MKT570 Integrated Marketing Communications Integrated Components

As part of your plan you need to identify:

• Communication objectives (What are your key objectives for the campaign?)
• Segments and target market (who are your consumers/customers/clients?)
• “Creative idea” what is your message?
•  Positioning Strategy
• Communication strategy Mix Media Mix (digital, print, social etc.)
• Basic budget concepts (how much will your media/creative messages cost?)
• Evaluation metrics (how will you measure the success? – Brand Awareness needs to be defined through research both before and after the campaign etc.)

Learning outcomes:

• being able to evaluate theoretical concepts underlying integrated marketing communications;
• being able to examine and evaluate various elements of a contemporary communication mix;
• being able to critically evaluate marketing communications for a range of organisations and reflect on current organisational marketing by using communications tools; and
• being able to apply theoretical frameworks that integrate various elements of marketing communication to a specific organisation communications problem to develop an IMC plan.

Answer:

Introduction

Coca Cola Amatil is an Australian based soft drink company. Coca Cola Amatil is the largest Beverage Company in Australia providing different brands of product. The organization consists of structure, policies and corporate culture in an extremely changing environment. They  operate on franchised distribution system where they only produce  the syrup which is been sold to various bottlers  Coca Cola’s marketing strategies drive it to be the pioneer in the soft drink industry. They follow the market strategy that focus on adopting the local culture of the country they are working.  The brand wants to refresh the world by inspiring moment of happiness and cheerfulness.  This is how they will create value that will create market difference.  The report provides with the Budget planning and communication plan (Our Company, 2017)

Communication Objectives

The key purpose of this report is to develop An IMC plan. The integrated components used by the company are mass media methodology. These methodologies include, advertising, print media and banner advertisements.  This approach is used in well coordination with the marketing mix; direct marketing and web based interactive and social media promotional tools (Luxton, Reid & Mavondo, 2015).  Coca Cola Amatil is using the IMC plan to communicate with the target market. It is using 360 degrees communication strategy to get in touch with the customers. The communication plan is adopted to create emotions and affiliations. The mixed IMC strategy focuses on bringing value to the product. The fun tradition professed by the company provides with a strong market base (Belch, Belch, Kerr & Powell, 2014).  

Creative Idea

The purpose of IMC plan is to attract customers through interactive promotional offers. The primary focus is to generate Awareness in Australia regarding the product and to introduce new social media campaign in coming months.

Segment and target market

The brand strategy of Coca Cola Amatil is most prolific in marketing history.  They are repeatedly been ranked among the soft drink companies in Australia as a direct result of its aggressive advertising campaigns. The company is targeting the youth going to college and professionals.  Direct marketing incorporated by the company includes vendor company partnership designed for exclusivity (Blakeman, 2014). They are sponsoring in various sports an event that is creating brand awareness. This helps in one-to –one sale to the client. In recent time the brand has shifted its focus over the web based marketing campaign. This helps the brand in universal recognition. Their differential brand strategy has helped in creating market accuracy. They have an interactive marketing strategy. New product, online gaming and social culture used by the brand has a permanent impact over the brand image.  The brand has a long-term commitment to assure consumer interest (Percy, 2014). Sales promotion is aimed to fulfil the market strategy that focus on retail and food services.  They have a direct link with the restaurant for accompaniment. The market strategy helps in meeting the market target. The meals are comprised of convenience foods like hamburgers, hot dogs, French fries, etc. They are often complemented with the Coke product as an accompaniment.  These food products can be combined with the Coca Cola Amatil   brand drinks for menu optimization. The specialty beverages are as follows: Diet Coke, Cherry Coke, and others (Schultz, Patti & Kitchen, 2013).

Position strategy

Coca Cola is a brand with highest brand equity. With an effective brand promotional strategy, the brand has created an eminent place in the market.  Their heavy promotional strategies are effective on creating a long-term sustainable market.  Coca Cola is a single brand with different variants sharing similar value.  Taste the feelings campaign is an idea that put forward the feature of emotional aspect of the brand (Patti, et al 2017).  The integrated marketing plan is based on celebrating the experience throughout the year. They focus on an emotional product communication.  Open happiness is about exploring the role of Coca Cola in exploring happiness. The international network of the brand is focusing over an integrated communication plan. This is helping in promoting the brand interest internationally (Thorson & Moore, 2013).

