Integrated Marketing Communication is simply the use of the combination of marketing tools, promotional strategies and advertising to achieve the objective of a marketing campaign. The IMC approach utilizes all marketing and communications tools, and harnesses the power each provides to ensure brands’ customers receive consistent, relevant and powerful messages. It is a planning process that focuses on integrating messages across communication disciplines, creative execution, media, timing and stakeholders. The integrated approach has shown to be the most commonly used approach by organisations nowadays to plan and execute their marketing communication programmes. IMC involves the coordination of the various promotional elements and other marketing …show more content…
Products and services are promoted by effectively integrating several brand communication tools. They are as follows:
ADVERTISING
This is one of the most effective means of brand communication. It is simply pushing forth an idea expecting a course of action like a purchase in return. Advertising a form of non-personal selling that informs, persuades and creates awareness about an organization, product, service or idea by an identified sponsor through a medium with the aim of a course of action to be taken by the audience. Advertising is a great tool for building brand equity and awareness because it provides its audience with information as well as the capacity to influence their perception. It is an indispensable tool of marketing. Advertising messages needs to focus on the problems your products or services resolves as well as the benefits it provides to attract as many prospects as possible.
DIRECT
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Due to the short attention span of the target audience in modern times, integrated marketing communication has provided avenues where various audience can be reached in a way peculiar to them. For example, adverts for kids are aired on the television at the set time they would be available to watch or through colorful and attractive posters that can be related to by them. The use of sales promotion would not be effective in passing across the message to them because they might not even understand what is being said and they do not have that purchasing power. They can only influence the buying decisions of their guardians.
ROLES OF INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION IN
In todays marketing world there are several types of traditional and non-traditional promotion mix tools to better accomplish your marketing objectives. DJ Jekyll & Mz Hyde, after careful consideration and review have implemented an integrated marketing communications strategy (IMC) to ensure the best possible return on investment (ROI).
Once the target market has been identified it is important to develop a marketing strategy. In today's fast paced, information overloaded society; conveying a message about a product seems to be more difficult than ever. The consumer is bombarded with advertising everywhere they look. Today advertising not only exists on television, radio, magazines, and newspapers, it can be found on billboards, park benches, in our mailboxes, on buses, taxis, at sporting events, and on clothing.
When walking the streets of Milwaukee there are many surrounding advertisements. The advertisements may be for an event, product or service. Whatever the advertisements may be, it is for the consumer to see and for the advertisers to promote. Advertising is a form of communication to persuade or inform someone to perform a certain task. In an advertising agency, advertising and promotion managers deal with a variety of tasks to effectively implement a desired message. Advertising and Promotions Manager can either work for an agency managing clients that contract their services or in-house working for a company as a part of their advertising department. Either in-house or for an agency, advertising and promotion managers use communication as transaction to understand their coworkers, multiple departments, and clients.
Over the years, marketing has changed in profound ways. However, customers want to expect the same experience across retail channels. Now a days, in order to target new customers and boost brand image without spending millions of dollars, Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is achieved by using social media, online advertising, public relations and viral marketing. This helps consumers understand the message intended and are more inclined to make a purchase. Effective marketing management is crucial in every industry as innovative marketing increases a company’s brand awareness.
Today’s business environment is highly dynamic and competitive. In order to become successful, companies must use advanced marketing techniques and branding strategies. The significance of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) is therefore, very critical. IMC sends out a single message through different media vehicles, which helps the company to target a wide variety of audience. According to Gerber (2008), Integrated Marketing Communication is the process of using a combination of different types of marketing communication to send the same message to consumers. The following report lays an IMC plan for N...
Several facts are changing in today’s marketing communications. More companies adopt the new concept of integrated marketing communications (IMC) to convey a consistent message about their brand and products. Hence, IMC has played a powerful role and developed into a useful strategy for company to reach more customers and build good customer relationships. According to Herstein et al. (2008), IMC is one of a successful strategy that coordinates and integrates all of marketing communication tools to efficiently and economically influence between an organization and its existing and potential customers. Moreover, marketers can combine IMC tools (advertising, sale promotion, personal selling, direct marketing and public relations) rather than separate practices to create values and avoid potential conflicts (Duncan & Everett, 1993). In fast food industry, fast food chains integrate advertising, sale promotion, sponsorship, packaging and Internet to promote their products as well as build brand image (Sperber, 2003; Story & French, 2004; Morrison, 2010). Advertising is most used form of communication and the most frequently utilized medium due to it easily contact the target market, especially on television advertising (Story & French, 2004; Case, 2007). In addition, simple toys and products are typically used by fast food chains in children’s meal to attract children and adolescents.
