Integrated Marketing Communication - Essay Example

?Contents 2 Integrated marketing communication 2 Different IMC approaches 3 Selected IMC approaches case studies 3 LG and Integrated marketing Campaign 4 Introduction to organization 4 Campaign Idea 4 Target audience 4 Campaign’s Objectives 4 IMC tool and Campaign Theme 5 Toshiba and Integrated marketing Campaign 5 Introduction to organization 5 Campaign idea 5 Target Audience 6 Campaign’s objectives 6 IMC tool and Campaign theme 6 Haier and Integrated marketing Campaign 6 Introduction to organization 6 Campaign idea 6 Target Audience 7 Campaign’s objectives 7 IMC tool and Campaign theme 7 Comparison of LG, Toshiba and Haire (similarities and dissimilarities) 7 Analysis of Best Approach of IMC used 8 Challenges of IMC tools 9 Recommendations and suggestions for future use of IMC 9 Conclusion 10 References 12 Abstract This paper has been written to enhance the practical knowledge of integrated marketing Communication usage in today’s world. IMC campaigns became the business necessity to keep their customers loyal and committed to their products in global competitive environment. This paper deals with the brief case studies of three different organizations from the same industry, on use of IMC campaigns, their selected target markets, campaign ideas, tools, themes and comparison of the three companies. The whole essay clarifies the concept of integrated marketing communication tools and objectives of their use. With a clear concept and implementation success of Integrated Marketing Communication tools, certain recommendations are made for the better future use of integrated marketing campaigns. The whole paper also addressed the challenges of Integrated Marketing Communication approaches. Integrated marketing communication With the advent of globalization in business world, businesses need to survive by following a head to head competition, customer loyalty and retention. There came the concept of using all marketing tools together to get maximum benefit and an edge over competitors. This marketing technique is known as integrated marketing communication. This is a management concept that puts all the marketing communications under one head. Integrated marketing communication works as a unified force to accomplish all the marketing management goals of organization. This concept creates a link among all the forms of marketing through synergistic effect it provides. Many marketplace trends gave emergence to integrated marketing communication. Customers attitude is changing with increase in number of advertisement messages, media fragmentation, audience fragmentation, mergers of marketing agencies, global marketing, follower products, competition of ad agencies; decrease in costs of database management and maintenance of customer relationship. (Thorson, Moore, 1996) Integrated marketing communication process is not a very old concept but getting popularity in the upcoming trends of business needs of maintaining competitive edge. In today’s environment integrated marketing communication is leading old techniques of communicating with consumers and customers. In near future, IMC campaigns and tools will become the success factors of businesses and their business need. Different IMC approaches There are five different and common and frequently used tools of IMC; Advertising, Sales promotions, Public relations, direct marketing and Personal selling (Kym Gordon Moore, 2009) Sometimes organizations focus on some of them and integrate with each other to get better results in consistency with the organization’s campaign objectives and organization’s resources. Theses all tools are commonly used for marketing purposes. But under integrated marketing communication, these tools are used as a unified force with bigger impact. Selected IMC approaches case studies Integrated marketing communication is a simple but vast concept of management and communication. Three IMC campaigns are selected for a detailed analysis of efficiency in use, similarities in objectives, difference in approaches, ideas, themes and target audience. The selected cases of IMC campaigns will not only provide us with the analysis of tools used but also an opportunity to provide suggestions for future use of IMC. The approaches will also cover the challenges of implementation. Selected campaigns belong to same industry for easy and solid comparison. IMC campaigns by three different organizations within the same industry are as follow LG launches integrated and marketing campaign Toshiba (Customers speak and Toshiba listens) Haier Group (White Goods) – producer of home appliances All these three organizations work under the umbrella of electronics or home appliances making industry. Same industry provided an opportunity of easy analysis and comparison or organization’s IMC campaigns. LG and Integrated marketing Campaign Introduction to organization LG – life’s good is a brand of electrical home appliances, was founded in 1958, at Seoul, South Korea. It is the third largest appliance makers in the world. LG is operating at multinational level. This is also famous for its cell phones in the market. Campaign Idea “Upgrade” campaign inspires he consumers to upgrade their old home appliances with LG premium products. Upgrade became the central notion of their integrated marketing latest versions of home appliances rather than sticking to the old ones till they became useless. (Cliffs, 2007) Target audience IMC campaign of LG targeted all those consumers of electrical home appliances for digital appliance division which want to get rid of old technologies or those consumers who are users of old and outdated home appliances. Campaign’s Objectives To distinguish their products from traditional appliances. To trigger the desire for appliances featuring latest models and technology. To make more