Amazon Inc.: Integrated Marketing Communication Plan Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Amazon's Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) plan, focusing on the promotion of its products and services, particularly the 'Alexa' product. It evaluates various marketing channels, including producer-to-consumer and multi-level channels, and assesses their effectiveness in achieving communication objectives such as creating awareness, imparting knowledge, and projecting a brand image. The report delves into Amazon's communication objectives, strategies, and the design of communication objectives for organizational situations. It examines the integration of communication channels, the development of a marketing communication plan, and critically evaluates the plan's effectiveness in relation to communication strategy, channel choices, and creative content. This report is a valuable resource for understanding Amazon's marketing approach and its strategies for success in the e-commerce and AI industries. Students can find this and many more resources like past papers and solved assignments on Desklib.

Running Head: IMC PLAN
Amazon Inc.
Integrated Marketing Communication

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Insight of Company and products................................................................................................2
P1. Evaluate different types of marketing channels and how they serve communication
objectives within an organisational context.....................................................................................4
P2. Design communication objectives for a given organisational situation....................................6
P3. Provide justifications for the selection and integration of communications channels chosen.. 8
P4. Create a marketing communications plan that effectively meets communication objectives
for a given organisational situation................................................................................................10
P5. Critically evaluate a marketing communications plan in relation to the communication
strategy, channel choice, creative content.....................................................................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................14
References......................................................................................................................................15

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Introduction
Marketing communication plays vital role in promoting organizational products and services
amongst the target audience. Along with this, marketing communication is also useful in
conveying organizational messages to its stakeholders. It helps the organization to stay
connected with its stakeholders in relation with providing them updates regarding their products
and services, introduction of new products and services and for other updates such as discount
offers introduced by the organization in the market, etc. There are number of marketing
communication methods are available in the market and in relation with this, it is the duty of
whole marketing team of an organization to select one of the best amongst the available options
so that desired goals could be attained along with approaching to the target audience in an
effective manner. Spreading awareness is an essential task for an organization in relevance to its
existing as well as new products and services. In this relation, marketing communication plays
vital role and it has various aspects which needs to be analysed so that desired goals and
objectives could be attained easily (Armstrong, et. al., 2015).
Primary aim of this report is to encouraging usage of marketing communication channels for
promoting organizational products and services. First section of the report will include utilisation
of different marketing channels and effectiveness of those channels in terms of attainment of
desired objectives of organization. Further, report will aim on designing communication
objectives based on organizational current situation and along with this; this section will focus
over the selection of most appropriate marketing communication channels concerning the
organizational products and services. Next section of the report will include an effective
marketing communication plan concerning the attainment of communication objectives such as
spreading awareness, approaching to the target audience and gaining or maintaining the acquired
position in the marketplace. The last section of the report will aim over evaluation of marketing
communication plan in relation with the communication strategy, channel choice as well as
based on utilisation of creative content for attracting target audience towards the organizational
products and services.

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Insight of Company and products
In this report, marketing communication plan will be discussed in relation with the Amazon Inc.
It is the leading company in electronic commerce industry with its operations in more than 188
countries across the globe along with the registered offices in 12 countries across the globe.
Currently, organization has also set up its physical presence in the market in the name of
Amazon Go. This store is a hi-tech grocery store in Seattle, Washington (Amazon Inc., 2018).
Highlights of this store are that it is a partially automated store in which consumers could
purchase products as per their requirements without using a cashier and checkout stations. Apart
from this, Amazon has recently introduced a revolutionary product in the name of ‘Alexa’ in the
market, which is a masterpiece of artificial intelligence. This is currently used in Amazon Echo
and in the Amazon Echo Dot, which are smart speakers (Alexa, 2018). For the motive of
spreading awareness amongst the target audience, this report will focus over the usage of
marketing communication techniques.

