Integrated Marketing Communication can be defined as the marking tool that integrates all the elements of marketing. This communication tool ensures that the messages that needs to be communicated and the tools that are used to communicate with the customers should be integrated in the manner such that it can align the marketing goals with the communication objectives of the company.
Woolworth is the supermarket company that serves the customers of Australia with all the products of daily use such as grocery, vegetables, fruits etc. Woolworth has the duopoly in the market with another supermarket called Coles. They both collectively acquire around 80% of the total supermarket industry share. The company mostly deals with grocery products but also deals with some of the products such as DVD’s and stationary items. There are 1000 stores in Australia. Among these stores around 968stores are the supermarket stores and additional 19 stores are convenience stores. As far as the historical data of the company is considered, the company was established in1924 September. This suggests that the company is serving the Australian customers since years and thus has framed a great brand image among the minds of the customers. Woolworths has acquired two of the supermarket companies like Roelf Vos and purity in 1989 (Strategy and objectives – Woolworths Group., 2017). Acquisition of the smaller companies has always been the strategy of the company to acquire large customer base and the market share. The biggest competition of the company is Coles and thus it has to come up with new ideas to maintain the brand image of the company in the market. In terms of marketing, the company is very active as it launched the campaign named “Fresh Food People”. The main aim of introducing this campaign is to position the image of the company in the minds of the customers. This is because the company wants to be known as the brand that is purely fresh in nature.
As far as the product of the company is considered, the company deals with all the grocery products such as fruit and vegetables. The product lines of the company are bakery products, beer and wine, meat and non-veg products, baby product, toiletries, clothing for men, women and kids, cigarettes and tobacco products etc. this basically describes that the company serves the ,market with almost all the ranges of the products required on the daily basis to the people (Cameron, 2017).
Marketing objective of the company basically deals with the objectives related to the company and the product’s awareness. The main and the ultimate aim of deciding the marketing objective of the company is to increase the sales and in turn the revenue. In case of Woolworths, the company wants to revitalize the brand so that people can gain get attracted to buy from this old brand. It is also required by the company to attract the female customers as they were attracted by the new brands like Aldi those who are serving the customers with the products at low prices (Belch, Belch, Kerr & Powell, 2014). After analyzing the company’s situation, it has been determined that following marketing objectives should be set for the company.
Target audience can be defined as the group of people that are being targeted by the company in order to sell their products. When a company makes its marketing pan, it is necessary for the company to assess the market and analyze its target audience according to which the advertising needs to be done. Target sudinece can be determined by the tool called STP. This is referred to as segmentation, targeting and positioning (Belch & Belch, 2016).
Segmentation: Segmentation is the element of this tool that allows the company to segment the market according to different characteristics. The market can be segmented according to the age, gender, class etc. in case of Woolworths; it has been analyzed that the company should segment the market according to gender basis and according to class basis.
Targeting: Targeting is the second step that helps the company to target a particular segment that has been divided according to some basis. Woolworths has segmented the market according to gender and class, so the company should target females in case of gender segmentation and middle class people in case of class segmentation (Moriarty, Mitchell, Wells, Crawford, Brennan & Spence-Stone, 2014) This is because most of the products that the company is selling are bought by the females of the house and to compete with competitors like Aldi who is saving the customers with low prices, the company needs to target middle class people to raise market share.
Positioning : The major aim of the company in terms of positioning itself in the market is to come up as a new brand that is serving the customers with fresh products in low prices. The company has to focus itself as a females brand in terms of attracting the females.
Communication objectives can be defined as the objectives that are related or intended directly to the advertising and promotions of the brand and the products. Communication objectives deal with the communication strategies of marketing of a company. As far as Woolworth is considered, it has been analyzed that the company has to target the women and revitalize its brand. To target women the company also needs to communicate about the online sales of the company. The company needs to encourage the women to purchase the products online for their house (Percy, 2014). This is basically to target the working females of the country. Another target of the company is the middle class people, so the company has to project its image as the low-price company that serves the customers with branded fresh products at low prices. On the whole, the communication objectives of the company can be summarized as below:
The style of creative advertising that should be used by Woolworth is resonance style. It is the style that deals with connecting with the customers. It faces on maintaining the relationship with the customers and by showing them that business and the customers are on the same wavelength. The feel of connection of the customers with the brand results in brand loyalty (Šeri?, Gil-Saura & Ruiz-Molina, 2014).
This statement helps to describe the integration of the rational benefits and the emotional connect that takes place between the brands and the customers. It is the strategy that is used to integrate the marketing activities or the communication objectives of the company with the emotional requirement of the customers.
