Download Locating Marketing within the Corporate Communication Managing

Locating Marketing within the
Corporate Communication Managing System
Dr Richard J Varey
Director
BNFL Corporate Communications Unit
The Management School
University of Salford
Salford M5 4WT
Tel 0161 295 5884
Fax 0161 295 5442
[email protected]
Dr Richard Varey heads a research and teaching programme in the emerging
field of Corporate Communication, and is conducting research in a number of
related areas. He has an MSc in Management Sciences and a PhD in
Management from Manchester School of Management, previously worked as a
freelance management consultant, and has lectured in marketing management at
Sheffield Business School.
Keywords: Corporate Communication, Public Relations, Marketing,
Integration, Total Communication System
Locating Marketing within the
Corporate Communication Managing System
Abstract
Where does expertise and responsibility for strategic business communication
lie? Marketing and Public Relations vie for supremacy since both groups
specialise in communication, using managed communications to pursue their
respective objectives. Convincing arguments for one being subsumed by the
other abound. A clarifying discussion of the often-confused vocabulary is the
starting point for a review of the nature and role of marketing and public
relations and how they are portrayed in respective textbooks. The emerging total
management system of Corporate Communication and its relationship to
marketing and public relations is placed in a framework for the integration of
corporate strategy, organisational development, human resource management,
and marketing. Corporate communication has a dominant role in achieving
organisational growth, by being concerned with learning, showing the
corporation to itself, and as a mode of organisation for both external and internal
environments.
Considerable attention has been afforded in the academic literature to debating
the nature of the relationship between marketing and public relations. This paper
deals with their respective roles within a Corporate Communication function and
presents and supports an argument for the integration of marketing and public
relations with strategic management as part of a disciplined corporate
communications management strategy. This requires moving beyond traditional
domain boundaries.
Introduction: Revisiting Terminology & Territory
Marketing and public relations are essential and distinct functions of business
organisation. The past 30 years has been witness to a considerable number of
attempts at shifting the provincial boundaries of the domains of marketing and
public relations, both in practice and in theoretical development. The
terminology has not been fully clarified and neither have the arguments over
“imperialism and encroachment” (Lauzen, 1991) by either party. Responsibilities
assigned to marketing and public relations are often unclear and in practice
overlap and may even be in conflict. Current literature carries arguments for
marketing being subsumed under public relations, and for public relations being
part of marketing communications. For example, Broom et al (1991) concluded
that public relations and marketing use the same techniques to build and maintain
relationships, but that these relationships are different.
Kreps (1990) sees distinctions made among these external communication
activities as driven and perpetuated more by organisational design precedents and
internal competition for influence and resources than on major differences in
their function. Indeed, they perform complementary and interdependent (but not
the same) functions of organisation.
Public relations and marketing professionals must therefore work together to
achieve organisational goals, but they draw on fundamentally different
philosophies to achieve their different business missions. The two functions draw
on two differing models of the social environment and the complex
communicating systems through which institutions interact (Ehling et al, 1992).
The respective perspectives on marketing and public relations are now
considered.
Public Relations and Marketing
Business enterprises must operate in a volatile and often hostile environment.
There are many problems of employment (strikes, morale, absenteeism, contract
negotiation, inter-department rivalry, for example), litigation, legislation,
confrontation with activist groups, and so on, that are outside the field of
marketing. Drucker (1980) has stressed the political nature of institutions in a
pluralist society, in which every institution is defined by its constituencies. These
groups can impede by vetoing the decisions of the institution, offering a real
threat to the capacity to realise goals and even to survive. Drucker urges
managers to think politically. Public relations thus presupposes that a corporate
body will be multi-purpose in its commitment to serve several constituencies.
