a 100 CI by just throwing extra money at marketing?  I plateaued at 70 due to the marketing campaign I cancelled, so it shouldn't be a matter of "over marketing" and not achieving maximum possible CI if that is what you're implying.

[Sanabas]

It seems like there are thresholds. x marketing to slowly reach a threshold, but then x+y to get it moving beyond that threshold. If you were just below x+y before, and are just above x now, that'd explain why you stayed at the 70 threshold both times. So you can always keep pouring in money and eventually reach 100, or whatever lower target you have. But you'll possibly be pouring in more money than you need to.

[LemonButt]

The inset graph is marketing costs, which I've compressed to try and match up the dots on the graph for the weeks.  Marketing costs went up (due to adding routes/destinations) and you can see where I cancelled the campaign on week 24 and marketing costs took a dive.  The campaign I cancelled has been active for 12+ months, so it's not like it was a fresh campaign that I just haven't benefited from yet.  The last dot isn't even with the others because the week isn't over so the full costs haven't been incurred yet.  "Overmarketing" just doesn't make sense for this...

[Sanabas]

Yeah, where you're at now is less per week than where you were at start of graph, but you're now stalled at 70, not 60. Could be that maintaining a threshold you've reached is easier than actually getting to that threshold. Which sort of makes sense from a RL perspective, you just have to keep people who already know about you interested, not go out and find new people. but not sure if it works that way ingame.

Actually, where you're at at start of marketing graph is only Week 1 97, which was still stalled at 70 on CI graph. What does marketing graph look like back at week 30 or so of 96, when you left 60 threshold and headed for 70?

[LemonButt]

It was virtually the same the weeks prior.  I adjusted and dropped a couple routes so it was slightly higher the weeks prior, but the campaigns were all the same.

[Sanabas]

It's really weird that you went from plateaued at 60 to moving towards 70 without adding campaigns then.

[LemonButt]

It's really weird that you went from plateaued at 60 to moving towards 70 without adding campaigns then.

No--I did add campaigns, but nothing different than from when I was at the 70 level in terms of cost (I didn't articulate that as well as I should have).  I had the same costs at 60 as I did for 70 because enough time had not elapsed to get to the next plateau.

[Sanabas]

OK, I am really confused. Looking at your CI graph, you were plateaued at 60 from May until early July of 96. From that, I'd guess you added a new campaign in lat June/early July, so around week 26 or so of 96. That was enough to start you climbing, up to a CI of 70, where you plateaued again. So from week 26 until week week 36, you had steady CI growth.

If the week 28 '97 marketing costs are more than the week 22 '96 marketing costs, then that'd make sense. Added enough to reach 70 plateau, were still at enough to reach 70 plateau despite the 20% decrease.

But if the week 28 '97 costs (good for staying at 70) are lower than the week 22 '96 costs (good for 60, not good enough to move towards 70), then that's weird. If you didn't add a campaign back around week 26 of 96, then that's even weirder.

[brique]

mustn't forget effects of cancelations/punctuality : the underlying trend may still be upwards, but punctuality penalties seem to knock you back quicker than spending pushes you up...

[LemonButt]

Marketing is still flat at 70.  I just cut another campaign (approx 10%) to see what happens...

[EsquireFlyer]

No--I did add campaigns, but nothing different than from when I was at the 70 level in terms of cost (I didn't articulate that as well as I should have).  I had the same costs at 60 as I did for 70 because enough time had not elapsed to get to the next plateau.

There is a multi-campaign bonus (although there is not "supposed" to be) where spending the same amount across several campaigns somehow helps your CI more than 1 big campaign for the same price does.

[TPMP]

I think I may be spending more money then I need to after having read this thread. I have a total of 5 campaigns with an expenditure of around 800k in total. Two of my campaigns are to my base city, two are to my base country and one is for my state. I assume I'm just wasting my money by having two of the same campaings with lots of money? My CI is 63 and not really increasing that much at all.

[exchlbg]

Seems you will have to spend even more to have a rise. It´s not the total amount, but the % of income you use for marketing to make that CI move.

[Airbus101]

Seems you will have to spend even more to have a rise. It´s not the total amount, but the % of income you use for marketing to make that CI move.

I have noticed this as well, and accept it as truth (the bold part)

[LemonButt]

My CI was around 22-25 in NAC and as I upgraded my fleet to aircraft it rose to 30 without any additional expenditure.  I tried doubling my marketing expenditure, but CI didn't budge so I cancelled it.  It seems the factors involved are a lot more sensitive than they used to be.

[exchlbg]

Aircraft age and condition influence CI,too. And in the "lower parts" of CI world it´s easier to make it climb. But the higher you get, the more difficult it is to keep climbing.

[serginhoalmeida]

This is my case.


I had 3 marketing campaign in Whole World with Newspapers-Radio-Billboards, each was $4.3 million, totaling $12.9 million a week.

My company image was climbing 0.15 per week and has been since when had 85 of image, until it reaches 100 last game week.

So I did the following, I added a single campaign in Whole World with Newspapers-Television-Radio-Billboards at a price of $12.2 million a week.

And canceled the other 3 old campaigns which cost me $ 6 million to cancel, but okay, I thought, saving $ 0.7 million a week in 7 weeks I've overcome this loss.

But the image of my company dropped from 100 to 99.20 in just 3 days.

Right now I have 5 campaigns (one $12.2 million and the four other very small), totaling $14.1 million per week and my image keeps falling, is 98.26.

Result: instead of saving $0.7 million per week, I spent $6 million to cancel and so far I'm spending $1.2 million more than before every week. This is disheartening.

Everybody says that no matter what kind of campaign, only the amount of money that makes the difference, so can someone explain this to me??

[exchlbg]

I wish I could. Maybe cancelling a campaign  has a likely influence on CI like firing staff ? Just wait a little longer, it might rise again after the hit.