An Exploration of the Impact of Social

Media on Integrated Marketing

Communications in Business to Consumer

Organisations.

Vanya L. Maplestone

An independent research report submitted in

partial fulfillment of the requirements for

the Bachelor of Commerce (Honours), 2013

SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT AND MARKETING

FACULTY OF BUSINESS AND LAW

DEAKIN UNIVERSITY

ii

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP AND INDEPENDENT RESEARCH

Except where reference is made in the text, this report

contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in

whole or in part from a thesis or report presented by me

for another degree or diploma.

No other person’s work has been used without the due

acknowledgement in the main text of the report.

This report has not been submitted for the award of any

other degree or diploma to any other tertiary

institution.

Name: Vanya L. Maplestone

Signed:

Date:

i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThis year has probably been one of the most exciting,challenging, frustrating, rewarding, terrifying anddeeply satisfying in the thirty-six I have experiencedthus far. For creating, alleviating and mitigating thoseextreme emotions, I would like to acknowledge thefollowing people, to whom I am eternally grateful.

Dr Paul Turner: In what was an incredibly fast moving year, and for making the on-campus experience so civilized, I thank you for your assistance and encouragement, which was shown not only to me but also toour class throughout the triumphant as well as the dark moments.

Dr Michael Valos: My ‘mad professor’; we had quite a journey together. Thank you for testing me, challenging me, calming and questioning me. The lessons I take from you will stand me in good stead for the ‘real world’ and remind me to listen, trust my instincts and write faster!

Maral Mayeh: Your words of wisdom and ability to clarify things so that they simply make sense was very helpful. The lesson on EndNote was life changing.

Dr Melissa Parris: Thank you for finding the most entertaining book on analysing qualitative data that exists in the universe, and thank you for your valuable time and advice when I needed you, which was essential tothe completion of this monumental task.

Yee Ling Boo: After such a long break from quantitative analysis units, I know I was a challenge for you to teach, and I appreciate your patience, guidance and encouragement with our first trimester classes and assignments.

Sharon Chua: I am so lucky to have had access to your researching skills and a private EndNote tutorial; you really are the best librarian at Deakin.

ii

Lee Kim: The most over-qualified transcriber in Australia, at my beck and call, lucky me. ‘Thank you’ does not cover it, but it will have to do; my word count is heaving.

My Fellow Honours Students: Aisling McCarthy, Mark Jones,Damien Whitburn, Jenny Bith. What a pleasure it was to meet you all. I know some of you will be in my life longafter Honours and that is a nice bonus on top of an incredibly fulfilling year together.

iii

ABSTRACT

Social Media is a cultural and technological phenomenon

currently pervading many aspects of business to consumer

marketing. SM has become a powerful marketing

communications channel, eliminating as well as altering

the role of many traditional forms of interactive

marketing communication mediums. This is due to the

interactive, individualized and responsive nature of the

medium. Since the proliferation of digital media,

marketers are faced with more strategic and tactical

decisions than ever before, and guidelines to assist this

process are largely lacking in the academic literature.

This research uses the integrated marketing

communications framework (Chitty et al. 2011, p. 10),

which outlines the decision-making processes and outcomes

of implementation of communications programs. This is

because the model can identify appropriate processes of

integrating social media into marketing communication

decision making. Using an exploratory approach and a

qualitative methodology, this study comprised of eight

in-depth interviews with senior marketers from the

business to consumer sector. The study found that social

media imposed new features in the decision–making process

for IMC programs. The research also investigates how the

inclusion of social media in integrated marketing

communications alters the traditional framework. This

thesis puts forward tentative guidelines for managers and

iv

research propositions for future qualitative and

quantitative research.

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 11.1.1 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY 41.1.2 AIM OF THE STUDY 41.2 RESEARCH PROBLEM 51.3 RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS 51.4 CHAPTER SUMMARY 6

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 8 2.1 INTRODUCTION 82.2 IMC OVERVIEW 82.2.1 IMC: A DEFINITION 112.2.2 IMC: A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 112.3 SOCIAL MEDIA OVERVIEW 182.3.1 SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS 202.3.2 OPPORTUNITIES PROVIDED BY SOCIAL MEDIA TO THE IMC MIX 212.3.3 SOCIAL MEDIA IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES 242.3.4 SOCIAL MEDIA’S INTEGRATED ROLE IN THE IMC FRAMEWORK 282.3.5 SOCIAL MEDIA’S AFFECT ON IMC PROGRAM OUTCOMES 322.3.6 SOCIAL MEDIA’S AFFECT ON IMC PROGRAM EVALUATION 352.3.7 MEASUREMENT OF THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON IMC 352.4 HOW SOCIAL MEDIA CHANGES THE IMC FRAMEWORK 392.5 CHAPTER SUMMARY 39

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 40 3.1 INTRODUCTION 403.2 RESEARCH DESIGN AND APPROACH 403.2.1 NATURE OF THE STUDY 403.2.2 RESEARCH PARADIGM 413.2.3 PHENOMENOLOGY 433.3 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES 453.3.1 TRIANGULATION OF DATA 453.3.2 LOCATION, POPULATION AND SAMPLING 463.3.3 SAMPLING STRATEGY 463.3.4 SELECTION OF INTERVIEW PARTICIPANTS 473.3.5 SOURCING PARTICIPANTS 473.3.6 INTERVIEW METHOD 483.3.7 INTERVIEW PROCEDURES 493.3.8 INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND APPROACH 503.4 DATA ANALYSIS 513.5 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 53

vi

3.6 LIMITATIONS OF THE METHODOLOGY 543.7 CHAPTER SUMMARY 54

CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 55 4.1 INTRODUCTION 554.2 RESULTS OVERVIEW 554.3 FINDINGS WITH DISCUSSION 564.3.1 DEFINING SOCIAL MEDIA 574.4 PROPOSAL OF A MODIFIED IMC FRAMEWORK 594.5 THEMATIC ANALYSIS 594.5.1 LISTENING 604.5.2 ENGAGEMENT 634.5.3 AGILITY 684.5.4 STRATEGIC FIT 704.5.5 RESOURCES 754.5.6 INTEGRATION 794.6 CHAPTER SUMMARY 84

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND LIMITATIONS 86 5.1 INTRODUCTION 865.2 REVIEW OF THE RESEARCH 865.3 CONCLUSIONS 875.4 THE SOCIAL IMC FRAMEWORK 895.5 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR MANAGERS 905.6 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH 905.7 LIMITATIONS AND CHALLENGES OF THE STUDY 91

REFERENCES 93

APPENDICES 101 APPENDIX A: THE IMC FRAMEWORK & THE SOCIAL IMC FRAMEWORK 101APPENDIX B: SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW QUESTIONS 102APPENDIX C: SAMPLE TRANSCRIPTION 104APPENDIX D: BRAND IDENTIFIER MATRIX 105APPENDIX E: GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS 106APPENDIX F: PLAIN LANGUAGE STATEMENT & PARTICIPANT CONSENT FORM 107

vii

LIST OF TABLESTABLE 2.1: EXAMPLES OF SOCIAL MEDIA....................................30

TABLE 2.2: TRADITIONAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA CHARACTERISTICS AND CHALLENGES.......40

TABLE 4.1: SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS USED BY PARTICIPANTS....................87

TABLE 4.2: DEGREES OF DETAIL IN SOCIAL MEDIA DEFINITION GIVEN BY PARTICIPANTS. 90

TABLE 4.3: DEGREES OF SOPHISTICATION IN SOCIAL MEDIA DEFINITION GIVEN BYPARTICIPANTS.....................................................90

LIST OF FIGURESFIGURE 2.1: THE INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS FRAMEWORK...............13

FIGURE 3.1: TRIANGULATION OF DATA......................................45

FIGURE 4.1: THE SOCIAL INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS FRAMEWORK.........59

viii

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

The current media environment experienced by marketers is

becoming increasingly fragmented and in a state of

constant change. Senior marketers are faced with more

strategic communication decision making than ever before.

When taking their brand to market they are faced with

more heavily integrated marketing communications channels

than we have ever known. Since the inception of the

digital age, the Internet and particularly social media,

the possibilities for marketers to grow their brands

utilising these new mediums have dramatically expanded.

This has created problems of complexity in integrating

communication programs;

Managers now recognize that their customers andprospects are more powerful and skeptical than everbefore, with consumer-to-consumer influence at timestaking precedence over purchasing and relatedbehaviours previously shaped by thebusiness-to-consumer marketing tools of advertising,public relations, promotion, direct mail andpersonal selling (Kimmel & Kitchen 2013, p. 1).

Social Media (SM) itself is constantly evolving and

taking an increasingly significant role in organisations’

marketing communications with other organisations,

communities and individuals (Kietzmann et al. 2011). SM

has become a powerful marketing communications channel,

eliminating as well as altering the role of many

1

traditional forms of marketing communication, due to the

interactive, individualized and responsive nature of the

medium. The traditional process to coordinate

promotional tools in marketing communication media, as

well as ensuring a consistent brand message, is known as

integrated marketing communications (IMC).

The IMC Framework

This study will address marketing communications using

the perspective of the IMC framework (Chitty et al. 2011)

(See Appendix A). The framework assists in identifying

the issues SM raises for each step of a marketer’s

decision-making process and its impact on the outcomes of

an IMC program. This study seeks to examine how

appropriate this traditional marketing communication

framework is for marketers seeking to utilise SM to

enhance their marketing communications strategy and

implementation.

The Role of IMC

Marketers make marketing communication decisions for

strategic purposes. This may be directed by objectives

set by the company as a guideline for every department in

their operation, or they may be goals set by marketing

management personnel. Those may be goals in the form of

acquiring new customers, growing the relationship with

existing ones or the retention of brand loyalists. SM

has the potential to change the way this occurs.

2

Those decisions are largely based on budgeting allowances

and resources. The company will provide human resources,

technology and a promotional budget to execute a

marketing program for their brand. Large multinational

companies are known for the extensive lengths they go to,

to get their brand message across, and the cost is always

a fundamental part of that scale. If SM can provide more

effective and efficient marketing communications, a

reduction in traditional communications such as

television and print can occur.

Studies in consumer behavior tell us that marketing

communications must aim to influence the consumers’

brand-related beliefs, attitudes, emotional reactions and

choices (Chitty et al. 2011). The primary goal of a

marketing communications program is to increase a brand’s

equity in the minds of the consumer (Kevin Lane Keller

2009). Brand equity is enhanced when the consumer is

said to hold strong, favourable and sometimes unique

associations with the brand. Hence all elements of the

marketing mix are designed to enable the consumer to

undertake positive actions towards purchasing a brand.

With marketers losing control of their brand through

consumers making public comments on social media

platforms, brand equity is threatened. How do marketers

maintain their brand equity and stay aligned with

positioning when consumers are creating messages about

the brand.

3

In a cluttered, complex marketplace, marketingcommunications can allow brands to stand out andhelp consumers appreciate their comparativeadvantages. (Keller, KL 2001, p. 823)

Media must be carefully selected to reach the target

audience in order to achieve desirable outcomes. The

marketing department members make decisions about the

media they choose to use based on market research,

experience, industry best practice and trends (Schultz,

Don E & Schultz 1998). This is especially important in

todays fragmented media environment, where the

traditional advertising mediums of TV, radio and

magazines are becoming less and less effective and

cost-efficient (Mangold & Faulds 2009). Social media is

making this more complex as there are many more platforms

where branding will occur and consumers need to be

reached. What framework can facilitate an alignment

between media and message across traditional forms of

media and SM?

The information contained in any communications must echo

the brand-related values in the messages that they

promote to their audiences. ‘Marketing communications

allow marketers to inform, persuade, incite, and remind

consumers’ (Keller, KL 2001, p. 823). Being in the front

of the consumers’ mind is the key to affecting behaviour,

namely encouraging trial, repeat purchase and ultimately

becoming brand loyal. Those decisions are based on the

positioning strategy of the brand, that is, where the

brand sits in the mind of the consumer. That largely

4

determines the type of communication aimed at the target

market profile and suitable content for conveying the

message.

Social Media and IMC

Social Media has provided this decision-making process

with many opportunities and indeed challenges. Will the

traditional IMC framework be able to deal with a

different direction of communication between consumers

and companies and between consumers themselves or will a

new framework be required? The shift away from one-way

mass communication via TV, radio and print media towards

interactivity and online media has changed the rules for

marketing communicators forever. The two-way

conversations now possible with individual customers has

challenged the entire IMC process from its very

foundations. Social media has democratised the content

of marketing communications, and companies have to be

prepared for less control over what is said about their

brands (Winer 2009).

Social media now refers to ‘an intersection of software,

marketing, media, information and entertainment’

(Fernando 2007, p. 10). The opportunities this presents

to marketers are still being discovered, as a

trial-and-test approach is taken by many organisations

when implementing SM as a media channel. As a result,

this is an exploratory study to examine the many ways

organisations are taking alternative approaches to

developing their media selection and messages in SM. A

5

proficient understanding of the complex nature of SM is

of the utmost importance due to its ability to directly

affect the customers’ brand awareness and reputation

(Montalvo 2011). Currently, the SM field is saturated

with multiple platforms and applications, and new

developments are frequently made in supporting

technologies, making theory development in this field a

constantly evolving process.

1.1.1 Purpose of the StudyThe purpose of this study is to describe the issues that

senior marketers have experienced since the inclusion of

SM in IMC programs for their brands. In this way it will

make a contribution to the existing research by providing

contemporary insight based on qualitative research

methods and analysis. The conclusions from this study

will shed light on any issues that arise, and then offer

some solutions and perspective on the topic. This study

puts forward tentative guidelines for managers, as well

as research propositions for further qualitative and

quantitative research.

1.1.2 Aim of the StudyThe aim of the study is to challenge the traditional IMC

framework which was developed for traditional media

formats such as television and print. This study seeks

to provide marketing organisations with insights to

enhance the successful implementation of Social Media

within an IMC program. It does that by providing a

6

deeper understanding of emergent themes and practices

identified in the research findings. Using qualitative

data collection and analysis procedures within the scope

of a phenomenological design, a rich account of the

common experiences of marketing executives will arrive at

the essence of the research problem. Using an

exploratory approach, this study aims to provide a

wide-ranging snapshot of current issues faced by

marketers in the Business to Consumer (B2C) sector when

implementing and operating Social Media within their IMC

programs. The aim of the interviews was to uncover the

benefits of and barriers to successful implementation of

social media in the IMC mix. Using a qualitative

approach, the study seeks to explore the experiences of

these marketers and allow the issues to surface. While

the majority of the challenges faced by marketers in this

area are identified in the literature, there is a

deliberate intention to look for new initiatives,

successes or novel ideas encountered by the different

approaches taken by B2C marketers. Henceforth, the

outcome aims to propose solutions for practitioners in

this context and offer further avenues for academic

investigation.

1.2 Research Problem

The following research question and sub–questions have

been developed to aid the investigation into senior

marketers’ experiences in implementing social media in a

B2C context. These questions are designed to allow rich,

7

useful data to unfold from a broad range of participants

and yet contain the limits of the study to divert and

direct the information flow from the research

participants.

1.2.1 Research Question What is the experience of integrating Social Media

into the traditional IMC mix for marketing

executives in B2C companies?

In order to answer this research question to the fullest

extent, the following sub–questions are to be addressed:

1.2.2 Sub–questions What is the role of SM within IMC?

What are the perceived benefits of SM implementation

to IMC?

What are considered the determinants of successful

implementation of SM in IMC programs?

1.3 Research Contributions

There have been many successful studies on both the IMC

and SM functions for marketing practice as it stands

(Kaplan & Haenlein 2010; Kietzmann et al. 2011; Kitchen

et al. 2004; Kliatchko 2008; Mangold & Faulds 2009;

Peltier, Schibrowsky & Schultz 2003; Phelps & Johnson

1996; Schultz, D & Peltier 2013; Valos, Ewing & Powell

2010). The conclusive studies of IMC develop elements of

or make suggestions on how to implement, measure and

adjust IMC programs to maximize organisational strategic

outcomes. Yet the dearth of literature on social media as

8

a new phenomenon within the IMC context shows the lack of

a discussion on the connection or interplay between the

two. Current literature in the area of IMC consistently

focuses on the lack of a universal definition of IMC

itself and lack of a conceptual framework that can be

tested to facilitate further study of the dynamic forces

at play in the execution of IMC programs. This research

seeks to identify the links between Social Media and the

IMC construct, moving beyond the unsubstantiated claims

of many IMC conceptual arguments. The study will extend

the IMC theoretical framework to include the unique

interaction of SM in the current framework.

This project will put forward tentative guidelines for

managers as well as research propositions for further

qualitative and quantitative research. It is anticipated

that the following contributions will be achieved by this

study:

A rich, descriptive analysis of both the challenges

and solutions to the integration of social media

implementation within a marketing managers decision

making framework;

Examples of processes and practices used to develop

synergies between social media and traditional

promotional tools in order to ensure brand

consistency and facilitate brand equity to achieve

competitive advantage;

Characteristics of effective practices in terms of

implementing social media;

9

A modified IMC framework that takes into account the

characteristics of new and emerging social media

platforms and provides more relevant contemporary

guidelines to managers and researchers.

1.4 Chapter Summary

This chapter outlines the background to the research by

stating the purpose and aims of this study. The research

problem is articulated addressing the appropriateness of

the traditional IMC framework in terms of SM, with the

accompanying sub–questions addressed in the exploratory

research. Finally, there is a summary of the intended

contributions to the IMC literature with respect to the

inclusion of SM in its contemporary context.

10

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW2.1 Introduction

This chapter provides a review of the literature; which

comprises academic and practitioner literature in the

areas of Social Media (SM), Integrated Marketing

Communications (IMC) and marketing management. Key

concepts are defined and synthesised to provide a

background to the research framework and research

questions. Topics of the chapter are reviewed in the

following order: the definition and evolution of IMC, the

definition and relevant descriptions of Social Media

(SM), the opportunities and implementation challenges of

SM. Then we classified the SM platforms and discussed

integrating SM in IMC programs and SM’s impact on IMC

outcomes and measurement. The chapter concludes by

proposing a modified IMC model incorporating the

characteristics of social media.

2.2 IMC Overview

IMC has undergone significant change from its emergence

in the early 1950s to its more specific tangible

characterisation in the early 90s. Subsequent rigorous

academic efforts have been made to define IMC as a

dynamic phenomena prominent as a communications

management style with businesses and consumers to the

present day (Chandor 1950; Kitchen et al. 2004; Kliatchko

11

2008; Phelps & Johnson 1996; Schultz, Don E 1996; Valos,

Ewing & Powell 2010).

In order to define IMC, the purpose of this study, it is

important to include a description of the boundaries of

IMC. The definition of IMC throughout its evolution has

been deemed a significant research issue within the last

decade (Kitchen et al. 2004; Lee & Park 2007; Peltier,

Schibrowsky & Schultz 2003; Reid 2003, 2005; Reid, Luxton

& Mavondo 2005). To understand the impact of social

media on IMC, it is also important to look at the

underlying dimensions of the IMC construct.

The IMC construct in terms of its concept and processes

has been the subject of much theoretical discussion and

debate. IMC is considered by some academics as simply

incorporating the marketing communications mix and its

components (advertising, sales promotion, public

relations, the internet and direct marketing) and often

referred to as ‘channels’ or ‘media’. Nevertheless this

allows a solid foundation upon which to develop the

conceptual base, and analysis of IMC activity (Lee & Park

2007).

Traditionally IMC has been considered a process involving

the integration and alignment of strategic and tactical

decision making. Integration in companies has been

described as existing on a continuum from low-level

integration to absolute integration (Reid, Luxton &

Mavondo 2005; Schultz, Don E & Schultz 1998). Tactical

execution is guided by consistency between all messages

12

depicting the core values of the brand. All marketing

communications are customer oriented and driven by

knowledge derived from consumer data to ensure strategic

goals are met and returns on investment are monitored.

According to the academic literature, a consensus on

appropriate measurement of IMC outcomes has not yet

occurred. Acceptance of the IMC concept has been

challenging for many managers, with many seeing it as no

more than a management fad. This may explain the lack of

development in the measurement of IMC outcomes, which has

been lacking in research, and the attention from senior

executives (Cornelissen & Lock 2000; Kitchen et al. 2004;

Reid 2005). IMC’s initial conceptualisation describing

the coordination and interaction of the promotional mix

elements is owed largely to Don Schultz (Schultz, Don E

1996; Schultz, D E 2011; Schultz, Don E & Kitchen 1997;

Schultz, Don E & Schultz 1998; Schultz, Don E, Tannenbaum

& Lauterborn 1992; Schultz, Don E, Tannenbaum &

Lauterborn 1994). Effective coordination of the IMC

marketing communication mix was said to culminate in a

‘one-voice’ phenomenon (Kitchen et al. 2004, p. 19) with

much research dedicated to the development of this

concept (Duncan, TR & Everett 1993; Nowak & Phelps 1994;

Phelps & Johnson 1996; Schultz, Don E, Tannenbaum &

Lauterborn 1992). The literature in subsequent years

invoked widespread criticism of IMC coordination to

create ‘one voice’ as a management fad (Cornelissen &

Lock 2000; Kitchen et al. 2004). The aim of IMC is to

13

maintain consistency between the elements of the

promotional mix and yet provide a clear message via

different forms of media. The ‘one-voice’ term was

confused as one message for all mediums and hence became

the center of the debate as to how to customize a

campaign to suit various forms of media. SM has

increased the pressure to solve this challenge.

Primarily, by tracing the evolution of IMC we can attempt

to define it. The vast amount of academic literature on

IMC debates how to achieve integration and what is

understood as a holistic view of this concept. This has

most effectively been summarized in studies by Phelps and

Johnson (1996), Lee and Park (2007) and Kliatchko (2008).

Phelps and Johnson (1996) made an attempt to move beyond

the rhetoric of defining an expanding concept such as

IMC. IMC is constantly evolving, and these authors

sought rather to develop the conceptual base and the

measurement of IMC. Subsequent research used this

approach to enable development of new rigorous research

frameworks and went beyond the scope of much IMC research

up to that point (Lee & Park 2007; Peltier, Schibrowsky &

Schultz 2003).

Then a decade later, Lee and Park (2007) also addressed

this aspect of IMC study by developing a four-dimensional

concept of IMC, the first of its kind to address the

multiplicity of the paradigm and produce conclusive

results. Lee and Park (2007) discuss the progression of

the IMC construct, its various definitions and

14

development since its initial concept in the early 1990s.

As a conclusive piece of research, this study makes a

contribution to the empirical knowledge of IMC and its

measurement, by developing a research instrument that is

valid, reliable and can effectively be used in any future

studies.

Jerry Kliatchko (2008) comprehensively looked at the

recurring themes of IMC, its theoretical evolution and

definitional challenges from 1990 to 2006 in an effort to

consolidate the preceding two decades of development. He

recognized the fundamental need to agree upon the

parameters of the IMC concept, that is, its role both as

a coordination process and as a business strategy.

Kliatchko (2008) redefined the original IMC framework he

put forward in 2005. His research outlined the major

issues and development of the concept up to 2008. This

study revises the IMC construct to propose a highly

practical definition of IMC which provided more rigour

for academic research into IMC assisted academic research

.

2.2.1 IMC: A Definition A further definition that helps provide background to

this study was undertaken by Boon and Kurtz ;

Integrated marketing communications attempt to coordinateand control the various elements of the promotional mix -advertising, personal selling, public relations,publicity, direct marketing, and sales promotion - toproduce a unified customer-focused message and,therefore, achieve various organisational objectives(Boone & Kurtz, 2007, p. 488).

15

In summary, the Kliatchko definition provides the most

suitable definition to guide this study,

IMC is an audience-driven business process ofstrategically managing stakeholders, content, channels,and results of brand communication programs (2008, p.140).

The benefit of this definition is that it highlights the

role of strategy in the coordination of a marketing

program and mix, and places less focus on the ‘one-voice’

approach (Cornelissen & Lock 2000; Kitchen et al. 2004).

The impact of SM has meant that IMC theory must move

beyond outdated beliefs and look at new strategies for

development of the concept.

