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Chapter Fourteen: Integrated Marketing Communications Chapter Objectives 1. Outline the process that firms use to communicate with consumers 2. Explain the six tools of integrated marketing communication campaigns 3. List the steps in planning an integrated marketing communication campaign 4. Describe what appeals advertisers use to get customers’ attention 5. Identify how firms determine which media to use 6. Summarize how firms budget for and measure integrated marketing communications success Annotated Chapter Outline PowerPoint Slides Instructor’s Notes The chapter objectives and roadmap are intended to help students understand the content to be discussed. Opening Vignette: I’m Lovin’ It The introduction of McDonald’s I’m Lovin’ It tagline created one advertising platform integrating marketing communications that could be used on a global basis. The campaign was used across a variety of media including television, direct mail, print advertising and online communications. This integration created a consistent global message and achieved cost savings. Integrated marketing communication (IMC) encompasses a variety of communication disciplines: general advertising, personal selling, sales promotions, public relations, direct marketing, and electronic media. In combination, these disciplines can provide clarity, consistency, and maximum communicative impact. Each of the firm’s marketing communications elements represent part of a whole and offers a different means to connect with the target audience. The goal of IMC is to ensure all the various marketing mix elements work together to deliver a consistent message. Therefore, IMC takes the best of each communications medium and combines it to achieve the most effective marketing communications campaign possible. Topic One: Communicating with Consumers I. More Media Choices Make It More Complex to Reach Target Customers. II. Select the Communication Process A. The sender must be clear to the intended audience. B. The transmitter, such as a creative department, works with the sender to develop marketing communications. C. Encoding converts the sender’s idea into a message. D. The communication channel is the medium that carries the message. E. The receiver reads, hears, or sees and processes the information, then decodes it by interpreting the sender’s message. F. Noise refers to any interference that stems from competing messages, a lack of clarity, or a flaw in the medium and thus poses problems for all communication channels. G. Feedback loops allow receivers to communicate with the sender and indicate whether the message was received and decoded properly. New media options fragment communications and make it more difficult and complex to reach the desired target audience. Ask students: What media do you use on a daily basis? This should lead to a discussion of new and alternative media. Marketers must understand how the communication process works and identify possible communication breakdowns. Group activity: Play the game of telephone. Start with a short message, verbally pass it around the room, and see what emerges. Sample phrase: I caught the train heading for Richmond but went to Richland instead. Answer D III. Consumers Perceive Communication. A. Receivers decode messages differently, perhaps not in the way the sender intended. B. Senders adjust messages according to the medium used and receivers’ traits. Marketers must remember that they do not have control over the decoding process, because each receiver decodes the message in his or her own way. Group activity: Identify advertisements or brand images that often result in different reactions from different consumers (e.g. ads for beer, cigarettes, and personal care products.) Why do these ads generate differing responses? For example, a cigarette ad for smokers may arouse smokers and induce the desire for a cigarette. For former smokers it may induce a sense of loss. For non-smokers it may not illicit any emotion. Ask students how this ad handles the challenges of decoding the fact that this is a breakfast food and not a lunch/dinner which is what SmartOnes is known for. Ethical Dilemma 16.1: It is Deception to Disguise the Message Sender? Marketers experiment with new forms of marketing communication, including creating Web sites for fictitious businesses or characters from a movie or television show. Viewers not in on the joke have no idea the sites are not real, and sites are not required to identify their true purpose. Ask students: Should marketers be required to disclose the purpose of their marketing communications? Do these messages deceive consumers? There is no correct answer to these questions; the creators of these sites argue that confusion and the resultant buzz ARE the point. So why should they tell consumers and ruin the fun? Topic Two: Integrated Marketing Communication Tools Deliver the Right Message to the Right Audience through the Right Media. The goal of IMC is to ensure all the various marketing mix elements work together to deliver a consistent message. Therefore, IMC takes the best of each communications medium and combines it to achieve the most effective marketing communications campaign possible. There are six key IMC tools, most of which can be used in both online and offline environments. Each tool can range from being passive to very interactive. To get the right message to the right audience through the right tool and medium, an IMC planner must understand how each medium communicates and how to combine it with other media to generate the most impact. I. Using Advertising. A. Advertising is a paid form of communication from an identifiable source, delivered through a communication channel, and designed to persuade the receiver to take some action, now or in the future. B. It is extremely effective for creating awareness