Marketing

University of Phoenix

IMC and Marketing Comparison Paper

As I watched the Super bowl Game number XL, this past weekend, I noticed how the commercials have changed over the years. In pervious years, the commercial I like was the frogs promoting Budweiser beer. They had a story line and a catchy phrase that I looked forwarded to watching. The marketing plan was simple and had no contrast to its competitors. This traditional marketing plan was interesting and to me, never boring. I am not a beer drinker but these commercials will always be memorable and associated with the brand name Budweiser beer. The marketing department for Budweiser did not involve all aspects of the organization. From my perspective the commercials was developed from an advertising perspective only. Meaning that, Budweiser beer may consult with an advertising agency to develop a commercial that would attract beer drinkers and keep them interested by seeing the main characters (the frogs) interact with one another, while promoting beer. This made for good humor and increasing beer sales. The commercials have changed over the years, because companies are becoming more involved in the advertising for their products. Organizations are hiring promotional directors, advertising managers and they are doing due diligence when is comes to knowing the products and its target audience.

A good Integrated Marketing Communication plan (IMC) will have a communication process that incorporates all of marketing, financing and advertising a product to a particular audience. In the example of the frog commercial, today's IMC plan includes more departments who become involved in the overall process of making the commercials; these commercials are more attractive to the viewer. These commercials have become more expensive to produce because of the technology used; some have real actors in the skits. In contrast with the original production of these commercials seen only on television and print media, now these commercials can be seen on computers and cell phones. Today's IMC uses technology to produce what was then a .30-second commercial to a three-minute infomercial, while keeping the main focus on consistent communication of a product.

Also the IMC idea includes almost everyone in an organization. At one time it was the advertising department that handled advertising a product to consumers. Today IMC includes managers and workers from the advertising department, marketing department and public relations department. All departments engage in to coordinate promoting products. An IMC plan today would consist of a situational analysis, marketing objectives, marketing budget, marketing strategies, marketing tactics and evaluation of performance. The situation analysis would involve the internal and external environment of an organization. By identifying these environments and developing a strategy, a determination of the organizations strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, trends and threats (SWOTT) could be done. The objective of what area to market your product and understanding your competition would be part of the marketing objective. The question that needs to be answered during this phase is who do you want to market your product, what is the target audience. After discovering your marketing objective, most organizations (for profit and not for profit), will know what the budget will