These may not be friendly and any one may come into conflict with the
corporation and impede its performance. Thus managers are presented with a
range of non-marketing problems. Public relations is an administrative function
that deals with a class of problems that clearly lie outside the domain of
marketing management (Ehling et al, 1992). The focus is social conflict (dispute,
disagreement controversy, and confrontation) and co-operation. Co-operation
and co-ordination do not occur easily, and various mediating strategies are
required to resolve differences, reconcile interests, minimise discord, and reach
workable agreements. Communication is required for negotiation and bargaining
in a process of abandonment of old coalitions and alliances, and the creation of
new ones.
Public relations theory and practice are different. There is a distinction between
the specialised staff function that serves other functions, and public relations as
an operating concept of administration. According to the Institute of Public
Relations, public relations:
“is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain
goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its
publics” (in Hart, 1995, p. 24).
Yet, managers, and even some academics, see public relations as press relations,
i.e. publicity (“free advertising”) to supplement personal selling and advertising
in sales promotion.
A more strategic view has public relations as:
“the discipline which looks after reputation with the aim of earning
understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour”
(Beard in Hart, p. xviii).
“..... public relations is the function which builds reputation or
corporate image .....” (Hart, 1995, p. 42).
According to Jefkins (1984) the public relations task is:
“to present untreated credible facts in order to overcome
misunderstanding and the resulting hostility, prejudice, apathy, and
ignorance”.
White (1991) sees public relations to be as much part of management as are
human resource management or financial management - the management of
relationships between the corporation and its various ‘publics’: employees,
shareholders, customers, and other ‘key groups’ on which the corporation
depends for support and/or understanding.
The 1978 ‘Mexican Statement’ from an international gathering of public
relations societies provides a broader and more precise description of the role of
public relations:
“Public relations practice is the art and social science of analysing
trends, predicting their consequences, counselling organisation
leaders, and implementing planned programmes of action which will
serve both the organisation’s and the public interest” (In Jefkins,
1990, p. 181).
Strategic public relations identifies and anticipates issues likely to affect key
relationships and responds for the development of those relationships. Thus
public relations contributes to planning, cohesion and effectiveness through
managed communication with a range of key groups. If only more practice were
like this! This attention to all of the members of the web of relationships may
result in organisational change if current or intended activities, policies, and
plans, do not fit with the needs and expectations of other parties.
We also need to distinguish between public relations and publicity. Publicity is
generally considered a component of marketing communications. And yet Kotler
(1994) also places public relations with publicity as part of the marketing
communications mix, aimed at “promoting and/or protecting a company’s image
or its individual products “ (p. 596). The tools of public relations are then listed
as: press kits, speeches, seminars, annual reports, charitable donations,
sponsorships, publications, community relations, lobbying, identity media,
company magazine, and events. Kotler points out that not all public relations
departments have objectives that support marketing objectives.
Stanton et al (1991) see public relations and publicity as neglected, ill-defined
parts of the marketing promotion mix with a ‘bad press’ amongst consumers.
They state that publicity is a form of public relations as well as “any promotional
communication about an organisation or its products that is presented by the
media but is not paid for by the organisation” (p. 472).
It is helpful to distinguish corporate public relations from marketing public
relations, the latter of which, like financial public relations and community
public relations, serves a specific group - in this case, the marketing department.
Kotler sees marketing public relations as a development of ‘publicity’ which
moves beyond ‘editorial column inches’ to assistance in product launches,
repositioning mature products, promoting product categories, influencing target
groups, defending products under threat, and building corporate image – i.e.
creating an effect, and not just output.
Bradley (1995) defines public relations as “any non-personal communication in
the form of news about the company or its products which is carried by the mass
media”. In a book of some 990 pages, public relations gets little more than 3
pages. This is disappointing for a book with such an alluring title! What Bradley
describes is closer to marketing public relations (MPR), but it should be pointed
out that MPR is not all ‘non-personal’ communication, nor is it only about
promotion. Fill (1995) appears to present marketing communications are part of
organisational communication.
