The integration of marketing communications 397
The strategic role that marketing commu-
nications can play is increasingly evidenced by
the impact of specific campaigns. These not
only affect the way in which consumers think
about the particular products and services
which are offered to them, but the very way in
which they consider the categories in which
those products and services exist.
The integration of marketing communications
A major contemporary issue in the field of
marketing communications is the drive
towards integrated activity. There are a number
of reasons for this fundamental change of
thinking which need to be examined.
The marketing methods businesses used in
the 1980s are no longer working and have lost
their value as competitive weapons, such as the
constant focus on new products, generic com-
petitive strategies, promotional pricing tactics,
and so on. Today’s marketing environment has
been described as an age of ‘hyper-competition’
in which there exists a vast array of products
and services, both new and variations on
existing themes. A casual look in the super-
market will confirm this view. Take, for exam-
ple, the ‘cook-in-sauce’ sector. The variety
available to the consumer is little short of mind
blowing, whole fitments devoted to ethnic and
other varieties, with each product replicated by
several different brands.
Many of the fastest growing markets are
rapidly becoming saturated with large num-
bers of competitors. And each competitor has
similar technology. The consequence is that, as
Schultzet al. (1995) put it, sustainable com-
petitive advantage has been eroded away. In
many categories, new products and services are
copied in days or weeks rather than years. And,
significantly, anything a company can do,
someone else can do it cheaper.
Consumers are searching for more than a
single element in any transaction. Instead, they
seek to buy into the array of relevant experi-
ences which surround the brand. Successful
marketing in the 1990s required total consumer
orientation. This means communication with
the individual, creating long-term relation-
ships, quality driven, and the aim is customer
satisfaction, not just volume and share.
Many writers on the subject, most notably
Schultz (1999), argue that integrated marketing
communications (IMC) is the natural evolution
of mass market media advertising towards
targeted direct marketing. Schultz sees IMC as a
logical and natural progression within the field
of marketing communications. As he describes:
‘it appears to be the natural evolution of
traditional mass-media advertising, which has
been changed, adjusted and refined as a result of
new technology’. This author concurs with those
who believe that IMC is significantly more than
‘merely a management fashion’ as attested by
Cornellisenet al. (2000). Many companies strive
to achieve total integration of their marketing
communications efforts, recognizing the undeni-
able benefits which derive from the practice, not
least of which is the ability to deliver consistency
in their messages to their target audiences.
Integration, however, is not a new phe-
nomenon, as the following quote from J. Walter
Thompson in 1899 illustrates:We make it our business as advertising agents
to advise on the best methods of advertising, in
whatever form... as the best combination of
work, such as we give, is the cheapest, as it
brings the best results.Defining integrated marketing communications
Much debate surrounds the very nature of
integrated marketing communications (IMC),
with the consequence that several alternative
definitions have been proposed. Cornellisen et
al. (2000) argue that one of the problems with
the interpretation of IMC is the lack of a
consensus decision as to what the phrase