IMC Campaign Report

Assessment item 3 - The IMC Campaign Report

Length: 3500

Task

In Assessment 3 you have a number of options to construct this assessment.

Option 1: Develop an IMC campaign program for a product or service for a specific organisation. Take a product or service in everyday use that you are familiar with such as a mobile phone service, savings account, credit card, health insurance, etc.

Option 2: Develop an IMC campaign to focus on a social marketing problem say for example: The Australian Medical Association (AMA) – to seek to ban the advertising of junk food and sugary drinks to children.

Option 3: Alternatively, develop an IMC campaign for an organisation you work for. However, you must be able to identify one important IMC communication problem faced by that organisation that could affect the strategic positioning of that organisation in the marketplace.

The assumption for this Assessment - Agency Pitch: You are to assume you work for and are a senior account executive with M&C Saatchi (Australia) and you are pitching your approach to a potential client organisation.

The following structure for an IMC Campaign is taken from- Advertising & IMC: Principles and Practice, Global Edition eBook, 11th Edition, By Sandra Moriarty, Nancy Mitchell, William D. Wells, Charles Wood. ISBN 9781292262062 (page 517-8).

As part of Assessment 3 you need to identify and develop the:

Situation Analysis

(This means researching and reviewing the current state of the business and gathering all pertinent information. The goal for IMC planning is to identify a problem that can be solved with communication)

Background research
SWOT: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats
Stakeholder attitudes and behaviours
Key communication problem(s) to be solved
IMC Actions taken to date

Key Strategic Campaign Decisions

(This means deciding a general statement of strategy. In other words what is this campaign all about? E.g. a strategy can focus on branding, positioning, countering the competition, or creating category dominance.)

Objectives
Target and engaging stakeholders (e.g. think about all the potential audiences who have a stake in the success of an organisation or brand and which audience to focus on)
Brand positioning strategy

Marcom Mix

(This means deciding what combination of marketing communication tools to use in a campaign and how they will work together to achieve the campaign objectives. E.g. you use public relations to announce something that is newsworthy, whereas you use sales promotion to drive immediate action).

Platforms and objectives
Synergy

Message Strategy

(This means determining the right message for the target market(s) that delivers the IMC objectives: including how much to focus on rational or emotional messages, what message format to use, and how to get a big idea that gets attention and sticks in memory)

Key consumer and brand relationship insights
Message direction
Strategic consistency

IMC Media and Contact Points

(This means creating examples of your campaign e.g. sample advertisements, displays, etc for television, radio, digital, print, social media, etc. (e.g. Facebook, Google, Instagram, Twitter, etc.).

Multimedia and multichannel (e.g. Television, radio, digital, print, social media, etc - determining the focus of your campaign.)
Multiplatform (e.g. advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, public relations, etc.- determining the focus of your campaign)
Contact points, touchpoints, and critical touchpoints (e.g. think about all the ways you come into contact with a brand message)

Management and Campaign Controls

Budgeting (e.g. think about how much an organisation should spend on an IMC program)
Evaluation of Effectiveness (e.g. how will you measure the success?)

Make sure your IMC plan is well structured with headings and is fluent and interesting to read to ensure time poor executives (CEO/Leadership Team) can understand the key components and actions. You can use tables, graphics, flowcharts, images, screenshots, videos/links and other tools to make this an interesting, concise and easily communicable report that is targeted to your client’s CEO and Leadership team. You will score more points for creativity!

Although there is no budget restriction on this project, you will need to propose a preliminary budget for your IMC Plan, detailing the spend for each channel – A simple table format will suffice.

It is essential that your budget only relate to the IMC problem under consideration. It is not to relate to the entire organisation