Marketing Concepts and Basic Principles About Integrated Marketing Communication - Essay Example

? INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION …………………………………… College ………………………………………... …………………………… Introduction Intergraded Marketing Communication is perhaps one of the most powerful marketing and communication strategies of today to ensure achievement of sustainable competitive advantage for a business. IMC has become a real hot marketing topic since 1990s (Holm 2006, p. 23) and has been developed as a marketing discipline being brought together with high efficiency that adds greater values to both the customers and organization’s competitive position. IMC is considered as a magical bullet that enhances greater efficiencies of a business because it is an effective technique of communicating business goals, vision and mission, brand messages and any important messages to its people, especially customers. This research paper addresses marketing theories and underlying principles regarding Integrated Marketing Communication and examines how these have been practiced by Fly Emirates Airlines. In detailing the IMC practices of Emirates Airlines, this piece of research attempts to find various advertising and promotional activities that Emirates Company adopted to examine how they are integrated. Integrated marketing Communication Integrated Marketing Communication is a marketing communication strategy that a company aligns its communication objectives with business goals in order to accelerate its returns (Schultz and Schultz 2004, p. 3). IMC is a strategic and management tool that can help a company achieve greater competitive advantages and ensure long-term profitability. It is used to plan, design and establish well-organized and coordinated brand communication program with customers, shareholders, employees and other stakeholders to ensure effectiveness and consistency in messages to be delivered (Belch and Belch 2007, p. 11). As Pride and Ferrell (2007, p. 493) explained, Integrated marketing Communication is an effective coordination of promotion and other marketing efforts to ensure maximum informational and persuasive impact on customers. A marketer thus requires to develop and employ broad perspectives in coordinating this marketing efforts and mainly to ensure sending consistent messages to customers. Lamb, Hair and McDaniel 2008, p. 413) defined IMC as an effective coordination of all promotional messages, including traditional advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, event marketing and public relation for a particular company’s product or services, so as to ensure consistency in every messages that company delivers or meets its customers with. This definition highlights a number of significant features, they are, effective coordination among more than one communication tools, ensuring consistency in messages etc. Maintaining consistency in communicating brand messages is critical element to create and build brand loyalty. The IMC of Emirates Airlines Emirates Airlines is one of the world’s fastest growing Airline companies and recently ranked to be world’s second most profitable carrier, just behind Singapore Airlines. Even when international airline industry has been experiencing an accumulated losses of more than $6 billion, Emirates Airline was able to increase its returns by 48 % to $ 637 million. Emirates Airline is part of the state-owned Emirate Group which is a large and diversified travel umbrella group wholly owned by the Dubai State (Graham, Papatheodorou and Forsyth 2010, p. 157). Behind the success of Emirates Airlines was its advertising campaigns that not only gave it informative and persuasive advantages but also helped the company gain access to a large number of markets. Emirates Airline has attracted tourists, businessmen and investors to United Arab Emirates which in turn accelerated the economic development of the country as well. Emirates Airline has long been depending on various types of advertising modes and implementing different promotional techniques. It has effectively coordinated and integrated among these tools in order to reach its messages to maximum number of audience. The main message it recently delivered to the customers was ‘Fly Emirates’ and the company focused on this message throughout its different advertising like Print, TV, Radio, Event advertising, web-advertising etc. During 2006, when Emirates Airline announced its official partnership with FIFA 2006, the company has developed a worldwide advertising campaign, focusing on its core message of communication- ‘Keep Discovering’ (ameinfo.com, 2010). Later, the company designed and developed another advertising campaign ‘Fly Emirates’ and has been communicating this message to customers worldwide through different advertising modes. Emirates Airline has very recently launched its latest advertising campaign labeled as ‘Guess where and we will fly you there’ (Sayal, 2011). All the messages Emirates Airline designed for its advertising and promotion strategies were extremely valuable and beneficial for the company not only to attract large number of customers but also to create a business-and friendly-zeal among its customers. One of the very significant lesson from its IMC strategy was keeping