Kanmingam Phungshok - Introduction

Chapter 6 by Shashank Singh

Ch 6 summary from Pujarini Ghosh

VALS by Abhijeet Mishra and Pujarini Ghosh

Vals from Pujarini Ghosh

Chapter 7 by Debasish Brahma

Chapter 7 by Debasish Brahma from Pujarini Ghosh

Introduction by Debasish Brahma

Introduction by Shashank Singh

Chapter 2 Summary by Kanmingam Phungshok

Chapter 2 from Kanmingam Phungshok

Importance of Brand Image by Pujarini Ghosh

: Good Morning Sir, I have been pondering upon the importance of IMC for a firm and a few questions seem to trouble me quite a bit.

: Go ahead Amar, you can ask me anything about IMC and I will be more than happy to clear your doubts.

: Sir, why is a corporate’s image so vitally important?

: Amar, before talking about its importance, tell me what you understand by a corporate’s image or a brand image.

: Brand image is the current view of the customers about a brand. It can be defined as a unique brand of associations with in the mind of target customers. It signifies what the brand presently stands for. It is a set of beliefs held out by a specific brand. (Brand image is the over-all impression in consumers’ minds that is formed from all sources.)

: Yes, you are right, Amar. Brand image is the impression in the consumers' minds of a brand's total personality - both real and imaginary qualities as well as shortcomings. Brand image is developed over time through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme, and is authenticated through the consumers' direct experience. Advertising, consumer promotions, trade promotions, personal selling, the company’s website and other marketing activities, all affect consumer perceptions of the firm. A strong brand image creates a major advantage for any product or service. A company’s image has a bottom line that can even be assigned a value in financial terms. Advertising managers and other marketing experts are expected to create messages that not only sell product in the short term, but also build the firm’s image over time. A strong IMC foundation combines understanding of the firm’s image and brands with assessment of consumer and business buyer behaviours. Then the marketing team can prepare consistent messages designed to reach all of the individuals who might purchase a company’s goods and services. When the image of an organization or one of its brands is somehow tarnished, sales revenues and profits can plummet. Rebuilding or revitalizing an image is a very difficult task.

 : But specifically how does a corporate’s image mould the consumer perspective?

: From a consumer’s perspective, the corporate image serves several useful functions, which include:

•         Providing assurance regarding purchase decisions of familiar products in unfamiliar settings
•         Giving assurance about the purchase when the buyer has little or no previous experience with the product or service
•         Reducing research time in purchase decisions
•       Providing psychological reinforcement and social acceptance of purchases

: So, is it because the brand image helps consumers’ make purchase decisions with or without prior experience with a particular product/service of the brand that the brand image is so important for the corporate?

: You are absolutely correct Amar. Let me illustrate with an example, in India the image of the Tatas is associated with highest levels of quality and ethics. So consumers intend to associate quality with the wide array of its product/service offerings – starting from Tata Salt and Tata Tea to Tata Indigo and Tata Nano to a Raga or Fast Track watch to a dinner or a night’s stay at the Taj. However this is just one aspect of the importance of a strong image for a company. Can you think of other ways in which the image of a brand can be important for the company?

: I can guess, Sir, can the company use its brand image to extend consumers’ feeling to the new products that it brings to the market?

: Yes, you are right, take the example of the initial hype with the Tata Nano – it was a mere reflection of the brand image which was imposed onto the product prior to any first-hand experience of consumers with the product itself.

: Sir, can a strong positive brand image lead to consumer loyalty and hence frequent repurchases?


: Yes indeed it can, continuing with the Tata example, if you were given a choice of buying Tata Tea and 502 Pataka Chai, would you not be motivated to buy the Tata brand more frequently?

: Indeed, I would. And it also gives the Tatas the ability to charge a slight premium or fee for its tea over its competitors. That would lead to a direct impact on its revenue. I never thought that a strong brand image could result in a direct revenue enhancement.

: Yes, but that is not all, there are other benefits that a company can derive from a strong brand image like:

•        Higher level of channel power
•         More favourable rating by financial observers and analysts
•        The ability to attract quality employees

Tell me Amar, would you not like to join the Tata group when they come for your campus recruitments?

: I would be more than willing to and I want to thank you Sir, for throwing so much light on the topic and clearing my doubts.

: I am happy that now you realise the importance of Brand image for a company. You can always contact me if you have any further doubts.

: Thank you Sir, bye.



: Take care, Amar.

