INTRODUCTION Background of the study Marketing has now become one of the most essential tactics in the post

modern business sector. The competition in the industry is so high that the companies are trying hard to reach their products and services maximum to the great part of customers. Here comes the relevance of marketing and marketing communication. The companies with excellent marketing strategy and communication are able to gain huge market share as well as great competitive advantage in the market and industry. The traditional type of marketing like informing the customers about the products and services has been completely replaced with various activities and aspects of marketing. These functional activities of marketing with effective marketing communication play a crucial role in the success of business. Marketing communication is the key factor in marketing where the organisation is able to share the information regarding the products and services. The main purpose of marketing is to increase the sales and revenue of the organisation. Prior to the marketing, the organisation should clearly design and develop a marketing plan which should be able to communicate effectively with the public. Thus, a well developed marketing plan can support the marketing communication strategies of the organisation. This in turn helps the company to reach the right information to the target audience thereby creating a positive response from them. As per the post modern concept of marketing communication, the mixed method approach would be the best option for effective communication. In other way, it can be said that the application of communication mix is excellent for reinforcing the communication and each component of the marketing mix plays a vital role in the entire process of marketing. The following ways of communication is necessary for an effective and excellent marketing communication approach

which include mainly advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations and direct marketing. Rationale of selecting the research topic The selection of any research topic results from the may motivating factors which can be personal, academic or industrial. In this research study, the researcher has been motivated by the above mentioned factors for selecting this specific topic as the research work. The researcher gives the details for the reasons in being motivated to select this topic for the research work. The primary factor for selecting the topic is the academic. As the researcher is a MBA student of Manga Carta College, Oxford , the course requires a submission of dissertation. This is very important for the completion of MBA course and to get the MBA degree. Hence, the researcher is obliged to conduct a research study on the topic related with MBA. Thus, the researcher selected the topic related to marketing communication as a part of academic course. The secondary factor for motivation of selecting the topic by the researcher is the industrial one. For this research study, the banking sector is chosen as the industry in which the Barclays PLC bank is selected as the company by the researcher. The reason for the selection is that the banking industry is a vast and booming industry. The research conducted in the banking industry will helpful for the researcher and also is worth for the current research as this industry is so close to the global economy. The selection for the Barclays bank is due to its global presence and it has been successful in implementing the integrated marketing communication which is the vital part of the research topic. Third factor is the personal motive of the researcher. The researcher has experience in the banking sector before joining to the MBA course at Manga Carta College, Oxford . Hence, the research in the banking field helps the researcher to continue the career in the future in the banking field itself. Moreover, the researcher is more interested in the marketing section of the banking field because of the experience earned while working in the marketing field of HDFC bank, India.

Literature Review Introduction to marketing Marketing can be considered as a community process in which the whole society and the organisation are equally involved. It is an art of selling the goods and services of an organisation to the right customers. Even though there is no clear definition for marketing, it is the process of creating, promoting and delivering the products and services to the customers thereby increases the sales and revenue of the organisation. Marketing is carefully promoted among the public by integrating the organizational and individual goals and according to which the marketing process is clearly planned, executed, promoted and finally the goods and services are distributed. Thus, it helps to meet the targets and goals of the organization. Marketing helps in identifying the needs of the customers and tactically promote the distribution of products and services among them. Introduction to marketing communication Marketing communication is one of the vital parts of the entire marketing process. Marketing communication signifies the promotion of the sales of products and services through effective communication with the customers. Marketing communication has got much relevance as it is clear that only through effective communication, the target customers will get convinced with the products and services and thereby they are influenced to take decision to buy the products and services. Hence, the organizations with an effective marketing communication strategy can bring success in the market and industry. There are many ways in marketing communication through which the organisation can share or deliver the right message and information to the right customers. But it depends on the situation and needs of the market. Introduction to integrated marketing communication

