The Flamingo Grill is an upscale restaurant located in St. Petersburg, Florida. To help plan an advertising campaign for the coming season, Flamingo’s management team hired the advertising firm of Haskell & Johnson (HJ). The management team requested HJ’s recommendation concerning how the advertising budget should be distributed across television, radio, and newspaper advertisements. The budget has been set at $279,000. In a meeting with Flamingo’s management team, HJ consultants provided the following information about the industry exposure effectiveness rating per ad, their estimate of the number of potential new customers reached per ad, and the cost for each ad.
Critical Path Method
The critical path is the longest succession of tasks that has to be successfully completed to conclude a project entirely. The tasks involved in the sequence are called critical activities, as any task getting delayed will result in the whole project getting delayed. To determine the time duration of a project, the critical path has to be identified. The critical path method or CPM is used by project managers to evaluate the least amount of time required to finish each task with the least amount of delay.
Cost Analysis
The entire idea of cost of production or definition of production cost is applied corresponding or we can say that it is related to investment or money cost. Money cost or investment refers to any money expenditure which the firm or supplier or producer undertakes in purchasing or hiring factor of production or factor services.
Inventory Management
Inventory management is the process or system of handling all the goods that an organization owns. In simpler terms, inventory management deals with how a company orders, stores, and uses its goods.
Project Management
Project Management is all about management and optimum utilization of the resources in the best possible manner to develop the software as per the requirement of the client. Here the Project refers to the development of software to meet the end objective of the client by providing the required product or service within a specified Period of time and ensuring high quality. This can be done by managing all the available resources. In short, it can be defined as an application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to meet the objective of the Project. It is the duty of a Project Manager to achieve the objective of the Project as per the specifications given by the client.
The Flamingo Grill is an upscale restaurant located in St. Petersburg, Florida. To help plan an advertising campaign for the coming season, Flamingo’s management team hired the advertising firm of Haskell & Johnson (HJ). The management team requested HJ’s recommendation concerning how the advertising budget should be distributed across television, radio, and newspaper advertisements. The budget has been set at $279,000. In a meeting with Flamingo’s management team, HJ consultants provided the following information about the industry exposure effectiveness rating per ad, their estimate of the number of potential new customers reached per ad, and the cost for each ad.
| Advertising Media | Exposure Rating per Ad | New Customes per Ad | Cost per Ad |
| Television | 90 | 4000 | $10,000 |
| Radio | 25 | 2000 | $3,000 |
| Newspaper | 10 | 1000 | $1,000 |
The exposure rating is viewed as a measure of the value of the ad to both existing customers and potential new customers. It is a function of such things as image, message recall, visual and audio appeal, and so on. As expected, the more expensive television advertisement has the highest exposure effectiveness rating along with the greatest potential for reaching new customers.
At this point, the HJ consultants pointed out that the data concerning exposure and reach were only applicable to the first few ads in each medium. For television, HJ stated that the exposure rating of 90 and the 4000 new customers reached per ad were reliable for the first 10 television ads. After 10 ads, the benefit is expected to decline. For planning purposes, HJ recommended reducing the exposure rating to 55 and the estimate of the potential new customers reached to 1500 for any television ads beyond 10. For radio ads, the preceding data are reliable up to a maximum of 15 ads. Beyond 15 ads, the exposure rating declines to 20 and the number of new customers reached declines to 1200 per ad. Similarly, for newspaper ads, the preceding data are reliable up to a maximum of 20; the exposure rating declines to 5 and the potential number of new customers reached declines to 800 for additional ads.
Flamingo’s management team accepted maximizing the total exposure rating, across all media, as the objective of the advertising campaign. Because of management’s concern with attracting new customers, management stated that the advertising campaign must reach at least 100,000 new customers. To balance the advertising campaign and make use of all advertising media, Flamingo’s management team also adopted the following guidelines.
● Use at least twice as many radio advertisements as television advertisements.
● Use no more than 20 television advertisements.
● The television budget should be at least $140,000.
● The radio advertising budget is restricted to a maximum of $99,000.
● The newspaper budget is to be at least $30,000.
HJ agreed to work with these guidelines and provide a recommendation as to how the $279,000 advertising budget should be allocated among television, radio, and newspaper advertising
Using the excel template provided
a) Formulate a linear programming model (identify and define decision variables, objective function and constraints) that can be used to determine the advertising budget allocation for the Flamingo Grill in order to maximize the total exposure rating. Use Solver in Microsoft Excel to solve the model. Give the values of each decision variable and the objective function. Also indicate the total number of new customers reached.
b) After reviewing HJ’s recommendation, the Flamingo’s management team asked how the optimal solution would change if the objective of the advertising campaign was to maximize the number of potential new customers reached. Use Solver in Microsoft Excel to solve this new model that you develop, Give the values of each decision variable and the objective function. Also indicate the total exposure rating.
c) Compare the optimal solutions from part (a) and part (b). Which objective function is a better indicator of advertising effectiveness? Please comment
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