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number
of criticisms of IMC as over the last 10
years that the IMC concept has been debated
and developed, this initiative has
been accepted by many marketing leading
theorists and writers. For example,
Kotler (2000) in his leading marketing management
text wrote two chapters with the
heading of “Managing and Coordinating
Integrated Marketing Communications.”
Both Smith (2002) and Fill (2002) devote
several chapters of their books to discussing
IMC. Pickton and Broderick’s (2001)
articulate and persuasive text was titled
Integrated Marketing Communications, and
the term “marketing communication” has
been frequently replaced by “integrated
marketing communications” as in Belch
and Belch’s book (2001). In the United
States where IMC originated, “twenty years
ago 75 percent of marketing budgets went
into advertising; today, 50 percent goes
into trade promotions, 25 percent to consumer
promotions, and less than 25 percent
to advertising” (Levinson, 2001, p. 10).
IMC or derivative theory has now been
diffused and the concept has been widely
implemented by many advertising agencies
and firms across many countries
worldwide as well as the United States.
Rose’s (1996) research about the perception
of IMC among 143 advertising and
public relations professionals concludes
that the majority of Latin American communication
practitioners believed in the
IMC concept and viewed their roles as
encompassing the broader areas of communication.
In the study undertaken by
Kitchen and Schultz (1999) among agencies
in the United States, United Kingdom,
Australia, New Zealand, and India,
conclusions derived from their multicountry
comparison indicated that
. . . there is a widespread development
of IMC approaches across the five countries
concerned, but IMC was still in
the early stages of its development. To
follow the product life cycle analogy, it
would seem to vary from introduction,
in the case of Australia and India, to
growth, in the case of the United Kingdom
and New Zealand, and possibly
early maturity, in the case of the United
States. (Kitchen and Schultz, 1999, p. 35)
While the concept of IMC is being diffused
to more and more countries, the adopters
are not limited to the product and packaged
goods industries, there are more service
providers trying this new concept in
their own areas. Nowak, Cameron, and Delorme
(1996) conducted research among retailers
and service providers in selected
Latin American countries that valued the
IMC concept to examine the viability of IMC
concept in retail and service marketing.
Their findings revealed that
integrated approaches have much value
particularly as a means for coordinating
media and message delivery elements
in a fashion that provides a way
to link behavioural responses to media
vehicles and advertising messages.
(Nowak, Cameron, and Delorme, 1996,
p. 185)
As major participants in planning, coordinating,
and implementing IMC, advertising
and public relations agencies play a
critical part in the whole process although
the clients are regarded as the impetus of
moving IMC forward. As Belch and Belch
(2001) note:
THE EMERGENCE OF IMC
March 2004 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH 25
. . . advertisers assume major responsibility
for developing the marketing
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