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Arcada Working Papers 1/2018

ISSN 2342-3064
ISBN 978-952-5260-89-2

Digital Brand Management: A Company and

Consumer Perspective

Lotta Bäck, Edward Ingman, Dilip Lalwani, Marie Müller, Caroline Sørensen-
Behm and Carl-Johan Rosenbröijer

www.arcada.fi
Arcada Working Papers 1/2018
ISSN 2342-3064
ISBN 978-952-5260-89-2

Digital Brand Management:

A Company and Consumer Perspective*

i
Lotta Bäck, Edward Ingman, Dilip Lalwani, Marie Müller, Caroline Sørensen-Behm
ii
and Carl-Johan Rosenbröijer

Abstract

The branding of a business is increasingly done through digital channels, mainly social
media. In this paper, Digital Brand Management is explored from a company and
consumer perspective and analyzed based on five case studies. The data was collected in
November 2015 by Arcada´s International Business Management master students on a
study trip in three Nordic countries. The identified learning points indicate that creating
or rebuilding the brand story is critical for successful brand management. Managerially
this story should be communicated on multiple digital platforms with different
complementing content to create a buzz and engage loyal followers. As an ultimate goal
the story can lead to fans that share their brand experiences with other fans or potential
fans. This requires high managerial competence in social media. Finally, we learned that
everything needs to be measured in real time and brand management decisions should
be data driven as opposed to gut instinct decision making.

Keywords: Branding, digital branding, SOSTAC, digital marketing strategy, Nordic

case study

*
We would like to thank the A.F. Lindstedt foundation for making the Nordic master study trip and this research
possible.
i
Students in the Degree Programme of Master in International Business Management, ARCADA University of
Applied Sciences, Department of Business Management and Analytics, Helsinki, Finland
ii
Dr.Sc (Econ.), Principal Lecturer and Programme Director for the Degree Programme of Master in International
Business Management, ARCADA University of Applied Sciences, Department of Business Management and
Analytics, Helsinki, Finland. carl-johan.rosenbroijer@arcada.fi
1
1 INTRODUCTION

In today’s global marketplace, the role of brand management has attained an elevated
level of significance. In fact, the most distinctive skill of marketers is their ability to
build and manage brands (Kotler & Armstrong 2010). This is because brands are the
most powerful assets representing the core of the company, outlasting the company’s
tangible assets; thus they need to be carefully developed and managed, as brands
represent consumer’s cognizance and feelings about a product or service and its
performance (Kotler & Keller 2006). Branding in a digital environment has its own
distinctive dynamics that need to be understood to be able to select effective branding
tactics and strategies. With the rise of digital media, brand building has become multi-
directional and interconnected (Hennig-Thurau et al. 2010). Digitalization becomes part
of our daily routines and is shaping the traditional ways in which consumers and
business interact with each other. Digitalization, specifically social media has claimed
to have transformed consumer behavior (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010), with significant
consequences for brands and products (Muntinga et al. 2011). Consumers increasingly
spend more time on online services to browse, store, play, email, access Facebook,
Twitter and other social apps through connected devices i.e., tablets, smartphones,
laptops and in this way transforming the way internet is used (Ericsson Consumer Lab
2012). Mobile internet and social media have created new technology based channels or
routes for organizations to communicate with their customers, labelled as “digital
channels”, leading to digital transformation (Edelman 2010).

The aim of this paper is to identify key learning points and managerial implications
regarding digital brand management based on data collected from five different case
companies in the Nordics.

2 METHODOLOGY

The Nordic Master Study trip was a project managed by a group of five students that
had started their studies in the fall of 2014 in the Masters Degree Programme in
International Business Management at Arcada. Planning, executing and documenting
this trip was their project task. A critical part of the task was to choose a theme for the
trip. The theme should be current and generate state-of-the-art learning points. The topic
2
should also be suitable to report as an Arcada working paper so that the learning points
could be shared with coming master classes.

The group selected “Branding in the Digital Era” as the theme of the trip, and started to
look for companies to visit as well as determine which Nordic cities would be visited.
The companies were chosen based on criteria such as size (small and medium), location,
industry and personal contacts. Each member of the group had one company that they
were the contact person for.

