Integrated marketing communications & 4 examples for your brand
What are integrated marketing communications? Integrated marketing communications involves aligning marketing channels to promote products or services together, usually through a strategic campaign. Integrated marketing also works to align the core brand message that is conveyed through your marketing channels and assets.
Imagine you discover a new brand on Instagram and visit their website to buy one of their products. If their website promoted a different message or campaign than what you found on their Instagram account, you’d have a hard time getting the basics of the brand, right?
Integrated marketing exists to eliminate these disparities and differences regardless of how or when a customer interacts with your brand. It’s similar to multichannel marketing, except integrated marketing is what aligns the message being shared across all of those channels.
Speaking of channels, integrated marketing doesn’t just apply to digital marketing channels; traditional media channels are also included.
What are integrated marketing communications?
Integrated marketing is a strategy to send a single, consistent message across all communication channels your brand uses. Integrated marketing provides consistency in any channel where customers choose to interact with a brand. Without integrated marketing, a brand runs the risk of sending mixed messages, which can make the image projected to customers inconsistent.
How to design an integrated marketing plan?
Communication is considered to be most effective when messages are delivered without any interruption and have clarity. For example, a brand may promote a new logo, slogan or strategy across multiple media, such as print, television, web and social media. Each approach may be slightly different for the specific medium, but they will all direct audiences to the same message.
In this other article, you can learn about 4 essential steps to develop a comprehensive marketing plan for your brand.
Integrated Marketing Campaigns examples
As you build your integrated marketing campaign, there are some key strategies and best practices to keep in mind. To give you some inspiration, we share some examples of integrated marketing campaigns:
Snickers
Snickers is one of the most recognized chocolate bars on the market, and its “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” advertising campaign is a perfect example of integrated communications.
Launched at the 2010 Super Bowl, this Snickers campaign has remained in the minds of consumers around the world.
One reason for the campaign’s success is the humor, but the other, more pertinent reason is that Snickers stuck this campaign move everywhere…on its website, on social media, on TV, in print ads and in other media. By featuring an integrated marketing campaign, customers think of Snickers when they’re craving a snack, and the brand has benefited from it.
Apple
Few companies in the world have Apple’s level of brand recognition, and the company has consistently delivered a high level of brand integration regardless of where consumers find it.
Have you noticed that all of Apple’s stores offer an almost identical look and feel to its website?
Not many companies are able to do such a thorough job of integrating the physical location with the online presence, offering consumers an identifiable customer experience wherever it takes place.
Gillette
In 2019, Gillette launched its ‘The Best Men Can Be’ campaign. The campaign included inspirational videos, a landing page celebrating male symbols and community leaders, and a hashtag, #thebestmencanbe, to encourage user engagement across social channels.
The campaign, created in response to the #metoo movement, urged men to hold themselves to a higher level of standards. In the ad corresponding to the movement, viewers are shown real-life hypothetical cases of men stepping in to be themselves and bring about positive change in their community. To raise awareness of the campaign, the landing page highlights real-life stories of men advocating for the hashtag created by Gillette.
Although the campaign received some negative reactions from shareholders and consumers, it was worth it because it redefined the shaving brand as a relevant and value-oriented brand that it considers indispensable.
Melt Cosmetics
Melt Cosmetics used an integrated marketing campaign to launch its “She’s in Parties” eyeshadow palette. The brand used YouTube beauty influencers to share reviews on the platform, a social media campaign with a brand hashtag and a landing page on their website where they pulled user-generated content from Instagram posts using the hashtag.
La llegada del marketing digital se ha convertido casi en un sinónimo del término marketing integrado, ya que la mayoría de las formas de marketing digital son marketing integrado por naturaleza. Mantener la coherencia con una campaña integrada puede ayudar a que tu público objetivo se familiarice con tu marca. El marketing digital integrado facilita mucho esta tarea, ya que no sólo amplía el alcance, sino que permite consolidar fácilmente la marca en todas las plataformas.