“Upward Trend of the usage of Integrated Marketing Communications in India”

A Dissertation Submitted for the Partial

Fulfilment of the Programme
Bachelor’s of Business Administration
(Media and Communication)

By
Tanya Tandon

School of Media and Communication,

Whistling Woods International,
India.

May 2019 Research Guide

Mumbai CV Meenakshi

CERTIFICATE

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 This is to certify that Tanya Tandon, a BBA student at the School of Media and
Communication, Whistling Woods International has completed their final semester dissertation
titled “Upward Trend of the usage of Integrated Marketing Communications in India”

The dissertation is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Bachelor of Business

Administration (Media and Communication) conducted by the Department.

I have guided them on the subject and methods during the research project.

May 20th, 2019

Mumbai

CV Meenakshi Laili Dutta

Research Guide Head of the Department

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

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I wish to express my gratitude to all those who have been a contributor to my research in all
dimensions. The contribution of each and every respondent, faculty, family, and friends holds
great importance to me.

I would also like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank my professors without whose
valuable insights this research would not have been possible.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract

Chapter 1: Introduction…………………...…………………….…………pg 7

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 - Understanding the Indian Media

Chapter 2: Literature Review…………………….…………..……………pg 10

- What is Media Integration?

- Characteristics of Media Integration
- Types of Integration
- Factors aiding to Integration
- Types of Operating Models

Chapter 3: Research Design…………………...….…….…………………pg 22

- Research Problem
- Research Question
- Hypothesis
- Utility of research
- Research Breakdown
- Sampling
- Limitations

Chapter 4: Findings and Analysis……………...…………………………pg 25

1.0: Integrated Marketing Communications

- 1.1: The evolution of Integrated Marketing Communication

- 1.2: Purpose of Integrated Marketing Communication
- 1.3: Integrated Marketing Communication in modern world
- 1.4: Positive Impact

2.0: Integrated Marketing: from consumer centric to customer facing processes

- 2.1: The impact of IMC on consumer behavior

- 2.2: Consumer Behavior
- 2.3: Consumer Decision Making Process
- 2.4: Traditional Communication Process

3.0: Most Influential Tools

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 - 3.1: Social Media and its role in IMC

4.0: IMC in India

- 4.1: Need and Emergence of IMC in the Indian Market

- 4.2: Opportunities and Challenges

5.0: Case studies

- 5.1: Uber
- 5.2: Amazon India
- 5.3: Oreo

Chapter 5: Conclusion ………….…………………………………………pg 70

Chapter 6: Further Scope of Research ……………………………………pg 72

Bibliography

Appendix

Abstract
“Integrating data from all sources in one platform allows brands to connect the dots and gain a
true picture of our consumers. Ultimately, data trails are generated by real people that leave data
in many different silos. Digital is the connecter that helps open these silos as all the data traces
are left in the digital world. By opening these silos and integrating data from different sources
one can achieve that all important single customer view.”

This thought drives the research.

I aim to educate, analyze industry patterns and attempt to project future trends in media practices
globally and in India.

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Chapter 1: Introduction:
In today’s ever changing “Nanosecond Culture” of social networks, empowered customers and
hyper competition, we need to be prepared to immediately implement holistic thinking for our
marketing and communications strategy. With an increase in global competition, technological
advances, and fast informed customers, it is important for businesses to make a powerful impact
on target audiences and markets.

Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) is one of the most important communications

trends adopted all over. It is one such step toward an integrated approach to achieving
efficiency by synergy. The emergence of this concept has become one of the most significant
examples of development in the marketing discipline. It has influenced thinking and acting

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among companies but also authorities, state owned companies and political parties, all facing the
realities of competition in an open economy.

The concept of IMC As a concept IMC has become well known on an international scale during
the 1990s. Thus IMC is a term whose widespread use is comparatively recent, a fact, which
might explain why there not yet is a common understanding of its real meaning and the lack of a
generally accepted definition.

Some 20 years ago academics and professionals discussed theory and practice of business
communication without considering the idea of integration as a realistic approach to reach a
competitive strategic position for the company. Some early attempts in the beginning of the
1980s initiated academic interest and articles appeared in the academic literature (Dyer, 1982;
Coulson-Thomas, 1983)1. From the beginning of the 1990s IMC became a real hot topic in the
field of marketing (Caywood et al., 1991; Miller and Rose, 1994; Kitchen and Schultz, 1999)2.

Few years back, major portion of marketing budgets went to advertising, but now the scene
has changed, it is allocated into various activities such as trade promotions, consumer
promotions, branding, PR and advertising. The allocation of communication budgets away
from mass media and traditional advertising has obviously promoted IMC in recognition and
importance for effective marketing. The emergence of IT has fundamentally affected the media
practices, contributed to an extensive deregulation of markets and individualized patterns of
consumption and increased the segmentation of consumer tastes/preferences. The key has been
‘value’ and several combinations of methods are used, all aiming to raise benefits and reduce
costs.

Understanding the Indian Media:

1. Despite the focus on channels such as social media and mobile, brands still feel their website
is the most effective means to engage with customers.

1 KITCHEN, P., BRIGNELL, J., LI, T., & JONES, G. (2004). The Emergence of IMC: A Theoretical Perspective. Journal of
Advertising Research, 44(1), 19-30. doi:10.1017/S0021849904040048
2 Wiley International Encyclopedia of Marketing, edited by Jagdish N. Sheth and Naresh K. Malhotra. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley
& Sons Ltd

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2. Mobile is growing and it is an important channel for the brands as well as consumers. 72% of
brands who participated in our survey have a mobile app and a mobile-friendly website. As a
marketer, no marketer should ignore the rising influence and adoption of mobile.

3. 80% Of brands advertise on web, social and mobile, indicating that more brands are spending
on digital advertising than ever before as evidenced by the fact that digital ad spending is
expected to grow faster than other marketing channels in India (47.5% increase YOY in 2016).

4. 60% Of brands use a 360o or an omni-channel approach to marketing, indicating that digital
and social media marketing is being seen as more than a mere extension of traditional marketing,
and that brands are taking a more holistic approach.

5. Budgets allocated to digital and social media marketing within the overall marketing budget
seems to be increasing — 44% of brands spend more than 20% of their marketing budget on
digital marketing while 24% of brands are spending more than 16% or more from their
marketing budget on social media.

6. The top-three challenges faced for marketing any brand on social media, have not changed
since the last edition: a. Sustaining or increasing engagement rates b. Content creation c.
Measuring effectiveness

7. While brands focus on launching channels and driving engagement initially, the top challenges
seem to indicate that brands are not doing very well in having sustained quality engagement with
their communities. This means that brands should focus on engagement initiatives that they can
sustain for the long-term instead of focusing disproportionately on the launch phases.

8. Over half of the brands still do not have emergency response plans while 44% do not have a
formal social media policy and governance structure where social media teams are completely
aligned with organizational policies. With recent issues faced by some leading brands in India, it
is surprising to see that brands still do not have formal guidelines for how their employees should
engage on social media and how the brand will respond in case of an incident.

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Chapter 2: Literature Review:
All of the global marketing agencies have to some extent begun to evolve their operating models
in response to these challenges. Having emphasized a different mix of front-, middle-, and back-
office initiatives, however, each is at a different stage of transformation.

In general, back-office functions are the low-hanging fruit of this process and therefore furthest
along across the board. To the extent that some of these capabilities have already been
centralized in shared-services centers, IT and finance have generally led the way, followed in
some cases by functions such as treasury, tax, legal, and real estate.

Human resources has generally lagged because creative talent is seen as such an important point
of differentiation between agencies

Clients see the current model, in which they are forced to engage multiple agencies
to address multiple disciplines, as an impediment to efficiency.

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Cross-media marketing/ Stealth Marketing/ Media Integration is what the name suggests—it
involves using a variety of media forms to integrate your marketing message into people's
consciousness. Using a variety of media puts your company’s message in front of more
consumers more often. Rather than marketing a product exclusively on a website, cross-
marketers use a combination of mobile apps, paid search engine returns, link ads, television
commercials, YouTube videos, content marketing, print brochures, radio and television ads,
social media, and trade-show marketing. Many forms of cross-media marketing are so subtle that
consumers often don’t realize they are being marketed to.

Every business needs a comprehensive marketing strategy in place, and that strategy will almost
certainly include cross-media marketing. A recent study conducted by Harvard Business School
reported that retailers using cross-media marketing are more profitable than those that use only
one channel for promotion.

The first step in building a strategy is to form a cohesive, consistent message that can be used
across all media outlets. Making different claims, in different tones, across different outlets
confuses consumers and causes suspicion How you want to present yourself as a company is
also a consideration. You won’t see Toyota promoting their cars on the Shopping Channel; yet,
the Snuggie made millions of sales with their goofy low-budget television commercials and
Internet sidebar “As Seen on TV” ads.
Using a comprehensive array of research tools will help you discover how to target your
audience in the most effective ways. Additionally, social networking sites and search engines,
such as Google, can be fantastic sources of information to discover what people are talking about
and where they’re gathering. There are research tools which help you determine what time your
target audience is hanging out on Facebook or Twitter, which in turn allows you to set up social
media posts at prime times. You can also glean information from the analytics of your own
website, such as which posts are getting the most traffic, which geographic location readers are
coming from, which tools and links they are clicking through to, and your general demographic.

When creating cross-media campaigns it’s best to designate a desired action. For example, your
goal may be to strategize your cross-media campaign so that it drives readers to your website to
pay for a print or online subscription. Therefore, to accomplish this you might create mobile

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applications, email newsletters, Facebook and Twitter accounts, YouTube videos with
commentators, and podcasts with editorialists or financial experts; or, you might employ popular
bloggers, and attempt to get links from other media sites. All of these marketing outlets can drive
customers to the website; however, it’s important to determine in advance what strategies will
actually work, rather than “throwing everything at the wall seeing what sticks.” [Marketing
Schools; (2012) Cross Marketing: Explore the Strategy of Cross-Media Marketing: Retrieved
from; Marketing-Schools.org ]

A few characteristics of ‘Media Integration’

1. Multi device is the norm

What is abundantly clear is that tracking data from single device use cannot provide a full
enough picture to be reliable or truly useable. While we track the use of smartphones, tablets and
PCs, it is interesting to see how these devices are used in combination. For example, how many
smartphone users also use tablet and/or PC?

Singular device usage still exists, but nearly three quarters of the online population in the eight
markets we have analysed use at least two or more devices

There is a higher percentage of single device use in some emerging markets. For example, in
Indonesia, almost 4 in 10 (37%) of the online population use smartphone only. This is largely
due to limited availability of fast landline internet, so that desktops and PCs have not penetrated
the market in the same way as in Europe. The price decrease for smartphones and cheap data has
been much faster than investments in landline infrastructure. Not only is a high share of mobile
usage for smartphones, but also smartphones and tablets – 28% of the online population in
Indonesia use these two devices combined.

In addition, Poland stands out as having the highest percentage of PC-only users (30%)
compared to the on other markets.

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However, in a developed market such as the UK, nearly 4 in 10 (39%) of the online population
use smartphone, PC and tablet, while only 7% use tablet and PC. In Italy, half the online
population use both PCs and smartphones.

2. Most popular online activities – by country, and by device

Based on net reach, the top activity that people perform across all devices (PCs, smartphones and
tablets) is reading news or information, or accessing search sites.

The exceptions for this are Indonesia, where shopping is the top activity across all devices, and
Brazil, where communication is most popular. In Brazil, communication apps are particularly
popular for messaging and emailing.

When we view devices separately, there is clear division in use between PCs and mobile devices.
People are using PCs for reading news or information and performing web searches, and using
their tablet or smartphone for communication and shopping.

