PBL 5 Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC)

• What is IMC and what does it mean for a company to follow IMC?

Integrated Marketing Communications attempts to link all forms of marketing communications – advertising, public relations, direct marketing, social media, sales promotion, etc. – to create messaging that is consistent across all channels.
IMC focuses on the customer and is efficient and cost-effective. The IMC approach leverages all marketing and communications pieces, and harnesses the power each provides to ensure customers receive consistent, relevant and powerful messages.
IMC is ever-evolving. As new forms of media gain popularity, IMC professionals do more than react to those changes – they anticipate them.


IMC experts:
• Illustrate critical thinking, creativity and innovation.
• Demonstrate a global and multicultural awareness in the development and implementation of marketing communications strategies.
• Compare and contrast the benefits and limitations of various qualitative and quantitative research methods relevant to marketing communications.
• Recognize the roles and implications of law and ethics in marketing communications.
• Design and organize marketing communications materials in a professional manner consistent with contemporary industry-specific standards.
Source: integrated marketing communications (IMC). BusinessDictionary.com. Retrieved September 17, 2018, from BusinessDictionary.com website: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/integrated-marketing-communications-IMC.html

• Who is in charge of IMC? What are the roles of the company and different agencies?

IMC should be the responsibilities of everyone in company-wide scale.

The graph shows that IMC is not only the Marketing thing, but also what is communicated inside the company and how is communicating done internally and externally.

• How should the companies follow and execute IMC?

As stated above, IMC needs to be planned very well. A lot of individuals and departments need to work together and in order to correctly implement IMC, they need to plan and execute things very carefully. Communication between the departments need to be on point.

When it comes to executing IMC, there are some things and steps to consider. According to Ahmad Kareh, especially the following factors should be considered:

1. Campaign goals need to be identified.2. Furthermore, the company also needs to decide on whom they are targeting and shape their campaign according to this. The target audience should not be too large so that the company can specialise themselves enough. This is of course up to the company and depends on the current situation.3. Conduct a SWOT analysis. This will help to discover strenghts, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It's important to include this information in the marketing campaign.4. The competition should be analysed as well. This is to avoid running a similar campaign as the competitors do, which would not be good as the other company may already have the first mover advantage.5. The campaign should be creative. Creativeness will aid in the process of coming up with a unique, good marketing campaign. The IMC will be adjusted to this campaign.6. After double checking, the changes need to be communicated to all involved departments and individuals explained above. (Kareh 2017.)

Following all those steps, the company can implement a good IMC. This is a good way to execute IMC.

When thinking about how to create a successful integrated marketing campaign, Pickton and Broderick’s 4 Cs explained in their book Integrated Marketing Communications can be a handy test. They outline the four key concerns that need to be addressed in order to give your campaign a chance of reaching its goals. The 4Cs are:

• Coherence – different communications are logically connected?
• Consistency – multiple messages support and reinforce, and are not contradictory?
• Continuity – communications are connected and consistent through time?
• Complementary – synergistic, or the sum of the parts is greater than the whole?

Source:Kareh 2017. Seven Steps To A Better Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy. URL: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/03/16/seven-steps-to-a-better-integrated-marketing-communications-strategy/#47cb46e47841. Accessed on the 23.09.2018

https://www.smartinsights.com/traffic-building-strategy/integrated-marketing-communications/three-examples-integrated-campaigns/

• Find good (well integrated) and unsuccessful (un-integrated) IMC executions

Snickers: You’re not you when you’re hungry

As with all successful global campaigns, the “You’re not yourself when your hungry” campaign worked on a universal assumption, namely that when you’re hungry your mood and your abilities change. The campaign continues to run across social, television, retail and print. 

• Coherence. While the execution changed across different media and markets, the central theme and strapline remained the same as it was relevant for markets worldwide.

• Consistency. The consistency of message worked well across multiple regional campaigns and media: from the TV ad featuring Joan Collins, to the PPC campaign based around commonly misspelt search terms, to the Twitter campaign featuring Rio Ferdinand and Katie Banks that generated newspaper headlines, questions in Parliament and legal proceedings. These consistent messages allowed the effectiveness of the central proposition remain intact across markets and regional campaigns.

• Continuity. The launched in the US with a Superbowl ad featuring Golden Girls actress, Betty White in 2010, and yet four years later the creative execution of the campaign remains intact.

• Complimentary. The effectiveness of the central proposition and the global campaigns adherence to the first Three Cs mean that when combined you have a long-running, multi-channel, multi-million campaign, the constituent parts of which ensure that

• Effectiveness. According to Effie.org activity in the first three months of the campaign in the US helped to grow sales by 13.4%, there was an 18,000% increases in Snickers searches on You Tube, over 5million online views and over 400million incremental and unpaid media impressions.

Source: https://www.smartinsights.com/traffic-building-strategy/integrated-marketing-communications/three-examples-integrated-campaigns/

Bloomingdale's ad that hinted at date rape

Bloomingdale’s, the luxury department store owned by Macy’s (m, -0.97%), had to apologize for a catalog ad in November that many in social media forums saw as encouraging date rape. In the ad, for Rebecca Minkoff merchandise, a man is seen staring at a beautiful woman who is looking in the opposite direction and includes the caption, “Spike Your Best Friend’s Egg Nog When They’re Not Looking.”

Bloomingdale’s has taken note and has issued an apology.

On Twitter, the official store account posted: “We heard your feedback about our catalogue copy, which was inappropriate and in poor taste. Bloomingdale's sincerely apologises.”

Source:http://fortune.com/2015/12/22/retail-ads-worst-2015/