Chapter – 1

INTRODUCTION

1. Development of Marketing Communication- A conceptual and Theoretical

Interpretation

The total population of India has reached up to the level of 1.22 billion and among this more
than 446 million are under 18. Also the annual growth rate of population has reached up to
the level of 1.58%.3 McNeal (1999) briefed that concept of patriarchal family looks more like
filiarchy, as children are getting more attention due to reduction in family size which make
them an influential part in the family buying process.4

Soni and Upadhayaya (2007) identified that the role of single parents, hyper parenting,
nuclear family, delayed parenthood, high income and growth of retail sector are building
purchasing patterns of teenagers and identifying teenagers as an important and significant
consumer market.5Massey described that marketers are having enormous opportunities for to
understand both the reality and fantasy of teen life.6

Marketing Communication is an effort of marketers for conveying the brand message to

consumer via different channels of marketing. Marketing Communication is a part of
marketing mix and also known as traditional marketing. In marketing communication,
organizations concentrate primarily on ‘promotion mix’ of seven P’s i.e. product, price,
place, promotion, physical evidence, process & people comprising of personal selling,
advertising, sales promotion and publicity. The modern view of marketing communication is
known as ‘Integrated Marketing Communication-IMC’.

The concept of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) tools is to persuade, inform and
aware about the right product of right price to right people at right place through right process

3
http://www.trendsinsight.in/wpcontent/themes/monochrome/img/web/pdfs/Kids%20trends%20in%20India%20
-%20A%20Preview%20%28TV%20&%20Cinema%29.pdf, accessed 21st Aug, ‘12
4
James U. McNeal, Ph.D.,“ The Kids Market : Myths and Realities”, ISBN-0,9671439-1-8, Page no 87;
Accessed 17 Aug,’ 12, accessed 13th Aug,’12
5
Prof Swati Soni&ProfMakarandUpadhyaya(8-10April,2007),Pester Power Effect of Advertising ,International
Marketing Conferenceon Marketing and Society, IIMK, Part IV – Advertising &Society,Page no – 313-324
6
Massey, J., The Impact of Advertising on Teenagers, .West Philadelphia High School. content retrieved from,
http://www.tip.sas.upenn.edu/curriculum/units/2006/02/06.02.05.pdf, pp: 2, accessed 21 Feb 2013

1
by right promotion strategies with right physical evidences. Marketing is an art of selling of
the seven P’s i.e. product, price, place, promotion, people, physical evidence and people.7

Marketing revolves around the brand. Now days, consumer retention and satisfaction are
become the most challenging marketing research. This is an important issue for both, the
brand and the consumers. Particularly, target audience, age, demography placed a crucial part
in dealing with the satisfaction. Among these, consumer age is an important factor in
exploring teenagers. Teenagers are one of most important segment as they represent current
and future customers of the organization.

Teenagers represents an important demographic to marketers. Teenagers owe both the

decision role as a user and as an influencer for the buying process. Exploring and explore are
the learning process of a teenagers at their stage. They have emerged as a savvy and sensitive
consumer today who wants to be aware of the product/service before they buy any of them.

Marketers are discovering there is a lot of money to be made by treating teenagers as the
mature consumers and have been very successful in doing the same by using different mode
of communication. Communication tool is getting very successful in making teenagers aware
about the difference brands and markets. Marketing communication is not only value
proposition and revenue generation, but it also builds a conversation between market and
consumer.

Communication influences the life and behavior of a teenager’s life. Moschis and Mitchell
(2013) mentioned that young adolescents take more participation in consumer decisions
process as the age increases. The authors described that increasing knowledge of the
marketplace, to the removal of factors constraining their ability to purchase (e.g., ability to
drive), or to increasing responsibility granted by their parents plays major role in framing
teenager’s decision process.8

Specifically, many communications have led teenagers to nag their parents to purchase the
product of their choice. These marketing communication tools are integrated and redefined as
integrated marketing communication. The present concept of marketing communication has
developed in the new form of integrated marketing communication. The research discusses
7
Kotler, P., Keller, K.L. (2006), Marketing Management. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 12th
edition
8
George P Moschis& Linda G Mitchell (2013), Television Advertising and Interpersonal Influences on
Teenagers Participation in Family Consumer Decisions, Advances in Consumer Research, Vol. 13,pp: 181-186,
accessed 22 Feb 2016

2
the modern view of marketing which comprises all functions of integrated marketing
communication.

