Integrated Marketing Communication Assignment (GC0299)
Table of Contents
Nature and Purpose of integrated marketing communication.
IMC Mix and their application in the global and domestic context
Values and potential of integrated marketing communication.
How integrated communication can create synergy.
References.
Table of figures
Figure 1 – The communication process.
Figure 2 – Marketing communication mix.
An essay on Integrated Marketing Approach (IMC) and its implication on domestics and cross-border context.
Integrated marketing communication is important for the managers and marketing staff because it is designed to communicate with the customers regarding any specific products or services. Different scholars have described the nature and application of integrated marketing communication. The core aspect of this issue is to inform the customer’s about the product or service that an organization is offering. The essay mainly looks forward to agreeing with Fill’s (2013) argument as he mentioned that integrated communication is becoming recognized among the academic considering its value and potential (essay option 1). However, IMC has other implications in the field of marketing. For instance, the different IMC mix is widely applied by various local and international organizations to promote and inform the customer about their products and services. The essay mainly discusses the different aspects of the IMC and its nature and how it can contribute to creating value and potential, synergy through effective application in the domestic and international context.
Nature and Purpose of integrated marketing communication
In order to understand the nature and purpose of IMC, it is important to find out the different definitions and elements. According to Techopedia (2018) ‘Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) blends various promotional tools and communications/marketing/advertising services and techniques to maximize profit.’ Businessdictionary.com (2018) says ‘An approach to achieving the objectives of a marketing campaign, through a well-coordinated use of different promotional methods that are intended to reinforce each other.’ It is important that integrated marketing communication can communicate with the customers or potential target audience through informing and collecting their feedback and opinion. However, it is not easy to create an environment where consumers will be easily available so they are more willing to give their feedback. For that purpose, marketers need to develop better marketing communication tools such as creative advertisements, new channels for publishing advertisements, creative ways to reach the target customers.
Our Recommended Resources:
Unit 3.24 Marketing Principles and Techniques Assignment Solution
Gurău (2008) emphasized that in order to understand the IMC and its value and potential, it is necessary to draw a discussion on the basic communication process. Here, the marketer act as the sender. The message is the ad content or promotion content or anything which will be sent to the target audience. Here the target audience is the customers. For instance, when Coca-Cola launches a new campaign, it designs various ad content that will be delivered as intended.
Figure 1 – The communication process
Here, Coca-Cola act as the sender. Encoding the message includes the issues of how it will convey the message to understand the emotional connection. The message channel is the platform where the advertisement will be publishable to the target audience. For instance, the message might include a TVC ad where a cause will be attached to the shed. Here, Coca-Cola can distribute ads to the TV channels, Social media platforms, or any media which is suitable for the distribution. Gurău (2008) also argued that it can also send this message to any print media so that the readers/viewers of those media can also be informed about the message. An ode to decode the message, it is necessary for the receivers or the target audience to understand the message.
However, Coca-Cola often gives the target viewers an opportunity to contact to know more about the offers. The receiver is the person who will actually use the message. Schlegelmilch (2016) found that Coca-Cola’s campaign in the previous year was to integrate the family bond with the product itself. The target people were all people around the world. It requires a positive attitude from the audience’s perspective to get the message.
In order to draw the difference between IMC and the traditional approach of marketing communication, various issues could be brought under discussion. Turner (2017) discussed that the traditional approach mainly uses advertising and promotion to communicate with the target audience for different products or services, however, IMC follows a more modern approach compared to the traditional approach to communicate with the customers of the target audience. Differences between these two approaches are discussed as follows –
Integration of media: Andrews and Shimp (2017) discussed that the traditional approach mainly involves advertising and public promotion in order to inform the customers about different offers while IMC follows a collection of tools such as social media, digital marketing, relationship marketing, TVC, direct marketing, etc. to communicate with the consumers.
Use of platforms: Blakeman (2018) found that the traditional marketing communication mainly depends on the TV, Radio or other print media for communication purpose but IMC use these media along with different internet-based platforms such as social media, video sharing platforms, blogs, emails to communicate with the customers.
The expense of advertising: The expense of advertising in traditional media is usually high because the platforms it uses are very costly. On the other hand, IMC uses internet media which is very cost-effective for many small companies. For large companies, such media promotions are also very cost-effective.
Effectiveness of communication: According to Andrews and Shimp (2017) it is hard to reach the different demographics by applying the differing traditional platforms TV or newspaper. However, the IMC approach uses more effective platforms that can easily reach the target demographics. For instance, Unilever uses different IMC to promote its advertisements for products of different ages.
Relationship building: Turner (2017) debated that IMC tools can help an organization to build a long-term relationship with the customer while communicating to the customer. Here feedback collection is easier. On the other hand, the Traditional approach is usually a one-way communication method that does not give the target audience to communicate……………………..