An Integrated Marketing Communication Program for Crunchy Crunch Company - Research Proposal Example

MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS PLAN (Degree for which this dissertation is being submitted) Submitted in part fulfillment of the Date of Submission 1. Executive Summary 1.1 Purpose of the plan The snack food market in the UK has both changed and grown over the last few years. Because of people's busy lifestyles, pressure of work and long traveling times to and from work, many do not have time to sit down and eat a meal during the working day. For this reason, snacks are an important part of everyday life and often replace a traditional meal or supplement the diet for a treat or appetite quencher between meal times This integrated marketing communication programme proposal is going to make a plan for Crunchy Crunch Company to start their business ambition. The Crunchy Crunch Company (CCC) has been in the business of making crisps and other snacks for many years. They want to build on their reputation for traditional health conscious consumer. Therefore, they have made the brave decision to move away from the traditional products it has in its portfolio and are about to launch a range of healthy snacks. The brand name for this range is "Fit" to reflect the healthy nature of the products and the people consuming them. So far, four varieties will be available: Fit Fruit (Fruit and corn based snack) Fit Quiche, Fit Frosty (a savory ice cream) and Fit Crackle (a crisp like product). They believed that there would be a large market about snack food in the country. 2. The Market and Customer Analysis "According to the American Marketing Association, marketing research is the systematic gathering, recording, and analysing of data about problems relating to the marketing of goods and services." Although market research is imperfect science, it deals with customers and their continual changes feels and behaviours, which are influenced by innumerable subjective causes. 2.1 Integrated Marketing Communications Competitiveness in business the world over is so acute that survival is possible for only those organizations, which are ready to employ every possible means to increase profit by reducing cost in production, while remaining uncompromising in quality and aggressive in marketing. The role of marketing communication in modern business practices has been identified as a key factor in survival in modern day business. As part of the search for business effectiveness the entire process of marketing communication is being approached in a comprehensive and unified manner where by all activities of business communication functions in unison. This approach is called Integrated Marketing Communication. This is a relatively new concept in management. It is engineered to harness all aspects of marketing communication such as advertising, promotion of sales, public relation, and direct marketing in a highly focused manner eschewing the former tendency of these departments to function in isolation. 2.2 Devising an Integrated Marketing Communications Programme for Crunchy Crunch Company All marketing communications campaign for business organizations should have clear, concise, and measurable objectives. For achieving organizational objectives and goals, communication campaign requires careful planning and administration of events. 1. Need for an advertising campaign Advertisement is meant to pass on information to the prospective customers. It is one of the most powerful elements in international marketing. Business Organization should make sure that you have chosen the right solution to the problem to communicate product benefits or to support an event before undertaking an advertising campaign or a communications campaign. An advertising or direct mail campaign can find new customers fro your products but sales representatives an better handle to convert information-seekers into customers Thus organizations first find out the need for an advertisement campaign to attract customers and then look for available mix of advertisement and communication methods. This is because advertising is a very complex business. To make the advertisement to go on with the changing time new advertising and modern promotional methods needs to be assessed and compared with traditional available methods. 2. Need for an advertising agency Reasons for using advertising agency includes getting an external objective view of issues, to cut through internal disagreements, and to symbolize the importance of the work Advertising agency' roles Analyzing, prioritizing and generating options Knowledge carrier Promoting advertising decisions Providing useful feedback on the campaign objectives Implementing publication dates and lead times and any change in the plan of campaign 3. Set Objectives Essences of Advertising campaigns are clear objectives. Marketing communication and advertising mix methods are chosen (i) According to cost, targeting and response Advertising cost includes cost of design, production such as printing and media includes, local radio, display advertisement etc. For effective marketing communication, modern organizations should learn about the methods that are available in the market. Organizations