Integrated Marketing Communication Strategies: Twelve Cupcakes Case

This report examines the integrated marketing communications (IMC) campaign of Twelve Cupcakes, a Singapore-based company, focusing on their strategies for communicating with customers. It identifies the company's target audience, communication objectives, and the use of both traditional and social media for advertising, particularly highlighting a Women's Day promotion. The analysis explores the strengths of the campaign, such as reaching a large audience through social media and understanding customer preferences, using the Hierarchy of Effects model. Weaknesses, including the lack of endorsers and challenges in managing active advertisements, are also discussed with reference to the TEARS model. The report concludes that Twelve Cupcakes' IMC campaign is generally effective but recommends improvements such as increased print visibility, celebrity endorsements, and diversification of product lines. Desklib provides this assignment as a resource for students studying marketing and communications.

Integrated Marketing Communications
6/25/2018
Twelve Cupcakes

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Executive summary
In the current competitive environment, this has been found by the companies that there is a rise
in the marketing communication. The marketing communication is considered as one of the
fundamental and complex parts of company's marketing efforts. Different elements of marketing
communication are used by companies like Twelve Cupcakes. The company is well-known in
the market of Singapore and ensure they serve best to their customers. The targeted customers of
the company are satisfied with the services still the company is willing to communicate more
about their product and services in Singapore. The marketing campaigns of the company are
discussed which include both traditional and social media. Along with this, the analysis has been
done with the use of theories and concepts.

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Overview of company..................................................................................................................3
Customer needs................................................................................................................................4
Targeted customers..........................................................................................................................4
Communication objective of Twelve Cupcakes Company campaign.............................................5
Advertisement of product in Singapore...........................................................................................6
Social media/ Internet..................................................................................................................6
Strengths..................................................................................................................................8
Weaknesses..............................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11
Appendix........................................................................................................................................13

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Introduction
The aim of the report is to demonstrate the understanding related to the integrated marketing
communication by analysing the real campaign and to exercise the strength and weakness of the
campaign of the company. The integrated marketing communication is the use of the marketing
strategies that are required to optimise the communication of a consistent message of the brands
of the company to stakeholders. The company that has been selected for the analysis is twelve
cupcakes. The advertisement that is presented in the report is a Singapore advertisement
campaign that was run by the company.
Overview of company
Twelve cupcakes is a company that came into existence in Singapore in the year 2012, July. The
brand offers the freshly baked cupcakes to their customers that are handmade from scratch daily.
Along with this, the company make use of quality gourmet ingredients and prepare different
types of cupcakes which improve the customer experience. The company offer cupcake moist,
fluffier, and less sweet with the smooth frosting that enhances the palate. Twelve Cupcakes
operates the business in Singapore, Jakarta, Taipei and Hong Kong (Twelve Cupcakes 2018).

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Customer needs
In the Singapore market, there is growth in the consumption of the baked goods by the
customers. The value and volume growth of 2017 was in line with the respective CAGRs seen
over the review period as a whole. Cupcakes are mainly used by Singaporeans as a snack or
dessert. In the Singapore market, the artisanal producers are dominating the market which
includes BreadTalk, Four Leaves, Bengawan Solo and Twelve Cupcakes (Euromonitor
International 2017). The consumer of twelve cupcakes generally likes to consume cupcakes that
are less in sweet because they are health conscious with quality ingredients, smooth frosting and
fluffier. The company ensure that they are able to meet entire needs of customers present in
Singapore market by offering them good quality products. Along with this, at the time of
occasion the company ensure that they offer an attractive discount to their customers.
Targeted customers
Twelve Cupcakes Company offer its products to different customers that fall under different
segments which means that company make use of differentiation or multi-segment targeting
strategy. In this strategy, the company targets all customers that are segmented by them in
Singapore market.
The market segmentation of twelve cupcake company is given below: -
 Demographic segmentation: - In these segmentation groups of a customer are divided
on the basis of age, gender, income, education and many other characters (Kotler 2015,
252). Twelve cupcake company offer the products to different age group people which

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include 5-15 years, 15-25 years and above with the middle and high-income group. The
company segments men, women and children.
 Geographic segmentation: - Company segment the market on the basic physical
location or region. Twelve cupcakes company offer the products through different outlets
in the market of Singapore.
 Psychographics segmentation: - The company segment this group on the basis of
lifestyle, socially and personality characteristics (Wilson & Gilligan 2012, 112). Twelve
cupcakes believe in consuming the sweet products is preference reflect a lifestyle of the
people lives in Singapore.
Twelve Cupcakes Company serve its products and services to different segments which include
mainly the people that fall under the age group of 5-15 years and 15-25 years as it is mainly
chosen by them. The company mainly target kids, girls and another person who loves to
consume cupcakes as it is their favourite dessert and this age group like to consume sweet
products more. Along with this, the company offer a different discount on the cupcakes due to
which most of the people prefer to consume cupcakes offered by Twelve Cupcakes Company.
Communication objective of Twelve Cupcakes Company campaign
Twelve cupcakes make use of different ways of promoting the brand and their products on the
market. In the Singapore market, one of the major communication objectives of the company is
to generate the awareness about the product and service of Twelve Cupcakes Company.
Moreover, the communication contributes to increasing the brand value and reputation in the
market. Communication through advertisement contributes to promote the product and making
the customers aware of the offers that are provided by them.

