Integrated Marketing Communication for Oxfam: A Comprehensive Report

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Integrated marketing communication

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
PART A...........................................................................................................................................2
Integrated marketing communication (IMC) situational analysis...............................................2
Communication objectives..........................................................................................................3
Strategic communication plan.....................................................................................................4
Promotional mix and appropriate multiple channel selection.....................................................5
Strategic plan and tactics of each channel selection....................................................................6
Implementation and the use of control and evaluation mechanism.............................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9
Appendix: Part B...........................................................................................................................11

Introduction
The organisational communication is concerned as the process in which organisation can lead to
promote the concerned services of the organisation (Luxton et.al.2015). Current report focuses
on considering the case study of Oxfam that is one of the charitable organisations that focuses on
alleviation of the global poverty. Current report analyse different channels of communication
that helps in serving communication objectives. Moreover, report will analyse different methods
that will enable integrated communication within the workplace. In addition to this, report will
also assess the suitable channel of selection that will lead to achieve the motive of achieving
strategic and tactical objectives. Report will also design suitable marketing plan for
communication for Oxfam that will help in serving better needs of the customers. The objective
of the communication plan is based on achieving non profit objectives of the Oxfam.
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PART A
Integrated marketing communication (IMC) situational analysis
Oxfam is operating in the international factors that have impact of both external and internal
factors. For this, situational analysis is being carried out with the help of PEST and SWOT
model.
PEST analysis:
Political aspect: Currently, Oxfam faces the low problem of politics and mainly in the country
like Australia government have the strong control. As Oxfam is operating for the good cause,
government is also providing support in terms of starting new innovation and creative solutions.
However, non profits generally get the tax reliefs and with this are favourable to operate in the
country (Strategic plan of Oxfam, 2019).
Economic aspect: The economy in which Oxfam is operating is well developed and working for
the alleviation of poverty will affect on improving the economic conditions. With this, business
has the liberal advantage in terms of operating for the economy.
Social aspects: Oxfam generally operate for improving the social life and with this well being is
conducted for both rural and urban areas. This impact on the functioning of the organisation as it
gets support of many volunteers and community as the whole (Butler and Wilson, 2015).
Technological aspect: Internet is one of the important aspects that are enabling business to
communicate within the community and also spread awareness about the aspects of the poverty.
Oxfam is utilising Internet as one of the effective resource for the purpose of raising funds and
also about promotion of the work.
SWOT analysis:
Strengths:
 Oxfam has the clear and well defined goals of providing support to the society working
with the main cause of poverty.
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 It has strong global networks in the form of supporters and donors that helps in
improving business functioning (Oxfam international, 2017).
 Stronger mode of communication with internet to generate awareness in the public.
Weakness:
 There are growing number of NGOs and this serve competition for Oxfam to gain the
competitive advantage (About Oxfam, 2019).
 Oxfam generally have the well defined plans for the crisis that generally offer concerns
for safety of employees and volunteers.
 Lack of accountability and consistency with the programs and events reduces the market
visibility.
Opportunities:
 Have clear guidelines that increase commitment of volunteers and employees to improve
conditions of the society.
 Have clear values in terms of addressing the structural cause of poverty and removing
injustice (About Oxfam, 2019).
 Have strong online presence that can lead to attract different volunteers and donors
Threats:
 Volunteers and employees work in dangerous environment that increase concerns for
employees of Oxfam.
 Sometimes community do not provide adequate support in carrying out actions and
survey for poverty.
 Government interference can be threat for lowering down business productivity.
Communication objectives
 Initial objective of Oxfam is based on understanding the global growing poverty to offer
system based solution to eradicate poverty.
 Oxfam goal is to secure the rights at the scale of communities and generating awareness
about the fundraising call and promotion of the business.
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 Supporting the goals of 2020 regarding improving the channels of network with different
countries (Strategic plan of Oxfam, 2019).
 Driving internal structures by training to staff and also improving external structures with
the help of spreading vast database with the help of segmentation strategies.
 Also to engage the potential supporters and sifting traditional resources towards digital
communication.
Strategic communication plan
Vision: Oxfam have the mission to operate on the international level to help people to fight for
their rights and providing services in terms of basic living.
Mission: Creating more and more programs to eradicate poverty and also to increase the
presence in the market for addressing the cause of poverty and giving the effective solutions.
Program goals: Oxfam have the objective of attracting the supports and donors to motivate
funds for the good cause. Also Oxfam have the strategic goals to fuel the investment system with
promoting fair and sustainable results. Organisation is to communicate about the key strength of
reforming the global emergency response system. Oxfam is effective for building a structure of
qualified and skilled workforce to call for action framework and motivate to connect the new and
current donors. In addition, plan objectives are also based on building workforce mainly of the
local community and global citizens (Strategic plan of Oxfam, 2019). Communication plan is
effective to motivate the connections with the other countries in which it might develop interest
of other partnerships and donors of other countries.
