1

Integrated
Marketing
Communications
Kirti Dutta
 1

Chapter Two
IMC Process

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 Contents
• IMC tools
• IMC Process
• IMC Strategy
• Research for IMC

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 Spa for the Eyes
• A national daily had a front cover page (dated 4 April 2016) boldly
asking ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if your eyes felt younger fresher and
rejuvenated again?’ There was a half face of a model covering the
length of the page and on the top right was the company’s logo
LifeZenTM with the tagline ‘Embrace Life!’, and at the bottom was the
invitation ‘flip to see how...’
• The back of this front page of the daily gave the solution in the form of
their brand EyeSpaTM with the advertisement copy saying ‘get back
the radiant and youthful bliss of your eyes, with EyeSpaTM’. The copy
further showed the packaging of the product, and readers could
immediately see the ‘cool hydrates and refreshes’ and ‘instant calm’ on
the packaging. © Oxford University Press 2016. All rights reserved.
 Spa for the Eyes
• The advertisement explained how ‘today’s working lifestyle,
essentially governed by technological factors such as computers, TVs,
tablets, and smartphones, and external factors such as pollution,
dust, and climate change’, was causing strain on the eyes and making
them itchy, dry, and causing eye fatigue.
• EyeSpaTM was then highlighted as the saviour as ‘it brings back the
natural balance of moisture in your eyes keeping them fresh,
lustrous, and relaxed’. A doctor was also shown in the advertisement
with the message ‘No. 1 formula recommended by eye specialists’. It
built confidence in the reader by highlighting ‘no itching and burning,
100% safe to use, and 20 years of trusted medical expertise from the
house of BAL Pharma Ltd’.
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 Spa for the Eyes
• Customer care number was given along with the website address
and name and contact number of authorised distributors.
Customers could also follow the brand on the Twitter and
Facebook. The advertisement also had a sales promotion offer and
customers could call on a number to win an iPhone

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 Spa for the Eyes
Question:
• A half-page advertisement of the problem (eye fatigue, prickliness, etc.) and
the solution (EyeSpaTM) could have served the purpose of the company.
Instead, it went through an entire strategy and released a two-page
advertisement. Why did it need to do this and what were the marketing
communication strategies that it used?

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 Introduction
• Carrying out the communication function of an organization is a
sequential process that requires careful planning and execution.
• Communication made by a company helps the consumers develop
an understanding about what the company is about. In addition,
whatever is communicated remains in the consumer’s memory for
long and so each passing day makes the communication task more
challenging.
• The P of promotion (in the 4/7 Ps) consists of advertising, sales
promotion, personal selling, direct marketing, and public relations.
Companies can use either one or a mix or all of these to
communicate with their target audience.
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 IMC Tools
• Advertising
• Sales Promotion
• Personal Selling
• Direct Marketing and
• Public Relations

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Advertising

Source: Superbrands 2012

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 Advertising
• Advertising is a paid form of communication by the service providers with its
target audience to facilitate exchanges (of services or information) with its
stakeholders.
• An organization can either design the advertisement in-house (by creating a
department), or it can outsource it from an advertising agency. In India, the
advertising industry stood at `12,526 crore in 2013 (Pitch Madison Media Ad
Outlook 2013) and reached `43,991 crore in 2015. In the year 2016, it is
expected to reach `51,365 (Pitch Madison Advertising Report, 2016 cited in
Exchange4media 2016).
• In 2015, the industry grew at a rate of 17.6% and is expected to grow at
16.8% in 2016 (Exchange4media 2016).