2.2.2 IMC: A Theoretical FrameworkWiner (2009, p. 109) lists the typical management

decisions involved in applying the IMC process to achieve

clear positioning and a similar ‘look and feel’ across

communications:

The objective of the communications, The target market, The strategy (copy, media, timing), Budgeting, How to evaluate whether the objectives were

being met.This list provides a suitable guide for a study examining

how SM might require the IMC process to be modified due

to the unique and dynamic characteristics of SM . A

number of models were considered when looking for

underlying theory to guide the aims of this study and the

methodology .

16

Lee and Park (2007) addressed two of the most urgent

issues in IMC theoretical and conceptual research.

Firstly, approaching a definition of the IMC concept

incorporating its multidimensional nature to enable more

rigorous study; and secondly, to develop a universally

acceptable measurement tool for the IMC construct. While

this provided a framework to generalise the research

results, it was not comprehensive enough to enhance a

critical analysis of the interplay of elements in the IMC

process.

Jerry Kliatchko (2008) designed a four pillars model of

strategic IMC management to depict the interaction

between a brand’s stakeholders, the content, channels and

results. The pillars interplay with each another allowing

the results of each pillar in the IMC program to inform

the others, thereby creating a feedback mechanism for

measurement, evaluation and analysis. This creates a

basic framework to illustrate how an organisation may

attempt to integrate their marketing communications.

This framework, although simple, creates a good overview

of the IMC process and lays the path for further study.

Schultz and Schultz used the ‘four levels of IMC’

framework to break down integration tasks of the IMC

process as it moves up through tactical coordination, to

redefine the scope of marketing communications, then the

application of information technology and finally

incorporating financial and strategic goals at the top

level (Kliatchko 2008; Schultz, Don E & Schultz 1998).

17

They argue that marketing and marketing communications

are in transition due to technological advances, so an

organisation moves from one stage of integrated marketing

communication development to another as a result of the

organisation’s ability to capture and manage information

technology. This conceptual framework although effective

in describing the IMC process of integration, fails to

include the importance of outcomes and feedback

mechanisms for future improvement and shared learning of

IMC programs.

A further alternate IMC model was devised by Chitty et

al. (2011, p. 10). It was designed as a framework for

making brand-level marketing communication decisions and

achieving the expected outcomes (see Figure 1.). A

marketing communications program essentially consists of

first making fundamental decisions, which then influence

implementation decisions. In combination they create two

desirable program outcomes: to enhance brand equity and

affect behaviour. These outcomes are co-dependent in

that it is thought that if a consumer favours a brand

with increased brand equity, then they are more likely to

purchase it, or change their behavior towards it.

Likewise, a favourable experience with a brand can create

loyalty and repeat purchase behavior and ultimately

retain a customer.

18

FIGURE 2.1: THE INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS FRAMEWORK

Of the models examined by this study, this model appears

the most appropriate for a number of reasons. A focus on

the fundamental (strategic) and implementational

(tactical) decisions from the IMC model will lead an

inquiry into the influence of SM over these activities.

The framework allows components to be broken down and

more clearly understood by marketing practitioners who

may be struggling to understand the complexities of

social media.

‘IMC is a strategic process for better managing the brand

messages that create, maintain and grow customer

relationships’ (Reid 2005, p. 43). This process involves

fundamental strategic decisions in terms of positioning,

targeting, setting objectives and budgeting. The

following pages will now examine each of these in order

19

to demonstrate the marketer’s traditional approach to

communications strategies.

Positioning

Positioning is determined by several factors, but

ultimately the goal for the brand is to distinguish

itself from competitor offers. A brand’s position is its

key, unique feature, image or benefit, as perceived by

the brand’s collective audience. The position of the

brand is where the marketer determines where the brand

will sit in the mind of the consumer, that is, what space

does it occupy? A brand’s positioning will then guide

tactical decisions such as the selection of media

channels and creating content and messages. Decisions on

positioning are interdependent with targeting in the

fundamental planning stage, as the target audience

selected will often hold a similar view of the unique

properties of the brand (Chitty et al. 2011). The early

decisions a firm makes for a brand’s position will have a

lasting impact on the associations that consumers hold in

relation to the brand (Hoeffler & Keller 2003).

Targeting

Targeting is undertaken to ensure the intended message is

delivered to the desired audience based on consumer

profiles. This reduces wasted coverage and is contingent

on efficient and effective market research into the

brand’s consumers. Targets can be selected based on

shared characteristics such as geographic location,

20

demography or cohorts, values and lifestyles, consumer

behaviour or a combination that portrays a similar class

of consumer with shared purchasing habits (Chitty et al.

2011).

Setting Objectives

The basic premise of IMC is that there are a number of

communication objectives for a brand and a number of

different means of communication to achieve each of those

different objectives, suggesting that it therefore makes

sense to employ multiple communication options in

marketing communication programs (Keller, KL 2001). A

marketer will set objectives based on the goals and

values of both the organisiation and the marketing

department. Marketing communications should be viewed as

a strategic management tool and thus as an investment in

long-term results for the business (Kliatchko 2008).

These objectives may be set at the tactical to the

strategic level, from communication objectives to

financial outcomes.

Budgeting

The brand marketing team members are accountable for

their proportionate amount of specific budgets. Measures

such as Return on Investment (ROI), sentiment,

engagement, impact, reach, frequency, acquisition,

conversion and retention may be tactical goals set for

the integrated marketing program (Hoffman, D & Fodor

2010). Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) can be used to

21

define goals and objectives for a marketing

communications program for comparison between programs

and to determine levels of achievement within the

organisational objectives (Murdough 2009).

Budgets are set for IMC programs based on a combination

of historical data, market insights and strategic goals

of the organisation. Reid (2005) identified that IMC was

more prevalent in larger organisations, market leaders or

those with larger budgets. This could suggest the

successful implementation of IMC processes and potential

impact of IMC on market performance rests with budgeting.

Once these macro level IMC decisions have been made,

tactics are required to execute an IMC plan. Referred to

in the framework as ‘Implementation decisions’, these

short-term decisions guide the day-to-day aspect of an

IMC program and are more flexible in nature.

Implementation decisions include mixing elements,

creating messages, selecting media and establishing

momentum.

Mixing Elements

Mixing the marketing communication elements is a crucial

orchestration of allocating resources and seeking the

synergistic effect of using these elements in an optimal

combination. Kevin Lane Keller (2009) lists the major

marketing communications mix elements as advertising,

sales promotion, events and experiences, public

relations, direct marketing, interactive marketing,

22

word-of-mouth marketing and personal selling. For the

purposes of this research that is an exhaustive list

which will provide a basis for comparison between

different companies when referring to uses of the IMC

promotional mix.

Creating Messages

IMC is described as having achieved ‘one-voice’ when the

brand develops a clear and consistent image, position,

message or theme across all marketing communications

(Phelps & Johnson 1996, p. 167). Creating those messages

is one tactical element of the communication strategy,

but it is perhaps the most pivotal aspect of a campaign

given that the message draws on the brand’s identity and

represents the brand in the mind of the consumer.

Content strategy and consistency in tone of voice, brand

values and public image is of the utmost importance when

creating messaging. Marketing communication programs

must not be developed in isolation. The effects of any

communication option will depend, in part, on the

communication effects engendered by other communication

options. That realization poses a challenge to marketers

as to how to collectively design and execute marketing

communication options so that they reflect aspects of

other communication options in an optimal manner (Keller,

KL 2001).

Selecting Media

23

In order to reach the target audience and remain flexible

and versatile, a combination of media elements must be

employed. Furthermore, the correct mix of media can

achieve traditional IMC goals such as maximum coverage,

wide reach and efficient frequency while minimising waste

coverage and costs (Belch & Belch 2012). All possible

communication options should be evaluated in terms of

their ability to create the desired communication

effects. This is largely based on the strengths of the

selected option. The optimal communication program will

depend on the particular objectives involved. Thus, it is

important to employ a ‘mix’ of different communication

options, each playing a specific role in creating the

desired communication effects or brand knowledge

structures (Keller, KL 2001). Marketers should ‘mix and

match’ communications options to build brand equity, that

is, choose amongst the variety of communication options

with similar content and meaning but that offer

complementary advantages in that the whole is greater

than the sum of the parts (Duncan, TR & Mulhern 2004;

Naik & Raman 2003; Naik, Raman & Winer 2005).

In the light of digital marketing and the proliferation

of media options now utilised in the marketer’s tool kit,

it is important to understand how paid, owned and earned

media works for the modern marketer. Paid media is

typically considered to be traditional advertising:

print, television, radio, display, direct mail, paid

search, retail and channel advertising. Those media

24

forms attempt to develop brand awareness and acquire new

consumers to the brand’s offerings. Paid media is the

channel often selected to reach a mass market and achieve

scale of reach in a short space of time. The benefits

are complete control over the message content and costs

involved, however the downside can be the saturation of

similar advertisements and pure ‘brand messages’ can

reduce the ability for the advertisement to cut through

this ‘clutter’. Owned media is online media content that

the brand has complete control over, such as a corporate

website, campaign microsite, blog, online brand

communities, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram or

mobile applications. Those media channels target your

existing brand followers and current customer base.

Earned media is the natural result of public relations

efforts, advertising campaigns, events and content

created in the existing owned media channels.

An important part of marketing communications today is

also word of mouth (WOM), and electronic word of mouth

(eWOM). When an online brand advocate creates social

media posts, comments, tweets, product reviews, videos,

photos and open conversations with online communities, it

is considered earned media (Brito 2013). Integrating

those channels is referred to as converged media, and

utilising two or more is capable of creating a consistent

brand story. The convergent media strategic approach

supports a consistency between platforms, devices,

channels and furthermore can protect the brand against

25

disruption caused by emergent technologies in the modern

marketing mix (Brito 2013).

Establishing Momentum

The marketing communications program must establish a

degree of momentum, or consistent level of impetus, to be

effective and worthwhile (Chitty et al. 2011). While the

concept of momentum is relative, essentially new brands

will need to create strong, favourable and unique brand

images by spending a larger proportion of their budget

than an established brand. The fundamental approach to

establishing momentum is consistency. The brand must be

visible to consumers and the coordination of

communications must reflect a sustained, consistent

effort to be in the minds of their consumers.

Integrated marketing communication programs were defined

earlier as those involved in using multiple communication

options where the design and execution of any

communication option reflects the nature and content of

other communication options making up the IMC program.

Evaluating IMC programs thus requires an assessment of

exactly how ‘integrated’ the program is from the

standpoint of how well different marketing communication

options ‘fit together’ to produce the desired effect

(Keller, KL 2001).

2.3 Social Media Overview

Social media is the fastest growing area of interest

among marketing academicians, however the focus is

26

largely on uses, usage, tools and tactics rather than

understanding where SM might fit in an IMC mix (Schultz,

D & Peltier 2013). Social media (SM) refers to:

… a group of Internet-based applications that build onthe ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0,and that allow the creation and exchange ofuser-generated content (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010, p. 61).

This research study attempts to address this gap by

modifying the IMC framework to take into account the

unique characteristics of social media such as two-way

communications and interactivity. It is important to

define Web 2.0 as it impacts IMC, likewise ‘user

generated content’ must also be defined in the context of

SM. Web 2.0 is the technological and conceptual platform

upon which SM operates and evolves (Kaplan & Haenlein

2010). Web 2.0 is a name given to the movement from

individually programmed activity on the World Wide Web

(WWW) also known as Web 1.0, to the interactive,

collaborative and user-driven nature of the Internet

since 2004 (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010). This shift was

caused by the development of new applications that

enabled the functioning of interactive sites and

platforms and allowed tools to provide the necessary

functionality to generate and share content. Those

applications include software packages such as Adobe

Flash, AJAX and RSS. However their uses are beyond the

scope of this study (Mangold & Faulds 2009). The ability

to operate and utilise these functions allows the user to

generate, publish, upload, comment, share and publicise

27

content. ‘User generated content’ is therefore all online

activity created by users for other users, branded or

unbranded. It can take the form of text, images,

conversations or shared documents. It is due to those

reasons that social media behaves differently from

traditional media hence a new model is required to depict

this unique interaction with consumers.

Social Media is defined by another group of authors as:

… forms of electronic communication (as Websites forsocial networking and blogging) through which userscreate online communities to share information, ideas,personal messages, and other content (such as videos)(Edosomwan et al. 2011, p. 79).

This acknowledges the online community aspect of SM, a

natural form of self-segmentation practice among users of

Web 2.0 (Canhoto, Clark & Fennemore 2013). Edosomwan et

al. (2011) also identify the difference between SM as a

strategy and an outlet for broadcasting, and contrasted

it with Social Networking (SN) as a tool for connecting

with others. This thesis recognises the uses of SM as

incorporating all forms and effects of SM in a broad

strategic sense. Beyond the traditional IMC framework,

these characteristics suggest the model needs a two-way

dynamic process .

Blackshaw and Nazzaro (2004) use the term

‘consumer-generated media’ interchangeably with SM and

look at it as a form of media which:

… describes a variety of new sources of onlineinformation that are created, initiated, circulated andused by consumers intent on educating each other about

28

products, brands, services, personalities, and issues.(Blackshaw & Nazzaro 2004, p. 357)

The characteristics of SM that differentiate it from

traditional media channels, stem from the interactivity

of this relatively new medium. There is growing belief

that consumer brand engagement needs to be addressed

beyond the transactional level to include all potential

touch points with the brand (Schultz, D & Peltier 2013).

Two-way communication flow between consumer and brand

allows a level of interaction where users of SM become

active participants in the brand’s communications

program. The consequences of having highly engaged

consumers include increased brand equity, retention,

share of wallet, ROI and positive WOM (Vivek, Beatty &

Morgan 2012).

In summary these characteristics are quite different from

those of traditional forms of media such as television,

radio and newspapers, and the relationships between IMC

concepts are likely to require some rethought and need

rearrangement.

2.3.1 Social Media Platforms Classification of SM platform types can be based on the

utility they provide to the IMC promotional mix, hence we

refer to four categories of SM:

Social Networking Sites (SNS) – Facebook,LinkedIn, Google+,

Microblogs – Twitter, Content – YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, Online Communities – Forums, Blogs.

29

The most commonly used SM platforms in 2013 are Facebook,

Twitter, LinkedIn, blogging and YouTube. They were the

top five platforms used by marketers, with Facebook

leading the way. All the other platforms were distinctly

less popular in comparison to that top five. The top six

have remained virtually the same since 2012 (Stelzner

2013).

Table-1 outlines some examples of the type of SM

platforms in existence, based on their uses. This list

is far from exhaustive, but it illustrates the importance

of the variety of uses encountered via SM.

TABLE 2.1: EXAMPLES OF SOCIAL MEDIA.

Social Networking Sites

Facebook, MySpace, Faceparty, Google+

Creativity works sharing sites

Video sharing sites: YouTubePhoto sharing sites: Flickr, Tumblr, Instagram, PinterestMusic sharing sites: SpotifyContent sharing combined with assistance: Piczo.comGeneral intellectual property sharing sites: Creative Commons

User-sponsored blogs The Unofficial Apple Weblog, Cnet.com

Company-sponsored blogs/websites

Apple.com, P&G’s Vocalpoint

Company-sponsored cause/help sites

Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty, click2quit.com

30

Invitation-only social networks

ASmallWorld.net

Business Networking Sites

LinkedIn

Collaborative websites

Wikipedia

Virtual Worlds Second Life

Commerce Communities eBay, Amazon.com, Craig’s List, iStockphoto, Threadless.com

Podcasts ‘For Immediate Release: The Hobsonand Holtz Report’

New delivery sites Current TV

Educational materialssharing

MIT OpenCourseWare, MERLOT

Open Source Software communities

Mozilla’s spreadfirefox.com, Linux.org

Social bookmarking sites allowing users to recommend online news stories, music, videos, etc.

Digg, del.icio.us, Newsvine, Mixx it, Reddit

*Adapted from Mangold and Faulds (2009, p. 358)

2.3.2 Opportunities Provided by Social Media to the IMC MixSM as a technological concept, has brought about many

significant changes to the nature of business to consumer

(B2C) marketing communications (Kietzmann et al. 2011).

SM’s role in the promotional mix of an IMC strategy is

twofold: firstly, to enable companies to talk to their

customers; and secondly, to allow customers to talk to

31

one another (Mangold & Faulds 2009). The former is

consistent with the role of traditional IMC programs; the

latter, is unique. The potential power and scope of

opportunity provided by SM platforms comes with a whole

set of new purposes for the marketing practitioner and

researcher alike and has become an integral part of

marketing strategy (Barnes 2010). The ways in which SM

has created a global, interactive, user-driven space

where the fundamental principles of mass communication

are less relevant, means that marketing communications

are redefined and new approaches to trusted, traditional

marketing practices must be proposed, trialed, tested and

shared (Winer 2009). Anecdotal evidence from market

research reports suggests that firms use SM, to build

direct relationships with customers, increase traffic to

their website, identify new business opportunities,

identify trends and keep up with competitors, create

communities, distribute content, demonstrate product,

collect feedback from customers and generally to support

their brand (Barnes 2010; Breslauer & Smith 2009).

Strategic Uses The role of SM within the IMC mix is to provide support

to the traditional forms of advertising, public

relations, word-of-mouth marketing and direct marketing.

By utilising the transparent, two-way communication

characteristic of SM, the IMC mix becomes faster, cheaper

and more efficient at delivering the message of the

brand’s communications to the targeted audience. SM can

32

enable advertising messages to reach wider audiences than

traditional forms, in less time and for a fraction of the

cost (Keller, E & Fay 2013). Due to their

non-transactional nature, SM platforms such as Facebook

and Twitter are particularly suited for collecting

information and feedback from customers, initiating

two-way conversations with customers and developing

relationships with customers through communication and

interaction (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010). The dynamic nature

of SM interactions allows highly targeted marketing

efforts, based on the volume and speed of information

available to marketers and the rich customer insights

available when users share their consumption experiences

(Canhoto, Clark & Fennemore 2013). Online communities

devoted to consumption-related topics are an increasingly

important source of data for marketing research (Kozinets

2002). Companies like IBM, Nike and the like embrace

their communities, to co-create purposefully, in a way

that plans for long term outcomes (Berkman 2013).

According to the IMC choice criteria, the ideal

integrated marketing communication program would be one

that retained a core of consistency across communication

options but designed these various options so that the

strengths in one option helped to negate the

disadvantages of another option (Keller, KL 2001).

Hence, the confluence of paid-owned-earned media helps to

form a strategy that builds the ability to withstand the

disruptions caused by emerging technologies. (Brito

33

2013). The relatively inexpensive access to rich data on

consumer opinions, preferences and purchasing behavior

renders the companies with the best adapted technological

capabilities in the most competitive position to build

brand equity and affect buying behaviour by using SM

(Canhoto, Clark & Fennemore 2013).

Tactical UsesResearch into changing market segments, identifying

emergent demographics, tracking opinions, ‘crowdsourcing’

or using online conversations to aid in product

development and ‘always on’ customer service are just

some of the ways SM can enhance the IMC mix (Canhoto,

Clark & Fennemore 2013; Vuori 2012). The deeper

understanding gained from engagement with a brand’s

consumer via SM assists in developing the program to

deliver more efficiently and effectively a marketing

communications program to the targeted audience or

individual. Tom Smith (2009) refers to these new

research opportunities collectively as being created by a

‘listening economy’ (p. 560) meaning that SM can become a

valuable source of knowledge, but the marketer must make

listening a part of their marketing communications

strategy. This is ultimately the best way to build a

relationship with a consumer and encourage loyalty and

favourable brand associations. Transparency and being

open with the consumer will become commonplace as the

customer demands direct responses from a personality

within the company and personalized prices, promotions

34

and communications for their individual consumption

needs. Firms that can influence the ‘likeability’ of

their brands by creating unique transactions with each

consumer, reduce the outcome inequity and differentiate

them in the marketplace (Nguyen, Melewar & Chen 2013).

The culture of sharing opinions via SM has meant that

peer reviews are now more trusted than the traditional

elements of the promotional mix (Mangold & Faulds 2009,

p. 360). This creates the need for marketing managers to

use SM to create brand advocates and participate in SM

activities that stimulate positive eWOM and brand

associations on Web 2.0. As an information channel, SM

is fast becoming the main source of information for many

customers in their purchasing behavior (Kaplan & Haenlein

2010). Text, photos, video and audio files can easily be

disseminated among customers, and a consistent message

aligned to the company values is necessary to utilise

this medium to extend traditional communications, create

engagement and extend their social capital (Khan 2012).

Brand OutcomesWord-of-mouth marketing, an essential part of IMC, is

perhaps the most influential aspect of SM benefits. By

enabling customers to talk to one another, SM becomes an

extension of traditional word of mouth (Mangold & Faulds

2009). Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) enables a brand

message to spread exponentially via the Internet. Word

of mouth (WOM) has the reputation of being the most

trusted and reliable form of advertising (Blackshaw &

35

Nazzaro 2004). WOM referrals have been found to have a

strong impact on new customer acquisition, and the

elasticity for WOM is approximately 20 times higher than

for marketing events and 30 times higher than that of

media appearances (Trusov, Bucklin & Pauwels 2009).

Within the SM landscape of the Internet, WOM, both good

and bad, is a trusted source of information and research

suggests that marketers must harness this influence.

According to Neilsen BuzzMetrics, more than 60 per cent

of consumers trust other consumers’ online postings about

a product or service (Blackshaw & Nazzaro 2004).

Building online communities can create a panel of

experts, and advocates for a brand to become online

ambassadors for that brand where popularity and influence

holds the key to brand engagement (Schultz, D & Peltier

2013) and ultimately sales (Keller, E & Fay 2013).

2.3.3 Social Media Implementation IssuesIn the seminal article authored by Rust and Oliver(1994),

it was predicted that the ‘information superhighway’

would render the traditional advertising agency obsolete

and see the consumer unite with the producer. Rust and

Varki (1996) then went on to posit that advertising will

become solicited by the customer, and that mass media

will be replaced by interactive forms of media. The era

of mass customisation was predicted as early as 1997

(Gilmore & Pine 2nd 1997).

Challenges faced by marketers implementing an SM

component in IMC programs seem to be arising due to the

36

nature of SM, its lack of coordinated control and all the

associated problems surfacing from the lack of managerial

guidelines and best practices. The issues of impeding

implementation include the lack of integration across

organisational culture, allocation of human, financial

and technological resources, clarity of strategic role

and overall control.

Implementation of IMC programs was found to be positively

related to a strong customer orientation and higher

levels of inter-functional coordination (Reid 2005).

This is the essence of IMC in action, to take an

‘outside-in’ (Schultz, Don E 1996) approach to

communications. SM operates on the same principle when

part of a wider IMC plan.

Organisational cultures that foster the adoption of SM

will largely determine its successful implementation. SM

requires resources and some access to management. If the

management does not reward and encourage participation,

the tools cannot be used effectively (Barnes 2010).

Leadership orientation towards marketing in general and

SM specifically, can dictate the level of SM integration

within an organisation.

Resources can enhance the implementation of SM, whether

that be budgeting, innovations in technology or human

resource management. Resources and cost are frequently

cited as a barrier to successful usage of SM

(Michaelidou, Siamagka & Christodoulides 2011).

Technology is frequently cited as the main barrier to

37

successful SM implementation, due to the gap in

technology that currently exists between social media

metrics and analytical tools, and CRM databases and sales

records. Although this area of IT is developing rapidly,

it makes current implementation of SM difficult to

quantify and demonstrate outcomes in a meaningful way.

The costs involved in SM proprietary software such as

Radian6 can outweigh the long-term benefits in the

majority of cases with small to medium enterprises

(SMEs).

Mike Reid suggests that well implemented IMC programs

will provide organisations with the ability to achieve

their stated strategic goals (2005). As a user–dominated

medium, a strategy of customer orientation lies at the

core of successful implementation. SM tools are not

useful unless they are fully understood by the decision

makers. SM has to be integrated into the strategic plan

of the organisation. It must be featured in every

marketing initiative, be it a brochure, packaging,

labeling or electronic direct mail (EDM), as well as

becoming part of the corporate mentality (Barnes 2010).

The ‘user democracy’ culture (Leung et al. 2013) and

information sharing via SM has created a wave of change

in information asymmetry and increased the bargaining

power of consumers. Vuori (2012) found that ‘fear of the

unknown’ may impact on company willingness to adopt SM

for business use (p. 158). Risk averse managers will

impede the success of SM implementation if careful

38

execution of policy and procedures are followed in the

governance and regulation of SM platforms and assets.

