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TRACE NORTH AMERICA CASE
Multicultural IMC
Read the Trace case in the Appendix before coming to class.
18-18. How could you increase the consistency of the “Hard to Explain, Easy to
Experience” campaign so that the overall impact was greater?
18-19.If you wanted to go global with this campaign, what would you need to learn
about each new market before you ran the campaign?
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
WEB REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Describe the importance of stakeholders and brand relationships to IMC.
A customer focus is critical in most IMC strategies. Although we use the word
‘customer’, we are really referring to all stakeholders who impact on that customer
relationship. Relationship marketing, a concept that originated with public relations,
2. What is message synergy and why is it important?
Brand communication is not about single messages but rather about the impact of
various impressions and brand meanings that evolve as the messages interact and
reinforce one another. In other words, messages that reinforce one another have a
3. List the important components of an IMC outline. Why is such an outline
important?
Although it will vary somewhat from agency to agency, what follows is a typical outline
of an IMC campaign.The outline is useful as a guide for the planning document but more
importantly, it also identifies the key strategic decisions that guide various sections of an
IMC campaign plan.
I. Situation Analysis
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II. Key Strategic Campaign Decisions
III. Marcom Mix
IV. Message Strategy
V. IMC Media and Contact Points
VI. Management and Campaign Controls
4. What are some of the typical strategies that may guide an IMC campaign?
The general strategy that guides a campaign can be described in a number of ways. For
example, a strategy can focus on branding, positioning, countering the competition, or
creating category dominance. Maybe the strategy is designed to change the consumers’
Another common focus is the role and importance of the brand’s competitive position and
5. Discuss the role of objectives in the development of an IMC campaign
strategy.
Every advertising campaign must be guided by specific, clear, and measurable
objectives. The effectiveness of advertising is determined based on its measurable
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A specific effect that can be measured
6. What are the five most common budgeting methods used when developing an
IMC campaign strategy?
The five most common budgeting methods are:
The historical method. Historical information is the source for this common
budgeting method. A budget may simply be based on last year’s budget, with
The objective-task method. The objective-task method looks at the objectives
for each activity and determines the cost of accomplishing each objective.
The percentage-of-sales method. The percentage-of-sales method compares the total sales
with the total advertising (or marketing communication) budget during the previous year or
Competitive budgets.This method uses competitors’ budgets as benchmarks
and relates the amount invested in advertising to the product’s share of
All you can afford. When a company allocates whatever is left over to
advertising, it is using the “all you can afford” budgeting method. It’s really
7. Describe some of the unique considerations to be made in connection to the
execution of a global IMC campaign.
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The execution of a global campaign is usually more complex than a national plan.
The creative may need to be reshot with local models and settings, as well as
Government approval of television commercials can be difficult to secure in some
countries. As advertisers move into international and global advertising, they also
face many of the same ethical issues that advertisers deal with in the United States.
8. What are the various planning approaches that can be used when creating a
global campaign?
When planning an international advertising campaign, there are two options
concerning basic starting points: (1) success in one country and (2) a centrally
Local initiative: A successful campaign conceived for national application is modified
for use in other countries. Many companies have taken successful campaigns from
Centrally conceived campaigns: The second approach, a centrally conceived
campaign, was pioneered by Coca-Cola and is now used increasingly in global
Variations on central campaigns: Variations on the centrally conceived campaign also
exist. The office that develops the approved campaign would be designated the lead
agency and would develop all of the necessary elements of the campaign and prepare
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Bottom-up creativity: Sometimes a competition may be used to find the best idea.
9. What is the integration triangle?
The integration triangle identifies three key aspects of brand communication that
must work together to create integration as well as integrity: 1) what brand company
ASSIGNMENTS
Individual Assignments
1. Surf the Web and locate an agency that specializes in IMC. Explore all of the
links, learning everything you can about what they do, and how their work
integrates elements of advertising, public relations and marketing. Contrast
your findings with what you have learned in this chapter, and summarize your
findings in a 350-word report.
2. Visit www.aef.com/industry/careers/2026 to view the classic Wall Street
Journalcampaign that has run for more than 30 years and is mentioned in this
chapter. What do you think its primary objective(s) have been over the years?
What strategic decisions are driving it? What is the message strategy? Also
generate some ideas that if implemented could move this ad campaign from an
individual media channel (the WSJ) to a multichannel, multiplatform IMC
campaign.
Think-Pair-Share
1. To demonstrate the problems of language in advertising, divide the class into
teams of five or six. Each team should choose a print advertisement it believes
would have universal appeal. Take the headline and one paragraph of body copy
to a language professor or someone who is proficient in a language other than
English. See whether you can do this for up to five different languages. Next,
take that translation to another professor or native language speaker of the same
language and ask for a “back translation” into English. Compare and report on
how well the concept translated.
2. Identify a major brand for which an effective IMC campaign has been executed.
With your partner, discuss what additional steps must be taken to transition the
IMC campaign into a 360 degree communication program.
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OUTSIDE EXAMPLES
1. Identify a for-profit organization that is involved in cause marketing. Collect
samples of their marketing communications efforts that demonstrate their
commitment to their cause. First, determine if the business you have identified is
involved in cause marketing or mission marketing. Then, analyze the samples you
have collected and compare them to each other in terms of intended objectives,
target audiences, strategic approaches, brand consistency, and overall strengths
and weaknesses. Also generate ways that both experiential as well as traditional
media could be used to strengthen this campaign’s impact. Create an eight slide
PowerPoint presentation for your class that outlines your findings and
suggestions.
2. Go online and explore the world’s biggest international marketing blunders. Using
your favorite search engine, enter the keywords, “international marketing
blunders.” Select any website that is interesting to you and explore it thoroughly.
Focus on one or two high-profile cases. After finishing your research, compile
your findings into a 10-minute oral presentation for the class, explaining how
your findings tie into concepts presented in this chapter regarding international
IMC campaigns.
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