A key takeout here is that shopping is the top activity on mobile devices in four out of the eight
countries, highlighting the importance of mobile advertising for eCommerce and in-store
shopping in these markets. This prevalence of mobile highlights the importance of mobile-
enabled web pages and apps with good UX to support eCommerce.

3. Looking at duration shows key differences between countries

Looking at duration of activity (average hours per month, per user) for each category, we see that
social networking and communication are the top ranked categories in terms of time spent across
all three devices. However, there is a lot of variation between the different countries.

For example, ‘communication’ is the top activity on mobile devices in both Indonesia and
Germany. But in Indonesia, the duration is 27 hours – compared to 16.4 hours in Germany. And
people in Mexico spend more than twice as much time on social networking as people in Poland
(30.3 hours compared to 14.6 hours, respectively).

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By looking at duration, we also see that, while we are all addicted to our smartphones, this is
especially true in certain countries. In Poland, the average online user spends 34 hour per month
on their smartphone – but in Netherlands this rises to nearly double that, at 64 hours per month.

Types of Integration:

Vertical Integration: Vertical Integration is when a Media Company owns different businesses
in the same chain of production and distribution. For example, a 20th Century Fox owns the
studios in Hollywood, they also own the cinemas, the TV channels and the DVD rental shops.
They own parts of chain so that they can make money from every part of it.

When a company expands its business into areas that are at different points on the same
production path, such as when a manufacturer owns its supplier and/or distributor. Vertical
integration can help companies reduce costs and improve efficiency by decreasing transportation
expenses and reducing turnaround time, among other advantages. However, sometimes it is more
effective for a company to rely on the expertise and economies of scale of other vendors rather
than be vertically integrated.

In terms of the magazine industry, they own the Forests where their resources come from, in this
case, the paper. They also own the buildings where the magazines are designed, they own part of
the publishers, and the newsagents where the magazines are sold.

Horizontal Integration: Horizontal Integration is a Media Company’s Ownership of several

businesses of the same value. A Media Company can own a Magazine, Radio, Newspaper,
Television and Books. Almost all Media companies have horizontal integration. It helps to create
more money and makes the company more popular among readers. Also, not all media readers
prefer reading magazines. The more technology literate people will read the magazine online, so
horizontal integration helps to reach a wider audience. [AS Media at MPW; (Date: -NA-)
Vertical and Horizontal Integration; retrieved from:
https://mpwasmedia.wordpress.com/vertical-integration/]

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Social Media is the way to promoting, as it furnishes an approach to remain associated with a
crowd of people every day. It is a powerful method for correspondence that all the while enables
organizations to mark themselves, create identity and contact existing clients (to look after
steadfastness) and potential new ones (to drive communication and resulting exchanges).

For reasons that run the range from incredibly close to home to day by day business and
showcasing capacities, a large portion of us spend no less than a couple of minutes of the day
scouring and partaking in the online networks that have been based upon the interpersonal
interaction stages.

An ever increasing number of individuals around the globe have come to comprehend the
estimation of web based life, and the developing groups of onlookers on these stages are the
reason organizations joined the person to person communication unrest in any case: to be the
place the crowd is. 800 million individuals and tallying at present populate Facebook, around 40
million use Google+, 100 million individuals are effectively tweeting, and more than 100 million
supposedly arrange (or have organized) on LinkedIn.

Be that as it may, what is web based life coordination? It is the demonstration of spreading your
image over the prominent internet based life stages, and being dynamic on all them. You can't
state you incorporated web based life showcasing into your intuitive battle if all you have done is
made existences on Facebook and Twitter and after that never returned to them.

Posting on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and even Google + on various occasions every day,
collaborating with and drawing in your crowd there (posting questions and doing what you can
to pull in and keep up the consideration of clients and potential clients) and including an
incentive with online life is the stuff to accomplish genuine reconciliation. Have an intriguing
thought for advertising? Transform it into a viral video and syndicate it on YouTube,
StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and even LinkedIn.

Although agencies may unify some services, in general, marquee practices such as creative
services and account planning are not shared across agencies except for the highest-tier accounts.
In those cases, multidisciplinary global account structures have been built by hand at the parent-

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company level to support collaboration and coordination among “horizontal” cross-agency
teams. For example, Publicis has set up chief client officers to supervise cross-agency
deployments for top clients.

And yet, despite some steps toward greater alignment, collaboration, and parent-company-level
management, stubborn problems are preventing the transformation from happening quickly or
aggressively enough. Perhaps the most fundamental of these impediments is that the fierce
competition between agencies still remains firmly at odds with the new drive for more
interagency collaboration. What’s more, incentive systems and corporate structures still reinforce
rather than circumvent that conflict. Individual agencies continue to manage, and answer for,
their own P&Ls; all staff members continue to report to the local office of their individual
agency; and collaboration is not systematically rewarded. Even where cross-agency chief client
officers are partially compensated on their client’s success, they still report to an individual
agency, at least via dotted line. (Compare that with the operating and compensation structures in
other consolidating industries and you begin to see the depth of the problem. At PwC, for
example, the top 100 global account managers are reviewed by a small group of partners.)

In most cases where integration is happening at the parent-company level, the new model is
overlaid atop the existing agency model. As a result, the structure is not as effective as it should
be, and managers of the consolidated business units are not adequately empowered.

It is clear that the industry giants are not adapting aggressively or quickly enough to their new
environment. They haven’t dislodged their cultural tendency to protect underlying agency
brands, or conquered the lingering insecurity around collapsing agencies into discipline-driven
business units. As a result, the landscape continues to be crowded with sub-brands that may
share back- and middle-office functions but still go to market in a way that confuses their clients.

The path forward is clear: the rapid development of much more integrated business operating
models in which global marketing agencies are not mere holding companies but play a far more
active and strategic role — the role, that is, of a true parent company.

There are, of course, a range of ways in which that broad aim might be accomplished. The
optimal choices depend on the current status of the parent company’s evolution, its broader
strategy, the composition of its client base, and its appetite for change.

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The optimal choice will depend on several factors and circumstances, and we’ll address how to
sort through the options below. But we’ll start by laying out the range of potential paradigms for
this transformation, starting with something close to the status quo and moving toward increasing
levels of integration and structural change:

1. Status quo (individual brands): We recognize that in some cases agency brand consolidation
isn’t realistic in the short term. Nor should it be required in every case, given the extent to which
brand equity has been built up over the course of decades and in some cases still commands
client loyalty and healthy margins. One potential operating model, then, maintains the agency
structure for client-facing activities but fully transforms back- and middle-office functions, as
described in the prior section.

2. Discipline-driven business units: This model involves moving from a brand-based structure
to one aligned according to discipline-based categories, or “archetypes.” The five natural
archetypes are branding and creative services, media buying, digital, public relations, and market
research. For example, several branding/creative agencies within a network, each of which is
essentially a mini holding company in itself, would be reorganized into a branding/creative
business unit and given a new über-brand name — one that builds off either the parent company
brand or the agency brand that is perceived to be the strongest and most valuable. A rebranding
along these lines would, of course, require a well-planned transition process, which we’ll address
below.

3. Interdisciplinary business units: This model would also align along disciplines or archetypes
rather than agency brands, but would further integrate disciplines by combining
branding/creative, media buying, and digital into a single business unit called, perhaps, “brand
experience.” Public relations and research would remain as separate archetype units.

The rationale behind this model is twofold. First, digital media is increasingly integral to every
marketing campaign, so it makes little sense for digital and branding units to operate
independently. And the integrated customer-experience design capabilities for which marketers
are clamoring are typically strongest in the digital agencies, which naturally think in terms of
user experience and user interface. By contrast, the legacy branding agencies too often still think
in terms of the 30-second ad spot. The second broad rationale behind the interdisciplinary

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business units model is that media-buying agencies have, in recent years, driven the lion’s share
of profits for the global marketing companies because they’ve participated in the overall
advertising spending growth even as that spending has shifted from TV to online. Legacy
branding/creative agencies have often been left out of that growth because their business isn’t
classified as working media and because their business model is limited by cost-plus pricing. As
a result, brand agencies are increasingly going after media agency clients (and offering media
management capabilities in the process). The reverse is happening as well, with media agencies
adding their own creative offerings to their pitches. That kind of competition between sister
agencies argues for an inevitable convergence between the two disciplines, which solves the
problem proactively.

Public relations agencies are part of an integrated marketing offering, but tend to focus on crisis
PR management, which is a distinct capability set. Research firms, meanwhile, benefit from
being seen as “neutral” entities capable of providing unbiased customer research without the
suspicion of any conflict of interest. So there are solid reasons to leave those disciplines as stand-
alone units.

4. One-brand, one-agency experience: The notion of a single, monolithic business unit that
merges branding/ creative, digital, media buying, PR, and research agencies into a single
“experience” agency may seem extreme compared with the status quo. But it offers clear
advantages: It’s an ideal structure for providing a truly integrated marketing experience, it
facilitates horizontal storytelling in the sales process, and it enables that storytelling to take shape
earlier and more organically than is possible in the current environment. (It should be noted that
this unified model could accommodate a small number of highly specialized agencies like
Omnicom Diversified Agency Services.)

So which of the four operating models is the best fit for which global marketing companies?

There’s no easy way to answer that question, and no “right” answer. But the process of deciding
should start with considering the parent company’s overall business and growth strategy. If, for

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example, acquisitions are essential to future growth, there’s a strong case for a model with fewer
business units. The reason? Acquisition integration will be crucial, and establishing a playbook
for that process will be easier with fewer business units to integrate. Is your company or agency
set on developing capabilities in customer experience consulting? This would be an argument for
greater integration between the disciplines, rather than kless.

A second crucial variable in choosing an operating model is the company’s client base. In the
push to centralize capabilities, agencies can’t get too far ahead of their clients, any more than
they can fall behind their clients’ desire for change. They need to ask themselves, Are we more
or less integrated than our client counterparts? Some agencies, in fact, may need to maintain a
certain amount of flexibility during a transition period — if, for example, clients request more
high- level integration of agency services but aren’t equipped to handle that approach at the
lower or local levels, where personnel and capabilities may still be siloed.

Finally, it’s also important to be pragmatic when it comes to imposing new operating structures
on an existing culture. Gauge your organization’s openness to change, and tailor your approach
accordingly.

We’ve repeatedly heard from agency clients, for example, that an “old guard” of senior
executives is resistant to structural change and that a next generation of leaders is ready to
embrace it. Aggressive change is needed across the industry, as we’ve discussed. But in some
cases the path of least resistance — the fastest path, that is — may involve shifting operating
models in conjunction with succession planning.

None of these transformations is without risks, of course. And there will be no shortage of
naysayers using those risks as excuses to put off change or avoid it altogether. But if undertaken
strategically, many of the potential pitfalls can be turned into opportunities and marketplace
advantages.

In addition to these risks, there is another elephant in the room — holding companies’ financial
incentive structure. Specifically, each agency is 100 percent accountable for its own P&L, which
can mean that doing the right thing for each individual firm can get in the way of doing the right
thing for the group — and the ultimate client.

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Integrating agencies into business units, as we have laid out, and aligning P&L responsibility
accordingly will address this fundamental issue. In the interim, how can agencies drive greater
integration across back- and middle-office functions when their individual parts are often not
encouraged to do so?

