Marketing Communication Project for Abbey National Bank - Essay Example

An Individual Campaign Proposal and Rationale for a live Integrated Marketing Communication Project for Abbey National (Executive Summary: This paper works on various aspects of Integrated Marketing Communication and prepares an IMC Campaign for Abby National) (Word count - 3074, excluding content and references) Contents Sl. No Description Page Nos. 1 Executive Summary 1 2 Introduction 3 3 Importance of Communication 3 4 Definition of Integrated Market Communication 4 5 Background of Abbey National 6 6 Abbey's UK Operations 7 7 Corporate and Marketing objectives of Abbey 8 8 Establishment of Market Communication Objectives 10 9 Establishment of Integrated Market Communication Project of Abby 11 10 Conclusion 16 11 References 17 Introduction: Abbey National is the sixth largest bank and one of the largest providers of mortgages and savings in the UK. The emergence of Integrated Marketing Communications has become a significant development in the field of Marketing since 1990s. It has created deep influence in thinking and actions of companies and organizations in their search for tools to face the realities of hard competition in a globalized economic environment. In this paper it has been tried to analyze the emergence of Integrated Marketing Communication in the business environment. A detail study of the requirement of the IMC is made. Corporate and Marketing objectives of Abbey Standard are defined. Guidelines are observed in the process of preparing an individual live Integrated Marketing Communication strategy and planning for the organization keeping the Corporate and Marketing objectives in view. The appropriate promotional product mix is chosen. The guidelines of evaluation and control of the campaign is prepared. Importance of Communication in Marketing: Importance of Communication in marketing can be gauged from the importance of 4 'C's over 4 'P's in marketing in recent times: Emphasize is on CONSUMER not on PRODUCT: The focus should be on customer needs. Product specification must meet the actual and perceived requirements of the customer. On COST, but not on PRICE: The term 'Customer's cost' is very essential. It is not the price what customer pays, but the value of the product and services customer has to delineate to acquire the product / services he /she is getting. Whether the customer is getting the value for money On CONVENIENCE but not on PLACE: Convenience of the buying experience plays an important role. Convenience includes aspects of the physical location, access ease, transaction time, availability etc. On COMMUNICATION but not on PROMOTION: The emphasize is on Communication. There is no place of product or service promotion. The buying decision of a customer no longer depends only on the product or services offered. It also depends on various other factors like company reputation, it's standing in public image etc. Communication is the most essential aspect in achieving this goal. The communication process should be a two way process involving the customer for feedback. Definition of Integrated Marketing Communication: As per the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the IMC can be defined as "a concept of marketing communication planning the recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic role of a variety of communication disciplines e.g. general advertising, direct response, sales promotion and public relations - and combines those disciplines to provide clarity, consistency and maximum communication impact"1. The core idea behind Integrated Marketing Communication is to combine the various communication tools that are traditionally used independently of each other in such a way that a synergetic effect is created taking care of making the effort seamless or homogeneous. It emphasizes that the communication becomes more effective and efficient due to the result of the consistency and synergetic effects of all the tools used. It should be noted that the emphasize is put on the words consistency and synergy. 'Smith et al' defines Integrated Marketing Strategy in three definitions: 1. Management and Control of all market Communication 2. Ensuring that the brand positioning, personality and messages are delivered synergistically across every element of communication and are delivered from a single consistent Strategy. 3. The Strategic analysis, choice, implementation and control of all elements of marketing communications, which efficiently (best use of resources) economically (minimum cost) and effectively (maximum result) influence transactions between an organization and its existing and potential customers, consumers and clients.2 'Smith et al' have developed a tool to show marketing integration as occurring at one or more of the following seven levels in sequence with their level of integration: 1. Vertical Objective Integration: the communication objectives should fit with overall corporate objectives and the marketing objectives of the organization. 2. Horizontal: Functional Integration: communication activities should fit well with other business functions of manufacturing, operations and human resource management. 