Communication strategy

The key to a healthy business is a continuous investment.  They have made choice to make an investment on increasing the quantity and quality of the brand.  They have achieved it by forming a strategic alliance with the local companies. At the same time they are investing on the same time.  The company started a global marketing campaign in 2015 to support entire Coca Cola products.  With an aggressive market campaign, they are able to gain a competitive market advantage by promoting the interest of every individual associated with the brand.  They are sponsoring in various sports an event that is creating brand awareness. This helps in one-to –one sale to the client. In recent time the brand has shifted its focus over the web based marketing campaign. This helps the brand in universal recognition. This process has however helped in managing the whole process of advertising and communication.   The advertisement process is important enough to manage the activities in an effective way throughout the world (Barger & Labrecque, 2013).

Advertising

(Social Marketing by CCA)

Advertising is a key strategy of Coca Cola.  Over the years, the brand is increasingly using an effective advertising strategy including in-store activations, loyalty points programs, and point-of-sale marketing. The flagship brand has a history of over 125 years. Their advertising strategy has created volatility in the market due to the innovative strategy of the brand.  Coca Cola was previously too dependent on its flagship drink Coke.  The brand is a sluggish hidebound marketer (Barker, 2013).  Coca Cola is an aggressive advertiser when it comes on Product advertisement.  Advertising is an important component when it’s about focusing over the mass consumer market.  They are following the strategy of national marketing.  They introduce different themes and concept through electronic media. All these advertisement strategies help is creating consumer awareness.   Coca is one of the official sponsors at 2014 Olympics. Coca Cola is able to connect with the brand through international marketing strategies.  They have achieved market success due to share a coke campaign.  This allows them to plan an effective strategy in the market followed by an effective brand strategy.  The segmented revenue growth strategy helps in maintaining managing growth across the business sector. In the emerging market, the purpose of the brand is to strengthen brand, while developing the brand, one of the primary focus is to strike a balance in between all the profitable packages.  Creating value for the company in different countries is of great importance considering the brand aspect. They have earned a significant values share in the soft drib industry (Ang, 2014).

Direct Marketing 

The brand is using a direct marketing in many ways by forming a partnership with various restaurants, hotels etc.  This is helping the brand in gearing up with the marketing strategies.  They follow an interest way to meet customer’s demand in order to offer an effective brand in the market. Coca Cola is forcing out the competition by developing strategic alliance with other companies. The direct marketing strategy used by the brand has proved to be market effective. The marketing objective is to create a sales lead by operating an effective push strategy, i.e. the use of enhanced marketing initiatives largely to support distributors and wholesalers, and the final consumers. Coca-Cola operates under the pull strategy and directs its marketing efforts and communication to the final consumers. They do not have any need to generate sales leads (Fill & Turnbull, 2016).

Their marketing campaign devices are conveyed according to thru message, images, sound and features.  This has helped the marketing professional in conveying the message directly to the customers. Messages are sent through images, words and audio material increasing brand awareness. Coca Cola is consumed by millions of people.  The most effective marketing message is conveyed through an effective customer experience.  The linkage between the two points has created an ability to jointly support the IMC plan (Darley, 2016).  

Internet/Interactive marketing

(Digital advertising Strategy embedded by Coca Cola Amatil)

Coca Cola is using an interactive internet mercerising strategy to enhance market capacity.  The company has its own its own website that give a plan to people in order to navigate well. They also have an interactive games, contest, shopping that enable an excellent customer experience. In the modern era, internet marketing is an effective market strategy to create network with people. It is an easy way to connect with the people.  There is an increase in number of people spending time on internet (Parente & Strausbaugh-Hutchinson, 2014). Coca Cola is presenting the online marketing campaign with games, funny animations and videos. Coca Cola is coming up with effective marketing strategies in order to gain market competencies.  This is Coca Cola‘s first exclusively all-digital marketing campaign.  They are running advertisement on Twitter and Facebook to support organizational interest. In the emerging market, the purpose of the brand is to strengthen brand, while developing the brand, one of the primary focus is to strike a balance in between all the profitable packages (Tomše & Snoj, 2014).   Web based and social media campaign used by the company constitutes as a benchmark for the industrial growth. People are engaged over the social media channel to meet with the organizational structure. Based on the number of people involved in the brand, it is possible to manage the brand effectively. Different market tactics are provided on individual social networking sites, to uphold the organizational goal. Crowd-sourced content as well as direct engagement are one of the most fascinating side of social media marketing strategy. Web based interactive marketing is focused on design and functionality, relying on banners, video and public relations.  This market based strategy is helping in managing the brand value in the eyes of the customers. New products, online games, and social, cultural and sporting events are the focus of the Coca Cola Website content. Coca Cola’s commitment towards the market campaign of audience commitment all through their online marketing policies is well recognized.   The smart market strategy helps in managing the organization in dealing with the social media promotion (Al Khattab, As ‘ad & Zaidan, 2015).

