Discuss about the Integrated Marketing Communication Planning.
Coca Cola beverage is a leading soft drink in the Australian market produced by Ametil Company. The Coca Cola brand has been in the market for the past 100hurderd years. The brand has a strong trademark that has dominated the non alcoholic market (Baker, 2017). However, the brand has lately experienced threats from external forces that have declined the market share and returns (Gertner & Rifkin, 2017). Changes in the society and emerging competitors are the major threats that necessitate strategic marketing for the product.
According to Mubayi (2012), the coca cola drink has a low consumption rate among the young generation. This indicates a future decline in it consumption. Therefore it important for the company to use integrated marketing communication as a tool to promote coca cola drink among the young generation for it survival in the future.
The coca cola drink has it history back in 1889. The drink was first made by Asa Griggs in Atlanta Georgia in USA. The product has maintained it unique taste to date. The product is packaged and marketed in Australia by Coca Cola Amatil since 1904 and has its headquarters in North Sydney. The company is the largest beverage company in Australia and Asian Pacific region. The Company is led by David Gonski as the chairman and Watkins Alison as the managing director. The company being a subsidiary of Coca Cola Company is 29% owned by the parent company (“Coca-Cola Amatil | Home”, 2017).
The company products are sport drinks, energy drinks, soft drinks and spring water. The coca cola brand has variants that include diet coke, zero and the classical coke. The diet coke was introduced in the Australian market in 1982 as result of changes in the society’s consumption behavior due to increased obesity. The coke zero was introduced in the market in 2005 following stereotype amongst young males attributing coke diet as female drink.
The target markets for the coca cola drink are people between the age of 15-40 years. This bracket is majorly composed of the youth. The coca cola brand aims at associating it products with the vibrant of a young life that is dominated with love and emotions. The age bracket of 15-40years forms over 50% of the total population of Australia. Currently female population is 50.2% compared to 49.8% of the Australian population (“Population – Australian Bureau of Statistics”, 2017).
The Australian population is densely concentrated in the cities and the coastal line. 89.01% of the population is geographically located in urban areas. This makes it easy to distribute products to the target market.
The target market of the coca cola brand is associated with several behavioural traits and psychographic attributes due to growth and development experienced by individuals in the brackets of 15-40yeaes. There is a lot of influence from peers and this shape the attitude of the target customers of the products. For instance, in 2005 the male part of the target market had an attitude that the coke diet was a female drink because it was sugar free and was being used by females who wanted to lose weight (Gertner & Rifkin, 2017). Therefore, it can be said that the target market of coca cola brand are highly influenced by peers and media.
The coca cola drink is known of it distinct taste from other beverages. The coca Cola Company has been committed for years to keep the producing secretes that makes coke’s taste unique among other competing beverages. The coca cola products are strategically positioned at a low price to make the product competitive (Mayer, n.d.). These low prices create a competing edge for the coke drink in the Australian market.
This positioning strategy of high quality product and low prices in the market is good strategy for coke drink in the market for it makes the beverage competitive therefore remaining a market leader.
The coca cola drink has portrayed promotional mix that has four elements as discussed below;
Advertising: The Company has had a paid advertisement of the coca cola drink in form of a videos and photos. The video is produced with the company anthem and aired in national TVs and YouTube. These specially made advertisements comprise of a promotion idea of the coca cola drink. The advertisements aired in mass media are meant to persuade, inform and in the process influence target group to consume the coca cola drink (Yuvaraju, Subramanyam, & Rao, 2014). The advertisements associate the social life of the target audience with the coca cola drink. The coca cola photos have been displayed in billboards around the urban area. The images have been made attractive to catch the attention of the target audience.
Sales promotion: The Company has also been exercised sales promotion by offering promotional incentive prices to intermediaries. The company has also been involved in consent promotion where it sponsors musicians to produce collaboration music. This idea involves famous musicians who are invited to entertain the audience. In this case, the coca cola drink is associated with the celebrities present. This promotional function creates perception of the coca cola drink in the mind of the audience.
Public relation: The Company has been involved in public related campaigns and sponsorship to foster good relationship with the society. The company has been in partnership with other organization to promote sports, environmental conservation campaigns and anti-disease campaign (Wang, 2015). These promotional activities have been meant to create a good relationship with the public creating a preposition of goodwill. This promotional activity has enabled create a good image for the drink among the target market.
Product placement: The Company has been involved in paying of Shows and Movies aired in national TVs to associate the drink with them. The3ses shows and movies are said to be sponsored by the drink. They have been spotting the most watched TV shows and movies by the target market and then placing the drink in the program. This promotional avenue has enabled the company to reach more and more target market for the company.
The coca cola drink marketing response process is associated to hierarchy of effects model. The product advertisement activities have effects that create awareness of the diversification of the product making the product a preference by ensuring that the target consumers get a conviction to purchase (Smarandescu & Shimp, 2014).
A customer gets information of a coca cola brand through an advertisement that creates awareness and knowledge. Having the advertisements repeated severally, the consumers develop liking of the product and starting preferring the product. The consumer gets the conviction that the product is brilliant and reacts by purchasing the coca cola drink. It can therefore be said that a target customer passes thought the stages of hierarchy of effect model in consuming a coca cola brand product.
The IMC objectives will create focus on the promotional activities proposed in this report (Finne & Grönroos, 2009).
The following are the objectives of IMC based on the hierarchy of effect response model;
Awareness of the coca cola brand and specific variants; this objective involves creating an awareness to target market of the available diverse products under the coca cola brand. It will aim at equipping target market with knowledge of the existence and usage. For instance, the target market will be enlightened on consumption of specific variant of the coca cola drink in accordance with their healthy needs.
