WHAT ARE THE CREATIVE STRATEGIES IN THE INTEGRATED MARKETING AND HOW IT AFFECTS THE ORGANIZATIONS IN THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
IMC – Integrated marketing communications
MPR – marketing public relations
INTRODUCTION
The central purpose of this literature review is to discuss how creative
strategies in integrated marketing affected the communication strategies of
companies during the COVID-19 pandemic, and lessons that can possibly be
acquired form such effect. To do this, this paper begins with a brief, yet
detailed, description of creative strategies in integrated marketing and moves
down to the effects it has on communication strategies of companies during the
pandemic. It concluded with a summary of the findings from the literature
review.
CREATIVE STRATEGIES IN INTEGRATED
MARKETING
The
four elements of IMC
Generally speaking, integrated marketing communications encompasses
general advertisement, direct marketing, sales promotion and public relations.
In some of the IMC campaigns, all these four elements are features, while one
or more might be eliminated in others for strategic reasons (Mamduh & Hutagalung, 2020). In line with the American Association of
Advertising Agencies, IMC is defined as: a concept of marketing communications
planning that recognizes the extra value in programs that integrate the
different strategic disciplines, for instance, general advertising, direct
responses, public relations and sales promotion, combing these discipline sin
order to provide consistence, clarity and maximum communications impact (Anas, 2019).
Thus, in an IMC campaign, general advertisement are mainly aimed at
strengthening brands and brand equity; direct making is designed to build
dialogue and relations, and also provide meals for closing sales; sales
promotion offer short-term purchasing incentives for both the consumers and
traders; while public relation (usually publicity) are aimed at offering
third-party endorsements and extra reinforcement for paid advertising messages
(Khizar et al., 2016). Therefore, it is evidenced that none of these
elements is inherent inferior or superior to the other, as they are all pivotal
in the functions of an integrated campaign. In essence, such campaign should
focus on the ‘big idea’ and a graphic outlook that considers all these four
elements. The implication is that it increases the chances of consumer getting
the message, having the message reinforced, and layering in their memories
without the ‘cognitive dissonance’ that is produced through mixed messages or
incongruous graphic elements (Kotler & Keller,
2009; Kotler & Armstrong, 2012).
The
creative concept
In a nutshell, this is an idea designed to imaginatively sole the
advertising problems of clients. It is all about coming up with an effect and
brilliant advertising campaign, one that takes an ample amount of hard work. In
any case, it must be pointed out that prior to attaining a great idea, the
creative team must pursue numerous mediocre ones. This is all initiated through
the conceptual development, or brainstorming, which is the process that is
initiated when an idle imagination is kicked into overdrive and exposes
numerous viable thoughts in the process (Świtała et
al., 2018).
Strategic
use of general advertising in IMC
On a general sense, advertising is a paid form of non-personal mass
media in which the person (or brand) sponsoring the advertised message is
clearly identified. The advertiser makes use of persuasion to inform,
education, sell, remind, and/or entertain the target audience in relation to a
given product or service (Blakeman, 2018).
The reason why advertising is considered as a mass medium is because of
the fact that it can be used to reach vast numbers of consumers, it is usually
considered as the best media option when launching a new product or in the
marketing of more homogenized and inexpensive products like toilet tissues,
ketchup, cleaning products and so on. Products that are mass advertised appear
to a large number of indistinct consumers and they can be purchased across
Fiji.
Strategic
use of public relations in IMC
In its simplest form, public relations are mostly unpaid form of
communication which are aimed at building relationship with both the internal
and external audience via different communication efforts that are designed to
reinforce, defend, or build the product image of a given company. When it comes
to the external audience, they represent the company’s ‘publics’, or target
audience. The internal audience represent the stakeholders, or those that have
vested interest or states in the success and reputation of the company (Blakeman, 2018).
