Whilst on the tube last week, I spotted a very interesting poster ad for the collaboration between Orange and T- Mobile.

Consecutive train panels cleverly told the story that Orange and T-Mobile customers can now use both networks’ signals, thereby enhancing the service received, delivered under the umbrella proposition of ‘Everything Everywhere’.

Integrated?

What a clever idea I thought. And the ads were both excellently executed and planned, from a creative and media perspective. However, if I had missed these posters, I would know nothing about this great new service. And yet, I am an Orange customer, and have been for over five years. I have yet to receive any kind of personalised mailing, email or text message, despite Orange having access to all these contact details.

This product innovation is not even highlighted on T-Mobile’s website. If you live outside of London, or don’t take much notice of poster advertising, this message could quite easily pass you by.

The Customer Always Comes First

Surely the first rule of Integrated Marketing Communications is that the customer comes first? Customer satisfaction rules dictate that leaving a customer out of the conversation is likely to alienate them completely.

And when the conversation does take place, it is all too easy to fall into the trap of talking in marketing speak, and seeing the world from the individual organisational viewpoint, rather than the way in which the consumer may see it. Getting the communications strategy right is great, but even if you have a message that you can successfully translate across different channels, it will fall on deaf ears if it is in the wrong language, or fails to recognise consumer-centric needs because of inward-facing priorities.

Too Many Silos

Secondly, too many silo’s can often preclude truly integrated activities. Whether the silo’s are organisational, or in the collection and interpretation of data, the separation of both duties and knowledge will often prohibit the consumer seeing one message from one brand.

Accountability

Finally, accountability is a huge hurdle to overcome when assessing the performance of integrated marketing communications. Putting individual ego’s aside, the battle for accurate assessment of each part of the puzzle can only be solved by investment in systems that determine the contribution of the individual components, as well as the overall effect.

It has been proven time and again, that marketing works best when integrated through all customer touchpoints. Barak Obama’s presidential campaign is one of the best examples that springs to mind. His performance to date as leader of the Western World may not have set every critic on fire, but the manner in which his campaign had the consistency and presence across all channels was most definitely ground breaking.

Although genuine integrated marketing campaigns can be off-putting, given the time, physical cost and collaboration involved, the rewards that can be reaped, will differentiate truly forward thinking brands.

Yes ok this video clip is 3 years old but it still makes me laugh.

I recently read a Wall Street Journal article which described the influence mobile phones and PDAs that offer hand-held email (which don’t?) are having on our children.

With parents completely distracted by their mobile devices, following their latest emails, Twitter feeds, Facebook or Linked In invites, we are spawning a generation of Blackberry orphans; children who are often ignored by parents who tend to be exhibiting more anti-social behaviour than their own teenage children.

Having read this article, I realised to my horror that I had fallen squarely into that category of parent. As the WSJ article suggested, I had been sneaking around the house to covertly check my emails on my Blackberry or to look at my latest Salesforce pipeline and Tweets using the family iPod touch, while my 4 year old son had been pestering me for it to play his shoot ‘em up tank game.

There is however the counter argument that says it’s better to have a parent at home than not at all. WSJ quotes Jim Balsillie, the chairman of Research In Motion, who says children should ask themselves, “would you rather have your parents 20% not there or 100% not there?”

With the proliferation of social media on mobile devices (how many social media apps already exist for the iPhone?) this situation will only worsen, although children won’t be the only victims!

A University of Wisconsin study (Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy, 2006) highlighted that mobile phones could cause significant psychological distress and lower family satisfaction. Whilst absent spouses have often contributed to marital breakdown, the modern equivalent exists with the partner being “present” but stooped, typing away on their mobile phone. A warning to us all!

With over 45 million mobile phone users in the UK, mobile marketing is fast becoming a key component of any digital marketing plan.

Always at the forefront of digital marketing training, Emarketeers has launched a mobile marketing training course, the first one to take place on 16 June 2009 in Covent Garden, Central London.

Using good and bad case studies, the course will teach attendees where the real revenue potential lies in mobile comms, as well as techniques on integrating mobile into other media channels.

The 16 June course will be run by Jonathan Macdonald who has created global mobile comms strategies for names such as Unilever, IBM, BP, Vodafone and Nestle among others.

BOOK YOUR PLACE EARLY