An Assignment

On
Integrated Marketing Communication,
Centralized and decentralized system
Semester-3
Batch -2015-2017
M.B.A. Programme
Consumer Behaviour
Tushargiri M. Gauswami
Roll No.
Guided By:
Dr. Jay Badiyani
Submitted To:
Department Of Business Administration
M. K. Bhavnagar University
Bhavnagar

Integrated Marketing Communication

Meaning
it is the coordination and integration of all marketing communication tools,
avenues and sources within a company into a seamless program that maximizes the
impact on consumer and other end users at a minimum cost.

Tools for Integrated Marketing Communication

1. Advertising

TV

newspaper

i. Pervasiveness

advertising permits a seller to repeat a message many times. It allows the

buyer to receive & compare the message of various competitors.

Large scale advertising say something positive about the seller size, power &
success.

ii.

Amplified Expressiveness
Advertising provide opportunities for dramatizing the company & its product
through the artful use of print, sound & color.

iii. Impersonality
The audience does not feel obligated to pay attention or respond to
advertising.
Advertising is monologue in front of, not a dialogue with, the audience.

2. Personal selling
Personal selling is a most effective tool at later stage of buying process,
particularly in building up buyer performance, conviction & action.
Personal selling has a three distinctive qualities.

i.

Personal Interaction
Personal selling involves an immediate & interactive relationship between
two or more persons.
Each party is able to observe the other reactions.

ii. Cultivation
Personal selling permits all kinds of relationship to spring up, ranging from a
matter-of-fact selling relationship to a deep personal friendship.

iii. Response
Personal selling makes the buyer feel under some obligation for having
listened to the sales talk.

3. Sales Promotion
Company use sales promotion tools, coupons, contests, premiums and the
like to draw a stronger & quicker buyer response.
Sales promotion can be use for short run effects such as to highlight product
offers sale.
Sales promotion tools offer three distinctive benefits

i.

Communication
They gain attention and may lead the consumer to the product.

ii. Incentive
They incorporate some concession, inducement or contribution that give
values to the consumer.

iii. Invitation
They include a distinct invitation to engage in the transaction now.

4. Public Relations
i.

High credibility
News stories and features are more authentic and credible to reader than
ads.

ii. Ability to catch buyers off guard

Public relation can reach prospects that prefer to avoid salespeople &
advertisements.

iii. Dramatization
Public relations have potential dramatizing a company or product.

5. Direct Marketing
The many forms of direct marketing , direct mail, telemarketing, internet
marketing etc.

i.

Customized
The message can prepare to appeal to the addressed individual.

ii. Up to date
A message can be prepare very quickly.

iii. Interactive
The message can be change depending to the persons response.

Benefits
1. Long-term planning/ Long-term success

 The decision to develop and run an integrated marketing campaign is a longterm commitment, but one that will bring big rewards.
86 % of marketing professional agree that successfully integrating multiple
channels under a single integrated marketing strategy is crucial to their longterm success.

2. Developing trust
The long-term nature of an integrated campaign helps to reinforce brand
messaging and identity, which in turn leads to greater trust.

3. Engagement boost
Better trusted brands achieve considerably more engagement, meaning
customers will be more likely to click on the very enticing link you have
provided them.

4. Takes away the confusion

Marketing professionals agree that clarity of message is crucial for consumer
engagement. Its very easy to get in your own way, and if you are sending
out marketing emails covering a bit of something here and a bit of something
there, its very easy for customers to miss the point you are trying to make.

5. Increased efficiency
Integrating your campaign will help streamline your marketing processes.
Once you have decided on the central message to be implemented across
your various channels, you will find you have a much less complicated
campaign to run.
Instead of needing to create various resources for each medium, its possible
to utilise the same imagery and messages throughout and cut down on
planning, meetings and resource.

6. costs cut
Photography, graphics and content are costly to any business. By integrating
your campaign you will eliminate the need for duplication, as when you
integrate, you share across channels, saving money and valuable time.

 You should also think about how you can use these images across other areas
of your business.