Every group-wide initiative, be it building new capabilities or streamlining costs, needs to

generate higher economic returns than agencies continuing to do things individually. What’s
more, the achieved financial benefits need to flow through to the agency P&Ls; they cannot be
held back at the holding company level, which is too often the case today. Mechanisms must be
designed to compensate agencies that participate in group-wide initiatives but find themselves
worse off while other agencies benefit. (An example would be an agency operating in a very
low-cost market whose back office is now serviced from a centralized, higher-cost location.)
Lastly, where payback is clear but will take longer than the relevant performance period, the
holding company needs to provide a kind of P&L relief to agencies to ensure investment in
medium-term growth while carefully managing overall group performance from the center.
These are significant changes to how holding companies manage their business today, but they
are a critical prerequisite to finally achieving greater integration.

Proposed Changes in business model: To make it work, a phased transition road map needs to
be planned meticulously. The plan should start by communicating the vision and roll-out process
at an increasing level of detail. The iterative approach described below should minimize business
disruption and help ensure stakeholder alignment.

Companies need to conduct a top-down assessment across the portfolio of businesses and
develop a long-term operating model strategy for the company. Doing so is the key first step to
develop the longer term vision and identify waves of execution that can minimize business
disruption.

There are 3 potential waves of integration:

Wave 1: Integrate highly transactional back-office capabilities, including finance, payroll, and
other HR transactions; IT; and procurement.

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Wave 2: Tackle non-transactional, expertise-based back- and middle- office activities, including
talent management, data management, and privacy and policy.

Wave 3: Begin the integration of brands into business units, by local hub or by country or by
agency. None of these transformations will be easy. Global marketing companies, after all, have
been paying lip service to many of these ideas for years — but for a variety of reasons are not yet
“walking the talk” in terms of unifying agencies across similar disciplines. And, with a few
isolated exceptions, they have barely scratched the surface on the concept of collapsing agencies
from different disciplines into a single multidisciplinary business unit.

To be sure, the risks of these changes are high, but the potential benefits are also high.
Integration provides more growth potential for talent and better retention for the company. It
generates efficiencies of scale. It makes the company better able to integrate future acquisitions.
It reduces complexity, increases speed-to-market, and cleans up incentives. And, perhaps most
important, it creates opportunities for better pricing models, heftier margins, and substantial
earnings expansion. [PWC; (2017) Agency Of The Future: Retrieved from
https://strategyand.pwc.com/media/file/Agency-of-the-future.pdf ]

Chapter 3: Research Design

Research Problem: Integrated Marketing Communications, as a concept, has been overused, but
not understood. It is surrounded by a lot of misconceptions. The usage of this module has wide
scale repercussions with resource optimisation and workability. There are not a lot of personnel,
asking the right questions to understand this concept and that, in my opinion, is a problem this
research plans to combat.

Research Question: With an overall increase in the usage of customised marketing tools in the
market, are brands/agencies adopting the business model efficiently?

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Hypothesis: “With an increase in avenues of communication, integration of media has
become non-negotiable”

This research will help identify the needs of the target audience, the avenues that can be used to
reach them in an optimized manner. It can also help predict future trends with the help of insights
and data, pre-existing or collected through primary research.

I find the need to research this topic because I believe there is a dire need for it. With my
academic and professional experience, I have seen certain people either not aware of the
existence of such a phenomenon, or they shirk away from knowing more about it. This in turn
leaves unfulfilled potential that can be tapped.

Utility of Research: This research can be used in multiple scenarios; a few being:

- Any agency posing as a new entrant in the Media industry in India

- New brands that are working on their marketing/media module
- Existing brands that are restructuring their marketing/media module

Research Breakdown:

Literary Review:
- My literary review will pose as my secondary research. Since no topic, of a similar
effect, has been researched upon, I will use case studies of different brand, as a guiding
force to identify trends of ideas and strategies being implemented. Since integration is a
global phenomenon at the moment and it’s Indian impact/approach.
- I will use digital platforms/forums, reports, articles and other sources to gather insights
that will help lead the research further.

Primary Research:

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My primary research goal is to correlate the industry trends to the consumer reaction to
these strategies to be able to make certain predictions on the future of the media market.
- Interviews: In my opinion, this research will need interviews and insights from the people
who are constantly affected by the constant changing development of this commerce.

Sampling: I have chosen media personnel from both agency and brand ends to understand the
current industry scenario and to understand the business models working on both ends.

- Venu Gopal: Founder of Langoor

- Geetanjali Bhattacharji: market ROI researcher and consultant, previously worked with
Spatial Access and Discovery Inc
- Abhilash Mathew: Vice President, Kestone Integrated Marketing Solutions
- Mihir Moro
- Manashi Kumar: Head of Strategy, BARC

Limitations: As a matter of fact, the study has taken into account different important aspects to
produce the comprehensive results for the research objectives. However, due to the constraints of
time, cost and other factors, the research still has certain limitations. Some of the limitations
posed to the study are as follows:

The research with respect to the impact of Integrated Marketing Communications in the Media
market is accounting a wide topic. There are various elements in integrated marketing
communications, and each element is a complete domain in itself. With this factor at work, the
study is faced with the limitation of inability to explore and assess the impact of each element in
detail.

The study is also faced with the limitation of the fact that results cannot be generalized. On
practical grounds, each business has its set and mix of the elements of the marketing
communication that are integrated to produce desired business objectives and results. As the
objective of each business is different, so the impact of IMC will be different also. Hence, the

22
study is not able to provide a comprehensive guideline to any particular business or industry.
However, it can be used as a reference guide in order to produce the analysis of the impact of
IMC on any specific industry, as well as company.

Geographic limitations also exist. Since this is a relatively new industry in India, there is not a lot
of information that is available, as detailed information may/may not exist. Curation of data was
required and due to constraints of time, it was not as eloquent as thought of.

Chapter 4: Findings and Analysis:

1.0: Integrated Marketing Communications

In a competitive economic system where there is an aggressive battle for survival and
development of the organization, it is necessary to have an insight about the consumers. The
insight includes detailed information about the consumer’s needs, preferences, attitude and
behavior. Integrated Marketing Communications is a concept that is designed to make the
elements of advertising, sales, promotion and marketing work together in such a way that it
becomes a unified system, rather than each element working in isolation. Therefore, the concept
of Integrated Marketing Communications is getting an additional attention in the context of
research but still the behavior of the consumer related to Integrated Marketing Communications
and its impact is hard to evaluate. Mulhern, (2009) stated that Integrated Marketing
Communications has emphasized on consumer orientation in the designing and development of
processes for the strategic communication.

23
1.1: The evolution of integrated marketing

The main objective was rationalization and cross-fertilization of all these methods,
consistency, alignment, better planning and feeding back the data of actions and campaigns into
‘our’ systems to improve marketing and business overall. In that sense we should also mention
integrated marketing communications where PR, sales promotions etc. came in the picture.

The marketing organization will have to redefine its role from managing customer
interactions to integrating and managing all the company’s customer-facing processes
(Philip Kotler).3

The aspects of cross-fertilization, consistency, better planning and data all still matter a lot.
However, one key part was left out of the equation for a long time: the customer. The consumer,
who often is still seen as an email address in a list or a share on a social media channel. That
view of consumers as list members rather than real people is one of the reasons why ‘genuine’
integrated marketing needs to find its place in many businesses as you’ll read below.

Since we started talking about integrated marketing and integrated marketing communications
(not the same) there have been some significant changes in our profession and
customer/consumer behavior. Among them are the well-known increase of marketing
tactics/methods, ever more technology and the ongoing fragmentation of media, devices and
channels – and the ways people use them.

Integrated marketing knows no boundaries or channels (at the starting point)

While content marketing, data-driven marketing, social media marketing and everything we’ve
seen since the initial definition of integrated marketing communications in the previous
millennium really are all part of a bigger picture, they are also umbrella terms and sets of tactics
that require specialization and can serve many goals.

3 Philip Kotler is the S.C. Johnson & Son Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg™ School of Management,
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.

24
Unfortunately we’re still too often blinded by the next shiny thing and with each ‘next thing’ it
seems as if something else should die.

When social media popped up one could read statements such as “social media marketing will
replace email marketing” everywhere. The same was true when content marketing came along. It
was going to ‘kill’ search engine marketing. The list goes on. Reality is a bit more complex.

Integrated Marketing is obviously common sense, but amazingly still not common practice
(Peter Fisk)4

Integrated marketing deserves a different look and is more important than ever. Nothing has
killed anything and the right mix of tactics in an ongoing continuum and around the customer
requires an integrated view, more than ever, blurring the lines between “digital” and “physical”
as they blur in how consumers, you and me, think.

Today we see how email marketing, social media, content and search engine marketing, to
mention a few, all seamlessly work together as it’s the bigger picture and the smart customer-
centric marketing that matters. It’s important to remember that all these sets of tactics can mean
so many things and to look at the individual touch and experience rather than at just the tactics,
channels and often isolated campaigns.

From cross-fertilization to an integrated approach around the customer’s worldview

The best integrated marketing programs breathe cross-fertilization, reinforcement and connected
touchpoints, powered by data and content with channels and stories in customer context as the
glue making it all work.

The lack of a really deep customer understanding is one of the key issues to solve in order to get
an integrated marketing approach.

4 Peter Fisk is a global business thought leader on leadership and growth, a best selling author, expert consultant and keynote
speaker. He has worked on brands from Coca Cola to RedBull, Microsoft to Pfizer, Virgin to Vodafone.

25
The true integrated marketing view is not just about campaigns, channels and tactics. Well on the
contrary: it’s a people first view. A highly individual and human one, infusing all customer-
facing processes. It’s here that integrated marketing has fallen short in the past. The customer,
CRM, data, tactics, online and offline, media, advertising, direct, data-driven: it’s all connected
around the brand story, relevance and the customer.

It’s not just the channels and tactics that are integrated. It’s also about the various customer-
facing functions: sales, customer service. The industry knows it. It’s certainly not a coincidence
we see the integration of integrated marketing on the level of the marketing software stack.
CRM, automation, personalization, service, sales tools: they all get connected.

Despite all these – and other – benefits often we see that it’s hard for businesses to achieve such
an integrated approach. Simply implementing the best software and tools doesn’t cut it.
Technology is never the answer to what’s essentially a cultural issue.

It is a people issue. This also goes for the collaboration and syncing of marketing teams and
agencies. Integrated marketing requires a different form of collaboration within agencies and in
the ways agencies work with their clients. The role of technology and data is clear but it’s not to
make marketing more “digital’”, well on the contrary. Integrated marketing knows no digital or
physical boundaries.

1.2: The purposes of integrated marketing

The goal of integrated marketing is mainly to achieve better, stronger and more personalized
customer engagement and relationships. Cost savings and enhanced efficiency are the result, not
the end goal. Integrated marketing also looks at the customer and experience in an end-to-end
context. This way it will for instance align marketing activities so consumers don’t get
overwhelmed by messages and interactions from various departments or campaigns. It takes the
preferences, ease of use, emotional drivers, trust, intent and channel-agonistic behavior of the
consumer as a reference.

26
Towards deep and true customer understanding

The lack of a really deep customer understanding is one of the key issues to solve in order to get
an integrated marketing approach. This is certainly also a management issue.

Customer understanding is still looked upon too much from the perspective of segmentation,
broad research, vague persona constructions and, the worst of all, generational labels. We don’t
use data enough yet and underuse all the ways we have to get far more close, personal, relevant,
to the point and truly driven by real insights. This goes for Voice of the Customer (VoC)
initiatives, simply listening to people (front-line employees and customers), involving customers
and the huge potential we have with an avalanche of data that can be turned into actionable
intelligence.

Integrated marketing requires integrated CRM

The clear desire of consumers to interact with brands and business across channels and upon
their terms in a seamless way drives the need to move towards a fully connected and integrated
CRM approach.

