Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC)
Integrated marketing communication (IMC) takes benefit of the effective management of the communication medium. In relation to marketing mix of products, prices, distribution channels and promotions, the organizations that communicate one clear voice are successful to coordinate and integrate all marketing tools. The goal behind the IMC is to have strong and positive effect on consumers, businesses and other end users by delivering positioning strategies (Clow, 2004).
Coca-Cola established in 1919, is a beverage company that owns/licenses and markets more than 500 beverage brands (nonalcoholic) like Coca-Cola, Diet Coca-Cola, Fanta, and Sprite. The segments of the company include Eurasia and Africa, Europe, Latin America, North America, Asia Pacific, and Bottling Investments and Corporate. The other products of the company include Minute Maid, Fresca, Honest tea, Coca-Cola Life, Fuze, Fuze tea, Dasani and ciel (The Coca-Cola Company, 2016). On the other hand, Kellogg company is a manufacturer and marketer of ready-to-eat cereal and convenience foods. The principal products of the company include ready-to-eat cereals and convenience foods like cookies, crackers, savory snacks, toaster pastries, cereals bars, fruit-flavored snacks, frozen waffles, and veggie foods. In addition, the company markets cookies, crackers, and other food under brands like Kellogg’s, Keebler, Cheez-It, Murray, Austin and Famous Amos. It sells the products through supermarkets and via direct store-door (DSD) delivery system (Kellogg Company, 2016).
Competitive Advantage and Positioning Strategy of Coca-Cola
The competitive advantage of Coca-Cola is its extensive product lines, supply chain and economies of scale. Moreover, its competitive edge is its marketing mix (products, prices, distribution channels and promotion). The company offers diversified products at competitive prices through effective distribution channels and use effective promotional tools to target audience and communicate message efficiently (The Coca-Cola Company, 2015). The company positions itself as differentiated and cost focus company as it positions its products as refreshing and thirst quenching. The products are positioned as the products that bring joy to everyone, promote socialization and enjoyment and the products of high quality at competitive prices (Ramaswamy & Namakumari, 2013).
Competitive Advantage and Positioning Strategy of Kellogg
The competitive advantage of the company is its diversified products and restructuring and cost reduction activities. As the company offers products to all age people, including kids with the focus on quality and health. Moreover, the company focuses on the cost reduction by restructuring through projects like Project K (Kellogg Company, 2014). The positioning strategy of the company includes differentiation and cost focus. It can be ascertained by the fact the company positions its products as high quality and healthy products at competitive prices.
Marketing Communications Tools used by Coca-Cola and Kellogg
Both companies use different marketing communications tools to communicate the message to its customers. According to Kitchen and Burgmann (2010) and Reid, Luxton and Mavondo (2005) combination of traditional and digital communication tools provide a framework of achieving competitive edge by effectively achieving positioning strategy. The traditional tools include TV and radio advertising, sales promotions, public relations, and direct selling and digital tools include website, banner ads, and social media. Coca-Cola and Kellogg both use traditional and digital media to achieve their positioning strategies. For instance, Coca-Cola advertise on TV through ads with theme Taste the Feeling (refers to Appendix A) (Heilpern, 2016). In addition, the company offers coupons and lotteries to target its audience. Another example of use of traditional media by Coca-Cola is its public relations strategy with experts with a theme of “Heart Health & Black History Month” through radio and online mediums. The posts include refreshing beverage options like Coca-Cola’s mini can and portion-controlled version of favorites (Choi, 2015). One of the examples is the billboards with a campaign of sending tweet to digital billboards of Coca-Cola and get fun facts about the name (Appendix B) (Johnson, 2015). Furthermore, the company utilizes social media effectively that can be ascertained by its campaign of share a coke on Facebook, Tweets on Twitter, and themes like Be Together on Pinterest (Appendix C) (Nudd, 2015).
On the other hand, Kellogg makes ads for TV to communicate the message to its audience and to position its strategies (Appendix D) (Paul, 2016). In addition, its sales promotions include new packaging for Special K and introduction of Froot Loops and Apple Jacks (Watrous, 2015). The company has targeted family market through Star Wars TM movie as part of their public relations strategy. One of the events of company was a competition to win gold colored Minis to promote its Crunchy Nut (Kellogg, 2005). Moreover, the company uses Facebook like pages for Pop-Tarts, Frosted Flakes, Krave and Nutri-Grain. Furthermore, the company uses YouTube, Pinterest and Twitter to communicate the message of healthy lifestyle (Appendix E) (Moth, 2013).