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P1. Evaluate different types of marketing channels and how they serve communication
objectives within an organisational context.
Integrated marketing communication is a simple concept and it ensures that all forms of
communication are linked together. Primary objective of communication is the act of transferring
intended meanings from one group, entity to another group or entity. Individual use
communication tools such as mobile applications, carrier network and social media platforms for
transferring information amongst each other. While companies’ communication tools are majorly
used for marketing its products and services. Marketing channel include people, organization,
and all necessary activities which are required for transferring ownership of goods from the
production point to the consumption point. The end users also know this as way through which
products and services reaches. Marketing channel is an effective tool for management of
organization and act as one of the most effective marketing strategy. Distribution channel also
act an important part of the marketing channel and these channels are mainly used for
transferring products from the manufacturer to the consumer for the purpose of consumption
(Belch, et. al., 2014).
Roles of marketing channel in marketing strategy are:
 Develops a path between producer and consumer;
 Pricing strategy of organization gets influenced;
 Promotes products in the target market which results in generating demand for the
product; and
 Helps the organization to attain its desired goals and objectives along with enhancing
profitability and revenues (Luxton, Reid & Mavondo, 2015).
Mainly, there are four types of marketing channels, which are used by the organizations in terms
of attaining the communication objectives, which are as follows:
 Producer to Consumer: In this channel, producer directly sells its products and services
directly to the consumers without involvement of intermediaries. Intermediaries are
wholesalers, retailer, agent or reseller and producer directly connects with the consumer
in terms of trading of goods and services. Consumer could directly meet producer and

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purchase products and services as per their requirement without involving any other
channel. The farmers mainly use this type of marketing channel so that they could set
prices for their crops by their own without involving any other person in between the
process (Petersen, Kushwaha & Kumar, 2015).
 Producer-retailer-consumer (one level channel): This is a three tier-marketing channel
under which products and services reaches to the end consumers via retailer from
manufacturer. Consumer could not reach directly to the manufacturer. Manufacturers of
shoes, cloths, furniture, etc mainly use this type of marketing channel. As consumer will
purchase these products in small quantities, thus, retailer helps them to purchase in small
quantity. In relation with developing and maintaining brand loyalty, organizations uses
various communication channels such as social media platforms to stay connected with
the consumers. With these channels, organization could also take feedback from the
customers in relation to their products and services. This also helps the organization to
develop a reliable and positive image amongst target audience, which result in
development of brand loyalty.
 Producer-wholesaler-retailer-consumer (two level channels): Functioning of this
channel flows from producer to wholesaler to retailer and then finally product reaches to
the consumer. This is a wide channel and manufacturer sells products in bulk quantities,
thus, wholesalers are involved. Further, product reaches to the retailer from where
consumer gets the products and services as per their requirements (Kozlenkova, et. al.,
2015).
Amongst these channels, Amazon executes on the producer to consumer channel, although,
Amazon was producing until the Alexa was introduced in the market but still they act as the
agent between retailers, wholesalers, manufactures and consumers. When consumer purchase
anything from Amazon, it is considered a Amazon’s product and in relation with this, they also
provide appropriate support to the consumers with regards to their queries and issues with the
products and services purchased from Amazon. Communication objectives of Amazon are
spreading awareness amongst the target audience so that the demand of the particular product
and service could be enhanced. Increased demand will lead the organization towards increasing
its revenues, profitability as well as sales (Johansson & Kask, 2017). Thus, organization could

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easily attain its desired goals and objectives. In relation with promoting the products and
services, following are Amazon’s objectives in consideration to the communication:
 Creating awareness: Awareness creation is the most primary objective for every
organization about their products and services. Amazon’s product offering is huge and
they introduce new and revolutionary products and services in regular intervals with the
objective of maintaining the acquired position in the target market. In relation to
spreading awareness amongst the public about their products and services, organization
uses both traditional as well as contemporary mediums of marketing. In order to enhance
the demand of a product, it is necessary for the organization to promote and market it in
the target market in such a manner so that effective image could be established amongst
the consumer’s mind-sets (Skarmeas, Zeriti & Baltas, 2016).
 Imparting knowledge: Apart from spreading awareness amongst the target audience,
another objective of communication is imparting knowledge concerning the
organizational products and services. When a new product or service is introduced in the
market, it is required for the organization to generate the demand for the same irrelevance
to its need amongst the target audience. In relation with this, organizational marketing
team creates effective and attractive advertisements so that target audience could be
influenced with the specifications, benefits and utilisation of product. This helps the
organization to generate demand for the particular product in the target market and
amongst the target audience.
 Projecting an image: Amazon is using multiple advertisement and promotional
platforms for promoting its new product Alexa in the global market. In this scenario,
organization has generated demand for the artificial assistant rather producing a product,
which is in demand. With the help of various advertisement and marketing platforms,
organization is continuously promoting its products with creative content in order to
project an image in the target audience so that they could also feel the necessity of the
product. This has helped organization to enhance the demand for their new product along
with defending its leading position in the global online industry (Watson, et. al., 2015).

