Integrated Marketing Communications

This document discusses the concept of integrated marketing communications and explores various stages and examples of advertising campaigns. It covers controversial advertising, award-winning ad campaigns, ads by category, and their effectiveness. The document also includes journal articles related to engagement with social media advertising and the depiction of African Americans in B2B trade journal advertising.

Integrated Marketing Communications
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INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION
Contents
Stage 1: Controversial advertising...............................................................................................2
Stage 2: Award winning ad campaign.........................................................................................4
Stage 3: Ads by category.............................................................................................................5
Stage 4: Good vs Bad................................................................................................................12
Stage 5: Pinch a new ad.............................................................................................................13
References..................................................................................................................................15
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INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION
Stage 1: Controversial advertising
Burger King Super Seven Incher
Source- nataliecupac.wordpress.com (2014)
The advertising campaign of Burger King regarding the Super Seven Incher, an extra-long
burger product of the company proved to be a controversial advertisement which failed to attract
customers towards the product of the company. The advertising campaign of the company
proved to be a failure even though the company tried to explore on the attractive undertone of the
meal. A print advertisement of the company which was published in various magazines
displayed the seven incher burger of the company on a single side of the page with a woman,
mouth open, on the other side of the page and it is shown that the woman is not definitely
preparing to take a bite out of the burger. The tagline of the advertisement was “It’ll blow your
mind away.” The target customers of the advertisement campaign were mainly teenage boys and
girls falling in the age group of 18-30. The amusing lack of delicacy and creativity in the
advertisement and mainly the burger name doomed the product to be living in the shadow of
Whopper.
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INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION
Tom Ford Menswear
Source- whatwetalkingabout.com (2012)
Tom Ford is an American fashion designer who is not quite a household name. The designer is
famous for renewing the Gucci style and has his own product lines, but most of the individuals
would not be able to recognize the name of the designer effectively. When the designer launched
his menswear line in 20007, he came up with a controversial advertising campaign in order to
gain popularity among the target audience of his product lines. The advertising campaigns of the
brand were racy in nature and were also hyper-sexualized in nature which displayed naked
women hanging out with men in suits. There were various scenarios which were displayed in the
advertisement campaign of the company ranging from crotch-grabbing to massages to ironing
the pants of the male models. The target audience of the advertising campaign of the brand were
men belonging to the age group of 25-40 who seek to wear stylish designer suits. As stated by
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Abdul, Norsiah and Sabrina (2016) the brand was to some extent successful in grabbing the
attention of the target audiences but also gained negative attention among a large number of
audiences who perceived the ads were sexists in nature and among the customers who felt dirty
and ashamed looking at the intimate parts of the ladies model displayed in the printed ads of the
company.
Stage 2: Award winning ad campaign
Shanghai General Motors: “Human Traffic Signs”
Source- usatoday.com (2014)
This particular advertisement has been chosen as it has won Gold for Press and Outdoor at
Spikes Asia and Gold Press Lion a Cannes in June 2014. The advertisement campaign of the
company went viral in a very short amount of time since it was first posted and uploaded. There
were over 50,000 clicks and shares of the video regarding the video which discussed regarding
the topic of avoiding traffic accidents and obeying the traffic signs in the road. The
advertisement helped in affecting customer behaviour in a positive manner as it was observed
that the rate of traffic accidents in China reduced to close to 50% during the 5 day program and
campaign of the advertisement.
The advertisement depicted that the real accident victims taking part in the advertisement
campaign by various traffic signs during the peak hours of the day where the accident took place
actually. The advertisement campaign called for the attention of the drivers in order to closely
follow and notice the traffic signs and accordingly obey the traffic rules which would help in
spreading awareness and reducing accidents.
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INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION
As opined by Desai (2016) the advertisement campaign became an award winning campaign as a
result of two factors. The first factor which contributed to the popularity of the advertisement
was the tagline of the advertisement which stated “Signs are there for a reason” which was
simple and clear for the intended audience to understand. The other factor which contributed to
the popularity of the advertisement was it helped in engaging the emotions of the drivers as they
think of the time when they drive carelessly on the roads and when some of them were lucky for
not injuring themselves or others while driving carelessly.