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Advertisement of product in Singapore
Marketing communication is one of the important elements to generate the awareness about the
product in the market of Singapore. The campaign of the company is the advertisement
campaign for the year 2018. The advertisement is effective promotion tool that is used by the
companies to communicate about the products to a large number of customers. Traditional media
and social media are used by the company to promote the products in Singapore market (Belch et
al 2014, 52). Twelve cupcakes make use of print media and social media or internet for the
promotion of their cupcakes and this is clear from the below-given advertisement.
Social media/ Internet
The company twelve cupcakes make use of the social media for promoting products in the
market because this is the way through which they can target huge large number of customers
(Castronovo and Huang 2012, 117). The below given is one of the advertisements of the
company which is available on social media or on the internet. (Please refer appendix 1 for the
article)

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(Source: Singapore Promotions 2018)
(Source: Singapore Promotions 2018)

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The above advertisement of twelve cupcakes is new advertisement in which they provided the
attractive offers on occasion of Women’s day in the year 2018. The company shared the details
related to the offers that they are going to provide to their customers on the occasion of women’s
day. The company made use of social media as this was effective way to spread the details for
the offer. Moreover, this advertisement campaign leads to numerous numbers of strengths and
weaknesses which are discussed below with the help of models and theory.
Strengths
Large target audience
The strength of the company is that social media is effective channel through which they can
target large number of audience. The advertisement campaign can bring the changes in the
preference of customers towards the product (Danaher and Rossiter 2011, 35). This reflects the
implementation of the Hierarchy effect model. It is a model which reflects how advertisement of
the company influences a consumer’s decision to make the purchase of product or service. This
model includes the stages which are: Awareness and knowledge stages, liking and preference
and conviction and purchase stages (Investopedia 2018). Twelve Cupcakes strengths of
advertisement are related to the stages of model which is given below: -
 Awareness and Knowledge stage: - In this stage, the consumer is aware about the product
or service. Twelve cupcakes model is making use of this model due to which they believe
in generating the awareness and knowledge related to the offer that they are providing on
occasion of women’s day.
Understanding the preference of customers

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The social media advertisement is one of the effective ways to understand the preference of
customers. This was also discussed in the model of Hierarchy effect as this is one of the stage of
this model which provide the strength to company.
 Liking and preference: - Company also understand the liking and preference of customers
due to which they are offering products that are mainly liked by customers with discount
so that they can meet the preference of customers for products at affordable prices.
Moreover, the feedbacks of the customers can easily be acknowledged by the company.
Connection with customers
This advertisement campaign helps the company to get connected with the customers which is
strength of this campaign. Considering the Roy Morgan research, advertisement through online
source is one of the way through which the company connect with the customers.
Weaknesses
No involvement of endorser
The advertisement campaign that is done by the company doesn’t involve any endorser due to
which the advertisement was not as attractive. According to the TEARS model which includes
trustworthiness, expertise, physical attractiveness, respect and similarity are the components
(Freeman and Chen. 2015). The implementation of this model provides the support to the Twelve
Cupcakes. The lack of endorser makes the advertisement less attractive.
Management of advertisement
Twelve Cupcakes company needs to manage their active advertisements as they have to update
they have to keep updating the interactive advertisement on social media. This includes the

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expertise character of the TEARS model in which the characteristics of expertise include skills,
knowledge, ability and other elements. The lack of advertisement affects the handling of the
advertisement.
Conclusion
In the end, it can be concluded that marketing communication campaign of Twelve Cupcakes
Company is effective and the company is able to meet their decided objectives. The report
includes the details related to the customers to whom the company serve their products and
services and meet their desired needs . The advertisement campaign of the company reflects that
they make use of both traditional and social media tool to promote the products in the Singapore
market. It is recommended to the company to make the print more visible for which they can use
newspaper for advertisement as this helps in communicating a large number of people. The
company should involve the celebrity while promoting the products. The company should bring
diversification in their product line which is must for them. Moreover, the company should give
a decent and accountable message to negative feedback provider customers because they are
ultimately affecting the value and reputation of a company. This will also allow them to be active
on the social media account.

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References
Belch, George E., Michael A. Belch, Gayle F. Kerr, and Irene Powell. 2014. Advertising: An
integrated marketing communication perspective. US: McGraw-Hill Education.
Castronovo, Cristina, and Lei Huang. 2012. "Social media in an alternative marketing
communication model." Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness 6(1): 117.
Danaher, Peter J., and John R. Rossiter. 2011. "Comparing perceptions of marketing
communication channels." European Journal of Marketing 45(1/2): 6-42.
Euromonitor International. 2017. Baked Goods in Singapore
http://www.euromonitor.com/baked-goods-in-singapore/report
Freeman, Karen S., and Cathy C. Chen. 2015. "Wither the impact of celebrity endorsement."
In International Conference on Communication, Media, Technology and Design, pp. 661-676.
Investopedia. 2018. Hierarchy-of-Effects Theory.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hierarchy-of-effects-theory.asp
Kotler, Philip. 2015. Framework for marketing management. India: Pearson Education.
Patisserie, Glace. 2013. Twelve Cupcakes. https://petulantchild.wordpress.com/tag/glace-
patisserie/
Peres, Renana, Eitan Muller, and Vijay Mahajan. 2010. "Innovation diffusion and new product
growth models: A critical review and research directions." International Journal of Research in
Marketing 27(2): 91-106.