An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective - Dissertation Example

An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective In view of Samuel Johnson’s assertion, it can be noted that to a certain extent advertisements are negligently perused hence the need to gain attention by magnificence of promise and eloquence, sometimes sublime sometimes pathetic. Advertising is the most important element of a business’s marketing communication strategy and the advertisements reach masses of consumers with only one marketing communication method (Strydom et al 2000). Therefore, in view of the above assertion, advertisers must persuade consumers to buy and often remind them to buy again and again. It is imperative as well to explain what marketing communications is all about as a way of gaining understanding as far as advertising is concerned with influencing the customers to buy certain products. Theoretically, marketing communications can be defined as, “the process of presenting an integrated set of stimuli to a market target with the aim of raising a desired set of responses within the market target and setting up channels to receive, interpret and act on messages from the market to modify present company messages and identify new communications opportunities,” (Lancaster and Reynolds 1999:149). Thus, as both sender and receiver of market related messages, the company can influence customers to buy its brands as well as stay in touch with its market so that it can adjust to changing market trends. Marketing communication is one element that influences the consumers to buy certain products in response to the messages that would have been disseminated to them about certain products. The marketing communication strategy also called the promotional mix or promotional strategy of a business consists of six marketing communication elements namely: advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, direct marketing, publicity and sponsorship (Cant et al 2000). Particular attention would be paid mostly on advertising in this particular discussion where the study seeks to highlight how the present day media advertisements are portrayed as a way of gaining their magnificence as well as eloquence in the promises that are made to the customers. Advertisements are in most cases comprised of promises about particular products that are meant to satisfy needs of the customers hence the need to have these promises tailored in such a way that would promote a positive response from the customers. Pickton and Brodwell (2005) define advertising as any form of paid communication in the media targeted at a number of recipients and paid for by a sponsor. Basically, there are three major aims of advertising which include the following; to impart information, to develop attitudes and to induce action beneficial to the advertiser especially through the purchase of a product. In the event that the customers do not have adequate information about a product, there would be a tendency of negligently reading the content of the advertisement hence the need to carefully select the messages that are likely to have a positive impact about the product. Advertisements are primarily concerned with raising awareness of a product and ultimately stimulate a response from the targeted customers. According to Kotler (1999), advertising can be regarded as selective communication. In such a scenario, readers, listeners and viewers act selectively when they read newspapers or magazines as well as when they listen to radio or watch television. For instance, when someone is reading a newspaper or magazine, he or she may subconsciously peruse through the pages without paying particular attention to a given advertisement on a given page. In some instances he may not even notice and it would have less impact. Therefore, to a greater extent Samuel Johnson’s assertion highlighted above can be said to be true as far as advertisement is concerned. Readers or viewers in most instances would tend to be attracted by the attention gained by magnificence of promise and by eloquence which may not be visible in some cases. It is imperative therefore to design an attractive advertisement which is easier to understand as a way of trying to positively influence the behaviour of the potential consumers. Advertisements are meant to persuade the customer in most cases (Belch. E. and Belch, M.A. 2008). An advertisement can thus only convince the customer that the product offered is the best choice if it attracts attention, creates interest and communicates essential information about the product which may not be known by the consumers. All the same, the message being conveyed by the advertisement should also be believable to such an extent that the consumers would prefer that product as better than those offered by rival competitors. Basically, advertising forms part of the marketing communication where different tools would be used to reach the targeted consumers. An advertisement that does not convince the consumers is likely to fail to meet the overall objective of advertising which is to persuade the customers to buy certain products. From the above assertion by Johnson, marketing communication is effective in influencing the buyer behaviour of the consumers and particular focus is on advertising. Against this backdrop, it is imperative to explore how advertising works before going on to explore the current advertising practice. According to Strydom (2000), advertising is mainly achieved through six stages namely: exposure, attention, comprehension, acceptance, retention and action. Since consumers tend to be selective in their demand for products, they often need to be exposed to advertising message to get the persuasion process to get in motion. Without this exposure, that is when they would tend to negligently peruse through advertising messages without taking due consideration of the meaning of the actual message. Advertising is primarily concerned with creating awareness or capturing the attention of the consumers which is