How to write an integrated marketing communication case?

Last year, I wrote an article titled "How to Write an Integrated Marketing Communication Plan?" Fortunately, it was included and recommended by industry websites such as Qinggua Media, Shuying.com, Meihua.com, and Mad Men, and was selected as the second article in the "Must-Read! Top 30 Annual Practical Articles on the Adgate APP", with over 100,000 views. However, it now seems that there were some problems with what was written at that time, so let’s iterate to 2.0 today.

What is Integrated Marketing Communications?

Don Schultz defined Integrated Marketing Communications in his book: Integrated Marketing Communications is the process of unifying all communication activities related to a company's marketing, including advertising, promotion, public relations, direct sales, CI design, packaging, news media coverage and other communication activities.

Personal understanding: Integrated marketing communication is to carry out integrated communication activities around a core "theme" by adopting various marketing methods such as advertising and public relations.

For example, Tmall Double 11, one of the largest marketing events in China every year, first proposes a core theme, and then adopts a variety of marketing methods around the theme for integrated communication. From "Happy Double 11 to you" in 2017, to "The fun has just begun" in 2018, to "Wishes come true on 11" in 2019, to "Let's support you and live a happy life together" in 2020, every year is like this, every year we can come up with new ideas, and every year the results are obvious for all to see.

How to write an integrated marketing communication case?

Writing a plan is not the goal, solving the problem is! The essence of a plan is to solve problems, and the premise of solving problems is to clearly define the problems first. Therefore, the process of the entire integrated marketing communication case is: define the problem; solve the problem.

Specifically, the logic of the entire integrated marketing communication case is: 5W2H, why to say, who to say, what to say, how to say, where to say, when to say, and how much to say.

To be more specific, the structure of the entire integrated marketing communication case is mainly composed of two items and eight parts: defining the problem (briefing interpretation); solving the problem (research and analysis, strategy formulation, concept theme, creative expression, media use, time scheduling, and budget allocation).

01. Briefing Interpretation

The definition of the problem should be completed by Party A in written form as a tender task book (requirements document). Party B needs to first conduct a brief interpretation (demand understanding) based on the tender task book provided by Party A, and it is best to communicate and confirm with Party A before starting to write the plan.

Due to the different needs of Party A, the interpretation of the briefing is also different. There are two common situations: the first is that Party A introduces a lot of background and needs Party B to help find the problem first, set goals, and then provide solutions; the second is that Party A does not have any problems, but only introduces the background, gives marketing goals, and specific tasks, and needs Party B to provide solutions to achieve the goals. Taking the second type as an example, the following is an example of the briefing interpretation:

Marketing Background:

Where is the company now (Point A)? Background status. For example, brand life cycle - start-up brand, growth brand, mature brand, strong brand, declining brand; product life cycle - R&D period, introduction period, growth period, maturity period, decline period; customer life cycle - potential period, introduction period, growth period, maturity period, decline period...

Marketing objectives:

Where does the enterprise want to go (Point B)? Integration of product and effect. Such as popularity; reputation; sales; market value; market share; attracting new customers; retaining customers; promoting activation; conversion; sharing...

Marketing tasks:

What should the company do (Point A→Point B)? Specific tasks. Such as selling to more incremental users, getting existing users to buy more, 618, Double 11, Super Product Day, Category Day, Gathering Day, digital marketing, social marketing, entertainment marketing, sports marketing, festival marketing, hot marketing, posters, videos, H5, live broadcast, interaction, advertising, public relations...

Special reminder:

The briefing interpretation here is a simplified version, referring only to the first page or the first three pages of the plan text, and is used to define the problem (demand understanding). The detailed briefing interpretation generally includes "communication challenges, target audiences, customer insights, communication demands, communication tasks, communication tone, assessment indicators, time nodes, etc."

02. Research and Analysis

After defining the problem clearly, the next step is to solve it. The first step to solve the problem is research and analysis. The research and analysis mainly consists of four parts: market analysis (industry analysis), competitor analysis, company analysis and consumer insights.

Market analysis (industry analysis):

It mainly consists of two parts: market size and growth trend (how big the cake is); market share and major companies (how to divide the cake).

Competitor Analysis:

The most classic analysis framework is Porter's Five Forces Competition Analysis proposed by strategic guru Michael Porter: "bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes, and degree of competition from peers." However, the competitor analysis of the entire integrated marketing communication case can have the following seven dimensions: "brand, product, price, channel, promotion, media, and service."

