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BM2504

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS

 _________________________________________________________________________

Course Description and Scope

This course is concerned with the development, implementation and evaluation of marketing

communication activities. The course primarily takes the marketer’s perspective, requiring you to

consider and critically evaluate factors influencing both the design and implementation of

comprehensive, integrated marketing communication (IMC) programs. In this course, we regard

IMC as a system of thinking, processes, approaches and coordinated activities driven by the

marketer’s objectives.

The course is designed to foster your logical thinking and creativity regarding IMC. Although this

course is oriented towards practice, we still cover theories and concepts essential to your

understanding of marketing communication (marcom) practices (e.g., how they work and their

applicability). Learning these theories and concepts is also important because they facilitate you to

choose and justify your choice and design of marcom activities.

Instead of treating IMC as a set of stand-alone tools or activities, the course regards it as a blended

mix of coordinated activities. The course put roughly equal emphasis on both traditional marcom

tools (e.g., advertising and sales promotion) and non-traditional tools (e.g., social media marketing

and mobile marketing), comparing their similarities and differences, and discussing how they can

complement each other and work together for achieving the marketer’s objectives. While non-

traditional marcom tools catch marketers’ attention of, traditional marcom tools are indispensable

for particular purposes and under certain circumstances.

Course Learning Objectives

1.  understand the nature, role and importance of marcom activities in marketing and the society;

2.  understand the key concepts and theories in IMC management, and the contextual

considerations in applying them to practice;

3.  appreciate the usefulness of both traditional and non-traditional marcom tools, and understand

their applicability, limitations and synergy;

4.  practice the development of detailed marcom strategies; and

5.  understand and practice the evaluation of marcom activities.

Course Assessments

Components Marks Individual/Group

Class artici ation 20 Individual, Grou

Individual assignments 35 Individual

Team project 

45 Group

Total 100

 

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Distributed by Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University. All Rights Reserved.

Textbook

Semenik, Richard J., Chris T. Allen, Thomas O’Guinn, and Hans Rudiger Kaufmann (2012), Advertising

and Promotions: An Integrated Brand Approach, 6th

 ed., Australia/Asia.: South-Western,

Cengage Learning.

Proposed Weekly Schedule

Week Topic

1 Introduction to IMC and the course

2 Essentials of IMC planning

3 Creative strategy

4 Media strategy

5 Branded entertainment;

point-of-sale communication

6 Sales promotion

7 Preliminary project presentation

Recess (Mar. 3 – 9)

8 Online advertising; search engine optimization

9 Social media marketing; mobile marketing

10 Viral marketing; global marcom (elearning week, Mar. 24-30)

11 Sponsorship; cause-related marketing; feedback on individual assignment

12-13 Final Project presentation