IMC is Not a Proven Marketing Theory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

IMC is Not a Proven Marketing Theory - Essay Example Direct Marketing is an approach used to create relationship with customers and delivering information about products to customer, the method is mainly used for selling financial services to customers, direct marketing also helps to close sales cycle within a short time period. Sales Promotion is the process that helps the company to increase brand visibility in point of sales and point of purchases, companies use the technique to increase new product usage ratio among customers, the process also helps to increase customer footfall in the retail stores, companies use loyalty card, discount method, incentive schemes to increase purchase ratio among customers. Public Relation companies can go for organizing public events or news paper editorial about their new product, they use trade shows to increase category visibility among customers, creating good word of mouth about the product is one of the major objectives of public relation (Jones). Many advertising agencies have shifted focus f rom creating unilateral promotional message to making multidimensional promotional message. Main purpose of IMC is to channelize the promotional message in a unified manner though all promotional medium. David Ogilvy has characterized IMC as one stop solution offered by advertising agencies to companies. Keith Reinhard (CEO of DDB Needham) thinks IMC is an effective way to produce creative brand message. Many research scholars think demassifiction played pivotal role in evolution of IMC. After 1970, media industry started to restructure into smaller operational units. They started giving importance to various promotional medium rather than concentrating on age old advertising model. In this way IMC has emerged as a common platform to integrate various promotional medium (Schultz, Tannenbaum and Lauterborn 6). IMC is a process to align communication objectives of a company with corporate goals to achieve business efficiency. Jerome McCarthy used the concept of four P’s (Produc t, price, place and promotion) during 1950’s for the first time (Jerome McCarthy used 4P’s concept in his book â€Å"Basic Marketing† published in 1960 and he used the concept to explain campaign made by JWT). Philip Kotler and other academicians (in 1965, Philip Kotler described 4P’s as various marketing variables in his article) proselytized the concept in coming years. Four P’s can be described in the following manner. Product- the strategy emphasizes on manufacturing products, maintaining the quality standard of product and optimum utilization of resources during production process. Price- deciding the price of the product in accordance with the demand of the product, setting high price or low price for the product is an important part of pricing strategy. Place- designing distribution network for the product, company creates distribution network to expand the reach of the product, appointing c&f agents, stockiest, wholesalers, retailers are pa rt of distribution strategy. Promotion- companies use direct marketing, sales promotion, and advertising activities to