1.1 Integrated Marketing Communication: Origin of the concept

The word Integrated marketing communication originally formulated in the year 1990 from
Keith Reinhart, chairman of the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA). He
was the first person who integrated the different components of marketing communication.
After the introduction of Integrated Marketing Communications concept, research program in
IMC 16 was held by American Association of Advertising Agencies, the Association of
National Advertisers and the American Advertising Federation (AAF) which leads to
Integrated Marketing Communications university programs.9

Integrated marketing communication comes in the marketers mind as an awareness tool of

their product. When integrated marketing communication was launched, companies were not
having technologies to make an impression in the consumer’s mind easily of their
brand.Companies were struggling with making new customers and retaining them. Initially
companies were having the idea of creating the customer who can consume their product, but
later idea of retaining the consumer was introduced. And now days, Integrated marketing
communication focused on consumer satisfaction and retention while creating a perception of
the brand in their mind.

Integrated marketing communication is more strategic, planned and customer focused way of
integrating and managing communication tools. According to Marketing Guru Philip Kotler,
Integrated marketing communication has redefined the marketing communication with the
development of a new model of innovation in communication. Kotler (2003) mentioned that
the approach of integrated marketing communication is helpful in long and short term both. It
helps a brand to create an image in the consumer mind,while minimizing micro problem and
generate macro opportunities in the market.10

The phenomenon of integrated marketing communication is comparatively new. The

communication tools of integrated marketing communication are also known as five finger

9
Mimoun, A. (2005), IMC –Theory, Practice and Reality, Thesis, CELSA- School for Advanced Studies in
Information Science and Communication, University of Paris, Chapter-I accessed June 2013
10
Kotler, Ph (2003), Marketing Management, Translate Frozande, Bahman, Attorpat Publications, Tehran

3
story in market. The highlighted tools are advertisement, promotion, public relation &
publicity, direct marketing and personal selling.

Figure 1.1: Kotler’s Elements in the Communication Process11

Kotler, P., Keller, K.L. (2013) introduced macro model of communication process, where
nine key factors in effective communication are introduced (Fig.1.1). The authors described
that the more the sender’s field of experience overlaps to receiver, the more the effective
message would be developed.12

New marketing strategies are designed frequently as the demand of consumer’s changes.
Market is becoming more competitive which leads to new marketing strategies. Marketers
follow all the practices to sustain and develop new consumer database. The biggest challenge
in market is to retain the consumer. Marketers use all the tools of integrated marketing
communication to hold the new segment.

1.2 Concepts of Integrated Marketing Communication

The concept of marketing communication is to create consumer relationship from different

modes of communication. Earlier the term advertisement served the idea of Marketing

11
Figure16.1,.:Elements in the Communication Process. Reprinted from Marketing Management, by Kotler, P.,
Keller,K.L Koshy, Jha., 2013, Pearson Education Inc., 14th edition, ISBN: 978-81-317-6716-0, (pg. 431, Figure
16.1)
12
Kotler, P., Keller, K.L., Koshy, A., Jha, M.(2013), “Marketing Management”, Pearson Education Inc., (14th
edition), ISBN: 978-81-317-6716-0, pp: 431

4
communication, as it was highly visible. Later for the mass advertising, promotion tools were
used prominently by the companies. Over the past two decades, companies have started
believing in relationship marketing, to which public relations and publicity were highly
required. Don Schultz & his colleagues in their book ‘Integrated Marketing Communication’
mentioned about the new way of using advertising, public relations, promotion and so forth
to create company brand image. The objective of the marketing communications is to create
positioning and brand image of the organization.

Schramm’s (1960) introduced the model of communication process which includes four
functions, named as sender, receiver, message, and media. The descriptions of mentioned
functions are by using the media sender will send the message to receiver.13Smith (1997)
mentioned communication as a two way process, when the receiver able to understand the
objective of sender. The communication is not rightly coded when the receiver won’t be able
to decode the sender coding.14Now marketers worked on integrated marketing
communications to understand the needs and wants of the consumer for a strong consumer
relationship.

Figure 1.2: Schramm’s Model of Communication15

13
Schramm Model of Communication, Businesstopia,submitted by Sneha Mishra,
https://www.businesstopia.net/communication/schramms-model-communication, accessed July 16th 2014.
14
Smith, PR 1997. Marketing Communications.An Integrated Approach.Kogan Page Limited
15
Figure 1.2 Schramm model of communication, Schramm, Businesstopia, submitted bySneha Mishra,
https://www.businesstopia.net/communication/schramms-model-communication, accessed July 16th 2014.

