1. The Marketing Communication Process
IMC Students
Sidhartha Roy • 19 July 2014

2. Designing and Managing Integrated Marketing Communications

3. Role of Marketing Communications
Inform
Marketing communications are the means by which firms attempt to inform, persuade, and remind consumers about the products and brands they sell. In a sense, marketing communications represent the voice of the company and its brands.
Marketing communications can:
help firms establish a dialogue and build relationships with consumers and strengthen customer loyalty, and thus contribute to customer equity.
work for consumers when by showing how and why a product is used, by whom, where, and when. Consumers can learn who makes the product and what the company and brand stand for, and they can get an incentive for trial or use.
allow companies to link their brands to other people, places, events, brands, experiences, feelings, and things.
contribute to brand equity by establishing the brand in memory and creating a brand image.
drive sales and even affect shareholder value.
Persuade
Remind

4. Marketing Communications Mix
Word-of-Mouth
Advertising
Direct and Interactive Marketing
Events + Experiences
The marketing communications mix consists of eight major modes of communication.
Sales Promotion
Sales Force
Public Relations + Publicity

5. Communication Platforms
Advertising
Sales Promotion
Events and Experiences
Print and broadcast ads
Packaging
Cinema
Brochures
Posters
Billboards
Display signs
Point of purchase displays
Contests, games, sweepstakes, lotteries
Premiums and gifts
Sampling
Fairs and trade shows
Coupons
Rebates
Trade-in allowances
Tie-ins
Sports
Entertainment
Festivals
Arts
Causes
Factory tours
Company museums
Street activities

6. Communication Platforms
Public Relations and Publicity
Direct and Interactive Marketing
Personal Selling
Press kits
Speeches
Seminars
Annual reports
Charitable donations
Publications
Lobbying
Company magazine
Catalogs
Mailings
Telemarketing
Electronic shopping
TV shopping
Company blogs
Web sites
Sales presentations
Samples
Incentive programs
Fairs / trade shows
Word-of-Mouth
Person-to-person
Chat rooms/Blogs

7. Marketing Communication Effects
TV Ads
Sponsorship
‘Outdoors’
SUBARU
‘Active’
The way brand associations are formed does not matter. Marketing communications activities must be integrated to deliver a consistent message and achieve the strategic positioning.
The starting point in planning marketing communications is a communication audit that profiles all interactions customers in the target market may have with the company and all its products and services.
To implement the right communications programs and allocate dollars efficiently, marketers need to assess which experiences and impressions will have the most influence at each stage of the buying process.
In building brand equity, marketers should be “media neutral” and evaluate all communication options on effectiveness (how well does it work?) and efficiency (how much does it cost?).
‘Rugged’

8. Communication Process Models
Macromodel
Micromodel
Consumers’ Response
Sender  Receiver

9. Elements in the Communication Process
Figure 17.1 shows a macromodel with nine key factors in effective communication.
Two are major parties— sender and receiver.
Two are major tools—message and media.
Four are major communication functions—encoding, decoding, response, and feedback.
One is noise, random and competing messages that may interfere with the intended communication.
Senders must know what audiences they want to reach and what responses they want to get. They must encode their messages so the target audience can decode them. They must transmit the message through media that reach the target audience and develop feedback channels to monitor the responses. The more the sender’s field of experience overlaps that of the receiver, the more effective the message is likely to be.

10. Response Hierarchy Models
Micromodels of marketing communications concentrate on consumers’ specific responses to communications. Figure 17.2 summarizes four classic response hierarchy models. By choosing the right sequence, the marketer can do a better job of planning communications.
“learn-feel-do” sequence is appropriate when the audience has high involvement with a product category perceived to have high differentiation, such as an automobile or house.
“do-feel-learn” is relevant when the audience has high involvement but perceives little or no differentiation within the product category, such as an airline ticket or personal computer.
“learn-do-feel” is relevant when the audience has low involvement and perceives little differentiation, such as with salt or batteries.

