Journal of Advertising, 45(3), 286–301
Copyright Ó 2016, American Academy of Advertising
ISSN: 0091-3367 print / 1557-7805 online
DOI: 10.1080/00913367.2016.1204967
Unlocking the Power of Integrated Marketing
Communications: How Integrated Is Your IMC Program?
Kevin Lane Keller
Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA
The future of advertising and marketing communications will be
marked by an increasingly diverse collection of new digital options
added to the traditional media and communication options already
available to marketers. By taking advantage of the unique
strengths of different communication options, and combining them
and sequencing them strategically, marketers have the opportunity
to drive sales and build brands in ways never before possible.
Doing so, however, will require new concepts, new tools, and new
thinking. Toward that goal, this article describes seven integrated
marketing communications (IMC) choice criteria that marketers
can use to judge how effectively and efficiently they have assembled
their IMC programs. The article also outlines five priority areas
for future research to help further guide the successful design and
implementation of IMC programs.
Marketing communications are one of the most difficult but
crucially important components of modern marketing. In
recent years this challenge has been made even more compli-
cated by the explosion of new digital media options. These
options offer new capabilities and hold much promise for mar-
keters but also bring great complexity to managerial decision
making. To highlight just a few of these new capabilities, mar-
keters can choose to do some or all of the following with their
brands: To draw attention to their brands, marketers now can
reach consumers through mass or targeted ads on Facebook or
other social networks; banner or display ads on third-party
websites; and paid or organic search ads. To shape brand pref-
erence, they can send timely e-mails and use their own web-
sites to provide detailed content. To drive short-term sales,
they can offer promotions and other incentives through tweets,
texts, and targeted e-coupons. And to reinforce long-term
Address correspondence to Kevin Lane Keller, Tuck School of
Business, 100 Tuck Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755.
E-mail: kevin.keller@dartmouth.edu
Kevin Lane Keller (PhD, Duke University) is the E.B. Osborn Pro-
fessor of Marketing, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be
found online at http://www.tandfonline.com/ujoa.
286
brand loyalty, they can form online brand communities
through their own or third-party social media.
With so many different new and traditional communication
options available—and so many different ways to combine those
options—marketers struggle with how to make good marketing
communication decisions. The upside from sound decision mak-
ing, however, is enormous. Success stories abound of brands that
have benefited from creatively designed, soundly executed com-
munication campaigns of all kinds: Got Milk? famously turned
around declining sales of milk with clever TV ads reinforced with
strategically timed and placed radio, out-of-home (OOH), and
point-of-purchase (P-O-P) reminders. More recently, Tough
Mudder benefited from a strictly digital focus via targeted ads on
Facebook.
At the same time, there are scores of examples of misguided
and/or poorly implemented communication programs that fail
badly in the marketplace. A crucial ingredient for many of the
communication success stories is a well-developed integrated
marketing communications (IMC) program. Some of the world’s
most successful brands have benefited from carefully blending
communication options of all types. For example, Nike supports
its brands with award-winning advertising, selected event and ath-
lete sponsorship, extensive public relations (PR), and a highly
interactive digital communication program, among other commu-
nication activities. Unquestionably, one of the most important
topics concerning the future of advertising is how marketers
should design, execute, and evaluate IMC programs.
In recognition of the importance of IMC, the advertising
industry has taken a number of steps over the past three deca-
des to improve its ability to provide the right IMC solutions
for its clients. In the early days, Ogilvy talked about “Ogilvy
Orchestration,” and Young and Rubicam talked about the
“Whole Egg.” Through the years, agencies have acquired spe-
cialized boutique firms to enhance their capabilities in PR,
direct marketing, promotions, and other areas of communica-
tions. Recently, the focus of agency acquisitions has been on
different types of digital communication firms to help their cli-
ents with web design, social media, online tracking, and so
forth. At the same time, internally, agencies have also been
 UNLOCKING THE POWER OF INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS
evolving their organizational design and processes, introduc-
ing planners, redefining the role of agency personnel,
and taking many other steps to be more client-, consumer-,
and brand-centric. Despite all the progress these agency steps
have made toward the goal of more effective and efficient
IMC programs, marketers still face a fundamental problem, as
demonstrated by the following hypothetical scenario.
Assume that the marketers of a well-known brand have
carefully conducted a series of research activities to gain a
deeper understanding of their target consumer, the market-
place, competition, and so on. Assume too that they have
crafted a thoughtful, imaginative marketing strategy,
uncovering a potentially powerful new brand positioning in
the process. The marketers of the brand use this new strat-
egy to write a tight communications brief that goes to their
full-service communications agency with the mandate to
develop a thoroughly integrated marketing communications
program to help the brand achieve the desired new posi-
tioning. Their longtime agency works diligently and, after
a certain period of time, unveils its proposed IMC program
with a dazzling display of video, color, and graphics in a
tour de force presentation.
Now what? For all the agency’s well-intentioned bravado, how
do the marketers of the brand judge the communication program
as to whether it actually is well integrated and offers the most
effective and efficient solution to their communications
challenge? Although there will always be uncertainty as to the
fate of any marketing activity—and certainly with marketing com-
munications—how do marketers make the right decisions to at
least improve their odds and increase their likelihood of market-
place success?
What marketers need is a set of well-grounded, comprehen-
sive criteria by which any proposed IMC program can be sys-
tematically and thoroughly judged. Marketers need to know
which questions to ask to make sure their agency or agencies
have done their due diligence to truly optimize the design of
their IMC program. Unfortunately, such guidance has been
sadly lacking (Assael 2011; Keller 2009). In fact, too often the
idea of IMC was historically equated with communications
reinforcement, in other words, saying the same thing in differ-
ent ways. Although such triangulation can be valuable, as
many now recognize there is much more to a well-designed
IMC program than just communicating the same message in
different ways.
To provide some clarity and assistance for marketers to help
them judge how integrated their marketing communications pro-
grams are, this article outlines a comprehensive, cohesive set of
seven IMC choice criteria that can be called the “Seven Cs,” given
that all seven criteria begin with the letter C. After providing moti-
vation and context to the communication challenge and some
background on the main theme of the approach, each criterion is
described and illustrated in some detail. After offering a short
summary, the article concludes by highlighting five key priorities
for future IMC research.
287
UNDERSTANDING THE COMMUNICATIONS
CHALLENGE
As noted, the marketing communications environment has
unquestionably changed dramatically. Yet, as will be argued,
many of the conceptual foundations of marketing communica-
tions are still relevant but need to be applied in new or
expanded ways. After describing some of these changes in
today’s communications environment, two broadly robust con-
ceptual models are reviewed that are useful in understanding
how consumers process communications and how they make
decisions.
The New Communications Environment
The past decade has seen technological developments that have
transformed markets and marketing, as both consumers and firms
have new capabilities that were unimaginable even a few short
years ago. Empowered consumers are meeting equally empow-
ered firms as both groups now have access to seemingly limitless
information on just about anything or anyone.
As a result, consumers can choose to become as engaged as
they want with a brand, with their influence ranging from only
posting comments and reviews at one end of a continuum to
actively guiding the nature and direction of brand activities at the
other end. Similarly, firms can choose to become as involved as
they wish with consumers, from hosting their own brand website
at one end of the continuum to actively interacting with consumers
in product and brand development at the other end. Thus, consum-
ers and firms can increasingly communicate, relate, and exchange
anything, anytime, with anyone.
