Integrated Marketing

One of my readers, Michael Antman, kindly sent me this article which I thought I would share with you.

It sadly makes perfect sense showing that the real progress toward Integrated marketing being widely and professionally practiced is still in it's formative years, despite Stanley Tannenbaum's book on the subject written a dozen years ago.

(Click the headline to visit McSweeney & Antman's website)



UNDERSTOOD, EXPECTED AND ASSUMED: THE FUTURE OF INTEGRATED MARKETING
COMMUNICATIONS.

"Which one of these terms doesn't belong?

Automatic elevator.
Electric lamp.
Electric toaster.
Long-playing record.
Integrated marketing communications.

The odd term out is, of course, “integrated marketing communications.”
That's because all of the other terms are examples of “pleonasms,” in which
extraneous words are used to explain a simple concept. After all, we just
assume that all elevators these days are automatic, and don't require
white-gloved operators to punch in your floor selection.

These terms weren't always pleonastic, however. Back when each of these
innovations were first introduced, there were older and less-efficient
technologies already in place, such as gas lamps or vinyl 78s that could
hold only a handful of Al Jolson's greatest hits. And in the days before
advanced toasting technology brought mankind the miracle of the BLT, bread
was held on long forks over roaring fires, so when mankind made the epochal
leap to the “electric toaster,” both words were needed at first to
distinguish the new-fangled plug-in kind from the sort that scorched your
knuckles. These days, though, the modifier's just trimmed away.

The reason that “integrated marketing communications” (IMC) isn't yet a
pleonasm is that it just isn't possible to assume that any given marketing
communications program is, in fact, integrated. True, virtually everyone
these days calls themselves “integrated,” but it's likely that 90 percent or
more of all marketing departments and agencies out there still practice
segregated marketing, or, at best, some form of integrated marketing
communications that just isn't fully baked.

The problem is that IMC is still very much of a new concept that's barely
out of its beta phase. From the perspective of clients, that's bad news: It
means they're still paying for the equivalent of gas lamps and open fires
instead of the powerful, mutually reinforcing, synergistic marketing
communications programs they should be getting.

Though there are many definitions of IMC, and its history doesn't
necessarily follow a clear path, in general IMC was originally understood to
mean the coordination of all marketing materials, including advertising,
print collateral, packaging, in-store displays and the like, so that a
consumer encountering a POP display would immediately recognize it as coming
from the same advertiser who did that wacky ad he just saw.

Believe it or not, after all this time, there are still B-to-C advertisers
who don't even do that much.

Later on, the concept, if not the practice, of integrated marketing became
more sophisticated, recognizing that well-coordinated marketing materials,
while generally an excellent idea, were only the end result of a consistent
methodology in which the marketing team, the in-house advertising and public
relation staffs and all marketing communications agencies work together
toward a common goal.

An obvious, unexceptionable idea, but one that rarely works in reality.
There are just too many different departments, each with an abundance of
jealously guarded agendas and a paucity of knowledge about what the other
departments do, to make it work. Worse, there's very little inclination on
the part of senior management to knock heads together and make it work.

At some point, the big advertising agencies began buying up smaller public
relations, events-planning, marketing consulting, investor relations and
direct-mail firms, in order to be able to describe themselves to potential
clients as comprehensive integrated marketing communications resources, and,
more specifically, to avoid leaving any tasty crumbs on the table when a new
piece of business was passed around.

The problem with this model is that just because a direct-mail firm is owned
by an advertising agency, it doesn't mean that the direct-mail folks and the
advertising folks will be any more sympathetic to, or understanding of, each
other's goals and ways of working than would otherwise be the case. In fact,
the potential for turf fights between two agencies with common ownership may
be greater than it is for two unconnected agencies.

Worse, by pretending to be all things for all clients, this version of IMC
risks seriously misleading clients by creating marketing communications
programs based on false premises. If a client that doesn't really understand
the difference between marketing and marketing communications comes to its
advertising agency for a comprehensive marketing plan, the agency probably
won't say no, even if marketing isn't among the “all things” that it offers.
Instead, the agency will do a half-baked marketing analysis and the client,
perhaps not knowing any better, will accept it as validation for whatever
campaign the agency itself comes up with. It's likely that any number of
multi-million dollar advertising campaigns have been founded on such thin
gruel.

