Investment Management Certificate (IMC) Practice Exam

Which advertising schedule uses zero expenditures in some months?

1. Continuous schedule

2. Pulsing schedule

3. Flighting schedule

4. Regular schedule

The correct answer is: Flighting schedule

The flighting schedule is characterized by periods of intense advertising activity followed by periods where no advertising expenditures occur at all. This approach is especially effective for products or services that have seasonal demand or specific promotional periods. For instance, a company may heavily advertise a winter clothing line during the fall and early winter months, then cease advertising completely during the summer months when demand is significantly lower. In contrast, a continuous schedule involves maintaining consistent advertising expenditures throughout the entire year without breaks, while a pulsing schedule combines elements of both continuous and flighting strategies, where advertising is run continuously at a lower intensity but augmented with bursts of heavier activity at key times. A regular schedule, while it may imply consistent advertising, does not specifically refer to the periodic absence of expenditures characteristic of a flighting schedule. Thus, the flighting strategy uniquely accommodates months without any advertising costs, making it the correct answer.