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Schultz (1993) explained integrated marketing communication as concept of marketing
communication planning that plays a strategic role in evaluating and combining different
communication functions to create an impact with the proper positioning in consumer’s
mind.16 The concept of integrated marketing communication can be described as a creative,
impactful and innovative integration of marketing functions.

According to Marketing Guru Philip Kotler (2003) marketing communications mix of a

company, consists of the specific blend of advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and
public relations tools which company uses to pursue its advertising and marketing
objectives.17Raman and Naik (2005) defined the integrated marketing communication in
following words, ―an IMC program plans and execute various marketing activities with
consistency so that its total impact exceeds the sum of each activity.18

The concept of marketing communication is the integration of marketing tools to use it as a

tool for the positioning of the image, brand, and maintaining customer relationship. Vargas
(2005) defined Integrated marketing communication process is concerned with the
identifications of target audience, determination of the communication objectives, designing
of the message content, selecting the means for communication, defining the media mix,
budget & priorities and measuring the effectiveness of effort.19

In traditional marketing communication all the functions of marketing was used separately by
the companies. The whole objective was to fulfill the target sales which eventually landed to
objective of short term sales. While in the integrated marketing communication, all the
marketing tools integrated to work on consumer needs and wants for a strong customer
relationship. The integrated marketing communication tool worked on long term objective of
building stakeholder shares. Very few organizations are able to use the integrated part of
marketing communication. Now new media i.e. social media is playing a crucial role in the
marketing communication. The Integrated marketing communication is basically working on
the concept of development and successful coordination of marketing communication

16
Schultz,D., Stanley T., Roben, L. (1993), Integrated Marketing Communications”, Lincolnwood, IL: NTC
Business Books
17
Kotler, Ph (2003),Marketing Management, Translate Frozande, Bahman, Attorpat Publications, Tehran
18
Naik, P. A. and Raman, K. (2003),Understanding the Impact of Synergy in Multimedia Communications,
Journal of Marketing Research, 40(11), pp:88–375
19
Vargas, R.D. (2005), Integrated Marketing Communications—An Effective, Comprehensive Approach,
Business Ventures.

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functions. The objective of stimulating demand has been shifted to consumer retention further
to consumer satisfaction and relationship.

1.3 Historical Development of Integrated Marketing Communication in India

Fill (2002) defined marketing communication as one of the elements of the marketing mix
and is responsible for putting the marketing offer to the target market and briefed that the
term marketing is as old as civilization formed its roots.20 From the ancient Greece & Rome
with their vibrating images on coins, pillars & forts are proves of ancient trading
techniques.21 In those days the term ‘marketing’ was not used by the traders.

The concept of marketing is developed from the industrial revolution. Many technological
and scientific innovation held in 18th and 19th centuries which initiated the trading of goods.
The production system, infrastructure, transportation and media took a very important turn in
the innovation history. The trading of goods happened from the production era. ‘Marketing
Guru’ Philip Kotler described emergence of marketing into five eras (Simple trading era,
Production era, Product era, Sales era and Marketing era). The role of marketing turned its
position from production era to holistic marketing era.22 White, D.S. (2010) defined seven
eras of marketing communication, though several literatures discussed that integrated
marketing communication era and sustainable marketing era are developed post marketing
era.

Figure 1.3:White, S.D. Era’s of Marketing (2010)23

20
Fill, C. (2002),Marketing Communications - Contexts, Strategies and Applications, Financial Hall, Prentice
Hall, Harlow
21
Roman Coinage, Ancient History Encyclopedia, http://www.ancient.eu/Roman_Coinage/, accessed Aug 10th ,
2015
22
Kotler, P. (2001),Marketing management, Millennium edition, Pearson Custom Publishing, retrieved from
http://dl.ueb.edu.vn/bitstream/1247/2250/1/Marketing_Management_Millenium_Edition.pdf, pp-9-14, accessed
18th July 2015
23
White, D.S. (2010) , The Evolution of Marketing, http://dstevenwhite.com/2010/06/18/the-evolution-of-
marketing/, accessed 18Th July 2015

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The study discussed seven eras of marketing from simple trading era to sustainable era of
marketing communication.

1.3.1 The Simple Trading Era

Prior to production era, there was simple trading. People consumed everything as per their
requirement. There was pure subsistence economy and minimum use of marketing. “A
Subsistence Economy is a non – monetary economy which relies on natural resources to
provide for basic needs through hunting, gathering and subsistence agriculture” (def.
Wikipedia).24 In subsistence economy, people produced their household products and
consumed it. There was very minimum use of marketing. The concept of exchange, pot
latching, and distribution was more used by people.

