Group Project (Mid-Term Paper, Campaign Plansbook, Presentation)
MKTG 411 – Integrated Marketing Communications
Fall, 2017
The entire plansbook is written from the agency perspective. Write your report addressed to your prospective client. The purpose of the plansbook is to bid for this account. Convince your client executives to give your agency this account.
Keep in mind that your goal is to mount an integrated marketing communications campaign that incorporates advertising, online/social media marketing, public relations, event sponsorship, and/or any other relevant solutions into the overall plan.
Justify any assertions or recommendations you make in your report. Your client will expect you to be knowledgeable about the relevant industry issues, and also what the press (including trade publications) have said about the industry and/or client, competitive factors, what we know from demographic, psychographic, and behavioral research, what you learned about consumers’ salient perceptions relevant to your brand, etc. Therefore, be sure to cite relevant information (e.g., secondary sources of data you found online, your own primary research, readings/lectures from class, etc.) to back up any of your conclusions or recommendations. Cite also anything you used that was provided for you as part of this course.
WHAT TO INCLUDE: (See the “Framework for Analysis” handout for details on these sections.)
Mid-Term Paper
1. Situation Analysis
2. Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning
3. Bibliography. Your paper must include a bibliography in the back that lists all of the published sources for information cited in the paper (do not list sources that you did not actually cite in the paper). There is no need to list class lectures or conversations with outside sources in the bibliography itself, though you should be sure to cite them (see below). The format of your bibliography is up to you, but be sure that you use the same format for all of the references, and that the information for each reference is complete.
Campaign Plansbook
1. A Title Page
2. An Executive Summary. No more than 2 pgs (double-spaced). It should summarize the major points of your write up. Be sure that this summary can be understood on its own by a busy executive. Also, be sure your summary sells your recommendations.
3. A Table of Contents. It should list all the major sections of your plansbook and the page numbers on which they begin.
4. Situation Analysis (from mid-term paper)
5. Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning (from mid-term paper)
6. Message Strategy & Tactics. Note: Although your presentation should have professional-looking roughs illustrating your campaign, you will not be able to hand in large storyboards or any other materials that cannot be bound into the plansbook itself. Prepare 8.5 X 11 inch copies of these illustrative materials and attach or bind them into the plansbook.
7. Media Strategy and Tactics
8. Non-Advertising Promotions
9. Integration and Evaluation
10. Bibliography. Your paper must include a bibliography in the back that lists all of the published sources for information cited in the paper (do not list sources that you did not actually cite in the paper). There is no need to list class lectures or conversations with outside sources in the bibliography itself, though you should be sure to cite them (see below). The format of your bibliography is up to you, but be sure that you use the same format for all of the references, and that the information for each reference is complete.
FORMAT REQUIREMENTS:
Your paper must be typed, double-spaced. Number all pages.
The body of your paper should include citations to outside sources wherever appropriate. These citations should be in one of the following formats. If citing a class lecture: (class notes, October 24). If citing an article or book: (Smith, 2007). If you are quoting directly from a source, include the page number the quote came from, as in: (Smith, 2007, p. 20). If you are citing or quoting from a conversation with an industry source, give the source’s name and the date on which the conversation took place, as follows: (Ms. Susan Jones, research analyst, Jupiter Communications, personal communication, November 3).
Length: 8 – 10 pages for the mid-term paper. Maximum of 50 pages for the campaign plansbook. For the campaign plansbook, this includes the executive summary, table of contents, bibliography, appendices, footnotes, etc. The only materials that do not count as part of this limit are any art/layouts/storyboards you include. These materials can be put either in the body of your report or in the back. Either way, don’t number those illustration pages (and don’t count them in your page numbering). Example: If after page 20 of your report you include some illustrations, the next page of text after the illustrations should be numbered page 21.
Fifty pages is an absolute maximum. It is more than enough to communicate everything you need to get across.
DRAFTS:
You and your team may hand in draft sections throughout the semester corresponding to different portions of the mid-term paper or the plansbook. Feedback will be provided in the process of your planning the campaign.
WRITING:
When writing the mid-term paper and the plansbook, please pay careful attention to the grammar and writing style. he mid-term paper and the plansbook should use business language, and should contain no grammatical errors, incomplete sentences, slang, or the like. This will be an important factor in determining grades. Plan to schedule sufficient time to deal with and correct any writing problems (hand in drafts early if intended to do so) because these can be a significant obstacle in winning accounts. Here is an example of the kind of rewriting you may need to do:
Wrong style: “We want to hit consumers all around the country with xxx ads that pop.”
Right style: “Our goal is to expose a broad set of consumers to xxx through eye-catching and strategically placed ads.”
ORIGINAL WORK:
Given all the hard work you have invested, be sure to protect your team’s intellectual property from being used by any other team. Similarly, as with any work you submit, each team member needs to be sure that the work being submitted and presented is entirely your own team’s original work. Team members are individually and jointly responsible for ensuring that this is the case.
