MBA6302 Integrated Marketing Communications Report Sample
In this assessment you are required to critically evaluate an IMC campaign of an Australian well-known brand and provide recommendation for improvements. Note that you can ONLY consider Australian brand.
Structure
1. Title
Critical Evaluation of an IMC Campaign of [Selected Brand]
2. Introduction (Approx. 150 words)
- Brief overview of the IMC campaign under evaluation.
- Explanation of the purpose of the critical evaluation.
- Outline of the key factors and issues to be analyzed.
3. Overview of the IMC Campaign (Approx. 250 words)
- Description of the IMC campaign, including its objectives, target audience, messaging, and
channels used.
4. Critical Analysis of the IMC Campaign (Approx. 500 words)
a. Effectiveness of Campaign Strategy
- Evaluation of the alignment between campaign objectives and outcomes.
- Assessment of the appropriateness of chosen messaging, channels, and tactics.
b. Ethical Considerations
- Examination of ethical implications related to campaign content, targeting, and tactics.
- Discussion of any ethical dilemmas or controversies arising from the campaign.
c. Regulatory Compliance
? Analysis of the campaign's adherence to relevant laws, regulations, and industry standards.
? Identification of any instances of non-compliance and their potential impact.
5. Recommendations for Improvement (Approx. 300 words)
- Proposal of specific recommendations for enhancing the effectiveness and ethical integrity of the IMC campaign.
- Justification for each recommendation based on the findings of the critical evaluation.
6. Conclusion (Approx. 150 words)
- Summary of key findings from the critical evaluation.
- Recapitulation of the main recommendations for improving the IMC campaign.
- Closing remarks on the importance of critical evaluation in optimizing marketing communications strategies.
Additional Instructions
- Ensure that your evaluation is supported by evidence and examples from the IMC campaign.
- Consider the perspectives of various stakeholders, including consumers, regulators, and the organization behind the campaign.
- Use credible sources to inform your analysis of ethical and regulatory issues.
- Maintain a clear and concise writing style, focusing on the most relevant aspects of the IMC campaign.
- Proofread your work to eliminate any grammatical errors or inconsistencies in formatting.
- Provide appropriate citations for any external sources used in your evaluation.
- Word Count: 1200 words (excluding references, if included).
Solution
Introduction
The IMC campaign that will be under consideration will be Woolworth's Christmas Campaign. This campaign has been launched to benefit consumers during the Christmas period. This campaign has provided exclusive benefits to the customers in the Australian market. Woolworths operates in the wholesale and the retail industry. The organisation was founded in 1924 and offers consumers items such as liquor, food and general merchandise (Forbes, 2024). The company mostly operates through its retail outlets and supermarket chains. The current discussion will critically evaluate the organisation's IMC campaign. The target audience, objectives, and channels will be discussed in this campaign. The campaign's effectiveness, regulatory compliance and ethical considerations regarding Woolworths' campaign will be considered. In addition, recommendations for further improving the impactfulness of the campaign will be discussed.
Overview of the IMC Campaign
Description of the campaign
The IMC campaign for university assignment help that Woolworths has launched is the Christmas Campaign. This campaign aims to give consumers exclusive benefits during the Christmas season. These benefits consist of lowering the price of the products purchased during the festive period.
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Figure 1: Woolworths marketing awareness
Source: (Green, 2023)
The marketing awareness of Woolworths is higher than Aldi, IGA and Coles. This awareness has enhanced the efficacy of the organisation's IMC campaign. The campaign was launched in collaboration with Saatchi M&C's enterprise (McNamara, 2023). The Christmas campaign is mainly addressed to the young generation and the families in Australia. For this reason, the content of the IMC campaign has been kept interesting and unique. The spectacle of Christmas, with all its grandeur and energy, has been portrayed as the background of this campaign (Woolworths, 2024). As per the group's marketing officer, this campaign's major focus has been to celebrate 'little things'. These things consist of fresh grocery and fruit items offered by the organisation.