done through choosing something that is unique or different from the traditional norm of doing things. This is a very effective marketing communication strategy which would be explained in the examples of advertisements given below. This is followed by comprehension where the targeted audiences seek to get a clear meaning of the message carried in the advertisement. In some instances, the message in the advertisement may not make sense at first but would require effort to try and grasp the meaning of the information being put across. There would be a tendency by the targeted consumers to negligently peruse through the message in an advertisement without properly getting the meaning of what the sponsors would be trying to put across. It would be folly for the advertisers to just put across messages that are difficult to understand to the consumers as it would likely to give a negative response. Whenever the advertisement is credible and conforms to the target audiences’ existing beliefs and attitude, there would be very high chances of the message conveyed in an advertisement to be accepted. It follows from this argument that the images as well as models used in the advertisement ought to be credible hence easier to be accepted by the targeted audiences. It is at this stage that a distinction should be made between real things and fictitious things as this has a great influence on the consumer’s perceptions about how they view the world around them. Once the message in an advert has been accepted by the consumers, the advertisers or sponsors would now be concerned with retaining the customers that would have been persuaded to buy a particular product. This can be achieved by means of reminder advertising where the product is entrenched in the value system of the targeted audience where it would be a preferred product compared to other similar products. Therefore, action is required in marketing communication especially paying particular attention to advertising which is one of the most effective forms of marketing communication. The ultimate purpose of advertising in this case is to persuade the customers to buy. It can also be said that most advertising is created to inform the target audience, create preference, build image and eventually create loyalty among the targeted audience. In view of Johnson’s assertion mentioned in the introduction, it can be noted that for an advertising message to be communicated successfully, it should therefore be targeted at the right audience, capable of gaining attention, understandable, relevant and acceptable (Strydom et al 2000). From the above argument, it can be noted that advertising is a process that ought to be designed in an acceptable manner and easy to understand for the sake of avoiding a situation where the targeted consumers would just peruse negligently through the advertising message that is meant to influence their behaviour towards purchasing a given product. Indeed, the marketing communications strategy of any given organisation can take a different form depending on the channel of communication that is used as well as the marketing mix employed to reach the consumers. Advertising is more effective in raising awareness of a product in most cases and is targeted at all the people who can access the channel of communication that would be used in disseminating the information. For instance, the global economic recession currently engulfing the whole world has had an effect on the welfare of the people as a result of limited disposable income. However, this does not mean the end of business and the advertisers are seen to be taking a leading role in advertising affordable goods that may cushion the consumers from the hard impacts of the financial crisis. Carefully designed advertisements stand higher chances of positively appealing to a number of consumers as they would offer an alternative in view of limited income to spend as a result of the credit crunch. An example would be drawn from one of UK’s leading chain supermarkets about how it is currently succeeding in attracting customers through its advertisements in view of the global economic crunch. Information obtained online posits to the effect that Sainsbury is UK’s third largest grocery chain supermarket with a market share of about 16% and with about 823 stores which lost its number one spot in the UK grocery market to Tesco around 1995 and all attempts to claw back market share have since been failing until recently when they decided to embark on marketing communications meant to appeal to the customers once more again. This example would attempt to draw support from Samuel Johnson’s (1759) assertion by virtue of the significance of the promises made as well as the eloquence of the advertisement following a period of remarkable decline in business by Sainsbury. According to research entitled Sainsbury’s Marketing communication planning 2008-2009, Sainsbury is currently the most trusted ‘own brand’ among supermarkets. It can be noted that almost half of the shoppers have trust in its products and statistics obtained from this research show that 47% of its shoppers have trust in its own products compared to 27% for Tesco, 17% for ASDA and 15% for Morrison’s. The current state of affairs is evidence that shows that there has been a substantial improvement of Sainsbury’s brand following its loss of the number one position to rival Tesco and a close analysis of the latest developments would show that advertising has been very effective in positively turning around the latest results of the above mentioned chain store. Through the effective use of marketing communications such as advertising and promotion to reach the end users, Sainsbury is substantially gaining trust from its customers. Thus, advertising is very effective marketing communication strategy that can bring about positive results to any business if carefully planned (Shimp 2008). As going to be explained below, it can be noted that Sainsbury is effectively using advertising as a tool to reclaim its lost glory as far as