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CASE STUDY
STUDY OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ONLINE MARKETING ON INTEGRATED
MARKETING COMMUNICATION
A Written Analysis of a Case

Submitted to
EDDIE G. BULAN, COE
Professor

Bachelor of Science in Tourism and Home Economics

Group List:
Besmonte, Jemilyn
Cahanding, Allyssa Shenny
Gaytos, Carlo James
Gregorio, Dale Angelo
Guillen, Jaederick
Ilagan, John Ray
Lagbas, Sonrose
Lapure, Gerald
Laureta, Samuel
Mancao, Donita Shaen
Medina, Allyzza Mae
Morfe, Rhea Zuzette
Ninada, Azel Jane
Ortega, Ma. Evangeline
Panarigan, Jerwin

1st Semester
2019 - 2020
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V. V. Soliven Avenue II, Cainta Rizal
COLLEGE OF TOURISM AND HOME ECONOMICS

ABSTRACT

Integrated Marketing Communication is a marketing concept that ensures

all forms of communication and messages are carefully linked together. At its most
basic level, Integrated Marketing Communication or IMC means integrating all the
promotional tools, so that they work together in harmony. Promotion is one of the
Ps in the marketing mix. Promotion has its own mix of communication tools. All of
these communication tools work better if they work together in harmony rather than
in isolation. Their sum is greater than their parts - providing they speak consistently
with one voice all the time, every time. Integrated Marketing Communication is the
concept that makes all the marketing tools to work together as a unified force rather
than work in isolation. It makes the use of entire marketing efforts in the form of
advertising, public relation, personal selling, sales promotion, internet marketing ,
direct marketing in order to generate maximum impact on the target audience at the
minimum cost. According to William Stanton, “IMC is an element in organization’s
marketing mix that is used to inform, persuade and remind the market regarding the
organization and / or its products.” It blends various promotional tools and
communication/marketing/advertising services and techniques to maximize profit.
IMC is ultimately achieved through concise and consistent messaging that fosters
familiarity and consumer affinity. xi Effective IMC messages and images are
meaningful and useful to consumers, and messaging and branding consistency - a
proven IMC concept - yield customer satisfaction and loyalty.
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INTRODUCTION TO INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION

1.1 WHAT IS INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION?

“At the heart of any business strategy is a marketing strategy;

Businesses exist to deliver products that satisfy customers”.

Integrated marketing communication (IMC) is an approach used by

organizations to brand and coordinate their communication efforts. The
American Association of Advertising Agencies defines IMC as "a concept that
recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan that evaluates the
strategic roles of a variety of communication disciplines, and combines these
disciplines to provide clarity, consistency and maximum communication impact."
The primary idea behind an IMC strategy is to create a seamless experience for
consumers across different aspects of the marketing mix. The brand's core
image and messaging are reinforced as each marketing communication channel
works together in unity, rather than in isolation.

According to William Stanton, “IMC is an element in organisation’s

marketing mix that is used to inform, persuade and remind the market regarding
the organisation and / or its products.”

Koekemoer & Bird, (2004) defines Integrated Marketing Communication as

the collective activities, materials and media used by a marketer to inform or
remind 2 prospective customers about a particular product offering and to
attempt to persuade them to purchase or use it.
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1.2 HISTORY OF IMC:

First defined by the American Association of Advertising Agencies in 1989,

IMC was developed mainly to address the need for businesses to offer clients more
than just standard advertising. The 4As originally coined the term the "new
advertising”, however this title did not appropriately incorporate many other aspects
included in the term "IMC" - most notably, those beyond traditional advertising
process aside from simply advertising.

1.3 THE SHIFT FROM FRAGMENTED TO INTEGRATED MARKETING

COMMUNICATION

Prior to the emergence of integrated marketing communication during the

1990s, mass communication – the practice of relaying information to large
segments of the population through television, radio, and other media –
dominated marketing strategy. Marketing was once used as a one-way feed.
Advertisers broadcasted their offerings and value proposition with little regard
for the diverse needs, tastes, and values of consumers.

Today, corporate marketing budgets are allocated towards trade

promotions, consumer promotions, branding, public relations, and advertising.
The allocation of communication budgets away from mass media and traditional
advertising has raised IMC's importance for effective marketing. Now, 5
marketing is viewed more as a two-way conversation between marketers and
consumers.

