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Barriers to integrated corporate
communication
The concept of integration is warmly embraced
by some but argued against by others,
sometimes for what they consider to be the
sheer impracticality of integration. What is
indisputable, however, is the fact that the
whole communication business is going
through a period of change which is having a
significant impact upon working practices
and philosophies. Developments in database
technologies are encouraging and facilitating
integration but as Fletcher et al. (1994) have
discovered there are major organizational
barriers which can arise when a company
attempts to move towards database management
in any significant way. There has been
growth in international communication and
global branding requiring a much more integrated
approach. Companies have become
more sophisticated in their understanding and
in their demands for communication services
involving the whole organization targeted
towards multifarious audiences. There has
been increasing awareness of brand value and
brand equity and the role played by corporate
reputation. Despite such impetus for integration
it is not easily achieved. While the problems
of integration are not insurmountable
they are significant for a variety of reasons and
these present barriers to the process.
Mindset
The mindset built up over many years of practice
has rewarded specialization and overlooked
the need for, and benefits of,
integration. Gonring (1994) has identified the
fear of change and loss of control felt by individuals
associated with the communication
business. Robbs and Taubler (1996) have
highlighted creatives’ aversion to integration
and their lack of willingness to work across the
media and communication mix. Schultz
(1993) has commented on the cult of specialization
and the history, tradition and experience
of companies as limiting factors to the
fulfilment of integration.
Moreover, there is the question of what it is
that we wish to integrate. Hartley and Pickton
(1997), for example, have discussed the
developments in direct ‘personal communication’
and their inter-linkage with ‘nonpersonal
communication’. Exacerbating the
problem, many organizations relegate communication
activities to the tactical level and
fail to appreciate their strategic significance.
Any comprehensive approach to integration
has to take the widest view, both strategic and
tactical. A ‘totally integrated communication
programme accounts for all types of messages
delivered by an organisation at every point
where a stakeholder comes into contact with
the company’ (Moriarty, 1994: 38).
Taxonomy and language
The very taxonomy and language that are
used to describe the communication mix have
a detrimental effect on the integrative process
(Hartley and Pickton, 1997). The result is
that we perceive and encourage the uses
of communication as discrete activities. This
taxonomy (albeit it in simplified form) which
typically identifies the mix as personal selling,
advertising, sales promotion, sponsorship,
publicity and point-of-purchase communication
(Shimp, 1997), is increasingly inadequate
in expressing the range of activities it seeks
to describe and presents major classification
difficulties. It is difficult, for example, to know
© 2004 Sandra Oliver for editorial matter and selection;
individual chapters, the contributors