Integrated Marketing Communication Strategies for CBA Bank, Australia

This report provides an analysis of the Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) model employed by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA). It examines the bank's internal factors, such as its strong brand image and past promotional successes, as well as external factors like the competitive market environment and customer demands. The report identifies target customer segments, including high, medium, and low-value customers, along with ex-customers, and suggests tailored marketing strategies for each. It outlines communication objectives aligned with the SMART model, focusing on increasing brand awareness, sales, and marketing activities. The document explores creative promotional strategies such as advertising, referral programs, and community outreach, emphasizing the importance of understanding customer needs, defining unique selling propositions, and utilizing an effective communication and media mix. Budget considerations are also addressed, and the report concludes with recommendations to enhance CBA's marketing approaches, particularly in light of recent challenges to the bank's reputation.

Running head: Integrated Marketing Communication
Integrated Marketing Communication
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary:
Communication is possibly one of the most important aspects in marketing process of
an organization, and IMC helps to integrate effective communication to develop a marketing
mic that can help organizations to promote their brand, products and services to potential
customers. In this study the IMC model of Commonwealth Bank of Australia is analyzed and
their target market, strategies to engage them, the communication objectives that can be used,
creative promotional strategies, communication strategy mix, media mix and approximate
budget estimations have been discussed that helps or can help CBA to effective promote their
business.
Some of the key findings from the study included the internal factors of the
organization such as strong brand image, good brand promotions, and success of previous
promotional activities. The external factors included the challenging market environment,
high demands of the customers and strong competition. Different types of customers have
been identified which can be focused by the marketing campaigns such as high value
customers, medium value customers and low value customers as well as ex customers.
Objectives such as increasing sales, marketing activities, advertising activities and public
relations activities have been outlined. Creative strategies such as advertising, referral
programs, community outreaches and telemarketing can help in the company’s promotions.
In order to effectively use communication for marketing, it is also vital to understand
customer needs and expectations, defining the unique selling proposition, understanding the
communication mix to be used, defining the branding elements and defining strict metrics for
performance evaluation. Additionally, effective media mix also should be used to ensure
success of the campaigns. From the study few recommendations have also been made which
can help to enhance the marketing approaches of the organization.

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Contents
Executive Summary:..................................................................................................................1
1. Introduction:........................................................................................................................3
2. Situation Analysis around the Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) issue:..........4
3. Target market(s) (i.e. the consumers/ customers/ clients/ suppliers/ employees/etc.) to
which the IMC program will be directed...................................................................................6
4. IMC Communication objectives.........................................................................................9
5. Creative Strategy - your messages and positioning strategies..........................................10
6. Communication strategy Mix...........................................................................................10
7. Media Mix.........................................................................................................................11
8. Basic budget concepts.......................................................................................................13
9. Conclusion/Summary Recommendations:........................................................................15
References:...............................................................................................................................17

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1. Situation Analysis around the Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) issue:
The situation around the IMC issue in CBA can be differentiated into Internal and
External situations. Discussed below is the internal and external situational analysis:
1.1 Internal Situational Analysis:
1.1.1 Brand Image: CBA is one of the oldest established banks in Australia, established more
than a hundred years ago (in 1911) and is also among the the oldest banks in the world. The
bank also has a global presence with 1100 branches across the world. CAB has a very strong
brand image, and it has established its position in the market for their high quality financial
service that can suit different financial needs of a variety of customer profiles. In addition, the
bank is also involved in different activities as a part of their Corporate Social Responsibility
(CSR) policy which further improves their brand image (Chinomona, 2016).
Recently there has been a decline in the brand image of the company because of
various reports of scandals regarding money laundering. Reports further allege that the bank
had tie ups with about four money laundering syndicates, three of which were tied to drug
trafficking and networking across Australia. According to a report by The Guardian, the
company’s profts took a fall of 1.9% and the company had to put aside AUD 375 million to
pay for fines. This also resulted in the reduction in the stock prices for the company’s shares
across the world. This has been significantly cased due to an erosion of trust among the
stakeholders (Farrer, 2018).
1.1.2 Brand Promotion: CAB has very effective brand promotional activities which makes it
a widely popular and known brand in Australia and abroad. With its different branches
operating across different countries, the bank has significant interest and involvement with
these countries. In order to increase the awareness and reach to the customers, CBA uses a

