Integrated Marketing Communications Plan and Campaign - Report Example

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS PLAN AND CAMPAIGN By Location Integrated Marketing Communications Plan and Campaign Table of Contents Introduction 3 Overview of Kellogg Company 3 SOSTAC model 3 1.Situation 4 2.Objectives 5 3.Strategy 7 4.Tactical plan 9 5.Action 11 6.Control stage 13 Media Pack 14 Reflection 16 Bibliography 19 Introduction The major purpose of marketing communication is to for a business organization is to create awareness of the products and services that they produce and the position of the business organization. They always achieve this by using things such as press releases, brochures, trade show presentations, and websites. For there to be success in market communication, there needs to be proper planning of the whole process. The process usually involves consideration of both internal and external factors of business existence. This is the reason as to why it is very important for a business to carry out a produce integrated marketing communications plan and campaign for their market communications. SOSTAC model is one of the models used in business to produce integrated marketing communications plan and campaign. Using the SOSTAC model, this paper aims at producing an integrated marketing communications plan and campaign for Kelloggs Company. Overview of Kellogg Company Kellogg Company was started by W.K. Kellogg, and his brother, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg at Battle Creek, Michigan in the year 1906 own. Kellogg Company and its subsidiaries are involved in the production and convenience foods and cereals;they produce products such as crackers, cookies, cereal bars, frosted flakes, cocoa krispies, pringles, and vegetable foods. Its headquarters are in Michigan and sells its products in over 180 countries in the world. SOSTAC model The term SOSTAC is an abbreviation of the six most important aspects to consider when coming up with an integrated marketing communications plan and campaign. These aspects include the situation, objectives, strategy, action, and control. The situation refers to the state which the business organization at that particular moment. The objectives should cater for things that the business organization aims at achieving by from the integrated marketing communications plan and campaign. Tactics involves the things that the business plans to do in order to achieve the content of their strategy (Smith & Taylor 2004, p. 46).The action involves the process of making the strategy work for the success of the business organization. Control refers to the things that the business organization plans on doing to measure, monitor, review, update, and modify the integrated marketing communications plan and campaign. 1. Situation Successful marketing officials from Kellogg company have conducted research, engaged on social channels and they utilized all available information and to make education to the customers and seek out and purchase products. Kellogg Company has stable growth in its club and it faces competition from other players in the market. The objective of the manufacturer shifted from introducing another product to increasing the life cycle of the existing product. Kellogg has its strength in the market for convenience health food established for brand name and brand values of their products. The brand type of the objective of the manufacturer alternated from introducing another product to increasing the life cycle of the existing product encompasses arranges of goods broadly into categories, and these are cereals and snacks. The value for consumers unchanged for a long period of time, with fast and easy developing of any other product, and the relatively affordable market price in relation to foods which gives customers a good reason to buy consume the product. The current product expansion and alternative meal asserted by Kellogg’s implies that consumers can enjoy All-Bran snack and cereal products at the time of the day that they desire, for majors meals or in-between the majors meals. Snacks have a number of major benefits over other substitute food to human beings (Smith & Zook 2011, p. 112). A number of the important ones include longer shelf life, easily perceivably at room temperatures and a wide distribution. Kellogg Company is and consideration of the relative benefits and of the alternative that is considered by the supermarket shelf. There is opportunity in the market for other brands that offer cheaper, healthy, and tasty options. However, nutrition information on products indicates the availability of mineral, fibre and vitamins, which is very crucial when choosing a breakfast or a snack cereal. Fibre consumption has really reduced in Spain that is according to Dr Baltazar. He is, therefore, recommending that people monitor on their diets and improve fibre intake. The problems in Spain took two years that affected the choice of Spanish consumer’s choice. Moreover, the growing influences the social networks and technology. The modern and actively alternating income in the middle and high social classes range varies in accordance with the Kellogg’s Company. They target ages between 30 years to 59 years. However, Kellogg’s company has got high price rates for a good number of its products. Moreover, there is an important thing that has been observed. This is that the business organization can compare all its brand products to its other users. A good example would b echildren and adult cereals. The average price of 150 grams of All- Bran goes for around 25 to 30 cents. 