Importance of learning integrated marketing communication
Discuss about the Integrated Marketing Communication.
Integrated marketing communication (IMC) is an organizational form of communication that integrates various communications within an organization in an organized manner. Integrated marketing communication normally link marketing communications within the organization so as to market the products and services that the organization specializes in. IMC may link communication channels such as vertical, horizontal, external and internal integration. Vertical integration focuses on the marketing communication that supports higher organizational culture in marketing (MMC Learning, 2015). Horizontal integration concerns with integrating marketing mix that the company or organization uses to communicate its products or services. Internal integration informs the staffs of the advertisement campaign that the organization is making. Woolworths is one of the largest retailers in Australia by wealth and therefore an important organization. Woolworth as an organization has good communication system that employs some aspect of integrated marketing communication. Woolworths Limited has partly invested in integrated marketing communication with the current uses online advertisement campaigns (Welcome to Woolworths, 2017 ?https://www.woolworths.com.au/ ?). Woolworths Limited as an organization also has good investment in social media such as YouTube (Woolworth-YouTube- ?https://www.youtube.com/user/WoolworthsAu ?). The organization has various integrated communication systems that aim to market its product forming advertisement campaigns (Newman & Ober, 2013). The following paper explores IMC as a current business model used for communication in an organization.
Integrated marketing communication is an important aspect of business communication and assists the business to communicate its products or services to the audience who are the potential buyers or customers. Understanding IMC is important for the business in current society for a number of reasons (Chaffey, 2006). Firstly, IMC is important for an organization that is willing to understand their stakeholders who are the customers. This is possible due to the comprehensive nature of the IMC enabling the organization to understand basic communication process. Secondly, IMC has proved to be the sustainable marketing strategy that seems promising since it integrates various aspects of communications. The sustainability nature of the organization’s marketing communication link customers to the organization especially through product promotion. Thirdly, understanding IMC enable the organization to design a good marketing strategy for the business that will serve a well-defined market segment (Kitchen & Burgmann, 2015). In order to understand IMC at the organizational level, it is important to study the marketing communication used by an organization such as Woolworths Limited (Nagra et al, 2012).
Theoretical communication model outlined by Belch et al (2014)
Belch et al (2014), explains the basis of integrated marketing communication giving various components of the communication that include sender, message, channel, receiver and response or feedback. In addition, basic model also gives other important concepts of noise and decoding of message. According to the basic communication model, IMC is a communication tool that is used to link various aspects of organization marketing systems have been changed to include other forms of communication systems such as social media and are taking over communication of organizations. IMC currently uses advertisement channels that are the link or associated with social media. Marketing campaigns are currently done online as the organizations tries to attract vast number of online uses. Woolworths Limited for instance, heavily invests in social media as the new form of IMC that it uses to advertise its products (Welcome to Woolworths 2017). Belch et al (2014) further indicate that current model of communications assists many users to obtain information on the product or service hence faster information. The theoretical communication model as explained by the author emphasizes on advertisement as a business communication from the IMC perspective. The IMC perspective considers the integration of other current communication and their ability reach the current vast number of online users. Woolworths Limited as an organization concentrates its advertisement campaign to YouTube for example. This form of communication limitedly integrates both internal and external integrations that are key aspect of IMC. Some other communication channels that have been emphasized are mobile platforms and the internet (Sheehan, 2013).
Woolworths Limited is a premium organization that has vast marketing communication coupled with online marketing campaigns (Maguire, 2017). The two main strategies that the organization uses are online advertisement campaign and direct marketing with more focuses celebrity advertisement. Firstly, Woolworths Limited organization combines the various aspect of marketing mix a good advertisement mix. As revealed within the organization’s main website the organization highlight nearly all the marketing mix (Bhatia, 2000). The advertisement that characterizes its website is a large poster of welcome to Woolworth. The organization has other strategies that consider other security within the online platform as noise. There various applications that assists in advertisement as the decoding devices. Secondly, the organization has closely link external integration through external partners such as media houses and farmers who are key stakeholders as part of direct marketing campaigns. This is also evident through the print media that are readily available for download at its main website. It is quite and evident that though the organization has tried to implement marketing communication that is related to IMC there still a lot to done in order to fully implement IMC model (Welcome to Woolworths, 2017). Social media on the other hand, the organization has its YouTube where it has display of various services it sells (https://www.youtube.com/user/WoolworthsAu )
Woolworths Limited approach to IMC
A good communication strategy incorporates communication model and IMC so as to achieve organizational objectives. Woolworth has recently adopted IMC though there is still a lot to be done. Woolworth uses both Basic Model of communication model and Duncan’s model IMC for its marketing especially using celebrity and social networks in its marketing campaigns. Firstly, communication model that the organization uses according to Saunders (2014) follows the communication process that begins advertisement of various products that the organization deals in with the main focus on grocery and petrol discounts. For instance, after advertising liquors that are sold within Woolworths Limited, sales will show the response of the customers to the advertisement. Secondly, the organization has also concentrated on product promotion giving discount to customer with an example of IMC on the other hand, make good use of different aspects customer oriented model of IMC. However, some of the key aspects of basic model of communication model Belch et al are online campaign, sale promotion delivered through social media. Integration of communication model and IMC involve following communication process with the addition of integrated marketing communication through various advertisement mix. To apply IMC using current forms of communications can be explained as using online platforms in harmonized manners through linking different forms of advertisement (Lucia, Garcia & Kitchen, 2012).