Brand analysis - mission, vision, values, founder, team, positioning, proposition, personality, story, charity, IP, etc.; product analysis - function, raw materials, origin, quality, appearance, packaging, etc.; price analysis - price positioning, price range, promotion, etc.; channel analysis - channel coverage, direct sales, franchising, agency, profit chain distribution, etc.; promotion analysis - communication strategy, communication theme, communication creativity, communication media, etc. Media analysis - media coverage, self-media, paid media, earned media, etc.; service analysis - pre-sales, sales, after-sales, etc.

Company's own analysis:

Just like the competitor analysis, we analyze the seven dimensions of "brand, product, price, channel, promotion, media, and service", which will not be repeated here.

Consumer Insights:

Among all analyses, consumer insight is the most important and the most difficult. Here, I share five consumer insight structures. You can choose and combine them according to your actual situation.

The first one is the structure that Catcher has detailed in the article “Consumer Insights, What to Insight into?”: “Who are consumers (crowd portraits); consumer needs (strongly correlated needs, weakly correlated needs); consumer scenarios (strongly correlated scenarios, weakly correlated scenarios)”; the second one is “demographics; psychological descriptions; brand/product usage behaviors”; the third one is “demographic attributes; lifestyle preferences; consumption habits; relationship circles”; the fourth one is “Who are consumers (crowd portraits); insights into living people (lifestyles); consumer insights (consumer behaviors)”; the fifth one is “consumer portraits; consumer pain points; consumer pleasure points; consumer scenarios; consumer journeys (attention, interest, search, purchase, sharing)”.

Research Methodology:

The above is just an analysis framework. There are many specific research methods, such as desktop research (company official website, industry reports, e-commerce reviews, etc.), big data (Baidu Index, Business Advisor, etc.), quantitative analysis (questionnaires), qualitative analysis (in-depth interviews), entering the role of consumers, observing consumers, asking consumers, interviews with senior executives, interviews with company employees, interviews with industry experts, store visits, field surveys, focus groups, brainstorming, Toyota's five questions, intuition meetings, workshops, etc.

Special reminder:

Specific problems require specific analysis. Research and analysis is a very complex process. "Market analysis, competitor analysis, company analysis, and consumer insights" is a classic analysis framework. In addition, there is PEST analysis (political, economic, social, and technological), SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), cultural analysis, node analysis, competition analysis (company vs. opponent), people, goods, and place analysis, etc. These need to be selected, increased, decreased, and modified according to actual conditions. The analysis content of each specific part is also different. Do not apply them mechanically, but use them flexibly.

03. Strategy formulation

What is the strategy?

Everyone has a different understanding. In the field of marketing, strategies mainly include market strategy, brand strategy, supply chain strategy, product strategy, service strategy, packaging strategy, price strategy, channel strategy, media strategy and promotion strategy. Here we mainly discuss promotion strategy, which is what we often call communication strategy.

What exactly is a communication strategy?

Catcher believes that there are three main types: First, Michael Porter tells us that "strategy, simply put, is to do something completely different from your opponent, or to do the same thing in a different way", so "strategy is a choice", such as choosing the perspective of corporate interests, differentiated competition, consumer insights, etc.; Second, strategy is about strategy, that is, "strategy is an overall plan", which requires specifying who to say it to, what to say, how to say it, where to say it and when to say it. The specific form is the message house; Third, the core work of communication is "content production + customer contact point management", usually "creativity + media", so the strategy can be divided into two parts: "creative strategy + media strategy".

In addition to the above three situations, you can often see advertising strategies, public relations strategies, promotion strategies, digital marketing strategies, social marketing strategies, etc. Everyone can make their own judgment and use it flexibly according to the actual situation.

04. Concept theme

The most critical step from strategy to creativity is “concept”. What exactly is the concept? Those who have just entered the industry don’t understand it, and those who have been working in advertising for many years can’t explain it clearly. The catcher believes that concepts can be divided into two steps: the first step is to propose a "new concept", which is to use one sentence to "popularly summarize" the core information to be conveyed; the second step is to summarize a "big concept", which is to use one sentence to "highly sublimate" the core information to be conveyed, that is, the "theme", which is the big idea, slogan, proposition, attitude, spirit, values, interest points, slogans, viewpoints, etc.