Cutlip et al (1985) distinguish corporate public relations as:
“a function of management seeking to identify, establish and
maintain mutually beneficial relationships between an organisation
and the various publics on whom its success and failure depend”,
whereas marketing public relations is:
“not only concerned with organisational success and failure but also
with specific publics: customers, consumers, and clients with whom
exchange transactions take place”.
Mercer (1992) sees public relations as the means by which the various significant
‘publics’ of the corporation are identified and communicated with, to the
advantage of the corporation, through personal and impersonal media. This
publicises a positive image of the company’s achievements and leads to a good
reputation. Mercer feels that publicity is the dominant form of public relations
activity in practice. Others have argued that public relations is merely a form of
consumer-oriented sales promotion. Then, marketing public relations is simply
part of sales promotion – an information dissemination activity.
Generally, observes Kotler, marketing managers are concerned with contribution
to profits, whereas public relations specialists are likely to be more concerned
with producing communications and creating ‘image’. Riel (1995) provides
evidence that corporate identity and corporate image are often confused, and
suggests that the formation, in the minds of key group members, of the latter is
strongly influenced by communication of the former. Whilst marketing
communication is tied to product promotion and brand image, public relations is
broader and more strategic, being concerned with corporate image. They can use
exactly the same channels of communication, with the essential differences being
in the purpose and thus target audiences and messages.
Public relations is clearly portrayed differently by public relations and marketing
specialists. It is proposed here that we consider that public relations and
marketing can have a common objective - both aim to increase the prosperity of
the corporation by improving its reputation. Public relations takes a wider view
of the place of the corporation in its community and economic, political, and
technological environment, although moves towards ‘social marketing’
(sometimes termed macro-marketing) have even blurred this distinction. Public
relations can advise marketing strategy and methods by providing intelligence on
important issues that impact on the business. Public relations can also be a major
marketing tool for building relationships. White and Mazur (1994) propose that
public relations is “about creating a more favourable environment in which
marketing activities can be more successful”. To do this adequately, the public
relations specialist needs adequate general knowledge of the corporation’s
business and the corporation’s role and identity, detailed knowledge of all plans
with a public relations impact and/or responsibility, and very clearly defined
‘publics’ (a better term is key groups). Then the Public Relations department can
be a provider of professional support for the corporation’s various internal and
external communications programmes.
We can clarify the situation considerably by thinking of public relations as
organisational communication (van Riel, 1995). This view has also been
expressed by Jefkins (1984):
“public relations is concerned with disseminating knowledge in order
to create understanding of an organisation and its Products and
services. It is not about creating favourable images or persuading
people to buy. It deals with the real world where things are not
always favourable, and it leaves Promotion to the advertising
experts”.
“every function of a business, from top to bottom, is involved in
communications. Public relations is not limited to the marketing
function”.
Broom et al (1991) see public relations as “the management process whose goal
is to attain and maintain accord and positive behaviours among social groupings
on which an organisation depends in order to achieve its mission. Its fundamental
responsibility is to build and maintain a hospitable environment for an
organisation” (p. 223). Daniels et al (1997) show that traditional public relations
has been concerned with image building, whereas the new strategic public
relations is concerned with issues management.
Marketing and Public Relations
Marketing is a special grouping of human communication activities which aims
to adapt the company’s offering to the customer’s needs and wants, and then to
communicate that this has been done so as to create an economic exchange.
Marketing can be premised on dyadic exchange (Bagozzi, 1978) as two-way
transactional relations between sellers and buyers in which the outcomes depend
on bargaining, negotiation, the balance of power, and the sources of conflict
between the parties (Day and Wensley, 1983). This rather counters the argument
of Ehling et al, but does illustrate the relative narrowness of the marketing
textbooks upon which they pour considerable criticism.
Broom et al (1991) see marketing as:
“the management process whose goal is to attract and satisfy
customers ..... on a long-term basis in order to achieve an
organisation’s economic objectives. Its fundamental responsibility is
to build and maintain a market for an organisation’s products and
services” (p. 223-4).