better considered and creative inputs. “LG’s products stand for stylish designs and innovative features that provide real benefits. These are the motivating forces for consumers who upgrade their appliances proactively” said by John Weinstock, vice president of digital appliance marketing, LG Electronics. USA, Inc. IMC tool and Campaign Theme To introduce integrated marketing management communication tools for the Upgrade scheme, LG used Advertising on television as IMC tool. The theme behind this strategy was to attract customers by presenting a number of humorous fantasies of customers to show that how far an individual can dream to get rid of old home appliances for the Premium products. (Cliffs, 2007) Toshiba and Integrated marketing Campaign Introduction to organization Toshiba, a Japanese company, is the world leader in manufacturing of diversified electrical products. Toshiba is operating at multinational level and have a good brand image among its market. The company is going head to head in competition with its competitors. Toshiba has vast business domains in the same industry. Campaign idea Toshiba started integrated marketing communication campaign with the concept of “Image is everything”. This campaign was used to inspire the users of Toshiba products. With the launch of their new product called gegabeat portable hard drive devices, Toshiba’s team once again took a step towards integrating all the marketing communication tools in a unified force of “Music in color” and “Because music is just better in colors”. (Albuquerque, 2005) Target Audience For the product gegabeat portable drive devices, Toshiba targeted youth which get attracted towards colors and music lovers. They defined their target market in terms of product category users. This focused on typically a single group of people. Campaign’s objectives To communicate an overall Toshiba brand feeling and recognition to consumers. To leverage its brand at retail in order to develop a presence of product in the crowded market of Mp3 players. To promote a strong brand image. (Albuquerque, 2005) IMC tool and Campaign theme For Gegabeat, IMC campaign was based on the theme of Music in color featuring many music artists bringing on the stage together with on Ads. Blues Traveler, Joan Jett, Blackhearts and a music band named Venedetta Red worked with Toshiba’s campaign of Music in colors. (Albuquerque, 2005) Toshiba focused on integrating all its marketing tools under one head of IMC. It worked on maintaining Public relations, advertising, online selling and communication. Haier and Integrated marketing Campaign Introduction to organization Haier group is the 4th largest brand of electrical home appliances working 240 subsidiary companies specially manufacturing refrigerators. Their strategy to satisfy customers is following innovation. Haier’s product category is diverse. Campaign idea Haier introduced the IMC campaign to aware customers about Olympic brand image through different communication tools. The campaign was started in Beijing Olympic Games in 2007. The campaign started as “CCTV-Olympic city Travel”. Idea behind this campaign was to promote Olympic Games with brand image of Haier. (Yi, 2010,108-109) Target Audience The target audience for this campaign was not specified in market sense but was targeting all those people who were game lovers. This could facilitate Haier in getting more customers for their product category through sponsoring a biggest game event of Olympics in 2008. Selecting Olympic lovers to target was a great opportunity for the company. Campaign’s objectives To introduce brand cognition To bring brand perceived value To maintain brand loyalty To promote the Olympic spirit and ideas to the world IMC tool and Campaign theme Haier connected their brand image with Olympics through introducing public service advertising of “we are masters of 200 Olympic games”. Haier used general advertising, sales promotions and network marketing to implement their campaign idea. For sales promotions, Haier went for selling digital cameras for customers to record their best memories of Olympic Games. They also introduced a big event called the Olympic Fun family, to call customers directly for the Olympic game involvement. The company also modified their website by mentioning Haier and Olympic Games section in it. (Yi, 2010, 108-109) Comparison of LG, Toshiba and Haire (similarities and dissimilarities) Event LG, Toshiba and Haier followed IMC approaches and tools to achieve their marketing communication objectives, but every organization performed differently under the same head. All the three organization kept general marketing as a part of their IMC campaigns. The difference was in the approach of theme and focused area of concern. LG and Toshiba introduced IMC campaigns to create awareness of their technological perspectives while Haier sponsored Olympic Games 2008 to create a brand image and promote Olympic Games. Each organization targeted different group of people, inspite of competing in the same industry of electrical home appliances. All the three organizations were of same type in manufacturing capacity but targeted different sectors. Analysis of Best Approach of IMC used In my opinion, LG performed well in introducing Integrated Marketing Communication campaign through a specific theme of Upgrading the technology and premium product usage. LG communicated their message of switching to new and latest technology in a better way. People took their advertisement campaigns humorous and started dreaming about different ways to get rid of old and outdated technology rather than waiting for the product to get out of service. This increased the overall sales of the LG Life’s Good. LG clearly defined their target market as consumers of home appliances for digital appliance division, in comparison to Toshiba and