Persuading the target market; this objective involves portraying of the coca cola brand in goodwill in order to be liked and be preferred by the potential customers. Persuading will involve associate that will position the brand as the most preferred drink in the mind of the target audience.
Convincing the target market to purchase more products; this objective entails convincing target market to buy more coca cola drinks in Australia to obtain the health benefits and great taste. This objective involves conviction that the coca cola drinks are in diverse variants and are tailored to ones healthy needs.
In order to achieve the IMC objectives that are based on the response identified, new promotional tool have to be exploited. These tools are proposed to ensure that they reach the target market is between the age of 15 and 40years. These tools include the following;
Web pages: These promotional tools will place ads on in the websites that contain information relating to the objective of the IMC. The information contained these web pages will be tailored to create awareness and avail knowledge to the target audience about the coca cola drink.
Video Advertisement: This promotional tool is appropriate due to its ability to convey emotions that will be associated with the drinking of the coca cola drink. A well produced video will be used to persuade the target audience due to its ability to influence in moving images.
Brochure: The use of brochures in promoting the product will create an impression of conviction from the target market. Giving brochures will enable a potential customer decide on the product since a brochure is detailed and the customer will find it courteous reciprocating by purchasing the product. This tool will therefore induce purchase of the product.
The central theme of the promotions will be sharing emotions by a taste of a coca cola drink. This theme will attract attention of the target market that will feel curious and have a desire to share emotions with their peers and loved ones. The targeted markets are individual who are in a stage of life where emotions matters very much and a drink that incorporates emotions will be a perfect match in their social life. This theme will be appropriate since it attracts the target audience attention and the coca cola having a distinct satisfying taste will meet expectations.
The creative strategy will aim can ensuring that the messages that reach the target market are within the IMC objectives (Lake, 2017). This will ensure that the whole process of promoting the product will meet the predetermined objectives. The creative strategy will be an aggressive and effective emotional message that emphasizes on the distinct taste that refreshes and brings joy to a consumer. An aggressive strategy will ensure that the message reaches a wider range of target market and the message remains with them so that they keep on remembering the product.
In order to implement the creative strategy, the advertising appeal will have to be observed. Good images need to be taken by professionals that will portray the goodness that the product is being associated to. The style of the execution is to be energy of a healthy young individual. This execution will ensure that the brand is associated with good health. This execution will also involve activities that bring people together to connect their emotions as they enjoy the feelings and taste of coca cola.
The creative tactics will be timing when to air the promotional message. Since the drink is a beverage that quenches thirst, the advertisements will be aired in warm seasons and holidays to take the opportunity of the social gatherings and hot weather. The other tactic will be advertising on shows and movies that are mostly watched by the target market. These shows include the youth tailored audiences which catch most of the young generation attention. This association will facilitate persuasion and awareness of the drink making the IMC effective.
The media vehicle that will be appropriate for the creative strategy will be nation TV, Web pages and Highways Billboards. National TV will ensure that the message reaches the mass in general of all geographical areas. Web pages will enable communication to reach the high numbers of internet users in the country which is largely made up of the target market. Web pages ads on will attract the target audience attention providing information on the coca cola drink. The billboard media vehicle will facilitate popularizing the product in specific areas selected on the basis of the targeted market. The billboard will have images that attract attention of the target marketing and enhancing liking of the product.
Conclusion
According to the report above, it evident that effectiveness of an IMC requires critical review of the brand of the product in order to succeed in the market. The situational review of coca cola drink reviewed that the promotional message was not in line with the response model. Therefore it can be concluded that an effective integrated marketing communication need to be based on the response model and have creative strategies to facilitate achieve the predetermined objectives.
References
Baker, R. (2017). Coca-Cola makes biggest ever shift to global marketing – AdNews. Adnews.com.au. Retrieved 10 January 2017, from https://www.adnews.com.au/news/coca-cola-makes-biggest-ever-shift-to-global-marketing
Coca-Cola Amatil | Home. (2017). Ccamatil.com. Retrieved 10 January 2017, from https://www.ccamatil.com/
Finne, A. & Grönroos, C. (2009). Rethinking marketing communication: From integrated marketing communication to relationship communication. Journal Of Marketing Communications, 15(2-3), 179-195
Gertner, D. & Rifkin, L. (2017). Coca-Cola and the Fight against the Global Obesity Epidemic. Thunderbird International Business Review.
Lake, L. (2017). What is a Creative Strategy and Why is it Important to Your Marketing?. The Balance. Retrieved 10 January 2017,
Mayer, J. The Coca-Cola Center for Marketing Studies: A Model for Marketing Research and Education. SSRN Electronic Journal
Mubayi, S. (2012). Alexandra Chreiteh, Always Coca-Cola [D??iman Coca-Cola]. Trans. Michelle Hartman. Northampton, MA: Interlink Books, 2012. Pp. 121. Journal Of Arabic Literature, 43(2-3), 540-542.
Our Businesses and Brands. (2017). Ccamatil.com. Retrieved 10 January 2017, from https://www.ccamatil.com/en/our-businesses-and-brands
Population – Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2017). Abs.gov.au. Retrieved 10 January 2017, from https://www.abs.gov.au/population
Smarandescu, L. & Shimp, T. (2014). Drink coca-cola, eat popcorn, and choose powerade: testing the limits of subliminal persuasion. Marketing Letters, 26(4), 715-726.
Wang, M. (2015). Brief Analysis of Sports Marketing Strategy Adopted by Coca Cola Company. Asian Social Science, 11(23).
Yuvaraju, D., Subramanyam, D., & Rao, P. (2014). Advertising Strategy of Coca-Cola at Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt.Ltd. IOSR Journal Of Business And Management, 16(6), 122-131.
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