Example Of Research Paper On An Integrated Marketing Campaign (IMC) Plan For Pepsico

Executive summary

Marketing of goods and services plays a critical role in the progress of a business. This paper presents a typical Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) Campaign Plan for Pepsi. Included in the discussion are four major areas. Firstly is the exploration of Pepsi as a brand. Here, the paper looks at Pepsi’s branding concept. In addition, it identifies the branding problem in question. Ideally, this is an analysis of the current market challenges facing Pepsi. Furthermore, this section provides the profile of the target market. Specifically, this consumer profile gives an outlook of the lifestyle, demographics, and the usage pattern of the customers
Secondly, it outlines the IMC plan for marketing Pepsi’s products. Ideally, this part considers the corporate growth objectives of Pepsi. In addition, it shows the mechanisms for monitoring, controlling, and evaluating the IMC process. Importantly, this section provides the budget determination concept.
Thirdly, it describes the individual promotional mix tools that will take center-stage in the marketing. Under this section, the paper considers the objectives, message strategy, and budget of the promotional mix tool. Additionally, it provides a budget and media plan for the respective promotional tool. In essence, this section focusses on five major promotional mix tools. The first one is advertising followed by Internet marketing. Immediately, direct marketing and sales promotion follows. Finally, the focus is on the public relations measures and strategies. Accordingly, there is a brief discussion of the implications of the intended IMC plan. This part carries the final assessment of the IMC program.

Index

“Brand” in this paper refers to PepsiCo in its entirety. The brand includes all PepsiCo products, ideas, patents, and innovations.

“IMC” means Integrated Marketing Communication

Introduction
Marketing forms a crucial foundation for the success of any business enterprise. Marketing enables the company to make its customers aware of its products. In addition, marketing eventually promotes the penetration of a product into the target market. In view of this, company managers and stewards require duly constituted marketing think tanks. Think tanks, primarily, help to bring together and harness knowledge and ideas for a particular enterprise. In this case, the total cost of ownership plan becomes warranted and real. It is, therefore, vital for companies to develop the marketing strategy and promotional mix that best suits its market. The success of an Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) Campaign lies in its customers’ understanding of its products and brand. In addition, it pegs on the integration of an appropriate promotional mix. A good promotional mix must efficiently deliver a consistent brand message whenever its customer interacts with the products.

The brand

Pepsi’s branding concept
Pepsi Co is one of the largest and the world’s major consumer brand in the food and drink industry. Presently, PepsiCo comprises three primary products. These products are Diet Pepsi, Pepsi, and Pepsi MAX. The brand in focus is PepsiCo brands are available in more than 200 countries around the globe. The branding concept is PepsiCo Live (PEPSICO)

The branding problem

The problem of this plan is the drop of Americans usage of carbonated drinks. Ideally, this decline led to a lower rating for Pepsi in the North American carbonated beverage market. Pepsi was rated third after Coke and Diet Coke. Thus, this plan aims to leverage the North American’s behavioral shift from carbonated drinks to natural beverages. Attainment of the behavioral requires the marketing of some new products such as the Gatorade brand among others (Boone & Kurtz, 2015).

The target market

The plan mainly focusses on the urban and upmarket families within North Americas enclaves. Included in this objective are women, children, the youth, and the adults participating in various occupations. The plan also seeks to grow the overseas market, to a sizeable extent. The foreign markets include countries such as China and India (PEPSICO).

The customer profile in terms of demographics, usage pattern, occupation, and lifestyle