grocery retail business is concerned in UK. Sainsbury’s current use of marketing communications to reach the end users is primarily based on its advertising campaign especially on television and other media which greatly appealed to its consumers than any other rival competitor. Their advertising campaign featuring Oliver Jamie offering family meals for less than five pounds made the brand name become more popular with the customers than any other advertisement they had ever done before. Even during the current period characterised by financial crisis as a result of the global economic recession that is gripping the whole world, Sainsbury is successfully performing very well and it is even snatching more customers from its rival competitors. Most customers have since changed their buying habits as a result of the credit crunch and it can be noted that lower priced, own brands are gaining more popularity than any other foodstuffs. Thus, it can be noted that all other supermarkets have seen the sales of organic and premium ranges slowing and Sainsbury is capitalising on this situation where its lower priced ‘own brands’ are fairing very well compared to other supermarkets. The advertising technique has great impact on consumers who have since changed their buying and eating habits in response to the advertisement campaign which appealed to many people. Advertising is a very effective marketing technique which has a major role that is aimed at raising awareness of a brand among the customers. It is also meant to stimulate interest which in turn will stimulate positive behaviour among the customers who will respond by initially testing the brand being advertised. Messages communicated to the customers through advertisements are often tailored in such a way that they appeal to the customers for them to buy the brand and in some instances they would be meant to raise awareness of a new brand at grass roots level. The low-cost own brands by Sainsbury are seen as a new invention in response to the credit crunch and the timing is good since customers would respond positively to something that would save their money while satisfying their needs. In this particular case, advertising coupled with promotion has greatly improved the performance of Sainsbury since the customers’ promises are often fulfilled where they will also get incentives inorder to come in large volumes knowing that they will get a reward or a token of appreciation for buying in any one of Sainsbury chain supermarkets. This technique is also meant to establish a cordial relationship between the supermarket and the customers and this would go a long way in creating loyal customers who will always come back again to shop in any of the chain supermarkets. Both old and new customers would in turn also invite their friends and colleagues in response to advertisements about the brands that are offered in accompaniment of other promotional goods as they serve the purpose of boosting the morale of the customers. Advertising therefore is more effective in raising awareness of a product compared to other forms of communication and is targeted at all the people who can access the channel of communication that would be used in disseminating the information. Carefully structured advertisements stand higher chances of positively appealing to a number of consumers as they would offer an alternative in view of limited income to spend as a result of the credit crunch as discussed above. Through the effective use of advertising, an organisation has better chances of performing better compared to rival competitors given that it would be able to fulfill the promises made to the customers. It should be noted that modern communication technology has made dramatic changes in the contemporary marketing communication landscape. Consumers now have the ability to make evaluations on their choice of goods owing to the improvements in communication technology. Marketers on the other hand are cognisant of these sweeping impacts caused by new technology which has led to significant changes in the way they carry out their business. It is possible these days to integrate various communication disciplines into one entity with the aim of fulfilling the goals of marketing communications of a given organisation. Therefore, an integrated marketing communication plan can be seen as more ideal during the current period and is recommendable to be adopted by different organisations. According to Pickton, D. and Broderick, A. (2005), an integrated marketing communication can be loosely defined as a concept of marketing communication planning that recognises the added value of a comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communication disciplines such as advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, direct marketing, public relations, sponsorship. These often are combined to provide consistency, clarity and effective communication. Mass techniques like advertising, sponsorship and publicity for instance can be effectively used as communication strategies which often start at corporate level. The marketing communication for any company should include the effective use of advertising whose major goal is to develop as well as comprehend the sales of the product through increasing awareness just like the goal of publicity or sponsorship. On the other hand, the goal of personal selling is building primary demand for the product hence the marketing communication must be tailored in such a way that it appeals to the customers at primary level as well as secondary level to those who are already customers. By virtue of operating in a competitive environment any given organisation should be better positioned to have a competitive advantage as a way of ensuring growth and this can be achieved through the effective use of advertising. As noted above, the integration of marketing communication can as well go a long way in ensuring effective communication by various companies whose ultimate objective is to attempt to make loyal customers through the provision of