Introduction

Task 1. Understand below-the- line techniques and how they are used in the
integrated promotional strategy for MMM’s new product

1.1 Explain primary techniques of below-the-line promotion and how they are used in
an integrated promotional strategy for a business or product
Below-the-line promotion:
By using below-the-line promotion techniques the firm can keep control over its
promotional efforts and does not have to pay intermediaries and external agencies. As a
result, below-the-line promotion is relatively cheap compared to above-the-line promotion.

Below-the-line promotions target individuals based on their needs or preferences and can
lead directly to sales. The results can be easily measured providing valuable data to estimate
return-on-investment. Characteristic of below-the-line technique are listed below:

 Sales promotion:
o Sales promotions are temporary methods to improve sales by
attracting new customers and encouraging existing customers to
purchase more. Although offers may be short-term, there is a belief
that trial of the firm's product will to create brand loyalty. [ CITATION
San16 \l 2057 ]
 Direct marketing:
o Whenever you buy a product, your information may be collected
somewhere in the process, especially if the purchase is online. Firms
like to collect as much information about you as they can, because
this information can be even more valuable than the purchase itself
and you may not always notice the small print about sharing your
details with 'trusted partners', meaning that you are likely to be
targeted by a range of additional organisations in the future.
[ CITATION San16 \l 2057 ]
 o Firms use loyalty cards to gather data about your purchasing
behaviour, which they can use to target you with additional offers or
sell that information to other businesses. Even governments sell
information gathered about you using information from the census,
student cards or passport and driving licence applications. [ CITATION
San16 \l 2057 ]
o Direct marketers target customers without using traditional formal
channels of advertising, such as TV, newspapers or radio. Firms
communicate straight to with consumers with advertising techniques
such as fliers, catalogues and promotional literature. If an
advertisement asks the customer to respond in some way, such as
calling a free phone number or visiting a website, this is called direct
response advertising. [ CITATION San16 \l 2057 ]
 Public relation:
o Most organisations handle the outflow of information with great care.
The main goal of a public relations department is to enhance the
firm's reputation. Publicity is far more cost-effective than advertising,
because unlike advertising, where the firm pays for the message,
public relations messages are not paid for. [ CITATION San16 \l 2057 ]
o Markets are extremely competitive so firms need something to make
them more appealing and interesting to both the public and the
media. Firms are becoming more imaginative in their promotional
techniques. Increasingly PR departments are using social networking
sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, to support their campaigns.
These social media sites allow the firm to engage in two-way
communication, and receive immediate feedback from their various
stakeholders. [ CITATION San16 \l 2057 ]
 Sponsorship:
o Companies are keen to get their brand name associated with
celebrities and major events, believing that the excitement and
vitality of the event and the celebrity will become associated with the
brand. [ CITATION San16 \l 2057 ]

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 o Sponsorship is where an organisation pays to be associated with a
particular event, cause or image. It is most in evidence in the sports'
arena, where no major event is without at least one significant
sponsor. The hope is that the celebrity endorsement will encourage
fans to equate the image of the athlete with their products and
services Therefore, firms look for positive qualities such as an
athlete's global popularity and recognition, credibility, fitness, physical
attractiveness, trustworthiness, expertise and personal strengths.
[ CITATION San16 \l 2057 ]
 Packaging:
o Some marketing academics believe that packaging should be a
separate P in the marketing mix because of its importance in the
promotion of a product and the time and cost entailed. Packaging has
many functions; it can be used to: [ CITATION San16 \l 2057 ]
 highlight both the logo and brand name
 protect and preserve the product during transportation and on
the shelf
 help carry the product
 facilitate quick recognition of the product
 provides information on ingredients, nutrition, weight and
function
 add-value through attractive packaging which acts as a gift
wrapping
 Merchandising:
o Merchandising can be defined as the range of sales promotions
activities intended to ensure that product are easily available to
ensure that product are easily available, and prominently and
attractively displayed at point of sale. It is also used to describe the
activity of making promotional products available, such as those
associated with new film releases.