When IMC makes use of public relations in promoting a brand, it is
referred to as “marketing public relations (MPR). This form of creative
strategy is based on the use of nonpaid media to print or broadcast in order to
inform the public about a given product, service, or corporation. Essentially,
MPR deals with the selling of a corporate or brand image to a defined,
specific, target audience. The creative strategies used in marketing public
relations include: print news releases, media kits, video news releases (VNRs),
news conference, interviews or personal appearance with celebrity spokesperson,
and sponsored events. In today’s marketing world, timing is controlled and all
forms of communication coming from public relations reflect the use of the same
tone of voice and appearance as other IMC messages. Therefore, it is not
unusual for public relations to be employed from time to time with the intent
of either creating or promoting media events that are aimed at strengthening or
maintaining customers’ interest in a product or service. Based on the
understand that it can be a means of easy access to the press and the ability
of the press to reach the target, also because it comes with sound reputation,
public relation comes with the potential of greasing the way for the rest of
the promotional mix, whether it is used to target the internal or external
audience (Blakeman, 2018).
Strategic
use of direct marketing in IMC
Direct marketing is viewed as both an advertising and promotional tool.
One might raise questions as to the difference between advertising and
promotion. When it comes to advertising, it is all about educating the
consumers about the features and benefits of a product in order to encourage
them to purchase the said product. On the other hand, promotion entails making
a proposition by offering packages deals that are capable of inducing the
immediate intention of the consumers to make purchases (Blakeman, 2018).
Once the market is aware of the exact target audience and desire to
engage the target audience in a one-on-one discussion, then, direct marketing
should be considered as a viable alternative to conventional advertisement
tools.
On a general sense, direct marketing is all about creating dialogue
between the seller and the buyer. With the use of different media vehicles and
databases, the marketer will be able to coordinate and personalize
communication. The information that is gathered via the database will make it
easier for the direct marketer to reach the target audience based on their past
purchase history, psychographics, demographics, geographic, and behavioural
elements.
With this pronounced knowledge about the consumers, the creative team
will be able to create a more personalize message, one that is capable of
eliminating the more generic mass-media messages that are delivered through the
conventional methods of advertising. This creates a more intimate environment
that would make it easier and more effective to reach and talk to the target
audience in the language they can relate and also about topics that are
interesting to them. The outcome would be the development of an interpersonal
relationship the client and/or marketer, the product or services, and the
actual target audience. This relationship is one of the foundations considered
pivotal for building and sustaining loyalty to a brand (Blakeman, 2018).
Strategic
use of sales promotion in IMC
Normally, sales promotion is used together with other media, especial
direct marketing, and this gives customers certain form of incentives or gifts
into promoting an inquiry about a product or service, or to make outright
purchases. The overall intent of sales promotion is to quickly increase
interest or sales by offering discounted prices or other motivational devices
over a limited timeframe.
The difference between sales promotion and advertising is in its
approach. This is because while the focus of advertising is to influence
attitudes and tell the consumers why they should make purchases, sales
promotion is focused on giving the target an incentive in order to induce them
into quickly reacting to the message advertised (Blakeman,
2018).
Incentives can be in numerous forms. Among the most commonly used forms
of incentives are premiums, coupons, contexts, sampling and sweepstakes,
refunds and rebates, in-store displays, and percent- or cents-off promotions.
In choosing the sales promotion vehicles, the marketer should focus on those
capable of reinforcing the advertised message, reflecting the company’s
strategy for both the target audience and product image.
EFFECTS OF CREATIVE STRATEGIES IN
INTEGRATED MARKETING ON ORGANIZATIONS DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Whitler and Narula (2020) are some of the authors that
have looked at integrated marketing communications during the COVID-19 Pandemic
(henceforth, to be called ‘pandemic’). The scholars pointed out that with the
onset of the pandemic, it was pivotal for corporations to reach out to their
consumers in order to sustain overall loyalty. They references a reviewed that
looked at how companies were communicating with customers during this period of
crisis, and reviewed emails sent to different target audiences in order to
understand patterns across firms and the way their communication tone, style
and content changed as the pandemic progressed. Emails were especially suitable
for understand how marketers adapted to the changed during pandemic, because it
was a fast and effect way of creating and distributing information. This is
easier when compared to other forms of communication medium like the TV
commercials, that might take months to design, shoot and edit – and they might
eventually be aired for numerous months without any real change -, whereas,
emails are normally created and executed on the daily, offering more, deeper
nuanced insight (Whitler & Narula, 2020; Dash &
Chakraborty, 2021).
