市场营销外文翻译--整合营销传播、市场定位与品牌定位的关系（节选）

1700单词，1万英文字符，3100汉字

出处：Mike Reid, Sandra Luxton, Felix Mavondo. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION, MARKET ORIENTATION, AND BRAND ORIENTATION[J]. Journal of Advertising, 2005, 34(4):págs. 11-23.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION , MARKET ORIENTATION AND BRAND

ORIENTATION.

Mike Reid, Sandra Luxton, and Felix Mavondo

.

Marketing communication plays an important role in building and maintaining stakeholder relationships, and in leveraging these relationships in terms of brand and channel equity (Dawar 2004; Duncan and Moriarty 1998; Lannon and Cooper 1983; Srivastava, Fahey, and Shervani 2000;White 1999). As Dawar states: “Advertising and promotions of brands drive traffic and sales volume; marketing efforts and outcomes are measured and managed at the brand level; and brands are central to a firm’s responses to shortterm competitive moves. In effect, brands have become the focal point of many a company’s marketing efforts and are seen as a source of market power, competitive leverage and higher returns” (2004, p. 31).In response to concerns about the impact of hostile marketing environments on brand equity and increased management expectations related to marketing performance and accountability, many organizations are considering how to improve the management and integration of their marketing communication programs using integrated marketing communication(IMC). Nevertheless, various authors support the contention that there is ambiguity surrounding the definition of IMC, with no consistent or mutually agreed upon meaning, and with many areas in need of clarification (Baker and Mitchell 2000; Beard 1996; Cornelissen 2001; Duncan and Mulhern 2004; Kitchen and Schultz 1999; Low 2000;Phelps 1996).

This ambiguity is likely to have an impact on the development of measures to operationalize and assess IMC in organizations. Indeed, Pickton and Hartley (1998, p. 450).The authors gratefully acknowledge the positive and constructive feedback from the guest editorial team—Tom Duncan, Don E. Schultz, and Charles Patti—and from two anonymous reviewers. state: “It is very difficult to conceptualize the big picture and to muster all the organizational influences needed to achieve integration.

There are many levels and dimensions to integration which all pose their individual and collective difficulties.To be implemented, IMC requires the involvement of the whole organization and its agents from the chief executive downward. It needs consideration from the highest corporate strategic level down to the day-to-day implementation of individual tactical activity.”In recognizing this complexity, this paper attempts to explain the role of IMC in organizations. The paper also attempts to delineate or establish a relationship between IMC,market orientation (MO), and an emerging concept of brand orientation (BO) by proposing that both MO and BO are necessary conditions for successful IMC. We accept that IMC can be conceived at two distinct

levels, that is, strategic or tactical; however, we will emphasize the strategic component of IMC, which takes into account the cultural and learning requirements of positioning brands over time. The paper recognizes the complementarities between IMC to MO and BO, and how each addresses a critical facet of achieving a competitive advantage through building brand equity.

Figure 1 introduces our discussion and presents the relationship between the three concepts. Briefly, market orientation represents the culture of the organization through the adoption of the marketing concept and the systems and processes that underlie being market oriented (Harris, 1998). Brand orientation represents the functional or business-unit focus on brands and brand strategies that support strong customer and stakeholder relationships regardless of the brand being at the corporate or product level, or being a service or a manufactured good (Bridson and Evans 2004). IMC in this 12 The Journal of Advertising model represents the development of integrated marketing communication to achieve stated brand and communication objectives, and provides the bridge between brand strategy and actions taken to build the necessary customer and stakeholder relationships. In doing so, IMC draws on the cultural predisposition to work cooperatively, leveraging the marketand customer-sensing mechanisms of the organization to devise message and media strategies. Furthermore, it adopts an informed zero-based approach to choosing the appropriate tools for the communication task and is also linked to brand and target-market history through the learning mechanisms of a market- and brand-oriented organization (Stewart 1996).

In justifying and presenting our model, we first present a background to the IMC, MO, and BO concepts, highlighting various approaches to conceptualizing IMC and the linkages to MO and BO. We then present a model that illustrates the testable relationships between market orientation, brand orientation, and IMC, as well as the linkages to performance outcomes. Finally, we discuss the managerial and research implications of this paper.

