Integrated Marketing Communication Plan For Australian Medical Association

Overview of the Australian Medical Association

The Australian Medical association is the professional association mainly for the Australian medical professional and the students of medical institutions. In this context, the association does not control and confirms the doctors, specifically the accountability that lies with the Medical Board of Australia and the Australian Health Practioner Agency. The headquarter of the national association is situated in Barton, at Australian Capital Territory.  The Australian medical association has range of representative and scientific committees wherein one of its stated aims is leading the debate policies by establishing and generating the alternative policies to those government policies that the Australian medical association considers badly targeted and poorly informed. The association responds to various issues in the health debate policies through the provision of broad dimensions of expertise resources and commissioning by preforming research on the issues of health.

The vision of the organisation is to be the most dynamic peak association for all the doctors and community members residing in South Australia. The associations also aims to be identified as the main voice of the community for all the health related matters.

The mission of the association is to embody all the members and community’s best attention in health related issues.

• Honour
• Individuality
• Effective medicines
• Courageous promoter

• To enhance the membership of the association and penetrate through the superior service and delivery involvement of the members
• Develop a governance and economical model that assists and aligns the local and national interest of the Australian medical association
• Commence marketing programs of the community that helps in influencing the doctors for observing the AMA membership as an token of appreciation
• Empowering the role of representing and advocating the members and the general community members in the promotion of health and wellbeing
• Formulation of new revenue streams that will help in long-term sustainability of the organisation.

The Australian medical association utilises a representative structure that involves with the branches of the state and the committee members for working with members and help them in promoting and safeguarding the interest of the healthcare professionals. In this context, the mechanism that help to maintain the structure of the organisation are:

• Working in collaboration with the government for managing and enhancing the provision of world class medical care practices for all the Australian
• Tracking and reporting the performance of the government related the issues of health.
• Challenging the policies given out by the government that potentially effect the interest of the care user.

Governments have been preparing up to introduce taxes and charges that will drive the price of the sugar containing drinks by almost fifth as an part of the effort to  fight against the growing rates of obesity (refer to appendix). In this context, the World health organisation has also done this through its assistance behind the incident of sugar taxed suggesting the government to act in accordance to the reduction in the consumption of soft drinks, energy drinks and bottled juices. This have been suggested to be done by increasing the cost of the sugar related beverages by almost 20% (beveragedaily.com, 2018).

In this regards, the AMA has called for a sugar tax on those that have taken place from the Obesity policy coalition. These, tax have set out on an action plan released on September that reported 20% of the health levy on the sugary beverages (ama.com.au, 2018). In this context, the Australian prime minister Malcom Turn ball have rejected the call of the sugar related tax claiming that the country already has several taxes.

The AMA has laid down a series of suggestions for improving provisions of nutrition, claiming that this is needed to be the topmost priority for all the phases of the government approaches. In this context, it has been found that Australian populations consumes a huge amount of soft drinks. As stated by Kelly et al., (2015), this is due to the fact that large containers of soft beverages are available in cheaper process than the single serving size that leads to over consumption of the beverages. Moreover, flavoured waters, sports drinks and fruit juices that contains high amount of sugar.

The proposed Sugar Tax on concentrated Sugary products

As found the statistical data, that in the year 2011-12, Australian consumed almost 60g of free sugar each day with around 14 teaspoons.  In all these concentration of sugar, almost 52% of the sugar came from the sugary drinks. Again, in the September report, the obesity policy coalition recommended that almost 20% tax on the sugary drinks could help in reducing the consumption by almost 12.6% (ama.com.au, 2018). It has been estimated in the study that almost two thirds of the Australian adult population and quarter of children are highly obese due to the consumptions of high sugar content diets and many other diets that contributes to the issue. In this regards, the WHO claimed that the people who do not require sugar in their drinks and food are the major source of needless calories specifically for the children and young people. As stated by Kelly et al. (2015), The most effective form of sugar exemption that was set by the excise are in accordance to the quantity and volume of a specific product rather than the sales tax that is based on the rate of retail price.