Next is the application of below-the-line technique in the MMM’s case:

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 1. Sales promotion

Sales promotion helps MMM to introduce their new fresh whole potatoes instant
noodle product to customers and to motivate their prospective consumers to try their new
products. Sales promotion also helps to achieve a switch in buying behaviour from
competitor brands such as from Acecook and VIFON to MMM in a short period of time but
temporarily. Although offers may be short-term, there is a belief that trial of the MMM’s
product will lead to create brand loyalty when customers love the taste and the quality of
MMM’s new instant noodle. Sales promotion helps MMM to raise the demand of customer
immediately amongst instant noodle already exist in the market when customer don’t know
about MMM’s new fresh whole potatoes instant noodle product. Sales promotion can
increase display space allocated to MMM brand in store by attracting people with curiosity
about new and attractive design of the store, the stove or maybe can be the trial of the new
instant noodle. Sales promotion is very attractive in Vietnam because 85% of Vietnamese
consumers choose promotional products at least once a year when shopping fast moving
consumer goods (FMCG), according to market research firm Kantar Worldpanel
Vietnam[ CITATION Min13 \l 2057 ]. As a result, the sales price tag are always more attractive
than none sales promotion one, almost all instant noodle brand from internal one are
Acecook, VIFON, Masan to foreign one such as Ottogi, Vinaly,… use this promotion
technique.

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Figure 1 Instant noodle sales at super market

Besides having many advantages, sales promotion can be very dangerous when MMM
abuse it. Over-using of sales promotions can lead to the drop price and losing of perceived
value in customer’s mind, they will always waiting for the promotion of MMM fresh whole
potatoes instant noodle than buying with the original price because they have the think that
MMM will carry out promotion for this product within a short time. So that it can lead to the
non-favourable attitude of customers toward the new product of MMM.

Sales promotion should be use with a careful marketing plan to know how and when
to discount, what should be use for a gift included in the instant noodle product. Sales
promotion should be carried out to achieving short-term objective of MMM such as to
encourage people to try new fresh whole potatoes instant noodle and for luring customer
from other instant noodle brand. For measuring the effectiveness of sales promotions, there
are many ways to detect. After doing sales promotion, MMM can evaluate the effectiveness
of sales promotion through the impact on profit because in many cases, sales promotion can
lead to the decrease of profit. In order to accuracy measure the effectiveness of sales
promotions, MMM can based on the sales volume of their fresh whole potatoes instant
noodle product sales volume but before doing that they have to know their sales prior the
promotion.

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 2. Public relations:

Public relation is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill
and mutual understanding between MMM and their publics. Public relation helps MMM to
manage their relationship with their public and it can help MMM to develop and maintain
their corporate image. Through public relation, MMM can makes their advertising messages
more credible through indirectly hiring an intermediary to talk positively about their product
most in an objectively manner. For instance, MMM should buy an article on a journal to
indirectly talking about the good side of MMM’s fresh whole potatoes instant noodle such
as writing about the benefit of eating fresh whole potatoes instant noodle can be easy quick
and low-fat dishes for a meal. The article should be on Vnexpress because it is one of the
most reliable and most viewed e-newspaper in Vietnam. Advertising on Vnexpress
contribute to the reliability and the spread of the PR article. As a result, public relation is a
cost-effective way to reach the customer because writing a public relations article is much
cheaper than doing an advertisement. In the other hand, public relation can have bad effect
when MMM use it without thorough preparation and the article do not making connection
between MMM and the receiver but to other sources. As a result, at each public relation
event or article, MMM should give out their identity for customer to follow.

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Figure 2 Acecook instant noodle brand's PR article on VnExpress

MMM can use public relation to coordinate with department that are related to their
main customers such as to coordinate with school administrators or teachers to propagate
about the benefit of their fresh whole potatoes instant noodle such as it is low-carb instant
noodle because it is made from fresh potatoes rather than others instant noodle are made
from flour. For the people with average income and are older, MMM should coordinate with
Government or with Department of Food Hygiene and Safety to earn the certification of
food safety of their product. For measuring the effectiveness of public relation, MMM can
measure the amount of traffic their website receives before and after launching their public
relation campaign. Moreover, MMM can doing market survey before and after PR campaign
to see whether markets have heard of their brand and new products more or not

3. Sponsorship

Sponsorship helps MMM to create brand awareness and the image of product. Among
other benefits are that sponsorship can improve the impact and memorability of the
marketing message, enhance the relevance of the brand to the target market, generate the
desire to purchase from MMM to "reward" the sponsor and heighten the loyalty of those
working for and with MMM. The advantage of using sponsorship is that if MMM is tying up