What consumers and firms can do in this new communications
environment, however, does not necessarily equate with what
they should or will do. Answering these more predictive and nor-
mative questions requires, in part, a thorough understanding of the
new communication environment characterized by a broader set
of communication options and objectives, as well as a deep appre-
ciation of the many differences across consumers in the relation-
ships they seek from brands and their propensity to even engage
with a brand. We outline these two areas next.
Communication options and objectives. Many different
marketing communications options exist that can play different
roles and have different objectives in the marketing of a brand
(Batra and Keller 2016). One popular distinction made by many
marketers and academic researchers (e.g., Stephen and Galak
2012) is between communications which appear in paid media
(traditional outlets such as TV, print, and direct mail), owned
media (company-controlled options such as websites, blogs,
mobile apps, and social media), and earned media (virtual or real-
world word of mouth, press coverage, etc.). Given the goal of this
article is to help marketers make better IMC decisions, our focus
here is on paid and owned media, as those are the areas over which
marketers have the most direct control and therefore are responsi-
ble for making the most decisions. In no way does this focus
diminish the importance of earned media to the success of brand
288 K. L. KELLER

building and sales. On the contrary, earned media considerations TABLE 1

can factor into much of the application of the criteria which are Eight Major Marketing Communication Platforms
developed in this article. Our discussion, however, will largely
center on issues and examples related to paid and owned media. Platform Components
To provide a more refined perspective of those communication Advertising  Print and broadcast  Directories
options directly available to marketers, Table 1 groups a number ads  Reprints of ads
of paid and owned media communication options into eight com-  Packaging, outer  Billboards
munication platforms, with illustrative examples of each.  Packaging inserts  Display signs
At the same time, it is also important to recognize there are  Cinema  Point-of-purchase
a number of different roles or objectives that any one of these  Brochures and displays
communication options may be asked to achieve, depending booklets  DVDs
on the brand situation, characteristics of the target market, and  Posters and leaflets
so on. Table 2 displays a representative taxonomy of eight key
communication objectives. These communication objectives Sales promotion  Contests, games,  Coupons
are relevant to brands at different stages of development, as sweepstakes,  Rebates
well as for consumers with different levels of understanding lotteries  Low-interest
and affinity toward a brand, and so on.  Premiums and gifts financing
Consumer heterogeneity. In describing the new communi-  Sampling  Trade-in
cation environment, one mistake frequently made by many mar-  Fairs and trade allowances
keters and pundits is failing to recognize that empowered does not shows  Continuity
necessarily imply enlightened or engaged. In other words, just  Exhibits programs
because consumers have an opportunity to engage with a brand  Demonstrations  Tie-ins
does not mean they also have the motivation and ability to do so.
Moreover, too often digital branding guidelines and principles are Events and  Sports  Causes
stated in terms of “the consumer” as if so much homogeneity experiences  Entertainment  Factory tours
existed in the marketplace that consumers could be treated as one festivals  Company
group (e.g., “Consumers are in charge now. They are no longer  Arts museums
passive but active, and they want a two-way conversation”).  Street activities
The reality is, as much past research has shown, only some of Public relations and  Press kits  Publications
the consumers want to get involved with only some of their brands publicity  Speeches  Community
and, even then, only some of the time. Clearly, a much more  Seminars relations
nuanced view of consumers is necessary to more completely  Annual reports  Lobbying
understand branding in a digital world. Central to that view is a  Charitable  Identity media
realization that customers can be highly heterogeneous in how donations  Company
they think, feel, and act toward brands. For those consumers will- magazine
ing and able to engage with a brand, marketers can leverage digital
communications to forge stronger brand ties. For example, mar- Online and social  Websites  Company blogs
keters can uncover individual consumers’ likes and dislikes and media marketing  E-mail  Third-party
their unmet needs and wants to provide them with a more custom-  Search ads chatrooms,
ized and tailored brand experience. As appealing as such efforts in  Display ads forums, and blogs
personalization might sound, however, they may also make it  Facebook and
harder to create a strong brand community with shared brand Twitter messages,
beliefs and attitudes across consumers. Regardless, the fact also YouTube
remains that many consumers will not necessarily want to engage channels and
with the brand. videos
In other words, there are fundamental differences in how con-
sumers relate to brands and thus how firms can choose to commu- Mobile marketing  Text messages  Social media
nicate and develop relationships with consumers. A helpful  Online marketing marketing
schematic to understand consumer heterogeneity in this regard is  Apps
the brand engagement pyramid (see Figure 1). The brand engage-
ment pyramid is a way to portray the level of engagement that cus-
tomers have with a brand. At the top of the pyramid are those (Continued on next page)
customers who want to be highly engaged with the brand: They
talk about it, tweet about it, visit its website, reads its e-mails, and
 UNLOCKING THE POWER OF INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS
TABLE 1
Eight Major Marketing Communication Platforms (Continued)
Platform Components
Direct and database  Catalogs  Electronic
marketing  Mailings shopping
 Telemarketing  TV shopping
 Fax
Personal selling  Sales presentations  Samples
 Sales meetings  Fairs and trade
 Incentive programs shows
so on. At the larger bottom or base of the pyramid, however, are
those customers who want to do nothing more with the brand than
purchase and consume it; that’s all—in other words, just “choose
it and use it.” Unfortunately, too many marketers and marketing
pundits overemphasize marketing to customers at the top of the
pyramid at the expense of the often large group of customers at
the base. The key for marketers is to ensure that they understand,
literally, the shape and dynamics of their brand engagement pyra-
mid. How many are at the top? How many are at the base? What
is the flow of influence across levels of the pyramid? Does any
flow trickle down? The answers to these questions will have pro-
found implications as to the role of paid, owned, and earned media
in the development of an IMC program.
Conceptual Foundations
With this new communications environment and those two
broad sets of communication options and communication
objectives in mind, to be able to assemble the optimal IMC
programs, marketers and their agencies must first have a clear
understanding of how all of these different types of marketing
communications work, as well as how consumers and their
customers make buying decisions in the marketplace. After
reviewing some prior communications research, we next high-
light some basic conceptual foundations with each.
Some prior IMC research. Although prior research has not
provided explicit guidance on how to answer the specific question
TABLE 2
Some Key Communication Objectives
Objectives
1 Create awareness and salience
2 Convey detailed information
3 Create imagery and personality
4 Build trust
5 Elicit emotions
6 Inspire action
7 Instill loyalty
8 Connect people
289
FIG. 1. Brand engagement pyramid.
of how integrated a marketing communications program is, it has
provided many valuable perspectives and insights (for a compre-
hensive review, see Schultz, Patti, and Kitchen 2011). A few nota-
ble recent contributions are highlighted here.
Kliatchko (2008) offers a comprehensive historical review
of the IMC concept and critique of the IMC definition and four
pillars. Kitchen et al. (2004) provide valuable conceptual con-
text as to the progress that has been made organizationally
with IMC. Taylor (2005) offers another historical review and
agenda from the perspective of international advertising
research. Reid (2005) provides return on investment (ROI)
evidence as to the IMC process and brand outcomes. Lee and
Park (2007) consider important measurement issues and pro-
pose a scale. Similarly, Ratnatunga and Ewing (2005) consider
the asset value of IMC and the brand capability value it cre-
ates. Zahay et al. (2004) assess how to integrate transactional
and relational data. This research, and those of many others,
has passionately illuminated much about IMC, even if not
addressing the fundamental question of how to judge how well
a communications program is integrated.
