Integrated Communication Model

The concept of an integrated approach to communications, as defined by Hallahan, Wilcox, and Scott, is the notion of the use of a team approach to communications by recruiting experts from different disciplines such as advertising, public relations, and marketing to work together on a project from the very start. In this way, all individuals working in an organization work to promote and advance the organization’s mission. However, an integrated approach to communications addresses more than just the organizational communicators’ or managers’ desires but also coordinates activities in order to focus on an audience’s interest and needs (Hallahan, et al, 7).

The authors argue that an integrated approach to communications allows different professionals

Not only must those involved in the organization adequately communicate, but informational feedback from the target audience must also occur. Therefore, the theoretical model of strategic communication that best supports the integration of marketing and communications is that of the interactive model. The interactive model conceptualizes communication as the creation and exchange of meaning between individuals who participate in the communication activity (Hallahan et al, 20). Unlike the Shannon and Weaver model, which views communication as a one-way emission of information that primarily focused on the sender, the interactive approach highlights the importance to the communication from both senders and receivers in the communication event (Hallahan et al, 20). This model allows a level of interaction that is unachievable with the transmission model of communication. Effective communication is able to motivate, inform, persuade, or to achieve a mutual understanding between individuals. If the theoretical model of transmission is applied and an organization focuses on one-way emission of information, the motivation of individuals or mutual understanding between an organization and its audience would be highly

Having a thorough understanding of the necessary background information aids to the formation of strategy. Strategy supplies the guidelines and key messages of an overall program, and defines the motivation behind a proposal and how it will achieve the intentions of a campaign (Wilcox, 110). Scott’s “New Rules” disregard the outdated rules of marketing that have been established and used by organization in the past and provide new methods in marketing and PR to strategically engage with a target audience. Applying a strategic approach to the “new rules” implies gaining adequate, thorough understanding of how these new rules function, how they are best applied, the target audience who will be receive messages, and the specific way that these rules will be able to achieve a specific campaign