Effectiveness of Tools in achieving Positioning Strategy
The effectiveness of the tools used by Coca-Cola can be seen by the fact that in 2015 the sales of the company increase the expectations (Athavaley and Swamynathan, 2015). In addition, Diet Coca-Cola had been second-biggest soda brand with respect to volume in the U.S. since 2010. However, from 2010 onwards the company faced issues in relation to sales of diet soda. In turn, the company initiated the PR strategy that ultimately improved the sales of diet Coke. The company successfully achieved its position strategy through PR strategy with experts and enhanced the brand value of diet coke as a healthy beverage (O'Reilly, 2015). The company enjoys extraordinary brand awareness across the world as its products are sold in +200 countries all over the world with 100% recognition (Kumar, 2008). The overall integrated marketing communication tools of the company help it to achieve positioning strategy and lead to high level brand awareness, recognition and profits.
In relation to Kellogg, communication tools used by it are effective. The main reason is that the company has successfully achieved it position strategy. It has positioned its products as the healthy and cost focused products. For instance, the sales of the cereals have improved in 2016 by removing artificial colors and adding healthy materials like sprouted grains. In addition, the company used advertisements and social media to communicate the message to audience about healthy ingredients and nutritious level of cereals at feasible costs (Gasparro and Dulaney, 2016). Appendix D provides a notion about how successfully Kellogg has achieved its positioning strategy. The company through TV ads communicated the massage to audience that Special K from Kellogg now has more red berries as an indication of healthy lifestyle.
It can be concluded from the above discussion that integrated communication tools are key to achieve desired results and to achieve position strategy.
References
Athavaley, A. and Swamynathan, Y. (2015). Coke's second-quarter profit, sales beat estimates. Retrieved from: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-coca-cola-results-idUSKCN0PW17K20150722
Choi, C. (2015). Coca-Cola PR strategy touts soda as healthy snack. Retrieved from: http://www.pressherald.com/2015/03/16/coca-cola-pr-strategy-touts-soda-as-healthy-snack/
Clow, K. E. (2004). Integrated advertising, promotion, and marketing communications. India: Pearson Education India.
Coca-Cola Company. (2016). Brands. Retrieved from: http://www.coca-colacompany.com/brands/the-coca-cola-company/
Coca-Cola Company. (2015). Annual Report. Retrieved from: http://www.coca-colacompany.com/content/dam/journey/us/en/private/fileassets/pdf/investors/2015-annual-report-on-form-10-k.pdf
Gadparro, A. and Dulaney, C. (2016). Kellogg Says Cereal Sales Will Rise in 2016. Retrieved from: http://www.wsj.com/articles/kellogg-sales-continue-to-slide-1455200247
Johnson, L. (2015). Send a Tweet to Coke's Digital Billboard, and It'll Tell You Fun Facts About Your Name The brand will even send you a photo. Retrieved from: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/send-tweet-cokes-digital-billboard-and-itll-tell-you-fun-facts-about-your-name-165780
Kellogg Company. (2016). Home. Retrieved from: http://www.kelloggs.com/en_US/home.html
Kellogg Company. (2014). Annual Report. Retrieved from: http://investor.kelloggs.com/~/media/Files/K/Kellogg-IR/reports-and-presentations/2015/kelloggs-annual-report-2014.pdf
Kitchen, P. J., & Burgmann, I. (2010). Integrated marketing communication. USA: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Kumar, V. (2008). Managing customers for profit: Strategies to increase profits and build loyalty. Prentice Hall Professional.
Moth, D. (2013). How Kellogg's uses Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+. Retrieved from: https://econsultancy.com/blog/62598-how-kellogg-s-uses-facebook-twitter-pinterest-and-google/
O'Reilly, L. (2015). The end of the Coke era. Retrieved from: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-the-future-for-the-coca-cola-brand-soda-sales-decline-2015-4
Ramaswamy, V. S., & Namakumari, S. (2013). Marketing Management: Global Perspective, Indian Context. India: Macmillan.
Reid, M., Luxton, S., & Mavondo, F. (2005). The relationship between integrated marketing communication, market orientation, and brand orientation. Journal of advertising, 34(4), 11-23.
The Coca-Coca Company. (2015). Annual Report. Retrieved from: http://www.coca-colacompany.com/content/dam/journey/us/en/private/fileassets/pdf/investors/2015-annual-report-on-form-10-k.pdf
Watrous, M. (2015). Kellogg’s road to cereal recovery. Retrieved from: http://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/news_home/Business_News/2015/08/Kelloggs_road_to_cereal_recove.aspx?ID=%7B993AF8FA-443A-486F-AEF7-7DFD5E128B1D%7D&cck=1
Appendices
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Appendix D
Appendix E
