Marketing communication: principles and practice

I N T E G R A T E D M A R K E T I N G C O M M U N I C A T I O N
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Internal
marketing
Integrated
marketing
communication
Relationship
marketing
Figure 13.2
The three concepts connected

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Autocratic management style, premised on the need to control, can inhibit
integration and resulting flexibility. If marketing is seen as persuasive 
(i.e. selling products to customers), then only a traditional marketing pro-
gramme will be pursued and integration will seem unnecessary. If, however,
a relationship-marketing system is managed, integration of efforts in a
coordinated traditional 
and
interactive marketing system will seem necessary.
This will be enabled within an internal-marketing framework. There is also
considerable misunderstanding and lack of clarity about the concept of
integration. Some managers, for example, see it as no more than ‘one-stop’
shopping among agencies or as coordinated creative executions.
Organization
Functional division of responsibilities and tasks can block systemic changes,
and established planning processes can work against integration by main-
taining the status quo (fragmentation can favour some interests, but sub-
optimize the system as a whole). Often, functional specialists are appointed
and rewarded on the basis of technical skills needed to execute programmes
rather than the conceptual skills needed to plan them. Agencies and service
providers, and even trade associations, remain largely fragmented around
specialisms, arguing that only particular tools can achieve impacts and effects.
Resources
Ownership of resources is a way of demonstrating power and status. Also,
integration requires the reinvention of the corporation as a responsive,
responsible value-creating system. This requires a major investment in time
and effort for review, analysis, thinking, decision-making, and revision of
processes, infrastructure, and possibly strategic focus and values. Budgeting
is often decided on a historic basis – what was spent last year – rather than
on a careful assessment of what is required to accomplish specific objectives.
Budgets are allocated separately to each sub-function, often on a competitive
‘slice-of-the-pie’ basis.
If communication systems and programmes have to be integrated, it is plain
to see that marketing has to be an integrated facet of any business.