1.4 INTEGRATED MARKETING

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Communication and its comparison with Simple Marketing Communication

As per Don Schultz (2008), IMC is a strategic business process used to plan,
develop, execute and evaluate coordinated, measurable, persuasive brand
communication programmes over time with consumers, customers, prospects,
and other targeted, relevant external and internal audiences. The key difference
in this definition of IMC from that of simple Marketing Communication is
highlighted by use of three words: i) 6 strategic, ii) evaluate and iii) measurable.
In essence, IMC enforces use of marketing communication mix in such a way
that it is strategically designed to achieve certain objectives, measured to enforce
accountability over marketers and are evaluated over time. These elements are
also stressed on by various IMC authors (Schultz, 1996; Duncan & Caywood,
1996), who believe that although the concept of IMC is not new, but the fact that
previously marketing communication was not coordinated strategically and
strategy is now believed critical, gives this concept a new look.

1.5 IMC

The Changing trend Media has undergone an extensive phase of

development in the last ten years. Marketers were previously focusing on
promoting their product/service through traditional mediums like TV, Radio,
Newspapers, however, now the future of marketers appears to be digital as
technology has become an important part of daily lives (Pall & McGrath, 2009).

1.6 BENEFITS OF IMC

1) IMC helps to create Top of Mind (TOM) awareness with the aid of various
marketing tools.
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2) IMC not only creates awareness, but, evokes the purchase action. IMC
persuades the customers to buy the product or service through creative
messages, free gifts, trial offers etc.

3) IMC helps to develop brand loyalty that results in repeat purchase and
favourable recommendations to others by existing customers.

4) By using various techniques of promotion, IMC may help expanding the

market from local to regional, regional to national, national to international.

5) Different marketing tools may be aggressively used to block the competitor’s

marketing efforts.

6) All the above benefits of IMC lead to develop the brand image as well as the
corporate image in the mind of customers.

1.7 LIMITATIONS OF IMC

1) Lack of coordination within various departments within the large agencies

over areas such as sales promotion, advertising, public relation. This may
also lead to internal conflict.

2) It limits client’s ability to take advantage of specialists in various IMC areas.

3) Synergy and economies of scale are not achieved by a single agency

handling all communication areas.

1.8 FUTURE OF IMC

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The conception of integrated marketing communication (IMC) is fairly new. The

IMC tools allows marketing manager to plan and then execute his marketing
communication programs, which create and maintain mutually beneficial, long-
term relationships with the target market by satisfying their needs and wants.
This means that promotion tools are used to create loyalty.

2.1 WHAT IS ONLINE MARKETING?

Online marketing uses internet to deliver promotional marketing messages

to consumers. It includes email marketing, search engine marketing, social
media marketing, many types of display advertising (including web banner
advertising), and mobile advertising. Like other advertising media, online
advertising frequently involves both a publisher, who integrates advertisements
into its online content, and an advertiser, who provides the advertisements to be
displayed on the publisher's content. Other potential participants include
advertising agencies that help generate and place the ad copy, an ad server
who technologically delivers the ad and tracks statistics, and advertising
affiliates who do independent promotional work for the advertiser.

2.2 IMPORTANCE OF ONLINE MARKETING

Growth of internet users must be credited for the growth of online marketing.
With the advent of internet technology number of internet user is increasing at
the greater extent across the world. India stands at forth place with 81 million
internet users in 2010. (www.internetwoldstats.com)
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Online
marketing is becoming increasingly important to small businesses of all types. In
the past, marketing online was something that local bricks-and-mortar
businesses could justifiably ignore. It didn't make sense to waste time and
money on online marketing when all your business was local.

2.3 THE STEADY RISE OF THE DOT COMS IN BUSINESS

Business wasn't the fastest to embrace change, when it came over a

computer screen and thorough an online modem. Back in the Clinton days of
the 1990s, the internet was used by the public mostly as a means of
communicating in chatrooms and most of that was hosted by America Online.

Business began to see a future in e-commerce selling goods and services

online, but that was before Amazon, and ebay was still an outback where (very)
small sellers sold goods that were hard to find elsewhere, and waited for checks
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and money orders to arrive by snail mail. This clearly was not the most efficient
way to do business, and larger brick- and- mortar ventures didn't see much use
in establishing an online presence.

There wasn't any way to easily take credit card payments online - this was
before the heady rise of paypal - so why bother? Who even heard of a checkout
much less 19 cart for purchases on computer screen? There were free websites
where one might set up a store, but most of the business was done the old
fashioned way, by the customer calling in their credit card number, or by
sending out a check or money order.