2. Objectives In early 2009 Kellogg’s almost got to $ 12.8 billion. Kellogg Company is reasonably the world’s largest cereal producing company in Britain; the company manufactures about 1 billion kilos of their products annually. Kellogg’s company sells their cereals in more than 175 countries; the company produces most worlds iconic and the recognizable brands. The introduction of the special K was introduced in the market more than 50 years back by Kellogg Company. The Corn Flake as an option have toasted wheat and rice cereal flake that have low calories,thus appealing to individuals leading a healthier lifestyle. The brand has maintained a good position in the cereal market breakfast, specifically when its advertising campaign was launched in 2003 with a tagline “Help Yourself”, that is mainly targeted at the female market dropping a dress size. In the market, breakfast cereals are in maturity step, which has many competitors with strong distribution channels. They should opt for this in order to attract and reach the consumer, to keep its popularity in differing market, and in to maintain breakfast cereal market. A newly designed Special K Integrated Marketing Communications campaign has the potential to improve the brand influence on the cereal market. The company has generated some of its varieties, some including news article and news coverage on ITV’s. Furthermore, their cooperation with the media to publicize the program has attracted wide attention and influence. The company has used social media for it advertises and delivers messages via videos to the public. Objective develops greater understanding on the impact of Kellogg’s company as the long term breakfast Corporate Responsibility Program. Media, government and shareholders are the target audience. The objective is raised the additional funding for the clubs by attracting its consumer support through the donations when purchasing the company’s products. The target audience is consumers, the wider public and key opinion formers. The period taken to plan the communication through a multi-platform approach worked in relation to each of the targeted audiences. The companies in the past have participated in a variety of hosted by the club company specifications on SBD roles. The company treks to local business organizations that hire Kellogg in SBD. The company offers advice to various types of events available to firm and help in managing event communications and logistics. The companies can contact Ashely Kelly, the Co-Chair for corporate Relations and events. The SBD club can be seen as a point of conduct between business organizations and this might include advising on the types of events available to the company while helping with events and logistics and communications. Kellogg members who are interested in some functions, for example, internal consultation, corporate developing and planning across multiples sector that they are involved in SBD that can reach the club career management. Business organizations have participated in debates on the differences between external and internal consulting. While some companies resume in the workshop. Many of the Kellogg events can be conducted by firms, so that by looking for opportunities to interact and this increases awareness to the public. Kellogg Company has more than 550 members across and the second of the program. It is one largest and fastest growing clubs that is the SBD. There are lunch and sessions hosted by corporate partners for example, Emerging Markets Strategy, case studies and corporate M&A in Kellogg Company. 3. Strategy A number of ways exist in which the business organization has segmented the market that they serve. For the purpose of their marketing activities, they have segmented the market into geographical areas, behavioural segments, lifestyle segments, and age segment. With the use of segmentation, the business organization has been able to target the market segment that will be most attracted to the kind of products that they produce. Segmentations is usually used in business organizations’ integrated marketing communications plan and campaign in order to make sure that they target the right market segments. For a business organization such as Kellogg Company, there needs to be a focus on a certain segment of the market in order for there to be maximum sales. The business for a long time has always put emphasis on the quality of products that they produce. With such emphasis, it will be very hard for the company to focus on the low income customers. Given their high quality production. they can still earn more profit by targeting citizens with high income in the society. This is because people with low income will not be able to afford their products. However, if they decide the low income in the society they might end up running at a loss (Hackley 2010, p. 111). Children have also been seen as good fans for the products that are produced by Kellogg Company. A majority of the people who are most attracted to the products that the business organization produces are children. This will make it important for the business organization to focus on children when coming up with the integrated marketing communications plan and campaign for Kelloggs Company in order to make sure that they focus on the most important segment of the market that matters to the business organization (Mullin 2002, p. 99). However, the business organization could come up with a strategy that will see to it that they remain attractive to all the market segments. This will only be possible if the business organization invests in innovation that will make sure that they come up with diverse products that will match the diverse needs of the segments in the market. For example, it has been noticed that a number of their products are consumed and adored by children while others are adored by grownups. By going for diversity, they will be able to make sure that people of all ages are taken care of. They should also come up with a product with low production costs so that they could have something for the people with low income. When it comes to food consumption, calorie content is a common issue. There are people who are always keen on the calorie content of any food that they consume while other