Integrated Marketing Communications Tools on Brecon Jazz Festival - Case Study Example

? Integrated Marketing Communications Contents Contents 2 Introduction 3 Literature Review 4 Evaluating IMC components 7 Promotional Objective 7 Segmentation and Targeting 8 Market Segmentation based on specific basis of segmentation 8 Advertisement 9 Sales Promotion 10 Public Relations 10 Conclusion and Recommendation 11 References 12 Introduction A festival is a period of celebration which is organized as a play or a concept which is held annually. A music festival is a community event which is used to show case music in order to benefit the local community. The festival which is at the focal point of this study is the Brecon Jazz Festival. It is an event held annually in the rural areas of Brecon in the south Powys, situated in the Mid Wales. The festival was held in 1984 for the first time. Usually the event is held in the first week of August. This year the event would be held on 11th of August. The main objective is the festival is to bring Jazz lovers from various parts of the world. But the significance of the program is actually more than just music, as such events help the nation of Wales to improve tourism and boost economy. It is believed that the difference between a successful event and a not so successful one lies in the essence of good marketing and communication plan. Experts believe that one of the best ways to market an event is through suing all the elements of the communication mix i.e. through integrated marketing communications or IMC. The study looks to focus on the analysis of various elements of the communications mix and the implications of various elements of the communication mix in order to market the event effectively to the target audience (Henry, 2008, p. 89). Literature Review Marketing mix is a set of elements that a company or as a matter of fact any organization can use to its advantage for the marketing purpose. Neil Borden first termed these elements as marketing mix. Later E. Jerome McCarthy reduced the twelve elements to for elements and termed those four elements as the four P’s of marketing. The four P’s of marketing would be product, price, place, promotion. The integrated marketing communication belongs to the 4th P- Promotion. Promotion means to convey the main attributes of the product to the customers. Promotion is mainly used by the marketers to generate demand among the audience. Mainly marketers use the promotional mix or the communication mix to promote a product. The various elements of the promotional mix are Advertisement, Sales Promotion, Public Relation, Personal Selling and Direct Marketing (Kotler, 2001, p. 25). As the business environment became competitive, the marketers felt a need for a more integrated approach towards the marketing and communication process giving birth to integrated marketing and communications approach. IMC can be defined as an integrative approach to achieve efficiency through synergy. IMC approach involves the application of all communication elements that allows an organization to express itself with one voice and one look (Proctor, 2002, p.121). IMC is a customer centric marketing and communications approach which helps an organization to integrate all the elements of the promotional mix to position and promote a product or business in the market. The American Marketing Association has defined IMC as a concept that identifies the value of a detailed and comprehensive plan that evaluates the key strategic roles of various mediums and techniques of communication to maximize the impact of communication . (Czinzota, Ronkainen, Moffett, Marinova & Marinov, 2009, pp. 423-429). Across the globe there happens to be continuity in the de-regulation in market and emergence of customized segmentation customer tastes and preferences. Therefore IMC has not been an easy process as it had to deal with various internal and external changes such as the rise of the digital medium, consumer empowerment, fragmentation of media, increase in advertisement clutter, etc. Among this the rise of the digital medium (including social medium) present a lot of opportunity to the marketers to use the IMC concept effectively through the digital medium (Kolb, 2008, p. 92). Even marketing on the other hand can be described as the design9iing and development of themed activity, occasions, display to promote product, organization or even a cause. It is extremely important of event marketers to use an IMC approach to promote via utilizing all the elements of communication mix. However, there is very little doubt over the fact that the most powerful weapon to be used to promote an event would be advertising. Hereby is also being mentioned that while using advertisement to promote the event the marketers should look to use the AIDA model to ensure success of an advertisement. AIDA stands for attention, interest, desire and action (Wenderoth, 209, p. 359). The main objective of advertisement is to attract the audiences, so that the target audiences would look at the advertisement. Then the advertisement must generate interest among the target audience. Generating interesting is the most difficult part of the whole AIDA process. An advertisement may attract a lot of attention but engaging the audiences would be main challenge. The interest and desire part go hand in hand. Once the ad generates interest it may become helpful in communicating the benefits of the product pr services which would lead to the generation of demand. Finally the advertisement must convince the target audience to make the final action in the form of the purchase decision (Belch and Michael, 2005, p. 325). Evaluating IMC components It has already been discussed that among different elements of the communication mix advertisement is likely to be most effective one when it comes to creating awareness and a sense of buzz among the people. However, advertisement must be complemented by other medium including sales promotion and public relations. Promotional Objective The most important objective of the promotion would be increase the attendance of the people at least by 20% than the previous year. Increase merchandise sales by at least 15% than previous year and to provide platform for upcoming new artists. Overall the main objective would be position Brecon as a thrilling place and bring in more people than ever. Based on the above objective the key elements of the promotional mix can be analyzed based on three major criteria such as: Awareness, engagement and Sales through a five point rating scale. Awareness Engagement Sales Advertisement 5 3 3 Sales Promotion 3 3 5 Public Relations 3 5 3 Here five means very good, four means good, three means average, two means poor and one means very poor. Segmentation and Targeting Market Segmentation based on specific basis of segmentation Geographic Segmentation Local, National as well as international audience Demographic segmentation Sex: Both Male and Female Age: People belonging to the age