Analysis of conducted SWOT: The conducted SWOT in above section, it can be assessed that
Oxfam have strength in terms of having strong and qualified support of Donors. Oxfam have the
strong support of the Internet that will make digital capable. However, the data can be effectively
used to insight the market information build the brand. Oxfam have threats in terms of increasing
competition that can lead to lower down the competitive advantage (Schwarz and Fritsch, 2015).
Management can take effective decisions by enhancing the level of marketing communication to
increase the visibility in the market.
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Target market: Oxfam’s target market is the poor people and the needs assistance from all
regions, religion, etc of all over the world. The target market emphasis on living condition of the
people that are facing injustice and discrimination and special targets are the women’s and girls’.
Communication channel and strategies: Over the next few years, the departmental structure of
Oxfam reflects on achieving the communication objectives. Currently Oxfam is familiar with the
mode of Internet but still strategies are being designed to improve the presence over social media
and using the data in effective manner to build positive relationships with the supporters. The
business aims to have the effective connections and broad engagement with the target audiences
to raise awareness of the Oxfam (Hajnal, 2018). Moreover, it is necessary to recruit more staff
that will work for analysing the prone areas of the poverty and with raising more funds the
quality services are necessarily to be provided to the target audiences.
With adequate communication, billions of people will live equitably and free from injustice of
poverty and the planet that have natural resources for increasing the sustainability. Oxfam need
to spread awareness that every individual have the right to live their basic lives, enjoy their
rights, assume their responsibilities and are treated equally. For this, internet channel is one of
the appropriate channels to spread awareness and also events and programs are necessary to be
organised at crowded place for improving the business reputation. Transformational change can
improve the relationships between communities and partners that will work for betterment in the
economy.
Evaluation: It is necessary to take prepare clear reports that would ascertain about saving lives
of people and also actions conducted in current year. Also controlling technique can be adopted
as current performance would be compared with the standard performance to measure the current
outcomes.
Promotional mix and appropriate multiple channel selection
According to the promotion mix it considers the blend of several promotional tools that enhance
the promotion of business for services. There are methods of promotional mix that includes:
Advertising: This is the paid form of non personal presentation that leads to promote services of
business to meet with the objectives of target market (Todorova, 2015). This displays the
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attractive messages that are marketed to customers to grab their attention and influence their
decisions.
Personal selling: This is the kind of traditional form of promotional tools where salesman is
hired to sell the product or service. This includes face to face interaction with the target audience.
Sales promotion: This includes offering discounts, coupons and offers to increased profits of the
business. But currently in non profit organisation, this mode of channel is not appropriate.
Public relations: This includes building favourable relationships in the market by developing
relationship with the general public (Abdullah, 2016). For this campaigns and events are being
organised for attracting public towards the activities of business.
Direct marketing: This includes intent of the business to reach directly to the customers with the
help of technology. Generally this depends on nature of the firm to use the suitable channel for
marketing (Adefulu, 2015).
As per the above options of promotional mix, Oxfam is currently using the method of developing
public relations and also option of direct marketing is being done through the help of Internet.
Social media, website, mobile applications, etc are the effective channels that are being currently
used by Oxfam to generate awareness among the customers.
Strategic plan and tactics of each channel selection
Public relations: Oxfam organises campaigns and events that enhance the customer attention
and these are mainly organised at the crowded place. To improve public relation, it is effective
for attracting the society as the whole. Oxfam mainly need to promote the activities that are
being performed in terms of saving people lives, eradicating poverty and offering rights that will
avoid the injustice (Hajnal, 2018). The actions of the Workforce must be visible in the market by
organising regular events and workforce must entertain public about the activities for the good
cause. This will help to gain attention of the local supporters and donors that might invest funds
to improve the poverty in the society. The objective of supporting the people must be
communicated through direct and indirect means (Porter, 2017).
Direct marketing: Oxfam have the capability in terms of qualified workforce and also the
suitability of infrastructure that will lead to enhance integrated communication. For this, Internet
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is one of the growing platforms that can be utilised. For example, mobile application currently
launched by Oxfam is the greater idea to receive fair donations and actions also can be reviewed
by uploading the videos and photos with the use of effective taglines. Target audience is needed
to be informed about the mission, goals and the future plans (Go and You, 2016). Along with
this, workforce needs to conduct regular surveys to avoid the prone areas and the people must be
informed about the brand name that will enhance the reputation in the current marketing.
