Question

1. In your own words, explain integrated marketing communications (IMC). Give an example.
2. A) Are integrated marketing communications (IMC) necessary? Why do you think this? (Argue for i.e., advantages or against i.e., disadvantages). B) Do you think integrated marketing communications (IMC) work? Why do you think this?
3. How does communication take place?
4. In your own words, explain each element of the promotional mix. Give examples.

Answer 1

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is an idea under which a company carefully integrates and coordinates many of its communications channels to deliver a clear and consistent message to its customers. Integrated Marketing Communications, or IMC, aims in integrating all the promotional tools, so that they work together in synchronization. According to the American Association of Advertising Agencies, IMC is “a comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communication disciplines and uses these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency and maximum communication impact.” Hence, IMC is today identified as a business process which enables companies to identify the most optimal method for communicating and building relationships with customers as well as with other stake holders.

Example of IMC: Domino’s AnyWare

Pizza restaurant chain Domino’s created the “AnyWare” campaign to help people to order food in more suitable ways. Domino’s AnyWare allows customers to order with methods like a tweet, a text, Ford Sync, smart televisions or even using smart watches.

Are IMCS necessary?

In today’s marketing world, IMC’s are important :

1. To Deliver a Consistent Message across all channels with consistency to make it successful because as soon as your business’s message becomes blurred, unfocused, or inconsistent, you begin to lose your audience.

2. To Build Your Brand’s Image as a result not only will your messages always be the same, but the elements of your brand will also line up more effortlessly. When your style guides, logos, headers, content, and voice are all working together, you’re able to maximize your impact and as a result carve out your own lane within your niche or industry.

3. To Generate Cost Savings as a well-oiled strategy will save your business money in a number of areas. Because, having a single message helps you save resources and reduce waste.

4. To Create a Consumer Experience in a digital world where customers want an immersive experience that is delivered on their own terms. In other words, where customers might not want direct mail or TV ad campaigns.

5. To Focus on Results by keeping the message and goal crystal clear within your own organization!

6. Allows You to Reach Larger Audiences using more channels to communicate increases the number of people a company is able to reach.

Advantages and disadvantages of IMC:

Advantages:

1.You’ll develop more trust: Consistent reliability along with reliable consistency helps your customers get to know and to trust you.

2.You’ll make more money

3.It’s what your customer’s want as customers are crying out for consistency in marketing and shopping experiences,

CONS OF INTEGRATED MARKETING

1.It’s not easy: as You’ll need to plan meticulously in order to get it right, and will need to stop thinking about different types of marketing.

2.You have to do your homework: Without proper knowledge, you’ll struggle to find a message that really resonates and motivates in the way you need it to.

3.Measurements can be challenging as you’re working across different channels with this one mega-campaign, measurements of success and data points to consider are about to get much more complicated and difficult.

Integrated Marketing Communications mainly uses six tools to reach its target markets and to build its brand equity.

These tools are:

1. Advertising

2. Sales Promotion

3. Public Relations

4. Direct Marketing

5. Personal Selling and

6. Digital Marketing

7. Mobile Marketing

All these main tools help a company to promote its products efficiently and effectively.

1. Advertising:

Advertising is a paid medium, as a company needs to pay for the advertising space in the newspaper, magazines or even in tv. Also, advertising is considered as a non-personal in nature, as it uses mass media like TV, Print and Radio to transmit the message to large number of people at the same time

2. Sales Promotion:

Sales promotion is a very effective tool in the promotional mix. It helps to induce the sales on the consumer side as well as the marketing channel or trade side. Sales promotion is a variety of short term incentives to encourage trial or purchase of a product or service. Consumer-oriented sales promotion efforts are targeted towards the ultimate user.

It contains free samples, rebates, Gifts, Contests, More quantity, Low interest financing, Fairs & Trade Shows, Demos and Lotteries. While Trade-oriented sales promotion is targeted towards marketing channels like Distributors, Wholesalers and Retailers. It includes volume discounts, promotional and merchandising allowances, price deals, free offers, sales contests etc.

Most of the FMCG and Consumer Durable and Automobile companies like Dabur, Priya Gold Biscuits, Proctor & Gamble, Electrolux, Videocon, Onida, Samsung, Maruti, Chevrolet etc. go for consumer as well as trade promotion offers. While pharmaceutical companies give more emphasis on trade related sales promotion schemes towards Chemist Shops and Doctors. Organised retailers like Big Bazaar, Reliance Digital, Spencer’s etc. also come out with promotional schemes from time to time.

