Discuss about the Integrated Marketing Communications for Sodashi Skin Car.
Communication is an integral part of a business as any organisation has to communicate to several stakeholders in order to ensure that the company can smoothly achieve the objectives of the institution. Communication is the process by which a message is encoded by a send and passed on to the receiver via a medium and then the receiver decodes this message in order to comprehend with the message and act accordingly. Effective communication is essential and can be divided based on internal or external stakeholders who are being communicated with. In a business organisation, the process of communication plays a significant part in strategic management (Shih et al., 2013). The process helps in improving the sales of the business by reaching out to the customers and other external shareholders regarding the development of the company or products and their purpose, also companies communicate with the external shareholders to provided extra information for the stakeholders regarding the company for example, the investor need to know about the company in order to ensure they are investing in a idea which is credible. Integrated Marketing Communication is the part of the communication process used in a business enterprise in order to make sure that the promotion or the communication part of the marketing mix is effectively used(Shih et al., 2013). In this assignment an IMC plan will be made for Sodashi skin care.
Established in 1999, Sodashi has made a name for itself in the natural skin care category. The organisation manufactures natural skin care products. The company is an Australian based organisation that operates on the basis of the values and principles of the owner of the company. The company aims at providing the customers with glowing and radiant skin (Sodashi.com.au, 2018).
The company believes in providing the customers with premium quality products with formulas which are unique. The products are the competitive advantage of the company and the formulas are not replicable as the formulas are developed by the research team that works for the company and are based on the natural ingredients. The management of Sodashi claims that the ingredients used are in their purest form (Sodashi.com.au, 2018).
The company has its branches in over 25 countries and is at the top of the game in the skin care industry.
The following analysis will help in understanding the company and its marketing proceedings better.
Product Line: The company is a manufacturer of skin care products that caters to both male and female customers. The range of products that Sodashi offers targets the face, body and lifestyle. Depending upon the type of skin and the kind of lifestyle that a person leads, they can choose from the wide range. The company has an official website that lists the entire product range and the prices are also listed there (Khan, 2014). The company lists the ingredients that are used in order to create the products as the company claims and is also authenticated to use natural ingredients in the products (Sodashi.com.au, 2018).
Price: The company is a luxury skin care brand and the prices of the products are on the higher end and the ingredients are listed on the products. The website also allows the customers to add product in the list and buy directly from the website. The premium quality and the effectiveness of the products allow the company to have the prices in the higher range (Khan, 2014).
Place: The company has its website as a platform which people can easily it and purchase the products, apart from that the company also has partnership with spas in more than 25 countries and the products are available in these places as there are no stores (Khan, 2014).
Promotion: This is the part of the marketing mix which is going to be the focus of the assignment, the company already uses traditional means of marketing like print and digital media in order to reach out to the customers (Khan, 2014). The company uses the platform of magazine and advertorials in the traditional from and uses blogging and social media in the more contemporary form of communication (Khan, 2014).
The company already uses various medium to communicate with the external stakeholders and the objective of the IMC plan or the campaign:
The company is already in the operating in several countries and as part of the expansion plan the organisation has chosen India as the new market to expand the business. The country is a rapidly growing the economy and the country has the potential target market of the company. People in India have an inclination towards natural products and natural remedies in skin care. Ayurveda has been a gift of Indian culture to the world, which essentially deals with the natural remedies of skin care. There are also a number luxury skin care as well as make up brands in the country, therefore the management of Sodashi has concluded to explore the Indian Market to increase the distribution of the products. The mode of distribution will be with the help of partnership with Nykaa. Nykaa is a leading make up and skincare specialist online platform that offers a wide range of products and is popular among the target market of Sodashi, there is a separate “lux store” in the website which will be used as the platform to release the products. The IMC will be conducted in a way to reach out to the Indian market and the focus of the campaign is to align the aim of the company with the objective of the IMC plan.
