Essentially a Matter of Consistency: Integrated Marketing Communications

Despite the growth and popularity of the term Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC), there has been little consensus about what it is or what needs to be undertaken in order to establish IMC in organisations. This paper does not seek to offer a definition but looks at one of the key underlining characteristics that appear in the majority of definitions, namely harmonization or consistency.

Consistency within IMC is considered not just from a promotional mix level but from both an internal/external and strategic perspective. The term consistency is then disaggregated into two main components; structural and attitudinal. The structural view considers the client and agency positions and also reviews the marketing communications industry. The attitudinal component is examined from the basis that for dialogue (often quoted as a key part of contemporary marketing communications), all parties need to be willing to share information and want to build relationships based upon openness and trust. It is argued here that this propensity to share information is a culturally determined issue and is a key aspect of an organisation's orientation towards IMC.

From this analysis the author develops an incremental approach to the way in which IMC might develop in organisations. This is then demonstrated through a small case study which uses the example of a medium sized engineering company which has developed IMC with a very strong strategic foundation.