International_Marketing_Communication

Table of Contents 1.0 Introduction 2 2.0 Modified Integrated Marketing Communication Objectives 2 3.0 Modified Creative Strategy Statement 3 3.1 Creative Strategy Statement 3 3.2 Advertising appeal 3 3.2.1 Informational/ Rational appeal and Combination of rational and emotional appeal 3 3.2.2 Emotional appeal 4 3.3 Executional Techiniques 4 3.3.1 Straight-sell or factual message 4 3.3.2 Demonstration 4 4.0 The Marketing Communication Functions for ‘BabyOwn’ 5 4.1 Advertising 5 4.1.2 Print Advertisements 5 4.2 Sales Promotion 8 4.2.1 Premiums 8 4.2.2 Refunds and rebates (Discount) 9 4.3 Internet Marketing 9 5.0 Conclusion 12 5.1 Budget summary 12 6.0 Evaluation of IMC programme 13 6.1 Inquiry testing 13 7.0 Recommendations 13 1.0 Introduction The purpose of this plan is to provide an insight into the integrated marketing communication campaign of BabyOwn., a modern lightweight stroller. This plan intends to create awareness and interest among consumers. This plan is also carry out to instill favorable attitudes and to provide information to customers who intend to purchase a lightweight and modernized baby stroller. Our stroller possesses safety and comfort for the infants and at the same time look sophisticated. Our special feature of the product such as goose feather interior costumes, lightweight U-PVC chassis and reduced-friction-wheel enable the smoothest movement. Since it is a premium stroller, our primary target is the Generation-X consumers aged between 32 and 45 with a stable income. They may not be earning much but they are capable of purchasing our stroller. The majority of this target segment comprises of young married or is at their early stage of parenthood. The geographic location target for the MC campaign of BabyOwn is at the shopping complexes in the city centre due to the higher population density. In this case, we choose Pavilion KL.In order to carry out this MC campaign, our company uses advertisement, sales promotion and internet. Further in this plan, the choice and reason of the chosen marketing communication functions is discussed together with the cost and budget of each MC function. A summary of the budget with be provided at the end. 2.0 Modified Integrated Marketing Communication Objectives Objective 1: To create awareness among 50% of the target market within 1 year of launch. Objective 2: To create interest among 30% of the target market within 1 year of launch. Objective 3: To create favourable attitudes towards the brand among 20% of the target market within 1 year of launch. Objective 4: To provide information to 70% of the target market within 1 year of launch. 3.0 Modified Creative Strategy Statement 3.1 Creative Strategy Statement In linking the message strategy of ‘BabyOwn’ with the integrated marketing communication (IMC), we have developed a strategy statement using the guideline by Don Schultz (Belch, Belch, Kerr & Powell, 2009). “For generation-x consumers who are upper-middle class white collars that have stable disposable income of RM 3000 to RM 7000 aging between 32 to 45 years who willing to spend any money on their first baby and prefer strollers that are stylish and yet affordable. Our product is a premium baby stroller that not only possesses safety and comfort for infant but also looks stylish. Unlike any other premium baby strollers’ brand in the market like Maclaren or Bugaboo, our stroller stands out from others by communicating an image of modern sophistication with its uniqueness of attributes, quality materials, mobility and maneuverability”. 3.2 Advertising appeal Advertising appeal is needed to develop successful advertisements (Masterman & Wood, 2005) and attract the attention of target audience (Morgan & Summers, 2005). Our ‘BabyOwn’ stroller brand intends to use informational/rational, emotional and combination of rational and emotional appeal in developing advertisement to reach target audience. 3.2.1 Informational/ Rational appeal and Combination of rational and emotional appeal Informational or rational appeals are types of appeals focus on the consumer's practical, functional or utilitarian need for the product or service and/or specific reasons for owning a particular brand. Rational Appeals advertising messages usually product-feature based, in which advertisers attempt to achieve their objectives by appeals to logic and reason rather than to the emotions (Asker et al 1992). Hence it is a lucrative yet applicable approach to communicate our ‘BabyOwn‘s’ advertisement messages to target audience. On the other hand, consumer purchase decisions are often made on the basis of both emotional and rational motives, and attention must be given to both elements in developing effective advertising. (Belch et. al, 2009). Hence, Informational/Rational and the combination of rational and emotional appeal, both approaches will be using on magazine advertisement where there will be a description or information regarding the stroller’s attributes and background with balloons and feather flowing off to depict the lightweight of the ‘BabyOwn’s’ stroller. All these can be seen in the sample of ‘BabyOwn’s’ magazine advertisement in Appendix 1. 