The best and most effective integrated marketing campaigns involve more than simply leveraging multiple marketing channels together in a vacuum. It’s about the strategy behind it and executing the campaign cohesively and consistently.
These campaigns, when done well, allow the right consumers for your brand to get excited about your products or services holistically and make it easier and more efficient for them to obtain the critical information they need most to convert.
Let’s look at some examples of recent integrated marketing campaigns that have exceeded expectations, striking a chord with consumers and bringing tangible results to the brands that executed them.
Before we dig into integrated marketing campaigns, we should first understand what makes these campaigns unique — and what defines their success.
The definition of an integrated marketing campaign is an endeavor in which a brand uses multiple means of communication to send a message to its target audience. By this definition, since so many companies use multiple ways to communicate with customers, most marketing would seem to be integrated. However, truly integrated marketing campaigns are a bit more complicated.
For a campaign to be fully integrated, all of those messaging mediums must be carefully aligned to send the same message to the consumer. Furthermore, the moving parts of the campaign should be calibrated to communicate with the consumer in sequence, moving them toward their logical destination in an ordered manner. In a perfect world, this methodology would allow for personalized omnichannel marketing that allows shoppers to maintain their progress across channels, but it’s not a requirement. In the end, a successful integrated marketing campaign boosts the customer experience while increasing awareness and engagement levels surrounding a brand.
All of this is to say that integrated marketing campaigns are hard. For all of the examples we’ll see of how to do things right, there are many more examples of companies that completely miss the mark. Let’s begin by taking a look at one of those integrated marketing attempts gone wrong.
Intel is well-known for its computer chips, which run large parts of our lives. However, Intel’s marketing messages aren’t nearly as pervasive. As we’ll see, there could be a reason for that.
Intel’s website is perfectly fine. It presents to the viewer what the company does and provides examples of how its technology is used around the world. What you won’t find, though, is any mention of Intel’s official slogan of “Experience What’s Inside” — a major faux pas, since so many people know Intel as part of its Intel Inside branding.
The example goes even further off the rails when we look at Intel’s social media. Intel’s Facebook page uses a different version of the company logo, as well as an entirely different slogan — “Do Something Wonderful”. The same company runs both the website and the Facebook page but based on how different they are, nobody would ever know it.
You’d think a technology-based company like Intel would have an easy time with integrated marketing. But you’d be mistaken. This example illustrates that technological infrastructure must be accompanied by common sense and a steadfast dedication toward optimizing the customer experience. Without that dedication, integrated marketing falls very, very flat.
One of modern marketing’s biggest success stories has come from one of its oldest and most prominent brands. And, as is so often the case, the simplest ideas often have the biggest impact.
Coke began its “Share a Coke” campaign in Australia in 2011, moving worldwide in 2014. Consumers were able to pick a Coke bottle with the message they wanted, whether it be a first name or an adjective. Those who bought these Coke bottles often gave them to others as gifts, increasing Coke’s sales as well as its reach.
The integrated marketing piece comes into play not only through advertising, but through Coke’s inevitable move into personalization. Through the company’s website, as well as kiosks in malls and on college campuses, individuals could get their very own bottle of Coke with their name on it, no matter how unique their name might be. The personalization option, as well as variations based on music lyrics and character traits, led people to buy bottles of Coke, even if they had no intentions of actually drinking the soda.
The combination of viral marketing and the ubiquity of Coke products made this campaign one that nobody could resist. If you were buying a soda, you’d rifle through the shelves to find your name or a friend’s name. The increased fervor and publicity resulted in a 7 percent increase in Coke consumption — huge numbers when you consider the already massive popularity of Coke products worldwide.
Have you ever wondered why there was never an awards show dedicated exclusively to animated TV shows? Hulu has pondered that very subject. Unable to find conclusive answers as to why one didn’t exist, Hulu did the best thing it could possibly do — it created its own.
