Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) is defined as a strategy that aligns, interconnects, and brings together several marketing platforms, branding techniques, various communication, and promotional channels to reinforce each other. It builds a seamless, tight, and professional organization and creates a particular branding message for an organization.
Competitive advantages are achieved through the use of Integrated Marketing Communication. The major and common examples of Integrated Marketing Communication tools/components include; advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, public relation, publicity, internet/interactive marketing, etc.
Explain the IMC components implemented in each case.
According to the case study of Muntenia and Oltenia on Integrated Marketing Communication in Tourism analysis
, communication of the different aspects of a tourism product in the target of the public is a challenging task. It is, therefore, key for the various aspects of tourism products to be communicated across several promotional tools. In the study, integrated marketing communication is defined as creating, planning, implementing, and integrating all the contact positions where the target customer has a particular brand, which could be a potential channel for the direct or indirect purchasing process. (Ercis et al., 2011).
Different communication instruments have been used in the two tourism destinations of the study, namely, Muntenia and Oltenia, categorized into offline and online communication instruments. The various Integrated Marketing Communication components implemented is one advertising done by advertising materials such as brochures which are majorly circulated manually to promote the viewpoint of the attraction points of the destinations. The other IMC components in this study are the online communication instruments: online publication, mobile applications, online tourism agencies, newsletters, blogs, audio-visuals, media instruments, and social media, which have been named in the recent conference of online tourism called E-travel Conference. (Stăncioiu et al.,2013).