Integrated Marketing

Communications Strategy
Or
“PROMOTION”
 IMCS
• Here we examine the last of the marketing
mix tools – promotion. Promotion is not a
single tool but rather a mix of several
tools. Ideally, under the concept of
integrated marketing communications, the
company will carefully coordinate these
promotion elements to deliver a clear,
consistent, and compelling message about
the organization and its products.
 The Marketing Communications Mix

• A company’s total marketing

communications mix – also called its
promotion mix – consists of the specific
blend of advertising, sales promotion,
public relations, personal selling, and
direct-marketing tools that the company
uses to pursue its advertising and
marketing objectives.
 Advertising
• Any paid form of nonpersonal presentation
and promotion of ideas, goods, or services
by an identified sponsor.
 Sales promotion
• Short-term incentives to encourage the
purchase or sale of a product or service.
 Public relations
• Building good relations with the company’s
various publics by obtaining favorable
publicity, building up a good corporate
image, and handling or heading off
unfavourable rumours, stories, and events.
 Personal Selling
• Personal presentation by the firm’s sales
force for the purpose of making sales and
building customer reationships.
 Direct Marketing
• Direct connections with carefully targeted
individual consumers to both obtain an
immediate response and cultivate lasting
customer relationships – the use of
telephone, mail, fax, e-mail, the internet,
and other tools to communicate directly
with specific consumers.
• Each category involves specific tools. For example,
advertising includes print, broadcast, Internet, outdoor,
and other forms. Sales promotion includes point-of-
purchase displays, premiums, discounts, coupons,
specialty advertising, and demonstrations. Public
relations includes press releases, sponsorships, and
special events. Personal selling includes sales
presentations, trade shows, and incentive programs.
Direct marketing includes catalogues, telephone
marketing, kiosks, the Internet, and more. Thanks to
technological breakthroughs, people can now
communicate through a wide variety of media, including
newspapers, radio, telephone, television, fax, cell
phones, and the internet.
• At the same time, communication goes
beyond these specific promotion tools.
The product’s design, its price, the shape
and colour of its package, and the stores
that sell it – all communicate something to
buyers. Thus although the promotion mix
is the company’s primary communication
activity, the entire marketing mix –
promotion and product, price, and place –
must be coordinated for greatest
communication impact.
• Now we begin examining the rapidly
changing marketing communications
environment, the concept of integrated
marketing communications, and the
marketing communication process. Next,
we discuss the factors that marketing
communicators must consider in shaping
an overall communication mix. Then we
summarize the legal, ethical, and social
responsibility issues in marketing
communications.
 Integrated Marketing Communications

• During the past several decades, companies

around the world have perfected the art of mass
marketing – selling highly standardized products
to masses of customers. In the process, they
have developed effective mass-media
advertising techniques to support their mass-
marketing strategies. These companies routinely
invest millions of dollars in the mass media,
reaching tens of millions of customers with a
single ad. However as we move into the 21st
century, marketing managers face some new
marketing communications realities.
 The Changing Communications
Environment
• 2 major factors are changing the face of today’s
marketing communications. First, as mass
markets have fragmented, marketers are shifting
away from mass marketing. More and more,
they are developing focused marketing
programs designed to build closer relationships
with customers in more narrowly defined
micromarkets.
• Second, vast improvements in information
technology are speeding the movement toward
segmented marketing. New technologies
provide new communications avenues for
reaching smaller customer segments with more-
tailored messages.
 The need for Integrated Marketing
Communications

• The shift from mass marketing to targeted

marketing, and the corresponding use of a
larger, richer mix of communication channels
and promotion tools, poses a problem for
marketers. Customers don’t distinguish between
message sources the way marketers do. In the
consumer’s mind, advertising messages from
different media and different promotional
approaches all become part of a single message
about the company. Conflicting messages from
these different sources can result in confused
company images and brand positions.
• The problem is that these communications
often come from different company
sources. Advertising messages are
planned and implemented by the
advertising department or advertising
agency. Personal selling communications
are developed by sales management.
Other functional specialists are
responsible for public relations, sales
promotion, direct marketing, Web sites,
and other forms of marketing
communications.
 IMC
• In the past, no one person or department was
responsible for thinking through the
communication roles of the various promotion
tools and coordinating the promotion mix. Today,
however, more companies are adopting the
concept of integrated marketing communications
(IMC). Under this concept, the company
carefully integrates and coordinates its many
communications channels to deliver a clear,
consistent, and compelling message about the
organization and its brands.
 A view of the Communication Process

