LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY

Mittal School of Business

Name of the faculty member: Dr. Harvinder Singh

Course Code: MKT569

Course Title: IMC

Submitted By,

Verma Pankaj Ramesh Reg.no - 11506369

Project Name: FACEBOOK

Section: Q2E73
 Introduction

Facebook, American company offering online social networking services. Facebook was
founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris
Hughes, all of whom were students at Harvard University. Facebook became the largest
social network in the world, with more than one billion users as of 2012, and about half that
number were using Facebook every day. The company’s headquarters are in Menlo Park,
California.

The attractiveness of Facebook stems in part from cofounder Zuckerberg’s insistence from
the very beginning that members be transparent about who they are; users are forbidden from
adopting false identities. The company’s management argued that transparency is necessary
for forming personal relationships, sharing ideas and information, and building up society as
a whole. It also noted that the bottom-up, peer-to-peer connectivity among Facebook users
makes it easier for businesses to connect their products with consumers.

The company has a complicated early history. It began at Harvard University in 2003 as
Facemash, an online service for students to judge the attractiveness of their fellow students.
Because the primary developer, Zuckerberg, violated university policy in acquiring resources
for the service, it was shut down after two days. Despite its mayflylike existence, 450 people
(who voted 22,000 times) flocked to Facemash. That success prompted Zuckerberg to register
the URL http://www.thefacebook.com in January 2004. He then created a new social network
at that address with fellow students Saverin, Moskovitz, and Hughes.

The social network TheFacebook.com launched in February 2004. Harvard students who
signed up for the service could post photographs of themselves and personal information
about their lives, such as their class schedules and clubs they belonged to. Its popularity
increased, and soon students from other prestigious schools, such as Yale and Stanford
universities, were allowed to join. By June 2004 more than 250,000 students from 34 schools
had signed up, and that same year major corporations such as the credit-card company
MasterCard started paying for exposure on the site.

Privacy remains an ongoing problem for Facebook. It first became a serious issue for the
company in 2006, when it introduced News Feed, which consisted of every change that a
user’s friends had made to their pages. After an outcry from users, Facebook swiftly
implemented privacy controls in which users could control what content appeared in News
Feed. In 2007 Facebook launched a short-lived service called Beacon that let members’
friends see what products they had purchased from participating companies. It failed because
members felt that it encroached on their privacy. Indeed, a survey of consumers in 2010 put
Facebook in the bottom 5 percent of companies in customer satisfaction largely because of
privacy concerns, and the company continues to be criticized for the complexity of its user
privacy controls and for the frequent changes it makes to them.

In 2008 Facebook surpassed Myspace as the most-visited social media Web site. With the
introduction of Live Feed, the company also took a competitive swing at the growing
popularity of Twitter, a social network that runs a live feed of news service-like posts from
members whom a user follows. Similar to Twitter’s ongoing stream of user posts, Live Feed
pushed posts from friends automatically to a member’s homepage. (Live Feed has since been
incorporated into News Feed.)

Facebook has become a powerful tool for political movements, beginning with the U.S.
presidential election of 2008, when more than 1,000 Facebook groups were formed in support
of either Democratic candidate Barack Obama or Republican candidate John McCain. In
Colombia the service was used to rally hundreds of thousands in protests against the anti-
government FARC guerrilla rebellion. In Egypt, activists protesting the government of Pres.
Hosni Mubarak during the uprising of 2011 often organized themselves by forming groups on
Facebook.

In February 2012 Facebook filed to become a public company. Its initial public offering
(IPO) in May raised $16 billion, giving it a market value of $102.4 billion. By contrast, the
largest IPO of an Internet company to date was that of the search-engine company Google
Inc., which had raised $1.9 billion when it went public in 2004. By the end of the first day of
the stock’s trading, Zuckerberg’s holdings were estimated at more than $19 billion.
IMC Performance Objectives

Business Objective

1. To continue to provide highly relevant, precisely targetable advertising space to customers

(brands) on both mobile and desktop

2. Increase revenue from particularly from the travel sector from 6% to 20%

Marketing Objective

1. Retain existing users by providing them with value through meaningful and relevant
features

2. Stimulate Travel Advertising Sector Revenue

3. To increase user engagement (frequency of use) by 30% of existing users aged 24-35, with
a spill over of 6 years below and above

a. Likes on branded and friends posts

b. Comments on branded and friends posts

c. Uploading of content: photos, videos, articles, status updates

d. Reviews on restaurants and places

e. More completed basic data on user profiles

IMC Objectives

Through this particular IMC campaign, the aforementioned business and marketing
objectives shall be reached.

