Strategic and organisational challenges in the integrated marketing communication paradigm shift: A holistic vision

Digitisation and the consumer evolution have been leading to a paradigmatic shift in integrated marketing communication (IMC). Despite all of the research that has investigated the underlying topics of IMC evolution, little attention has been devoted to performing a comprehensive reading of the challenges that remain according to advertisers and communication players. In this paper, through an exploratory inductive and qualitative study (86 in-depth interviews), we develop a holistic conceptual model of these managerial challenges in a way that cuts across the different categories of players (advertisers, traditional and digital agencies, media centres and publishers/broadcasters). Our results reveal the various types of strategic and organisational challenges as well as the main specificities in practitioners' perceptions based on their player category. Finally, this article proposes recommendations for how players can address these challenges.