of a product or service and generating interest. C. Since the 1990s, advertising’s share of total promotional dollars has fallen as budgets for other forms of promotion increase. Note: Chapter 15 covers advertising, the most visible element of IMC, in depth. Ask students: Think about how an advertisement has made you aware of or interested in a specific product. You can use students’ chosen advertisements as the basis for subsequent discussions. Ask students what “advertainment” might be? It is advertising that is focused on entertaining the end user. One of the earliest and best examples are Reebok’s Terry Tate ads. This YouTube link (always check before class) will show the original ad which was aired on the 2003 Superbowl. II. Using Personal Selling. A. Personal selling is the two-way flow of communication between a buyer and a seller, designed to influence the buyer’s purchase decision. B. It can take place in various settings, including face-to-face, video teleconferencing, on the telephone, or over the internet. C. The cost of communicating directly with potential customers is high compared with other forms of promotion, but it is the best and most efficient way to sell certain products and services. Note: Chapter 15 covers personal selling, the most costly form of IMC, in detail. Ask students: For what kind of purchases is personal selling most appropriate? Their answers should note that this form of IMC works best when the purchase is complicated, because the salesperson can customize the communication to meet the needs of that specific buyer and purchase situation, which other IMC elements cannot. III. Using Sales Promotions. A. Sales promotions are special incentives or excitement-building programs that encourage the purchase of a product or service. B. They include coupons, rebates, contests, free samples, and point-of-purchase displays. Note: Chapter 15 covers sales promotion in detail. Remind students that sales promotions can be used in a wide variety of situations to stimulate demand among either end users or other channel members. IV. Using Direct Marketing. A. Direct marketing includes sales and promotional techniques that deliver promotional materials to potential customers using a wide variety of tools. B. The greatest increase in aggregate spending has been devoted to direct marketing. C. Customer databases enable marketers to identify and track consumers over time and across purchase situations. As advertising has declined as a percentage of the total communications budget, direct marketing has increased. Ask students: What characteristics of direct marketing might explain this increased popularity? Direct marketing allows marketers to personalize their message. This enables marketers to communicate with an audience that is more likely to respond to their efforts. Note: While all forms of direct marketing are shown, the section that follows focuses on direct mail, catalogues, direct response television, kiosks, and internet or electronic marketing. Personal selling and telemarketing are addressed in Chapter 15. Direct Marketing Characteristics Direct marketing and plays an important role in selling both products and services. Stress the four defining characteristics that make it different from conventional retailing. Direct Mail Ask students: How much mail do you receive that is not well-targeted? Most likely students will tell you it is “junk mail.” Use this point to stress the need to start with a good list. Catalogues Ask students: How many of you remember thumbing through the Sears Wish Book as children? Ask what types of products do they order from catalogues versus buying in a store? DRTV Most students will associate DRTV with longer infomercials such as those used to sell the George Foreman grill, but they can also be shorter commercials. Click on the Canadian Blood Services link to show a 30, 60 or 120 second ad from their Save a Life campaign. Kiosks V. Using Online Marketing Websites and social media make up some of the many forms of online marketing. Other forms are discussed in more detail below. A. Corporate blogs contain periodic posts on a common Web page. B. Online games allow consumers to interact with the site and other players. C. Text messaging represents an increasingly important way for marketers to communicate with consumers. D. As technology improves, new media emerge (e.g. social networking sites) and marketers must incorporate them into the IMC mix. The Internet has radically altered the retail marketplace. Many traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers create synergy between online and traditional retailing. Multi-channel customers buy more than single channel customers. Ask students: Have you ever started shopping online, and then visited the store to make the actual purchase? What kind of product did you buy using this method? Ask students: What problems might firms that use text messaging to disseminate marketing communications face? Answer: There may be a backlash against the firm and the wireless provider if consumer phones are constantly flooded with such messages. Ask students: How would you like to receive advertising text messages? Answer: A lot of folks do not want such messages. However, the instant-messaging generation is likely to be much more tolerant about it. Social media is media content distributed through social interactions. Three major online facilitators of social media are YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. VI. Using Public Relations (PR). Public relations refers to the organizational function that manages the firm’s communications to achieve a variety of objectives, including 1. Building and maintaining a positive image. 2. Handling or heading off unfavourable stories or events. 