11. Fragility of Communication Process
Probability
Awareness
Knowledge
Conviction
Purchase
Preference
Liking
50%
50%
50%
.5 X .5 X .5 X .5 X .5 X .5 = 1.56%
50%
In the hierarchy-of-effects model (the second column of Figure 17.2), there are six steps involved in a marketing communications campaign. Assume each of the six steps has a 50% of chance of being successfully accomplished, the likelihood of all six steps occurring successfully is .5 × .5 × .5 × .5 × .5 × .5, which equals percent. If the probability of each step’s occurring were 10 percent, then the joint probability of all six events occurring is percent—or only 1 chance in 1,000,000!
To increase the odds for a successful marketing communications campaign, marketers must ensure that:
1. The right consumer is exposed to the right message at the right place and at the right time.
2. The ad causes the consumer to pay attention but does not distract from the intended message.
3. The ad properly reflects the consumer’s level of understanding of and behaviors with the product and the brand.
4. The ad correctly positions the brand in terms of desirable and deliverable points-of-difference and points-of-parity.
5. The ad motivates consumers to consider purchase of the brand.
6. The ad creates strong brand associations with all these stored communications effects so they can have an impact when consumers are considering making a purchase.
50%
50%

12. Steps in Developing Effective Communications
Identify target audience
Determine objectives
Design communications
Decide on media mix
Establish budget
Select channels
Figure 17.3 shows the eight steps in developing effective communications.
Measure results
Manage IMC

13. Developing Effective Communications
Basics
Identify target audience
Determine objectives
Design communications
Establish budget
Select channels

14. Identify the Target Audience
Potential Buyers
Deciders or Influencers
The target audience is a critical influence on the communicator’s decisions about what to say, how, when, where, and to whom.
Target audience can be profiled in terms of
market segments (identified in Chapter 8)
usage and loyalty
brand knowledge
Current Users

15. Brand Purchase Intention
Determine Objectives
Category Needs
Brand Purchase Intention
Positive
Negative
Category Need—Establishing a product or service category as necessary to remove or satisfy a perceived discrepancy between a current motivational state and a desired motivational state.
Brand Awareness—Fostering the consumer’s ability to recognize or recall the brand within the category, in sufficient detail to make a purchase.
Brand Attitude—Helping consumers evaluate the brand’s perceived ability to meet a currently relevant need.
Brand Purchase Intention—Moving consumers to decide to purchase the brand or take purchase-related action.
Brand Attitude
Brand Awareness

16. Who should say it? Message Source
Design Communication
What to say?
Message Strategy
Message strategy: buyers expected one of four types of reward from a product: rational, sensory, social, or ego satisfaction. Management searches for appeals, themes, or ideas that will tie in to the brand positioning and help establish points-of-parity or points-of-difference.
Creative strategy are the way marketers translate their messages into a specific communication. They can be classified as either an informational appeal that elaborates on product or service attributes or benefits or a transformational appeal that elaborates on a nonproduct-related benefit or image.
Message source: messages delivered by attractive or popular sources can achieve higher attention and recall, which is why advertisers often use celebrities as spokespeople.
Who should say it? Message Source
How to say it?
Creative Strategy

17. Personal Communication
Select Channels
Personal Communication
Personal communications channels let two or more persons communicate face-to-face or person-to-audience through a phone, surface , or . They derive their effectiveness from individualized presentation and feedback and include direct and interactive marketing, word-of-mouth marketing, and personal selling.
Nonpersonal channels are communications directed to more than one person and include advertising, sales promotions, events and experiences, and public relations.
Non-Personal or Mass Communication

18. Establish Budget Competitive-Parity Affordable Method
Competitive-parity method: set budget to achieve share-of-voice parity with competitors.
Affordable method: set budget at what the company can afford.
Percentage-of-sales method: set expenditures at a specified percentage of current or anticipated sales or of the sales price.
Objective-and-task method: develop budgets by defining specific objectives, determining the tasks that must be performed to achieve these objectives, and estimating the costs of performing them. The sum of these costs is the proposed communication budget.
Percentage-of-Sales
Objective-and-Task

19. Marketing Communications Mix
Characteristics
Measuring
Companies must allocate budget over various modes of communication. Within the same industry, companies can differ considerably in their media and channel choices. The substitutability among communications tools requires marketing functions to be coordinated.
Factors

20. Marketing Communication Mix
Advertising
Pervasive, Amplified, Control
Sales Promotion
Attention-getting, Incentive, Invitation
Public Relations
High Credibility, Reach, Dramatization
Events & Experiences
Relevant, Engaging, Implicit
Direct & Interactive
Customized, Up-to-date, Interactive
Word-of-Mouth
Influential, Personal, Timely
Sales Force
Personal interaction, Cultivation, Response
Each communication tool has its own unique characteristics and costs. The elements of the communication mix will be covered in more depth in chapters 18 & 19. Here are some of the key observations or characteristics of each.