For Jefkins (1990) marketing communications consists of every form of
communication relevant to marketing and “requires attention to every aspect of
the marketing strategy where communication occurs”. Grunig (1992) supports
the view that whilst strategic public relations is a two-way form of
communication, much of marketing communications in practice is one-way, with
little or no feedback or interaction. Most textbooks use the term promotion to
describe a communication process that is mostly one-way, thus much of
marketing communications is about promotion of both the corporation and its
offerings.
Marketing communications has the role of converting prospects into customers
and retaining existing customers – it is thus primarily promotional in nature and
intent. Thus it includes all communications channels and media that can help to
move a potential customer from ignorance to decision and purchase, and inform
and remind existing customers. In its widest sense, marketing communications
can be employed as the process by which:

Persuasive information is transmitted

Participative decision-making is fostered

Programmes are co-ordinated

Power is exercised

Commitment and loyalty to each other are encouraged.
Marketing communication contributes to business profit objectives by creating
sales and market share through creating awareness and changing perceptions.
Users of the promotion concept (Shimp, 1993) attempt to adapt the customer to
the marketer’s needs and wants through persuasive communications (messages
designed to enhance the customer’s impressions of the basic offer, delivered via
advertising, publicity, and personal selling - ‘promotion’ comes from the Latin
promovere meaning to move forward (Shimp, 1993, p. 8)) and promotional
inducements (free samples, discounts, etc.). Most marketers therefore need to use
both the marketing concept and the promotion concept to achieve their aims.
Barich and Kotler (1991) introduced the notion of ‘marketing image’ in an
attempt to deal with the apparent conflict of interest between marketers and
public relations specialists. This provides the marketer with a role in managing
the corporate identity in order to foster the desired corporate image. Kotler
(1986) argued that public relations should be part of 'megamarketing' (social
marketing), along with power - the 6 Ps! The marketer takes responsibility for
the supply of benefits to parties other than target consumers, for example,
government, unions, or other interested third-parties, who may act as
gatekeepers. It is sometimes necessary to arrange additional incentives,
inducements or sanctions to gain desired responses from groups other than
customers. This approach is the strategically co-ordinated application of
economic, psychological, political, and public relations skills to gain the cooperation of a number of parties in order to enter and/or operate in a given
‘protected’ market. This approach requires co-operation and co-ordination
between marketers, company officers, public relations and public affairs
specialists, and legal specialists in the corporation. But public relations is seen as
primarily a communication tool for influencing attitudes, whereas marketing
aims to elicit specific behaviours and includes not only communication but needs
assessment, product development, price setting, and the creation of distribution
channels (Ehling et al, 1992, p. 378). Thus, public relations is not seen as
involved in defining the goals of the corporation, but merely in making it easier
to sell products and services.
White (1991) disagrees, arguing that public relations is a central management
concern which complements marketing communications, and is firmly strategic,
forward-looking, and co-ordinating in scope and nature.
Most advocates of relationship marketing readily recognise the centrality of
'good communication', but may be less clear on how this is constituted. It is
mostly seen as promotion of a product or service that has already been developed
(Crosier in Baker, 1991, p. 348). Marketing channel problems are caused
primarily by communication difficulties. Calls for "more communication",
"improved communication", and "open communication" are simplistic and may
be inappropriate in building a stronger relationship, for example if threats or
other forms of coercive power are conveyed. Rarely do marketing texts really
deal with the 'what' and 'how' of human relationships.
Frequency, direction, medium, and content are important facets of
communication in both communications theory and organisation theory.
‘Communication strategy’ (Mohr and Nevin, 1990) to refers to a particular
combination of these facets and suggest that the appropriate strategy for a
relational situation would be:

High frequency (the amount of contact that is required to conduct activities
adequately)

Highly bi-directional (flowing both upward and downward between the
parties, who may differ in their relative power - and laterally)

Highly indirect (designed to change the target's beliefs and attitudes about
the desirability of an intended behaviour, rather than implying or requesting
a specific action that the source wants the target to take - a Promise or
recommendation is an example of a direct communication strategy)

Highly informal (perceived as spontaneous and non-regularised, rather than
regularised and structured).