Understanding how consumers process communications.
A number of concepts and theories have been proposed to
explain how different communication options work with con-
sumers. These frameworks address all kinds of distinctions in
processing, such as conscious versus unconscious processing,
rational versus emotional processing, and so on. These various
approaches have different pros and cons in terms of their abil-
ity to understand communication effects and guide communi-
cation planning. For our purposes, a processing model is
needed that has both the breadth to usefully explain all eight
communication platforms and the depth to provide insight into
different factors affecting communication success or failure
for communication options within each platform.
One useful type of model in that regard is an information
processing model of communication effectiveness. Informa-
tion processing models of marketing communications focus on
the mental resources and mind-sets a consumer brings to the
reception and processing of a communication for a brand, as
well as the outcomes those communications can produce in
terms of consumer knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors toward
a brand. They can be applied to a wide variety of
290 K. L. KELLER
communication options and can capture many different styles
of consumer processing. There are many excellent, detailed
summaries of such models (Batra and Ray 1986; MacInnis and
Jaworski 1989; MacInnis, Moorman, and Jaworski 1991;
Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann 1983), so only the essential
ingredients of an information processing model are highlighted
here.
Information processing models of communication effec-
tiveness begin by considering antecedent factors related to
characteristics of the consumer and the content of the commu-
nication itself, as well as the surrounding context of message
reception and how those factors, in turn, influence consumers’
motivation, ability, and opportunity to process a communica-
tion. In other words, three key questions are asked: (1) How
much do consumers want to process a communication? (2) Do
they also have the right kinds of knowledge to be able to pro-
cess it? (3) Will they even have a chance to do so, or are there
factors preventing or inhibiting what they can do?
The actual processing of a communication is characterized
in terms of intensity and direction of processing, in other
words, what aspects of the communication draw attention and
how many thoughts, feelings, judgments, and other effects are
evoked by those aspects. The nature of the processing of the
communication, in turn, determines the changes in brand
knowledge and mental structures that result. These processing
outcomes are critical, as they influence subsequent actions by
consumers and how they process later communications, evalu-
ate brands, make product or service choices, and so on.
To better understand the marketplace implications of the
consumer information processing of marketing communica-
tions, it is helpful also to have a model of the process by which
consumers make their buying decisions, which we turn to next.
Understanding how consumers make buying decisions.
Traditional depictions of the consumer buying-decision pro-
cess—for example, as with the classic Engel, Blackwell, and
Kollat model—viewed consumer buying as a sequential series
of five stages, such as (1) need awareness and problem recogni-
tion, (2) information search, (3) evaluation of alternatives, (4)
purchase, and (5) postpurchase evaluation. Although the basic
structure of these classic “hierarchy of effects models” still has
some merit, they are not always as applicable in today’s world
where consumers make snap buying decisions and collect virtu-
ally any type of information anytime and anywhere.
The consumer-decision journey today needs to allow for
more detailed steps and the more complex, nonlinear paths to
purchase that consumers might follow. The steps in such an
extended model are displayed in Table 3.
Each of these steps is probabilistic, and a successful con-
sumer-decision journey for a brand can be derailed by failure
at any stage, for example, lack of awareness or appreciation of
the brand or an unpleasant product experience at trial. Across
brands and for any one brand, consumers may backtrack, skip
steps, or implicitly or explicitly choose to reject the brand.
The dynamics involved in such consumer-decision journeys
TABLE 3
Potential Stages in an Expanded Consumer-Decision Journey
Stage Description of Stage
1 Recognizes a need or want for a product or service
2 Knows about the brand
3 Actively considers the brand
4 Searches and learns more about the brand
5 Evaluates the brand and forms favorable attitudes
6 Arrives at a positive value judgment and willingness to
pay for the brand
7 Develops concrete plans to try the brand
8 Consumes the brand
9 Is satisfied with the brand experience
10 Becomes loyal repeat buyer of the brand
11 Is engaged and interacts with the brand
12 Advocates for the brand actively
thus involve multiple stages and the potential to move forward
or backward across stages or drop out of the decision process
for a brand altogether.
Mixing and Matching Communication Options
Knowing how consumers process communications and how
consumers make decisions provides essential input into com-
munication planning. In a basic sense, developing the optimal
IMC program requires choosing the best set of communication
options and strategically managing the relationships between
the chosen options (Batra and Keller 2016; Naik 2007; Duncan
and Mulhern 2004).
The overriding theme to our discussion is that in assem-
bling an IMC program to build brand equity, marketers should
“mix and match” communication options—that is, choose a
variety of different communication options which may share
some common meaning and content but which may also offer
different, complementary advantages or be designed with
other communication options in mind (Naik, Raman, and
Winer 2005). By properly mixing and matching communica-
tion options, collectively the “whole may be greater than the
sum of the parts,” as follows.
Mix. In developing the optimal IMC program, marketers
should essentially be “media neutral” and evaluate all commu-
nication options on the basis of effectiveness (e.g., How many
desired effects does a communication create and what commu-
nication objectives does it help the brand achieve?) and effi-
ciency (e.g., At what cost are those outcomes created and
objectives achieved?). Marketers ultimately care only about
achieving their communication objectives and moving con-
sumers along in their decision journey. Any means of commu-
nications that will effectively and efficiently facilitate those
goals should therefore be considered.
 UNLOCKING THE POWER OF INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS 291

For example, whether a consumer has strong, favorable, TABLE 4

and unique brand associations for Mountain Dew to “intense,” Some Defining Characteristics of Eight Major
“active,” or “high energy” because of a TV ad that shows Communication Platforms
young people who “Do the Dew” to fuel their interests or pas-
sions, or because Mountain Dew sponsors its own action sports Platform Defining Characteristics
Dew Tour events, the impact in terms of Moutain Dew’s brand Advertising  Pervasive
equity should be identical unless the associations created are  Amplified expressiveness
materially different in some way. On that basis, marketers  Control
should consider all possible communication options in terms
of effectiveness and efficiency to achieve communication Sales promotion  Ability to be attention getting
objectives.  Incentive
In many cases, however, different communication options are  Invitation
likely to create inherently different effects. For example, research
has shown that “direct experience” communications (e.g., event- Events and experiences  Relevant
created ones) can create potentially stronger associations than can  Engaging
mass-mediated communications (e.g., through TV ads) (Smith  Implicit
and Swinyard 1983). TV advertising, on the other hand, may be Public relations and  High credibility
better able to show certain product features or express brand-cre- publicity  Ability to find hard-to-reach
ated emotions. Similarly, social media may be stronger at eliciting
buyers
brand engagement than TV advertising, but TV ads may be
 Dramatization
designed more easily to create broader brand awareness across tar-
get market consumers. Mixing thus involves choosing multiple Online and social media  Rich
communication options on the basis of their different capabilities marketing  Interactive
and likely communication effects on sales and brand equity.  Up to date
Table 4 shows an illustrative summary of some possible distin-
guishing characteristics of the eight major communication Mobile marketing  Timely
platforms.  Influential
Match. By virtue of using multiple communication options,  Pervasive
the opportunity for “interaction effects” exist beyond the direct
Direct and database  Personal
“main effects” derived from each individual communication
marketing  Proactive
option. Any one communication option can have a number of dif-
 Complementary
ferent relationships with any other communication options which
are also being used; it can reinforce the meaning conveyed by Personal selling  Customized
other communication options, complement that meaning, or  Relationship oriented
enhance their communication effects in various ways. Matching  Results oriented
thus requires strategically choosing and designing communication
options with other communication options in mind.
