Integrated Marketing Communications Plan for RFL Summer Bash

This report outlines an Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) plan developed for the Rugby Football League's (RFL) 'Summer Bash' event. The primary objective is to increase both brand awareness and ticket sales for the event. The report begins with an executive summary, followed by a detailed discussion of marketing objectives, which include boosting brand awareness and increasing ticket sales. The IMC strategy encompasses a combination of traditional and digital marketing tools, targeting a diverse audience through various channels such as television, newspapers, social media, and email marketing. The report provides a creative brief, details the implementation phases, and discusses measurement and evaluation methods, including key performance indicators (KPIs) and evaluation tools. The plan aims to reach a wide audience and generate higher revenue, with the overall strategy designed to improve the league's positioning and attract new fans while retaining existing ones. Appendices include the creative brief, budget, and Gantt chart for implementation.

Running head: IMC PLAN
IMC PLAN
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
The Rugby Football League has not been performing considerably well since a certain time
period. The main contributors to the given under performance are the lack of resources and lack
of roper Marketing plan which will help in strategizing the objectives of the company. Hence,
the previous assignment analyzed the case study for the League and provided considerations for
the same. The given report presents an Integrated Marketing Plan for the same.
Integrated Marketing Communication Plan tends to play a major role in the execution of the
marketing activities of an organization. Any organization needs to ensure that its IMC Plan is
well designed and in accordance with the objectives of the organization. The given report is
based on the IMC Plan of the Rugby Football`s Leagues event which is named `Summer Bash`
event. The report is following a structured format with the marketing objective of increasing the
Brand awareness and increasing the ticket sales to the given event. Hence, the IMC Strategy is
defined, followed by the creative brief. Furthermore, the IMC Implementation has been
discussed extensively which is then followed by the Control and Monitoring of the plan with
different Performance Indicators and the Evaluation tools. The expected results out of the
program are increasing brand awareness of the League and earning a higher rate of Revenue.

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Table of Contents
Marketing objectives.......................................................................................................................4
IMC Strategy...................................................................................................................................4
The Overall Strategy of the Rugby Football League...................................................................5
Positioning of the messages.........................................................................................................6
Advantages of the strategy...........................................................................................................7
Disadvantages..............................................................................................................................8
Target Audience...........................................................................................................................8
Creative Brief...................................................................................................................................9
IMC implementation and execution................................................................................................9
Phase 1.........................................................................................................................................9
Phase 2.......................................................................................................................................11
Phase 3.......................................................................................................................................13
Measurement and Evaluation........................................................................................................13
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................20
References......................................................................................................................................21
Appendices....................................................................................................................................23
Appendix 1: Creative Brief........................................................................................................23
Appendix 2: The Budget............................................................................................................23
Appendix 3: The Gantt chart.....................................................................................................27

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Marketing objectives
The marketing objectives of the Summer Bash event has been given as follows:
1. Brand awareness
The event aims to create awareness among the different target audience groups. The
problem relating to the company primarily deals with the problem of a lack of brand awareness
about the different events which have been taking place in the given domain. The Rugby League
does not comprise of a proper marketing plan and hence, for this reason, the turnout has been
considerably low. For this reason, the primary objective of the given IMC Strategy is to ensure
increasing the Brand Awareness of the Foot Ball League.
2. Increase in ticket sales to event
The second objective of the given marketing plan is to ensure that the increase in the
ticket sales takes place. This is because, over the years the firm has been observing a decline in
the audience attendance and thus through this, the organization aims to increase the consumer
base and gain the revenue.
IMC Strategy
An Integrated Marketing Communications Plan can be defined as a comprehensive plan
which helps in the evaluation of the strategic roles which a variety of communication disciplines
is based on and tends to combine this variety into a clear communication plan which will have an
impact. It has various communications channel like the social media, TV, newspaper and others
channels in use (Meffert 2013). These channels are used to work together and be able to help the
organization to achieve its goals and objectives. An IMC Strategy generates a clear picture of the
brand in the eyes of the different customers and helps in relating the given message to them.