Prospective customers represent a broad range of occupations and backgrounds. The IMC campaign targets young people as well as the adults. Children are also party to this market.
The plan also focusses on consumers deeply involved in sporting activities in a vast array. Included are sports such as surfing, tennis, skateboarding, and dance. It targets young athletes whose consumer patterns involve much expenditure on equipment and clothing. The plan also targets consumers in various areas and levels of study such as high school and college (Boone and Kurtz, 2015). Products targeting young people involved in skateboarding are Doritos and MTN moves. Ideally, these products run under the segment “Bold Moves” (PEPSICO).
Also included in this part are women whose chief occupation is a housewife. For this class, the plan aims to market its product called Muller. It gives a nutritious break for the consumers (PEPSICO).
Additionally, the plan seeks to penetrate the natural drinks market by developing products in that line. The need for the wholemeal grain goods and cereals is increasingly becoming a point of significant concern for the brand (PEPSICO).
The plan also targets nature lovers who enjoy spending time in parks and other forested areas. This particular category enjoys the beauty of creation. PepsiCo has products such as Aquafina, Naked, and Quaker for nature-lovers. As well, the plan targets families. The brand has five main products for this segment, namely: Cheetos, Sun Chips, Aquafina, PepsiCo, and Pepsi Next (PEPSICO).
The market also consists of young fun-lovers. The category includes people who like spending time out with friends and colleagues in social gatherings. Ruffles and Tostitos are good products for this category. Additionally, the Pure Leaf and Sabra target especially the women who like hanging out (PEPSICO)

The IMC program: Plan

Corporate growth objectives
The brand aims at achieving seven primary goals. Firstly, it aims at achieving market penetration for the natural drinks. The penetration of the market will assist in tapping into the new opportunities. Market penetration will also contribute to increasing the share of our products in the international market (Bachmeier, 2013).
Secondly, the firm aims to achieve product development. Ideally, this will be achieved through the introduction of new products into the market. One of the latest products is Gatorade Drink (Boone & Kurtz, 2015)
Thirdly, the brand aims to develop a firm production orientation. Indeed, production orientation seeks to ensure that our products are of good quality and are efficient. The underlying idea is that good products will sell (Boone & Kurtz, 2015).
Fourthly, the firm aims to improve the customer relations. Similarly, it seeks to realize more stable relations with its new clients, especially from the new markets.

Fifthly, to increase the share of sales and popularize Pepsi Next in the North American beverage market.

Sixthly, to trim recurrent costs for the daily running of Pepsi’s activities (Boone & Kurtz, 2015).
Lastly, the plan aims to increase the purview of usage of its products especially in the sports arena. For instance, Gatorade drink was mostly associated with youth level team sports involving males. These include basketball, football, hockey, and athletics. However, the plan seeks to expand the usage to women (Boone & Kurtz, 2015).

Analysis of the promotional program situation

The promotional situation is one that aims to tap into the popular media. Part of the strategy is to use popular personalities to influence the acceptance of the brand. The idea is to have these figures act as spokespersons for the brand. Ideally, this type of promotion is an extension of person marketing. Precisely, personal marketing involves efforts aimed at cultivating the interest, attention, and preferences of a target market towards an authority figure or celebrity. The celebrity endorsement will also include well-known entertainers such as Nicki Minaj and Eva Longoria. Moreover, it includes renowned authority figures and experts to promote the brand (Boone & Kurtz, 2015).
This promotional program is at a proper position of delivering consistently positive reputation of the brand. Given, proper coordination and shared vision, it will indeed increase the awareness of the brand.

Communications goals and objectives

Budget determination
Pepsi will allocate some funds for the realization of the above corporate and communication goals and objectives. The estimated total funding for the IMC is $500 - $600 million for a five-year period (Boone & Kurtz, 2015).

Overview of IMC promotional mix

The promotional mix aims to employ the TCOs concept in the development and the implementation of its strategy. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) refers to ‘the sum of purchase price and all the expenses incurred during the useful lifetime of a service or product less its resale or salvage price’ (Woodside et al., 2008).
Indeed, promotional mix involves various elements. Firstly, it involves personal and non-personal selling. The latter includes product placement, public relations, sales promotions, advertising, and direct marketing. Additionally, promotional mix can encompass guerilla marketing and organizational sponsorships (Boone & Kurtz, 2015).
The promotional mix uses five major tools for marketing the brand. Accordingly, with an exception of form utility, marketing provides the three other utilities. Namely, marketing creates time, ownership, and place utilities. Thus, the promotional mix presents a multi-pronged approach to commercialization (Boone & Kurtz, 2015).

