IMC for UPS MI Rent-A-Book
Joliette Hernandez
Brandman University
Principles of Marketing
MKTU 301-OT1
Theresa Cummings
February 23, 2013

IMC for UPS MI Rent-A-Book

This Integrated Marketing Communications Plan focuses on UPS’s new division, which is called UPS MI Rent-A-Book. UPS-MI Rent-A-Book was created to provide an economical textbook rental experience for all students within the contiguous United States. This would be offered as an economical product because we have eliminated the middleman, we have the available warehouse space needed to expand if needed, plus the know-how in order to house all rental textbooks. We would also be able to offer the customer several shipping options such as: direct ground shipping, Next Day Air, Second Day Air, as well as other shipping options. We have found from primary research that a large majority of college students have not heard of UPS MI Rent-A-Book, and have realized that in order to succeed brand recognition must be improved upon. Our goal is to make sure we integrate ourselves within a college student’s everyday life, making UPS MI Rent-A-Book the mind-set they have in mind for renting textbooks. UPS MI Rent-A-Book is a Fontana, CA based company that allows users to either purchase books at discounted prices, or to rent books with affordable rental periods. The rental periods available for our customers are 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days, with discounts offered for future rentals if returned by their original due dates. Rent-A-Book allows students to rent or purchase books with ease, with books delivered in about a week. Even though UPS MI Rent-A-Book is in its second year of actual business, they currently have about 200 employees running a 24 hour operation. Our current strengths are varied, for instance the fact that we are a division of UPS, a shipping company magnate that is an industry shipping leader leads to having a solid financial backbone to lean on. We currently have no physical locations on college campuses other than our operating warehouse located in Fontana, Ca, but our website is attractively placed to draw customers in. Our colorful website was designed to be user-friendly and comfortable, where consumers can do their browsing and shopping with the right-click of their mouse. Our 24 hour customer hot line is manned by our reputable customer service team which can handle any urgent issue given to them. In order to gain further knowledge as to our UPS MI Rent-A-Book brand, we asked 100 of our purchasing customer’s as they finished their sale to participate in a voluntary survey. Our results showed that out of the 100 surveyed that 56 of them were female, while the remaining 44 were male. We also noted that our results showed that about 30% responded “no” when asked if they had ever heard of this Rent-A-Book division of UPS. Being that our new UPS venture is new, it is understandable as to why it may have a low brand recognition. With College textbook prices on the rise, “increasing at about 6 % per year, and have tripled from December 1986 to December 2007,” Rent-A-Book is well situated to entice a large percentage of the textbook rental and purchasing market (Longley).

Target Audience & Demographics: Male 41% Females 59% Ages 18-24 28% 25-34 23% 35-44 92% Children in Household: 53% Have kids at home. Household income: $0-50k 23% $50-100k 21% $100-150k 35% Education Level: No College: 41% College: 47% Grad School: 11% Ethnicity: Caucasian 53% African American 25% Asian 8% Hispanic 13% Other 1% ©2013 Quantcast Corporation

Marketing Objectives: a) Maintaining or increasing our market share in the US by about 5% for the next 5 years. b) Become the market leader for rental textbooks in the US by 2015.