In all reality, all businesses will, in some way shape or form, complete all of the marketing activities, even if completing these activities is not their main goal. (Dlabay 2006.) These marketing activities are product, place, price, and promotion. A business tool called that marketing mix takes all of these activities and puts them together in a way that can be used to help improve a business’s marketing strategy. Product is what the company is selling; Place is where the consumer will obtain this product; Price is what the consumer will pay for the product; Promotion is any type of communication that is intended to remind, inform, or persuade. (Dlabay 2006.) The marketing mix and the four P’s describe very well what business marketing is all about.
So, advertising is the best way to communicate to the customers. It helps inform the customers about the brands available in the market and the variety of services useful to them. If any company wants to introduce or launch a new product in the market, advertising will make a ground for the product which helps making people aware of the new product so that the consumers come and try the product. Advertising helps creating goodwill for the company and gains customer loyalty after reaching a mature age. Furthermore it helps companies to know their competitors and plan accordingly to meet up the level of competition and also give chance to target audience to evaluate how your product or service measures up against your competitors.
The main purpose of advertising is to sell a product or service to the consumer market. Advertising uses many different types of appeal and a number of media to achieve a variety of goals. Advertising is the most effective means to get the word out about products, services, events, charities, and just about anything else that one can think of. Where would sports be today without advertising? Advertising in sports has helped the sports world grow into one of the most profitable industries in the world.
The most significant tool of marketing promotion mix is advertising. According to Philip Kotler “Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by identified sponsor”. The objective of the advertising is to inform the consumers about the market offering(s), its features, benefits, price, place of availability, discounts etc., persuade the consumers to buy the product(s) by creating distinctive image of the market offering(s), branding, and creating selective demand for the market offering(s), reminding the consumers about the market offering(s) through repeated advertising over a period of time and reinforce the consumers
IMC is a cross-functional for planning, executing, and monitoring brand communications that designed to profitably acquire, retain, and grow customers (Strauss & Frost, 2012). Integrated marketing communications (IMC) program consists of the communication functions of marketing, public relations, advertising, and promotion. IMC leads to a total marketing communications strategy that builds strong customer relationships by showing how the company and its products can help customers solve their problems (Kotler & Armstrong, 2013). The communication functions need to work together with clear lines of two-way communication (McCartney, 2010). IMC ties together and reinforces all communications to deliver a strong brand identity. Companies manage all sources of information about a product or service in order to ensure maximum message penetration. In an integrated program, for instance, public relations activities are often geared toward obtaining early awareness and credibility for a product. Publicity in the form of news stories builds credibility, excitement in the marketplace, and consumer anticipation. These messages make audiences more receptive to advertising and promotions about the product in the later phases of the campaign. Indeed, there is a growing body of support that public relations is the foundation for branding and positioning a product or service (Wilcox & Cameron,
Advertising is a way of communication that informs the audience of a product by a brand. There are different tactics to create awareness of a campaign. The most successful campaigns are the ones that use sentimental and emotional approach in their advertising because audience can easily relate to it. In 2013 companies spent Rs. 30 Billion on television advertising in Pakistan to promote their brands.
According to Shimp (2007), there are five important factors which determine the purpose of advertisement in terms of marketers’ communication with consumers. He listed these five factors as follows: “(1) informing, (2) influencing, (3) reminding and increasing salience, (4) adding value, and (5) assisting other company efforts.” (p.246). To clarify that, the first most important aspect is informing people which means company needs to enhance the awareness of the consumer about their products by mentioning its advantages and features. Advertising also affect the products in two ways. Firstly, by basic demand, which build consumer desires for old products of the company and secondly, refers to a new brand of the company. In addition, effective advertising can retain consumer’s mind fresh about the image of a brand which develops the trace of the memory where consumers have to choose between two or more products. Moreover, it may change the product quality, create new, well-designed and elegant product and change consumers view towards the product. Lastly, by effective advertising program, company may save money and time as s...
Advertising in business is a type of marketing communication used to encourage, persuade, or manipulate a customer to take or continue to take some action. The desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering.
Marketing communications is the best way to appreciate the value of the goods and services offering by organization. Traditional tools of marketing communication disciplines are five: advertising, sales promotion, personal selling (see the EBS Sales Force Management text), public relations and direct marketing. There are also media in which time and space can be bought or used to deliver messages to target audiences. Organisations are planning which appropriate mix of these tools and the choice of media has for a long time been largely predictable.