There's No Utopia in Marketing

In class today, we did another interesting exercise where we had to explain and connect concepts through visuals. I found this to be tough at times, because I'm not extremely artistic! However, we were able to make connections from a poem read in class to the concept of IMC in marketing, which was really cool. One of the articles we referenced throughout the class period is "Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC): Why Does it Fail?". We discussed how as students formerly in Buyer Behavior and Promotional Strategy, we typically think of IMC in an extremely positive light. Our professor referred to it as a "Marketing Utopia", where all IMC strategies go smoothly in the best scenarios possible. After reading this article, however, we gained a much more realistic and harsh idea about IMC.

I can definitely agree that my thoughts about IMC seem a little naive and non-realistic. It's easy to say that a company can effectively demonstrate IMC practices and strategies in order to meet consumer needs. But, when determining the accuracy of different mental models that connect to IMC, this suddenly becomes a confusing and questionable topic.

The four mental models are the efficiency model, effectiveness model, quality model, and impact model. The article mentioned discrepancies among the articles and the implementation failures that resulted. One particular discrepancy we talked about was abstractness. The mental models are considered abstract because they are each based on a specific view/theory about the world. I find this to be an extremely large issue, because people have extremely conflicting views and perspectives about the world. The main example of abstractness in the mental models is in the efficiency model. Because it is so focused on work processes and computer programs, there is not a lot of room for people to reflect or improvise.

The article also connected the abstractness of the mental models to decontextualization, which means that there are preconceived ideas and routines that take over when there might be a need for adjustment. This is another big issue, because the reality is, problems and change will arise. If there is no room for adjustments depending on issues or problems that may arise, this mental model seems like it shouldn't be applied to marketing. Marketing is a constantly changing field. The "norms" seem to change on a frequent basis, making these mental model theories difficult to follow or agree with.

Reading this article has been eye-opening and is starting to make me look at IMC in a different light. The more new material I learn, the easier it gets to question previous material. It makes me wonder, are the other theories I have learned in marketing even true? As we try to apply marketing theories to realistic scenarios, they seem to not be as accurate. I guess the perfect "Utopian" world of IMC really doesn't exist.



*Image found on Google Images.