A carefully designed and well planned promotional activity presents a holistic approach towards breaking out of the clutter and reaching to the intended target audience at the right time and in the right manner.
As a result, in the 21st century, it is the 4th P of the marketing mix (Promotion) that has gained phenomenal importance and thus Integrated Marketing Campaign (IMC) has emerged as the new buzzword!
Mr Bhosle is a resident of Preet Vihar,
Monday morning, 6 am.
The first thing Mr Bhosle does in the morning is to get hold of his newspaper, The Times of India. Along with it comes out the pamphlet of Pizza Hut (with their latest World Food Fest campaign), Dominos (with their discount coupons) and a menu card of the new ‘Goyal Da Dhaba’ that has recently opened up in the nearby locality. The home delivery offered by each one of them convinces Mr Bhosle to keep these in the drawer of his bed.
He opens up the newspaper, checks out the big advertisement of VLCC at the center bottom corner. Well, this seems to be the answer to his wife’s daily woes.
On the center page, he checks out a full page advertisement of Big Bazaar: ‘Isse Sasta Aur Achha Kahin Nahin?’ He goes through the advertisements and is keen to check out the latest men’s collection at smashing prices in the nearby store.
Turning to the
9:00 am
It is time to go to office. He gets into his car and turns on the radio to Red FM. The RJ Ulta Pulta Nitin, along with regular numbers, keeps updating about the latest events and activities in town.
In between shows, jingles of ads from city malls to cold drinks to the hottest property in town are played time and again.
There comes the red light and the rear side of an auto-rickshaw reads: “buyselloldbooks.com”. Earlier, three-wheelers adorned body paint that screamed sweet nothings like “Maine Pyaar Kiya”, “Buri Nazar Waale”, “Munne de papa di gaddi”. But, they are not used any more. The companies like mouthshut.com, stickiewicket.com, farmsandvillas.com, mapmyindia.com and many more have found a really cheap medium for communication these days.
At the rears of blue line buses are postures of the Hero Honda “Sa Re Ga Ma Pa” and daily soaps of Zee TV and Sony TV.
During his travel, he also reads advertisements of inverter, steel rod and cement companies painted on the walls of highway.
On one hoarding near a red-light, he finds a huge and beautiful poster stating:
“NOW, THAT’S A MAN: MARUTI SX4”
On the top of the bus-stop, he reads the teaser headline of the latest serial to be launched soon on Zee TV. The line “When one is ill, why should the other eat medicine?” keeps him wondering as to what would the story would be? The ad shows 2 girls sitting next to each other, with their backs facing the audience.
Next, Mr Bhosle gets down at the Metro Station and parks his car. While on his way to the Metro, he finds hoardings and posters of SBI, LG and Bleu (a new mobile phone company) at different places of the Metro station. He gets into the metro-rail and on its interiors, many companies have put up their posters while the major part is occupied by National Rural Development Mission’s Aids Awareness messages, malaria caution displays and other social awareness messages.
To prevent from falling, he holds on to one of the hangers on the ceiling and finds Abhishek Bachhan (advertising for Big FM) posted on the hanger. There are SBI and Citifinancial stuck on other hangers as well.
10 am
Mr Bhosle reaches the office and he receives a call.
Call: Good Morning, Sir
Mr Bhosle: Good Morning
Call: Are you using a credit card, Sir?
Mr Bhosle: Yes, but tell me why you are asking this?
Call: Sir, I am calling from ICICI bank and we have a free gift with every credit card that is made before the 31st of September
Mr Bhosle: (Checks the date on his cell phone) Well, I think I would like to go for it.
Call: Sir, how shall we proceed?
Mr Bhosle: Send your executive and I’ll give all the documents required.
Call: Fine sir, our executive will call you soon.
Mr Bhosle: Fine
Call: Thank you sir, it was really nice talking to you.
Mr Bhosle: Same here thanks!
During his working hours, he receives an SMS:
Weekend Dhamaka!! Win Daily Rs 2000, Weekly Rs 15000 or a brand new Tata Indica Xeta car. Call 12900 & say FUN to answer simple questions & win. Call charges: Rs 6 per minute apply
He switches on his laptop and checks his mail account. Here, he finds 2 unread mails. One mail is from the blog link he has subscribed to. It talks of the latest Apple i-phone that has hit the market. It describes its features and attributes which leave him stunned by the technological miracles that human race is witnessing. The 2nd mail is from www.agencyfaqs.com where they have reviewed the latest strategic move by Pizza Hut by introducing the World Food Festival.
7 pm
After finishing the day’s work, he leaves for home.
