Smith (1997) widens this concept and gives three definitions but all three definitions have one thing in common which is communication.
- Those that refer to all forms marketing communications
- A strategic management process based on economy, efficiency and effectiveness
- The ability to apply communication in any department of an organisation
In relation to this Black (1995) asserted that “strategic communication is a tool for successful integrated marketing implementation which ensures the development of consistent and mutually supporting message strategies and this can only be done with the incorporation of PR”. In his own ideology, Black believes that PR stands and will continue to stand as a corrective tool to marketing approach. The reason for this is because PR brings a balance between the management decision and marketing decision and weighing it to avoid terrible consequences. Pitta and Weisgal (2006) emphasize that “it is the benefit of harnessing synergy across multiple media to build brand equity of product and services.
Still on Integrated marketing communication, (MMC: 2007) multimedia marketing communication concludes that for the harmonization of communication, promotional tools should be integrated. Promotional tools such as Advertising, Sales promotion, Direct mail PR.
In other to achieve an integrated approach to marketing communication, it is important to have some kind of frame work around which strategies or tactics would be developed. A number of models where developed by professionals and the adoption of the model suggest the success of the business because they are based on the approaches to market planning.
The plan in the above chart is the promotional plan embarked on by organisations according to Fill (2002) they are usually two which are, SOSTAC and MCPF, the diagram above is the MCPF and it consist of the following plan,
- Context analysis
- Promotional goal, aim and objectives
- Promotional/ Marketing Strategy (Push, Pull, Profile Strategy)
- Communication Mix (the 4p’s: product, place, price, promotion)
- Implementation and evaluation
To structure a good marketing plan, management should know
- Where they are.
- Where they want to go to.
- And how they want to get there.
EXPLORE THE USE OF INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION BY ANY TWO PR CAMPAIGN
In this part I will be exploring the use of IMC by two recent PR campaign, the media use and how it was successful in shaping the corporate image of each company. I will be using Garden Burger and Warner Bros as my case study.
PR CAMPAIGN FOR GARDEN BURGER:
Client: Garden Burger
Challenge: Garden Burger is a vegetarian restaurant/ company it was founded in 1983 in Oregon America. It is owned by Paul Wenner, for a long time now the company has been assumed to produce meatless product for vegetarians who are mostly women. The problem here is to change that perception of their product being for women alone but for men too. With the engagement of a PR agency they tried achieving this aim.
Strategy: The process for going about this is not really a big one since it is a small company, what should be in mind is that it should be in a cost effective manner, and the company should have the following in mind
- A good marketing plan
- Employ the 4 “p” as a communication strategy which is product, place, price and promotion.
Target Audience: The promotion was targeted to men, between 25-40 years of age.
The campaign style used by the PR firm was a user generated content and participation, and in a short while a good result was reached and they achieved their aim. The campaign was named “Real Men Eat Garden Burger” how it was done; it was like an in house promotion for everybody that came into the store was told about it, the media used was the internet and direct marketing. Customers that come into the restaurant were told about the promotion, about sending in pictures of the real men that they knew and they stand a chance of winning a prize at the end of the promotion. They meant real men in the sense that a man that is capable of doing everything from cooking, doing household chores, e.t.c. With the use of the internet (media) lots of pictures of men were sent and each had a reason for why they think the contestant is a real man. That was not all they incorporated interactive website competitions, which included games, questions and answer into the contest so people can log on to their site for a long time and answer questions which will give them a results between manly man and girly man.
Results:
The campaign and promotion was a success, particularly for the customers because they were enthusiastic about the prize at the end of the day. The winner of this promotion was a marathon runner whose leg has been amputated, according to him; he takes care of his ailing wife at home and he has been eating garden burger before the brand promotion started. His prize includes 1year supply of garden burger, flat screen a gull and party for 25.
The PR tool/ media used here was the traditional type. The direct communication (website and direct in-store promotion) used here added to the success of the campaign because sometimes direct marketing or promotion stands the chance of convincing people rather than the other communication tools. The promotion got up to 200 photos which were more than what was expected, and the website had about 150,000 pages viewed, they had 75,000 votes and a 1000 people commented on the pictures and promotion. With the website marketing and publicity from TV, branding newsletter and Radio Kellogg’s acquired this little company. (Brand week: 2008)
Warner Bros PR Campaign:
Client: Warner Bros
Challenge: Warner Bros is one of the world’s largest producers of films, cartoons and television entertainment for kids; it is a subsidiary of Time Warner in which it’s headquarter is in UK. In December last year Warner Bros launched a film into the cinemas called I AM LEGEND starring Will Smith, on the 26th of December in which was proved the 6th best film in the world in 2007. The challenge here was how to promote the film before it gets to the cinema and how they will get their target audience to visit the site to download and watch the movie trailer for free.
Target Audience: the audience for this promotion was people from age 15-25 years and the reason for this is that they are the ones most likely to visit the cinema to watch movies.
Media Used: Direct Media, through the phone (mobile marketing), the reason for this is because people move about with their phones.
