This report is aimed at providing some basic knowledge about IMC and discussing the reasons why IMC are becoming popular among marketers, as well as the future trends of IMC.
Introduction
"Perhaps no area of marketing has seen more dramatic changes over the years than Marketing Communication" Numerous new marketing communication options are today available to marketers due to rapid globalization and the development of new technologies (Keller, 2001, p.819). There has been the emerging of new forms of media such as internet and the role of advertising and promotion have changed substantially. The traditional marketing communication tools such as mass media advertising is becoming less efficient. The trend is now moving toward other forms of marketing communications including sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing and channels marketing. At the same time, the market is becoming more competitive than ever and the management wants to see more efficiency resulting from the marketing communication plan in a cost-efficient way. To achieve this, marketers are required to know how to plan and implement an integrated communication program. For this reason, many marketers are increasingly recognizing the importance of Integrated Marketing Communication or IMC.
This report is aimed at providing some basic knowledge about IMC and discussing the reasons why IMC are becoming popular among marketers, as well as the future trends of IMC.
Background
What is IMC?
IMC or Integrated Marketing Communication is one of the most important communication trends in this decade and is also one of the hottest issues in marketing practices today. It is simply the practice of integrating all marketing communication tools to send a consistent, persuasive message to the targeted customers and prospects (Burnett & Moriarty, 1998, p.14) with the goal to influence or directly affect the behavior of the targeted audience.
Its definition has been defined by The American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) as "a concept of marketing communications planning that recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communications disciplines - for example, general advertising, direct response, sales promotion, and public relations-and combines these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency, and maximum communications impact (Schultz, 1993)." Although there are many definitions of IMC, this one is most widely accepted.
It has become a necessity in marketing aspect. In today's highly globalize and competitive market, firms will not be able to compete effectively without adopting the concept of Integrated Marketing Communication. This is because IMC is revolutionizing the way businesses reach consumer. Traditional marketing communication mediums such as advertising, sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing, or the internet are no longer working in isolation. Businesses have integrated these communication tools to work together in order to establish long-term relationships with consumers and stakeholders (Schultz, 1993). Companies that fail to realize the importance of IMC concept will finally lose their competitiveness in the marketplace.
Reasons for IMC
More and more businesses are using IMC because it unifies all marketing communication tools from advertising to packaging to ensure a consistent message and then create synergy as well as maximum impact because each communication tool has more impact working jointly - the whole is greater that the sum of the parts (Burnett & Moriarty, 1998).
Each communication tool has its strength and weakness and can be used together to compliment and reinforce all the others. Marketing communicator uses each communication tool with all the others to accomplish a complex set of marketing communication objectives.
The key benefit of Integrated Marketing Communication is that it provides clear, concise, and consistent message to the targeted audiences. The strength of the IMC process is that each planning activity is considered individually for each specific group of consumers using a set of marketing communication tools that have been selected specifically for the task (Schultz, 1994).
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Each communication tool has its strength and weakness and can be used together to compliment and reinforce all the others. Marketing communicator uses each communication tool with all the others to accomplish a complex set of marketing communication objectives.
The key benefit of Integrated Marketing Communication is that it provides clear, concise, and consistent message to the targeted audiences. The strength of the IMC process is that each planning activity is considered individually for each specific group of consumers using a set of marketing communication tools that have been selected specifically for the task (Schultz, 1994).
Factors that driving the need to integrate marketing communication effort are heighten global competition, advanced technology, well-informed customer and demand for efficiency (Burnett & Moriarty, 1998).
Global Competition
Businesses nowadays are no longer operating on a country by country basis. As the numbers of international and multinational firms are increasing, business now operates across countries, regions, continents and the globe; there exists the need for standardization and globalization. Therefore, delivering a consistent image and message across the regions is critical to the success.
One good example is the case of Eastman Kodak Co. Kodak has been delivering message under the same concept "A Kodak Moment" in all its marketing programs undertaken across Asia-Pacific where it integrates advertising, events sponsorship, sales promotion, and merchandising to develop an entirely harmonized and comprehensive communications program (Schultz, 1995).
