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Q1. What is IMC and what are the main drivers of IMC? Explain the various benefits of IMC? Ans. IMC (Integrated Marketing Communications) Integrated Marketing Communications is a term used to describe a holistic approach to marketing communication. It aims to ensure consistency of message and the complementary use of media. The concept includes online and offline marketing channels. Online marketing channels include any e-marketing campaigns or programs, from search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click, affiliate, email, banner to latest web related channels for webinar, blog, micro-blogging, RSS, podcast, and Internet TV.
Offline marketing channels are traditional print (newspaper, magazine), mail order, public relations, industry relations, billboard, radio, and television. A company develops its integrated marketing communication programme using all the elements of the marketing mix (product, price, place, and promotion). Integrated marketing communication is integration of all marketing tools, approaches, and resources within a company which maximizes impact on consumer mind and which results into maximum profit at minimum cost.
Generally marketing starts from “Marketing Mix”. Promotion is one element of Marketing Mix. Promotional activities include Advertising (by using different medium), sales promotion (sales and trades promotion), and personal selling activities. It also includes internet marketing, sponsorship marketing, direct marketing, database marketing and public relations. And integration of all these promotional tools along with other components of marketing mix to gain edge over competitor is called Integrated Marketing Communication.
Reasons for the Growing Importance of IMC: Several shifts in the advertising and media industry have caused IMC to develop into a primary strategy for marketers: 1. From media advertising to multiple forms of communication. 2. From mass media to more specialized (niche) media, which are centered around specific target audiences. 3. From a manufacturer-dominated market to a retailer-dominated, consumer-controlled market. 4. From general-focus advertising and marketing to data-based marketing. 5. From low agency ccountability to greater agency accountability, particularly in advertising. 6. From traditional compensation to performance-based compensation (increased sales or benefits to the company). 7. From limited Internet access to 24/7 Internet availability and access to goods and services. Selecting the Most Effective Communications Elements: The goal of selecting the elements of proposed integrated marketing communications is to create a campaign that is effective and consistent across media platforms.
Some marketers may want only ads with the greatest breadth of appeal: the executions that, when combined, provide the greatest number of attention-getting, branded, and motivational moments. Others may only want ads with the greatest depth of appeal: the ads with the greatest number of attention-getting, branded, and motivational points within each. Although integrated marketing communications is more than just an advertising campaign, the bulk of marketing dollars is spent on the creation and distribution of advertisements. Hence, the bulk of the research budget is also spent on these elements of the campaign.
Once the key marketing pieces have been tested, the researched elements can then be applied to other contact points: letterhead, packaging, logistics, customer service training, and more, to complete the IMC cycle. Q2, Refer to the attached Procter & Gamble case study and explain the various issues that the advertising agency could possibly face, in developing the promotional campaign for ‘ThermaCare HeatWraps’? Ans: The advertising agency could face various issues like, As the product is new, customers could not understand how the product works or what it does.
They should explain to the customers how to use the product. They can give the customers free-trial, which may add cost. The ‘ThermaCare HeatWraps’ should be approved by the health organization. When the message content becomes lengthy, it could also add to the Ad time and Ad space, thereby increasing cost, so the communication has to be very brief and precise. A wider promotional mix may have to be used, which again will add to cost. To be able to contain the promotional cost to the stipulated budget of $90 million. It’s a health care product with scientific information.
But simple lay-man language would have to be used in the communications, otherwise consumers wouldn’t understand. Q3. What could be the Integrated Promotional Strategy that D’Arcy could possibly come up with, for the successful launch of ‘ThermaCare’? Ans. For successful launch of the product: 1) Do an extensive research on your target market. It’s never about you, and it’s always about them. Doing a thorough market research is something that should be present not just in the promotional items strategy, but in ALL marketing strategy.
This step is the very foundation of your campaign, and failing to do this effectively will always lead to disastrous results. 2) Evaluate and pick the best event where you can meet your target market. After your thorough market research, you should already have enough info to develop a segment for your target market based on their geographic, demographic, and psychographic classifications. And from this target segment, you should then find and utilize the best event that your segment is most likely be attending or joining. 3) Choose and design the perfect promotional items to fit your market, event, and brand.
