Nobody Buys Technology from ...Publication1.pub

NOBODY BUYS TECHNOLOGY
FROM A STRANGER!
30 examples of tech marketing challenges
and the solutions that were deployed
Brought to you by Keith Winfield Bates
1
While struggling to survive in the business jungle
keep this thought in mind. . .
NOBODY BUYS TECHNOLOGY FROM A STRANGER!
For your marketing efforts to be successful your products, services
and company must become familiar and understood.
Buyers and sellers need to be comfortable with one another before a sale happens.
Sometimes protective coloration works.
Case in point…
Does a zebra trust anyone near him not wearing stripes? Not likely.
He was programmed to recognize that critters wearing long hair
and yellow hides could be the death of him.
The faster your marketing communications establish
a level of comfort, the shorter your selling cycles will be.
2
WAR STORIES
FROM THE FRONT LINES
This e-book was written to share stories about
how advertising saved the day for businesses that were up to their (bleep) in alligators ...
as well as other tall tales of survival in the marketing jungle during the turbulent 70s, 80s, and
90s. While this may appear to be a history lesson, these tales and the lessons they teach
are just as valid today.
As they say, history repeats itself. Only the names change.
That’s because marketing communications is largely about human nature and behavior.
I have hundreds of stories based on my many years in high tech advertising. These are just a few.
I’ve also included some lessons to learn about the newest darlings of marketing communications
— social media. Whether you Tweet, post blogs, post videos on YouTube or keep your own
Facebook status updated, you need to know about these tools and I haven’t left a thing out.
Read “And now a closing thought…” starting on page 96.
Exploring Social Media as a process for driving BtoB Lead Generation
This PowerPoint is available at www.kbates.com.
By Keith Bates, who was there from the beginning and is still alive to tell about it.
©2010, Keith Bates & Associates, Inc.
This book was composed in 2004, then edited slightly and published in 2011. 100% of the lessons are still relevant.
3
AN INTRODUCTION ...
designed to help you determine if you should read any further.
This book may save your life (businesswise). Or it could bore you to death. Between these two
extremes you’ll be able to have a laugh or two and sharpen your skills in advertising and marketing
whether you’re on the client side or the ad agency side.
The entire book is designed on a single theme: “People don’t buy from strangers.” But I guess you’ve
already figured that out from the title. The challenge for those in marketing communication (or marcom) is to get out of the “stranger” mode as quickly, efficiently and inexpensively as possible.
And I’m here to show you how.
Why Zebras Only Trust Zebras
T
he simple fact is, buyers and sellers have to feel
comfortable in one another’s presence. Sometimes you
can disguise yourself. That’s why we have “the wolf in
sheep’s clothing.” Historically, there have been a lot of
wolves out there. But humans, like all the other species,
have a primal instinct in them that is buried deep inside. Our
instinct is to trust those who are like us, to distrust anything
that runs counter to our gut feelings and question the motives of others. It’s what kept us alive in our more
primitive states and it’s what still guides us today.
If you don’t believe me, just look at the animal kingdom. A zebra feels safest in the company of other zebras.
They are programmed to quickly recognize those animals that aren’t striped like they are and take immediate
evasive actions to save their lives. We have a lot in common with the zebras. We don’t automatically trust
the endless ads that we are bombarded with or the salesman sitting in the lobby any more than the zebra
trusts a member of the herd who suddenly shows up wearing a golden mane or a spotted coat claiming
they’re a zebra, too.
4
Advertising's
Four Most Feared Words
All successful marcom initiatives must start by building trust.
It isn't easy.
Bill Stein, former head of Campbell Mithun Advertising in Chicago,
had a sign hanging in his office.
It said,
"What are the four most feared words in advertising?"
Answer, "I don't believe you."
5
OFTEN, BUILDING TRUST ISN’T ENOUGH. Your messages have to be understood.
It’s easy to understand simple things: eat your toast, drink your juice, make your bed, pick up your clothes, etc.
However, only a handful of people understand artificial intelligence, quantum mechanics
or even Earl Wheeler's* SAA.
*(Earl was a very senior IBM executive and SAA, or System Application Architecture, was his idea of a protocol that
application developers would write to in order to achieve compatibility with all IBM products).
In the middle, between these two extremes,
are the people this book is dedicated to.