Advance Technology
Data collecting and database technology enables businesses to better identify and segment its target audience so increase the need to communicate with each group of audience individually and uniquely instead of using mass marketing advertising campaign.
Take the Coca-Cola case for example, although being a mass-marketed product, Coke has learned that various groups of people buy Coke. Since the characteristic of each group differs, it is not reasonable to communicate to all of them with the same message or one voice. Although, Coke uses various advertisements with different styles and tones, they were unified under the same theme of "Always Coca-Cola" (Burnett & Moriarty, 1998).
Moreover, advance media technology has introduced many new forms of media, such as Internet and interactive advertising, making more communication options available to marketers and thus lead to the need for Integrated Marketing Communication.
Well-inform consumers
In the information technology era, customers are better informed and become more and more aggressive and demanding rather than being passive as in the past. They have less brand loyalty and are likely to switch brand. This has called for a trend toward relationship marketing. To enhance brand loyalty, businesses have to be in touch with their customers and communicate with them through various and more customized way since customers are less convinced by intrusive communication form such as advertising. Mass communication is not as effective as in the past.
Since traditional communication strategy, such as sole advertising, is no longer paying off, companies are now turning to public relations, event marketing, direct marketing, and sales promotion. Thus, Integrated Marketing Communication is needed in order to make these programs conveying the same message.
Efficiency
Business nowadays desires better result from its marketing communication plan and invested capital. As a result, many companies have adopted IMC since it is a more cost effective practice. It evaluates and coordinates each and every part of marketing mix thus increases the impact of marketing communication program. The integration of communication tools also creates synergy or orchestra because each tool has more impact when working jointly than working independently.
IMC creates greater impact than traditional marketing communication program because it eliminates message conflict, thus resulting in greater consistency. The more consistent the message, the less chance for miscommunication, the better it can be remembered, and thus the greater the impact.
For the same amount of budget spent, IMC can earn higher impact than the traditional marketing communication and therefore, it is perceived as more cost-effective. In today's highly competitive marketplace where budget and performance are closely controlled and monitored, IMC has gained its popularity as a cost-effective strategy that provides high efficiency.
Case Study: Panasonic
Situation:
Panasonic Factory Automation manufactures sophisticated equipment for electronic assembly applications. They sell systems, software, parts and technical support services. While they do have a well-known corporate name, Panasonic had a weak brand position in the electronics assembly marketplace. Also, there was little perceived product differentiation when compared to competitors and there was not an integrated approach to marketing. Panasonic then has turned to Tuckerknapp, a U.S. based advertising and marketing services provider for the solution.
Solution:
An integrated marketing communication program that positions Panasonic as a "solutions" provider, who offers real value to clients' assembly operations, was developed. A unified brand graphic that emphasizes a human touch versus machinery, along with the tagline "Performance Profit Possibilities", were created to communicate clear benefits and a brand promise in a memorable way. Moreover, various forms of marketing communication tools are integrated and employed.
Results:
Panasonic's integrated marketing communications program helped to increase its market share by four percent during a difficult year. The campaign also assisted in considerably improving Panasonic's image, making the company a category leader in the electronics assembly business.
The case of Panasonic could serve as an evidence of how of IMC program contributes to success of the company. There are still other successful cases of IMC; according Gonring (1994) the author of article Putting integrated marketing communications to work today, "real-world examples of IMC can be benchmarked from organizations that have successfully adopted the process. Examples include McDonald's, IBM, Suzuki, Allen-Bradley and Financial Security Assurance"
Trends of IMC
IMC is not just a management fashion or today's philosophy; it has already become the most important trend in modern marketing that every marketing communicator cannot afford to ignore.
Kitchen (1999) states in his article - A Multi-Country Comparison of the Drive for IMC "IMC is not a short-lived managerial fad, nor is it just a reworking of existent theory or practice. Instead, IMC is a very clear reaction by advertising agencies and their clients as they are affected by a multitude of factors such as new forms of information technology including development and usage of databases, media fragmentation, client desires for interaction/synergy, and global and regional coordination. From a conceptual and theoretical perspective, IMC history is thus less than a decade old and still in (using a product life cycle analogy) its introduction or early growth stage."