The proliferation of media, advertising and digital

agencies offering SM services can create barriers to

successful implementation due to conflicts of interest,

lack of brand consistency and loss of control from a

brand management perspective. Advertising agencies

cannot be seen to be operating in silos, but rather must

create IMC specialists and absorb the online aspects into

their overall brand strategy to be of use to their

clients (Edelman 2007; Lace 2004). Larger fast moving

consumer good (FMCG) organisations employ multiple

agencies to oversee their advertising, digital and media

planning, and if uncoordinated this will dilute brand

consistency.

Lee and Park reduced the literature reviewed in 2007 down

to four dimensions of IMC. They were identified as

‘unified communications for consistent message and

image’, ‘differentiated communications to multiple

customer groups’, ‘database-centered communications for

tangible results’ and ‘relationship fostering

communications with existing customer dimensions’ (Lee &

Park 2007). Table 2 highlights some key themes to inform

the research sub-questions for this study, and therefore

the data collection process, and isolates opportunity

areas where SM will enhance the optimal mix for IMC

promotional programs. Likewise some challenges arise

from the consumer-driven content and interactivity of SM

39

and the subsequent impact on the implementation of IMC

programs.

TABLE 2.2: TRADITIONAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA CHARACTERISTICS AND CHALLENGES

40

Lee andPark’s IMCDimensions

(2007)

TraditionalMedia (TM)Characteris

tics

Social Media(SM)

Characteristics

Social MediaImplementati

onChallenges

ResearchSub–

questions

Unified communications for consistent message

One-way communicationsMarketers control content

Two-way communicationsUser generated contentUser democracy

Multiple channels andplatforms lack controlfor consistency

What factorsdetermine successful implementation of SM?

Differentiated communications to multipleuser groups

Mass communications and strategic uses of multiple channels

Targeted communicationsMultiple platforms/screens

Content strategySelf-segmentationResourcesInhouse/Agency costs

What is the role of SM in the IMC mix?

Database-centered communications for tangible results

Limited capacity touse as a data collection channel

Interactive communications and data collection via CRM, Insights, SEO, Analytics

Measurement of data, unable to align with measurement of TM

What are thebenefits of successful SM implementation?

Relationship (long term) fostering communications with existing customer dimensions

Not integrated with TM media channelsMessage is broadcast, not interactiveConversation is static

Mulitple touch points across organisation and communicationchannelsBuild Brand Advocates through online communities

Customer-centric communicationsListening and participating in authentic and transparent way

What is the role of SM in the IMC mix?

41

42

2.3.4 Social Media’s integrated role in the IMC frameworkUsing the IMC framework as a theoretical guide, this

study will seek to identify the fundamental and

implementation decisions that are affected by the

integration of social media into the traditional elements

of the marketing communications mix. The review of the

literature will now discuss each element of the IMC

decision-making cycle in relation to the impact of SM

upon these strategic and tactical decisions.

Positioning IMC is a strategic process for better managing the brand

messages that create, maintain and grow customer

relationships and brands (Duncan, Tom & Moriarty 1998;

Reid 2005). Positioning identifies the key

characteristics of a brand and the SM strategy must be

selected to augment the place it occupies in the mind of

the consumer. However, these marketing communications

activities must be integrated to deliver a consistent

message and achieve the strategic positioning. The

starting point in planning marketing communications is an

audit of all the potential interactions that customers in

the target market may have with the company and all its

products and services. For example, someone interested in

purchasing a new laptop computer might talk to others,

see television ads, read articles, look for information

on the Internet and look at laptops in a store

(Kevin Lane Keller 2009). Mangold and Faulds (2009)

43

recommend methods that can be used to shape online

discussion between consumers, while reinforcing the

organisation’s strategic goals and underlying values and

mission. The authors describe SM as a new ‘hybrid’ of

some of the elements of the promotion mix, identifying

the place it will come to occupy in the mix but also the

way in which new methods will be required to manage it.

Targeting A marketer’s ability to engage customers through

interactivity and communicate with targeted segments will

allow them to deliver benefits that the traditional media

cannot. It seems that incorporating SM into the

promotional mix of IMC will further develop marketing

management practices, while allowing more effective

communication with target markets (Mangold & Faulds

2009). Noone, McGuire and Niemeier (2011) suggest that

by monitoring ‘user-generated content’ on SM, marketers

can develop a better understanding of the characteristics

of consumers on different SM platforms and therefore

guide the target advertising and promotional message used

on different SM applications.

Personalised marketing is facilitated via the public

discussions and activity on SM, and marketers are

increasingly interested in ‘behavioural targeting’ (Winer

2009, p. 109) by following what people are doing on the

web and where they are located by personal GPS when they

use mobile devices such as tablets and mobile phones.

Targeting now involves getting to know the brand’s

44

consumers intimately. ‘The key to marketing success in

this WOM era is to think first and foremost about social

consumers rather than social media’ (Keller, E & Fay 2013,

p. 463). The general consensus is that markets are

becoming fragmented with typical demographic breakdowns

becoming less and less useful (Winer 2009).

Setting ObjectivesIMC objectives are a list of statements describing what

communication tasks must be used to deliver the intended

message to the targeted audience (Belch & Belch 2012).

As opposed to marketing objectives which are

traditionally stated as measurable, business outcomes

such as return on investment (ROI), sales volume, market

share or profits and IMC objectives are defining the role

IMC will play in achieving those objectives. The

manager’s task is to take as much information about the

product or service and the overall marketing strategy and

then translate that into specific tasks within the

communications program. That can be defined in terms of

how they communicate about a brand and disperse

information or it can be related directly back to a

quantifiable marketing goal such as sales or market

share. Social Media subverts this process by shifting

the way objectives are selected due to the largely

consumer-controlled environment and the measurement of an

interactive media environment (Hoffman, D & Fodor 2010).

Hoffman and Fodor (2010) list sales, cost efficiencies,

product development and market research, as specific and

45

measurable objectives, but adding the unique

characteristics of SM to enable insight into brand

awareness, brand engagement and word-of-mouth objectives.

The interactive nature of SM can develop favourable brand

associations in the customer’s minds, foster loyalty

through commitment to an engaging campaign and share

their positive brand attitudes with others.

BudgetingWhen considering budgeting elements in IMC, it is

inherent in any marketer’s modus operandi to compare the

relative costs of media. Traditionally, metrics such as

cost per thousand (CPM) and daily inch rates have been

used respectively in magazines and newspapers so that the

proportion of the printed material in circulation can be

effectively quantified (Belch & Belch 2012). That method

calculates the cost efficiency of one form of media over

another in any given campaign as long as they are similar

media vehicles. This perspective of budget setting cannot

as easily be applied to SM within an integrated marketing

program as the metrics set for a SM initiative may be

somewhat less tangible, for example, increased

engagement, click through rates and ‘likes’. The

effectiveness of a banner ad when compared to a print ad

equivalent in terms of cost and return, is hard to

reconcile. Winer (2009) attributes the lack of research

into budgeting and planning in new forms of media, such

as SM, to the ‘three screen’ problem. The complexity of

coordinating media plans across TV, personal computers

46

and mobile phones means that budgeting can be difficult

to assign to each part of an integrated program. If

management sees budgeting as outside the domain of the

IMC function, one could expect that the importance

ascribed to budget reflects financial constraints and the

bearing this has on multidimensional communication

options, including emphasis on above or below-the-line

activities (Farrelly, Luxton & Brace-Govan 2001).

Mixing ElementsMarketing executives must coordinate the media selection

to achieve the overall marketing and IMC goals.

Kevin Lane Keller (2009) recommended that a variety of

communication elements that share consistent meaning and

content but offer complementary advantages are used, so

that the ‘whole is greater than the sum of the parts’ (p.

146). Media planners need to think about how, when and

where to reach consumers and the moments most likely to

lead to conversations and engagement (Keller, E & Fay

2013, p. 463). Researchers have traditionally studied

the effectiveness of different communication options or

media types, typically advertising in some form. The

challenge for marketers in the current marketing

communications environment is the fragmentation of

traditional advertising media, as well as the emergence

of new, non-traditional media, promotion, and other

communication alternatives. The optimal mix must

acknowledge that potential interactions may exist among

the different options that make up a communication

47

program that profoundly affects consumer response to any

one particular option (Keller, KL 2001).

Creating Messages The organisation’s strategy and performance goals are

intrinsically linked to the success of SM integration

with IMC, hence the optimal mix will communicate a

unified message that represents the values of the brand

(Mangold & Faulds 2009). Mangold and Faulds (2009)

identify two roles that SM plays in the market place and

that is, as a two-way communication channel between a

company and its consumer; and secondly, it enables

conversations between consumers themselves. This

challenges the traditional amount of control marketers

had on the communications process in the past with an IMC

program (Mangold & Faulds 2009). ‘To be effective, the

content of advertising messages should lend itself to

word of mouth’ (Keller, E & Fay 2013, p. 461). This means

that messages need to be simple, memorable and worthy of

sharing. Newsworthiness and storytelling drive eWOM, and

therefore messages, must create a compelling story with

the ‘sharing’ value being the ultimate goal. SM

campaigns and strategists must focus on their content

being shared, ‘liked’, tweeted and uploaded to SM

platforms.

Selecting Media Media should in many cases be considered first (aftertarget audience and behaviour), creativity should follow(Farrelly, Luxton & Brace-Govan 2001, p. 5).

48

Consumers are turning away from traditional forms of the

promotional mix, and advertising is diminishing as a

source of information input in their purchasing

decision-making process (Mangold & Faulds 2009). In this

new media environment, the consumer is increasingly in

control, and therefore the selection of media forms

becomes a complex task (Winer 2009). Consumers not only

have more choices of media to use, they also have a

choice about whether and how they want to receive

commercial content. Commercial clutter is rampant, and

it seems the more consumers avoid marketing appeals, the

more marketers try to access them. The average city

dweller is now exposed to between 3000 and 5000

advertisements per day. Ads in almost every medium and

form have been on the rise, but many consumers feel they

are becoming increasingly invasive and actively avoid or

ignore them, reducing their effectiveness

(Kevin Lane Keller 2009).

Establishing Momentum The achievement of momentum in an IMC program is

propelled to the forefront of strategy when implementing

a SM campaign. The speed and agility demonstrated by SM

campaigns will become one of the most important aspects

of positive SM implementation. The ability for messages

to be shared and spread virally across the Internet

attracts marketers for the potential reach and benefits

attributed to creating a ‘buzz’ about a product or

service. The term ‘viral’ describes a type of marketing

49

that infects customers with an advertising message which

passes from one customer to the next ‘like a rampant flu

virus’ (Montgomery 2001, p. 93). This is a feature of SM

potential that will become central to content strategy,

media selection and mixing elements. In the book

‘Groundswell’, the authors talk of a future whereby

companies must seek to harness the ‘groundswell’

phenomena (Li & Bernoff 2008) by listening and

participating, and ultimately actively shape the

discussions that occur online. To be effective in their

long-term strategies, a ‘culture of responsiveness’ must

be fostered in the new interactive online environment

where the consumer has more control over their

consumption of media, power in communities and

interaction with brands (Li & Bernoff 2008).

Social Media is about conversation, networking andengagement. Find something you have in common and strikeup a conversation. Begin to network. See whether there isa reason to work together. And then proceed. Remember tobe social (Dietrich & Livingston 2012).

2.3.5 Social Media’s Affect on IMC Program OutcomesMarketing communications can create experiences and build

communities both online and off line. They can contribute

to brand equity by establishing the brand in memory and

creating a brand image, as well as drive sales and even

affect shareholder value (Chaudhuri & Holbrook 2001;

Kevin Lane Keller 2009).

From the IMC framework in Figure 1, the marketing

communications program seeks to affect behavior and

50

enhance brand equity as key outcomes of the program.

Empirical research evidence supporting SM’s effects on

company performance is largely lacking, which creates a

barrier to wider acceptance by senior management and

hinders the implementation process (Michaelidou, Siamagka

& Christodoulides 2011; Murdough 2009; Reid 2003; Valos,

Ewing & Powell 2010). Reid (2005) explores the

relationship between the IMC process and subsequent brand

outcomes. The main finding being that indeed a positive

correlation exists, suggesting the need for wider

implementation of IMC by management.

Enhancing Brand EquityA brand is a name, sign, symbol, term, logo or design

(Kotler et al. 2006) that can be instantly recognised to

convey the value, attributes, benefits and personality of

the product it represents. A brand identifies the maker

of a product or service and differentiates them from

their competitors. The goal for successful branding can

be to develop a deep sense of attachment between the

consumer and the brand. Values and personality are at

the essential core of a brand and brand strategy must be

designed around protection of this personality and public

identity.

When a brand has strong consumer loyalty and preference

it can provide protection against competitors promotional

strategies. This powerful value placed on a brand can be

described as brand equity (Kotler et al. 2006). Brand

equity is based on the extent to which it commands

51

loyalty and strong brand associations with its consumers

(Chaudhuri & Holbrook 2001). Brand equity manifests in a

customer response to any type of marketing activity for

the brand, based on the differential effect their brand

knowledge makes on the promotional efforts of competitors

and favourable brands (Hoeffler & Keller 2003). The

strength and equity of a brand can make consumers:

… more willing to attend to additional communications fora brand, process these communications more favorably andhave a greater ability to later recall the communicationsor their accompanying cognitive or affective reactions(Kevin Lane Keller 2009, p. 140).

The value of a strong brand to its organisation is

visible by recognition of some of the marketplace

benefits. This is inextricably linked to customer equity

(Kotler et al. 2006). Loyalty, in terms of a customer’s

lifetime value, drives brand equity. Further, long-term

effects such as brand trust and affection can affect

market share and relative price, thereby creating a

justification to spend marketing communication budgets on

those drivers of brand strength (Chaudhuri & Holbrook

2001).

Customer equity underpins the strength of a brand and

therefore a consumer-centric focus in brand building is

vital to the success of a strategy (Kevin Lane Keller

2009). Developing knowledge structures through marketing

communications can benefit brands, and likewise studies

show that it is increasingly difficult to change how

consumers consider a brand once established in mind

52

(Hoeffler & Keller 2003). Almquist and Roberts (2000)

found that the major factor to influence positive brand

equity for one brand over another was consumer advocacy.

Brand advocates are created and nurtured via SM

platforms, this in turn can protect a brand’s equity in

two ways. Consumers who are highly loyal to a brand have

been shown to increase purchases of a brand when

advertising increases thus creating a return on

investment in branded advertising on SM (Raj 1982).

Consumers who demonstrate a high level of commitment to a

brand are more likely to counter argue with negative

information during a product-harm crisis (Dawar &

Pillutla 2000). Even before the arrival of the online

brand advocate, studies showed that consumers who have a

high level of commitment to a brand are more likely to

counter argue with negative information in public

spheres, and strong brands were shown to weather

product-harm crises, as a result (Hoeffler & Keller

2003).

Affecting BehaviourIMC allows companies to link their brands to other

people, places, events, brands, experiences, feelings and

things (Kevin Lane Keller 2009). This creates behaviours

that affect the way individuals interact with brands. SM

has increased the ways in which consumer behaviour can be

affected by marketing communications. A key element of

the IMC mix is word-of-mouth marketing, that is, relying

on brand loyalists to generate positive messages about a

53

brand, product or service to other people. SM has

widened the scope of WOM to include the vast boundaries

of the Internet, and this has changed the way people

consume products and services. Advertising and WOM are

inextricably linked: WOM has proven to be highly credible

and linked to sales; advertising has been proven to help

spark conversation (Keller, E & Fay 2013). Since the

inclusion of SM, consumers are using more web-based

information sources, shopping platforms and have access

to more products via online advertisements.

Approximately 23.1 million consumers between 13 and

80 years of age use SM to discover new brands or

products, and 22.5 million people use SM to learn about

unfamiliar brands or products (Naylor, Lamberton & West

2012). This has created new online and offline shopping

behaviour. It has been suggested that the returns on

social media investment are not always attached to a

measurement in dollars but rather directly in consumer

behaviour that is linked to certain social media

applications (Hoffman, D & Fodor 2010). The cost of

acquiring a new customer is higher on the Internet, and

profitability from a customer can only come if that

customer makes many repeat purchases in future years.

This implies that the value of loyalty is often greater

on the Internet than in the physical world (Jain & Singh

2002) and those retained customers can form a basis for

sustained competitive advantage. Such an approach

54

becomes even more relevant in the SM environment where

customer relationships are critical.

2.3.6 Social Media’s affect on IMC Program EvaluationTo evaluate the effectiveness of the IMC program, the

framework flows from the outcomes to program evaluation,

which involves measuring the results, providing feedback

and taking corrective actions (Chitty et al. 2011).

Although this component of the model is a vital mechanism

to drive improvement through development of existing

tools and measurement structures, its investigation is

beyond the scope of this study.

2.3.7 Measurement of the effects of Social Media on IMC An apparent widespread lack of reliable metrics and

generalisability of research studies creates barriers to

understanding and assessing the effect of SM on IMC

programs. The search for valid measurement tools and

empirical understanding of the inclusion of SM in the IMC

concept appears to dominate the scarce literature as a

whole (Berkman 2013; Kliatchko 2008; Lee & Park 2007;

Michaelidou, Siamagka & Christodoulides 2011; Murdough

2009; Reid 2003; Schultz, D E 2011; Valos, Ewing & Powell

2010).

The challenge with traditional IMC programs formerly has

been a question of how to measure the results of a

combination of elements or activities or forms of

communication. Don Schultz (2011) questioned that they

55

may or may not interact with each other and may or may

not enhance results when in combination. SM can be seen

to create a further hurdle in the understanding of the

dynamic forces behind an IMC effort:

... existing business metrics were designed for a worldof concrete boundaries and fixed categories—a world thatis slipping away day by day... The same phenomenon willplague the business economy, as networks become moreinfluential while remaining temporary and informal. Onthe other hand, perhaps this change will finally forceresearchers to develop metrics that are trulycustomer-centric, instead of relying on categories ofbusiness organisations as a convenient crutch (Borders,Johnston & Rigdon 2001, p. 204).

IMC MetricsIn a traditional IMC program, specific objectives, key

performance indicators (KPIs) and benchmarks are aligned

with the firm’s organisational strategy by which the

outcomes of subsequent programs can be compared (Murdough

2009). The way in which SM was adopted by most firms was

typically outside the regular marketing strategy and

organisational structure, and thus caused disruption to

the controlled and planned development of other marketing

activities. Hard measures such as sales, profitability

and return on investment (ROI) are the sole focus for

Chief Financial Officers and therefore dictate the

marketing executives inherent need to satisfy those

measures. Marketing executives are still accountable for

justifying a growing portion of their budget for SM, and

thus an ‘integration gap’ with SM has been created

(Moorman 2013). As a result, successful measurement lies

in approaching implementation and optimization of SM

56

programs with the same coordination of planning,

implementing and controlling its strategy, as is

commonplace with any other marketing strategy (Murdough

2009).

A longitudinal study by Valos, Ewing and Powell (2010)

identified a major aspect of IMC evaluation as the need

for more accountability and quantitative measures. The

biggest challenge stems from an identified gap between

attitudinal measures and financial accountability.

Measuring the impact, reach and frequency is of the utmost

concern to marketers, to arrive at conversion ratios and

ultimately sales and revenue performance indicators

(Chitty et al. 2011). It is suggested that traditional

marketing metrics are based on a linear form of

communication and do not suit the interactivity of

Web 2.0 (Hoffman, DL & Novak 1996; Winer 2009).

The ‘hard’ measures such as sales, profitability and

Return On Investment (ROI) must somehow be derived from

unique online behaviors (Valos, Ewing & Powell 2010).

The measurement of ROI from SM as a strategic element of

communications programs is difficult to determine

(Edosomwan et al. 2011). Furthermore, brands are not

monitoring the effectiveness of the support SM provides

to their brand. Based on these two differential

characteristics alone, the increased influence of the

interactivity of SM may force organisations to develop

more customer-centric metrics to evaluate their SM

strategic effectiveness (Michaelidou, Siamagka &

57

Christodoulides 2011). Keller, KL (2001) proposes that

various marketing communication options must find a

method to arrive at some kind of ‘common denominator’ to

put all communication channels on an equal footing so

that ‘apples are compared to apples.’

Social Media MetricsDue to SM’s relatively recent placement in the new media

landscape, the issue here is twofold. Is SM considered to

be integrated and if so, can it be measured the same way

other integrated marketing communications channels are

currently being measured? Historically, the measurement

of social media’s effect has been elusive, inconsistent

and largely subjective. This can be attributed to a

lack of integration (Hurwitz 2012), lack of rigorous

quantitative measures (Hoffman, D & Fodor 2010) and lack

of long term planning (Murdough 2009).

The aim to attract new customers is prevalent as the most

important reason for using SM channels, and yet

measurement of this important aspect is relatively low.

This demonstrates the link between creating strategic

goals and the use of metrics to assess whether a program

is consistently meeting them and thus reveals a gap where

most organisations are failing (Michaelidou, Siamagka &

Christodoulides 2011).

The addition of SM to the IMC mix has created a need for

quantifiable metrics of concepts such as ‘willingness to

refer the brand’ and ‘likes’ and ‘followers’, and yet

linking these outcomes to profitability is still awaiting

58

acceptable best practice and benchmarking in most

industries and categories. Hoffman and Fodor (2010)

suggest the three goals to measure a successful social

media strategy are, brand awareness, brand engagement and

word of mouth WOM. SM measurement is not impossible and

improving all the time, however, the lack of quality

data, meaningful metrics and interpretation of analytics,

and their successful application to multiple situations

has made evaluation difficult (Valos, Ewing & Powell

2010).

Very little is known about to the metrics currently used

across B2C organisations, but the push from academia and

industry is for the development of new and creative

metrics to suit the social media environment (Russell

2009) to assess branding efforts. Chris Murdough (2009)

proposed an SM measurement process to manage the

challenge of tracking customer behavior via digital

platforms. The fundamental difference in approach when

assigning metrics is that with SM the consumer is

ultimately in control. In Murdough’s Social Media

analysis construct, where reach, discussions and outcomes form

the basis for SM measurement, it is possible to

synthesise SM activity with brands and identify key

opportunities. Reach is measured in terms of quality and

quantity. Discussions are broken down by topic and

sentiment, albeit positive or negative. Outcomes are

measured by subsequent behavior, traffic to the website

and purchase intent. Those metrics of engagement can be

59

a way of quantifying the conversion rate of specific

referral sources, for example, Facebook, Blogs or search

engine optimization (SEO) into sales. This method of

analysis is in alignment with the IMC framework, and thus

potentially could equate SM activities with tangible

financial gains for the brand.

2.4 How Social Media changes the IMC Framework

There is growing belief that interactivity and

interconnections between consumers and marketers will

provide the dominant paradigm for a new interactive

communication model going forward (Jansen, Sobel & Cook

2011; Martin & Todorov 2010; Schultz, D & Peltier 2013).

We propose in this thesis to include the interactive

force of SM into the IMC framework, in order to aid

strategy formation and decision making for marketers, and

propose a research tool for further study. According to

the outcomes of the study, SM places a hub between the

strategic and tactical decisions and the IMC program

outcomes. This hub will transform strategy into new

behaviours towards the brand via social connection with

the consumer. Likewise, the allocation and effective

planning of resources will translate to brand-building

content which drives brand equity.

2.5 Chapter Summary

This chapter showed the evolution of IMC according to the

academic literature from the early 1950s to the present

day. This was undertaken in order to provide the

60

theoretical basis for a research model and data

collection. The alternative IMC conceptualisations were

examined to identify a model that would be appropriate to

incorporate the unique features of Social Media, as these

models were developed prior to the rapid evolution of

digital technology and Social Media. The following

literature fields were examined; definitions and

evolution of the IMC process, the IMC framework, the

impact of Social Media on IMC implementation issues and

the measurement of Social Media outcomes. Finally a

modified version of the IMC model was proposed, which

incorporates the unique effect of Social Media on IMC.

In the next chapter an appropriate qualitative

methodology is selected for understanding the potential

impact on IMC processes due to the rapid evolution of the

characteristics of social media.

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction

The objective of this chapter is to discuss and justify

the choice of research methodology as appropriate for an

exploratory study into marketers’ experiences of

integrating Social Media (SM) within Integrated Marketing

Communications (IMC). This chapter explains and

justifies phenomenology as the most relevant research

paradigm to guide a study of this nature. This chapter

initially explains the research design and approach of

61

the study; it then discusses the data collection and

analysis methods used; and finally it describes the

ethical considerations implicit in a study of this

nature.