Consider Mountain Dew again. Its marketers might choose to tasted good and were good for you. PR played a crucial role. Mini-
both run TV ads and sponsor active sports events to reinforce their ature bogs were brought to Manhattan and featured on an NBC
“high-energy” message. But then they might take an attention-get- Today morning segment, and a “Bogs across America Tour”
ting scene from the TV ad and place it in youth-oriented maga- brought the experience to Los Angeles and Chicago. Television
zines and online banner ads to drive people to their website to and print advertising featured two growers (depicted by actors)
learn more about the brand. They could also maintain a strong standing waist-deep in a bog and talking, often humorously, about
social media presence to engage their loyal buyers independent of what they did. The campaign also included a website, in-store dis-
their “high-energy” message and TV ads; and they might even plays, and events for consumers and for members of the growers’
engage in extensive PR activities to convert skeptics concerned cooperative itself.
about health and product ingredients. The reality of modern marketing communications is that
Many different firms are embracing this broad-based approach there is an enormous and diverse variety of touchpoints
to developing their communications program. When Ocean Spray and communication options to help marketers create mem-
decided to reintroduce the cranberry as the “surprisingly versatile orable, enjoyable, and persuasive experiences with consum-
little fruit that supplies modern-day benefits,” they used many dif- ers. One potentially insightful metaphor for IMC is
ferent facets of marketing communications to reach consumers in painting. Marketers are trying, in effect, to “paint a
a variety of settings. The “Straight from the Bog” campaign picture” of their brands in the minds and hearts of consum-
focused on two key brand benefits: that Ocean Spray products ers. In doing so, they want the richest, most vivid, and
292 K. L. KELLER
most beautiful painting to represent their brand. Accord- brushes. Similarly, marketers mix and match to skillfully
ingly, they would not use only one color or one paintbrush combine and blend a broad range of marketing communi-
but rather an entire palette of colors and a wide range of cations. We turn next to how that can be done.
TABLE 5
Definitions and a Representative Set of Questions to Evaluate the IMC Choice Criteria
Criteria Definition
Coverage Proportion of the target market reached by each
communication option, as well as how much
overlap exists among communication options.
Cost The financial efficiency associated with the
communication options and program.
Contribution The inherent ability of a communication option to
create the desired communication effects and
achieve the desired communication objectives,
independent of prior or subsequent exposure to
any other communication options for the brand.
Commonality The extent to which a communication option is
designed to create communication effects and
achieve communication objectives that are also
the focus of other communication options.
Complementarity The extent to which a communication option
addresses communication effects and objectives
not addressed by other communication options.
Cross-effects The extent to which communication options are
designed to explicitly work together such that
interaction or synergy occurs and enhanced
communication effects emerge as the result of
exposure by consumers to both options.
Conformability The extent to which communication works across
target market consumers regardless of their
communications history or other characteristics.
Representative Questions
 How many target market consumers are reached by
the communication options?
 How much overlap exists among communication
options across target market consumers?
 How much is the total financial cost of
communication options?
 What is the relevant cost per thousand and other
efficiency metrics?
 Are there any relevant nonfinancial costs?
 What are the likely effects of the communication
options and how they will impact communication
objectives?
 What is the likely impact of the communication
options on sales?
 What is the likely impact of the communication
options on brand equity?
 How much overlap in meaning exists among
communication options?
 How much overlap in creative strategy exists among
communication options?
 How much of the consumer-decision journey is
covered by the communication options?
 How many of the communication objectives are
covered by the communication options?
 How much of the desired positioning of the brand is
covered by the communication options?
 How many synergies exist among communication
options?
 How does the coordination of the meaning of
communication options appropriately leverage
brand knowledge at different stages of the
consumer-decision journey?
 How does the coordination of the creative strategies
of communication options improve the attention to
and processing of communication options?
 How well do the communication options work across
consumers with different communication histories?
 How well do the communication options work across
different types of target market consumers?
 UNLOCKING THE POWER OF INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS
DEVELOPING THE OPTIMAL IMC PROGRAM
In assessing the collective impact of an IMC program, the mar-
keter’s overriding goal is thus to create the most effective and effi-
cient communication program possible to maximize short-term
sales and long-term brand equity by mixing and matching commu-
nication options (Keller 2007; Madhavaram, Badrinarayanan, and
McDonald 2005; Reid, Luxton, and Mavondo 2005). Toward that
goal, Table 5 provides definitions of seven relevant IMC choice
criteria. Before reviewing each of the IMC choice criteria in detail,
we first provide a brief overview of how they fit in and relate to
one another.
The first two criteria, coverage and cost, are fundamental mar-
keting criteria related to the efficiency of an IMC program in terms
of reaching as many members of the target audience as possible at
the lowest possible cost. The other five criteria focus more on
communication effectiveness and the ability of the communica-
tion program to achieve the desired communication objectives to
drive sales and/or improve brand equity. The third criterion, con-
tribution, is concerned with the singular qualities of communica-
tions and how they work in isolation.
The remaining four criteria deal with different ways that com-
munication options can potentially relate to one another. Com-
monality is when a communication option is designed to create
communication effects and achieve communication objectives
that are also the focus of other communication options. Comple-
mentarity, on the other hand, is when a communication option
addresses communication effects and objectives not addressed by
other communication options. Cross-effects are when communica-
tion options are designed to explicitly work together such that
interaction or synergy occurs and enhanced communication
effects emerge as the result of exposure by consumers to both
communication options. The seventh and final criterion, conform-
ability, occurs when a communication option works well even if
consumers have not been exposed to a communication option
designed to enhance its effects or even if consumers were not even
originally intended to see, hear, or experience it.
We next define and highlight some key considerations for
each of the seven IMC choice criteria.
Coverage
Coverage captures the proportion of the target market
reached by each communication option, as well as how
much overlap exists among communication options. In
other words, to what extent do different communication
options reach the designated target market, and the same
or different consumers making up that market? If there is
little audience overlap, communication effectiveness is
largely driven by contribution and complementarity. With
little audience overlap, the communications program is
really not integrated; it is more a case of multiple market-
ing communications. Communication program effects
would be very much an additive process, and program
effectiveness would depend on whether the right
293
communications were being sent to the right audience
members and having the right effects, independent of any-
thing else.
If overlap exists with an audience, however, many more
considerations come into play. Then, the relationship of the
overlapping communication options becomes critical in terms
of commonality, complementarity, and cross-effects. The
sequencing of communications becomes critical too, and the
conformability of any communication option to the particular
spot(s) in the sequences where it is seen.
Understanding the breadth and depth of coverage is thus
critical to assessing the likely success of a proposed IMC pro-
gram. How many people are reached with communications for
the brand, how often, and in how many different ways?
Cost
Marketers must evaluate marketing communications on all of
the other six criteria against their cost to arrive at the most effec-
tive and most efficient communications program. Quantitative
analysis is essential here in terms of estimating the various
response functions and elasticities that may characterize different
communication options employed by marketers. All kinds of tech-
niques can be employed as part of this analysis, for example, from
experimental A-B comparisons with test-control panels or markets
with different levels of communication to detailed multivariate
modeling of large databases.
