Marketers create messages about their products and for their customers in a variety of different ways – not just through advertising. This module discusses the IMC or Integrated Marketing Communications which emphasizes how important it is for all parts of the marketing communication process to work together and to be putting out the same message.

All of the models used in marketing affect each other and the way in which marketers manage the IMC will affect the portfolio planning model (BCG), the product life cycle (PLC), and the Consumer Adoption Process or Diffusion of Innovation Model (DOI) for that product.

In marketing everything works together. The various models – BCG, PLC, DOI, IMC, are all used by particular individuals within the marketing organization to help explain what is going on with the product and the market, yet they are are connected with each other.

1. Discuss each of these models in terms of what their use is within the marketing function, i.e. the purpose of these models – why and how these models are used, and who in the organization (Executives, Brand Managers, Product Managers, Sales Managers, etc.) might use each model.

2. Discuss how each of these models are integrated with and/or support the other models in terms of the information they provide the marketing organization.

Jensen Tire & Auto is deciding whether to purchase a maintenace contract for its new computer wheel alignment and balancing machine. Managers feel that maintenance expense should be related to usage, and they collected the data in the above excel sheet. The excel sheet lists information about the weekly usage (in hours) and the corresponding annual maintenance expense (in hundreds of dollars).

1) Use the data to develop an estimated regression equation that could be used to predict the annual maintenance expense in hundreds of dollars (y) for a given number of hours of weekly usage (x). Based on the results of your regression, is there likely a relationship between usage and maintenance expense?

2) What is the p-value corresponding to a t test that you could use to determine your answer to the previous question? (Round your answer to four decimal places. Be sure to enter a numeric answer with no words.)

3) How much of the variation in the sample values of annual maintenance expense (in %) does the estimated regression model explain? (Round your answer to one decimal place. Enter a numeric answer with no words, and no special characters such as !, %, etc.)