INTEGRATING SOCIAL MEDIA AND DIGITAL MEDIA AS NEW ELEMENTS OF INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION FOR CREATING BRAND EQUITY

Abstract

Communication with target prospects results in a cost to the company. In this highly competitive environment, all marketers work on cutting cost. They try to allocate their marketing budget very carefully to create brand equity and achieve their marketing objective within the given budget. The selection of integrated marketing communication tools has become a problematic task for marketers. This paper provides how the integration of digital and social media within integrated marketing communication helps to create brand equity of the hospitality and tourism industry in India. This paper also examines the effectiveness of each IMC tool to create brand equity. The nonprobability convenience sampling technique was used to gather opinions from 512 tourists of Himachal Pradesh state of India. The findings reveal that both social media and digital media are more effective than traditional IMC tools. The study also found that the efficiency of Modern IMC tools is better than traditional IMC tools. Smart PLS-SEM 3.0 software has been used to scrutinise data and validate the conceptual framework.