Companies visited were; Virta Media (Helsinki), Monster Energy Drink (Copenhagen),
e-Types (Copenhagen), Boozt (Malmö) and Truecaller (Stockholm). The choice of these
five companies turned out to be very fruitful. They all represented modern approaches
to branding and marketing communication. They are all companies providing products
or services to the consumer market which offered a focused context suitable for
exploring digital brand management.

Each student was responsible for their own case company. This responsibility included
briefing the case company representative about the chosen theme and the expected input
from the company’s perspective. A special emphasis was set on getting substance for
digital brand management and keeping company information to a minimum. In order to
be able to secure that the theme was covered in the presentation, the student responsible
was also required to prepare some questions according to the theme. A central task of
the student was to collect the data by actively taking notes. However, the other students
in the project group also took notes so that in the end five students’ notes could be used
and compared for the five case descriptions. This ensured that enough and diversified
data was collected during the company visits.

After the trip, each student started to read and arrange all the collected data. Then work
of finding a suitable theoretical framework for the analysis of the data commenced. By
comparing the data from the different company cases, it seemed logical to analyze the
data from two perspectives, i.e. the company and the consumer perspectives. We then
saw a possibility to focus on certain theoretical issues from a company and certain from
a consumer perspective. This then became the logic for the paper both in the theoretical
and the empirical part.

3
3 DIGITAL BRAND MANAGEMENT

A brand is a set of marketing and communication methods that help to distinguish a

company from competitors, and create a lasting impression in the minds of customers.
A brand today, is much more than a brand was 20 years ago, but traditional “brand
thinking” still occurs and includes several components that still exist and form the
brand. From a customer point of view, and the ideal corporate brand building, a brand is
in essence a promise to the customer of long term security, a competitive frame of
reference and consistent delivery of functional and emotional benefits. (Haigh 2014)
The concept of branding is the same as 20 years ago, but the opportunities and channels
are on another level due to the digitalization in the 21st century. According to smart
insights 2015, the definition to digital branding is: "Digital channels, and assets are
used to communicate a brand’s positioning (or purpose) as part of multichannel brand
communication or engagement programmes". Therefore digital branding could be
renamed to Digital communication, and be part of a bigger context where branding is
stronger related to the business strategy and brand planning. However, even if we talk
about branding or digital branding or digital communication, the key elements are still
the same, it is the way of how, when and where you brand that differs.

Modern brand building is much more of a consumer-centric approach. In many

businesses it is about putting the customer or consumer in the center of the brand
experience. The overall aim should consist of total brand experience that is aligned with
the brand´s strategy, positioning and purpose (Smartinsights 2015).

The speed at which digital marketing has developed over the years, has changed the
way brands and businesses are utilizing technology in building their marketing
strategies. Digital marketing campaigns are becoming more prevalent, as digital
platforms are increasingly incorporated into marketing plans and as more and more
people use digital devices instead of going to physical shops.

In the digital world, spread of information and awareness can occur across numerous
channels such as the blogosphere, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest,
and a variety of other platforms. Online communities and social networks allow
individuals to not only become creators of their own content and publicly publish their
opinions, experiences, thoughts and feelings about varying topics and products, but also
4
to comment on publications made by others and thus hyper-accelerating the diffusion of
information (Nielsen 2016).

3.1 Digital branding – company perspective

Today, brands do not need intermediaries in order to have a direct interaction with
customers, digital branding requires the brand to interact with the customers in the
appropriate tone. Digital branding is about creating and establishing your brand’s story
and presence in the digital realm.

3.1.1 Strategic digital brand building

The marketing landscape is shifting further away from traditional advertising

irrevocably towards digital options as online drives marketing. Digital strategies are fast
developing to engage with online-savvy audiences through different social platforms.
Today’s digital campaigns are part of a multi-screen ecosystem, in order to amplify a
brand’s message to create a better involvement with on-the-go customers through highly
targeted messages. The success of these campaigns depends on a thorough knowledge
of the consumer mindset and location relevance (ScreenMedia 2016).

3.1.2 Digital campaign and content creation

One of the major challenges in content marketing is to create great content which is
relevant and engaging. It can be achieved by focusing on the target audiences instead of
the brand (Ryan & Jones 2009). By focusing more on audiences needs over that of what
one would prefer to promote (Bosomworth 2014).

