Core Concepts of Marketing by John Burnett - HTML preview

CHAPTER 8

COMMUNICATING TO MASS MARKETS

the industry, and so forth. The quality of communication is closely related to the quality of

information. Kellogg's, for example, constantly monitors its customers through surveys and

consumer panels, and keeps track of its competitors and changes in the Food and Drug Admin-

istration in order to assess the relevance of all its communication vehicles.

Second, communication is not one-way; it is a dialogue.

is, all relevant parties

are actually participating in the communication process. Marketers must provide a system

that constantly allows the consumer to express desires, satisfactions, complaints, and dis-

appointments about the product, the price, the message, or the way it is distributed. There

is a real tendency in large-scale marketing to view the consumer as a faceless, nameless

entity, without individual needs and wants . Effective marketing communication allows direct

feedback (e.g., toll-free numbers, hotlines, service departments), and actively responds by

making substantial changes to address customer requests.

Finally, there must be an acknowledgement that target customers may not be the same

as target audiences.

target market is concerned

with individuals who

INTEGRATED MARKETING

•

fMC-HARDER THAN YOU THfNK

According to IMC guru Don Schultz, the difficulty in devel-

experience marketing communications. Most consumers aren't

oping an integrated marketing communication program is in

familiar with the tightly defined marketing

the planning. He notes that most managers have tried to inte-

disciplines we have developed. To them, most everything we

grate communication elements and activities as they were

do is either an advertisement or an incentive. That's the sec-

developed by various functional groups. Or they have tried

ond part of the new approach. Integrate, and most of

sim-

to bring all the elements together once the communications

plify.

concept was developed to generate one voice or a unifying

Now, the planning process is simple. At the top, we have

brand theme that

tie all the disparate elements together.

how consumers think about and evaluate marketing commu-

Unfortunately, managers have been approaching the

nication activities. It's either a message or an incentive. We

problem as one of coordination or consolidation, although

have collapsed all the

sophisticated marketing commu-

integration is not at the end of the process, but at the begin-

nication disciplines into what they are supposed to do: deliver

ning. The difficulty has been that there is not a system via

a message or an incentive.

which managers can develop truly integrated marketing

The second part of the matrix is the impact we expect the

communications.

activity to have-short-term or long-term. What will be the

A new approach to integration is based on the planning

basis for the measurement of the impact of the planned com-

matrix. The matrix mantra goes like this:

consolidate

munications program? For purposes of measurement, almost

and segregate, to aggregate and integrate." The meaning is sim-

everything can be considered

or within the fiscal

ple. Traditionally, we have tried to take a market or a cate-

year. Long-term is anything more than one fiscal

Build-

gory and segment it. Once we segmented the market, we then

ing immediate sales for our product or service is short-term.

tried to apply various communication disciplines-advertising,

Brand building is

Therefore, we plan whether we'll

sales promotion, or direct marketing. We tried to take activ -

give our target messages or incentives and the impact of those

ities that had been developed separately and pulled them into

messages or incentives, either short-term or long-term.

an integrated whole. In short, we've tried to "consolidate and

segregate." Take the market, segment it, and then communi-

Sources: Don E. Schultz, "A New IMC Mantra," The Marketing

cate separately to the segments.

News, May 26, 1997, p. 8; Richard Linnett, "Full COlirt Press,"

Consider a new approach. Rather than starting with total

Adweek, January 31, 2000, pp. 3-6; Don E. Schultz, "Structural

market, start with individual customers and prospects.

Straight Jackets Stifle Integrated Success," The Marketing News,

Aggregate them based on their behavior. Let the customers

March 1, 1999, p. 8; Don E. Schultz,

to Create Your Own

Worst Enemy," The Marketing News, July 3, 2000, p. 10.

prospects create their own groups or'segments. That's

aggregation. Then look at the way customers and prospects

THE MEANING OF MARKETING COMMUNICATON

189

are users and potential users of the product, the target audience may encompass a much

larger or smaller group of people. More specifically, the target audience includes all indi-

viduals, groups, and institutions that receive the marketing message and employ this infor-

mation either as a basis for making a product decision or in some way employ it to evaluate

the sponsoring business. Thus, the target market for E.P.T. pregnancy tests might be women

between the ages of 18-34, with a college education; the target audience might also include

parents of the youngest of these women, who either approve or disapprove of this product

based on advertising messages, government agencies who assess the truthfulness of the prod-

uct claims, and potential stockholders who determine the future success of the firm based

on the perceived quality of the messages. IMC must identify all members of the target audi-

ence and must consider how the communication strategy must change in response to this

membership.

In the end, the role of IMC is to communicate with target audiences in a manner that

accurately and convincingly relays the marketing strategy of the firm.

Integrated Marketing Communication

Instead of a functional approach, IMC attempts to integrate these functions into a collective

strategy. If conducted properly, IMC results in a more effective achievement of an organi-

zation's communications objectives. Although it is difficult to determine exactly what prompted

the move to IMC, experts speculate as to several possible interrelated causes. Historically,

mass media has been characterized because of its general inability to measure its results,

especially sales. Recently, the availability of consumer information (especially purchase pat-

terns) through single-source technology such as store scanners and other related technology

has meant that marketers are now able to correlate promotional activities with consumer behav-

ior. During this same period, companies have been downsizing their operations and

expec-

tations have been expanded. This greater expectation has carried over

the

client-advertising agency reiationship. Agency employees can no longer remain specialists.

Rather, they must understand all the functions performed for the client, as well as their own.

In reality, IMC appears to be much the same as a promotional strategy, a concept that has

been around for several years. Perhaps the term "IMC" has emerged due to the confusion with the term "sales promotion" and the failure of promotion to be adopted by the advertising industry. Only time will tell whether IMC will become a salient part of marketing com-

munication . (More was said about IMC in the previous Integrated Marketing box .)

THE MEA NING OF M ARKETING COMMUNICATION

Defining the concept of

communication (MC) is not an easy task, because in a

real sense, everything the company does has communication potential. The price placed on

a product communicates something very specific about the product. A company that chooses

to distribute their products strictly through discount stores tells the consumer a great

Yet if all of these things are considered communication, the following definition is offered:

Marketing communication includes all the identifiable efforts on the part of the seller

that are intended to help persuade buyers to accept the seller's message and store it

in retrievable form.

Note that the central theme of the communication process is persuasion. Communication

is most defmitely goal-directed. It is not intended to be an arbitrary, haphazard activity. Each of the tools used ir. marketing communication has specific potentialities and complexities

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