Integrated Marketing Communications for ‘Lunchmunchies’

In this report it is the intention to give the best advice towards the launch and advertising of a healthy new children's food product called 'Lunchmunchies'.

Hopefully this information will help the company in their selection of an agency to look after the advertising. Lunchmunchies is a children's lunchbox product that is lower in fat, salt and added sugar than similar products in this market. Lunchmunchies is aimed at a main target market of children aged between 5 and 16 with particular emphasis on the segment between 5 and 11 year olds. Lunchmunchies could also have smaller target market for under 5's and health conscious and time poor adults. This report will contain four main areas that will be discussed.

1. The benefits and drawbacks of using alternative media for advertising this product.2. The creative advertising appeals/styles that may be appropriate for this product with a look at similar products that will be the main competitors of lunchmunchies.3.

A brief look at how the advertising budget could be allocated to different media over the first six months of the products life also taking into consideration the costs and allocation to the launch.4. And finally a look at the advantages and disadvantages of the other marketing communications tools that could be utilized in conjunction with the advertising.These are the main points that will be looked at in order to try and give a better perspective of what the company should be looking to do for their advertising.

Firstly the use of alternative media will be looked at to try and see if there is any particular media that may help give a competitive to lunchmunchies over similar products. Then the styles and appeals of the products advertising will be discussed in order to figure out the best approach to this particular target market and to may be help capitalise on the smaller target markets as well. There will also be a brief look at other competitive products advertising approaches to see how they have tried to gain market share. Then the allocation of money to the media will be taken into consideration so that the company has a rough idea of how they should budget to send their advertising fund. Then finally other marketing communication tools will be discussed so that the company can see how useful they may be in association with the advertising.Section 1The Benefits and drawbacks of using alternative media for advertising lunchmunchiesIn this section different types of media that could be used to promote and advertise lunchmunchies will be looked at including the main types which are considered to be broadcasting and print mainly.

Broadcasting covers television and radio, television will be the main media used for advertising as it reaches a wide market and can target specific audiences. Now with digital satellite and cable in nearly all house holds it makes it easier to target specific audiences through different stations, for this product, children's channels such as cartoon network and nickelodeon help to capture the exact demographic segment that this product is aimed at.There are a number of alternative media that could be used to advertise and promote lunchmunchies, in particular for this report the following have been selected to look at. Ambient which be the main focus of alternative advertising but it will also look at cinema advertising. Ambient is something that is a one off not like adverts on television or in the newspaper but things like a school tours or a major outdoor stunt, for example, FHM's stunt of projecting a picture of a television presenter onto the white cliffs of Dover.

This attracted major media attention for a one off cost and gave the magazine massive exposure throughout the country that would of cost 10 times the amount. With this product a stunt like that isn't exactly appropriate with it being more aimed to attract children rather than adult aiming for the news isn't the best approach.A promotional school tour would raise the profile with the kids creating awareness of the product. It would also capitalise on the current campaign to get the government introduce healthier eating in schools that has created a lot of commotion in the press and with parent.

Keeping in mine that even though the product will be advertised towards children it will be their parents that will be buying the produce for them. The benefits of a school tour will mainly be the level of awareness that is created by having the kids have full interaction with the produce, i.e. the brand, free samples and giveaways, such as t-shits and key rings. It will also create awareness with the buyer of the produce, the parents.

The synergy with PR is also a bonus, being able to piggy back on the recent news created by the healthy eating trend that is sweeping the country because of this campaign. It also avoids problems found in more common advertising media such as clogging. Clogging is common in print advertising and television advertising it is when an advert can be lost amongst other adverts because the consumer is exposed to too many adverts.However ambient advertising does have its drawbacks there is a lack of guarantee to how effective it is, television may be used by many but it is tried and tested and can reach any target market easily. With ambient advertising it also has its difficulties in targeting the right people and is hard to research accurately. Even though the school tour would target the kids the buyer i.

e. the parent might now gain the awareness due to the fact its up to the children to tell them about it. The tour also could cause legal complications with it being allowed into the schools. The product could possible draw unwanted attention from the government as well and this could end up with negative press if parents are apposed to the advertising in the school.Cinema advertising is another alternative to more common advertising, it has a captive audience that has nothing else to do but watch it which will allow full impact. Also with cinema advertising it is cheaper than television so for the amount of money it would cost to produce a 30 second ad and run it on prime time television, the company could create an ad that is much long and run it in cinemas before every showing of a particular film (most likely a kids film due to the target market) for weeks.

This allows the company to also associate the product to the film and could lead to cross promoting between the film and the product. Choosing the film would also be quite easy as the launch of the product is in late summer it would catch a large amount of the major film releases for the year.The downside is that the consumers may forget about the product after sitting watching a film for a good one and a half to two hours, remembering that it is kids that the advertising would be targeting they may not have the attention span to remember after the film, especially if they enjoy the film. There is also the fear that if they don't enjoy the film they could link that with the product creating a negative image and making it instantly unpopular.Section 2The creative advertising appeals/styles for lunchmunchies with a look at similar productsAdvertising appeals can be split into emotional and rational appeals, these appeals develop into other appeals including information, comparative, reinforcement, motivational and psychological and imitation. Lunchmunchies is ideally a product that would use emotional appeal seeing as the main target is children and it would be the easiest approach to make the product popular with them.

However it also has to be considered that it will be the parents who buy the product mainly not the kids, with this in mind the products nutritional value is a key factor so a rational appeal such as information is essential in its advertising. Whereas from an emotional appeal stance for the children to want the product things such as humour must be added into the mix in order to get them interested in the product.In adverts for similar products they use both emotional and rational appeals similar to what has been previously mentioned with the added appeal for kids of a brand character. For example dairylea lunchables is a product that is aimed at the same market as lunchmunchies and is a very similar product.

Their advertising rotates round the children wanting the dairylea lunchables and this is what attracts the buyers i.e. the parents. It creates the image that this is what their children want so they buy them it, coupling that with the added bonus of getting calcium into their diet the parents believe that is product is the best thing for their children's lunch. Dairylea has also recently introduced a new brand charater(s) into their advertising with the introduction of the dairylea cows who are "on a mission, to give mums delicious dairylea for their kids." These characters are appealing to the kids and give the message to the mums (buyers) at the same time without making the kid feel like the advert is for their mums.

It is seen that kids ages 8 to 12 years old start"The development of the left side of the brain (analytical skills), together with social maturation, enables kids to appreciate the more complicated, sophisticated, edgier characters..."David Lawrence (2003)So it is important that lunchmunchies take this into consideration when they design their advertisement, if they do decide to use a brand character then they need to go for a more edger character that would appeal to a wider range of kids. It also helps the product maintain its staying power as the character will be suitable for kids going into their teens and that can carry though up to the top target age of 16.

As for the more adult market late night adverts could be run along the same lines as the recent kellogg's adverts aimed at students for late night snacks. The adverts could go for a rational approach with information about it having less fat, salt and sugar then other products. It could be the 'a healthier quicker option to fast food'