"No medium or combination of media can make up for a weak-ass message."

Penny Harris, Account Director, St Luke's

Forthright words of wisdom or maybe just plain common sense from James Carville and Paul Begala, one time campaign advisors to Bill Clinton, that nicely sum up our approach to media-neutral strategic planning at St Luke's.

In our view, media-neutrality is not the unobtainable 'Holy Grail' of marketing; not even a 'hot issue' or occasional goal that requires the development of a new planning approach. It's simply the test of a great strategy.

Despite all the current debate (fuelled primarily it would seem by agencies anxious to justify a larger share of their clients budgets), all we are talking about in 'Media-neutrality' is finding the most cost effective (emphasis on effective) means of delivering a message to a particular bunch of people. 'Integrated Communications', usually uttered within the same breath as media-neutrality, is about co-ordinating and managing the best delivery of that message when two or more media are involved.

In the quest for 'neutrality' and 'integration' there is a real danger that the quality and relevance of the message suffers. Maybe in our anxiety to accommodate the practical requirements of different media, to anticipate their constraints and to be seen to be adopting the new, there is a tendency for planners to become distracted from what Carville and Begala call the 'What' and 'Why' questions.
"So much of the energy of a campaign goes into the small questions, the 'How' questions. Not nearly enough goes into the big questions like 'What are we doing?' and 'Why are we doing it?' Simple questions that are the hardest to answer and the easiest to avoid".

Nor does 'the medium is the message' wash as an approach. While different media by their very nature can undoubtedly support the message, the message is most definitely not the medium. These days 'new media' have a short shelf life. All media rapidly become conventional - using on-line banners doesn't make you 'modern and contemporary,' the average retail bank has probably used them for the past 5 years.

Defining a strong brand message to provide focus, differentiation and to underpin tactical objectives, is the basis of all good strategic planning regardless of who's doing it. In our experience the ability of a strategy and creative idea to effortlessly translate into any media is one of the best indications of its strength. But the neutrality of the strategy is the outcome of great planning not the framework or starting point.

Brands like Nike are as successful as they are because underpinning them they have a clear idea of what they stand for, how that drives them as an organisation and how they relate to the cultures and societies in which they operate. The spirit of competition pervades their organisation and is clearly communicated in everything they say and do regardless of the media or delivery mechanism. Tactical, product information is delivered, people are targeted at different levels and many different media both conventional and 'unconventional' are employed, but at the end of the day there is a shared consciousness of the brand in people's heads because underpinning all their activity is a strong idea or message.

So top tips for media-neutral strategic planning and integrated communications

Step back from specific communication objectives and make sure you understand and can define the brand first. Look at the business strategy and objectives of the company or brand owner. Do you really know the cultural context in which it's operating? How does it relate to, or serve its target audience? Can you in effect define its purpose.

Avoid planning in isolation. Agencies employ many different structures and ways of working but at St. Luke's briefs are often based on collaboration or an iterative process by a team which includes creatives and media strategists as well as the usual planner and account director. By working in this way we find that ideas get tested and stretched early on by people who think in different ways. As a result you avoid unworkable academic briefs and there is buy-in at the start of the process.

Involve your client. Does the idea act as an ethos that will help shape what they do and how they behave? If the brand message and creative idea is strong enough to influence the behaviour of the organisation or company it will be hard to find a medium into which it can't translate.

Avoid the 'matching luggage' trap. Media-neutral planning is not about delivering the message identically across all media it's about defining a strong idea that you can flex and adapt to the characteristics of different media. Marketing history is littered with examples of strong campaigns in one medium that have floundered in another because stills have been lifted from TV to press or point of sale.

Finally, don't forget that just because an idea can effortlessly translate into different media doesn't mean it should. Media-neutrality is not about delivering your message through as many media as possible but about choosing the right ones to reach your audience in the most impacful way.

This way of working has frequently led us to develop dynamic and effective solutions for clients that did not centre on conventional advertising. In our earliest days, we responded to a Radio1 brief with a 90 minute documentary about the station; when BT wanted to build a relationship with youth we created a website which allowed them to upload music, films and photographs and so share their creativity (www.getoutthere.bt.com ) and finally, our current campaign for Clarks Originals pairs press executions with micro-sites. These are all great creative ideas arrived at by focussing on solving the problem, not retro-fitting a client brief to a specific medium.

References: James Carville, Paul Begala, Buck up, Suck up?and come back when you foul up. Published bySimon and Schuster 2002

(c) Account Planning Group 1995-2002