Importantly, the growth of big data allows market researchers
to gain access to many potentially useful new data resources never
before available. To properly estimate the response functions to
the exposure levels of the different options of an integrated mar-
keting communication program, however, market researchers
must adopt a fully dynamic, longitudinal view of when and how
cross-effects occur across different media and the temporal
sequences (downstream effects) involved (Smith, Gopalakrishna,
and Chatterjee 2006; Wiesel, Pauwels, and Arts 2011).
Although response elasticities will depend on many particulars
of the communications, consumers, and setting involved, some
useful benchmarks have emerged through the years. For example,
a review of academic research found that advertising elasticities
were estimated to be higher for new (0.3) than for established
products (0.1) (Allenby and Hanssens 2005; see also Van Heerde
et al. 2013; and Sethuraman, Tellis, and Briesch 2011).
Contribution
Contribution is the inherent ability of a communication option
to create the desired response and communication effects from
consumers and achieve the desired communication objectives in
the absence of any prior or subsequent exposure to any other com-
munication option. In other words, contribution describes the
“main effects” of a marketing communication option in terms of
how it affects consumers’ processing of a communication and the
outcomes which result.
294 K. L. KELLER
As noted, marketing communications can play many differ-
ent roles, like building awareness, enhancing image, eliciting
responses, and inducing sales, and the contribution of any mar-
keting communication option will depend on how well it plays
the particular role(s) it has been assigned. Much academic
research has focused on providing insights into the perfor-
mance of individual types of communications, as summarized
in textbooks on communication topics such as advertising and
promotions (Belch and Belch 2015; O’Guinn et al. 2015),
database marketing (Blattberg, Kim, and Neslin 2008), social
media (Moe and Schweidel 2014), and personal selling (Man-
ning, Ahearne, and Reece 2015).
Contribution needs to consider a number of different factors.
The content of the communication option and the context in which
it is seen, heard, or experienced, for example, are both critically
important. The information processing model of communication
effectiveness, described previously, can be helpful in identifying
and interpreting the relevant motivation, ability, and opportunity
factors that affect how consumers process any proposed commu-
nication option. Similarly, the taxonomy of different types of com-
munication objectives provides additional benchmarks to assess
communication effects that may emerge at different stages of the
consumer-decision journey. To assess the contribution of any
communication option, it is important to understand the totality of
communication effects it creates and all the progress and accom-
plishments it achieves against the different communication
objectives.
Commonality
Regardless of which individual communication options mar-
keters might consider on the basis of their likely ability to contrib-
ute, they will also want to consider how to coordinate the entire
marketing communication program such that some communica-
tion options share content and create similar effects. Commonality
is the extent to which information conveyed by different commu-
nication options shares meaning or elicits similar effects across
communication options. Although we outline a number of other
important IMC choice criteria, commonality clearly plays an espe-
cially important role in virtually any well-designed IMC program
(Moriarty, Mitchell, and Wells 2015).
There are many reasons to focus different communication
options on the most important and differentiating benefits of a
brand. In general, information that is consistent in meaning is
more easily learned and recalled than unrelated information—
though the unexpectedness of inconsistent information some-
times can lead to more elaborate processing and stronger asso-
ciations than consistent information. Nevertheless, with
inconsistent associations and a diffuse brand image, consum-
ers may overlook some associations or, because they are con-
fused about the meaning of the brand, form less strong and/or
less favorable new associations.
Therefore, in the long run, marketers often need to design dif-
ferent communication options and coordinate their message
appeals so that they work effectively together to reinforce impor-
tant, differentiating brand benefits and forge a consistent and cohe-
sive brand image. Commonality and consistency can also be
advantageous in the nonmessage creative content or executional
information of a communication (McGrath 2005). Ensuring a cre-
ative device or visual theme is reinforced across comunication
options can attract attention and help consumers process and store
information about a brand correctly in memory.
Some communication situations seem more conducive to
commonality than others. For example, the more abstract the
association to be created or reinforced by marketing communi-
cations, the more likely it would seem that it could be effec-
tively reinforced in different ways across heterogeneous
communication options (Heckler and Childers 1992; Houston,
Childers, and Heckler 1987; Srull and Wyer 1989). For exam-
ple, if marketers would like their brand to be seen as
“contemporary,” which is a fairly abstract attribute, then there
may be a number of different communication options, espe-
cially digitally, to make the brand seem modern and relevant.
On the other hand, if the desired association for the brand is a
concrete attribute, for example, “rich chocolate taste,” then it
may be difficult to convey it in communication options that do
not permit explicit product statements, such as would be the
case with sponsorship or perhaps even PR.
Complementarity
There are a number of reasons why different communica-
tion options in an IMC program might emphasize different
associations and communication effects. Most importantly,
brands are rarely singular entities. Although commonality can
reinforce a key benefit association or elicit similar effects for a
brand, to effectively communicate the full brand positioning it
is often necessary for the communications program to convey
multiple messages and create multiple effects. Moreover, dif-
ferent consumers at different stages of the consumer journey
may also require different messages and effects. As many
advertisers and other communication specialists have learned,
however, often the hard way, there is only so much that can be
said or conveyed in any one communication. In fact, less is
often more, especially when it comes to mass media.
For these and many other reasons, marketers usually need
to employ different marketing communication options in dif-
ferent ways to achieve their overall communication objectives.
Complementarity describes the extent to which different asso-
ciations and effects are emphasized across communication
options. The reality is that in many circumstances, consumers
consider multiple factors and multiple brands in making their
choices. Strong brands thus have to be richer and more com-
plex than just “one big idea.” Marketers must convey informa-
tion, elicit emotions, and create other effects to impact
decision making for different types of consumers at different
stages of their decision journey or day-to-day living. The ideal
IMC program would ensure some communication options
 UNLOCKING THE POWER OF INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS
would be chosen that are mutually compensatory and reinforc-
ing to create the desired consumer knowledge structures as
reflected by brand positioning. Complementarity is critical to
developing a rich, cohesive brand image.
Marketers can most effectively establish different brand associ-
ations by capitalizing on those marketing communication options
best suited to eliciting a particular consumer response or establish-
ing a particular type of brand association. For example, some
media, like sampling and other forms of sales promotion, are gen-
erally better at generating product trial than engendering long-
term loyalty. Social media and blogs, communities, and social net-
works may be especially adept at cultivating loyalty. Sponsorship
of a cause may improve perceptions of a brand’s trust and credibil-
ity, but TV and print advertising may be needed to communicate
its performance advantages, and so on.
Cross-Effects
Different types of communications used in tandem can be
made even more powerful when they create synergistic cross-
effects through proper coordination and sequencing. The basic
idea behind cross-effects is to strategically boost communica-
tion effects with consumers as a result of exposure to one com-
munication option that, in addition to any direct effect, also
creates enhanced communication effects for different commu-
nication options after their subsequent exposure. Importantly,
these enhanced communication effects would be greater, in
some sense, than the additive effects of the two options if they
had been optimized completely independent of each other. In
other words, the coordinated communication options create
main effects and interaction effects such that “1 C 1 D 3”—or
perhaps even more.