This indicates that the growth of Integrated Marketing Communication will continue and IMC will be more widely accepted across the globe just like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or Total Quality Management (TQM), which have already become the critical concepts of marketing. IMC will also be further developed and elaborated for some period of time until a new better concept is created and finally replaces IMC. This is because
* IMC is the core idea of modern Advertising promotion and Public Relation campaigns, which focus on optimization of the budget spent to the real impact of marketing spending.
* There is a shift of marketing communication practice from mass media advertising toward more direct forms of communication for better consumer reach. This increases the need for IMC.
* The media costs are increasing while its efficiency is decreasing. Marketers have to find strategy to synchronize all the marketing activities and reinforce their impact into the same direction to achieve optimal impact and thus influence consumer behaviors.
* Consumers have become more elaborate as well as demanding and can no longer be influenced by a single media. The IMC will needed to be enhanced in order to better served and satisfy the consumers.
* Increased competition in the marketplace and rapid growth of database technology, including development of new marketing channel, will make IMC remains the best marketing strategy to ensure that marketers can keep pace with environmental change and understand their consumer need perfectly.
* Brand equity building is the most important task for marketers in this century and IMC is still the best marketing approach exists that can assist in building brand equity.
Conclusion and Recommendation
Integrated Marketing Communication can serve as a very beneficial tool that brings about success to the business. It creates the synergy of marketing communication tools as well as provides a clear, concise, and consistent message to the targeted audience, which will yield greater impact than the traditional marketing communication practice.
IMC has become very popular among marketers for a number of reasons. However, the most apparent Factors that drive the need for IMC include: intensified global competition, advanced technology, well-informed customer and demand for efficiency.
IMC is not a short-live theory. In fact, the growth of IMC is very promising and it will finally become one of the most critical concepts of modern marketing which is accepted globally among marketers.
However, IMC is neither a miracle nor a magic word for success. In order for IMC to be successful, the idea would need supports from the top management. In some cases, marketers may also have to overcome some barriers to integration and therefore, the abilities and skills to implement the concept accordingly are required.
Finally, marketers may wish to coordinate the concept of IMC with some other related theory to create an even superior marketing strategy. For example, the idea of IMC may be joined with the concept of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to create optimal benefits to the company. IMC works to induce consumers to know the company and try the products or services while CRM concentrates on established relationship with customers. To make these two marketing concepts works at the most exploitation, marketers may synchronize these two concept into one and may rename the new concept as "Integrated Marketing Communication and Relation Management" or IMC-RM.
References
* Burnett, J., & Moriarty, S. (1998). Introduction to Marketing Communications-An Integrated Approach, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
* Eagle, L & Kitchen, J. (2000). IMC, brand communications, and corporate cultures Client/advertising agency co-ordination and cohesion. European Journal of Marketing, 34 (5/6) 667.
* Gonring, P. (1994). Putting integrated marketing communications to work today. Public Relations Quarterly, 39 (3) 45.
* Lohthongkam, T. (2001). Strategic IMC, Bangkok: Tipping Point Press.
* Lohthongkam, T. (2003). IMC In Action, Bangkok: Tipping Point Press.
* Percy, L. (1997). Strategies For Implementing Integrated Marketing Communications, Illinois: NTC Business Book.
* Schultz, E. (1994). Objectives drive tactics in IMC approach. Marketing News, 28 (10), 14.
* Schultz, E. (1994). The next step in IMC. Marketing News, 28 (17), 8.
* Schultz, E & Kitchen, J. (1997) Integrated Marketing Communication in U.S. Advertising agencies: an exploratory study. Journal of Advertising Research, 7-18.
* Schultz, E. (1999). Integrated marketing communications - maybe definition is in the point of view. Marketing News, 27 (2), 17.
* Sirgy, J. (1998) Integrated Marketing Communications: A System Approach, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc.
* WWW Tuckerknapp. (n.d.). Retrieved April 10, 2004, from http://www.smith-winchester.com/yazCaseStudy.html
