According to Shultz and Schultz (1998), Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) refers to a strategic communication process including various communication development phases such as planning, developing, execution, and evaluation to effectively deliver coordinated, measurable, and convincing communication messages to target populations over time. With the paradigm shift in the world of media and communication technologies such as advance of digital and interactive media, widespread of the Internet services, customizable media environment, and rise of performance-oriented evaluation systems, organizations became to look at the whole picture of marketing and communications campaigns, and be dependent on IMC strategies. Fro enhancing persuasive effects, recent IMC strategies aims to avoid duplicate messages, generate an synergy among promotional tools, and maximize the effectiveness of their communication programs.
Given the importance of integration of constructing communication strategies in IMC practices, understanding how the 2010 U.S. Census IMC strategies combined each other and interweave with the target population and primary message recipients plays a key role in evaluating the effectiveness of IMC effort. To accomplish the evaluation purpose, the present review places emphasis on the achieved level of consistency, interactivity, and mission completeness, which were suggested by Groom (2008), to make judgement about how good or bad the 2010 U.S. Census integrated communications campaign was. .
Consistency of Message Strategy.
The 2010 Census integrated communications campaign was comprised of advertisements on paid media, public relations practices, partnerships with non-profit and private organizations, and online communication tactics to increase the total number of participation in the 2010 Census and improve the quality of the overall census by increasing the accuracy of patricipants' responses and reducing differential undercount.