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with individual, event, or organization that has a strong reputation can enhance their
company’s reputation simply by association especially by sponsoring the touching events
and shows such as awarded to students who overcome poverty or can be Tao Quan TV
show. But sponsoring to these special events and shows can have no effect on the MMM
brand because if there are too many of sponsor to that program, audiences and customers
can be overload and don’t ensure about the sponsor stands out. Some competitors can play
unfairly by attempting to deflect MMM’s image by using many of their subsidiary company
brand jointly sponsoring to the program that MMM is doing. It is very simple and direct way
to measure the effect of event sponsorship is to run a promotion directly linked to MMM’s
participation in the event. If MMM have the opportunity to staff a table at the event and
meet customers, provide coupons, they can trace directly to the event, using a tag such as
printing them in a specific colour like a brown which specify for their new potatoes instant
noodle product. The response rate to these promotions will provide valuable indicators
regarding the effectiveness of their event sponsorship.

Figure 3 Acecook instant noodle brand sponsorship

4. Direct marketing

Direct marketing is a channel-agnostic form of advertising that allows MMM to

communicate directly to the customer, with methods such as mobile messaging, email,
interactive consumer websites, online display ads, fliers, catalogue distribution, promotional
letters, and outdoor advertising. Through direct marketing, MMM can generate a specific

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response from targeted groups of customers and create round ways of transferring of
messages. Direct marketing also helps MMM to increase sale to existing customers, building
customers loyalty and re-establishing lapsed customer relationship. MMM can give the
sample of their fresh whole potatoes instant noodle product for customer to try and can
immediately get their response to change and improve it if it’s necessary. MMM through
direct marketing can build the customer loyalty through interactivity and customer care
services. With interaction in direct marketing, MMM can receive information about their
customer and then store it to provide that database for other marketing purposes. The
effectiveness is measured by cost per order scale which is that MMM should consider
number of investment in marketing to get an order or purchase from customers. The
smaller the number is, the more effective their marketing campaign is.

5. Packaging

Packaging is to protect the product while in transit and since the product is for sale in
final form to the ultimate customers, it also to make the particular brand recognisable and
appealing to buyers. MMM can use packaging in normal sales promotion, in the special or
non-routine events when they need a boost for their release of fresh whole potatoes instant
noodle products. Packaging play a communication tool to express MMM’s brand values with
their customers and showing the strong visual impact such as Omachi uses red colour for
their spaghetti tomatoes . For MMM’s new instant noodle product, they can use brown
colour which stand for the ingredient of the noodle is made from brown fresh potatoes. In
Vietnamese instant noodle market, the brown colour for packaging never been used so that
that colour can differentiate MMM’s new product from others and the weight should range
from 80 to 100 gram for each pack because it is the most appropriate number for a
Vietnamese diet. Furthermore bonus size pack or money off pack are simple promotion
technique that MMM should use to attract customer attention when product is on the shelf
of store or supermarket. Disadvantage of this technique are while packaging can do a lot to
get customer attention, and may even add value to a product, it also adds to the cost of
production and the eventual retail price. Packaging can have impact to company image if
they use wrong design for their product like not suitable with culture or seasonal.

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 6. Merchandising

Merchandising is used to describe the activity of making promotional products available,

such as intention to ensure that MMM’s product are easily available, and prominently and
attractively displayed at point of sale. Merchandising is also the way that MMM
transporting, arranging, displaying their product in stores.

 In the integrated promotional strategy for MMM’s new fresh whole potatoes instant noodle
product, the author propose personal selling techniques that should be used to integrate
with these below-the-line technique. Firstly, the packaging of MMM’s fresh whole potatoes
instant noodle products should be designed perfectly that are weight between 80-100 gram,
which is very suitable for a person each meal. The colour should be brown which represent
for the main ingredient which is potatoes. The type of packaging should include two types:
packs and plastic cups form for customer can pour hot water in and eat it immediately.
Secondly, MMM should sponsor many TV program or can be reality TV show that are
broadcast on TV. The most appropriate reality TV show that MMM should sponsor is
Amazing race Vietnam in which participant are racing with competitors that energy and time
is very valuable. Taking advantage of that, MMM can use their fresh whole potatoes instant
noodle as a nutritious and time-saving meal for participant to win the race. In each of their

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meal, the package of instant noodle should be displayed clearly with the sense of enjoyment
of participant when eating noodle. Then MMM should use sales promotion combine with
personal selling in market and super market with banner and fresh whole potatoes instant
noodle for free tasting. Sales person will get information for direct marketing department to
contact with these customer to invite them and giving them information about promotion.
All these activities are closely related to each other because each tools helping others to
attract customers.

