The #DistanceDance challenge has gained tremendous attention from the public. Yet, publicity does not always lead to higher sales. P&G should adopt complementary promotional strategies in addition to the #DistanceDance challenge to effectively promote innovative products such as EC30. Please design an integrated marketing communications (IMC) campaign for P&G's innovative products. Allocate your marketing budget across a few components of the promotional mix (e.g., allocating xx% to a specific promotional mix element). Provide arguments to justify your decisions.

Question

The #DistanceDance challenge has gained tremendous attention from the public. Yet, publicity does not always lead to higher sales. P&G should adopt complementary promotional strategies in addition to the #DistanceDance challenge to effectively promote innovative products such as EC30. Please design an integrated marketing communications (IMC) campaign for P&G's innovative products. Allocate your marketing budget across a few components of the promotional mix (e.g., allocating xx% to a specific promotional mix element). Provide arguments to justify your decisions.

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

Recasting the prompt in my own words: design an IMC campaign for P&G's EC30, allocating the budget across promotional mix elements and justifying the distribution with reasoning about reach, engagement, credibility, and product experience. The provided answer proposes a specific budget split and a rationale for each component.

Option analysis:
- Social Media Marketing & Influencer Partnerships — proposed 40% of the budget. This choice emphasizes digital engagement with younger audiences, leveraging the viral reach of campaigns like #DistanceDance. The reasoning is sound because influencer partnerships can boost awareness quickly, create authentic endorsements, and drive shareability, which is valuable for innovative products seeking early adopter traction. However, potential downsides include influencer risk (misalignment, controversial statements) and the need for careful KPI alignment (engagement rate, sentiment, conversion) to justify the spend. A possible enhancement would be to specify tiered influencer strategy (macro, micro, and nano) and tie each tier to distinct objectives (awareness, consideration, trial) with measurable metrics.

- Traditional Advertising (TV, print, digital ads) — proposed 25% of the budget. This allocation recognizes broad reach and mass-market recognition, which is important for a new product to achieve familiarity among a wide audience. The benefit is scale and high-frequency exposure across established channels. On the flip side, traditional media can be costly and often less targeted, with slower feedback loops. The rationale could be strengthened by detailing how TV and print placements align with product launch windows, geographic priorities, and how digital retargeting complements these efforts to improve incremental reach with measurable impact.

- Experiential & Event Marketing (virtual demos) — proposed 20% of the budget. Allocating spend to direct product experiences supports trial and trust for EC30 by letting consumers perceive real benefits, which is especially useful for new formulations or innovations. Virtual demos can be scalable and trackable, but the quality of the experience matters greatly; if the demos feel generic or poorly produced, impact may be limited. A stronger plan would specify the nature of the demos (interactive tutorials, at-home trial kits, live Q&A), platforms to host them, and a framework for capturing intent data (sign-ups, share of voice, sentiment).

- Public Relations & CSR Initiatives — proposed 15% of the budget. PR adds credibility through third-party validation and builds brand goodwill via CSR activities. This component can help mitigate skepticism toward new products and foster trust, particularly in markets sensitive to corporate image. The challenge is ensuring PR activities translate into concrete business outcomes (earned media, credible third-party endorsements, event coverage). The rationale would benefit from linking PR efforts to specific milestones (product awards, sustainability claims, partnerships) and defining how success will be measured (media impressions, sentiment, earned media value).

Cross-cutting considerations:
- Integration: The plan should articulate how these channels work together—e.g., social/influencer activity driving traffic to virtual demos, traditional ads reinforcing the same messages and driving earned media, and PR amplifying influencer and demo experiences through third-party coverage.
- Measurement: Define KPIs for each channel (reach, engagement, impressions, trial rates, conversion, sentiment, ROI) and establish a testing framework (A/B tests, holdout markets) to validate the allocation.
- Flexibility and risk management: Consider reserve or contingency funds to adjust allocations in response to early campaign performance or external factors (seasonality, competitors, supply constraints).
- Audience segmentation: The proposed split addresses broad reach and high-engagement touchpoints; adding explicit segmentation (new customers vs. early adopters vs. existing users) can further optimize spend by tailoring messages and channels to each group.

If one were to re-balance, a potential alternative could shift a portion from traditional advertising toward a stronger experiential and digital influencer emphasis, while increasing PR activities modestly to bolster credibility for a new product launch. For example, a split such as Social Media & Influencers 45%, Traditional Advertising 20%, Experiential 25%, PR 10% could be explored, with corresponding measurement plans to ensure the increased experiential and influencer efforts yield the desired trial and adoption. Alternatively, maintaining 40% for social/influencers while nudging experiential to 25% and PR to 15% could reinforce direct product experience and credibility without sacrificing reach.

In summary, the proposed allocations align with a modern IMC approach that prioritizes digital engagement and direct product experience while leveraging traditional reach and credibility-building PR. The effectiveness will depend on tightly defined objectives, careful channel integration, and robust measurement linking budget to concrete consumer actions such as trial and adoption.

MKTG1021.07|.08|.09 Fall 2025 Marketing Principles [Wang] MKTG1021-Final Exam- Requires Respondus LockDown Browser

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