Examining the Relationships Between Integrated Marketing Communications and Brand Equity Dimensions. The Effect of Culture in the Italian Hotel Context

Integration of marketing communications has taken on a new imperative and urgency in recent years. One of the most important goals of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is to effectively generate and maintain brand equity through encouragement of brand relationships with the customers. In addition, culture is another aspect that should not remain neglected when creating marketing strategies. This work addresses all these issues by providing empirical evidence in a specific context, i.e. Italian hotel industry. While positive and significant relationships between IMC and brand equity dimensions are found, customer national culture does not exert a significant impact on these relationships.