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combination of both modern as well as traditional strategies and thus ensure effective
promotion of the brand. This combination makes the brand promotions very strong and helps
the brand name reach to a wide audience of potential customer (Kearns & Lewis, 2018).
The organization has strong budget for its promotional activities, in order to promote
the brand using mainstream media, printed media, broadcast media and social media
channels. The company uses repeated telecasts of its advertisements across various television
channels. Additionally, the company also invests in public relations. However, because of the
recent events that have eroded trust of the company, the current investments in promotions
and puclic relations might not be effective, and more funding for the activities are needed.
Moreover, investments are also needed for the Corporate Social Responsibility of the
company to improve its brand image (Farrer, 2018).
1.1.3 Promotional activities followed previously: Before the implementation of the IMC
strategy, CBA utilized on the traditional method of promoting their brands to the market.
Additionally a strategy of ‘word of mouth’ advertising was also used by the bank. These
strategies helped to inform the customers about the banking services and promote the brand.
More recently, the bank have started using modern technology such as social media and other
forms of electronic media for their promotional activities (Chinomona, 2016)
1.1.4 Strengths: Analysis of the banking services showed that one of the biggest strength of
the bank is the customer oriented design of thei banking services that considers the diverse
needs and expectations of a large number of customers across the world (Kearns & Lewis,
2018).
1.1.5 Weakness: One significant disadvantage of the bank is regarding the rates of interest
given or taken by the bank on deposits or loans. Customers are given less interest rates on
their deposits or they have to pay more interest for loans from the bank, compared to other

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banks in Australia. Due to this discrepancy, CBA faces a steep competition from other banks
that provide better interest rates to customers (Ng, 2018).
Another significant weakness of the organization is the impact of the money
laundering related allegations on the organization which have impacted the growth of the
organization as well as its share process.
1.2 External Situational Analysis:
1.2.1 The Environment: Australia has a very favorable business environment for banking
services. Additionally, the countries where CBA has its operations also have significantly
positive market for banking, thus making the environment ideal for the CBA’s operations and
viability. Such an atvantage allowed CBA to remain largely functional and continue
generating profits even during times of financial crisis which crippled several banks, thus
showing the stability of CBA market (Schlagwein et al., 2014).
1.2.2 Customers: The main services that are provided by CBA include loans and mortgage
services, thereby making prospective home owners, middle aged and middle income
individuals the main customers of their banking services. The bank also have customers from
a wide age group to whom a wider range or assortment of financial services are also offered.
Thus CBA has a significantly large customer base that spans across Australia and abroad
(Worthington, 2016).
1.2.3 Competition: Competition in the banking sector in Australia is very high with major
banking organizations such as Westpac, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ),
Bank of Queensland, Bendigo Bank, Macquarie Bank, AMP bank and National Australia
Bank (Murray et al., 2014).

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Figure 1: Internal and external environments
2. Target market(s) (i.e. the consumers/ customers/ clients/ suppliers/ employees/etc.) to
which the IMC program will be directed
The target market for CBA involves customers who have active banking accounts,
including low-value customers, medium value customers and high value customers.
2.1 Low value customers: These customers can be of two types such as customers who have
restricted income or limited financial needs and customers who are using services from
several banks simultaneously. Even though the contribution of these customers towards the
total profits of the organization is minimal, they have the potential to be converted to medium
value customers by convincing them to invest in fewer banks. Also, the low value customers
can represent a large part of the customer base, and include individuals from various
professions and employment status (Hazledine, 2015).
2.2 Medium Value Customers: These customers are mainly of two different types such as
customers who have most of their business with just one bank and customers who have their

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business spread across multiple banks. These customers have limited potential to be
converted to high value customers. The the contribution towards the profits of the bank by the
medium value customers are more than the low value customers as well (Komssi et al.,
2015).
2.3 High Value Customers: These are the customers who have large sums of money deposited
in the bank or have taken biag loans from the bank thereby paying a large sum of money to
the bank regularly as interest, making them one of the most significant source of profit for the
bank. However the number of high value customers can be very limited for a bank. These
customers are also harder to retain because of their high expectations from the bank and also
due to competitions from other bank who would want the customer to invest with them
(Stangl et al., 2017).
2.4 Ex Customers: These are the customers who have become either inactive or have stopped
using the banking services. This market segment provides a potential opportunity towards re-
engagement of the customers with banking services. Even though converting the Ex-
Customers to service users again can be a significant challenge since many would have
closed because of moving the business to other banks, due to personal situations, a change in
the needs of the customer or a prior bad experience with the bank causing dissatisfaction with
the services (Najdić et al., 2016).