 To augment interest, buzz, earned media and engagement through a promotional

direct marketing (social media) campaign featuring a contest

 To increase top-of-mind awareness of integrated features using functional explanatory

as well as emotional elements in advertising and direct marketing
  To improve Facebook’s likeability and popularity by highlighting usefulness through
public relations

 To increase advertising revenue from the travel sector which particularly responds
with millennials

Facebook IMC Planning:

Facebook Inc. marketing communication mix is associated with the integration of individual
elements of marketing mix into the marketing strategy of the social media company.
Elements of the marketing communication mix include print and media advertising, sales
promotions, events and experiences, public relations, direct marketing and personal selling.

Advertising

1. Being a popular e-commerce company, Facebook Inc. also occasionally advertises itself
via traditional media such as billboards and television. In the UK, the company has already
invested more than GBP 6m in advertising through traditional media in 2015, compared to a
meager GBP 16,000 spent by the company in the previous year. Moreover, Facebook
traditional media advertisements in the UK included major TV channels and The London
Underground.

Nevertheless, viral marketing remains to be the main advertising technique extensively

utilized by Facebook. Recently, the company launched a massive ad campaign for Facebook
Live, placing user videos at the core of the campaign. The social media giant also runs its
own advertisements on Facebook. Generally, For 2015, 2014, and 2013, advertising
accounted for 95%, 92% and 89%, respectively, of the company’s revenue.
2. In 2012, Facebook launched its first advertisement to celebrate the acquisition of 1billion
users. In this ad, the company compared itself to chairs, as “things that people use to get
together so they can open up and connect. Chairs are for people, and that is why chairs are
like Facebook.’’ The advert did not resonate particularly well with the public and was a base
for many parodies (Starke, 2012). Mashable’s editor-in-chief Lance Ulanoff said “It was
created to celebrate the social media platform’s 1 billion active monthly users and my
takeaway is that Facebook is an empty chair”. He further highlighted that the ad used
confusing analogies, that there was an absence of technology but an overabundance of
vagueness that spoilt an otherwise beautifully shot commercial The commercial ran in 13
countries including America, the UK, Japan and Indonesia.

The company has since launched numerous friendship-themed short video adverts and picture
adverts on their own Facebook page, which are also available on their own YouTube channel.
Facebook features “Facebook stories”, which asks users to submit their extraordinary story
that involves Facebook as a platform of communication. It is heavily reliant on viral aspects
than pushing their products further.

Sales Promotion

The list of the most popular sales promotions techniques used by many businesses around the
globe include money off coupons, competitions, discount vouchers, free gifts, point of sales
materials, loyalty cards and others. Up to date, Facebook has not used any of these sales
promotions techniques in order to increase the sales of its Facebook Ads. Instead, the social
media company chooses to concentrate on increasing the level of customization of its
advertising service reflecting the unique aspects of each business that wants to advertise on
Facebook in terms of target customer segment, advertising budget, duration of advertisement
campaign and other.
Facebook and IMC

“To date, the Facebook user community has grown virally with users inviting their friends to
connect with them, supported by internal efforts to stimulate user awareness and

interest.“(Facebook Annual Report 2013) To date, Facebook has heavily relied on earned
media and bits of advertising efforts. In comparison to its main competitor, Google,
Facebook’s global ad spend with $117 million in 2013, seems incredibly small to 21 billion
(Figure 20). Considering the different size and nature of both businesses, this chart does not
provide enough insight into the allocation of funds for advertising.

When the advertising spend is put into context with the company’s revenue, it becomes
visible how much of its total revenue the companies are dedicating towards advertising.
Where Facebook’s $117 million are just about 1.49% of its total revenue (after cost),
Google’s $21 billion make up 37% of their ad spend. As previously mentioned, Facebook has
been relying on its community to grow its user base virally, with a certain amount of internal
efforts that have stimulated user awareness and interest.
Public Relations

Public relations traditionally were not accounted for being a part of the marketing
communications process, but solely acting as the ‘press agent’, bridging the company’s point
of view and the media coverage of the company’s activities Gradually, it became evident that
public relations needed to be embedded as a part of an integrated communications process to
achieve and leverage a unified brand image. Essentially, PR is a communications tool, which
is used to promote goodwill towards the firm as a whole. As the matrix below further
illustrates, the “General Public”, of which users and potential users are a part of, is in the
“Meet their Needs”-quadrant. These stakeholders’ needs are habitually met by consultation
and engagement. Since their influence power is already on a high level, the aim here should
be to increase the interest level to progress those to become key player.. Conclusively, the
interest level of the users needs to increase in order to foster engagement- by transforming the
general public into a priority, namely a key player. The latter will need to be involved in
decision making processes and engaged and consulted with regularly through a two-way
symmetric communications model.

Direct Marketing

“The success of direct marketing originates from the corner shopkeepers philosophy of
having close and personal contact with customers, knowing everyone’s needs and wants,
providing them with the best solution to their problems and giving them excellent after-sales
service.” Since then, however, technology has profoundly transformed this tool, ranging from
automation to increased storage capacities for databases and marketing intelligence systems
thereof. Thanks to the latter, direct mail, telemarketing and direct response advertising have
evolved from being traditional, low profile and pushy techniques to what potentially could be
highly sophisticated techniques that could aid in long-term relationship building. For this
IMC, it is of particular importance to reconnect with the audience- direct marketing here can
support an intermediary-free dialogue between the business and its customers. This will form
a foundation for building and developing this direct relationship between the organization and
its customers. To provide users with meaningful, relevant content, it is imperative that the
company is continuously trying to understand its customers better.

