Evaluation of the elements of Integrated Marketing Communication

rs. This helps an organization to create awareness about the brand among its customers. An integrated marketing communication is not only important in marketing but also to maintain a good interaction between an organization and its customers (pp. 121). In today’s highly competitive market an effective IMC campaign helps an organization to create brand loyalty related to a particular product or service. Dutta (2010) If your communication is effective and creative and you are able to present the features of the product or service nicely in front of the customer in that case a customer will not think twice to purchase your product, it doesn’t matter how a different brand providing similar product or service with lesser price, it is all about creativity. The main purpose of an integrated marketing communication campaign is to build a relationship with your customers for a long term basis. An integrated marketing communication is not all about spreading message in the same time it is also taking feedback from its customers regarding the usability of a product or service so that a company or an organization can eliminate those unwanted issues which may affect the brand image (pp. 180-183).

These days are gone when a company or an organization focused only on promoting products or services through IMC campaigns, the market scenario has changed a lot due to globalization it is all about competition. Therefore taking of feedback is also important to maintain the long term sustainability of a brand.

In order to convey message efficient and effectively an appropriate medium of communication is also essential in integrated marketing communication campaign. Though there are various medium of communication present now days to convey marketing message such as Television, Radio, News Paper, Web and Social media etc. If an organization or a company is not able to identify the correct medium for their campaign sometimes the message spread may go against the company and can harm the overall brand image. Suppose a company spread the massage over internet for its remote and rural area’s target audience where internet is not easily accessible in that case there will be a lack in communication process because the message spread will not properly reach to its target audiences and it will not be considered as a successful integrated marketing communication campaign.

Hungry Jack’s Australia and its IMC campaign

Hungry Jack’s is a subsidiary of Burger king Australia the company deals in franchise business. The company was found in 1971, headquarters based in Osborne Park, Western Australia. It is a fast food company and few of its products are Hamburgers, Chicken products, Deserts etc (Hungryjacks.com/au, 2016, Para. 1).

We have chosen Hungry Jack’s Australia to critique its IMC campaign with relation to Belch communication model theory. When we talk about Hungry Jacks Australia’s IMC campaign we notice bizarre of thing because from the starting the company has experimented with various IMC campaigns, though the ratio of success rate is quite low according to their investments in IMC campaign. From last few years we have noticed that Hungry Jacks has made their focus on social media campaign and they are using this social media tool as their main integrated marketing communication campaign an example of that is their shake and win mobile app after launching of that app it has become the most downloaded Australian app in Apple app store. This app has developed by Clemenger BBDO Sydney; through this app they attracted their targeted segment by availing various discounts from Hungry Jacks exclusive stores. Get the app shake the mobile after installing it and avail discount coupon. Hungry jacks have promoted this app through various YouTube channels (Campaignbrief, 2012, Para. 1-4). Another thing of their social media campaign consist of promoting low fat burgers targeting women segment through Facebook, twitter etc.  But this not the end we cannot ignore their recent move for promoting their hamburgers by taken the advantages of recent political scenario where they run a thirty seconds advertisement through various social sites and asked the Australian people to vote for their PM . People need to go to the website and cast their vote, with a successful submission of their vote people were rewarded with free meal or upgraded meal from various Hungry Jacks stores. The campaign was created by Channel T a social agency. All in all we can say that Hungry Jacks has made lots of strategically change in their integrated marketing communication campaign compare to the previous ones they have adapted the new era of marketing and implemented this through various social media IMC campaigns (Canning, 2016, Para. 1-8).     

Belch et al’s theoretical communication model  

We need to evaluate Hungry Jack’s IMC campaign with relate to Belch communication model and need to apply those theories in our recommendations. Therefore discussion of Belch’s model is quite important for us to get an idea about how He has mentioned all sections of an IMC for a successful campaign.

Integrated Marketing Communication plan:

Marketing objective

↓

Analysis of promotion program situation

↓

Analysis of communication process

↓

Budget determination

↓              ↑

Develop integrated marketing communication program

          ↓                              ↓                                  ↓                                    ↓                                    ↓                      

Advertising        Sales promotion         Personal selling               PR/Publicity            Direct marketing

      ↓      ↑                     ↓        ↑                         ↓        ↑                          ↓     ↑                             ↓       ↑

Advertising         Sales promotion           Personal selling            PR/Publicity            Direct marketing

Objectives               Objectives                     Objectives                 Objectives                     Objectives

   ↓        ↑                      ↓       ↑                          ↓        ↑                        ↓       ↑                            ↓         ↑

Message and      Sales promotion           Personal selling          PR/Publicity               Direct marketing

Media strategy         Strategy                       Strategy                     Strategy                          Strategy

Integration and implementation of communications strategy

          ↓                              ↓                                    ↓                                ↓                                       ↓

                                                                                ↓ 

Monitoring, evaluating and controlling integrated marketing communications program

Caption: Belch’s model of communication process

Source: Internet

Source: Belch & Belch (2014) In communication process source is the organization from where the message starts or sent (pp. 453-455).

