An integrated marketing communications campaign for Ibanez: Innovation, passion, control

Ibanez, a guitar manufacturer based in Japan, expanded into the U.S market in the 1970s and became well known for its quality guitars. Currently at the 35th spot in the Global Report published by Music Trades, the world’s leading music market publisher, its primary competitor Fender Musical Instruments is at the 7th rank of the overall music manufacturing category and is hailed the top brand in the electric guitar category. The industry is in a stage of maturity, evidenced by the saturation found in all sections of the market. A market segment of guitar players with inclination toward virtuosity captured by Ibanez is now being challenged by new SME manufacturers from all around the globe pulling down the switching barrier. In the industry where the top competitor is continuously expanding the market through digital strategies and segments proliferated by SME manufacturers, Ibanez needs to employ marketing strategy designed to improve business conversions and influence consumer behaviors that would benefit the brand in the long term. The proponent made use of focus group discussion and survey to gather inferential data and insights from the target audience. The FGD was administered to the target audience segmented by age groups 18 - 25 years old and 30 - 45 years old. A survey was deployed online and gathered 244 respondents. Using a consumer brand empowerment framework, the dataset was processed using linear regression to examine the correlation between independent variables variety, depth and frequency and dependent variables heuristic, positive and uninhibited consumer behavior. The data revealed that there is a moderate correlation between variety, as characterized by the various categories of information like interests, activities, ideas and beliefs relevant to a consumer who will engage in an exchange of information; depth, the amount of detailed information a consumer shares in his network and uninhibited behavior in which consumers act in a manner that does not conform to social norms. Implication suggest that by empowering the guitar buyer through a campaign designed to stimulate interaction among the target market, Ibanez can influence guitar buyers to seriously consider the brand over the ‘norm’ Fender which dominates the market share in the global and local industry. It has been a long-standing thrust of Ibanez to deliver the benefits most sought by experienced guitar players like innovation, passion for craftsmanship and playability for total control of the instrument. These benefits are contributive in professional guitar players and those who are aspiring to become one which aligns wholly with Ibanez because it understands the needs of today’s guitar players. The proponent aims to effectively communicate these benefits through an integrated marketing communications campaign designed to increase business conversions of Audiophile, Ibanez’s exclusive distributor in the Philippines, and revert the attention of the target audience away from the competitors by increasing awareness of Ibanez products through cost- efficient media in a span of 6 months