Designing and Managing Integrated Marketing Communications

MARKETING PROMOTION / COMMUNICATIONS

The term “Promotion” has been derived from the word “Promote” to mean “to put forward” or
“to advance”. In marketing, promotion signifies all the company efforts to boost up sales the
company offers. Every company is inevitably cast into the role of a promoter and communicator.
A company must promote its middlemen, customers, and various publics with which it works. Its
middlemen promote their customers and other publics. Consumers again engage in word – of –
mouth promotion with other consumers and publics. Meanwhile, each group provides promotion
feedback to every other group. Thus every company requires to manage a complex marketing
promotion system.

McCarthy says, “Promotion is communicating information between buyers and sellers – to

influence attitudes and behavior.”

Evans and Berman says, “Promotion is any form of communication used by a firm to inform,
persuade, or remind people about its products, services, image, ideas, community involvement,
or impact on society.”

Philip Kotler says, “Promotion stands for various activities a company undertakes to
communicates its product’s merits and to persuade target customers to buy them.”

As a whole, marketing promotion or communications are the means by which firms attempt to
inform, persuade, and remind consumers – directly or indirectly – about the products and brands
that they sell. In a sense, marketing communications represent the “Voice” of the brand and are a
means by which it can establish a dialogue and build relationships with customers and publics.

THE MARKETING PROMOTION / COMUNICATIONS MIX

A company's total marketing communications mix -- also called its promotion mix -- consists of
the specific blend of advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and public relations,
and direct marketing tools that the company uses to pursue its advertising and marketing
objectives. Tools of marketing promotion mix are :

1. Advertising : Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion

of ideas, goods, and services by an identified sponsor.

2. Personal Selling : Personal selling is personal presentation by the firm’s sales force for
the purpose of making sales and building customer relationships.

3. Sales Promotion : Sales promotion is the short term incentives to encourage the purchase
or sale of a product or service.

4. Public Relations : Public relations or publicity is building good relations with the
company’s various publics by obtaining favorable publicity, building up a good corporate
image, and handling or heading off unfavorable rumors, stories, and events.

5. Direct Marketing : Direct marketing is direct communications with carefully targeted

individual consumers to obtain an immediate response – the use of mail, telephone, fax,
e-mail, internet, and other non-personal tools to communicate directly with specific
consumers or to solicit a direct response.

6. Events and Experiences : They cover a wide range of company-sponsored activities

and programs designed to create daily or special brand related interactions.

PROMOTION MIX STRATEGIES

A company's total marketing communications mix -- also called its promotion mix -- consists of
the specific blend of advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and public relations, and
direct marketing tools that the company uses to pursue its advertising and marketing objectives.

Marketers can choose from two basic promotion mix strategies -- push promotion or pull
promotion.

1) A Push Strategy : A push strategy involves "pushing" the product through distribution
channels to final consumers. The producer directs its marketing activities (primarily personal
 selling and trade promotion) toward channel members to induce them to carry the product
and to promote it to final consumers.

2) A Pull Strategy : A pull strategy calls for the producer to direct its marketing activities
(primarily advertising and consumer promotion) toward the final consumers to induce them
to buy the product. Under a pull strategy, consumers demand "pull" the product through the
channels.

Producer promotes Wholesaler promotes Retailer promotes Consumers

Aggressively to Aggressively to Aggressively to

Figure : A Push Strategy

Producer promotes
Aggressively to Wholesaler Retailer Consumer

Figure : A Pull Strategy

DEVELOPING PROMOTION MIX STRATEGIES

The following factors need to be considered in developing promotion mix strategies.

1) Type of the Product / Market : The importance and effectiveness of different promotion
tools vary between consumer goods or markets and industrial goods or markets. The differences
are shown in the figure.

Consumer-goods companies normally devote most of their funds to advertising followed by

sales promotion, personal selling, and finally publicity.

Industrial- goods companies devote most of their funds to personal selling followed by sales
promotion, advertising, and publicity.
2) Buyer-Readiness Stage : The effects of the promotional tools vary for the different
buyer-readiness stages. Advertising, along with public relations, plays the major role in the
awareness and knowledge stages. Customer liking, preference, and conviction are more affected
by personal selling followed by advertising. Finally, closing the sale is mostly done with sales
calls and sales promotion.

3) Product Life-Cycle Stage : The effects of different promotion tools vary with stages of the
product life cycle.

■ In the introduction stage, advertising and publicity have high cost-effectiveness followed
by sales promotion to induce trial, and personal selling to gain distribution coverage.

■ In the growth stage, all the tools can be toned down because demand has its own
momentum through word-of-mouth communication.

■ In the matured stage, sales promotion, advertising, and personal selling , all become more
important in that order.

■ In the decline stage, sales promotion continues strong, advertising and publicity are
reduced, and salespeople give product only a little attention.

THE MARKETING COMMUNICATION PROCESS

Marketers need to understand how communication takes place and works. This involves the
marketing communication process. Lasswell mentioned that a communication model will answer
1) who 2) says what 3) in what channel 4) to whom 5) with what effect. A communication model
revolves round nine elements.

Two elements represent the major parties involved in the communication process -- sender and
receiver.

Another two represent the major communication tools -- message and media.
Four represent major communication functions -- encoding, decoding, response, and feedback

The last element represents noise in the communication system.

■ Sender : The party sending the message to another party. Senders must know what
audiences they want to reach and what responses they want.

■ Receiver : The party receiving the message sent by another party (also called the
audience or destination).

■ Message : The set of symbols that the sender transmits. Say, the appeal of the advertising
copy.

■ Media : The communication channels through which the message moves from sender to
receiver. The source must transmit the message through efficient media that reach he
target audience.

■ Encoding : The process of putting thought into symbolic form. Senders must be skillful
in encoding messages.