3.2.2 Emotional appeal Emotional appeals are often strategically employed to influence consumers indirectly and make the consumer feel good about the product and make a brand liked or friendly (Calder & Gruder, 1989) relying on feelings for effectiveness (Asker et al., 1992). Besides, research shows that positive mood states and feelings created by advertising can have a favourable effect on consumer’s evaluations of a brand (Garner, 1985). Madison (1990) studies also shows that emotional advertising is better remembered than non-emotional messages. Most of customers’ motivations are emotional for their purchase decision (Belch et al., 2009). Hence, we intend to use consumers’ feelings such as safety, comfort, affection, self-esteem and status to enhance consumer’s emotional attachment for our ‘Baby Own’ strollers. This is done by using the ‘BabyOwn’s’ slogan, “We’re just going to keep doing what we do and we’re going to bring the kids.” 3.3 Executional Techiniques To develop an attention-demanding message, a safe common ground is to meet the optimum situation for any marketing communication (Belch et al, 2009). Our stroller brand intends to use straight sell or factual, and demonstration execution techniques to bring the message of ‘BabyOwn’ strollers to our life. 3.3.1 Straight-sell or factual message Straight-sell or factual message is a type of execution relies on a straightforward presentation of information about the product or service such as specific attributes or benefits (Belch et al., 2009). It is often used in print ads, with a picture of the product or service occupying part of the ad and the straight forward factual copy taking up the remainder of the space. Ads for high involvement consumer products generally make use of this type of execution format (Koekemoer, 2004). Our ‘BabyOwn’ stroller is a premium brand where consumers might require additional information when it comes to evaluating their preference strollers. Therefore, stroller’s information will be straight presented in our magazines advertisement. 3.3.2 Demonstration Demonstration advertising is designed to illustrate the key advantages or benefits of the products or service and/or the competitive strengths by showing it in actual use or in some stages situation (Belch et al., 2009). Demonstration executions can be a very effective way to convince consumers of a products’ utility or quality and the value or advantages of owning or using the brand (Koekemoer, 2004). For our ‘BabyOwn’ stroller, we will use the illustration of feather falling down and balloons on the sky represent the lightweight of our ‘BabyOwn’ stroller. 4.0 The Marketing Communication Functions for ‘BabyOwn’ The marketing communication functions that we will use for ‘BabyOwn’ are advertising, sales promotion and internet marketing. The most highlighted marketing communication function will be advertising (50%), followed by internet marketing (30%) and sales promotion (20%). Advertising is most emphasized due to its ability to create awareness and reach out to the target market more effectively. Sales promotion could help to intensify advertising further because it promotes and offers additional values and enhances the effect of advertising. Besides, internet do supports both of the marketing functions while offering more information of our brand’s strollers to the customers during information search. 4.1 Advertising Advertising is selected due to its persuasive and informative nature and its ability to influence the purchase behavior and thinking patterns of the targeted audiences. The rationale behind advertising is that advertisements are one of the most evident marketing tools available. According to a research conducted by the research company, Synovate, 47% of people are fond of looking through advertisements in print media for information and 35% of people are more trusting towards products that are advertised (Synovate Media Atlas, 2006). Hence, advertising is used to achieve the Objective 1, 3 and 4. The two types of advertising that would be used are television and print advertisements. 4.1.2 Print Advertisements The company is going to choose ‘The Star’ newspaper and ‘Her World’ to advertise the ‘BabyOwn’ strollers. Both media would be used to achieve Objective 1, 2 and 4. Newspaper is still the key medium of reaching Malaysian covering market share of 56.3% compare to FTA TV (TV1, TV2, TV3, NTV7, 8TV) of 30.2% while magazines only take up about 3.1% (Malaysia Communications and Multimedia Commissions, 2006) . 4.1.2.1 Newspapers Newspaper is chosen primarily due to its wide penetration with 50% or more household who read daily newspaper and readers generally trust newspaper’s advertisement (Belch et al, 2009). Figure 1 below shows the percentage of newspaper readership age group falls between 32 to 45 years old in 2008 has 40% in overall which considered quite high rate (Media guide, 2009). Hence, newspaper advertising would effectively reach out to our ‘BabyOwn’s’ target market. Three main newspapers are chosen as our main advertisers namely The Star, Harian Metro and Sin Chew Daily. The reason being is due to their high amount of readership and circulation among the English, Malay and Chinese newspapers respectively (as shown in Appendix 1). Newspaper is one of the main sources of information provider to consumers and hence the company will be placing advertisements in newspapers for 6 weeks periodically beginning from December 2010 to May 2011. Since three newspapers will be used, there are a total of 18 times for the company to place advertisement. Thus, advertisement on baby.own will be place alternatively in these newspapers every week for three days. This can help the company to achieve its objective. 