T
hey are the ones who have the uncanny ability to cut through the crap. They reside in small groups,
either in the meeting rooms of advertising/marketing agencies or in the cubicles of the client. They
are uniquely qualified to bridge the gap, reducing the complex world we live in and the products,
services, technologies and concepts we sell, into comprehendible, digestible nuggets that the person
charged with buying not only understands, but understands well enough to spend the money.
In a speech to the Women's
Advertising Club a few years
ago, Charlotte Beers, CEO of
Tatham, Laird & Kudner at
the time, summed up the
unique contribution of marketing communicators to the
business world with the following excerpted statements:
“What do (ad) agencies do that's unique?
Let me suggest that the people in advertising are deliberately, joyfully, urgently different
from our clients, not better, different. We do offer something to clients they can't get
elsewhere. We are people you could never hire, for ideas you could never have.
Conversely, our clients have a kind of mastery we don't have. They take risks, have
great drive, a thoroughness to make it happen, and ensure against failure. We match
mastery with inspiration ... all the "I" words; ideas, imagination, insight and intuition.
If clients are in charge of the linear logical world of common sense, we are responsible
for uncommon sense. In thousands of offices all over the country, clients are saying in
meetings with their agency, “Well, I hadn't thought of it that way”.
Clients see people as consumers first, we "see" consumers as people first. The most successful clients, the most profitable
clients have a profound appreciation of our differences. Companies organize people, product and profit. Agencies organize
ideas. It is the duty of the former to protect the power of the latter. It does take a different culture to nourish idea people, we
need a place where we can entertain visions, a place where we can keep fantasy, ridicule and doubt alive and well. It's passion
that makes an ad agency.”
6
The K.I.S.S. Principle... Takes On New Meaning In The World Of
Today’s Marcom.
It takes a unique level of imagination plus an awesome command of the King's
English to sit for hours listening to a client in today’s complex global marketplace
and then be able to go home and explain to your teenage daughter what was said
“in twenty-five words or less”.
This book is dedicated to the technology-focused marketing executives who buy this
unique skill set, and to the marketing and advertising people who sell it… so that there
might be peace and prosperity in the marketplace.
There are only two ways to acquire knowledge in this world that I know of: the hard way, through your own
experience, and the easy way, though the experience of others. The lessons I’m about to share with you in
this book were mostly learned the hard way over the last 40 years of my career – 10 in consumer products
and the other 30 in high tech. Perhaps some of the things I learned along the way will spare you the pain of
learning them through years of trial and error, only to come to the same conclusions.
Keith Winfield Bates
Keith Bates & Associates, Inc. (KBA) a full service, B2B ad agency, is an Illinois corporation founded in 1970. Over the next 34 years the agency served the sales and
marketing communications needs of more than 150 software and services company’s ranging in size from giants like Boeing, Computer Associates, IBM, J.D. Edwards
and Zenith Data Systems to many VC and angel funded startups. KBA was the nation’s first dedicated computer software ad agency but downsized to a consulting
organization in 2000, offering primarily creative and strategic planning.
7
Learn from
30
Tales of Tech Marketing challenges
Lesson 1: Think about what you want your company to be when it
grows up before it grows up.
Lesson 2: The odds of success improve in direct proportion to the
intensity of pressure.
Lesson 3: When targeting your market don't forget your management.
Lesson 4: Go with the flow, or expire with the ebb. Communications
flowcharting.
Lesson 5: Who ever heard of a battle plan to address prisoners of
war?
Lesson 6: What the astute software vendor and the rock ptarmigan
have in common.
Lesson 7: Positioning: either you control it or the market does; but like
religion, everybody gets it, sooner or later.
Lesson 8: It's not how much you spend; it's where you spend it.
Lesson 9: In search of the elusive USP, or the fine art of differentiation.
Lesson 10: Outsourcing invades marketing because it's hard to see
the frame when you're part of the picture.
Lesson 11: The CSP; assurance that your marcom flight isn't booked
with Kamikaze Air.
Lesson 12: What to do with an ad agency that doesn't understand
you—other than the obvious.
Lesson 13: Buyer receptivity profiles and the magic ten percent.
Lesson 14: How Ken Orr applied DSSD to understand the marcom
process.