In the last decade due to rapid advancement in internet and online marketing coupled
with the advent of social media and blogging, the business world has been completely
democratized (Ryan & Jones 2009). Internet business are further impacted with the
introduction of cloud computing, big data and responsive web designing, thus
drastically altering the way we share information (Brown et al. 2012).

Recently the focus has shifted from outbound techniques to inbound techniques. In
order to create the appropriate strategy to market and attract the desired attention
5
through a “two-way-conversation”, the content, besides being shareable, should have
the ingredients to trigger discussions and encourage followers to participate by
commenting (Ryan & Jones 2009).

Content marketing strategies require a clear vision of one’s business objectives, to be

able to create viable web content strategies to engage both targeted customers and
search engines. Strategies also help generate improved ROI through improved search
engine rankings and thus sales.

A great strategy is needed not only to fuel social media activity, but also to create high
converting landing pages and also to increase search engine rankings for target key
words (Pirouz 2014).

 Constantly create high quality content (Pirouz 2014).

 Strategy should cover a wide range of different content types (Pirouz 2014).

 Content creation has to be well supported with content marketing (Pirouz 2014).

 Try to influence the influencers to create a greater impact; “nurture social

evangelist” (Ryan & Jones 2009).

 Engage positively to nurture brand advocacy – focus on what interest’s people

(Ryan & Jones 2009).

 Harness the wisdom of the crowd – getting input from the online communities
(Ryan & Jones 2009).

3.1.3 Digital consumer behavior analytics

Understanding your online consumer properly and doing necessary improvements and
moves based on analytics gathered from the consumers' online behaviors, is in today's
competitive world a must if you are looking at achieving a successful business and for
being able to compete against your competitors. Analytics and especially advanced
analytics give the companies the ability to get vital real-time insight about their

6
customers and more importantly the possibility to react upon this collected data, with
offering for instance personalized options for its clients (Bose 2009).

With proper tools for advanced analytics, an online retail company can for instance
easily map the whole purchase journey of their customer and with this insight optimize
their operations and overall performance. This valuable insight should also be a crucial
part of the company's decision making process. For gaining maximum benefit, it is also
important to understand that the analytics should be incorporated into the company's
daily operations and the data should be collected and analyzed in real time, without
delays (Bose 2009).

Companies can use different kinds of tools and methods for gathering data about their
customers and their online behavior. An effective and commonly used tool is Google
Analytics, which easily gives the companies valuable insight about the online activities.
The tool tracks all the website traffic and transforms this data into reports, that the
company can follow, and based on that insight make smart decisions (Toncin, 2011).
Many companies also combine Google Analytics with other tools for analyzing online
consumer activities and some have even created their own tools, as for instance Boozt,
which has created an internal dashboard for this (see paragraph 4.6)

In a study by Eriksson et al. (2016), based on the Data Driven Decision RACE model,
empirical findings show that a majority of the investigated small eRetailers do analyze
data, have analytical tools installed, use dedicated analytics experts and they, in fact,
report to have a reasonably good understanding of their online customers and visitors.
However, only a minority of the investigated eRetailers seem to make systematic,
diverse and continuous data-driven decisions according to the three phases in the model.
This implies that the small eRetailers primarily rely on experience and gut instinct
rather than on data analytics when they make decisions and take actions concerning
their online activities.

7
3.2 Digital branding- consumer perspective

The increasing number of personal devices used gives companies more ways of
communicating with their customers. It also works the other way around and gives the
customers a possibility to interact with the company in so many different ways than
before. On top of this the customers can now also interact and share content with each
other.

3.2.1 Digital brand image in social media

Social media is all about conversation; it is about reaching out to your desired target
audiences and making it worth their while to interact with you on a social media
platform. Organizations are increasingly using social media as a branding tool (Bruhn et
al. 2012). Companies have created brand communities on social media thus adding
social media to their marketing and brand building activities (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis
2014, Gallaugher & Ransbotham 2010).

Social media is a good way for companies to do market research and to encourage word
of mouth. It makes it easier for marketing researchers to get closer to the consumers and
collect the information they need (preferences, interests etc.). Social media is ideal for
spreading information about a company through word of mouth, as the users are able to
create and spread brand related content in their own network (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis
2014). Moreover, brands have inspired a deeper level of emotional support from the
consumer (Morrison & Humlen 2015). A study by Zubernance from 2012 shows that
brand ambassadors tend to make longer lasting effects among followers and are seen as
more trustworthy. The level of commitment a brand ambassador has varies, but
according to Jang et al. (2008) the level of commitment is higher when the community
is consumer initiated, as opposed to being company initiated. Some brand ambassadors
will go to great lengths in promoting the product as they have such a strong emotional
connection with it.

