Integrated marketing communications (IMC) represents a relatively new and paradigm-shifting approach organizations use to market, sell and distribute their products and services. This discussion will present several hypotheses as to why IMC adoption has been slow to take hold and some of the practical problems inherent in its approach.

IMC represents a holistic communications process that lacks a concrete and discrete definition, both in its process, its tactics and its outcomes. While best practices of the field are gradually being recognized and certain tactics more favored than others, the concept of what IMC really means to a specific organization and how this definition maps to specific corporate tactics and actions become as varied as organizations themselves. When viewed abstractly, I believe there are a series of practical problems many organizations struggle with. These include the fact that IMC is hard to quantify, that it requires significant changes in the overall decision-making process, assumes people are compensated in a manner reflective of IMC goals, requires a more pervasive use of technology and changes the metrics by which success is measured.

Probably the first and foremost reason organizations have not implemented IMC is because the process in difficult to measure and quantify. As a result, management cannot obtain clear and convincing data that the process effects behavior and makes an impact. It is evident that many quantitative and qualitative factors that go into 'making a sale', retaining or acquiring a customer, enhancing a relationship or building a corporation's brand awareness. However, measurement of these factors in discrete and scientific ways is complicated and very costly. Organizational decision-makers find it difficult to assign monetary value to marketing communications expenditures and as such, fail to see the value in the process. They often look at marketing investments as they effect sales and/or revenue growth, and fail to consider the effects on their internal operations, goodwill or relationships throughout their value chains. Effective IMC impacts both external and internal behaviors and processes that is difficult to measure.

Most every organization also has it own style of decision making. More often than not, decisions are made in an effort to improve the situation of the company or to increase shareholder value. The perspective of the decision lies internally: it seeks to improve the organization. It represents a top-down approach. IMC, on the other hand, requires that the organization look to its customers needs first and to make decisions relative to this segment's needs. As a result, the process of determining direction and strategy begins on the outside, instead of internally. In all practical purposes, this is both confusing and threatening. The forces management to immediately question if they have accurate 'consumer' data and truly understand the wants and needs of their consumers. If there is hesitation regarding this - which is most likely common - why should they risk their better judgement?

Another key area relative to organizations is compensation. People are essentially paid for the functions they carry out. The IMC process promotes the concept of changing the ways people are compensated based upon addressing customer wants and needs, among other factors. Since this is so hard to identify and quantify, there is little incentive for employees to become active ‘integrators’. The bottom line with regards to compensation is that organizations need to place higher values on the critical aspects of customer behavior, relationships and media effectiveness ahead of concerns like sales volume, cost containment or reach/frequency. They will need to revamp their compensation to reflect this. In most cases, these value themselves are nearly impossible to measure and as such, not practical.

IMC also assumes a high degree of technological integration, as well as extensive information on customers. A large organization may possess customer and process data in hundreds, if not millions of places. The hope of one integrated data warehouse is a convenience only few can afford. And as far as customers are concerned, organizations also rarely will possess customer information beyond transactional history. While they can gather secondary data through many means, there's little evidence that this reflects the natures of their own customers. Obtaining the necessary customer information themselves is both costly and time consuming. All of these limit an organization and force them to seek other methods in making strategic decisions.

Finally, IMC may not be considered practical for many firms because it supports that management pursue changes in how it evaluates its own success. IMC places the most value on satisfying customer needs, wants and desires and considers changes in consumer behavior of paramount. It intermixes this philosophy into every process the organization carries out. While it can be argued that positive behavior changes also improve the organization, these may conflict with each other. Most organizations operate to increase shareholder value, not consumer satisfaction with the brand. IMC suggests that success metrics be based on factors that reflect the satisfaction of customers, not those of the organization. It suggests that organizational efforts and the status quo be changed in greater service to the consumer. Altruistic yes; but how practical?

Part of what makes the IMC process so unique is its reliance on a range to factors that must be 'linked up' and 'integrated' in order to be successful. Like anything complex, achieving this takes a lot of time and energy, and requires constant oversight and upkeep. The IMC process rarely shows instantaneous results; its effects are subtler and more gradual. It can take a significant time and money investment to achieve identifiable results. Organizations are looking for finite and measurable measures of their effectiveness. They pursue activities consistent with this goal and seek out ways and processes they achieve these. Although IMC has been clearly shown to work, there are still a number of practical considerations to be overcome. When this occurs, organizations of all types will be more open to experimenting with it.