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Advertising spend across media in
2015
Medium Media growth Money spent in % of total - 2015

2015 (₹Crore)

2013 2014 2015

TV 14 15 16 22,446 45.8

Print 4 7 5 16,875 34.5

Digital 30 35 37 4,661 9.5

Out of home 6 9 4 2,542 5.2

Radio 7 10 11 2,007 4.1

Cinema 12 25 20 408 0.8

All 10 12.5 12.5 49,000 100

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 Advertising
• Advertising helps inform customers about the product and has a
mass reach.
• Through advertising, marketers can remind and reinforce the
services offered.
• The objective of advertising can be short term (for example to
enhance sales) or long term (for example to build brand equity and
customer loyalty).
• Thus, the Kitplyadvertisement talks about being a part of every
memorable moment (Haryaadgar pal kahissa) in the consumers’
life and builds on the brand equity and customer loyalty.
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 Advertising
• It has the ability to reach a geographically dispersed base of customers at a low
cost per exposure.
• On the other hand, there are disadvantages of this tool of promotion as well.
Advertising is a one-way communication and is impersonal and not as
persuasive as some of the other tools.
• TV advertising requires a large budget.
• Moreover, there is the problem of the presence of a number of channels
resulting in not only difficulty of choice for the marketers but also channel
surfing by the customers. The advertising copy needs to be changed at regular
intervals to retain interest of the consumers.

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 Sales Promotion
• ‘Sales promotion consists of short-term incentives to encourage
the purchase or sale of products’, (Kotler et al. 2006).
• FMCG companies have used this since long, but service industries
such as insurance, financial services, healthcare, telecom, and
hotels are also using it increasingly.
• Sales promotion can include coupons, rebates, price-off, contests,
demonstrations, etc.; it is most effective when used along with
other promotion techniques. A good sales promotion can also
result in publicity when it is talked about in the media; the vice
versa also holds true.
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 Sales Promotion
• schoolkart. com, a website that sells school uniforms, textbooks,
stationery, water bottles, etc., came out with a sales promotion offer of
40% discount on school shoes, 30% on school bags, 30% on water
bottles, lunch boxes, etc. They released print advertisements in
newspapers highlighting the availability of school uniforms of more
than 500 schools and more than 25,000 products for school kids and
the print copy further elaborated on the various sales promotional
offers. The advertisement was released in the fi rst week of April, that
is, when the new academic year starts and all school-going kids are to
purchase their new books, stationery, uniforms, etc. Along with the
website, customers could also call on a phone number to place their
orders. © Oxford University Press 2016. All rights reserved.
 Sales Promotion

• The timeframe for running a promotion is also an important

consideration in a sales promotion. If a sales promotion runs for too
long or too often, it becomes part of customer expectations, and if it is
then discontinued, it builds resentment in the minds of the customers,
who even stop using that product.
• In addition, running promotions for too long incurs cost to the
company and eats into the profitability. It is argued that promotion
benefits customers who would have bought the product anyway and so
a proportion of the money spent is wasted anyway.
• In addition, it does not contribute to the long-term brand value for the
company. © Oxford University Press 2016. All rights reserved.
 Personal Selling

• Personal selling is defined as ‘face-to-face interaction between

buyers and sellers so that it leads to value creation that is a solution
to the customer’s problem and also results in achieving the
company’s objective’.
• Personal selling involves selling the product of the service
organization through the salesforce.
• This involves maintaining a salesforce and hence a sales
department, the personnel of which are involved in direct contact
with the customers.

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 Personal Selling
• Thus, in the overall communication budget, they are responsible for a
major chunk of the money allocation.
• This money is well spent since it is the most effective communication
tool as far as building a customer preference, conviction, and purchase
are concerned. Since the personnel can interact with the customers,
they can tailor their presentations according to the customer’s
requirements and provide current, up-to-date information to the
customers.
• Two-way communications also help in gaining consumer insights as far
as the product purchase and consumption are concerned. Customer
relationships can be built and managed while selling through the
salesforce. © Oxford University Press 2016. All rights reserved.
 Personal Selling

• As already discussed, the drawback is that it is expensive and even

though organizations can discontinue advertising and sales
promotion, personal selling cannot be varied easily and requires
committed efforts by the organization.

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 Direct Marketing

• Originally, direct marketing attracted customers by contacting them

without involving any intermediaries. Thus, salespeople were also a
part of direct marketing. However, with the introduction of media
such as telephone, television, and the Internet, the concept was
redefined.
• The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) defined it as ‘an interactive
system of marketing that uses one or more advertising media to
effect a measurable response and/or transaction at any location’
(Kotler et al. 2006).