Facebook IMC Campaign

Message Development

Facebook’s skeleton is nothing but a highly complex structure of enormous data. Much the
questions of what would happen if we were able to access the 100% full potential of our
brain, Facebook’s data is quite properly indexed but left not to be accessed. In addition to
openness and connectivity, the campaign will include the element of “exploration”. In order
to elevate its image, which is currently resting on a level which somewhat has lost its novelty
long time.

Formulating a message needs to solve the following problems:

 What to say? (Message content)

 How to say it? (Message format)
 Who should say it? (Message-source)”
The key content of the message is to make yourself and the world a better place through
exploration and curiosity. It will be communicated through various channels, especially
through the campaign contest, advertising

Campaign Messages

There is a slight difference between a tagline and a slogan. A tagline is a distillation of the
corporate values and identity into a short and catchy phrase to reinforce the brand essence
and highlight the difference between the firm and its competitors.

 Tagline: Open. Explore. Connect.

Facebook’s Tagline so far has been its ‘Like’ icon , as it appears at the end of every short
video they have posted on their own Facebook wall. It is also accompanied by a small sound;
similar to it’s messaging notification tone. Since this iconic sign is unmistakably
recognizable, it is going to be kept. However, since the campaign is trying to move away
from and refresh its old image and draw attention to its true potential, these three words are
going to be added:

 Open - Facebook has had a tremendous impact on global communications as it has

visually shortened distances, opened and brought the world closer together.
 Explore- This is the element that adds novelty to the whole image, whilst the other
two components just act as a reminder of Facebook’s potency. As previously
mentioned, it will embody the adventure and curiosity resonating with Millennials,
unlocking the potential of the tremendous data that is available, but not used most
efficiently. Moreover, since this campaign is aiming to increase revenue from the
travel sector, the exploration element will also educate and inspire its audience to
travel more.
 Connect- Along with its mission statement of making the world more open and
connected, Facebook has truly changed the way in which people connect across the
world. Not only through linking with friends’ profiles but also connecting users to
tremendous amounts of data and information, truly underlining the meaning of web
2.0.
Push Strategy

Push strategies involve messages that are proactively sent out, bringing the product to the
customer. Since there is no tangible product, the sales promotion and direct marketing in this
case count as a push strategy, as this effort is actively seeking for users to participate.

 Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing Contest

Sales promotion and direct marketing are used jointly for this section, as the prize
contest is considered a sales promotion tool, whereas it will be held on a social media
platform, which elicits direct responses from its participants, counting as direct
marketing. This will be the first stage of the IMC campaign. Through Facebook’s
Facebook page, users will be encouraged to participate in a contest. The participants
are required to upload a 1-minute long video of themselves, expressing their
exploratory nature. It is freely up to the user what content to produce, as long as it
creatively illustrates the adventurous and exploratory nature of the person. Since self-
expression is embraced by the target audience, it is expected to awaken people’s
interest. Users have to use the hashtag #Facebookexplorer when uploading the video
to enter the contest. The prize awaiting the candidate with the most likes on his post
is a 3 months world trip.

Facebook’s Facebook page has 163million likes. Since it is the company’s own page,
they can use maximum organic reach.
Pull Strategy

Advertising

Even though the contest is the core of this campaign, the firm is also trying to raise
top of mind awareness and foster a favourable attitude towards them. As advertising is
powerful in terms of persuading and influencing attitudes, it will target people outside
of the Facebook bubble.
Outdoor Advertising

London underground billboards are eye-catching and provide a welcoming variety to

commuters. More importantly, 74% of underground users are in the social class ABC1 and
aged between 18-35 years (Outdoor Media Centre, 2014). The daily traffic of the
underground service amounts to 30 million people. Examples of billboards and escalator
adverts can be found below Initially, these ads will only be very visual but with very little
text. It has deliberately been designed this way to awaken the interest of its audience. A quick
response code (QRC), will be embedded in each advert, which can be scanned for more
information. Given the lack of previous adverts, people’s interest will be captured and make
them keen to find out more. The QRC will also allow for evaluation of and tracking of each
outlet. These will allow for measurement of effectiveness geographically and possibly used
for future campaigns.

Escalator Advertising

As far as underground escalators are concerned, the entire rows of adverts will be reserved to
ensure maximum effect. The audience’s interest can be captured at the start, and towards the
end of the escalator ride, people will have enough information to associate these adverts with
the Facebook brand. Since London underground escalators are fairly long, it will leave
enough time for people to scan the QR code.