Integrated Marketing Communications

Resume Builders

• Exhibit an in-depth understanding of integrated marketing communications functions and their role in marketing strategies.
• Perform a situation analysis and propose appropriate IMC tactics and strategies for a product or service.
• Create a company IMC campaign that includes both traditional and digital marketing tactics.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of an IMC campaign.

Learning Objectives

• Understand the importance of the promotional function in the marketing strategy.
• Recognize the role of segmentation analysis and target marketing in an integrated marketing communication plan.

Introduction to IMC

• Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) takes a holistic approach, where marketing aspects like advertising, promotion, public relations, direct and digital marketing, sponsorship, and events work cohesively to achieve a unified objective.
• It unifies all elements of marketing communications to convey a consistent, customer-focused message across various communication channels in today's market.

Traditional vs. Integrated Marketing

Traditional Marketing

• Company-driven approach.
• Aims to make a sale and increase profits.
• Uses print and broadcast media.
• Involves one-way communication, with the company speaking at the consumer.
• Employs mass audience/general messages.
• Uses uncoordinated messaging.
• Focuses on building awareness.

Integrated Marketing

• Consumer-driven approach.
• Aims to understand and meet the consumer's needs.
• Employs the best media options for the target audience
• Involves two-way communication, with the company speaking with the consumer.
• Uses personalized/tailored messages.
• Coordinated messaging is employed.
• Has a call to action.

The Role of Marketing

• Marketing builds brand and customer relationships that generate sales and profits.
• It can also be used to provide memberships and donations for nonprofits.
• Traditionally, marketing has been used to sell goods, services, and ideas.

Methods of Marketing Communications

• Marketing communication (marcom) includes advertising, public relations, sales promotion, direct response, events, sponsorships, point of sale, digital media, packaging, and personal sales

Brand Communication Defined

• Brand communication encompasses marketing communication messages and brand experiences to create and maintain a coherent brand.
• It integrates personal experiences that are cohesive to brand image and word of mouth.

Brand Communication - Airbnb

• Marketing Communication & Brand Experiences comprise Official Messages and Brand Experiences
• Official Messages include Belong Anywhere campaign, Host stories, Local promotions, Community guidelines, and guidelines on safety protocols.
• Brand Experiences include website and app consistency, booking process, Host communication, review platform, and payment systems
• Personal Experiences comprise Guest and Host Experiences
• Guest Experiences include unique stays, host interactions, local guides, check-in process and property standards.
• Host Experiences include host training, property photography, guest communication, support services, and rating systems.
• Word of Mouth - User-Generated Content includes guest reviews, social media posting, and community stories

Brand Communication's Role

• Marketing is designed to build brand and customer relationships that generate sales and profits.
• Marketing is designed to build brand and customer relationships that generate profits for nonprofits, volunteers, and donations.

Marketing Principle

• The challenge is to manage all of the brand messages delivered through marketing communication so that they work cohesively to present the brand in a coherent and consistent way.

Types of Markets

• There are four types of markets which are:
  • Consumer.
  • Business-to-business (B2B).
  • Institutional
  • Channel.

Four Types of Markets

• Consumer Markets involve individuals and households buying things for personal use, such as buying a new phone or going to a restaurant.
• Industrial Markets consist of businesses and organizations buying products for their own operations, such as a car company buying steel and rubber to make cars.
• Institutional Markets include hospitals, schools, churches, and government agencies that have specific needs, such as a hospital buying medical equipment or a school purchasing books.
• Channel Markets involve businesses that buy products from manufacturers and sell them to consumers, such as buying shoes from a store that got them from a wholesaler.

The Marketing Mix

Product

• Product refers to design, performance, and quality.
• Communication builds brand awareness, explains how the product works, and how it differs from its competitors.

Pricing

• Pricing is based on what the market will bear, competition, the relative value of the product, and the consumer's ability to gauge that value.
  • Price is a quality or status message.

Place/Distribution

• Place comprises channels used to make products accessible to customers.
  • The distribution channel sends a message.
• Push strategies promote products directly to customers, by pushing the message out using traditional advertising, or through sales promotions.
• Pull strategies attract customers to seek out products themselves, by pulling them toward the brand using content, search engine optimization or though word-of-mouth marketing.

Push vs Pull Strategy

• Push Strategy:
• Actively promotes products directly to customers.
• Examples include traditional advertising (TV, radio, print), direct mail campaigns, and sales promotions.
• Products are pushed through distribution channels from manufacturer to consumer via intermediaries.
• Location examples multiple retail locations, checkout counter placement, active promotion.
• Key Focus is on wide availability and active selling.
• Pull Strategy:
• Attracts customers to seek out products, pulling them toward the brand.
• SEO, Blog/Article content, social media engagement, influencer partnerships are all examples.
• Consumers demand products from retailers, who then request from manufacturers.
• Exclusive boutiques, by-request availability, pop-up shops, selective showrooms and online marketplaces are place/location examples.
• Selective availability and customer demand-driven are a key focus.