The integrated marketing communication is a type of marketing communication which consists of all the available methods of communication with the public or in other words, it is a combination of all the communication methods that are available for communicating with the public or customers effectively. The integrated marketing communication brings more benefit to the organization as it is easily reachable and valid to the right target than the single type of method of communication. Thus, it helps in gaining more competitive advantage which increases the sales and revenue of the organization. Conclusion The integrated marketing communication is found to be an effective communication approach which has brought many benefits to the organizations. The organizations should implement this type of marketing communication in order to achieve more competitive advantage and also in meeting the goals and objectives. The integrated marketing communication has now got much relevance in the business sector due to its great advantages and therefore the organizations are incorporating it as a major process in the marketing communication. Research methodology Introduction This section gives the details of the various research methods and methodologies that will be used by the researcher for conducting the researcher and also gives the reasons for selecting those specific methods and methodologies for the research. Validity and reliability of the research The most important aspects of the research form the validity and reliability. They reveal the faith and strength of a research. Hence, it is important for the researchers to keep their research faithful and strong thereby proving the validity and reliability of the research. In this research work, the researcher will be maintaining the reliability of the methods through which the validity of the data will be proved.

Research methods The main research methods include the qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative method helps in describing the topic understudy whereas the quantitative method helps in collecting and interpreting the data quantitatively with the support of tables, graphs, charts etc. Research onion It represents the research process for conducting the research. The following diagram shows an outline of the process in the research onion.

Research philosophy This is the first sector of the research onion which needs to be followed by the researcher while applying the research methods in the research. The main research philosophies are detailed below.

Positivism This research philosophy helps to find out the truth through research. It proves the things from the generalizations. Interpretivism This research philosophy is opposite to positivism and considers the research and world to be subjective. It is associated with the qualitiative research. The topic needs to be an understanding in the deeper level for interpretivism. Realism This philosophy is the combination of positivism and interpretivism. It always searches the reality regarding the topic under study. Choice of research philosophy As the researcher needs to find out the real situation of the topic, the research philosophy, realism is chosen for this research study. Research approaches The research approaches are of two types and the researcher needs to follow any of the two approaches. Inductive approach In this approach, the researcher can move from a specific concept to the theories and wider generalizations. It is also considered as bottom approach.The following diagram gives an outline of inductive approach.

Deductive approach This approach is also called as waterfall approach. In this approach, the researcher can move from generalizations to more specific part of the research topic. Selected research approach As the researcher will start from the theory and then move on to specific conclusion, deductive approach is selected from the two approaches. Research choices This the next sector of the research onion which consists of two choices - mono and mixed methods

Mono method In this method, the researcher can use only one type of method like either qualitative or quantitative. Mixed method In this method, the researcher can use both more than one method that is both qualitative and quantitative method in a single study itself. For this research study, the researcher has selected the mixed method for conducting the research so that the advantages of both qualitative and quantitative methods can be used to get the best result for the research. Primary and secondary research The research study requires primary and secondary research. Secondary research This research is done using the already existing data. It helps to gather information related to the topic under study and also in the better understanding of the topic. There are various sources available for conducting the primary research. Primary research This research is conducted to gather fresh and new data from the field of research under study. Here, the researcher directly involve in the research and experience the current situation of the topic under study. Hence, the data collected will be the personal experience of the researcher. For this research work, the researcher will be using both primary and secondary research for collecting the right data for the study.

Data collection methods The researcher can use many ways for collecting the data which is discussed in the upcoming section. Secondary data collection methods The secondary data can be collected from both internally and externally. The internal secondary data can be collected from the company selected for conducting the research and external secondary data can be collected from published articles, journals etc. In this research study, the researcher collects the internal secondary data from Barclays bank and the external secondary data is collected by referring the books from the Manga Carta College library, online library etc Primary data collection methods There are various ways of collecting the primary data like interview method, observation method, questionnaire method etc. The primary data collection methods that are selected by the researcher is detailed below. Observation method Here, the researcher can collect the primary data from the observation directly or indirectly. In this particular research, the researcher will observe the integrated marketing communication and the communication process of the Barclays Bank. This helps to gather qualitative method. Interview method Here, the researcher will be conducting personal interview with the employees in the marketing field of Barclays bank. The interview pattern will be structured consisting of 3 questions. This also helps to gather qualitative data.

Questionnaire method Here, the researcher will be distributing 100 questionnaires among the employees of the Barclays bank . This helps to gather quantitative data. Sampling As the researcher cannot include the whole employees of the Barclays bank, only some of the employees can be participated for conducting the research. The sampling process helps to pick out the required respondents that can represent the entire population of the organization. Hence, the researcher will be using simple random sampling method.