Adopting IMC within an organization involves applications of advertisement campaign, direct marketing, marketing mix, public relationship and social media. Firstly, advertisement mix is using various advertisement methods that the organization uses to advertise its products. Secondly, public relation is another aspect of this marketing strategy that includes engaging the public activities of the company. Thirdly, marketing mix consists of the 4Ps of marketing that can be expanded to 7Ps. These 4Ps are a promotion, price, place, and product and play a significant role in the marketing of products. Fourthly, social media is used for online marketing campaigns that aim at attracting more online users to buy the product. Finally, direct marketing is also another marketing strategy that is incorporated inside IMC for a better result. Incorporation of these marketing aspects or advertisement strategies in an organized manner result into product advertisement with integrated marketing communication strategy (Clow & Baack, 2002).
The message that is sent should be designed in a manner that is transmissible for example the organization can design advertisement as the message. The basic IMC model of communication emphasizes the importance of understanding the audience before designing message. This is because a good communication strategy should have message spiced with a picture that is appealing to the audience enabling specific campaign strategy. Therefore, the message needs to be very communicative to users. The organization has on the designing of its adverts can be termed as attractive since its poster are catchy. The message also bears the nature of the sender since the sender communicates its thought to the audience (Kitchen & Burgmann, 2015). Duncan’s model of IMC has highlighted the basis of designing customer-oriented campaigns. The organization to some extend uses personal for instance, selling includes direct selling to customers while non-personal selling consists of print media, online social media, and broadcast media. According to Arens & Michael, (2012), the current channel that needs to be used in IMC is mainly social media and other online platforms such as websites. The target audience when using social media as channel depends on the media itself since through social media the organization can communicate to a single user or mass (Habibi et al, 2016).
IMC and communication model
The analysis of the receiver reveals the market segmentation that is important for the marketing campaign. Woolworths Limited target individual, market or masses as its audience with its main target based on mass and this is evidence by its main focus on online campaigns. The receiver can be segmented into marketing zones mainly from an individual to mass at the highest level of communication. Knowing receiver determines whether the message is relevant or not since the message that is delivered to the receiver not intended is most likely to attract negative feedback. The ability of the receiver to understand and interpret the message send plays an important role in the communication process (Chandra & Ulrich, 2014). Woolworth on the receiver, the organization understands the receiver though it has not linked the receiver to specific product. Feedback is the critical aspect of the communication process and can take many forms that include brand touch points. A brand touch point is important when the customer comes into contact with the organization product and is used to plan for advertisement or feedback from advertisement. The organization though has good advertisement campaign methods, the brand touch point are not established. Response or feedback process follows various processes such as AIDA (Attention, interest, desire, and action) or hierarchy of effect model. The beauty of IMC is that it gives different integrations of communication hierarchies that can assist the organization to analyze the response from a different perspective. The organization on the other hand has not shown response process that confers with any model. For instance, a model of cognitive response give the relationship between cognitive responses, an attitude developed and purchase intent (Moriarty & Nancy, 2014).
