The Implementation of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) Principles in Branding and Advertising: A Conceptual Exploration

Abstract

Theorists and advocates of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) behold that IMC was an innovation to rescue the downward of advertisement industry and to strengthen the strategic and tactical power of branding. IMC offer the option of integrating several marketing communication approaches in one message content for the purpose of developing effective brand equity. However, IMC is a theoretically celebrated panacea that has experienced a longstanding conceptual and practical muddling, which includes the practicality, definitions, implementations and measurement of its effectiveness. Pertinently, an explicit strategy and tactics of implementing the principles of IMC in advertisement still remain obscure. In a quest to quench the conceptual haziness of IMC and its implementation in advertisement-being one of the very crucial tool in marketing communications, this paper presents the review of the implementation process of IMC in the general marketing communication fields, advertisement and branding in particular. Relevant theoretical and practical gaps were deduced from past studies to inform future studies of possible ways to resolve the theoretical and practical inconsistencies in implementing the principles of IMC in an effective advertisement and brand equity.

Keywords: Integrated Marketing Communication; Brand Equity; Advertisement Effectiveness; Message Strategy.