Disadvantage
Customers can be bombarded with commercial messages from a broad range
of sources, which can be perceived as spammy leading to customer
annoyance and in the case of email marketing, un-subscriptions.
Companies fail to integrate their various communication channels, or have
presence on multiple channels without the resources to dedicate adequate
time to all of them. It 's better to be good at a few channels rather than poor
at many.

Characteristics of integrated marketing

communication
Customers trust the brand promises.
The brand treats different kind of customers in ways appropriate to them.
Customers are happy with the brand experience.
Everyone nurtures what the brand means to committed customers.
Future vision is consistent with core truths of the brand.
The values we experience in our company culture support the values we
express in the Brand.
Quality is understood as that which is good for the customer, employees and
company.
Practices ensure shared learning across the organization.
The organisation works in effective partnership with the members of its value
stream.
Business processes are actively aligned to the brand value position.
Communication is creatively aligned through "big media neutral ideas.
The key evaluation processes are primarily designed to increase knowledge
about what most efficiently creates value for customers.

Participations in IMC process

1. Advertise or client
They have the product, service or causes to be marketed and they provide
the funds that pay for the advertising and promotions.

2. Advertising Agency
This is an outside firm that specializes in the creation, production and
placement of the communication message and that may provide other
services to facilitate the marketing and promotions process

3. Media Organizations
The primary function of media organization is to provide information or
entertainment to their subscribers, viewers or readers but from the point of
view of the promotional planner, the purpose of the media is to provide an
environment for the firm marketing communication programs.

4.Specialist Marketing Communication Specialit organizati

ons are of different categories
i.

Direct-response agencies.

ii.

Sales promotion agencies.

iii.

Interactive agencies.

iv.

Public relation firms.

Model for integrated marketing communication

IMC is more than the coordination of a company outgoing message between
different media and the consistency of the message throughout.

 It is aggressive marketing plan that captures and uses an extensive amount

of customer information and setting and tracking marketing strategy.

Steps of IMC
1. Customer Database
An essential element to implementing integrated marketing that helps to
segment and analyze customer buying habits.

2. Strategies
Insight from analysis of customer data is use to shape marketing, sales and
communication strategies.

3. Tactics
Once the basic strategy is determined the appropriate marketing tactics can
be specified which best targets the specific markets.

4. Evaluate Results
Customer responses and new information about buying habits are collected
and analyzed to determined the effectiveness of the strategy and tactics.

5. Identify the Target Audience

The process must start with a clear target audience in mind: potential buyers
of the companys product, current users, deciders or influencers, individuals,
groups, particular publics, or the general public.

6. Designing a Message
A marketer should begin by winning attention or gaining awareness, creating
interest, inspiring desire and precipitating the action for purchase, in the
prospects in order to enable its product to be adopted by the target public.

7. Choose the Media through which to Send the Message

 There are two broad types of communication channels Personal and Non
personal.

a. Personal communication channel

personal Communication channels, two or more people communicate

directly with each other. They might communicate face-to-face, over the
telephone, through the mail or even through an internet chat.

B. non personal communication channel

Non personal communication channels include media consists of:

1. Print media ,newspapers, magazines, direct mail etc.

2. Broadcast media-radio, television etc.
3. Electronic media-audiotapes, videotapes, CD-ROM, web page etc.
4. Display media-billboards, signs, posters, banners, hoardings etc.

8. Collecting feedback
Feedback on marketing communications may suggest changes in the
promotion programme or in the product offer itself.

Difference between centralized and decentralized

system

Difference between
centralized and
decentralized
system
Centralized system
Many associations struggle with their management information systems and
their membership databases.

One of their primary struggles is the lack of centralized information.

A centralized system means that for member Joe Smith, there is only one
place a user has to go to find his name, primary address, and activities within
the association.
There are several benefits to moving your data to a centralized system.

Benefits
1. Data Integrity
A centralized database means that each member has one primary record,
with primary contact information. Thus when there is a change required
,there is only one place to look to make these changes.

2.Valuable broad marketing info/history

it is much easier to develop reports that show the broad range of activities
that your members are engaged in. With multiple databases, records need to
be matched, de-duping needs to occur, and the opportunity for duplicate
records is greatly increased.