Lesson 15: The beauty of venture capital and the clean slate approach.
Lesson 16: My Ethiopian saddle and other vehicular misfits.
Lesson 17: Advertising versus public relations! Are you kidding?
Lesson 18: The strategy statement, center of your marcom universe.
Lesson 19: Adam and Eve, and other memorable ad photo sessions.
Lesson 20: "They are ready to run all risks and to spend money,
undergo any sort of toil, even to die..."
Lesson 21: Paper benchmarking: why success is often reserved for the
best dressed.
Lesson 22: Why it's important to build an ad, even if you never intend
to use it.
Lesson 23: A simple little formula for determining if your sales ambitions
are pure blue sky.
Lesson 24: Before you craft a marcom message walk a mile in your
customer’s shoes.
Lesson 25: How a pair of sumo wrestlers wrestled Lawson into a
winning position.
Lesson 26: Meet Frankenstein, and learn why it doesn’t pay to
tamper with success.
Lesson 27: Can pigs fly? You bet! See how a warthog got sales soaring
for CrossAccess.
Lesson 28: How a little Chicago-based Korean-managed violin shop
became a big deal in the life of VIASOFT.
Lesson 29: How the quest for a unique photo took Napersoft to New
Zealand and back only to discover treasure in their own back
yard.
Lesson 30: When everything else fails you can fall back on serendipity. See how Eolas made some big bucks, accidentally
AND NOW A CLOSING THOUGHT BECAUSE THE WORLD OF
MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS IS CHANGING RAPIDLY.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Appendix:
•
•
•
•
KBA client list from 1970 through 2010.
Success stories: The ultimate test of sales and marketing
communications
Index of companies referenced in this book
Bates’ Library for Technology Marketers 1970-2011
8
Lesson 1
THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT YOUR COMPANY TO BE
WHEN IT GROWS UP… BEFORE IT GROWS UP.
You’ve heard the following bits of advice before…
“A house divided cannot stand.”
“Don't change horses in the middle of the stream.”
Our culture is sprinkled liberally with clichés and truisms that encourage us to pick a
direction and stick with it.
Our competitors love to see us run off in many directions at once, because it creates a "divide and conquer”
opportunity. However, if you’re unable to focus on what you do best, the result could be “divide and die”
instead.
A
very basic truth of business is that you can’t be all things to all people. If you want to become
the greatest systems software vendor, for instance, then master that category before you expand
into applications or systems integration.
Lack of focus, failure to take an aggressive stance in all of your marketing, not having a unique selling
proposition or point of differentiation and changing your messages constantly are signs of a weak commitment in the minds of your target audience. Your indecision sets off alarms in your customers’ minds. To
them, you’re saying, “I’m not sure of myself,” and “Even I don’t really believe what I’m telling you.” And
if you don’t believe it, they certainly won’t. Without the courage of conviction you will find firm resistance
in the marketplace. People won’t buy from you.
9
A
good example of this is Zenith Data Systems. They went from being a zero
dollar to a billion-dollar business in very short order, all on the strength of their
innovation in portable computer design. Then they got confused. They decided to be
all things to all people in the computer category. Instead of portables, they built
desktops, laptops, notebooks, etc. New products were being launched almost daily.
They should have stuck to what they did best. Instead of owning the portable
computer market, they fell on hard times. Eventually, they were acquired by Groupe
Bull, which then merged with Packard Bell and NEC to become Packard Bell NEC,
Inc. in 1989. They never were able to figure out “What they wanted to be when they
grew up” and they paid the ultimate price.
“Why invest in a Marcom
Engine AUDIT MODULE?
Consider the following
scenario:
G
Zenith Data Systems had a
major internal communications problem. First; there
was lack of cohesiveness
among the many organizations, both internal and external, required to support
ZDS, arid second there was
evidence that the company
was no longer sufficiently
responsive to either their
distributor's or their customer’s needs.
In hindsight, they probably should have done a bit of market
research and tested the market before jumping in with both
feet into a new product category. But the economy was hot
and the promise of riding the coattails of a new industry to
untold riches was too tempting.