On the contrary, a current Australian study found that enhancing the price of sugar related beverages by 20% would help in reducing the consumption by 12.6%. However, this reduction in consumption of sugar has a potential to promote a decline in the prevalence of obesity of nearly 2.7% of men and 1.2% of women. This could also help in reducing the number of cases of type 2 diabetes by 800 per year (beveragedaily.com, 2018). As stated by Jackson et al., (2014), the study also showed that the tax exemption might raise the rate of revenue in the excess of AU $400 million each of the year specifically while taking in to note the changes in consumption in reply to the tax. In this, the WHO’s call exposes an sustainable policy of AMA backing up the issue of sugar tax as an part of, measure to curb the obesity issues in Australia (Palmedo et al., 2017).

The Australian Medical Association is one of the most influencing membership organisation that represents registers medical professionals and medical students of Australia. Although it is the leading association, but growing healthcare providers are the emerging competition for the organisation. In this the public hospitals, palliative care services, public dental services and social housing are increasingly enhancing their reforms that are aimed at offering greater options to productivity commission report (Swinburn & Vandevijvere, 2016).

 World health organisation

 The WHO specialised agency is concerned with the international public health related service. The company has played a leading role in abolishing small pox. The existing priorities of the agency is issues related to communicable disease, specifically, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, malaria and tuberculosis. As stated by Myers et al., (2017), Currently WHO has also started promoting the policy related to cutting down of sugar in beverages. In this, the economic and social costs of the non-communicable disease are inclusive of the direct cost of the relevant health care and many indirect costs. They have also started strong economic and health rationales for utilising the fiscal policies for enhancing the diets and preventing the diseases (Stoltze et al., 2018). In their policies the fiscal interventions has played a major role in addressing the market failure.

AMA’s vision and mission

This is one of the biggest competitor as it promotes and offers public health related policies in different location. Furthermore, there are different indirect and indirect competitors in the health care industry. As stated by Van de Velde, Van Gunst & Roodenburg (2016), there are several huge health care organisation such as Australian health care and hospital association that is the national peak body of the public as well as the non-product healthcare organisation. The membership of the organisation includes the state health care department, local hospital channels, public hospitals and different community health care services (Iivonen, 2018). Indirect competitor includes small health care organisation, healthcare producers and sellers of other substituted heath related policies and food containing sugarless products.

The target audience of the organisation has been focusing on specific population that is classified in to sub divided group, parents and children. They are mostly used subscriber of the organisation, which indicates that they uses for availing the specific health related services for an integrated duration of time. In this, the present target population for the organisation includes two major sub divided groups they are as follows:

Parents including men and women, users and non-users of sugar concentrated drinks, financially affluent, they might be already acquainted and habituated with sugar less products, health concerned, some of them may suffer from diabetes and other obesity related health condition. The target audience who want to change their daily habits of eating or who has too much sugar intake (Sanghavi & Siddiqui, 2017). Mothers who have small children and fathers who are increasingly conscious about health aged in between 30- 50.

The secondary target audiences are the children aged in between 10-15, non-users of the sugar free products, financially affluent, they might be using sugar free or other diets. Health conscious and those who are too much intake of sugar related drinks.

In combination with new campaign, the target audience are represented as follows:

Women and men aged in between 30 and over, frequent user of sugar-contained food and financially healthy. In this context, the most specific, targets are those who are highly concerned about health, parents who have children and are pregnant with children (Lock & Seele, 2016).  Mothers, fathers and children who care about staying healthy in their future life. As stated by Wymer (2015), Children who are highly concerned about their parent’s health and those who read magazines and websites about staying healthy. This is because one of the major mission of the study is to prepare a marketing plan for the healthcare organisation.

