"Kitchen (2017) argued that 'while IMC is a widely accepted model and paradigm, its use

or implementation depends on what the company wishes to do within its own budgetary
constraints or what senior managers proscribe, particularly in terms of investment in data
analytics, customer interfaces and communication modalities'."

Integrated Marketing Communication or generally known as IMC is modern way of reaching the
product information to the range of consumers through various social media avenues out there.
There are number of sub- areas within this wide umbrella of IMC. We will now discuss on our topic as
given by Professor Philip Kitchen. He argued that there is no doubt IMC have gained huge popularity
and has become a renowned form of communication of product information, it still have certain
limitations relating to how a specific company behaves according to their budget limit as well as how
they decide to invest on IMC specifically in data analytics, customer interfaces and communication
modalities.

First, there is definitely truth in Philip Kitchen’s argument that budget do play a significant role and
IMC planning and implementation can vary from company to company on how much budget has been
allocated to a certain product and so on. This can be seen in article Marketing Intelligence and
Planning where they emphasize on how using social media channels for big companies is a
compulsion rather than a mere choice but in contrast they also explained such social media channels
cannot be used by small organizations to reach their products simply because of the fact that they do
have enough marketing budget to do so. They lose their chance to use social media channels like
Facebook or Twitter hence it displays clearly what Kitchen initially intends to prove. While IMC can
prove to be uttermost importance to an organization, its implementation can be restricted whenever
an organization fails to acquire adequate funds to allocate into this field. Moreover, for some small
scale firms social media does not seem to be most viable option as stated in the article. They believe
there are few less cost options of IMC other than social media which can prove to be more effective
to boost their product popularity which further affirms the fact that there is not one way in which IMC
will be perceived rather than it is highly influenced by each organisation’s budget allocation.

Kitchen also argued that IMC depends upon how the senior managers decide to invest particularly in
various subfields of IMC. The customer interface is of special focus here as IMC will be beneficial only
and only if a successful connection between customer and company product is established. European
journal of Marketing mentions about this. They demonstrate various models according to which
different companies invest differently to develop a customer interface. There are either company
driven process or customer driven process to achieve this and depending on how high level
coordinates command a process can be chosen to invest the company's resources. The senior
managers can find traditional investment approach better or Word of Mouth approach as more
attracting on the basis of their own personal judgement or other factors such as past data analytics
and records or ditch all approaches all together. Hence, not every organisation is going to behave in a
certain predicted way under IMC. The key motives of an organisation can be different and so
depending on those key motives the customer interface will be achieved in a certain manner. Few
products are totally customer dominant while other products have other dominant aspects and here I
completely agree on variant IMC customer interfaces.

The company managers will always try to find areas where the investment will yield more
benefits per capita and comparatively smaller investment could reach information to more customers.
According to an article by Varshney Rashi, billions are being invested in Indian market for the same
purpose. There is a large opportunity to convey product information to large population through
various means. The market is huge and data analytics show that many foreign companies are
particularly investing there to develop customer interface. This depicts that every company work
according to their priorities of investment and this investment under IMC can be divided on the basis
of data analytics as well as other areas such as data analytics, customer interface or communication
models. Some companies prefer one part over other and so on.

Therefore, it can be concluded that despite wide acceptance of IMC there are many ways in which the
use and implementation of IMC can be altered according to the requirements of the organizations. It
is not that IMC is always not accepted the way it is or in an exact manner without having to depend
on company's budget or managerial decisions but at specific times ass Kitchen himself said the
dependency cannot be ignored as it is there. IMC have a main motive to communicate the product
information to customers and this can be achieved in a number of manners, some managers still
prefer a traditional modal while others think it to be obsolete and prefers to rely on a more modern
modal which fits into the company goals. A rigid process cannot be followed to make a interface
between a company and its customers rather a flexible modal which is able to be modified
accordingly is of more benefits in various business environments. IMC have benefited countless
organizations to make profits ever since it has been launched but the way it has benefited has been
changing throughout the years and this is exactly the point which is emphasized in this piece of
opinion. In my personal view, this is in fact a good thing that application of IMC has to adjust
according to budget constraints and senior managers orders.

Reference List

Åke Finne, Christian Grönroos, (2017) "Communication-in-use: customer-integrated marketing

communication", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 51 Issue: 3, pp.445-463,
https://doi.org/10.1108/ EJM-08-2015-0553

Permanent link to this document:

https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-08-2015-0553

.....Michael John Valos, Fatemeh Haji Habibi, Riza Casidy, Carl Barrie Driesener, Vanya Louise
Maplestone, (2016) "Exploring the integration of social media within integrated marketing
communication frameworks: Perspectives of services marketers", Marketing Intelligence & Planning,
Vol. 34 Issue: 1, pp.19-40, https://doi.org/10.1108/MIP-09-2014-0169

Permanent link to this document:

https://doi.org/10.1108/MIP-09-2014-0169

Varsha R. (2016) “Why enterprises will en-route India for big data analytics” , document id -
1804267742

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