The first waves of CRM were really about a rather inside-out view with a focus on achieving a
customer view without too much involvement, integration and acting upon what we gathered nor
integration. Social CRM aimed to further tear down the walls between marketing, customer
service and sales with a single view. But still it hasn’t led to genuine transformations in how we
sell, interact with customers and deliver service.

The integrated data management challenge: Bringing together customer analytics and
marketing analytics, collecting and connecting data from various sources is essential: research,
social listening, transactional data and engagement data.

As digital marketing already plays a big role in integrated marketing this isn’t that new.
However, the role of digital continued and continues to drive the integrated end-to-end data

27
strategy need. Furthermore, deep insights into the customer, relevance and efficiency from the
‘people first’ perspective simply reflects in the way we get, manage and deliver data to answer
the right business and marketing questions whereby consumer questions become analytics
questions. Data is needed in each aspect of the customer-oriented equation and all stakeholders
in the marketing process: end-to-end and in each step where it matters. The goal: driving
engagement regardless of channels/devices and depending on intent and context.

The human integrated marketing driver

Other challenges include decentralized planning, silos, a lack of common metrics, resource
challenges, not enough focus on the customer life cycle and lifetime value, an ability to bridge
‘digital’ and ‘physical’, absence of required skills, a missing focus on customer-centricity, no
deep understanding of the cross-fertilization possibilities of various tactics and much more. With
a clear role for management as mentioned.

In the end, it all boils down to those three famous words: people (customers, teams, partners),
processes and tools/technology with people being the main one.

Integrated marketing viewed upon from different angles and tactics

Several ‘forms’ and ‘tactics’ of marketing, certainly in the digital space, have been looked upon
far too long from a siloed approach.

We’ve been advocating a more holistic and integrated approach each time a ‘new or different’
way of looking at (digital) marketing was introduced, based upon the same customer-centric
principles we find in the digital transformation of marketing and the role of customer experience
in digital transformation. It’s a holistic view that goes hand in hand with holistic views on
information management, technology, human collaboration, psychology and business and
management as such.

1.3: Integrated Marketing Communications in the Modern World

28
In the modern context, it has been universally accepted that the concept of marketing is not
persuading individuals to buy what an organization offers, but the main purpose of the company
is to satisfy the needs of the customers, which is the core objective of the organizational
existence. Developing effective mode of channels through which effective marketing
communication can be developed is an essential characteristic of an Integrated Marketing
Communications in the contemporary world (Reid, Luxton, & Mavondo, 2005)5. Implementing
the approach of Integrated Marketing Communications is not a part of the marketing mix
however; it is holistic marketing concept in which the company strengthens the relationship with
the consumer to send a particular message. Thus, an Integrated Marketing Communications aims
at building a strong relationship with consumers so that long-term relationship can be
maintained.

In recent years, the concept of Integrated Marketing Communications has evolved and this has
led to the concept of faster communication in all areas of the business. Thus, the concept of
Integrated Marketing Communications has changed the overall dynamic of marketing and
improved all the areas in which the element of communication is present.

Marketing communication occurred in the 20th century has significantly changed the market
dynamics (Cateora, 20076). In a global market where the competition is aggressive, and the
market is highly dynamic in nature, the organization wants to find out the ways in which they
can cater the needs of the customers in an efficient way and the benefits can be passed upon
them.

Similarly keeping in view the vision and mission of the organization and its alignment with the
marketing communication the importance of IMC has drastically increased and has taken a new
significant shape. The primary purpose of marketing is considered as, a way to strengthen the
brands. However, on the other side the competitors have become brands. Therefore, observing
the competition many experts are of the opinion that the fundamental idea of an Integrated
Marketing Communications is the only way to create sustainable competitive advantage over
5 Reid, M., Luxton, S. and Mavondo, F. (2005). The relationship between integrated marketing communication, market orientation
and brand orientation. Journal of Advertising, 34(4), 11-23.

6 International marketing, MCGRAW HILL/IRWIN SERIES IN MARKETING, Philip R. Cateora, John L. Graham, Edition, 13,
illustrated, Publisher:McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2007, Original from, Cornell University, Digitized, 16 Aug 2011

29
others. The long-term relationship will enable the company to create and communicate what a
company wants to offer and what are the benefits attached. This will help customers to build a
strong relationship, which will lead to brand loyalty (Mihart, 2012a7).

1.4: Positive Impact:

Integrated Marketing Communications like sales promotion, advertising and personal selling
helps to change the perceptions of people about brand, create more brand awareness and image.
The imposed brand image and awareness can influence the level of customer satisfaction,
expectations, customer values and trust, which ultimately result in behavioral and attitudinal
loyalty (Kliatchko, 2005). A conceptual model of how Integrated Marketing Communications
affect the consumer behavior, which is given below,

Integrated Marketing Communications helps to create an affiliation of brand with consumer

behavior. According to Keller (2001), Since IMC is directly related to consumer behavior; it can
affect the buying decision of consumers. As Beerli and Santana (1999) have also suggested that
IMC activities such as advertising, promotion have positive impacts on consumers’ responses
that are based on three crucial dimensions, which include affection, cognition and conation.

7 Figen Ebren, 2006., "Impact of Integrated Marketing Communications Programs in Enhancing Manager and Employee
Performance," Papers of the Annual IUE-SUNY Cortland Conference in Economics, in: Proceedings of the Conference on Human
and Economic Resources, pages 17-25, Izmir University of Economics.
<https://ideas.repec.org/h/izm/prcdng/200602.html>

30
Lavidge and Steiner (1961)8 commented that IMC imposes positive impacts on consumer
responses by combining the major elements like cognition, conation and affection. These
elements affect the purchasing behavior of the consumer and increase the sales, profits, market
share, and brand loyalty. The conation stage of the consumer identifies the buying intention of
the consumer.

Hence, such IMC methods are useful that help to portray the fulfillment of consumers’ needs,
satisfying them to the core so that they make a final purchasing decision. Sometimes, consumers,
purchasing behavior does not rely upon complete satisfaction of needs but they make purchases
due to emotional resonance developed between them and the product with the help of IMC
activities (Tsai, 2005)9. Hence, this shows that IMC is an effective approach, which develops an
association of product or brand directly with the consumers.

8 J. Lavidge, Robert & A. Steiner, Gary. (1961). A Model For Predictive Measurements of Advertising Effectiveness. Advertising &
Society Review. 1. 10.1353/asr.2000.0008.
9 Tsai, Shu-pei. (2005). Utility, cultural symbolism and emotion: A comprehensive model of brand purchase value. International
Journal of Research in Marketing - INT J RES MARK. 22. 277-291. 10.1016/j.ijresmar.2004.11.002.

31
2.0: Integrated marketing: from customer-centric marketing to
customer-facing processes

Integrated marketing is the past, present and future of marketing success. However, integrated
marketing has changed. It’s not what it used to be/mean and has gone far beyond its original
definition and scope.

Integrated marketing originally was and still often is looked upon from a pure ‘company-centric’
or rather ‘campaign-centric’ and ‘messaging-centric’ perspective: as a way to bring together
various marketing methods and tactics such as direct marketing and advertising. Hence,
understanding consumer insights is accepted as the first step in the development of an Integrated
Marketing Communications plan and strategy.

2.1:The impact of Integrated Marketing Communications on consumer behavior

In today’s competitive business environment, there is a great need of in-depth consumer insights
in order to sustain and grow the business. This means that marketers are in constant search for
detailed knowledge about the customers’ needs, wants, behaviors and the meaning behind
particular actions or behavior. Modern marketing is consumer oriented rather than product
oriented which means marketers are not required to persuade the customers to buy what the
company produces rather they are required to understand the needs of their customers and satisfy
them. The key objective of Integrated Marketing Communications is to find the ways to satisfy
customers’ needs and wants. The main aim of IMC is to influence consumer behavior by creating
a marketing message and send it to target market through most appropriate communication
channels.

Consumer behavior in relation to Integrated Marketing Communications can be categorized in

four ways, and each of them can be used into order to evaluate the IMC effects. The four ways
can be described as follows:

32
 ● The actual transactions are measurements, in the form of purchase through which the
acceptance of the marketers is evaluated. The key elements for the evaluation are the
behavior and measurable data which can be found out.

● The practical transaction refers to the activities in which there is an association with the
marketing organization but no transaction. This might include a consumer dialing a
helpline for getting more detailed information (Keller, 200910).

● The third is the relationship, which cannot be directly counted. In this way, the marketer
cannot have a direct connection with the consumer. An example is M&Ms using a wide
channel for its distribution hence it has no direct contact with the ultimate consumer

● A consumer creates different networks about products, brand and companies. Another
measure of IMC affects the changes the brand network. A consumer who has changed his
preferred brand through IMC programs has shown a behavioral change

2.2: Consumer behavior

Hawkins, & Mothersbaugh, (2009)11 have defined consumer behavior as the decisions of the
consumers that they take when they are purchasing, consuming or acquiring goods, services,
activities, experience. Enis (1974, p. 228)12 has defined consumer behavior as “a process, which
through inputs and their use though process and actions leads to satisfaction of needs and wants.”
“Buying behaviour of consumers is defined as both individuals and households who buy goods
and services for personal consumption” (Kumar, 2010, p.21813). Consumer behavior does not
only imply the purchase of tangible goods like soap and house, but it also means consumers

10 Lane Keller, Kevin. (2009). Building strong brands in a modern marketing communications environment. Journal of Marketing
Communications. 15. 10.1080/13527260902757530.
11 Mihic, Svetlana & Radjenovic, D & Supic, Dejan. (2013). Consumer behaviour - building marketing strategy. 18. 116-120.
12 Enis, B.M. (1974) “Marketing Principles: The Management Process”
13 Kumar, P. (2010) “Marketing of Hospitality & Tourism Services” Tata McGraw-Hill Education

33
using services, their activities and experiences like going to a dental clinic, attending a concert
(Keller, 200114).

2.3: Consumer Decision making process

One of the crucial aspects of consumer behavior is how the consumer makes a buying decision.
A consumer goes through the buying decision process before making a final purchase. There are
six stages in consumer buying decision process that are as follows (Hoyer, Maclnnis, and Pieters,
2013)15:

1. Problem recognition: this is the first stage where a person becomes get aware of his or her
need

2. Information search: after recognizing his need a consumer searches for information. For
that he has two options: one is an internal search like his memory, and the second is an
external search, for example the consumer can take information from family/ friends,
TV/radio or internet

3. Evaluation of alternatives: after searching for multiple choices now the consumer
evaluates the alternative choices.

4. Purchase decision: the consumer makes the final choice about which alternative to buy.

5. Purchase: the consumer makes the final purchase

6. Post-purchase evaluation: after purchasing a consumer evaluates whether he is satisfied

or dissatisfied

14 Louise Kuhn, Kerri & Alpert, Frank & Pope, Nigel. (2008). An application of Keller's brand equity model in a B2B context.
Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal. 11. 10.1108/13522750810845540.
15 Adapted from Consumer Behavior 6th edition ©2013 South-Western, Cengage Learning

34
According to an economic view, the consumer makes rational decisions which involve a search
process (Solomon, 200916). However, many consumer researchers criticized this type of model,
and they say it is impossible to gather all the information to make a “perfect decision," so many
buying decisions are not made by rational process. On the contrary, there is a passive view,
according to which consumers do not make buying decisions independently, but rather their
decisions are manipulated by marketing activities (Schwarz, 200417).

Then there is a cognitive view in which the consumer plays a receptive and active role. Here the
consumer searches for the information and based on that information makes a satisfactory
decision (Mihart, 2012a). The emotional view of buying decision says that feelings and emotions
also play a significant role in the purchase process. Sometimes consumers buy things
impulsively; they do not go through the whole purchase process of searching information and
comparing alternatives.