people do not seem to mind about the calorie content. In relation to this, they would consider coming up with products that are low in calorie content and those that are high in calorie content. This will make sure that they are able to take care of clients who belong to both extremes (Gospe 2008, p. 178). With proper consideration of all the available segments in the market, the business organization will be able to make sure that they maximize their sales thus maximizing their incomes too. 4. Tactical plan The Tactical plan part of the SOSTAC model involves putting down plans that will enable Kelloggs Company to achieve the assertions of their strategy. In marketing, there are a number of communication tools that a business organization can use in order to stimulate their sales. The marketing communication tools that they might decide to use include advertisements, direct interaction, trade shows, sales promotion, direct marketing, seminars, webinars, newsletters, and catalogues. Using these market communication tools, a business organization can always affect the choice of their consumers to favour the products that they produce. Advertising is in most cases referred to as a market communication tool with the ability to extract the most audience from the public. However, the ability of advertising to influence the choice of consumers is questionable, especially in the case of Kellogg Company. For example, it will be hard to convince people that the products that are produced by Kellogg Company are tasty, good, and healthy. The only way for people to find out if these claims are true is to buy and consume these products. The business cannot just get the public to believe that the cereals that they produce are good, healthy, and tasty by simply saying so. They will have to make the advertisement as appealing as possible so that they can be able to convince the public to purchase these products. There are a number of ways in which they could achieve this. For instance, they might use a public figure or a celebrity to make their products more appealing to the public. The advantage of using a celebrity is that the product will become appealing to the people who adore the individual used in the advertisement. This implies that the popularity of the individual that they choose to use will be of high importance. Sales promotion comprises various marketing techniques that are often used tactically to provide added value to an offering, with the aim of accelerating sales and gathering marketing information. For example, Kellogg Company promotions win £100 every hour with Rice Krispies Squares Cash Calls. The first thing is you must have a pack of Rice Krispies Squares bar code, then you can text them. This is the new product of Kellogg Company, through this sales promotion can let more people know about this product. For the Kellogg Company, the short-term promotional activities that can increase sales of new products, but also to promote the awareness of the new product are necessary. They could also decide to use sales promotion to make the public demand for more of their product. The best would be, for example, putting in place a price that is to be won by an individual who is among the people who will purchase their products. The business organization would also like to consider developing and maintaining good public relations to make sure that they are able to give the impression that they care about the needs and wants of their clients. The advantage of using sales promotion is that it can increase the sales volume of a product to the extent that the business organization will eventually recover the financial worth of prizes that are given out to customers during the program. Personal selling is traditionally perceived as an interpersonal communication tool that involves face-to-face activities undertaken by individuals. For example, Kellogg Company builds a movable space to introduce the importance of eating breakfast. Through the distribution of free products and introduce nutritional of the products, people have a better understanding of Kelloggs products. And this is really good for company brand building. Furthermore, through the communication face to face, the salesperson can get feedback immediately (Strauss 2008, p. 176). During the whole process of developing an integrated marketing communications plan and campaign for Kelloggs Company, the company should have it in mind that they should stick to the message goodness, tastiness, and health value of their products (Burnett & Moriarty 1998, p. 122). The consistency that the business organization has been having in the recent past with regard to their marketing communication message should not be interfered with for the sake of consistency. Theseare the things that people consider most when buying food in the modern society. With the profits that the company has been earning in the recent past, it is clearly evident that they will be able to afford the marketing communication strategy, especially because it is aimed at further increasing sales volumes. 