Plug in the brand plan: adding a dash of electronic marketing to any overarching brand strategy will not only help focus dispara

By now, most product managers have completed the 2007 planning process and are awaiting approval of the final budgets for next year. Before anyone grabs a glass of champagne and toasts their future success, they should ask one question: Is the 2007 brand plan plugged in?

Electronic marketing is more than a medium. When integrated into an overarching brand strategy, technology can be both a connector, linking disparate tactics into one cohesive strategy, and an amplifier, enhancing the reach and relevance of all marketing efforts.

Integrating technology initiatives into every facet of the marketing mix promotes brand success by leveraging infrastructure investments made in one area across the entire brand portfolio. This streamlines administration, creating operational efficiencies that increase return on investment. Technology integration can also provide strategic insight, by offering a macrolevel view of program results while giving brand managers the detailed metrics needed to connect the dots between vital program tactics. The brand plan's ability to do this is its E-IQ. To test a brand's E-IQ, product managers should answer the questions in the Table.

If the answer to more than one of these questions is "no," then the 2007 brand plan is probably not optimizing the power of interactive technology. Before the plan is launched, product managers should consider the steps they can take to plug in the brand plan--and amp-up results--for the coming year.

Geoff McCleary & Bryan Hill

Cadient Group

Five Tower Bridge

300 Barr Harbor Drive, Suite 400

West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania 19428

Phone: (484) 351-2800

geoff.mccleary@cadient.com

bryan.hill@cadient.com

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