THE CONCEPT AND DIMENSIONS OF IMC

In a recent white paper on IMC (Duncan and Mulhern 2004),it was stated that its scope was expanding and the concept and process were still evolving. It was also argued that IMC is generally considered to be a philosophy or process related to strategically managing all brand messages in a way that contributes to the building of strong brands. In attempting to achieve this aim, managers of the IMC process are likely to draw on the cultural predisposition to work cooperatively,leverage the market- and customer-sensing mechanisms of the organization to devise message and media strategies, and adopt an informed approach to choosing and orchestrating the right tools for the communication task.In furthering the debate and development of the IMC concept,Kitchen, Joanne, and Tao (2004) suggest that IMC is the major communications development of the last decade, and that it is a potential driver of competitive advantage. The power of IMC is said to counter a range of changes in the marketing communication environment that are having an impact on the ability of companies to attract, retain, and leverage customers. Kitchen, Joanne, and Tao (2004) also argue that IMC seems to have passed through, and is still passing through, significant debate over its meaning and purpose, and that it is struggling to emerge and distinguish itself from other marketing concepts such as

integrated marketing, CRM(customer relationship management), and market orientation.From Kitchen, Joanne, and Tao’s (2004) perspective, IMC needs to be seen as a new paradigm that will facilitate the management of marketing communication.IMC is centered on building and leveraging customer and consumer interests and relationships. This relationship orientation ties IMC to one-to-one marketing and CRM, and challenges managers to deal with the integration, alignment, measurement, and accountability of both traditional and new interactive marketing approaches (Baker and Mitchell 2000). In further extending this notion of customer-oriented communication, managers must realize that as long as IMC provides the organization with a superior market advantage, on occasions, it can be a market driver, and on others, it may be market driven (Carrillat, Jaramillo, and Locander 2004;Duncan and Mulhern 2004; Jaworski, Kohli, and Sahay 2000).

Defining IMC and Philosophy

Since initial attempts to define IMC in the early 1990s, an abundance of definitions have emerged, and have been discussed in detail in many recent papers (Duncan 2002; Gould 2004; Kitchen, Joanne, and Tao 2004; Kliatchko 2005). In Duncan’s representation, IMC is seen as “a process for managing the customer relationships that drive brand value. More specifically, it is a cross-functional process for creating and nourishing profitable relationships with customers and other stakeholders by strategically controlling or influencing all messages sent to these groups and encouraging data driven, purposeful dialogue with them” (2002, p. 8). As an indication of ongoing conceptual and theoretical development,a recent IMC white paper suggested that IMC should ? be more strategic than executional,

? be about more than just advertising and sales promotion messages,

Conclusion: MANAGERIAL AND RESEARCH IMPLICATIONS

Throughout the discussion, we have attempted to show the complementarities between IMC, market orientation, and brand orientation. We have emphasized that each concept reflects specific emphasis, but collectively, they provide a rich description and complex insight into the relationship. For most organizations, the issue of what is an antecedent to what does not seriously arise, because it is the exploitation of the complementarities that is more important. However, for organizations with low market orientation, in this case, the cultural context for interfunctional coordination and focusing on customers, attempts to develop IMC may not succeed. This is because the cultural foundation for cooperation across functions, departments, and SBUs (strategic business units), or with suppliers and other stakeholders, may not exist. Along the same line of argument, we believe that where brand orientation is low, implying low sharing of corporate or brand identity and vision, attempts at introducing IMC may not be as successful as when both MO and BO are adequately developed. The arguments presented in this study have implications Winter 2005 21 for managers. It is known and accepted that any form of integration is generally difficult. This is because efforts to integrate move people out of their comfort zones and threaten the status quo. It is also known that the reward systems in most organizations are not designed to reward cooperation (in fact, more often, organizations encourage competition and parochial interests). Some approaches to overcome this

include building a strong market orientation and building a strong brand orientation. This allows for setting a positive cultural environment and will encourage routine cooperation, which will significantly assist in the implementation of IMC. From the model developed in this paper, there is a suggestion that IMC is positively associated with some performance metrics.

There is also the suggestion that perhaps IMC mediates the relationship between market orientation and performance, or that IMC mediates the relationship between brand orientation and performance, or both. This conceptualization providesa rich insight into how IMC might be linked to various performance measures.

Finally, we see the conceptual model presented in the paper as being imminently testable. The measures of market orientation have been around for over a decade and are becoming well accepted. The measures of brand orientation are slowly becoming acceptable, although still at an early stage of development. The performance measures suggested in the study have been empirically tested by other researchers and present no special problems with operationalization. The most difficult part of the model relates to the development of scales that adequately capture the essence of the IMC process and can link to the appropriate external performance measures. The use of existing instruments such as Duncan and Moriarty’s (1997) IMC miniaudit may prove useful as a starting point for testing these relationships. Overall, the data analysis implied by the model (structural equation modeling)is well established to provide direct, indirect, and total effects of the independent variables (MO and BO) through IMC, and the direct effects of IMC on external performance measures. The value of operationalizing this model will be seen through a clearer understanding of IMC’s relationship to other marketing concepts and to customer and brand equity and marketplace performance.