INTRODUCTION
Integrated marketing communications (IMC); As defined by the American association of advertising Agencies, IMC is a concept f marketing communications planning that recognizes the added vale of a comprehensive plan evaluate the strategic roles of variety of communications displines for example, general advertising direct response, sales promotion and public relations and consistence’s and maximum impact through the seamless integration or discrete messages, Kolter, (2002:p 583).
Integrated marketing communication concept is a new dimension in the applications of communication strategies to modern marketing which does produce stronger message consistency and greater sales impact. It forces management to think about every way the customer come in contact with the company how the company communicates its positioning, the marketing communications mixes and timming issues. It gives the company the responsibility, where none exist before to unity its activities the integrated marketing communications is a veritable device to the market which is to say there is hardly now any major marketing campaign or effort whose objective can be reasonably achieved without carefully selecting integrating and applying the most appropriate conventional and new marketing communication or promotional tools to facilitate the marketing process. The selected marketing communication activities in order to be effective it must be planned and executed as holistic activities in which each activities must be seen as an isolated or compartment unit which hardly or marginally touches the other units in the large whole.
Integrated marketing communications have being understood to
have a lot of the several features which it portrays, which one of the several features is the use of all source of a brand or company contacts as potential message delivery Channels. Another key feature is that integrated marketing communication process starts with the consumer or prospect rather than the brand communicator to determine the most appropriate and effective methods for developing persuasive communication programme.
In recent times, modern and dynamic organizations no longer rely on the traditional promotional tools is which some companies are still engaged in to achieve their communication objectives. This is because of the continues discontinuity in the market economy specifically the integration or mass markets into a multitude of minimarket or target market; each requiring its own communication approached due to the proliferation technology, the rapid growth or direct marketing and the growing sophistication of the consumer. The wide range of communication tools, messages and audience makes it imperative that companies are moving toward the adoption of integrated marketing communication(IMC).
Due to this recent shift in marketing strategies, from mass marketing to marketing, companies now do less broadcasting and more narrow casting which is to say that as this companies embraces integrated marketing communications, this will enable them in achieving their marketing communication objectives, overall organizational objectives better communication consisting greater sales impact unification of the company’s image and also to improve their ability to reach the right customers with the right messages at right time and in the right place.
LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, this research work endeavous to highlight contributing views in related literature under the following captions integrated marketing communication an –overview in or under this caption what integrated marketing communication is all about shall be discussed and how it is being used companies to achieve their communication objectives; then it further proceed to examine the company’s relationship with the consumers through integrated marketing communications. Furthermore, this chapter considered the task, which integrated marketing communications, plays company’s communications objectives in achieving consumers satisfaction and increase in its patronage.
This chapter highlighted view on the different mixes that makes up integrated marketing communications and how each affect integrated marketing communications and to the ensuring of consumers satisfaction. Another caption that will be reviewed in this chapter is the various obstacles that threatens the implementation of integrated marketing communications.