In order to understand consumer buying decision process, it should be kept in mind that a person
does not necessarily follow every step of the decision-making process every time he makes a
buying decision. A consumer gives time, effort and attention to the decision-making process
depending on the importance of a problem to be solved by the purchase decision.

There are three perspective of consumer buying behavior or decision-making process: the
decision making, the experiential and the behavioral influence (Simonson & Nowlis, 200018).
Also, there are three levels of decision making as described by the approach of consumer as
problem solver (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2009; Solomon, 200919): extensive problem solving,
limited problem solving and routinized response behavior (Mihart, 2012a).

16 Madichie, Nnamdi. (2009). Consumer Behavior: Buying, Having, and Being (8th ed.)20091 Michael R. Solomon. Consumer
Behavior: Buying, Having, and Being (8th ed.) . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education 2009.
17 Schwarz, Norbert. (2004). Metacognitive Experiences in Consumer Judgment and Decision Making. Journal of Consumer
Psychology - J CONSUM PSYCHOL. 14. 10.1207/s15327663jcp1404_2.
18 Simonson, Itamar & M Nowlis, Stephen. (2000). The Role of Explanations and Need for Uniqueness in Consumer Decision
Making: Unconventional Choices Based on Reasons. Journal of Consumer Research. 27. 49-68. 10.1086/314308.
19 Schiffman, Leon & Bednall, David & O`Cass, A & Paladino, A & Kanuk, L. (2005). Consumer behaviour.

35
According to the decision-making perspective, consumers initially go through various stages of
the problem solving task that finally results in buying behavior. The decision making process of
the consumers to buy any product or service can be related to the decision making process that a
person takes for solving extensive problem. At this level, a consumer does not have any set
criteria for product category evaluation; vast information is required to set criteria in order to
evaluate different brands in the category, and similarly sufficient information of different brands
in the product category is needed (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2009).

Some decisions are made under conditions of low involvement; such decisions are inspired by
the environmental cues (Schwarz, 200020), and it is known as behavioral influence perspective
(Mandel, 200321). According to the behavioral influence approach, in some cases environmental
characteristics influence consumers’ buying decision (Isen, 2001). Some extent of information
search and deliberation time is a part of extended and limited problem solving approaches
(Slovic et al., 200522). Routinized decision making is different from above two approaches; it
requires minimum effort and conscious decision (Ariely, 200023).

20 Schwarz, Norbert. (2000). Emotion, Cognition, and Decision Making. Cognition & Emotion - COGNITION EMOTION. 14.
10.1080/026999300402745.
21 Journal of Consumer Research, Volume 30, Issue 1, June 2003, Pages 30–40,https://doi.org/10.1086/374700, Published: 01
June 2003
22 Slovic, Paul & Peters, Ellen & Finucane, Melissa & MacGregor, Donald. (2005). Affect, Risk, and Decision Making. Health
Psychology. 24. 10.1037/0278-6133.24.4.S35.
23 Focusing on the Forgone: How Value Can Appear So Different to Buyers and Sellers, Ziv Carmon and Dan Ariely Journal
of Consumer Research, Vol. 27, No. 3 (December 2000), pp. 360-370

36
It is important to understand that each of the approach to the consumer decision making has its
own relevance at its place. These can be further defined as the consumer behavior approaches
account different ways of seeing the single thing. For instance, Mowen, (198824) has referred
approach selection is often a consequence of hierarchy of effect. Furthermore, most of the
perspective faces the criticism of focusing only single aspect whereas consumer behavior in
decision making is often a combination of
different aspects and leads to the
recommendation of new approach. For
example, Gutnik, et al. (2006) in a paper
have attempted to develop a model that not
only unifies these factors lends aspects from
the discipline of economics, the impact of
psychology, and the influence of
neuroscience. The relevance of the approach
is also affected by the discipline and the
environmental factors that have an impact.

2.4: Traditional communication process

Consumers’ buying decisions are not made independently, but rather their decisions are
manipulated by marketing activities. The major marketing activity which aims to influence
consumer behavior is marketing communication.

Traditional communication is the process of sending, receiving and processing of information.

According to conventional linear direct marketing process companies first develop a product,
create messages and add incentives to the mix. Then marketers make products available to the
customers through various media or sales force. This methodology assumes that all consumers
follow the conventional buying decision process. A few years ago this strategy was useful
because consumers had limited knowledge, and so with proper targeting and smart advertising,
marketers could influence the consumers, buying behavior. However, the spread of technology
24 Mowen, John. (1988). Beyond consumer decision making. Journal of Consumer Marketing. 5. 15-25. 10.1108/eb008214.

37
like internet, mobile phones, tablets, search engines and on-demand TV has made consumer and
buying behavior more sophisticated. The conventional linear marketing and communication
process has lost its effectiveness after the spread of technology. Now consumers can easily get
rid of the marketing messages with the help of spam filters, pop-up blockers, remote controls and
do-not-mail –list (Constantinides, 200625). Therefore, it implies that understanding of the
consumer behavior significantly requires understand of the various evolving marketing
communication techniques that has its impact on the consumer behavior.

To talk about this topic in the Indian context, Geetanjali Bhattacharji, market ROI researcher
and consultant, previously worked with Spatial Access and Discovery Inc; says that
“Resource Optimisation or ROI has been bastardised (no longer the deliverable). Started in 2005,
it was a novel concept then, but now 15 years later, it’s become constant. No one wants to talk
about it anymore as it has become the unsaid rule. The pressing issue in the industry now how do
you measure, duplication.

Earlier it was very easy, like silos, like there were just TV, Radio, Print; you had certain amount
of duplication and TV being the biggest medium present in the industry, but now the shift
between TV to screen has become very big, then also the TV viewing habit has not gone in
India as the culture and people we are (communal viewing).

So the challenge isn’t resource management anymore, the challenge right now is that how can we
reach the audience via multiple screens with different messages. How can I make sure that in the
middle of all the clutter of media messages, make my message click?

So engagement, acquisition and retention is the future, at least for the next 5 years. The retention
of customers have become extremely weak.

The definition of ROI has changed”

25 The Marketing Mix Revisited: Towards the 21st Century Marketing. / Constantinides, Efthymios. In: Journal of marketing
management, Vol. 22, No. 3/4, 2006, p. 407-438.

38
3.0: Most Influential Tools

From the variety of tools of IMC like advertising, public relations, personal selling, direct
marketing, sales promotion, road shows, sponsorship, events, point of purchase, some tools are
identified as the most-influential ones that have greater impacts on consumer behavior.
According to Francis (2010), advertising is the most-dominant tool that can change the

39
 consumers’ perception about the product. Most often,
advertising encourages consumers to make a purchase
as it bluntly communicates to the consumer to get the
product. Moreover, advertising the product creates an
emotional attachment of consumers with the product
that also manipulates their buying behavior.

Secondly, public relations also serve the purpose of changing consumer behavior. This IMC tool
is important for creating a good reputation and image of the brand, which will help to bring more
consumers to buy their product. Public relations focuses on communication channels that support
goodwill between the company and consumers. Manufacturing companies most often use the
advertising tool to cater the attention of target groups directly, in the most influential way. Also,
sales promotion is another effective way that is widely used by manufacturing companies. On the
other hand, service based companies give greater stress upon personal selling and direct
marketing to divert the consumer behavior to make a purchase.

3.1: Social media and its role in IMC

40
Social media networking websites have become an important part of marketing strategies and
marketing plans. These social media websites are significantly used by marketers to not only
engage with the consumers, but these websites are used to present information and knowledge
about the company and its offerings as well. Social media websites are helpful in promoting the
offerings of the organization as well as in engaging directly with the consumers. In addition to
this, these social media websites are helpful for the organization in knowing about the responses
of the consumers and whether they are liking the product or service and to take feedback from
the consumers.

These websites are able to spread the message at a rapid pace and if the message is able to
engage and attract the audience, then the message is spread from one consumer to another and
thus, a chain of consumers are able to see the message. Therefore, it has a multiple impact and
for this very reason, organizations and marketers have started formulating proper social media
marketing strategies and social media is included in the Integrated Marketing Communications
plan. Mangold, & Faulds, (2009) stated that even large organizations formulate objectives and
then devise strategies to achieve these objectives from social media websites. However, it is
important for organizations to use this platform properly otherwise, it can negatively impact the
organization and its brand image.

4.0: IMC in India

“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell” (Seth
Godin)26

Integrated Marketing Communication is integration of all marketing tool approaches media and
resources within a company which maximizes impact on consumer mine and results into
maximum profit at minimum cost. Integrated Marketing Communication becomes critical when

26 Seth Godin is an entrepreneur and blogger who thinks about the marketing of ideas in the digital age.

41
you want to drive home a single minded proposition against a given set of target audience
irrespective of the media and channel of communication marketing philosophy views IMC
imperative organisational success has become development in the field of brand management.

India is one of the most favorite markets on the globe. The growing purchasing power of India’s
huge middle class makes it attractive. However, the customer base in India is extremely
fragmented. The huge geographic expanse of the country has resulted in an inconsistent
distribution system that is radically different from other countries. Also the cultural diversity of
consumer, differences in their tastes, habits, and requirements that make it more complex task to
market their goods in a streamlined and consistent manner. The concept of IMC with focused
and massive marketing is fairly new to the Indian companies who have traditionally experienced
a mixed economy and trade restrictions back home. In a protected economy, the companies had
faced restricted competition and consequently did not realize the importance of targeted and
more focused marketing. In the absence of well-developed departments for individual elements
of marketing communications, a quasi integrated approach was in practice among various
departments in Indian companies. The idea of IMC still manifests itself in a variety of local and
situational ways for marketers. It is necessary to examine the cultural and social factors with
demographic influences, keeping in perspective a pertinent analogy of ‘GO GLOCAL” with the
concept of IMC. IMC is a major strategic concept that is as evolutionary and discursive in Indian
context. A strong need is compulsory here to explore the concept and phenomena of IMC
directly in the real world of communication. With the change in communication practices and
technologies, integration in marketing techniques is inevitable for Indian companies to survive in
this multinational and multicultural world emerging globally. Flow of communication is easy
and open and our ability to adapt to these changes has made it a very enthralling and promising
place for the global market. The purpose of integrated marketing communications strategy is to
work toward the common goal of customer focused marketing. The Indian marketplace consists
of an increasingly complex arena of competitors within a rapidly changing environment.
Businesses are now getting Internet-based operations, portraying a charming picture of
sophisticated and cluttered market. It is attempting to speak with clear voices about the natures of
their operations and the benefits associated with the brands and products. Numbers and variety of
media is bombarding potential customers with messages, it is vital to have clear and consistent

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communication in the clutter. Response to this apparently amorphous marketing environment has
led many Indian organizations to desirable integration of their communications efforts under the
umbrella of this strategic marketing communications function. Effective marketing departments
and advertising agencies are developing pipelines of new, talented innovations, media buyers,
promotions managers, database web masters, and others in order to succeed in the long term.
Employee performance attitudes reflect morale within the marketing department and also
relations with other departments and groups. The effect of IMC plans are building bridges with
other internal departments and making everyone aware of the thrust and theme of the program:

1. Market is now having a rural-urban mix shape

2. Occupational diversity (Agriculture to other skills)
3. Awareness is spreading fast Indian consumer is being more smart
4. Heterogeneous Demographic Traits
5. Diversity in economic conditions
6. Media advertising is shifting to multiple forms of communication focusing at target
centered niche media.
7. Market is shaping from a manufacturer-dominated market to a retailer-dominated,
consumer- controlled market.
8. Technology is getting updated rapidly
9. Huge opportunities are available to develop with market
10. Manpower is getting performance-based compensation from traditional compensation,
sales and profit margins are increasing

However, significant challenges to achieve optimal IMC performance are still in existence and
acting as key barriers in way of effective IMC function in the country. Following are the few of
them:

- Lack of strategic consistency

- Lack of needed skill sets among marketing staff
- Scarcity of creativity and innovation
- Insufficient marketing budget

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 - Lack of a standard measurement process
- Lack of technology advancement support.
- Ambiguity on the issue Complex cultural and social values

The Indian Industry has seen a lot of successful integrated campaigns and the train is only
catching up some big bang integrated campaigns that go ahead with the audience is recently was:

A) McDonald's ‘All Has Changed, Nothing Has Changed’ campaign. After completing 20 years,
they launched it’s usually accepted campaign with multi dash from approach a different
platforms like tv, in dash store, digital and social media. The entire campaign was focus on the
impact of McDonald's where have all the life of the people who will visit.

