Understanding the Diffusion of Integrated Marketing Communications

Integrated marketing communications, a new concept in the advertising field, has been under research in terms of diffusion and development in English speaking countries. The article in review is going to enhance the research in countries where English is not the dominant language as well as try to address the argument of whether integrated marketing communications is simply a replication of what marketing and communications organisations had always done or a new promising concept.

According to the literature review conducted by the authors, almost all the studies concerned with the diffusion and development of integrated marketing communications were conducted in English speaking countries. This means that the findings of these studies can not be representative of the balance world since there are remaining a lot of non English speaking countries. The fact that a great number of non English speaking counties have not yet been under research on the diffusion and development of IMC acted as a motivation for the realisation of the study. The authors where actually motivated to extend IMC research in countries where different languages were spoken and assess the relevance and meaning of IMC in these countries.

In order to determine how IMC is perceived in non English speaking countries, the study was conducted in South Korea, one of the major global markets where English is not the dominance language. The study was based in two hypothetical assumptions. First, assuming that both clients and advertising agents in South Korea perceive positively IMC, authors developed the hypothesis that also other non English speaking countries, with similar market conditions, perceive IMC positively. Second, authors hypothesised that unique institutional relationships between advertising agencies and their client companies in South Korea would likely influence the respondents’ perceptions of IMC. The first step of the study was to select disproportionate stratified samples from the top 200 companies by sales turnover, 375 advertising practitioners to make up a list of 500 clients and 200 agency practitioners from the top 50 advertising agencies. Then, slightly different questioners (for clients and agencies) were developed, tested and adjusted through a pre-test procedure. The research contained about 50 questions which were organised in three major topics: perception, expectations and barriers to IMC. Students, majoring in communications and extensively trained, applied the questionnaires