Marketing Communication as Company Dialogue with the Market: Value Creation and Integration Perespective

Abstract

Purpose: The study aims to identify the role of communication in the process of creating and integrating value. The author considers three issues: 1) the identity and nature of marketing communication; 2) the structure of its functions and tasks in the creation of value; and 3) the role of marketing communication in the integration around value. Given the constraints of the study, the considerations are summary and selective and constitute an attempt at highlighting the key elements of the issue referred to in the study title. Methodology: The study is a theoretical refl ection. By analysing the nature of marketing communication as a company’s dialogue with the market, it fi nds a theoretical justifi cation: confi rmation of the main thesis concerning the broader and deeper functions of communication in value marketing. Conclusions: The essential functions of marketing communication lend themselves to a broader than hitherto presentation as a task revolving around creating and integrating value. Communication by nature provides information about the offer of the company and its values (as in the traditional sense) and also it creates these values. Its major task involves integration around value, both internally within the structure of the marketing mix, and externally in the relationship between the company and the market, the company’s environment. Originality: Previous discussion of the issue in pertinent literature has placed communication at the fi nal stage of the business activities and attributed to it the role of providing information about a particular utility, the value of the product in the process of social exchange. The author argues that this approach is incomplete. Marketing communication may be an area where value is created and may, at the same time, integrate values around the company’s market oriented activities.