3. Maintaining positive relationships with the media. A. As the cost of other promotional media has increased, PR has grown in importance, but its influence has declined as consumers become more skeptical. B. Cause-related marketing refers to commercial activities in which businesses and charities partner to market an image, product, or service for their mutual benefit. C. Sponsorships occur when corporations support various activities, usually in the cultural, sports, or entertainment sectors. Ask students: Do you view PR as credible, because it is not “advertising,” or not credible, because it comes from the company? Although the various tools in the PR toolkit work differently, the most common and visible is sponsorship. Firms choose sponsorship opportunities that appeal to their target market and are consistent with their branding message and strategy. Ask students: What corporate sponsorships represent consistent messages? Avon’s Pink Ribbon campaign is an excellent example of a PR campaign that is consistent across. Athletic clothing and equipment firms often sponsor popular athletes and their teams. What do these firms do when athletes change teams? Ask students: How does the sponsorship of athletes benefit firms? How might it harm firms? What can firms do when an athlete they sponsor does something to embarrass the brand? With a popular athlete, firms stand to gain a lot of sales, but when a star athlete becomes a liability, firms quickly distance themselves and focus on another branding element. Answer A An example on online marketing using social media tactics. http://www.smutube.ca/you.php Saint Mary’s University in Halifax created a media sharing site called “SMUtube” (smutube.ca) as part of its recruitment campaign and alumni relations strategy forgoing direct mail and the phone in favour or a method that was better matched to the way its target audiences were using. Although SMU primarily saw SMUtube as a way to attract prospective students, it quickly became a communication tool to reach current students. In less than three weeks after being launched, the site had more than 2,200 unique visitors from 52 countries (82% from Canada), with average daily page views topping 1,100. Topic Three: Planning an IMC Campaign I. Identify the Target Audience. A. The success of any advertising program depends on how well the advertiser can identify its target audience. B. Knowing the target audience enables the advertiser to develop an appropriate tone, proper media selections, and effective advertising elements. These steps will be covered in the following slides. Emphasize that although the textbook walks through these steps as they relate to an advertising campaign, the same steps can be used for all IMC communications. The web link is for Marketing Magazine – it is interesting to visit the site and have students see current issues in advertising. Just as the target market is at the center of all marketing mix decisions, the target audience is at the center of all advertising-related decisions. II. Set Objectives. A. Objectives derive from the overall goals of the marketing program. B. The IMC plan refers to a subsection of the firm’s overall marketing plan that explicitly outlines 1. The objective of a campaign. 2. How the campaign can accomplish that objective 3. How the firm can measure the campaign’s success. C. With a pull strategy, advertisers try to get consumers to pull the product into the supply chain by demanding it. D. A push strategy increases demand by focusing on wholesalers, distributors, and salespeople to motivate them to highlight the product, rather than the products of competitors, and thus push the product onto consumers. The advertising plan must be specific to the identified target audience and include the strategic objectives and tactics to be used. Objectives can be short-term (generate inquiries, increase awareness, prompt trial) or long-term (increase sales, market share, loyalty) and may aim to inform, persuade or remind customers. (These objectives are discussed in more detail in Chapter 15.) Group activity: Develop an advertising plan for a product you like. What are the objectives of the campaign? How are you going to accomplish those objectives? How will you measure the campaign’s success? Consumers move through a readiness continuum. At each stage they need information to help them progress to the next stage. The objective of some IMC campaigns may primarily be to generate awareness (e.g. new technology such as BluRay) while other campaigns aim to have consumers buy a new product (e.g. iPod Touch.) Each IMC tool can be used to move consumers through the buyer readiness continuum in different ways. For example, advertising may do a good job of creating awareness and even knowledge for a company that offers marketing consulting services but it may require a call from a sales person at that company to convince a small business, new start-up venture or entrepreneur to enlist the services of that consulting company. Answer C III. Determine the Budget. A. Firms must consider how IMC helps them meet their overall promotional objectives. B. Expenditures vary over the course of the PLC. C. The market and product nature influence the size of budgets. Setting the promotional budget is not easy, and advertising often is the largest single expenditure in the promotional budget. Thus, firms must carefully weigh the benefits of advertising versus other communications when deciding how much to allocate. Budgeting Methods A. The objective-and-task method determines the budget required to undertake specific tasks and accomplish communication objectives. 1. Establish a set of communication objectives. 2. Determine which media best reach the target market. 3. Determine how much it will cost to run the number and types of communications necessary. B. Rule-of-thumb methods use prior sales and communications activities to determine communication budgets. 1. Competitive parity: The firm’s share of communication expenses equals its share of the market. 