Today there are many tools used for marketing. Many Ideal figures have been drawn tocreate “the way” to do marketing. IMC is constructed to be a non-massmarketing tool that focuses on its target market specifically, makes it essential to start relationships with customer, it shows the importance of one coherent message the user of IMC is trying to portray to its customers, and finally it allows marketers to know what resources or communication channels they have at hand because IMC makes it important to know your resources of marketing beforeyou actually start marketing your product. These characteristics of IMC are the very reason the authors of this study became interested in this topic specifically to study the Impact of integrated marketing communications (IMC) on consumer decision Making with special reference to Pharma Industries in Tamilnadu.

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International Journal of Management (IJM)
Volume 11, Issue 10, October 2020, pp. 2368-2372. Article ID: IJM_11_10_231
Available online at https://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJM?Volume=11&Issue=10
ISSN Print: 0976-6502 and ISSN Online: 0976-6510
DOI: https://doi.org/10.34218/IJM.11.10.2020.231
© IAEME Publication Scopus Indexed
IMPACT OF INTEGRATED MARKETING
COMMUNICATIONS (IMC) ON CONSUMER
DECISION MAKING WITH SPECIAL
REFERENCE TO PHARMA INDUSTRIES IN
TAMILNADU
V. Nagachitra
Research Scholar, Department of Management & Research,
Adaikalamatha College, (Affiliated to Bharathidasan University),
Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, India.
Dr. J. Kavitha
Assistant Professor, Department of Management & Research,
Adaikalamatha College, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, India.
ABSTRACT
Today there are many tools used for marketing. Many Ideal figures have been
drawn tocreate “the way” to do marketing. IMC is constructed to be a non-mass-
marketing tool that focuses on its target market specifically, makes it essential to start
relationships with customer, it shows the importance of one coherent message the user
of IMC is trying to portray to its customers, and finally it allows marketers to know what
resources or communication channels they have at hand because IMC makes it
important to know your resources of marketing beforeyou actually start marketing
your product. These characteristics of IMC are the very reason the authors of this study
became interested in this topic specifically to study the Impact of integrated marketing
communications (IMC) on consumer decision Making with special reference to Pharma
Industries in Tamilnadu.
Key words: Integrated marketing communications (IMC), Consumer Decision Making.
Cite this Article: V. Nagachitra and J. Kavitha, Impact of Integrated Marketing
Communications (IMC) on Consumer Decision Making with Special Reference to
Pharma Industries in Tamilnadu, International Journal of Management (IJM), 11(10),
2020, pp. 2368-2372.
https://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJM?Volume=11&Issue=10
1. INTRODUCTION
The integrated marketing communications (IMC) concept has been largely regarded as an
important marketing management issue since early last decade, because of the effectiveness of

2. Impact of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) on Consumer Decision Making with Special
Reference to Pharma Industries in Tamilnadu
https://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJM 2369 editor@iaeme.com
the integration of marketing communications tools to optimize the communications impact on
target consumers (Kotler, 2000; Schultz & Kitchen, 1997). One of the most important reasons
is increased efforts to measure and improve marketing communication return on investment
(ROI) by both clients and agencies (G. Belch & M. Belch, 2004; Cornelissen, 2000, 2001;
Shimp, 2000). Moreover, there are several reasons for the growing importance of IMC. There
are a lot of studies to show the adoption of various marketing managers who implement IMC
in their organizations in the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, New Zealand,
Australia, and India (Eagle & Kitchen, 2000; Kallmeyer & Abratt, 2001; Kitchen & Schultz,
1998, 1999; Low, 2000; Reid, 2003, 2005).
During the past twenty years, discussions on IMC were mainly based on definitions and
theoretical understanding and this discussion is still taking place today (Laurie & Mortimer,
2011). Regardless of the theoretical development of integrated marketing communications, a
large number of agencies have continued to deploy integrated marketing communication
programs (Kitchen et al., 2008). As stated, “IMC would appear to be defined by those
implementing it” (Kitchen et al., 2004, p.23), meaning that many different definitions have been
created as a result of the length of time the theoretical process has been taking place for
integrated marketing communications and in the manner, agencies have chosen to implement
it. Furthermore, as stated by Kitchen et al., (2008); “…one of the reasons that the understanding
of IMC understanding has emerged so slowly is because its practitioners have been more
interested in its development and implementation than its measurement value” (p.531).
However, the comprehensive study of IMC practices of companies in Bangladesh is still in
the beginning stage. In this backdrop, this study seeks to explore and extend the knowledge of
IMC by investigating how the IMC management in organizations affects outcomes, especially
in terms of sales and creating and leveraging brand-based asset. Additionally, it also seeks to
find the indicators that marketing executives can use in measuring the effectiveness of the
overall IMC program because the issue of measurement of the overall IMC program remains a
major question (Kitchen & Schultz, 1998, 1999; Reid, 2003).
Despite all indicators pointing to the need for a clear understanding of the business value of
integrated marketing communications (IMC), marketers today remain unsure of how IMC
works and how to properly measure its business value. Marketers see IMC as simply amounts
to bundling promotional mix elements together to create the “one-voice” phenomenon, then it
is not saying much that is new, relevant, or even interesting (Kitchen et al., 2004) but there has
been no general clarification of how IMC differs from advertising, sales promotion and other
promotional tools used separately in promoting goods and services since all these are blend to
support sponsorship activities.
2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
In measuring the IMC management in previous studies (Reid, 2002, 2003, 2005; Reid, et al.,
2001), the IMC mini-audit created by Duncan and Moriarty (1997) was adopted. This audit
views integration in the management of marketing communications across five constructs: 1)
organizational infrastructure 2) interactivity 3) mission marketing 4) strategic consistency 5)
planning and evaluation. In this framework, marketing communications is the glue that enables
the connection between the company’s efforts and customers’ response (Duncan & Moriarty,
1997). This framework is adopted in measuring the IMC implementation in this research.
Additionally, for measuring performances; three basic dimensions were largely employed in
previous studies (Gray, Matear, Boshoff & Matheson, 1998; Reid, 2002, 2003, 2005; Reid, et
al., 2001). These three dimensions include: 1) sales-related performance – evaluation of market
share growth, sale growth, overall profitability, and sales income, 2) brand strength-related
performance – evaluation of comparative brand awareness, ability to command premium prices,