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P2. Design communication objectives for a given organisational situation.
Amazon is an American electronic commerce and cloud computing Multinational Corporation.
Jeff Bezos founded it in 1994 and in a short of time; organization has attained the position of the
largest retailer in the world in terms of revenues and market capitalisation. Primary reason
behind this is its huge product offering and effective communication channels for promoting
those products amongst the target market. Along with this, market entry strategy is another
effective strategy for the organization in terms of attainment of success, growth and sustainable
development. Recently, organization has introduced Alexa in the global market which is a
revolutionary product and primary aim of this product is to provide an artificial assistant to the
public who will play music, tell weather conditions, news, sport updates and many more (Kotabe
& Helsen, 2014).
With regards to this, organization is promoting their new product through every possible medium
of advertisement and promotion in order to target large area the marketplace. Currently, Alexa is
available in English, French, German, and Japanese language and soon it will be launched in
other languages in order to target more people. In order to promote Alexa, organization has
mainly focused over digital media strategies, television marketing, and certain effective
traditional modes of marketing such as newspaper advertisement, board hoardings, etc. (Charter,
2017).
Amazon has introduced Alexa as an artificial assistant in Echo and Echo Dot products. In
relation with their promotion in the market, organization has adopted various marketing and
promotional services. Marketing and promotional strategies are adopted with the objective of
generating the demand for the product in the target market. Every organization set up certain
expectations from every product and Amazon’s expectations from Alexa is huge as it is the core
product of Amazon and it is first step towards artificial intelligence. Success and development of
Alexa will help the organization to create an effective image in the artificial intelligence
industry. This will expand organizational business along with the attainment sustainable
development in the global market.
In relation with Alexa, organizational communication objectives are as follows:

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 Along with the common objectives such as enhancing profits, revenues, and sales,
organizational communication objectives are advanced as well as unique. Amazon is a
customer centric organization in relation with maintaining their customer centric
approach, organizational main objective is increasing customer satisfaction (Tarhini,
Ammar & Tarhini, 2015).
 Amazon allows its users to access a personalised homepage in relevance with their
history of purchases and the items viewed. This develops a personal interaction between
organization and customer, which is an essential element in terms of development of
organizational positive image amongst the target audience.
 Communication objectives of Amazon also include development as well as maintenance
of personal relations with the existing and potential customers. This is a form of customer
retention strategy, which helps the organization to defend its acquired position in the
market.
 Amazon also allows its customers to post reviews, feedbacks and their opinion after
purchase and consumption of product and service respectively. Along with this,
marketing team also takes care for the feedbacks given by the customers. Strict and quick
actions are taken so that the desired goals could be attained as well as by developing a
reliable and customer centric image in the target market (Wang, Pauleen & Zhang, 2016).
 Organization regularly launches discounted prices offers, festivals offers, etc. and
markets the same amongst the target audience through multiple advertising channels in
order to spread awareness amongst the existing as well as amongst the new customers.
 In terms of advertisement and promotion, primary motive is to build appropriate relations
with the consumers, thus, content of advertisement is also designed by analysing the
customer’s latest requirements, trending topics, consumer behaviour as well as based on
purchasing power of consumers.
 It is the strategy of Amazon that while promoting their products and services, they
focuses on portraying the real picture of the product rather highlighting the irrelevant
features just for the purpose of sales promotion. This has helped the organization to set up
its brand loyalty in global market along with gaining leading position in terms of
marketing capitalisation and revenues across the globe (Mamic, 2017).

