Integration-in-use in the Ethiopian Real Estate Industry: Empirical Evidences from Sunshine Construction and Noah Real Estate Marketplace Interface.
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2022-11
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Integration-in-use is a recently developed concept that is based on the wider concept of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC). A new model and concepts of IMC were generated by Samson (2020); Samson and Angelopulo (2021); Samson and Angelopulo (2022) in a low involvement product category in the Ethiopian beer market context. With an expanded area of application, this study strives for holistic investigation of IMC in a high involvement product category – real estate – with empirical evidences from Sunshine Construction and Noah Real Estate marketplace interface. The interpretivist research paradigm and qualitative research method is employed. Data was gathered through in-depth interviews with purposively selected customers and marketing communication practitioners of the focal companies. The findings reveal that companies design and integrate various brand contacts in their marketing communications with the aim of influencing customers’ purchasing decisions. The customers, however, integrate brand contacts originating from various sources, including but not limited to the focal companies as perceived useful in their purchasing decisions. Two models that describe brand integration-in-use contexts of the customers and the companies are developed based on the findings of this study. Though, planned, product and service brand contacts from the focal companies are valued and integrated by the companies and the customers, product and service brand contacts are given high emphasis by both parties. Thus, this study concludes that there is certain degree of alignment between the brand contacts integration by the companies under the study and brand contacts integration by their customers in the real estate marketplace interface. Interesting and unique findings of this study are a newly emerged constructs such as product geographical location, experts, finance, and ownership document. These were often overlooked in the existing literature of IMC across industries and geographic regions. The recommendation is the revision of IMC models and constructs in different companies and testing the new models and constructs emerged in this study in different market contexts.
Description
Keywords
Marketing Communication