INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION
The spirit of this
essay is to do a diagnosis of the subject matter, integrated marketing
communications (IMC). This essay will do a prognosis of what integrated
marketing communications is, and subsequently a foray shall be made into the
constituents of the subject matter.
What
is Integrated Marketing Communication? .
Marketing communication
is an integral part of the marketing programme for most companies and
organisations. Though marketing communication is just a tip of marketing, it is
worth recognizing that much of marketing involves communication activities. Once
they have developed products and services, organizations must communicate the
value and benefits of the offerings to both current and potential customers in
both business-to-business and business-to-consumer. Therefore IMC is employed
as a machinery to deliver a consistent message to its buyers. In order to
understand what IMC is, it is apt to appreciate the individual words that make
up this phrase.
Integration:
A combination of parts or objects that work together well. (Microsoft Encarta
Dictionary 2009)
Marketing:
It is a set of activities whereby business and other organisation create transfers of value (exchange) between
themselves and their customers (Advertising Promotion, Terrence .A. Shimp,
2000)
Another school of
thought defines marketing as, the activity, set of institutions delivering and exchanging offering that
have value for customers, clients, partners or society at large. Value is
the customer’s perception of all the benefits of a product or service weighted
against all the cost acquiring or consuming it (Advertising and Promotion, G.
Belch & M. Belch, 2006, page 9). It is worth noting that these two schools
of thought crystallise at a point –
marketing aims at exchange of value.
Communication:
The process of receiving and sending messages and it occurs whenever we express
ourselves in a manner that is clearly understood. (Communication Matters, McCutchen,
Schaffer, Wycoff, 1994)
Having elucidated the
words integration, marketing and communication, we now take a critical look at
integrated marketing communication (IMC). IMC involves the coordination of
various promotional elements and other marketing activities that communicate
with a firm’s customers. (Advertising and Promotion, G. Belch & M. Belch,
2006)
IMC is a concept of
marketing communications planning that recognizes the added value of a
comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of
communication disciplines –general advertising, direct response, sales
promotion,and public relations – and combines these disciplines to provide
clarity, consistency, and maximum communication impact (Caywood, Schultz, and
Wang, 1991b: 2-3).
In other words IMC focuses
on marshalling all forms of promotion such as advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, publicity, sponsorship
marketing and point of sale for
effective communication. Thus it goes beyond the use of traditional media in
marketing. The advent of the new media
has augmented IMC. However for the purpose of this essay we shall concentrate
on the above mentioned forms of the IMC.
FORMS OF INTEGRATED
MARKETING COMMUNICATION
Advertising
Advertising is defined
as any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and
services through the mass media and with an identifiable sponsor (as evidenced
in the above adverts). It can either be text, picture or motion advert. Advertising
is mostly employed in the promotion mix because it has the advantage of
reaching out to countless people at the same and has the tendency of relatively
having the same effect on its audience if well communicated. It informs,
educates and persuades customers to purchase new brands of a product and reminds customers
to keep the brand fresh in their mind.
Sales Promotion
Sales promotion is
generally defined as the marketing activities that provide extra value or
incentives to the sales force, distributers or the ultimate consumer and can
stimulate immediate sales. (Advertising and Promotion, G. Belch & M. Belch,
2006) It can either be consumer oriented (e.g. couponing, sampling, premiums
and rebates) or trade oriented targeting wholesalers, distributors and
retailers. (E.g. price deals, sales contest and trade shows) Sales promotion
usually temporally changes the perceived value or price of the product or
service. A crystal example of sales promotion in Ghana is ‘buy one get one free’ promotions run by enterprises such
‘Shoprite’ and ‘Melcom’.
Publicity
Publicity shares
similar characteristics with advertising. But unlike advertising it is usually
not paid for and not run under any identifiable sponsor. It assumes the form of
news or editorial comments about the company’s product or activities. Companies
or organisations attempt to get media coverage for their activities because the
media considers the information news worthy. For instance, media coverage on
co-operate social responsibility activities of a company doubles as an
opportunity for that company to market itself. It is one affordable form of
marketing.
Sponsorship Marketing
Have you ever taken
time off to cogitate over the reason(s) why Coca-Cola and Guinness Companies
would sponsored events such as the 2010 world cup? They were engaged in
sponsorship marketing. The world cup provided a large flat form for them to
disseminate information about their products to a lot of people. Sponsorship
marketing is the practice of promoting the interests of a company and its
brands or one of its brands with a specific event which comes with a large
based audience and would project the company in lime-light. The failure or
success of the event sponsored can either dent or accentuate the reputation of
the sponsor. That notwithstanding it is one effective means of marketing.
Personal Selling
It is a form of person to person communication
whereby sales people inform, educate and persuade prospective buyers to
purchase a company’s product or services. It offers high customer attention;
the sales person is able to customise the message to meet the customer’s
specific interests; it also grants the company the opportunity to get immediate
feedback from customers on goods and services and subsequently it leads to a
long term relationship between the company and customer. However it is a
relatively costly form of marketing because it only communicates with one or a
few people at a time.
Point of Purchase Communication
This engulfs displays,
posters, signs and a variety of other materials that are designed to influence
buying decisions at the point of purchase. Such messages usually carry a voice of
urgency to propel customers to purchase those goods or services.
CONCLUSION
It is worth recognising
that all the above mentioned forms are not mutually exclusive of each other and
cannot stand alone in performing the task of marketing. They have to be interlaced
for effective marketing to be done.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
·
Terence
.A. Shimp: Advertising Promotion (5th
ed.) 2000
·
G.
Belch & M. Belch: Advertising
and Promotion (8th ed.)
·
McCutchen, Schaffer, Wycoff: Communication
Matters (1994)
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