Stage 3: Ads by category
Social Media- IHOP: IHOb
Source- wxyz.com (2018)
In 2018 International House of Pancakes or IHOP, ran of the most popular social media
campaign on Twitter which helped the company to increase the sales of their burgers. The ma
purpose of the advertising campaign was to increase the sale of the burgers of the company. In
one of the most creative Twitter campaign, the company flipped the last letter of the company
transforming the name of the company to IHOb, and it asked the twitter user to guess the full
form of the letter “b”. Thousands of twitter users send their own personal responses regarding the
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full form of the letter “b” and re-tweeted the tweets of the company and finally after much
speculations and suspense company revealed that the letter “b” actually stands for burger and the
company for the sake of the advertising campaign of the company transformed its name for some
to IHOb which stands for International House of Burgers. The target customers of the advertising
campaign were mainly the youth population and frequent customers of the company belonging
between the age group of 18-35. As a result of the successful marketing campaign of the
company the burger sale of the company quadrupled in a very span of time.
As stated by Manel (2018) this marketing campaign can be considered as effective as it attracted
target customers of the company in a large number due to element of mystery in the marketing
campaign of the company and it also increased the sales of the product of the company.
Journal Article- Voorveld, H. A. M., van Noort, G., Muntinga, D. G., & Bronner, F. (2018).
Engagement with social media and social media advertising: The differentiating role of
platform type. Journal of Advertising, [Online] 47(1), 38-54.
The current article helps in explaining how the engagement of the customers with the social
media platform helps in driving engagement with the advertisements which are attached with
those platforms and conducting subsequent evaluations of the advertisement. The current
research was conducted on 1346 individuals belonging to the age group of 13 and above helps in
mapping users of social media experience regarding engagement with Facebook, Youtube,
LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus, Instagram and Snapchat and their experiences
regarding the advertisement and the evaluation of the advertisements. As opined by Voorveld,
van Noort, Muntinga and Bronner(2018) the finding of the current article demonstrates that the
engagement of the users is very context specific in nature. The finding also states that it contains
of different types of experiences on individual social media platform so that individual
experiences is enjoyed in a unique manner. The finding of the article also states that engagement
with social media advertising itself is vital in illustrating how social media engagement is
connected to measurement of advertising.
B2B-Upwork
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INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION
Source- upwork.com(2018)
In 2018, Freelance coordinator Upwork, came up with an advertising campaign with an element
of humour in it which is generally not common in case of business to business advertising. The
main target customers of the advertisement were business organizations who seek to hire top
quality freelancers for their projects. The company went all in on irrelevant humour for their
“Hey world” campaign in which they combined bold colour and design along with cheeky call
outs to NASA, the President, and Hollywood star Dwayne Johnson and others. The main purpose
of the advertising campaign was to inform business organizations that the company will provide
them with the best freelancers in their required field according to their requirement from various
parts of the world or even from outside the world. The company ran an impressive and integrated
campaign, repurposing the assets for 15 seconds commercial, billboards, advertisement on public
transportation and more. The willingness of the company to court a little controversy with an
element of irrelevant humour resulted in increasing visibility of the advertisements among the
target audiences.
The advertisement campaign of the company can be termed as effective as it contained a sense of
irrelevant humour which helped in connecting more with their target customers by virtue of the
element of humour present in the advertisement.
Journal article- Stevenson, T. H., & Swayne, L. E. (2011). Is the changing status of African
Americans in the B2B buying centre reflected in trade journal advertising? A six-decade
content analysis. Journal of Advertising, [Online] 40(4), 101-122.
