Topic

Change, continuity and

progress: the concept of
integrated marketing
communications and marketing
communications practice

Presented By:

 Meer Zaman Khan

F2021274005

 Hamaz Ali
F2021274014

 Muhammad Ali
F2021274012
 What is Marketing?

Marketing is

the activity, set of institutions, and processes

for creating, communicating, delivering, and

exchanging offerings

that have value for customers, clients, partners, and

society at large.
 What is Communication?

 A process by which information is exchanged

between individuals through a common system of
symbols, signs, or behavior; also : exchange of
information

 A technique for expressing ideas effectively (as in

speech); the technology of the transmission of
information (as by print or telecommunication
 What is Marketing
Communication?

A process by which product information is

transmitted to the target audience.

PRODUCT

INFORMATION

TARGET AUDIENCE
What Is IMC ?
IMC stands for Integrated Market Communication

 Integrated marketing communication (IMC) can be

defined as the process used to unify marketing
communication elements, such as public relations, social
media, audience analytics, business development
principles, and advertising, into a brand identity that
remains consistent across distinct media channels.
 Concept of IMC:

IMC is the remedy for reversing an

accumulation of organizational errors and for
meeting the challenges of today’s marketplace.

Practice of IMC may serve to dispel some

myths, illuminate situations where false
conclusions were prematurely reached.
 Proposition development of IMC:

IMC has changed empirical objectives of addressing, describing

and explaining current marketing communications practices that
had not been captured by traditional accounts of mass marketing
communications.

There are 3 IMC propositions:

1) Contemporary marketing communications management is
characterized by ‘zero-based’ media planning.
 Proposition development of IMC:

The second proposition of IMC theory is:

2) Contemporary marketing communications management is

characterized by high levels of coordination between separate
communication disciplines.

We need the co-ordinations between the communication

disciplines to make the IMC work.
 Proposition development of IMC:
The third proposition of IMC theory is:

3) Contemporary marketing communications

management is characterized by a consolidation of
communication disciplines into a single department.

All the communication disciplines are needed to be

merged into a single department to make it stronger.
 Thesis on IMC theory:

1) The first thesis holds that rather than producing

communication materials that are diffused in style and
content, communications should be consistent as captured
with the ‘one voice’ epigram.
But the first thesis does not qualify on the body of IMC.

2) The second thesis hinges upon the premise that the

breaking point of IMC is its holistic systems or integrative
thinking.
 Process view of IMC:
 Reflecting the astute differences between cross-functional coordination between
the still structurally separated communication disciplines and the full merger or
consolidation of these disciplines into a single organizational unit.

 A fully integrated arrangement of communications is thus seen as progressing

from increasing overreach and commonality between marketing communications
and public relations disciplines, where in the past, communications were
functionally separated and manifests itself in the implementation of coordination
mechanisms between separate communication disciplines, or the consolidation of
these disciplines into a single administrative unit.
 Progress & Continuity:
Research method:

 To give this shape, we searched for research studies that report on aspects of marketing
communications practice and that can be adduced as proving or disproving the three
central IMC propositions.

 First, in our search, we excluded anecdotal, case study-based reflections and descriptions
of IMC that, while representing a large base of documentary evidence do not report in a
systematic manner on general patterns of behaviour in marketing communications
practice. In sum, the studies selected and accommodate the study’s overall objective of
considering IMC’s actual descriptive validity in the light of current marketing
communications by organizing the available empirical research evidence on behavioural
patterns in marketing communications practice.
 Progress & continuity:
Findings:

The early researchers [(caywood, Schultz and Wang (1991)], for instance, in their study of large
consumer goods companies,it has been reported that 67% of the respondents indicated that their
companies used IMC, and concluded that the organizations responding to this survey values and
supports integrated marketing communications. Phelps, Harris and Johnson, in contrast, while also
finding that the majority of companies still assign the responsibility of developing communication
strategy to individual managers, identified an increase in a consensus approach to decision making
where responsibilities are re-assigned to heads of disciplines in an effort to better integrate
communications strategy among the various communication disciplines.
Strategy/Planning regarding IMC:
The picture that has emerged from the cited
research studies supplemented with the practitioner literature
upon media planning is that rather than a ‘zero-based’
approach, the process of media planning is rather more
piecemeal and perplexing, influenced by the setting of
marketing communications objectives, but also by political
imperatives, historical precedents and managerial
preconceptions and judgments.
 Strategy/Planning regarding IMC:
 Feeding this anticipation are industry observations that promotional
budgets have been shifting away from traditional advertising to other forms
of promotions, which may suggest that marketing managers and media
planners are `broadening and widening their promotional dimensionality to
inculcate more integrated approaches` Studies indeed report that when
looking at the practice of media selection and planning in more detail, the
media plan for many products and firms encompasses multiple media
including an extensive use of targeted advertising vehicles such as direct
mail.
 Strategy/Planning regarding IMC:
 Their study found little if any evidence of the supposed negative
consequences that have been advanced by IMC writers as resulting
from structurally dispersing communication disciplines into
separate units or from delegating communication responsibilities
to other functions such as finance and human resources (which has
been considered to erode the power and role of corporate and
marketing communications within the strategic management of a
company).
 REFLECTIONS ON THE STATE AND
FUTURE OF IMC:
 In case study research of eight US corporations equally
suggests that although the suggested IMC solution of
gathering all communication professionals together
into one single department as a centralized stronghold
of communication expertise has met with little
enthusiasm in the workplace, integration of
communication disciplines is now increasingly done
through the use of different types of coordination
mechanisms.
REFLECTIONS ON THE STATE AND
FUTURE OF IMC:
The preceding review of research studies clearly indicates that, when looking
at current practices of communication organization across companies in both
the US and the UK, rather than a full support for an overall consolidated or
`integrated` communication department, the organization of communication
disciplines is characterized by a strong functional organization into public
relations and marketing departments, yet increasingly characterized by high
levels of coordination between separated communication disciplines.
  REFLECTIONS ON THE STATE AND
FUTURE OF IMC:
A `post-structuralist` account of IMC and marketing
communications history would therefore enable us to see how
marketing communications thought has developed in terms of how
concepts and ideas came to be legitimized through discursive
practices; and emphasizes that the currency of IMC theory is not
only embodied in its current descriptive validity (as established
through a `realist` historical research approach as outlined above)
but also in its discursive legacy.
Conclusion:
This presentation was executed with the objective of
presenting the assessing and grounding of Integrated
Marketing Communications (IMC) theory. IMC theory is far
from descriptive of modern marketing communications
management, and may thus be viewed as at least somewhat
linguistic in nature, with the goal of pragmatically enlightening
and legitimizing practical advances in marketing
communications.
THANK
YOU