4.1.2.2 Magazines Other than that, advertisement will also be placed in magazines. The benefit of using magazines is due to high audience engagement, the ability to target narrowly, cost-effective reach build, corresponding to television and long shelf life (Green, 2007). WARC report (2007) illustrated that leaving magazines out of the media mix notably reduced the overall impact of a campaign. Hence, advertisement in magazines is necessary. As our ‘BabyOwn’ stroller is a new product, the position of the advertisement is essential to ensure that consumer is aware of our products. Therefore, we will place the advertisement on the left inside of magazines with full page length and colours to ensure that the target audience did not overlook the advertisement. Among all the English magazines, Her World is chosen to be the magazines of advertising our product. This is because Her World focuses more on lifestyle and living as well as parenting compare to its sister magazine Marie Claire (Her World, 2009). This is most suitable as it matches with our target segment which is women age between 32 and 45 who are in their early parenthood. The circulation of this magazine is quite high compare to other English fashion and lifestyle magazines which claimed to be 40,000 (as shown in Appendix 5). As baby.own is a new to the market, it the position of the advertisement is essential to ensure that consumer remembers the products. The advertisement will be place between the normal content but it will be between the sections for parenting. Baby.own’s advertisement will be printed in 6 issues for a period of 6 months alternatively. The advertisement is going to be full page full colour and the cost is shown below. 4.2 Sales Promotion Sales promotions are marketing activities that offer additional value or motivations to the sales forces or the target audience and can encourage immediate sales (Belch et al., 2009). Generally, sales promotion is used to launch new products, reach new customers and to increase usage of a product (Kitchen & Pelsmacker, 2004). Using sales promotion as a MC function is beneficial for ‘BabyOwn’ and also enable potential consumer to engage them with the new product. Therefore, several promotional tools like premiums, refunds and rebates are going to be chosen for promoting ‘BabyOwn’ strollers. 4.2.1 Premiums Premiums are offers of an item of products that are either complimentary or at a low price that acts as an incentive for purchases (Belch et al., 2009). Our ‘BabyOwn’ stroller intends to use free premiums as a promotional tool. The objective of using premium is to create customers’ favorable attitudes towards our brand among 20% of the target market within one year of launch. For ‘BabyOwn’, premiums could be given out in a good quality limited editions bottle which embodied with excellent stitches of ‘BabyOwn’ logo. This promotional tool can help to create favorable attitudes towards ‘BabyOwn’ as it acts as an incentive to consumers to purchase ‘BabyOwn’ as some might be attracted to this special limited edition bottle. Premiums will be given out in the beginning of the campaign, which is in August 2010. This promotion is based on the while-stock-last basis where there will be limited units of our water tumbler. This may take approximately six months of the campaign duration which is February 2011. Baby.own intends to give out 20 units that cost approximately RM12 (Combine-effort.com, 2010) for every purchase of Baby.own stroller. This is inclusive of the printing fee for the company logo. With that, an approximate cost of premiums is calculated as illustrated below. 4.2.2 Refunds and rebates (Discount) The objective of using refunds and rebates for ‘BabyOwn’ is to create interest and favorable attitudes towards ‘BabyOwn’ among 30% and 20% target market respectively within a year of launch. The rationale of using this promotional tool is that they are usually designed to increase sales while introducing new products into the market (Bootwala, Lawrence, Mali, 2007). Besides, giving rebates usually acts as an incentive for consumers as they can pay less to purchase as well as a base to build up the brand name and establish ‘BabyOwn’ s’ benefits. Due to the rebates and refunds, consumers would notice our brand ‘BabyOwn’ and upon experiencing the product, this would create favourable attitudes towards our baby strollers. Therefore, we are going to give out a 5% price reduction in 1 month started from the beginning of our first launch strollers. Coupons of rebates will be distributed in the ‘Her World’ magazine in their September 2010 issue. The company is using rebates or refunds as the promotion method. It will be in the form of cut-out coupons where it is printed together with the advertisement. Therefore, there is no cost incurred in the preparation of this. Similar to the issues of magazines, this promotional method will be carrying out for a period of 6 months at regular terms. This could help us achieve at least 5% of Objective 3. 