67 Position Paper on Communication International Journal of Communication Research INTEGRATED COMMUNICATION IN THE MARKETING OF LIFELONG LEARNING PROGRAMMES Simona Roxana ULMAN 1 , Krisztina Melinda DOBAY 2 1 Dissemination expert, PhD, „Apollonia” University of Iaşi 2 Scientific researcher, PhD, Romanian Academy, Iasi Branch, “Gheorghe Zane” Institute for Economic and Social Research Corresponding author: simonaulman@yahoo.com Abstract The aim of the paper is to present a case study on the marketing of lifelong learning programmes. The first part explores the concept of Integrated Marketing Communication from a theoretical perspective. In the second part, some general aspects regarding lifelong learning are analyzed. Finally, we illustrate how these two concepts were materialized in an implemented project. Keywords: Integrated Marketing Communication, Lifelong Learning, PECAFROM project, assessing needs, Individualized Career Development Plan. 1. INTRODUCTION Facing a continuous increase of complexity of products, services, lifestyles, to market fragmentation, competition growth, to people’s feeling that time is more and more precious, if considering the increased segmentation of consumer tastes and preferences and also the progress of customers requirements, who become more and more interested in quality, communications in marketing strategies become of central importance for the achievement of all institutional objectives had in view. This challenging environment involves a more difficult task for marketing specialists, that of fulfilling customer needs and of developing strong positive relationships with the internal and external publics. In this respect, all organizations, regardless of their object of activity, use different marketing communication tools in order to promote their products/services and to achieve their general and specific goals. In accordance to the American Marketing Association, on its official web page (American Marketing Association, 2016), marketing communication is an all-encompassing term, as it covers marketing practices and tactics including advertising, branding, graphic design, promotion, publicity, public relations and so on. Its fundamental purpose is to build up and consolidate the brand, being considered to be the only way to create and sustain its competitive advantages (Mihart 2012, 122). 2. EVOLUTION OF INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION (IMC), ACTUAL PERSPECTIVES AND ITS MAIN FEATURES The concept of integrated communication in marketing, emergent in the late twentieth century, registered a significant evolution, including aspects of understanding and acceptance of its basic principles and gaining its notoriety among theoreticians and practitioners. Kitchen et al. (2008, 531) sustained that “the concept is still in academic and professional development” and this statement can be assumed even now, especially referring to the practical business area. This continuous progress is given by the fact that the concept has all the necessary characteristics to be in the center of the academic research area, but also in the business zone, where the research results are put into practice. As Kitchen and Schultz (1999, 2000) sustain, “IMC is undoubtedly the major communications development of the last decade of the 20th century”. In the early 1980s, the concept of integrated marketing communications was an unrecognized paradigm, the theory and practice of advertising, sales promotion, publicity etc., being always approached in a separatist manner or as individual disciplines (Kitchen et al. 2004). Integration of the marketing communications