Perceived agency politics and conflicts of interest as potential barriers to IMC orientation

While the concept of integrated marketing communications (IMC) is widely acknowledged in the literature, research on potential barriers to its implementation is relatively scarce. In particular, the possible significance of interagency politics and conflicts of interest has received little empirical consideration. This is perhaps somewhat surprising given the generally acknowledged proposition that marketing budgeting is largely a political process. This paper describes an exploratory study of leading Australian public companies and investigates the relationships between perceived agency politics, conflicts of interest and IMC orientation. The findings suggest that the salient conflict of interest is between advertising and public relations firms. The limitations are discussed and directions for future research offered.