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 Direct Marketing

• The advantage of direct marketing is that, like personal selling, the

message can be customized as per individual’s requirements. The
message will again be more current (just such as personal selling) in
comparison to advertising as the time period required for the flow
of information from the company to the customer is less.
• The drawback is that compared to mass methods, the reach here is
limited although this does not apply to direct marketing through the
Internet.

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 Public Relations

• Management of the relationship with the various stakeholders such

as employees, shareholders, and government falls under the
management of public relations.
• Jobber(2001) defines public relations as ‘the management of
communication and relationships to establish goodwill and mutual
understanding between an organization and its public’.

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 Publicity

• Publicity is defined as ‘a particular manner of information projection

through various media of mass communication about an
organization, product, event or issue to influence public opinion’
(Sengupta 2005).
• It refers to any mention about the brand that is made in the media
without paying for it as in the case of advertising.

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 Public Relations and Publicity

Image of Kitply boundary board at a cricket ground.

Source: Superbrands 2012

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 Public Relations and Publicity
• Managing good relations with the press can result in the coverage of
news. This will portray the company in a positive light which in turn
is beneficial as the customers believe the publicity material more
than the advertised material.
• In addition, through publicity, companies can reach those customers
who avoid advertisements and salesforce as well. Thus, through
publicity, companies can reach a wider audience at negligible cost.
• The disadvantage is that negative publicity can also be generated.

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 IMC
• View the video at the following link and discuss which form of
communication has been depicted
• [Link]
vCtz0rYvZHe2wRoH1nPAKC2qaa

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 IMC Process
Opportunity Analysis
Market Analysis
Setting Objectives

Budget Allocation
Strategy Formulation

Advertising Sales Promotion (SP) Direct Marketing (DM) Personal Selling Public Relations (PR) Internet /
Mobile Mktg
Objective SP Objective DM Objective PS Objective PR Objective
Segmentation & Objective
Message Size of Sales Force Identifying publics
Selection of the Targeting
determination tool Message Strategy
Selecting DM Tool Recruitment &
Analysis Selection determination formulation
Designing the offer Media Strategy
Selection of Training
Media Testing the offer
Allocating Sales Quota

Execution Measurement of Effectiveness

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Evaluation & Follow-up
 Establishing the Budget

• Affordable
• Arbitrary
• Percentage of sales method

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 Establishing the Budget

• Affordable method This is a simple method of identifying the

amount of money the organization can afford to spend in a
particular financial year.
• It is not related to the objective of marketing communication or the
amount of money required for performing effective marketing
communications.
• Companies feel that they will not fall into financial problems if they
just spend what they can afford.
• Thus during tough times, when sales are low, this method would
result in low budgets just when the opposite would be required to
capture the market share.
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 Establishing the Budget

• Arbitrary method As the name suggests, the advertising budget is

set on a random basis as per the manager who is setting the budget.
This method is weaker than the affordable method as it results in
allocating the communication budget arbitrarily rather than on the
basis of logical thinking or achievement of some objective.

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 Establishing the Budget

• Percentage of sales method Some organizations fi x a particular

percentage of sales as the amount allocated for marketing
communications.
• Supporters of this method find the following advantages related to
it:
• 1. Companies spend as much as they can afford.
• 2. It encourages managers to correlate selling price, promotion cost,
and profi t per unit.
• 3. Encourages stability, especially when the industry spends the
same percentage.
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 Establishing the Budget
However, this method has its limitations. These are as follows:
1. It views sales as a cause of promotion rather than the result.
2. Budget allocation is on the basis of availability rather than based
on opportunities.
3. Advertising is treated as an expense for making sale rather than
being treated as an investment.
4. If sales fall, then the communications also are limited, whereas
more communications may be required to boost the fl agging
sales.

