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ration” at its core will be
around for some time. But if IMC is to be
anything more than just a juxtaposition of
promotional mix elements and make a
real contribution, then communication has
to move from tactical promotional component
to strategic business partner. And
that movement will depend not just on
the theoretical literature but on the nature
of business, the development of marketing
itself, and the required investment by
businesses and the organizations that service
their needs in becoming customeroriented
and customer-driven.
THE IMC DEVELOPMENTAL PROCESS
Insofar as communications is concerned,
IMC is undoubtedly the major communications
development of the last decade of
the 20th century (Kitchen and Schultz,
1999, 2000); this despite the fact that most
of the history of IMC approaches, theory,
and contribution is very recent in nature.
More organizations consider IMC to be a
key competitive advantage associated with
marketing (Kitchen and Schultz, 2001;Weilbacher,
2001).
In its practical guise, IMC attempts to
combine, integrate, and synergize elements
of the communications mix, as the
strengths of one are used to offset the
weaknesses of others. In addition, many
organizations have actively undertaken integration
of their communications disciplines
under the umbrella of one strategic
marketing communications function, specifically
IMC (Hackley and Kitchen, 1998;
Smith, 2002). Smith (2002) suggests, for
example, that publicity and advertising
support each other and create greater impact
in a cost-effective manner.
IMC approaches have grown in recognition
and importance for effective marketing,
particularly as there has been a trend
to allocate budgets away from mass media
advertising due to increased media fragmentation
and increasing segmentation of
consumer tastes and preferences (Durkin
and Lawlor, 2001; Eagle and Kitchen, 2000;
Schwartz, 2001; Tedlow, 1990), easier access
to consumer databases and computational
resources (Kitchen and Schultz, 1999;
McGoon, 1999; Reich, 1998), the importance
of reinforcing consumer loyalty via
relationship marketing (Gonring, 1994;
Reich, 1998; Schultz, 2002), and the importance
of building and increasing a brand’s
image-based equity (McLaughlin, 1997;
Schultz, 1999; Wood, 1997).
Yet, just a short time ago—in the early
1980s—the concept of integrated marketing
communications was an unrecognized
paradigm, and many professionals
and academics within the field of marketing
considered each marketing communications
function to operate with various
degrees of autonomy. Dyer (1982), for example,
presented the basic ideas and concepts
behind advertising, identifying the
links between and consistency within the
diversity of business communication. Thus,
the theory and practice of advertising,
sales promotion, publicity, etc. were all
discussed, but always in a separatist manner
or as individual disciplines.
By early 1983, Coulson-Thomas (1983)
described the wide spectrum of marketing
communications vehicles, presenting
the means and techniques used to communicate
messages and how these can be
evaluated. While it has to be acknowledged
that he did emphasize an element
of interdependence and interrelationship
between the different communication specialties