The sales promotion schemes should be used carefully by the company, as it has a negative impact on the brand image. Generally every year, leading apparel companies like Park Avenue, Arrow, Zodiac, Blackberry come out with the Stock Clearance Sale once in a year in the rainy season or twice in a year. On the contrary, brands like Koutons, Cotton County, and Priknit sell their apparels through discount offers almost all round the year. This leads to erosion in the brand image of these companies.

In marketing, the terms – promotion and sales promotion are often confused. Promotion is the part of the marketing mix, while sales promotion is a part of promotional mix. Promotion includes advertising, direct selling, personal selling, public relations, internet and interactive marketing besides sales promotion. Sometimes the term promotion is used alternatively for sales promotion.

3. Public Relations:

Public relations (PR) is gaining importance day by day as a communication tool in the promotional mix. The importance of Public relations has been well written by Al Ries with Laura Ries, one of the famous authors of ‘Positioning – The Battle for Your Mind’, in their book ‘The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR’. In the early 1900s, Edward Louis Bernays, the founding father of modern public relations, along with Ivy Lee has defined Public Relations as ‘the Management function which evaluates public attitudes, identifies the policies and procedures of an individual or organisation with the public interest and executes a programme of action to earn public understanding and acceptance.’

Public Relations is a variety of programmes systematically designed and distributed to promote or protect a company’s image or products. PR tools consist of Press Kits, Seminars, Speeches, Publications, Lobbying, Company Magazine, Events, Sponsorships, Donations and Annual Reports.

Philip Kotler has coined a term called PENCILS of PR, where he talks about publications, events, news, community involvement, identity tools, lobbying and social investments; as the tools of modern PR.

Public Relations always generate a ‘buzz’ around a new product or service. Generally the consumers are less skeptical toward the PR exercises. It also involves low cost, as there is no direct expenditure to buy the time or space in a channel or a publication. When Tata Motors showcased its Nano Car on 10th January, 2008 at the 9th Annual Auto Expo at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, almost all the leading newspapers, magazines, TV channels etc. from India and across the world covered the presentation.

The amount of coverage, it got from the channels and publications is unthinkable and worth thousands of Crores. On the same lines, in Bollywood, Aamir Khan always looks out for innovative means of PR for his upcoming films, whether it’s Ghajini or 3 Idiots. Taking a cue from this, even Salman Khan did a lot of activities for creating the right buzz for his film ‘Dabangg’.

On the eve of release of music of Dabangg, one of the leading television news channel devoted more than 20 minutes of its program for the event. In another smart move the music has been launched in Delhi instead of the usual Mumbai, probably owing to the fact that the notion of dabangai is more pronounced in Delhi and up the hinterland as compared to Mumbai and the adjoining areas where it is more of the Bhaigiri.

Again, Salman Khan was almost on all the channels to promote his film. It was a similar case for its sequel ‘Dabangg 2’ also.

Sometimes, Public Relations and Publicity are used intermittingly. But PR has a broader objective than the publicity. Publicity refers to non-personal communications regarding an organisation, product, service or idea not directly paid for or run under identified sponsorship.

It also includes News story, Editorial or announcement about an organisation and/or its product or services through news releases, press conferences, feature article, photos, films and videos. But there is a difference. Publicity is not always under the control of the organisation and is sometimes unfavourable.

The film reviews, which you see in Times of India, Hindustan Times or on the websites like Rediff or on Bollywood Hungama becomes a part of the publicity; as the reviewers are not under the control of the film production companies. It happened also in the debacle of ‘Chandni Chowk to China’, where everybody wrote the film off and it generated a bad publicity for the film.

The public relations and publicity space has also changed with the technological advancements like Internet and Mobile technology. Now there are more people, who are blogging, besides the celebrities and experts. Anybody can voice their opinion through blogs or through websites like Mouthshut(dot)com. Now you can also find online communities for various products and services on Facebook, Orkut or Twitter. A company needs to utilize these developments in technology to become efficient and effective marketer.

4. Direct Marketing:

With the success of Eureka Forbes, Aquaguard, Amway, Dell, Tupperware and Avon, direct marketing is becoming popular for many companies. In direct marketing, companies communicate directly with their target customers to generate a response and/or a transaction. Direct marketing is much more than direct mail and mail-order catalogs.

