Theory: Marketing communications is an audience centred activity which attempts to encourage engagements between participants and provoke conversations. The primary role of marketing communications is to engage audiences. Marketing Communications mix:
1. Tools: advertising, sales promotion, PR, direct marketing, personal selling and sponsorship. 2. Messages: informative and/or emotional
3. Media: traditional and digital
... and target audience in between.
Traditional media:
* Prints, broadcasts, cinema, tv, catalogues and outdoor. * This creates emotional brand values.
* Slower to change content of activities.
Digital media:
* Internet, mobile phones, web pages and call centres for customer support enabling to listen to, interact and converse with audience. * It provides rational and quick product based information.
The task of marketing communications – the DRIP model (differentiante, reinforce, inform, persuade). Communication build images about brand that are to differentiate it, reinforce memories and understanding, inform and make audiences aware of a brand’s presence and finally persuade an individual to buy and consume a product or service. Important characteristics of business communications: face to face, individualised, interactive, tailor-made, high involvement, rational.
Communication: interactivity & Conversation
INFORMATION RECEIVED DIRECTLY FROM PERSONAL INFLUENCE CHANNELS IS MORE PERSUASIVE THAN INFORMATION RECEIVED THROUGH MASS MEDIA! A message will be adapted to meet the needs of the customer as the sales call progresses. This flexibility will not be possible with mass media messages as they aredesigned and produced well in advance and often without direct customer input. Word of Mouth: It is sharing of an opinion among people independent from the company or its agents. People like to share and talk about their Product or service experiences. 3 types of word of mouth communication:
1. Voluntary – most natural f., free from any influence 2. Prompted – when organisations convey info. To opinion leaders/formers (followers, blogs, forums, online communities) 3. Managed – when organisations reward opinion leaders for recommending them (not objective) Channels of communication: brand advocates, opinion leadership (ordinary people), opinion formers (film critics, editors and journalists), opinion followers, bloggers. It’s important to understand buyer behaviour, the way they process info during and after making product purchase decisions.
Integration and Planning
Most corporations have moved away from using traditional communication strategies based on mass communications and delivering generalised messages. Today the overall approach is based on personalised, customer-oriented and technology-driven approaches called Integrated Marketing Communications. 1 of the main organisational drivers for IMC is the need to become increasingly efficient. Great advantages can be attainted through differentiating the marketing communications by using clarity and simplicity. IMC is more likely to be successful in smaller corporations as they have fewer brands to be integrated, lower levels of hierarchical and departmental complexity and are more adaptive. 8 elements of the plan:
1. Context analysis (understanding key markets and communications driver influences) 2. Marketing communications objectives (SMART)
3. Marketing communications strategy (DRIP)
4. Communication methods (tools and media to be used)
5. Scheduling (the methods and media used)
6. Resources (human and financial)
7. Control and evaluation (achievement)
8. Feedback (outcome, problems and sufficient resources)
SMART
* Specific - Be precise about what you are going to achieve. * Measurable - Quantify you objectives.
* Achievable - Are you attempting too much?
* Realistic - Do you have the resource to make the objective happen (men, money, machines, materials, minutes)? * Timed - State when you will achieve the objective
Communication agencies provide clients with access to the media, research materials, creative teams and the production facilities necessary for them to communicate with a range of audiences.
The MCs industry’s 4 principal actors:
* The Media
* The Client
* The Agencies
* The Support Organisations (production companies, fulfilment houses that enables the complete communication process to function). Relationships and operations between those4!
In house, agencies, freelancers, crowd sourcing
Ad agencies buy media time and space from media owners, PR agencies place stories with the media for their client’s representation, and other agencies undertake other communication activities on behalf of their clients.
Agency types and structures:
* The 1st and most common type of Ad agency is the full-service agency. It offers the full range of services that a client requires in order advertise its products and services eg strategic planning, research, creative development, production, interactive, and media planning and buying. * Boutiques: or creative shop, is often formed when creative teams leave full service agencies to set up their own business. They provide specialist or niche services for clients such as copywriting, developing creative contentand other artistic services. These agencies provide alternative source of ideas, new ways of thinking about a problem, issue or product. * Media specialists: deliver media strategy and consulting services for both client advertisers and agencies. Their core business is focused on planning, scheduling, buying and monitoring of a client’s media schedule.
3 main briefs when an ad agency is selected:
* The client brief: provides information about the client organisation. It sets out the nature of the industry it operates in, data about trends, market share, customers, competitors and the problems the agency is required to address. * The creative brief: the creative team is responsible for translating the proposal into an advertisement. * Media brief: informing the media planning and buying department of the media and the type of media vehicles required. Agencies are paid: comission, fees, payment by results + bonuses
1. Tools: advertising, sales promotion, PR, direct marketing, personal selling and sponsorship. 2. Messages: informative and/or emotional
3. Media: traditional and digital
... and target audience in between.
