Download BM2504 INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS: A

BM2504
INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
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Course Description and Scope
Communication with the market is an important activity for many businesses and organizations. It is
also relevant to us as consumers because we are exposed to hundreds of messages from marketers
every day.
This course is concerned with the development, implementation and evaluation of marketing
communication activities. The course primarily takes the marketer’s perspective, requiring you to
consider and critically evaluate factors influencing both the design and implementation of
comprehensive, integrated marketing communication (IMC) programs. In this course, we regard IMC
as a system of thinking, processes and coordinated activities driven by the marketer’s objectives.
Adopting a global perspective, we draw illustrative examples and cases from different parts of the
world and discuss issues faced by marketers in conducting IMC programs across countries.
The course is designed to foster your logical thinking and creativity regarding IMC. Although this
course is oriented towards practice, we still cover theories and concepts essential to your
understanding of marketing communication (marcom) practices (e.g., how they work and their
applicability). Learning these theories and concepts is also important because they facilitate you to
choose and justify your choice and design of marcom activities.
Instead of treating IMC as a set of stand-alone tools or activities, the course regards it as a blended
mix of coordinated activities. The course put roughly equal emphasis on both traditional marcom tools
(e.g., advertising and sales promotion) and non-traditional tools (e.g., search engine marketing and
social media marketing). The course compares the similarities and differences of these tools, and
discusses how they can work together for achieving the marketer’s objectives. While non-traditional
marcom tools catch marketers’ attention nowadays, traditional marcom tools are indispensable for
particular purposes and under certain circumstances.
Course Learning Objectives
The course is intended for helping you to:
1. understand the nature, role and importance of marcom activities in marketing and the society;
2. understand the key concepts, theories and terminology in IMC management, and the contextual
considerations in applying them to practice;
3. appreciate the usefulness of both traditional and non-traditional marcom tools, and understand
their applicability, limitations and synergy;
4. practise the development of detailed marcom strategies;
5. understand and practise the evaluation of marcom activities; and
6. understand the key considerations in conducting marcom activities across countries.
Course Assessments
Components
Marks
Individual/Group
Class participation
20
Individual, Group
Individual assignment
35
Individual
Team project
45
Group
Total
100
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Assessment Plan
Assessment Plan
Class participation
The participation includes individual participation, small-group discussion and presentation.
Participation will be assessed in all but the first two tutorials. Participation can be made verbally or in
a written form when written response is requested by the instructor. The team presentation on a case
question is treated as part of class participation (5% out of 20% in the marks awarded).
Evaluation of class participation is mainly based on the contribution and relevance of your response or
question to the learning objectives of this course. Highly valued contributions include:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
providing insightful views and comments on the matter being discussed,
providing useful information or pertinent examples to illustrate or substantiate key ideas,
redirecting the discussion to valuable areas or offering a different viewpoint,
presenting a rigorous but not stubborn defence of a well-articulated position,
offering constructive criticism in a pleasant manner,
pursuing the logic advanced by others, and
emphasizing generalizable learning points.
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Individual assignment
You are required to develop a video ad or a print ad targeted towards certain groups of people in
Singapore. You are also required to submit a report describing the rationales behind the development
and the ad design.
Learning
Goals
Critical Thinking
Course Learning
Objective
The ability to define,
examine, evaluate, analyze
and synthesize various
arguments and knowledge
to form independent
judgment.
NBS Standard Rubrics
Ability to critically evaluate the situation faced by
the organization and to justify the need for a new
ad.
(15%)
Ability to justify the choice of target audience and
define it clearly
(5%)
Deep, relevant understanding of target audience’s
motivation and relevant behaviors.
(10%)
Ability to justify and define the proposed
objectives of the new ad
(10%)
Creative
Thinking
The ability to provide
insight in an innovative way
characterized by high
degree of adaptiveness.
Ability to generate creative ideas for the proposed
ad
(15%)
Ability to develop an effective ad and justify the
expected effectiveness in the Singapore context
(25%)
Written
Communication
The ability to communicate
well with others in writing
so that it clearly expresses
the intended message and
is understandable and
useful to the receiving
party.
Organizes information logically, coherently uses
paragraphs and cohesive devices, and makes
main points clear
(10%)
Uses appropriate language—standard grammar,
correct sentence structures and punctuation
(10%)
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Team project
Each team should consist of about five to six students. Each team is required to develop a proposal
of an integrated marketing communication campaign for a brand or an organization and targeted
towards a market of their interest. In addition to a written project report, each team is required to
make a preliminary idea presentation and a final project presentation. The two presentations will be
evaluated by the instructor and fellow classmates.
Learning
Goals
Critical
Thinking
Course Learning
Objective
The ability to define,
examine, evaluate,
analyze and synthesize
various arguments and
knowledge to form
independent judgment.
NBS Standard Rubrics
Deep, relevant understanding of target audience’s
motivation and relevant behaviors.
(10%)
Ability to critically evaluate the situation faced by the
organization and to justify the need for a new
campaign.
(10%)
Creative
Thinking
The ability to provide
insight in an innovative
way characterized by
high degree of
adaptiveness.
Ability to generate creative and original ideas for the
proposed campaign
(10%)
Problem
Solving and
Decision
Making
The ability to identify
problems, generate a
plan to solve problems,
implement and evaluate
the plan and make sound
business decision.
Ability to justify the selection of target audience and
define it clearly.
(5%)
Ability to justify and define the proposed campaign’s
objectives
(5%)
Ability to justify the proposed budget, including
expenditures/costs, projected sales, etc.
(10%)
Planning and
Execution
The ability to set clear
priorities and plans of
action for the task and
define task objectives to
fulfill goals within a
planned schedule for
execution.
Ability to put forward activities that are integrated with
each other and could achieve the proposed
objectives.
(25%)
Feasibility of the campaign.
(5%)
Ability to assess the objectives’ achievement
(10%)
Written
Communication
The ability to
communicate well with
others in writing so that it
clearly expresses the
intended message and is
understandable and
useful to the receiving
party.
Ability to communicate ideas clearly and effectively
(10%)
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Textbook
O’Guinn, Thomas, Chris T. Allen, Richard J. Semenik, and Angeline Close Scheinbaum (2015),
th
Advertising and Integrated Brand Promotion, 7 ed., Singapore: Cengage Learning.
Proposed Weekly Schedule
Week
Topic
1
Introduction to IMC and the course
2
Essentials of IMC planning
3
Message strategy
4
Media strategy; advertising research
5
Branded entertainment;
point-of-sale communication
6
Sales promotion
7
Preliminary project presentation
8
Search engine marketing; analytics
9
Social media marketing; mobile marketing
10
Word-of-mouth marketing; global marcom (elearning week, Oct. 17-23)
11
Sponsorship; cause-related marketing
12-13
Final Project presentation
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