The good news is that there's another, better incarnation of integrated
marketing communications – the kind that really works – but achieving it
requires that two enormously important missing pieces be put into place.

The first is an integrated marketing communications sensibility that
pervades every level of an organization, especially senior management, so
that heads that haven't been knocked heretofore soon will be, and those
individuals who are more focused on keeping their heads down, playing
politics or winning awards than on working with their peers to create
effective communications will soon be toast.

Indeed, the most critical challenge in creating a truly integrated marketing
communications culture is nurturing truly integrated marketing
communications practitioners. These individuals might not be experts in
every form of marcom, but they must be able to develop enough understanding
of each form so that, as the lion lies down with the lamb, the advertising
creative and the P.R. professional can work together in a coordinated
fashion to advance their company's cause.

Which is, after all, what it's all about.

And that brings up the second missing piece: Sales. It is perhaps stating
the obvious to stress that the only true purpose of marketing, advertising,
collateral and all of those other functions that are supposed to be
integrated is to help a company sell more products and services. Of course,
bringing the sales team into the mix is particularly important in the B-to-B
environment, where sales people are in direct contact with the customer.

And yet how many advertising creatives ever talk to the persons who are
actually responsible for selling their company's or client's products? How
many companies habitually invite sales professionals into marketing
meetings, or marketing executives into sales meetings? How often do
companies or agencies go to sales departments to ask them what kind of
collateral they need, and then go back to them to get their approval of
concepts or copy?

Conversely, how many front-line sales people communicate the real-world
customer intelligence they glean directly to the people who are responsible
for forming their company's marketing and new product strategies?

The answer to these questions is also the answer to why, regrettably, the
term “marketing communications” must still be modified by the word
“integrated.” The truth is, there are too many cultural, psychological,
bureaucratic and physical barriers keeping these professionals from sharing
their invaluable insights. And until this changes, companies will continue
to experience inefficiencies, miss opportunities, and spend more than they
should on marcom programs.

It may take an outside force – an agency that understands and has practiced
true marcom and sales integration – to help senior management get the
marketing, marketing communications and sales teams working closely together
for the greater cause. But one way or another, those companies that manage
to get all the parts clicking nicely will over time outperform those
retrograde competitors that remain hunkered down in their separate fiefdoms.

A truly integrated marketing communications capability is, or should be, the
greatest thing since toasted sliced bread. But of course, we don't call it
“sliced bread” anymore. It's just “bread.”

So, too, should we be striving to call our discipline merely “marketing
communications,” because, if we advance the state of the art in IMC to where
it ought to be, the “integrated” will be understood."


Michael Antman
Principal, McSweeney & Antman

David Maister wrote this article about managing a lawfirm, but it is equally applicable to a service industry like an advertising agency. Here is the summary of what he says.

The full article is worth a read on David's website, (click the headline for a hotlink). Like much of David's advice, it is worth following but it is only followed by precious few because it forces hard choices.

"Professional businesses today are structurally complex organizations with many senior people overburdened by time-consuming and often conflicting roles.

Professional businesses often have some combination of

* Business unit
* Geographic markets or offices
* Division or department
* Product line/service offering
* Industry group
* Key account team
* Committees (recruitment, training)
* Task force or project team (service innovation, new offerings)

Each of these organizational groupings can, and does, intersect with duplicated missions, overlapping membership, and common resource pools to draw upon.

We frequently hear comments like this from members of management:

It is not at all clear what each of these groupings should be responsible for and how their activities should be coordinated and evaluated. If you are a key player in this organization, you can spend an inordinate amount of time in meetings. There has got to be a better way to organize for effective operations!

There is a better way, but the way professional businesses organize and manage has not kept up with their increasing complexity. Eventually — we think sooner rather than later — this will significantly impede their continuing success."