Cross effects are thus effects that would not have necessar-
ily resulted—or at least not as efficiently—without the explicit
design and coordinated planning of two or more communica-
tion options. Although all kinds of cross-effects have been
demonstrated in the literature, cross-effects generally take two
basic forms. Meaning-based cross-effects attempt to coordi-
nate the content of communication options so that the brand
knowledge or communication effect created or emphasized by
one communication option increases the likelihood that
another communication option achieves its communication
objectives as consumers move along their decision journey.
Execution-based cross-effects attempt to coordinate the crea-
tive strategy of communication options to ensure executional
consistency such that greater attention or processing results
with subsequent communication exposure.
In other words, meaning-based cross-effects attempt to estab-
lish certain brand associations in memory beneficial to the subse-
quent processing of a different communication option, whereas
execution-based cross-effects attempt to establish certain non-
brand-related, creative strategy associations in memory to facili-
tate the subsequent processing of a different communication
option, as follows.
295
Meaning-based cross-effects. As an example of meaning-
based cross-effects, trial-generating promotions and online
solicitations have been shown to be more effective when com-
bined with persuasive advertising (Neslin 2002). Similarly, the
awareness and attitudes created by advertising campaigns
have been shown to improve the success of more direct sales
pitches. Increasingly, digital interactions will play an impor-
tant role in creating or benefiting from cross-effects. For exam-
ple, advertising can convey the positioning of a brand and
improve the response resulting from subsequent consumer
exposure to online display advertising or search-engine mar-
keting that sends a stronger call to action (Chang and Thorson
2004; Pfeiffer and Zinnbauer 2010).
Execution-based cross-effects. Execution-based cross-
effects depend on the level of creative consistency across com-
munication options. Coordinated executional information can
serve as a retrieval cue in memory to other prior-established
communication effects (Keller 1987, 1991). In other words, if
a symbol is established in one communication option, like a
feather in a TV ad for a deodorant to convey mildness and soft-
ness, then marketers can use it in other online or offline com-
munications to help trigger the knowledge, thoughts, feelings,
and images stored in memory from exposure to those other
previous communications.
For example, print and radio reinforcement of TV ads is when
the video and audio components of a TV ad serve as the basis for
print and radio ads, respectively. Print and radio reinforcement
can be an effective means to leverage existing communication
effects from TV ad exposure and more strongly link them to the
brand (Edell and Keller 1989, 1999). Moreover, cueing a TV ad
with an explicitly linked radio or print ad can create similar or
even enhanced processing outcomes that can substitute for addi-
tional TV ad exposures. Although these cross-effects have been
demonstrated with TV versus radio and print, the concept would
seem to be apply equally well to billboards, banner ads, and other
digital communications.
Conformability
Finally, even if communication options are designed to cre-
ate cross-effects with one another, it may be the case that less
than perfect targeting and overlap exists in the exposure to the
communication options involved. With any IMC program,
consumers will encounter communications in different orders
or sequences, if at all. For whatever reason, certain target con-
sumers may not be exposed to one of the other intended com-
munication options or be exposed to a communication option
not expressly intended for them.
Thus, any particular message will be new to some consum-
ers but not to others, and may be preceded or followed for any
one consumer by a completely different set of communications
from the brand. Conformability refers to communication ver-
satility and the extent to which a marketing communication
option is robust and effective for different target market
296 K. L. KELLER
consumers with different sequences of communication expo-
sure. How well does the communication conform to the differ-
ent characteristics and communication needs and histories of
different target market consumers?
Specifically, there are two types of conformability: communi-
cation conformability and consumer conformability. The reality of
any IMC program is that when target market consumers are
exposed to a particular marketing communication, some consum-
ers will have already been exposed to other marketing communi-
cations for the brand, and others will not. Those target market
consumers may also differ in terms of what stage they are on in
their decision journey or other brand-related characteristics. We
consider a marketing communication option conformable or ver-
satile when it achieves its desired communication effects and
objectives across target market consumers regardless of the partic-
ular nature of the consumers involved and their past and future
communication sequences, as described next.
Communication Conformability. The ability of a marketing
communication to work at two levels—effectively communicat-
ing to consumers who have or have not seen and will or will not
see other communications for the brand—is critically important
for communication conformability. Not surprisingly, some prior
research has already demonstrated that media effects can vary
depending on the sequence or order in which they are seen; for
example, Kim, Yoon, and Lee (2010) experimentally showed that
the interactive effects of advertising with positive or negative pub-
licity varied depending on which was seen first.
Communication conformability is especially important when
an IMC program is designed with coordinated communication
options and cross-effects in mind. Consider the Edell and Keller
(1989, 1999) studies, which showed how visually linked print ads
and aurally linked radio ads could reinforce TV ads. As it turned
out, the studies also showed that when the linked print and radio
ads were seen or heard prior to the accompanying TV ad, they
actually functioned as teasers and increased consumer motivation
to process the more complete TV ad consisting of both audio and
video components.
Another crucial question of communications conformability,
however, is how these print and radio ads would have worked for
those consumers who did not have any prior or subsequent expo-
sure to the coordinated TV ad. How well would the radio and print
ads create communication effects and achieve communication
objectives as compared to nonlinked radio and print ads that might
have been created independently of the TV ad?
Consumer Conformability. Besides this communication
conformability, we can also judge a communication option in
terms of broader consumer conformability, that is, how well it
informs or persuades target market consumers who vary on
dimensions other than their communication history. A communi-
cation option may be designed with target market consumers at a
certain stage in their decision journey or level of brand knowledge
in mind. Yet it may also reach other target market consumers with-
out those other same characteristics. What kinds of communica-
tion effects can it successfully engender with those consumers?
In general, the more diverse target market consumers are,
the more there will be a need to assemble different communi-
cation options in the IMC program with different objectives in
mind to ensure necessary complementarity. There are times,
however, where budget considerations may preclude an exten-
sive IMC program, and marketers may have to focus on just a
few communication options to try to accomplish multiple
objectives with multiple consumers. In such cases, there would
seem to be two main ways of trying to achieve consumer con-
formability and effective communications:
1. Multiple information provision strategy. Provide different
information within a communication option to appeal to
the needs of different types of consumers. An important
issue here is how information designed to appeal to one tar-
get market of consumers will be processed by other con-
sumers and target markets. As noted previously, less is
often more, and issues of information overload, confusion,
and annoyance may come into play if communications
become burdened with a great deal of detail.
2. Broad information provision strategy. Provide information
that is rich or ambiguous enough to work regardless of prior
consumer knowledge. The important issue here is how
potent or persuasive marketers can make that information.
If they attempt to appeal to the lowest common denomina-
tor, the information may lack precision and sufficient detail
to have meaningful impact on any consumers. Target mar-
ket consumers with disparate backgrounds will have to find
information in the communication sufficiently relevant to
satisfy their goals, given their product or brand knowledge
or communications history.
Both options clearly have drawbacks but, if skillfully
employed, may reap dividends. Note that digital strategies can
offer much communications flexibility, which can enhance
consumer conformability. For example, a website can cater to
consumers who know a great deal about the brand and want to
engage deeply through a dedicated blog or community page,
as well as to consumers who know little about the brand and
are there to learn just the basics. As another example, commu-
nications directed at primarily creating brand awareness and
salience, like sponsorship, may have greater consumer con-
formability by virtue of their simplicity.