One challenge that companies face in social media is how to react and respond to
negative comments, as ineffective handling of such situations may lead to negative
word of mouth among social media users (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis 2014). If a company

8
fails to develop a proper strategy to answer negative response it may have a negative
impact on a brand’s image (Hennig-Thurau et al. 2010, Roehm & Tybout 2006,
Corstjens & Umblijs 2012).

3.2.2 Controlling digital communication

As brand campaign wars arise; media agencies see the value of up-and-coming
technologies to help them target specific audiences through concise and effective
messaging on display and digital videos for a broader reach through YouTube and other
applicable social channels. Today consumers engage with online content more than with
online ads. As a result, more brands are creating content to meet consumer’s
expectations by cutting through the clutter and producing content that fosters better
relationships with audiences. At present, every YouTube video watched, website visited
and every search carried out on digital platforms are monitored by Tech giants like
Google. Media agencies need to more actively harness the power of such intangible
assets to create more effective online tools for stronger channel integration (Ovitz
2015).

3.3 The SOSTAC model

The SOSTAC model by PR Smith (Figure 1) is a logical, systematic and widely popular
and used tool for strategic marketing planning. It is a planning system for developing
and managing marketing strategies, creating marketing plans and campaigns. The
SOSTAC framework is particularly applicable to the digital marketing context, as it
helps to evaluate structure and manage the key strategies, tactics and actions of a
company combined with digital marketing communication techniques (Chaffey &
Smith 2013, SmartInsights 2016).

9
Figure 1. SOSTAC® Planning Framework

SOSTAC® acronym stands for Situation, Objectives, Strategy, Tactics, Action and
Control (Chaffey & Smith 2013 pp. 3-5).

The main planning stages for a digital marketing strategy are the following:

S = Situational analysis – Where are we now (current state)?

O = Objectives – Where do we want to be (business goals)?

S = Strategy – How do we get there (plan to achieve the goals)?

T = Tactics – What tactical tools do we use to implement strategy (details)?

A = Actions – Which action plans are required to implement strategy (responsibility and
deadlines)?

C = Control – How do we manage the strategy process (measure, monitor, modify =

track the progress)?

(Chaffey & Smith 2013 pp. 3-5, BusinessBalls 2016).

10
4 THE DIGITAL BRAND MANAGEMENT MODEL

The digital brand management model is based on the SOSTAC model. The five
empirical company cases are analyzed with the created model. The model has two
perspectives; the company and the consumer perspective. The company perspective
focuses on the strategic issues and decisions to be made when digital branding is
developed and the consumer perspective focuses on how the consumers can be activated
in a digital context, e.g. social media, to market the brand themselves. The digital brand
management issues in the six different stages are derived from the theoretical discussion
earlier in the paper. In table 1 we structure the model and in figure 2 we present the
actual model.

Table 1. The structure of the model

Stage/arrow SOSTAC Digital Brand Perspective Case

planning focus Management

1 Situation analysis Strategic digital Company e-Types

brand building

2 Objectives Strategic digital Company e-Types

brand building

3 Strategy Strategic digital Company e-Types

brand building

4 Tactics Digital Company Virta Media

campaign and
content
creation

4 Tactics Digital brand Consumer Monster

image in social Energy
media

11
5 Actions Digital Company Virta Media
campaign and
content
creation

5 Actions Digital brand Consumer Monster

image in social Energy
media

6 Control Digital Company Boozt

consumer
behavior
analytics

6 Control Controlling Consumer Truecaller

digital
communication

Based on this structure we have for analytical purposes created the Digital Brand
Management model (see figure 2).

12
Figure 2. The Digital Brand Management model

We will below describe the critical issues and conduct empirical analysis of our five
Nordic cases based on the digital brand management model.

4.1 Situation analysis

The steps of a Situation Analysis include Brand and Commercial Goals, Current
Performance of the organization, Customer Insight, Marketplace Opportunities and
Competitor Benchmarking (Smartinsights.com 2016).

