The Practice of Integrated Marketing Communications: The Case of Ethio Telecom
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Date
2020-06
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Publisher
AAU
Abstract
Now a days, integrated marketing communication is becoming a necessary condition for the
existence of an organization. Knowing its immense value, many organizations of the world have
been practicing for their marketing communication purposes. The intent of this study was to
explore the practice of IMC in ethio telecom. To this end, the researcher employed qualitative
research approach and in regard to generating data from interviewees, an in-depth interview,
document analysis, and observation were conducted. Accordingly, an in-depth interview was
conducted with purposively selected staffs, company’s profile document was reviewed and
personal observation was conducted. The findings of this research indicated that digital
marketing, sales promotions and sponsorship are the most widely utilized MC instruments. On the
other hand, public relations, trade shows and packaging are not extensively and frequently
exploited. The utilization of personal selling and direct marketing is limited to key account
customers and it is not inclusive of all customers to an individual level. The entire level of practice
of IMC from the perspective of stages of IMC framework in ethio telecom is slow moving. In stage
one, integration of all marketing communication instruments to provide a consistent message for
audiences is not full-fledged. In stage two, there is no regular assessment conducted on customers
about IMC practices. As to stage three, there is utilization of ICT for the marketing communication
activities. Call center service and social media are mostly utilized channels. Stage four has not yet
attained that there is no measuring return on customers about IMC. Staffs have positive
perceptions towards the implementation of integrated marketing communications in ethio telecom
explaining their agreement that IMC has much benefit in saving resources, making easy work
relations as well creating integrity with various stakeholders. As to the impediments of practicing
IMC, the monopoly nature of the company, absence of marketing communication plan and lead
time, presence of technical jargons, and lack of technical trainings were baldly mentioned by
interviewees. This study finally recommended that the entire integrated marketing communication
activities should be conducted on the basis of comprehensive planning and structural flaws shall
be ameliorated. Moreover, frequent assessments about marketing communication activities on
customers shall be made. Lastly, the researcher suggested further study on examining the
effectiveness of marketing communication instruments, and integrated marketing communication
for employee motivation.
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Keywords
Communication, Integrated Marketing communication, marketing communication instruments, stages of Integrated Marketing communication Framework