1.3.2 The Production Era

This era was introduced to reduce the cost of production as companies started believing in
exchange of goods. There was many scientific innovation held to reduce the production cost.
Henry Ford had invented assembly line to reduce the time allotted in manufacturing of a car.
Post F.W. Taylor introduced scientific management to make the work place more efficient for
the workers. In this era, the role of marketing managers was to distribute the goods efficiently
with minimizing inventory cost.25The objective of production era is to make product
available everywhere at low cost. Michael Porter stated that reduction of production costs can
lead to reduction of selling prices which would be more successful attempt to target large
consumer segment.26

1.3.3.The Product Era

In this era, companies had started working on their quality. Kotler (2013) defined that
product concept bought quality, performance and innovation. The concept of price leadership
and distribution strategies was formed in this era to attract more customers. The role of
marketing in this section was to produce quality products but it lead to no consumer inputs.27
Through which the importance of quality vanishes as there were more suppliers for the same

24
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_economy, accessed 18th July 2015
25
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Principles_of_Scientific_Management, accessed 18th July 2015
26
http://www.encyclopedia.com/finance/finance-and-accounting-magazines/marketing-historical-perspectives,
accessed 18th July 2015
27
Kotler, P., Keller, K.L., Koshy, A., Jha, M.(2013), Marketing Management, Pearson Education Inc., 14th
edition, ISBN: 978-81-317-6716-0, pp: 18

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product with the updated design of the product. Many companies are still following the
objective of product era by manufacturing a quality product, but often lack in the choice of
quoting price of the product.

1.3.4 The Sales Era

During this era, companies started rushing on aggressive sales promotion Companies started
pushing the product in the market to earn revenues and grab market attention. The
management ‘Guru’ Peter Drucker defined: “There will always, one can assume, be a need
for some selling. But the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous.28 The aim of
marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him
and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy.

In the selling era, companies started pushing the produced product in the market by various
promotional tools. Companies were in misbelieving that aggressive promotion will help
consumer to draw a conclusion of product trading. This hard selling leads to unhealthy
marketing which may lead to high risks and consumer dissatisfaction. In modern era,
banking, retailing and many sectors are following the aggressive selling techniques by
bombarding the promotional messages on consumer.29 This era inclined to push the product
in the market, which lead to high inventory and high risks of generating revenue from the
market.

1.3.5 The Marketing Era

The marketing era started around mid-1950s. This era started with an objective to focus on
consumer wants rather than pursuing them to buy the product. Companies were focusing on
customer expectations to fulfill their expectation from the product & service. There was
intense competition in the market for the same product portfolio. Companies started focusing
more on target consumers to break the saturated market.30 Market research began in this era,
to understand consumer’s demand. Prof. Theodore Levitt briefed about the difference of

28
PEX Process Excellence Network, https://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/innovation/columns/peter-
drucker-on-sales-and-marketing, accessed 18th July 2015
29
Cam Merritt, http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/five-eras-marketing-3411.html, accessed 18th July 2015
30
Kotler, P., Keller, K.L. (2012), A Framework for Marketing Management, Pearson Education Inc, 5th edition

9
selling and marketing as selling is focused on needs of seller, while marketing is focused on
need of buyer.31

This era worked on outside–in perspective, rather than about the inside-on perspective of
selling. Marketing era gave challenges to first four eras (Simple trading era, Production era,
Product era and Sales era) by achieving organization goals and being more successful than
their competitor. This era was a healthy paradigm shift and creates a new consumer based
market. Advertisement, promotions, direct marketing and personal selling are the main
functions of marketing era. Organizations were also able to save fewer inventories as
marketers were able to identify the boundary line between push and pull effect from
understanding consumer demand. This also worked in company welfare by creating a brand
image in the market. This era was an evolutionary era in the marketing, which was successful
in changing the philosophy of companies from selling to consumer need. Companies were
able to make the product portfolio vaster from the consumer research unlike selling era which
focused on existing products.