The company has a unique way of distributing or making the people aware of the products, they supply their products to the spas around the world and sales are generated by improving the clientele. In this case the company has taken a different route of expansion where there is a new scope and advantage of digital media to reach out and communicate with people.
The idea of distributing the products with the spas is that the people who are professional in the field of skin care and beauty will understand the products better in terms of its effectiveness and justification of the high price of the products, Therefore the segment that the company targets are the people who are frequent visitors to the spa. These people are ready to spend a buck on skin care and luxury hence they will priorities the quality of the product before the price.
Demographic: The company catered to both male and female and the age group in between 28-50. The income of the target market is on the higher end. These people lead a high standard of living,
Geographical: the products are exclusive to the people who visit the spas in the countries where the company has expanded its partnership, but with this new strategy the organisation will target people all over India that fits that other criterion of the target market. As the platform that the company has chosen to expand the market is an online portal which is accessible by any one.
Behavioral: People who are concerned with their skin care routine and are do not mind spending their time in the business. The people that is targeted by Sodashi are associated understand the necessity of spending on an expensive skin care item. They also prioritize skin care before make up.
Physiographic: These people associate skin care with necessity and are also obsessed with having a radiant and supple skin. These are the people who would like to treat themselves with a spa visit often and are also inclined to using natural ingredient items.
The purpose of the camping is the create and improve the brand awareness in India.
The message of the campaign: “Celebrating Inner Radiance”
The company has several values and principles based on which the organisation operates and these values and principles are used to create this campaign as products of the company will help the people to achieve the glowing skin and not only that the lifestyle products will also help the customers in improving the standard of living. It will be called a celebration as the company stands for accepting oneself and ones beauty as it is without alteration and make up. Thus the products help in improving these natural features of a human being and bringing in confidence and natural beauty in focus. It is also a celebration as it helps in rejuvenating the senses and help in relaxation. Inner radiance is flowed from the aim of the company as well as the value of the organisation. Grace, purity and nourish are some of the values of the company which focuses on inner glow and inner beauty hence “inner radiance” should be in focuses of the message (Sodhi.com.au, 2018).
This message is selected as the company is new in the market and the customers must understand the values and philosophies that the company stands with the campaign. The company will launch 10 most popular products from the range of offerings and will also help thus the message will help the customers in understanding the purpose of the products.
In strategic management positioning plays an important role as in maintaining a connection with the customers. Since people are exposed to a number of products and services and companies are constantly trying to communicate regarding their business it is essential for organizations to develop a brand image in the minds of the people. The colour scheme, logo of the business, the tag line of the company adds to the brand and helps in building a unique place in the minds of the people (Shih et al., 2013).
Sodashi will position itself as a company which focuses on the values of the company which are: Love, integrity, thoughtfulness, grace, purity, evolving and nourish. These values of the company help in establishing an image of the company as well as maintaining image of the company. The image that the company wants to create with the help of the plan is that the brand is something to pamper oneself with, and the values of the company will be uplifted and will help in creating the brand image (Singh et al., 2015).
Sodashi will position the brand based on the target consumers as the message will be targeted towards the potential customers (Luxton et al., 2015). The quality of the products will be the focus of the campaign and thus strategies in communication mix will help in establishing the company as a brand that fulfills effective utility of the target market. With the help of the AIDA model of communication the company will establish their positioning strategy. In contemporary marketing communication this model forms the foundation of the process (Rawal 2013).
Attention: Gathering the attention of the target market is the prime focus of the communication process and it is essential to engage the target market in order to ensure that the communication process is effective and efficient.
Interest: The message that the company wants to give out to the target market should cater to the needs and requirements of the audience in order to make sure that it arises a certain amount of interest in the message (Rawal 2013).
Desire: After growing interest about the brand and its products the benefits and the utility associated with the products develops a desire to know more or to use the products in order to understand the claims (Budiawan et al. 2017).