• Integrated marketing communications involves

identifying the target audience and shaping a
well-coordinated promotional program to obtain
the desired audience response. Too often,
marketing communications focus on immediate
awareness, image, or preference goals in the
target market. But this approach to
communication is too shortsighted. Today,
marketers are moving toward viewing
communications as managing the customer
relationship over time.
• To communicate effectively, marketers
need to understand how communication
works. Communication involves the nine
elements listed below.
• Sender, Encoding, Message, Media,
Decoding, Receiver, Response, Feedback,
Noise
• Two of these elements are the major
parties in a communication – the sender
and the receiver.
• Another two are the major communication
tools – the message and the media
• Four more are major communication
functions – encoding, decoding, response,
and feedback.
• The last element is noise in the system.
• Let’s now take an ad for H-P colour
 Sender
• The party sending the message to another
party – here, H-P
 Encoding
• The process of putting thought into
symbolic form – H-P’s advertising agency
assembles words and illustrations into an
advertisement that will convey the
intended message.
 Message
• The set of symbols that the sender
transmits – the actual H-P copier ad.
 Media
• The communication channels through
which the message moves from sender to
receiver – in this case, the specific
magazines that H-P selects.
 Decoding
• The process by which the receiver assigns
meaning to the symbols encoded by the
sender – a consumer reads the H-P copier
ad and interprets the words and
illustrations it contains.
 Receiver
• The party receiving the message sent by
another party – the home office or
business customer who reads the H-P
copier ad.
 Response
• The reactions of the receiver after being
exposed to the message – any of
hundreds of possible responses, such as
the consumer is more aware of the
attributes of H-P copiers, actually buys an
H-P copier, or does nothing.
 Feedback
• The part of the receiver’s response
communicated back to the sender – H-P
research shows that consumers are struck
by and remember the ad, or consumers
write or call H-P praising or criticizing the
ad or H-P’s products.
 Noise
• The unplanned static or distortion during
the communication process, which results
in the receiver’s getting a different
message than the one the sender sent –
the consumer it distracted while reading
the magazine and misses the H-P ad or its
key points.
 Steps in Developing Effective
Communication
• We now look at the steps in developing an
effective integrated communications and
promotion program. The marketing
communicator must do the following :
Identify the target audience, determine the
communication objectives, design a
message, choose the media through
which to send the message, select the
message source, and collect feedback.
 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 heavily affect the
communicator’s decisions 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.
Determining the Communication Objectives

• Once the target audience has been

defined, the marketing communicator must
decide what response is sought. Of
course, in many cases, the final response
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 what stage it needs to
be moved.
• The target audience may be in any of six
buyer-readiness stages, the stages
consumers normally pass through on their
way to making a purchase. These stages
include awareness, knowledge, liking,
preference, conviction, and purchase.
 Designing a Message
• Having designed the desired audience
response, the communicator turns to developing
an effective message. Ideally, the message
should get Attention, hold Interest, arouse
Desire, and obtain Action (a framework known
as the AIDA model).
• In putting the message together, the marketing
communicator must decide what to say
(message content) and how to say it (message
structure and format).
 Message Content
• The communicator has to figure out an
appeal or theme that will produce the
desired response. There are three types of
appeals : rational, emotional, and moral.
 Rational appeals
• These relate to the audience’s self-
interest. They show that the product will
produce the desired benefits. Examples
are messages showing a product’s quality,
economy, value, or performance. Thus, in
its ads, Mercedes offers automobiles that
are “engineered like no other car in the
world,” stressing engineering design,
performance, and safety.
 Emotional appeals
• These attempt to stir up either negative or
positive emotions that can motivate
purchase. Communicators may use
positive emotional appeals such as love,
pride, joy, and humour.
 Moral appeals
• These 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 a cleaner
environment, better race relations, equal
rights for women, and aid to the
disadvantaged.
 Message Structure
• The communicator must also decide how
to handle three message structure issues.
• The first is whether to draw a conclusion
or leave it to the audience.
• Second message structure issue is
whether to present the strongest
arguments first or last.
• Third issue is whether to present a one-
sided argument or a two-sided argument.
 Message Format
• The marketing communicator also needs a
strong format for the message. In a print
ad, the communicator has to decide on the
headline, copy, illustration, and color. To
attract attention, advertisers can use
novelty and contrast; eye-catching pictures
and headlines; distinctive formats;
message size and position; and color,
shape, and movement.
 Choosing media
• The communicator now must select
channels of communication. There are two
braod types of communication channels –
personal and nonpersonal.
Personal Communication Channels
• In personal communication channels, two
or more people communicate directly with
each other. They might communicate face
to face, over the telephone, through the
mail, or even through an Internet “chat”.
Personal communication channels are
effective because they allow for personal
addressing and feedback.
Nonpersonal Communication Channels