Sales Promotion 

Sales promotion is one of the major factor stimulating sales of product.  This is one of the important parts of marketing communication mix. The sales promotion strategy of Coca Cola is based on two strategies involving retail and food service.  The retail efforts include company partnership, direct store delivery and point of sale technique. Direct store delivery plays an important role for the brand along with the supply chain (Hänninen, Hänninen, Karjaluoto & Karjaluoto, 2017).  Food service companies are directly focusing on the brand in order to manage the market growth. These meals are well coordinated with Coca Cola in order to provide with sales promotion.  These drinks are added to provide with menu optimization.  The integrated components used by Coca Cola have helped in utilizing an effective marketing mix strategy. These components are important enough to expand market advantage. It is important for the brand to manage the brand in a special way in order to gain market competencies (Schlinke & Crain, 2013).   

The growing use of sales promotion has resulted in promotion clutter similar to advertising cluster. Manufacturers are using an effective brand strategy to seek attention of the customers. For the purpose, they are providing with an effective brand strategy in order to seek attention of the customers. Marketing incorporated by the company includes vendor company partnership designed for exclusivity. They are sponsoring in various sports an event that is creating brand awareness. This helps in one-to –one sale to the client (Pawar, 2014). In recent time the brand has shifted its focus over the web based marketing campaign there are premium offers provided by the company to seek the attention of people. This allow in accelerating the revenue. The special gift items given to the customers has allowed in managing the brand value. They consistently participate in the organizational value mechanism.  This is important for the brand in order to gain sustainable market strategy.  Sales promotion is important for a brand in order to accelerate sales.  This helps in creating awareness among people.  Based on this, the sales promotional tools are important enough to create interest of people. The awareness of product and value is important for gaining effective results. The meals are comprised of convenience foods like hamburgers, hot dogs, French fries, etc. They are often complemented with the Coke product as an accompaniment (Czinkota and Ronkainen, 2013).  

Publicity and Public Relation 

The important part of an IMC plan is to create awareness among people. These market strategies will help in brand awareness in order to grow effectively.  Publicity refers to a non-communication process where the product is been publicized without any money. Coca Cola is using its website as an important component of unpaid publicity.  This channel is used as an important component to meet the requirements of brand promotion. In the recent time, the brand is using public relation tools to develop relation with the people. This is an important component of an IMC plan (Gummesson, 2011). This particularly focuses on developing a positive brand image. This will allow the brand to create a positive impact on people. They are using social media campaign to generate awareness. The social cause and CSR helps in embarking brand awareness for a longer time –period.  They are using effective campaigns in the developing countries. This has helped in creating a positive impact on the brand. The participation by brand is one of the important tools that allow the brand in generating awareness. An Effective IMC plan is important enough to build a better plan. The plan is important for creating better opportunities in order to manage the relationship with the stakeholders in an appropriate way. This is somehow important for a brand to manage the activities through publicity (Dunckley, 2017).

Personal selling 

Under this process the seller directly distribute the goods to the customer. It is one of the direct forms of selling. In order to generate awareness, one meted of IMC is to generate personal touch with the customer. This strategy helps in achieving maximum result through an appropriate implication of strategies. Coca Cola Amatil focus on using an effective brand strategy by using personal selling method. These strategies are important for managing a consistent growth and creating ample of business opportunity (Jain and Haley, 2009). In order to remain competitive, it is important to use personal selling method. These methods are important for making the best efforts. Altogether, it is important from the point of view of the brand. This helps in one-to –one sale to the client. In recent time the brand has shifted its focus over the web based marketing campaign. This helps the brand in universal recognition. Their differential brand strategy has helped in creating market accuracy. They have an interactive marketing strategy (Hollensen, 2015). 

