[Paper Review] Fifth Generation IMC: Expanding the scope to Profit, People, and the Planet

Stewart Pearson, Edward C. Malthouse|arXiv (Cornell University)|Apr 6, 2024

Globalization, Economics, and PoliciesEconomics, Econometrics and Finance3 citations

TL;DR

This paper proposes IMP³—Integrated Marketing for Profit, People, and Planet—as the fifth generation of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC), shifting focus from shareholder value to multi-stakeholder impact. It advocates for synergistic strategies across profit, environmental sustainability (planet), and social well-being (people), using industry examples and new metrics to guide research and practice in a post-programmatic, ESG-driven marketing era.

ABSTRACT

This editorial outlines an expanded scope for the next (fifth) generation of integrated marketing communication. It identifies key market forces that gave rise to this evolution and describes a trajectory of where Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) has been and where it is going. The central shift is moving from primarily focusing on one stakeholder to multiple ones, including people (employees and society), the planet (environment), and profits. It identifies examples from industry that exemplify multi-stakeholder decision-making and uses the examples to suggest research questions that academics and practitioners should address. Examples and research directions are organized around marketing strategy, communication media and messages, and measurement systems.

Motivation & Objective

• To address the limitations of traditional IMC, which prioritized short-term profit and shareholder returns, by expanding its scope to include people and the planet.
• To respond to the growing influence of the ESG movement and societal demands for ethical, sustainable, and inclusive marketing practices.
• To reframe marketing strategy around long-term stakeholder value creation rather than short-term behavioral metrics like clicks or immediate sales.
• To identify research and practice opportunities in integrating ESG communications across marketing strategy, media, messaging, and measurement systems.
• To promote synergy among stakeholders—customers, employees, society, and the environment—by demonstrating that multi-stakeholder alignment can yield compounding value.

Proposed method

• Proposes a new framework, IMP³, as an evolution of IMC that integrates profit, people, and planet as core objectives.
• Uses industry examples (e.g., Netflix’s subscription model, Brand Finance’s expanded ESG metrics) to illustrate multi-stakeholder value creation.
• Applies game theory and utility tradeoff models (e.g., concave curves showing non-zero-sum gains) to demonstrate how stakeholder benefits can co-evolve.
• Introduces the need for new performance metrics beyond CLV and BE, including environmental impact and employee well-being scores.
• Recommends integrating ESG communications across channels to amplify brand effectiveness and stakeholder trust.
• Advocates for rethinking media ecosystems and adtech models to reduce surveillance-based advertising and its societal costs.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 How can marketing strategies be restructured to simultaneously create value for profit, people, and the planet without compromising long-term sustainability?
• RQ2 What are the measurable impacts of integrating ESG communications across multi-channel campaigns on brand effectiveness and stakeholder engagement?
• RQ3 How can new metrics be developed to quantify environmental and social contributions in addition to traditional financial and brand equity measures?
• RQ4 In what ways can synergy among stakeholders (e.g., customers, employees, communities) be modeled and optimized using systems thinking and game-theoretic approaches?
• RQ5 What role do government incentives and regulations play in enabling or accelerating the shift toward multi-stakeholder marketing models?

Key findings

• More than half of marketers miss a 57% opportunity to boost brand effectiveness by not executing integrated, multichannel campaigns, with integrated campaigns being 31% more effective at building brands.
• Industry examples such as Netflix’s ad-free subscription model and Brand Finance’s inclusion of employee and reputational scores show early progress in expanding ESG measurement beyond consumer metrics.
• The shift from a zero-sum to a win-win-win model—where improvements in one stakeholder’s utility benefit others—can be modeled using concave, outward-bowing utility curves, indicating non-linear synergies.
• Long-term success in marketing will depend on collaboration across stakeholders, as evidenced by the fact that brands prioritizing multiple stakeholder outcomes are more resilient and effective.
• The decline of mass media and rise of algorithmically driven content have contributed to polarization and eroded trust, highlighting the need for ethical, transparent, and values-driven communication.
• The transition from programmatic, data-driven advertising to purpose-led, multi-stakeholder marketing is not only necessary but also offers expansive opportunities for innovation and research in marketing strategy and measurement.