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Introduction
This report provides information about the integrated marketing plan to Sheffield City Council to improve tourism and help the local economy.
First of all, it is important to understand the concept Integrated Marketing Communications . What is Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)? It could be explained as the mixture of all the promotional tools. Semenik explains that it is using all communications tools in a unified way to create synergy (Semenik, 2002).
Whereas, Egan describes that IMC is a strategic business practice used to plan, develop, execute and evaluate, co-ordinated, measurable, persuasive brand communications programmes over time with consumers, customers, prospects and other targeted relevant external and internal audiences (Egan, 2015 p.295).
To summarize, IMC is a simple and effective way to reach the audience (potential consumers) and help them move through the various phases of purchase. IMC is consist of different marketing communications tools such as advertising, social media, direct marketing, public relations, sales promotion, exhibitions, mobile or digital communications and personal selling. All these tools help to deliver different benefits to raise the profile of Sheffield as a tourism destination and to increase tourism annually. This could be an effective way to boost sales and profits within Sheffield to have a positive impact on the Sheffields local economy.
The model SOSTAC invented by PR Smith in 1990s, helps to make marketing strategies and improve the marketing plans. SOSTAC stands for Situation, Objectives, Strategy, Tactics, Action and Control. This is a smart model to analyse the current situation of Sheffield in order to come up with the best solutions to fulfil the main objective of Sheffield City Council.
Definition of advertising in IMC
The chosen marketing tool for this report is advertising. To start with, how to define the advertising? Some dictionaries, advertising agencies and authors explain this notion in different aspects. Oxford Dictionary published that advertising is to describe or draw attention to (a product, service, or event) in a public medium in order to promote sales or attendance (Oxford Dictionary, 2016). On the other hand, Jobber includes the financial aspect in his definition any paid form of non-personal communication of ideas or products in the prime media is called advertising (Jobber, 2012). One of the well-known advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather Advertising Agency explained that advertising is not only a form of art, the main objective for an advertising agency is to make the product interesting in order to make the public buy the product.
Moreover, the advertising media includes some classic and modern means of advertising such as magazine, newspaper, direct mail, radio, television, outdoor, online and product placement. All these different means could help to create awareness, correct misconceptions, increase sales and to introduce product or service.
An amazing and inspirational example of creating awareness and correcting misconceptions could be Always : #LikeAGirl . This commercial came out in 2015 and rapidly broke the stereotypes. They conveyed the message that girls are as strong and competent as boys especially during puberty, a stage of life which is important for Always. In addition, according to campaign live , they created a buzz all over internet and increased sales by 50%. In case of correcting Sheffields image and reinforcing tourism, advertising is the core ingredient to promote local events nationally.
Tycoon Marketing, who is responsible of marketing communications of Sheffield, they are planning to organise Carnival of North in May 2020. This event will take place in Sheffield and transform the Sheffields boring and dark image into exciting, colourful and family holiday destination. The smart objective is to increase Sheffields annual tourism numbers by 26% from 14.3m visitors to 18m for the year 2020.
Critical evaluation of advertising: strengths and weaknesses
The advertising is one of the oldest methods of marketing. It offers various benefits to businesses and consumers. But, at the same time, it faces different challenges in todays modern world.
First of all, the major advantages of advertising are :
- Helps to target larger audience, some forms of advertising like billboards are available to the unlimited number of consumers anytime and anywhere.
- Provides information about the product. Many advertisements let us know the utility and describes the latest trend of new launching product.
- Raises the living standards of consumers. The advertising give awareness and when consumers use those products, it may raise their living standards. The best example of this advantage could be the technological products.
On the other, the advertising has some weaknesses which challenge its effectiveness and efficiency. Some of weaknesses are listed below :
- The advertising could be expensive. That is why, our TV screens are full of multinational companys commercials and even billboards all around the cities are of famous and rich brands. Unfortunately, start-ups and small business couldnt afford the price of the advertising.
- It could manipulates peoples choices and make them spend more than their budget. Nowadays, the main objective of advertising is to create desire. The consumers try to keep up the image shown in advertising, for example, going on a romantic trip in Paris, taking kids to Disneyland and eating out in Michelin restaurants. This is absolutely beneficial for the sellers but could impact the purchasing allowance of the buyer.