Basic budget concepts

The purpose of the IMC plan is to generate awareness among customer. The soft drink market is already very competitive. There are brands like PepsiCo, Coca Cola etc causing excessive competition. Under such a situation it is relevant an effective budget. This budget plan focuses on the integration plan. It is important enough to meet the changes that are taking place in the business environment. An effective budget plan gives a concrete idea to the brand in order to diversify its activities. Budget allocation is important for a business to understand the consequences of the effective budget allocation plans. The process of budgeting is important in meeting up with the expectations of people. IMC in the recent time has become a necessity for the business organizations. In this situation it is important to allocate the fund appropriately (Jobber and Ellis-Chadwick, 2012).

The crucial purposes of budgeting include:

• A process to control resources
• To communicate responsibility center managers
• There is a need to motivate managers to achieve budget goals
• To find out ways to evaluate the performance of managers
• Providing with a visible company’s performance(Kotler, 2012)

Analysis

A budget of $ 2 million is taken for the IMC project. Before developing a message, it is important to determine the target market. Here the target market is the young population.   This is important from the point of view of developing an integrated marketing communications plan. While assessing the customer behavior, one can focus on the strategy. This includes demographic characteristics, education level, gender, income, and geographic location.

Identity

After identification of the target audience, it is essential to create a unique identity of brand or company.  The brand will make an investment of 50 percent on advertising. It is due to the fact that a large section of youth is connected through media.  This will be effective if it appeals to an important need or value. By creating a unique identity, or "positioning," a brand can gain success within a short period of time.  This help in distinguishing the idea of product from the competition. The rest 20 percent is through the social media channel. This is an important way of reaching to the audience. Hence, it is suggested to invest on the social media channeling order to generate awareness. In this way the message of integrated marketing communications plan will embody this unique identity.  The rest of the amount will be distributed in the other channels.

Goals

A comprehensive integrated marketing communications plan helps in managing the organizational objectives. In this way it is possible to allocate the money in a correct way. The primary focus o budget is to gain market competency.  In this case the focus is to generate 20 percent awareness. A second objective is to reach the target audience twice a week all through the campaign's first quarter.

Budget

The overall campaign is to meet the organizational interest that helps in advertising and promotion activities. The purpose is to manage the plans specifically that will go in the direction of advertisements, promotional contests and online social media. The budget will account for the unexpected changes taking place in the surrounding. The competition matches efforts, which need to adjust the frequency of promotions. This help in managing to adjust brand identity to counter the competition. The budgets account as an important part of promotional activity.

Evaluation metrics

The process of evaluation metrics help in managing the IMC process. Web based and social media campaign used by the company constitutes as a benchmark for the industrial growth. People are engaged over the social media channel to meet with the organizational structure. Based on the number of people involved in the brand, it is possible to manage the brand effectively.  The process of IMC is important enough to manage the organizational value and budget planning. This plan will help in managing the budget in order to coordinate the function by managing the budget related function. It is however important to coordinate the budget analysis in order to manage functions. They have achieved market success due to share a coke campaign.  This allows them to plan an effective strategy in the market followed by an effective brand strategy.  The segmented revenue growth strategy helps in maintaining managing growth across the business sector. In the emerging market, the purpose of the brand is to strengthen brand, while developing the brand, one of the primary focus is to strike a balance in between all the profitable packages. Different market tactics are provided on individual social networking sites, to uphold the organizational goal. Crowd-sourced content as well as direct engagement are one of the most fascinating side of social media marketing strategy. Web based interactive marketing is focused on design and functionality, relying on banners, video and public relations.  The process involve managing IMC in an effective way by

Conclusion

To conclude, an IMC plan is important for the company in order to attract market share. It is evident from the research that a brand needs a systematic plan to gain market competency. The report comprises of integrated marketing communication plan of Coca Cola Amatil. ).  The integrated marketing plan is based on celebrating the experience throughout the year. They focus on an emotional product communication.  The brand is already known well in the Australian Market but there is a need to expand business operations in foreign nation as well. The purpose of plan is to allocate the budget according to the need. This plan focuses on gaining awareness in terms of Communication. In an integrated business atmosphere, the need of an IMC plan is to value the market requirements. The changes in the IMC plan are required by implementing effective activities in Coca Cola Amatil. The change in business model will help in managing the changes in an effective way. This will help in adding accuracy to the organizational goals. Coca Cola Amatil focus on using an effective brand strategy by using personal selling method. These strategies are important for managing a consistent growth and creating ample of business opportunity. It is further recommended to add value through different foodservices. The Food service companies are directly focusing on the brand in order to manage the market growth. These meals are well coordinated with Coca Cola in order to provide with sales promotion.  These drinks are added to provide with menu optimization.  

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