2.4 HISTORY OF ONLINE MARKETING

Considering the current volume of internet marketing business, it’s hard to

believe how young the internet marketplace is. While the timeline of internet
marketing has been short, the cumulative events leading up to where we are
now have impacted the entire globe faster than any marketing revolution in
history. In 1994, spending for internet marketing totaled nearly nothing, but
increased to over $300 million in 1995. Now, little more than a decade later,
marketing spending and internet marketing business has exploded to nearly
$200 billion (according to Forrester Research). Today, it’s hard to believe in
having an organization which doesn’t have some kind of online presence.

2.5 ADVANTAGES OF ONLINE MARKETING

One of the most important advantages is the fast availability of the

information. The clients/users can easily get information, by navigating the
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internet, about the products that they wish to purchase, and besides that, they
can check the information at anytime of the day.

1. It allows the companies to save money, an aspect that is really taken into
account by the companies since the online marketing campaigns don’t
require a large amount of investment.

2. The previous mentioned aspect, gives less importance to the differences

between large and small companies in some way, thus increasing the
competition and giving that way advantages to the customers.

3. Presence on the Internet can help the expansion of the company from a
local market to national and international markets at the same time, offering
almost infinite expanding possibilities.

4. On the internet everything can be measured, thus it’s easier for the
companies to know almost instantly if their campaign is working or not, what
company or user is interested in their products, from what cities or countries are
they, etc.

2.6 DISADVANTAGES OF ONLINE MARKETING:

1. Slow internet connections can cause difficulties. If the companies build too
complex or too large websites, it will take too long for users to check them or
download them and they will get bored eventually.

2. The e-commerce doesn’t allow the user “to touch” the merchandise before
purchasing it. Because of this, some salesmen are starting to guarantee the
possibility of returning the product. In Germany, where a law that regulates e-
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commerce and guarantees the customers the total refund of the money exists
since 2000, the electronic commerce is very popular.

3. Other factor is the payment: many users still don’t trust in the electronic
methods of paying and give up buying online because of this.

4. One of the major disadvantages may be the lack of trust of the users because
of the constant virtual promotions that appear to be frauds. This is an aspect
that deteriorates the image and reputation of quality and honest companies.

5. Other disadvantage is the cash on delivery system, since it doesn’t

guarantee the 100% purchase of the product. This is also the case of thousands
of users that dedicate themselves to daily mock big companies by ordering on
the internet using false identities.

LITERATURE REVIEW

3.1 LITERATURE ON INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION

Philip Kotler & Kevin Lane Keller, Marketing Management, New Delhi, Pearson
Education, 2006, pg. no. 52

Integrated marketing communication can produce stronger message

consistency and greater sales impact. It forces management to think about
every way the customer comes in contact with the company, how the company
communicates its positioning the relative importance of each vehicle and timing
issues. It gives some responsibility to unify the company’s brand image and
messages as they come through thousands of company activities. IMC should
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improve the company’s ability to reach right customers, with the right message,
at right time in the right place. Thus personal and non-personal communication
channels should be combined to achieve maximum impact. 25 Warren J.
Keeyan, Global Marketing Management, USA, Prentice-Hall of India Pvt. Ltd.,
2002, pg. no. 3

LITERATURE ON ONLINE MARKETING

Online marketing users in One to one marketing, Fosket, Sally, Direct

marketing; Nov 1996, pg no 38

Online services will drive marketing to the opposite end of the spectrum
from “mass” marketing to customized “one-to-one” marketing. Online marketers
communicate instantly and directly with the prospective customers and can
provide instant fulfillment as well. Marketers with carefully designed World Wide
Web sites are already interacting computer to computer, with prospective
customers or an individual basis, much as ATM does in very primitive fashion.
Online one to one approaches while innovative and still glamorous in their
pioneering aspects, offer significant new challenges. The significant aspect is
the access with the customers. Communication and information technology
development has encouraged the emergence of new communication channels
that have increased the options available to organizations for building
relationships with clients.

4.1 SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH

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The study aims to understand the massive contribution of Online

marketing as a part of Integrated Marketing Communication and to know its
splendid efforts towards promotion in practice and also to find out some
challenges in using online marketing as a tool of integrated marketing
communication. The recommendations of this research can be used to frame an
appropriate Integrated Marketing Communication strategy in which companies
can give special consideration to online marketing along with the other
traditional tools of IMC.

