Beyond Promotion: Conceptualizing Public Relations in Integrated Marketing Communications.

Smith, Brian G.

The integration of public relations into marketing communications--through an emerging concept and process known as integrated marketing communications--puts PR in danger of being sublimated as a marketing support function, further blurring the lines between the two communication functions. Integrated marketing communications, a process by which organizations synchronize all communications functions to achieve business objectives and build or improve relationships with organizational stakeholders through communication consistency, has received increased attention in public relations scholarship, but public relations' role in this new environment has not been established. This study explores this evolving role of public relations in IMC, and discovers that organizations split public relations into promotional and nonpromotional roles. Furthermore, an organization's awareness of IMC, formal structure, and orientation toward and segmentation of strategic publics influences its integration and synchronization of public relations and marketing.

PUBLIC relations; INTEGRATED marketing; MARKETING strategy; MARKETING; COMMUNICATION; ADVERTISING

International Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications, 2010, Vol 2, Issue 1, p47

1943-3735

Academic Journal