Integrated Marketing Communications: M&M's Case Study



Integrated Marketing Communications: M&M's Case Study

Introduction

It is well known that communication is a strategic tool in any company that wants to be well positioned in the market. This does not mean that communication is the key to success, but that is part of it, and certainly without communication nowadays is more easily bound to fail. In fact, through integrated communication we will bring to market the image that we want to have our company, which will allow us to position ourselves in an increasingly more competitive (Tsang 2003). And this statement is valid for both multinational companies and SMEs, many of which fall into the mistake of thinking that communication is only part of big business.

At present, we are in a stage of marketing of perceptions, where the essential thing is not to be, but seem so where what really matters is what we perceive the market from us, our company and our brand and this contributes communication clearly. Therefore, any company that does not worry about control and enhance its communication policy is losing many opportunities to enhance your brand image and face both the company and outside.

One fact is clear. The positioning of a company requires a prior analysis of the market to know what consumers demand, then launch the product or service that best meets the needs through the most profitable distribution channels and finally have to market it.

Product Overview: M & M's

The M & M were born from the idea of making Forrest Mars candies or sweet milk chocolate.The original concept was to sell chocolates to resist the passage of time, including the dreaded summer. Keep in mind that the 40s slowed shops selling chocolates during the summer because of the heat deteriorating goods.

The flavor of M & M's Original consists of the following ingredients: milk and chocolate on the inside, covered by a layer of colored sugar (Schultz 2001). Although the candy M & M's were born as a mass product, which composes the chocolate tastes like the finest chocolates. But beyond taste, appearance of the M & M's has a fundamental importance, given the variety of colors (like red, yellow and green) coverage surrounding the sweet. Today, although others have these same qualities candies, M & M's is a registered trademark and has become an icon. Changes occurred in 1948 as the packaging of the product: the original container (a cardboard tube with yellow brown lettering) was passed to the paper format, as it known today.

The growth of Mars as a company and the wide acceptance of M & M's for the consuming public led to the diversification of varieties of M & M's, such as M & M's Peanut Chocolate (1954), or the M & M's classic, peanut coated with a thin layer of chocolate and milk into a top layer of sugar. With regard to packaging, the chocolate peanut M & M's are presented packaged in brown paper with white ...