Integrated Communication or Integrated Marketing Communication

Abstract

Our answer is naturally the latter, but getting to the answer is more difficult than one would suppose. Undoubtedly, integrated marketing communication (IMC) is the essence of communication. It is impossible to understand marketing without the need for communication. As argued earlier, the brand—at least at this point in time—is the best psychological transportative modality for delivering meanings that can be decoded by customers and consumers. Despite the rhetoric of need satisfaction, businesses are cast into societal well-being as well, hence corporate social responsibility, societal marketing, and all the rest of perceivable attempts to influence stakeholders’ attitudes favorably. Yes, identity can be communications, but image is what is received and can be easily denigrated in media-satiated on- and offline environs. Only, integrated marketing communications provide a good modality to cement image and brand meaning into unified messages. Can it be left to marketers? Perhaps, but it seems to us that it takes strategic and financial commitment and interaction to fully maximize IMC potentialities.