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Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
IMC PERSPECTIVE 3-1
II. Integrated Marketing
Program Situation Analysis
3. Organizing for
Advertising & Promotion
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
Agencies Learn That It’s about More Than Advertising
During the late 1980s many of the world’s largest
advertising agencies recognized that their clients
were shifting more and more of their promotional budgets
away from traditional media advertising to other
areas of marketing communication such as direct marketing,
public relations, sales promotion, and event
sponsorship. In response to this trend, many of these
agencies began acquiring companies that were specialists
in these areas and ended up turning them into
profit-centered departments or subsidiaries that often
ended up battling one another for a piece of their
client’s promotional budget. While the agencies could
point to these specialists when touting their IMC capabilities,
there was really little emphasis on integrating
the various communication functions.
During the 90s some agencies began taking steps to
place more of an emphasis on IMC by truly integrating
it into all aspects of their operations. For example, the
Leo Burnett agency brought in direct-marketing, sales
promotion, event marketing, and public relations professionals
and dispersed them throughout the agency.
Burnetters were expected to interact with clients not as
advertising specialists who happened to know about
sales promotion, direct marketing, or public relations
but as generalists able to work with a variety of integrated
marketing tools. Another agency that embraced
IMC was Fallon McElligott, which hired a president of
integrated marketing and expanded its capabilities in
areas such as PR, events, and interactive advertising.
As we begin the new millennium, the shift toward
IMC is taking place at a number of major ad agencies
that are recognizing they must embrace a way of
doing business that doesn’t always involve advertis-
ing. Many companies are developing campaigns and
strategies using event marketing, sponsorships, direct
marketing, targeted radio, and the Internet with only
peripheral use of print and TV advertising. The Internet
poses a particular threat to traditional agencies as
it is not well understood by many agency veterans and
is taking yet another slice from the marketing communications
budget pie.
Foote, Cone & Belding is remaking itself as a New
Economy ad agency by building up its capabilities in
areas such as direct marketing, interactive, customer
relationship, management/database, event marketing,
and sports marketing. FCB touts its ability to offer
clients a broad spectrum of integrated marketing
communications services through its “Model of One,”
which ensures that all these services are seamlessly
integrated and unified. All efforts are managed under
one team and based on one strategy and one broad
creative idea.
At J. Walter Thompson, the agency’s CEO, Chris
Jones, has championed a program called Thompson
Total Branding (TTB) that makes JWT the manager of
a client’s brand. TTB involves taking what the agency
calls a “Branding Idea” and developing a total communications
plan that helps decide which integrated marketing
tools can most powerfully and persuasively
communicate it. One of the company executives notes,
“Agencies are finally realizing that our job is creating
branding solutions and, while those may involve advertising,
it’s not necessarily about advertising. That’s a
fundamental change in the way we operate.” The ability
to use various IMC tools has helped the agency
secure new accounts and strengthen relationships
with existing clients.
While traditional agencies have been preaching
integrated marketing for years, many have not been
really practicing it. However, these agencies are realizing
they must alter their course if they plan to be competitive
in the future. They are retraining their staffers
in the use and best practices of various IMC tools and
getting them, at long last, to focus on total communications
solutions to their clients’ businesses. The
move toward integrated marketing communications
appears to be for real this time around.
Sources: Laura Q. Hughes, “Measuring Up,” Advertising Age, Feb. 5,
2001, pp. 1, 34; Kathryn Kranhold, “FCB Makes Itself a New Economy
Shop,” The Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2000, p. B8; Ellen
Newborne, “Mad Ave: A Star Is Reborn,” BusinessWeek, July 26,
1999, pp. 54–64.
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