Here are three conceptual examples:

Wanglaoji, the new concept is "prevent getting angry", the big concept is "if you are afraid of getting angry, drink Wanglaoji";

Zhihu, the new concept "There are not only questions on Zhihu, but also answers", the big concept "If there is a question, there will be an answer";

Tmall, the new concept is “Tmall helps people realize their aspirations for a better life”, and the big concept is “Ideal life, go to Tmall”.

05. Creative expression

The Catcher has shared many creative methods in previous tweets. Here I share a universal formula for generating creative ideas that I discovered through collecting, classifying and summarizing a large number of cases. In the process of coming up with creative ideas, we are actually trying to build a connection between the brand and everything in the universe. The universe here can be people, things, rhetoric, time and space, the stars and the sea, consumer demand... and it is "words" that express everything in the universe, so the universal formula is "brand x word". All you need is a modern Chinese dictionary to come up with a ton of creative ideas.

For example: brand x interest point, self-transformation, physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, respect needs, self-realization needs, scenarios, difficulties, problems, celebrities, famous quotes, famous paintings, stories, intangible cultural heritage, new knowledge, brand co-branding, brand linkage, media, movies, fashion trends, stories, animation, TV series, sports, universe, poetry, travel, technology, charity, voting, testimony, comparison, interaction, puzzle, fission, nostalgia, competition, game, picture in picture, tribute, catwalk, economics, news, almanac & calendar, metaphor, personification & anthropomorphism, dream, example & analogy, homophonic pun & pun, theme store & pop-up store, experiment & demonstration, reversal, abnormal, one shot, dialect, first criticize and then dissent, dream, wish, testimony...

After knowing the creative formula of "brand x word", it is not difficult to come up with creative ideas. The real difficulty lies in executing the creativity. This requires accumulating more creative cases and practicing more creativity based on each word, so that you can truly master creativity. Here are 4 creative examples:

NIKE, brand x difficulty

JBL, brand x exaggeration

Nestle, brand x comparison

IKEA, Brand x Abnormal

06. Media Use

In an era of information overload and scarce attention, even the best wine needs to be promoted if it is not well known. No matter how great the idea is, it still needs media dissemination. Tmall Double 11, Bilibili Houlang, UnionPay Poetry POS machine, whichever idea is not great, none of them can be separated from the help of media dissemination.

Media is attention, but media is more than attention:

First, you need to choose the right media, such as WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, Kuaishou, Bilibili, Xiaohongshu, Zhihu, Baidu, Focus Media, etc.; secondly, you need to make good use of the media’s gameplay, such as hot searches, topics, information flow, kol, UP master, challenge competition, live broadcast, opening screen, etc.; then, you need to make a good media combination, reach consumers in a rhythmic manner, and make the communication more effective.

What is better media communication?

Owned media, paid media, and earned media. Own media, such as corporate official websites, official self-media, product packaging, sales channels, etc.; paid media, such as WeChat Moments, Weibo hot searches, Douyin information flow, Baidu bidding ads, Taobao through trains, etc., win the media, the creativity is good enough, win the media's active coverage, and let tap water users actively share.

Special reminder:

When writing the proposal, this part of the media usage section can be written separately, or it can be written together with the creative part based on the actual situation. Do not be trapped by the framework. ·

07. Schedule

With creativity and media, you also need to follow the rhythmic communication of "warm-up, detonation, and continuation" to make the communication more effective.

The specific form of this part of the content is the "communication road map", which is mainly composed of "timeline, communication stage, concept, creativity and media".

The road map not only shows the dissemination time, but also reviews the overall picture of the plan, which is more helpful for the proposal to convince the leadership.

08. Budget allocation

The last part of the plan, the budget, is more important than expected. The client may care more about the cost than the creativity.

A budget table can be made up of "projects, details, expenses, discounted expenses, total expenses, and total expenses after tax."

It should be noted that the budget table will be formulated differently depending on the needs of Party A. Some of them do not need to be reflected in the plan and can be formulated according to the situation.

To summarize:

The entire integrated marketing communication case is mainly composed of two items and eight parts: defining the problem (briefing interpretation); solving the problem (research and analysis, strategy formulation, concept theme, creative expression, media use, time scheduling, and budget allocation).

The entire integrated marketing communication case looks difficult, but it is actually simple. Just think of a theme, write a few dozen pages at the beginning and a few dozen pages at the end, and you can complete it.

The above are some of my personal views on the entire integrated marketing communication case. Please use them flexibly and do not apply them mechanically. Welcome to discuss. Finally, I wish you all to have a routine and get off work early!

Author: Marketing Catcher

Source: Marketing Catcher