Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)

Below are some of the definitions that I find most memorable, succinct, and useful for IMC from a list compiled by the Data Marketing Association (2017):
- “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.” – American Marketing Association
- “Integrated marketing incorporates an individual customer’s own perspective into all customer-facing functions at a company, including marketing, sales, and service.” – LinkedIn (Peppers, 2013)
- “No single channel can win out any more … which means delivering great customer experience and truly integrated marketing, across any and every channel: web, social, mobile, broadcast, email, in-store, outdoor and beyond. And that means re-engineering processes, investing in new technology, and creating entirely new, integrated strategies.” – IMW
When thinking of integrated marketing communications, it is important to remember that it is a kind of “relationship” marketing, which speaks to human emotions and is a brand’s ability to build an emotional connection with the customer (Olenski, 2013).
- “When the campaign isn’t targeted or specialized for a particular demographic, it just becomes noise.”
- “Unlike perishable media like print, radio and TV, branded merchandise has the ability to live on in the lives of consumers for decades.”
- “Nostalgia is one of the most powerful emotional connections that consumers can have to brand and being connected to those special moments in popular culture freezes time for them.”
I can understand the order of the projects in this course better in the context of creating an integrated marketing communications plan, having read more about IMC. Without first strategic planning and branding, there would be no content to put forth or use for an IMC.