Within a short period of just over a decade, IMC has swept around the
world and become the accepted norm of businesses and apparently the
agencies that service their needs. Here we critically consider IMC in
terms of (1) development, (2) impact on marketing communications, (3)
barriers to further progress, and (4) current location identification
and likely development in the future. Evidently, IMC is here to stay.
But there are problems. Not least of these is the apparent reluctance
of many businesses to adopt anything more than an inside-out approach
to IMC—in other words, bundling promotional mix elements together
so they look and sound alike. But, IMC has to move beyond this stage if
it is to radically change the face of communications and marketing.