relevant information and knowledge to the customers. Information that is streamlined to meet the requirements of the customer needs can as well play a pivotal role in meeting the promises made to them. In actual fact, all communication efforts should be meant to create a positive image of the organisation through provision of relevant information to the stakeholders as they would try to gain sense from what has been disseminated to them. If there is mutual understanding created by advertising between any given organisation and its stakeholders, there would be less chances of conflict where the customers for instance would doubt the message that has been conveyed to them. Instead, they would gain a better understanding from the magnificence of the advertisement. It must be borne in mind that during the current period, new information and communication technology has revolutionised the ways of communication and doing business. The advent of the internet has brought about new features that make communication relatively easy and can reach a wide range of people located in diverse geographical areas. Specially designed websites are used by various organisations as tools to advertise their products and it is one effective way of communicating with the potential customers. It should follow from the given argument that advertisers can effectively harness the use of the internet to market their products and services. Through the use of search engines, the customers can discover for the first time a product hence the need for using attractive websites to captivate the interests of the customers. With the advent of the internet, some advertisements are negligently perused by the customers hence the need for advertisers to tailor their messages in such a way that they would convince the consumers about the products they would be offering. For instance there is unlimited advertising space on the internet hence there would be need to carefully select the messages to be posted on the website which ought to be clear and precise. Indeed, if all the information is just heaped without any logical sequence, it would be difficult for the intended consumers to grasp the meaning of what would be conveyed to them. It follows from this assertion that attention has to be taken when drafting advertising messages that are meant to captivate the interests of the targeted consumers. Compared to other forms of communication media, online marketing through internet use offers a variety of benefits to both the marketer and the customer. It is convenient, lots of information can easily be accessible without much hassles. It does not limit especially advertising space and can reach multitudes of people at the same time. It allows marketers to communicate with both new and existing markets in an integrated way that is beneficial to both the customers and the marketers. The internet can play a cost effective role in the communication mix where direct selling can be made possible through engaging dialogue between the marketers and customers. Advertising is also aided where awareness of product can be easily done through interactive involvement. A good example of advertisement can be drawn from Starbucks which makes effective use of advertising in various media including online marketing through the use of the internet. According to information obtained from the organisations official website, Starbucks Coffee Company is the leading retailer and roaster of quality coffee in the world but that does not mean that it operates in a market where there is no competition or where it can do whatever it wants without the constant scrutiny by the members of the public. Starbucks rose to fame through the effective advertisements of its coffeehouses in various countries across the globe. Various advertising campaigns were launched in various media to the extent of building loyal customers across the globe. Whilst there are many other different coffee dealers who also have coffee houses in different countries, Starbucks’ success story lies in the effective use of advertising in marketing its different brands. Today, Starbucks boasts of millions of loyal customers but that does not make it reluctant to keep on advertising its products. Whilst in some instances there is a tendency of attaching the above mentioned organisation with Israel, it has however countered this negative publicity through the use of advertisements with messages that are tailored to appeal to the customers using various media. For instance, consumers are loyal to Starbucks because of the experience and atmosphere of establishment they can even get from the use of the internet. It is a well established entity whose advertisements are meant to captivate the interests of the consumers. Besides only promising the consumers of the best experience at their coffee houses, Starbucks is also able to fulfil those promises and they have a two way communication process which allows the customers to give their feedback in response to the advertisements. In other words, it can be said that Starbucks is very tactical in the use of advertisements that are meant to create loyalty among the customers. It can be seen that there is something more to the loyalty of customers rather than just the coffee. Advertising basically plays a pivotal role in creating brand awareness as well as captivating the consumers to try a given brand. Having tried and satisfied, there would be likely chances of retaining those customers as well as other opportunities for attracting even more clients. It can thus be noted that to a greater extent, Samuel Johnson’s assertion may be true since people tend to negligently peruse advertisements where there would be need for total commitment by the advertisers to fulfil the promises made to the clients. The message in the advertisement ought to be magnificent and be able to captivate the interest of the consumers so as to avoid a situation where the intended target audience would fail to grasp the meaning of something aimed at them. However, in the example given