Which policy ensures that selling through alternative channels or products stays profitable during a promotion?

• A. Guardrails on promotion depth/duration
• B. Communication of value
• C. Cross-elasticities with other products
• D. Ensuring alternative channels or products remain profitable

Answer: (D)

The main idea is safeguarding profitability across all sales avenues when a promotion is running. If a promotion is focused only on one channel or product, other channels can suffer from squeezed margins or cannibalization, which undermines overall profitability. By having a policy that ensures alternative channels or products remain profitable, you set guardrails that keep margins intact across the board. This helps distributors stay motivated to sell through all channels, prevents destructive price wars, and preserves the brand’s long-term profitability even as promotions trigger short-term demand spikes.

Think of it as balancing incentives: you might protect baseline margins in non-promoted channels or across product variants, or set pricing and terms that ensure every path to purchase remains economically viable. That way, promotions drive volume where intended without eroding profits elsewhere.

The other options touch related ideas—how deep or long a promotion should be, how value is communicated, or how demand shifts between products—but they don’t directly ensure profitability across alternative channels in the face of a promotion.