Integrated marketing communication

Problem: How to keep messages about the brand consistent through different channels (and tools)? 

Learning objectives (LO):

1. How to coordinate IMC? Define IMC. What is the role of the different parties/participants in IMC (media-agencies, departments, ...) 

2. How to choose the right tools and channels for IMC? How to implement them successfully? Case studies.

3. How is the message affected by the channels and coordination? 

Keywords:

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LO1. Define IMC. What is the role of the different parties/participants in IMC (media-agencies, departments, ...), How to coordinate IMC? 

1.1 Define IMC

• Youtube video made by Tribus, a British content creation and marketing agency 

Under this link you find an interesting introduction video about how a small company (with a small budget) can use IMC to grow their business. The video explains how IMC can influence the amount of customers.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6WF0O1Mnvk

• 'Definition' American marketing association

"A planning process designed to assure that all brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time.”

In my opinion this explains IMC in a very beautiful way:  The IMC planning process has been compared to composing a musical score. In a piece of music, while every instrument has a specific task, the goal is to have them come together in a way that produces beautiful music. It’s the same in IMC, where advertising might be your violin, social media your piano, public relations your trumpet and so on.

Source: http://imc.wvu.edu/about/what_is_imc

• Integrated marketing communication according to William Chitty

Integrated marketing communication harmonizes the different elements of the marketing communication mix. All the elements of the communication mix (advertising, sales promotions, direct marketing, outdoor displays, sponsorships, ...) should work together. Only that way we can achieve the organization's marketing communication objectives and enhance the equity of the brands.

Integrated marketing communications represents all the elements of the marketing mix that facilitate exchanges by targeting the brand to a group of customers, positioning the brand as being distinct from competitive brands and sharing the brands meaning and unique difference with the product's target audience. A company had to maintain a consistent message over time and across the different communication channels to achieve a competitive market share. Marketing and communication are inseperable. Marketing is communication and communication is marketing. All organizations B2B, B2C, non profit use marketing communication to promote their offers and achieve their marketing goals. For example Mc Donalds used several different kinds of marketing communications to launch a new burger: radio, outdoor, online, newspapers and magazines.

Integrated marketing communication should develop and deliver messages about the benefits and the features of different types of products, services, stores, events and/or people. Most marketing communication occurs at brand level. With marketing communication a brand creates expectations about what it will deliver in term of consistent quality, convenience, reliability and status. Whit marketing communication you can show a strong, favorable brand, you can highlight features and benefits that consumers seek. 

Source: Integrated Marketing Communications by  William Chitty,Nigel Barker,Bill Chitty,Michael Valos,Terence A. Shimp https://books.google.fi/books?hl=nl&lr=&id=VZQraFDCtIEC&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=integrated+marketing+communication&ots=seyH9Ymy8W&sig=WVVSshw2IkidSKuYV3y9fw1ZXQo&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

• Graph about Integrated marketing communications

This picture shows that all the tools of integrated marketing communication are interaction with each other and that they all come together in the middle where someone coordinates them. This pictures gives an overview of all the tools a company can use in integrated marketing communication. IMC is all about consistence and synergy between the different marketing communication tools. Between the company and the brand; between price, place, promotion and product and between all the marketingcommunicationtools. 

Source: http://agp-inc.com/integrated-capabilities/

• Powerpoint Didier Van Gijseghem: Belgian docent communicatiemanagement

IMC has to be 

- distinctive: recognizable sender, no confusion with competitors

- Consistent on multiple levels:  business-brand, proposition/brand promise, image, look and feel, several instruments and media

- Synergy: the overall effect must be more than the sum of all the separate effects. Do not use all the possible instruments but use the instruments that match your brand in an optimal mix.

- Last but not least. IMC has to have a goal. A positive, distinctive and consistent identity of an organization that is relevant to the target group(s) 

In the powerpoint slides we see the earlier marketing communication and the marketing communication in IMC. Earlier we looked at the marketing communication target group and goals, than we made a creative concept for a tv or radio spot and all the other communication instruments were deviations of the tv-campagne. Nowadays we make a creative concept and we apply the concept to all the different communication instruments. Making a marketingcommunicationmix that supports the marketingcommunicationgoals is most important. 

Source: Powerpoints IMC - Didier Van Gijseghem- Docent Communicatiemanagement (powerpoint based on: Floor, K. & Van Raaij, F. (2010), Marketingcommunicatiestrategie (6e herziene druk). Groningen: Noordhoff

• Slideshare presentation

I have took this slide out of a slideshare presentation of B2Bwhiteboard. The presentation is about IMC, what it is, when it's used, ... This slide is about communication in the old world (traditional communication) and communication in the new world (IMC). It's really interesting to have a look at the other slides in the presentation but this slide particularly draw my attention because it really explains the relevance of IMC in a constantly changing world. 

Source: http://www.slideshare.net/nbairstow/the-role-of-integrated-marketing-communications

1.2 What is the role of the different parties/participants in IMC (media-agencies, departments, ...) + How to coordinate IMC

To understand the different roles of the different parties that are involved in IMC we have to take a look at the golden triangle. This triangle gives an overview of the three players in IMC:

- The companies (manufacturer/service firms, retailers, suppliers, non profit, ...) who want to communicate with consumers about their brands

- The agencies who help the company to prepare marketing communication messages and select appropriate media to communicate the message (full service agencies, MC suppliers, freelancers, ...)