1.2 Evaluate other techniques used in below-the-line promotion

Role and Use
Corporate Role: Corporate communication is the voice of an organization. On behalf
communicati of management board, corporate communication speaks internally, to
ons employees, as well as externally, to suppliers, vendors, media, investors
and other stakeholders.
Use: It speaks when things are going well in MMM and when there is a
crisis. As with all good and effective communication, it must be clear,
consistent and controlled. There are many varying aspects of corporate
communications, and they can all affect or contribute to MMM’s
reputation. Corporate communication serves as the conscience of MMM
and is responsible for the MMM’s reputation.
Evaluate: MMM can use this technique because it is only the technique
that
Image and Role: Corporate image is what an audience believes MMM to be as a
identity result of their understanding of the cues. The company's image also
shows the company's reputation. So that it will attract more consumers to
the products of the company. Image corporation makes distinctive and
effective brand communication
Use: Corporate identity is the manner which MMM presents themselves
to the public, such as customers and investors as well as employees. It is a
primary task of the MMM’s communications department to maintain and
build this identity to accord with and facilitate business objectives. It is
typically visually manifested by way of branding and the use of
trademarks but also includes things like product design, advertising,

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 public relations and the like. Many company such as Acecook, Masan has
built close relationship with public. Acecook corporate identity has been
confirmed through shared activities, ongoing support, meaning the
community (counseling program season, Student 2012 Green Summer,
funding scholarships for poor children, New Year baby poor me ...).
Besides, there Acecook Vina jointly bring relief shipments, generosity to
the people are suffering due to disaster scenes meal break, flooding ...
[ CITATION Vân16 \l 2057 ]
Exhibitions Role: Exhibitions serve to develop and the cultivate customer relations,
search for partners and personnel, and to position the company as a
whole. Trade fairs are test markets for new products and hence also
function as market research instruments. Exhibitions also serve to
increase public awareness of MMM’s company, to analyse the market
situation and to prepare the ground for selling products and services. For
new companies and new brand such as MMM’s new product brand in
particular it is important to gain an overview of competitors, their
performance and their products.
Use: Exhibition organized so that MMM with their instant noodle can
showcase and demonstrate their fresh whole potatoes instant noodle
product, meet with instant noodle partners and customers, study
activities of rivals, and examine recent market trends and opportunities.
Through the exhibition, MMM can enhance their corporate image and
extend relationships with instant noodle partners. In exhibition and
tradeshows, customer can directly try and taste fresh whole potatoes
instant noodle product and also can communicate with sales person to
know deeply about the product.
Virtual selling Virtual selling referring to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social
networking services and other technologies to try to produce increases in brand
awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales)
through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses or
computer viruses (cf. Internet memes and memetics). It can be delivered by
word of mouth or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet and mobile
networks.

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Personal Role: The sales representatives and the managers can help in determining
selling the price of a product in a number of ways. They can make use of
competitive pricing strategies to gauge the market reaction to different
price levels. They can also advise the senior management on certain
pricing decisions. The sales managers had limited information towards
product development decisions. However with the introduction of the
marketing concept, their roles increased as they now played a crucial role
towards product development. During this phase, they undertook
activities like product testing and test marketing.
Use: Personal selling is a process in which an individual salesperson works
one-on-one with a customer to try to match a product to her needs.
MMM should use these core staff to bring the examples of their diet
instant noodles in supermarket to persuade and explain their products for
customers. These salesperson should know all about the new product
such as how it tastes, what is the benefit when using it, the ingredient of
it. The more they know about it the more chance of their purchase will
be. In addition, the sales promotion should take the information about
the customers such as phone number, email to send them promotion
news, their taste habit to improve the product.

