Chapter 14: Integrated Marketing Communications

Did you know that a promotion informs, persuades, and reminds? It’s a plan for optimal use of the elements of promotion: advertising, public relations, personal selling, and sales promotion. Its main function is to convince target customers that their product being offered provides a competitive advantage over the competition. Advertising is also an important term to know because advertising is used every day, it’s any form of impersonal paid communication in which the sponsor or company is identified. These are all forms of transmit advertisements: television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, direct mail, billboards, and transit cards. Also make a note that even in public relations, even though an organization doesn’t have to pay directly for its publicity it should not be viewed as free.

I also learned in this chapter that some corporates have blogs. They are maintained by one or more of the company’s employees and they disseminate marketing-controlled information. A non-corporate blog is not associated with the marketing efforts and are nonmarketing controlled information and are perceived to be independent and more authentic than a corporate blog.