- The media who provide the channel of communication for the messages (content providers, national and local media)

=> these three parties can't operate without each other. Smaller companies can make the choice not to use agencies for their communication 

• The company

The 2 pictures show the difference between a traditional corporate organization and a project-based organization. In larger companies there is often have a separate department to handle marketing communication responsibilities (marketing services). A company that wants to use IMC has to integrate the whole company, and not only one department. All the communication disciplines can't be in one single department. Cross functional planning needs a project based organization. All the departments have to work together. The organization needs to bring various communication disciplines in a single body or unit. Only that way we can ensure consistency in all brand messages, make sure that the creative idea is clear in all messages. It is also easier to coordinate the timing and scheduling of the different IMC outcomes. So at first a company should change inside before it can be shown to the world. It's not always easy to change your company completely and communication disciplines as public relations and marketing communication can still be a little bit divided but when there is a communication between these two disciplines there is more support and it will be easier to work together. In a traditional corporate organization it is almost impossible to deliver a consistent messages about all the different products, about the whole company if every department operates on its own. A cross-functional team will have a long-term focus, they work over the departments so they know what happens in all the departments and that way they can deliver a consistent message. 

• Agencies

Agencies are very important in IMC. You can have services provided by a single agency or a company can use a network of interacting agencies. It is not that easy to make all the agencies work together. There are always questions like who will be the leader? 

Most of the times the client (so the company) leads the implementation and development of IMC. This is easier than when it's done by an external agency because internal staff knows the company better than anyone else. But it is very important that not 1 person is responsible for IMC, it has to be integrated so the whole company should be involved. Most brands have several agencies with their own skills. This is useful because an agency can be used in one campaign but not in another, the can provide support when necessary. But for the client it's not so easy to manage the integrative approach. 

- The company has a full-service bureau that does all the integrated communication. This is easy because you only have one contact person and there is less coordination than when you have more agencies. But is it really possible that one agency is good in everything, can they be the best in PR and Direct marketing at the same time?  

- The company can appoint a lead agency that is responsible for the integration. This lead agency coordinates a PR-bureau, e-marketingbureau, ... This is a better option because you have more specialized agencies but it involves more coordination.   

- Another way is to coordinate different specific agencies yourself. it's more difficult to manage but the outcome can be more creative. You only have to look that the whole creative idea is the same and clear for all the different agencies so that all the communication material matches with each other. It's also not easy to work with the different agencies that are often even competitors of each other.  

• Media

The media can't exist without the companies because they need the money of the advertisements to keep existing. The companies can't live without the media because they need it as a platform to show their information to the world. Media is very important because a company can really target certain constituencies by choosing a media channel that targets the same people. Mediabuying is a separate occupation. The most important thing to know is that buying time on tv, radio, paying a place for advertising in a magazine, ... is very expensive. It is impossible for a small company to be frequently on national TV. They better invest their money in very specific channels to reach their target groups. 

Source: I found all this information in an interesting presentation on slideshare. I compared the information with a powerpoint from last year in Belgium. The course was all about integrated marketing communication and the information matched. Whenever I thought that it was necessary

I have added some information from the course to the info in the powerpoint. I also added information from the book 

Marketing Communications: Interactivity, Communities and Content. 

- http://www.slideshare.net/Shelly38/3imc-partners-and-crossfunctional-organizationppt

- Powerpoints IMC - Didier Van Gijseghem- Docent Communicatiemanagement (powerpoint based on: Floor, K. & Van Raaij, F. (2010), Marketingcommunicatiestrategie (6e herziene druk). Groningen: Noordhoff

- https://books.google.fi/books?id=5sl0X4PU4moC&pg=PA263&lpg=PA263&dq=different+agencies+IMC&source=bl&ots=3Bvwje-FfW&sig=yk3vxynGPWfyUYtNmEDAils6fcc&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0CD0Q6AEwBGoVChMI1q-bpZryxwIVY49yCh2PvAN5#v=onepage&q=different%20agencies%20IMC&f=false

LO2. How to choose the right tools and channels for IMC? How to implement them successfully? Case studies.

• Don't forget these points when you're making the marketingmix!

There are different tools in marketing communication. Some tools reach a lot of people but they are less rich. A contact is more volatile on the internet compared to a personal approach. In B2B communication we tend to use more rich channels with less reach. Because if you want to make a business deal, you can invest more time and money in it. You will have a higher cost per contact but the impact will be bigger. When you are B2C reach is often more important than the richness of the contact. People cross so many advertisements that it's much more difficult to really stand out in the crowd. B2C will often give us more contacts with less impact. The graph above shows clearly which instruments are used to get more richness and which are used to get more reach. The scheme below shows the different communication instruments compared to the effectivity (to reach a goal) and the cost/contact. For example. An external seller is very convincing, it's someone who can convince the people to buy something because he can speak about his own experiences, personal contact is experienced as more reliable. But personal contact is expensive. It's very expensive an has a low reach because te seller can't speak to everyone. When we look at the internet, this had a low effectivity and a low cost/contact. Everyone is on the internet so the reach is very high but you have to be striking enough to get noticed.     