Task 2. Follow an appropriate process for the formulation of a budget for MMM’s
integrated promotional strategy
1. Bottom-up budget development is an investment approach that de-emphasizes the
significance of economic and market cycles. This approach focuses on the analysis of
individual stocks. In bottom-up investing, therefore, the investor focuses his or her
attention on a specific company rather than on the industry in which that company
operates or on the economy as a whole. In bottom-up budget development
process, MMM’s marketing development start with a list or plan or schedule of the
things that they want to do and then cost it up to get the total budget.

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 The bottom-up budget determination process for MMM:

1) Isolate objectives: When the promotional planning model is presented, a

company will have two sets of objectives to accomplish—the marketing
objectives for the product and the communications objectives. After the
former are established, the task involves determining what specific
communications objectives will be designed to accomplish these goals.
Communications objectives must be specific, attainable, and measurable, as
well as time limited.
2) Determine tasks required: Number of elements are involved in the strategic
plan designed to attain the objectives established. (These strategies
constitute the remaining chapters in this text.) These tasks may include
advertising in various media, sales promotions, and/or other elements of the
promotional mix, each with its own role to perform.
3) Estimate required expenditures: Build-up analysis requires determining the
estimated costs associated with the tasks developed in the previous step. For
example, it involves costs for developing awareness through advertising, trial
through sampling, and so forth.
4) Monitor: Performance should be monitored and evaluated in light of the
budget appropriated.
5) Revaluate objectives: Once specific objectives have been attained, monies
may be better spent on new goals. Thus, if one has achieved the level of
consumer awareness sought, the budget should be altered to stress a higher-
order objective such as evaluation or trial.
2. Various budget method:
a. The Affordable Method: This method of the top-down approach is often called the
“all-you-can-afford-method” [ CITATION Geo04 \l 2057 ]. In this method, MMM
determines the amount to be spent in various areas such as production and
operations. Then it allocates what’s left to advertising and promotion, considering
this to be the amount it can afford. The task to be performed by the
advertising/promotions function is not considered, and the likelihood of under- or
overspending is high, as no guidelines for measuring the effects of various budgets

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 are established. The logic for this approach stems from “We can’t be hurt with this
method” thinking. That is, if MMM know what they can afford and we they not
exceed it, they will not get into financial problems. While this may be true in a
strictly accounting sense, it does not reflect sound managerial decision making
from a marketing perspective.
b. Percentage of sales: it is the most widely used method of establishing an
advertising budget is to base it on a percentage of sales. Advertising is a legitimate
business expense and should be related to the quantity of goods sold. It’s helpful to
use the percentage-of-sales method because it’s quick and easy. It ensures that
MMM’s advertising budget isn’t way out of proportion for your business.. The
percentage-of-sales method avoids some of the problems that result from using
profits as a base. For instance, if profits in a period are low, it might not be the fault
of sale or advertising. But if MMM stick with the same percentage figure, they will
automatically reduce their advertising allotment. In the short run a small business
owner might make small additions to profit by cutting advertising expenses, but
such a policy could lead to a long term deterioration of the bottom line. By using
the percentage-of-sales method, MMM can keep their advertising in a consistent
relation to their sales volume – which is what their advertising should be primarily
affecting.
c. Competitive parity method: competitive-based approach used to determine an
advertising budget wherein an advertiser decides advertising dollars to be spent on
the basis of competitors’ spending. A problem with this method is that not only
does it assume that all competitors’ marketing objectives are the same but also
that it leaves an advertiser subject to the same mistakes the competitor may make.
Additionally, information concerning competitive-advertising expenditures is only
available after the money has actually been spent; thus the advertiser who uses this
method is always functioning on other companies’ past results.
In this method, MMM should consider the spending on marketing of their
competitors in instant noodle industry. In this case can consider Masan with 1.500
thousand billion VND which is 11% of their income for advertising in 2015 [ CITATION
Tuấ15 \l 2057 ]. So that MMM with competitive parity method should use at least
11% of their income for marketing budget.

