Integrated Communication

Introduction

Esther ThorsonUniversity of Missouri-ColumbiaJeri MooreCCS Ltd.

Integrated marketing communications are those messages that address multiple consumer and nonconsumer audiences and achieve synergy of messages and timing.

The concept of integrated marketing communication (IMC) continues to produce both intense interest (e.g., “Ad Age,” 1993) and a violent negative response, generally along the lines of “Why do these people think they’ve invented something new? We’ve been doing integrated marketing for years?” (e.g., Duncan & Caywood, chapter 1, this volume). It is true, in fact, that many smaller advertising agencies have been using a variety of persuasive tools to market their clients’ brands (Gronstedt & Thorson, 1993), and that ...