- Misleading affirmations about the products, the perfect example could be Kashi, a case was filed against the parent company Kelloggs because they mentioned in their advertisements all natural cereal. Whereas, they had some preservatives which proved that they arent all natural cereal.
As discussed above, the advertising has an huge impact on our lives. The process is based on AIDA model (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action). This model allows to understand different stages of purchase. This is an effective tool to help customers make a final decision of purchase.
But, to be more persuasive and credible, the advertising agencies are also focusing on emotional and rational advertising. Naresh Malhotra explains in his book Review of Marketing Research the proposition of Copeland (1924). They agreed on the fact that individuals buy the product for emotional or rational reasons.
Rational advertising is basically appealing to the reason. It focus on factual benefits of the product or service by relying on statistics, demographics and facts. One of the most famous toothpaste brand Sensodyne claims that 9 out 10 dentists recommend Sensodyne .
However, emotional advertising plays with the heartstrings of the potential customers. Its aim is to convey the message that how this product or service will make users feel. Lets take an example of Coca Colas Choose Happiness campaign in 2015, it motivated people to share happy moments and memories with their loved ones during summer. It encourage the consumers to make a coke a part of their happy moments and it obviously increased the sales by 40% and had a positive impact on the brands image.
Recommendations: How to measure the success of advertising
Advertising is expensive and some companies are often frustrated by the outcome. It is extremely important to measure the effectiveness of advertising. Brand awareness could be the starting point of measurement, more people know about the brand, more the advertising is effective. But, how can we get the exact statistics?
The six principles of Cialdini allows to understand the influences of advertising on the public. The fourth principle is consistency, it shows that how the message builds and leaves an impact on the society. The hashtags (#) are the most powerful tool as they connects classic advertising and social media. The campaign of Always #LikeAGirl changed the perceptions of society and Always measured its effectiveness by analysing that in first 3 months, there were 177,000 #LikeAGirl tweets. For creating a buzz about the Sheffield, Tycoon Marketing is aiming around 300,000 mentions through our social media campaign via the twitter account and the hashtag #ReviveSheffield.
In addition, since the introduction of QR codes, the potential customers could connect to the companys websites directly within a click. The advertisers are using QR codes on posters, billboards, commercials to allow curious customers have a look on their website. This may persuade them to purchase the item. Sheffield City Council could have QR codes on their poster and billboards to make easier for the public to buy tickets for their Carnival of North.
Another metric which could be helpful is data gathering questions. During the purchase, the company could ask quick and short questions to understand its targeted audience. It will let the company how the buyer reached the product or service. In this way, they can evaluate the effectiveness of each IMC tool and to cover up the weak points of the advertising.
Finally, measurement of success for audience size: Audience size (number of followers), Share of voice (Total engagements/your engagements = SOV) uses analytical tool to show the brand mentions. This is the smartest way to compare the IMC tools with its competitors and how to offer a better and different marketing strategies to compete in the advertising world.
Critical evaluation of Advertising: budgets and schedules OF Carnival of north
The advertising has usually a free access to a large number of public. The companies and advertising agencies should follow and respect laws and regulations described by the government of UK. The advertising should have an accurate description of the product or service, legal, decent, truthful, honest and socially responsible.
Indeed, advertising requires a significant investment. Sheffield City Council have a budget of £280,000. The advertising of Carnival of North represents around 70% of the budget. Tycoon Marketing is planning to invest in TV advertisements, radio advertisements, billboards, newspaper, magazine and posters. Most importantly, the event will be promoted on a local, regional as well as national level to maximize the number of visitors. At the beginning, this seems a huge investment but Tycoon Marketing have a vision of long term. This event will leave a legacy and will be held every year. All this investment will be surely compensated in couple of years.
As the event is scheduled in May 2020, the advertising will take place from December. Radio advertisement on BBC radio 1,2 ad 3 due to their listeners being our main target audience. This will allow us to specifically target our demographic. At the same time, on December 1st our advertisement will be in the national newspaper, The Telegraph and a local newspaper called The Yorkshire Post. The newspaper advertisement along with the radio advertisement will allow to create event awareness in the publics minds. Moving into February, the Billboards will be assembled in all 5 major northern cities : Newcastle, Leeds, York, Manchester and Sheffield. Tycoon Marketing have decided to assemble these 4 months prior to the carnival.