This combination of facets has been called 'collaborative' communication
strategy, and is contrasted with 'autonomous' communication strategy. This
collaborative communication strategy is expected to produce enhanced
outcomes, initially in terms of satisfaction, then impacting on quantitative
measures such as performance, when relational rather than market structures are
present. This may be associated with supportive climates and symmetrical power
conditions.
There is an enlightened view! Shimp (1993) states that “marketing
communications represents the collection of all elements in an organisation’s
marketing mix that facilitates exchanges by establishing shared meaning with the
organisation’s customers .....” (p. 8) (emphasis added). “Whereas promotion
management is restricted to communications undertaken by the subset of
mechanisms catalogued under the promotion variable in the marketing mix,
marketing communications is a general concept that encompasses
communications via all of the marketing mix variables” e.g. product, price,
placement, as well as promotion (p. 9).
But even the Chartered Institute of Marketing has confused communication and
promotion and taken a mechanistic perspective:
“communication is a critical part of marketing and the promotional
tools are the heart of the marketer’s toolbox” (Marketing Success
examination guide, 1993).
Much of the problem of distinguishing market and public relations is exacerbated
by the focus on marketing as defined by the popular textbooks. This trap was
sprung even in a critique of marketing thinking (Ehling et al, 1992) which
narrowly criticises Kotler’s perspective on public relations. There is a
considerable body of theory that lies outside the managerialist version of
marketing. This shows that marketing can have a social collectivity focus (see
Sheth et al, 1988, for example, for a meta-analysis of literature which reveals
twelve broad schools of thought categorised as non-interactive/interactive and
economic/non-economic). Consideration of a wider vista of marketing may help
to narrow the apparent chasm of thinking between the two functions.
The Corporate Communication Managing System
Communication is an essential aspect of organising and management. It can be
argued that organisation is simply a process of structured communication and
that responsibility lies with management for constructing and maintaining clear
communication channels (Barnard, 1938). Clearly, this is not a new idea - it just
hasn’t been mindfully adopted (Langer, 1989). The total configuration of the
organisation undoubtedly exerts a strong influence on the characteristics of
communication within it. Fisher (1993, p. 3) goes further: "To a large extent, an
organisation is communication".
So what are the communication needs of a business enterprise? They are
essentially centred on decision-making (making choices), relationships (social
fabric) and learning (updating mental models). Thayer (1968) summarises the
functions of communication as informing, command & control, persuasion &
influence, and integration.
Information, in the form of interpreted data (‘facts’), and peoples’ ideas, feelings,
attitudes, and beliefs, must flow within and between co-operating groups, and
across the boundary between the internal and external operating environments.
The leader is an innovator and communicator, whose primary role is boundary
spanning between zones of meaning (Heath, 1994). Thus the function of
managing corporate communication is essentially to drive the negotiation of
meaning between differing zones of meaning (groups, departments, etc.) into
sufficient alignment for constructive co-ordinated action.
Internal communication is the sharing of messages within the transformation
processes of the enterprise, and includes giving and taking orders and directives;
generation, dissemination, and interpretation of performance data; and task
instruction. In external communication messages are shared between members
and representatives of the environment in the form of promotional messages via
mass communication media, and inward in the form of market information
(news, market research, etc.) about the microenvironment, and economic
information (about the macro-environment).
Information, generated by interpretation of data from the external and internal
environments, is a raw material in the business corporation that enables
‘managers’ to make choices in the areas of strategy, resource utilisation, resource
procurement, administration, innovation, and relationships. These are the
essential areas for decisions according to Dawson (1992), and are often identified
with particular groups of specialists within the corporation, but are also
influenced by information and opinion from other interested parties.
The two domains of communication are interdependent co-ordinating functions,
and must themselves be co-ordinated. Members must be able to access and use
both to maintain a productive balance between innovation and stability (Kreps,
1990).