4.3 Internet Marketing Interactive media allow consumers to carry out a range of functions like receive and modify information, make enquiries and respond to questions. The rationale behind using internet marketing as a tool is due to the potential sales and exposure it can generate for our ‘BabyOwn’ stroller. By using internet marketing, we can achieve the objectives of providing information to 70% of the target market within a year of launch. We can have our own official website, facebook page or twitter which not only can ensure customers are up-to-date with our latest news, products development and other relevant information, it will also help in developing a good relationship with own customers. Furthermore, customers can leave their comments on our facebook account as we will take it into account to improve our products or services in the future. Besides, the company is going to set up a contest that inquire participants to blog about why they are fond of ‘BabyOwn’ strollers in their blogs and 20 lucky winners will be chosen to receive RM 500 gift voucher for ‘BabyOwn’ products. This does provides incentives for consumers to participate. Participants first have to log on into our ‘BabyOwn’s’ official website and read the information of our strollers and later are asked of their details and their blog URL followed by their blog entries about ‘BabyOwn’. Winner later contacted via their email address. The contest will be implemented in the near end of the campaign, as by then more consumers would already have been aware of our ‘BabyOwn’ to blog about it. Another benefit of using internet marketing as a promotional tool is that we might gets to achieve another objective which is creating brand awareness of the ‘BabyOwn’ by 50% of the target market within one year of launch. The rationale behind this is that those who are not aware of the existence of ‘BabyOwn’ are exposed to it when they read the participants’s blog entries since there are many people blogging nowadays. On the other hand, the rise on online shopping has contributed a large response (Internet Marketing, 2010). Thus, we are going to sell our premium ‘BabyOwn’ strollers through few selective internet forums like mothercare.com and strollers.com, to increase our brand and products awareness. Moreover, using internet marketing, our ‘BabyOwn’ stroller can also generate positive word-of-mouth among consumers (Stone & Jacobs, 2008). The use of our official website will be as long as out company’s operation. There is no limit to this communication vehicle as we have to update our customers constantly. The designing of website is outsourcing to outside service provider because we believe that professional will be able to help create the design our official website systematically and effectively. The packaged offered by the designer includes free registration of the website’s domain name with “.com, .net and .org”, free unlimited content update, free feedback program and much more, with the price of only RM800 (1stopweb800.com, 2010). Together with our website, gift vouchers of RM 500 will be given out to the lucky customers who visit our website during special occasions such as Mother’s Day. This is offered to the first 20 visitors who visit our site starting of the day. The design of the gift voucher and the steps of obtaining the voucher will be carry out by the web designer as well. The cost of the website design and the gift voucher is shown in the figure below. 5.0 Conclusion 5.1 Budget summary In coming up with a budget for baby.own, the build-up approaches is used. This approach is implemented using the objective and task method. Firstly, communication objectives that are needed to be accomplished are defined, then specific approaches and tasks needed to achieve them are determined and lastly, the cost related with the performance of these approaches and tasks are estimated (Belch et al., 2009). For instance, baby.own first defined one of the communication objectives which is to “create awareness among 50% of the target market within a year”. Next, Baby.Own has allocated advertising, sales promotion and internet marketing to achieve this objective. Next, the costs associate with each tasks are then estimated. 6.0 Evaluation of IMC programme 6.1 Inquiry testing In order to test the effectiveness of our print advertisements, the inquiry test will be carrying out. This is to measure the effectiveness of the advertisement on the bases of inquiries generated from the advertisement appearing in the print media which is the magazine. The company can evaluate this by tracking the number of coupons returned. That is the coupon that customers cut from the magazine. This could determine how many readers who actually paid attention to the advertisement and the offer. As a result, baby.own will be able to discover the actual performance and the MC objectives. 7.0 Recommendations This plan is highly recommended to be implement by the company because it focuses 50% on advertisement, 30% on internet marketing and 20% on sales promotion. This 50% of advertisement comprises of the top and highly ranked newspaper and magazines in Malaysia. Our website will be one that provides ample information for customers. Together with the sales promotion, this will be the best MC plan.