Again, based on the segment you are targeting, you should then choose the appropriate promotional product that your target market will appreciate. Design also plays a big factor in the success of your campaign. Examples of design issues to focus on are saliency of logo to t-shirt colors and the clarity of message on printed items. 4) Plan a distribution program for your promotional items during the event which should answer the following questions: 1) how can your target market find or get attracted to your location (booth) during the event? ) How can you effectively distribute your corporate giveaway? 3)How can you deliver your message (sales pitch) or gather information from your target market (contact details) during the distribution process? 5) Create a system to organize all gathered info. This step is often overlooked since most believe that the success of the promotional item campaign is only measured by the success of the event itself. But in truth, this step will separate the weak from the strong marketing strategy. A solid system in organizing your gathered info will often determine the ROI of your efforts. ) Design a lead follow-up program from the gathered information. In other words, call and follow-up on your gathered leads. Q4. What are the various methods to measure a campaign’s effectiveness? Ans. The most suitable criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of advertising, depends on a number variables, such as the advertising goals, the type of media used, the cost of evaluation, the value that the business or advertising agency places on evaluation measures, the level of precision and reliability required, who the evaluation is for and the budget.
It is difficult to accurately measure the effectiveness of a particular advertisement, because it is affected by such things as the amount and type of prior advertising, consumer brand awareness, the availability of cost effective evaluation measures, the placement of the advertising and a range of things about the product itself, such as price and even the ability of the target audience to remember. There are a number of different models for measuring advertising effectiveness. E.
Pomerance suggests that advertising agencies might attempt to measure effectiveness under the five headings of Profits, Sales, Persuasion, Communication and Attention (Wheatley, 1969, p. 91). He uses a cube diagram to illustrate how to evaluate advertising that recognises the effect of repeated exposures (Wheatley, 1969, p. 93). Lavidge and Steiner suggest a model for ‘predictive measurement of advertising effectiveness’ (Wheatley, 1969, p. 7), which recognises various stages of purchasing behaviour, and suitable measures for each stage. Kotler nd Armstrong call these stages, ‘Buyer readiness stages’ (1996, p. 463-464). They may be viewed like this: Awareness, Knowledge, Liking, Preference, Conviction and Purchase (Wheatley, 1969, p. 7). Kotler and Armstrong suggest that two areas need to be evaluated in an advertising programme. They call them the ‘communication effect’ and ‘the sales effect (1996, p. 507-508). To evaluate the sales effect, company information about sales and sales expenditure would be needed. To evaluate the communication effect, Kotler and Armstrong (1996, p. 507-508), suggest using a number of research tests.
They suggest that these evaluation measures are not perfect. Surveys and brand/product recognition tests after an advertising campaign are sometimes used in a two pronged way to advertise and gather evaluation information. Effectiveness of online advertising is sometimes measured in terms of the number of page views collected through various forms of counters and search engine page rankings. One cost effective way of evaluating the effectiveness of the advertisement in terms of sales and movement towards purchasing is what Kotler and Armstrong (1996, p. 480) call Integrated Direct Marketing.
It is marketing that has a response section which can lead to more appropriate communication between the company and the prospect. This can also give the company the opportunity to trigger further movement towards purchasing, so it has the potential to have a greater impact on sales than a similar advertisement without the response section. It is not only online advertisers who are using this method of requiring an email contact address and giving the customer a choice of receiving more information or newsletters about their product/s. Vouchers and coupons have been used in a similar way.
All advertisements have the potential to trigger some form of purchasing behaviour. Effectiveness may have more to do with the readiness of the viewer to consider the benefits the advertisement promotes, than the advertisement itself. It may be more cost effective to invest in finding creative ways to measure the effectiveness of an advertising campaign that is part of an advertising campaign in itself, but at the end of the day your goals are the key. It may come down to estimating how happy you are with what you are doing. Reference: www. wikihow. com www. articlesbase. com