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Imc - Theory, Role, Relevance and Application

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The Role of IMC and its theory
Is it a bird? is it a plane? Is it a business theory or a marketing theory? A management practice? A philosophy or a concept? A traditional linear marketing process (Kliatchko, 2008) or a cross-functional departmental process that requires management and board ‘buy-in’ (Duncan & Moriarty 1998)? Moreover, in this era of rapidly developing communications (Internet, mobile phones, digital communications and rapidly changing society, (demise of the family unit, the prosumer) is it now a necessity? The theory of IMC has been dissected, bissected, post-mortemed and analysed, yet consensus on what it is (in theory) and how it should be applied (in practice) has become somewhat of the holy grail to academics. But …show more content…

Firstly what is marketing communication? Keller (2001) defined marketing communications as the means by which firms attempt to inform, persuade and remind customers directly or indirectly about the brands they sell. A brand is the foundation upon which the building blocks of stakeholder relationships are built. The brand is also where marketing communications are focused in order to affect perceptions of value. According to dictionaries, the meaning of integration is described as 'the act of combining parts into an integral whole ', 'creating links between separate parts ', with synonyms such as 'centralised, ' 'unified and 'incorporated ' used to describe its implementation. The integration of marketing attempts to combine and synergise the communications mix to cross polinate and thus reinforce the positive effects of each tool (Schultz & Schultz, 1998). This maximises the message and adds brand equity and value to consumers perceptions of the brand and thus greater profitability. Kitchen et al (2004) bring this argument further by suggesting it is a means to achieve competitive advantage and my case study of Jameson confirms this in practice.

The concept or IMC idea has been driven by a number of factors; which include mass media or 'above the line ' strategies giving way to 'through the line ' (media neutral) or ‘below the line’ targeted strategies (Kitchen, 2005). Amongst marketing practitioners BTL strategies tend to be

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