Message: Belch & Belch (2014) Message is the information which will convey to its customers for communication. In IMC message must be a creative one and specific (pp. 453-455).

Channel: Belch & Belch (2014) Channel is the medium through which a message transfers from one end to another. Channel must be chose according to the target audience (pp. 453-455).

Receiver/Decoding: Belch & Belch (2014) Receiver is the person who will receive the message and decoding is the process of analyzing the message to get its actual meaning (pp. 453-455).

Noise: Belch & Belch (2014) throughout the whole communication process the sent message interacts with various factors this may result in repetition of message this is called noise in communication process (pp. 453-455).

Feedback: Belch & Belch (2014) after decoding the message the receiver gives the response regarding the message to the sender (pp. 453-455).

Critically evaluation of Hungry Jack’s IMC campaign

Promoting your brand through mobile app is good but for that you need to choose an appropriate channel. According to Belch’s model the channel for communication must be selected by keeping the target audience in your mind. Of course Hungry Jack’s chosen medium or channel is not good at all, you made a mobile app and promoting it through YouTube channels only, how many users are there in YouTube? How many of them watch videos regularly? The percentage is limited also there is a feature in YouTube to block adds most of us do it to face or watch hassle free videos. Not only this but also they have made the app availability only through Apple store and they ignored the vast Android market, the users of Android is quite higher than Apple.

 

During the time of promoting low fat burgers for women target segment they stop all other campaigns and run only one campaign which is Nothing naughty about it especially designed for women segment and choose the social media where other segments are also attached, choosing of social media is not good when you are delivering a specific message to specific target audience, here your channel for communication must be specific where the target audience visits regularly.

 

According to Belch your delivered message must be a creative one and need to make a positive impact on your target segment. When we talk about the Hungry jacks strategy for promoting their hamburgers by taking the help of political scenario, do you thing that it is the right way to promote, no never because there are many people who don’t like politics at all this strategy may harm their brand image badly.

 

Considering social media as your main and major integrated marketing communication tool can become risky because there are lots of disadvantages present in social media such as the review system if someone put a bad review on your message you cannot delete it or if you can, it will create a bad impression in front of your consumers that you are intentionally hiding the bad side of yours not only this but also any bad thing can go viral within a second it is impossible to control such things on social media.

 

According to Belch you should choose a channel or medium where you can communicate effectively with your target segment. Promoting through twitter channel is not good at all your communication will not be considered as much as effective on twitter because there is a word restriction or word limit on twitter, sometime it may become impossible to deliver an effective message within 140 words.

Conclusion

From the above analysis we have gather the knowledge about an integrated marketing communication campaign and understand the importance of IMC in a marketing strategy. We have found that a communication medium or a channel plays a key role while delivering a message to your particular target audiences also the channel or medium must be selected by keeping the target audience in your mind, where customer interacts frequently. In its IMC campaign Hungry Jack’s is not good enough, they are lacking in choosing of appropriate medium also the sent message is not appropriate for their promotion strategy, which may affect their brand image and decrease in sales.

Recommendations

Following are the recommendations for their successful operation in IMC campaign:

While promoting a mobile app they should go for mass media strategy only a specific medium will not work, the users of YouTube are limited also now days everyone owns a mobile phone. Therefore choosing of mass media will assist them in delivering the message vastly and it will reach to maximum number of customers (Marketing-schools.org, 2012, Para. 2-3).

They should avoid using social media while delivering a specific message to a specific target audience, like what they did in promoting low fat burgers it was totally a worst one. Because under social media each and every target segment is connected. A specific message for a specific target audience may create a bad impact on other segments too. You must go for specific channel where your particular segment visits regularly. For an example low fat burgers are related to women segment they can promote it through cooking TV channels, lifestyle TV channels and women’s magazine (Knauer, 2016, Para. 1-2).

They must avoid promoting its products with relating to political scenarios rather they can promote by relating various sports, games etc because Australian people are more involved in sports compare to other countries.

Global warming is becoming a big issue now days, they must encourage people for not throwing the packets of burgers, meals etc. here and there through their sent message this way they can show that how much concern they are about eco-friendly system.

According to Belch an IMC campaign must be delivered vastly so that the message can reach to maximum number of customers, only depending on social media is not good enough they should also promote through other mediums like TV, News Paper, and Radio etc. so that they can reach the maximum number of customers.  

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