3. Marketing mix integration: Communication messages should be in consistent with the marketing mix of product, price and place. 4. Communication mix integration: The communication tools should be used to guide the customer through each stage of the buying process and all of them should portray a consistent message. 5. Creative design integration: The creative design and it execution should be uniform and consistent with the chosen positioning of the product. 6. Internal / external integration: All internal departments and external intermediaries should work together to an agreed plan and strategy. 7. Financial Integration: The budget should be used in most efficient and effective way, ensuring economies of scale is achieved and long term investment optimized. 'Smith et al' point out that no effective marketing communication objective can be formulated that does not directly link to specific marketing objectives and the relevant corporate objective of any organization. One of the most important tasks in the campaign of marketing communication is to ensure that the goals set on different levels and character are mutually achievable. Goals and Strategies needs to deal with industry threats and must take into consideration of risks of competitive response. Another important aspect in communication and implementation is to ensure that the goals are well understood and accepted by the key operators in the process of implementation. Background of Abbey National: Abbey National is one of the leading personal services companies in UK. It is the largest financial services group in Latin America and boasts of third largest consumer finance business in Europe. It has presence in 40 countries, a network of more than 10,800 branches, its more than 129000 employees serving more than 67 million customers. It focuses on retail banking and also offers a wide range of financial services. Retail banking makes up 79% of its revenues. Abbey is counted as one of the largest providers of mortgages and savings in the UK. To go back to its roots we have to go back to the year 1849, when National Freehold Land and Building Society was established. Abbey National was formed in the year 1944 by merger of National Freehold Land and Building Society with Abbey Road Building Society. In July 1989 it converted to plc status to be floated on the London Stock Exchange to become the first building society in UK to do so. In august 1996, Abbey National merged with the National and Provincial Building society, thus increasing the branch network by 200 branches and gaining three million customers. On 26th July 2004, Abbey National was acquired by Banco Santander Central Hispano, SA, the largest financial group of Spain and one of the seven largest banks in the world by profit. Abbey's UK operation: Abbey has more than 700 branches in UK. Its goal is to be the best bank on high street in the UK for customers and employees. It offers a full range of personal services, both direct and through its intermediaries. The range of its services includes: Mortgages and savings Bank accounts Loans and credit cards Long term investment including pensions and unit trusts Life, critical illness, unemployment cover and household insurance. It is operating with following business divisions: Retail Direct - responsible for all its direct sales activities Abbey for Intermediaries - Responsible for its sales through independent financial advisers Wealth Management - it is made up of two units James Hay - responsible for Self Invested Pension Plans and Wrap intermediary market Specialist Banking - Cater Allen Private Bank, Abbey International and Abbey Share-dealing Retail Product and Marketing - Responsible for new and existing Abbey products and all marketing and advertising campaigns Finance and Markets - includes Abbey Financial Markets, Finance and provides treasury services Manufacturing - responsible for IT and operations activity including customer service centres Risk - responsible to make sure that Abbey's board and senior management team have an adequate risk policy and control framework and to report any material risk to the board and the Risk Committees. Central units - includes Internal Audit, Communication, Legal, Secretariat, Tax and Regulatory Affairs HR - responsible for the delivery of HR strategy and Personnel Support. Corporate and Marketing Objectives of Abbey National: Abbey's goal is to be the best bank on high street in the UK for customers and employees. Corporate Objectives: Acting with Integrity Communicating with honesty Treating customers fairly Delivering what is promised Treatment of Customers as given in their website: "We aim to achieve our overall purpose by: Understanding our customers and how they feel about money. Creating products our customers will want to buy because they meet a real and definite need. Giving good impartial advice, not just to the few, but to everyone. Delivering faultless service and following through on what we say we'll do. Taking a positive, can-do attitude and removing obstacles between customers and their money. Striving for continual improvement. When customers are not satisfied with the service they have received, a customer relations unit is available to help restore issues. If a solution cannot be agreed through this process, customers can raise