Integrated Marketing Communication

Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) is a communications process that entails the planning, creation, integration and implementation of diverse forms of marketing communications (advertisements, sales promotions, publicity releases, events, etc) that are delivered over time to a brands targeted customers and prospects. The goal of IMC is ultimately to influence or directly affect the behaviour of the targeted audience. IMC considers all sources of contact that a customer / prospect has with the brand as potential delivery channels for messages and makes use of all communications methods that are relevant to customers /prospects and to which they might be receptive. IMC requires that all of a brands communication media and messages deliver a consistent message. The IMC process further necessitates that the customer / prospect is the starting point for determining the types of messages and channels that will serve best to inform, persuade and induce action. (Shimp 2003)

With nearly 2,500 staff and offices throughout the Asia Pacific region, KAZ Group (KAZ) provides exceptional business and technology services to organisations and governments across a variety of industries including banking, finance, retail, manufacturing, logistics and utilities.

By establishing long-term and trusted partnerships with clients, KAZ is able to develop innovative and flexible solutions giving organisations a competitive edge in the market. We pride ourselves on our strong focus on client needs and our ability to improve the way companies do business. And through our research and development, we are continually one step ahead to meet client's changing needs.

Using experienced people, leading technology and proven procedures, KAZ provides the full range of business and information technology capabilities.

KAZ is at the forefront of business process outsourcing, where companies transfer their non-core parts of their business to an external specialist to manage. This frees up critical resources, allowing clients to focus on their key business, resulting in greater value for stakeholders.

KAZ specialises in a number of business process outsourcing areas including customer contact centres, document imaging and processing, and claims management and processing.

KAZ is also recognised as a leading developer of software solutions for the finance industry and governments through its membership administration products and document management solutions.

Theory of IMC

Over the years IMC has had much criticism on weather it was a new theoretical concept or a management fashion. Due to its lack of definition, IMC cannot be clearly inferred from practice, it cannot be stated as to what it is or isn't, its ideas influence as a management fashion can be profound in the general and popular ideas that it disseminates and the rhetoric that it provides to practicing managers.

The difference in opinion about the historical context and the emergence of IMC hangs closely together with the lack of a definition of the concept (Nowark and Phelps, 1994; Phelps and Johnson, 1996; Kitchen, 1999). While writers appear to agree on the areas of coverage by IMC with concern for both organisational processes of structuring and co-ordinating working practices of marketing communication professionals, as well as the execution and content of communication programs (Nowak and Phelps, 1994; Prensky et al., 1996; Petrison and Wang, 1996). There has been little research done on the theory of IMC.

"While there is considerable debate and discussion of the subject, i.e. who does it, how it is done, etc., the formal presentation of research, theory development, and other materials by either practitioners or academics has been slow in coming." (Schultz and Kitchen, 1997)

In effect, having no clearly defined definition contributes to the lack of operational measures of IMC (Phelps et al., 1996), which makes it difficult to identify or evaluate specific organisational processes or campaigns in marketing communications disciplines.

The apparent ambiguity has allowed for various interpretations and the loose use of the term IMC and has allowed researchers to choose whichever conceptualisation best fits their research agendas at any given time. As a result, definitions and measurement scales have been peculiar to individual research studies. Phelps et al. (1996), for instance, examined whether companies have individual or consensus decision making communications strategy. They found that the use of a consensus approach, where the heads of various communications functions work together to develop communications strategies is on the increase.

The claim that IMC is a management fashion is based on five arguments, some of which are derived from management research on management fashions (e.g. Abrahamson, 1991, 1996; Gill and Whittle, 1992; Sperber, 1990).

A fad can be seen as a popular technique or idea, which has no positive impact at all on management practice in the longer term and should on that basis be discarded from further thought by academics and practicing managers alike. A management fashion, in comparison, can be seen to have an affect on practice, albeit transitory, in the general ideas and rhetoric that it provides. Abrahamson (1996) defines a management fashion as "Ð'...a relatively transitory collective belief, disseminated by management fashion setters, that a management technique leads to rational management process."

The first argument is that IMC theory can be recognised as a field lacking academic rigor (Gill and Whittle, 1992). The lack of academic rigor may be the result of IMC's fashionable status as a "pop management" theory (Gill and Whittle, 1992). It has been argued that ideas put forward within varieties of "pop management" theories have little academic underpinning (Sperber, 1990). This is seen as a conscious policy, since it makes the ideas more acceptable to practicing managers.

The second argument is that the IMC theory offers little more than simplistic and prescriptive "turnkey" solutions to organisational problems of marketing communications. These panaceas frequently consist of checklists detailing the actions seen as essential for organisational success. In order to attract the attention of managers, these panaceas have to offer quick, simple solutions, in addition much work on IMC is rather prescriptive and does not take into account how marketing communications is actually managed across companies.

Abrahamson (1991) argues that,