21. Factors in Setting the Mix
Type of Product Market
Type of product market - Consumer marketers tend to spend more on sales promotion and advertising; business marketers tend to spend more on personal selling.
Buyer readiness stage - Advertising and publicity play the most important roles in the awareness-building stage. Customer comprehension is primarily affected by advertising and personal selling. Customer conviction is influenced mostly by personal selling. Closing the sale is influenced mostly by personal selling and sales promotion. Reordering is also affected mostly by personal selling and sales promotion, and somewhat by reminder advertising.
product life cycle stage - In the introduction stage, advertising, events and experiences, and publicity have the highest cost-effectiveness, followed by personal selling to gain distribution coverage and sales promotion and direct marketing to induce trial. In the growth stage, demand has its own momentum through word of mouth and interactive marketing. Advertising, events and experiences, and personal selling all become more important in the maturity stage. In the decline stage, sales promotion continues strong, other communication tools are reduced, and salespeople give the product only minimal attention.
Buyer-Readiness Stage
Product Life-Cycle Stage

22. Cost-Effectiveness/Buyer-Readiness
Figure 17.4 shows the relative cost-effectiveness of three communication tools.

23. Measuring Communication Results
Reach
Frequency
Communications input need to be translated into intermediate outputs such as reach and frequency (the percentage of target market exposed to a communication and the number of exposures), recall and recognition scores, persuasion changes, and cost-per-thousand calculations. Ultimately, behavior-change measures capture the real payoff.
Communications impact is measured by the target audience response as to whether they recognize or recall the message, how many times they saw it, what points they recall, how they felt about the message, and what are their previous and current attitudes toward the product and the company. It could also be measured by audience behaviors such as how many people bought the product, liked it, and talked to others about it.
Awareness
Attitudes

24. Consumer States for Two Brands
Figure 17.5 provides an example of good feedback measurement.

25. Integrated Marketing Communications
Clarity
Consistency
Maximum Impact
Advertising
Direct Response
Sales Force
Subaru wants to insure that the messages being sent from its advertising, direct response, sales people, and events and experiences provide clarity, consistency, and deliver the maximum impact.
Events and Experiences

26. Integrated Marketing Communications
A planning process.
Designed to assure…
That all brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a product, service or organization…
Are relevant to that person and consistent over time.

27. Coordination and Implementation
Stage 1
Stage 2
Multi-vehicle, multi-stage campaigns through combining personal and nonpersonal communications channels should be used to maximize impact and to increase message reach and impact. Promotions can be more effective when combined with advertising, for example.
Large ad agencies redefine themselves as communications companies that assist clients to improve their overall communications effectiveness by offering strategic and practical advice on many forms of communication. Many international clients such as IBM (Ogilvy), Colgate (Young & Rubicam), and GE (BBDO) have opted to put a substantial portion of their communications work through one full-service agency. The result is integrated and more effective marketing communications at a much lower total communications cost.
Stage 3
Direct Sales
Promotions

28. IMC Communication Tools
Direct
Marketing
Interactive/
Internet Marketing
Advertising
Sales
Promotion
Personal
Selling
Publicity/Public
Relations

29. Advertising Any paid form of non-personal communication.
About an organization, product, service, idea or cause…
By an identified sponsor.
                                           

30. Advertising Disadvantages Advantages Advertiser controls the message
High costs of producing and running ads
Credibility problems and consumer skepticism
Clutter
Difficulty in determining effectiveness
Advantages
Advertiser controls the message
Cost effective way to communicate with large audiences
Effective way to create brand images and symbolic appeals
Often can be effective way to strike responsive chord with consumers
                                           

31. Classifications of Advertising
Advertising to Consumer Markets
National advertising
Retail/local advertising
Advertising to increase demand
Primary demand for the product category
Selective demand for a specific brand
Business & professional advertising
Business-to-business advertising
Professional advertising
Trade advertising

32. Direct Marketing A system of marketing.
By which organizations communicate directly…
With target customers to generate…
A response and/or a transaction.

33. Direct Marketing Disadvantages Advantages
Lack of customer receptivity and very low response rates
Clutter (too many messages)
Image problems – particularly with telemarketing
Advantages
Changes in society have made consumers more receptive to direct-marketing
Allows marketers to be very selective and target specific segments of customers
Messages can be customized for specific customers.
Effectiveness easier to measure

34. Direct Marketing Methods Direct mail Catalogs Telemarketing
Direct response ads
Direct selling
Internet

35. Interactive/Internet Marketing
A form of marketing communication.
Through interactive media which allow…
For a two-way flow of information…
Where users can participate in and modify the content of the information they receive in real time.

