DRIVERS AND IMPEDIMENTS OF INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS IN BRAZILIAN RETAILING SMES

Resumo

Trilha: Estratégias e Gestão Varejista

Integrated marketing communication (IMC) has been a growing object of study within marketing literature. IMC is understood as a necessary mechanism to improve knowledge about the consumer, brand awareness and performance and finally financial performance. However, there is an underexplored path of study concerning the occurrence of IMC processes in small and medium enterprises (SME). This is because marketing theories applied to SMEs are, somehow, limited as they are based in classical ‘text-book’ models of marketing theory, normally applicable to large organizations. Thus, this study seeks to develop a theoretical model that relates the characteristics of these organizations with the IMC process, noticing that there are both drivers and impediments for the development of IMC. Further, the study focuses in the retail industry as such organizations may behave differently, thus contributing to the literature about retail, as well as contributing to the IMC and SME literature concerning the development of IMC in such organizations.