3.2 Research Design and Approach

3.2.1 Nature of the StudySM is a cultural and technological phenomenon pervading

many aspects of business to consumer (B2C) marketing

(Edosomwan et al. 2011). SM has become a powerful

marketing communications channel, eliminating or altering

the role of many traditional forms of integrated

marketing communication mediums. As a result, the

appropriateness of existing models of integrating

traditional media forms of marketing communication needs

re-evaluation. This study explores the impact of SM on

traditional IMC decision-making frameworks. The

literature reflects the rapidly evolving world of SM,

with little conclusive evidence of best practices.

Academia has yet to come up with a widely accepted

definition of SM and empirical metrics and guidelines for

its implementation and role in strategic decision making

within IMC programs. Hence further academic investigation

and development of the main themes arising in this area

of study are needed.

This research seeks to advance the existing marketing

communications literature in order to identify

appropriate approaches and processes to integrate new SM

62

platforms and technologies into marketing communications

decision making. Marketing practitioners and academics

are beginning to acknowledge the utility of qualitative

studies in that they ‘gain valid insights, develop theory

and aid effective decision making’ (Goulding 2005, p.

295). Qualitative methods are required to make new

discoveries when a measurement, statistic or outcome

cannot give us that insider perspective and unlock

possible solutions to problems not allowed for by

quantitative means. Currently there is major evolution

in SM hence the need for exploratory qualitative study of

new SM advancements virtually monthly. Qualitative

research is aimed at ‘exploring the meaning individuals

or groups ascribe to a social or human problem’ (Creswell

2007, p. 37) and thus lends itself to the research

question:

What is the experience of integrating social media intothe traditional IMC mix for marketing executives in B2Ccompanies?

Therefore, this research used a qualitative, exploratory

approach to data collection. The qualitative approach to

research ‘is uniquely suited to uncovering the unexpected

and exploring new avenues’ (Marshall & Rossman 1995, p.

26). The use of a qualitative methodology enabled a

depth in the understanding of the individual experiences

with SM. The study design offered flexibility within the

research to tease out any issues not previously

identified in the literature which could not be supported

by quantitative techniques. Furthermore, the exploratory

63

nature of the study enabled important variables to

surface while supporting the chosen research strategy

(Marshall & Rossman 1995).

3.2.2 Research ParadigmTo develop a deeper understanding of the experiences with

SM within the field of IMC, it would be appropriate to

collect data from marketing practitioners who are working

with SM. These individuals make decisions regarding SM

implementation and experience the phenomena this research

sought to uncover. The pervasive nature of SM uses

across many industries requires a flexible methodology

with scope to look at different applications of the

medium within various organisations and the different

types of consumers who interact with it. Traditionally,

qualitative research in this field has been criticized in

terms of questionable standards of academic rigor and

‘soft’ scientific foundations, resulting in less of those

types of studies being undertaken in the marketing domain

(Goulding 2005). However, qualitative approaches used to

provide insight to marketing research problems is gaining

momentum (Goulding 2005). As mentioned earlier the need

to explore new phenomena surrounding the proliferation of

Social Media platforms and their usage lends itself to

the use of qualitative methods.

This study involved a search for experiences amongst

marketing practitioners; variations in marketing

outcomes, breakthroughs in successful SM implementation

strategy; evidence of alignment between social and

64

traditional media and synergies between social and

traditional media in the IMC program. By doing that, new

areas for future research have been identified and

tentative guidelines for managers have been put forward.

When choosing a methodology, decisions are required as to

the adoption of an epistemological and ontological

stance. Epistemology refers to the outlook that

knowledge is either acquired or inherent. Ontology seeks

to define whether the individual’s reality is internal or

external (Creswell 2007). The methodological parameters

set by those research choices then informs the decisions

and influences the methodology and paradigms chosen to

conduct a particular research study. In some cases

multiple paradigms may exist and the researcher may

unwittingly draw on elements of more than one world view

in the research process.

Qualitative research paradigms build on the philosophical

underpinnings of a researcher’s own qualitative

approaches to research, that is, the notion that one’s

world view shapes the type of research practice

undertaken. A paradigm can simply be defined as ‘a basic

set of beliefs that guide action’ (Guba 1990, p. 17) and

stems from Kuhn’s original ideology, as a guiding

approach to theory and research (Neuman 1991). Neuman

(1991) explores the three most widely used paradigms, as

positivism, interpretive social science and critical

social science. We look mainly at the assumptions made by

the paradigms in the way that they guide our approach to

65

the research problem. Interpretivism and Positivism are

the most commonly used research approaches. Critical

social science sets out to move beyond them by

challenging the status quo and bringing about social

change.

Positivists believe in a singular version of reality,

causal relationships between variables and creating

generalisable results from research that may refine,

support or disprove existing theories (Gioia & Pitre

1990). That paradigm is deductive in that it looks at

finding unanswered questions from gaps in a review of the

existing literature and seeks to build a framework to

anchor a research plan. Interpretivism is a more

inductive approach to research, whereby the collection of

data guides the development of theoretical frameworks and

infers possible theoretical scenarios during the process

of the data collection itself. An interpretive

perspective seeks to gain an understanding or ‘feel’ for

the participants’ experience of the issue under

investigation.

When considering the three main research paradigms as

described by (Neuman 1991), it appears that

interpretivism is a likely fit for the research problem.

The key assumption of the interpretivist view is that

multiple versions of reality exist, that is, that each

person sees a situation with their experiences affecting

the way they process information. Therefore, the

personal accounts of the senior marketers were similar

66

and yet their industry, position and years of experience

and background shaped the individual accounts of their

experience. An Interpretivist approach to this research

supported the changeable nature of the subject matter

itself. A need to understand rather than measure and

generalise the answers of our participants indicated that

an inductive method of research would tease out the

issues the senior marketers were facing, and perhaps shed

some light on any recurring themes or possible answers.

The nature of an exploratory study is to generate further

research questions and lines of inquiry, and yet this

particular area of research is in its infancy, coupled

with the rapidly expanding field of data and unchartered

territory in the Internet and social media. The

underlying concept here is to report the process

systematically and yet allow room for the qualitative

‘magic’ to abound and allow the ‘creative brilliance’ of

qualitative methods to evolve and emerge through practice

and apprenticeship (Tracy 2010, p. 849).

3.2.3 PhenomenologyThe common meaning given to a phenomenon or concept

experienced by a single person or a group of individuals

is known as phenomenology (Creswell 2007). While the

meaning of this term has become diluted over decades of

application to philosophy, social science and, more

recently, qualitative research methodologies, its

overarching foundation remains as the essence of lived

experience for a person or group of people (Patton 2002).

67

The methodological approach of qualitative research

phenomenology is attributed to Alfred Schutz (1967) while

the classic method was introduced to the world in 1913 by

Edmund Husserl (Grbich 2007), who called it the ‘essence

of consciousness’ (p. 85). Heideigger, one of the

forefathers of the phenomenological research paradigm,

sometimes postulated that ‘phenomenology is about

describing something that is sometimes unique, sometimes

generalisable’ (Perrone & Vickers 2003). Phenomenology

is best suited to developing an ‘understanding of complex

issues that may not be immediately implicit in surface

responses’ (Goulding 2005) based on its underpinning

philosophical perspective of subjective experiences being

comparable despite the difference of subconscious

intentions.

Phenomenology as a research philosophy, can be used as

both a guiding principle for analysis and a world view,

while remaining reliable and rigorous for the research

problem under study. The overarching principle of

multiple perspectives on similar situations or phenomena

(Schütz 1967) allows the research to uncover, enlighten

and deepen the understanding of Social Media’s place in

marketing communications through exploratory, informal

and iterative processes that allow space for new

discoveries to be made.

For the purposes of this research, phenomenology was

considered to be the most appropriate methodology,

wherein a phenomenological study: ‘describes the meaning

68

for several individuals of their lived experiences of a

concept or phenomenon’ (Creswell 2007 p. 57). In an

effort to combine the experiences of similar candidates

and identify any emergent themes and common threads

amongst those interviewed, this study seeks out ‘how

human beings make sense of experience and transform

experience into consciousness, both individually and as

shared meaning.’ (Patton 2002 p. 104). That approach

identified the individuals who have experienced the

phenomena, and then probed further, finding out exactly

what they experienced and how they experienced it

(Creswell 2007). Thus, the employees from selected

companies and organisations became the unit of analysis

in this study.

3.3 Data Collection Procedures

Using the phenomenological approach to research design,

the study triangulates the data collection through

in-depth interviews, a scanning of organisational

documentation and a rigorous review of current

literature.

3.3.1 Triangulation of DataThe combination of multiple sources of information to

study a phenomenon is referred to as triangulation (Flick

2011). Marshall and Rossman (1995, p. 91) consider

triangulation to be a strategic choice made to enhance

generalisability, whereby data can be ‘used to

corroborate, elaborate or illuminate’ the research

69

question. By bringing together more than one source of

data to illustrate a point, the researcher can strengthen

their case for use in multiple situations (Marshall &

Rossman 1995). Current research repeatedly reports the

lack of construct validity in qualitative research

designs (Alam 2005). Therefore this research design

seeks to triangulate the data gathered between individual

sources, their firms and amongst the literature to

reinforce the credibility and reliability of the primary

data collection.

FIGURE 3.1: TRIANGULATION OF DATA

(adapted from Flick (2011)

PRIMARY DATASemi-structured

In-Depth Interviews

SECONDARY DATALiterature

Review

SECONDARY DATAOrganisational

Document Analysis

70

Semi-Structured In-Depth InterviewsFor primary data collection in this study,

semi-structured in-depth interviews are the main focus.

To gain the perspective of the strategists within

organisations using Social Media as a part of their IMC,

in-depth interviews enabled the collection of rich

information via open discussions and explanation of their

various experiences, outcomes, ideas and challenges.

Organisational Document AnalysisSecondary data was collected from each organisation’s

website, SM platforms and interfaces, marketing materials

and promotional campaign evidence. This supplemented the

primary data collected via in-depth interviews and

assisted the understanding of the proposed research

problem, and added further validation to the

interviewees’ responses.

Literature ReviewAs a preface to the interview data, the literature review

provides definitions, explanation of concepts and

describes the general state of IMC and the subsequent

effects of SM in the IMC framework (for the full

Literature Review see Chapter Two).

3.3.2 Location, Population and SamplingThe data collection was undertaken in Melbourne,

Australia. The researcher used Melbourne-based marketing

executives owing to limited time for data collection and

travel restrictions. The interview participants’

71

organisations were distributed in suburban Melbourne and

the central business district.

3.3.3 Sampling StrategySampling is perhaps the most important decision to make

in the data collection process. The quality of

information in primary data collections is based on the

appropriateness of the sample. Sampling targeted major

Australian companies, based on an even mix of consumer

products, mainly FMCG and Retail (B2C) oriented brands.

Research into how companies use SM is very limited, and

focuses largely on consumer behaviour in a B2C

environment (Michaelidou, Siamagka & Christodoulides

2011). This study therefore looks at issues that arise

in the B2C context from a manager’s perspective.

Criteria sampling (Patton 2002) whereby the participants

are selected based on specific criteria was used to

select the interviewees for this study. That was done in

order to isolate information divulged in interviews that

will reveal similarities and highlight differences or

peculiarities among similar people with similar job

titles. This assured quality in the sample, and it

identified gaps, strengths and areas for improvement that

may otherwise have been overlooked in a more random

sampling method. Furthermore, a criteria-based sampling

strategy is a complementary sampling method in many

qualitative research designs (Miles & Huberman 1994),

thus it was a logical choice for this research.

72

3.3.4 Selection of Interview ParticipantsThe criteria for participant selection were based on

three elements. Firstly, the potential participant must

have held a position of seniority within their marketing

department, in job title or through their role in the

organisation. The participant had to hold the role of

Senior Brand Manager, Marketing Manager or Chief

Marketing Officer. Secondly, a minimum of five years

experience in their industry was desirable for a

plausible account of the current situation and to compare

experiences with other participants from a similar time

frame. Lastly, the sample was drawn from a single sector

of marketing practice, that is, Business to Consumer

(B2C) organisations. Products sought were specifically

fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and retail brands based

in Melbourne.

3.3.5 Sourcing ParticipantsFrom a privately-sourced database of brand managers,

marketing practitioners and marketing directors, a group

of 20 possible participants were targeted and approached

for an interview via introductory email. The database

was collated using the researcher’s and supervisor’s

existing industry contacts and further sourced via an

internship industry project undertaken concurrently with

the thesis research. Twenty FMCG and retail brands were

selected to participate in the study. In an effort to

triangulate the evidence and compare the responses of

each marketing practitioner (Patton 2002), a selection of

73

products representing different market segments aimed to

provide a wider basis for comparison. This also allowed

for general similarities to be identified between

different organisations and product categories.

Simultaneously the triangulation of data assists in

eliminating bias contained in individual responses to a

manageable degree and hence strengthens the construct

validity of the research (Yin 2009).

The resulting sample was a total of eight participants,

allowing for attrition, and was sufficient for conducting

the in-depth interviews. These participants or their

representatives were then approached by email and

provided with an outline of the interview protocol in the

Plain Language Statement and Consent form (PLSC).

Finally the participants were contacted by follow-up

phone call or email to confirm their receipt of all the

information, and the researcher confirmed interview date,

time and location details.

The researcher ensured that each organisation’s

representative and each individual participant had read

the PLSC (see Appendix E) describing the project and the

commitment required by the participants. Those deciding

to participate were asked to complete organisational and

individual consent forms prior to the interview.

3.3.6 Interview MethodIn-depth interviewing is often described as a

‘conversation with a purpose’ (Berg 1989, p. 57; Kahn &

74

Cannell 1957, p. 149) and is a reliable primary data

collection method for the qualitative researcher. The

informal style of the semi-structured interview provides

the rationale for using it to generate something like a

conversation or discussion, as opposed to a structured

question-and-answer format (Mason 2002). In terms of

social media the interview allowed exploration of

experiences not currently identified in the literature

due to the rapid evolution of social media. However

general guidelines were drawn from the traditional

integrated marketing communication model such as role,

benefits and barriers to implementation.

Interviews that utilise a structure of open-ended

questions permit the interviewer some guidance to

navigate through the subject matter while allowing the

opportunity for the interviewee to share their

experiences from the perspective of the organisation and

as a representative of that organisation. The potential

for divulging rich information is more likely in this

traditional manner of qualitative interviewing (Mason

2002).

Thus, the in-depth interviews were conducted face to face

with representatives from eight individual brands, all at

their place of operation. The 14 interview questions

were semi-structured, open-ended questions (Creswell

2007). Each candidate was allocated 45 minutes upto

1 hour per interview to complete.

75

Pilot Study InterviewA pilot study was conducted via telephone with an

interviewee who fulfilled the requirements of the

criteria sample. This enabled pre-testing of the

interview protocol and the sequence, structure and

quality of the individual questions (Yin 2009). That

interview was not used in the sample but formed part of

the iterative process of conducting the research in a

qualitative manner (Patton 2002).

3.3.7 Interview ProceduresIn the tradition of qualitative studies which aim to

achieve consistent processing of data (Yin 2009), the

protocol for the interview process followed a simple

procedure. The interviews were conducted in either a

quiet office or a conference room within the physical

location of each organisation.

Interviews were planned to take 45 to 60 minutes. The

interviews were conducted in a location selected by the

participant and all eight interviews were electronically

recorded with the full consent of the participants. The

participants were asked to fill out a registration form

or give the researcher a business card to record specific

details such as name, role in the company and correct

contact details, spelling of name and title. To build

credibility and rapport, the researcher read the PLSC and

offered to answer any questions before the participant

signed the document. During this time, the interviewer

opened a casual conversation about business in general to

76

relax the participant and set a comfortable tone for the

interview.

To open the session a brief review of the interview topic

was given to refresh the participant and provide the

opportunity for any questions to be posed to the

interviewer before commencement of the recorded

interview. The interviewer then placed three pages of

questions and a notebook for field notes in front of her

to prompt the interview. The interviewer at that point

stated when the recording began and introduced the

participant to the recording device in order to label the

recorded interview for the purposes of clear

transcription later. The interviews were conducted in a

semi-formal manner with the interviewer allowing the

participant to speak until they paused and interrupted

the conversation only to clarify a question or prompt the

next question’s response once an answer was sufficiently

recorded. At the end of the interview, the interviewer

announced that the interview was completed, ended the

digital recording device, and wrote any field notes,

names or clarified spelling of anything mentioned in the

interview that was immediately considered to be

ambiguous. The interview recordings were sent for

transcription via third party with all identifiers left

in for analytical purposes. The transcription contained a

summary of the contents of the interview, the name,

title, and brand represented by the participant. The time

and location of the interview and the length of the

77

interview was recorded in the summary. The transcribed

interviews were returned to the participants within two

weeks of their interview via email in order that they

confirm the accuracy and clarity of the interview

comments (Patton 2002).

3.3.8 Interview Questions and ApproachAt the commencement of the interview, the interviewer

supervised the completion of the consent form. Then some

general questions were asked, and the interviewer

reminded the participant that the interview was being

recorded. Once those questions were covered, the

interview was conducted in a less structured way, asking

the participant to share their thoughts on how they

perceived the use of social media affecting decision

making for their specific company, guided by the

preliminary framework of the questions outlined in

Appendix B.

Using 14 open-ended questions to guide the discussion,

the interview started by requesting the definition and

role of Social Media within the company and its affects

on IMC processes, if any (for the full list see Appendix

B). The questions then gravitated to the aspects of the

organisation that affected SM implementation issues from

the participant’s experiences. The conversation then

aimed to cover analysis of SM performance when compared

to traditional media forms. Finally, the interviewer

asked about their program evaluation methods and if they

78

use a system to analyse feedback and take corrective

action based on measurements and metrics of their SM use.

An important concluding question was then posed to the

participant, ‘Is there any other issue that we have not

raised that is relevant to the implementation of SM as

part of your IMC mix for Brand X?’ The inclusion of this

question allowed for some insight and anecdotal

description to arise naturally, giving further

explanation of their individual encounters with SM along

their paths of discovery with the medium.

3.4 Data Analysis

Phenomenology can be applied to guide both the

methodology (Creswell 2007; Patton 2002) of a study and

used as a method of conducting data analysis (Grbich

2007; Moustakas 1994). The aim of this data reflection

is to focus less on the interpretations of the researcher

and more on a description of the experiences of the

participants. Moustakas’s (1994) transcendental or

psychological phenomenology focuses on bracketing, after

Husserl (Creswell 2007), in which the researcher sets

aside their personal experiences as much as possible, to

see each interview with fresh eyes, ‘as if for the first

time’ (Moustakas 1994, p. 34). This process consists of

identifying a phenomenon to study, bracketing out one’s

experiences, and then conducting the data collection from

several individuals who have experienced the phenomenon,

in this case, social media implementation. The

79

researcher then analyses the data by reducing the

information to a series of statements and quotes and

identifies some key themes from those. The study then

looks at the textural description of the experiences of these

participants or what they in fact experienced, and the

structural description of how they experienced it and under what

conditions. Essentially it means that the study was

conducted with a strong focus on the context and allowed

the results to reveal themselves and meaning to be

derived from the real life experiences rather than from

abstract theory (Grbich 2007). One example from the

interviews showed a description of what the participant

experienced in terms of the research topic and how it

affected them;

… we tend to continuously talk to our brand advocates andthose who are already loyal. The challenge really is howto increase reach. The biggest slice of pie for us, froma commercial perspective, is engaging and drivingincreased loyalty with our non-loyalists, with ouroccasional buyers. You can imagine they are by far thebiggest portion of people numbers wise, so trying toengage with them is a real challenge, and we haven’treally cracked how to do that.Participant for Confectionary

Therefore, this research takes a phenomenological view of

data collection and then uses thematic analysis (Grbich

2007) to process the data. Following the process of

phenomenological analysis by Moustakas (1994), the

thematic coding will be based on individual and shared

experiences in the broad areas identified by the IMC

framework (Chitty et al. 2011, p. 10). Themes are

80

‘summary statements, causal explanations, or conclusions’

(Rubin & Rubin 2012). The presentation of the analysed

data will utilise the summary statement as a marker of a

particular outcome of the collective interviews and later

as a practical recommendation for applied use by brand

managers and marketing practitioners.

Coding itself is an important element of the analysis.

Weston et al. (2001) believes there is a reciprocal

relationship formed between the development of a coding

system and the evolution of understanding a phenomenon.

Interview transcripts were coded according to the three

areas of decision making and then grouped according to

the research sub–questions to which they relate. The

text was scanned for common responses or phrases, such as

‘two-way communication’ when describing social media to

identify common meaning between participants and isolate

anomalies. That process produced ‘clusters of meaning’

which emerged when the related statements and quotes were

grouped together (Creswell 2007, p. 61). From there the

researcher created a composite description of the

‘essence’ of the phenomenon. That is primarily a summary

of the common experiences of the participants arriving at

a general set of statements of the common ‘lived’

experience of the phenomenon under investigation.

Creswell (2007) recommended Moustakas approach (1994) to

analyzing the data for the novice researcher, with one

conditional observation. The challenge of bracketing a

researcher’s personal experiences could be an

81

impossibility for an interpretive approach. The personal

experiences of the researcher, at some point, informs the

conclusions drawn from the study. While seeking a common

understanding, the researcher must suspend their own

understanding, in order to objectively portray outcomes

of the data. Thus, the researcher introduces the

inclusion of her own experience as it fits the

interpretation of the ‘essence’ of the phenomenon.

Using the data coding procedures outlined in Galman

(2013), the interviews were expanded into multiple themes

and ideas, the data was organised under six key deductive

themes and during the process six inductive areas of

thought emerged. Those were used to quotes, ideas and

connections between interview data, the theoretical

framework and the literature. Once an initial list of

inductive themes emerged, they were aligned with

deductive headings based around the IMC framework and the

research sub–questions. A review of the literature and

each interview then highlighted the recurrent themes of;

Listening, Engagement, Agility, Strategic Fit, Resources

and Integration. A matrix of those six themes were

created to make a crosstab with the research sub–

questions and the underlying issues were arranged under

each theme. It was that scheme which informed the data

analysis and guided the inferences that were realized at

the conclusion of the study in Chapter 5.

82

3.5 Ethical Considerations

Ethics approval was obtained from Deakin University Human

Research Ethics Committee and granted with reference

number: BL-EC 24-13. The study was considered to be low

risk by the Deakin University Human Research Ethics

Committee. In order to gain access to the organisations

and individuals required to complete the study, it was

necessary to present the ethics approval via the plain

language statement, and the participant and

organisational consent forms (see Appendix E). In the

interests of full transparency and disclosure with the

participants, each interview was preceded with a

reiteration of the topic, questioning procedures and the

participant was given the opportunity to ask any further

questions. In some instances it was a requirement that

an external affairs agent sat in the room when the

interview was conducted. Likewise, on two occasions the

legal department of an organisation was consulted prior

to the interview to ensure the transparency, trust and

cooperation of the participant and researcher. All

interview data was collected and recorded in identifiable

form. However, the researcher later removed any personal,

brand or corporate identifiers after transcribing the

recordings. As quotes from the transcripts are

re-identifiable, the researcher kept a password protected

code sheet, which is accessible only to the researcher

and supervisor.

83

3.6 Limitations of the Methodology

Within the phenomenological approach lies the propensity

for subjects to infer their experiences as a

representation of an expected response, rather than the

actual reporting of their experience. That is, the

interview participants may self-report and choose their

response content based on external motivations to do so,

rather than didactically report their experiences as they

stand in actuality.

3.7 Chapter Summary

Chapter Three described the qualitative research

methodology used in the study. First, an exploration of

the phenomenological nature of the study, justifying its

appropriateness to the subject matter and the subsequent

sampling methodology was provided. Second, an

explanation of a triangulation method was provided in

terms of data collection. This included the primary data

collection of semi-structured in-depth interviews, a

secondary data collection process of organisational

document analysis (online social media presence) and a

comprehensive literature review. Participant sampling

and interview procedures were explained. Third, the data

analysis process was explained and linked to the relevant

theoretical frameworks used. Fourth, the limitations of

the research methodology and ethical considerations were

acknowledged.