The Situation Analysis is needed because it gives a clear insight into where the
organization’s current business is at and how the company interacts with internal and
external factors. A company will find answers to questions such as “how are we
performing, what are our distinctive competitive/marketing advantages, how effective is
our marketing mix, are we focusing on the best segments with the correct type of
customer, are we using the most appropriate channels for communication and
distribution and what uncontrollable event(s) or trend(s) can impact our business.”.

13
The most commonly used methods of organizations implementing the Situation
Analysis include methods such as SWOT analysis, Competitor Analysis, Digital
Customer Research and finding out the Digital Channels Landscape, to mention but a
few (Smartinsights.com 2016).

Case: e-Types

E-types is a Danish strategic design agency focused on branding, brand building, digital
branding, digital strategy, digital design and digital development. The company, already
over 19 years active, has a clear idea of their current situation in the digital market and
developed its leading market position with clear set of core competencies. Its major
strengths and competencies compared to other market players are Brand Strategy, Brand
Communication, Graphic (Brand) Design, in addition to Image Campaigns for fashion
and/or luxury brands (e-Types 2016).

E-Types is a strong player in the Danish market when it comes to expressing a

company’s brand visually. The agency is performing better than ever and has been
named one of the top 5 best and most influential design agencies in Denmark, awarded
in 2014 accordingly for their design and outstanding work (e-Types 2016).

According to Rasmus Drucker Ibfelt, Creative director, Brand developer, Director and
Partner of e-Types, the company segments its target group and their client portfolio into
the public and commercial sectors and other players from the arts, culture and fashion
industry, e.g. A.P. Moeller - Maersk, Lego, The Danish Government, Copenhagen PIX,
Carlsberg, Woco, Grundfos, Madkulturen, Bang & Olufsen and the Danish Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. In other words, e-Types is a forerunner in the Danish market in creating
digital branding campaigns for luxury but also known brands of any kind (Drucker
Ibfelt 2015).

Knowing their market strengths and opportunities, Drucker Ibfelt pointed out that in the
digital era we are living in now, creating a story and creating a concept is everything.
Drucker Ibfelt stated that today’s difficulties are to develop one strong big idea that can
sell the company’s product. The market is rapidly developing, and especially luxury
brands among others often do not have a clear brand image and can also be financially

14
very challenging. They also face fierce competition from other luxury brands. Clearly,
for the consumer the reason to buy the product is often unclear (Drucker Ibfelt 2015).

The company’s business operations are separated as follows: e-Types Studio is focused
on Brand Development, e-Types Daily looks after successful Brand Implementation,
Design Management and Graphical Design/ Production, e-Types Digital concentrates on
Digital Branding (Digital Strategy, Digital Design, Digital Development), whereby
Playtype, the very own concept store of e-Types, shows strong competencies in Product
development and wholesale, online sales and their own stores and other custom types.
(Drucker Ibfelt 2015).

4.2 Objectives

Stage two of SOSTAC’s model of digital marketing planning are the objectives, which
should state where the company wants to go in the future. The company should conduct
a SMART Test for objectives (see figure 3), which aims to define practical, measurable
and realistic goals to achieve the strategy. It focuses on the concept of 5 S’s (Sell, Serve,
Speak, Save and Sizzle) which make each objective SMART (Specific, Measurable,
Actionable, Relevant, Time-related). (smartinsights.com 2016)

Figure 3. Definition of SMART objectives (smartinsights.com, 2016)

Case: e-Types

E-types main objective is to crystallize big ideas and to build strong brands with it (e-
Types 2016).

15
Today and in the future, e-Types’ aims with its skilled staff to ensure that they know
how to create a customized brand and/or service for their customers and how to create a
product which creates content and a story. The near future objectives also focus on
strong brand re-building (webpages etc. i.e. done for Sanoma) and targets to have wider
international co-operation and projects with other businesses. (e.g. in Finland co-
operation with Finpro started Autumn 2015). Drucker Ibfelt himself is actively involved
also in future projects with Universities and Higher Educational Institutions and
believes that with worldwide co-operations both measurable and realistic brand
strategies, a high company presence other than in Denmark, can be successfully built
(Drucker Ibfelt 2015).