above, Starbucks strives to tailor all its messages in such a way that the consumers would not struggle to deduce meaning from the messages portrayed to them. It can also be noted that the choice of the media plays a pivotal role in determining the way consumers grasp the meaning of certain messages in an advertisement. It would be folly to advertise a product like coffee especially in the media that has fewer readership or viewer ship as this would be costly by virtue of attracting limited numbers of potential customers. For instance, massages displayed at Starbucks website are quite simple to understand the reason why it has managed to create a large number of loyal customers. Carefully designed messages are likely to have a more positive effect as far as attracting consumers is concerned and there is need to use the appropriate media. A successful marketing communication plan is also determined by the ability to identify the targeted audience and their interests. This is commonly known as market segmentation. Smith (1991) summarises market segmentation as the process of identifying and grouping customers in who share common characteristics and interests that make them different from others into a similar category. The target audience for any product should be identified and communication efforts aimed at giving the relevant information that is likely to impact positively on them should be put in place and adhered to always as a way of trying to avoid negligent perusal of messages in advertisements meant to have certain meanings. Careful selection of product positioning will also enable the company to implement an effective communication strategy as they will have all the necessary product information at hand. In view of the argument outlined above, the most effective marketing communication strategy for any given business organisation is advertising which involves the identification of the target markets. This is then followed by the selection of communication channel that can be used to convey the message to the customers. The message is then tailored in such a way that will make a distinction between the company and its competitors in the market. Having established such groundwork, an organisation can then embark on advertising campaigns after having fulfilled the needs of the customers. An advertising campaign is the intentional, effective and impersonal dissemination of messages in different advertising media directed at a specific target audience with the purpose of informing, and or persuading and or reminding the audience to take specific action (Strydom 2000:368). The campaigns are very effective in establishing mutual understanding between the sponsors and the consumers where the meanings in advertising message would be easily understood thereby minimising the chances of conflict. This would be one way of avoiding negligence perusal of advertisements where the targeted consumers would lake knowledge about a particular product. However, in some cases where there is negligent perusal of the messages conveyed in the media it would be dependent on the type of media used to place an advertisement as this also has a bearing on the way consumers try to get sense from the message conveyed to them. Carefully designed electronic media advertisements can be used as multipurpose where on the other hand they would serve the purpose of conveying the message and its meaning while on the other they would serve the purpose of entertainment. It would be easier for consumers to gain meaning from advertisements that can entertain them compared to advertisements in print media which would require some form of concentration to understand the message. In some cases, messages in electronic media are subconsciously consumed while print media would allow effort to read and understand. Against the above argument, it can be noted that the type of media used to convey an advertisement is to a larger extent responsible for determining the extent to which individuals can understand the message disseminated in advertisements. Advertisements in the form of audio-visual presentation are relatively easier to understand than those that are in graphical or in print form. Therefore, creation of meaning from an advertisement can be greatly influenced by the type of media used to disseminate that particular advertisement not necessarily to say that there would be negligent perusal of advertisements always contrary to Johnson’s assertion in the introduction above. Consideration has to be taken with regards to the type of the media as far as creation of meaning from a particular advertisement is concerned since people ha more power to decide what they want to consume from the media than just being treated as inactive consumers of information. It can be concluded that the success of the marketing communication strategy employed by any company is determined by the ability by customers to quickly grasp the meaning of the message conveyed in an advertisement. Against the above argument, it can thus be noted as well that to a greater extent, Samuel Johnson’s assertion that, “advertisements are very negligently perused and it is therefore necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promise and by eloquence, sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetic,” is true since advertisements which often fail to capture the interests of the targeted consumers as well as impact on their understanding often have little influence on their behaviour. References Belch, G.E. and Belch, M.A., (2008), Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective, Boston: McGraw-Hill Cant M.C. (2000), Marketing Management, 4th Edition Juta and Co Ltd, SA. Kotler P. 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Rossiter & Steven Bellman (2005), Marketing Communications: Theory and Applications, Pearson Education: Australia, retrieved on 26 May 2009, from: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5526/is_200501/ai_n21385998/ Official website, Retrieved on 27 May 2009, from: http://www.starbucks.com/ Read More