Moreover, content marketing must be majorly focussed as attractive lines and messages can be
posted on social media to display the activities conducted for the good cause.
Implementation and the use of control and evaluation mechanism
The above mentioned activities can be implemented with providing adequate training to the
volunteers and the workforce. Specialist can be hired that would help to improve the activities of
working for non profits. Mainly Oxfam needs to focus on promoting the strategies of using
internet as one of the effective medium. In addition, the workforce generally work in dangerous
areas so that management need to take actions regarding promoting the health and safety
conditions of the workers. Implementation of plan must be visible by measuring the progress on
regular basis by creating reports and documents that contain the activities and social services that
are being conducted (Quirke, 2017). Moreover, controlling must be effective as expected
performance of plans must be compared with the current progress of the million in terms of
funds received and how much people are being served within the given period of time. It is also
need to measure the channel and awareness gained through the suitable channel of
communication applied.
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Conclusion
As per the analysis of the above report, it can be concluded that Oxfam have the capabilities and
strengths in form of improving the conditions of the society. For this, it requires management to
use multiple channels and strategies for enhancing the level of communication in the market. The
report concludes that Internet is one of the growing channels that will enhance communication
by Oxfam to reach to target audience and bring improvement in the society. It can be also
concluded that regular monitoring can be done of plans and quick actions are necessary to be
taken for eradicating poverty.
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References
Books and Journals
 Abdullah, J.A., 2016. The Impact of Promotional Mix Elements on Consumers
Purchasing Decisions. Journal for Studies in Management and Planning, 2(1).
 Adefulu, A.D., 2015. Promotional Strategy Impacts on Organizational Market Share and
Profitability. Acta Universitatis Danubius. Œconomica, 11(6), pp.20-33.
 Butler, R. and Wilson, D.C., 2015. Managing voluntary and non-profit organizations:
Strategy and structure. Routledge.
 Finne, Å. and Grönroos, C., 2017. Communication-in-use: customer-integrated marketing
communication. European Journal of Marketing, 51(3), pp.445-463.
 Go, E. and You, K.H., 2016. But not all social media are the same: Analyzing
organizations’ social media usage patterns. Telematics and Informatics, 33(1), pp.176-
186.
 Hajnal, P.I., 2018. Oxfam International. In Civil society in the information age (pp. 57-
66). Routledge.
 Karjaluoto, H., Mustonen, N. and Ulkuniemi, P., 2015. The role of digital channels in
industrial marketing communications. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 30(6),
pp.703-710.
 Key, T.M. and Czaplewski, A.J., 2017. Upstream social marketing strategy: An
integrated marketing communications approach. Business Horizons, 60(3), pp.325-333.
 Li, T., Zhang, X. and Yang, K., 2018. The dilemma of implementation of Integrated
marketing communication.
 Luxton, S., Reid, M. and Mavondo, F., 2015. Integrated marketing communication
capability and brand performance. Journal of Advertising, 44(1), pp.37-46.
 Parry, E., Martin, G. and Dromey, J., 2019. Scenarios and Strategies for Social Media in
Engaging and Giving Voice to Employees. In Employee Voice at Work (pp. 201-215).
Springer, Singapore.
 Porter, A.J., 2017. Channels. The International Encyclopedia of Organizational
Communication, pp.1-5.
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 Quirke, B., 2017. Making the connections: using internal communication to turn strategy
into action. Routledge.
 Schwarz, A. and Fritsch, A., 2015. Strategic communication practice of international
nongovernmental organizations. The Routledge handbook of strategic communication,
pp.459-480.
 Todorova, G., 2015. Marketing communication mix. Trakia Journal of Sciences, 13(1),
pp.368-374.
Online
 About Oxfam, 2019 [Online] [Accessed through] <https://www.oxfam.org.uk/what-we-
do/about-us/how-we-work/our-goals-and-values>
 David Hobart, 2016 <http://www.purecontent.com/blog/oxfam-seo-campaign-wins-
prestigious-marketing-award/> [Accessed on 14th June, 2019]
 Oxfam international, 2017 [Online] [Accessed through]
<https://www.oxfam.org/en/annual-report-2016-2017/about-oxfam> [Accessed on 14th
June, 2019]
 Sarah Vizard, 2017 [Online] [Accessed through]
<https://www.marketingweek.com/2017/01/09/oxfam-puts-supporters-control-industry-
first-app/> [Accessed on 14th June, 2019]
 Strategic plan of Oxfam, 2019 [Online] [Accessed through] <https://www-
cdn.oxfam.org/s3fs-public/file_attachments/story/oxfam-strategic-plan-2013-
2019_0.pdf> [Accessed on 14th June, 2019]
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