4.3 Strategy

Stage three of the SOSTAC model is strategy, the idea is how a company should
execute a plan to get to the objectives which were set. Is it with the help of segmentation
(how to divide up the markets), is it with the help of targeting (on which segments of the
market one should focus) or is it with positioning (how to be perceived in each target
segment)?

Case: e-Types

According to Drucker Ibfelt, “We always want to create something the client would
never know to ask for. The idea behind e-Types business operation and their strategy is
to increase brand visibility with taking on projects and user-centered products of any
kind, to work on all possible platforms to fulfill the customer needs, from online,
offline, interior, exterior, but also from people to products. With understanding and
engaging their existing customer, e-Types can tell a story in very many ways, which is
their key strategy. Everything the company does for its clients has a clear strategy and
project planning and execution behind. The right staff with the right competencies is put
to action. E-types’ strategy is to focus on their ability of strategic thinking combined
with creative development. Pushing boundaries, being versatile, operating within
fashion, lifestyle, architecture as well as participating in design fairs, implementing new
products steadily and being actively present in social media channels (Instagram over
16 000 followers in 2015) is a must for e-Types (Drucker Ibfelt 2015).
16
4.4 Tactics

The Tactics stage of SOSTAC can be explained as the details of the Strategy and the
tactical tools to be used (Chaffey & Smith 2013). Choosing the right marketing mix is
essential, but implementing them in a successful way is the tiebreaker. There are many
tactical e-tools that can be used (websites, banner ads, opt-in emails) but what makes a
company successful in its tactics is whether they understand what each e-tool can do
(and cannot do). Not only must the company understand the characteristics of an e-tool
but they must also understand when to use them. All of this requires careful planning
and Chaffey & Smith (2013) recommend that at a PRACE framework and a Gantt chart
should be used in order to keep the focus.

The PRACE framework has been developed by Smartinsights (2010) and is a practical
tool to plan and manage activities in a more structured way. It consists of the key online
marketing activities that need to be managed as a part of digital marketing and therefor
PRACE stands for;

Plan - creating the overall digital strategy and objective setting so that it supports your
goals

Reach – build awareness of your brand and products on other websites and build traffic
to different parts of your website or social media sites.

Act – interacting and persuading site visitors to e.g. find out more about your company
or a product and also to participate by e.g. sharing content.

Convert – conversion to sale by getting visitors to take the next step and generate
commercial value by leads or sales.

Engage – build customer loyalty and customer lifetime value by repeat purchases and
engaging the customer so that they will recommend you (also by using other systems)

Virta Media and Monster Energy both show that by carefully planning a digital
marketing strategy, a company can reach its goals. Both companies have kept their

17
focus on what is essential and have therefore been successful. But they have reached the
goal in two completely different ways.

Case: Virta Helsinki

Virta was established in 2008 and ranked as No. 1 in 2015 by RECMA in Finland. It is
the 2nd largest Finnish media company with digital savvy local and global clients like -
OLVI, Elisa, Valio, Audi, Lidl etc. These companies know and realize the importance
of digital platforms and want to capitalize on them to reach the masses. Virta focuses
mainly on digital platforms supported by main stream advertising. Their short term
visions are based on long term goals (Virtamedia 2016, Ovitz 2015).

According to Ovitz, Virta is in the forefront of digital campaigns by utilizing

transmedia storytelling and creating a unique way for their client companies to connect
with the masses to create brand loyalty. Virta won the Grand One in 2013, most
prestigious consumer – Case Kristal (figure 4). In another case, the “Elisa Saunlahti
missionaries”, (figure 4), where Virta has gone a step further and created a one of its
kind chapter based main stream advertisement on local TV channels followed by a
digital version on YouTube. The chapters are updated at regular intervals to keep up the
buzz – creating a loyal follower base for its client company (Ovitz 2015).

Figure 4. Grand One 2013 winner

18
Here Virta’s main objective was to match the available resources in selling the
organization to match the needs of the consumers, thus focusing heavily on people at
the end of the value chain. In this internet/social media age, bombarding consumers
with information about brands by breaking through the noise and clutter and creating a
buzz to grab their attention. The final word of caution from Ovitz was, “you can’t build
brands with formats alone”; you need to be innovative and be able to take calculated
risks (Ovitz 2015).

