Page 250 - DMGT408DMGT203_Marketing Management

Unit 10: Integrated Marketing Communications

although mass-market promotion appears cost-effective on the front end, brand/product Notes
messages are also offered to millions of people who are not interested… a waste of time,
money and energy.
Mass media no longer serves the mass audiences sought by marketers. Individual audiences for
each media have decreased, thus indicating a need to ensure that whenever and wherever the
prospect is exposed to the message, he/she receives a consistent one. Customers typically do not
differentiate between message sources; they only remember the message they received.
Considering how many messages consumers are bombarded with on a regular basis, mixed
messages from the same source are bound to cause confusion and, worse yet, they will be more
quickly forgotten.
Although understanding the importance of marketing communications is fairly simple, finding
the best means through which to implement a marketing communications program is
becomingly increasingly difficult. The buying public has been virtually buried alive in ads.
Consumers are bombarded with hundreds of ads and TV commercials, not to mention the
thousands of billboards, packages, website pop-ups and other logo sightings every day.
The IMC planning process is based on a longitudinal consumer purchase database. Ideally, this
database would contain, by household, demographics, psychographics, purchase data, and
perhaps some information regarding how the household feels about [or its experience with] the
product category. In many cases, direct-marketing organizations already have this type of
information at their disposal. An IMC program is implemented according to the needs and
lifestyles of the selected target markets, thus allowing for customised, yet consistent, message
strategies to sell increasingly individualized products.
Through integrated marketing communications, the company carefully integrates and coordinates
its many communication channels to deliver a clear, consistent, and compelling message about
the organisation and its products. Integrated communications produce better communication
consistency and greater sales impact. Integrated marketing communications is a way of looking
at the whole marketing process from the viewpoint of the customer.

Figure 10.4: Integrated Marketing Communications

Carefully blended promotional mix of tools

Advertisement Personal selling

Sales promotion Public relations

Direct marketing

1. Integrated marketing communications is a concept of marketing communications planning
that recognises the added value of a comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles
of a variety of communications disciplines – for example, general advertising, direct
response, sales promotion, and public relations – and combines these disciplines to provide
clarity, consistency, and maximum communications impact (through the seamless
integration of discrete messages).

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