Riel’s definition of the field of corporate communication (1995) locates public
relations within organisational communication and publicity within marketing
communications. Importantly, corporate communication is defined as:
“an instrument of management by means of which all consciously
used forms of internal and external communication are harmonised as
effectively and efficiently as possible, so as to create a favourable
basis for relationships with groups on which the company is
dependent” (Riel, 1995, p. 26).
Kreps (1990) places marketing and public relations are part of organisational
communication, whereas Daniels et al (1997) do not mention either and focus
only on ‘internal’ communication.
Corporate communication is a management process or strategy - the glue that
binds together the organisation’s parts in pursuit of an enterprise – providing a
focus on the communicative aspects of organising. Goodman (1994) describes
corporate communication as the total managed corporate effort (discipline) to
communicate effectively and profitably in a co-ordinated, structured, skilled
manner with a clear policy and capability enhancement focus, using a wide
variety of management activities to make information accessible and to involve
stakeholders in mutually beneficial activities.
The concept of corporate communications management as a system of planned,
measured communication efforts is akin to the creation of a ‘corporate
intelligence’, and is uncannily comparable with Kelley’s (1968) proposals for the
introduction of a marketing intelligence system, with major benefits, which
include:
 Help in expanding time horizons in decision-making and planning
 Recognises and responds to increasing complexity in decision-making as
known and unknown factors and their interdependent relationships multiply
 Handles the proliferation of data in the ‘Information Age’
 Protects management from specialists’ distortions, filtering, etc.
 Offsets the tendency for top management to become divorced from reality
 Opens up new and better sources of information
 Allows creative intelligence functions
 Provides responsibility for communication and aids the corporation in its
communication.
Gayeski (1993) has defined corporate communications as:
"the professional practice of developing and implementing
communication rules and tools in order to enhance the dissemination,
comprehension, acceptance, and application of information in ways
that will help to achieve an organisation's goals".
This is a much broader and deeper view than the traditional view of the business
communication field. The professional communicator of the future will
necessarily have to master the deployment of complex techniques and
technologies of internal and external communication in order to become a
‘knowledge manager’ (Jensen, 1994) if their corporation is to succeed.
The idea of managed corporate communications with policy and responsibility is
a recognition of the need to co-ordinate organisational communications,
educational technology, organisation development, telecommunications systems,
technical writing and publications, information science, public relations, and the
mass media. Information exchange is increasing in demand, importance, and
specialisation. Many areas of communication are clearly beyond the boundaries
of customer groups: public affairs, employee communications, training &
development, documentation, IT, corporate media, advertising & marketing,
policies & procedures, and library & information systems.
Corporate communications management sets out and drives formal, official
systems and practices for communication, allows for informal networks of
communication, and is concerned with co-ordinating all managed
communication in interdependent relationships to contribute strategically to
overall corporate performance and capability enhancement.
The Marketer’s Contribution to Corporate Communication
Marketers should recognise that joining the Corporate Communication fold is a
major opportunity for them to achieve a central role for marketing management.
There is still the problem that whilst marketing is described as a key management
process, it is often the case that the conditions of possibility are set by others who
have not adopted the marketing concept. Marketers can adopt a central role by
pursuing integrated marketing communications in co-operation with corporate
communication policy, by pursuing the application of the marketing concept to
ensure appropriate basic offerings, and the promotional concept to effect
‘profitable’ exchanges.
It is time to shift thinking away from the still prevailing focus on persuasive
promotional messages alone, to relationship management by recognising
interdependence with other ‘non-customer’ groups. This must be based on a
corporate intelligence system which helps the corporation to adapt to meet the
needs of its customers whilst recognising the interests and concerns of, and
impact of decisions and actions upon, all key groups. Marketers should carefully
segment their key groups, so that they can closely identify with them and so coordinate with, and be consistent with, the creation of a strong corporate identity
that produces the desired overall corporate image. This requires co-ordination
and collaboration with public relations specialists about common goals and
interests, through joint planning and linked performance measures. The
marketing specialist should be contributing information to co-ordinated
communication with key groups other than ‘markets’, for example via the annual
report/AGM, and market research which delves deeper than product preferences
and purchase intentions.
