The purpose of this essay is to look at the Marketing Communications Mix, clearly define the meaning of each type and show how Coca Cola, one of the biggest brands on the global market, utilises each method.
Belch, E. and Belch A. describe Integrated Marketing Communications as “a concept of marketing communications planning that recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communication disciplines and combines these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency and maximum communications impact”.
The disciples in the marketing communications include:
Media advertising
Direct Marketing
Sales promotions
Public Relations
Personal selling
The product that has given the world its best-known taste was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 8, 1886. Dr. John Stith Pemberton, a local pharmacist, produced the syrup for Coca-Cola®, and carried a jug of the new product down the street to Jacobs' Pharmacy, where it was sampled, pronounced "excellent" and placed on sale for five cents a glass as a soda fountain drink.
Today Coca Cola has grown into one of the strongest and most recognized brands in the world. Coca-Cola’s brand range includes Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Caffeine Free Diet Coke, Sprite, Sprite Light, Fanta, Fanta Light, Fanta Icy Lemon, Lilt, Diet Lilt, Tanora, Deep RiverRock, Vittel, Fruice, Schweppes, Oasis and Powerade and many many more.
Growing importance of IMC:
Shift of moving away from media advertising to other forms of communications.
Shift in power from manufacturers to retailers.
Rapid growth of database marketing.
Rapid growth of the internet
Increasing importance of branding
Advertising
Any paid form of nonpersonal communication about an organization, product, service or idea by an identified sponsor could be described as advertising.
Coca-cola uses mediums such as television in order to advertise the latest marketing campaign “the Coke-side-of-life” and
Bibliography: Belch.E, G. and Belch, M. (2006), An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective, McGraw Hill, London The Chronicles of Coca Cola, [online], Accessed via: http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/heritage/chronicle_birth_refreshing_idea.html, Accessed [25 July 2007] My Coke Rewards, [online], Available via: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Coke_Rewards, Accessed [28 July 2007]