CHAPTER 3-ORGANISING FOR ADVERTISING AND PROMOTION by Abhijeet Mishra

Every company wants that the product it makes appeals to the consumer and enters the evoked set of the consumer. For this to occur every firm needs to develop a comprehensive advertising and promotion campaign. There are many parties that take part in the development of any such program. Such parties can be from within the organization as well as from outside the firm. The development, execution and administration of an advertising and promotion program is a tricky and lengthy job which needs to be managed at every stage. This is the reason why this process of developing an Integrated Marketing communication includes participation from advertiser (client agency), ad agencies, media agencies, specialized marketing communication firms and providers of collateral services.  Firms use three types of system to organize themselves internally for any communications campaign. The first is the centralized system in which advertisement is also treated as a different vertical under marketing like market research, sales etc. headed by a single person for every brand that company has. The advantage of such system is lower personnel requirement and more top management involvement whereas the disadvantages are lower involvement with the overall marketing goals and longer response times. The decentralized is followed by companies like P&G where everything about a brand starting from advertisement and promotion to sales is managed by a brand manager. The advantages of such system are concentrated managerial attention and more rapid response to problems whereas the disadvantages include ineffective decision making, internal conflicts and lack of authority. Many firms have in-house advertising agency which offers the advantage of being cost effective, control and increased coordination but have the disadvantage of lacking experience, objectivity and flexibility. Many firms use advertising firms to develop and execute their communication program. This type of agencies can take up several of forms such as full service agencies, creative boutiques and media buying houses. These type of firms offer their clients a full range of marketing, communications, and promotions services, including planning, creating, and producing the advertising; performing research; and selecting media. A creative boutique is an agency that provides only creative services. These specialized companies have developed in response to some clients ‘desires to use only the creative talent of an outside provider while maintaining the other functions internally. The client may seek outside creative talent because it believes an extra creative effort is required or because its own employees do not have sufficient skills in this regard. Media buying services are independent companies that specialize in the buying of media, particularly radio and television time. There are different types through which agency can be charged. They are commission systems, percentage charges and fee and cost based system. Recently Agencies are being evaluated on both financial and qualitative aspects, and some clients are using incentive-based compensation systems that tie agency compensation to performance measures such as sales and market share. Now marketing has taken a very integrated approach where apart from mass media there are several other techniques being developed to woo the customer. As a reason of this apart from using ad agencies firms are using the services of other specialist service providers such as direct marketing agencies, sales and promotion agencies, public relation firms and interactive agencies. Now it depends upon a marketer whether he wants to employ different agencies specializing in different activities or he wants that the integrated marketing communication be developed by a single ad agency which provides all these service under one roof. Recent studies have found that most marketers believe it is their responsibility, not the ad agencies, to set strategy for and coordinate IMC campaigns. The lack of a broad perspective and specialized skills in non-advertising areas is seen as the major barrier to agencies’ increased involvement in integrated marketing communications.

Chapter 1 from Pujarini Ghosh

Introductory Video - Pujarini Ghosh

Integrated Marketing vs. Integrated Marketing Communication by Abhijeet Mishra

As MBA students we are generally taught ‘Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC)’ in our respective colleges but there is another concept which has been there for years but its importance has been realized lately and it is known as ‘Integrated Marketing (IM)’. Now looking at Integrated Marketing one might confuse it with ‘Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC)’ but there are subtle differences between the two. Integrated Marketing Communication is a concept of marketing communication planning that recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communication disciplines – general advertising, direct response, sales promotion, public relations – and combines these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency, and maximum communication impact. It deals with integrating different communication mediums so that the brand message remains consistent across different media and the media planning is done in such a way that the different mediums complement each other. IMC is based on the concept that every medium has its strengths and that strength must be utilized cleverly. For e.g. TV is the best medium when it comes to communicating the emotional content of the brand and print is best at creating knowledge about the brand. A TV commercial (TVC) cant be converted into a print or a OOH but the print must be designed in such a manner that it complements the TVC. This leads the target audience to be exposed to various communication media each of which reflects the brand values or strengthens the brand equity. So overall IMC can lead to optimal spends and with proper media-neutral planning, can provide a bigger impact.

When it comes to Integrated Marketing it is a much holistic discipline of which IMC is a subset. An Integrated Marketing campaign requires and generally consists of an IMC plan. Integrated Marketing is generally adopted to answer a marketing objective and executing a marketing strategy whereas IMC deals with the communication part of the campaign and has the objective of communicating the brand value and the essence of the campaign in an efficient manner using different medium. The main objective of Integrated Marketing is that apart from communication it also integrates various other marketing disciplines so that whatever the brand does be it sponsoring an event or going for experiential marketing it must reflect the values that the brand stands for. Integrated marketing not only deals with external marketing where it deals with customers but also deals with internal marketing where the employees need to be communicated about the brand values. If a brand like Coca Cola stands for spreading happiness, whatever it does must reflect it be it the happiness vending machine, happiness truck, Coke studio, and  the people working for Coca Cola brand must also believe in the fact that coca cola stands for spreading happiness.This is the real achievement of Integrated Marketing and the brand must do something to promote this feeling within its employees as well. If a company stands for providing superior services ,then the way it selects its employees also comes under the scanner and the way it selects those people who will provide the service also reflects how serious the brand is about its promises which in turn will transcend to the consumers and will create huge brand equity. So in simpler terms we can say Integrated Marketing means integrating all the marketing tools , processes , discipline the brand is using so that all of them collectively communicate the same brand values in a different manner and complement each other so as to create a long lasting impact on the consumers along with better brand recall and loyalty.

Abhijeet Mishra_Introduction

Introduction by Sourojit Ghose