He reaches home and switches on the TV. The movie shown by the cable walla has scrolling ads of all kinds at the bottom of the page, showing new business openings in the nearby areas. He switches onto the news channel and finds that a press conference has been organized for the launch of Volkswagen’s Pasat in
Amidst all the zapping, he also checks out Pizza Hut (with chefs from all over the world) and Samsung advertisement (with Rahul Dravid).
Then an advertisement comes where some girls are looking for men and then suddenly a few men come on their cars and the slogan comes in:
“MEN ARE BACK: MARUTI SX4”
On another channel, he finds that a complete half an hour dedicated program has been aired by Asian Sky Shop for showcasing breakthrough consumer products at rock-bottom prices. Well, the cutlery set with a free table cover interests him to call up the toll-free number for order placement as well.
9:30 pm
His kids and wife have planned for a movie tonight. It is the movie ‘Dhoom 2’ at the nearest mall.
On the outside of the mall, he finds a huge poster saying:
“NOW, THAT’S A MAN: MARUTI SX4”
On entering the mall, he finds hanging advertisements of Samsung mobile phones from the ceiling of the mall. It gains his immediate attention and he appreciates the new designs of latest models.
On the other wall of the mall is a huge TV screen, that too by Samsung. In the centre area of the mall is a display of the Plasma TV by Samsung with Microsoft XBOX being connected to it for demonstration. His son, Raju is fascinated by the game and pursues his father to get him one. Mr Bhosle commits to present it if he comes first in his class.
The next thing Mr Bhosle watches is the Pizza Hut. Within an instance, the whole day’s advertisement messages refreshed his memory. It cut through the entire clutter of advertisements and ad campaigns he had witnessed. And indeed, he had a dinner in Pizza Hut.
They enter the movie hall. In the movie, they come across various brands like Coke, Pennzoil, Pepe, Sony, Disney channel, Sugar Free, McDonald’s, Speed, Suzuki Zeus which have been placed in the movie in a subtle, seamless and coordinated manner.
During the intermission, he finds advertisements of Air Deccan, Hyundai and the Lead
Day Over
Indeed, someone has rightly put it “The Ad Mad World”.
As you might have noticed, Mr Bhosle had a rendezvous with many brands during his entire day. All possible promotional tools (direct marketing, tele-marketing, internet marketing, advertisement, posters, hoardings, in-film product placements, TV, print, radio, press releases) were used by companies independently. With so many brands trying to get into the mind of the customer; to register your brand, it is required to have an integrated and coordinated use of different media channels that a person comes across throughout his day. The point is to bombard consumer with the brand’s message from as many media sources as possible and all at the same time.
However, a strategic fit of the channels and the brand’s image is very important. Accordingly, above the line activities and below the line activities are designed.
In Mr Bhosle’s case, it was Pizza Hut and Maruti SX4 which used an optimum marketing mix for making a desirable impact amidst such high competition and busy schedule of the customer.
For Pizza Hut, a pamphlet is a much better option due to the home delivery option. However, in case of SX4, distributing pamphlets would have caused serious loss to its brand equity. So, it preferred the use of big-size posters.
It is this use of a ‘mix of all appropriate marketing communication disciplines, media and vehicles in a well coordinated campaign to achieve a unified objective or set of objectives’ which is called a INTEGRATED MARKETING CAMPAIGN. It produces a clear, unified, consistent and compelling customer-focused message about the brand.
Consumer’s perception of a company and its various brands is a synthesis of the bundle of messages they receive through media advertisements, price, package design, direct marketing efforts, publicity, sales promotions, websites, point of purchase displays, and even the type of store where a product or service is sold.
The IMC approach seeks to have the company’s entire marketing and promotional activities project a consistent, unified image to the market place. It calls for a centralized messaging function so that everything a company says and does communicates a common theme and positioning.
Consumer’s awareness, knowledge and image of the brand is the sum of all points of encounter or contact that consumers have with the brand, and it extends beyond the experience or outcome of using it. These contacts can also result from various forms of integrated marketing communications activities used by a company, including mass-media advertising, sales promotion offers, sponsorship activities at sporting or entertainment events, websites, on the Internet, and direct-mail pieces such as letters, brochures, catalogs, or videos.
Consumers can also have a contact with or receive information about a brand in stores at the point of sale; through articles or stories they see, hear, or read in the media.
CONCLUSION
With the increasing competition and fast paced life of modern consumer, Integrated Marketing Campaign becomes an effective tool where the synergies obtained from various channels can not only help a company in reinforcing their brands for a top of the mind recall but also can be instrumental in improving the bottom line.
1 comment:
Very interesting analysis, have you thought of how consumer electronics brands should advertise "optimally" to reach out to their audience?
And how does a limited budget affect how you market?
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