36. Interactive/Internet Marketing
Advantages of interactive/ internet marketing
Can be used for a variety of IMC functions
Messages can be tailored to specific interests and needs of customers
Interactive nature of the Internet leads to higher level of involvement
Can provide large amounts of information to customers.
Disadvantages of interactive/internet marketing
Internet is not yet a mass medium as many consumers lack access
Attention to Internet ads is very low
Great deal of clutter on the Internet
Audience measurement is a problem on the Internet

37. Interactive/Internet Marketing
Internet as an IMC Tool
As an advertising medium to inform, educate and persuade customers
As a direct sales tool
To obtain customer database information
To communicate and interact with buyers
To provide customer service and support
To build and maintain customer relationships
As a tool for implementing sales promotion
As a tool for implementing publicity/public relations programs

38. The Internet is an important IMC tool for American Airlines

39. Sales Promotion
Marketing activities that provide extra value or incentives.
To the… sales force distributors ultimate consumers…
And can stimulate immediate sales.

40. Sales Promotion Consumer-oriented Trade-oriented
Targeted to the ultimate users of a product or service
Coupons
Sampling
Premiums
Rebates
Contests
Sweepstakes
POP materials
Trade-oriented
Targeted toward marketing intermediaries such as retailers, wholesalers, or distributors
Promotion allowances
Merchandise allowances
Price deals
Sales contests
Trade shows

41. Sales Promotion Uses Introduce new products
Get existing customers to buy more
Attract new customers
Combat competition
Maintain sales in off season
Increase retail inventories
Tie in advertising & personal selling
Enhance personal selling efforts

42. Publicity Non-personal communication.
About an… organization product service idea…
Not directly paid for or run under identified sponsorship.

43. Publicity Advantages Disadvantages Credibility
Low cost (although not totally free)
Often results in word-of-mouth
Disadvantages
Not always under control of organization
Can be negative

44. Publicity Vehicles News Releases Feature Articles Press Conferences
Single-page news stories sent to media who might print or broadcast the content.
Feature Articles
Larger manuscripts composed and edited for a particular medium.
Press Conferences
Meetings and presentations to invited reporters and editors.
Special Events
Sponsorship of events, teams, or programs of public value.

45. Advertising Versus Publicity
FACTOR ADVERTISING PUBLICITY
Control Great Little
Credibility Lower Higher
Reach Achievable Undetermined
Frequency Schedulable Undetermined
Cost Specific Unspecified/low
Flexibility High Low
Timing Specifiable Tentative

46. Public Relations A management function. Evaluates public attitudes.
Identifies the policies and procedures of an individual or organization.
With public interest.
Executes a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance.

47. Public Relations Tools used Publicity Special publications
Community activity participation
Fund-raising
Special event sponsorship

48. Personal Selling Direct person-to-person communication.
Where a seller attempts to assist and/or persuade perspective buyers…
To buy a product or service.

49. Personal Selling Advantages Disadvantages
Direct contact between buyer and seller allows for more flexibility
Can tailor sales message to specific needs of customers
Allows for more direct and immediate feedback
Sales efforts can be targeted to specific markets and customers who are best prospects
Disadvantages
High costs per contact
Expensive way to reach large audiences
Difficult to have consistent and uniform message delivered to all customers

50. Promotional Management
Coordinating the promotional mix elements to develop a controlled, integrated program of effective marketing communications.
Considerations for developing the promotional program include:
Type of product
Buyer’s decision process
Stage of product life cycle
Channels of distribution

51. Integrated Marketing Communications Planning Model
Review of Marketing Plan
Promotional Program Situation Analysis
Analysis of the Communications Process
Budget Determination
Develop Integrated Marketing Communications Programs
Advertising
Sales
Promotion
PR/
Publicity
Personal
Selling
Direct
Marketing
Internet/
Interactive
Advertising
Objectives
Sales
Promotion
Objectives
PR/
Publicity
Objectives
Personal
Selling
Objectives
Direct
Marketing
Objectives
Internet/
Interactive
Objectives
Notes:
_______________________________________________________________
Message
Strategy
Sales
Promotion
Strategy
PR/
Publicity
Strategy
Personal
Selling
Strategy
Direct
Marketing
Strategy
Internet/
Interactive
Strategy
Integration & Implementation of Marketing Communications Strategies
Monitor, Evaluate & Control Promotional Program

54. Any questions?