Marketing Promotion: How to write an integrated marketing communication case?

Many people look down on routines.

But for newbies, routines are really necessary!

I remember my first year in the advertising industry. I was assigned to write a proposal and it took me a week to finish it. However, the Ogilvy leader who was well versed in the routine completed it in one day. The difference in efficiency was huge. If you want a continuous and stable output solution, it is really necessary to master the routines proficiently.

Deeply influenced by Ogilvy's methodology, I have written many plans, read a large number of cases and various 4A plans. As a "marketing catcher", I have compiled a guide for writing an "Integrated Marketing Communication Case". I hope it can help others and myself improve planning efficiency. I'm leaving get off work early, so please ignore it.

The essence of a plan is persuasion. When writing an integrated marketing plan, one should follow a reasonable persuasion logic, namely 5w2h. It is mainly composed of 10 parts: briefing-insight-strategy-concept-creativity-media-scheduling-effect-budget-company, which are introduced one by one below.

01. Brief: The source of the solution

Whether you are on Party B or Party A, in order to arrange for planners to write a plan, a demand brief must be provided as a prerequisite. The first page of the plan is the "Briefing Interpretation", which mainly consists of three parts: background, goals and tasks. What is the current marketing background (point A), what is the marketing goal (point B), and what is the specific task (to achieve point A to point B). Generally speaking, as long as you follow these three points, you can complete the interpretation of the briefing better.

02. Insight and discover opportunities

Based on the briefing, we will start to conduct analytical insights. Generally, we only need to conduct insights into the company itself and consumers, but the entire integrated marketing communication case requires analytical insights in five dimensions: environment, industry, company, competitors, and consumers.

Environmental insight consists of two parts: macro environment pest and competitive environment swot. PEST refers to politics, economy, society, and technology; SWOT refers to strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Industry insights, also known as market insights, consist of three parts: market size and growth rate - how big the market size is expected to be, what is the expected growth rate, and what are the main growth drivers; competitor share and changes - who are the main competitors and what is their share, how will the competitive landscape change in the future, whether there are potential threats and what they are; market segmentation - what are the currently more successful business models and what are the development trends of different market segments.

The insights into the company itself and its competitors are similar, both analyzing the two dimensions of brand and marketing. Brand dimension analysis: mission, vision, values, identification, positioning, proposition, personality, style, story, public welfare, etc. 4Ps of marketing dimension analysis: Product - description of features, extraction of benefit points, extraction of support points; Price - price range, discount situation; Channel - which channels are covered and how they perform; Promotion - main appeal points, creative form, creative style, appeal object, publishing media, etc. Companies and competitors can be analyzed separately or put together for direct comparative analysis.

Consumer insight is the most important and the most difficult. Even experienced advertisers find it difficult to do it well. In a previous article, Catcher wrote about a five-dimensional insight structure: consumer portrait, consumer scenario, consumer resistance, consumer push, and consumer journey. Today we provide a 3-dimensional insight structure: demographics - age, gender, region, income, education, occupation, etc.; behavioral insights - brand/product selection and usage habits; psychological insights - representative psychology of the target population. The logic behind this is: first determine who the target users are, then describe the specific consumption behavior, and then explore the psychology behind it.

03. Strategy is essentially a choice 

After making insights in five dimensions, we should be able to draw many directions, such as from a competitive perspective - Guazi is the leader in used cars, from a product perspective - drink Wanglaoji if you are afraid of getting a sore throat, from a consumer perspective - OLAY is not afraid of age, functional communication, emotional communication, etc. Faced with so many directions, the essence of the strategy at this time is to make the best choice, including three elements - who to say it to, what to say, and how to say it, while pointing out the direction and inspiration for creativity.

“Strategy, in simple terms, is doing something completely different from what your opponent is doing, or doing the same thing in a different way.” - Mike Porter

04. Concept, the core demand point

Many people think that after the strategy is completed, the next step is creativity. In fact, there is also a "concept" in the middle. A word or a sentence that summarizes the core information (the demand point) to be conveyed is a concept. In the entire integrated marketing communication case, there must be a big concept, big idea, which refers to the communication theme (proposal/viewpoint), such as Tmall Double 11 theme - Wishes Come True on 11. Once this concept comes out, creativity is about to emerge.

