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E-ISSN 2281-4612
ISSN 2281-3993
Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies
MCSER Publishing, Rome-Italy
Vol 4 No 1 S2
April 2015
115
Integrated Marketing Communications and International
Advertising in Kosovo
Msc. Halit Karaxha (PhD. Cand.)
[email protected]
Msc. Hidajet Karaxha (PhD. Cand.)
[email protected]
Prof. Dr. Arjan Abazi
[email protected]
Doi:10.5901/ajis.2015.v4n1s2p115
Abstract
Integrated Marketing Communications are
composed of ads, sales promotion, personal sale, direct sale and public relations.
The main challenges in Integrated Marketing Communications ar
e the recognition of c
ommunication means of mixed
marketing, the advantages of Internat
ional Advertising, the methods of det
ermining promotional budgets, the steps in
developing an effective communication of market
ing. Integrated Marketing
Communications are means with which the firms try
to remind the consumers about their products and services.
A very important challenge is t
he measurement of marketing’s
results and the analysis about what percent
of these costs are reversed or hav
e exceeded beyond the margin of spending. The
firms have to invest more in Integrated Marketing Communicati
ons, where the importance of
investments is seen from two
points of view: the growth of profit
and their role towards the public. International advertisements have a great impact in
introducing the products and services
in international markets. The costs of
international ads have changed depending on the
periods of economic development; the periods of global developments are
associated with the increase of advertisements
costs, while the periods of global recessions
are associated with the decrease of thes
e costs. In this paper it is explained ho
w
the importance of marketing’s int
egrated communications affects the growth of
sales and the connection with the public and the
role of international ads in promoting new products in international mar
kets. The first part of the paper is composed of review
ing
the adequate literature and the se
cond part has to do with the part of t
he study about Integrated
Marketing Communications
and international advertisements. Primarily
data was realized through questionnaires, th
rough direct contact with marketing
managers, general managers, owners and directors of companies
that have sufficient knowledge about their companies.
Keywords:
Integrated Marketing Communications, Inter
national Advertising, International markets
1.
The Review of Literature
1.1
Integrated Marketing Communications
Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) are composed of
advertisements, sale promotions, personal sale, direct sale
and public relations (Cateora & Gilly & Graham, 2011). Integrated
communications of marketing (IMC) are being
practiced all over the world at a very
high range. IMC is connected with some positive results of the brand,
client’s
satisfaction, brand loyalty, brand’s positive image, the growth of sales and
cost reduction (Saeed & Naeem & Bilal & Naz,
2013). Integrated Marketing Communications is a powerful measure that
has an impact in the effectiveness of the
development and implementation of marketing’s communication (Shakeel-
Ul-Rehman & Ibrahim, 2011). IMC programs
have to be in accordance with company’s policies, and have to be part of
the management and all other aspects of
company’s communication, informing the company about corporation’s
brands which have to be in accordance with all
the brands of the company’s markets (Percy, 2008). Integrated Marketing
Communications is a process of
communication with customers about the brand’s capital through different
measures of communication. Except the used
communication methods, the main rule is that the message flows have to
be in the same directions and have the same
objectives (Suwantara & Taechamaneesatit, 2012). The integrated
communications of marketing include the identification
of the targeted audience and the design of a promotional program which
has to be well-coordinated in order to receive
E-ISSN 2281-4612
ISSN 2281-3993
Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies
MCSER Publishing, Rome-Italy
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the desired response from the audience. Often, marketing’s
communications focus on in immediately receiving the
information, in the image or in the preference goals of the targeted market.
Today, marketing specialists are moving
towards naming the communications as time management in the relations
with clients (Kotler & Armstrong, 2011).
Anyway, maybe the clearer definition for the Integrated Marketing
Communications is given by the American Association
of Advertising Agencies (1993): The integrated communication of marketing
is a concept of planning the marketing
communication that recognizes an added value of a comprehensive and
strategic plan that evaluates the roles of a
variety of communication disiplines and combines them to ensure clarity,
consistency and a maximal communication
impact through an ongoing and discrete integration of messages (Baker,
2003).
1.2
Sales Promotions in International Markets
Sales promotions are marketing activites that stimulate consumer
purchases and improve retail sales. Sampes, coupons,
gifts, promotional products, competitions, lotaries, the sponsorship of
special events such as concerts, olympiads, fairs
and points of purchase are measures to promote sales (Cateora & Gilly &
Graham, 2011).
Sales promotion are defined as marketing activities that are usually specific
for a period of time, that encourage a direct
response from the consumers or market
mediators, through the offer of additional benefits (Baker, 2003). Sales
promotion are a direct incentive that offers additional values for the product,
distributors, consumers and the main
objective is to achieve an immediate sale. First, promotional sales include a
variety of incentives that provides additional
incentive to buy. This incentive is usually the main factor in a promoting
program; it can be a coupon or a reduction of the
product’s cost, the opportunity to enter a competition or lotte
ry, reimbursement or discount in
the products price (Belch &
Belch, 2003).