The marketing communication event will drive not only about the sugar concentrated products and their benefits, but it will promote the brand name of the Australian Medical association. Therefore, while selecting the communication objectives, the main aim of the effort will be to create awareness of the brand and attract 1000 new target audiences for the healthcare association.

This integrated marketing communication plan will be supported by certain activities that will be aimed at setting up a clear barrier of the product and determining the requirement amongst the target audience. As stated by Spires et al., (2016), the message that is being communicated in this study is to advertise the audience about the benefits of reducing sugar concentration in drinks and foods as well as to reduce the rate of obesity in Australia. In this context, the main advantages should be coming out the well concerned consumer insights. According to the view of Mendis (2016), the product and services that is, being communicated represents the category of low engagement and negative motivation for the consumers.

AMA’s initiatives

However, in this case, the significant problem is addressed and the products offer a solution to the problems. The problem highlights the problem that is not in a proper stage for the old aged and children. The main motivation for the people in this is to go for sugar reduction products that are in effective and healthy condition and to protect the civilisation illness (Newaj & Damar-Ladkoo, 2016). Therefore, by considering all these issues, it has been decided that consumers need to be assured in the advertising sloganing to stay healthy and young with a reduction of sugar each day. Although such purchases are usually seen to be low risk buying, therefore, it does not need any high engagement in order to make the purchase decision. As stated by de Jong & van der Meer (2017), the most important thing hers is that through the message the problem is effectively observed and befits is properly seen aligned with the solution that will be clearly delivered to the people.

 In addition to this, the marketing communication plan will be highlighting the requirement of best quality services and highest quantity of sugar that the drinks contains in order to pass these messages (Weishaar et al., 2016). It has been decided that advertisements that will be delivered will be more educational for the consumer rather than portraying it in a more emotional way (Kemper & Ballantine, 2017). This will be passed during the introductory period of the campaign until the customers turns completely aware about the brand and benefits of the sugar less drinks and foods.

As mentioned in the above parts that the focused benefits of the products emerge out as a relief from the target audiences original requirement and problems (Nishtar, Gluckman, & Armstrong, 2016). In order words, the strategy that will be used for the campaign is the combination of pull and push methods, in this context, pull strategy takes the customers as the centre and from the it establishes the strategic for the marketing campaign in accordance to it. On the contrary, Grumbach et al., (2017) states that push strategy focuses on the channels of distribution for bringing sugar less products to the target consumers through promotional information and placement of products.

This plan has been mentioned above, is developed based on the strategy of pull that emphasises more on the customer than the channels of distribution. In this context, channels of distribution are the bridges that help the organisation to accomplish the final target that is the consumers. In this, the suggested IMC mix emphasises mainly on the promotion of sales, advertising, direct marketing strategies (Fuster et al., 2017). Along with the advertising campaign the both the cutting down of sugar and awareness about the sugar tax will be raises through which the main message will be distributed to the target consumers. Moreover, the direct method of marketing and promotion of sales will help in promoting products and sugar less brands in the market.

The budget requirement given here is not the exact figure of financial requirements rather anticipated financial figures that has been calculated for every medium of communication. Here the budget requirements present overall picture considering costs that will be spent on the campaigning activities. However, the final budgets of the marketing communication will be based on the broadness of the campaign and choices of the media that will be used.  In this context, the entry of the policy and campaign related to sugar tax and reduction of sugar in the Wikipedia entry and websites along with the YouTube video will be done on free of charge. Therefore, the cost that is to be paid will be related to the cost of workforce that will be calculated in the general labour cots of the association including social media, Google ad words and other cost related operations.

Benefits of Sugar Tax

Campaigning, controlling and analysis is needed to be planned in a careful way so that the following camping on sugar tax and policies get the advantage by spreading the useful information about the issue. The campaign will be analysed according to the objectives that are being set up at the beginning of the plan. In this context, the objective of the campaign is to achieve 10000 and more sales and to create awareness about the brand (Taylor, Parento & Schmidt, 2015). It is evident that the evaluation can be done effectively made once the campaign has been properly completed. Although for achieving the objective that is being set up, the growing number of sales will be consistently kept in track and effectiveness of each of the medium will be measures for making essential adjustment that can be implemented (Kraak et al., 2017).