Research problem
This study focuses on following problems:

o Should companies integrate various marketing tools to

communicate about its brand?
o How do consumers get awareness about different brands?
o How online marketing plays important role in companies’
marketing strategy?
o What are the reasons for growing popularity of online marketing
among consumers?
o How is online marketing advantageous over traditional marketing?
o What are the loopholes in online marketing?

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The first step is to formulate a research design. This means planning a

strategy of conducting research. It is a detailed plan of how the goals of
research will be achieved. Research design is exploratory, descriptive and/or
experimental in nature. It is helping the investigator in providing answers to
various kinds of social/economic questions. After collecting and analysis of the
data, the researcher has to accomplish the task of drawing inferences. Only
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through interpretation researcher can expose relations and processes that

underlie his findings and ultimately conclusions. Interpretation refers to the task
of drawing inferences from the collected facts after an analytical study.

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION

“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 minimal cost.”

Generally marketing starts from “Marketing Mix”. Promotion is one element

of Marketing Mix. Promotional activities include Advertising (by using different
medium), sales promotion (sales and trades promotion), and personal selling
activities. It also includes internet marketing, sponsorship marketing, direct
marketing, database marketing and public relations. And integration of all these
promotional tools along with other components of marketing mix to gain edge
over competitor is called Integrated Marketing Communication.

CASE STUDIES ON IMC & ONLINE MARKETING

Use of IMC by Red bull Inspired by functional drinks from the Far East,
Dietrich Mateschitz founded Red Bull in the mid 1980's. He created the formula
of Red Bull Energy Drink and developed the unique marketing concept of Red
Bull. In 1987, on April 1, Red Bull Energy Drink was sold for the very first time in
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its home market Austria. This was not only the launch of a completely new
product, in fact it was the birth of a totally new product category. Today Red Bull
is available in more than 166 countries and around 40 billion cans of Red Bull
have been consumed so far.

It means consumers do refer various mediums to get awareness but

highest preference is being given to online media. Online media incorporates
blogs, online 118 PR, Window displays, banner ads etc. And consumers today
are more exposed to these forms of online advertising as compared to
advertising through other mediums. To analyze further we represent above data
graphically. This is as follows,

CONCLUSION

The study concludes that consumers rely upon more than one medium in
order to enhance their brand related knowledge. It means that they use the
combination of various sources for making final purchase decision. Along with
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the traditional sources, they heavily rely on modern marketing tool i.e. online
advertising. Consumers do require detailed information about the brand so as to
evaluate its strengths & weaknesses; this ample amount of information then
saves their time by allowing them to make the purchase decision quickly.

The study also reveals that main reason for growing importance of online
marketing is the increasing literacy about internet among people. They have
identified that internet is truly advantageous through which they can serve their
various purposes mainly social networking, online shopping & media sharing
(photo, music, video). This efficacy of internet has intensified their tendency of
being online.

Today’s consumers strongly feel that every company must use this efficacy to
strengthen its marketing efforts. So that they will get motivated to use online 159
marketing with the intent of getting access to exclusive content about the brand
and getting discount and sharing their feedback about brand with the advertiser
. With the advent of internet technology, consumers’ preference towards
traditional marketing tools has decreased. Most popular traditional marketing
tools are television & print media. The major benefits of online marketing are its
capability of interaction between consumers and advertisers followed by
availability of wide range of information & ease of shopping. These benefits
make online marketing superior than traditional marketing.

But at the same time consumers are susceptible about the user-safety side
of internet. They feel that online marketing is unsafe as it may lead to increase
in frauds & privacy issue.

RECOMMENDATION
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Conclusion given above reveals that consumers use more than one medium
to make brand choice, therefore it is recommended that:

Companies should mix & match various mediums to reach their desired
target audience. This will help to spread awareness among them and to
influence buyers behavior thus companies must formulate an effective
Integrated Marketing Communication plan where they can combine various
tools to grasp maximum prospects.

It is also revealed that consumers have good enough knowledge about

internet technology and they are in favor of using online marketing, therefore it
is recommended that:

Every company big or small should grab this advantage and include online
marketing in their marketing efforts. Online marketing forms can be mainly web
marketing, E-commerce, social media marketing.

Consumers find certain benefits in online marketing over traditional

marketing; therefore companies can spend more on online media rather than
the traditional tools.

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