Within the month of March, a 30 second will be feature on good morning Britain to reach the target segment. This will be aired up until the carnival.
All these different means of advertising will be beneficial for the client Sheffield City Council, this will not only advertise the carnival but will show the positive and exciting image of Sheffield.
Conclusion
The advertising is considered as one of the oldest tool of marketing communications. With the passage of time, it has evolved significantly. Nowadays, the artificial intelligence is taking over the human brains. In this case, the future of advertising could be more intelligent. The advertising agencies will use the artificial intelligence to automate the classic manual methods. This will no doubt increase the effectiveness but could be dangerous for some jobs within the agencies. The advertiser are trying to find the balance between the human creativity and artificial intelligence.
Advertising is facing some serious challenges and companies are shifting towards to digital and smartphone marketing. They are planning to invest more in new methods of marketing communications to target mostly the young generation. TV and radio are outdating and this is neglecting the classic advertising.
To conclude, one important thing to keep in mind is that any advertising done right : will be a huge win for a buyer and seller.
References
Books
- Advertising : The Benefits & Challenges, Smith & Ze Zook (2016), Pickton & Broderick (2005)
- Egan, J, (2015) Marketing Communications, Chapter 15 Integrated Marketing Communications p.294-304
- Naresh K. Malhotra, (2007), Review of Marketing Research, Volume 3, p.4, lines 5-8
- Smith, P., & Zook, Z. (2016). Marketing communications : Offline and online integration, engagement and analytics. SOSTAC plan, p.6
Journal Articles
- Case Study : Always #LikeAGirl, Campaignlive.co.uk https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/case-study-always-likeagirl/1366870
- An international analysis of emotional and rational appeals in services vs goods advertising, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol 16, No 1 https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/07363769910250769
- Examples of Different Advertising Appeals, Yourbusiness.azcentral.com https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/examples-different-advertising-appeals-12556.html
- Giselle Abramovich, September 19, 2018, Experts Weigh In On The Future Of Advertising https://www.cmo.com/features/articles/2018/6/14/welcome-to-the-future-of-advertising-cannes18.html/
- Integrated Marketing Communications Multimedia Marketing http://multimediamarketing.com/mkc/marketingcommunications/
- Julia Cupman, 4 Must Measures to gauge advertising effectiveness , November 28, 2016 https://www.cmo.com/opinion/articles/2016/10/28/four-critical-success-factors-for-advertising-effectiveness.html#gs.4kwoos
- Kliatchko, J. (2005). Towards a new definition of integrated marketing communications (IMC). International Journal of Advertising, 24(1), 7-34
- Lindsay Kolowich, The 17 Best Advertisements of All Time , Blog.hubspot.com, https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/best-advertisements
- Marketing and advertising : the law, Gou.uk https://www.gov.uk/marketing-advertising-law
- SOSTAC Marketing Planning Model Guide, Smart Insights, https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/sostac-model/
- Teresa Machan, Is Sheffield Britains most underrated city break destination?, The Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/unitedkingdom/england/yorkshire/sheffield/articles/Is-Sheffield-Britains-most-underrated-city-break-destination/
- The advantages and disadvantages of Advertisement, Padlet https://padlet.com/chuiwan106/c0arfsqml2sq
- The AIDA Model, Smart Insights https://www.smartinsights.com/traffic-building-strategy/offer-and-message-development/aida-model/
- The 6 Principles of Persuasion by Dr. Robert Cialdini, Influence at Work, https://www.influenceatwork.com/principles-of-persuasion/
- The Future of Advertising, Accenture.com, https://www.accenture.com/us-en/~/media/Accenture/next-gen/pulse-of-media/pdf/Accenture-Future-Of-Advertising-POV.pdf
- 10 Disadvantages and Limitations of Advertising, ToughNickel https://toughnickel.com/industries/DISADVANTAGES-OF-ADVERTISING
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