Executive Summary
This report outlines an Integrated Marketing Plan for the proposed brand – HealthyBaby. HealthyBaby anticipates addressing the issue of substandard baby food and drinks in the UK market. Hence, its introduction is motivated by the values of the founders: Ann Hardman and George Hardman. The duo possesses extensive experience in healthcare, nursing, and nutrition. Coupled with their personal values, the founders proposed the HealthyBaby brand, whose research, development, and marketing is based on the primary principle – optimal compliance with WHO recommendations on baby feeding.
This report is divided into six sections, including (i) background and information, (ii) literature review, (iii) background and positioning, (iv) target audience, (v) marketing communications objectives, and (vi) creative strategy and budgeting.
Integrated Marketing Communications Campaign
Background and Information
The purpose of the HealthyBaby Integrated Marketing Plan is to promote a new line of “healthy” baby food and drinks in the UK market. The hallmarks of the new products are healthy living, WHO-recommended, dietary richness, supplementary feeding approach, appetizing and baby pleasant, regulatory compliant, long term infant health, and environmentally accommodating. The inception of HealthyBaby new line of products was motivated by the mushrooming corporations with substandard products. Such corporations continue to launch new products in the UK market despite a stringent regulatory framework in the country. Therefore, based on the comprehensive WHO guidelines, HealthyBaby Integrated Marketing Campaign intends to communicate a consistent and unified message across the UK market. The message – “Focus on the Long Term Health” – is designed to encourage parents of infants under 3 to use quality products to promote progressive growth and avert future health issues.
Based on the identified message, the proposed integrated marketing communications campaign is pegged on the following strategies: (i) to partner with existing brands to promote the HealthyBaby concept, (ii) to liaise with UK regulatory agencies to promote high-quality products, (iii) to discourage consumption of substandard products, (iv) to capitalize on digital technologies to reach out to extensive demographics, (v) and to promote the consumption of high-quality products in middle and low-income households (Anabila, 2019). The proposed strategies are discussed vis-à-vis the Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) concepts to determine their merit and applicability in the UK baby food market. This report adopts the following IMC concepts: (i) Digital Marketing, (ii) direct marketing and personal selling, (iii) public relations and publicity, and (iv) advertising and sales promotion (Reinold and Tropp, 2012).
Literature Review
Digital Marketing
The digital marketing concept capitalizes on online marketing channels, including (i) paid, (ii) earned, and (iii) owned and social media.
Paid Media
Paid media entails the use of sponsored methods to promote content to achieve predetermined marketing goals. Besides the traditional paid channels such as TV and the World Wide Web, contemporary paid channels include PPC advertising, branded content, paid social media posts, native advertising and display ads. The efficacy of paid media lies in the extent to which a contracted third party organization makes efforts to achieve predetermined marketing objectives (Cowley, 2016). For instance, specialized content developers in the TV industry will capitalize on their expertise to devise appropriate messaging for the HealthyBaby products. Therefore, this approach corresponds to the IMC strategies identified above.
Earned Media
Earned media entails “voluntary” marketing by third party organizations. It uses publicity approaches such as press releases, expert interviews, product reviews, celebrity endorsements, organic and direct traffic, and brand synonymy (Mendez, 2009). These approaches align with the predetermined IMC strategies above. This alignment is pegged on the “pull” impression created through the “word-of-mouth” aspect that often characterizes the earned media channels.
Owned and Social Media
The proposed IMC campaign intends to capitalize on the following owned and social media channels to promote adoption of the HealthyBaby brand: website and service pages, company blogs, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, among others (Mendez, 2009). The use of these channels primarily corresponds with the objective that seeks to promote high-quality baby food consumption in the middle and lower social classes in the UK (Finne and Grönroos, 2009). This alignment is pegged on the fact that smartphone technology is deeply entrenched across all UK market demographics.
Direct Marketing and Personal Selling
HealthyBaby IMC intends to capitalize on selected direct marketing and personal selling approaches. The direct marketing approach’s suitability lies with the need to communicate certain features of the brand directly to existing and prospective consumers. Direct marketing utilizes various approaches, including one-on-one customer interaction, point of sale marketing, postal letters and brochures, Email, and telemarketing, among others (Cowley, 2016). On the other hand, personal selling entails contracting specialized sales agents to reach out and communicate predetermined IMC messaging to preselected consumer demographics. This approach aligns with the need to extend marketing sales and marketing services beyond the traditional brick-and-mortar channels.
Public Relations and Publicity
The proposed HealthyBaby IMC intends to capitalize on the ongoing activities to ensure the overall brand develops and maintains a strong public image. Public relations activities include helping the public understand the company, HealthyBaby brand, its differentiating features, and associated healthy feeding benefits, among other predetermined publicity aspects (Mendez, 2009). On the other hand, publicity entails creating a “pull” in the media circles to attract the media owners’ attention, who in turn allocate deserving airtime to the HealthyBaby brand and its product line (Patti, Hartley, van Dessel and Baack, 2015). This approach is parallel with the predetermined objective that seeks to liaise with regulatory and health agencies to promote high-quality, “healthy” baby food products in the UK.