05. Creative idea, interesting expression of concept

Creativity is not that simple! The previous parts can be deduced step by step, but creativity is the only thing that is difficult. Creativity is an interesting expression of concepts, and the ways of expression can be varied and bizarre. It relies more on the exhaustive method to see who has a bigger imagination, more knowledge, and faster linking speed. The specific execution tests the art and copywriting skills.

But it is not that there is no path to rely on. In the previous article, the Catcher listed the 4-phase 1 no creativity method and the extraordinary 5w creativity method. In addition, when thinking about creativity, I am used to reviewing various creative forms and styles that have been released:

Creative forms - WeChat soft articles, press releases, print, video, broadcast, H5, newspapers, buses, subways, buildings, outdoor big-name LEDs, interactive installation art, pop-up stores, IP co-branding, brand alliances, Moments ads, information flow ads, B station ghost videos, Xiaohongshu seeding, Weibo topics, Douyin challenge, forwarding koi, one-picture stream, program sponsorship, film and television drama implantation, video inserts, press conferences, live broadcasts, banners, vegetable markets, wall painting...

Creative style - humor, exaggeration, function, emotion, shock, sexiness, magic, story, novelty, contrast, magic turn, ghost, sand sculpture, repetition, intimidation, morality, rigor, high-end, down-to-earth, homophony, question-and-answer style, illustration, music, retro, time travel, mourning, Buddhism, earthy taste, dialect, personal experience, UGC, celebrity endorsement, TV and Internet linkage, charity...

In short, if you want to come up with good ideas, in addition to mastering the routines, you also need to accumulate more knowledge, have more experience, look at more cases, summarize more, and practice more.

06. Media, more than just attention

It stands to reason that creativity solves the consumer's mind and the media only needs to be responsible for the consumer's attention, but the reality is more than that.

Media writing first solves the problem of selection. Why choose these media instead of others? This is based on the distribution of consumer attention. Secondly, media writing must solve the gameplay. Different media such as WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, etc. have many gameplays. Only by formulating good gameplay can better dissemination be achieved. Finally, the combination order between media is also very important. A good media combination makes the dissemination effect better.

In addition, it should be noted that some parties only want to invest in their own media and let creativity drive self-propagation, which is not advisable. Media can be divided into three categories: owned media (corporate official website, official WeChat account, official Douyin, etc.), paid media (friend circle ads, information flow ads, search bidding ads, etc.) and earned media (content is good enough to win the media's active coverage). If you want to have a good communication effect, none of the categories can be missing!

07. Schedule, rhythmic communication is more effective

Schedule, also called roadmap, is mainly composed of five parts: timeline, communication stage, concept, creativity and media. It not only fully summarizes all communication information, but also clearly plans the communication time rhythm. Make communication most effective by warming up, detonating, and continuing the rhythmic communication.

08. Effect KPI, exceeding expectations

As mentioned before, the brief is mainly composed of background, goals, and tasks. Regarding the "goals", performance KPI commitments need to be made in this section: marketing target estimates - sales, downloads, etc.; communication target estimates - exposure, clicks, etc. The writing must exceed expectations in order to better convince customers.

09. Budget is more important than expected

Regarding the budget, Party A will generally give a rough range, and Party B will prepare a budget table based on it, which is mainly composed of five parts: small item costs, large item total costs, all added up costs, discounted costs and total costs after tax. It is relatively simple to write, but those who have experience in proposal submission will realize that the client may care more about the budget than the creativity, and there may be second or third quotations on site. Therefore, never underestimate budget formulation, it is far more important than expected!

10. Company, serving customers with strength

Now that the creative ideas, media, etc. have all been written, who will be responsible for their execution? The last part is the introduction of the service company, which mainly consists of three parts: introduction to the service company, display of past cases, and introduction to the service team. It will be more convincing if the service company's strength is fully demonstrated!

Finally emphasize

The essence of the plan is persuasion! I wish everyone has a routine and can get off work early!