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Marketing communications (or marcom) are messages and related media used to communicate with a market. Those who practice advertising, branding, direct marketing, graphic design, marketing, packaging, promotion, publicity, public relations, sales, sales promotion and online marketing are termed marketing communicators, marketing communication managers, or more briefly as marcom managers.

Traditionally, marketing communication practitioners focus on the creation and execution of printed marketing collateral; however, academic and professional research developed the practice to use strategic elements of branding and marketing in order to ensure consistency of message delivery throughout an organization. Many trends in business can be attributed to marketing communication; for example: the transition from customer service to customer relations, and the transition from human resources to human solutions. In branding, opportunities to contact stakeholders are called brand touchpoints (or points of contact.) Marketing communication is concerned with the general behavior of an organization and the perceptions of the organization that are promoted to stakeholders through these touchpoints.

Integrated marketing communication presents aspiration for companies to develop and optimal combination of communication elements in order to maximize effects and minimize losses (defined as investment which did not result in goal achievement).

Marketing communications is focused on product/produce/service as opposed to corporate communications where the focus of communications work is the company/enterprise itself. Marketing communications is primarily concerned with demand generation, product/produce/service positioning while corporate communications deal with issue management, mergers and acquisitions, litigation etc.