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d. Arbitrary allocation: Arbitrary allocation method is a top-down budget method in
which establishing a budget is often decided by the strategic managers with no
theoretical basis considered and the budgetary amount. The budget determined by
this method mean that MMM’s manager solely decided on the basis of what is felt
to be necessary.

e. Payment planning: Payment planning advertiser determines the investment value

of the advertising and promotion appropriation. The basic idea is to project the
revenues the product will generate, as well as the costs it will incur, over two to
three years. Based on an expected rate of return, the payment plan will assist in
determining how much advertising and promotions expenditures will be necessary
when the return might be expected. In this method, MMM should rely on the
report of return on investment such as according to a report of Cafef.vn, Masan
with Omachi instant noodle product get 9 times income for 1 unit of investment on
marketing[ CITATION Hoà161 \l 2057 ]. So that MMM should consider this
number to give out appropriate rate for advertising.

f. Objective and Task Method: In this method, MMM have to look at the objectives
for each activity and determines the cost of accomplishing for each objective.
MMM when using the objective and task method for determining advertising
expenses allocate the marketing budget based on set objectives. To use this
method, MMM must define the desired results of advertising and the strategies
and tactics required to achieve these results. Additionally, MMM must assess the
costs associated with these strategies and tactics. If no financial restrictions exist,
MMM can build their own marketing budget by examining each goal or objective
and the tasks necessary to reach these objectives. A primary challenge associated
with this method is the difficulty of accurately assessing the advertising costs
necessary to accomplish the goals.
 There are many budgeting method that MMM can use to build up budgeting
planning for MMM’s integrated promotional strategy for fresh whole potatoes
instant noodle. The author recommend MMM to use affordable and percentage of
sale method. For MMM, these method are most suitable because fresh whole
instant noodle is a new product that target new customer so that they can react

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 unforeseeably to this product. Although MMM is a company that have good money
but the safe budget strategy for promotion is not redundant.
3. Give an overview of media costs and relative costs of various promotional techniques in
Vietnam
a. Public relation: For MMM to writing an public relation article on Vnexpress, they
have to pay two types of cost which is the fixed cost that is public on their
quotation and the relative cost that is need to proceed that article. The cost for a
public relation on Vnexpress according to brandcom.vn is ranging from 6.000.000
VND for a small news and 150.000.000 VND for a top 1 news. But to have a good
quality public relation article, MMM should invite the journalist that responsible
for the article to their workshop to taste and deeply understand about the
product. The cost for their effort should be given through a gift for them as a word
of thanks. The gift value can vary up to the effort off the journalist and the
importance of that public relations article.

Figure 4 Vnexpress quotation on brandcom.vn

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Task 3. Carry out the development of a promotional plan for MMM’s new product  
The author will use SOSTAC model to analyse the main components of the promotional plan
MMM’s fresh whole potatoes instant noodle product

1. Situation
The author use SWOT model to analyse the situation of MMM in Vietnam instant noodle
market:

Helpful Harmful
Internal

Strengths: MMM is already a major Weakness: MMM is a young company

company in the food industry in with only 4 brands launched in market
Vietnam. Launched in 2000, the and they target new market with a
External

Opportunities: The latest report of the Threats: One of the biggest threats that
World Instant Noodles Association MMM are facing is the difficult growth
(WINA) located in Osaka Japan, claim while competitors are growing and have

2. Objectives and target audiences:

3. Strategy
4. Tactics

5. Action
6. Control

Task 4. Plan the integration of promotional techniques into the promotional

strategy for MMM’s new product
1. Definition of integration of

According to professor Belch, integrated marketing is an approach to creating a

unified and seamless experience for consumers to interact with the brand/enterprise; it
attempts to meld all aspects of marketing communication such as advertising, sales
promotion, public relations, direct marketing, and social media, through their respective mix
of tactics, methods, channels, media, and activities, so that all work together as a unified
force. It is a process designed to ensure that all messaging and communications strategies
are consistent across all channels and are cantered on the customer.[ CITATION Geo04 \l 2057
] Kitchen and Burgman defined IMC as an expansion of modern and traditional marketing

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strategies, to optimise the communication of a consistent message conveying the
company's brands to stakeholders.[ CITATION Kit14 \l 2057 ]

 IMC can be understand as an expansion of modern and traditional marketing

strategies to creating a unified and seamless experience for consumers to interact
with the brand. It attempts to meld all aspects of marketing communication such as
advertising, sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing, and social media,
through their respective mix of tactics, methods, channels, media, and activities, so
that all work together as a unified force.

