Evolution of marketing communication

Abstract

Marketing communication is not a new phenomenon. Communication has been part ofthe marketing process for as long as people have exchanged goods. However, the adventof technology and research, among other reasons, has made the marketing communicationprocess increasingly sophisticated in recent decades and has given rise to integratedmarketing communication (IMC) and the integrated communication phenomenon.To understand this new approach to marketing communication, one has to go back tothe roots thereof and scrutinise the path of development. “Innovation begins withabandonment. It’s not what you start; it’s what you stop that counts”, says Drucker (asquoted in Schultz, Tannenbaum & Lauterborn, 1994:1). This statement underlines theimportance of knowledge about the development of marketing communication in orderto understand the importance and effective application of this new approach calledintegrated communication. In this study historical research was conducted to seek out the implications of, and/orrelationships between, approaches in marketing communication from the past and theirconnections with the present. The paper explores the different phases that occurred inthe development of marketing communication from a mass communications focus inthe 1960s to the integrated communications imperative of the present. It becameapparent that integrated communication, which envelops integrated marketingcommunication, is crucial to an organisation’s overall success.