Integrated marketing communication capability: an investigation in the consumer market of Pakistan

Every performance-oriented organization requires proper Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) to communicate and persuade its stakeholders. Firms capable of effective planning and implementing IMC activities yield the benefits of better Campaign Effectiveness and Brand Market Performance. However, the literature stresses the presence of conducive firm’s environment to facilitate the IMC process. Thus, consistent with the resource-based view, this thesis investigates the effects of the several supporting factors such as market orientation culture, brand orientation capability, information technology capability, marketing database and top-management support on the IMC capability and its related outcomes. This study hypothesizes several direct and indirect relationships between the supporting factors, IMC capability and its related outcomes. Adopting Partial Least Square – Structural Equation Modelling technique and utilizing a total of 141 responses, the findings of this study clearly delineate that IMC capability is directly affected by the proposed supporting factors except for information technology capability. Moreover, IMC capability is found to have both direct and indirect influences on the related outcomes. In relation to the indirect effects of the supporting factors on IMC related outcomes, all the proposed relationships are found to be significant and positive except for the indirect effect of market orientation culture on the brand market performance. Indeed, the firms’ capability to plan and implement IMC activities and the supporting underlying factors play an important role in achieving the campaign effectiveness and brand market performance. Several empirical linkages, mostly new, have been established between the supporting factors and IMC capability followed by subsequent IMC related outcomes. Future studies should include other factors to assess their influence on IMC capability and subsequent outcomes focusing on longitudinal designs and large samples. Attention to the underlying resources and capabilities can accrue benefits for the firms’ IMC capability and hence, its outcomes.