Advertising and Sales Promotion
HealthyBaby IMC plans to capitalize on various advertising and sales promotion channels to achieve a coordinated “Focus on the Long Term Health” message. On the one hand, advertising entails paid messages used to inform, influence, and guide the target audience towards adopting particular buying behaviors (Finne and Grönroos, 2009). On the other, sales promotion involves using the various marketing mix to shape a coordinated brand and product messaging, which, in turn, is pushed forward to achieve intended marketing goals.
Hence, the HealthyBaby IMC adopts the following advertising methods: newspapers, television and radio, magazines and trade journals, outdoor advertising, and Yellow Pages, among other suitable channels. Similarly, sales promotion capitalizes on non-media marketing communication methods to achieve intended IMC objectives (Mulhern, 2009). These methods are intended to stimulate market demand and initiate penetration in the target consumer demographics. They include contests, coupons, loss leaders, freebies, point of purchase displays, premiums, rebates, and product samples, among others. The identified sales and promotion approaches are parallel to the company’s quest to introduce high-quality baby food products in the UK market.
Background and Positioning
The inception of the HealthyBaby brand was motivated by the continued introduction of substandard products both in the UK and other Western markets. For this reason, HealthyBaby intends to introduce “genuine,” differentiated products to curb the continued penetration of inferior products in the domestic market (Mulhern, 2009). Hence, the introduction of HealthyBaby is guided by the fiduciary duty – that of making profits while improving the socioeconomic good of the target consumer demographics.
On the other hand, the positioning statement for HealthyBaby summarizes the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) aspect, which the company intends to capitalize on. Thus, HealthyBaby adopts the following positioning statement: HealthyBaby expects to revolutionize research, development, and marketing of baby food and drinks in the UK (Cowley, 2016). This positioning statement will be used to guide the development of the company’s entire product line.
Target audience
The early years of life are crucial in the development of every baby. For that reason, it is important to focus our attention on this age group. For this project, “HealthyBaby,” it is important to have three target audience levels. These include primary target, secondary target and tertiary target.
The primary target will compose of people whose behavior is to be modified or changed. The secondary target will compose of people who can be used as intermediaries to ensure that the message is effectively passed to the first target group (Mcgrath, 2005). The tertiary target group will be made of people who can help in the communication process and the change of behavior. In this case, children under 3 years are our main focus on “Healthy Baby”. For that reason, having our primary target as the mothers of these children is quite important since mothers or caregivers play a critical role in developing a child (Gasovic, 2011). For example, it is the role of mothers or caregivers to feed these children. For that reason, it is the mother or the caregiver who can decide what kind of food to give to a child. Additionally, since this group of people spends more time with the baby, they can understand the feeding preferences. The behavior of mothers or caregivers affects the baby is a great way (Cowley, 2016). For example, hygienic behavior results in better health of the baby, and unhygienic behavior leads to health problems and hence feeding problems might occur as a result. The baby’s attitude or even the food that the baby is getting also plays a significant role. For example, if a mother or a caregiver does not believe that a certain food is of value to the baby’s health, they are less likely to give that food and hence the baby might lack some essential products in their body (Anabila, 2019). This kind of buyer can be said to be a strategic buyer since they have a specific goal in mind, and that goal is getting the best diet for their children for better health and living.
The secondary target group for our products includes health workers, teachers, and agricultural promoters and journalists. In this case, we can enlighten the health workers on the available nutrients in our product to advise the parents on the importance of these products to the health of their babies (Finne and Grönroos, 2009). Teachers can also play an important role since they can educate the younger generation on the importance of our products’ components and urge them to try them out for the benefit of their children in the future. Agricultural promoters also can play a critical role in this. Agricultural promoters can educate the population about the importance of some of the components found in our product to their babies’ health. Hence, this can boost our products’ acceptability by the given population (Mcgrath, 2005). This kind of buyer can be said to be an individual buyer since they might possess substantial financial resources and the experience needed to lead a particular operation.
In addition to the primary and the secondary targets, the tertiary targets also play a key role. This group comprises people close to the mother or even the father, and these might include administrators and some politicians (Patti, Hartley, van Dessel and Baack, 2015). This group of people can influence the parents’ choice in many ways, and hence this is considered an important consideration to make for our products (Cowley, 2016). The attitudes of this group of people towards the products can influence that of the parents of the babies; hence this can be said to be an important consideration to make. This kind of buyer can be put into consideration as an individual buyer or the industry buyer since they might be having industries that are competing with our products (Gabrielli and Balboni, 2010). In most cases, these politicians have a great influence in some of these industries and for that reason considering them as industry buyers can be essential.