Traditional media:
* Prints, broadcasts, cinema, tv, catalogues and outdoor. * This creates emotional brand values.
* Slower to change content of activities.
Digital media:
* Internet, mobile phones, web pages and call centres for customer support enabling to listen to, interact and converse with audience. * It provides rational and quick product based information.
The task of marketing communications – the DRIP model (differentiante, reinforce, inform, persuade). Communication build images about brand that are to differentiate it, reinforce memories and understanding, inform and make audiences aware of a brand’s presence and finally persuade an individual to buy and consume a product or service. Important characteristics of business communications: face to face, individualised, interactive, tailor-made, high involvement, rational.
Communication: interactivity & Conversation
INFORMATION RECEIVED DIRECTLY FROM PERSONAL INFLUENCE CHANNELS IS MORE PERSUASIVE THAN INFORMATION RECEIVED THROUGH MASS MEDIA! A message will be adapted to meet the needs of the customer as the sales call progresses. This flexibility will not be possible with mass media messages as they aredesigned and produced well in advance and often without direct customer input. Word of Mouth: It is sharing of an opinion among people independent from the company or its agents. People like to share and talk about their Product or service experiences. 3 types of word of mouth communication:
1. Voluntary – most natural f., free from any influence 2. Prompted – when organisations convey info. To opinion leaders/formers (followers, blogs, forums, online communities) 3. Managed – when organisations reward opinion leaders for recommending them (not objective) Channels of communication: brand advocates, opinion leadership (ordinary people), opinion formers (film critics, editors and journalists), opinion followers, bloggers. It’s important to understand buyer behaviour, the way they process info during and after making product purchase decisions.
Integration and Planning
Most corporations have moved away from using traditional communication strategies based on mass communications and delivering generalised messages. Today the overall approach is based on personalised, customer-oriented and technology-driven approaches called Integrated Marketing Communications. 1 of the main organisational drivers for IMC is the need to become increasingly efficient. Great advantages can be attainted through differentiating the marketing communications by using clarity and simplicity. IMC is more likely to be successful in smaller corporations as they have fewer brands to be integrated, lower levels of hierarchical and departmental complexity and are more adaptive. 8 elements of the plan:
1. Context analysis (understanding key markets and communications driver influences) 2. Marketing communications objectives (SMART)
3. Marketing communications strategy (DRIP)
4. Communication methods (tools and media to be used)
5. Scheduling (the methods and media used)
6. Resources (human and financial)
7. Control and evaluation (achievement)
8. Feedback (outcome, problems and sufficient resources)
SMART
* Specific - Be precise about what you are going to achieve. * Measurable - Quantify you objectives.
* Achievable - Are you attempting too much?
* Realistic - Do you have the resource to make the objective happen (men, money, machines, materials, minutes)? * Timed - State when you will achieve the objective
Communication agencies provide clients with access to the media, research materials, creative teams and the production facilities necessary for them to communicate with a range of audiences.
The MCs industry’s 4 principal actors:
* The Media
* The Client
* The Agencies
* The Support Organisations (production companies, fulfilment houses that enables the complete communication process to function). Relationships and operations between those4!
In house, agencies, freelancers, crowd sourcing
Ad agencies buy media time and space from media owners, PR agencies place stories with the media for their client’s representation, and other agencies undertake other communication activities on behalf of their clients.
Agency types and structures:
* The 1st and most common type of Ad agency is the full-service agency. It offers the full range of services that a client requires in order advertise its products and services eg strategic planning, research, creative development, production, interactive, and media planning and buying. * Boutiques: or creative shop, is often formed when creative teams leave full service agencies to set up their own business. They provide specialist or niche services for clients such as copywriting, developing creative contentand other artistic services. These agencies provide alternative source of ideas, new ways of thinking about a problem, issue or product. * Media specialists: deliver media strategy and consulting services for both client advertisers and agencies. Their core business is focused on planning, scheduling, buying and monitoring of a client’s media schedule.
3 main briefs when an ad agency is selected:
* The client brief: provides information about the client organisation. It sets out the nature of the industry it operates in, data about trends, market share, customers, competitors and the problems the agency is required to address. * The creative brief: the creative team is responsible for translating the proposal into an advertisement. * Media brief: informing the media planning and buying department of the media and the type of media vehicles required. Agencies are paid: comission, fees, payment by results + bonuses