Disintegrated Marketing Communication

Integrated marketing communications (IMC) used to be the Holy Grail for marketers. Integrated marketing was about organizations trying to coordinate all their messages and channels for a cohesive brand strategy. Even at its heyday in the ‘90s, it was difficult to achieve, but any company that had powerful brand managers and a strong centralized marketing function could strive for communication integration.

During that era, many Fortune 500 firms relied on the services of some of the largest publicly traded advertising holding companies such as Omnicom (OMC), Interpublic (IPG) and WPP Group (WPPGY). The links I’ve provided to each holding company’s stock chart will show enormous growth for these organizations in that decade. At the beginning of 1990, Omnicom’s stock was trading at about $3/share, and by the end of 1999, it had reached $100/share.

These holding companies were comprised of many individual businesses, each with different specialties. Between them, they controlled a huge portion of the advertising and marketing dollars spent in this country and abroad. For big advertisers, part of the allure of an Omnicom, Interpublic or WPP was its size and diversity. Surely, with so many disciplines under the holding company umbrella, many marketers assumed IMC would be much more attainable with a one of these conglomerates. However, this was an illusion, and today most marketers know it.

The holding companies were good at raising shareholder value, and many of the subsidiaries under their auspices were (and still are) excellent at their craft. However, integration with their sister corporations was often stymied by turf wars, strategy differences, cultural dissimilarities, divergent visions/missions and less than stellar inter-company communication. It is impossible to achieve external integrated marketing communication if you can’t achieve internal marketing communication.

However, a bigger shift starting after the year 2000, hurried the obsolescence of IMC: control in the marketing equation was clearly shifting to the consumer. The Internet facilitated much of this transformation. Up until the Web, marketers could exert a great deal of control in the communication of messages regarding their companies and brands. Big advertisers, big agencies and mainstream media owned the communication process. However, the Web put a huge amount of information and power to communicate into the hands of the consumer. Web sites, blogs, citizen journalism, podcasts, social networks, search, online video, tagging, text messaging, email, instant messaging and other communication technologies have given consumers a tremendous ability to be the creators of messages, not merely the recipients. Because of these new tools, individual-to-individual communication on a brand can now dwarf corporate communication.

Integrated marketing communications has become disintegrated marketing communication. That’s OK and some astute companies know it. In fact, they welcome it. At last week’s annual conference of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) a number of speakers representing some of the biggest brands in the country said the consumers are “in the drivers seat” (New York Times story):

• A.G. Lafley, Procter & Gamble’s chief executive said, “The power is with the Consumer.”
• Stephen Quinn, SVP of marketing for Wal-Mart echoed the same theme, “Today, the customer is in charge, and whoever is best at putting the customer in charge makes all the money.”
• James McDowell from BMW’s Mini USA commented, “It’s a great thing every day to wake up and see what consumers have done to the brand.”
• Russ Klein, president of global marketing for Burger King is also quoted in the Times story, “As consumers ‘wrest control away from brand-management control freaks,’ he advised his peers, ‘get over it.’”

Klein’s comments certainly seem to dispel the notion that present-day marketers can control the integration of all communications regarding their brands. In today’s disintegrated communication environment, brand authenticity will be the foundation for brand equity. A company’s marcom department may be able to integrate messages they control. They can exert a guiding hand for advertising, promotion and PR, but internal marketing omnipotence is long past. Companies who know how to work with this more empowered and vocal consumer will prosper at the expense of those who do not. Companies that understand the new communication tools of this empowerment will have a greater chance of success. Companies that shift from a 180 degree view of the customer to a 360 degree view will be ready for today’s realities. However, those firms that limit their efforts to old push marketing techniques in the contemporary marketing environment will be crippled by an old archetype in a new world.