• Nonpersonal communication channels are

media that carry messages without personal
contact or feedback. They include major media,
atmospheres, and events. Major media include
print media, broadcast media, display media,
and online media.
• Atmospheres are designed environments that
create or reinforce the buyer’s leanings toward
buying a product. (Ex : Lawyers’ offices and
banks)
• Events are staged occurrences that
communicate messages to target audiences. (Ex
: Press Conferences)
 Selecting the Message Source
• In either personal or nonpersonal
communication, the message’s impact on
the target audience is also affected by how
the audience views the communicator.
Messages delivered by highly credible
sources are more persuasive. But
companies must be careful when selecting
celebrities to represent their brands.
Picking the wrong person can result in
embarrassment and a tarnished image.
 Collecting Feedback
• After sending the message, the communicator
must research its effect on the target audience.
This involves asking the target audience
members whether they remember the message,
how many times 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
also like to measure behaviour resulting from the
message – how many people bought a product,
talked to others about it, or visited the store.
 Setting the Total Promotion Budget

• One of the hardest marketing decisions

facing a company is how much to spend
on promotion. There are four common
methods used to set the total budget for
advertising : the affordable method, the
percentage-of-sales method, the
competitive-parity method, and the
objective-and-task method.
 Affordable Method
• Some companies set the promotion
budget at the level they think the company
can afford. Small businesses often use
this method, reasoning that the company
cannot spend more on advertising than it
has. They start with total revenues, deduct
operating expenses and capital outlays,
and then devote some portion of the
remaining funds to advertising.
 Percentage-of-Sales Method
• Other companies use this method, setting
their promotion budget at a certain
percentage of current or forecasted sales.
Or they budget a percentage of the unit
sales price.
 Competitive-Parity Method
• Still other companies use this method
setting their promotion budgets to match
competitors’ outlays. They monitor
competitors’ advertising or get industry
promotion spending estimates from
publications or trade associations, and
then set their budgets based on the
industry average.
 Objective-and-Task Method
• The most logical budget-setting method is
this. Here, the company sets its promotion
budget based on what it wants to
accomplish with promotion. This budgeting
method entails (1) defining specific
promotion objectives, (2) determining the
tasks needed to achieve these objectives,
and (3) estimating the costs of performing
these tasks. The sum of these costs is the
proposed promotion budget.
Setting the Overall Communication Mix

• The concept of integrated marketing

communications suggest that the company
must blend the promotion tools carefully
into a coordinated promotion mix. We now
look at factors that influence the
marketer’s choice of promotion tools.
The Nature of Each Promotion Tool
• Each promotion tool has unique
characteristics and costs. Marketers must
understand these characteristics in
selecting their mix of tools.
• The tools are Advertising, Personal selling,
Sales promotion, Public relations, and
Direct marketing.
 Advertising
• Advertising can reach masses of
geographically dispersed buyers at a low
cost per exposure.
• It enables the seller to repeat a message
many times.
 Personal Selling
• It is the most effective tool at certain
stages of the buying process, particularly
in building up buyers’ preferences,
convictions, and actions. It involves
personal interaction between two or more
people, so each person can observe the
other’s needs and characteristics and
make quick adjustments.
 Sales Promotion
• Sales promotion includes a wide
assortment of tools – coupons, contests,
cent-off deals, premiums, and others – all
of which have many unique qualities.
 Public Relations
• Public relations is very believable – news
stories, features, sponsorships, and
events seem more real and believable to
readers than ads do. Public relations can
also reach many prospects who avoid
salespeople and advertisements – the
message goes to the buyers as “news”
rather than as a sales-directed
communication.
 Direct Marketing
• Although there are many forms of direct
marketing – telephone marketing, direct
mail, online marketing, and others – they
all share four distinctive characteristics.
Direct marketing is nonpublic, immediate,
customized, and interactive.
 Promotion Mix Strategies
• Marketers can choose from two basic
promotion mix strategies – push promotion
or pull promotion.

• The relative emphasis on the specific

promotion tools differs for push and pull
strategies.
 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.
 Pull strategy
• Using a pull strategy, the producer directs
its marketing activities (primarily
advertising and consumer promotion)
toward final consumers to induce them to
buy the product. If the pull strategy is
effective, consumers will then demand the
product from channel members, who will in
turn demand it from producers. Thus,
under a pull strategy, consumer demand
“pulls” the product through the channels.
 Integrating the Promotion Mix
• Having set the promotion budget and mix,
the company must now take steps to see
that all of the promotion mix elements are
smoothly integrated.
 Socially Responsible Marketing Communication

• In shaping its promotion mix, a company

must be aware of the large body of legal
and ethical issues surrounding marketing
communications. Most marketers work
hard to communicate openly and honestly
with consumers and resellers. Still, abuses
may occur, and public policy makers have
developed a substantial body of laws and
regulations to govern advertising, sales
promotion, personal selling, and direct-
marketing activities.