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 Establishing the Budget

5. As the sales vary from year to year, the budget for communication
also varies and makes long-term planning diffi cult.
6. There is no logical basis for choosing the percentage other than
what competitors are doing or what the organization has already
been doing.
• Some of these drawbacks can be overcome by fi xing a percentage
of sales that is projected for the period in which the communication
is to be carried out. The percentage so fi xed is as per the industry
standard.

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 Establishing the Budget

• Competitive parity method This method allocates the budget for

marketing communications on the basis of the competitor’s outlay.
This method advocates that:
1. Competitor’s budget represents the industry wisdom; and
2. Spending what competitors spend prevents a promotion war.
• However, it is seen that neither of the cases is necessarily
applicable.

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 Establishing the Budget
• In addition, there are other drawbacks associated with this method
as follows:
• 1. It ignores the fact that there are opportunities and problems that
can specifically be achieved by marketing communication.
• 2. It assumes that by spending an equal amount as the competition,
the organization will be as much as if not more successful. It does
not take other factors into consideration such as the product,
creativity in execution of communication, price, and place, which
might be the reason for the competitor’s success.
• 3. Competitors might change their strategy and allocate more
money for achieving their communication objectives in the stated
period. © Oxford University Press 2016. All rights reserved.
 Establishing the Budget

• To summarize the discussion, keeping an eye on competition is

important and advantageous for fi rms. However, it should not be
the sole criteria for setting the budget. Managers can combine this
with any of the other methods discussed.

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 Establishing the Budget

• Return on Investment (ROI) This method is based on the belief that

communication is an investment and like other investments in an
organization, it is expected to earn some return as well.
• However, it may not always be possible to determine ROI of a
communication activity.

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 Establishing the Budget

• These methods are used in top-down approaches where the budget

is decided without any theoretical basis and, as is mentioned, come
with inherent disadvantages as well.
• The second approach is the build-up approach for allocating the
budget. In this approach, the objective to be achieved is set and
then the budget is worked out for achieving this objective.
• This budget is then presented to the top management for approval
and usually employs the objective and task method.

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 Establishing the Budget

• The objective and task method Setting the budget on the basis of
costs involved in performing specific tasks for achieving specified
objectives is known as allocating budget on objective and task
method. In this method, the management decides beforehand what
they want to achieve from their marketing communication, plan the
tasks involved, and set the budget accordingly, thus focusing on the
objectives to be achieved rather than on what competitors are
doing. This budget is then approved and the activity is carried out.
• The next steps of strategy formulation are done prior to setting up
of the budget, and once the approval is received, then execution
and control follows as discussed further’.
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 Establishing the Budget

• The advantage of using this method is that the allocation of funds is

done as per its requirement for fulfi lling the objective. However,
this also leads to a disadvantage when the marketers fail to identify
the correct cost or cannot identify all the cost associated with the
achievement of the defi ned objective.

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 Choice of Promotional Mix

• Resource available and cost of promotional tool

• Market size and concentration
• Customer information needs
• Push versus pull
• Product life cycle
• Buyer readiness
• Standardization versus customization orientation of the company

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 Managing integrated marketing
Mar Com
communication
Communicating product Reminding characteristics; Reinforcing brand;
characteristics enhance sales; launch enhance sales
objectives
extenstions

Advertising; Public Press releases; e-mails; banner Search engine

Relations Advertisements ads online marketing

Mar Com
tool Personal selling; Sales promotion Advertising; Sales promotion
Direct marketing offer 1 Publicity offer 2

Time
frame
January, Year 1 January, Year 2 January, Year 3

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 Research for IMC
• Effectiveness of communication can be measured by conducting
communication research.
• Measuring recall and recognition of the services by the target audience,
what features they recall, their perceptions about the product provided
based on the marketing communication, and attitude formation or
change all the above provide interesting knowledge and information to
the managerial staff.
• Generally, what is targeted should be measured. Thus, if the objective of
communication is sales, then the sales department should be the focus
of research to measure the impact of advertisement on sales.
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 Quick Recapitulation
• IMC tools
• IMC Process
• IMC Strategy
• Research for IMC

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Questions

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