5. Action The action stage usually involves things such as the people who are supposed to implement the strategy, how they are going to satisfy it, and when they are going to do so. In this case most of the work is going to be in the hand of the marketing and public relations departments. In activities such as promotion and advertisement, it will be the responsibility of the marketing department to make sure that they put all the recommendations that have been made in the strategy. They will have to find the most appropriate ways of carrying out the advertisements. They will have to work together with the financial department to make sure that whatever action they resolve to will not be a financial liability to the business organization. The other department that should be actively involved in putting the integrated marketing communications plan and campaign for Kelloggs Company in action is public relations department. This is because part of the recommendation made for the integrated marketing communications plan and campaign for Kellogg’s Company involves improving the business organization’s public relations. They should make sure that come up with programs that will see to it that they have good relations with the public and that they remain popular with the public in the countries where they operate. The activities that they might consider involving in include improving their customer care programs, introducing some after sales services, and involving themselves in community development activities (Kurtz & Young 2009, p. 201). It is impossible for the activities that have been mentioned above to take place effectively in the absence of financial resources. This implies that the business organization will have to invest some financial resources in order to make sure that the integrated marketing communications plan and campaign for Kelloggs Company is successful. This is the reason as to why the finance department of this business organization will be required to play a very vital role in making the integrated marketing communications plan and campaign for Kelloggs Company work. The work of the finance is not just to avail the fund, but is expected to weigh all the possibilities that are involved in the process before allocation of any funds (Kelley & Jugenheimer, 2011, p. 145). They should make sure that they make the expenditure in a way that it will not hurt the business organization financially. Spending too much on an integrated marketing communications plan and campaign might not be a good idea for a business organization, especially because the outcome of the whole activity is never certain. The other part of the business organization that should be actively involved in the process is the business organization’s management. It is their responsibility to preside over all the activities that the other department undertakes. If the whole process turns out to be a failure, it is most likely that the management will be the department in the business organization that will be held most responsible. 6. Control stage Under the control stage a business should make sure that they follow up the progress of the integrated marketing communications plan and campaign. This is because they should make sure that nothing goes wrong in between the process. With relation to the objectives as mentioned herein, the business organization can make sure that they gauge the success of the integrated marketing communications plan and campaign. They will be able to know that the process is not successful if it will not be able to fulfil the objectives that the business organization had stated for their integrated marketing communications plan and campaign. The measurement should be done on a very frequent basis, so that the business organization will be able to notice any failure that take place at any stage. By doing this, the business organization will be able to correct anything that might go wrong before I grows into a problem that can easily get out of their hand. The frequent reviews are also important because they will need to make changes in the integrated marketing communications plan and campaign to match the changes that might take place in the business environment in which they operate. This will enable them to have a competitive advantage over their competitors, both in the local markets and the international ones (Mcdonald 2011, p. 101). The business organization should also make sure that they review their performance measurements techniques every time that they think that the measurement method that they are currently using has become ineffective in measuring the performance of the integrated marketing communications plan and campaign that they had adapted. This part of the process will make sure that the effect of the integrated marketing communications plan and campaign for the company lasts. Media Pack There are a number of market communication campaigns, and tools that Kellogg Company can opt for in in the bid to improve their marketing communications. The best recommendation in this case would be using celebrity beauty endorsements. Celebrity beauty endorsement refers to a product promotion strategy that involves the use of a famous person’s to influence the purchase choice of consumers. This form of product promotion is always dependent on the popularity of the individual that the business intends to use. Celebrity beauty endorsement can be in the form of the celebrity’s image being used in formal advertisements by using the relevant media. It can also come in the form of the celebrity promoting the product by being seen in public using products that are supposed to be promoted. The use of celebrity beauty endorsements has proved to be very efficient in influencing consumer product evaluation and thus affecting consumer purchasing choice. People tend to have trust on certain celebrities, and by using them Kellogg Company would benefit from this trust. For example, they would decide to use a sport personality. The main advantage of using a sports personality is that people who are involved in sports are always associated with good health. Given that their market communication has emphasis on the goodness, the taste and health value, using a sports personality will be very effective in passing on the message to the public. A good number of the public will associate the health status of the sports personality they use of the products being advertised. A celebrity endorsement can be very essential in earning the trust of both the current and potential customers. This is because many people have a certain degree of trust on some celebrities. This means that these people will, therefore, believe that a product is good if certain celebrities are involved in the product’s advertisement. Therefore, for this product promotion activity