Gulnara Chernobaeva It also generates a full range of image features that ensure business development. One of the main goals of the project marketing is a careful integration of all marketing tools that accompany the emergence of a new value, as a result of project activities, with the company image already created or being newly formed. Project and operational activities of the company can be considered as two groups of sources that generate external marketing communications and require multi-level integration. Presently, development of the mechanisms for integrating marketing communications, in order to improve the efficiency of the project activities and of the whole enterprise by a competent marketing support for any project implemented by the company, is regarded as a significant step in the development of the theory and practice of marketing and project management. The aim of the first phase of our ongoing research on construction of the integration mechanisms of marketing communications is the justification of the importance of integrating the marketing project communications. The integration of the marketing communications of the project is determined by the key project features (Gerasimov, Cherednikova 2007, p. 8-9):
Rigour and validity of the objectives to be achieved by the simultaneous fulfilment of a number of technical, economic, and other requirements;
Established internal and external relationships between operations, tasks, and resources that require precise coordination during the project implementation, enabling the presentation of the project as a complex of interrelated activities;
Defined start and end-dates of the project;
Limited resources;
Uniqueness of the project objectives and conditions of its implementation;
Inevitability of various conflicts.
Now let us consider the effect of these project features on the strengthening of the role of integration of marketing communications. Considering the rigour and validity of the project objectives, we define a focus of the project team on the achievement of a specific business goal. Such a high concentration often leads to consciousness shift among the project subjects, in terms of the value balance between the general business goals of the company vs. the objectives of a particular project. The tasks of the project marketing support include a sound justification of the significance of isolated projects for the strategically oriented activity of the company. Most companies simultaneously implement the operational activity, in order to ensure the normal course of business, and the project activity, aimed at achieving a specific business goal. The newly-developed marketing communications of the project, which inform the target audiences, confirm the project importance, and create its image, should not contradict the already existing overall image and the ideology of the company. In our opinion, only the integration of marketing communications of individual projects and the whole company can provide this consistency. The need for coordination of operations, tasks, and resources requires the development of an effective information system which ensures stable communications between the project environment and the subjects of the project management system. The functioning of such a system facilitates meeting the information needs of the project stakeholders. Importantly, the information should be useful for decision-making and, therefore, must possess the following attributes: reliability, timeliness, completeness, relevance, comparability, clarity, and efficiency. This is one of the foundations of the interconnected project activities. Untimely delivery of the high-quality information to the project participants results in the reduced effectiveness of the project activities and increased dissatisfaction of the project subjects. The latter always results in unintentional marketing communications which adversely affect the image of not only the project, but also the company as a whole. From the marketing point of view, significant information is the information about the conflicts within the project team, the lack of clear goals, or credibility of the results.
374