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Barnes & Noble’s Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) Case Study
Introduction
Barnes and Nobles Inc. is the leading bookseller in the United States and a Fortune 500
company. It is also the leading retailer of content such as educational product and digital media.
On the other hand, Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) is a marketing concept that
integrates a company’s promotion tools together. Fundamentally, promotion is one of the
important 4p’s factors in the marketing mix, which a marketing team should structure to give an
entity a market advantage. Integrated marketing communication has seven tactics that include
personal selling, public relation, and advertising, direct marketing, electronic and internet
marketing.
Barnes and Nobles Inc. IMC
Barnes & Noble integrated marketing communication includes advertising, publicity, and
internet marketing.
Advertising
Advertising is the mainstream IMC strategy used by Barnes and Nobles. Ideally, it is a
mass communication tool that allows a high frequency and reaches in a cost and entertaining
effective way. Barnes and Nobles has been a top exponent of advertising as a major marketing
communication medium. The company uses different communication media to send its
advertisements messages including radio, television, newspaper, magazine, direct mail, flyers,
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videos, and the internet. Barnes and Nobles mainly use television advertisement for its ads. Its
ads using this media tend to be informational, persuasive, and reminder, but lacks inspiration.
The most recent ad is based on its recently launched BN.com and Nook tablet website that was
aimed at raising online sales (Monica). However, the advertisement was widely viewed as a
reaction to Amazon’s increasing online presence through the launching of Kindle e-reader.
Publicity
Barnes and Nobles Inc. adopt pre-launch product campaigns in different communication
media. The media events are scheduled early enough running to five months before the launch of
the book or content product. The aim is to make consumers talk about the product before its
inception. The publicity events are integrated closely with other marketing communication