3. Ease of training
Another benefit of a centralized system is that the learning curve for users is
greatly reduced. If all processes are in the same database, then users need
only learn one system, not multiple systems.

4. Support
With a centralized system, support is focused on one product. With many
databases, even if they are built on the same platform, separate support is
required for each.

5. Flexibility

In a crisis or an emergency, standardization of work takes just one step to

revise all the activities at once. This guarantees a greater degree of flexibility
in an organization than a Company with no centralized training.

Disadvantage
1. Delay in Dispatching
The correspondence has been finalized only after final approval given by the
respective functional area managers. For which, the correspondence has
been sent to various functional areas and receives the same for dispatching.
This process makes delay in dispatching.
.

2. Interruption of Work
The centralized correspondence section or department has collect
information from various departments before drafting a letter. The drafted
letter was sent to various departments for getting approval. This may
dislocate the work of various departments.

3. Lack of Basic Knowledge

A centralized correspondence staff may lack adequate technical and

specialized knowledge of various functional departments. This may lead to
inaccurate correspondence.

Decentralized system
The assignment of authorities and responsibilities by the top level
management to the middle or low-level management is known as
Decentralization. It is the perfect opposite of centralization, in which the
decision-making powers are delegated to the departmental, divisional, unit or
centre level managers, organization-wide. Decentralization can also be said
as an addition over Delegation of authority.

Benefits
1. Empowering Employees
Employees can be empowered by having more autonomy to make their own
decisions, giving them a sense of importance and making them feel as if they
have more input in the direction of the organization. It also allows them to
make better use of the knowledge and experience they have gained and
implement some of their own ideas.

2. Relieving the Burden

Decentralizing takes some of the burden of daily business operations off the
business owner. When the owner allows others to perform such tasks as
hiring new employees or ordering supplies, this frees her up to spend more
time on big-picture items, such as planning for expansion or meeting with
important clients.

3. Preparing for Emergencies

A situation may arise where the business owner must be away from the
business for an extended period time because of illness or another type of
emergency. A decentralized structure provides a better chance that the
organization will maintain self-sufficiency because managers and employees
are accustomed to working autonomously.

4. More Efficient Decision-Making

A decentralized organization is able to make decisions more quickly than one
with a centralized structure. A manager often can make a decision without
having to wait for it to go up a chain of command, allowing the organization
to react quickly to situations where fast action can mean the difference
between gaining and losing a customer.

5. Ease of Expansion
decentralization can facilitate the process of expansion. For example, if
expansion results in opening a new business unit in a different geographic
area, decentralization allows the new unit to operate as an independent
entity, meaning it can react more easily to the specific needs of the area,
such as deciding to sell products that appeal to the local market.

6. Better control and supervision

 Decentralisation ensures better control and supervision as the subordinates

at the lowest levels will have the authority to make independent decisions. As
a result they have thorough knowledge of every assignment under their
control and are in a position to make amendments and take corrective action.

7. Quick Decision-Making

Decentralisation brings decision making process closer to the scene of action.

This leads to quicker decision-making of lower level since decisions do not
have to be referred up through the hierarchy.

Disadvantages
1. Uniform policies not Followed
Under decentralisation, it is not possible to follow uniform policies and
standardised procedures. Each manager will work and frame policies
according to his talent.

2. Problem of Co-Ordination
Decentralisation of authority creates problems of co-ordination as authority
lies dispersed widely throughout the organisation.

3. More Financial Burden

Decentralisation requires the employment of trained personnel to accept
authority, it involves more financial burden and a small enterprise cannot
afford to appoint experts in various fields.

4. Require Qualified Personnel

Decentralisation becomes useless when there are no qualified and competent
personnel.

5. Conflict
Decentralisation puts more pressure on divisional heads to realize profits at
any cost. Often in meeting their new profit plans, bring conflicts among
managers.

References:https://www.ama.org/resources/BestPractices/Pages/To-Centralize-or-Decentralize-yourMarketing.aspx
http://www.managementstudyguide.com/integrate
d-marketing-communications.htm#
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/benefits-havingintegrated-marketing-campaign-marc-woodland
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/disadvantagesproviding-much-communication-strategy33339.html