Introduction
The aspect of professional communication in contemporary societies has transitioned to become relatively complex due to social media and advanced technology. As a result, integrated marketing communication that involves ensuring every brand contact obtained by consumers is relevant to the individual is heavily adopted by many organizations worldwide. As a crucial marketing component, IMC enables businesses to move the leading services, products, and ideas from the producer to the consumers.
Company Overview
Dunkin Donuts, commonly known as Dunkin’, involves a business that primarily sells coffee and baked foods to its customers. More specifically, the company sells more than fifty types of doughnuts, such as bagels, sandwiches, and premium beverages. All company’s products are sold to customers of all ages, races, and religions. To obtain optimum profit, Dunkin’ sells breakfast products and attracts many customers to its location. The business is situated in Quincy, Massachusetts, and it is effective since it enjoys the increased number of people residing at the place. The slogan of the company is “America Runs on Dunkin’.”
IMC Application
To market the business, three distinct integrated marketing communication tools will play a leading role. A leading traditional marketing communication channel that will be utilized is the print media. For several years, print media was considered among the most influential conventional marketing communication channel. Jibril (2017) views this channel as a form of communication channel that reaches different individuals using media that has been printed. The print media will include leaflets, newspapers, brochures, and magazines. While several organizations do not commonly use this strategy, Dunkin’ will adopt it primarily because it will provide all prospective customers with a tangible approach to engage with its brand message. This marketing communication channel was also selected because it will enable all customers to connect with the company and the media. Therefore, this shows that the print media will allow the customers to linger over the products in a manner that other communication channels might not.
Another traditional marketing communication channel that will be adopted by Dunkin’ is using the telephone. In the last century, telephones have presented individuals and organizations with a practical form of communication to reach and obtain customers (De Vries, 2017). The use of telephones will allow Dunkin’ to significantly cut the distance barrier and enable an efficient way to handle sales, negotiations, and customer services. Although phone calls cannot be compared to face-to-face communication in terms of verbal cues, they could still offer practical nonverbal cues such as emphasizing tone variation. This channel was also selected because it helps address competition such that the business will be able to receive immediate feedback based on real-time conversation.
Besides traditional marketing communication channels, Dunkin’ will adopt social media marketing as the primary online channel. Social media marketing is among the most highly used and effective forms of marketing in the world currently. According to Wang et al. (2019), social media marketing involves the adoption of diverse platforms, including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, among others, to present a space for vigorous two-way communication. This channel will be used by the business to promote its content and products to potential customers. Considering the nature of the company, this marketing channel was selected because it aligns with the target market, which is made up of active social media users. Social media marketing was also selected because it provides an increased potential to reach more people that will allow the business to deal with competition.
IMC Campaign
The print media as a leading traditional marketing communication channel will involve using newspapers and magazines by utilizing the ads section to get the intended message to potential customers. In the case of telephone, the company will obtain consent from the clients to permit the company to make calls to them while at the same time making it easy for customers to call the company. Social media marketing will be adopted by utilizing Facebook since it is the most commonly used platform in contemporary society to reach and engage with new and existing clients.
Analysis
Print media is commonly distributed to potential customers physically to allow them to read the content that the business is promoting. Since its distribution is done randomly to every other person, the concept of diversity is demonstrated in the conception that any person, irrespective of their differences, can read the media. Due to this, the company is able to obtain feedback from diverse individuals with different opinions about the food products provided by the company. The telephone marketing communication piece addresses the concept of diversity and inclusivity, almost similar to the print media. In this case, through its respective persons, the company makes calls to random individuals to market the products. These phone calls are not biased toward specific persons; instead, they are made to all people, thus demonstrating that diversity and inclusivity are addressed.
Social media marketing emphasizes all the crucial components of diversity and inclusivity within the company and the customers at large. The internet is a comprehensive entity that involves individuals from different societies, races, classes, ethnicity, and religious orientation. All these individuals are included in this marketing communication piece because the company targets them as the leading customers. Therefore, this demonstrates that the aspects of diversity and inclusivity are included in the piece.
Conclusion
The development of digital technology has enabled the introduction of online marketing communication channels such as social media marketing. Besides this transition, traditional marketing communication channels like print media and telephones still prove effective. As a vital marketing constituent, IMC enables businesses to move the leading services, products, and ideas from the producer to the consumers. While these channels are overly different, they involve the aspects of diversity and inclusivity.
References
De Vries, L., Gensler, S., & Leeflang, P. S. (2017). Effects of traditional advertising and social messages on brand-building metrics and customer acquisition. Journal of Marketing, 81(5), 1-15.
Jibril, A. T. (2017). Reviewing the concept of advertising from the print media perspectives. Journal of Creative Communications, 12(3), 239-249.
Wang, W. L., Malthouse, E. C., Calder, B., & Uzunoglu, E. (2019). B2B content marketing for professional services: In-person versus digital contacts. Industrial marketing management, 81, 160-168.