Benefit of IMC:

 Repetition, Reinforcement, Results: By integrating your campaign, it will be more

effective. By communicating consistently via a variety of channels, you are
reinforcing your message which, in turn, makes that message more powerful.
[ CITATION Ric15 \l 2057 ] There is no doubt that a jointed message has more impact
than a disjointed numerous messages. IMC delivers a jointed message around
customers and helps them move through the diverse stages of the buying process. In
a busy world, a consistent, enhanced and clear message has a better chance to stand
out of hundreds of commercial messages which bothered customers every day
[ CITATION Pau04 \l 2057 ], and customers would start to pay attention to this message

whilst the brand recognition would be increased.

Masan is a company that successfully applying successfully the IMC
techniques. Their message is consistent in every advertising and marketing techniqes
which they shows that their potatoes instant noodle product Omachi is made from
potatoes that customers don’t have to worry about the constipation of their instant
noodle.

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Figure 5 Potatoes ingredient is written over the brand name-Omachi on their poster and on TV advertisement

 High calibre consistent service: When all marketing departments are integrated, all
staff are informed and motivated about any new development from new
advertisements, to new corporate identities, new service standards, new strategic
partners. So that all they working with consistent with other departments to deliver
a single seamless solution- a cohesive message- a integrated message.
 Cost save: By bringing together the various facets of marketing communications in a
mutually supportive and enhancing way then the resulting whole is more than the
simple sum of its parts. IMC saves money as it eliminates duplication in areas such as

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 graphics and photography since they can be shared and used in say, advertising,
exhibitions and sales literature. Agency fees are reduced by using a single agency for
all communications and even if there are several agencies, time is saved when
meetings bring all the agencies together – for briefings, creative sessions, tactical or
strategic planning.
Unilever Vietnam has implemented an integrated communications program with a
relatively high budget. Starting May 1/2015, the company released an article "Oral
health and sugarless gum" at a cost of 40 billion within 18 months continuously. The
program would like to emphasize the role of oral hygiene and focused primarily on
the dentist, so then the medical professional will directly introduce the benefits of
sugar-free gum to customers to dental care at their clinic. Besides, Unilever Vietnam
also uses mass communication tools such as ads a quarterly journal "Public Health",
opened 05 centres guidelines Oral hygiene Free customers across the country and
send the leaflets, posters everywhere, continually published newspaper ads "Health
and life" together with a tube of toothpaste samples and tutoring a guidebook
dental care mouth. In addition, the company aims to customers "chatter" when
launching the first chewing gum for children have the ability to protect your child's
teeth. Results within a year of the IMC campaign very encouraging: 73% of dentists
Vietnam has often encourage customers to use sugar-free gum, instead of 44%
previously. As a result, sales revenue within February 2015 has exceeded the
expected 22%. It can be seen that Unilever has adopted IMC to meet their objective
with low cost than using non-integrated marketing communication.

Task 5. Use appropriate techniques for measuring campaign effectiveness

Definition Implementation
Ad hoc and Continuous Research: Ad Hoc Research offers high-quality
continuous A survey conducted both regularly marketing research as well as intelligence
research and frequently among parallel advisory services that provide a deep
samples within the same understanding of consumers and markets,
population; or a survey in which the in order to inform its clients’ business
interviews are spaced over a long decisions and contribute to their success.
period of time. Continuous research Ad Hoc stands out for its ability to uncover
is undertaken repeatedly and insights, its flair for innovation, and the