84

CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Introduction

In this Chapter we seek to organise the data collected in

the in-depth interviews into quintessential themes

arising from the conversations with eight senior

marketers. In reviewing and discussing the responses to

the interviews, the results explore the experiences of

these marketers in similar Social Media (SM)

implementation conundrums. An overview of the results is

given, then the findings are presented, first with a

review of the SM platforms and then SM definitions used

by the participants. The majority of the chapter then

goes on to discuss the findings of the study in regards

to the emergent themes; Listening, Engagement, Agility,

Strategic Fit, Resources and Integration.

4.2 Results Overview

This Chapter will begin with an overview of the results

of the analysis. Due to the qualitative nature of the

data collected, discussion of the findings will be

intertwined throughout the chapter as the issues are

identified and unpacked. The focus of this study was to

uncover certain truths about what drives SM success in

IMC programs, the benefits of SM to Business to Consumer

(B2C) companies and furthermore what these marketers

perceive to be successful implementation of SM. The

85

benefits and opportunities presented by SM were

identified with respect to certain beneficial and unique

SM characteristics. What was discovered was that the

strategic decision-making process was crucial to the

outcomes of a successful SM implementation within an IMC

program. While the study revealed common positive

drivers of SM implementation across different product

types and categories and target markets, the relationship

between strategic decisions and tactical executions

relied heavily on some fundamental decision making by

marketing managers.

Given the dynamic nature of IMC, it is a process that

must be carefully monitored and recalibrated in the light

of new technologies, media and management trends (Winer

2009). SM’s addition to the IMC mix has meant making an

adjustment to include a whole new set of tools that can

be used to create deep brand knowledge via carefully

orchestrated management of the brand’s complete SM

presence.

4.3 Findings with Discussion

The data collected during the eight interviews was

analysed as per the method described in Chapter 3. The

following discussion takes a look at the discoveries

made, confirms certain truths from the literature and

discounts some preconceived theory. What follows is an

exploration of the discussions with eight senior

marketers on the role of SM in their organisation and the

86

implementation challenges and opportunities they have

encountered with their brands (See Appendix D for the

Brand Identifiers). All participants were referred to as

their product types, for example, Wine or Retail Food. This

labeling also identified references to their brand name.

The participants were initially asked to describe and

define SM. The participants mostly answered with a list

of the platforms currently in use by the organisation.

TABLE 4.1: SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS USED BY PARTICIPANTS.Brand A

Brand B

Brand C

Brand D

Brand E

Brand F

Brand G

BrandH

%Use

Facebook X X X X X X X X 100Twitter X X X X X X 75YouTube X X X X X X 75Pinterest X X X X 50Instagram X X X 37.

5Blogs X X X 37.

5UnbrandedForums

X X X X 37.5

Google+ X X 25LinkedIn X 12.

5BrandedForums

X 12.5

Other X 12.5

Facebook was the most–used platform with all eight brands

having a functional Facebook page. Twitter and YouTube

were the next most-used SM platforms with 75% of brands

having a page or significant online presence. Pinterest

was used by half of the brands interviewed, and just over

a third of those interviewed had Instagram, a Blog or

87

multiple Blogs, or presence on an unbranded forum. One in

eight interviewed stated LinkedIn as being considered

part of the SM platforms. One brand had a dedicated

forum for their brand loyalists, while one of the two

retail brands interviewed used Tumblr. This reflects

the most recent research in that when forced to select

only one platform, 49 per cent of marketers select

Facebook (Stelzner 2013). Overall the sample compared

with general SM platform use to reflect a typical

adoption of the most popular platforms.

4.3.1 Defining Social Media

From the outset of the study, it became apparent that the

way the participants defined SM also described their

level of understanding of SM in general. The majority of

interviewees conceded that SM was a two-way communication

channel. The interactivity of the Internet and Web 2.0

enabled them to converse with a brand’s consumers and

with each other about the brand. Most participants

referred to Facebook and Twitter immediately and the

overall aspect of interactivity was alluded to. The

participants with a sophisticated interpretation of the

uses of SM within their organisation seemed to hold a

more considered and detailed definition of what SM was

comprised of for them. This was evident in their

consideration of ‘owned’ assets beyond the public SM

sphere, such as email, CRM and website-enabled

communications such as corporate blogs, as contributing

to their SM presence. This indicated that SM was

88

integrated in their marketing communication programs but

further to that, in their consideration set when

strategising.

The marketer’s purpose for SM was inherent in the way

they spoke about it. When the participant for Confectionary

described SM as ‘quite a confusing area for the brand at

the moment’, it was difficult for them to look beyond

their issues with SM to discuss its purpose for their

organisation. In contrast, Retail Food defined the exact

elements of their IMC program that they considered to be

SM, beyond the basic definitions of ‘two-way

communications’ and popular platform types (e.g. Facebook

or Twitter). The implications of this indicated that the

participants were either seen as having been active

seekers of benefits from SM within their organisation, or

they were passively participating with less immediate

utility from the uses of SM. The level of strategic use

for SM was apparent but not entirely uncovered by these

initial conversations.

89

TABLE 4.2: DEGREES OF DETAIL IN SOCIAL MEDIA DEFINITION GIVEN BY PARTICIPANTS

Platforms

Two-WayComms

Integrated

DigitalTechnology

UserGeneratedContent

OtherInteractiveMediums

Basic X XIntermediate X X X X

Sophisticated X X X X X X

TABLE 4.3: DEGREES OF SOPHISTICATION IN SOCIAL MEDIA DEFINITION GIVEN BYPARTICIPANTS

Basic Definitions of Social Media

For our brand, we define it by the mediums we use which areFacebook, Instagram and Twitter. Those would be ours. It then doeslink into EDM's and our websites, but I would classify those threeas our main social media tools. –Retail Fashion

I guess we have got a very passionate brand, in fact one of themost passionate brands you could imagine worldwide and because ofthat, the sheer love that these people have for the brand, theyessentially just want one platform (Facebook) that will allow themto communicate and verbalise their love for brand and really bringto life the passion and adoration they have for #Dairy 2 … Therole that we play in that is obviously providing a bit of two-waycommunication.  –Dairy 2

I think I would define it as indirect communications about thebrand. For example, in traditional marketing often it is brandtalking to target market; and I would define social media as moreindirect communication where a consumer talks to another consumerabout the brand or an influencer, so it is kind of less direct, ifthat makes sense. –Dairy 1

As something that we all recognise is critically important, but weare not exactly sure how to participate. I would define it asquite a confusing area for the brand at the moment …We are justgoing through a process at the moment of trying to understand whatto do with that audience because we are not doing anything veryeffectively at the moment. –Confectionary

Intermediate We would define it as another integrated part of thecommunications plans for everything we do. It is part of the full

90

Definitions of Social Media

picture. –Skincare

Social media for me is any two-way conversation we have with ourconsumers. That can incorporate a number of different forums, orplatforms across the digital spectrum. –Condiment

I would define social media as media using social platforms tocommunicate with consumers. By social platforms, I wouldn’tparticularly include LinkedIn with social media platforms, butthings like, of course, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram etcetera, which are built on social networking and social sharing. –Wine

SophisticatedDefinitions of Social Media

...it is your traditional social media platforms that are set up bythird parties, …any kind of sharing website where consumers arecontributing their own kind of content …I also think it can bedefined as any digital platform that can be an owned asset aswell. If it is a website that you have the ability for consumersto interact, post and talk on that, just because it is nottraditionally defined as a social media platform by the media orby other people, I think it is an interactive digital portal. So Iclass some of our own digital assets as social media because itfalls into the same kind of thing where we are having aconversation or something interactive with consumers. –Retail Food

4.4 Proposal of a modified IMC Framework

Based on the findings of this study we propose to adapt

the IMC framework to incorporate the unique

characteristics of SM. This new framework would be the

basis of future research, as well as suggesting

implementation guidelines for practitioners. The

following IMC framework incorporates SM as a dynamic

aspect within the IMC process, affecting the fundamental

and implementation decision-making stages and creating

new implications for the program outcomes.

91

FIGURE 4.1: THE SOCIAL INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS FRAMEWORK

4.5 Thematic Analysis

SM for these organisations represented a multitude of

applications, as with traditional media. The

wide-ranging detail of the responses from these eight

participants illustrated that the SM implementation

problem is complex and affected by some interdependent

factors. The data was manually coded and arranged into

themes based on recurrent issues in the participants’

responses. The following discussion looks at six themes

which emerged from the phenomenological data analysis

process (Moustakas 1994).

The major contribution of the study reflected the unique

characteristics of social media and three themes were

drawn from the findings; Listening, Engagement and

Agility. Conversely three themes that emerged from the

analysis were concepts identified in theory in the

original decision-making framework for IMC (See

92

Appendix A). Those were; Strategic Fit, Resources and

Integration.

4.5.1 Listening The fact that information control now lies with the

customer (Mangold & Faulds 2009), has expanded the

marketers’ decision-making scope to include listening to

the brand ‘noise’ on SM (Stringfellow 2013b). The unique

characteristics of SM; interactivity, user-generated

content, multiple touch points with consumers, all

require a new approach to communicating and co-creating

messages with customers. In the traditional IMC

framework, this element is not identified. In the Social

IMC Framework, listening is part of the decision making

activities for SM within the IMC mix. Listening is an

important element for making social media the interactive

forum it has been conceptualized to be (Schultz, D &

Peltier 2013). SM marketing research requires listening

to the conversations and sentiment online about brands,

where those conversations are taking place and with whom:

Before we started playing in social media we did quite alot of listening for probably a good several months totry to understand what is the noise and where should weplay, because we were not overly experienced. There werea couple of myths that that debunked. –Dairy 1

The two-way communication facilitated by SM resembles

that of a conversation, and therefore it changes the way

messages are communicated, delivered and received.

Further the interactivity and ‘always on’ aspect of SM

93

requires constant monitoring of user-generated content

for customer experience and potential brand damage.

We are all checking our social media channels on theweekends and if a marketer isn’t, they are morons. Youhave just got to do it, stuff happens, and if you are notdoing it, you have got to be paying someone else to doit. –Retail Food

Brand personality, values and appeal of the brand must be

conveyed in their communications via SM platforms. The

transparency of communications on SM means that the users

are aware if the brand is not interactive and interested

with those with whom they are holding the online

conversation:

I think the key thing with social media is that you havegot to have that consumer insight passion, and wanting toknow who is doing what and why and behaviour. –Wine

MonitoringListening for these marketers involved listening to their

online brand noise for potential sources of positive and

negative brand messages:

We are, not just us but the agency, continually searchingagainst our search terms and hash tags… –Retail Food

Traditionally you do your focus group or you do your bigquant study, and you spend a month getting it ready, amonth doing it and then a month getting it. That is allgreat and that has a role, absolutely, but this is justdynamic information that you can just jump online anyminute, any day and it is evolving, it snowballs, and youcan just be really connected with your brand, and even ifit is not your brand, the issue, and then even moreimportantly, just them as people. I think that isprobably one of the most useful aspects of it. –Dairy 1

94

SM implementation requires listening as a function, but

was also seen as a direct source of knowledge and direct

access to the consumers of the product:

Yes, ‘If we did want to go in and do some more thoroughresearch, what can we learn here?’. I think it is reallyunder utilised from that perspective as well. And I thinkthe other thing is, it is really useful in issueidentification; things that are popping up… –Dairy 1

Looking for new behavior rather than planning to the

platform’s abilities is a benefit of listening; ‘You need

to reorient your business around people, not technology.

Don’t have a Facebook strategy or a Twitter strategy or a

Foursquare strategy. Map to human behavior and not to

technology.’ (Keller, E & Fay 2013).

The brands interviewed who considered themselves to have

implemented SM campaigns effectively, used SM in the

planning and testing phases for the entire IMC strategic

effort:

It adds more value to the execution, I guess, and it

allows us to react quicker, it allows us to engage more

people, it allows us to measure and track a lot quicker.

… It allows us to really set key objectives and KPIs, and

it allows us to adjust our plans quicker as well, so we

can very quickly change things up if we can see that we

are putting a banner out on (a Blog) and no one is

converting through it, that banner ad is not working; or

that people are clicking through onto the banner but not

doing anything else, then we know that we are not

verifying those conversions when they come in so let us

95

quickly put up something else. It allows us to really

start to be a bit smarter with what we are doing. –Skincare

If brands allow consumers to post photos with no

oversight, they take the risk of creating a virtual

presence that is dissimilar from their target segment and

see brand evaluations suffer among new consumers as a

result (Naylor, Lamberton & West 2012). Wine refers to

the ‘right kind’ of brand conversations and highlighted

what they considered power in SM to build a brand’s

value.

At the end of the day, he comes down to sales, but healso understands the power of, if we say PR, but it isbrand buzz and brand conversation, and the right kind ofbrand conversation. He understands that. It is verypowerful, it is very strong. –Wine

The two-way nature of SM communications was brought up

multiple times to illustrate the usefulness of feedback

to a brand’s management:

Social media gives you instant feedback on anything yousay and do, even if it isn’t something you have directlycommunicated about. It might be something that hashappened with the use of your brand. For us at Retail Food,a customer in-restaurant seeing or doing or experiencingsomething good, bad, negative or whatever is instantlyreplayed. It is a media for pushing out and talking topeople, and also getting instant replay and feedback frompeople as well. –Retail Food

We have had instances where people have perhaps gone andsaid something negative about Wines, and then other peopleget on and defend the wine. We do assess each situationbecause sometimes we are best just to step back and saynothing at all, and to let our engaged brand customersfight for our brand, which I just love to see. There aretimes when we do need to step in. –Wine

96

A balance between listening and moderating SM

conversations appeared to be the underlying goal of most

participants’ SM policy. Finding out where the customer

chooses to discuss your brand was important to gauge the

SM effectiveness for Wine:

Surprisingly Twitter has been very successful for us,however, we have one person tweeting and that is Wine’sowner. What we have found is that Twitter is an olderaudience, and it tends to be very highly engaged in thewine category. A lot of industry people, media, winejournos and that type of thing, so it is a very differentaudience to Facebook. –Wine

CrowdsourcingListening was also an efficient way to ‘crowdsource’ for

new ideas, customer service issues and product

development. The participant for Condiment even mentioned

that in itself, the feedback was a measurement of the

channels success for them:

For us, when we see a successful post it is very muchwithin the comments or within the interaction fromconsumers. It is, ‘I have just had Condiment this morning’and that means that channel, that social media is playingthe role that we want it to be. –Condiment

I think we could do more product development-type postsinside and be utilising our fans for those kinds ofthings. And then also giving more of a story behind theproduct and doing those kinds of posts… –Retail Fashion

At some point you got to hand it over and trust people,rather than try to control the whole gamut. I think whatwe were looking at, from memory, was controlling up to apoint. –Condiment

Potentially, in that sense, do a much larger trawl of allsocial media to understand where else the conversationsare, that we might be having. We use it as a bit of a redflag issue. –Confectionary

97

The participants who found these aspects useful were

resourced to effectively use the information gathered to

the brand’s advantage.

DistributionListening also translates to direct sales as theparticipant from Dairy 2 explained:

So you get a little bit of feedback there, and then wewill notice that, we will pick up on that and we willsometimes either contact them directly or I will take alittle screenshot of that and shoot it through to our(Supermarket) business manager and say, ‘Can you have alook at what our distribution is like at (Supermarket)Wagga Wagga, and try to understand what the order ratesare and why this product is never on the shelf.’ –Dairy 2

In summary, listening is a unique activity facilitating

effective SM implementation. Listening as an element of

the IMC construct enables a marketer to use their SM

presence for sales, customer service and product

development. In the Social IMC framework, this is a

fundamental decision to be made when implementing SM.

4.5.2 EngagementBrands that foster a close relationship with their

customer enable the creation of a unique brand identity

and differentiate themselves from the competition

(Michaelidou, Siamagka & Christodoulides 2011).

Establishing a connection with consumers was frequently

cited by the participants as an important benefit of

their SM activities, ‘you can just be really connected

with your brand’ (Dairy 1). This was established using

some traditional IMC decision making and engaging in some

SM specific activities. Within the theme of engagement,

98

the driving elements that emerged were advocacy, word of

mouth (WOM), sentiment and content strategy. Expected

consequences of having highly engaged (and positively

disposed) consumers include greater brand equity, share

of wallet, retention, ROI and proactive word of mouth

(Schultz, D & Peltier 2013; Vivek, Beatty & Morgan 2012).

AdvocacyOf the brands interviewed, there were positive responses

based around the engagement levels reached by a brand

with its customers on SM. As a communications platform

used to deepen connections with loyalists and brand

advocates, SM was regarded as highly effective:

I think it is important to maintain a strong, loyal baseof consumers, but in doing, so we believe that throughthose consumers we can reach other consumers throughadvocacy and sharing and things like that. –Condiment

However not all brands had been able to find the

connection linking loyalists to new customers via SM:

…we tend to continuously talk to our brand advocates andthose who are already loyal. The challenge really is howto increase reach. The biggest slice of pie for us, froma commercial perspective, is engaging and drivingincreased loyalty with our non-loyalists, with ouroccasional buyers. You can imagine they are by far thebiggest portion of people numbers wise, so trying toengage with them is a real challenge, and we haven’treally cracked how to do that. –Confectionary

Condiment looks to SM as an advocacy avenue to maintain

brand equity through established loyalists:

What we are looking to do with our social media, sort ofif you look at that community as a whole, and thataudience, so that reach that we are generating - is tryto identify and work with advocates within that. Thereason why, I guess, we are investing money into that is

99

probably twofold. One is, I think it is important tomaintain a strong, loyal base of consumers, but in doing,so we believe that through those consumers we can reachother consumers through advocacy and sharing and thingslike that. –Condiment

The benefits of brand advocates were mentioned by nearly

all participants, for the advantages are one of the most

frequently referenced in SM literature (Edosomwan et al.

2011; Kaplan & Haenlein 2010; Schultz, D & Peltier 2013;

Vuori 2012). The participants were at odds as to how to

attract and utilise these advocates in some instances:

…if you can get the right person, they can open you to anew audience, but your current audience also loves themas well. –Retail Fashion.

We have got a very captive audience. We are just goingthrough a process at the moment of trying to understandwhat to do with that audience because we are not doinganything very effectively at the moment. –Confectionary

To Confectionary, the role of SM is quite clear in creating

engaged, loyal consumers:

I suppose, in summary, it would be trying to deepen therelationship with loyalists, announcing new news aroundthe brand or the products or initiatives, and then justusing it, as I said, it is a bit of a watch out and a redflag for issues. –Confectionary

To most brands interviewed the role of advocacy was at

the helm of SM’s role for their brand. Dairy 1 used SM to

‘drive credibility in trial’, via bloggers and

influencers, and the flow through was to increase

peer-to-peer advocates for the brand.

Internally, some brands discovered the role of advocacy

in shared learnings from the growth experienced from

previous SM initiatives. Once successfully implemented,

100

some key structures could be reapplied to other brands in

a portfolio to a proven SM campaign model. What was

interesting was where SM advocacy came into the strategic

consideration process for Dairy 1:

…so there was awareness, trial, repeat, and thefourth one was advocacy. How do you start to getpeer-to-peer referral and specialist-to-peerreferral ... And then really starting to think aboutsocial media kind of more at the back end of thefunnel, so how do you get people coming back formore. –Dairy 1

Dairy 2 took over their Facebook page from a fan of the

brand, as did Retail Fashion with their Instagram account. A

brand trading their earned assets with consumers is

indicative that the power of engagement is important for

managers to have awareness to harness and utilise to

their brands advantage.

The key is to develop a deep understanding of the essence

of your brand and exactly what makes your customers tick.

Stringfellow (2013a) uses a similar example of Coca-Cola

as a brand that did it right. Coca-Cola didn’t create

the company’s Facebook page at all—-two enthusiastic fans

started it.

Word Of MouthWOM drives customer engagement on SM platforms and is

frequently cited as the most useful attribute of SM

itself (Blackshaw & Nazzaro 2004; Kaplan & Haenlein 2010;

Kimmel & Kitchen 2013; Palka, Pousttchi & Wiedemann 2009;

Schultz, D & Peltier 2013; Shin, Song & Biswas 2013;

Trusov, Bucklin & Pauwels 2009).

101

...the zero moment of truth, is the share, and that iswhat we are more interested in, is that is advocacy froma consumer perspective as well, and after they havepurchased or after they have trialed, are they talkingabout it in a good way and sharing that information withtheir circle of influence? –Skincare

WOM marketing on SM platforms has been linked to new

customer acquisition (Trusov, Bucklin & Pauwels 2009).

Dairy 2 referred to sales acquisitions and expansion of

their brand interstate being enabled by SM feedback and

WOM:

Yes, word-of-mouth certainly is quite powerful, and thendirecting people to certain areas where Dairy 2 is onspecial. –Dairy 2

Mere social presence is not enough to get people talking;

rather the best way to have an online WOM impact is to

create content that consumers will want to share or, in

the popular vernacular, something that is ‘talkable’

(Wetpaint & AltimeterGroup 2009).

SentimentBrand knowledge is not the facts about the brand – it isall the thoughts, feelings, perceptions, images,experiences and so on that become linked to the brand inthe minds of consumers (individuals and organisations)(Kevin Lane Keller 2009, p. 142).

Social engagement on SM is a challenging area for

marketers. The reason is that their lack of control

leads to uncertainty, the risks are greater than with a

traditional media message and the benefits are unlimited

if they can foster the right relationship with their

consumers. The need for people to connect with each

other drives the two-way communication of SM and the

marketer must strive for connection with their consumer.

102

Instead of sales and marketing, exchanges follow the arc

of relationships: romance, struggle, commitment and

co-creation. Connection supersedes control. (Berkman

2013, p. 3). The close connection that can be fostered

between a brand and its consumers via SM was seen to

contribute to the perceived value placed on SM in the IMC

mix. The trustworthiness of online content is key to

whether that content positively affects attitudes toward

and intentions to read eWOM (Kimmel & Kitchen 2013, p.

11).

Content strategyInstead of trying to take control and dictate the

message, Coca-Cola decided to empower its consumers.

Today, the Coca-Cola brand has one of the most followed

and most successful Facebook Pages in existence

(Stringfellow 2013a). By delivering powerful content

that resonates with your audience, your customers will

literally become your brand ambassadors. And for a small

business on a tight budget, few things are better than

free marketing

Social media relies heavily on the quality of yourcontent. If you have got average content, you are goingto get an average reach because people aren’t going toshare it, they aren’t going to like it and you are notgoing to get that viral effect of it being passed around.–Retail Food

‘We need to be adaptable and by having that plan, youhave got an idea in place, but it changes quite a bit. …there is not too much strategy behind it, which isprobably our weakness.’ –Retail Fashion

I still believe content is still king. If you do not haveoriginal, unique, new content, and you are not sustaining

103

it and you are not keeping the momentum, it is verydifficult for an organisation with a traditionalstructure to just switch on a whole content person. –Skincare

Retail Food, Dairy 1, Confectionary, Wine and Dairy 2 all identified

the new currency of creative content. The careful

combination of creative elements with newsworthy appeals,

that also drive the brand message beyond the share, the

like or the tweet was most desirable:

The core thing I think, although you come back to sellingproduct and building brand awareness, the actual tweet upon the day is a one-day activity, but what it did aroundit was that we worked with a lot of media, we worked withretailers and we got such a buzz. We got everybodytalking about rosé on multiple platforms, in multiplemedia. I think we ended up with something like$3.2 million of print media value through editorials andthat type of thing. It was a ripple effect, and it gotpeople talking about it. –Wine

It was also a case of perfecting the content strategy and

aligning it with the brand values and character:

It is hard to get to a place where what we are doing isso newsworthy that it is worth viral sharing. –Confectionary

When we are going through the creative phase or creativedevelopment, just sense checking that constantly andrigorously against our brand DNA, brand positioning. Weare quite fortunate that we have got really tight DNA andreally tight positioning so that if you are constantlymeasuring it against the brand aesthetics, the brandpersonality or the brand icons and seeing if we haveticked all of those boxes, it actually again comes backto providing that really tight framework, as opposed toif we are on track with the brand or off track. –Dairy 2

The brands with this approach to SM strategy were seen to

be tailoring messages to suit the platform, and

identifying shifts in audiences on different SM

platforms:

104

What we are trying to do is move that another step to saythat we are not just plastering the same messageeverywhere, and that we are trying to tailor and enableconsumers to be able to experience different chapters ofthe story…–Confectionary

Over the past few years, SM, in all its ‘forms and

incantations, has drawn the lion’s share of interest from

consumers, marketers, media, in short, the whole

marketplace’ (Schultz, D & Peltier 2013, p. 3). This is

because of the assumed value that consumer and brand

engagement provides a brand (Schultz, D & Peltier 2013).