The most important thing for IMC is that all the instrument you use in the mix are perfectly matched. You have to make a marketing communication plan that evaluates the strategic roles of media advertising, direct marketing, internet marketing, pr, ...=> these instruments need to be combined in a way so that we get maximum impact on our target group. 

- The concept must be clear in all the instruments. This does not mean that every instrument needs to have the same visual, but the idea must be consistent through all instruments. 

- The planning of the instruments is also very important. For example, when Lidl announces in a tv spot that they're going to have a tv for only 200 euros next week, when the time is there the communication in the store, online communication, maybe even the newsletter must be consistent and very well planned. 

- Integration is very important. Posters can repeat a tv spot-message (simultaneous) but it can also be that there is a radio spot after a tv campaign. The radio spot can have a 0800 number and so the company can count how many calls they got and so they can see if the campaign was effective.

• Different communication tools

     

Advertising:

+ advertiser controls the message

+ high reach - low cost/reached person

+ effective way to create brand images and symbolic appeals

- High cost for production and running ads

- credibility? You're talking about your own company

- Clutter

- How effective was the campaign? No direct indication

B2C => national and local advertising 

B2B => professional and trade advertising

Example B2B advertising

Source: http://www.wrwunited.de/news_mail/wrwnews_0611_e_web.htm

Direct marketing (direct mail, catalogs, telemarketing, direct response ads, direct selling, internet)

+ Nowadays people are more receptive to direct-marketing For example: I like the weekly mail with clothes especially chosen for me, based on my previous choices.  Direct marketing is more personal.  

+ Marketeers can be very specific => select specific segments of customers

+ Messages can be customized for each specific customer

+ Effectiveness is easier to measure. If I click on the link in the mail, or when I buy something. 

- Very low response rate (there are very direct mailings that I never read)

- Clutter

- Image problems (mainly telemarketing)

On this website you can find a very interesting case study about B2B direct marketing.  

Source: http://dmcm.ie/service-matters-see-the-potential/

 

Interactive/internet marketing

+ Can be used for many IMC functions

+ Messages can be customized for every specific customer

+ internet can be interactive => people are more involved

- Attention for internet adds low

- clutter

- How to measure the audience? Effectiveness is easier to measure.

This video is a very good example how internet marketing can have a place in an integrated marketing campaign. 

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqGIemVf4cY

Sales promotion

B2C: target the ultimate users of a product/service => coupons, sampling, premiums, contests, point of purchase material, ... 

B2B: target marketing intermediaries => retailers, wholesalers or distributors => promotions, price deals, sales contacts, trade shows, ...
=> introduce new products (to new and existing customers), get existing customers to buy more, combat competition, maintain sales in off season (for example sunblock will be sold more in summer than in winter), ...  

Very original use of 'the point of purchase'

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/117445502755956020/


PR
+ credibility
+ low cost (not totally free because you invest time)
+ often results in word-of-mouth (apple will introduce a new iphone, i read about it in the newspaper)
- not always under control of the organization (apple mistreats is employees)
- can be negative

PR vehicles:
- News releases (stories that the company sends to media => they might use it but it's not sure)
- Feature articles (manuscripts composed and edited for a particular medium
- Captioned photos (photographs with explanation below the picture)
- Press conferences (meetings and presentations with invited reporters and editors)
- Special events (sponsorship of events, teams, programs, fund raising, ...) 

Steve Jobs and the apple keynote speech. Good example of good pr.

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/08/wwdc_2010_keynote_video/

Personal selling
+ Personal contact => seller can be more flexible, can adapt his message according to the buyer, tailored message to the specific needs of the customer
+ More direct and immediate feedback (you immediately know if someone is interested)
+ Sales efforts can be targeted => specific markets and potential buyers
- High cost per contact: employee, car, ipad, time, .... all for 1 (possible) customer => expensive to reach large audiences
- Difficult to deliver a consistent message to all customers => the seller will always adapt his message 

Sources:
- http://www.slideshare.net/VishnuSharma7/imc-promotion-mix

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPr0iRKQ7IM (this video shows all the different tools and the idea behind the usage of all the different tools)
- Powerpoints IMC - Didier Van Gijseghem- Docent Communicatiemanagement (powerpoint based on: Floor, K. & Van Raaij, F. (2010), Marketingcommunicatiestrategie (6e herziene druk). Groningen: Noordhoff

LO3. How is the message affected by the channels and coordination? 

I think that I have covered this learning objective in the information above. As I told, in integrated marketing communication we use one central concept, one idea and we use this idea in the different tools. The visual doesn't need to be the same in the different tools but the main idea must be clear for the customers. The message through the different communication channels must stay the same. This coca cola campaign shows very good how the different communication channels are coordinated and how they achieve their goal by always giving the same message adapted to the channel they use. 

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X8Bd3-G6IU