USING THE IMC CHOICE CRITERIA
The choice criteria can provide some greatly needed guidance
for IMC. Satisfying the seven criteria increases the likelihood that
the IMC program is sufficiently comprehensive, cohesive, and
impactful. The IMC choice criteria should be kept in mind and
applied throughout the entire development process of the IMC
program to guide the selection, design, and implementation of the
different communication options involved. Two key steps in
applying those choice criteria to IMC programs are evaluating
 UNLOCKING THE POWER OF INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS
communication options and programs and establishing priorities
and trade-offs among the IMC choice criteria, as discussed next.
Evaluating Communication Options and Programs
Different communication options have different strengths and
weaknesses and raise different issues. We can judge marketing
communication options, or the IMC program as a whole, accord-
ing to the response and communication effects they can create and
thus how they rate on the IMC choice criteria.
In part by applying the information processing model of
communication effects, Batra and Keller (2016) provide a
detailed analysis of possible processing outcomes from differ-
ent communication platforms or options and their relative
strength or value at different stages of the consumer-decision
journey. These and other sources noted here and elsewhere
can provide input into the contribution criteria assessment of
communication options as well as for other criteria too.
There are two main ways to apply the IMC choice criteria:
The bottom-up approach evaluates each individual communi-
cation option making up the IMC program; the top-down
approach evaluates the proposed IMC program as a whole and
considers how well the IMC program collectively satisfies the
IMC choice criteria. The top-down approach is ultimately
what marketers care about, as it addresses the fundamental
question of what communication program to put forth. With
its focus on individual communication options, however, the
bottom-up approach can offer valuable insights to inform the
top-down approach and is a natural first step in the process.
To guide the bottom-up application of the IMC choice crite-
ria, Table 5 also contains a comprehensive set of questions
that can be asked of the IMC program as a whole, as well as
adapted to evaluate any communication option making up a
proposed IMC program. These questions could also easily be
put into a scorecard-type format. Regardless as to whether it is
done qualitatively or quantitatively, the total IMC program
and each communication option in the proposed IMC program
could be judged according to these criteria.
With a bottom-up application, marketers can begin by con-
sidering the first three criteria and how any individual commu-
nication option under consideration facilitates coverage, cost,
and contribution by itself. They then can consider the possible
upside—or even downside—to coordinating a communication
with other communication options, especially in terms of
achieving otherwise difficult-to-achieve objectives.
Establishing Priorities and Trade-Offs
The IMC program a marketer adopts, after profiling the var-
ious options according to the IMC choice criteria, will depend
in part on how he or she ranks the choice criteria. For example,
if the brand has a limited communication budget, contribution
may be more important, as fewer options are available to
employ. If the brand has a bigger budget, however, then
297
commonality, complementarity, and cross-effects can receive
greater priority.
Because the IMC choice criteria themselves are related, the
marketer must also make trade-offs. The objectives of the mar-
keting communication program, and whether they are short
run or long run, will set priorities, along with a host of factors
beyond the scope of this article. To provide a sense of some of
the issues involved, however, we briefly identify and discuss
five possible trade-offs and relationships with the IMC choice
criteria that can impact how IMC programs may be designed.
 Commonality and conformability will often be positively
related. Communication options vary in their breadth and
depth of audience coverage, as well as in terms of common-
ality and conformability, according to the number of modal-
ities they employ: the more modalities available with a
communication option, the greater its potential commonal-
ity and conformability.
 Commonality and complementarity will often be inversely
related. The more that different communication options
emphasize the same brand attribute or benefit, all else being
equal, the less they can effectively emphasize other attrib-
utes and benefits. For brands in early stages of brand devel-
opment, it may be important to be more singularly focused
and emphasize a particularly desirable (to consumers) and
differentiating (from competitors) brand benefit. As the
brand becomes more established, a richer brand image may
be desired, and complementarity can play a bigger role with
a more diverse set of brand communications.
 Conformability and complementarity will also often be
inversely related. The more that a communication program
can design communications to appeal to many different
types or groups of consumers, the less necessary it will be
that multiple communications will have to be created that
reflect the differences in consumers and appeals to a particu-
lar group. These differences may involve cultural or racial
groups (e.g., African American or Hispanic segments) or
differences more directly related to the brand itself (e.g.,
brand loyals versus brand switchers).
 Contribution, complementarity, and cost do not share an
obvious relationship. There are not necessarily any
inherent differences across communication platforms for
contribution and complementarity, because any commu-
nication option, if properly designed, can play a critical
and unique role in achieving those communication objec-
tives. Similarly, all marketing communications can
appear expensive, although some differences in cost per
thousand can prevail.
 Commonality and conformability do not share an obvious
relationship. As noted previously, it may be possible to
develop a sufficiently abstract message, like “Brand X is
contemporary,” to effectively reinforce the brand across
multiple communication options including advertising, digi-
tal, sponsorship, and promotions.
298 K. L. KELLER
CONCLUSION
Summary
Today’s new communications environment has vastly
expanded the capabilities of both consumers and firms. In particu-
lar, the emergence of a wide array of different types of digital com-
munication options has dramatically improved marketers’
communication capabilities. In addition to advertising, promotion,
and other traditional forms of marketing communications, market-
ers can now employ websites with detailed brand and product
information and reviews and recommendations, send e-mails and
text messages, place banner and rich media ads, and engage in
paid search, among the many new digital communication options.
Unleashing the potential power of these new and traditional com-
munication options to drive sales in the short run and grow brand
equity in the long run—given consumers’ own new capabilities—
will become one of the most important advertising and marketing
priorities for virtually all firms in the coming years.
IMC programs have been an important part of the market-
ing landscape for a long time. Although they have been the
subject of productive research attention through the years,
much still remains to be learned about their design and deliv-
ery, especially with the availability of so many new digital
communication options. To be able to effectively manage the
marketing communications function in this modern communi-
cation environment, marketers must first understand how con-
sumers make brand and product decisions and the different
effects that various communications might have on consumers.
Based on this understanding, marketers must then choose and
design a set of communication options in an IMC program that
collectively will have the greatest likelihood of achieving the
communication goals for the brand.
With this management imperative in mind, some concep-
tual guidance was offered to help marketers assess the effec-
tiveness and efficiency of IMC programs and address a
fundamental question: How well integrated is your marketing
communications program? In a broad sense, it was argued that
marketers must mix and match communication options so the
whole is greater than the sum of the parts. After defining some
conceptual foundations as to how consumers process commu-
nications and how they go about making decisions, seven cri-
teria were outlined as being critical to a successful IMC
program.
The seven IMC choice criteria are coverage, cost, contribu-
tion, commonality, complementarity, cross-effects, and con-
formability. These “Seven Cs” choice criteria take into
account many different aspects of a communication program,
for example, how communication options work in isolation, as
well as how they work in tandem and interact with one another
to create heightened communication effects. The criteria also
consider which consumers are reached by different communi-
cation options and in what order they receive communications,
as well as the costs involved. The seven IMC choice criteria
force marketers to consider how integrated their IMC
programs really are in a very concrete way and from many dif-
ferent angles.
Future Research Priorities
Given the pressing management imperative with IMC and
the rapidly changing communications landscape that market-
ers face, we conclude our analysis by considering some future
research priorities. To help marketers optimally design and
evaluate IMC programs, a number of areas greatly need addi-
tional research. In this concluding section, we highlight five
key areas. In doing so, we relate these research priorities, in
part, back to the seven IMC choice criteria to show how these
criteria can be sharpened.
