mobites - ideas, inspiration, insight

Well, its official. “Integrated marketing communications is now broadly embraced by marketers.”

So declares the Association of National Advertisers. They say that 74 percent of marketers now employ integrated marketing campaigns for their brands.

But wait

The same online survey of 200 marketers says that only 25 percent of those marketers rate their integrated programs as “very good” or “excellent.”In there somewhere between adoption of IMC and effectiveness there is probably a difference in how integrated marketing communications is defined. If you define IMC functionally, based on what it does rather than simply what it is or could be, then you’d probably have a much higher satisfaction level.

Is IMC just a bunch of media strung together with a common look and “one voice” messaging? Or is it a much more strategic, robust and encompassing?

God is (or in this case isn’t) in the definitions

If you look up the definition of integrated marketing communications here a few of the insights you’ll get into how to execute an IMC program.

According to The American Marketing Association, IMC is “a planning process designed to assure that all brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time.”

The Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University says, “IMC is a customer-centric, data-driven method of communicating with consumers. IMC – the management of all organized communications to build positive relationships with customers and other stakeholders – stresses marketing to the individual by understanding needs, motivations, attitudes and behaviors.”

The Marketing Power Dictionary says, “Integrated marketing communication can be defined as a holistic approach to promote buying and selling in the digital economy. This concept includes many online and offline marketing channels. Online marketing channels include any e-marketing campaigns or programs, from search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click, affiliate, email, banner to latest web related channels for webinar, blog, RSS, podcast, and Internet TV. Offline marketing channels are traditional print (newspaper, magazine), mail order, public relations, industry analyst relations billboard, radio, and television.”

A lot of integrated mumbo jumbo

In terms of actually executing an integrated program our definitions are about as clear, concise and easy to understand as Bob Dylan reading Finnegan’s Wake in a wind tunnel.

So I’m going to take a shot at a definition of my own. Why not? Everyone else seems to have one.

A truly integrated marketing communications program

• targets different audience segments…

• through each stage of their purchase process…

• with the messages that customers and prospects consider important and valuable in terms of their functional and emotional buying criteria and to which they are most susceptible at that stage…

• delivered by the media that:

o are most appropriate for the message…

o and to which the audience is most receptive because of time, place or purchase path stage and personal preference…

• containing information, incentives (both functional and emotional) and offers designed to initiate and maintain a dialogue that moves them to the next stage of purchase or repurchase…

• all tied together through a unifying creative buying concept anchored in the brand’s promise…

• and presented in a highly recognizable, unique and consistent look, voice, point of view and brand personality…

• that is internalized and communicated throughout the organization based on the customer’s point of view

• and measured in perceptual, behavioral and financial terms.

There you go. A functional definition of IMC in one sentence. Okay, a complex, ungrammatical, run-on sentence. But at least it says something.

Problem is it’s easier said than done.

But that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.