Action: With desire the target market should be able to convert that into actions of buying or searching for the product at least in order to know more about the brand or the products and its benefits. For example: the goal of Sodashi is to create 20 percent brand awareness and establish the brand in a new market. Therefore the message of the campaign is selected in a way that will generate action (Budiawan et al. 2017).
The company will use communication tools which will help in establishing the values of the company as well as establish the premium quality of the products. The PR, advertising and digital marketing are the IMC tools that will be employed, these are the tools which the company usually use in the marketing process:
Advertising: Paid communication is called advertising, there are several aspects of advertising and the company will use the message of the campaign in the Advertising the company. Sodashi will use traditional as well as contemporary medium of communication (Kerr & Patti, 2015).
Public relation: The company will use the digital platform in this tool as well. Five major beauty influences in the digital space (vloggers and bloggers) of India will be chosen. Selected three from among them are: Shreya Jain, Debashree Banerjee and Ankita (Corallista). Products will be sent to these five influences for them to try and use the products and give their honest reviews on their channel. The company is confident of the products and therefore they will not pay the vloggers to review their products in positive way the video will be sponsored by the company wants the vloggers to channel their own reviews as the management is confident about their offerings (Barrett & Weinstein, 2015).
The company will launch the products on October so the campaign will begin from mid September, Nykaa will put up a banner on their portal announcing the launch in order to communicate with the customers the date of the launch. The company will also announce the launch in their website and their social media handles (Luxton et al., 2015).
The budget of the company will used 5000 AUD in the process of promotion.
|
Tool used |
Medium used |
|
Advertisement (3000 AUD) |
Print medium: 2000 AUD Audio visual: 1000 AUD |
|
PR (2000 AUD) |
Payment of the volggers 2000 AUD |
Sodashi, Skin Care product organisation will tie up with Nykaa in order to sell their products in online media. Therefore, Sodashi will use Instagram profile of Nykaa to advertise the products and new product launch. This tie-up will help Sodashi to gain more target audiences and large numbers of social media audiences will get to know about the products and prices of Sodashi products. The IMC plan is clear for Sodashi; the organisation wants to implement the IMC plan so that they can generate the leads. As stated by Huang & Sarigöllü (2014), brand awareness is the degree of consumer awareness and its related products; creating the brand awareness is the step toward promoting the products in the market. Sodashi is luxurious brand and it sells mainly costly cosmetics products to the customers. In India, the numbers of costly cosmetics products are less. Hence, Sodashi is completely a new name for the customers. Sodashi will target the print magazines, mainly Vogue India, Elle India and Cosmopolitan. Sodashi will advertise on social media and the target audiences will definitely watch the advertisement. Sodashi is planning to send ‘sample products’ to the famous bloggers. The bloggers like Shreya Jain, Debashree Banerjee and Ankita (Coralista) will be targeted at first. These bloggers, netizens named them as ‘Beauty Influencers’ will use the products and they will upload their reviews on their blog posts and these bloggers can share their reviews and images of the products on the Facebook page. Sodashi can evaluate the response through likes and shares on the Bloggers’ page and images. The numbers of views on the videos will be counted as the measurement of the success of IMC plan. Sodashi can also conduct an online survey on Facebook where they can share the questionnaire about their brand image and brand awareness. These survey responses can also provide the idea about the measurement of the success of the IMC plan. Sodashi can use social media analytics so that they can review the customers’ responses and the users’ engagement on social media pages. Therefore, these basic steps of measurement of success of IMC plan give a clear view that Sodashi will gain maximum exposure through communication plan. The brand awareness of the organisation will increase automatically and the upper-class society and the young generations of India will get to know about products of Sodashi.