group of 22- 50+ Income: Individuals belonging to the upper middle income group. Occupation: Self Employed, Professional. Psychographic Segmentation Outdoor enthusiast having love and passion for music (Jazz to be particular) Based on above analysis it can be concluded that the target market segment would be Local, national as well international audiences belonging to the upper middle income group which includes both male and female of the age group of 22 to 50 plus. And off course these people are likely to be outdoorsy having passion for Jazz music. From a marketing perspective the marketers should be using concentrated segmentation by which one particular market segment would be targeted by providing a specific set of marketing mix. Concentrated Marketing: One marketing Mix for one market segment only Advertisement As discussed earlier one of the main objectives of the whole promotional campaign would be increase the number of attendance as compared to the previous year. Hence in order to increase the number of attendants it would be important for the organizers to generate awareness among the people and hence advertisement would probably be the most important weapon for the marketers. Ads can be posted on various mediums of communication including print, audio, video and also the digital medium. Print ads in various national and international newspapers and magazines could be posted. Budget may be a concern be a concern. But since the event has been happening for such a long time it is being assumed that the marketers would be sufficient enough budget to post ads on print. Another common medium would be television. Ads of celebrity endorsements like Jools Holland; who has already been chosen as the brand ambassador for the event can be used for television ads. This would help the marketers to inflict maximum penetration among the target market segment. Using audio medium in the form of Ads on radio channels to convey information about the dates, venues and tickets can be used to promote the event. A part from this medium which could be critical to the success of the event would be digital medium. Today majority of the people especially the people belonging to the age group of 18-35 spend more time on digital medium as compared television or radio. Rise of tabs and smart phones is likely to increase the use of digital medium. Therefore PPC ads on Google and Facebook, Banner Ads on Yahoo and YouTube should be used by the marketers to promote the events. Also such ads would be more targeted in nature and would a lot less costly than ads on other mediums Sales Promotion Sales promotion can come in real handy in increasing the number of attendance and sales of merchandise. Before the events for a certain period of time the organizers can announce about the price discounts on tickets or merchandise to increase the sales in a relatively short period of time. Such discounts could be promoted through posts made on social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest or through online retailers and off-course through the company website itself (Churchill, 2009, p.211). Public Relations PR would be all about creating engagement with the audiences. The main objective is to ensure that the brand is loved by the audience which would automatically lure them to make the final purchase decision (Schultz and Schultz, 2004, p.79). Again bet way to create engagement is through social media. Interesting, relevant posts on Facebook and Twitter can create immense amount of customer engagement. Also the organizers should consider blogging to create engagement. Replying to the queries of the audiences and providing relevant info through social media can help the organizers to create a sense of buzz among the audience. Also effective engagement techniques like contests on FB and Twitter can do the trick when it comes to engagement and public relations (Burgemeister, 2003, p. 192). IMC Snap Shot Promotional Mix Element Medium to be used Impact Advertisement (Audio Visual , Banner and PPC ads) Television, Radio, Digital medium (Web as well as social media presence Awareness Sales Promotion (Price cuts on tickets and merchandise) Website, Social Media and Online Retailers Boost in Sales Public Relations Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest) Increase in engagement Conclusion and Recommendation To conclude thing it can be said that as business and marketing has become a lot more competitive in nature; marketers are looking to adopt a lot more integrated approach in case of promotion by using all the elements of the promotional mixes to maximize impact of the communication. For Event marketers like Brecon Jazz Festival use of IMC would be critical to the success of the organizers both in order to create awareness and increase sales. However, among all the mediums ads would be most important when it comes to the increase in awareness, sales promotion for increase in sales and PR to increase engagement. Use of digital medium is also going to be critical keeping the paradigm of shift in consumer behaviour in mind. All in all the marketers should follow AIDA concept to get the desired objective. Since most of the recommended strategies have been mentioned in the body some new concepts would be discussed in the recommendation section (Brown, 2009, p. 209). With over growing concerns of global warming in the world would be really wonderful if the organizers use the green theme for the project. Also the way the marketers use the digital medium would be critical to the success of the program. It is also recommended that the organizers take the consultation of any standard digital marketing companies to promote the programs on the digital platform (Zarrela, 2010, p. 45). References Belch, G and Michael, G.2005. Advertising &Promotion-An Integrated marketing Communications Perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill. Brown, L. 2009. Marketing and Distribution Research. New York: Ronald Press Company. Burgemeister, S. 2003. Market analysis. Berlin: GRIN Verlag. Churchill, G. 2009. Marketing Research. Stamford: Cengage Learning. Czinzota, M., Ronkainen, I., Moffett, M., Marinova, S. & Marinov, M. 2009. International business (European edition). New Jersey: John Wiley. Fill, C., 2006. Simply Marketing Communications. London: Financial Times Prentice Hall. Henry, A. 2008. Understanding Strategic Management. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kolb, B. 2008. Marketing Research: A Practical Approach. London: Sage. Kotler, P. 2001. Marketing Management. London: Prentice Hall. Proctor, T., 2002. Strategic Marketing: An Introduction. London: Routledge. Schultz, D., and Schultz, H., 2004. IMC, the Next Generation: Five Steps for Delivering Value and Measuring returns Using Marketing Communication. New York: McGraw Hill professional. Wenderoth, M. 2009. Particularities in the Marketing Mix for Service Operations, Berlin: GRIN Verlag. Zarrela, D. 2010. The Social Media Marketing Book. Toronto: O'Reilly Media, Inc. Read More