Case: Monster Energy

Monster Energy has taken a different approach than many companies on building brand
awareness. They do not rely on TV ads, billboards or radio spots to spread brand
awareness, they rely on their fans to spread the word. They organize different types of
events like parties and concerts and support athletes in reaching their dreams. This way
the fans can adopt their lifestyle and tell their friends about it on different social media
platforms. Monster Energy is all about selling a lifestyle, not a product.

According to Österberg (2015) fans are the biggest asset for Monster Energy and they
like to interact and have a dialog with them as much as possible. There is a logical
reason for this as fans attract fans and they are the ones that make the brand. Monster
Energy chases engagements not likes, and emphasizes that if the fans are willing to
share it, then the content works.

This era of reaching the masses through digital media has been taken to the next level
by companies like Monster, who have become an icon and have generated much
traction and created a cult effect on their followers.

4.5 Action

The action stage of a digital marketing plan requires good project management skills
and active attention to detail. This part is where the tactics are broken down into actions
and each tactic or e-tool becomes its own mini project, requiring a series of actions and
processes. For this stage a Gantt chart is again recommended but other types of aids are
also encouraged (e.g. flow charts). Good implementation is a key factor in this stage

19
(Chaffey & Smith 2013). Risk management is another thing that is equally as important,
together with choosing the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The action stage
has been identified as the weakest part of the planning process for most companies
(Bossidy & Charan 2004).

Case: Virta Helsinki Oy

Creating digital campaigns or media content is the first part of Virta’s journey, the
second part is to track the brand impact resulting from such campaigns. The question
being, Is Virta bold and innovative enough in digital tracking of its campaigns? As
usual, Virta leaves no stone unturned in this area either. Virta relies on Facebook and
Google for data mining. Brand measurement is conducted with analytics through
viewability, visibility and engagement statistics. Ad recall studies through search
marketing and brand tracking, but at the same time keeping ad fraud and questionable
metrics in control.

As technology advances, media agencies need to gear up to be prepared to find and

implement new ways to measure their actions in future, a media agency is as good as
the results it can get and those that can be measured. With the introduction of Real time
banners (RTB) in digital advertising and Ad block tools being implemented in browsers
it is time to innovate. With advancement in Bluetooth, NFC, RIFD, and Virtual reality,
Virta is looking at a number of new avenues to track and measure ads directly on mobile
devices through unique device ID and also apply cross device tracking thanks to
technologies like ‘Handoff’ introduced by Apple.

Case: Monster Energy

Monster Energy has carefully planned their tactical e-tools and has chosen the platforms
they want to stay true to. They have nearly 150 persons working with their Facebook
page daily. The effort has clearly had an impact as Monster Energy is the 4 th largest
drink brand on Facebook. The company is also among the top 500 brands on YouTube
and ranks as third in the Food and Beverage category. Even though Monster produces
many different varieties of their drink (i.e. Original Monster Energy, Monster Lo-Carb,
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Monster Rehab, Java Monster) they never mix brands (e.g. an athlete will always have
the same can in his hand) and they maintain the same brand image at every touchpoint
and platform.

4.6 Control

The last stage in the planning framework SOSTAC stands for “control”. The main idea
of control is that the company should monitor their overall performance with various
activities and actions and most importantly be able to see if the efforts made are
working or not, and when not, how the situation could and should be improved. The
company can monitor their performance by for instance thorough web analytics,
profiling of the website visitors and the customers and by doing customer satisfaction
surveys. Continuous and regular reporting also plays an important role in the whole
process. In other words, it is all about being able to stay in control of the situation.
(Chaffey & Smith 2013)

Case: Boozt

The whole business idea of Boozt is very much based on insight and analytics about the
customers and their behavior. The company follows the customers each step throughout
the purchase journey and gathers all relevant data and utilizes these insights for making
smart decisions. Reports of the online activities as well as completed orders are
monitored and analyzed on a daily basis and the customers are put into different
segments based on their purchasing behavior. For monitoring and analyzing the online
behaviors of their customers, Boozt has developed their own digital real time
monitoring system, which enables them to see all of their customers’ order statistics and
other online activities in one joint dashboard. This dashboard also includs data from
Google Analytics and the data is analyzed every day in-house. This tool also enables
Boozt to manage and control all of their customer data to the tiniest detail. Hence, the
mindset of Boozt is to know the value of each customer and based on this insight know
which customers they should focus on, which ones are worth buying back with various
marketing activities, as e.g. affiliate e-marketing and which are the ones that they
shouldn’t waste time on (Neble 2015).