consistency in messages being delivered to its customers. IMC for creating brand image As widely known, IMC is a powerful strategic tool that creates brand image among the customers. Emirates Airline has developed an IMC program by integrating various advertising and promotional channels to communicate its vision of ‘Fly Emirates’, ‘Keep discovering’ and ‘Guess where, we will fly you there’ to its customers in order to ensure achievement of sustainable competitive advantage and long-term brand image and brand loyalty. A strong brand better positioned in customers’ mind serves to be the most powerful intangible assets. Percy (2008) emphasized that IMC plays an important role in creating stronger brand mainly by helping the company better position its brand and thus establishing a brand loyalty for the company (p. 35). Out of its different messages and advertising campaign, Fly Emirates has been able to gain wider popularity, may be due to its simplicity and wider appearances. Consistency in Communicating brand messages Maintaining consistency in brand communication is an extremely important element that determines the success of the IMC program. Inconsistency in messages being communicated to the customers can yield nothing more than utter failure of the marketing effort. Communicating different messages at a time will confuse customers and wont serve to be better brand communicating tool. As Torp (2008, p. 190) argued, IMC is a notion and marketing program that aligns symbols, messages and procedures that an organization uses to communicate with consistency, coherence, clarity and continuity within the organizational boundaries. Kotler and Keller (2006, p. 558) emphasized that IMC combines various marketing disciplines including general advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, and public relation, to provide clarity, consistency and maximum impacts through integrating messages. When it comes to the example of Emirates Airline’s IMC program, the company has been communicating same message at a time through different advertising media like print, broadcasting, digital media, web and event advertising. With consistent and coherent messages like Fly Emirates and Keep Discovering, the company achieved greater efficiencies in advertising and thus generating larger amounts of profits. IMC as a tool for relationship marketing IMC is also a marketing technique that helps a company achieves competitive advantages as it helps the company creates relationship-marketing and stronger brand image. If an organization intends to reach its communication efforts to the full potential customers, it necessarily requires to integrate its marketing communication. Same time, this will help the company establish better relationship with its customers. A company that delivers valuable information about it, communicates brand information and approaches its customers with its vision and mission, will be bale to maintain better relationship with its customers. What does a better relationship with customers mean? A company is said to have maintained closer relationship with customers when they perceive the company as their own and that will create long-term customer loyalty. Emirates Airline’s marketing efforts to communicate its brand and advertising messages coherently and consistently has eventually helped the company build a worldwide customer base, with closer relationship and stronger brand attractiveness. Relationship marketing and creating brand loyalty are extremely critical factors to the success of any hospitality. As far as Emirate’s example is concerned, the company necessarily requires giving superior services in-flights in a way that these services are absolutely appropriate to the messages being communicated to its customers. Implementing IMC Strategy In designing, developing and implementing an IMC program, the company requires to consider basically three elements, namely positioning, personality and proposition. Personality refers to what the companies desire its customers to feel about the brand. How the brand or brand messages to be positioned among customers mind so that they perceive specific values when they hear or see the brand. Proposition refers to bringing about personality and positioning. These elements are to be combined and coordinated in an effective IMC program (Brannan, 1995, p. 2). . Fly Emirates and Keep Discovering are two effective adverting messages that incorporate positioning as well as personality variables. Fly Emirates reminds the values propositions and supreme service that Emirates Airlines provides to its customers. When the company put in efforts to keep consistency in the messages and integrates among the advertising and sale promotion techniques, the overall outcome will be that the company can achieve sustainable competitive advantage, create brand image and establish relationship marketing as well. Conclusion This piece of research paper has highlighted marketing concepts and basic principles about Integrated Marketing Communication, mainly in relation to its application to Emirate Airlines. This paper has explained how IMC helps a company achieve competitive advantage through creating brand loyalty and relationship marketing. 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