[MUSIC] Welcome everybody. This module is an introduction to integrated marketing communication. It aims to help you make better marketing communication decisions. We will run through the marketing process on how to elaborate on the important decisions the marketing managers need to take through the marketing process. Additionally, you will be able to establish your marketing communication budget. You will learn to tailor your communication strategy in line with the specific company characteristics, goals, and needs. And you will also see professional points of view on the creative process. Finally, we will work on the elements of the marketing communication mix. You will have access to the latest trends and tools that are used in the integrated marketing communication. The main text we'll use in the module is Marketing Management from Kotler and Keller. Modern marketing calls for more than developing a good market offering, pricing it attractively, and making it accessible. Companies must also communicate with present and potential customers, stakeholders and the general public. For most, the question is not whether to communicate, but rather, what to say, how and when to say it, to whom and how often? According to Kotler and Keller marketing communications are the means by which firms attempt to inform, persuade, and remind customers about the brands they market. It represents the voice of the company and it plans, in other ways in which it can establish a dialogue and build relationships with customers. Marketing communication performs many functions for customers. They can inform or show customers how and why the market offering is used. Customers can discover who develops and supplies the marketing offering. It could also be an incentive or reward for trial or usage. It allows companies to link their brands to other people, places, events, brands, experiences, feelings and things. And can contribute to brand equity. The rise of web based advertising has caused a significant shift from traditional push strategies to modern pull strategies and web-based activities facilitate a customer call to action. Technology and other factors have profoundly changed the way customers process information. In this new communication environment, although advertising is an essentially element of a marketing communication program. It is not the only one in terms of building brand equity and boosting sales. The marketing communication mix consists of eight major modes of communication. Advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods or services, by an identified sponsor. Sales promotion, diverse short term incentives to include each trial or purchase of a product/service. Events and experiences. Are company sponsored activities and programs designed to create daily or special brand related interactions. Public relations and publicity is a variety of programs designed to promote or protect a company's image or its individual market offering. Direct Marketing. The use of mail, telephone, fax, internet to communicate directly with or solicit response or dialog from specific customers and prospects. Interactive Marketing, online activities and programs designed to engage customers or prospects and directly or indirectly raise awareness. Improve image or elicit sales of market offerings. Word-of-mouth marketing. People-to-people oral, written, or electronic communications that relate to the merits or experiences of purchasing and consuming market offerings. And finally, personal selling, face-to-face interaction with one or more perspective purchases for the purpose of making presentations, answering questions, and procuring orders. Every brand contact delivers an impression that can strengthen or weaken a customer's views of the company. So the best firms carefully develop their brands to reflect this customer's perceived values. Their marketing communication activities must be integrated to deliver a consistent message and to achieve the appropriate strategic positioning. The starting point is an audit of all the potential interactions that customers in the target market can have with the company and in all its market offering. For example, someone interested in buying a new car might talk to others, might watch a TV advertisement, read articles, look for information on the internet. And then try several car models in the dealership, so we need to have all these things, all these contacts in mind. Marketers need to assess which experiences and impressions will have the most influence at each stage of the buying process. This understanding will heighten to allocate the budget for communication more efficiently and design and implement the right communication programs. Then marketers can evaluate marketing communications according to their ability to affect experiences and impressions. They'll run equity and drive brand sales, from the prospective of building brand equity. Marketers should be media neutral and evaluate all the different possible communication options according to the effectiveness criteria, meaning how well it works as well as the efficiency. How much does it cost? Now that we understand the role of marketing communication and we know which are the major communication modes. In the next class we will learn to develop an effective communications program. [MUSIC]