Along with it this it is also required that the number of the new registered target audience are also counted so that they can be calculated later for the evaluating the efficacy of the campaign in creating the brand awareness about the issue.

Conclusion 

Therefore, the main aim of the marketing communication plan is to reduce the sugar content in the sugar containing drinks and to promote the policy of sugar tax adopted by the Australian Medical association. In order to achieve this purpose through the advertising campaign the company has set two major communication objectives that is required to be accomplished while executing the plan:

• Creating awareness about the brand
• Creating the need for sugar reduction

In order to accomplish these objectives, two set of strategies has been performed using different channels. Those strategies have been set up for the potential consumers for giving them a better knowledge about the reduction of sugar consumption and to inform the customers about the benefits of cutting down sugar in their food and drink intake as well as to make the audience aware of the policies. The strategies of the marketing campaign includes posters that will be placed within the clinic of the healthcare professional, healthcare stores where the customers will have time to read and acknowledge about the policy.

In this context, fillers and hand-outs will be given out in the health car stores. Advertisements will be promotes preferably in magazines, YouTube and face book. Since the organisation is online, sales are main part of the total revenues. Therefore, some of the healthcare professional services will position websites so that it appears higher in the search engine results.

Therefore, these, strategies along with the seasonal promotional of sales and appropriate tools for media mix will help in ensuring the consumer on getting the proper message from the various channels. These activities will help to meet the objectives. However, in order to completely execute the plans ad campaign, sales will be maximised and new channels for distribution will be taken in to consideration.

References

ama.com.au (2018) Sugar Tax Needed in War on Obesity.. Retrieved from https://ama.com.au/media/sugar-tax-needed-war-obesity

ama.com.au (2018). Public hospitals – funding needed, not competition.. Retrieved from https://ama.com.au/ausmed/public-hospitals-%E2%80%93-funding-needed-not-competition

beveragedaily.com (2018). Australian Medical Association calls for sugar tax.. Retrieved from https://www.beveragedaily.com/Article/2018/01/09/Australian-Medical-Association-calls-for-sugar-tax

Competition faced by AMA

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Spires, M., Delobelle, P., Sanders, D., Puoane, T., Hoelzel, P., & Swart, R. (2016). Diet-related non-communicable diseases in South Africa: determinants and policy responses. South African Health Review, 2016(1), 35-42.

Stoltze, F. M., Barker, J. O., Kanter, R., Corvalán, C., Reyes, M., Taillie, L. S., & Carpentier, F. R. D. (2018). Prevalence of child-directed and general audience marketing strategies on the front of beverage packaging: the case of Chile. Public health nutrition, 21(3), 454-464.

Swinburn, B., & Vandevijvere, S. (2016). WHO report on ending childhood obesity echoes earlier recommendations. Public health nutrition, 19(1), 1-2.

Taylor, A. L., Parento, E. W., & Schmidt, L. A. (2015). The increasing weight of regulation: countries combat the global obesity epidemic. Ind. LJ, 90, 257.

Van de Velde, F., Van Gunst, A., & Roodenburg, A. J. (2016). Framework for product reformulation: The integration of four disciplines: Nutrition & health, food technology, legislation and consumer perspective. New Food, 19(4), 27-31.

Weishaar, H., Dorfman, L., Freudenberg, N., Hawkins, B., Smith, K., Razum, O., & Hilton, S. (2016). Why media representations of corporations matter for public health policy: a scoping review. BMC public health, 16(1), 899.

Wymer, W. (2015). Formulating effective social marketing and public health communication strategies. In Innovations in Social Marketing and Public Health Communication (pp. 3-31). Springer, Cham.

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