Integrated Marketing Communications
Essays

I learned about sports purely from a spectator's perspective. Although I also love to play a variety of sports, I found myself increasingly drawn towards the business aspects of games whether that be NHL hockey or MLB…

Starbucks, the American giant of coffee shops, is one of the classic success stories in an economy where service-based organizations like Starbucks hold the best potential for the establishment of highly lucrative…

This paper is a review of the article entitled, IBM's strategy keeps it in and on demand. It discusses how IBM has utilized a IMC campaign successfully to rebuild its failing brand image, raising it to one of the top…

General Motors is one of the major companies that have played an integral role in the global automotive industry for over 100 years. This article analyzes the history of this company in relation to its growth and development to the point of becoming a major player in the auto industry and market. The analysis examines the important periods of the firm's history in period before 2007 and during and after 2007. The paper also includes a brief analysis of the importance of communicating, collaborating, and organizing as they apply to the consumer, marketing/positioning, and the internal organization.

American Express (NYSE:AXP) is one of the world's leading providers of premium travel-related services and payment processing system support services globally. American Express (Amex) has grown steadily through a series…

Understanding advertising and promotion is very important when it comes to businesses moving forward. In addition, it is important to understand the value of advertising and promotion for those who are involved in programs that are geared to marketing and communications. When people can figure out how advertising fits in with their marketing and communications needs, they are much more likely to find ways to make that advertising successful.

Introduction So what is a business? A business is an organization that operates to generate profits, usually for its owners. Those owners may be a private individual or individuals, a group of individuals who form a partnership, or a wider group of people with a financial interest in the business and its profits because they are shareholders or members. The things a business does to generate those profits are varied. It may manufacture goods for sale or trade, import or sell goods and products, or provide services to people or other businesses (Davidson, 2011). Public relations have several important roles in a business. It can make people aware of what the business is able to provide (goods and services), help the business communicate with the people who have an interest in it (owners, customers, employees and the community), and help the business develop an image and reputation within its environment. Public relations practitioners are in constant contact with publics that affect the activities of an organization (Payne, 2009). Because of this, public relations practitioners can be important influencers of how people regard the business and its activities. This is part of the boundary-spanning role of public relations. A boundary spanner is an individual who creates links between different publics and the organization. They metaphorically span a boundary between an organization and other groups of people through facilitating communication (Adams, 2012).

There are several significant advantages of using qualitative measurements in marketing research. The most significant is the ability to capture the voice of customers that may have evaded the more structured, numerically-based approaches that force respondents to provide a specific set of answers. Qualitative research can also lead to entirely new insights into a new market or service that has not been seen in the past, given the open-ended questions inherent in this approach to research. Qualitative research techniques also can be used to capture the shared knowledge of experts as well, as the Delphi Technique is so well-known and used for. Capturing the tacit expertise and knowledge of a specific group of thought leaders can also be accomplished using qualitative techniques as well. Additional advantages of qualitative measurements include the ability to complete greater exploratory or primary research into a specific subject, often following a specific line of questions as they develop within an interview. An additional advantage of qualitative research techniques are the ability to understand how prospects and customers make trade-offs on substitute products and services. While price elasticity studies are often highly quantitative in scope, the use of interactive discussions of pricing trade-offs can be highly effective in determining just how much a prospect is willing to sacrifice price for a given feature or benefit. The total value of a brand can also be ascertained through the use of these types of qualitative techniques, providing respondents with the ability to define in their own terms the value of the experience a brand delivers. The many advantages of qualitative research are predicated on having more interactive sessions with respondents, including the ability to ascertain how they make trade-offs over time on value versus price. For the many advantages of qualitative measurements, there are several disadvantages as well. First, the results of any study predicated on this approach cannot be analyzed at the higher levels of statistical analysis. As the results of studies and research completed with qualitative measurements are by nature not nominal, ordinal or interval in terms of data orthogonality, they cannot be used to represent an entire customer or segment population. At best they can be used as a means to capture nominally-based data that can lead to only a rough approximation of an overall market size or series of market dynamics. Qualitative data can only be as useful as the means used to capture it as well; if a methodology is very informal and focused on a series of loosely-guided objectives, the overall data will of mediocre quality at best. When the goals and objectives of a research study, in addition to the sampling frame and methodology lack rigor or precise focus, the resulting research can also lack precision and meaning. It is more difficult to create greater levels of meaning and transferability of data when the methodologies are highly qualitative in scope; the data is only relevant for a specific series of objectives and often is defined by applicability to a given point in time as well. Qualitative data is often also open to interpretation, as the methodology can be debated in terms of its relative appropriateness, robustness and value over the long-term. Finally, qualitative data cannot be taken entirely on its own; it must be combined with a series of other research sources to ensure relevancy and accuracy of interpretation, especially over time. In conclusion, qualitative data needs to be taken in context and often balanced with quantitative data to ensure a 360-degree view of a given situation or strategy of interest has the greater level of insights gained from research efforts.

The standard of living and the lifestyle of the general population in today's time has changed and enlarged because of various economic factors for instance mounting disposable income, growth of high income groups in emerging nations and many more. In a very similar manner, the social influence in the modern epoch towards the purchasing of luxurious items has also come to sight that one can reflect their image as an affluent person. As an outcome of it, demand for the luxury goods and services has escalated and intensified largely (Wright, East & Vanhuele 2008).

Integrated Marketing Communication and Customer Satisfaction Strategy