The marketer also has a responsibility to manage the corporation’s ‘marketing
image’, that is, how the various key groups view the important attributes of the
company’s performance (Barich and Kotler, 1991). This responsibility is
subsumed under corporate image management, but is broader than product and
brand image management responsibilities. The marketer must be aware of the
complex and dynamic product of beliefs, attitudes, and feelings created by the
impressions of the company’s marketing policy and behaviour.
Co-ordination of marketing communications with managerial and organisational
communications is necessary as part of corporate communication, and this
requires co-operation and collaboration at the early stages of marketing planning.
Integration of communication activities can be achieved through balanced
management and leadership which seeks both stability (through internal
communication) and innovation (through external communication).
Marketing managers are also encouraged to take responsibility for ensuring a
marketing orientation in the corporation, to ensure market-oriented strategic
management. Meeting customer needs, wants, and expectations at a profit is
central to decision-making. The organisation of marketing management and
operations is appropriate for the marketing and general business environment and
the personality of the corporation. Marketing information is timely, relevant, and
available to advise corporate decision-making. Managers have a long-term
customer and competitor focus. Marketing planning and operations are efficient
and effective. Clearly, communication is an issue for each of these requirements
of marketing effectiveness.
Marketers should actively market the marketing concept through the provision of
the concept of exchange relationships, as well as communication tools and skills,
to other groups in the corporation. This will include techniques of market
research, advertising, direct mail, publicity, and personal selling. They should be
training line managers in a range of approaches for gathering attitudinal
knowledge about how their business actually works, and for changing attitudes,
and turning detached, frustrated workers into ‘part-time marketers’, and
consumers into long-term loyal and satisfied customers. Of course, marketers
should also be improving their own understanding of public affairs and issues
management, in order to make a competent contribution to the development of
relationships with the range of key groups.
There remains the problem of 'marketing' being equated with promotion of a
product or service to external parties - consumers, intermediaries, sales force, etc.
- often with one-way information transmission. Marketers need to think and
practice relationship management - this requires interactive communication as
dialogue – i.e. negotiated exchange. It is still true that much of what goes under
the title 'marketing communications' is actually one-way message transmission,
therefore is not true communication (i.e. the interactional creation of meanings)
(Day and Wensley, 1983; Mantovani, 1996). Marketing texts, courses, and
behaviour needs to incorporate the view that communication is a dialogue and is
not simply about firing ‘persuasive arrows’ at customers (Clampitt, 1991).
Integrated marketing communications should be integrated into the overall
corporate communication policy to ensure that the range of marketing
communications methods are available to the corporation to persuade people to
act by creating coherent impressions which shape their opinions.
There is an important role for marketers in change management, to ensure that
the corporation is willing to consider the need, and is capable, for adapting what
it does to meet the changing needs of customers. Thus marketers also have a role
in managed internal communication, and the application of an internal marketing
model of communication, which aims to align business and personal needs and
wants, is gaining popularity. Internal marketing is a management process which
co-ordinates marketing, human resource (including recruitment and training) and
organisation development management to design and operate processes for
responsive joint learning amongst specialist groups since many ‘internal
customers’ are also ‘part-time marketers’ (Gummesson, 1991).
With internal marketing, the marketer's philosophy of business and tools of
communication are utilised inside the corporation - marketing principles are
applied to internal communications programmes. Internal marketing requires
two-way communication rather than one-way promotion - marketers are
responsible for pushing the voice of the customer and the marketing philosophy
and related tools and techniques into all parts of the corporation’s thinking and
activity. There must be a widely understood link between the what and the why
of the corporation’s existence, and business objectives must be aligned with the
personal needs and wants of all corporation members, and not just those of the
senior management group.