Example: The Price as an Element of the Marketing Mix

• McDonald's highlights its $1 items, their $1 menu has become a category for fast-food competitive battlegrounds.

The Value of Marcom

• Added value is a strategy/activity to make a product useful or appealing to consumers/distribution partners.
• The 3 P's (product, price, and place) add tangible value.
• Marcom adds psychological value.
• E.g. Harley-Davidson products

Product as an Element of the Marketing Mix

• Nike Jordan Brand (2024)
  • Limited edition Air Jordan releases that have innovative ankle support.
  • High price points from $150-300 creates product exclusivity.
  • Selective distribution on SNKRS and higher end retailers.
  • Blends digital drops, influencer collaborations, and social media hype.

Integrated Marketing (IMC) Defined

• Integrated Marketing Communication is the coordination of all brand communication messages and the marketing mix.
• Integration provides message focus.
• Creates synergy, for greater impact.

Brands

• Brands are a perception, often charged with emotion, from experiences and knowledge about an organization, company, or product line.

The Hierarchy of Brand Communication

• Brand communication starts with a brand strategy that is outlined in a marketing plan.
• Specific plans are developed for Marcom areas that are needed to implement marketing strategy

Acquiring Brand Meaning

• Marketing communication offers meaning-making signs to brands.
• Called brand meaning, this cannot be copied
• A brand encompasses feelings and emotions, plus trademarks or packaging design.

Principles of Branding

• A brand is an integrated perception derived from personal experiences with and messages about the brand.

Brand Transformation

• Brand identity cues include the brand name and visual symbols.
• A logo stands for the product's source, similar to a cattle brand.
• A trademark is a legal symbol of legal ownership.
• Position identifies where a product is in a consumer's mind relative to competitors;
  • A Brand Promise identifies key selling points of a product.
• Brand image is a mental picture or idea about a brand that includes associations and emotions.
• Brand personality provides human qualities to any brand.

Example – Levi's Jeans

• Marketing Communication Cues uses signals to communicate a brands particular values..
• The unique perception and associations become symbolic over time
• The feelings associated with the brand become emotional
• Physical/visible brand elements are the tangible factors
• Competitors cannot replicate what is unique about them

Example (Levi’s)

• The two-horses logo represents strength, quality never goes out of style, red tab signature, and American storytelling.
• It is a symbol of American culture & represents youth rebellion.
• Has emotional Freedom & rebellion, a brand identity that provides trust and authenticity & the 'American dream'.
• The brand is well known for it's double-stitched seams, distinctive pocket design, and has a leather patch.
• It's unique due to its historical authenticity, emotional ties, cultural significance, and brand stories.

Strategic Planning in IMC

The Strategic Planning elements in IMC

• The elements that are involved are:
  • Offering: What to offer the audience.
  • Message: Verbal and non-verbal that communicate the target audience.
  • Medium: Packaging and communication of traditional and digital mediums.
  • Control: How the company controls it's messages that go out. It is usually the function of the PR Team.
  • Goal: This objective is behind the campaign and ranges from short-term to revenue

The Five Steps in Media Planning

• Step 1 - Target Market Selection, the tighter the focus on the target- the easier to deliver the relevant message.(persona development)
• Step 2 - Communication and Media objective. ( Reach and Frequency objectives)
• Step 3 - Specific Media Strategies based on analyzing comparison for effective selection
• Step 4 - Media metrics and analytics are used to create a strategy that meets the needs of the business objective.
• Step 5 - Evaluation is to take any form of data that is important and useful to the client. ( KPIs)

Segmenting Markets

• Dividing a market into groups of people with similar qualities related to products. Ways to segment markets:
  • Divide by market type (business/consumer).
  • Refer to markets as:
    • Those who shop for and purchase the product.
    • Those who actually use the product.
    • Those who help the buyer with a brand choice.

Principles of Market Segmentation

• Effective segmenting identifies and eliminates people who are not relevant.

Segmentation Strategies

• Market segmentation matches customer needs and wants with products because markets aren't homogenous.
• Niche markets are smaller sub segments of a general market segment.
  • Niche markets are defined by interest/attitude.

Types of Marketing Segmentation

• Demographic focuses on gender, age, ethnicity and income.
• Life cycle focuses on certain stages of the consumer's life cycle.
• Geographic focuses on using location as a defining variable.
• Psychographic focuses on spending, views, opinions, and self views.
• Behavioral focuses on brand and product based on underlying values.
• Values focuses on benefits based on underlying values and problems.

Targeting the Best Audiences

• Through targeting, specific strategies are used to match the audience's interests, and product position is based on relevance to those interests.
• First, segmentation characteristics that separate a group of consumers from others are used.
• Then, descriptive ones are added.
• Each time a variable is added, the market narrows.

Target Markets

• Likely consumers of products/services.
• Target markets are those consumers most likely to purchase a company's products / services.
• Consumers have different backgrounds and lifestyles.
• Not everyone purchases the same product for same reason.

Explore integrated marketing communications (IMC) and its role in marketing strategies. Learn how to perform situation analysis to propose IMC tactics. Understand the promotional function and the role of target marketing in IMC.