3. V. Nagachitra and J. Kavitha
https://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJM 2370 editor@iaeme.com
and level of favorable channel support, 3) customer satisfaction related performance –
comparative customer satisfaction and level of customer brand loyalty. Besides, Reid (2002,
2003, 2005) found that there was a positive association between these various performance
measures and IMC management as measured through the Duncan-Moriarty IMC mini-audit.
Therefore, these dimensions are adopted in measuring the IMC marketing performances in this
study.
There are two basic approaches to measuring the effectiveness of the IMC program. One
approach is to merely take on the measurement of each of the promotional tools used in a
campaign, trying to measure the effectiveness of each communication tool. For example, Sales
promotion can be measured by using four communication frameworks: 1) the ability to gain the
consumer’s attention, 2) the ability to relate the messages in an easy-to follow, straightforward
manner that can be clearly interpreted, 3) the persuasive capability, and 4) the ability to produce
a favorable impact in purchase behavior (Gadener & Trivedi, 1998). The other approach is to
take on the measurement of the overall IMC program. But there has still been a key question:
what indicators are suitable for measuring the overall IMC program? However, based on
reviewing relevant literatures on the measurement of the effectiveness of each communication
tool (Gadener & Trivedi & Pelsmacker, 2004) the researcher found that indicators suitable for
measuring the overall IMC program should be drawn from both marketing-based perspectives
and communications-based perspectives. Therefore, four indicators were found and adopted in
this study.
3. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
• To know the impact of IMC on consumer decision making in pharma Industry
• To identify the correlation between IMC and consumer decision making with reference
selected to pharma Industries.
4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Reliability deals with the measurement instruments of the constructs and their consistency
(Cortina, 1993). As discussed in the methodology section, the reliability was tested using
Cronbach’s alpha. It was calculated using the SPSS program.
5. DATA ANALYSIS
Table 1 Reliability Test
From the table above, the results show that five of the constructs are reliable with values
0.653 (CF), 0.723 (CBR), 0.878 (SYN), 0.772 (CC) and 0.759 (IMC) as they are all above the
0.6 limit. These constructs are reliable and therefore can be used again at another time to
measure the same thing. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for all the constructs. The
Targeted Communication (TC) has a value of 0.563, which is lower than the limit. This means
that it is not reliable and therefore cannot be used to measure this construct again.
Construct Cronbach’s Alpha
Customer Focus (CF) 0.653
Targeted Communication (TC) 0.563
Customer-Brand Relationship (CBR) 0.723
Synergy (SYN) 0.878
Communication Channels (CC) 0.772
Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) 0.759

4. Impact of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) on Consumer Decision Making with Special
Reference to Pharma Industries in Tamilnadu
https://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJM 2371 editor@iaeme.com
The correlation analysis has been calculated to test the construct validity of measurement
instruments. Construct Validity is defined as how much a measurement instrument is measuring
the right construct (DeVon et al., 2007). Table 5.3 shows the results of the correlation analysis
and all the results are lower than the 0.9 limit. Any result above 0.9 would mean that two
constructs are highly correlated and are essentially measuring the same thing (Bryman & Bell,
2011). In this study, none of the constructs were highly correlated and are not measuring the
same thing since the highest value found on table 5.3 was 0.745.
Table 2 Validity Test
Correlations
CF_Sum TC_Sum CBR_Sum SYN_Sum CC_Sum IMC_Sum
CF_Sum Pearson
Correlation
1 .453**
.584**
.251*
.442**
.478**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .024 .000 .000
N 83 82 83 81 81 79
TC_Sum Pearson Correlation .453**
1 .518**
.195 .426**
.468**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .081 .000 .000
N 82 82 82 81 81 78
CBR_Sum Pearson Correlation .584**
.518**
1 .497**
.657**
.718**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 .000
N 83 82 83 81 81 79
SYN_Sum Pearson Correlation .251*
.195 .497**
1 .619**
.395**
Sig. (2-tailed) .024 .081 .000 .000 .000
N 81 81 81 81 80 77
CC_Sum Pearson Correlation .442**
.426**
.657**
.619**
1 .745**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 .000
N 81 81 81 80 81 77
IMC_Sum Pearson Correlation .478**
.468**
.718**
.395**
.745**
1
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 .000
N 79 79 79 79 79 79
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
The last hypothesis of this report was formulated from the support of Kitchen (2005) stating
that IMC should use all forms of communication and all sources of brand or company contacts
as potential source of delivery channels. The hypothesis was formulated to test if the statement
above would be valid for the sampling size selected by the authors. The results found that the
p- value for hypothesis 6 was 0.000 meaning the survey participants supported the hypothesis.
6. CONCLUSION
There is a strong connection between the uses of all forms of communication, brand, or
company contacts for the help/benefit of implementation of IMC (ibid). In conclusion this
means that firms considering implementation of integrated marketing communications should
pay close attention to how they use their communication tools. The reliability of this study was
acceptable but for one feature that had low reliability. Targeted communication has no
reliability compared to all of the other factors. Targeted communication should be looked into
in order to find a method to enhance its reliability.
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