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All these insights give Boozt the possibility to stay in control over the situation and
through that try to achieve the company’s most important objective, which is to improve
the overall business performance. It also gives them a competitive advantage when
trying to survive in these competitive times where there won’t be space for too many
players on the market.

Case: True Caller

True Caller differs as a company and business from the others presented in this paper.
Their business is mainly measured in application download volumes and active users of
the application. However, they measure performance using brand ambassadors around
the world. It is a 6-month program for selected Truecaller users with the purpose of
sharing their knowledge to others. Truecaller ambassadors teach, share and help
customers get more out of Truecaller. Via the ambassadors Truecaller gets instant
feedback from the field, but they also stay in control over what messages go out. In a
way, they control the dialog between them and their consumers. Truecaller and the
ambassadors communicate actively and in groups via skype and once a month the
ambassadors’ report their findings using a web tool. The process between Truecaller,
the ambassadors and finally the end users is working and based on volumes, meaning
they need to have a lot of active ambassadors. Brand ambassadors keep the company in
good light and the company gets qualitative feedback on demand.

5 LEARNING POINTS AND MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS

According to the aim of the paper, we will here summarize the key learning points and
the related managerial implications. In total, we have identified 4 main learning points
based on the five case companies’ data.

1. Creating a new or rebuilding an existing concept and story for the brand is
of critical importance.

22
 2. This story should be communicated on multiple digital platforms with
different but complementing type of content to create a buzz and to engage
loyal followers for the brand.

3. An ultimate goal can be to create such a good brand story and related
content that fans of the brand can live that lifestyle and share their brand
experiences with other fans or potential future fans.

4. The digital communication, even the whole business idea, should be based
on analytics and insight.

The starting point for successful digital brand management is to create an excellent and
solid brand story. The target group for the brand needs to be clearly defined. The
potential consumer needs to be in the center and their needs and values clearly
understood. Managerially the case usually is that the brand already exists. Often the
brand has been developed over many years based on product features. In this case the
brand needs to be rebuilt and a new story created, to engage the existing and new users
through digital channels.

The challenge managerially is to understand the features and capabilities to

communicate the created story and engage loyal followers of the different digital
platforms. Different content is needed on different digital platforms to cater for the
different needs of the follower, user and/or consumer. In some situations, the content
can be just entertaining, creating a buzz when it goes viral, whereas in other situations
the content needs to focus on the products and/or services to inform the consumer of the
value that the brand can give them if and when they decide to purchase the brand.

An ultimate goal can be to create such an excellent story for the brand that it lives its
own life among fans living the lifestyle of the brand. Managerially this requires superior
competence and skills especially in social media, not only from a technical perspective
but especially from a user oriented communication perspective. Possible negative
experiences shared by followers need to be addressed instantly and in a positive manner.
A superior digital communication of the brand story requires substantial investments
and personnel resources to manage this communication in real time on multiple social
media platforms.

23
Finally, the digital communication and decisions related to the brand need to be based
on real time analytics and insight. The user driven brand engagement needs to be
constantly monitored and measured so that data driven decisions can be made. The link
between fans and sales need to be identified and monitored. The analytics need to be
visually usable by management with practical dashboard type tools on both operative
and more strategic levels. Brand management decisions need to be made based on facts
rather than on gut instinct.

6 CONCLUSION

The Nordic Master Study trip was a success in many ways. The companies were very
different from each other and that was a good starting point for the digital brand
management study that is documented in this working paper. The companies
represented both the company perspective and the consumer perspective. SOSTAC was
a good model to use as a core as it provides basic information about what digital market
strategy is about and what needs to be considered when planning and implementing a
market plan.

The key learning points of this article is that customers can and will create valuable
contents for companies in social media. This is something the companies need to value
and invest in. But if the outcome is not analyzed properly (or at all) the result will not be
satisfactory. A company also needs to be agile as social media is constantly changing
and its users with it.

From our point of view, in order to be successful in digital brand management, a

company needs to focus on two things. First, they need to engage the consumer,
secondly they need to analyze the outcome. Based on the analysis the company needs to
adjust and perhaps even start the digital brand management from the beginning. This
way it is an ongoing process which adapts and changes constantly.

24
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