Bill Davidow, formerly with
HP, says in his book Marketing High Technology, "Until
every single employee understands that the objective of
the company is to serve the
customer, the customer will
never get the best the company can offer." It took KBA
seven months to audit forty
two key employees, from the
CEO on down, and to visit
every sales office in the US,
Canada, and Australia to
analyze the problem and
prepare the recommendations.”
eneral Binding Corporation (GBC) is another good
example. For nearly 40 years they were in the business
of selling office equipment and document management
solutions, i.e., binding, lamination, shredding and paper
products. They were doing $200 million in annual sales, that
is, until they became enamored with microcomputers in the
1970s. They thought they couldn’t go wrong; it was such a
hot market. So they bought a piece of NorthStar, made a deal
with Televideo, dreamed up sexy product names like System 9
and System 12 and went to market. On a national level no less.
www.kbates.com/marcomaudit.htm
10
GBC’s national sales force was trained at their corporate headquarters in Northbrook, Illinois. One week
they learned what a computer was and the next week they learned how to sell them. They were then sent
back into the field with microcomputer sales materials tucked among the other office and binding
products collateral of GBC. Two years later, it became painfully obvious that the market didn’t need
another microcomputer, especially one from a company that made its name in binding products. The day
they folded that division there were cheers in the boardroom. It was a $2 million loss and a hard lesson in
committing to communications.
P
eat Marwick, which later became part of KPMG, learned a similar
lesson. They bought a company that made software engineering
tools just as computer aided software engineering was coming into its
own. The new endeavor was named Catalyst, so it could build its own
brand identity and stand on its own, even though it was wholly owned by
Peat Marwick.
Sales took off in the first year, thanks to some focused advertising strategies
from KBA. Sales doubled quickly. With growth came ambitions to expand.
Zero Time, a small Canadian company, was added to the mix. It had a strong
willed manager that wanted to keep the company name. Catalyst wanted to
keep theirs. So they compromised, and marched off into oblivion as a result.
The new name was Peat Marwick Advanced Technology. This put them
squarely back in the pre-Catalyst soup. It was the wrong identity. Peat Marwick owned a position at the
time of being a “great accounting firm” in the Midwest. Peat Marwick Advanced Technology did nothing
to reposition them as a “great software firm.” Today, PMAT is but a memory. It was dismembered and
parts of it went to XA Systems who parsed it out further.
11
G
roup 1 is another shining example of what I am talking about. It was one of the leaders in
mail management automation. But they had a problem with picking a look and sticking with it.
In a one-year period the company had tried a half dozen communication campaigns that were all
different. In essence, they took their total ad budget and divided it by six, because they kept changing
their direction. This was a recipe for failure, and they failed miserably in the end.
IBM
has been guilty of this, too. At the time I was working with them, they had publicly
stated that they were going to increase software revenue by 50% in 1992. I drafted a
recommendation that had the working title, “What must IBM do to position themselves as a software
company?” It contained some pretty strong advice; including using market research to better understand their customer’s needs in conjunction and engaging an ad agency that understood software
marketing. But they didn’t listen. It’s questionable whether they ever achieved their much-publicized
target. IBM didn’t get its arms around the idea of having consistent, integrated, seamless
communications and they certainly didn’t have a feel for selling software at the time.
JD
Edwards, a Denver based vendor of midrange (AS/400) applications I worked closely
with, offered an experience quite in contrast to the
previous tales. After years of relatively flat sales, they
hired our agency to assist them, largely because KBA
had a lot of experience in their software category.
We launched a campaign for them that announced “user
programmability,” a very desirable software feature. To
their credit, JD Edwards ran with a consistent message
and look. They were rewarded handsomely for it, too.
Their sales quadrupled in the three years they ran that campaign, never changing the core messaging.
And eventually they became a billion dollar company ending up in Oracle’s collection.
12
S
ystem 5 wasn’t so lucky. With 20 years under their belt as an information provider for the construction industry, they decided to package their service and become a pure service bureau instead. Things
seemed to be going well initially, but then it became evident that the plan was overly ambitious – the shift
into development tools stretched their resources too far. Trying to shore up their dwindling revenues, they
sold off the cash cow along with their name. Today, they’re a footnote in the history of businesses that
strayed from the path in an effort to be all things to all people and lost everything in the process.
