“If the medium defines the context and defines the strategy then there’s a problem – for any medium involved”.

So says Dr. Carla Enslin, who holds a Doctorate on alternative contact planning (Economics and Management Sciences) and is the National Academic Navigator for Vega, The Brand Communications School.

When working with agencies and brands, Carla is “usually more on the audit side of strategy” and “asked to give an opinion on how well integrated strategies are”. She looks in retrospect and can give advice on how future strategies should be rolled out.

While she doesn’t specialise in eMarketing, and is the first to admit that her experience in the field is limited, we thought it would be refreshing and valuable to get the thoughts of someone who takes an overall look at strategy. I don’t know about you, but I sometimes feel so immersed in this world that it’s helpful to take a step out and have our thoughts challenged a bit.

Firstly, and to return to the opening thought, Carla made the very valuable point that a brand strategy should be independent of medium.

“For me there’s no single medium that should be the driver, it all depends on the people, the brand and the conversation.”

What this means though, is that people with an understanding of all mediums need to be brought in at the stage where strategies for brand building are being formulated.

“Specialists are often called in when the overall strategic map has been designed and I don’t think that’s a good thing. The key players will come together (which includes creatives) and then the strategic map is often defined and run with a preconceived idea of what online should fulfil.”

Carla points out that planners might not necessarily lack knowledge, but often are afraid of the unfamiliar and try to carry the rules of traditional mediums into the online space. “Gee guys why don’t we take a billboard and drop it into a banner” or “take a print interface into Web interface.”

Carla’s understanding is that one should “look at online from a community point of view” and pay attention to the fact that people are already in that space because they wish to be – which requires a different approach to a TV ad which can still “shout” at an audience.

“I’d never be so arrogant as to carry my knowledge to an online frame where I don’t have the expertise and the skill and … need the input of specialists to guide me towards my goal.”

There are a number of ways in which, for example, the online space can offer value to your brand even if you think your “key market” isn’t operating in that space.

Independent of the nature of your product, you could consider the “myriad of other stakeholders” that can benefit – like giving brand managers the chance to communicate or stockists who want to have more efficient contact with your organisation a channel to use.

“Your business innovation depends on it, your research depends on it, other communities depend on it and extending your brand value beyond actual profit depends on it.”

This point interested me, especially when considering measurements that are more abstract than “actual profit”. In the Social Media space we often deal with how to carry out the abstract measurement of a conversation. This is part of brand building, as Carla described: “have I shifted hope, or do I believe in something”.

In trying to measure this conversation you have to establish why you are having it in the first place. Carla believes that “it’s an advantage for Social Media and online that often your measurement instrument is built into your functionality”. 

You could develop tools to measure this – set specific goals and conduct in depth interviews or use online comments to better understand what your stakeholders are feeling and thinking about your brand.

While I was sceptical about whether brands would invest in offline measurement tools for an online strategy, Carla pointed out that this is why these elements must all be “pre-determined and decided upon“ in the planning stages.

“If you look at the energy that is required to maintain an interesting conversation and not to lose people – that in many ways could outweigh the energy invested in a 30 second TV ad… if brands can invest in measurement for other mediums why not in online?”

Did you find this post interesting? Why not check out:

• The eMarketing Strategy Chapter of our textbook
• Janet's London iLife: Measurement Camp
• Measuring WebPR with Melissa Attree
• Online vs. Offline Marketing

Disclaimer: Carla is an old lecturer of mine and Quirk recently designed Vega's website which was built in partnership with Blacklight.