concerns with the financial Ombudsman Scheme."3 As we see; the objectives of Abbey is Customer focus, we can take the marketing objectives as the same. Hence the integrated marketing communication strategy of Abbey will focus on the above strategies. The thrust of its communication strategy is to be noticed as a transparent organization. The stakeholders i.e. the customers, the shareholders and the employees must perceive the organization as a transparent organization. All internal information regarding the board, the senior managers, the financial data and financial activities to be communicated should be made available in public domain. Developing the Integrated Marketing Communication Campaign for Abbey National: The steps for preparing the Integrated Marketing Establishing of Market Communication Objectives: Marketing Communication Objectives can be divided into three broad categories: 1. Coverage Goals to reach the target groups in an effective and efficient way. A good segmentation and audience definition as well as insights into the media behavior of the desired segment is needed. 2. Process Goals are those conditions, which needed to be established for any communication to be effective. 3. Effectiveness Goals are those by which the effectiveness of the communication is established. Communication objectives are basically guidelines for those involved in development and implementation of campaign such as Researchers, Media planners, PR officials, advertising agencies, marketers, sales promotion agencies. They are also the criteria against which a campaign's success is evaluated. They should be well defined and measurable. Following are a few or the communication objectives an organization may need to decide on: Brand Awareness and recall - Brand awareness can be defined in two ways; Unaided spontaneous awareness where people recall several brands spontaneously and aided awareness where people recognize a brand by its package, logo etc. Brand knowledge means that target customers are aware of the essential features of a particular brand. They are aware of the advantages and disadvantages of a particular brand in comparison to its competitors. Brand attitude is the perceived value of a particular brand to a customer. While preparing communication campaign a study of the current brand attitude and the changes required in the perception needs to be identified. Purchase Intention - Generating purchase intention is necessary. Advertising and sales promotion can simulate purchase intention. Purchase felicitation - There is need of assuring buyers that no barriers exist in purchasing the product or services related to their availability etc. Purchase - direct marketing tools may be evaluated by generated sales. Satisfaction - communication to and from the existing customers gives a measure of their satisfaction with the product or brand. Brand loyalty is defined as the mental commitment r relation of a consumer with a brand. Establishing of Integrated Market Communication Project for Abbey National: We will work with the various types of communication tools available for integrated marketing communication and select the ones relevant to the business of Abbey National. 1) Advertising: Advertising is one of the most visible and most important tools of the marketing communication mix. First of all an advertising objective has to be formulated. Objectives have to be clear, real and measurable. Developing and advertisement campaign consists of the following essential steps: a Advertising Strategy b Creative Strategy c Media Strategy d Evaluation of alternatives e Implementation f Campaign Evaluation For the IMC of Abbey, Advertising will form the main thrust of its IMC because by advertising it can achieve its communication objectives of Brand awareness and recall, Brand knowledge, Brand attitude and Purchase intention. 2) Media Planning: is the document, which specifies the kind of media to be used, the cost of that media and the expected results. It should include flowcharts, the names of the specific media to be used, their frequency and reach estimates and budgeting. The steps of media planning are: a Assessing the communication environment b Describing the target audience c Setting the media objectives d Selecting the media mix e Buying media For Abbey the media planning shall include Newspaper, Magazine, Door-to-Door, Television, Cinema, Radio, Outdoor and Sponsorship. 3) Public relations is the tool used to promote the goodwill of the organization as a whole. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain good relationship, mutual understanding, sympathy with the stakeholders; namely the customers, employees, shareholders. Instruments and Channels used for Public Relations: Internal Public Relation to inform employees about the organization's strategic priorities, the role the employees are expected to play and to motivate them to carry out those objectives. Communication through media - internal e-mails, in-house newsletter shall be used for internal communication. Public affairs - corporate advertising, newsletters, flyers, brochures and annual reports will be used for Public affair. Lobbying also will be used to influence govt. decisions. Financial Public relations - a sound financial reputation will be developed by sending financial reports of the company to shareholders, bankers, potential investors, financial magazines and periodicals. Media Public relations - a strategic media public relation activity will be generated to attract the media like releasing regular press releases, distributing press kits, press conferences, participation in social service activities etc. Marketing Public relations - like product event sponsorship, newsletters shall be distributed to the intermediaries. 