1.3.6 The Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) Era

The integrated marketing communications era is also known as “Holistic Marketing Era”,
where everything is equally important. Some researchers also called this era as “Societal
Marketing Era”. This era is newest to evolve; it shifted from company objective to consumer
needs, wants and consumer interest. Kotler (2013) defined that in holistic marketing
communication, companies have to be more efficient, effective than their competitions.
Companies have to preserve their consumer by enhancing them with the desirable product
which should be beneficial for society wellbeing.32 Integrated Marketing Communications is
working on the principle of integrating all functions of marketing communications. The main
aspects of IMC are advertisement, promotion, personal selling, publicity & public relations
and direct marketing. Here direct marketing is meant to be online marketing, which is also
known as new media marketing.

This new era is focusing from internal employees to customers. Marketing is part of all
departments as purchase, production, operations, human resource, and finance of an

31
PEX Process Excellence Network, https://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/innovation/columns/peter-
drucker-on-sales-and-marketing, accessed 18th July 2015
32
Kotler, P., Keller, K.L., Koshy, A., Jha, M.(2013), Marketing Management, Pearson Education Inc., pp: 18

10
 organization. This era emphasize more on customer retention and relationship. This era also
known as relationship era (White, 2010)

1.3.7 The Sustainable Marketing Era

Kumar, V., Rahman, Z., Kazmi, A. and Goyal P. discussed about the evolution of sustainable
era. The new concept of cause related marketing has been introduced in the market. Cause –
related marketing is the part of sustainable marketing where organizations have the approach
to protect the environment and ecology by producing the ecological and environmental
products. The study found that companies are more focusing towards environment, green
marketing, social, environmental and economic problems.33

Figure 1.4: Own Made (Source: Marketing Approach developed on the base of Kotler’s
concept of marketing)

Marketing Marketing Marketing

1.0 2.0 3.0
 Product  Customer  Value
driven centric driven era
approach approach

Organizations are working towards ethical and social values while delivering marketing
practices to make the sustainable environment for the consumer and society. This new era is
an initiative of saving mother earth from current and future hurdles of the environment.

1.4 Teenage Consumerism

Marketers do the segmentation of consumers as per their requirement. Teenagers are

emerging as a very strong consumer in the current market. Companies are concentrating on
teenagers in their all marketing functions. Teenagers are playing a very important role in
family buying process. Marketers count them as current and future consumer of their
organizations. Earlier Teenagers were forced, requested and valued with to follow their
family decision. Now these individuals are raised in a nourished and nurtured environment

33
Kumar, V., Rahman, Z., Kazmi, A.A., Goyal, P. (2012),Evolution of Sustainability as marketing strategy:
Beginning of new era, Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences,pp: 482-489

11
where knowledge is more approachable by different modes of communication. Ige 2004
defined that teenagers as young consumers are one of the most important and strategic target
segments for several companies from different markets, where the centers of marketing
strategies of these companies are young consumers so they try to determine the factors that
affect consumer buying behavior.34

Companies target teenagers to convert in brand loyal customers as teenagers would be the
buyers of tomorrow. Teenagers are influenced by a lot of factors like demographic,
psychographic, peer – group, parents influence, celebrities and also salesman behavior. They
received the information of the product and the service from different modes of
communication. Due to fast and user friendly technologies, teenagers are becoming more
curious and aware about the different brands. They are becoming more aware of the brands
comparatively to their family members which influence the buying decision of family.

1.5 Tier Cities of India

“The classification of Indian cities is based on ranking system by Government of India.
Government of India did the classification of Tier I, Tier II and Tier III on the basis of
business, real estate and commercialization. Reserve bank of India and Sixth Pay Central
Commission in 2008 suggested Government of India to classify the ranking system on the
basis of allocation of House Rent Allowance. The Human Development Index classified the
cities in Tier on the basis of demographics, finance, infrastructure and catalyst. Earlier the
classification of India was on the basis of Compensatory City Allowance and House Rent
Allowance”.35Compensatory city allowance was abolished by Sixth Pay Commission in 2008
and the new ranking system on the basis of HRA is finalized.36

The classification described that Tier I cities are commercialized, Tier II cities are usually
regional capital of states or industrialized centers of states and Tier III cities are considered as
struggling cities in the direction of development and growth. Tier I cities are well developed
in the terms of infrastructure, industries and technologies while Tier II and Tier III cities are
creating a platform for real sector as they are having available properties at very affordable
prices.

34
Ige, O. (2004), Electronic Shopping: young people as consumers, International Journal of Consumer
Studies,Vol.28 (4), pp: 412-427
35
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_Indian_cities, accessed on 5th Sep 2015
36
Maps of India(2015), http://www.mapsofindia.com/maps/india/tier-1-and-2-cities.html, accessed on 8th Sep
2015

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