Marketing Communications Objectives
Initially, the marketing communication objectives give a good framework on how a company or institution can be able to cope with the existing challenges and increase their likelihood of success in their given specialty. To begin with, the marketing communications objective would be to communicate our ideas to our target populations at all levels (Mcgrath, 2005). In this, accurate and truthful information is to be delivered to the specific target audience at the necessary time and stage of operation.
Another marketing communications objective that would be useful in this situation would be to make sure that these products compete consistently and effectively in the marketplace. In this case, it would be essential to ensure that this product can compete well with other products that competitors might try bringing up (Mulhern, 2009). In this case, competitors might bring similar products at similar prices as well as outlets. Our communication objective for that reason would be to ensure that these products can withstand and beat those of these competitors (Gabrielli and Balboni, 2010). In this section, we can appeal to certain segments and show a difference between this product and those of the competitors and hence be able to create some level of brand loyalty that can take us for many years.
The next marketing communications objective would be to convince. In this case, we can present our ideas in a way that a person or the buyers and the promoters can feel persuaded to put more resources into these products. The buyers need to be persuaded to make decisions to buy these products (Mcgrath, 2005). For that reason, we will convincingly present our information to make sure that all the parties that are touched by these products feel that it is worth spending their money on.
These marketing communication objectives can be justified because they focus on all aspects of the hierarchy of effects model. In this case, they focus on the cognitive aspect (creation of awareness and knowledge), the affective aspect (liking and preference) and the conative aspect (conviction and purchase).
Creative Strategy and Budgeting
For this campaign, various marketing communication platforms are going to be integrated. These include print publications, the use of radio, television, billboards, and the use of events. Print publications can be one of the most important ways of reaching many people in the UK. For example, magazines and newspapers will be printed and distributed to reach the consumers (in this case, the parents to the babies), business customers, and prospects (Finne and Grönroos, 2009). Radio marketing will also be another strategy employed here. Using the commercial segments to have these products advertised will be essential. Many of the people in the UK have radio access, and this will help us reach a wide range of consumers countrywide. Television advertisements will also be done since it attracts a large audience that watches the television every day (Anabila, 2019). In this case, telecasts where a play by animations showing our products’ power can be played and people asked to try out these products. With that curiosity will be created and hence the parents will want to try that out for their babies and hence with the quality of the products the parents will be please to adopt “Healthy Baby” and our drinks for their children. Billboards will also be utilized since they are placed in high traffic areas (Gasovic, 2011). With this, potential buyers and promoters can get some insight into our products and want to try them out. This is an effective method since billboards create brand awareness to as many people as possible. The use of events will also be a key factor to consider. With this, we can build strong relationships and trust with our customers (Gabrielli and Balboni, 2010). In this case, we can hold events in schools and community events and offer some portion of the products for free or at a subsidized price and hence be able to interact with our customers and ensure that they feel our brand personality (Cowley, 2016). The cost of a billboard advertisement in the UK is 500 to 600 Pounds per week. For a radio ad, we can use around 1000 Pounds a month to make sure that we advertise in shows with many listeners. Since many people in the UK can access TV ads, advertising at the peak time would be essential, and this would cost around 3000 pounds like in the program Good Morning Britain or Lorraine (Mendez, 2009). With this in mind, we can advertise our products for 3 months, and the total cost will be 3000 Pounds. Events would cost around 5000 pounds in total. For that reason having around 20,000 pounds for marketing would be a great move to ensuring that we can make our brand recognized by as many people as possible and compete effectively with other brands.
References
Anabila, P., 2019. Integrated marketing communications, brand equity, and business performance in micro-finance institutions: An emerging market perspective. Journal of Marketing Communications, 26(3), pp.229-242.
Cowley, M., 2016. Irish Home Care: An Integrated Digital Marketing Plan & Communications Evaluation for Care Worker Recruitment. SSRN Electronic Journal,.
Finne, Å. and Grönroos, C., 2009. Rethinking marketing communication: From integrated marketing communication to relationship communication. Journal of Marketing Communications, 15(2-3), pp.179-195.
Gabrielli, V. and Balboni, B., 2010. SME practice towards integrated marketing communications. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 28(3), pp.275-290.
Gasovic, M., 2011. Integrated marketing communications in sport organizations. Marketing, 42(3), pp.171-179.
Mcgrath, J., 2005. A Pilot Study Testing Aspects of the Integrated Marketing Communications Concept. Journal of Marketing Communications, 11(3), pp.191-214.
Mendez, C., 2009. Anthropology and ethnography: contributions to integrated marketing communications. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 27(5), pp.633-648.
Mulhern, F., 2009. Integrated marketing communications: From media channels to digital connectivity. Journal of Marketing Communications, 15(2-3), pp.85-101.
Patti, C., Hartley, S., van Dessel, M. and Baack, D., 2015. Improving integrated marketing communications practices: A comparison of objectives and results. Journal of Marketing Communications, 23(4), pp.351-370.
Reinold, T. and Tropp, J., 2012. Integrated marketing communications: How can we measure its effectiveness?. Journal of Marketing Communications, 18(2), pp.113-132.