Basically,
the entire findings pointed towards the digitalization of creative strategies
during the pandemic. With the world on lockdown, companies still need to
continue communicating with their customers and promoting their brands, as well
as selling their product image. Thus, there was always a need for new measures
to be developed towards attaining this goal and this brought about increased
digitalization of the creative strategies in Fiji business s4etting. This
digitalization, with focus on Fiji, can be described in four phases of pandemic
communication.
The
first phase of the effect was dealing with the crisis. During early March,
2020, the gravity of the situation facing the world seem uncertain. Numerous
stories started to emerge from Wuhan, in China, and Italy as it related to
hospitals being overrun, increasing rate of death and warning from health care
professional. Just like the rest of the world, Fiji also braced for the
unknown, and the marketing communication of companies clearly reflected that
uncertainty in their tome of emails, social media posts, press releases and
other forms of communication with the tone mainly serious, sober and cautious.
The marketing communication of companies had this heaviness which mirrored the
insecurity and enormity of the situation. In the early days, numerous companies
focused on addressing the specific health-related concern as well as providing
rational messages as it relates to enhancing safety precautions and cleanliness
practices. Together with reassuring their consumers about safety, early
messages coming from companies expressed more of sentiments of togetherness, as
they continued to remind the consumers that “We are all in this”. Thus, notwithstanding the difficult and cold
realities of the rising pandemic, notes from these companies still delivered connectedness,
warmth and reassurance to their consumers. It continued to remind the consumers
that they are one world, one people and one country (Whitler
& Narula, 2020; Dash & Chakraborty, 2021).
The
second phase is adapting to Covid-19. With time, it was clear that social
distancing, washing of hands, wearing face masks and so on where here to stay
and going back to normal was far away. With the death tolls rising, it wasn’t
longer sufficient for businesses to just respond with short-term safety
outlines. Thus, companies needed to prove their potentials to persevere
irrespective of how adverse the circumstances might be. On that note, the tone
of communication messages started to change from somber to more of a determine
tone, with the content focusing more on measures that companies have undertaken
in order to adapt their businesses. Some of these measures included:
contactless delivery - in which products
are mailed to the customers’ door steps and eliminating any need for contact;
and innovated video visits – which allowed patients to get consultation and
support from the comfort of their home. Through these measures, companies were
able to assert their survival and ability to continually deliver the same
products and quality to the consumers notwithstanding the crisis (Whitler & Narula, 2020; Dash & Chakraborty, 2021).
The
third stage moved to increasing value for consumers. Considering the
persistence of the pandemic, it was pertinent for companies to enact more
measures that will simply enhance their competitive adaptability. As marketing
is all about value creation, the messages passed by companies at this stage
simply described that, as it reassured the consumers that their loyalty to the
brand would bring about numerous new benefits for them. Such as, hotels waiving
change/cancellation fees, and pausing point expiration. The tone of their
communication also changed to more of a hopeful spirit as they companies
continued to communicate plans for the future and how they are moving forward (Whitler & Narula, 2020; Dash & Chakraborty, 2021).
The
fourth and final stage is back to normal. This depicts a degree of normalcy,
with the integrated marketing communications returning to normalcy such as the
“20% OFF” subject line, as well as other typical promotional contents now being
featured in marketing messaged (Whitler & Narula,
2020; Dash & Chakraborty, 2021).
CONCLUSION
In summary, the COVID-19 pandemic had adverse effect on the creative strategies employed by companies in their integrated marketing communications, with the tone of message moving from uncertainty to hope, determination and eventually back to normalcy. In any case, the most noticeable change was the widened shift to digital forms of communication and service delivery as lock downs made it impossible to establish direct contact with the final consumers.
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