Building Brands – The Power of Public Relations

In the concept of Integrated Marketing Communications, brand is the focal point of

relationship in consumer markets between the marketer and the customer as is

illustrated in the figure below:

Customer  Perception -> Customer Activity -> BRAND -> Communications  mix activity-> Marketing mix -> Marketers brand strategy

The brand not only enables a business to focus its efforts around all the needs of the

customer (functional, psychological and social), but it also provides the language,

which articulates that relationship. It is the definable social area in which customer

activity moulds with the communication and marketing mixes developed by the

marketer. A brand is therefore a “statement of a psychological relationship and

dependency between a customer and a marketer”. As a statement a brand is

conveyed in unique language, both visual and verbal via the effective use of

Integrated Marketing Communications.

Marketing communications is a systematic relationship between a business and its

market in which the marketer assembles a wide variety of ideas, designs, messages,

media, events, shapes, forms and colours, both to communicate ideas to, and to

stimulate a particular perception of products and services amongst the target

market.

The result of this process of assembling is referred to by marketers as the

communications mix. To assemble this mix, the marketer uses a number of

marketing communications tools such as: direct marketing, advertising, sales

promotions, public relations, point of purchase collateral, events and marketing

design like logos, stationery etc.

Direct and Indirect Benefits

Each marketing communications tool will convey either direct or indirect benefits

Direct Tools Indirect Tools

·  Advertising

·  Personal selling

·  Direct Marketing

·  Promotions

·  Public Relations

·  Sponsorship

·  Corporate Identity

·  Design e.g.:- packaging,

logos, stationery and

corporate identity

·  Point of purchase collateral

Let us consider how companies utilise a beneficial mix of communications to convey

their message to the target audience.

Some marketing communication tools will cause a measurable response in a market

in a short period of time (e.g. personal selling). Other tools have a drip feed effect

diffic ult to isolate and measure, over a much longer period (e.g. public relations).

The time taken for the different marketing communications tools to have an effect in

the market will vary.