B) Radio City ‘AudaCITY’’ campaign for brands like Amazon, Motorola, Colors, VOOT, Van
Heusen, among others has a set of benchmark In radio marketing. The campaign provided 360
Integrated Marketing solutions across radio, print, digital outdoor platforms to redefine
marketing with creative and innovative solutions.

In an interview with Venu Gopal, founder of digital agency, Langoor, believes that “We are
adapting pretty quickly to the western tools of communication in an integrated format and
merging them into Indian needs. In approximately 2-3 years, we shall be able to optimise this
system well”

On the question of the adaptation of the IMC modules by brands and the allocation of their
budgets/resources; “There a lot of trials and errors, as it is a relatively new practices, but
companies are allocating 10-15% budgets for marketing and out of that percentage, there is at
least 5-10% of which is kept aside for trials and errors.
The reason for that is because clients are getting more and more aware of the importance of IMC
and how integral it is to answer the questions regarding the industry. So what works for a fashion
brand, would not work for an FMCG brand, therefore there is an understanding with the
brands/clients is that when they are investing 10-15% of their funds, they are investing in at least
10 experiments with content, the channels and other factors.

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This goes on for approximately a quarter (3 months), after which the team sits together and
reviews their hypothesis. That’s how I work on with my brand. 10% is what we work with.”
This helps us understand the working business model of the IMC module in Media
strategies and campaign creation in India.

4.1: Need and Emergence of IMC in the Indian Market

Today the customer has the world at it's fingertips as opposed to yesterday when the buying
decision was needed at the point of sale today 80% of the decision is made even before the
customer walks into the store does it is of paramount importance that the brand reach out to the
target audience at every possible point with messaging that is consistent to leave a telling impact
the customers have to be reached by a media that they choose and at a time when they are open
to receiving the communication .

This can manifested multifold into a country like India with huge geographic expanse, cultural
diversity, differences in habits and steady increase in the purchasing power of customers. It
makes it critical for marketers to slice and dice the target audience into homogeneous groups and
reach out to them with integrated campaign at every possible touch point. With digital and social
media taking the centerstage, it should be kept in mind that there are some campaign that can
benefit many folds if print and offline are also integrated in the promotional strategy.

4.2: Opportunities and challenges

In an interview, Abhilash Mathew, (Vice President, Kestone Integrated Marketing

Solutions), he said:

The introduction of IMC happen approximately two decades ago by working for MNCs and
telling them that we could do ‘everything’ for them. Soon enough, now we realise that we have

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become an integral part of their go-to-market strategy, and ‘everything’ was nothing but
Integrated Marketing Communication.

From then onwards, we started his journey of trying to perfect various services so that we could
execute long-term and impactful campaigns. One of the successful integrated campaigns in
manage was for a global laptop and PC brand.The objective was to first create product awareness
and then engage and convert the target audience using all relevant marketing channels. We
exploited traditional media like print, radio and on-ground activities in malls and colleges to tap
consumers and generate store walk-in amplification with digital and social media to give a
holistic approach to the overall campaign. Process management was further facilitated by our
back office team specialising in data processing with service fulfilment.

Today Keystone can launch a brand, promote it, from both offline and online media, manage
vacancies and CRM functions, hiring and galvanising sales on-ground thus making it one a few
integrated sales and marketing services agency.

Integrated Marketing Has influenced new thinking and competition between marketers

Integrated campaigns are not limited to any particular industry and marketers can use this
powerful tool to deliver the final punch.It is applicable to any brand who wants to favourably
influence the thought of a target group and gain the upper hand on competition. The latest
example being the positive messaging campaign around demonetisation, which has managed to
sustain goodwill despite all the inconvenience being caused. The government has used events,
PR and social media to reiterate on the greater good that this change will bring about. Talking of
the government, during the pre-election campaign, the country witnessed one of the largest
integrated campaigns of all times in ‘Acche Din Aayenge’

The way forward: With the change in the communication practices and communication
technology, integration and marketing technique is inevitable for the companies to survive in this
multicultural/national emerging world. To cut out clutter and noise in the market, brands have to

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differentiate themselves well, more than ever before and only way of knowing that is why
intelligent Integrated Marketing Communication.

5.0: Case Studies

5.1: Uber: Uber comes up with first integrated marketing campaign for India

Rolls out first-ever TVC in India with the tagline ‘Ise Apni Hi Gaadi Samjho’; campaign theme
‘Apnapan’ aims to drive everyday brand connect and relevance

Uber, the ridesharing app that is redefining urban mobility across the world, has announced the
launch of its integrated marketing campaign in India. With the idea of Apnapan as its core theme,
the campaign aims to build everyday brand relevance and reframe personal mobility. This also
marks the launch of Uber’s first TVC in India.

Sanjay Gupta, Head of Marketing, Uber India, said, “At our scale, there are millions of amazing
stories that we hear each week – stories of heart-warming experiences that take place between
riders and driver-partners across the country. It’s these stories that keep people coming back to
ride and drive with us. Over the last four months, we’ve spent hours listening to our riders and
driver partners across the country to co-create our communication strategy, and build out the
idea of Apnapan in the truest sense. We’re super excited to launch this campaign, as it’s our first
step towards reframing the narrative around personal mobility and freedom for millions in
India. So when you use Uber next, Isey Apni hi Gaadi Samjho.”

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Reinforcing that Uber is every day, for everyone, the campaign conceptualized by Taproot aims
to build a deeper brand connect. Inspired by real rider and driver partner stories, the simple
narrative highlights experiences that every Uber rider can relate to. With Apnapan being the
umbrella theme, it brings to life the underlying emotional connect between Uber, its riders and
driver partners by reinforcing that it’s a service one can rely on as if it were their own - true to
the tagline Isey Apni Hi Gaadi Samjho.

Speaking about the campaign, Pallavi Chakravarti, Executive Creative Director, Taproot Dentsu,
said, "Being a regular Uber user, I can vouch for the fact that it’s changed my life. It’s rare to
work on a campaign where the idea is true to the brand and the service, where you don’t have to
create a story because the real thing IS the story. The Uber experience is as good as having your
own car, and sometimes even better. And this experience is something we think everyone should
enjoy. So we’ve attempted to capture the Uber way of life through a simple thought around
Apnapan."

Uber recently partnered with Madison to execute the media strategy. A multi-platform campaign,
Uber’s digital-first approach will see Facebook and YouTube as primary channels, television for
broader air cover and radio to communicate with the commuting audience. Given the scale and
geographic footprint that the business has achieved, the TVC and radio campaigns will be
available in multiple languages like Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu.

Vikram Sakhuja, CEO, Madison, added, "With the launch of this campaign, we expect more
people to connect and use the convenience provided by Uber in the Indian context - just like it is
being appreciated and used by people in various countries across the world "

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5.2: Amazon India; (focusing on consumer loyalty)

Consumers in India are going through a transformation. They have become empowered, quite
experimental, highly quality conscious and are buying intelligently. It is reflecting in their
buying behaviour, they are more vocal, expressing their views and demanding better experience.
A huge change in consumer dynamics is being witnessed, with a large-scale shift from offline to
online consumption of goods and services. Also, rapid movement is being witnessed in new and
unconventional categories like furniture, health and beauty care, apparel and groceries, as
opposed to traditional online categories of books and consumer electronics.

In today’s world where loyalty is becoming a rare phenomenon, be it your friend or a job, brand
loyalty also seems to be fading. Brands operating in mature markets face intense competition
making it difficult to sustain. Therefore, it is important for companies to know how to retain their
existing customers.

Amazon India launched its flagship membership programme, Amazon Prime, in 2016 to boost
repeat transactions on its platform, and this effort is already paying off. Amazon Prime
membership provides free and priority delivery, additional quality check for the consumer
creating higher customer confidence for a small fee. As per latest declaration by Amazon, two
out of three daily essentials transaction on Amazon Pantry, and one in every three orders in the
second highest selling fashion category, is from a Prime member. Overall, Prime members
already account for one-third of all the orders placed on Amazon India. This success can be
attributed to typical behaviour of consumers who, after committing once, tend to first visit
Amazon before exploring other options. Thus, Prime will make an impact in the long run in
making people stick to a single online marketplace. Major impact will be seen in the FMCG

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category which offers a selection of about 1.9-million products from 9,000 sellers on the
platform, and frequency of buying in this category is higher and will drive sales in other
segments also. Amazon is also waiving off the box fee of ₹ 20 (for every 15 Kg box) for Prime
customers. Very recently in May 2017, Amazon had a four day “Great Indian Sale” where Prime
members accounted for 35 % of the orders and purchases made by them grew 100 % over a
similar sale in January.

Customer Acquisition and Loyalty

Innovation and brand consultant, Anisha Motwani, believes that free trials or sampling as a
strategy is mostly prevalent and successful in categories that have deep-seated habits and have
high frequency of consumption Brand switching in this category require attitude and behaviour
changes and free sampling influences customer to try new brands and thus increasing the
probability of purchase. Such categories could include newspapers, food products, etc. Free trials
can also be found in case of expensive offerings where consumers prefer sampling before
making a final commitment.

In March, 2017, a unique trial-driven marketing experiment in the unusual category of apparel
was done by women’s denim brand, Jealous 21. It offered free jeans to its customers in Delhi,
Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Chennai. The process to avail the offer involved registration by
interested women on the company’s website, get a unique code to visit its store, uploading a
selfie in a Jealous 21 garment at the store, and tagging @jealous21 and #freejeansday on
Instagram or on Facebook to walk away with a free pair of jeans. The brand made sure that there
were no hidden terms and conditions which made it a very enjoyable experience for its
customers. Total 30,000 people registered for participation and 5,000 free jeans were claimed.
Though jeans as a category does not quite fit into this kind of trial-driven marketing, but this
brand achieved spread of positive word of mouth leading to referrals. “The real impact of this is

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the viralization of such an activity. The brand is earning this buzz—rather than paying for
advertising—and is being talked about,” says Motwani.

Trial-driven marketing is based on the assumption that once the prospective customers
experience the product/service, they might get ready to make a lifetime commitment to the
brand. “A consumer is more likely to buy a product after trying it. Typically, food products have
tried sampling stations while cars invite you to go on a test drive,” says Alpana Parida, managing
director at brand strategy firm, DY Works.

Success of Reliance Jio in the intensely competitive Indian telecom market brings forth the
strength of trial marketing strategy, even in the service industry. Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd
offered free sampling of Jio’s voice calling, text messaging, and data services, and acquired
stupendous 100 million subscribers, of which it continued to retain 72 million even after the free
trial period ended.

Conventional wisdom suggests that brands that indulge in trials and discounts erode brand value.
“Here’s the reality though. People value brands. But people also seek value for money. They
prefer to buy brands, especially when they are offered at the best price or that have been
experienced first-hand and generated a positive word of mouth,” Motwani says.

