Barbara Kuhr is Head of Strategic Marketing at Epson Europe, producers of printers and imaging products.

What is the most important change in media since you started your career?That has to be the switch from broadcast to narrowcast media.

Which media do you think is most important for your company today?It depends on your objective. The Internet has become the most important medium, but it has its limitations. If you want to quickly create brand awareness, or position your brand in the market, it’s not the first media you think of. Broadcast media are more reliable for this. But the Internet is effective for achieving many other objectives like building up a client database, and if not as the main media then as a complimentary media.

Google and Amazon promoted themselves just online. Are they an exception or can other brands do it too?It’s the exception because it fits their businesses. Google did use traditional above-the-line to launch Chrome and the campaign wasn’t successful. Maybe it was just an experiment, but I think a print and outdoor campaign to launch a browser didn’t allow the audience to put the product in context. It would have been better if they just launched it online.

Can email, the web and other digital media replace print?Print will always be needed. How much? Again, it depends on what your objectives are. There is a shift to digital communications, but it can’t fully replace print. Some products, for example luxury products, deserve printed communications that breathe the quality of the end product. If I buy a luxury car, I expect a brochure as part of the process of ‘seduction’. Reading a PDF of the same brochure on a screen can’t give you that emotional impact.

Which brands or companies do you think are setting the standard for integrated marketing today?Apple is outstanding at consistently using every touch-point to get its brand message across. From the product design, through packaging and advertising, print and use of the web, they stand out for me. In the UK Waitrose impress me, they tell a consistent story from products in the supermarket through to communications. They were one of the first to successfully translate their brand into an online shopping experience.

Do you ‘tweet’?No, I don’t ‘tweet’ personally, and nor does my brand. With social media you need to have very clear communications objectives, linked to your business objectives, and dedicated resources to implement and manage campaigns. Twitter and other social media require constant and intelligent management. If you’re not going to do it properly, don’t do it at all.

Recent research shows business-to-business brands are still much more likely to use print such as direct mail and sales collateral than digital media. Why do you think this is?Many business-to-business brands already have a one-to-one relationship with customers. They had that way before Twitter, Facebook or Linked-In started. Consumer brands have a distribution chain between them and their end customers, so a medium that allows them to have one-to-one contact with large numbers of customers is obviously interesting for them. It’s a direct link to their consumers.

Google trains advertisers how to get the best out of Google. Do you know anyone who does that in print?No. And I think there’s a real opportunity here. From the brand owner’s perspective, there isn’t much transparency between printers, paper manufacturers, creative agencies and print production companies. So it’s difficult to get clear advice.

What would you like to see as the next evolution in print media?Print on demand! We coordinate the production of printed material across Europe, working with a creative agency, print production agency, and a localisation company. Printed material is too expensive - and it’s not environmentally ideal - to send large volumes of print work across Europe, so I’d like to be printing-on-demand locally.

The Internet has become the most important medium, but it has its limitations.

“ With social media you need to have very clear communications objectives”

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Barb

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Kuhr