Using Integrated Marketing Communication To Create Longterm Value For A Sustainable Organization. Case Study: The Bakery Industry In Romania

Integrated marketing communication is considered to be a major development domain during the last decennium of the 20th century. Today, consumers use as many information sources as possible, and the value of integrated marketing communication has grown considerably. Very well targeted, integrated marketing communication campaigns rely on the strengths of the existing communicational tools, to favorably influence the behavior of the target public. The concept of integrated marketing communication was viewed for a long time as being an important management aspect, since by the efficacy of the integrated marketing communication tools, such as advertising, public relations, direct marketing, sales promotion, sales personnel, one can optimize the impact of communication on the target public. Integrated marketing communication has the role of building and consolidating profitable relations with the actual and potential clients and of generating synergy through the coordination of all the communicational mix tools into a coherent programme that can have a maximum effect. Integrated marketing communication can offer a real sustainable competitive advantage to any organization that profitably uses the potential of this communication. For this reason, the aim of the present paper consisted, on the one hand, in the evaluation of the extent to which the baking industry producers in Romania use integrated marketing communication tools, and, on the other hand, in the identification of the ways of measuring the efficacy of each communicational tool used by them.