Understanding the Challenge of Assessing Theories in Real-Life Company Situations
Integrated marketing communication (IMC) includes various communication tools that can be useful in promoting a brand and increases the profit rates. A brand must connect and apply the communication tools with its own established marketing strategy for better outcomes. Applied marketing communication helps to inform, persuade and remind the audiences about the brand and its products in a better way (Ramli 2017). Personal communication, publicity, advertising and direct marketing are the components of the applied marketing communication strategy (Skorupa and Dubovi?ien? 2015). The chosen organization for examining the marketing strategy using the communication tools is L’Oreal company. Their marketing objectives, strategy, target market and communication methods will be analyzed to better understand the topic. The main purpose of this assignment is to the understand the application of the principles and practices of integrated marketing communications to organizations (Taghipour and Loh 2017). It is also useful in knowing effective mix of marketing communication tools and marketing media to convey a consistent brand message to a target market in a cost-effective way (Balaji, Londhe and Shukla 2016).
The entire marketing strategy of an organization is driven by certain organizational goals and objectives. Every company stay well aware about their target markets and align it to their organizational goals. It is helpful in building a competitive superiority over the rivals, expand the market share and multiply the profits ( Bruwer and Li 2017). A company’s marketing objectives might include providing information regarding the product specializations and modifications, spreading product awareness among the customers and decreasing customer resistance to purchase the product. L’Oréal is a French company especially selling personal care products. The headquarter is located in Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine and in Paris their registered office is located. It is one of the largest cosmetic companies of the world and an extremely preferred brand for hair color, sun protections, perfume, make-up, perfumes and skin care(loreal.com 2018). L’Oreal focuses on the women customers because they are the primary endorsers of the brand. The company makes products specially for women above the age of 25. The marketing strategy of L’Oreal is based on the market segmentation including demographic segmentation, geographic and psychographic segmentation and benefit –sought segmentation (Patel, Padhtare and Saudagar 2015).
L’Oreal offers a huge range of products and it can be easily listed which category of women will choose which product. Their hair coloring products are largely chosen by white women aged before getting actually aged(loreal.com 2018). The company also offers kids and men shampoo confidently chosen by all parents. Men of different ages who wish to change their looks may apply different color products and men who want to hide white streaks of hair can definitely can apply L’Oreal hair spa. The largest share of the revenues is received from the retailers (Aichner 2014). Thus the essential task for L’Oreal is to pursue the retailers that customers will prefer and buy their products.
L’Oreal knows no bounds of social class or geographic limitations. The overall marketing strategy they use is to spread the language of beauty(loreal.com 2018). They raise the inner wish to look beautiful and be beautiful among the targeted women groups and this works as a keystone to their business upliftment. Young models, film stars and celebrities from various ethnicities are used for television advertisements and promotion campaigns (Gupta 2017). It creates a pleasurable view for women of all ages especially 20-40 and it stimulates their urge to chase the product. They get convinced that L’Oreal products make people beautiful(loreal.com 2018).
Evaluating the Message and Media of Traditional and Social/Digital Marketing Communication
Market can be segmented based on some particular characteristic of the product. Women of different age groups seek for different varieties in a particular product. L’Oreal Paris offers 48 different shades for each of the 6 variety of lip colours. They offer variety such as colour richness, matt shine, colour duration, water proof and many others. It enables women of all ages to compare and contrast between the varieties and select their desired ones. This is the benefit- sought segmentation strategy (Chung et al. 2016).
L’Oreal aspires to reach 1 billion young and new men and women of their ‘universalization’ strategy and aims to satisfy the needs and preference of all types of men and women all around the world(loreal.com 2018). The company focuses on sharing beauty with all offering both desirable and sustainable products (Singh and Bansal 2017). L’Oreal commits to advance all segments of its value chain and provide not less than quality products.
L’Oreal anticipates rather promises a long range of variety and innovative products within the next two years with 100% social and environmental benefits. The new formula will follow and use raw materials from green chemistry(loreal.com 2018). The new packaging method will have an advanced environmental outline which will save costs and make everything more eco- friendly.
