Chapter 14

Integrated Service Marketing Communications

This chapter’s objectives are to

1. Discuss the key service communication challenges.

2. Introduce the concept of integrated service marketing communications.

3. Discuss ways to integrate marketing communications in service organizations.

4. Present specific strategies for addressing service intangibility, managing promises, and managing
customer expectations, educating customers, and managing internal communications.

Three Successful Cross – Channel Integrated Service Marketing Campaigns

In this chapter, we will discuss integrated marketing communications, which has been a staple of
company advertising campaigns for more than thirty years .The foundational idea of integrated
marketing communication (IMC) was to assure that all creative, media, television, radio, and print were
cohesive and communicated the same message. When digital and social marketing came on the scene,
integrated marketing communication became more complex because advertisers had to combine the
controllable aspects of traditional media with an entire host of new media, some of it controlled by the
consumer rather than the company. According to Tony Wright of Wright IMC, an industry expert, cross –
channel, cross – device targeting remains the most powerful differentiator for profitable marketing
strategies. In his view, two services campaigns were notable integrated campaigns that were extremely
successful in 2015: Southwest Airlines Transfarency and Nike RE2PECT, a campaign to celebrate the
legendary baseball player Derek Jeter’s retirement. Another expert cites the Domino’s emoji campaign
as one of the best.

Southwest Airlines Transfarency

Southwest Airlines, long known for its low fares, faced more competition in recent years, making their
value promise more difficult to communicate. To emphasize its position as the best value in the skies,
Southwest launched a Transfarency campaign using both traditional (television, radio, print) and digital
media. The campaign also featured a microsite that revealed hidden airline fees charged by competitors
such as Spirit Airlines and Delta. Interactive components to the site allowed visitors to take a quiz called
“fee or fake “where the site featured fees charged by their competitors, highlighted by a dancing
Southwest Airlines pilot.

The site also featured an approach where users chose pre - selected words to send a letter to
Southwest to complain about how the customer had been treated on other airlines. The final
characteristic of the site was a “fee hacker “that helped customers minimize fees when flying an airline
other than Southwest. One of the best aspects of the campaign was that it created buzz on social media
sites such. As Twitter and Facebook, where some customers adopted the Southwest Twitter hashtag and
promoted the airline on their own.

1. Nike RE2PECT
When the former New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, a true sports legend, announced his plans to
retire from baseball at the end of the 2015 season, Nike's advertising agency created the most
memorable digital effort honoring a sports hero that had ever been developed. With the hashtag #
RE2PECT , the campaign began with an inspirational video depicting famous New Yorkers of all stripes
tipping their hats to Jeter for his accomplishments with the Yankees . As with most integrated
campaigns, it used television, print, outdoor, and - best of all - digital media to praise Jeter in his final
season of Major League Baseball
. The campaign reached more than 44 million unique individuals online and was trending on most social
media networks, including Facebook, Instagram , and Twitter . According to Wright, the video “inspired
hundreds of fan - created videos that were put on various social media platforms, thus pushing the
campaign to true viral status . "

2. Domino's #EasyOrder Pizza Emojis

Domino's created a campaign that encouraged consumers to order pizza with a simple emoji tweet,
allowing them to capitalize emoji’s before most companies. The campaign was consistent with its past
campaigns, with a solid focus on simplification of the ordering process. All customers needed to do was
opt in to the service by adding their mobile numbers to their Pizza Profiles on Dominos.com. After that,
they could order their pre - programmed “Easy Order “just by texting a pizza emoji. With #EasyOrder
emojis, the brand positioned itself among the first in the fast food deliv ery industry to effectively use
digital media. As Pat Hong , an editor at LinkDex , commented , " If these little symbols represent the
zeitgeist of our times , then Domino's has placed an invaluable stake on what could one day become
valuable emoji real estate , and even if not , they showed they are a brand that is ready to capitalize on
digital opportunities when and if they arrive.”

Each of these examples demonstrate creative use of integrated marketing communications. The
proliferation of digital media added to traditional communications media makes the clear and uniform
message across all channels more important than ever before. And as you will learn in this chapter ,
integrated services marketing communications is more complicated than IMC alone , for it also involves
employees , the service scape , and other " real time " interactional communications that need to match
the advertising and promotional communication that is emphasized in media alone.
 A major cause of poorly perceived service is the difference between what a firm promises about a
service and what it actually delivers. Customer expectations are shaped by both uncontrollable and
company - controlled factors.

Word of - mouth communication, social media, publicity, and customer - generated media, customer
experiences with other service providers, and customer needs are key factors that influence customer
expectations and are rarely controllable by the firm.

Controllable factors such as company advertising, personal selling, and promises made by service
personnel also influence customer expectations. In this chapter, we discuss both types of
communication but focus more heavily on the controllable factors because these factors can be
influenced by the company. Accurate, coordinated, and appropriate company communication -
advertising, personal selling
, and online and other messages that do not overpromise or misrepresent is essential to delivering
services that customers perceive as high in quality . Because company communications about services
promise what people do and because people's behaviour cannot be standardized, as can physical goods
produced by machines, the potential for a mismatch between what is communicated and perceptions of
actual service delivery (provider gap 4, the communications gap) is high. By coordinating communication
within and outside the organization, companies can minimize the size of this gap.