MK2005 Integrated Marketing Communications

Assignment 1: The audience profile – 40% of the module mark:

This is an individual piece of work. It is to be submitted by 9am on Monday 7th March 2016 to Turnitin, available online via the Blackboard space for the module.
You will complete an audience profile covering the topics/sections in the template which follows. A soft copy of the template can also be downloaded from the Blackboard area for the module. You may/may not be able to get information for each section of the form, but should of course make every attempt to provide as complete an account as possible. You can and should consult secondary sources. For instance, the report ‘Camping and Caravanning – UK – April 2013’ is highly relevant, but there is a range of other holiday-related reports on Mintel.

In this assignment you are to assume the role of an IMC (Integrated Marketing communications) agency account planner recommending to your client, a newly formed camp-site operator, the target group and the media consumption profile for what you believe is the better target market for their ‘glamping’ holidays. An IMC campaign will be the eventual result (but the IMC campaign is not to be designed by you).
‘Glamping’ is a new concept within the holiday market and can be defined as ‘glamorous camping’. When you are glamping, there is no tent to pitch, no sleeping bag to unroll and no fire to build. Whether you sleep in a tent, yurt, Airstream, hut or treehouse, glamping is a way to experience the great outdoors without sacrificing luxury (www.glamping.com). Your client, The Glamorous Glamping Company, have set up to glamping sites. One is situated outside St. Ives in Cornwall and the other on the shore of Lake Windermere in the Lake District. Each site is made up of 15 exclusive tepees. Each tepee sleeps up to six people and has its own modern bathroom facilities, including a sauna in an adjacent hut. There is also a fully equipped all-weather outside kitchen complete with a barbeque and seating. Both sites offer water-based activities as well as country-sidewalks.
The Glamorous Glamping Company has two separate groups in mind for the glamping holidays. One group is males and females aged 19-35 who are single or live together with a partner (no children). The other group is young families with children, where the parents are aged 25-40. The company believes that both target groups offer good market potential but can only afford to use IMC approaches to one group initially. The market context is that of the UK only.

The Glamorous Glamping Company wants you to first conduct a brief analysis of the two groups to see which one you think is the better target, based NOT on the size of the potential market, but on their attitudinal acceptance of the product concept, i.e. glamping. Then you will prepare a more detailed profile of the chosen group only. You need to show the sources of the information you have found in your research and to provide reasons for your choice to back up your recommendation. You will also recommend and rationalise an approach to be taken in IMC copy (advertising text) for this chosen group.

In your report do the following:

1. Provide an initial brief analysis of the two target groups with the purpose of selecting the more suitable one to target at this stage. Write this analysis concisely as an introductory section to your report. Please note that you are advised to use some of the criteria listed in the template in order to conduct this analysis.
2. Having made the decision on what target group to recommend, use the template provided to provide a more detailed profile of this group only.

Word length of the report: No longer than 1,500-1,750 words.
Marking criteria:

1. Level of thoroughness in researching the target groups and providing sources to support this research. This should include industry reports (e.g. Mintel and Keynote), news reports, reputable and appropriate websites and, possibly, textbooks, academic papers, etc. that would provide information on these potential customers and their media habits.
2. Quality of the rationale for the choice of target group and subsequent analysis of the chosen target group using the template.
3. Ability to determine appropriate IMC techniques and copy approach for the target group.
4. Appropriate and relatively error free language; correct referencing of sources. (The LBS Guide to Standard Referencing is available for download on the Blackboard space for the module.)
Template for the audience profile:

Your chosen audience: circle one individuals/couples families
Please note, in all sections you should reference sources that support your answer.
Demographic profile:

Geographic/geo-demographic profile:

Life cycle stage:

VALS types: Your view, supported with examples as to why.

Other typologies (e.g. ACORN etc.): Give a brief description and identify the implications.

Attitudes:

Interests:

Opinions:

Hobbies:

Lifestyle:

Aspirations and ‘dreams’:

Psychographics:

IMC consumption: Here provide a description of which media they are most likely to consume and at what level (e.g. heavy users of social media, readers of camping magazines, followers of travel blogs, etc.).

Brief statement of the overall message to get across in copy about the glamping holiday (N.B. ‘copy’ refers to the advertising message as expressed in words/text):