t article deepened understanding
on how the concept of IMC
was diffusing by considering how senior
advertising agency executives, within a
judgment sample in the United Kingdom
and United States, perceived, utilized,
and developed IMC on behalf of clients,
by considering the importance and value
of traditional advertising agencies in a
marketplace where IMC was becoming
more important (Kitchen and Schultz,
1997). Apparently, IMC increased communications
impact, made creative ideas
more effective, provided greater communication
consistency, and agency executives
believed integrated approaches could
and would improve client return on investment.
There were some misgivings,
however. Agency executives did not believe
the application of IMC could provide
faster solutions or more effective
measurement. Thus, while agency executives
recognized the potential value of
IMC, its time and cost efficiencies were
viewed as uncertain (Kitchen and Schultz,
1997).
Kitchen and Schultz (1999) then conducted
a multinational cross-cultural study
in the United States, United Kingdom,
New Zealand, Australia, and India—
attempting again to consider the theoretical
underpinnings and support for the
rapid growth of IMC with regard to advertising
agency acceptance, involvement,
and development. This study
revealed that the percentage of client budgets
devoted to IMC through individual
agencies varied considerably, while the
sensitivity of the data in some countries
did not allow a comparison between small,
medium, and large agencies in relation
to budget. It was noted that much of the
budget-side distribution in the United
States and Australia was driven by smaller
agencies spending more time on client
IMC programs than large or larger agencies,
with further analysis supporting the
perspective that the majority of time devoted
to IMC activities and/or budgetary
allocation then related to agency size
(Kitchen and Schultz, 1999). Australia and
New Zealand, noted as two countries that
had moved least toward IMC, displayed
the greatest percentage split in favor of
above-the-line traditional advertising unlike
the United Kingdom and United
States that favored below-the-line communication,
with India being somewhere
in the middle.
Thus, in just a short decade, the concept
of IMC has swept around the planet
and become a watch cry—not only of
the marketing and marketing communication
literatures, but also an apparently
integral part of the marketing and even
corporate communication strategies of
many companies.
Let us now place IMC in the wider context
of marketing and communications. For,
if such development has taken place, it is
almost certain by now to have had some
impact on the academic literature.
THE IMPACT OF IMC UPON MARKETING
COMMUNICATIONS
Although marketing communications has
been used for several years as an umbrella
term to refer to the various communication
functions used by marketing,
strategic integration of these functional
areas is what makes IMC a new approach
to reaching consumers and other stakeholders
(Duncan and Everett, 1993). An
early definition of IMC adopted by the
AAA and developed by Schultz was inevitably
focused—correctly for its time—as
. . . a concept of marketing communications
plan
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