Marketing is one of the major success pillars of a product; marketing communication plays a major role in influencing consumer purchases in new product categories. The informative role of marketing communication is likely to have much larger effect with uninformed consumers than with consumers who are better informed. Integrated Marketing Communication IMC is a simple concept; it ensures that all forms of communication and messages are carefully linked together. IMC involves the coordination of all forms of marketing communications into a unified program that maximizes the impact upon consumers and other types of customers. These are the seven major components of the integrated marketing communications mix: advertising, public relations, sales promotion, personal selling, event marketing and sponsorship, direct response communication and online interactive communication
Integrated Marketing Communications has been playing a vital role in the automobile industry today. This integration has helped buyers and potential buyers take decisions considering Price, Reliability Performance and at the same time also made it possible for automobile companies to market their products accordingly. In this case as well many of IMC tools have been used to help market Mazda its products and also assisted them to create certain brand image that helped them reaching their target audience. This case study also notes Mazda’s turnaround strategy which called for change in the positioning of one of their models called the Mazda Protégé. Using the new IMC program, Mazda had a new segmentation and selected a new target market. The advertising of Protegé and MAZDA6 made a big difference the Protegé advertisement focused on the target audiences’ inner mind and presented the life-related scene to strike a sympathetic chord. But MAZDA6 advertisement focused more on the performance of the car and made a “mature” image, spent more budgets in advertisement on the magazines, even cooperated with ESPN to appeal to sport fans (the target audience). The Mazda used some direct marketing like sending mails and CD-ROM to the client. Also set the website for the model to attract more people, especially the Protegé. Mazda gave a major push to the Protégé on the Internet including several fun activities and games, this Internet marketing made a huge success.
The advertising strategy for the MAZDA 6 departed from the approach used for the Protégé, as it involved what the company describes as a “more mature” effort that is designed to position the car as a refined. IMC have been used to help market Mazda its products and also assisted them to create certain brand image that helped them reaching their target audience. TV spots and print ads focused on attributes such as styling. Mazda marketing, positioned it as a car also for people who wanted to have a smaller second car. The slogan and advertisements gave the audience an impression of the sporty, fun-to-drive Mazda. The IMC program of Mazda gave the company a second birth.