integrated marketing communications

Description

The concept of integrated marketing communications is more than just putting together

good ad campaigns. It is a fully integrated set of promotion mix tools communicating

the same clear, consistent, and compelling message about the offering. For example:

The TV ad campaign to create interest in the product using a celebrity spokesperson

(advertising creating awareness)

The appearance of the celebrity on a TV talk show (public relations to

generate interest)

E-mail from the celebrity endorser offering a promotional price (direct

marketing to sparkdesire to purchase)

A point-of-purchase display featuring celebrity endorser (sales promotion to

remind the consumer of product benefits and encourage purchase action)

Demonstration by sales clerk (personal selling to close the sale bringing

consumer to action)

Facebook page hosted by the celebrity (post-purchase activity to

reduce purchase dissonance)

In this case, the celebrity endorser is the common thread communicating the

company's message. The company may have decided to use a celebrity endorser who is

well respected and highly visible to its target market. This is part of the creative

strategy for encoding the message to consumers. In other cases, the common thread

(sometimes known as the Big Idea) might be a particular graphics approach, a

character created solely for the company (e.g. Flo for Progressive Insurance), or other

a creative device that carries forth in all communications.

Here is a tongue-in-cheek video demonstrating how advertising and public relations

were two tools used in an IMC campaign. The message to communicate was how to

pronounce the last name. See how this was done using IMC principles.

Can you think of an IMC campaign? Progressive is one example, but there are plenty

out there. Feel free to go back in history and think of campaigns like IBM's launch of

the personal computer using the Charlie Chaplin-like character or Coke's I'd Like to

Teach the World to Sing campaign, or Apple's IMC campaigns used on every new

product launch. Remember, don't just focus on the advertising. Find those other

promotion tools they used to convey the selling proposition. You may want to read

most of the week's readings before tackling this discussion topic to get a better idea of

what all the promotion mix tools are, and how the AIDA model (as noted in the reading

highlights in the example above) works.