Introduction
Advertising is as old as civilization and has been used as the means of communication to buy and sell the goods and services to the society. Advertising is an important tool of promotion that can create wonders with beautiful words to sell product, service and also ideas. Advertising has, acquired great importance in the modern India characterized by tough competition in the market and fast changes in technology, and fashion and taste of customers.
Today as per the changing marketing situation advertising is not the only sufficient medium of communication. It has to be integrated with other mediums so as to create the long lasting impact on the consumers. Thus the concept of integrated marketing communication is gaining considerable momentum due to challenges faced by the advertisers in designing and implementing their advertising communication messages.
Meaning of IMC
Integrated Marketing Communications is a simple concept. It ensures that all forms of communications and messages are carefully linked together. Integrated marketing communications (IMC) is a process of managing customer relationships that drive brand value primarily through communication efforts. Such efforts often include cross-functional processes that create and nourish profitable relationships with customers and other stakeholders by strategically controlling or influencing all messages sent to these groups and encouraging data-driven, purposeful dialog with them.
IMC includes the coordination and integration of all marketing communication tools, avenues, and sources within a company into a seamless program in order to maximize the impact on end users at a minimal cost. Ideally, IMC is implemented by developing comprehensive databases on customers and prospects, segmenting these current and potential customers into groups with certain common awareness levels, predispositions, and behaviors, and developing messages and media strategies that guide the communication tactics to meet marketing objectives. In doing this, IMC builds and reinforces mutually profitable relationships with customers and other important stakeholders and generates synergy by coordinating all elements in the promotional mix into a program that possesses clarity, consistency, and maximum impact.
Definition of IMC: According to American Association of Advertising Agencies IMC is a “concept of marketing communication planning that recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communication discipline”
