UNDERSTOOD, EXPECTED AND ASSUMED:
THE FUTURE OF INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS.
By Michael Antman
Which one of these terms doesn't belong?
Automatic elevator.
Electric lamp.
Electric toaster.
Long-playing record.
Integrated marketing communications.
The odd term out is, of course, “integrated marketing communications.” That's because all of the other terms are examples of “pleonasms,” in which extraneous words are used to explain a simple concept. After all, we just assume that all elevators these days are automatic, and don't require white-gloved operators to punch in your floor selection.
These terms weren't always pleonastic, however. Back when each of these innovations were first introduced, there were older and less-efficient technologies already in place, such as gas lamps or vinyl 78s that could hold only a handful of Al Jolson's greatest hits. And in the days before advanced toasting technology brought mankind the miracle of the BLT, bread was held on long forks over roaring fires, so when mankind made the epochal leap to the “electric toaster,” both words were needed at first to distinguish the new-fangled plug-in kind from the sort that scorched your knuckles. These days, though, the modifier's just trimmed away.
The reason that “integrated marketing communications” (IMC) isn't yet a pleonasm is that it just isn't possible to assume that any given marketing communications program is, in fact, integrated. True, virtually everyone these days calls themselves “integrated,” but it's likely that 90 percent or more of all marketing departments and agencies out there still practice segregated marketing, or, at best, some form of integrated marketing communications that just isn't fully baked.
The problem is that IMC is still very much of a new concept that's barely out of its beta phase. From the perspective of clients, that's bad news: It means they're still paying for the equivalent of gas lamps and open fires instead of the powerful, mutually reinforcing, synergistic marketing communications programs they should be getting.
Though there are many definitions of IMC, and its history doesn't necessarily follow a clear path, in general IMC was originally understood to mean the coordination of all marketing materials, including advertising, print collateral, packaging, in-store displays and the like, so that a consumer encountering a POP display would immediately recognize it as coming from the same advertiser who did that wacky ad he just saw.
Believe it or not, after all this time, there are still B-to-C advertisers who don't even do that much.
Later on, the concept, if not the practice, of integrated marketing became more sophisticated, recognizing that well-coordinated marketing materials, while generally an excellent idea, were only the end result of a consistent methodology in which the marketing team, the in-house advertising and public relation staffs and all marketing communications agencies work together toward a common goal.
An obvious, unexceptionable idea, but one that rarely works in reality. There are just too many different departments, each with an abundance of jealously guarded agendas and a paucity of knowledge about what the other departments do, to make it work. Worse, there's very little inclination on the part of senior management to knock heads together and make it work.
At some point, the big advertising agencies began buying up smaller public relations, events-planning, marketing consulting, investor relations and direct-mail firms, in order to be able to describe themselves to potential clients as comprehensive integrated marketing communications resources, and, more specifically, to avoid leaving any tasty crumbs on the table when a new piece of business was passed around.
The problem with this model is that just because a direct-mail firm is owned by an advertising agency, it doesn't mean that the direct-mail folks and the advertising folks will be any more sympathetic to, or understanding of, each other's goals and ways of working than would otherwise be the case. In fact, the potential for turf fights between two agencies with common ownership may be greater than it is for two unconnected agencies.
Worse, by pretending to be all things for all clients, this version of IMC risks seriously misleading clients by creating marketing communications programs based on false premises. If a client that doesn't really understand the difference between marketing and marketing communications comes to its advertising agency for a comprehensive marketing plan, the agency probably won't say no, even if marketing isn't among the “all things” that it offers. Instead, the agency will do a half-baked marketing analysis and the client, perhaps not knowing any better, will accept it as validation for whatever campaign the agency itself comes up with. It's likely that any number of multi-million dollar advertising campaigns have been founded on such thin gruel.
The good news is that there's another, better incarnation of integrated marketing communications – the kind that really works – but achieving it requires that two enormously important missing pieces be put into place.
The first is an integrated marketing communications sensibility that pervades every level of an organization, especially senior management, so that heads that haven't been knocked heretofore soon will be, and those individuals who are more focused on keeping their heads down, playing politics or winning awards than on working with their peers to create effective communications will soon be toast.
Indeed, the most critical challenge in creating a truly integrated marketing communications culture is nurturing truly integrated marketing communications practitioners. These individuals might not be experts in every form of marcom, but they must be able to develop enough understanding of each form so that, as the lion lies down with the lamb, the advertising creative and the P.R. professional can work together in a coordinated fashion to advance their company's cause.
Which is, after all, what it's all about.
And that brings up the second missing piece: Sales. It is perhaps stating the obvious to stress that the only true purpose of marketing, advertising, collateral and all of those other functions that are supposed to be integrated is to help a company sell more products and services. Of course, bringing the sales team into the mix is particularly important in the B-to-B environment, where sales people are in direct contact with the customer.
And yet how many advertising creatives ever talk to the persons who are actually responsible for selling their company's or client's products? How many companies habitually invite sales professionals into marketing meetings, or marketing executives into sales meetings? How often do companies or agencies go to sales departments to ask them what kind of collateral they need, and then go back to them to get their approval of concepts or copy?
Conversely, how many front-line sales people communicate the real-world customer intelligence they glean directly to the people who are responsible for forming their company's marketing and new product strategies?
The answer to these questions is also the answer to why, regrettably, the term “marketing communications” must still be modified by the word “integrated.” The truth is, there are too many cultural, psychological, bureaucratic and physical barriers keeping these professionals from sharing their invaluable insights. And until this changes, companies will continue to experience inefficiencies, miss opportunities, and spend more than they should on marcom programs.
It may take an outside force – an agency that understands and has practiced true marcom and sales integration – to help senior management get the marketing, marketing communications and sales teams working closely together for the greater cause. But one way or another, those companies that manage to get all the parts clicking nicely will over time outperform those retrograde competitors that remain hunkered down in their separate fiefdoms.
A truly integrated marketing communications capability is, or should be, the greatest thing since toasted sliced bread. But of course, we don't call it “sliced bread” anymore. It's just “bread.”
So, too, should we be striving to call our discipline merely “marketing communications,” because, if we advance the state of the art in IMC to where it ought to be, the “integrated” will be understood.