Integrated Brand Communications

By Interbrand. Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is to marketing communications what digital convergence is to the world of technology -- a revolutionary concept with great promise and hype, but one that leaves most executives wondering what is in it for them. In theory, IMC is hard to debate. The principle of integration holds that all communications emanating from a single strategic platform will generate a significantly greater return on the communications investment than would be the case with traditional independent media executions.

The theoretical benefits are clear. For the client, there is the potential for significant syner-gies and stronger connections with their customers. For the agency, there is the promise of a more complete partnership with the client that provides a greater share of the total mar-keting communications budget. Practice has fallen far short of theory. Three underlying currents have undermined the potential of IMC: The very agencies that innovated the concept are constrained by media bias. If an advertising agency is shaping an integrated marketing communications plan, it is a fair assumption that the plan will revolve around advertising. While an important medium, advertising is not the end-all be-all of a successful integrated marketing plan. It is extremely difficult for organizations that earn their fees through media driven efforts to provide clients with unbiased integrated media plans. Clients themselves are poorly structured to truly execute an integrated communications plan. Most marketing communications organizations are structured around individual media with managers given a mandate to manage specific media budgets. Within such a structure, integration and centralization equate to a loss of individual power and control over one's own destiny. The integrated marketing communications begins too far down the value chain to be effective. The current model features tactical communications plans managed by tactical specialists. These plans need to be shaped first on the strategic level for the benefits of integration to be fully realized.

Integrated Brand Communications A new approach to integrated marketing actually starts the process a step earlier than the communications phase. Integrated Brand Communications (IBC) is a holistic communications process strategy that engages the very highest levels of management. Integrated brand communications brings strategy, finance and marketing communications together toward managing the brand to optimize its value. Its starting place is the business, not marketing communications. Its central premise involves the integration of all communication activities associated with management of the company's most precious assets -- its brands. Integrated brand communications flows from the foundation of brand value management - the management strategy that focuses on managing brands to optimize value. Such plans begin with an understanding of the role of the brand within the business model and a determination of how the brand can be better utilized to grow and sustain the business. This involves achieving a clear understanding of the brand as a financial asset and identifying the drivers of brand value so that they can be influenced and controlled through an integrated communications effort. Integrated brand communications provides an organization with the tools needed to manage the drivers of brand value. It serves as a catalyst for uniting executive, financial and marketing management in a joint endeavor to optimize the value of their brand assets and ultimately will help to remove the internal barriers that have prevented the realization of the true potential of an integrated communications effort. The Process How, then, to put it into practice? Below is a brief overview of the ten steps necessary to build a successful integrated brand communications program: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Understand the Branding Role Understand Brand Value Understand Your Audience Frame Your Big Idea Understand Perception Barriers Build Messages to Shift Perceptions Understand the Role of Each Medium Determine the Optimum Media Allocation Measure Results Return to Step 5 and Repeat

The integrated marketing communications begins too far down the value chain to be effective. The current model features tactical communications plans managed by tactical specialists. These plans need to be shaped first on the strategic level for the benefits of integration to be fully realized.

Step 1: The Brand in Your Business Start with understanding the role of brand in your business. The primary value of IBC is that it provides management with a comprehensive process for leveraging brands to sustain and grow the business. The starting point for such an initiative involves understanding the role brand plays in facilitating the business model today, as well as exploring the ways the brand can enhance the business model tomorrow. "Brand" is defined as a relationship that secures future earnings by securing customer loyalty. Given this, the starting point for integrated brand communications involves analyzing the role that the brand plays -- and can play -- in securing greater loyalty across the business. This involves challenging long held assumptions regarding the key drivers of the business. Beliefs such as: "price is our only added value," "ours is simply a commodity business," "we can't alienate our distribution partners," and "our brand plays no role, it is all about relationships," need to be re-examined in the light of what is possible, rather than what has always been. Step 2: Understand Brand Value Understand the current value of your brand. For years, executive management has sought a means to quantify the return on marcom investments, only to be told that it is nearly impossible to isolate this data. Integrated brand communications eases the process. This process provides management with the tools needed to judge brand asset investment performance relative to all other asset investments made by the enterprise. Brand Valuation leverages discounted cash flow/net present valuation methods to derive an objective measurement of brand value. Individual cash flows are then examined and all brand derived flows are isolated. The discount rate is a function of brand strength. From this, a discounted net present value for the brand is calculated. The value of "valuation" in the integrated brand communication process is not necessarily the raw number that is calculated. Instead, it is the relative change in value from assessment period to assessment period that provides an objective quantification of the return on funds invested to build and promote the brand. The initial valuation provides the necessary benchmark. The brand is then revalued on an annual basis to determine the overall effectiveness of the program. Because brand valuation provides a means for isolating the contributing factors to brand value, it is also possible to build a forecasting model that enables "what-if" scenario based planning. Step 3: Understand Your Audience Once the role of the brand has been explored, the next critical step is identifying your target audience. In this process, it is necessary to distinguish between targets that drive the success of the business and targets that simply contribute to its success. It is important to draw these distinctions to help prioritize the brand building effort. Logic holds that if you successfully influence your driving audiences, the resulting business performance will be strong enough to motivate your contributing audiences to take notice and respond. The primary challenge is to design a brand strategy that connects with your driving audiences and a communications plan to connect with your contributing audiences.

