London Business School reveals survey results on Integrated Marketing communications

July 26, 2012 - PRLog -- London business school and Shine communications led a survey with company directors on the application of integrated marketing communication. Results which were recently released revealed that just 49 per cent of directors in marketing and communication departments’ believed that they practised good integrated marketing techniques, with the majority of the respondents agreeing that it is a key area of concern for them.

MD of Shine communications, Richard Brett said, “Clients are realising they need to be more integrated and get their agencies to play better together to come up with singular ideas to work across multiple touch points. This is because consumers are being bombarded with so many different channels and there’s a greater danger of them seeing different pieces of activity around the same campaign.”

According to PR week, the outcome follows reports that SABMiller is seeking ways to add PR to Nastro Azsurro’s business marketing operations following reviews of its marketing activities in hopes of providing a more integrated approach.

An integrated marketing (IMC) campaign is an effective communication tool that ensures that marketing and promotional channels are carefully linked together to deliver a fine-tuned message to target audience. This can be exercised through direct or indirect marketing, PR and advertising in a bid to maximise product development and customer relationships.

Across many business functions, professionals believe that communication is the key to holding internal and external relationships. A combination of marketing skills and marketing & management training programs helps build understanding of that which makes an effective marketing campaign.

Director of Communications at Plan UK, Leigh Daynes expressed his concerns; he warned that failing to integrate marketing communications could lead to budget cuts from across the board ‘There’s ever more scrutiny of budgets around the impact of campaigns and that’s as true in any sector as it is in ours’, He says.

Research also revealed that thirty-six of per cent of organisations with a capacity of 1,000 employees and more would approve of their agencies attempts to propose big ideas for a more integrated marketing approach. At the same time, companies with less than 1,000 employees, only 50 per cent of that figure would allow agencies to propose big ideas.

Other results showed that 11 per cent of communications directors appointed a lead agency to manage other consultancies in the brand roster. 69 per cent of the total 61 top level business individuals surveyed managed between 2 to 5 agencies, while 10 per cent managed 6 agencies and more. Marketing and management trainings may offer knowledge on how to build effective integrated campaigns.

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