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 continually as opposed to ad hoc rigour of its achievements. Its
surveys or surveys carried out at multidisciplinary team serves both national
specific times. [ CITATION Ltd08 \l and international clients with passion and
2057 ] swiftness.
Ad Hoc Marketing Research: On the other hand, studies are made with
A company faces a problem, such as more continuity under Continuous
decline in sales of one of its major research. The same group of people is used
brands, and it sanctions a research for sampling. A larger number of people
project to investigate the problem. may be recruited, depending on the
The research project is designed and purpose of the research. Consumer panels,
carried out, and its finding for instance, can be made of a large number
presented to the marketing of households, with the purpose of learning
department. Therefore, it is a one- about consumers’ buying attitudes and
time research carried out to study a habits. Similar panels may also be created in
specific problem. Ad-hoc research order to determine television viewership.
can either be custom designed or an Ad tracking, which aims to determine the
omnibus survey.[ CITATION effectiveness of an advertisement, can also
Smr161 \l 2057 ] fall under continuous research.[CITATION
Bus161 \l 2057 ]
Panels and Audits: It is a method of measuring Retail audits is to knowing what consumers
audits the volume of business transacted watch and buy. With using retail audits
through all outlets, by counting techniques such as using bar code scanning
physical units in stores and with mobile devices to helps their
combining that with a knowledge of customers meet the needs of their today's
the number ordered and stock level. consumers, and find out where they're
Panels: It is a method of headed next to propose the appropriate
determining what consumers buy campaign.
through specific group of A typical survey panel will aim to be as
representative households who representative of the general population as
have agreed to provide pre- possible. So if for instance a panel is only
designated information at regular available to residents of Vietnam, it will aim
specified intervals over an extended to mirror the population disbursement of
period of time. different cities, along with its demographic
data. If a panel has 100,000 participants, it
will try to take what the entire Vietnamese

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 population looks like (with approximately 90
million people), and project it on a micro
scale. However, if a research company is
hired to perform a study for a particular
region or city, it might actively try recruiting
participants in that specific area, just so that
they can properly execute the study.
Pre and Can be used to refer to two different MMM can find find 5-10 people from their
post testing activities. A pre-test is where a target group to pre-test it. If they can’t get
questionnaire is tested on a people from your exact target group then
(statistically) small sample of find people who are as close as possible and
respondents before a full-scale to try test about their awareness about
study, in order to identify any MMM brand, or about MMM’s advertising
problems such as unclear wording or awareness.
the questionnaire taking too long to MMM can use post-testing to plan future
administer. A pre-test can also be advertising campaigns, so the approaches
used to refer to an initial that provide the most detailed information
measurement (such as brand or on the accomplishments of the campaign
advertising awareness) before an are most valued. The two types of campaign
experimental treatment is post-testing that have achieved the greatest
administered and subsequent use among major advertisers include
measurements are taken. continuous tracking, in which changes in
Post-testing research provide either advertising spending are correlated with
periodic or continuous in-market changes in brand awareness, and
research monitoring a brand’s longitudinal studies, in which the same
performance, including brand group of respondents are tracked over time.
awareness, brand preference, With the longitudinal approach, it is
product usage and attitudes. Some possible to go beyond brand awareness, and
post-testing approaches simply track to isolate the campaign's impact on specific
changes over time, while others use behavioural and perceptual dimensions, and
various methods to quantify the to isolate
specific changes produced by
advertising—either the campaign as
a whole or by the different media
utilized.

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Qualitative Qualitative research is considered
and to be particularly suitable for gaining
quantitative an in-depth understanding of
research underlying reasons and motivations.
It provides insights into the setting
of a problem. At the same time, it
frequently generates ideas and
hypotheses for later quantitative
research. [ CITATION Atl162 \l 2057 ]
Quantitative Research is considered
to have as its main purpose the
quantification of data. This allows
generalizations of results from a
sample to an entire population of
interest and the measurement of
the incidence of various views and
opinions in a given sample. Yet,
quantitative research is not
infrequently followed by qualitative
research which then aims to explore
select findings further. [ CITATION
Atl162 \l 2057 ]

The author recommends MMM to use both Quantitative and Qualitative method to
measure the effectiveness of their first campaign to introduce new instant noodle brand.
Fresh whole potatoes instant noodle is a brand new product penetrate instant noodle
market with low cholesterol so that MMM should use qualitative research method to
deeply understand customer’s feelings, behaviour and attitudes through open questions
where participant or customers can freely express their mind about MMM products. The
qualitative research method also help MMM to collect data on human experience that is
obtained is powerful and sometimes more compelling. However, using qualitative
research method is not enough and have some limitation such as research quality is
heavily dependent on the individual skills of the researcher and more easily influenced by

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the researcher's personal biases and idiosyncrasies and if MMM to research on high
number of people is very time consuming. As a result, MMM should also combine with
the quantitative research such as survey to compensate to the limitation of qualitative
research method because it can reach to high number of customer in a shorter time. The
survey can be used through e-mail, social network or through sales person.

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