Chapter 17: Designing and Managing Integrated Marketing
Communications
1. What is the role of marketing communications?
Marketing communications are the means by which firms attempt to inform, persuade, and remind
consumers, directly or indirectly, about the products and brands they sell.
Modes of Marketing Communications / Communication Platforms/ Marketing Communications
Mix
• Advertising: Print and broadcast ads, Packaging inserts, Motion pictures, Brochures and
booklets, Posters, Billboards, POP displays, Logos, Videotapes
• Sales promotion: Contests, games, sweepstakes, Premiums, Sampling, Trade shows,
exhibits, Coupons, Rebates, Entertainment, Continuity programs
• Events and experiences: Sports, Entertainment, Festivals, Arts, Causes, Factory tours,
Company museums, Street activities
• Public relations and publicity: Press kits, Speeches, Seminars, Annual reports, Charitable
donations, Publications, Community relations, Lobbying, Identity media, Company magazine
• Direct marketing: Catalogs, Mailings, Telemarketing, Electronic shopping, TV shopping, Fax
mail, E-mail, Voice mail, Blogs, Websites,
• Interactive marketing
• Word-of-mouth marketing: Person-to-person, Chat rooms, Blogs
• Personal selling: Sales presentations, Sales meetings, Incentive programs, Samples, Fairs and
trade shows
2. How do marketing communications work?
Elements in the Communications Process
Field of Experience
Sender’s
field
The Communications Process
Selective attention
Selective distortion
Selective retention
Response hierarchy models: AIDA model, Hierarchy of effects model, innovation-adoption model
and communications model. There are three stages: cognitive, affective and behavioural
3. What are the major steps in developing effective communications?
An Ideal Ad Campaign
• The right consumer is exposed to the message at the right time and place
• The ad causes consumer to pay attention
• The ad reflects consumer’s level of understanding and behaviors with product
• The ad correctly positions brand in terms of points-of-difference and points-of-parity
• The ad motivates consumers to consider purchase of the brand
• The ad creates strong brand associations
Steps in Developing Effective Communications
Identify target audience
Determine objectives:
Category Need (Establish product as necessary for a need to be satisfied), Brand Attitude (establish
brand as being able to satisfy that need), Brand Awareness, Purchase Intention (give instructions to
purchase the brand)
Design communications:
Message strategy: Search for themes, appeals or ideas that will tie into the brand positioning and
help to establish points of parity or points of difference.
Creative strategy
• Informational and transformational (non product related benefit like what kind of person
uses a brand eg: Raymond: successful and young) appeals
• Positive and negative appeals: Fear, Guilt, Shame, Humor, Love, Pride, Joy
Message source: Celebrity Characteristics
• Expertise
• Trustworthiness
• Likeability
Issues facing Global adaptation
• Is the product restricted in some countries?
• Are there restrictions on advertising the product to a specific target market?
• Can comparative ads be used?
• Can the same advertising be used in all country markets?
Select channels
Personal channels:
Advocate channels (salespersons), Expert channels, social channels
Stimulating Personal Influence Channels
• Identify influential individuals and devote extra attention to them
• Create opinion leaders
• Use community influentials in testimonial advertising
• Develop advertising with high “conversation value”
• Develop WOM referral channels
• Establish an electronic forum
• Use viral marketing
Nonpersonal channels: Media, Sales Promotion, Events and Experiences, Public Relations
Integration of channels
Establish budget: Affordable, Percentage-of-Sales, Competitive Parity, Objective-and-Task
Decide on media mix
Measure results/ manage IMC
Objective-and-Task Method
• Establish the market share goal
• Determine the percentage that should be reached
• Determine the percentage of aware prospects that should be persuaded to try the brand
• Determine the number of advertising impressions per 1% trial rate
• Determine the number of gross rating points that would have to be purchased
• Determine the necessary advertising budget on the basis of the average cost of buying a GRP
4. What is the communications mix and how should it be set?
Characteristics of the Marketing Communications Mix
Advertising: Pervasiveness, Amplified expressiveness, Impersonality
Sales Promotion: Communication, Incentive, Invitation
Public Relations and Publicity: High credibility, Ability to catch buyers off guard,
Dramatization
Events and Experiences: Relevant, Involving, Implicit
Direct Marketing: Customized, Up-to-date, Interactive
Word-of-Mouth Marketing: Credible, Personal, Timely
Personal Selling: Personal interaction, Cultivation, Response
Factors in Setting Communications Mix
Type of product market (consumer & business markets)
Buyer readiness stage (awareness, comprehension, conviction, order, reorder ACCOR)
Product life cycle stage (introduction, growth, maturity, decline)
5. What is an integrated marketing communications program?
IMC is a concept of marketing communications planning that recognizes the added value of a
comprehensive plan. Such a plan evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communication
disciplines (advertising, sales promotion, PR) and combines these disciplines to provide clarity,
consistency and maximum impact through seamless integration of messages.
Unfortunately, many companies still rely on only one or two communication tools. This is in spite of
the fragmenting of mass markets into a multitude of minimarkets, each requiring its own approach,
the proliferation of new types of media and the growing sophistication of consumers. Companies
must adopt a 360 degree view of consumers to fully understand all the different ways that
communications can affect consumer behaviour in their daily lives.
Media companies and ad agencies are expanding their capabilities to offer multiplatform deals for
marketers. For eg, newspapers and magazines have been frantically formulating digital strategies
like adding videos to their homepages to increase ad revenue. These expanded capabilities make it
easier for marketers to assemble various media properties in an integrated communication program.
Coordinating Media
Media coordination can occur across and within media types but marketers should combine
personal and nonpersonal communication channels to achieve maximum impact. A powerful
approach is the multi-vehicle, multiple stage campaign. Multiple media deployed within a tightly
defined time frame can increase message reach and impact. Research has also shown that
promotions can be more effective when combined with advertising. Even if consumers don’t order
online, they can use websites in ways that drive them into stores to buy.
Implementing IMC
IMC can produce stronger message consistency and help to build brand equity and create greater
sales impact, Brand image, brand awareness, brand responses and brand relationships. Ways to
implement/ test of whether communications are integrated:
Coverage: Proportion of audience reached by each communication option deployed
Contribution: Inherent ability of a marketing communication to create the desired response
and communication effects from consumers in the absence of exposure to any other
communication option.
Commonality: Extent to which common associations are reinforced across communication
options
Complementarity: Extent to which different associations and linkages are emphasized
across communication options
Versatility: Extent to which a marketing communication option is robust and ‘works’ for
different groups of consumers
Cost: Evaluate all these criteria against cost to arrive at the most effective and efficient
communications program
AIDS prevention campaign in West Bengal was a unique integrated mass media campaign.