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Figure 2: Customer profiles. (source: Hazledine, 2015)
Figure 3: Marketing strategies for the customer profiles. (source: Hazledine, 2015)
3. IMC Communication objectives

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Identifying the communication objectives is a vital stage of IMC as it helps develop
effective strategies to reach to the potential customers and increase the awareness of the
brand and its services and increase the number of customers (Letaifa, 2015). Discussed below
is the communication objectives that can be used by CBA using the SMART model:
 Increasing awareness of the brand among customers by 50%
 Increasing Credit card Sales by 10%
 Increasing funding for marketing campaigns by 25%
 Increasing advertising campaigns by 50%
 Increasing the usage of social media for marketing by 15%
 Increasing public relations activities by 15%
 Increasing the network traffic to company’s website by 200%
3.1 Specific: The main objective of the communication strategy is to increase awareness of
the brand among the potential customers, and also inform them about the different banking
services as well as the key benefits of using their services compared to the other banks.
Specific market segments can be focused on for different messages to promote the bank and
advertise its services, based on the customer profile. The specificity of the objectives is
ensured through the percentages on proposed increase for marketing, advertisement and
public relations activities.
3.2 Measurable: The efficacy of the marketing communication can be measured through an
increase in the awareness of the brand among the potential customers and a subsequent
increase in the number of customers opening their bank account with CBA. Also increase in
the number of website traffic can also be used to measure the reach of the communication.
The specific variables outlined in the objectives can all be quantified and measured.

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3.3 Attainable: The communication strategy is completely attainable and can help the bank to
increase its customer base. However, increasing the marketing campaigns can involve extra
funding the result might take a long time to show. All the outlined objectives are attainable.
3.4 Relevant: The goal of increasing brand awareness and number of customer is a relevant
one as it can help in the viability of the organization.
3.5 Time Bound: The marketing strategy would need at least 2 years to be successfully
implemented to provide any positive outcome.
(Camilleri, 2018)
4. Creative Strategy - your messages and positioning strategies
In order to implement the IMC model effectively, various types of creative
approaches can be utilized by CBA in order to reach its marketing objectives and goals.
Discussed below are few of those creative strategies to support better brand positioning:
4.1 Advertisement: This is the most form common form of promotion and spreading
awareness regarding the bank and its services. Advertisement can be broadcasted through
television, radio, billboards and newspaper as well as through online advertisements (through
platforms such as YouTube and Facebook) (Zhang et al., 2016). The advertisement can be
aired on national television channels (such as ABC, SBS and Seven West Media), radio
channels (such as ABC, 2GB and FOX FM) during the primetimes (6pm to 10 pm).
4.2 Launching Referral Programs: This is another strategy that can help the bank to reach out
to more customers from an extisting customer network. Giving the existing customers some
benefits everytime a referral opted for service or opened an account can help to gain trust and
loyalty to the bank (Jang et al., 2018)

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4.3 Community Reach outs: Reach outs can help to get to the challenging customer bases, and
can help to re-engage customers. The community reach can also help to increase awareness
of the bank and its services in remote communities that do not have much access to digital
information (Dey et al., 2015).
4.4 Telemarketing: Customers can also be reach via telephonic marketing that can help to
communicate with customers across the world, understand their needs and provide/offer them
services accordingly (Valvi et al., 2015).
5. Communication strategy Mix
5.1 Understanding the target customers: This is an important strategy that can help to
understand the needs and expectations of the customers and identify factors they have in
common. This can also help to explain why they need to opt for the banking services and also
understand the characteristics and demographics of the customer. Strategies such as feedback
forms can be used to collect such data from the customers.
5.2 Defining the Unique Selling Proposition (USP): The USP provides the customer an
understanding of the benefits of the service and thus should be clear, understandable,
consistent and easily recognized and identified. The USP can help to develop effective pitch.
The USP can be developed based on a SWOT analysis using the point of view of the
customers.
5.3 Determining the marketing communication mix: The marketing communication mix can
include different strategies such as online advertising, offline advertising, personal selling
and direct marketing which can be used to reach out to the customers and increase awareness
of the brand and its services.