Introduction
- Marketing communications is concerned with the methods, processes, meanings, perceptions, and actions associated with the means how any single organization plans and executes an advertisement plan to engage with a target audience .
- Engaging with an audience, regardless of the purpose, can be more effectively done using communication tools, media, and messages.
- The objective of marketing communications for an organization’s customers or target population
- Inform
- Persuade
- Remind
- Convey a message
- The objective of this presentation and of marketing communications
- The objective of marketing communications is to inform, persuade, and or remind the customers, either through direct or indirect means.
- The objective of this presentation is to exhibit our knowledge about integrated marketing communications and skills in analyzing a marketing strategy and to design and formulate our own advertisement. We will accomplish this by
- - selecting an advertisement for a company’s brand, product, or for the company itself
- - analyzing and critically evaluating the selected advertisement
- - presenting an improved advertisement based on the analysis of the existing advertisement
- Areas to focus on
- Elements of product and company positioning
- Advertising objectives
- Advertising strategy
- Advertising target groups
- Message
- Potential Effectiveness
Notable definitions of Integrated Marketing Communications
Integrated Marketing Communications is an approach to achieve the objectives of a marketing campaign through a well-coordinated use of different promotional methods that are intended to reinforce each other; a combination of clarity, consistency, and increased impact (American Association of Advertising Agencies, 2013)
Integrated Marketing Communications is a strategic marketing process specifically designed to ensure that all messaging and communication strategies are unified across all channels and are centered around the customer (Clow & Baack, 2006)
True IMC is the development of marketing strategies and creative campaigns that weave together multiple marketing disciplines such as paid advertising, public relations, promotion, owned assets, and social media that are selected and then executed to suit the particular goals of the brand instead of using conventional and simple media tools to convey a simple story about the brand or the company (Clow & Baack, 2006).
Advertising and message Strategy
After the glass full of money has been placed in its location, a lot of people tried to break it in an effort to take home the money for themselves. However, not even a single one was successful in breaking the glass and thus in taking home the money.
- The secured glass container contains “real” 3 million USD.
- This is an indirect form of advertising the company brand 3M (as in 3 Million) can be associated with 3M (the name of the company)
- The 3M Company has released a statement upon the launching of their 3 million USD security glass advertisement that anyone who can break the glass can take home the money inside it.
- What a common security glass would look like when compared to 3M Company’s current Security Glass advertisement
- In a typical advertisement, a simple-minded advertiser would confine himself in creating a security glass TV advertisement showing a video of “hired people” trying to break a security glass. This strategy has already been used a lot of times in advertising products that make a claim about their durability, reliability, and other characteristics. This is already a blunt advertising strategy and not as sharp as the one that 3M did in their security glass advertisement. The simple strategy is highly likely to encourage doubts on the audience’s mind as they were not actively involved in the process. In the 3M Company advertising strategy on the other hand, the target groups get a real touch of what the product is really like and how durable or impact resistant it really is.
- Because all of the subjective information would be coming from the target groups of the advertisement and nothing from the company, the reliability and accuracy of the message of their advertising strategy would be higher because the people would be able to get a first-hand experience of how durable and unbreakable the product really is. Also, the 3M Company has walked an extra mile in this advertising venture by placing a huge amount of money inside the glass which was meant to encourage nearby people to try and break it. Their confidence in their own product is what makes this advertisement very effective.
- 3M Company’s Security Glass advertisement is an indirect form of advertising since it basically makes the target group do the advertising for them
- The company is not involved in breaking the glass and so all the subjective information would be coming from the target groups and none would be coming from the company
- 3M Company’s security glass advertisement encourages “Word of Mouth Advertising”
The 3M Security glass analysis and the three communication objectives
- Reach
- The ad does a very good job of reaching the target groups both in terms of efficiency and effectiveness
- The 3M Company did so by placing a huge amount of money inside the glass (3MillionUSD which indirectly represents the name of the company 3M). Anyone would really be compelled to try out their advertising scheme knowing that they have a chance to take home 3M worth of cash.
- Process
- The ad also does a very good job in this aspect of communication objective as it allows people to process the information and get the message from the company saying that “our security glasses are unbreakable and we are so confident about it that we decided to place 3Million USD inside it and place the glass container in a very public place for all people to try out its being unbreakable
- Effectiveness
- Lastly, the effectiveness aspect of the communications objective, the ad should do a very good job in informing, the target group or audience and to persuade them to make a sales transaction especially for those who really have a need for security glasses aside from using it to store 3M in cash.
Summary
- In summary, we do not deny the fact that 3M did a really good job in enticing the public to try out the durability of their security glass . At this point we would like to reveal that the 3 million USD cash inside the glass are fake, the one who happened to break the glass in case someone actually managers to break it, will only get 500 USD which is placed on top of the fake ones. Also, a person is only allowed to use his feet when attempting to break the glass and there are guards nearby to ensure that everyone who wishes to participate abides by these rules. There is very little things we can do to improve this advertisement and since it is a playful form of advertisement, we decided to use the playful style in making our improved advertisement too.
Justification for the proposed advertisement
- Our proposed advertisement exhibits creativity
- It is more or less similar to the impact and the hype that the initial 3M Security Glass created
- It’s message is more bold and more ambitious
- According to Reinartz and Saffert (2013), creativity is a very important aspect in advertising, especially when it becomes partnered with realism. Advertisements that have been created creatively are the ones that are highly likely to attract attention compared to the mediocre and simple ones.
- This proposed advertising also caters to the same target group and audience, has the same advertising and messaging strategy. It only appears to be more creative and ambitious than the one that 3M did.
The effectiveness of this proposed advertisement
- This advertisement can be effective because
- It is very eye-catching. An glass image of a person being hit by a car is definitely an eye-catching one.
- It creates a thought in the target audience’s mind that the company is so confident with the durability and unbreakable-ness of its glass products that it had it hit by a fast-moving car, just like what 3M did in their advertisement
- Doing the advertisement in public can also be a promising proposal just like what the 3M company did.
- In general, this ad can be more effective because it is more creative and attention-getting.
- Also, we would like to give notice that there is little we can do to improve 3M’s advertisement since it is already very effective in itself.
References
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Clow, K., & Baack, D. (2006). Integrated Advertising , Promotion, and Marketing Communications. Prentice Hall.
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Kevin, R. (2012). Marketing: The Core. McGraw Hill, 21.
Reinartz, W., & Saffert, P. (2013). Creativity in Advertising: When it works and when it does not. Harvard Business Review.
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