2. Percentage of sales: The communication budget is a fixed percentage of forecasted sales. 3. Affordable budgeting: Marketers forecast sales and expenses, excluding communication, then reserve the difference between sales and expenses, plus desired profit, for the communication budget. Many IMC elements require significant expenditures, and firms are reluctant to invest in marketing communications without some guarantee of return. Ask students: What are the pros and cons of each method? Why would a company choose one method over another? Answer: Each method has advantages and disadvantages. See Exhibit 14.6 for more specifics. Answer C Topic Four: Appeals Used in IMC IV. Convey the Message. A. Firms must determine the key message they want to communicate to the target audience. 1. A unique selling proposition (USP) defines the common theme or slogan in a campaign. 2. A USP must be meaningful and unique to be sustainable over time. B. Firms also must decide what appeal most effectively conveys their message. 1. Rational appeals offer factual information and strong arguments that encourage consumers to evaluate the brand favourably because of the key benefits it provides. 2. Emotional appeals satisfy consumers’ emotional desires rather than utilitarian needs by using emotions to create a bond between the consumer and the brand. The USP concept conveys core benefits to the target audience. The best USPs stand the test of time; consider examples such as those on the slide. Ask students: Do you believe these will stand the test of time? Nokia has been using “connecting people” for a long time; however Boost Mobile is using a popular slang phrase that is more likely to become dated and will probably have to be changed. Appeals depend on the target audience, chosen media, and type of product/service. Each appeal persuades in different ways. Whereas rational appeals are more cognitive and persuade using rational thought, emotional appeals persuade by triggering an emotional response rather than offering rational arguments. Ask students: How do the two Kleenex ads vary in their type of appeal and how well does each match the product? Which would make you purchase Kleenex? Informational appeals are more cognitive and persuade using rational thought. Emotional appeals persuade by triggering an emotional response rather than offering rational arguments. V. Topic Five: Evaluate and Select Media. A. Media planning involves evaluating and selecting the media mix. B. The media mix refers to the combination of media used and frequency of advertising through each medium. C. A media buy means purchasing airtime or print pages and generally represents the largest expense in the advertising budget. D. Mass media include national newspapers, magazines, radio, and television and therefore are ideal for reaching many anonymous audience members. E. Niche media are more focused and generally used to reach narrower segments with unique demographic characteristics or interests. The ability of any one media outlet to reach a mass audience is declining due to the fragmentation of media and the proliferation of new media outlets. This trend represents a double-edged sword, because fragmenting media have also allowed for very fine targeting in media buys. Ask students: How would a firm use both mass and niche media in the same campaign? In the McDonald’s Case in Point in chapter 17 we discussed how McDonald’s is using both mass and niche media. Often firms will use mass media to reach a broad audience with a product message and then choose specific niche media to customize that same message for various audiences. Choose the Right Medium. A. Consumers use different media for different purposes. B. Advertisers therefore must match their messages to consumers’ uses. Ask students: What media do you use and the circumstances in which you use them? For example, do you listen to the radio while driving in your car or watch television when you get home at night? Use these lists to discuss how the usage context of each medium affects how marketers design messages for them. For example most people listen to radio in their cars, often by themselves. Radio is considered a more personal medium, thus marketers often use ads that employ dialogues. This allows the person to place themselves in the conversation. This same technique cannot be used in print. Determine the Advertising Schedule. A. A continuous schedule runs throughout the year. 1. Suited for continually and steadily consumed products and services. 2. Required for products and services that need constant persuasive and/or reminder advertising. B. A flighting schedule implements advertising in spurts. 1. Heavy advertising followed by a period of no advertising. 2. This pattern generally works well for products whose demand fluctuates. C. A pulsing schedule combines continuous and flighting schedules by maintaining a base level of advertising but increasing intensity during certain periods. Every advertising campaign has a set duration, and during that period, marketers must determine how often and when to show the ads. Ask students: In a media buy when would each strategy be employed? For a frequently purchased good such as soda, most firms use a continuous strategy. A flighting schedule is often used for seasonal goods since they are only advertised during certain times of the year. A pulsing schedule is used by firms who have certain fluctuations in their demand and need to increase advertising during the periods of high or low demand. VI. Create Communications A. Translate the message and appeal into words, pictures, colors, and/or music. B. The type of medium determines the execution. C. The campaign objectives also dictate the execution. D. Although creativity can be important, advertisers must be careful not to let their creativity overshadow