VW – Skoda Fabia – Intergrated marketing communication

During the following essay we are going to be looking at the concept of integrated marketing communication (IMC) for the Skoda brand. Skoda prior to the year 2000 had a humorous and weak reputation among the UK market. With such jokes as "what do you call a Skoda with a sun roof? A skip"However this situation was far from a joke for Skoda, during 1991-1998 massive losses were made. However despite these factors Volkswagen turned their 30% stake acquired in 1991 to complete control of the company in 2001.

Skoda now lead by VW and coupled with a IMC plan have transformed their reputation and seen sales leap in the UK market with even the unthinkable......

they had a waiting list.This essay will discuss how VW used IMC for the Fabia car that changed Skoda's reputation.We will look at the way in which VW pieced together the common tools of IMC to achieve a marketing campaign that has not only increased sales and image but also been reckonised by media and business circles with several awards (Winner of Best Change of Direction award and John Bartle Award for Best New Agency)However we will also look at the negative side of IMC and discuss barriers to its implementation as well as some of the confusion surrounding its definition not only by marketers but also crucially by the companies themselves.Integrated Marketing Communications is fairly new on the marketing scene and was deemed to be brought in by Schultz, Tannenbaum and Lauterborn in 1993 (Schultz et,al 1993) amid the increasing commercial message clutter in the market.As we can see from the communication process (Adapted from Duncan, 2002, p127) below this is Illustrated by the noise factor. With more commercial message clutter it becomes increasingly harder for agencies and firms to get their desired message across to customers.

This is backed by Dan O'Donoghue(1997) who states that the average consumer in 1995 was subjected to 300 commercial messages in an average day with that now raising to around 3000 images today. With the increasing amount of communication channels available, global satellite delivery and the occurrence of e-commerce this is likely to increase ever moreIMC promotes the use of a variety of communication channels most notably personal selling, direct selling, advertising, sales promotion, public relations, points of purchase, packaging, word of mouth, internet and corporate identity (Smith, Berry, & Pulford 1998)With the variety of different communication IMC aims to integrate all these possible communications to allow consistency across all the communication channels and allow maximum impact of its message. As described by P.Smith (1996), in Admap:"Integrated Marketing Communication is a simple concept.

It brings together all forms of communication into a seamless solution"This allows extra innovation for the companies and agencies to hopefully allow their message to penetrate the noise and have their message received, decoded and understood.However a clearer definition of IMC must be used before continuing, that of American Association of advertising:"A concept of marketing communications planning that recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communications disciplines and combines them to provide clarity, consistency and maximum communications impact through the seamless integration of discrete messages" :(IMC,1998, T.Yeshin, Pg68):However it must be noted that there are many varying definitions of IMC from many marketers but the above IMC provides the clearest. Later we will look at the confusion caused by the diversity of definitions with IMC.

There is also much more to IMC than communication advertising other important marketing tools need to be integrated. Most come under the seven levels of IMC integration as suggested by A.Shanker 2001 are:o Vertical Objectives integrationo Horizontal functional integrationo Marketing Mix integrationo Communication Mix Integrationo Creative Design Integrationo Internal/External Organisation Integrationo Financial IntegrationThese factors are crucial in the overall integration of IMC and must be comprehensively planned and strategically considered for a successful implementation of IMC and we will shortly discuss how these coupled with Chris Fill's model of campaign integration (1995) have been tied together by Skoda to provide a complete change of direction for their companyAll this is a significant step away from the more departmental approach (H.Davidson), prior to IMC in the 60's to the 80'sH.Davidson Integrated ApproachThe Departmental approach Integrated ApproachSet Five year sale/profit targets Review future markets, needs, technologyDevelop individual supporting Establish vision, priorities, competences, neededstrategies and plans by department to win tomorrowCombine departmental plans Develop key strategies for value, innovationCompetences, attitudesFinancially driven Market Competence-drivenDepartment-based Cross-departmentalFrom the chart above we see that the integrated approach has shifted the thinking to every aspect of the business combining to deliver superior customer value at the smallest cost.

We can see that the company becomes cross-departmental and so therefore integrates both horizontally and vertically.With horizontal integration involving integration across the marketing mix and across business functions such as production, distribution and finance. Vertical integration however involves the important aspect of marketing and communication objectives fitting into the higher level of corporate objectives and missions.This as discussed in the implications to IMC section is extremely hard to achieve.We have seen a great shift in the thinking of marketing communication tools. For a long period of time marketing tools have been considered by firms as separate elements and implemented as such.

Usually a tool would be used without consideration of the affects on its others. IMC has shifted the thinking to merging the tools together to project a unified message. (IMC, T.Yeshin, 1998, pg10)Finally we must ask ourselves "what are the benefits?" Firstly we can see from above that IMC has shifted greatly away from the departmental approach. We this a showering of benefits has emerged to the benefit of companies who adopt it.Firstly companies are able to deliver a consistent message to its consumers.

The IMC approach implies that the company uses a holistic approach to the communications process. This helps avoid potential confusion in the mind of consumers about their message.It also brings about corporate cohesion and improved agency client relationship as it allows for greater interaction of each department and agency as they integrate together the toward the company goal, which stimulates the interaction, motivation and participation of the companies departments and staff.But it must be said that the key benefits to a company using IMC is the possible increased profits, improved efficiency and the ability to gain maximize possible effect in getting through the commercial clutter.