Integrated Marketing Communications: A Test for Different Levels of Strategic Consistency

Strategic Consistency appears to be one of the main criteria to follow when developing an integrated marketing communication campaign. However, there is a wide body of research which also suggests that incongruent information may be more effective that consistent information. Due to these contradictory points of view, the present study analyzes what is the most effective level of strategic consistency in an integrated communication campaign. For this purpose an experiment is designed in which the level of strategic consistency is manipulated. A total of 227 undergraduate students participated in the study and were randomly assigned to one of three different levels of strategic consistency (high, moderate, low). Advertising and sponsorship were the communication tools used in the experiment. Cognitive and affective responses obtained from the study suggest that a moderate level of strategic consistency is the most appropriate to improve the effectiveness of an IMC campaign.