Integrated marketing communication academic essay assignment -

Integrated Marketing Communication and Cost per Thousand Analyses

Basically integrated marketing communication is used by integrating different marketing tool,

approaches, and resources within a company that will show up a maximum impact on the

consumer minds and create an image of the product that will result in the form of the

maximum profits at minimum cost. As we have discussed different marketing strategies

above, it showed up that if we want to achieve a maximum impact over the viewers, the

suggested integrated marketing tools for the American Eagle Outfitters are newspaper,

television, direct mail, radio, magazines, outdoor activities and the internet online services.

Our goal for the AEO to use and reallocate its current resources in such a way that get the

maximum capacity for consumers, retain its current consumers and create a better image for

the product we are offering. Similarly due to the current recession, AEO’s strategy would be

to retain its current customers, target new markets and involve in expansion of its current

customer base to maintain its sales and develop customer base for the future operations.

Basically the most of the focus for the IMC is to create a future customer base. By these

means in near future it will help to boost its sales and profits within the allocated budget for

marketing activities.

Newspaper:

Newspapers have always played a major role in the promotions of the business for many

years. AEO will be using this media to interact people who are intelligent and affluent

customers. As Newspaper promotions has a great appeal to the intelligent and affluent

consumers. In this AEO will be using articles and advertisements because these are excellent

business tools that can be used to promote business inexpensively. Similarly newspaper will

target new customers too. Because newspaper has a very short lead time and there is always

need of fresh material to cover the pages. And people seeking for jobs or want o keep in touch

about some details information about any political, social matter use newspapers. When AEO

will be hitting through articles and the advertisement, it will cover people immediately within

the short time. AEO will be using the Toronto Star newspaper as it has about the 2,349,760

newspapers per week. So it will be covering about 20 million people within a short time of

one week. This will be used for the AEO for the aggressive marketing campaign and to get

introduce to more consumers in a very short time. AEO will be using front page in the

Toronto Star where it meets the eye of the onlooker. AEO will place the promotions on the

newspaper that should focus on the customer's problem instead of focusing on the companies’

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features. It will be using very expressive and active verbal forms of sentences. That will be

very punchy and catch the attention the attention of consumers.

Television & Radio:

The second marketing tool suggested for the AEO is the TV. TV is a live and

interactive source of advertisement. AEO will be focusing it by sponsoring different shows,

functions, celebrity programs and highly viewing programs like American Idol, current news

programs. Furthermore, AEO will be using its brand representatives as models during the

shows allowing them to enhance their portfolio. By using their existing staff, it saves time and

cost of recruiting additional staff for the shows. No doubt it will be having less audience

selectivity, but it will be covering huge number of viewers by simple an absolute cost. It will

be having good mass marketing coverage in low cost per exposure. Similarly it will also help

AEO to demonstrate their product visually to the consumers that can attract more customers’

attention. If we look over radio, it has a continuous decreasing trend, but AEO still be using it

as it has very low cost and would be covering good local acceptance by consumers.

Direct Mail:

Direct mail is a marketing technique in which the seller sends marketing messages directly to

the buyer. Direct mail is a unique blend of advertising and sales. It is sometimes referred to as

direct marketing or direct response marketing. Direct mail is basically a marketing message

that is delivered to prospects by mail. It is opened one piece at a time and read one piece at a

time. Direct mail is the highly online interactive and more selective media to advertisement.

In this we have a definite and selected customer base. AEO will be using this media for the

current customers and available data base of the people interested in the similar product that

our company is offering. Such data can easily be obtained from different companies for

exchange of money. And then we’ll email them directly about updates, offers, new product

range and by using this we can increase the rate of visits of our customers to our layout that

increases the sales through in-pulse purchases.

Magazines:

Magazines are the source of marketing advertisement that has high and demographic

selectivity. As compare to the newspaper, magazines have a long lead time. Magazines are

usually monthly or weekly basis. No doubt it cost more, but it provides a large space to

demonstrate your product thoroughly. AEO also has the plans to target the fashion outfits and



products through fashion magazines, where they can show their portfolios easily through

photo shot of models. In this way AEO will also be able to target the high earning level

customers for the product with high quality and price. Similarly it will also help AEO to get

focus of the fashion conscious customer target base that do not care about the price but only

for the new trends and fashions. This will also help AEO to achieve high margins by sale of

their new trendy and innovative designs.

Outdoor - Billboards:

Outdoor Billboards are an effective medium for the massive publicity for AEO. It also very

helpful to remind customer about their brands and about the new promotions, offers discounts

and trends., It is because that AEO is in the maturity stage, soon it can be turn into the decline

phase if proper innovations, discount and change was not encountered. So billboard is an

effective way to attract current customers about new trends and discounts about the product.