to be successful, the business will have to evaluate the celebrity’s public relations before they consider using him/her. Failure to do so, then the whole process might even make the sales of the brand that they aim at promoting worse. The process is also risky because the celebrity might lose the public’s trust at any time. Celebrity beauty endorsements can also be used to trigger the brand recall factor among the current and potential customers. There are probably many other products that serve the same purposes as the one that a business would intend to advertise. Using celebrity beauty endorsements will make the product standout in the crowd. This is because the use of a celebrity’s image will make the product or brand easily memorable. This will specifically work with the people who adore the celebrity that the business chooses to use. The use of celebrity beauty endorsements can completely change the way the public view or rate a product. The change of the way people view a product is very important in attracting and convincing new consumers. For instance, a product that was previously known to be meant for old people will attract youth consumers if the business decides to use a celebrity who is adored by the youth. This is because seeing someone that they consider being “cool” advertising a certain product will definitely change how the youth view a certain product. The use of celebrity beauty endorsements can also be beneficial in promoting a product that deal with sports are any other talents. By using someone who is highly talented in a certain field will definitely attract those people who idolize this individual to this product. This explains why most companies that produce sports equipment would use highly successful sports personalities to advertise their products. The effect of such advertisement is that people whose talents and interests are in line with the individual used in the advertisement will tend to prefer this product over the others. This way the advertisement will be able to win new customers while at the same time maintaining the existing ones. Reflection It is clearly evident that an integrated marketing communications plan and campaign can be important for business organizations such as Kelloggs Company. This is because of the way in which it enables a business organization to have in place proper planning for the activities that they plan on undertaking to organize. Given the importance of having more market capital it will be impossible to say that an integrated marketing communications plan and campaign is not important for a business organization. Through this paper, someone can see the importance of using the SOSTAC model in producing an integrated marketing communications plan and campaign. The term SOSTAC is an abbreviation of the six most important aspects to consider when coming up with an integrated marketing communications plan and campaign. These aspects include the situation, objectives, strategy, action, and control. The situation refers to the state which the business organization in at that particular moment. The objectives should cater for things that the business organization aims at achieving by from the integrated marketing communications plan and campaign. Tactics involve the things that the business plans to do in order to achieve the content of their strategy. The action involves the process of making the strategy work for the success of the business organization. Control refers to the things that the business organization plans on doing to measure, monitor, review, update and modify the integrated marketing communications plan and campaign. Through the process of coming up with this paper there are allot of things that can be learnt. In the process, a person can learn the importance of every step or the SOSTAC model in producing an integrated marketing communications plan and campaign. They will also have an understanding of how to go about each and every step that is involved in this model. The other this is that someone gets to understand the way the steps of the model are interrelated and how they can affect the success of each other. This helps an individual in understating how they can best involve themselves in using SOSTAC model in producing an integrated marketing communications plan and campaign. The eventual outcome of the whole activity is that individuals will be able to use SOSTAC model in producing an integrated marketing communications plan and campaign that can serve business organizations such as Kellogg Company. Bibliography Burnett, J & Moriarty, SE 1998,Introduction to marketing communication: an integrated approach, Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, N.J. Gospe, M 2008, Marketing campaign development: what marketing executives need to know about architecting global integrated marketing campaigns, Happy About, Cupertino, CA. Hackley, C 2010, Advertising and Promotion An Integrated Marketing Communications Approach, Sage Publications Ltd, London. http://www.SLQ.eblib.com.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=743662. Kelley, LD & Jugenheimer, DW 2011, Advertising account planning: planning and managing an IMC campaign, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, N.Y. Kurtz, DL & Young, V 2009, Contemporary marketing, South-Western Cengage Learning, Mason, Ohio. Mcdonald, M 2011, Marketing plans: how to prepare them, how to use them, Wiley, Chichester. Mullin, R 2002, Direct marketing: a step-by-step guide to effective planning and targeting, K. Page, London. Smith, PR & Taylor, J 2004, Marketing communications: an integrated approach, K. Page, London. Smith, PR & Zook, Z 2011, Marketing communications: integrating offline and online with social media, Kogan Page, London. Strauss, RE 2008, Marketing planning by design systematic planning for successful marketing strategy. Wiley, Chichester, England. http://www.books24x7.com/marc.asp?bookid=29478. Read More