E-ISSN 2281-4612
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Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies
MCSER Publishing, Rome-Italy
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Figure 2:
Types of sales promotion activities
In general, more than the half of marketing communication costs goes to
the promotion of trade. A trade promotion is a
program of discounts that aims the growth of retail sales (Percy, 2008).
2.
International Advertising
The growth of International Advertising
costs has slowed, especially during the global recession of 2008-2009. An
important study has showed that advertisement costs
are generally cyclic (Cateora & Gilly & Graham, 2011).
Table 1:
Top 20 Global Advertisers ($ millions)*
2008 2007 Advertise
r
Headquarters
2008
Percent Change
1
1
Procter & Gamble Co.
Cincinnati
$9,731
0.0%
2
2 Unilever
London/Rotterdam
5,717
1.8
3
3
L’Oreal
Clichy, France
4,040
10.8
4
4 General Motors
Detroit
3,674
5.4
5
5
Toyota Motor Corp.
Toyota City, Japan
3,203
-3.2
6
8 Coca-Cola Co.
A
tlanta, GA
2,673
13.5
7
7
Johnson & Johnson
Neë Brunsëick, NJ
2,601
4.5
8
6
Ford Motor Co.
Detroit
2,448
-14.0
9
11
Reckitt Benckiser
Slough, Berkshire, UK
2,369
13.0
10
9 Nestle
Vevey, Sëitzerland
2,314
1.0
11
12
Volksëagen
Ëolfsburg, Germany
2,309
15.4
12
10
Honda Motor Co.
Tokyo
2,220
4.6
13
15
Mars Inc.
McLean, VA
1,998
5.0
14
19
McDonald’s Corp.
Oakbrook, IL
1,968
6.9
15
14
Sony Corp.
Tokyo
1,851
-3.3
16
17
GlaxoSmithKline
Brentford, Middlesex, UK
1,831
-3.2
17
20
Deutsche Telekom.
Bonn, Germany
1,812
7.7
18
18
Kraft Foods
Northfi eld, IL
1,792
-2.7
19
16
Nissan Motor Co.
Tokyo
1,716
-9.7
20
21
Ëalt Disney Co.
Burbank, CA
1,586
-2.0
* Figures are U.S. dollars in millions and are
AdvertisingAge
estimates.
Source:
(Cateora & Gilly & Graham, 2011).
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Table 2:
Top 100 Advertisers’ Global Spending by Category ($ millions)
Category
2008
Percent Ch
ange from 2007
Advertise
r
Count
Automotive
$25,613
0.1%
18
Personal care
25,480
3.4
11
Food
11,914
4.9
9
Drugs
10,323
1.8
11
Entertainment & Media
9,608
-1.8
7
Retail
5,968
17.8
8
Restaurants
4,289
9.6
4
Soft drinks
4,064
5.3
2
Telephone
3,974
2.7
4
Cleaners
3,829
10.7
3
Beer, ëine, & liquo
r
2,681
2.1
5
Financial
2,595
-9.0
6
Electronics & imaging
2,100
8.9
3
Technology
2,035
-11.5
4
Electronics
1,846
20.7
2
Toys
1,607
12.8
3
Source:
Cituar: (Cateora & Gilly & Graham, 2011).
Table 1 and 2 illustrate the world’s largest advertisers by expenditure and
product’s categories. Even though car
companies dominate the lists, Procter & Gamble was a world champion of
costs. From all the elements of mix marketing,
the decisions that include advertisements are the ones that affect more
often the cultural differences of different markets.
We have to adju
st to the client’s culture,
their style, value system, attitudes, belie
fs and perceptions, be
cause the function
of advertisements is to interpret or translate the product values in the
aspect of the consumer needs and desires. The
agreement for a more unique international advertising campaign of markets
is a challenge that is getting in front of
international marketing. The framework and concept of international
advertisements are essentially the same in every
country (Cateora & Gilly & Graham, 2011). Standardized
advertisements have raised the financial and strategic
performance of the firms, provided that the internal and external
environment is favorable for standardization. There are
three general categories of factors that affect the level of advertising
standardization that a company hires, and they are:
external factors of the environment, strategic factors and the factors that
are related to the internal organizational
characteristics (Okazaki &Taylor& Zou, 2006). The standardizatio
n of international advertisements is a marketing strategy
adopted by many companies nowadays. Its main priority is related to the
reduction of cost and the development of image
for an organization and its products in a global range. Unfortunately, this
strategy hasn’t considered some other important
factors for the effectiveness of advertising
, such as cultural sensitivity and physi
cal barriers, which are related with the
legal and technical regulation of advertisements, even though the adaption
of international advertisements can fill these
gaps (Ruževi
þ
ius & Ruževi
þ
i
nj
t
ơ
, 2011).