The visibility and reach of this medium is a good supplementary marketing tool to use for a

well known brand such as AEO. Its advantage is the relatively low cost of producing the

billboards with one time cost, as AEO has its reserved places for the publicity at different

crosses, roads, fitness centers, universities and famous markets. By this mean, AEO is

attracting half of older customers to avoid declining in their products. The Billboards should

be advertised by the use of different celebrities to have a better tool for getting immediate

attraction of the customers and to depict the sexuality in the outfits.

Online:

Online Media is a continuous advertising tool for now a days in the generation x and

generation y. it covers the ages of 14 to 40 years. Online is a good marketing tactic to use as

now a day most of the adults and generations rely on the internet source. It has been using as

their first source to get information regarding any matter whether it is studies or something

else. AEO should place their advertisement with online sites such as dating sites, job

placement sites, fashion websites and have a point system linking to their membership level

that enables them to receive discounts at AEO. Pay per click (PPC) advertising will offer

AEO a new, effective way to attract potential customers to its business. It will reach

customers online and will help build brand awareness, turn visitors into buyers and is a great

complement to company’s existing online and offline ad campaigns and make them motivate

to visit store for once. Similarly AEO will be focusing on the most traffic website such as

face book, Google and other sources. That will help it most to attract more and more



customers.

When we have to use IMC then an important thing is the scheduling of the different

advertisement tools at different quarters of the specific year. It is because due to different

trends and the seasons, people have arbitrary trends regarding their focus on the different

marketing tools. For example it is not fair to use billboards in snow season when roads are not

visible to the people then how billboards can be? These disused all above marketing tools are

designed to bring these aspects to reality to increase consumer usage and engagement as well

as drawing in new customers in order to increase sales volume and to use the fair use of the

resources available. Detailed analyses of these marketing tools are located in Appendix.



Appendix – IMC and CPM analysis

IMC Tool Cost Viewers CPM

Newspapers $80,000 300,000 $267

Television $200,000 275,000 $727

Direct Mail $12,000 8,000 $400

Magazines $42,000 40,000 $1050

Outdoor-Billboards $75,000 1,500,000 $50

Internet - Online $85,000 500,000 $170

Radio $6,000 50,000 $120

Total Cost $500,000

Table 1: IMC tools and CPM analysis

As the newspaper is concern, we will be placing its publicity for the whole season. As per

appendix B newspaper would cost $1,300 per week for 2” x 2” ad So accumulate estimated

cost for the whole year would be $80000 and it will be covering 300,000 viewers, as per

according to the newspaper circulation for our selected paper within a week. We have

estimated that about 300,000 ads will be noticed among all the newspaper circulated.

As television is the mostly used medium of advertisement now days. We will be using it in

the peak seasons of the sales. For example we will be conducting it before the changing phase

of the season when people need new cloths for the next seasons. It will be running for almost

5 to 6 months, shown in the graph below. As per 30 sec ad we have to bear a cost of $200,000

for the season and we will cover a huge number of customers about 275,000. It is because we

will be launching our ad during prime times and it’s the 35% of the total viewer of the prime

times.

Direct mail has no time frame. We will be using it when we are in need to contact with our

existing customers to offer them exclusive discount to create customer retention and to

achieve loyalty. If we cover about 8000 customer then it will cost about $15,000 as we have

an estimation of $1,500 for 1,000 4x6 postcards (includes postage).



The magazines are the advertisement tool that will cover high price products and elite class.

And the CPM for this is too high. It is about $1050 per thousand viewers. We have an

estimation of $42,000 of cost that will cover 40,000 viewers. Magazines will be keep on

going with the trends on have their place in the prominent magazines for the AEO new

trendy, exclusive and expensive outfits.

Billboards are cost about $5000 to $500,000 according to the design, art and place of the

billboard. As AEO has its reversed places for the billboards then it will save money and for

this reason we will be having $75,000 for outdoor publicity. It has estimation of about

covering 1.5 million viewers from the selected areas. It will be using in the February to April

and then august to October.

In the online media for the pay per clicks and for the high traffic websites’ ad banners will

cost $85,000 and it will be covering huge number of viewers due it the increasing trend of the

internet and online media. It will cover about 500,000 viewers and this marketing tool will be

using for the whole year. Similarly for the radio advertisement it will cost very low about

$6,000 on the rate of $80-$120 per week rotator. And it will be covering the people in the

times when other activities are needed to be required to just keep in touch with the marketing

campaign. As the radio trend is very much decreasing in this age so it will hardly cover

50,000 viewers in the marketing campaign.

As described above the schedule for the advertisement in four quarters of the years are given

below:

AEO Advertising

Jan Feb. Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Newspaper

Television

Radio

Magazines

Direct Mail

Not specified by time

Billboards

Online Table 2: Advertisement schedule for the whole year 2010



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Integrated marketing communication academic essay assignment -