I leave you with one other tale. Wallace Computer Services was a giant in the Chicago area. Well
respected and wealthy, the company was a $200 million printer
behemoth. They eventually took a fancy to software systems for generating labels. Thanks to an aggressive communications program, their new
darling division climbed from 7th place to 2nd in terms of revenue, thanks
in part to a well executed marketing communications program that grew
from $50,000 to half a million in 24 months.
The company even managed to force its biggest competitor to increase
its advertising budget substantially to meet the challenge. Then came
management apathy, changes in management, a new ad agency was
brought in, there was a reorganization and the downward spiral began.
What did customers glean from this? These actions said, “Our commitment is faltering as our enthusiasm wanes.” Wallace never truly recovered. Even though they had been in business since 1908, their miscues
led to their acquisition by Moore Corporation, Ltd., which was then
acquired by RR Donnelley.
I think you get the idea by now. Try to think about what you want your company to look like when it
grows up and dress for it accordingly right now. Marketing communications is the clothing often used to
cover the nakedness of indecision – pick the right suit.
WHAT’S THE POINT?
FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS!
13
Lesson 2
THE ODDS OF SUCCESS VARY IN DIRECT PROPORTION
TO THE INTENSITY OF PRESSURE.
Harry S Truman, who wasn’t one of my favorite people, put it best: "If you can't stand
the heat stay out of the kitchen." He really should have let McArthur keep going in
Korea. But I’ll leave that to another time.
If you're in business to win, resistance by the competition will grow stronger as you
approach your goal. We've all heard the lecture on perseverance, and the following
inspiring words:
Press On
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men
with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a
proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated
derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
Most people agree that 1969 was the year that the software industry came into being.
It was the year that the federal courts forced IBM to unbundle its software products
and hardware products so they would have to be sold separately.
14
J
OE PISCOPO, THE DATA PROCESSING GUY AT MONTGOMERY WARD, not the Saturday
Night Live comedian, had an idea, a vision if you will. So he launched Pansophic Systems, a little
software company that was funded by friends and relatives. Things were OK for the startup, growth
was steady but they didn’t really set the world on fire.
They brought in an ad agency (KBA). The agency’s recommendation? Full page ads – everywhere –
as much and as often as the budget would allow. Even though they were a small company, the strategy was
to position it as a major contender by establishing a presence everywhere. Buying share of mind is never
easy. Other people are struggling for share of market too. Often with equal skills, and sometimes better
funded. It’s a measured risk, but Joe accepted it and the first Easytrieve skeleton ad showed up. An ad that
was voted “best of the decade” some time later at a large technology conference.
Then things went from bad to worse. Expenses were far ahead of sales. The market hiccupped and Joe took a deep breath. His fledgling company was in trouble. He
even had difficulty paying his ad agency.
Did he stop the ads? No. He held a deep-seated conviction that he had a moral obligation to the people who believed in him to continue to promote his company and
his products. The pressure to back off became intense. But Joe persevered. He was
determined to maintain his image of being a major player. The ads never stopped.
Eventually, the dry spell passed. All the pressure that had built up propelled him
ahead, right into a leadership position in the market.
Eventually, Pansophic Systems became a $200 million seller of IBM utilities
and applications. Joe ended up doing extremely well. With the purchase of
Pansophic’s PanSort in the mid 1970s, Computer Associates (CA) gained its
first product. Years later Pansophic was sold to Computer Associates (1991) for
about $300 million.
If you remember the movie The Right Stuff, just before the sound barrier was broken, Col. Chuck Yeager, a long time friend
of mine, experienced severe buffeting. The air pressure was building up all around the X-1 just before it went sonic and
suddenly all the pressure was released in a loud sonic boom. In business, the intensifying pressure we feel – the pressure Joe
felt – is a lot like that moment – it signals that a breakthrough is imminent.
15
I
am reminded of an adventure that a friend and I had several years ago. It had been our
ambition to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro for 20 years. If you don’t know much about the mountain,
it is a snow capped peak in Tanzania, East Africa that is about 20,000 feet high.
We picked up our permits, porters and guide at park headquarters. We were told that there would be more than 100
climbers going on this four or five day trip to the top and
back. Most were in their 20s and 30s. We were in our mid
50s. The thought occurred to me that it might be pretty
crowded at the top with a hundred people there. But then I
remembered a lesson that is as true in the real world as it
is in business – it’s never crowded at the top.