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In order to analyse the depiction of the African-American models in trade journals advertising,
the current literature examined an excess of 1200 advertisements in trade journals, which
contained close to 3700 people for providing a creative six decade aspect on African-American
ad depiction in the B2B market. Previous research and cultivation theory were used as basis for
the current article. According to Stevenson and Swayne (2011) the results of the article reflected
that findings from four various B2B sectors namely architecture, automotive, health and law
indicates that in the 6 decades span of study, the numbers of African Americans increased in the
B2B trade journals. The finding of the article also reflects that the black female model
percentage increased, but still the increase was variable and in only 1 decade among the 6 decade
analysed the percentage of black females increased than that of black males. By having a look at
the roles depicted by the last two decades of the research, there was observed an enhancement in
black population in vital roles and a decline of black population in minor roles. The finding of
the study also indicated that it was observed a black change in black occupational depictions
from primary blue collar to white collar roles. The results of the article grounded on the sixty
years study of trade journals representing public sectors of the B2B sector states that, advertising
regarding B2B at minimum in these vehicles is constant with the mainstream principle of
cultivation theory.
Not for profit- Sea Shephard Conservation Society
Source- gosee.us (2019)
The main aim of the advertising campaign which was carried out by Sea Shephard Conservation
Society was to make every individual aware regarding the impact that plastics have in the marine
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ecosystem and to attract donations for cleaning up oceans. For achieving their objective in a
successful manner, the organization developed a print media campaign which depicted a number
of different fish, which are misshapen by different plastic objects
The target audience of the advertising campaign of the organization can be considered as all
individuals who use plastics items in their daily life activities.
As stated by Tabaku and Mersini Zerellari (2014) the campaign of the organization proved to be
very effective in nature as their advertisement was shared multiple times after it was posted by
the company in social media platforms which made the intended audiences of the advertisement
think regarding the consequence of plastic usage after viewing the advertisement.
The main effectiveness of the advertisement was due to the tagline which was used by the
company in the advertising campaign which stated “You Eat What They Eat” which helped the
intended audiences of the advertisement to connect with the picture depicted in the advertisement
and also with the objective of the organization.
Journal article- Cervellon, M. (2012). VICTORIA'S DIRTY SECRETS: Effectiveness of
green not-for-profit messages targeting brands. Journal of Advertising,[Online] 41(4), 133-
145
The campaigns of Not-For-Profit organizations quite frequently take brands hostage. These type
of shock strategies are designed for bringing publicity to the practices of the target companies’
which are considered and perceived as socially and environmentally irresponsible in nature. The
sole purpose of the current article is to pressurize such organizations regarding complying with
the demands of the Not for Profit organizations for fear of the backlash of the customer.
Interestingly there is limited evidence which demonstrates the impact of those messages on the
behaviour of the customers. As stated by Cervellon (2012) the current article helps in analysing
the response of the customers towards the messages targeting brands in the context of luxury
fashion industry. Two experiments have been conducted in the current experiment which
involves repeated measurement and manipulation of between – subject messages were also
conducted. The finding of the article demonstrates that environment- involvement and product
involvement act as moderators of responses of customers.
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INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION
Global- Krispy Kreme
Source- campaignlive.com (2019)
The purpose of the advertisement campaign of Krispy Kreme was to encourage the daily workers
to buy donuts at their respective workplaces. The target customers of the advertisement
campaign of the company were workers’ who belongs between the age group of 25 to 30 and are
considered as fresher’s in their respective companies at London. The company through their
advertising campaign claim that the Krispy Kreme is the ideal product in order to impress their
boss in the company as it is an affordable dessert.
Behboudi et al. (2014) the advertisement was considered as very effective in nature as it helps in
creating an urge among individuals regarding purchasing the product after seeing the
advertisement. The content of the advertisement was so effectively designed that it would urge
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any ordinary individual to try donuts even if they are not office workers by virtue of the bold
prints used in the advertisement of the company and also due to the caption used in the
advertisement which states “think inside the box”.
Journal article- Taylor, C. R., & Okazaki, S. (2015). Do global brands use similar
executional styles across cultures? A comparison of U.S. and Japanese television
advertising. Journal of Advertising, [Online] 44(3), 276.
