IMC, IMC, IMC… We always hear this during marketing lectures but what does it stands for? It simply stands for Integrated Marketing Communication.
IMC is known as an approach to communicate messages to target market through combining strategies. It can be in the form of print, website or even social media, fusing both traditional and modern marketing to achieve effectiveness. Here are some examples of successful IMC campaigns.
In 2010, Old Spice, widely known as a shampoo brand designed a campaign targeting both men and women. With the help of social medias, the video achieved almost 11 million views, 29,000 fans on Facebook and 58,000 followers on Twitter.
In 2017, Nike, a well-known brand live streamed an attempt to complete a marathon in less than 2 hours as a plan to promote their new shoe, Zoom Vaporfly Elite. With the help of 3 runners namely Eliud Kipchoge, Zersenay Tadese and Lelisa Desisa, the campaign was made to follow easily by the hashtag #Breaking2. Such campaign helps Nike to achieve 584,000 mentions, 87% positive comments and 2 trillion impressions which was impressive.
While there are successful campaigns out there, we all know that not every plan is going work and hence here are 4 different approaches your business can consider utilizing, depending on the objectives that you want to achieve.
This is where company outsource and hire marketing agencies and allow them to handle the task of marketing including developing and designing the strategies. Such approach will be beneficial as it will likely be more objective since it is from the experts’ perspective.
This approach involves top-level management, where they engage employees and leak details prematurely. This eventually helps to create anticipation even before it hits the market.
Horizontal approach requires different departments to work together, allowing open flow of information and communication exchange to build a successful strategy.
Vertical approach ensures the product being developed is matched within the breadth of company’s mission and goals, which means to fit within corporate policy.
In conclusion, IMC is one of the most powerful tool to compete with competitors and remain sustainable if you understand your market position and the message that you want to drive across with clarity.
Digital Marketing 
Hi Huiru! Good breakdown on the four different strategies of creating an IMC campaign! And it’s nice that you have picked on Old Spice as an example – certainly one of the best ads out there. Personally, I think that the horizontal approach seems to be best fitted for most corporations so that every department can work hand in hand and exchange an infinite flow of ideas in order to come up with a well-suited strategy for the company! Looking forward to your next post 🙂
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Hi Emily, thank you for your comment! Yes i know right, such an old classic ads! Besides, I do agree that horizontal approach seems to be the most suited for most company however, due to the difference in sizes, resources and capabilities, it still varies!
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Hi Huiru, the 4 approaches you mentioned in your post will surely be helpful for businesses to consider based on their budget and how they wish to execute their IMC plan. A good campaign doesn’t come easy and I definitely agree with you that companies must choose accordingly to their needs instead of following blindly their competitors.
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Hi WenQi, thank you and i fully agree with you! With the fact that all businesses are different in nature and goals, different approaches provides different outcomes! Always find the right approach to target your audience!
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Hi Huilu, I feel that the 4 strategies you have recommended are great way to help a company to plan IMC. Whereas some companies may choose to use external source as they believe they they are experts and this might increase the chances of success rate!
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Hi Abby, i totally agree with what you said. With expertise from the outside organisation, it provides a different perspective of the company which may help them to see more opportunities!
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I always think that IMC is just IMC. I didnt know that there are four different types of it. These four strategies would really helps to make a successful IMC. Good examples used too! 🙂
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Hi natalie, thank you for your comment. I agree with you that all 4 strategies will lead companies into success however, they must measure the pros and cons of each and find the best suited one to apply!
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