Although the co–creation of brand engagement remains a

key element of the IMC mix and traditional touch points

of the brand, goals in SM implementation could, for

example, be to increase brand awareness or to try to

engage customers with the brand (Hoffman, D & Fodor

2010).

The Social IMC framework uses the theme of engagement to

plan a SM strategy and tactical execution that will

create brand advocates, positive eWOM and sentiment and

deliver strong content. The ongoing value that

engagement provides to the brand is a fundamentally

important aspect of SM and its role in the IMC mix. The

Social IMC framework accounts for the importance of

engagement in the strategizing and tactical execution of

IMC programs, although further testing of its utility as

a research tool is required.

105

4.5.3 AgilityThe companies ability to react to changes in the SM

environment emerged as a potential point of competitive

advantage in some of the interviews. We will refer to

this function as ‘agility’, in that the companies with

quick reactions to and from the SM environments within

which they operate indicates their ability to achieve

perceived success with SM. The theme of agility emerged

from the data as a new function of the IMC framework that

did not previously exist.

The agility displayed by a company is underpinned by a

complex orchestration of strategy formulation, planning,

resources and timing. The different examples we

uncovered illustrated how the effects of reaction times,

effective allocation of resources and creative uses of

content could determine SM implementation success. The

ability of a brand to interact on SM was frequently cited

as a combination of speed, timing and nimble

capabilities. The agility displayed by a company to

respond to activity in the SM environment became apparent

as a competitive advantage. The perceived drivers of

agility were timing, reactions and reach.

TimingOne key issue raised throughout the interviews centered

on the timing of any communications via SM. The crucial

timing involved with the real-time consumption of SM

means that the user is capable of sharing well-received

content across the Internet in a very short space of

106

time, and likewise, bad experiences can be spread virally

through many forms of eWOM (Shin, Song & Biswas 2013).

The company’s ability to react to positive and negative

feedback is a key driver of SM utility in an IMC mix.

This issue was apparent mostly in regards to response

times from the brand’s SM mediators when faced with

negative sentiment regarding a service or product.

Secondly, the ability to produce timely, relevant

communications by or about the brand was deemed as SM

‘success’ by most participants in the interviews.

One participant identified their concern for maintaining

a rigid response policy with defamatory or unwanted

negative comments on their brands SM pages and platforms

after an experience with negative feedback on their

Facebook fan page:

What we did not do there was to respond quickly enoughand so it escalated before we could get it under control.…and that was our core learning: let us just deal with itstraight away –Skincare

ReactionsReaction times to online conversations are a vital

component of successful SM implementation strategy for

any brand. Some companies had a set protocol and time

frame within which to respond to their customers’

inquiries online:

…We are like ‘Drop us a line at this’ which is a dedicated feedbackemail address, which is addressed as higher priority social media, andthen we get them offline and we deal with it really quickly. Everyonehere is trained for that. …so if it is a complaint about operations, if it isa complaint about a training material, or whatever, everyone knows

107

that if you get a feedback that is marked with social media, it is a24-hour maximum response time.

–Retail Food

Likewise, approval of content can impede the timing of

reactions to SM activity and reduce the effectiveness of

the medium;

I feel like, within the freedom of the company, we havebeen nimble enough to acknowledge the role of socialmedia so a lot of the decision rights around content justfalls to the brand team within guidelines given by legaland corporate affairs. –Condiment

The ability to harness the positive power of electronic

word of mouth (eWOM) was also driving the SM strategy for

some marketers interviewed:

Social media for Retail Food is one of our center,critical marketing channels that we use primarily becausewe rely on Retail Food’s word-of-mouth to promote ourbusiness. –Retail Food

ReachSM can reach many consumers due to the real-time,

interactive nature of Web 2.0 but unlike traditional

media, it is consumed differently:

I think a lot of people think that you can then justshift everything to social media, but there is a lot ofthings that social media can’t do that traditional mediacan still do, and traditional media still has the abilityto reach a lot of people very quickly, whereas socialmedia relies heavily on the quality of your content. Ifyou have got average content, you are going to get anaverage reach because people aren’t going to share it,they aren’t going to like it and you are not going to getthat viral effect of it being passed around. – Retail Food

Their goals were to increase reach and frequency of the

occasional users of their product via existing consumers:

108

Our strategy of hitting and trying to reach light andmedium buyers, but it is through those heavy and mediumbuyers that there is the opportunity to reach people whomay be light buyers that can be exponential, based onutilising that audience, for us. – Condiment

In summary, the organisation’s ability to harness the

reach of SM by reacting in a timely and effective manner

created agility. The agile organisation will be better

prepared to implement SM effectively. This is due to the

unique nature of two-way communication and the

interactivity of Web 2.0 and SM. Companies that respond

in a timely manner to the online conversations about

their brands will reap the cost effective benefits of SM.

Agility is a consideration for the proposed Social IMC

framework decision making process. It is a new factor

effecting the successful implementation of SM and is

determined by the timing, reactions and strategic use of

reach by the organisation.

4.5.4 Strategic FitAn overarching theme of strategic purpose emerged when

the participants were asked about their uses of SM. The

interviews revealed that SM raises similar questions to

existing IMC implementation issues with regards to

strategic goals. Positioning, targeting and segmentation

efforts by the brand were closely linked to their brand

objectives for SM implementation success. This mirrors

the traditional IMC framework in that these are

fundamental decisions to be made when creating IMC

programs. Decision making and planning for the SM

component of their IMC programs was either an added

109

element at the end of strategic formulation, or a

preliminary consideration when coordinating their IMC

program. Skincare and Condiment were pursuing the latter:

From the very beginning everything is planned together. –Skincare

Once you have got a really clearly defined strategy for abrand, it makes it a lot easier across those differentchannels to say yes or no, does this fit with thestrategy, and therefore execute off that. – Condiment

Conversely, Dairy 1 was considering SM more at the end of

their process during communication strategy planning.

This constitutes the same type of approach to a

traditional IMC strategy:

I guess the decision processes for what channel, for whatpurpose in our funnel comes down to reach, efficiency,credibility and target are probably the main drivers …Sothere was awareness, trial, repeat, and the fourth onewas advocacy. How do you start to get peer-to-peerreferral and specialist-to-peer referral ...And thenreally starting to think about social media kind of moreat the back end of the funnel, so how do you get peoplecoming back for more. –Dairy 1

The marketers were either performing SM activities as an

‘add on at the end’ (Retail Fashion), or as ‘another

integrated part of the communications plans for

everything we do’ (Skincare). The alignment with company

objectives was disparate but many acknowledged the need

to plan ahead. Condiment intended to strategise for SM

alongside organisational goals based on learning from

previous years:

Going into 2014 planning at the moment, to try to bringit (SM) into the sort of thinking (about it) at the verybeginning about what we are trying to achieve. That isprobably where I think there is still room for

110

improvement as a company and as a brand as well. –Condiment

Brand strategies often preclude SM strategies, as the

participant from Dairy 1 mentioned:

…it is seldom a digital brief. It is a, ‘Here is thebrand challenge; what is the right channel?’ (but)…youstill get ‘Hey here is an idea to do something in thissocial space’ which may or may not be directly linked toour brand challenge. It is still really evolving from myperspective –Dairy 1

This was a common theme in the literature, with the

majority of organisations giving little or no strategic

thought into their SM planning, in an attempt to compete

in this new communications space (Schultz, D & Peltier

2013).

PositioningThe brands with a strong position statement could define

their SM activities in terms of where their

communications were most effective. The participant for

Condiment went on to discuss how important alignment

between SM and overall brand strategy had become for

them:

We had an example where this year, one of the digitalactivations we had planned was developed parallel to theoverall IMC due to time constraints. It became evident asthe activity was developed that it was not consistentwith the overall communications strategy so even thoughit was well developed and an excellent tactical campaign,we took the decision not to proceed because it wasn’taligned to the brand strategy. –Condiment

The brands with strong positioning were likewise better

placed to identify the appropriate SM platform to suit

their consumers. The participant for Dairy 2 stated that

111

the positioning work done for their brand ‘avoids you

getting wrapped up in an idea’, implying that the SM

campaign must fit the position of the brand and not the

reverse.

A niche product could find their brand characteristics

better suited to SM. When Wine launched a new, smaller

range of boutique products entirely on SM, they did so to

suit the positioning of the brand identity:

Wine: The new Wine range is the first time where abrand has been launched and the core communicationplatform is Facebook; no website, no nothing like that. Interviewer: It has purely been launched on social.Wine: Purely on social media. Social media anddistribution through our sales teams, so that is all.That is also part of the discovery of a new brand, too.We don’t want to be overt with our advertising.

SM implementation can become a strategic goal in itself,

adding value to an IMC program if it is seen to be a

‘social’ product. The literature identifies the

connection between innovative companies, CEOs and

successful SM implementation (Michaelidou, Siamagka &

Christodoulides 2011). The company’s ability to utilise

SM to differentiate their brand and hold a unique

position in the market will support their positioning

strategy and improve their competitive advantage.

TargetingSome brands identified their consumer’s behavior on SM as

being complementary to reach out to their target market.

…with digital you have got such a big broad choice ofwhere you target that and how you make it work for you …

112

it is so much more targeted that we can make that moneywork so much harder for us. –Skincare

It was interesting to note that some of the marketers

interviewed were positive of their target market’s SM

habits and yet many had conflicting observations as to

what demographic actually exists on the most frequented

SM platforms, such as Facebook. The participant for Wine

remarked:

Yes, definitely Facebook, I guess because of the size ofFacebook. Wine and our brand, we have other products thatsuit other categories, but Wine tends to have an olderaudience, let’s say 35 to 65, which really is the bigheartland of Facebook. That is why Facebook is our core.–Wine

Conversely, one participant stated that:

The main focus for us has always been Facebook. Wehaven’t actually extended beyond that to any great level,at this point. When we look at our core consumer, theyare essentially 25 to 40-year-old blue-collar Aussieblokes. I think when you look at where social media,particularly Facebook, Twitter and the likes, it reallyover indexes with that younger demographic, so there is alittle bit of an interesting mix whereby our coreconsumers aren’t necessarily au fait with what socialmedia is this day and age. –Dairy 2

The lack of differentiation between platforms by the

participant for Dairy 2, alludes to the possible strategic

decisions he made not to participate in many of the

social spaces reporting that to his knowledge their known

consumers do not spend time on these platforms. The

participant from Dairy 1 spent time observing various SM,

blogs, forums and Facebook to inform her strategic

decision making with regards to targeting:

113

So we had to not too tightly, because you end up withnothing, but reasonably tightly define the territorywhere we thought we would be relevant, and then very muchset a strategy about how we will communicate in thoseenvironments. –Dairy 1

The Social Media Report of 2013 (Stelzner 2013) shows

that many marketers selection of SM platforms change over

time, based on years of experience. This fact proposes

the idea that experience with SM implementation

facilitates better knowledge of the appropriate platform

types for their brand position and target markets.

Social SegmentationThe brands that identified SM as an effective

communications tool for their brand appeared naturally

‘close’ to their consumers due to the social nature of

their product. The proximity of the product type to

consumers’ social lifestyle deemed the appropriateness of

SM as a strategic communication tool to suit their

audiences. Further, it seemed that the effectiveness of

SM as a promotional tool, like other traditional forms of

advertising, was affected by the category of product.

The participant from Wine found that their online

audiences responded to personal posts and tweets from the

brands owners with regards to their lifestyle, travel and

style advice. The Retail Fashion brand said the greatest SM

response (in terms of likes and shares) always came from

product related content, such as arrival of new garments

to the bricks and mortar stores.

Wine : If you said, of all our communication onthe Wine website, what is promotional based versus

114

communication, I would probably say 5 per cent or 10 percent is promotion based, and that is largely because weare very lucky in that with wine we kind of get aninstant entry into that social space because for mostpeople food, wine, entertaining, socialising fits in thesocial space. If you were selling something like, toiletpaper for example, which is not really…Interviewer: You won’t get on Facebook to have a chatabout it.Wine: No, and it is not really a social experiencethat you share, whereas people love to share about foodand wine. I think we are very privileged in that we getaccess in there, and we are very careful that we usethose social platforms to build relationships and buildengagement with our brand, and not be really promotionfocused. There is nothing worse than being hammered for1 million promotions when you just want to learn, engageand be a part of it.

Some participants were concerned that the messages must

be tailored to suit the platform and therefore the

consumer segment of that platform:

Our strategy for those two platforms (Facebook andTwitter), are not to have one broad-brush strategy acrossall social media. … We are pushing them and challengingthem (our agency) to be more, not reactionary, butproactive in that space. –Condiment

In a 2011 study, it was found that attracting new

customers prevailed as the most important reason for

using social networking sites, however the measurement of

this goal was relatively low (Michaelidou, Siamagka &

Christodoulides 2011). The inconsistency between goals

of SM and the metrics used to assess this, illustrate the

need to rethink SM implementation from the strategy

formation decisions right through to measurement of the

programs outcomes.

115

Some current industry thoughts state that strategic

capabilities must be focused on the networks of people

with shared interests and goals if they are to capitalise

on the social aspects of their offer (Merchant 2012).

This could take the form of the approach to the varying

purposes for SM; sales promotion, brand awareness,

engagement and acquisition. The ability of the marketer

to recognise the best way to interact on SM with their

target was a strong indicator of the ‘fit’ that brand

would make with SM. This social ‘fit’ of the brand, its

offer and the purpose for SM could be coordinated using

the suitable platform. The purpose of the marketing

activity needed to be aligned with the product type, the

social aspects of online conversation and SM ‘sharing’

culture.

In summary, although strategic fit was part of the

original IMC framework it differed in nature with regards

to the characteristics of social media. To implement SM

effectively in IMC programs, positioning, targeting and

the social segmentation of brand strategies must be

effectively considered when strategising. Traditionally

these aspects of IMC would need to be aligned to create a

consistent message. With the inclusion of SM in the

marketing communications mix, the positioning is

important to guide all decisions about media and

messages, and yet targeting and segmentation may be based

on different factors.

116

4.5.5 ResourcesOne theme that emerged immediately was resources. This

concept exists in the original IMC framework as Budgeting

(See Appendix A). What surfaced was the common thread of

resourcing in organisations as dictating what level of

execution was possible in terms of SM implementation.

Budgeting in the original IMC framework as a broad term

fails to acknowledge the importance of human resources

and technological capability as fundamental decisions.

When financial accountability in organisations is

strictly monitored, marketing departments are required to

streamline their spending on internal infrastructure and

communications campaigns. When the question was asked,

‘what do you do (as an organisation) to hinder the

implementation of SM?’, every participant’s response

centered on resources; ‘Resources are the biggest

barrier’ (Retail Fashion). Frequently cited in the

literature (Edosomwan et al. 2011; Michaelidou, Siamagka

& Christodoulides 2011; Montalvo 2011; Schultz, D &

Peltier 2013), it is a major determinant of successful SM

implementation. Resources that were deemed to be

contingent for success were human resources,

technological resources and allocation of marketing

budgets to allow the production of good content, in a

timely fashion.

Human ResourcesI think it comes down to the logistics of having oneperson working across the platforms who is key, and oneperson who understands the difference between the

117

different platforms, the different consumers and how theyare interacting with the audience and what they want. –Wine

The human resources required to execute SM strategies are

marketing managers, content managers, social media

specialists or digital agencies equipped with a deep

understanding of the brand and its personality,

I think overall, in all industries, the biggest thingthat is hindering social media usage is content managersand having enough budget for dedicated content managersbecause, as much as it is a really old fashioned kind ofthing, I still believe content is still king. If you donot have original, unique, new content, and you are notsustaining it and you are not keeping the momentum, it isvery difficult for an organisation with a traditionalstructure to just switch on a whole content person. –Skincare

Similarly, Retail Food expressed the conundrum the company

found in deciding whether they could create an in-house

marketer with SM expertise and justifying the costs of

doing so;

…do we have the structured kind of cover that we think weneed from a customer relations point, but also do I haveenough creative brains, resources or content to thenmanage us owning it internally as well? –Retail Food

The issue here appeared to be the unknown territory of SM

being a cause for concern among senior management across

the board. The dedicated resources required for an SM

manager were difficult to acquire yet the need expressed

by the participants mostly prevented them from achieving

full integration, consistency and successful

implementation. The underlying motivation was to bring

the control over SM close to the marketing team to

maintain authority and authenticity. The potential

118

benefits to a company with dedicated SM human resources

are evident but putting the structures in place must

prove profitable first. Confectionary is a global company

that shares their SM learnings across different business

units and compared what is possible with dedicated human

resourcing for SM and digital marketing communications in

their offshore operations;

The UK structure is quite different inasmuch as they dohave quite specifically a digital media manager in houseand a social media manager in house, which obviously justfundamentally step changes what they are able to do. …they liaise strongly with agencies, but it just meansthat there is a much keener focus on social media anddigital per se within the organisation, and given thefact that you have got dedicated resource there, they areconstantly looking, they are attending all the big socialmedia events, all the big digital events and there isjust much more focus. –Confectionary

Influencing and maintaining the brand equity, building

awareness and engaging consumers requires numerous

capabilities. Management of SM requires strategic,

analytic, technological and creative competencies. SM

management requires a high degree of collaboration and

access to management and company resources (Montalvo

2011). Organisations face a decision to allocate their

resources and knowledge capital to enhance their SM

implementation if they are to achieve success.

TechnologyCustomer Relationship Management (CRM) systems,

proprietary dashboards and listening software

applications such as Radian6 were seen as necessary to

some organisations to implement and measure their SM

119

activities. These can be expensive tools and the cost

can be prohibitive to some marketing department budgets.

Further, the data can be collected using disparate

metrics and making results inconsistent and difficult to

make comparisons. For a company such as Retail Food,

with 70 stores, this kind of technology was essential to

their management function, however, gaining concise,

comparable data from SM remained elusive:

We built a social media tab on our Facebook page tofacilitate entries to that competition, and that thentied into our CRM, so the entries went through onto ourCRM and then we could see them populating on that CRM.That is an example of linking it, but not in terms oftracking likes or tweets or anything like that. That isdone separately through our online tracking tool calledRadian5 or Radian6. –Retail Food

Retail Food went on to say ‘I wouldn’t say at this point we

have a perfect system in terms of measuring return on

investment, but that is changing as Retail Food grows …our

marketing budget grows’. The relationship between

budgets and measures were inextricably linked.

Confectionary was undertaking a testing phase of a new SM

tracking tool that measured SM in terms of traditional

metrics for other media forms. They said they hoped it

would help to gain more control over their SM activities

and audience.

Depending on which agency you work with, they report onit differently, right, so there is very little ability totransfer learnings from one brand to another becauseevery little digital agency is looking at things slightlydifferently and reporting differently. –Confectionary

120

The need to measure SM by the same metrics as traditional

forms of communication was a capability gap for many of

the organisations interviewed;

…what we have also tried to do is bring social media intoline with all our other media channels and measure it interms of the same measurements we put on our TV or ourprint or other advertising. –Condiment

BudgetingConvincing management of the need to spend on SM came

down to timing and sales results;

We haven’t spent the proper time on it, and I think it ishard to convince the higher powers that you need theextra resources when they see it is ticking along. Theyjust see that it is happening, we are getting goodresponse, getting good engagement, but they don’tunderstand we could go so much further if we actuallyinvested more effort and more money into it, to get aperson to concentrate solely on it. – Retail Fashion

…our budget is not huge, even though we are a big brand,we have got quite limited budget. It is always a trade-off about how much we invest in different mediums inorder to get the greatest return. …We have been veryconcentrated in our spend to ensure that we could be asefficient as possible and not spread ourselves too thinlyacross multiple channels.’ –Condiment

Management requires accountability for the marketing

budget assigned to SM programs and therefore the results

must be measured and evaluated however it was difficult

to ascertain whether investment in SM was conservative to

avoid losses or vice versa. Retail Fashion noted that

‘the Facebook advertising is $50 here and there, so it is

not big dollars’. Accounting for SM results can be done

in terms of qualitative or quantitative measurement via

computer aided tools, reporting systems and constant

monitoring of the environment within which the brand

121

operates. IMC programs are typically reviewed in light

of measures such as return on investment (ROI), impact,

reach, frequency, acquisition, conversion and retention

(Chitty et al. 2011; Murdough 2009; Schultz, D E 2011).

Let’s just say it appeared that there was a bit of aconflict because there were certainly what I thought wasexcessive amounts of money being put into what we werestill seeing as reasonably speculative and trial basedbecause if you haven’t done a lot of social it is veryhard to directly correlate the ROI. –Dairy 1

However, SM created opportunities for savings when other

traditional media costs are high, and the results and

measures can be more gratifying as the participant for

Wine noted;

…this year we have changed our strategy quite a bit, andit is largely for, I guess, budgetary reasons. It istough in the industry at the moment. We have pulled backon quite a lot of our print advertising, and we weredoing quite a bit of digital and radio. We are stilldoing probably a little bit of radio and print, but themajority of what we are doing is social media. Largely,the two core reasons behind that is that it is a mucheasier platform to build our relationships because it istwo way. We can certainly measure it. –Wine

They then later remarked;

…if we were spending millions of dollars, you would wantto make sure that you were utilising the best toolspossible to make sure that you are getting the most outof your millions. We are not spending millions ofdollars, so it is all basic measures –Wine

It appeared that the correlation between spending on

measurement and analytical tools, and spending on SM

advertising and promotion inhibits the successful

implementation of SM. The implications of these findings

suggest that the marketers were faced with the question

122

of making a fundamental change to their decision making

in terms of budgeting and resourcing. In terms of the

IMC framework, budgeting or resources were still a

fundamental decision and consideration in these drivers

of successful implementation and were primary in

achieving SM integration.

In summary, although budgeting was represented in the

original IMC framework it differed in nature to the new

framework due to the unique characteristics of social

media. In the traditional IMC framework, budgeting was a

criterion of IMC programs, usually executed in a similar

way for all forms of media being used. The new Social

IMC framework requires specific human resources and

technology as well as budgeting considerations. The

success of implementation was contingent on these

aspects.

4.5.6 IntegrationIntegrated SM was dependent on the coordination of media,

consistency planning and marketing-centric control over

SM. The question of how integrated SM was in the

participants’ organisations was not explicitly asked and

yet it emerged as a theme in the data. This was due in

part to the interview questions’ implied isolation of the

SM topic, that some marketers struggled to separate SM

from a general discussion of marketing communications,

alluding to the fact that it was indeed fully integrated

for them;

123

I guess the difficulty with this, specifically talkingsocial …is that we do not see it as a stand-alone,separate activity. It is just another communicationplatform that forms part of the bigger, broaderintegrated campaigns. – Skincare

It is absolutely integrated and for us it is a means toan end, it is not the solution. At the end of the day,the way we think about it is, what is the brand and whatdo we want to achieve with this brand? How are we goingto do that? And then comms strategy is a tool forachieving that as opposed to the solution, which Ifundamentally believe is the right way to approach itbecause otherwise the tail is going to wag the dog. –Dairy1

The participants spoke of integration within the wider

marketing communications mix and as a component of their

media strategy;

It was all integrated, so there was always mention ofsocial media in print; a little bit in radio, and you areobviously very restricted by what you could do. Buteverything was cross-referenced. If you were running aprint campaign, we would make sure that that was alsorepresented, communicated on the Facebook channel. –Wine

Integration within marketing communications is an

implementation decision in the original IMC framework,

represented by Mixing Elements and Selecting Media (See

Appendix A). The coordination of proliferated media

sources were approached differently by each participant.