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The Overall Strategy of the Rugby Football League
The primary overall strategy which will be followed in order to assist the League in
gaining the maximum crowd for its summer Bash event. As discussed earlier, the primary
objective of the event is to see to it that the different viewership and attendance increases
accordingly along with increasing the revenue of the league and event (Bresler and Lubbe 2014).
Furthermore, the league also intends to improve its positioning in the eyes of the different
customers. Hence, the overall strategy of the league will be to apply different tools and
equipment’s which will then assist the league in achieving the objectives. The league aims to
utilize both digital as well as traditional means of marketing to reach out the desired target
audience. These will be as follows:
Traditional Marketing
The traditional marketing forms include marketing forms like that of Television
advertising, word of mouth, Radio advertising Billboards advertising, newspaper advertising and
local channel advertising. Although these strategies are often stated to be outdated methods of
reaching out to the different customers, these are fairly popular in terms of the attaining the
attention of the desired target market (Goworek, McGoldrick and McGoldrick 2015). The
League management plans to invest a major share of their marketing budget on the given
medium and the rest on the new means of marketing and related strategies.
Digital Marketing
The digital marketing can be described as a fairly new means of advertising which is
generally used by the different companies in order to have an access to a larger target audience.

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These means will also be adopted by the League management and will primarily include means
like Social Media advertisement, email marketing, mobile marketing and application.
The given strategies which shall be used are fairly relevant and will be quite effective to
achieve the designated objectives in the following manner:
The marketing strategies will aim to appeal to a larger audience. When both traditional as
well as modern means of advertising strategies will be used by the company then, the target
audience can be widened and a larger crowd can be attracted (Burns, Bush and Sinha 2014). This
then can be suitable for the achievement of the first objective which is to increase the attendance
in the leagues.
Secondly, in a similar manner, when both the traditional as well as the modern methods
will be adopted, then the firm will easily be able to attract the desired audience which in turn will
automatically assist in achieving the objective of earning higher revenue (Yorkshirepost.co.uk
2018).
Positioning of the messages
The different messages that will be sent out to the different stakeholders and the target
audiences will be positioned in the following manner:
The Summer Bash Event is an event which aims to provide entertainment to the target
audience. The event has been formed in order to provide a sporting activity to the target audience
and stakeholders which will be good to witness and would help the audience to utilize their time
effectively (Chernev 2018). The Summer Bash event is largely targeted at the General crowd
because of the nature of the game. The league management wants to ensure that the maximum

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audience tends to witness the given game and thus, with the help of the event it wants to bring
the different viewers together in order to be able to successfully ensure that the event is
successful.
New Fans: For the new fans of the game, the league would like to position itself as a game which
tends to attract the desired target audiences by providing them a relief from the normal games
that are generally held like basketball and cricket and provides them with an opportunity to
witness something different than the usual game (Foxall 2014).
Old Fans: The existing fan base, will be provided a message which will state that they can enjoy
a game evening and will be provided with various offers for being highly loyal to the given game
and its base.
Advantages of the strategy
1. Assist in reaching out to the larger target audience
The selected strategy will go a long way in assisting the firm to reach out to a larger
target audience. In this manner it will be able to achieve a higher ticket attendance and it will be
able to make the game even popular in the selected region.
2. Help to increase ticket
The objective of the target audience remains to increase the ticket sales and earn higher
revenues (Lasserre 2017). For this purpose, the strategy will assist in achieving the given
objective and thereby increasing the money earned by the club.
3. Viewer base will increase

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The viewer base on the television and other local channels where the game will be
broadcasted will also increase considerably (Zott and Amit 2013). This will be the impact of the
advertisement on the different channels and related means.
Disadvantages
1. Large costs will be implemented
The implementation of the marketing plan and strategy is not any easy task and is often
quite expensive with respect to the funds invested in the given domain. For this purpose, the club
will be spending a large amount of money.
2. First time execution
As the club did not have any prior plan with respect to the marketing of its events, as the
event will be released using the marketing strategies for the first time then, there is a risk of
failure of the different events and strategies (Loverugbyleague.com 2018).
Target Audience
The target audience based on different segmentation approaches is given as follows:
Geographic- Geographically, the company is targeting the audience which lives in urban as well
as the sub urban areas. In this manner, they will be able to successfully attain to a larger target
audience.
Psychographic- In this manner, they will be targeting those audiences with a moderate to high
social class and those who like to experience games like rugby and would like to spend their time
accordingly.