the message. Ads attempt to make maximum use of the medium’s ability to deliver the message. Discuss the benefits and limitations of various media. For example, television enables advertisers to combine imagery, movement, and music, whereas radio must rely solely on sound to deliver the message. This print Ad for Southwest Airlines is using humour to deliver the selling message. The text copy “Maybe We Made Group Travel a Little Too Easy?” informs consumers of the group travel service offered by Southwest. In fact group travel is so easy you can have a birthday party for your cat and invite all of your friends and family. Notice that even though this is a static picture there is a lot of movement in the ad. Lots of people doing lots of different things. How long did it take you to figure out that the birthday party is for the cat? Answer A Case-in-Point Series A delicate balancing act persists between the creative elements and the selling message of an ad. Even if consumers love creative ads, they might not get the selling message. Ask students: Have you ever told a friend about a funny ad you saw but could not remember what company produced the ad? Topic Six: Measuring IMC VII. Assess Impact Using Marketing Metrics A. Before implementing a campaign, marketers pretest to ensure the various elements work in an integrated, appropriate fashion. B. Tracking involves monitoring key indicators, such as daily or weekly sales volume, during the advertising span, to address any problems with the message or medium. C. Posttesting evaluates the campaign’s impact after its implementation. Group activity: Your group has been assigned to assess the impact of a campaign for a new perfume. The goal of the campaign is to increase awareness of the brand within a chosen target market by 20% over the campaign. What measures would you need to take to ensure that the campaign is remaining on track? Answer: You could design a tracking study that measures sales, website visits and sample requests generated over the course of the campaign. You also might measure awareness levels of the target market at various stages of the campaign. Results: Measuring IMC Success Firms must understand the outcomes they want to achieve before beginning a campaign. Whether long- or short-term, goals must be explicitly defined and measured. Measurements indicate whether each step has motivated consumers to move to the next step in the buying process. 1. Frequency indicates how often the audience is exposed to a communication within a specific period of time. 2. Reach refers to the percentage of the target population exposed to a marketing communication. 3. Gross rating points (GRP) equal reach multiplied by frequency. 4. Web-tracking software indicates how much time viewers spend on Web pages and the number of pages they view. 5. Click-through tracking measures how many times users click on banner advertising on Web sites. 6. Online couponing allows consumers to print coupons directly from a site and then redeem them in a store. 7. Online referring prompts consumers to fill out an interest or order form to receive a referral to an offline dealer that offers the product or service of interest. Group activity: Your group has been assigned to assess the impact of a campaign for a new perfume. The goal of the campaign is to increase awareness of the brand within a chosen target market by 20% over the campaign. What measures would you need to take to ensure that the campaign is remaining on track? Answer: You could design a tracking study that measures sales, website visits and sample requests generated over the course of the campaign. You also might measure awareness levels of the target market at various stages of the campaign. Ask students: How do firms determine whether their IMC strategy has worked? Answer: It depends on the IMC objective. If the objective is to create awareness for a new product, then the firm would measure increases in customer knowledge and awareness. If it were to generate sales, like an ad in the paper, then sales would be the objective measure. Every communication may be measured in terms of reach and frequency. Remind students that because of the lagged effect, marketers must not only expose the target audience to the message but also ensure that it has multiple opportunities to view it. This combined measure is GRP. Technology has introduced a host of new products for tracking online communications, as well as new communication formats. Group activity: List the types of information firms might gather from Web-tracking software, click-through tracking, online couponing, and online referrals. What can firms do with this information? Many firms use this type of information in direct mail or other campaigns, it can also be used to customize the website and to build a network of buyers that are interlinked. Answer: Firms can use this type of information to better understand the consumer decision process and, their purchase patterns. This information can used to redesign the website, develop loyalty programs, and direct mail/e-mail campaigns. Search Engine Marketing and measurement Ask students what Transit would want to measure if they were buying Google adwords for “sneaker store” and “NYC sneakers”. The metrics are on the following slide. He can see his total cost in column 3 and the sales from his adwords in column 4. The ROI in column 6 is higher for “sneaker store” due to its lower cost even though the sales were a bit lower. Ask students how else they can use the website for their IMC objectives? Gently lead them to the charts on the following slide. Ask students why this was important for Transit. They should comment that the click throughs tell us nothing about the attitude, only the actions of the consumer. Instructor Manual for Marketing Dhruv Grewal, Michael Levy, Shirley Lichti, Ajax Persaud 9780071320382, 9780070984929