The company is resolute in reducing CO2 emission from the plants and laboratories by 60% and also lessen water consumption by 57 %. The innovative eco- friendly value of the product will be informed to all of the target audiences to help them decide and choose the ideal and safe product and live in a better tomorrow(loreal.com 2018).
All the strategic suppliers will be selected on their social and environmental operations. The various sustainability policies will be modified and the employees will be better trained. By 2020, more than 100,000 people from underprivileged sections of societies will be provided job and it will strengthen the workforce to achieve higher profits and customer satisfaction(loreal.com 2018).
The L’Oréal-UNESCO initiative started in 1998 and L’Oréal Foundation and UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) have been working together to recognize and support extremely talented researchers who are assisting them in their laboratory projects which is a big step towards women education and empowerment (loreal.com 2018). The company is aiming at involving in similar social programs to become more appealing to the customers especially women who are at the heart of its business (Izberk-Bilgin and Nakata 2016).
L’Oréal Paris’s slogan “Because I’m Worth It” which was started 40 years ago established the brand’s superiority and worth over other brands. It carries the message of women empowerment and the slogan had created a kind of feminist revolution at that time. These four words are timeless as they define the brand in the most beautiful way. They have voiced about what the brand stands for. The brand message was coined in 1973 but the emotions attached with it of almost 80% women is apparent even today(loreal.com 2018). The most beautiful fact about this message is that the L’Oreal company celebrates the beauty of every woman in its everyday operations, philanthropy and products(loreal.com 2018). The company is working really hard to equal it slogan. Through the passing of years, the brand image is getting expanded and the slogan has been raised to ‘We are all worth it’ but the core concept has remained the same.
Components of Applied Marketing Communication Strategy
Since the company has developed and touched sky high success in producing skin care and hair care products for women as well as for men, a tagline or slogan should also be incorporated to encourage the male audiences too (Chae et al. 2016). It has not yet come into force but definitely can enhance the brand image to a greater extent. “We men are worth it too” will be revolutionary and the company will reach heights of success and will be known for supporting men too. It will become the brand for everyone, equally endorsed by the male customers.
Commercial advertisements are necessary as they allow the brand to convey their messages to the audience directly. It creates a market base for the products and also builds public craze for them. Customers get educated by about the brand, its products and also informs the audience how the other competitors fail to offer quality products. Advertising through television with attractive stories promoting the brand is a way to get into the hearts of the customers. Brand promoting with beautiful models and celebrities saying how they have become benefitted by L’Oreal products hugely influences the psychology of the viewers. They get automatically dragged toward purchasing the products. The moment a commercial advertise is screened and people are educated, the work load of segmenting the market and fixing the target customers are reduced to a great extent. The company no more needs to do this task, because the audience come in search of suitable product to the retailers (Raja and Kavitha 2015). They are segmented automatically. L’Oreal has been investing huge amounts on the oprah-shows to beat the popularity of social media communication tools. L’Oreal has been awarded for producing the longest audience retention commercials because they know how to trigger the psychology and emotion of their primary target audience who are women(loreal.com 2018).
L’Oreal can highlight their social initiatives and upcoming eco-friendly projects instead of only flaunting supermodels with their beautiful hair colors and shining skin on screen. It will indulge the audiences more to select L’Oreal and nothing else.
Conclusion:
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be perceived that L’Oreal is one of the largest cosmetic selling brand around the world endorsed by all especially women. Through this report the objectives, market segmentation their effective brand message and use of television as marketing media have been analyzed. The brand focuses mainly on the language of beauty irrespective of all social class and geographical boundaries. It ultimately voices one thing; each and every woman is beautiful. They have their own marketing strategy which they have been applying since the day of its creation. They have the most advantageous capability to retain customers by providing a huge variety of products satisfying the needs and preferences of the audience. Thus it can be concluded that by maintaining the innovative variety of products and the upcoming environmental and social concerning projects L’Oreal can easily defeat the competitors and reside in the hearts of the people as always.
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