Getting Serious About 360 Communications

The promise of 360 communications is significant but elusive. While the economic power of a great brand idea projected through a coherent voice across channels seems to be beyond debate, much work remains if the promise of 360 communications is to be brought to fruition. It is vital that marketers grasp this nettle now before the pace of change turns the task into one of gargantuan proportions.


The 360 communications discipline has made a big promise: to deliver more cost-effective brand building through integrating the activities of all communications disciplines into a single brand voice. However, while marketers believe in the concept, they admit that the promise is not currently being delivered in practice. A 2007 survey by the American Association of Advertising Agencies reported that 54 percent of senior marketing executives believe that the development of integrated marketing communication is “very important.” to success. What is telling, however, is that only 21 percent of those surveyed said that their organizations were delivering on this objective “very well.”

One of the biggest challenges impeding progress toward this goal is the need to manage an increasing and morphing number of specialists. These experts are necessary in today’s increasingly complex world, but marketers need considerably stronger mechanisms for getting the most value from them.

We believe that the promise of 360 communications will be realized most fully by those brand companies that truly take ownership of the responsibility. Companies that combine a comprehensive understanding of their consumers with detailed information on their marketing investments will set themselves up for a profitable future when they elect to oversee the critical task of 360 communications.

And they must do this now, before life gets any more complicated.

Download Getting Serious About 360 (pdf)