should keep up with market developments so as to give effective decisions about where to put marketing advertising emphasis, and what marketing communication 'mix' of methods to use. (ii) According to design, production and the role of external agencies Company's image is formed by advertising material and campaign. And company can take the help of external agencies and a good designer. The role of design and advertising agencies are: a. Concerned with planning advertisement campaign and b. Implementing advertising or promotional 'campaigns' on company's behalf (iii) Use simple language for customer's understanding Customers are people with multi options from all sources and having good technical or detailed understanding of products and services. The effective advertising and marketing is the ability to convey complex issues to the customer in a interesting, relevant, meaningful, and easy manner. 4. Select Media Once you have defined the audience for an advertising campaign, careful selection of the right media is a critical next step. There are four important factors to consider in selecting campaign media: The Media Plan The terms media plan and media strategy are used to convey the techniques of effective communication delivery to consumers. The recipients of communication are different, they may have different characteristics, and consequently the media needed to reach them will be different. The Integrated Marketing Communication has realized this and uses multiple channels of media like advertising, public relations, events, direct response media etc. The success of this integrated method in entertainment-education (edutainment) as pro-social messages embedded into drama, skits, street plays and road shows coupled with other traditional modes of communication have yielded excellent results in family planning, literacy, nutrition and conservation. (i) Media selection Selection of media is no easy task. The selection of media is often under severe constraints often due to inadequate budgetary provision. Hence, it is difficult to decide which medium will reach the desired targets and produce the highest return on profit. Some times the media will have to be multiple types and should decide what percentage of allocation should be given to each type. 5. Plan Campaign Timing Modern marketing communication is a skillful way of blowing one's own trumpet. To speak highly of one's goods has been raised to the level of the dignity of fine art. The most successful businessman is he, who knows the secret of effective advertisement. As they say, timing is everything. The main factor to consider is When do your customers make their buying decisions Factors influencing buying behavior Inputs Channels Processor Output (Response) Selling is essentially a communication process. Therefore, salesman also becomes an indispensable part of this process, as is evident. 6. Decide Frequencies Advertising messages increases consumer's awareness each time they are communicated. Technology progressively replaced the human factor in communication. However, the audiovisual media has the many features of the primitive with the availability of sight sound and movement and the added advantage of enabling communication to masses and from distances. Studies have underlined the effectiveness of this media in sending persuasive messages. When the visual element is absent the media is called audio media (loud speakers and radio) and the audio element is absent it is called visual media (cartoons pictures, statistical data). Print media made up of newspapers, magazines, handouts etc are other well-known tools for marketing communication. Advertising frequency is often inherent in the type of media. For example, television and radio commercials can be broadcast many times in one day, print publications are released weekly and Internet-based ads can appear thousands of times in few hours. The media can support one another. Print media can highlight what is in the broadcast media and similarly radio can give coverage about what is in the press. 7. Develop the Response Mechanism Advertisement planning is a creative work and directed towards set of organizational goals. There have been many models that have been developed to explain the process of advertising. One of the oldest models the A-I-D-A (Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action) is the most widely known hierarchy-of-effects model. 'AIDA' - Attention Interest Desire Action Attention part is the banner or headline that makes an impressive benefit promise to the customer Interest builds information in an interesting way to the customers Desire is the response advertisement campaigns must receive, which speaks benefits to customer so that they will want or desire for them. Action: Advertisement should prompt actions from the customer's side, which may be to call a telephone number, requesting further information, visiting Web site; visiting a retail outlet, arranging a meeting, placing an order or to complete and send of a reply coupon. Action is a critical ingredient of any advertising campaign and it is essential that advertisement campaign make it easy for target customers to react and respond. 