Sure enough, half the group had quit the trek by the
third night. Half of the rest turned back at 17,000 feet. At
18,000, half of the remaining climbers quit. At 19,340 feet,
as the wind howled at the summit, it wasn’t crowded at all. Only eight of us had made it to the top.
Sustaining marketing momentum generally pays bigger and bigger dividends as
the going gets tougher and tougher. If you want to make it to the top, you need to
weather the pressure and stick to your plan on the way there.
WHAT’S THE POINT? STOPPING YOUR ADVERTISING TO SAVE
MONEY IS LIKE STOPPING YOUR WATCH TO SAVE TIME.
16
Lesson 3
WHEN TARGETING YOUR MARKETING,
DON'T FORGET YOUR MANAGEMENT.
At ABC Systems, a PC-based plant maintenance company,
company president Verne hired Skip as his marketing guy to
help shore up sagging sales.
S
kip looked at the company’s current marketing communications, a series of
vertical third ads, with a little cartoon character, small type and a splash of red
for a second color. The ads generated a few leads but the company wasn’t making
much progress. There were lots of good sales opportunities that they were never
asked to bid on; others they lost for a variety of reasons. Skip felt they weren’t being
considered because they weren’t viewed as a serious entry in the market.
He decided it was time to make some noise in the marketplace. He hired KBA as his
ad agency and asked them to come up with something dramatic. A month later, a
bunch of company executives gathered to hear our creative suggestions.
We pitched eight concepts. All were solid approaches that were based on a strategy
statement we had all agreed upon. There were glamorous photos of people in action,
heart tugging user stories, no nonsense demands for attention and one totally off the
wall, flagrantly borrowed-interest approach.
17
I
t was a huge shark’s mouth, gaping and bloody, with the simple,
to-the-point-headline that screamed: “Downtime kills profits –
ABC kills downtime.” Totally irrelevant, but very attention
getting. The shark attacked the marcom problem that ABC’s management collectively chorused – “Nobody knows we’re alive.” Everybody except Verne agreed the shark was a smashing visual. Over
Verne’s objection the ad ran. Leads rolled in. Awareness grew. Sales
picked up…but Verne was not happy. The shark wasn’t “him.”
The marketing VP, based on the success of
the ad, wanted more control. The president
resisted and ultimately prevailed. The ad
was stopped. Skip was terminated. It was
another case of battling emotion with logic.
The outcome is always the same. Logic
said, “If the campaign is working, anything goes.” Emotion said, “It’s not
my company, it’s not my image and I don’t like it.”
The moral of the story? Sales and marketing do not work
in a vacuum. Get senior management to sign off on the
marcom early. Without their emotional commitment and
buy-in you’re skating on thin ice. And it’s guaranteed to
crack under the tiniest strain.
BUY--IN
WHAT’S THE POINT? WITHOUT MANAGEMENT BUY
YOUR MARCOM’S GOING NOWHERE.
18
Lesson 4
GO WITH THE FLOW OR EXPIRE WITH THE EBB.
COMMUNICATIONS FLOWCHARTING SAVES LIVES.
In the world of programming, flowcharts are nothing new. But in
the world of communications, especially in the technology industry,
flowcharts are encountered about as frequently as unicorns (the real
thing). And that’s what this lesson is about – charts.
Sure, Pert charts and Gant charts are used on occasion. For the typical marcom
manager, though, they seem a little esoteric. So I suggest you try a simple calendar
instead.
G
et a big horizontal piece of paper. Put the 12 months across the top. Divide it into
52 vertical columns, one for each week of the year. Then create two dozen rows.
Divide the number of rows by three… one for the marcom efforts required for locating
prospects, one for contacting prospects and one for selling prospects. Under each broad
heading list all the activities required such as research, list purchases, ads, mail, collateral, etc.
THAT ALL! NOW DO IT!
SEE THE NEXT PAGE FOR A SUCCESS STORY.
19
PCR
(Professional Computer Resources), which became the
application division of Pansophic Systems, developed
such a chart. They had so many promotional activities going on at the
same time that there was no other way to keep track of the input, processing, and output of every marcom effort without this graphical representation. Horizontal color bars measured the span of each effort.