Develop more precise models of communications targeting.
To successfully launch IMC programs, marketers need a keen
understanding of how consumers today seek information, con-
sume media, make product and brand decisions, and, more gener-
ally, live their lives. Research is needed that helps marketers gain
insights to formulate richer depictions of the consumer-decision
journey. Research is especially needed to help marketers develop
much more precise and timely targeting with communications.
The challenge is to ensure that marketers have all the tools neces-
sary to ensure that the right consumers see, hear, or experience
the right communications in the right way and at the right time
and place.
A more refined model of the consumer-decision journey
can help provide a more nuanced view of how different mar-
keting communication options might impact different stages
of the consumer-decision process. Media planners need to
develop richer profiles of the target audience reached in this
regard. In particular, with increasingly sensitive second-by-
second media-usage data, marketers now have the capability
to develop more microlevel, dynamic segmentation and target-
ing to reach different consumers at different stages.
Although digital communications allows for more precise
targeting behaviorally, it is also important to understand and
incorporate consumers’ propensity to engage with brands and
communications. As noted, although consumers may have the
opportunity to engage more with brands online, the reality is
only some consumers will want to get involved with only
some of their brands, and even then only some of the time. At
a macro-level, research is needed as to how marketers can
assess the “shape” of their brand engagement pyramid and the
flows of information and equity among and between consum-
ers within it. At a more micro-level, there is a need for
research to help marketers better identify consumer propensity
to engage with a brand. Research is also needed to help mar-
keters design IMC program that can take into account the
diversity of different brand-related characteristics and ensure
communication conformability across consumers.
More broadly, actually deciding on which customers to tar-
get—and where, when, and how— requires new thinking and
 UNLOCKING THE POWER OF INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS
models. Traditional benefit and needs-based segmentation
schemes have much inherent appeal, but future segmentation
plans will need to be much more multidimensional to develop
communication programs that are relevant, motivating, and
timely across individual consumers.
Insights into better targeting with consumers in these differ-
ent ways can inform all seven IMC choice criteria. In particu-
lar, better targeting makes it easier to understand which
communications are likely to reach which consumers and in
which order or sequence, which is especially useful in terms of
understanding coverage, cost, and conformability.
Refine guidelines for specific communication options.
An enormous body of research has studied all facets of mar-
keting communications through the years. These research
streams can be expected to continue to uncover valuable new
insights. The digital area especially is receiving a tremendous
amount of research attention as marketers seek a better
understanding of how options such as social media, search,
and website reviews work. The mobile area is also seeing
concerted research to see how it differs—or not—from what
we already have learned about digital and online communica-
tion options.
In terms of designing and implementing more effective and
efficient IMC programs, it would be especially helpful for
future research to profile and contrast the relative strengths
and weaknesses of different communication platforms and
options in depth. More refined insights into and guidelines for
specific communication options will provide valuable input
into how marketers can satisfy the contribution and comple-
mentarity IMC criteria and assemble different communication
programs to maximize their main effects.
To help structure such comparisons, it may be helpful to use
taxonomies such as the eight possible communication objec-
tives or the different stages in the consumer-decision journey.
A more detailed version of Table 4 that outlines defining char-
acteristics of the eight major communication platforms—and
individual communication options within those—may be very
useful in that regard.
Finally, much brand building occurs through earned media too,
and understanding how marketer-controlled communications can
complement, reinforce, or initiate consumer-controlled and other
noncommercial forms of communication is critical. Even more
broadly, any brand contact can change consumer knowledge for a
brand and drive its sales and equity. Developing taxonomies in all
these areas to provide structure and insight could be extremely
beneficial for marketers.
Refine guidelines for coordinating communication options.
The real “magic” behind IMC programs is the interactions or
synergistic effects that can potentially be created through the
skillful assembly of different communication options. These
enhanced effects ensure that IMC programs are truly integrated
and not just programs using multiple marketing communication
options and whose cumulative effects are nothing more than
additive.
299
More detailed insights and guidelines will be particularly help-
ful to help marketers know how they can create both meaning
cross-effects and execution cross-effects. Specifically, coordina-
tion of communication options involves a number of issues about
both the content and timing of different communication options.
Of particular importance is the interplay among digital communi-
cation options as well as between digital and traditional communi-
cation options. Research must provide more detailed insights into
how these cross-effects emerge. The consumer information proc-
essing and consumer-decision-journey models may be helpful
here too in terms of understanding what kind of information needs
to be conveyed at different stages.
A number of important questions can be raised about how mar-
keters can benefit from different types of cross-effects in their
IMC programs. Are there are risks to coordinating creative strate-
gies and executional information across communication options?
Can coordinated creative put too much emphasis on creative ele-
ments and distract from the intended message and communication
effects? How does coordinated creative work online where crea-
tive expression may be limited with certain communication
options (e.g., search)?
Develop more quantitative communication models for attri-
bution and ROI analysis. Understanding how to assess ROI
of any marketing activity has, not surprisingly, been a research
priority for marketers for decades, especially in terms of
expenditures on advertising and other marketing communica-
tions. Developing models that help marketers and marketing
researchers better account for the short-term and long-term
effects of any communication option on sales and brand equity
is critical. A more complete understanding of ROI and the
attribution of certain brand states to communications will
facilitate the application of the cost criterion but will also
affect many of the other criteria.
The big data era offers much promise toward this improved
understanding as new data sources emerge to provide a much
more detailed account of all facets of consumer behavior and
brand performance, especially online. The real challenge,
however, will be to ensure that the right data sources are
uncovered and used and the right models are employed to
reflect how communications work (or not) with consumers
today.
Any well-grounded IMC attribution or ROI analysis must
use multiple dependent variables, capturing consumer needs
and communication objectives at different stages of the con-
sumer-decision journey. These analyses must also take a longi-
tudinal perspective and capture interaction effects, differential
carryover and decay rates, lags and delays, and so on. Future
research will need to both develop both state-of-the-art models
that can be used by marketing researchers to estimate ROI, as
well as benchmarks of likely effects that can guide managerial
decision making in the absence of any primary data collection
and analysis.
Refine existing criteria and identify new criteria for improving
IMC programs. The IMC choice criteria cover seven key
300 K. L. KELLER
characteristics of IMC programs. These characteristics themselves
are very rich and have many facets. Additional research could fur-
ther develop and refine these criteria and facets to provide even
deeper understanding. The actual implementation of the existing
criteria could also be improved by providing a more detailed play-
book as to how the different criteria could be applied for different
types of brands in different settings.
The IMC choice criteria focus on consumer considerations
external to the firm in the marketplace. Another important way to
improve the design and implementation of IMC programs is to
develop a similar set of comprehensive criteria to guide internal
efforts within the firm. What kinds of organizational structures
and processes improve the likelihood of successful IMC pro-
grams? How should firms work with agencies and other partners
in the design and implementation of IMC programs?
Last and importantly, the focus on this article was
largely on paid and owned media. As noted, incorporating
earned media and all possible brand contacts into brand
communication programs is also a top research priority.
Detailed models of brand equity and the consumer-decision
journey will be critical to understand the many ways that
brands can be built or destroyed by factors inside or out-
side the control of marketers.
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