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Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
I. Introduction to Integrated
Marketing
Communications
current advertising campaign is designed to raise
awareness, as well as to enhance the brand image.
The focus of the ads is surreal, many featuring the
“snow woman”—a hauntingly beautiful woman
who imparts an expensive and classy feeling to the
viewer and, hopefully, to the brand. The ads will
appear on television, in print, and on retail and outdoor
billboards.
Samsung’s Olympic sponsorship typifies the repositioning
strategy the company has undertaken.
Samsung’s objectives in Salt Lake were “to provide
Olympic fans, athletes and their families with entertaining
and memorable Olympic experiences” and
“to showcase [its] leadership in digital convergence
by letting spectators touch and feel products that
will soon be unveiled to the U.S. market” (Il-Hyung
Chang, head of Samsung’s Olympic projects). The
Olympic Rendezvous was the centerpiece of the
sponsorship. Located in Salt Lake Olympic Square,
the sponsorship provided daily entertainment
shows, athlete appearances, future product displays,
free phone calls, and other forms of entertainment.
More than 240,000 people visited the
Rendezvous during the 16-day period, and it was
rated the top attraction in Olympic Square by visiting
fans. Perhaps more important, 74 percent of the
visitors stated they now had a more positive image
of Samsung, and 76 percent indicated a willingness
to purchase a Samsung product in the future.
The Internet is also a major part of the new IMC
program. Samsung will have front-page sponsorships
on 50 major websites, including Fortune.com,
Forbes.com, BusinessWeek.com, and other business
publication sites. CNN.com and EW.com will also be
included in an attempt to reach 300 million “hits”
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2. The Role of IMC in the
Marketing Process
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
per month. By being on these sites, Samsung hopes
to associate its brand with other well-known, and
well-expected, brands. Joint product development
ventures with strong-brand-image companies such
as Sprint, Texas Instruments, and Dell are also
working to reposition the brand.
So far, the efforts appear to have gone well.
According to Interbrand—a brand consulting firm
in New York—Samsung’s brand-value rank is 43
(Sony’s is 18). While still behind Sony, the brand’s
value rose 22 percent in 2001, with only Starbucks
doing better. The Samsung brand ranks number 1
in flat-panel monitors and DRAM semiconductor
memory chips. It is number 2, behind Sony, in DVD
players and number 3 in mobile handsets. Samsung
is, by far, the largest corporate presence in South
Korea. Overall, Samsung is the second most recognizable
consumer electronics brand in the world,
according to Interbrand. A very strong player in
China, Russia, and Korea, Samsung has now
become a global brand as well, with 70 percent of
its sales outside these three countries.
Can Samsung overtake Sony? As of now, the
company has less than half the revenue of Sony,
but it is no longer just making cheaper versions of
Sony products. Robert Batt, of Nebraska Furniture
Mart, thinks Samsung can outstrip Sony. To quote
the $300 million retailer, “Someone shook that
company up. It’s moving up with the big boys.”
Look out big boys!
Sources: Christopher Saunders, “Samsung Ramps Up Web
Efforts in New Campaign,” InternetNews.com, May 24, 2002,
pp.1–2; William J. Holstein, “Samsung’s Golden Touch,”
Fortune, Apr. 1, 2002, pp. 89–94; Frank Gibney, Jr., “Samsung
Moves Upmarket,” Time, Mar. 25, 2002, pp. 49–52; Heidi Brown,
“Look Out, Sony,” Forbes, June 11, 2001, pp. 96–98.
The Samsung example is just one of many image-creating strategies that demonstrate a
number of important marketing strategies that will be discussed in this chapter. These
include the identification of market opportunities, market segmentation, target marketing
and positioning, and marketing program development. Samsung’s recognition of
the importance of a strong brand image coupled with a strong IMC program reflects the
solid marketing orientation required to be successful in today’s marketplace.
In this chapter, we take a closer look at how marketing strategies influence the role
of promotion and how promotional decisions must be coordinated with other areas of
the marketing mix. In turn, all elements of the marketing mix must be consistent in a