The objectives, distribtuion channels and campaign elements are described below:
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Table 1: Chief Aspects of the Christmas Campaign
Source: (Self-developed)
Target Audience
The campaign's target audience is between 15-60 and comprises both men and women. This age group comprises families looking to buy the necessary items during the Christmas season. The families can get festive benefits such as discounts and buy-one-get-one offers (Jackman, 2023). Apart from families, children are the target audience in this campaign.
Messaging
The campaign's message was to offer joy to the audience (Woolsworth, 2024). Also, the audience can get quality products and convenience while shopping from Woolworths.
Critical Analysis of the IMC Campaign
Effectiveness of Campaign Strategy
The campaign strategy has been considerably effective as there has been alignment between the objectives and the consequences of the campaigns. The campaigns' effectiveness has resulted in increasing consumer awareness by 61.1% (Marketing Index, 2023).
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Figure 2: Woolsworths revenue
Source: (Statista, 2023)
It can be seen from the above figure Woolworth's revenue over the years. The organisation's effective marketing strategy has increased organisational revenue from 1.51 billion to 1.75 billion Australian dollars. More customers have visited the supermarket after the launch of the campaign. The retail sales after the campaign increased by more than 4.4%, amounting to 34.6 billion USD (Retail News, 2024). On the other hand, social media engagement has not been measured. It shows the company has paid less attention to social media metrics such as the number of likes, shares and comments on the campaign's advertisements. However, the sentiment of the consumers has been recognised by the organisation by recognising increasing purchases and involvement with the organisation.
Assessment of the appropriateness of chosen messaging, channels, and tactics
The campaign's message, tactics and channels have been considerably appropriate. The message offers customers quality, value, and joy (McNamara, 2023). It has easily resonated with customers who purchase from the brand during Christmas. Both the offline channels, such as television advertisements, and the online channels, such as social media, increase the acceptance of the campaigns among the audience (Šeri?, Ozreti?-Došen & Škare, 2020, p.337). On the contrary, tactics such as using unique and creative social media content have attracted consumers' attention.
Ethical Considerations
Ethical implications
Ethics have been maintained regarding targeting, content and tactics. The content was created with the target audience in mind, such as families and young children (Woolworths, 2024). Any form of inappropriate content has been removed from offline and online channels. The IMC campaign has included content related to narrative storytelling. These narratives have focussed on Christmas festivities and cherishing values of integrity, quality and happiness.
Ethical dilemmas
The IMC of Woolworths has raised no controversies or ethical dilemmas. IMC's success depends on transparency and prioritisation of sustainable efforts (Juska, 2021, p.5). Woolworths has focussed on transparency and fairness through its campaigns. On the other hand, the organisation has aimed at sustainable efforts by making the entire supply chain ethical by focusing on ethical sourcing.
Regulatory Compliance
The campaign has adhered appropriately to the Act of Consumer and Competition 2010. The Act entails that consumers must be protected from unhealthy competition in the Australian market (Government of Australia, 2024). The Christmas Campaign of Woolworths aimed to provide proper consumer benefits by lowering the price of the items. Conversely, the retail standard focuses on providing quality products to consumers (NRA, 2024). Woolworths's audience has quality products after being involved in the campaigns. There have been no instances of regulatory non-compliance related to Woolworths' campaign.
Recommendations for Improvement
The IMC campaign of Woolworths can be further improved to increase its impact. The recommendations and the justification of these recommendations are discussed below:
The Christmas campaign can be improved by increasing the level of personalisation. IMC's personalisation improves its reach and impact among customers (Blakeman, 2023, p.2). The campaign has been a regular strategy of the organisation. The company did not do extensive market research before launching the campaign. Therefore, it is essential to include data analytics in the comparison. Data analytics could collect extensive customer information and know their preferences and needs in detail. The concerted campaign has focused on the Christmas need without considering other preferences, such as luxury items for festive purposes. Data analytics could focus on other areas apart from the customer's necessities, further improving the business revenue.