This reflects the traditional approach to implementing SM

in IMC as evidenced in Chapter 2. Implementation

decisions based on the level of integration afforded to

SM are made for vastly different reasons. The purpose

for integrating SM for many was to amplify and extend on

the traditional media offerings;

124

In terms of that general organic awareness, I think it isactually probably the best tool we have got in terms ofdriving that level of interest in the brand. Because ofwhat we represent in these new markets though, I don’tthink the digital space or the social media space does agood enough job at really telling people what the brandis about in a broad sense. When we utilise our media, wecertainly see through the home media, being TVC,out-of-home, radio and those sorts of traditional types,probably play a better role in actually telling peoplewhat this brand is about. –Dairy 2

Yes, it is also a great amplifier of an idea. I think themost successful marketing campaign is when you canactually cover a multitude of channels. When we have donea PR campaign, for example, that has got mainstream mediapress, we have put it in through our owned digitalassets. We have activated it through an event orexperiential and then we have blasted it through socialmedia. Those are the campaigns that, when they do well onall of those media, are the ones that seem to really workbecause you are hitting lots of different people in lotsof different ways and repetition of the same message, butthrough all different devices and channels. If you getsocial media right, if you get a great idea in PR and youcan amplify it with social media, I think social mediaworks really well as an amplification effect to acreative idea.’ –Retail Food

The participant from Retail Food saw the broadcasting nature

of SM as yet another channel to release messages

advertising the brand. This did challenge the

interactive nature of the medium but also capitalized on

the reach of SM for relatively low cost. Condiment saw

their brand as fully integrated and yet the use of ATL

agencies reduced the effectiveness of the integration

achieved;

I also think from an integration point of view, we havetried really hard to bring it (SM) into the front of ourthinking about campaigns. I mean it is everything we do.But I don’t think we are quite there in terms of working

125

with our, say above-the-line agencies et cetera to reallythink about it. – Condiment

The participant for Confectionary had coined a term, to

describe the way in which they had begun to incorporate

the consumer behaviour driving the need to establish an

integrated role for SM among the media mix.

What we are doing is focusing very much as we moveforward on what we are loosely calling a ‘transmedia’strategy. We are really trying to get to grips with themultiscreen behaviour and trying to get better at, notjust using digital per se and social media to push out amessage that we have already got happening on TV, butrather to actually customise the message so that it isanother chapter of the story. –Confectionary

The concept of interactivity and the shift in the nature

of digital communications has been reported in the

literature as a ‘hypermedia’ environment (Hoffman, DL &

Novak 2009). This new media environment will create a

more complex task for marketers when decision making to

coordinate media types and create consistency of

messages.

ConsistencySome brands were strict about integration between all

communications elements for coordination and to ensure

consistency;

We have had a really concentrated effort through oursocial media platforms to ensure that our conversationalcalendar and the content we are generating online isaligned to our strategy and ATL communications inachieving objectives. – Condiment

I think there are two things around consistency, for me,aside from the actual content that one is posting. One istone of voice, and the other one is a visual consistency,which we have been shocking at. If you look at the likes

126

of (Global Biscuit Brand), there is a beautiful visuallanguage that is used throughout all of their posts thatis just remarkable, and that is because they spend a lotof time focusing on it. It is beautifully designed, andtheir photography is exceptional. –Confectionary

We are a fairly small team, a small organisation, and sowe don’t have a huge requirement for specific writtenguidelines for social media, for how it looks and feels,because we control that. –Wine

The organisations with a marketing-centric structure were

able to create and maintain consistency. Tight control

over tone of voice, position, brand image and character

was demonstrated by marketing departments that isolated

and controlled the decision making in their chain of

command. The closer the SM decisions were to the brand

managers and marketing managers, the more control over

the SM presence they could exert. This was contrasted by

the companies that suffered from a lack of coordination

within the company or when outsourcing to digital media

and advertising agencies;

…that loss of control I can see applying to any kind ofsocial and digital media when you don’t have amarketing-centric company that has control over all thoseaspects. –Retail Food

By not letting everyone get onto it …everything that weget posted is run by at least me …I will always check itwith my general manager who looks after the brand acrossall areas of marketing anyway –Retail Fashion

Consistency was hindered by regulatory requirements of

some brands, in that they were obliged to alter their SM

activity to ensure legal and governmental requirements

were covered, in the case of Skincare it created pressure

to conform to guidelines;

127

…It is also quite difficult as well, particularly in aregulated industry like where we have got registeredproducts and TGA, to brief a third party to be able to dothat for you and make sure that they do the right thing.It is about resources. …It is also about balance between, when all the socialmedia sort of exploded, and it was about transparency,and being authentic, and allowing people to complain onyour site, and acknowledging the good with the bad. It isnow about balancing that with making sure that we arecovered legally and that we are covered responsibly. –Skincare

Brands that created and utilised a definitive set of

guiding brand principles, in the form of brand DNA

documents, human resources and strict codes of conduct

and regulations, increased their ability to successfully

implement SM consistently within IMC programs. Condiment

used strict guidelines to maintain a consistency in all

branded activities and this extended to SM.

…we have also created sort of a brand-new brand styleguide or we call it brand DNA book. The role of thebrand DNA guide is to ensure consistency of how the brandshould talk, what it should look like; and within thebook there is examples of how to execute. – Condiment

Confectionary, Retail Fashion and Wine all expressed the desire

to have more structured approaches to a brand guideline

to inform their strategic and tactical decisions for

consistency. Retail Fashion noted that a small team allowed

for tighter control over the tone of voice and brand

personality. If they were to open up SM input to involve

a wider range of people internally, brand guidelines

would be necessary.

Most brands interviewed struggled to reconcile the quest

for consistency and internal technical capability in SM.

128

The maintenance of consistency across content and

platforms, and possessing the right technical

capabilities to perform on the same platforms challenged

how they could fully represent their brand authentically

in the SM sphere. The decision to outsource their

digital needs (including SM) was sometimes driven by the

need to stay abreast of the technological trends, of

which some marketers believed the digital and social

media agencies were more capable. The participant for

Retail Food was concerned about staying in touch with

industry trends on SM;

The challenge for owning it completely internally is thatyou do need specific expertise in that area to remainplugged into trends, like how is Tumblr going? Is Yelpreally going to overtake Urbanspoon? What are theindustry trends? Because if you cut off external agenciescompletely, that is what they actually have knowledgeinto, they have that expertise. That was one of thequestions that was brought up in that spot. What I’mtrying to work out is how we internalise it but also keepour hand in on what is happening. You know, my God, isno-one using Facebook anymore? Facebook has been indecline for a while now. –Retail Food

One participant found that the agencies were less likely

to understand and react appropriately as the brand’s

online ‘personality’;

…there is the tone-of-voice side, which is probably alittle bit more difficult for the agencies because it isvery intuitive. When you work on a brand day in and dayout, and for many years, you get to know it like it is apersonality, right, so there are fairly often instancesin which I will read something from the agency and go,‘What were you thinking?’ –Confectionary

The participant for Confectionary went on to discuss their

New Zealand counterpart’s success in achieving

129

authenticity in integration by keeping SM moderation in-

house;

…they have had remarkable success as a result because ofthe fact that I think it has become apparent to consumersthat there is an individual who cares, that is respondingto posts, and listening, and talking, and perpetuatingthat conversation, as opposed to a company that has beenemployed to post twice a week at X time. It is a verydifferent story. –Confectionary

In summary, integrated SM is dependent on coordination of

media, consistency planning and marketing-centric control

over SM. In terms of the IMC framework this theme bore

resemblance to the traditional decision-making framework.

SM is still required to integrate among the media chosen

to achieve campaign goals and organisational objectives.

4.6 Chapter Summary

The findings of the exploratory qualitative analysis were

presented and discussed in this chapter. The major

contribution of three new concepts relevant to social

media were identified and included in the original IMC

framework. While six themes came from the eight in-depth

interviews with senior marketing managers, three were

similar to existing components of the IMC framework.

However they did differ slightly in nature or character,

with regards to the integration of SM within the IMC

environment. On the other hand the three new themes

derived from the interviews reflected the interactive,

immediate and intimate nature of SM and required

modifications to the IMC framework. The addition of these

variables changes the framework by ensuring SM is

130

addressed in the planning of managers in the following

way:

Consideration of the interdependent role of SM

within the larger IMC program;

Dedicated strategic, resourcing and integration

decisions are made with regards to SM; and

Managers undertake listening, engagement and agility

measures to successfully implement SM within IMC

planning.

Those issues were critical to the marketers’ perception

of successful SM implementation. Because of the unique

characteristics of SM and recent inclusion of SM in IMC,

the original IMC framework required updating. The next

chapter provides an overall summary of this research

project, its contribution to the literature as well as

recommendations for research and marketing practitioners.

As mentioned earlier, in the literature more focus is

needed on understanding if and where social media might

fit in an IMC mix (Schultz, D & Peltier 2013).

131

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS

AND LIMITATIONS

5.1 Introduction

The previous chapter discussed themes derived from the

interviews with senior marketers concerning their

experiences implementing social media (SM). This chapter

concludes the findings and presents a modified framework,

which integrates social media strategy into the

traditional integrated marketing communications (IMC)

framework. Initially the chapter will review the

research problem, and research. Next it will integrate

the contribution of this study into the existing

integrated marketing communication literature. We will do

this by presenting a new IMC framework based on the

findings and discussion of the previous chapter. The

chapter concludes with recommendations for future

researchers and managers, and finally, an identification

of the limitations of this study.

5.2 Review of the Research

The aim of this study was to identify the current issues

marketers face in implementing social media in their

organisations. At its core, this research is unpacking,

examining and questioning the issues and discussions

regarding the inclusion of SM in IMC programs. Using an

exploratory methodology, this study aimed to provide a

132

wide ranging snapshot of current issues faced by

marketers in the B2C sector when implementing and

operating Social Media within their IMC programs. The

aim of the interviews conducted was to identify the

benefits of, and barriers to successful implementation of

social media in the IMC mix.

This thesis provides the ‘essence’ (Moustakas 1994) of

key issues faced by senior marketers implementing SM in a

B2C context. Using the data collected from the eight

marketers interviewed, the rich description of their

experiences informed the conclusions discussed in the

subsequent section. The themes that were highlighted in

the data collected during the interviews are reflected

upon in the following section, and address the research

question and sub–questions:

RQ: What is the experience of integrating Social

Media into the traditional IMC mix for marketing

executives in B2C companies?

SQ1: What is the role of SM within IMC?

SQ2: What are the perceived benefits of SM

implementation to IMC?

SQ3: What are considered the determinants of

successful implementation of SM in IMC programs?

5.3 Conclusions

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences

of senior marketers since the inclusion of SM in IMC

programs for their brands. The issues arising are

133

important to note given the growth in both academic and

industry attention SM has received. This study made a

contribution to the evidence as to how SM has altered the

IMC-driven environment of B2C marketing. It was found

from the eight in-depth interviews that the current

mindset of these marketers is one of discovery, trial and

experimentation.

Schultz, D and Peltier (2013) suggested that the course

of human history has been changed significantly and argue

that interactivity and interconnections between consumers

and marketers will provide the dominant paradigm for a

new interactive communication model going forward. The

IMC Framework (Chitty et al. 2011, p. 10) provided an

appropriate model of the IMC process, however its rigid

nature has been challenged by the inclusion of SM in the

IMC mix.

This study provided a number of significant findings

during the course of the interviewing process:

The unique characteristics of SM, such as

interactivity, require the organisation to listen to

the conversations, opinions and trends presented on

various SM platforms. Monitoring the online brand

discussion, crowdsourcing for ideas and flagging

sales and distribution opportunities via SM

channels, drove the theme of listening. The

benefits to successful SM strategy were increased

sales, customer experience and product development.

134

Developing methods of determining how brand

engagements are created and nurtured across the

multiple SM touch points will determine a

competitive edge for organisations (Schultz, D &

Peltier 2013). The drivers of engagement are

advocacy, WOM, sentiment and content strategy. The

level of engagement companies achieve in SM will

determine a positive brand experience and will

support brand equity (Edosomwan et al. 2011). Other

benefits to marketing communications programs who

seek brand engagement with their consumers are;

share of wallet, customer retention, ROI and

proactive WOM. (Schultz, D & Peltier 2013; Vivek,

Beatty & Morgan 2012).

A nimble and proactive approach to SM

implementation, allowed for a conversation with

consumers not previously afforded by traditional

media. A company must dedicate time and effort to

review and respond to customers’ responses.

Determinants of an agile SM strategy were timing,

reactions and reach. Benefits of creating brand

agility were: superior competitive advantage in the

marketplace, cost savings and potential reach to

more consumers than was possible with traditional

media.

135

Social Media plays a role by providing a cost

effective method of marketing and advertising

(Edosomwan et al. 2011). Effective combinations of

human resources, technology and marketing budgets

drove the theme of resources. The benefits to an

organisation were the ability to create and execute

timely content at a low cost. Possessing the

knowledge and capabilities to produce highly

engaging content in a timely fashion created many

advantages for the participants organisations as

discussed in the previous chapter. Further,

measurement of SM outcomes facilitated program

evaluation and superior performance within SM

strategies.

The strategic fit of the SM campaign was largely

attributed to the positioning, targeting and social

segmentation. This was evident in the participants

who achieved what they perceived to be success in SM

implementation. The benefits arising from strategic

fit were creating deep connections with niche

targets of customers. Self-segmentation often

occurred and personalized offers were possible with

more attention paid to the matching of SM strategy

and implementation.

When asked what is Social Media? Don Schultz and

James Peltier (2013) report that it is not just

136

another channel for marketers to unleash their

communication activities. The level of integration

afforded to SM activities within IMC can have

profound effects on the level of implementation

success. A complex balance of media coordination,

consistency planning and marketing-centric control

of SM activities were perceived to achieve

integration.

Some final conclusions can be drawn from the outcomes and

discussion of the data analysis with regards to the

research questions. The analysis of the participants

responses uncovered three new themes within SM;

Listening, Engagement and Agility. These concepts are

new to the IMC process and infer that the two-way nature

of communication in SM needs to be accounted for in IMC

program decision making. The academic significance of

this research is to enhance and deepen the body of

knowledge on SM implementation issues and provide

research avenues for the future.

5.4 The Social IMC Framework

Based on the findings of this study it appears that the

new IMC framework incorporating the unique

characteristics of SM is needed. This new framework

would be the basis of future research, as well as

suggesting implementation guidelines for practitioners.

The new Social IMC framework includes SM as a dynamic

aspect within the IMC process, affecting the

137

decision-making stages and creating implications for the

program outcomes (See Appendix A).

5.5 Recommendations for Managers

Marketers must leverage content across multiple channels

to allow for fuller implementation of social media

initiatives beyond pure ‘short term promotion’ or sale

promotion efforts (Schultz, D & Peltier 2013, p. 12).

The unique characteristics of SM must be accounted for,

from the strategic planning at the outset, to the

creation of content for SM platform use. Organisations

that find social media at the top of the agenda when

strategising will find it easier to maintain a consistent

voice and represent the core values of the business

(Maplestone 2013). This study found that effective SM

implementation is contingent upon strategic and tactical

consideration of SM when forming IMC programs. Utilising

the resources, level of integration and strategic fit of

SM with the brand to suit IMC planning will determine

successful SM implementation. Companies must acquire the

skills of listening, engagement and agility if they are

to develop and deploy successful SM strategy within the

wider context of IMC.

5.6 Recommendations for Future Research

SM is the fastest growing interest area in marketing

journals, with nearly 200 articles published in the last

two years alone (Schultz, D & Peltier 2013). The research

must move beyond use and usage, tools and tactics, and

138

more focus must be given to questioning where SM fits

into the IMC mix. The research conducted here has

illuminated some opportunities for further study of SM,

namely within the context of IMC as a concept, and as a

process in and of itself. Although this study narrows

the SM Implementation theory-practice divide, there are

still gaps existing between the current research and what

organisations are doing in practice. This study mirrors

what has been identified in the literature in that

respect.

Perceptions of SM Integration: Further research could

look deeper into how companies integrate social media,

why they do so and how they feel they perform in social

media, both from an objective and a subjective view. It

could also be interesting to understand how companies

measure their performance in social media, both

objectively and subjectively. If it was possible to

follow companies for a longer time, in the beginning of

their integration, a longitudinal measure of the change

in performance could be gained objectively. If timing

restricts, further research of this area could be to

conduct more interviews and in that way get a deeper

understanding about how some companies work with

integration and how they measure performance.

New Social IMC Framework: Gaps in the current IMC

literature remain contingent on the validity of IMC

measurement tools used, inclusive is the need to test

instruments that could be used to evaluate IMC in

139

organisations. The new IMC framework could be tested to

identify the dynamic and amplifying effect of SM in IMC,

but further inquiry into its validity is required. This

could be further developed through alternative research

methods, such as case studies and action research.

Product Category Differences: Further studies could

include a quantitative study into the product category

and level of social media implementation success, in

relation to level of integration within the organisation.

Variables could be based around the resources invested in

SM implementation, human, technology and budget and the

subsequent levels of integration and implementation

successes achieved.

New Measurement Dimensions: Another possible quantitative

study could incorporate the dimensions of SM measurement

devised by (Murdough 2009) and propose new ways to

measure SM that attempt to create a link between TM and

SM measurement and accountability. The link between

strategy formation, measurement and successful IMC

programs is yet to be fully explored in academic research

and this is where most senior managers are seeking

answers to fundamental implementation issues.

5.7 Limitations and Challenges of the Study

While an effort to contribute to progress in resolving

issues of conceptual and theoretical development of the

IMC construct is required, this study moves beyond the

ongoing argument to identify the role of SM in the IMC

140

landscape and its impact therein. The iterative process

of developing an all-pervading definition of IMC, to

accumulate and add to the knowledge base in incremental,

positive steps continues. It is a long-term undertaking

that will involve many contributions to this field of

research to arrive at a truly universal representation of

the IMC paradigm and it’s many facets (Lee & Park 2007;

Reid 2005; Valos, Ewing & Powell 2010). The arrival of

SM in the IMC mix creates further developmental issues

for research in this field for the many reasons mentioned

throughout this thesis.

In regards to this study, the parameters of an Honours

thesis time frame dominated many aspects of the study,

imposing limits on the ability to test a research problem

to its fullest extent. As such, this allowed arrival at

the ‘essence’ of the problem to emerge but raised as many

new questions as it answered.

Although this exploratory study was limited to a narrow

band of participants, their relative homogeneity allowed

for a holistic look at how they execute SM within their

IMC activities. The study would have benefitted greatly

had there been time for more in-depth questioning of the

participants, a quantitative follow up and scope to

report the findings in a more conclusive and exhaustive

manner perhaps incorporating a grounded theory approach

to data collection and analysis (Galman 2013). Despite

these limitations, the strengths of the methodology were

gaining rich personal insights from the marketers via

141

in-depth interviewing. The challenges and successes

experienced by the participants were appropriately

captured as a result of the interviews and methodological

approach.

General limitations experienced were: gaining access to

the appropriate participants, the small sample size and

limited time for data collection and analysis. The

participants themselves were generous with their

information, but there was an inherent conflict of

interest, in that most marketers interviewed were assured

anonymity and therefore some information could not be

shared due to the public nature of the brand’s profiles.

It could be said that had the data been more anonymously

collected, via survey for example, that the participants

might have been more inclined to give more detail in

their answers in terms of results, successes and

failures.

142

REFERENCES

Alam, I 2005, 'Fieldwork and data collection inqualitative marketing research', Qualitative Market Research: AnInternational Journal, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 97-112.

Almquist, E & Roberts, KJ 2000, 'A ‘Mindshare’Manifesto',Mercer Management Journal, vol. 12, pp. 9-20.

Barnes, NG 2010, 'Tweeting and blogging to the top',Marketing Research, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 8-13.

Belch, G & Belch, M 2012, Advertising and promotion: An integratedmarketing communications perspective, McGraw Hill, New York.

Berg, BL 1989, Qualitative research methods for the social sciences,Allyn and Bacon (Boston).

Berkman, R 2013, 'How Social Tools Can Help Your CompanyAvoid Strategic Failure', MIT Sloan Management Review, vol.54, no. 2, pp. 1-4.

Blackshaw, P & Nazzaro, M 2004, 'Consumer-Generated Media101: Word-of-Mouth in the Age of the Web-FortifiedConsumer. ', pp. 1-13, retrieved August 18 2013, <http://www.nielsenbuzzmetrics.com/whitepapers>.

Borders, AL, Johnston, WJ & Rigdon, EE 2001, 'Beyond thedyad: electronic commerce and network perspectives inindustrial marketing management', Industrial MarketingManagement, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 199-205.

Breslauer, B & Smith, T 2009, Social Media Trends around theworld! The global web index (GWI), ESOMAR Research, OnlineResearch, Chicago.

Brito, M 2013, 'Your Content Strategy: Defining Paid,Owned and Earned Media', Hootsuite, retrieved September 18,

143

2013, <http://blog.hootsuite.com/converged-media-brito-part-1>.

Canhoto, AI, Clark, M & Fennemore, P 2013, 'Emergingsegmentation practices in the age of the socialcustomer', Journal of Strategic Marketing, pp. 1-16.

Chandor, P 1950, Teach Yourself Adversitising and Publicity, EnglishUniversity Press, London.

Chaudhuri, A & Holbrook, MB 2001, 'The chain of effectsfrom brand trust and brand affect to brand performance:The role of brand loyalty', Journal of Marketing, vol. 65, no.2, pp. 81-93.

Chitty, W, Barker, N, Valos, M & Shimp, TA 2011, IntegratedMarketing Communications: Asia Pacific Edition, 3rd edn, CengageLearning, Australia.

Cornelissen, JP & Lock, AR 2000, 'Theoretical concept ormanagement fashion? Examining the significance of IMC',Journal of Advertising Research, vol. 40, no. 5, pp. 7-16.

Creswell, JW 2007, Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: choosingAmong Five Approaches, Second edn, Sage Publications,Thousand Oaks, CA.

Dawar, N & Pillutla, MM 2000, 'Impact of product-harmcrises on brand equity: The moderating role of consumerexpectations', Journal of Marketing Research, pp. 215-26.

Dietrich, G & Livingston, G 2012, Marketing in the Round: How toDevelop an Integrated Marketing Campaign in the Digital Era, QuePublishing, USA.

Duncan, T & Moriarty, SE 1998, 'A communication-basedmarketing model for managing relationships', The Journal ofmarketing, pp. 1-13.

Duncan, T & Mulhern, F 2004, 'A white paper on thestatus, scope and future of IMC', in IMC Symposium co-

144

sponsored by IMC programs at Northwestern University and University ofDenver (March).

Duncan, TR & Everett, SE 1993, 'Client perceptions ofintegrated marketing communications', Journal of AdvertisingResearch, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 30-9.

Edelman, DC 2007, 'From the periphery to the core: asonline strategy becomes overall strategy, marketingorganizations and agencies will never be the same', Journalof Advertising Research, vol. 47, no. 2, pp. 130-4.

Edosomwan, S, Prakasan, S, Kouame, D, Watson, J &Seymour, T 2011, 'The history of social media and itsimpact on business', Journal of Applied Management andEntrepreneurship, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 79-91.

Farrelly, F, Luxton, S & Brace-Govan, J 2001, 'CriticalIssues to Understanding IMC in the Future-An Academic andPractitioner Developed Integrated MarketingCommunications Curriculum for the 21 st Century', MarketingBulletin, vol. 12, pp. 1-16.

Fernando, A 2007, 'Social media change the rules',Communication World, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 9-10.

Flick, U 2011, Introducing research methodology: A beginner's guide todoing a research project, SAGE Publications Ltd, London.

Galman, SC 2013, The Good, the Bad and the Data: Shane the LoneEthnographer's Basic Guide to Qualitative Analysis, Left Coast PressInc., Walnut Creek, CA.

Gilmore, JH & Pine 2nd, B 1997, 'The four faces of masscustomization', Harvard Business Review, vol. 75, no. 1, p.91.

Gioia, DA & Pitre, E 1990, 'Multiparadigm perspectives ontheory building', Academy of management review, vol. 15, no.4, pp. 584-602.

145

Goulding, C 2005, 'Grounded theory, ethnography andphenomenology: A comparative analysis of threequalitative strategies for marketing research', EuropeanJournal of Marketing, vol. 39, no. 3/4, pp. 294-308.

Grbich, C 2007, Qualitative Data Analysis: An Introduction, SAGEPublications Ltd, London.

Guba, EG 1990, The Paradigm Dialogue, Sage Publications,California.

Hoeffler, S & Keller, KL 2003, 'The marketing advantagesof strong brands', The Journal of Brand Management, vol. 10,no. 6, pp. 421-45.

