What is IMC?

Hello Everyone!

IMC is an acronym for Integrated Marketing Communications, which is a planning process designed to assure that all brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time. Integrated marketing communication can be defined as a holistic approach to promote buying and selling in the digital economy. This concept includes many online and offline marketing channels. Online marketing channels include any e-marketing campaigns or programs, from search optimization (SEO), pay-per-click, affiliate, email, banner to latest web related channels for webinar, blog, RSS, podcast, and Internet TV. Offline marketing channels are traditional print (newspaper, magazine), mail order, public relations, industry analyst relations, billboard, radio, and television.1

The IMC program at Northwestern is a 15-month, five-quarter graduate degree program in the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. The program teaches us how to become the best marketing professionals around by understanding how to engage, persuade and activate consumers from the consumers point-of-view.

New for Fall 2007, there are two concentrations in the IMC program : Analysis and Insight and Brand, Ideas and Communications. We spend the first two quarters in core IMC courses, in the 3rd quarter we take electives in our concentration. During the 4th quarter, we work with an employer in the Professional Residency program (similar to a summer internship, but the employer pays our tuition for the quarter and we receive credit for our residency project). Past residency sponsors include: 3M, Draft FCB, and T-Mobile. In our last quarter, we take our remaining electives and work on several real-world corporate projects.

Graduates of the IMC program are employed in such positions as: Brand Managers, Account Planners, PR Professionals, Internal Communications Specialists, Database Marketing Managers and Strategic Marketing Consultants.

We are currently learning how to:

• Effectively conduct market research and analyze statistical data
• Understand the nuances of consumer behavior
• Develop clear-and-concise brand communications that resonate with internal and external stakeholders

For more information, please visit the Medill link on our blog.

1- Source: The American Marketing Association