Step 4: Frame Your Big Idea Big ideas are what define unique value propositions. Communicating sameness is a waste of valuable resources. Communicating meaningful distinctiveness is a catalyst for growth. Big ideas stem from a clear understanding of audience needs, marketplace dynamics and your business strategies. Big ideas match your unique skill set with the needs of your driving audiences. Great big ideas satisfy four fundamental criteria. They are: relevant in connecting with audi-ence needs differentiated and stand apart from competitive propositions credible in their believability stretchable in growing with your business as it grows.

4. Completing the Process Step 5: Understand Perception Barriers The next challenge is to understand just how much you need to change the way your audiences think to get them to respond to your big idea. Audiences move through a process of progressive involvement with a brand as they develop a loyal relationship. In that process, perceptions may develop that may hinder their ability to respond to your distinctive promise. These "perception barriers" must be surmounted in order to convey your big idea. Some barriers are more difficult to surmount than others. If your barriers are awareness related, greater exposure to your message may be all that is needed to fix the problem. However, if you face questions of credibility, you must actually change the way your targets think about your value to them. Step 6: Build the messages to shift perceptions Getting people to change the way they think about you is no easy task. It requires a communications effort that is capable of penetrating the formidable walls people erect as protection against daily information overload. To make them take notice, you must deliver precisely targeted messages that compel them to alter their assumptions. Often marcom professionals believe that communications success is simply a function of media budgets that generate exposure. However, a compelling message that delivers a powerful, big idea can generate communications success even with modest media budgets. Before you spend, make sure you have the messages right. It will help to optimize the return on the money invested. Step 7: Understand the Role of Each Medium Once you have the messages down, pick the media best suited for the communications task. As a general rule, each progressive stage of involvement requires more individualized communications to fulfill the particular needs of your audience. Broad exposure media such as advertising and PR are powerful awareness building tools. They also are helpful in instilling a sense of relevance. High-touch media, such as collateral, direct and interactive media, are more powerful tools for confirming relevance and instilling a clear sense of differential value.

Once the purchase decision is made, direct interaction is the most effective tool for shaping satisfaction and encouraging loyalty. The key to success is understanding that alternative media provide a rich set of tools to draw upon. The challenge is to leverage the relative power of each medium to build an integrated solution that will work the best for your unique audience communication requirements. Step 8: Determine the optimum media allocation The ultimate execution challenge is determining the optimal media mix to propel target audiences toward developing an intense loyalty to your brand. It is likely that in year one you will be restricted by budget appropriations. The trick is to optimize the power of your message within the limited means of your budget. This will help generate a compelling ROI and securing increased funding in the future. Fortunately, high-touch media cost less than the broad exposure media. Creative media planning to optimize existing budgets will be an important success influencing skill, especially in year one. Then, with demonstrated results, the case can be made to invest appropriate funds for brand building in year two and going forward. Step 9: Measure results Making a case for an investment in marketing communications can only be done with a clear sense of the facts.

Convincing financial management to view communications as an investment, rather than an expense, requires that you can demonstrate a return on that investment that can be judged relative to all competing investments. Brand valuation provides a quantitative tool for determining ROI. By valuing the brand in the second step of the process, you've established an initial benchmark. Revaluing the brand will provide an indication of the success of the program. The change in value marks the return on investment. In addition to helping you build a business case for increased investment, brand valuation provides insight for program enhancement. Despite your creativity, there is always the opportunity to make the program better. By exploring the effectiveness of messages and media through qualitative input, you have the tools needed to optimize the approach in year two and farther into the future. Step 10: Revisit Step 5 Repeat the process again, and again. Integrated brand communications is an organic process -- one that can be fed, nurtured and made stronger through active involvement. Once you've measured your initial results, return to the program's foundations and examine opportunities for enhancement.

Interbrand was established in 1974 and is now the world's leading brand consultancy with 25 offices worldwide. Our Its disciplines include strategic consultancy, brand valuation, corporate and brand identity and market research.