8. Set a Budget Plan a careful budget to accommodate various costs associated with an advertising campaign. - 3. Pricing Strategies and Financial Forecasting 3.1 Business Model and Pricing Strategy Crunchy Crunch Company product consists of four varieties will be available: Fit Fruit (Fruit and corn based snack) Fit Quiche, Fit Frosty (a savory ice cream) and Fit Crackle (a crisp like product). Price is an important element of marketing mix because it influences the acceptability, sales volume and competitive strength of the product Consumer perception: consumer perception towards the price also influences the pricing decision. Consumer views the price as reflection on the quality of the product. They consider the product to be of high quality if a higher price is fixed and of low quality if lower price is fixed. Such pricing strategy is also known as prestige pricing strategy Distribution strategy: the distribution strategy for the company should also be considered while setting the price. In order to capture a large share of the market, the company has to provide large trade margins for the channel partners and may encourage them to push the product into the market. 4. Distribution Channels Crunchy Crunch Company team will use the following three distribution channels for its product: 1. Direct sales from the company to consumer; 2. Sales through an intermediate organization; and 3. Sales through retail channels. 4.1 Direct sales from the company to consumer At the initial product launch, we will prioritize to use direct sales through food outlets at various parts of the country.. 4.2 Sales through an intermediate organization Sales through an intermediate organization are a vital distribution channel for Crunchy Crunch Company products because it provides an easier and large-scale access to our target customers. 4.3 Sales through retail channels We plan to use Caf Coffee Day chains as a major retail channel, which is the main traditional snacks outlet. When marketing through retail channel, we will do advertisement, mainly on newspaper in the first year. We will consider TV commercial if the first year sales result is very positive. 5. Risks and Contingency Plan 5.1 Market uncertainties To be an entrepreneur who has ideas that occur on a daily essence. The real challenge, though, is to gather good ideas. Good ideas are more than just ideas - they are opportunities. (MULLINS, 2004) As a new product concept, Crunchy Crunch Company has not been tested in the market. While we are confident about the technology and product, we are in the process of conducting both consumer and competitive research to prove more accurately the market potential for Crunchy Crunch Company products. 5.2 Threats from imitation As protection of intellectual property rights is rather weak in the state, even though Crunchy Crunch Company products are self made, it is still possible that other companies, especially those that are producing similar products may imitate same style. When this kind of scenario happens, we will seek legal counsel and fight against the imitators. 5.3 Technical Risk With technology advancement, there always exists the possibility that disruptive or superior technology would replace Crunchy Crunch Company or provide the same benefits at a lower cost. Thus, we should maintain a strong R&D team and continuously improve our technology and products in order to meet consumers' ever-changing needs. We also plan to develop a wide range of electronic products for toys and English learning, in order to reduce and ramify the risk of relying on a single product. 6. Conclusion Thus, this is a integrated marketing communication programme proposal is going to make a plan for Crunchy Crunch Company with a detailed analysis of its environment, capabilities, competitive advantages and all components of marketing communication. This report has been critically analyzed and this report proves that Crunchy Crunch Company is a successful business venture, it's a profitable company but it is incredibly socially responsible as well. As an external consultant I would give a clean card to the Chief Executive since this company is an example for other organizations and it is perfect in all aspects. Overall, the company is a success and an example for the rest to follow. References Aaker, David A., Rajeev Batra , and John G. Myers. Advertising Management, 4th Ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Simon & Schuster, 1992 Fill Chris. Marketing Communications: Frameworks, Theories, and Applications. Prentice Hall, London, 1995. Fiske, John (1986), "Television, Polysemy and Popularity," Critical Studies in Mass Communications, 3, 391-408. Katz Helen. The Media Handbook: A Complete Guide to Advertising Media Selection, Planning, Research, and Buying. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Mahwah, NJ. 2003.P. 36. Mitchell, A (1983), "Cognitive Processes Initiated by Exposure to Advertising", Richard Harris, ed., Information Processing Research Advertising, Hillsdale, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum 13-42. MULLINS, J. W. (2004) The new business road test. Harlow: Financial Times/Prentice Hall, pp. 201 Perse Elizabeth M. Media Effects and Society. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Mahwah, NJ. 2001. Page Number: 164. Read More