Through the looking glass: Understanding Thai academics' viewpoints on integrated marketing communications

Abstract

     After its debut in the 1980s, the concept of integrated marketing communications (IMC) has been widely adopted by local and international businesses. Previous studies on IMC, however, have primarily focused on marketers and advertising agencies. Thus, this research aimed to investigate academics' perspectives on four key areas of IMC: (a) the definition of IMC, (b) the key principles of IMC, (c) the benefits and barriers to IMC implementation, and (d) the future of IMC. Six qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with academics who had had at least eight years of direct experience in teaching IMC or marketing communications-related courses from top-ranked public and private universities in Thailand. The findings revealed that they had a good understanding of IMC. Surprisingly, this was limited to the strategic perspective, not the corporate perspective. In terms of IMC definition, they agreed that no matter what it was called, the most important thing was to understand the concept and core principles. They also believed that IMC would remain in this digital era; in fact, IMC would likely be driven by technological advancement. In addition, an inflexible organizational structure, turf battles, and lack of support from top management were frequently referred to as barriers to IMC implementation.