ANA Survey Reveals Most Integrated Marketing Communications Programs Need Improvement

New York, NY (June 14, 2006) — A new survey on the state of integrated marketing communications, released by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), reveals that 67 percent of marketers develop integrated marketing programs across most or all of their brands, but only 33 percent say they are very happy with their efforts. The findings, based on responses from more than 85 major advertisers, were released today at the ANA’s first annual Masters of Integrated Marketing Conference at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City. 

The survey also found that general advertising (30 percent) adds the most value to a company’s marketing communications programs. However, this is a dramatic decrease compared to the 2003 survey where 51 percent of marketers ranked it as most important. Surprisingly, trends thought to be hot, such as videogame advertising and mobile marketing, were viewed as least significant to the marketing mix. 

The ANA survey, conducted in collaboration with Blueprint Communications, defined integrated marketing communications as a strategic business process used to create measurable brand communications programs across multiple channels with one consistent message.  

“With the ever-changing, fragmenting media environment, it is more important than ever for marketers to develop and execute a comprehensive integrated marketing communications strategy,” said Bob Liodice, President and CEO of the ANA.  “The insights generated from this survey should provide important direction for marketers as they pursue this critically important strategy.”

Highlights of the survey include: 

• Sixty-three percent of marketers rank organizational issues as the greatest challenge to successfully integrating their marketing efforts. More specifically, they identified the existence of "functional silos" inside their companies as a key challenge.
• Most marketers (72 percent) feel the development of the “Big” creative idea that can be leveraged across all marketing channels is the most important contribution an agency can make toward an integrated marketing campaign.
• Almost 50 percent of marketers want their agencies to be media neutral when developing an integrated marketing program.
• Sales data and ROI analysis are viewed as the most important measures of the effectiveness of an IMC campaign.

This survey was fielded in May/June 2006, and is the second integrated marketing communications study conducted by the ANA.  The first survey was fielded in 2003.