23 Juli 2009

Marketing Communication

Marketing Communications


Marketing Communications (or MarCom or Integrated Marketing Communications) are messages and related media used to communicate with a market. Those who practice advertising, branding, direct marketing, graphic design, marketing, packaging, promotion,publicity, sponsorship, public relations, sales, sales promotion and online marketing are termed marketing communicators, marketing communication managers, or more briefly as marcom managers.

Traditionally, marketing communication practitioners focus on the creation and execution of printed marketing collateral; however, academic and professional research developed the practice to use strategic elements of branding and marketing in order to ensure consistency of message delivery throughout an organization - the same "look & feel". Many trends in business can be attributed to marketing communication; for example: the transition from customer service to customer relations, and the transition from human resources to human solutions. In branding, opportunities to contact stakeholders are called brand touchpoints (or points of contact.) Marketing communication is concerned with the general behavior of an organization and the perceptions of the organization that are promoted to stakeholders and prospect clients through these touchpoints.

Marketing communications is focused on product/produce/service as opposed to corporate communications where the focus of communications work is the company/enterprise itself. Marketing communications is primarily concerned with demand generation, product/produce/service positioning while corporate communications deal with issue management, mergers and acquisitions, litigation etc.

The MarCom Spectrum

Although Marketing Communications (MarCom) is a worldwide industry of over $900 billion in spending, there is no authoritative taxonomy that classifies the professional disciplines, the practice areas and specific MarCom activities.

The services and activities appropriate for any given marketing objective vary greatly by product type and target audience. There are basic MarCom disciplines, hundreds of sub-practices, thousands of product types and a multiplicity of audiences for each product.

This creates the opportunity for an innovative software application to:

1) Catalog the service offerings of this industry 2) Archive and Search information and materials 3) Assist in planning, resourcing and implementation of MarCom programs 4) Facilitate decision-making for companies in this industry

NextGen MarComTM Visualizes The Industry as a Spectrum of Communications Disciplines

The MarCom Spectrum uses the color spectrum to differentiate the basic disciplines that comprise the industry. At the purple end of The Spectrum, we have the more metaphysical Brand Equity activities undertaken at the outset of the marketing process. At the red end of The Spectrum, are the more physical activities of Experiential Marketing which occur closest to the transaction.

The Basic MarCom Disciplines can be further Defined by Sub-Practices

The color visualizations provide a common framework to facilitate internal and Client communications. The model enables a visualization of the sub-divisions for each Discipline. In the example above, we see the sub-divisions of the Brand Equity and Experiential Marketing disciplines.

The Mix and Allocation of MarCom Disciplines Vary Greatly by Industry and Product Category.

To exemplify the Industry and Product dimensions, the 12 highest spending industry categories reported by TNS syndicated research are shown on the left. Product sub-categories for Technology and Healthcare are also broken out.

The Spectrum Can Also Provide a Visual Comparison of MarCom Expenditures by Product Category

In the comparison below, Healthcare Over-the-Counter Drugs (OTCs) have heavy emphasis on consumer advertising as reported by syndicated research; whereas, Medical Devices have heavy emphasis on Direct Marketing and PR/non-paid media.


The Spectrum Facilitates Prioritization and Allocation of Expenditures by Target Audience

The Spectrum rotates to show a third dimension: target audiences. For Medical Devices, the most important audiences are: 1) HealthCare Professionals 2) Channels of Distribution 3) Investors. Each audience has a breakdown of Disciplines with sub-categories of services specific to that audience. For example, direct marketing for Professionals would include medical conventions; whereas, direct marketing for Consumers would include health fairs.

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