2.6 Online marketing as an important element of Integrated Marketing Communications with relations to cultural differences

A good starting point is to define Integrated Marketing Communications with consequent discussion of Online Marketing referring to cross-cultural context.

It is argued that marketing communications is a process of on-going, cross-functional interaction, which not only delivers information about product features, price and quality, but rather aims at reaching a certain favourable image in the minds, which inspires actions. Therefore, marketing communications should be designed in such a way that they hold attention as long as possible (Banerjee and Siddhanta, 2015). Similarly, Marcomm (2006) considers marketing communications as critical and at the same time challenging for tourism and hospitality, particularly because it involves service. Within this, firms and scholars accept that marketing communications should be applied in integrated manner. This approach is called Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC). Since its implementation in the late 1980s, there have been dramatic changes in how IMC has developed over time (Schultz et al., 2011).

Kotler and Armostrong (2005) claims that Integrated Marketing Communications is the concept which implies a delivery of a clear, comprehensive and consistent message about the organization and its products, through integration and coordination of many communication channels. In other words, IMC is a process that brings a dynamic series of effective and interconnected phases, such as database creation and processing of information about consumers, elaborating and planning messages to be spread using a variety of channels, and evaluating and measuring synergistic brand communication programmes (Jerry Kliatchko…).

Online Marketing is an one of the elements of Integrated Marketing Communications and nowadays it receives a large attention due to its simplicity and efficiency at the same time. (Ibrahim,2016).

The buyer’s “way to purchase” is also completely different today — more frequently it is shorter in time and less complex (Court et al. 2009). Consumers are less likely passively receive brand information exactly through mass media channels, for example, newspapers or TV keeping it in memory for purchases later. Rather, they now actively search it when there is a need for it, through search engines, smartphones, reading blogs and evaluating brand websites. More usual customer-to-organization, customer-to-customer, and customer-about company communications are spread. Due to the strengthened public influence on purchase, word of mouth (WOM) and advocacy have been identified particularly important. This is different in comparison to how marketers had reached brand communication objectives before. . Thus, i formerly, marketers had only few channels to attain multiple brand communication objectives. To illustrate, they used television advertisements to reach a larger target segments and inform them about company and its offers; use radio and outdoor ads to maintain presents; use paper ads such as newspapers, brochures to provide details about the brand’s features, and other traditional means of communications. Now, in contrast, marketers have much richer set of communication instruments: they are mass or targeted Facebook ads, banner or display ads on thousands of websites, or paid search ads. It can use its own website, third party websites, and bloggers to provide persuasive content. Customers tend to believe more bloggers then to company’s commercial. Successful merge of different marketing communications is critically to drive short-term purchases and long-term brand positioning (Luo and Donthu 2006, Osinga et al. 2011).

With regards to culture it is more difficult to explain, how different nations perceive online marketing communications due to their cultural background. Or, what is their “cultural lens” through which they consider online marketing communications.

Generally statistics says that online number of people is growing, buying habits are therefore changing too. However it is rarely said how online marketing works in different countries, what is needed to succeed with relation to culture? For example, it was mentioned that the marketing communication mix which works for one country, does not always work in the same way when applied to another country due to its national features. To illustrate, people usually focus on the recent reviews on TripAdvisor (including Irish tourists), when they are choosing a hotel. However, respondents in Russia and Japan are the only two markets who read almost all reviews to get an overall idea of opinions (Hospitality Net, 2014). In other words, if for most people it is enough to get the general opinion about a hotel by reading only the latest reviews, Russian and Japanese tourists will look for all available information. Therefore, information provided by marketing communications might be perceived differently, because the more reviews a person reads the more information might be found, including negative information. Referring back to definitions of culture, it was mentioned that culture is the collective programing of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another (Hofstede, 2001). And that a national culture is a set of collective beliefs and values that distinguish people of one nation from those of another (Xiaosui, 2014). Therefore, it might be explained that due to the different cultural background of Russian and Japanese tourists, the environment and beliefs resulted to such careful perception of information. For example, people might be suspicious to reviews on the Internet. Additionally, with regards to suspiciousness of Russian tourists, in 2013 it was find out that the majority of Russian preferred to book travel tours through tourist agencies in order to get more guarantees. Thus, probably if Russian tourists see guarantees in marketing communication message it might be more convincing Additionally, as it was mentioned before regarding to Hofstede’s dimensions that it might be assumed that travellers with high uncertainty avoidance are more demanding in seeing detailed and guaranteed information, than individuals of low uncertainty avoidance, therefore the more guarantees are presented in communication message the more it is encouraging for purchase (Russiansearchmarketing, 2014).

Also, this might be connected with idea which was proposed by academics and mentioned before, the best way to persuade people is to reflect the empathy. If there is no “empathy” then the strong conviction due to reflection of shared values and concerns for people of a certain culture is not possible. The situation is that it is not always matter whether marketing communications are telling a brand story to customer (how product was created and its characteristics) but more importantly if customer finds it is relevant and empathizes with it. In other words, if consumers’ expectations and concerns (which are linked to cultural values) match the idea in communication message, then the promotional message is more convincing New statistics from TripAdvisor showed that in 2016 two-thirds of travelers book their vacation via online platforms: 74% of Irish travelers do so – the highest score globally and only 25% online bookings in Russia. In a similar way, it might be linked to another statistics from TripAdvisor which reported that Russian and British people tend to book sunny destinations, seaside, probably Irish tourists might find this also more appealing than images of ski resorts, which might be explained by the assumption that people chose is due to rainy environment as in Ireland and Britain, and cold weather as in Russia.

There are other interesting factors in TripAdvisor statistics, which might be worth investigating from cultural perspective among Russian and Irish. In general, worldwide tourists agree that content and rating of hotels are the most influential attributes of information for trip planning; price and reviews are most important decision making factors in booking places for staying; more than half of travelers select destinations because of personal considerations or special offers, although social and cultural reasons are also key features in dectination choice (TripAdvosor, 2016). .

Having said this, it is worth to discover cultural difference which might be beneficial to reflect in marketing communications for each country.