It involves a variety of activities, including database management, direct selling, telemarketing, and direct-response ads through direct mail, the Internet, and various broadcast and print media. Recently Hypercity Retail India has launched its catalogue shopping retail format called Hypercity – Argos.

With more importance on touch and feel by the Indian consumers, direct marketing companies are also taking the route of opening their representative stores to build reliability about their products. On these lines, Dell has opened its exclusive stores to offer the advantages of Dell’s direct model with the additional benefit of retail availability to browse touch and feel the product.

Dell’s channel model is also making it possible for the Indian customers to see the products on the retail shelves and then place an order for the preferred model with the choice to customise the looks and configuration of the unit. On the similar lines, Hypercity -Argos has also launched their first store in Mumbai.

After referring the catalogue, they can collect their products from the nearest store or have it home delivered. Thus, consumers can shop in three ways: by placing their orders over the phone, visit the stores or browse the entire range online at www(dot)hypercityargos(dot)com.

Direct marketing companies regularly advertise their products through direct response ads with mass media vehicles like Newspaper, Magazines, Radio and Television. Dell regularly advertises in computer and technology magazines like Digit, Chip, PC World and business magazines like Business World, Business Today besides through Times of India, Economic Times and Hindustan Times. Direct market companies are also gaining ground with usage of Mobile, Internet and online payment.

5. Personal Selling:

Personal selling involves two way communications, as the seller gets into face to face interaction with the buyer. The buyer may be a single person or there may be many buyers at the same point of time. Here the seller or sales representative from the company makes a presentation and answers queries of the buyers. If the buyer is convinced, the sales representative gets the order for the product.

As it gives an immediate feedback, the personal selling is a powerful tool in the promotional mix. It happens through sales presentation at home or offices, in Sales meetings and through Fairs and Trade Shows. Hindustan Unilever also sells its water purifier ‘Pureit’ through a direct marketing and personal selling exercise.

The only drawback is that it’s an expensive tool to promote a product, as you need to manage a sales force to get the desired results. But it is also the most flexible way of marketing communication with great results.

6. Digital Marketing:

In the last twenty years, the consumer behaviour has changed a lot with the proliferation of Internet all across the world. The advancement in technology has led to create a separate space of digital marketing as the promotional medium among the other tools available under IMC. Earlier it was limited to Internet marketing. Now, it has expanded too much.

In other promotional tools, the communication is one sided. Here the consumer can interact and can give feedback or response to the company. It has become almost mandatory for every company now to promote itself through a website on the internet. Internet is a unique promotional tool, as it can also execute all the elements of the promotional mix.

Internet itself can promote a product. It can also be used as a medium for advertising. For example, on www(dot)indiatimes(dot)com, an advertiser gets options like Shosh – Sttlilng, Slug Specs, Shosh – Flash Frame Spot, Video Banners, Monster Banner, Leader banner and Pop Ups to name a few. Internet also acts as a direct marketing tool by having a consumer response form on the web page or through a link. Tata Indigo Manza, Tata Indica Vista, ICICI Prudential, Dell, ICFAI Business School, Tata AIG advertises regularly through banner ads on rediff.com, indiatimes.com and yahoo.com, with either a consumer response form or once clicked, it leads to a consumer response form.

Internet also helps in sales promotion efforts of the company. Whenever a company likes to give a short term incentive to the consumer, internet also becomes one of the ways to reach consumers. Many companies also send their offers to the consumer mail boxes.

Internet also helps in Public relations and publicity exercises. Many companies and PR firms use Internet to build a public relations campaign. Now with the increased use of community websites like Facebook, Orkut, Twitter etc, consumers are connected through the Internet. That’s why even Bollywood is also using Internet for promoting its films.

Besides internet marketing, digital marketing also include mobile marketing through SMS and MMS, Social Media marketing using Facebook, Twitter etc., Search Engine marketing Or any other form of digital media.

7. Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing involves communicating with the consumer via a mobile device, either to send a simple marketing message, to introduce them to a new participation-based campaign or to allow them to visit a mobile website.

Cheaper than traditional means for both the consumer and the marketer, mobile marketing really is a streamlined version of online marketing the use of which is increasing as time progresses. Examples are advertisements that we see on mobile applications.