Trust and Commitment– requisites for building true loyalty

The concept of true brand loyalty is not just limited to consistent repurchase but is broader in
including all kinds of positive attitudinal elements. Commitment is a necessary condition for true
brand loyalty to occur. Working with Professor Rogge of the University of Rochester, ICLP
(Global loyalty marketing agency) applied Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love to the

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relationship between shoppers and brands, and defined the ideal, or “devoted” relationship, as
one where shoppers feel passion, intimacy, and commitment towards the brand.

ICLP research on shoppers’ relationship with particular brands and their associated loyalty
programs throws light on a lot of areas which can be used to build loyalties. Some of the findings
are:

Indian shoppers easily feel attached to the brands they shop, but only 21% are currently in a
devoted relationship, especially in respect to the retail brands which indicates that marketers
need to find ways to raise the emotions of Indian customers to the highest level of bonding with
brands.

Another finding revealed that just 44% of Indian shoppers feel sufficiently rewarded for making
a personal recommendation to their friends and only 47% said that the rewards received are
tailored to their individual needs, which gives direction to the kind of reward programmes which
marketers need to develop.

In the current data-driven world, personal data of shoppers so collected through all different
channels, is not capitalised to its maximum potential as only 56% of Indian shoppers said that
their chosen brand made relevant recommendations for products and services that interest them.

Even as Online retailers like Amazon and Flipkart build loyalties through the tools of customer
recognition and personalization, multi-brand physical retailers like Big Bazaar and Shoppers
Stop are getting consumer trust through consistent quality, value for money and respect for
customers. Thus, different retail sectors in India can learn from one another as they look to build
loyalty and closer relationships with their customers.

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Customer experience and connect sustains relationships

Iglesias et al (2010)27 in their research studied that loyalty is achieved by brands capable of
delivering a unique and distinctive experience by managing both functional and emotional
elements. Experience adds memories and great value to the relationship. Giving customers
unique experiences as rewards strengthen the emotional bond customers have with the brand,
ensuring the relationship continues long after the experience itself.

OnePlus phones, which are sold only online, do carry offline plans as well. They are
experimenting with different types of offline selling modes, like recently, they opened four
exclusive service centres which also serve as experience centres for prospective buyers. They
also came up with pop-up stores which remain for a short period. One such store in Mumbai
drove in huge traffic. Pop-ups are a way to make users meet and experience OnePlus brand and
meet some of their staff. Company also uses this as a way of feeling the pulse of the market.
“Consumer loyalty is boosting our organic growth”, says OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei.

Connect with the customers is the key to developing loyalty. A conversation-driven sale that is
high on empathy and knowledge, low on price and discounts has long been a staple of loyalty. It
focuses on understanding the needs of consumers and delivering an exceptional experience. We
are living in the age of “conversational commerce”, a term coined by Chris Messina, the inventor
of the hashtag, which refers to the ability of a digital tool to interact and engage with a consumer
using natural language. And multicultural millennials constituting nearly half of the demographic
are the new set of consumers to interact with, who know what they like, and are not shy about
sharing that information with their friends and contacts. According to Forbes magazine, “a good

27 Iglesias, Oriol & Singh, Jatinder & batista-foguet, joan manuel. (2011). The role of brand experience and affective commitment
in determining brand loyalty. Journal of Brand Management. 18. 10.1057/bm.2010.58.

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Word of Mouth marketing (WOMM) campaign generates thousands of conversations,
recommendations and triple sales in just a year (even for the boring products)”. “When it comes
to loyalty, multicultural millennials give as much as they get,” said Buzz Marketing Group CEO
and founder Tina Wells.

In India, one kind of retail channel on which a large part of population, especially the lower rung
of society depend upon is the ration shop. This traditional, government-controlled retail provides
basic everyday consumed commodities like sugar, oil, etc., at subsidised rates. Due to lack of
proper management and leakages, the network of ration shops has come under lot of criticism.
However, their wide network and strong connection with daily lives has caught the attention of
Kishore Biyani of Future Group. He took up a mammoth project of giving a complete makeover
to 5,000 traditional ration shops in Rajasthan. This public-private experiment is not just to revive
and rebrand this channel but Biyani plans to supply FMCG products to them, train the
manpower, and computerize the outlets. Other states of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are
also being explored for the similar initiative. This seems to be a great way for Future Group to
make inroads into the remote areas of these states which are devoid of modern retail facilities.
This is creating early customer familiarity with the brand which can get converted to loyal
customer base as and when Future Group’s modern retail stores make their entry in those areas.

Easyday, one of the stores of Future Retail Limited, launched its very first loyalty program in
September 2016 called “Har Mahine Bonus” which offers free bonuses and vouchers worth ₹
300 to every shopper who buys goods worth ₹ 1,000. Easyday is a supermarket chain of 330
stores and has this loyalty program running across segments. On the importance of customer
connect, Manish Sabnis - CEO Easyday - Future Retail Limited, puts in very beautifully,
“Success of supermarkets lies in becoming the store of the community. At Easyday, we take
multiple initiatives every month to become the preferred “Pados ki Dukaan”. “Har Mahine

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Bonus” is a program launched to incentivise loyal shoppers and at the same time attract new
customers to our stores.”

In today’s world where consumers have wide choices available in all categories, loyalties have
weakened. India’s retailing giant, the Future Group, is all set to pioneer into setting up “loyalty-
driven convenience stores”. There are 2 basic ideas which go behind these stores. One, to
provide member-shoppers with higher discounts than those offered by brick-and-mortar chains
such as D’Mart, or online rivals like Amazon and Flipkart, and two, to stock each store with
merchandise suited for that locality and consumer base. The concept is a hybrid between the
kirana (neighbourhood) store, connected commerce, and large supermarket. It targets to have
five-lakh members in the fiscal 2017–18, and has plans of opening 10,000 of such stores in next
4 years.

A strong groundwork has already been done by Future Group to ensure the success of this new
format. The entire ecosystem such as logistics, partnership with FMCG companies, and customer
database around the stores has been built.

Big competitive advantages have been created by Biyani. While rivals have been focusing on
big-box formats, he took the acquisition route and in past 5 years acquired almost all
convenience-store format brands that existed in India. As a result, the new smaller stores (loyalty
driven) planned by him will have three badges—Easy Day, Heritage Retail, and Nilgiri’s. Also
while rivals are pure-play retailers, Future Group itself owns FMCG and logistics company, thus,
having advantage through integration in the chain. To make it more attractive it has tied up with
mobile payments and commerce platform Paytm to enable the wide base of Paytm-users to shop
Big Bazaar goods on the online marketplace.

Continuous Innovations—A sure way to retain customers

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Innovations give life and new energy to the brands. In order to retain the best of the customers
and to influence all of its stakeholders, brands have to innovate continuously. Technology and
digital media has opened up innumerable opportunities for brands to innovate. Future Group
which has many new initiatives to its credit has launched a digital wallet, FuturePay, to integrate
its loyalty programmes across different Future Group outlets—Big Bazaar, Ezone and
Hometown.

Best experience coupled with lowest prices is what FuturePay offers its customers. “Price
Match” is its one important feature, which matches items from the customer’s bill with the
advertised prices of any competitor retail store. If it finds a lower price elsewhere, it credits the
difference to the buyer’s wallet. Another feature is its Oxygen Services, which enables customers
to make transactions at any of its retail outlets, or through credit and debit cards, and net-
banking.

These technology-based innovations are definitely creating impact on everyone, especially on the
digital millennials. The company states that they already have 60,000 downloads for FuturePay
so far (by Oct 2016) and are targeting one crore downloads in the next 18 months.

There is also a flip side to the use of technology. Customer loyalty can get completely
jeopardized over an unsatisfied digital experience. Indian Digital Experience report by SAP,
unveiled in April 2017, stated that only 8 % of customers unsatisfied with their digital experience
would continue to remain loyal to the brand. In order that the brand remains relevant for its
customers a strong digital infrastructure is imperative.

There are many brands in other sectors, too, which are experimenting with different ideas, and
the success largely depends on the relevancy factor that those experiments attend to. Like
McDonald’s is planning to lure consumers through a new breakfast menu that will include

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culinary delights suiting Indian palates, ranging from masala dosa burgers with molaga podi
sauce, to the familiar anda bhurji.

As part of a brand transformation, McDonald’s is moving towards a healthier menu over the past
few years offering lower sodium in fries and nuggets, lower calorie sauces, and preservative-free
patties. The restaurant is also launching soups and salads. All initiatives going in line with the
current consumer trend towards choosing healthy food options

McDonald’s India is also launching a series of concept restaurants called “Experience of the
Future” (EOTF), with features of self-ordering kiosks, table service, and healthy menu. The first
one of this kind has already opened in Mumbai in March 2017, with enhanced digital capabilities
to improve customer experience. It plans to open 5–10 more outlets in the city in the next 18
months.

Another big brand that is walking the health route is Nestle. This world’s largest packaged food
group has made a scientific breakthrough by discovering a completely new way to use the
traditional, natural sugar so that it get reduced in its candy products by up to 40% with no
difference to taste.

Critical factors for the success of loyalty programs

Rijish Raghavan, Vice President, PAYBACK India, in one of his interviews has emphasized on
factors like transparency, convenience, relevance, engagement and ease of use for the
effectiveness and success of a loyalty program. A clear and transparent communication while
providing offerings and benefits to the customers goes a long way in developing their loyalty.

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In the online world, personalization of experiences is the key to purchasing consideration while
segmentation with locational considerations is critical to offline retailers.

Consistent delivery on the promises is what turns customers into loyal ones. Brand advocates
cannot be made overnight. Building an effective loyalty program and pool of brand advocates
can stand brands in good stead in times of crisis.

The Future: In the current environment, loyalty to the brand has become crucial from the
marketing strategy perspective where the very survival and continuity of the organization relies
on loyal customers, who may be willing to pay more for a brand.

Brand loyalty generates greater market share and brings in new customers with Word of Mouth
publicity. Brand loyalty is not just a marketing instrument but its strength goes beyond and
influences the goal and vision of the organization.

In India, loyalty transactions have been growing consistently over the past few years due to more
real-time and personalised experience being delivered to the customers. Loyalty programs are
omnipresent in business and have evolved and grown beyond the discounts and coupons game.
The demographics are changing and big spends are being made in all different categories from
fuel, apparel, entertainment, travel, financial services and daily needs. In such a dynamic
scenario, coalition loyalty program would be game-changer as it offers a diverse portfolio of
partner brands with options to earn and spend points, and avail rewards. Loyalty programs which
consolidate the rewards across partner brands will go a long way in ensuring customer long term
retention.

5.3: Oreo - India Launch

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For most of its 100-year plus existence, Oreo was consistently America’s best loved cookie, but
today it is a well-established global brand. Mondelez International moved it into emerging
markets quickly learning the rules of success in these hitherto unfamiliar markets, changing and
refining the brands strategy and ultimately triumphed in winning over consumers. This case
demonstrates how Oreo brand’s successful entry into the Indian market was well orchestrated
using the Communication Mix elements such as Advertising, Sales Promotion, Events and
experiences and Public Relations to establish the brand during the launch phase and subsequently
stabilize and grow the brand in India.

Mondelez was present in India in the Chocolates, Beverages and Candy categories. The company
entered the Rs 17,000 crore, competitive India Biscuit market with their lead brand Oreo in 2011.
The Biscuits category was growing at 17% in India (Nielsen Survey, 2010). While the Oreo
launch presented opportunities, it also posed great challenges. From being a leader in the
Chocolates category in India, Mondelez was now a challenger in the Biscuits category.

