It isn't just a hug;
it's a promise

Integrated marketing communications (IMC) is now openly embraced by marketers.

74 percent of them currently employ IMC campaigns for most of their brands, according to a new Association of National Advertisers member survey fielded by CoActive Marketing Group, reports MarketingCharts.

But significant challenges to achieving optimal IMC performance remain. Only one-quarter of marketers give their firm's IMC efforts a "very good" or "excellent" rating.

Key barriers cited to effective IMC are the existence of function silos (59 percent) and the lack of strategic consistency across communications disciplines (42 percent), both of which were cited in earlier versions of the study (2003 and 2006).

Beyond functional silos and strategic inconsistency, the survey also revealed the following barriers to IMC success:

• Insufficient marketing budget (36 percent)
• Lack of a standard measurement process (36 percent)
• Lack of needed skill sets among marketing staff (33 percent)
• Need to develop the "big creative idea" that can be leveraged across different media disciplines (32 percent)

(MarketingCharts has more findings from the study).

"Integrated marketing is more essential than ever, as power has shifted from the marketer to the consumer," said Bob Liodice, President and CEO of the ANA. "However, marketers are still struggling with entrenched, parochial structures that inhibit these efforts from achieving their enormous promise."

The ANA Integrated Marketing Conference on May 29, 2008 in New York City will address issues related to IMC.