4) Sponsorship is a thematic communications tool in which the sponsor helps the sponsee in realization of the event or project and achieves his/her communication objectives of generating Brand awareness and recall, Brand knowledge, Brand attitude. Sponsorship does not have direct impact on marketing but it is a very useful tool for enhancing brand image. For Abbey, sponsorship is one of the most important tools of its IMC because as a financial institute, Abbey's major priority is to enhance in brand image. Sponsorship of events of social causes will definitely secure dividend in the long run. 5) Sales Promotion is a useful tool to attract attention of the target group and literally 'seduce' them into buying their products or services. It is used in increasing in sales in the short run. However it can also be used as complimentary to other communication tools like advertising, direct mailing campaign etc. For Abbey we have chosen Sales Promotion as an effective tool as we can come out with Promotional schemes at regular intervals thus not only increasing sales, but also retaining brand recollection. Sales promotions will be reinforced with direct mailing, advertising and sponsorship for getting maximum result. 6) Direct Marketing entails contacting customers and prospective customers directly with the intention of generating immediate and measurable response. The media used are: mailings, catalogues, brochures, telephones, instant messaging. In this case an instant response can be generated via answering coupons, Telemarketing or personal visit of customer to the nearby store. For a successful direct marketing campaign a well-defined target audience is a must. Database is a very important backbone of direct marketing. For Abbey, we have chosen direct marketing as a possible communication tool as this will not only create immediate sale, but also will generate feedback from the customers. It can be used as a tool for measurement of the success of the other communication tools used earlier. 7) Point-of-purchase communications are an important tool in IMC as they reach customers when the customer is making the decision which product or brand to buy. For Abbey we don't consider this tool as a useful tool, as in Abbey's business scenario, the customer visits the office or outlet only when he/ she has already decided. 8) Exhibition and trade fairs are considered to be a more personal communication tool. Demonstrations, one-to-one contact with the prospective customers, direct selling and public relations are part of this tool. This is a highly influential communication tool, where a prospective customer can be pursued and a direct sale may be accomplished. It gives an opportunity to improve brand awareness. It generates feedback about other communication tools. It also can be used as a measurement tool of the effectiveness of other communication tools. For Abbey, we have decided to use this tool as our financial products can be sold directly to the customers. The visibility of the brand will increase. We will be able to measure the effectiveness of our communication campaign from the responses received. 9) Personal Selling is a two-way, face-to-face communication tool used to inform, to give demonstrations to, to establish and maintain long-term relationship with the customers. For Abbey we have chosen Personal Selling as a communication tool, as it will give the maximum impact to our object of maintaining long-term relationship with the customers. Abbey products need to be explained carefully to the customers, which will be achieved by Personal Selling. The results are also measureable. 10) Internet Communication is becoming a very important communication tool mainly due to its cost-effectiveness. For Abbey we will use this tool to inform the customers and prospects of our product launching, product information, maintain website to interact with the customer for their feedback Conclusion: We have discussed the position of Abbey National, analyzed its corporate objectives and derived its Integrated Marketing Communication Objectives from its corporate objectives. We have analyzed the emergence of Integrated Marketing Communication as an effective tool for modern business houses. We have worked on the various marketing communication tools available and prepared an Integrated Marketing Communication Campaign, which will fulfill the objectives of Abbey National. References 1. Blythe, J. Marketing Communication (2000) Financial Times Prentice Hall, London. 2. Burnett J. and Moriarity S., Introduction to Marketing Communications, An Integrated Approach (1998) Prentice Hall 3. Duncan T. IMC: Using Advertising and Promotion to Build Brands, (2002) McGraw Hill, NY 4. 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