The Bare Bones: Introduction to Integrated Marketing Communication

Citation

Blakeman, R. (2010), "The Bare Bones: Introduction to Integrated Marketing Communication", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 27 No. 6, pp. 566-566. https://doi.org/10.1108/07363761011078334

This book is ideal as an introductory course to integrated marketing communications, especially for first‐year undergraduate students and managers relatively new to promotional planning. The book gives a very simplified view of the different components of advertising. The book is divided into three parts. Part I (chapters 1 to 5) deals with the understanding of integrated marketing communication, Part II (chapters 6 and 7) addresses the creative media, and Part III (chapters 8 to 17) deals with media use.

1 Part 1: understanding integrated marketing communication

Chapter 1 introduces the book by tracing the roots of advertising right from the old one‐on‐on trade between wall, rock, and cave drawings; medieval times; and the mid‐nineteenth century to the present century. The idea of IMC being the new advertising is introduced. However, IMC is not only about advertising but all the elements used to communicate with the target audience, for example, sales promotion, personal selling.

The first chapter also introduces the concept of focusing on customers' needs as the main difference between traditional marketing and IMC. However, even before the popularised view of IMC, firms still produced goods and services to meet customers' needs, as evidenced by the move from mass marketing to market segmentation, or the ongoing debate between standardization and adaptation in international marketing. The writer gives the view that IMC was the front‐runner to customized marketing. The chapter covers reasons for IMC failure very well, but it fails to suggest ways of overcoming these failures in more detail.

The concept of “coordinated message” (p. 11) is introduced, but it is not distinguished from the “integrated” concept in IMC. The concept of “promotional mix” (p. 130) is discussed but is not differentiated from IMC. The general view of IMC is that it is the new way of promoting products. The author seems to use integrated marketing and IMC synonymously. IMC is about integrating all the traditional promotional elements (advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, public relations and direct marketing) in order to make a consistent message. The idea of promoting products was replaced by that of communicating with the target audience, hence marketing communications, on which IMC is built. IMC is not the new advertising but incorporates advertising and all the other elements highlighted on page 17. The idea of IMC presented in this book is rather limiting.

The second chapter provides brief coverage of the research process, but not very useful when someone has no prior research knowledge. Too many concepts are covered at the expense of necessary detail.

1.1 Chapter 3: the making on an image: branding and positioning

Chapter 3 is very informative on branding, but there is no clear link with IMC. I am not sure how the concept of integrated brand communication is different from IMC, “which means building a strong brand” (p. 71). The fourth and fifth chapters provide good coverage of marketing plans and media, respectively, but there is no link with IMC.

2 Part II: the creative process

Determining the product's or service's visual/verbal tone of voice, and chapter 7: digital prepress: putting the pieces in place.

The topics of are covered very well in chapters six and seven. However, there is no clear link with IMC.

3 Part III: media use: how IMC uses diverse media vehicles to speak and reach the target audience

In the eighth chapter there is very good coverage of how public relations can be used to support advertising (but still with a limited view of IMC). As noted in chapter 1, the popular concept of IMC is shared when the author notes: “what roles will advertising, public relations, sales promotion and/or direct marketing play?” (p. 162). The roles of the marketing communications elements were not discussed.

This ninth chapter covers newspapers and its various forms. The author establishes linkages between newspapers and advertising (which is seen as IMC). There is no clear link between newspapers and IMC.

In chapters 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 15, and 16 there is an informative coverage of the different types of magazine, out‐of‐home, radio, television, and direct response advertising as well as sales promotion, the internet, and the alternative media: guerrilla and viral marketing. However, there is no clear links between these media and with the other communication elements of IMC on page 14 (that is, sales promotion, personal selling, direct marketing, public relations, internet and viral marketing guerrilla marketing).

4 Overall impression

The book's title is rather misleading as it does not cover IMC as it is popularly known. Probably the topic could be called “Bare Bones: Introduction to Integrated Advertising.” As an advertising text, it would be suitable for undergraduate courses and as a refresher text for those practitioners who want a quick revision of advertising.

Gilbert ZvobgoLondon South Bank University, London, UK