3.
Research Results
Figure 3:
Do you have knowledge about the Integrated Marketing Communications
(IMC)
Source:
Calculating the authors based on the results of research
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Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies
MCSER Publishing, Rome-Italy
Vol 4 No 1 S2
April 2015
119
The increasing practice of Integrated Marketing Communications all over
the world is increasing the role of IMC. Based
on the results, 86% said that they are informed about the concept of
integrated communications of marketing and only
14% said that they don’t know about them. So, based on the research
results we can see that most of businesses are
familiarized with the concept of IMC.
Figure 4:
Do you believe that the Integrated Marketing Communications bring
benefits
Source:
Calculating the authors based on the results of research
Most of the respondents think that the Do you believe that the Integrated
Marketing Communications bring benefits, 68%
think that they bring a lot of benefits, 23% think that they don’t bring
benefits at all and 9% think that the integrated
communications of marketing bring a little benefits.
Figure 5:
Do you share your budget for the Integrated Marketing Communications
Source:
Calculating the authors based on the results of research
From the results we can see a favorable situation because most of the
businesses share their funds for the Integrated
Marketing Communications, and this allows the businesses to get closer to
the consumers and the consumers to be more
informed about the company’s products, and based on this to realize more
sales. From the respondents, 84% said that
they share their budget for the Integrated Marketing Communications and
only 16% said that they don’t share their
budget for Integrated Marketing Communications, hoping that in the future
they will.
Figure 6:
Do you think that international advertisements affect in increasing sales
Source:
Calculating the authors based on the results of research
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International advertisements have a great impact in consumer’s beliefs
about the products and services, and also have a
positive impact in increasing the sales; therefore many global companies
share most of their profit for advertisements. We
can see that most of the respondents think that advertisements have a
positive impact in increasing sales. 82% of the
respondents think that international advertisements affect in sales growth,
14% think that international advertisements
have a little impact and only 4% of the respondents think that they have no
impact at all.
Figure 7:
Do you have an international competitor in your market
which sells and advertises its own products that are
similar with yours
Source:
Calculating the authors based on the results of research
Based on the results we can see that many international competitors
operate and advertise their products in our country.
64% of the respondents said that they have international competitors in
their market, while 36% of them said that they
don’t have international competitors which advertise and sell their products.
Figure 8:
Based on your opinion, the standardization of international advertisements
has an impact on increasing
Source:
Calculating the authors based on the results of research
Based on the results we can see that 46% of the respondents think that the
standardization of international
advertisements has an impact in increasing the company’s financial and
strategic performance, 23.1% think that the
standardization affects the relation with the consumers, 19.1% of the
respondents think that the standardization of
international advertisements reduces the advertisement costs and 11%
think that it conveys messages faster.
Figure 9:
What was the effect of international advertisements
Source:
Calculating the authors based on the results of research
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Advertisements have an important impact in increasing businesses
performance, in the relation with consumers,
improving the brand’s image. From the research results, 22.4% said that
international advertisements were generally
liked by the targeted markets, 36.6% said that consumers have a positive
reaction towards their advertisements, 16.9%
of the respondents said that their advertisements improve the client’s
image about their brand and 24.1% said that their
advertisements are a pushing factor for the clients to purchase their
brands.
4.
Conclusions and Recommendations
The Integrated Marketing Communications are measures through which we
connect with our clients, bringing them closer
to our brands, having more information about our brands, and based on
this realizing more profit. It is very hard to know
exactly how big the advertisement market is and what percentage goes to
newspapers, radios or TV. But this is not the
only challenge. Another important challenge is the measurement of the
results of Integrated Marketing Communications
and the analysis of how much of these costs have been returned or have
overcome the costs margin. International
advertisement costs are cyclical and are depended on the global economic
development. From the research results we
can see that most of the respondents are familiar with the concept and
importance of Integrated Marketing
Communications. We can also notice that most of the businesses share
their budget for these communications, which is
a very positive factor for the companies that are aiming to increase their
performance. The standardization of international
advertisements affects in increasing the financial and strategic performance
of companies. The advertisements had
impact on the relations with the clients, who purchased our brand, the
image of which was highly increased. So, as an
end, the Integrated Marketing Communications and international
advertisements are a safe base in increasing company’s
performance.
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ISSN 2281-3993
Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies
MCSER Publishing, Rome-Italy
Vol 4 No 1 S2
April 2015
122