Haier. The designed objectives for LG’s Upgrade scheme were very precisely defined in content of achieving market for their updated and latest technology premium products. LG’s campaign changed the customer perspectives of having old technology unless the old home appliances get to the worst condition of use. The company only focused of one tool of integrated marketing communication. The marketers of LG focused on implementing Advertisement as a tool of IMC. These all perspectives of integrated marketing communication campaign made LG as a best IMC implementers in comparison to Toshiba and Haier. Haier preferred to show their role of sponsorship to Olympics as a corporate strategy. (Soderman, Dolles, 2010, 19) Challenges of IMC tools With the success factors of integrated marketing communication campaigns, it offers many barriers and challenges to the successful implementation of these marketing communication tools. Some organizations handle these challenges successfully and become success stories for future marketers while some failed to manage their resources in competence to integrated marketing communication. Certain challenges and methods to cope with them are discussed here. Strategic inconsistency in the organization is a big hurdle in way of implementing integrated marketing communication tools and campaigns. To overcome this issue, marketers need to start with consumer insight to get a strong, differentiated marketing strategy. This leads to a successful brand idea and make the integrated marketing campaign easier then without having consumer insight. Maintaining strategic consistency is the responsibility of marketer. Second main obstacle or challenge for marketers to implement integrated marketing campaigns is functional silos. To deal with this issue, marketer needs to follow a multistep process with following objectives of accomplishments; engage competent persons on silos that work together, evaluate resistant factors, take new measures tactically, focus on core objectives and provide correct information and resources to everyone in the organization. Third challenge is the lack of professional skills required to implement integrated marketing campaigns successful. For this purpose, marketers should be cross trained. (Liodice, 2008,1-6) Dealing with these critical issues can make the successful implementation of IMC techniques. Companies should consider these challenges before forecasting about integrated marketing communication. Recommendations and suggestions for future use of IMC For a successful implementation of integrated marketing communication campaigns, some recommendations are made for future use of marketers. A complete forecast should be made before implementing integrated marketing strategy. Integrated marketing campaigns should start at a proper time of requirement, to reduce unnecessary costs for the organization. A professional person should lead this campaign to take things smoothly and together. Risk of meeting challenges should be minimized at the start of integrated marketing communication campaign’s execution. Marketers should focus more on internet and online strategies, as new generation is more into use of internet and doing work online. Through integrated marketing communication campaigns, marketers should reconsider their lost customers. Companies should also provide useful information to the customers through these campaigns. Marketers should define proper strategies, ideas and themes for their IMC campaigns. Integrated marketing communication tools should be specifically and rationally selected by the marketers. Don’t make useless campaigns in which their target audiences don’t have any interest to respond. Marketers should use multiple media resources to implement their integrated marketing campaigns. Target not only new prospectors but also take old database into account too. Conclusion Through overall analysis of integrated marketing communication tools and campaign’s implementation, one can conclude that IMC tools can be used as a company’s strength if the management is good in managing its resources and strategies effectively. Marketers need not only to implement the IMC tool or campaign but also need to have promotional predictions data based on the consumer insights about the brand or product for which basically the campaign is going to start. Organizations can win competitive advantages some times over competitors, with use of integrated techniques. Inspite of adding so many efforts to IMC campaigns, it gives many benefits to the organization or brand; if managed properly. It creates a brand image, customer loyalty, increase in sales and customer feedback etc. This was the real lesson we learnt through this secondary research work. References 1. Duncan, T. Caywoo, C. The concept, process and evolution of integrated marketing communication [review of the book integrated communication: synergies of voices]. Google books. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.pk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8uPMCDvdhocC&oi=fnd&pg=PA13&dq=integrated+marketing+communication+approach&ots=q_dH4UIy96&sig=aaHzgxiVXCd2NmBk7vfKnS_iGtE#v=onepage&q=integrated%20marketing%20communication%20approach&f=false 2. Moore, K.G. (2009). Integrated marketing communications – 5 primary communication tools. Retrieved from http://ezinearticles.com/?Integrated-Marketing-Communications---5-Primary-Communication-Tools&id=2177059 3. Cliffs, E. (2007). LG electronics launches integrated marketing campaign for digital appliance division. Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conewsstory&refer=conews&tkr=066570:KS&sid=aMolYSpU46sI 4. Albuquerque, (2005, May 19). Integrated marketing communication program helps Toshiba maintain competitive edge in electronic consumer market. Toshiba News. 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