An intimate meeting of marketers at the Lake Las Vegas Brand Summit discussed challenges facing integrated marketing, and debated the solutions.

For the uninitiated, iMedia Summits occasionally feature roundtable discussions where interactive marketers are brought together in small groups to discuss big issues facing the industry. At the Lake Las Vegas Brand Summit this week, participants at the "Integrated Marketing" table looked at challenges facing the strategy, as well as best practices and solutions.

The first point of debate was a definition for integrated marketing. Depending on whom you ask, and when you ask them, integrated marketing could mean content integration or cross-platform media integration. So when discussing "integrated marketing," it's important to use more concrete language or define your terms up front. 

Since there are important issues facing the two types of integrated marketing, the table tackled both.

Integrating content
When it comes to integrating content, advertisers are willing to try anything-- whether it's a practical idea or not. "I've been getting a lot of calls from people that want to essentially program content," said NBC Universal SVP of Digital Media Sales Peter Naylor at the roundtable. But that's not going to fly. As Peter explained, there "needs to be a line between church and state." Though advertisers want control, publishers need to maintain a level of objectivity if they want to be considered a trusted source for content.

ESPN's Adam Waxman, who serves as an account executive in digital media sales, agreed. Integrating content in the form of in-text links or other such tactics is not going to work at his site. Instead, advertisers may "create a special section where ESPN can provide content." 

Integrating media
While integrating media is widely understood as essential for engaging with today's consumer, marketers at the roundtable agreed it's a complicated strategy that's hard to master. 

The first issue is scale. Since you're working across many different platforms, scale can have a serious impact on lead time. "When it's something that takes months to prepare… six months to create and 3 months to execute… it's tough to make it a reality," said Capella University's director of marketing, Jason Van de Loo. 

The scale of some integrated initiatives can also cause miscommunication between agencies, brands and publishers. "Internal structure is key," said ESPN's Waxman, "internal teams need to speak with a single voice."

From an agency perspective, it's important for media and creative to be on the same page. A creative agency needs to know what objectives an ad is intended to achieve, and the media agency needs to make this clear. "You need to find creative that works across media. You can't just throw it up there," said MSNBC Regional Sales Manager Laura Hagen, who also attended the roundtable.

Success has its costs
When is success not so successful? When every marketer wants to exploit the same integrated deal that succeeded previously. The problem is that, just because it worked once, doesn't mean it will work again. Audiences may be weary or less receptive to seeing the same trick twice. 

"Once an integrated deal goes well, we have six advertisers that want that idea, but we already had that idea," said roundtable attendee Brian Quinn, who serves as VP of sales and marketing for Dow Jones Online. "It's always reinventing, and that's hard to scale," added NBC Universal's Naylor.

Best Practices
When it came to best practices, two things emerged from the discussion: manage expectations and have a process in place.

One of the most important expectations is price. Advertisers ought to understand that integrated deals are premium arrangements that provider better quality engagement. Because of this, a break in price is not always appropriate. Yes you're buying more ad space, but that deal is carefully crafted for better effectiveness.

In general, expectations for the integrated campaign need to be set at the outset. "Set expectations early on," said Movietickets.com VP of Sales & Marketing Walt Borchers. "Preferably, you're all working towards one goal, not five different ones," added Waxman.

When the expectations are in place, eMarketer's Geoff Ramsey suggests following a carefully scripted process. "As far as execution, set up an internal process and stick to it so you can identify where the breakdowns are and fix it."

This roundtable discussion was moderated by Nature Made's Internet Marketing Manager, Sheryl Biesman.

Mario Sgambelluri is managing editor at iMedia. Read full bio.

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