The power of synergy to reinvent IMC education

ABSTRACT

In Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC), the power of synergy has been demonstrated across disciplines, media types, multi-platforms and multi-tasking and across the customer journey. However, this paper uses synergy to demonstrate how collaborative thinking can produce even greater value for IMC. Bringing together the insights of IMC leaders from the US, Europe, Asia and Australia, plus the collaboration of IMC academics in a thought-provoking ideation session, we harness the power of synergy to reimagine and reinvestigate IMC education. With all the changes in technology, business and consumers, it was felt that IMC needs to find a new direction and greater clarity of purpose. And perhaps this purpose is greater than communication alone. Maybe it is a management discipline. Or a fundamental part of university education as a core unit. Our vision for IMC was driven by its technology focus and customer-centricity. IMC is integrated, people-focused, and purposeful communication, based on management practice, and evidenced in academic research. Or as one participant described it, ‘IMC rises from the ashes of other disciplines’.

KEYWORDS:

• IMC
• IMC education
• reinventing education
• academic insight
• IMC vision

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gayle Kerr

Gayle Kerr passion for advertising began as a copywriter working in the industry for more than a decade. She shifted from writing advertising to researching and teaching it as a Professor in the School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations at QUT. Gayle’s PhD was first in Australia in the field of IMC and her work in teaching, research and industry engagement was recognized with the inaugural Don Schultz Award for Innovation in IMC Teaching, Research and Practice 2022. Gayle has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and conference papers on creativity, digital media, advertising and IMC. She was the founding President of the Australia and New Zealand Academy of Advertising and served on the Executive of the American Academy of Advertising. She also served as Deputy Editor of the Journal of Marketing Communications for more than a decade.

Frank Mulhern

Frank Mulhern is the Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professor of Integrated Marketing Communications at the Medill School at Northwestern University. He is Director of the Retail Analytic Council, a research center on retail technology, data and analytics. He specializes in research on retail marketing, the role of technology and analytics in retailing and e-commerce, and the integration of digital media and marketing. His research has appeared in numerous scholarly journals including the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Communications, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Advertising, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Interactive Marketing and Journal of Business Research. Professor Mulhern served as Academic Advisor for the Jio Institute in Navi Mumbai, India. Professor Mulhern conducts executive education and speaks at corporations and universities in the U.S., Europe and Asia. He is the co-author of the textbook, Marketing Communications: Integrated Theory, Strategy and Tactics.

Vijay Viswanathan

Vijay Viswanathan is the Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professor of Integrated Marketing Communications at the Medill School, Northwestern University. His research focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of marketing strategies, media spend, loyalty programs and other customer engagement strategies using qualitative and quantitative techniques. His work has been published in several leading marketing, advertising and communications journals. Vijay has worked closely with companies in various sectors such as automotive, retail, e-commerce, financial services, technology, media, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and given numerous talks to industry on customer centricity, embedding AI in marketing and enabling a data driven culture.

Philip Kitchen

Philip Kitchen PhD is Professor of Marketing at the triple-accredited ICN-Artem School of Business, Nancy, France. Emeritus Professor - University of Salford, UK, and Brock University, Canada. Editor - Journal of Marketing Communications and Founder of the International Conference on Corporate and Marketing Communications (held annually since 1996). Has served as guest editor for the European Journal of Marketing formerly. He has Published over 250 papers in journals including Journal of Business Research, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Advertising Research, International Journal of Advertising, International Journal of Human Resource Management among others, together with 22 published books on marketing communications, corporate communications, marketing management and marketing theory. Ranked 6th in terms of Business and Management Research in France in research.com August, 2023. Listed as one of the ‘The Top 50 Gurus who …influenced the Future of Marketing’, Marketing Business, December 2003, 12-16; and as 6th in terms of ‘Top Scholarly Output’ in UK and all of Europe (2017-2020), Scival Elsevier, 2020. Fellow of CIM, RSA, HEA, IOD; and Member of the ALCS and Institute of Marketing Science (USA).

Vesna Zabkar

Vesna Zabkar is a Professor of Marketing and former Vice Dean for Research at the SEBLU. She was a visiting scholar at Northwestern University (Fulbright Grant) and is a visiting professor at the University of Vienna (Chair of International Marketing). Prof. Zabkar is an active researcher with numerous international publications and citations. Her research interests include the role of marketing within companies, sustainability, brand reputation, and cross-cultural consumer research. She has published in journals such as Journal of International Marketing, Journal of Business Ethics, European Journal of Management, International Journal of Advertising, Journal of Service Management, International Marketing Review, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Industrial Marketing Management and others. Prof. Zabkar is a member of the Boards of EAA (European Advertising Academy) and NIBES (Network of International Business and Economic Schools) as well as a member of the executive committee of the European Marketing Academy (EMAC). She is also a head of the national research programme on challenges of inclusive sustainable development in economic and business sciences (P5-0128).

Ian Lings

Ian Lings is Professor of Marketing and Head of the School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations at the QUT Business School, Brisbane. His research on “firm – employee – customer” interfaces has been published in a range of journals. Ian co-authored the research focussed, Sage title: “Doing Business Research: A Guide to Theory and Practice”. Ian authored the seminal article on Internal Market Orientation (IMO), synthesising knowledge from the fields of operations management, human resources management, psychology and marketing to develop a model describing the physical and socio-emotional processes of service delivery. He developed, validated, and subsequently published the first measure of IMO. This measure has been adopted internationally and applied by a number of teams to new organisational contexts. Ian has led or contributed to a range of industry and government funded research projects including projects for the Australian Centre for Research Collaboration in Rail, involving researcher from several universities and representatives from organisations in the Australian rail industry and a large Australian Research Council Linkage project.

Jerry Kliatchko

Jerry Kliatchko Ph.D., is a Doctor of Public Communication from the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain. He was Vice President for Academic Affairs and Corporate Communications of the University of Asia & the Pacific from 2004 to 2010. He is currently the Dean of the UA&P School of Media and Marketing. Dr. Kliatchko began the graduate program in Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) of UA&P in 1997. In 2005, he initiated the Asia Pacific Tambuli Awards, the pioneer global award on effectiveness of brand purpose campaigns and corporate purpose programs. He teaches courses on IMC Principles and IMC Cases. His research and publications examine the theory and practice of IMC.