Conclusion
In conclusion, integrated marketing communication is marketing communication that consists of the integration of various business communication aspects such as communication process and advertisement mix. Woolworths Limited is a renowned organization in Australia that rank second largest organization by wealth. The company has marketing strategy though not effective and therefore need some changes. The IMC has proved effective and therefore a recommended communication channel is mainly consisting of IMC. After a deeper analysis of the IMC used in the organization, it is worth giving recommendations for improvement,
Woolworths Limited should adopt IMC as the main strategy for advertisement or product campaigns. Though the organization has used some marketing strategies such as marketing mix, online advertisement, public relationship and direct marketing, one problem with the marketing strategy used in the organization is that all the advertisement campaign methods are not linked therefore tracking feedback from the marketing communication used (Koc, 2002). Therefore, the organization needs to link all the advertisement campaign methods to form integrated marketing communication model and establish brand touch points. Woolworths Limited needs to launch online campaign since most people within Australia are currently online users with more than 15 million Australians currently using social media. Furthermore, though the company has a well rated website there is still need for integration with social media applications as this is currently trending form of business communication. The organization’s IMC system has not properly used the brand touch points since there are no clearly established touch points in its online advertisement campaigns. As noted by Belch et al (2014), IMC is one of the best advertisement practices that can be attributed to the success of some prominent business such as case of Coke Zero in the Coca Cola campaign (Laird, 2001). The organization needs to embark on advertising campaign its products and services through different channels as explained in the communication channel. Secondly, the organization needs to develop a fully integrated marketing communication system with all basic components of the communication. This can be done using its social media pages such as ? https://www.youtube.com/user/WoolworthsAu ?. Finally, the organization can market directly to consumers (Luxton, Reid & Mavondo, 2015). Currently, the contemporary needs of the consumers mostly are to reach them wherever they are. In addition, the contemporary consumer wants products or service that reaches them at their own convenient time. He implies that a good communication mix should also cater for customers that use various mobile applications since contemporary consumer like using portable mobile devices to facilitate a good marketing campaign.
Reference
Arens, W. & Michael, W. (2012), Contemporary Advertising: An Integrated Marketing Communications
Belch, G.E., (2014), Advertising: An integrated marketing communication perspective. McGraw Hill. p 31.
Bhatia (2000), Advertising in Rural India: Language, Marketing Communication, and Consumerism, 62+68
Chandra, A. & Ulrich K. (2014), Targeted advertising in magazine markets and the advent of the internet. Management Science 60.7 pp: 1829–1843.
Chaffey, D. (2006), Internet marketing strategy, implementation, and practice. Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall. p. 50.
Clow, K.E. & Baack, D.E. (2002), Integrated Advertising, Promotion, and Marketing Communications. Prentice Hall. p. 108.
Habibi, F. H., et al, (2016), Exploring the integration of social media within integrated marketing communication frameworks: Perspectives of services marketers. Journal of Marketing Practice, 34 (1), 19-40
Kitchen, P., & Burgmann, I. (2015), Integrated marketing communications: Making it work at a strategic level. Journal of Business Strategy, 36: 34–39.
Koc, E. (2002), Impact of gender in marketing communications: the role of cognitive and affective cues. Journal of Marketing Communications, 8 (4): 257.
Laird, P. W. (2001), Advertising progress: American business and the rise of consumer marketing (Johns Hopkins University Press,.)
Luxton, S., Reid, M., & Mavondo, F. (2015), Integrated marketing communication capability and brand performance: IMC capability and performance. Journal of Advertising, 44, 37-46.
Lucia, P., Barrio-Garcia, S., & Kitchen, P. J. (2012), How Integrated Marketing Communications works? A theoretical review and analysis of its main drivers and effects. Journal of Marketing Communications, 25 (1), 313-348.
Moriarty, S. & Nancy, M. (2014), Advertising & IMC: Principles and Practice (10th ed.)
MMC Learning (2015), Marketing Knowledge Centre: Integrated Marketing Communication. Accessible at: https://multimediamarketing.com/mkc/marketingcommunications/
Maguire, J. (2017), Woolworths hits back against exploitation claims. HR Online. Available at: https://www.hcamag.com/hr-news/woolworths-hits-back-against-exploitation-claims-216760.aspx [Accessed on 25 Aug 2017]
Nagra, G. K., et al, (2012), Impact of Integrated Marketing Communication on different customer segments, effects on consumer decision making process. International Journal of Applied Services Marketing Perspectives, 1 (1), 56-61.
Newman, A. & Ober, S. (2013), Business Communication: In Person, In Print, Online. 8th ed. Mason: South-Western, 18. Print.
Saunders, T. J. (2014), Selling under the Swastika: Advertising and Commercial Culture in Nazi Germany. German History: ghu058.
Sheehan, K.B. (2013), Controversies in contemporary advertising (Sage Publications,)
Welcome to Woolworths. (2017), Woolworths.com.au. Available at: https://www.woolworths.com.au/ [Accessed on 25 Aug 2017]
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
