The fuzzy DEMATEL based impact derivations for integrated marketing communications on the high-technology brands

Abstract

The brand image is the most valuable asset of a company while a well-established integrated marketing communications (IMC) mechanism aims to establish brand images and enhance a firm's competitive advantage. However, the application of the IMC concept in high-technology marketing is not mature. Available past researches are very limited. How the IMC can influence the brand of a high technology firm was seldom addressed. Further, the IMC components influence each other. So, this research aims to define a decision making framework for deriving the influences between the IMC components as well as the impacts of the IMC components on the brand of a high technology firm. A fuzzy Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) based multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) framework being integrated with the Analytic Network Process (ANP) will be proposed for deriving the network relationship map (NRM) between the IMC components. Meanwhile, the weights versus each IMC component can be derived. The empirical study results demonstrate that marketing communication is the major aspect for influencing brand promotion while the advertisement is the most important factor in the communication aspect which can influence the high-technology brand promotion. The analytic framework can be used in IMC strategy definitions of high technology firms' brand developments.