Various strategies that can be used to communicate with the customers are:
The below media plan is made in order to determine various factors or elements associated with the advertising or the communication tool used by the company. This brief is made regarding a magazine Ad
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Media plan |
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Client: Woolworth Type: Magazine ad (Print media) Date: 30 march |
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Why are we advertising? |
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We are advertising in order to create awareness about the brand among the target audience and to portray the image of the company as a brand of females and middle class people. |
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Who is our audience? |
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Our audience for the above communication strategy is mainly the females and the middle class people the segmenting to target the audience is done in the basis of gender and on the basis of class of the customers. |
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What do they currently think? |
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The customers currently think that the brand is not renewing and is not made for the middle class people. The company is not made for them and is not serving them with low price products. |
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What would we like them to think? |
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We want the people to relate themselves with the brand. We want to connect with the customers emotionally and want to portray the company as the brand if females and middle class people. |
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What is most persuasive idea to attract customers? |
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The most persuasive idea is connect the women and the middle class people with the brand emotionally |
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Are there any creativity? |
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The color full ad has been posted on the full page of the magazine with the message “For you and from you”. |
As far as the communication objectives of the company are considered, the company has to ensure that all the communication objectives should be ethical in nature. It is important to use the strategies that does not harm or violate any of the ethical frameworks. It is important that the information provided by the company should be correct and does not misinform the audience. So, Woolworth needs to maintain that ethical consideration in the strategies and the activities conducted (Makhitha, 2015). The information that needs to be provided will be correct and ethical. Another consideration is that there should not be any manipulation f the minds of the people through any of the communication objective or the strategy used. Manipulation can be in terms of degrading the image of other brands or telling the customer not to buy other brands is an unethical practice in marking that should not be performed or practiced by Woolworths.
According to the above integrated marketing communication plan, the objectives that have been discussed in the whole plan is related to the projecting the image of the company as the brand for middle class pole and inspiring women and females to buy product from the company. In order to evaluate the IMac plan of the company, it is required to assess the increase in online sales and the number of times women has visited the store ( Luxton, Reid & Mavondo, 2015). It has also bob elated by reporting the data of the people who have made their accounts on only portal of the company through which it sells the products. In ore to evaluate, survey is the method that shun be used to determine the reason behind the incoming of the females in the stores. The survey can be conducted online or offline at the stores. The survey forms filled by online users also helps in determining the increase in number of online customers and the number of women participated. The general information asked frothed survey form should Laos consider the Colum that ask for the occupation of the customers so that it can be analyzed that whether these people are from middle class or service class family or not. Survey at the store should Laos include the questions rated to the magazine ad so that effectiveness of this strategy can also be evaluated simultaneously.
Conclusion:
Woolworth is one of the leading supermarket firms in Australia. There is duopoly in the industry in Australia and thus Woolworth has to come up with marketing strategies that can help the company to revitalize its image and to compete with competitors such as Coles and Aldi. The company should use integrated marketing communication tool to integrate the marketing objectives with the communication messages. Print media is one of the best tools that can be used by the company in the form of magazine to attract the women and the middle class people as this should be the objective of the company.
Belch, G. E., & Belch, M. A. (2016). Evaluating The Effectiveness of Elements of Integrated Marketing Communications: A Review of Research. ISBN: 10 12-3869 Vol No 4 No 1 June 2016.
Belch, G. E., Belch, M. A., Kerr, G. F., & Powell, I. (2014). Advertising: An integrated marketing communication perspective. McGraw-Hill Education.
Cameron, N. (2017). Woolworths details 3-year strategy to become customer centric. Cmo.com.au. Retrieved 3 April 2017, from https://www.cmo.com.au/article/574302/woolworths-details-3-year-strategy-become-customer-centric/
Cornelissen, J. (2014). Corporate communication: A guide to theory and practice. Sage.
Luxton, S., Reid, M., & Mavondo, F. (2015). Integrated marketing communication capability and brand performance. Journal of Advertising, 44(1), 37-46.
Makhitha, K. M. (2015). Marketing Of Craft To Retailers: Understanding Their Buying Process, Supplier Selection Criteria And Information Sources Used. The International Business & Economics Research Journal (Online), 14(6), 791.
Moriarty, S., Mitchell, N. D., Wells, W. D., Crawford, R., Brennan, L., & Spence-Stone, R. (2014). Advertising: Principles and practice. Pearson Australia.
Percy, L. (2014). Strategic integrated marketing communications. Routledge.
Šeri?, M., Gil-Saura, I., & Ruiz-Molina, M. E. (2014). How can integrated marketing communications and advanced technology influence the creation of customer-based brand equity? Evidence from the hospitality industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 39, 144-156.
Strategy and objectives – Woolworths Group. (2017). Woolworthsgroup.com.au. Retrieved 3 April 2017, from https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/about-us/our-approach/strategy-and-objectives
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