A vital development in the field of marketing research globally is the rise of the theory regarding
culture of the global customers and given the concept that culture of global customers
positioning strategies can be successful across markets. The current article helps in analysing the
ingredients of a large sample of U.S against television advertising of Japan and takes a look at
various executional variables such as timing and constant variables which were utilized in the
previous studies for exploring if brands which are global utilize more identical execution across
the U.S and Japan while comparing with local brands. The finding of the article indicates smaller
variations for brands which are global on these aspects. As opined by Taylor and Okazaki (2015)
this result pattern seems to be constant with the concept that the utilization of Global Customer
Culture Positioning strategies which are targeted at addressing to the trend towards global
customer value has taken hold and that for brands which are global, it is more feasible to
standardize executions in addition to strategy, which was followed previously. The findings of
the literature however also suggests that the time for which the visuals are on screen, are more
tuff to standardize than the other elements of the advertisements and also demonstrates that
advertisements for service depicts greater similarity than advertisements for physical products.
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Stage 4: Good vs Bad
Good advertisement- McDonald’s
Source- adsoftheworld.com (2019)
McDonald’s are considered as specialists when it comes to designing an effective advertising
campaign in order to communicate their message to the target audiences of the company.
McDonald’s are considered as specialists in designing creative advertising campaign both in
printed and in visual form. As opined by Shields (2016) the print media advertisement of the
company which is depicted above follows the modern and minimal aesthetics of McDonald’s
communication with the striking visual which is depicted above. The main purpose of the current
print media advertisement of the company is to communicate to the customers that the outlets of
the company are open for the customers even in the middle of the night. In the current
advertising campaign, the company cleverly uses illustrations in which the iconic letter “M”,
which represents the logo of the company becomes lights in the night, which helps in
communicating to the customers that no matter, what the time is, the outlets of the company are
open for business for the customers even if in the middle of night.
The current advertisement campaign can be termed as good as the message of the advertisement
was convincing in nature and the creative approach of the advertisement was well communicated
to the customers of the company. The advertisement can be considered as effective as it was
successful in communicating the message of the company to the customers clearly.
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INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION
Bad Advertisements- H&M
Source- washingtonpost.com (2018)
H&M is a popular and reputed name in the retail industry of UK and therefore in order to inform
their target customers regarding a new collection of kids sweatshirt they used their official
website which is also the e-commerce portal of the company. In order to advertise their new
product line, the company decided to use children as models who will be wearing the new
product line of the company but they failed miserably in choosing an imagery which hampered
the reputation of the company as the company faced backlash in the society due to its lack of
awareness. The company chose a product image which featured an African-American kid
wearing a sweatshirt with the words, “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle”. The product enraged the
society and the retailer was accused of promoting racism through the product image of the
company and as the racist nature of relating African-American people as monkeys has along dark
history, therefore the advertisement created more controversy for the company.
The above mentioned advertisement campaign of H&M can be termed as highly in-effective in
nature as it generated negative outcome for the company by creating controversy for the
company which destroyed the reputation of the company.
Stage 5: Pinch a new ad
The above bad advertisement of H&M can be developed by changing the imagery used in the
product image of the company. Instead of using an African-American kid for featuring in the
advertisement of the company, H&M should promote the above depicted sweatshirt of the
company through a kid belonging to the UK origin in order to prevent racism allegation against
the company. This initiative of the company will help in ensuring that the company stays on the
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safer side without any chances of creating controversy and reaching to the intended customers.
The company also could improve its advertisement by changing the choice of sweatshirt used in
the advertisement instead of changing the kid shown in the advertisement of the company. The
company should ensure that the new sweatshirt which the company will endorse through the kid
will contain socially responsible taglines such as “Say No to Racism” or “Say Yes to Equality”,
which will help in promoting the stance of the company regarding equality and harmony in the
society. As stated by Maheshwari, Seth and Gupta (2018) this initiative of the company will help
in communicating to the society that the company is a socially responsible and aware corporate
citizen who stands against the evils of the society and thus will help in improving the brand
image of the company.
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