Hoffman, D & Fodor, M 2010, 'Can You Measure the ROI ofYour Social Media Marketing?', Sloan Management Review, vol.52, no. 1, pp. 41-9.

Hoffman, DL & Novak, TP 1996, 'Marketing in hypermediacomputer-mediated environments: conceptual foundations',The Journal of marketing, pp. 50-68.

Hoffman, DL & Novak, TP 2009, 'Flow online: lessonslearned and future prospects', Journal of interactive marketing,vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 23-34.

Hurwitz, R 2012, 'Beyond ROI: The Need to Improve SocialMedia Integration', Forbes, retrieved 18 August 2013,<http://www.forbes.com/sites/rhondahurwitz/2012/09/18/beyond-roi-the-need-to-improve-social-media-integration/>.

Jain, D & Singh, SS 2002, 'Customer Lifetime ValueResearch in Marketing: A Review and Future Directions',Journal of Interactive Marketing (John Wiley & Sons), vol. 16, no. 2,pp. 34-46.

Jansen, BJ, Sobel, K & Cook, G 2011, 'Classifyingecommerce information sharing behaviour by youths onsocial networking sites', Journal of Information Science, vol.37, no. 2, pp. 120-36.

146

Kahn, RL & Cannell, CF 1957, 'The dynamics ofinterviewing; theory, technique, and cases'.

Kaplan, AM & Haenlein, M 2010, 'Users of the world,unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media',Business Horizons, vol. 53, no. 1, pp. 59-68.

Keller, E & Fay, B 2013, 'Word-of-Mouth Advocacy: A NewKey to Advertising Effectiveness', Journal of AdvertisingResearch, vol. 52, no. 4, p. 459.

Keller, KL 2001, 'Mastering the Marketing CommunicationsMix: Micro and Macro Perspectives on Integrated MarketingCommunication Programs', Journal of Marketing Management, vol.17, no. 7/8, pp. 819-47.

Kevin Lane Keller 2009, 'Building strong brands in amodern marketing communications environment', Journal ofMarketing Communications, vol. 15, no. 2-3, pp. 139-55.

Khan, GF 2012, 'Social media-based systems: an emergingarea of information systems research and practice',Scientometrics, vol. 95, no. 1, pp. 159-80.

Kietzmann, JH, Hermkens, K, McCarthy, IP & Silvestre, BS2011, 'Social media? Get serious! Understanding thefunctional building blocks of social media', BusinessHorizons, vol. 54, no. 3, pp. 241-51.

Kimmel, AJ & Kitchen, PJ 2013, 'WOM and social media:Presaging future directions for research and practice',Journal of Marketing Communications, pp. 1-16.

Kitchen, PJ, Brignell, J, Li, T & Jones, GS 2004, 'Theemergence of IMC: a theoretical perspective', Journal ofAdvertising Research, vol. 44, no. 1, pp. 19-30.

Kliatchko, JG 2008, 'Revisiting the IMC construct',International Journal of Advertising, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 133-60.

Kotler, PJ, Adam, S, Brown, L & Armstrong, GM 2006,Principles of Marketing, 3rd edn, Pearson Education.

147

Kozinets, RV 2002, 'The Field behind the Screen: UsingNetnography for Marketing Research in OnlineCommunities', Journal of Marketing Research, vol. 39, no. 1, pp.61-72.

Lace, JM 2004, 'At the crossroads of marketingcommunications and the Internet: experiences of UKadvertisers', Internet Research, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 236-44.

Lee, DH & Park, CW 2007, 'Conceptualization andMeasurement of Multidimensionality of IntegratedMarketing Communications', Journal of Advertising Research, vol.47, no. 3, p. 222.

Leung, D, Law, R, van Hoof, H & Buhalis, D 2013, 'SocialMedia in Tourism and Hospitality: A Literature Review',Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, vol. 30, no. 1-2, pp. 3-22.

Li, C & Bernoff, J 2008, Groundswell: Winning in a WorldTransformed by Social Technologies, Harvard Business PressCambridge.

Mangold, WG & Faulds, DJ 2009, 'Social media: The newhybrid element of the promotion mix', Business Horizons, vol.52, no. 4, pp. 357-65.

Maplestone, V 2013, 'Integrating Social: guidelines orguesswork? Part 1.', Marketing Magazine, retrieved 14October 2013,<http://www.marketingmag.com.au/news/integrating-social-guidelines-or-guesswork-part-1-45234/#.UmNp2STPEk5>.

Marshall, C & Rossman, G 1995, Designing Qualitative Research,2nd edn, SAGE Publications Inc, Thousand Oaks, CA

Martin, K & Todorov, I 2010, 'How will digital platformsbe harnessed in 2010, and how will they change the waypeople interact with brands?', Journal of Interactive Advertising,vol. 10, no. 2.

148

Mason, J 2002, Qualitative researching, SAGE Publications Ltd,London.

Merchant, N 2012, 11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era,Harvard Business Press, Boston MA.

Michaelidou, N, Siamagka, NT & Christodoulides, G 2011,'Usage, barriers and measurement of social mediamarketing: An exploratory investigation of small andmedium B2B brands', Industrial Marketing Management, vol. 40,no. 7, pp. 1153-9.

Miles, MB & Huberman, AM 1994, 'Qualitative dataanalysis, 2nd', Edition. Thousand Oaks.

Montalvo, RE 2011, 'Social media management', InternationalJournal of Management & Information Systems (IJMIS), vol. 15, no. 3,pp. 91-6.

Montgomery, AL 2001, 'Applying quantitative marketingtechniques to the Internet', interfaces, vol. 31, no. 2, pp.90-108.

Moorman, C 2013, 'The CMO Survey', The CMO Survey,retrieved July 3 2013, <http://www.cmosurvey.org/survey>.

Moustakas, C 1994, Phenomenological research methods, SagePublications Inc, London.

Murdough, C 2009, 'Social media measurement: it's notimpossible', Journal of Interactive Advertising, vol. 10, no. 1,pp. 94-9.

Naik, PA & Raman, K 2003, 'Understanding the impact ofsynergy in multimedia communications', Journal of MarketingResearch, pp. 375-88.

Naik, PA, Raman, K & Winer, RS 2005, 'Planning marketing-mix strategies in the presence of interaction effects',Marketing Science, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 25-34.

149

Naylor, RW, Lamberton, CP & West, PM 2012, 'Beyond the"Like" Button: The Impact of Mere Virtual Presence onBrand Evaluations and Purchase Intentions in Social MediaSettings', Journal of Marketing, vol. 76, pp. 105-20.

Neuman, WL 1991, Social Research Methods: Qualitative and QuantitativeApproaches, 2nd edn, Allyn and Bacon, Needham Heights, MA.

Nguyen, B, Melewar, TC & Chen, J 2013, 'A framework ofbrand likeability: an exploratory study of likeability infirm-level brands', Journal of Strategic Marketing, pp. 1-23.

Noone, BM, McGuire, KA & Niemeier, H-M 2011, 'Socialmedia meets hotel revenue management: Opportunities,issues and unanswered questions', Journal of Revenue and PricingManagement, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 293-305.

Nowak, GJ & Phelps, J 1994, 'Conceptualizing theintegrated marketing communications' phenomenon: anexamination of its impact on advertising practices andits implications for advertising research', Journal of CurrentIssues & Research in Advertising, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 49-66.

Palka, W, Pousttchi, K & Wiedemann, DG 2009, 'Mobileword-of-mouth – A grounded theory of mobile viralmarketing', Journal of Information Technology, vol. 24, no. 2,pp. 172-85.

Patton, MQ 2002, Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods, 3rdedn, SAGE Publications Inc, Thousand Oaks, CA.

Peltier, JW, Schibrowsky, JA & Schultz, DE 2003,'Interactive integrated marketing communication:combining the power of IMC, the new media and databasemarketing', International Journal of Advertising, vol. 22, no. 1,pp. 93-115.

Perrone, L & Vickers, MH 2003, 'Life after graduation asa “very uncomfortable world”: An Australian case study',Education+ Training, vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 69-78.

150

Phelps, J & Johnson, E 1996, 'Entering the quagmire:examining the'meaning'of integrated marketingcommunications', Journal of Marketing Communications, vol. 2,no. 3, pp. 159-72.

Raj, SP 1982, 'The effects of advertising on high and lowloyalty consumer segments', Journal of Consumer Research, vol.9, no. 1, pp. 77-89.

Reid, M 2003, 'IMC–performance relationship: furtherinsight and evidence from the Australian marketplace',International Journal of Advertising, vol. 22, pp. 227–48.

Reid, M 2005, 'Performance Auditing of IntegratedMarketing Communication (IMC) Actions and Outcomes',Journal of Advertising, vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 41-54.

Reid, M, Luxton, S & Mavondo, F 2005, 'The RelationshipBetween Integrated Marketing Communication, MarketOrientation, and Brand Orientation', Journal of Advertising,vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 11-23.

Rubin, HJ & Rubin, IS 2012, Qualitative Interviewing: The Art ofHearing Data, 3rd edn, SAGE Publications Inc, ThousandOaks, CA.

Russell, MG 2009, 'A call for creativity in new metricsfor liquid media', Journal of Interactive Advertising, vol. 9, no.2, pp. 44-61.

Rust, RT & Oliver, RL 1994, Service quality: New directions in theoryand practice, SAGE Publications Inc, Thousand Oaks, CA.

Rust, RT & Varki, S 1996, 'Rising from the ashes ofadvertising', Journal of Business Research, vol. 37, no. 3, pp.173-81.

Schultz, D & Peltier, J 2013, 'Social Media’s SlipperySlope: Challenges, Opportunities and Future ResearchDirections', Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, vol. 7,no. 2, pp. 2-21.

151

Schultz, DE 1996, 'The inevitability of integratedcommunications', Journal of Business Research, vol. 37, no. 3,pp. 139-46.

Schultz, DE 2011, 'IMC Measurement: The Challenges of anInteractive Marketplace', International Journal of IntegratedMarketing Communications, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 7-24.

Schultz, DE & Kitchen, PJ 1997, 'Integrated marketingcommunications in US advertising agencies: an exploratorystudy', Journal of Advertising Research, vol. 37, no. 5, pp. 7-18.

Schultz, DE & Schultz, HF 1998, 'Transitioning marketingcommunication into the twenty-first century', Journal ofMarketing Communications, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 9-26.

Schultz, DE, Tannenbaum, S & Lauterborn, R 1992,'Integrated marketing communications: putting it togetherand making it work', Lincolnwood: NTC Business Books.

Schultz, DE, Tannenbaum, SI & Lauterborn, RF 1994, The newmarketing paradigm, NTC Business Books Lincolnwood, IL.

Schütz, A 1967, The Phenomenology of the Social World,Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL.

Shin, D, Song, JH & Biswas, A 2013, 'Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) generation in new media platforms: The roleof regulatory focus and collective dissonance', MarketingLetters, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 1-13.

Smith, T 2009, 'Conference notes – The social mediarevolution', International Journal of Market Research, vol. 51, no.4, pp. 559-61.

Stelzner, MA 2013, 'Social Media Marketing IndustryReport 2013 ', retrieved 25 June 2013,<http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/report>.

Stringfellow, A 2013a, 'Brand Management: How to HandleYour Social Media Presence', retrieved 9 October 2013,

152

<https://www.openforum.com/articles/brand-management-how-to-handle-your-social-media-presence/>.

Stringfellow, A 2013b, 'Brand Marketing: How to ReachCustomers in the Digital Age', retrieved 9 October 2013,<https://www.openforum.com/articles/brand-marketing/>.

Tracy, SJ 2010, 'Qualitative quality: Eight “big-tent”criteria for excellent qualitative research', Qualitativeinquiry, vol. 16, no. 10, pp. 837-51.

Trusov, M, Bucklin, RE & Pauwels, K 2009, 'Effects ofWord-of-Mouth Versus Traditional Marketing: Findings froman Internet Social Networking Site', Journal of Marketing,vol. 73, no. 5, pp. 90-102.

Valos, MJ, Ewing, MT & Powell, IH 2010, 'Practitionerprognostications on the future of online marketing',Journal of Marketing Management, vol. 26, no. 3-4, pp. 361-76.

Vivek, SD, Beatty, SE & Morgan, RM 2012, 'Customerengagement: Exploring customer relationships beyondpurchase', The Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, vol. 20,no. 2, pp. 122-46.

Vuori, M 2012, 'Exploring uses of social media in aglobal corporation', Journal of Systems and Information Technology,vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 155-70.

Weston, C, Gandell, T, Beauchamp, J, McAlpine, L,Wiseman, C & Beauchamp, C 2001, 'Analyzing InterviewData: The Development and Evolution of a Coding System',Qualitative Sociology, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 381-400.

Wetpaint & AltimeterGroup 2009, 'The World's MostValuable Brands: Who's Most Engaged?.', retrieved 7October 2013,<http://www.slideshare.net/charleneli/engagementdb-report-july-2009>.

153

Winer, RS 2009, 'New Communications Approaches inMarketing: Issues and Research Directions', Journal ofinteractive marketing, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 108-17.

Yin, RK 2009, Case study research: Design and methods, vol. 5,SAGE Publications Inc, Thousand Oaks, CA.

154

APPENDICESAPPENDIX A: THE IMC FRAMEWORK & THE SOCIAL IMC FRAMEWORK

155

APPENDIX B: SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

When responding to the following questions, we would liketo focus on one brand where SM has a significant role toplay in your IMC.Q1: How do you define SM for your brand?Q2: Which SM platforms do you use for Brand X:

FacebookTwitterPinterestInstagramGoogle+LinkedInYouTubeBlogsOthers

Q3: What marketing activities do you do through orwithin these SM platforms? Q4: What is the purpose of these activities? What do youhope to achieve by performing these activities?Q5: Do you see the benefits of SM as being different totraditional marketing communication media?Q6: What traditional media do you employ for Brand X?Q7: Does the purpose of SM differ from the purpose ofother elements of traditional media, i.e. such astelevision and newspaper?Q8: What do you do as an organisation to facilitate theimplementation of SM for Brand X?Q9: What do you do as an organisation to hinder theimplementation of SM for Brand X?Q10: How do you ensure brand consistency within your SMactivities? Is it harder? Why?Q11: Do the methods you use to ensure brand consistencyusing social media differ from methods used to ensurebrand consistency within traditional media?

156

Q12: What is your SM measurement strategy? Do the methodsyou use differ from those used to measure theeffectiveness of traditional IMC?Q13: Is there any other issue that we haven’t raisedthat is relevant to the implementation of SM as part ofyour IMC mix for Brand X?

157

Backup question for quick interviews:Q14: How does SM affect decisions around:

PositioningTargetingSetting objectivesBudgetingMixing elementsCreating messagesSelecting mediaEstablishing momentum.

158

APPENDIX C: SAMPLE TRANSCRIPTION

Participant: Retail Food

Interviewer: Vanya Maplestone

Participant: Retail Food, compared to where I wasworking before at (Softdrink Brand), which was massiveTVs, billboards, advertising, massive budget, Retail Foodhas a reasonable budget but our brand ethos is to get bigwithout appearing big, so we have actually, to thispoint, shunned traditional media and gone really hard ondigital but also PR, so generating awareness through newscurrency and newsworthy events. So PR, digital and thensponsorship and events are probably our three mainbuckets with the way that we talk to consumers.Interviewer: Okay, so you don’t do a lot of print?Participant: Not a lot, a bit, but not heaps, andif we do print we will target it towards street press andstreet cool magazines, rather than your broadsheets andall those kinds of traditional channels.Interviewer: Okay, that is interesting. I think wehave sort of covered this, but your purpose for socialmedia over traditional, like you said, is more to get thebrand message out?Participant: Yes, it is also a great amplifier ofan idea. I think the most successful marketing campaignis when you can actually cover a multitude of channels.When we have done a PR campaign, for example, that hasgot mainstream media press, we have put it in through ourowned digital assets. We have activated it through anevent or experiential and then we have blasted it throughsocial media. Those are the campaigns that, when they dowell on all of those media, are the ones that seem toreally work because you are hitting lots of differentpeople in lots of different ways and repetition of thesame message, but through all different devices andchannels. If you get social media right, if you get agreat idea in PR and you can amplify it with socialmedia, I think social media works really well as anamplification effect to a creative idea.

159

Interviewer: Yes. When you say the same message,do you mean the same voice? From the same perspective?Participant: Yes, the same tone, same message.There could be a different aspect to the message. If youthink about it, very straight, one of my big PR successeswas creating a (promotional food item and launch event)that we did for a stunt around Australia Day. That didincredibly well. We got massive mainstream media coverageto that, like TV as well like Today Show, Project, Channel 7news and then all the broadsheets; News Ltd newspaperspicked it up as an exclusive, so we got that push. Butagain, that is a push with not much feedback, which isgreat, by the way.

160

APPENDIX D: BRAND IDENTIFIER MATRIX

INTERVIEW PRODUCT TYPE JOB TITLE OF PARTICIPANT(S)Brand A Skincare Marketing Manager & Marketing

Services ManagerBrand B Condiment Senior Brand ManagerBrand C Dairy 1 Marketing and Innovation ManagerBrand D Retail Food Marketing ManagerBrand E Dairy 2 Brand ManagerBrand F Wine National Marketing ManagerBrand G Confectionar

y

Marketing Manager

Brand H Retail

Fashion

Public Relations and Retail Manager

161

APPENDIX E: GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS

ATL – Above the Line Media

BTL – Below the Line Media

B2B – Business to Business

B2C – Business to Consumer

EDM – Electronic Direct Mail

eWOM – Electronic Word of Mouth

FMCG – Fast Moving Consumer Goods

IMC – Integrated Marketing Communications

KPI – Key Performance Indicator

SEO – Search Engine Optimization

SM – Social Media

TGA – Therapeutic Goods Administration

TVC – Television Commercial

WOM - Word of Mouth

162

APPENDIX F: PLAIN LANGUAGE STATEMENT & PARTICIPANT

CONSENT FORM

PLAIN LANGUAGE STATEMENT AND CONSENT FORM

TO: Participant

Plain Language Statement

Date: Full Project Title: Integrating social media into marketing communications strategy: senior marketers perspectives Principal Researcher: Dr. Michael ValosStudent Researcher: Ms Vanya MaplestoneReference Number: BL-EC 24-13

Dear Sir/ Madam,    Plain Language StatementYou are invited to take part in this research project.This Plain Language Statement contains detailedinformation about the research project. Its purpose isto explain to you all the procedures involved in thisproject so that you can make a fully informed decision

163

whether you are going to participate.  Feel free to askquestions about any information in this document.

Participation in the interviews is voluntary.   If you donot wish to take part you are not obliged to.   If youdecide to take part and later change your mind, you arefree to withdraw from the interview at any stage.  Anyinformation obtained from you to date will not be usedand will be destroyed.  

Your decision whether to take part or not to take part,or to take part and then withdraw, will not affect yourrelationship with Deakin University.  Once you have readthis form and agree to participate, please sign theattached Consent Form.  You may keep this copyof the Plain Language Statement.

For your kind information, this research aims to studyhow businesses are currently integrating social mediainto existing marketing communications.  It mainlyinvestigates how organisations coordinate a consistentmessage across media types, how its outcomes are measuredand the implications for future research.  Due to thelack of research regarding social media implementation inbusiness to consumer contexts and experiences of socialmedia utilisation, this study takes an exploratoryapproach. The interview questions will follow a semi-structured style to guide the discussion and someexamples are as follows:I. How do you define SM for your brand?II. Which social media platforms do you use for brand X?

III. What marketing activities are conducted on these social media platforms?

IV. What is the purpose of these marketing activities? The research will be conducted with ten individuals.The results of this study will contribute to a betterunderstanding of the social media phenomenon and itsimpact on marketing communications.  The outcomes of thisstudy would appear to be useful to both academics andpractitioners who are evaluating the strategic uses ofsocial media within organisations. It also providesvaluable information on current practices of

164

social media implementation within Australian FMCGorganisations.    

Your participation in the project will involve a face-to-face interview. Each interview will last up to 1.5 hoursand will be recorded only after receiving your consent.You are free to withdraw the voice recording at anystage. To further clarify issues discussed during theinterview, you might also want to share some additionalrelevant information by allowing us to inspect socialmedia platforms and other marketing communication mediumsand materials currently in use by your organisation.This might include some relevant documents as well. Allvoice resordings will be transcribed verbatim andtogether with our notes and any other relevantinformation that you may give to us would then beanalysed for research purposes. The information that weobtain from you and your organisation, will not be usedfor any other purpose except for the stated/explainedresearch purpose. The findings of this research studywill be published as part of an Honours thesis.

Please note that, no identifiable informationwill be published without your permission.  Anyinformation obtained from you and your organisation willbe stored at Deakin in a locked filing cabinet, and allelectronic copies of documents will be stored on apassword protected computer.  All data will be stored fora period of 5 years after final publication after whichtime the data will be destroyed.  Upon completion of thisresearch project, you will be sent (on request) a copy ofany resulting publications.

This project will be carried out according to theNational Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research(2007) produced by the National Health and MedicalResearch Council of Australia.  This statement has beendeveloped to protect the interests of people who agree toparticipate in human research studies. The ethicalaspects of this research project have been approved bythe Human Research Ethics Committee of Deakin University.

165

ComplaintsIf you have any complaints about any aspect of theproject, the way it is being conducted or any questionsabout your rights as a research participant, then you maycontact:

The Manager,Research Integrity,Deakin University,221 Burwood Highway,Burwood Victoria 3125,Telephone: 9251 7129,research-ethics@deakin.edu.auPlease quote project number BL-EC 24-13.

Further Information, Queries or Any Problems  If you require further information, wish to withdraw yourparticipation or if you have any problems concerning thisproject, you can contact either of the researchers:

Michael Valos – SupervisorEmail: Michael Valos michael.valos@deakin.edu.au

Vanya Maplestone – Student ResearcherEmail: vlm@deakin.edu.auTelephone: 0438585026

166

PLAIN LANGUAGE STATEMENT AND CONSENT FORM

TO: Participant

Consent Form

Date: 25 June 2013

Full Project Title: Integrating social media into marketing communications strategy: senior marketers perspectives

Principal Researcher: Dr. Michael ValosStudent Researcher: Ms Vanya MaplestoneReference Number: BL-EC 24-13

I freely agree to participate in this project according to the conditions in the Plain Language Statement.

I agree that this interview is to be voice recorded according to the conditions in the Plain Language Statement:  YES   NO

I would like to review/edit my interview transcript and provide the necessary clarification to the researcher:      YES NO

I would like to share some additional relevant information such as: Social  media  reports

167

Other marketing materials currently in use by my organisationRelevant documents I have been given a copy of the Plain Language Statement and Consent Form to keep. The researcher has agreed not to reveal my identity and personal details, including where information about this project is published, or presented in any public form.

Participant’s Name (printed) ……………………………………………………………………Signature ……………………………………………………… Date …………………………

Please email or post this form to:

Dr Michael ValosSchool of Management and Marketing   Deakin University   221 Burwood Highway,   Burwood, VIC 3125   Email:  michael.valos@deakin.edu.au   Tel:  0408 598 824

168

PLAIN LANGUAGE STATEMENT AND CONSENT FORM

TO: Organisations

Organisational Consent Form

(To be used by organisational Heads providing consent forstaff/members/patrons

to be involved in research)

Date: 25 June 2013

Full Project Title: Integrating social media into marketing communications strategy: senior marketers perspectives

Reference Number: BL-EC 24-13

I have read, and I understand the attached Plain LanguageStatement.

I give my permission for [staff/members/patrons] of [name of organisation] to participate in this project according to the conditions in the Plain Language Statement. I have been given a copy of Plain Language Statement and Consent Form to keep.The researcher has agreed not to reveal the participants’identities and personal details if information about thisproject is published or presented in any public form.

I agree that

169

1. The institution/organisation MAY / MAY NOT be named in research publications or other publicity without prior agreement.

2. I / We EXPECT / DO NOT EXPECT to receive a copy of the research findings or publications.

Name of person giving consent (printed) ………………………………………………………

Signature ……………………………………………………… Date …………………………

Please email or post this form to:

Dr Michael ValosSchool of Management and Marketing   Deakin University   221 Burwood Highway,   Burwood, VIC 3125   Email:  michael.valos@deakin.edu.au   Tel:  0408 598 824

170