PBL 2

Integrated Marketing Communication.

Under the concept of integrated marketing communications, the company must carefully integrate its many communications channels to deliver a clear, consistent, and compelling message about its organization and its brands.

1. What are the marketing communication channels?

A company’s total promotion mix—also called its marketing communications mix—
consists of the specific blend of advertising, public relations, personal selling, sales promotion,
and direct-marketing tools that the company uses to persuasively communicate customer value and build customer relationships.

The five major promotion tools are defined as follows:
• Advertising: Any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods,
or services by an identified sponsor (broadcast, print, Internet, outdoor, and other
forms).
• Sales promotion: Short-term incentives to encourage the purchase or sale of a product or
service (discounts, coupons, displays, and demonstrations).
• Personal selling: Personal presentation by the firm’s sales force for the purpose of making
sales and building customer relationships (sales presentations, trade shows, and incentive programs).
• Public relations: Building good relations with the company’s various publics by obtaining
favorable publicity, building up a good corporate image, and handling or heading
off unfavorable rumors, stories, and events (press releases, sponsorships, special events, and Web pages).
• Direct marketing: Direct connections with carefully targeted individual consumers to
both obtain an immediate response and cultivate lasting customer relationships (catalogs, telephone marketing, kiosks, the Internet, mobile marketing).

At the same time, marketing communication goes beyond these specific promotion
tools. The product’s design, its price, the shape and color of its package, and the stores that
sell it all communicate something to buyers.

Personal Communication Channels
- two or more people communicate directly with each other. They might communicate face to face, on the phone, via mail or e-mail, or even through an Internet “chat.”
1.Word of-mouth influence
2.Buzz marketing

Nonpersonal Communication Channels
- are media that carry messages without personal contact or feedback. They include major
media, atmospheres, and events. Major media include print media (newspapers, magazines, direct-mail), broadcast media (television, radio), display media (billboards, signs, posters), and
online media (e-mail, company Web sites, and online social andsharing networks). Atmospheres are designed environments that create or reinforce the buyer’s leanings toward buying a product.
Events are staged occurrences that communicate messages to target audiences.




Several major factors are changing the face of today’s marketing communications.

1.Consumers are changing. In this digital, wireless age, they are better informed and more communications empowered: use the Internet and other technologies to find information on their own; connect easily with other consumers to exchange brand-related information or even create
their own marketing messages.
2. Marketing strategies are changing. As mass markets have fragmented, marketers are shifting away from mass marketing, instead developing focused marketing programs designed to build closer relationships with customers in more narrowly defined micromarkets.
3. Sweeping advances in communications technology are causing remarkable
changes in the ways in which companies and customers communicate with each other. The
digital age has spawned a host of new information and communication tools—from smartphones
and iPods to satellite and cable television systems to the many faces of the Internet
(e-mail, social networks, blogs, brand Web sites, and so much more).

Although television, magazines, newspapers, and other mass media remain very important,
their dominance is declining. In their place, advertisers are now adding a broad selection
of more-specialized and highly targeted media to reach smaller customer segments
with more-personalized, interactive messages. The new media range from specialty cable
television channels and made-for-the-Web videos to Internet catalogs, e-mail, blogs, cell
phone content, and online social networks. In all, companies are doing less broadcasting and
more narrowcasting.

Example:

When Kimberly-Clark recently launched its Huggies Pure & Natural line of diapers, for
instance, it skipped national TV advertising altogether—something once unthinkable in the
consumer products industry. Instead, it targeted new and expectant mothers through
mommy blogs, Web sites, print and online ads, e-mail, in-store promotions, and in-hospital
TV programming.



2. How to create a unified message for all channels?

Conflicting messages from different sources can result in confused company images, brand positions, and customer relationships.

All too often, companies fail to integrate their various communications channels. The result is a hodgepodge of communications to consumers. Mass-media advertisements say one thing, while an in-store promotion sends a different signal, and company sales literature creates still another message. And the company’s Web site, e-mails, Facebook page, or videos posted on YouTube say something altogether different.

The problem is that these communications often come from different parts of the company.
Advertising messages are planned and implemented by the advertising department or an ad agency. Personal selling communications are developed by sales management.
Other company specialists are responsible for PR, sales promotion events, Internet or social network efforts, and other forms of marketing communications.However, whereas these companies have separated their communications tools, customers don’t. Mixed communications from these sources result in blurred brand perceptions by consumers.

Integrated marketing communications should tie together all of the company’s messages and
images. Its television and print ads should have the same message, look, and feel as its e-mail and
personal selling communications. And its PR materials project the same image as its Web site or social network presence. Often, different media play unique roles in attracting, informing, and persuading consumers; these roles must be carefully coordinated under the overall marketing communications plan.

A great example of the power of a well-integrated marketing communications effort is Burger King’s now-classic, award-winning, Whopper Freakout campaign.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the iconic Whopper, Burger King launched a campaign to show what would happen if it suddenly removed the sandwich from its menu “forever.” It dropped the Whopper in selected restaurants and used hidden cameras to capture the real-time reactions of stricken customers. It then shared the results in a carefully integrated, multipronged promotional campaign. The campaign began with coordinated TV, print, and radio spots announcing that “We stopped selling the Whopper for one day to see what would happen. . . . What happened was, people freaked!” The ads drove consumers to www.whopperfreakout.com, which featured a video documentary outlining the entire experiment.The documentary was also uploaded to YouTube. Burger King also promoted the campaign through rich media ad banners on several other popular Web sites.It was a success. The ads became the most recalled campaign in Burger King’s history, and the whopperfreakout.comWeb site received 4 million views in only the first three months.
In all, the IMC campaign drove store traffic and sales of the Whopper up a whopping
29 percent.

Resource: Kotler P., Armstrong G. Principles of Marketing. 2012. 14th ed.