Marketing communication and behaviour have a major role in forming and
confirming or disconfirming perceptions of quality. Marketers should be
encouraged to see themselves as involved in the quality management process, as
managers of customer expectations, throughout the stages of customer quality
perception formation. Quality perceptions are formed when recipients of
promotional messages compare the experience of product/service delivery with
what they believe was promised.
Contemporary ‘State-of-the-Art’ and a Possible Future Approach
There is a growing recognition of the need to respond to the realisation of
multiple interconnected stakeholder groups and interrelationships between the
various and proliferating external and internal channels of communication which
are used to address them with a relationship orientation. The organising system is
a relational management approach capable of dealing with non-marketing and
marketing needs in a co-ordinated and coherent way. The integrated discipline
emerges when attention is directed to the nature of human communication, its
functions in business enterprise, and the purposes of those people who engage,
intentionally or unintentionally, in the process. Whereas marketing relies on
existing channels of communication through mostly mass media (although new
technologies are changing this emphasis), public relations creates and manages
communication channels jointly with the other parties to an actual or potential
conflict situation.
Public relations, when seen as the management of external channels of
organisational communication (Kreps, 1990), encompasses marketing (including
advertising) as an integral and key part. Markets are created when those people
who are most likely to consume a product or service are identified. On the other
hand, publics create themselves. Customers are concerned with products and
their availability, whereas publics are concerned with some or all of the total
behaviour of the corporation.
Multi-disciplinary team-working, which must always involve those who do not
claim to be marketing experts, can provide profitable solutions directly for their
external customers, and also for their internal customers in support of, in turn,
their own external customers. In this sense marketing communication includes
internal communication. Some marketing specialists now act as internal
consultants and facilitators of value-adding relationships between corporation
members, suppliers, customers, and intermediaries. They must co-operate and
collaborate with the corporate communication effort to achieve profitable
strategic business relationship management, and recognise that they must keep
communication strictly human to align internal and external customers’ needs.
The approach will foster co-ordinated, consistent statements, decisions, priorities,
intentions, aims, and behaviour. This will help to release and mobilise the
corporate knowledge, and personality, and the linkage between individual and
collective intent, actions, relationships, expectations, and performance.
Corporate communication is in its infancy as a convergence of the management
discipline, and practice is clearly leading theoretical developments. There is
confusion over the central concepts, as well as confusion over the scope and
nature of organisational communication, integrated marketing communications,
internal marketing, and public relations. What is required is a body of
documented and rigorously analysed knowledge of good practice and lessons
learned in attempting to integrate the total corporate communication effort to
balance managerial (internal, stabilising, tactical) and leadership (external,
strategic, innovating) efforts, and the distillation and dissemination of a
framework which can guide practitioners, academic researchers, teachers, and
consultants. The theory of public relations management has its origins in social
psychology and sociology, whereas marketing management originates in
microeconomics and the psychology of consumer behaviour. Research in the
field should take a more sociological approach that can recognise that corporate
and social groupings are interdependent collectivities. Further work in this
direction can be fruitful.
Far from fearing subservience to public relations or a new ‘corporate
communications’ discipline, and feeling the need to compete or conflict with
‘usurpers’ to the communication throne, marketers should be able to recognise
and grasp a leading role as integrators, communicators (in the widest sense), and
relationship managers of negotiated exchanges in business enterprise. Marketing
and public relations each have an essential role in working together. Corporate
communication is an integrated system of interpersonally focused, bilaterally
designed, bidirectionally oriented communication, working alongside unilaterally
designed unidirectional message flow. The challenge is to make these often
opposing communication systems work as conceptually and operationally
distinct functions within a single managerial framework. Neither one should be
subsumed within the other, and nor can they continue to conflict.

The term corporation is consciously chosen in place of ‘organisation’ to
connote a social collectivity. The term organisation is retained for the outcome of
the managerial process of organising.
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