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Demographic- The demographic approach is the audiences aged between 18-50, family
individuals or single people with an income of around $40000 and above.
Behavioral- Targets the loyal customers who have been fans of the game even earlier and those
audiences who would like to watch a game based on the occasion.
The given target market is chosen because they would be most likely to purchase a rugby
game ticket in order to spend their time in something constructive and of sufficient game like
rugby.
Creative Brief
The creative brief of the event has been attached. The primary objective of the creative brief is to
ensure that the customers are aware about the given event which will take place. The brief will
also be discussing the different advantages of the events and the key features (Morschett,
Schramm-Klein and Zentes 2015). The primary aim of the brief is to attract as many customers
as possible and reflect on the ways in which the event is different from that of its competitors.
Hence, it needs to be bright and highlight the theme of the event which is the Summer Bash.
(Refer to Appendix 1)
IMC implementation and execution
The IMC Plan components and implementation will take place in the following manner
using the given medium:
Phase 1
The first phase will be carried on for the first 3 weeks of the IMC Execution plan. In this
phase, the given mediums will be used to make the different audiences aware of the Summer
Bash event which will take place.

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Television Advertisement:
The television advertisement is considered to be a popular medium of advertisement. It is
the most common form of advertisement and hence it will be used (Proctor 2014). A commercial
regarding the summer bash will be shown on the local television channels
Content: The content of the advertisement will talk about the past games which will be held and
how the league has come up with a summer event which aims to attract the target audience and
would like to increase the customer based more than before (Zimmerman and Blythe 2013).
Price: the cost for the television advertisement will be $5000
Duration: The duration of the commercial clip will be 1 minute and it will be shown twice a
day.
Newspaper Advertisement
Newspaper advertisement is one of the oldest forms of advertising and hence, the given
Summer Bash Event will be advertised on all local newspapers (Shukre 2013). This will help the
event in gaining popularity among the readers and help in increasing the revenue.
Content: The newspaper advertisement will comprise of the creative brief designed for the
appropriate venue and will assist in making the event more popular.
Price: Thee cost of advertisement in the given domain will be approximately $500 in all the
newspapers.
Duration: This will be published every weekend for a period of eight weeks.
Social Media Advertisement

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The social media advertising is one of the newest forms of advertising which is primarily
used in order to attract the target audience using the new technological means of advertising.
Content: The different social media channels which will be adopted will comprise of channels
like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (Rothaermel 2015). The creative brief shall be displayed in
these advertisements in order to ensure that the medium is able to engage a larger audience than
usual and as mostly the younger generation makes use of the social media channels, even they
can be attracted as a potential target audience for the given game.
Price: $ 2000
Duration: The advertisements will be displayed on the feed for 8 weeks and the event will be
created on Facebook. Those who wish to attend the given event can easily avail to the given page
and they would receive the particular updates relating to the selected event.
Phase 2
The second phase of the advertisement will be concentrating on the objective of engaging
the attracting customers or the target audience (Rugby-league.com 2018). In the first step it was
observed that, the League management tried to attract the existing crowd as well as the new
crowd. However, the primary objective of the second phase will be to provide the details of the
given event which will be taking place. Hence, the given plan has been laid down:
Billboard Advertisement
The billboards will be put up in all the major areas of the city where the event will be
held. The management will try and arrange for the event to be put up in nearby towns as well so
that the maximum crowd gets attracted (Skysports.com 2018).