In order to finalise the plan, Sodashi will take feedback from two of its employees. The first employee shares the feedback that the tie-up with Nykaa can yield benefit to the organisation as Nykaa is famous among the customers who purchase health-related products and cosmetics. The strong integrated communication plan will provide strong brand loyalty for the organisation and it will develop the market share of the organisation. The customers will know about products and brands and the main target of Sodashi is to grab the conscience of the upper-middle-class people. The employee also added that direct marketing can be used in order to gain instant profit as this direct marketing can be utilised as the network to sell the products instantly. Moreover, advertisement on Facebook and Twitter can provide easy marketing and communication for the organisation. The use of social media in communication and advertisement is inexpensive for the organisation. However, the employee also added that the organisation’s PR team can make a chart to share the advertisement on social media pages. This schedule can be framed based on the social media analytics as these analytics tell about the best time to interact with the customers.
Another employee of Sodashi shared her view that Sodashi will do the best to give advertisement on print media magazines as Cosmopolitan and Vogue India are now famous to reach the target customers who are rich and wealthy. In addition, that employee averred that the plan of communicating through Bloggers in order to influence the customers will be the well-measured plan. The YouTube videos and the shared videos on Facebook will increase the brand awareness of the organisation. Sodashi will use print media; mainly magazines in India in order to gain brand awareness among the people. Sodashi can also ask the print media to share their online versions where they can feature Sodashi products. These magazines belong to the elite class of the society; hence, the organisation can increase its brand awareness to the Indian people.
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above discussion that IMC is essential in order to establish the brand in a new market as the target market has to know about the company in order to avail the services. The company has chosen Advertisement and Public relation as a part of the process, the feedback gained form the employees are valuable as it can be gathered that the mode of entry in the new country is not accepted by every employee and there are still questions in the minds of the people. The partnership with Nykaa has been the strategy of a number of brands to enter the Indian Market and therefore the success of the plan is also high. The PR strategy is important as a significant amount of target market resort to the vloggers to take their opinion. The other two volggers will be ones who cater to an older audience than the three that are mentioned.
Reference List
Barrett, H., & Weinstein, A. (2015). Corporate entrepreneurship, the marketing mix, and business performance. In Proceedings of the 1997 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 144-150). Springer, Cham.
Budiawan, R., Satria, A., & Simanjuntak, M. (2017). THE QUASI EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF ADVERTISING CREATIVITY AND EXPOSURE INTENSITY TOWARD PURCHASING ACTION WITH AIDA APPROACH. Independent Journal of Management & Production, 8(2).
Huang, R., & Sarigöllü, E. (2014). How brand awareness relates to the market outcome, brand equity, and the marketing mix. In Fashion Branding and Consumer Behaviours, 113-132.
Kerr, G., & Patti, C. (2015). Strategic IMC: From abstract concept to marketing management tool. Journal of Marketing Communications, 21(5), 317-339.
Khan, M. T. (2014). The concept of’marketing mix’and its elements (a conceptual review paper). International journal of information, business and management, 6(2), 95.
Kitchen, P. J., & Burgmann, I. (2015). Integrated marketing communication: Making it work at a strategic level. Journal of Business Strategy, 36(4), 34-39.
Luxton, S., Reid, M., & Mavondo, F. (2015). Integrated marketing communication capability and brand performance. Journal of Advertising, 44(1), 37-46.
Rawal, P. (2013). AIDA Marketing Communication Model: Stimulating a purchase decision in the minds of the consumers through a linear progression of steps. International Journal of Multidisciplinary research in social & management sciences, 1(1), 37-44.
Shih, B. Y., Chen, C. Y., & Chen, Z. S. (2013). Retracted: an empirical study of an internet marketing strategy for search engine optimization. Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing & Service Industries, 23(6), 528-540.
Singh, J., P. Kalafatis, S., & Ledden, L. (2014). Consumer perceptions of cobrands: The role of brand positioning strategies. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 32(2), 145-159.
Sodashi.com.au. (2018). About | sodashi.com.au [online] Available at: https://www.sodashi.com.au/about/[Accessed 2 Apr. 2018].
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