Monitoring, evaluating and controlling the IMC process

The IMC plan has a structured and objective system of surveillance and evaluation. Ideally, this model will help in the regulation and control of the IMC process. There will be a special task force consisting of professionals who will conduct this segment. Social media gurus will assist in monitoring the traffic generated around PepsiCo products. Traffic trends will serve as a measure of the interactions that customers have with our products.
Additionally, the control team will set up Checks and balances that protect and promote the wellbeing of the customer. Any violations and ill-treatments from our marketers will face stern reprimand.
PepsiCo holds particular principles regarding its operations. These principles form its core values and influence its manner of operation. PepsiCo believes in human sustainability. As such, the brand aims at providing wholesome ingredients in its products. By the same vein, the brand upholds building of strong community partnerships, conducting responsible labeling and marketing (PEPSICO).
Additionally, the monitoring and evaluation team will assess the strengths and weaknesses of the process. The monitoring will take place at the end of the first year of implementation. Precisely, it will conduct a feasibility analysis of the performance of the process. The evaluating team is also responsible for monitoring the cash flows associated with this process.

Individual Promotional Mix tools

Advertising
Advertising segment is a crucial component of the promotional mix. It is somewhat directly and indirectly involved with the other four tools. Key in its goal is to ensure that the advertisements effectively appeal to the customers (Woodside et al., 2008). Boone and Kurtz identify various strategies of advertising. Comparative advertising uses messages extensively and compares competing brands. Celebrity advertising incorporates famous people and personalities as spokespersons to boost the advertisement message. Retail advertising is one in which the retailers or distributors of the product advertize it to their customers (Boone & Kurtz, 2015). The table below is a summary of the advertisement tool.

Internet marketing

Internet marketing is an increasingly emerging field in the marketing field. The advancements in information technology continue to expand the spectrum of options in internet marketing. Internet marketing forms part of the arm of advertising strategy called interactive approach. Ideally, the interactive approach involves a two-way communication via social media, kiosks and the internet (Boone & Kurtz, 2015). The following is a summary of the Internet marketing promotional tool.

Direct marketing

The plan will involve the selection of a special task force charged with the mandate of conducting one-on-one marketing. This force is called the G-force (Boone & Kurtz, 2015). The table below gives a basic summary of the direct marketing tool

Sales promotion

Sales promotion aims to boost the sales of the brand. Pepsi recently launched the social vending system. The vending system taps into the social media and wireless interconnectivity to make sales. Suppose one would like to send his friend a bottle of Pepsi, the vending machine facilitates that. The customer is simply required to enter the name and phone number of his friend, and he will receive it. Additionally, the user can include a short video clip or text message to accompany the drink. The recipient can redeem the drink from any vending machine operating within the PepsiCo social vending network (Boone & Kurtz, 2015).

The following table summarizes the sales promotion tool.

Public relations
Public relations play a crucial role in the sustainability of the brand. Therefore, particular focus is placed on the quality of public relations the PepsiCo has with its clients. Various strategies will be used to realize substantial public relations. The following table summarizes this segment

Conclusion

This Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) plan shows a unique structure for the promotion of the PepsiCo brand. The budgetary and logistical structure reflects a pragmatic approach, which has the potential to address the market concerns. Given a studious and consistent implementation of this strategy, impressive results can emerge. Worthy to note is that various departments need to synchronize their efforts to realize the benefits of this plan. For instance, the personnel managers should provide the relevant logistical support for the IMC program. In addition, the Finance department should adequately fund this project and provide timely monetary support. The communications department should explore technologically sound information and ideas for the practical implementation of the promotional mix. The sales section should harmonize its records to give a proper analysis of the sales made as well as the overall effectiveness of the plan.

References

Bachmeier, K. (2013). Analysis of marketing strategies used by PepsiCo based on Ansoff's theory. Los Angeles, LA: GRIN Verlag.
Boone, L. & Kurtz, D. (2015) Contemporary Marketing. Illinois, LA: Cengage Learning.
PepsiCo. (n.d). Retrieved Feb 16, 2015 from http://www.pepsico.com/
Woodside A. G., Golfetto F., & Gibber, M. (Eds) 2008. Creating and Managing Superior Customer Value. California, CA: Emerald Group Publishing.