In UK Warner Bros went about the process by incorporating something experimental using Bluetooth technology. They had an arrangement with Vue and Cineworld the major cinemas in UK by distributing movie contents to cinema addicts. It was like if the Bluetooth of a phone was on when an individual was at the cinema foyer the phone automatically receives a notification about what is about to happen and if the message is accepted they get information of the movie, a free download, a 20 seconds free movie trailer and a link to the mobile internet site of the film. This got people in the cinema at that time really excited; they turned their Bluetooth on and received free download plus everything that came with it.
All this accounts to a good communication strategy to the target audience for the campaign yielded like 400,000 downloads during the course of the movie that night. The success of this movie promotion was successful because of the tool integrated in the communication with the desired public and the delivery of the content in which was considered as fun to that age group, by researching into what motivates them. The success of the campaign will make this company want to do more in the future. (Brand republic: 2008)
HOW SUCCESSFUL HAS THE PR TOOL HELP IN SHAPING THE CORPORATE IMAGE OF THE COMPANY
Image connotes reflection. The corporate image of a company means the reflection of that company, how this particular company is viewed by all, and the public especially. How has PR helped to shape the corporate image of these companies? PR has helped in shaping the images of the company with its strategic communication, and creativity. It also incorporated the communication tools, the push, pull and profile strategy and the 4p’s effectively and efficiently (product, price, promotion, and place). The reason for effective communication is to change how the organization is viewed by the internal / external stakeholders and public. How is this done? They take the companies story and objectives to the right audience, the story and achievement is told through a mix of creativity and taken to the right channel and media. Like the case of Garden burger the in-house staffs had a responsibility of building the company’s image by doing everything that counts in satisfying the customers, they promote the company’s image by working effectively.
Vicki Staveacre president of, International Association of Business Communication (IABC) UK stated four ways of excellent PR tools which can help improve the image of the company.
- PR tools help to manage and support strategic objective of the company although it may threaten already existing objectives and approaches it stands a chance of producing a constructive result.
- It creates and nurtures good relationship with the public both internally and externally. This is the basic contribution PR can do; they also try to broaden the scope of their job beyond communication.
- It makes a direct contribution to the bottom line by preventing the cost of conflict
- It helps the company make money by enhancing relationship with its customers (as quoted in White and Mazur, 1995:33).
In relation to this a good PR tool should uphold the interest and views of the audience to create good understanding and a good corporate image. The two case studies I used shows how PR has helped in shaping the image of the companies with the different strategies and the interpersonal relationship with the customers at all levels.
WHAT ARE THE LIMITATIONS THAT WILL RESTRICT THE SUCCESS OF PR
- Based on the international level, there is cultural sensitivity. Recent studies by Kwintessential Limited show that culture sometimes stands as a stumbling block to the success of a PR. For example Pepsodent tried selling its toothpaste in southeast Asian and emphasized that it whitens the teeth, but they found out the locals of that country actually use it to blacken their teeth. If they had done proper research before the promotion of this product, it would have been a success instead of a failure.
- Lack of communication strategy, or misleading strategy. This can happen when messages sent through different channels are perceived differently or misunderstood; this is called lack of uniformity of message. Harrison (1995: 112) affirms that for communication to be successful it has to be appropriate, to the organisation, audience and culture. For if the method chosen is inappropriate, the message will lack credibility and will simply be ignored.
- Lack of adequate research. For a campaign to be successful there is the need to know where you are going, the target audience for a particular brand or product, and how they will be reached. A campaign can only be successful if adequate research is carried out based on the target audience. On research Harrison(1995: 65) suggest to achieve a good campaign proper research has to be carried out to know what perception the target audience has about that organisation, and what their attitude and behaviour are. Or else the company will risk having a bad campaign. For example Warner Bros had a good campaign due to the fact that they researched into what motivates their target audience.
- Lack of funds / or backup plan: for example if a company embarks on a brand campaign an along the line they suddenly run out of money, that can actually crumble the campaign or the brand image. Usually when a company embarks on a campaign a large sum of money should be laid out for the campaign for instant out of 100%, 20% should be laid aside in case of mishap.
Bibliography
Black, S. (1995), The Practice of Public Relations. 4th ed. Butterworth-Heinemann
CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing) (2004). You Talking to Me? - Marketing Communication in the Age Of Consent.
Fill, C. (2002) Marketing Communications: Contexts, Strategies and Applications. 3rd ed. Harlow: Pearson Education.
Harrison, S (1995): Public Relations: An Introduction. London: Routledge
Jefkins, F (1998) Public Relations Framework. 5th ed. London: Pearson Education
Pitta, A. And Weisgal, M. (2006) Integrating Exhibit Marketing Into Integrated Marketing Communication. Emerald Group.
Tench, R. And Yeomans, L. (2006) Exploring Public Relations. London: Pearson Education
Schultz, D. And Kitchen, P. (2000) Communication Globally: An Integrated Marketing Approach. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Smith, P. Et al (1997) Strategic Marketing Communication. London: Kogan Page
White, J & Mazur, L (1995) Strategic Communication Management: Making Public Relations Work. The Economist Intelligence Unit.
Other Sources:
Marketing Communication Frame Work: (2008, April 2)
MMC Learning: (2008, April 2).
Real Men Eat Garden Burger:
(2008, April 2)
Mobile Marketing: (2008, April 4)
Kwintessentual cross cultural solution: (2008, April 18)
