Contemporary Integrated Marketing Communications

Introduction

This paper is designed to provide an insight into the marketing integrated communication on the basis of a particular example. In the modern ever changing environment, it is quite difficult to follow the key trends in the marketing communications and the general role of marketing communications in the promotion of a company. As a result, it is important to scan the external environment for the latest trends that might affect the marketing communication mix of the studied company. The company in question is Get Fit Now! This company specializes in the delivery of fitness gym services to those who have become disillusioned about high membership fees. This company maintains its operations on a pay as you go basis.

Critical analysis

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The marketing communication mix is an important part of any promotional strategy (Kotler and Armstrong, 2010). This framework includes the suggestion of the particular advertising and promotional strategies aimed at the brand’s exposure and the development of brand interest amongst the consumers. The rise in the popularity of the Internet has changed the shape of the advertising industry (Evans, 2008). This shows that the Internet has facilitated the process of marketing information distribution and further promotion. Recently, as part of the Internet revolution, social media has become significant in relation to interactive communication and marketing promotion (Evans, 2008). The research suggests that social media has acquired a large power in terms of promotion, implying that prior to social media, one person could distribute the news to 1 or 2 individuals; whereas currently one person may communicate the news to 500 people (New York Times, 2011).

Facebook and Twitter have become the most visited social network websites. Facebook has surpassed 1 billion subscribers; whereas Twitter maintains 500 million subscribers (BusinessWeek, 2012). The users tend to share their location details and their statuses on the social network websites. The majority of users have started to access the social networking websites via mobile devices contrary to the previous utilization of Broadband-enabled PCs and laptops (Humphrey and Laverie, 2011). In fact, the number of users, who access the Internet via Smartphones, has doubled over the recent years (New Market Trend Watch, 2012). With this in mind, the companies have started to benefit from the location based advertising via mobile access. Location based advertising is not a new concept, however the innovation attributed to this concept suggests mobile advertising tailoring on the basis of locations (Bruner and Kumar, 2007). Given the fact that the mobile phones are always with the individual, it makes it quite easy to generate interest among the consumers. There are two approaches to Location Based advertising, namely push and pull approach (Bruner and Kumar, 2007; Unni and Harmon, 2007). The push approach suggests that the companies send out adverts either to specific consumers and/or to all the consumers. The pull approach implies that the customer request the adverts themselves. Location based strategies and tactics are regarded to be part of the customer management strategy, which imply the delivery of the proactive individualized attention to the customers in the form of customized advertising. Humphrey and Laverie, (2011) suggest that the social media network has gone further and has started to introduce the incentives that are aimed at the development of willingness to share the location via social networking website. It is especially visible in the example of Foursquare (Humphrey and Laverie, 2011). This company provides the badges for a certain number of location sharing events.

Therefore, there is a great potential for this type of mobile advertising to grow , if the opportunity is seized by the company on time (Dao and Jeong, 2012). For instance, Facebook has reported a decline in its profits, since the management was late on the adoption of mobile advertising on the rise of popularity in mobile access (Bloomberg, 2012).

Application of Theory to the Case Study

Location-based advertising is regarded to be quite efficient, especially for the small-sized companies (Mashable, 2012). This is especially beneficial for the studied company, namely Get Fit Now! Gym Company. As a result, the location based advertising may be triggered by the location of this company and its branches. It has been estimated that it might be quite profitable for the small sized businesses. It has been estimated in the consumer survey in 2010 that 49 % would utilize the location based advertising, if the information that they would receive via advertisements would be more relevant (Internet Advertising Bureau, 2010).

Given the fact, that a consumer is located in the region as the gym, namely Get Fit Now!, the location based advertising might trigger the consumer’s interest, and therefore the behavioural intentions to visit the gym or at least to ask for information about the services. Yoo, Donthu and Lee, (2000) have estimated that advertising positively affects the increase in the positive brand associations and therefore the increase in the brand equity. This implies that the frequency of the viewed advertising directly affects the increase in the cognitive processes of the consumers. This, in turn, drives the memorization of the certain advertisements (Yoo, Donthu and Lee, 2000). Therefore, the frequency of being located in the certain area directly affects the frequency of the viewed advertising. As a result, this is regarded to be a valuable advertisement, since it targets the individuals, who would be interested in visiting the Gym, due to the certain current location. It would be, however, more valuable and useful, to integrate more of consumer data in the location-based advertising. This implies that simple location might be a limited data for generation of consumer interest in the particular product or service (Xu, Oh and Teo, 2009). This research also implies that the mobile devices are still limited for the receipt of rich multimedia content, which may affect the quality of advertising. Therefore, even though, the consumer might receive the adverts, due to this limitation, they might lack interest in the content of advertising (Xu, Oh, Teo, 2009). As a result, this implies that location-based advertising is a relatively new area, which needs further development in the task of consumer demand’s escalation.

Discussion

The main challenges that are attributed to location based advertising imply that it is still new to the customers,so the consumers may be reluctant to utilize this kind of technology. This is mainly associated with privacy and security concerns. Kim et al., (2004) have estimated that for the new users of the innovative technology, privacy and security are the key issues for concern. However, it is stated that if there is valuable information, which is provided in exchange to the location–related data, the concerns about privacy and security are diminished (Mobile Marketer, 2012). The main problem lies in the ability to provide the products for the attributed target market, rather than for everyone. Therefore, the technology should be advanced enough in order to provide valuable information to the customers, based on the segmentation data, beyond the simple location.

The main role in location based advertising is played by the actual mobile device. However some mobile companies are reluctant to promotelocation based advertising (Mobile Marketer, 2012). For instance, it has been estimated that recently, along with the new iOS6 platform, Apple has integrated its own branded maps, instead of Google maps. As a result, a number of glitches were reported within this system that has affected location based advertising in a very negative way (Mobile Marketer, 2012).

Conclusion

This report was designed in order to demonstrate the role of location based advertising in the modern marketing communication mix. It has been estimated that location based advertising is still in the first stages of development and promotion. This implies that for consumers, this is still regarded as innovative technology. This drives the development of concerns for privacy and security, related to this type of technology. Furthermore, it has been estimated that there is a large potential for location based advertising. However there is supposed to be some advanced technology integrated in order to be able to base the advertising on the segmentation variables, beyond the location. However, it has been estimated that for the small-sized businesses, location based advertising is regarded to be beneficial. Therefore, this type of advertising will be quite advantageous fro Get It Fit Now! Gyms. The main challenges are attributed to the innovative feature of this type of advertising and the inability to target the right customer segments. As a result, the customers do not have the ability to receive really valuable information in exchange for their location data. Another problem relates to the mobile companies that restrict the location based advertising on their devices.

References:

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Mashable. (2012). How to Leverage Location Data for Better Mobile Ads. Available: http://mashable.com/2012/07/09/mobile-advertising-location-data/ (Accessed on 9/1/2013)

Mobile Marketer. (2012). Location-based advertising still searching for its place. Available: http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/13009.html (Accessed on 9/1/2013)

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Yoo, B., Donthu N., and Lee S. (2000). An Examination of Selected Marketing Mix Elements and Brand Equity. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Vol. 28, pp. 195-211

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