■ Decoding : The process by which the receiver assigns meaning to the symbols
transmitted by the sender. The source can encode, and the destination can decode, only in
terms of the experience each has.

■ Response : The set of reactions that the receiver has after being exposed to the message.

■ Feedback : The part of the receiver's response that the receiver communicates back to the
sender.

■ Noise : This is the unplanned static or distortion during the communication process,
which results in the receiver's receiving a different message than the sender sent.
 Message

Sender Encoding Decoding Receiver

Media

Noise

Feedback Response

Figure : The Communication Process

STEPS IN DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE MARKETING

COMMUNICATIONS

1) Identifying the Target Audience : A marketing communicator starts with a clear target
audience in mind. The audience may be potential buyers, or current users, those who make
the buying decision, or those who influence it. The audience may be individuals, groups,
special publics, or the general public. The target audience will affect the communicator's
decision on what will be said, how it will be said, when it will be said, where it will be said,
and who will say it.

2) Determining the Communication Objectives : Once the target audience has been defined,
the marketing communicator must decide what response is sought. The ultimate response, of
course, is purchase. But purchase is the result of a long process of consumer decision
 making. The marketing communicator needs to know where the target audience now stands
and to which state it needs to be moved. The target audience may be in any of the six buyer
readiness stages -- awareness, knowledge, liking, preference, conviction, or purchase.

3) Designing a Message : Audience response does not come merely from its exposure to an ad.
its response comes from what the ad said and how the ad said it. Having defined the desired
audience response, the communicator moves to developing an effective message.
Formulating the message will require solving three problems -- a) what to say (message
content); b) how to say it logically (message structure); c) and how to say it symbolically
(message format).

a) Message Content : The communicator has to figure out an appeal or theme that will produce
the desired response. Three types of ad appeal can be of importance :

■ Rational Appeals : It relates to the audience's self-interest. They show that the product
will produce the claimed benefits.

■ Emotional Appeals : It attempts to stir up some negative or positive emotion that will
motivate purchase. Communicators have worked with fear, guilt and shame appeals in
getting people to do things they should (brush teeth after meal); or stop doing things they
should not (smoking, drug abuse, overeating).

■ Moral Appeals : They are directed to the audience's sense of what is right and proper.
They are often used to urge people to support social causes such as ''equal rights for
women'', ''pollution-free environment''. They are not often used in connection with
everyday products.

a) Message Structure : The effectiveness of a message depends on its structure, that is how to
say it logically. Here the communicator decides on three issues.

■ Whether to draws a definite conclusion or leave it to the audience. Drawing a conclusion

is usually more effective.

■ Whether to present a one -sided or two-sided argument. Usually one-sided argument is

more effective in sales presentation except where the audiences are highly educated and
negatively disposed.

■ Whether to present the strongest arguments first or last. Presenting them first establishes
strong attention, but may lead to an anti-climatic ending.
b) Message Format : The communicator must decide how to say the message symbolically.
Three points to consider here carefully :

■ In the print ad newspaper or magazine or bulletin, he has to decide on the headline, copy,
illustration, layout and color. To attract attention, advertiser's use distinctive headlines,
illustrations and color.

■ If the message is to be carried over the radio, the communicator has to choose words,
voice qualities (speech rate, rhythm, articulation), and vocalizations.

■ If the message is to be carried on TV or in person, then all these elements plus

body-language (non-verbal clues) have to be planned. Presentators have to pay attention
to facial expressions, gestures, posture, dress and hair style.

4) Choosing Media: The communicator must now select efficient channels of communication.
Communication channels are of two broad types;

a) Personal Communication Channels : Here two or more persons communicate directly with
each other. They might communicate face to face, person to audience, over the telephone, or
even through the mails on a personal correspondence basis. Personal communication
channels are effective because they allow for personal addressing and feedback.

b) Non -personal Communication Channels : Non-personal communication channels are

media that carry messages without personal contact or feedback including major media --
mass and selective, atmospheres and events.

5) Selecting the Message Source : The message's impact on the target audience is affected by
how the audience views the communicator. Messages delivered by highly credible sources
are more persuasive. For example, pharmaceutical companies want doctors to tell about their
product's benefits because doctors are very credible. Many food companies promote to
doctors, dentists, and other health care providers to motivate these professionals to
recommend their products to patients. Some companies hire celebrities -- well-known
athletes(Micheal Jordan for Nike), actors(Ricky Martin for Pepsi-Cola) and even cartoon
characters(Bill Cosby for Jell-O Pudding).

6) Collecting Feedback : After sending the message, the communicator must reach its effect on
the target audience. This involves asking the target audience members whether they
remember the message, how many they saw it, what points they recall, how they felt about
 the message, and their past and present attitudes toward the product and company. The
communicator would like to measure behavior resulting from the message -- how many
people bought a product, talked to others about it, or visited the store. Feedback on marketing
communications may suggest changes in the promotion program or in the product offer itself.

Selected Readings :

● Marketing Management : Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller, 15th edn 2016, Pearson
India Education Services, New delhi. (pages: 535 – 560)

● Integrated Advertising, Promotion, and Marketing Communications : Kenneth E. Clow &

Donald Baack, 2nd edn 2005 Prentice –Hall India.

● Advertising and Promotion : An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective,

George E. Belch & Michael A. Belch : 10th edn 2016, Irwin/McGraw – Hill USA

● Dirksen,C.J, Kroeger A, Nicosia, F.M: Advertising : Principles and Management Cases :

8th edn 1998, Richard D, Irwin Inc, USA

A courtesy for the BBA students of the University of Dhaka by Professor Dr . Samir Kumar
Sheel. The author can be reached at: [email protected]

VERY GOOD LUCK