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 Apart from the above objectives, organizational other communication objectives are
meeting target customer’s demands. Concerning this, organization invests a huge amount
into R&D and market research analysis so that target audience’s demand could be
analysed. This helps the organization to design the same sort of products and services,
which are required amongst them, and it helps the organization to increase customer
satisfaction along with imparting an effective image in the target market.
 Amazon creates advertisements and promotional campaigns in such as ways so that it
could be an eye-catching event for the target audience. Along with this, they also use eye
catching images and colours in their website so that consumer could spend as more as
possible time due to consumers start feeling the necessity of unwanted products.
Primary motive behind these communication objectives are also attracting target audience
towards organization and its products, developing brand loyalty amongst the target audience,
generating demand for the organizational products through highlighting their USPs, etc. In terms
of attainment of these objectives, Amazon uses traditional as well as non-traditional media. Each
form of media has its own unique advantages. In terms of traditional forms of marketing,
television, radio, magazines, newspaper, etc. are the primary sources through which organization
promotes as well as communicate with the target audience in relevance with the products and
services. Whereas, non-traditional forms of media used by organization are display advertising,
social media, search marketing, email marketing, etc. for the motive of attaining its desired
communication objectives (Turban, et. al., 2017).

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P3. Provide justifications for the selection and integration of communications channels
chosen.
Communication channels are adopted for transferring information as well as for spreading
awareness amongst the organizational stakeholders. Stakeholders for the organization are
employees, board of directors, shareholders, customers, suppliers, investors, etc. In relation with
every update or any new action taken by organization irrelevance to its nature, it is necessary to
communicate amongst these shareholders in order to avoid glitches in organizational
functionality. Thus, when marketing team develops and forms marketing strategies with the
objective of promoting products and services of organization, it is necessary to provide
information regarding the marketing strategies to every other party that will get affected after
implementation of strategies (Turban, et. al., 2015). Apart from this, communication channels
also help the organization to develop interaction amongst the teammates, employees and workers
through which the desired goals and objectives could be attained. With the effective
communication channels, employees could remain on the same page as expected and directed by
the top-level management, which becomes the appropriate method for the purpose of attainment
of desired goals and objectives.
With the help of effective communication mediums within the workplace, employees could
easily confront the challenges as well as the issues, which arise due to various reasons such as
shift in consumer demands, perception, taste and their behaviour. Effective communication
methods helps in developing a n interactive workplace environment which promotes employees
to share their feedbacks, views and opinions while forming benchmarks for the product’s quality,
customer satisfaction and in relation with other aspects (Gregory, Ngo & Karavdic, 2017).
Effective communication method also promotes an employee to reach to the top-level
management without facing barrier in between the reaching process and without any fear;
complaint or any type of suggestion for improving the organizational functionality could be
communicated to the top-level management. Regular communication amongst the management
and employees helps them to remain on the same page in relation with the accomplishment of
tasks of the organization along with the attainment of goals and objectives.

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The communication channels selected and implemented by organization concerning the
marketing and promotion of its products and services are effective as well as efficient.
Organizational marketing team has analysed the market conditions, consumer behaviour and the
demand of target audience in relevance with the selection of marketing strategies. In relation
with targeting every type of customer, integration of traditional as well as non-traditional form of
communication channels have been adopted. With the help of these channels, organization could
easily spread awareness amongst the products and services of organization in the target market
along with effectively approaching to the target and potential customers. Every media method
has its own unique advantage and to gain the maximum outcomes from the implementation of
strategies of the organization, marketing team of the organization creates effective
advertisements with simple and clear messages with the aim of targeting right audience
concerning the particular product (Laudon & Laudon, 2016). Amazon offers millions of
products, thus, it is not possible to promote every product, hence, organizational marketing team
has segregated the products and formed certain categories such as grocery, fashion, electronics,
etc. Then these products are promoted in the target market with the appropriate medium of
media.
As Amazon is using both traditional as well as non-traditional forms of media in terms of
communicating with the target audience, it is required for the organization to fulfil target
audience’s demand by serving them with their required products and services. Every media form
has its own effectiveness and it contributes to the omnipresence of the company. Organizational
media mix contains various tools and techniques and one of the effective tools in organizational
media mix is newspaper. Newspaper is one of the necessity goods and it is one of the great
sources of transfer of information. Thus, Amazon also utilises this platform in order to reach out
to the large customer group (Nica & Potcovaru, 2015). Amazon has diverse customer base and
for targeting every group of customers, its marketing team has adopted different media mix.
Social media platforms are also used widely and wisely in order to approach to the target
customers. Social media techniques help the organization to cover the large area of the target
market, which ultimately helps in building brand reputation amongst the target audience. In this
whole scenario, every media mix has its own capacity of targeting the selected audience group.
For example, newspaper advertisements are only effective when one of the target customers