The challenge was to launch Oreo and peg it against three Biscuit category titans – Parle (41%),
Britannia (26%) and ITC (8%), who dominated the biscuit market with a total of 75% market
share. These players had been present in the market for many years and had a strong portfolio of
established household brands. And the Biscuit category was a very competitive market - only
two brands (Parle-G and Britannia Good Day) in a pool of about 1000 brands had garnered more
than a 5% market share. Even established brands like Hide and Seek, Monaco and Bourbon had
less than 2% market share. This shows the seemingly insurmountable task that a new brand had
to circumvent to establish its credentials in this category in India. (Source: Nielsen Survey 2010)

Cream biscuits are primarily consumed by households with children. Cream being the central
component and biscuit just the shell, the focus for a brand was obvious and undisputable –
Cream! It was also known that consumers did not find any differentiation between brands.

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Therefore, the key challenge for Oreo was to decide on how to get a firm foothold in a fiercely
competitive category ruled by familiar household brand names with firmly entrenched buying
and consumption habits.

Oreo was launched in India in March 2011. It entered the market as Cadbury Oreo because
Cadbury is a strong brand name in India, and initially focused on generating awareness and rapid
trials. The key objectives of the launch were:

1. Gain a 1% share of the Biscuit category in the first year.

2. Build awareness, 40% trials and 40% repeat purchase in priority markets.

The Marketing Mix OREO in India

The product was fine-tuned to suit the Indian palate and Mondelez leveraged the retail stores
reach acquired with the Cadbury acquisition to build distribution.

Oreo launched its traditional chocolate cookie with vanilla cream centre at Rs 5 for a pack of
three to drive impulse purchase and trials, Rs 10 for a pack of seven and Rs 20 for a pack of 14
for heavy consumption segment. The cookie design was the same as its international counterpart
– a part of the consistent brand imagery of Oreo.

The company maintained the heritage of the two decoratively embossed chocolate cookies filled
with sweet vanilla cream to stand out from me-too products and meet customer expectations of
having the real Oreo.

Launch Phase: Focus on distribution and in-store presence

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Early launch focus was on building strong distribution and adequate availability in Traditional
Trade & Modern Trade. However, availability with an emphatic presence at Point of Buying was
the need of the hour for Oreo to break through the highly cluttered and fiercely competitive
Biscuit Category. In Traditional Trade, a host of unique Point of Purchase (POS) devices were
developed to ensure Oreo stands out when stocked within the category. And for the first time,
POS devices were executed that brought Oreo outside the category into the front-of-store in a
Traditional Trade store. Counter-top POS devices ensured the brand stands out and is easily
spotted by the shopper.

In Modern Trade also a similar strategy was followed. Emphatic in-category presence combined
with clutter breaking out-of-category POS visibility was executed. This virtually created a “Wall
of Blue” effect in the trade channel emphasising and enhancing the brands compelling presence.
The primary focus during the in-trade launch was on building the presence of brand Oreo and
hence no promotions for trade or consumer were executed in the launch phase. All trade
investments were focused on improving the on-shelf presence for Oreo.

OREO brand advertising and communication

Communication and advertising have been consistent across many markets as the core customer
and the brand truths remain the same. The company focused on using the “moments of
togetherness” proposition for Oreo in India, with television forming the main medium of
communication. In addition, other media platforms were tapped as well. Oreo was present in
digital media as well with the Oreo Facebook page adding fans at a rapid rate. The company also
created an “Oreo Togetherness Bus” which toured 9 cities and brought alive the Oreo
togetherness concept with consumers. A similar campaign was also run with Vans in smaller
towns. Oreo strategy was to drive point-of-purchase sales with store displays and in-store
consumer activations to generate trial and build consumer preference for the brand.

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The brand touch points used for communication included packaging, TV (Spots and programme
Sponsorships), Radio spots (including radio programme content), Digital website and social
networking sites, host of Out-of Home advertising activities such as hoardings, at airports, in
transit communication and billboards. Merchandising, POP, sales promotion, retailtainment to
build brand trials and ambient marketing was used to create buzz around the brand launch.

Communication Strategy, focusing on the mother

In the cream biscuit segment, mothers are the buyers and household with kids form a majority of
the consumption. The insight that was leveraged was: mums value the opportunity to create
simple, delightful moments for the family to be together. There is nothing that warms the
mother’s heart more than seeing her kids share a joyous moment, a smile or a hearty laugh with
their dad, siblings or grandparents.

Advertising theme:OREO ritual of ‘TWIST, LICK AND DUNK’

Rituals play a central role in the lives of Indians, and they follow them with zeal and enthusiasm.
Rituals also help in bringing people together. So this created an opportunity for Oreo to bring
families together. The Oreo ritual of ‘Twist, Lick and Dunk’ became a platform to connect with
people beyond the product, and bring about taste, joyousness and family bonding.

Oreo’s communication message focused on creating:

1. A ‘Ritual of Pleasure’ for the child, centred on the joy of consumption.

2. A ‘Ritual of Emotion’ for the parent, that sparks these slowed-down moments of
togetherness and enhances the bonding between child and parent.

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Brand communication strategy implementation: Creating simple, everyday family bonding
moments became the trump card of the brand’s creative strategy. Therefore, the big idea was:
‘Oreo’s eating ritual elicits childlike delight and creates family moments of togetherness’.

Father-child relationship: Unlike the mother, the father spends far lesser time with the kids. So
when the father is around, kids want to grab every opportunity they can to spend time with him.
Children do this by constantly engaging with the father and bringing him into their world.
Fathers, in turn, join in and cherish these delightful poignant moments by becoming childlike
themselves and giving in to the kids’ requests.

The Oreo launch TVC captured the nuances of this relationship. The TVC depicted an everyday
situation in the home, where Oreo fostered simple family bonding moments through the ‘Twist,
Lick, Dunk’ (TLD) ritual that elicited childlike delight.

Oreo twisted, licked and dunked its way into Indian hearts. The communication medium were
selected based on their affinity with mothers who were the TG for the communication.

TV Campaign: Oreo TV campaign was launched in March 2011. The first wave of trials
happened based on strong in-store presence of the brand. This trade presence was further
amplified with the TV investments scaling-up. The brand had one of the highest SOV (Share of
Voice) on-air during this phase in the Biscuit category. The brand’s communication also created
disruptive aston (ticker) bands and pushback banners during highly popular Cricket World Cup
and IPL series to grab attention and create brand saliency amongst the viewers. This further
fuelled the fire at the retail trade level through enhanced brand trials.

Outdoor: Billboards, bus wraps, seat backs and handles, backlit boards inside malls and train
wraps were swathed in Oreo blue and TLD messaging. Oreo packet-shaped bus shelters
strikingly caught the passer-by’s attention. Oreo ‘Twist, Lick and Dunk’ ambient innovation on

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mobile vans showed the Oreo cookie being dipped into a glass of milk to bring alive the TLD
ritual

Ambient Innovation: Oreo ‘Twist Lick Dunk’ Innovation on mobile vans showed the Oreo
cookie being dipped in a glass of milk to bring alive the TLD ritual

Point of Sale (POS) Activities: Best-in-class presence in Modern Trade stores using dispensers,
floor shelf units, standees, vinyl’s on walls and spectacular displays. High visibility in
Traditional Trade with branded counter-top outers, sleeve hangers, communication windows and
inflated pack danglers to aid purchase.

Shopper Activation: Oreo engaged thousands of families with fun games and TLD-based
sampling in malls and modern trade stores.

OREO ‘Togetherness Moment’

Oreo initiated a ‘Togetherness Movement’ through activities like TQ Quiz, TQ Survey,

Togetherness Pledge and TQ Bus, to encourage parents and kids to spend time together. The
Oreo Togetherness Bus visited 9 cities across India. The bus gave families an opportunity to
bond over the ‘Twist, Lick and Dunk games’, a cookie corner to sample Oreo, a photo corner to
capture fun family moments, and a Togetherness wall where parents and kids could make a
pledge to spend more time together.

Digital Engagement : Activities were shown on the Oreo India website, on Facebook and online
TLD games and contests created fun moments for people to engage with Oreo.

Brand performance against strategy

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Brand Share: Oreo’s target 1% share was achieved within the first 6 months of its launch in the
market. (Source: Nielsen Survey, 2011)

Building Brand Trials and Repeats: Brand trials and repeats exceeded targets for both children
and adults within four months of the brand’s launch. (Source: IPSOS Brand Tracking Study,
2011)

Brand Awareness Scores: Oreo Brand Awareness beat other cream biscuits brand’s awareness.
(Source: IPSOS Brand Tracking Study, 2011) and Oreo performed better than norms on brand
linkage. (Source: IPSOS Brand Tracking Study, 2011). With a strategy focused on rapid brand
awareness and extensive distribution, the Oreo India launch story has been a success so far.

OREO launch Facebook reports

Oreo among TOP 30 brands on Facebook in India

Oreo India Facebook Community crossed 45,000 members in just 9 weeks

Within 5 months of the launch, the Oreo India Facebook had 5,00,000 fans

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Chapter 5: Discussion and conclusion:

The emergence of integrated marketing communications (IMC) has become a significant

example of development in Indian marketing discipline. It has influenced thinking and acting
among all types of companies and organizations facing the realities of competition in the present
open economy. It is the judicious and efficient use of the product promotional tools so that a
universal, clear, and effective promotional message is communicated amongst the target
audience. Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) is more than the coordination of a
company's outgoing message between different media and the consistency of the message
throughout. This also facilitates in ascertaining the effectiveness of the overall marketing effort
to evaluation of brand messages. It is an aggressive marketing plan that captures and uses an
extensive amount of customer information in setting and tracking marketing strategy. As the
IMC strategies should be based on situation analysis and SWOT analysis, a periodical
implementation would be significant. The need of the audit of the IMC process should be well
understood and measurement and evaluation of the effectiveness should be taken care of. The
primary goal of affecting the perception of value and behavior through IMC has to be checked up
carefully. Indian consumption pattern are changing rapidly, technical advancements are fast,
development and diffusion of IMC program should closely be associated with these changes.
Objectives and strategies must be elastic enough to mould accordingly. In order to reach a better
result, the marketer needs to develop marketing integration as occurring different levels and
degree of various functions. The most important and fundamental level should be of vertical
integration of objectives and activities. Within their own organizations, marketers should
recognize the importance of creating important position with clear responsibility at different
level on performance and productivity basis. At last but not the least the key is ‘Value’ and all
efforts must be in level-headed way to deliver in order to reduce the cost and increase the

66
benefits. Integrated Marketing Communication can perform and lead to way to reap the benefits
of exercise as a unit in order to attain the common objective of delivering value to customers.

To finally conclude, my research has proved that my hypothesis stands true and the research
question has been answered.

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Chapter 6: Scope for future research

Marketing and consumer behavior are the domains of the research that are constantly evolving
and developing. Researchers and practitioners are assessing various aspects of IMC and
consumer behavior in order to identify the factors that can create a clearly defined link between
the marketing and consumer behavior. Hence, in reference to the fact that the above study has
concluded that marketing communication factors have direct as well as indirect influence on
consumer behavior, future research should be focused on extending the already developed
domains. For instance, some recommendations for future research are listed below:

Future research should try to develop a quantitative model that provides an automatic breakup of
the budget among various marketing elements. Such models will in turn enable the business to
more effectively influence the consumer behavior by investing higher amount on the more
effective IMC elements than others.

In future research, researchers can also include a case study analysis’ of different organizations
in detail and analyze the reasons for their success and failure and how these organizations
prepared IMC plan and why these IMC plans were successful or failed.

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