Evolution of Integrated Marketing Communications to Integrated Brand Essay

Evolution of Integrated Marketing Communications to Integrated Brand Promotion - Essay Example As marketers become more sophisticated, they are recognize that IMC is more that just coordinating the various elements of the marketing and communications to have a 360 degrees approach to deliver a single message, as the concept of branding is emerging and more importance is laid upon the creation of an experience and promise that the brand holds, the concept of integrated brand promotion is a phenomenon that focuses on building brand identity and equity with the use of IMC to communicate and deliver the branding message effectively and efficiently. Building and maintaining brand identity and equity require the creation of well-known brands that have favorable, strong and unique associations in the minds of the consumer. 2. Imus Brothers Coffee, distributed by Fred and his radio disc jockey brother Don Imus' mail order Company, makes ground coffee and has targeted heavy users in the past. The company is now considering, however, switching to targeting college students, a target seg ment that is comprised largely of people who have just started to drink coffee and don't consume anywhere near as much as the heavy users. What are the disadvantages of the heavy-user strategy? What is the term used to describe the college students the company is considering targeting? What are the advantages of targeting this college student segment? Heavy users are more conscious about the quality of the coffee and are often choosy about what they want. They may be put off by some small mistake and have a negative image of the brand and may also lead to negative word of mouth among other heavy users. The company is targeting an emerging market which is untapped when it comes to coffee and this could mean that they could have a new segment to enter and achieve. This market development and would lead to increased market share and growth in sales. 3. You are the marketing manager for a mail-order company that ships spices from all over the world to customers across the globe. Given a choice between access to a mailing list and access to a marketing database, which would you choose? What are the advantages of your choice? Be as specific as possible. Marketing database would be a more efficient choice as it would be diverse and dense. The marketing database is created taking segmentation into consideration and it is more useful in terms of reach. Marketing database would hold complete information of the users and could also enable targeting and segmentation according to the company offerings. 4. Describe what branded entertainment is, how it differs from brand/product placement, and what its future is as a branding tool. The advent of brand entertainment is considered as one of the most major changes in the way IMC takes place since the past few years. The enormous growth of the concept of brand entertainment appends to its future as a successful branding tool. Brand entertainment can be described as a blend of marketing and entertainment and the process of using the entertainment media to grab the attention of the consumers and help them gain better exposure to the brand. Brand entertainment makes us of television, music, film and technology to create the mix between entertainment and marketing. Product/brand placement was a long time phenomenon used in films although brand entertainment is the same concept, but brand entertainment has led product placement to go beyond films to now embrace all forms of media. From films, to music videos, to computer games, all forms of media can be used to create or recreate an emotional connection with the consumers and increase exposure with