Integrated Marketing Communications

1. Benefits for the company: competitive advantage (through coordinated brand development), improved productivity, greater focus, better positioning better relationships with the stakeholders

1. Further frangmentation of target markets and the increase in their skills and communication literacy demand IMC

1. IMC improves the efficiency of the message delivery

Annotations:

• By standardizing communication messages across a selected promotional mix

1. An organization that specializes in providing services such as media selection, creative work, production and campaign planning to clients

1. Information-based messages
2. Emotional messages

1. The communication process: simple and complex
   1. Target must be understood so the message is built accordingly and accepted with credibility rather than with disbelief and rejection
   2. Opinion formers

      Annotations:

      • Example: theatre critics
      1. Individuals who are able to exert personal influence because of authority, education or status associated with he objects of the communication process
   3. Send the message through multiple methods to ensure it is received by the target audience
   4. There is a shift from formal to informal advertisements

1. Mass marketing
   1. Non-personal messages to target wide audiences
   2. Main media
      1. Broadcast, print, digital
   3. Examples: Advertising, sales promotions and public relations
   4. Difficult to measure their impact => difficult to value the return of investment
2. Direct marketing
   1. Personal selling, exhibitions, direct marketing
   2. Used to target narrow and niche markets with personalized messages
   3. Easy to measure their impact, hence increase in usage in recent years
3. Digital marketing
   1. Websites, email marketing, buzz marketing, social media
   2. Can reach wide, narrow and individual target audiences
   3. Most measurable

1. Advertising
   1. Any paid form of non-personal communication of ideas or products in the prime media

      Annotations:

      • Prime media example: TV, the press, outdoor, cinema, radio, and the Internet
2. Personal selling
   1. Oral communication with prospective purchasers with the intention of making a sale
3. Direct marketing
   1. The distribution of products, information and promotional benefits to target consumers through interactive communication in a way that allows response to be measured
4. Digital promotions
   1. The promotion of products to consumers and businesses through digital media channels
5. Sales promotion
   1. Incentives to consumers to the trade that are designed to stimulate purchases
6. Public relations
   1. To educate and inform an organization's public through the media without paying for the time or space directly

1. Resource availability and the cost of promotional tools
2. Market size and concentartion
3. Customer information needs
4. Product characteristics
   1. B2B - inclined to personal sellings. B2C - inclined to advertising
5. Push versus pull strategies
   1. Push startegy
      1. Push the product onto the channel intermediaries who have to sell it to consumers (personal selling and trade promotions)
   2. Pull strategy
      1. Pull the demand from the consumers to the channel intermediaries which will be required to stock up (advertising and consumer promotions)

1. Main criteria: to effectively achieve the communication objectives
2. Broadcast television
   1. Advantages
      1. Demonstrate the product in action
      2. Colour, movement, sound -> creates atmosphere -> often used when building brand image and introducing new products
      3. Repeated over short-term period
   2. Disadvantages
      1. Shows and programmes can be recorded and viewed w/o ads
      2. Increasing competition due to technological advances and increased badwidth with more channels and less expensiveness
3. Broadcast radio
   1. More suited for factual information
   2. Digital radios enable visual info to be presented during an ad
   3. Relatively low production costs and growing consumer base
4. Press
   1. Suited for factual informatrion
   2. Readers are in control of time and repeat of exposure
   3. Lacks movement or sound (unless digital)
5. Digital
   1. Global reach at relatively low cost
   2. Reach can be measured
   3. Possible interaction between supplier and buyer
   4. Flexibility and ease of changing content
6. Social media
   1. Easier access to homogeneous groups
   2. Different people use social media for different objectives (socializing, publishing, entertainment, etc) so messages should be carefully tailored
7. Outdoor
   1. Guerilla
      1. Delliver communication messages through unexpected means and in ways that almost "ambush" the consumer to pay attention
   2. Simplicity is required because of shortness of exposure
   3. Used as a supportive tool because of creative limitations
   4. Suitable for building awareness
8. Indoor (in-store) media

   Annotations:

   • In transit stations, shopping malls, entertainment and sport arenas
9. Cinema
   1. Colour, movement, sound
   2. Possibly difficult repetition
   3. Predictable audience (15-25 yo)

1. Determine the focus, strategy and the actions which a campaign aims to achieve
2. Pull-positioning startegies
   1. Create awareness and need for action in target audiences

      Annotations:

      • Pre-announcements of launch to engender excitement
3. Push-positioning strategies
   1. Widely used in B2B (personal selling and trade promotions)
4. Profile-positioning strategies
   1. Aim to develop the image and identity of an organization
   2. Media relations
      1. The communication of a product or business by placiong information about iot in the media without paying for time or space directly

1. Disagreements between a company's employees about promotion