The campaign could have been more effective through collaboration with the influencers. Influencers have a large following on social media platforms. The partnership can easily influence these followers and increase the campaign's reach among the users (Das, 2021, p.101). Influencer marketing can help Woolworths to improve the authenticity of the brand further. Consumers can easily communicate with influencers and learn about the signs. This will make the campaign more acceptable among consumers in the Australian market.
Conclusion
The important aspects of Woolworths's IMC campaign can be summarised from the above discussion. The campaign focused on offering exclusive benefits to the audience during Christmas. The campaign has improved brand recognition among the audience. On the other hand, there has been an increase in the organisation's revenue since the campaign's launch.
The major recommendations that have been provided to Woolworths are to integrate personalisation and collaborate with influencers. Personalisation can happen effectively through data analytics and can address customers' needs and choices during the festive season. Similarly, influencer marketing can make the brand resonate with the customers by reinforcing authenticity.
A critical assessment in optimising IMC communications strategies is required to make the brand choose the right communication platform for making its campaign more successful. It has a positive impact on the organisation's profitable and productive position.
Reference List
Blakeman, R. (2023). Integrated marketing communication: creative strategy from idea to implementation. Rowman & Littlefield.
Das, S. (2021). A systematic study of integrated marketing communication and content management system for millennial consumers. In Innovations in digital branding and content marketing (pp. 91-112). IGI Global. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-4420-4.ch005
Forbes. (2024). Woolworths | Company Overview & News. https://www.forbes.com/companies/woolworths/?sh=315b56225854
Government of Australia. (2023, November 7). Industry codes. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. https://www.accc.gov.au/business/industry-codes#:~:text=Prescribed%20voluntary%20codes,and%20enforces%20them%20under%20legislation.
Green, R. (2023, December 6). YouGov data reveals Woolies + Kmart dominate consumer awareness with Christmas advertising. Campaign Brief. https://campaignbrief.com/yougov-data-reveals-woolies-kmart-dominate-consumer-awareness-with-christmas-advertising/
Jackman, T. (2023, June 3). Woolworths, Checkers, Pick n Pay? Food Store Giants Are Battling For Your Footfall. Daily Maverick. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-05-26-woolworths-chekcers-pick-n-pay-food-store-giants/
Juska, J. M. (2021). Integrated marketing communication: advertising and promotion in a digital world. Routledge.
Marketing Index. (2023, December 6). Kmart and Woolworths lead the pack in Christmas ad awareness: MI3. Welcome to Mi3. https://www.mi-3.com.au/index.php/06-12-2023/kmart-and-woolworths-lead-pack-christmas-ad-awareness
McNamara, L. (2023, December 4). Woolworths celebrates a simple, Fun Christmas in a new spot. Mumbrella. https://mumbrella.com.au/woolworths-celebrates-a-simple-fun-christmas-in-new-spot-805673
NRA. (2023, December 19). Product safety and standards. National Retail Association. https://www.nationalretail.org.au/topics/product-safety-standards/
Retail News. (2024, February 21). Woolworths Group delivers F24 half-year results. Retail World Magazine. https://retailworldmagazine.com.au/woolworth-group-delivers-f24-half-year-results/
Šeri?, M., Ozreti?-Došen, ?., & Škare, V. (2020). How can perceived consistency in marketing communications influence customer–brand relationship outcomes? European Management Journal, 38(2), 335-343. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2019.08.011
Statista. (2023, November 30). Woolworths group: Net Profit after tax 2023. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1116200/australia-net-profit-after-tax-woolworths-group/
Woolworths. (2024). Woolworths launches Christmas campaign 2023. Woolworths Group. https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/au/en/media/latest-news/2023/woolworths-launches-christmas-campaign-2023.html
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