There is a fringe benefit to this approach. While reading horizontally
gives you a clear picture of timelines, reading vertically provides superb
cash flow projections. Communications flowcharts function as GUI's
(graphical user interfaces) between you and corporate management.
Imagine gazing up at a mountain, gathering glimpses from time to time of the trail snaking ever
upward. Unless you verify your milestones or checkpoints regularly, you can become so engrossed
in the destination that you fail to anticipate the effort required to handle boulders on the trail, weak
bridges, washouts, or the slowed pace caused by rarified air at high altitudes. All the rich resources
found in the rainforest at the base of the mountain will be stretched, sometimes beyond limits, as you
approach the ice cap on top. When plotting a path in marcom keep your eyes on the road ahead but
don't forget to look both ways at crossings.
How did PCR benefit from this extraordinary effort? They doubled sales every year for
four years, growing from $2 to $4 to $8 to $16 million, finally selling their little fledgling
company to Pansophic Systems for $20 million. Pansophic was later acquired by Computer
Associates. PCR’s products allowed CA to enter the ERP market. PCR also trained Keith Bates
for a future client—JDEdwards!
WHAT’S THE POINT?
MARCOM MOVES BETTER WITH A BLUEPRINT.
20
Lesson 5
WHOEVER HEARD OF A BATTLE PLAN TO ADDRESS
PRISONERS OF WAR?
Once a prospect is captured, he's captured! Who needs a recapture plan?
This was the basic marcom strategy promoted by the software industry before
entering the zero growth phase of our economy. When there are no new customers to be had, it may behoove you to sell more to existing customers. Common
sense, right? Belaboring the obvious? Right again. So why don't marketers take
recapture seriously?
I asked a client recently how sales broke down, new customers vs. existing. He acknowledged that new sales were 35% of revenue. Existing customers 65%. This is based on a twelve month period. I then asked him to
justify using 100% of his marketing dollars to target new customers — a
third of his business.
When was the last time you developed a marketing plan solely to address current customers? This topic is addressed thoroughly in a really
powerful book by Stan Rapp and Tom Collins called MaxiMarketing.
(McGraw Hill). The authors state, "We predict that by 1990 most service
companies (read "formerly software") and many product manufacturers will
be spending as much time and money maximizing their relationships with
known customers as they now do on their brand image advertising to the
world at large."
For many of us this is news but it is just as true today as it was two decades
ago. Some companies, including IBM, have known this truth for a long
21
time. The great ad agencies understand this very well. Leo Burnett, Ogilvy &
Mather, and a few others understand that faster, less expensive growth often
comes from within.
T
otal Customer Service, the Ultimate Weapon, by William Davidow and
Bro Uttal is simply an extension of the concept that says plucking
blueberries from your own berry patch is less taxing than competing for wild
berries in the woods with the rest of the animals. Two quotes from that book
are worth sharing. For Delta as for IBM, word of mouth and customers past experiences have created an invisible cocoon that keeps competition at bay. Trying to combat this advantage is like wrestling with the fog.
And the other goes on to say, By far the largest costs that outstanding service
save are those of replacing lost customers. There is no proven method for
measuring these savings, but a common rule of thumb is that the marketing
costs of landing a new customer run three to five times the marketing cost of
retaining an old one.
Next time you produce an ad or develop a mailing piece, think about the message,
and its possible impact, not on prospective customers, but existing customers.
Does it encourage them to buy more? Does it thank them for buying what they
did? Or does it ignore them or alienate them in any way? Food for thought. And
in a zero growth economy, marketing communications needs all the nourishment
it can get.
One interesting application of this philosophy in the technology sector is the pre-selling of three to five
year maintenance contracts. In a sense you're selling futures, but one enterprising utility systems company with a large installed base raised $7 million dollars in only a few months with an aggressive telemarketing campaign built around this very idea.
WHAT’S THE POINT? REVENUE FROM OLD CUSTOMERS COST LESS
TO ACQUIRE THAN FROM NEW.
22
Lesson 6
WHAT THE ASTUTE SOFTWARE VENDOR AND THE
ROCK PTARMIGAN HAVE IN COMMON.
The ptarmigan is a fat little bird of the Alaskan tundra. When he emerges in spring
he is brown. In early fall he is half brown and half white. By winter he is all white.
He adapts to conditions, much as we do in the marketplace. As technology
products grow and mature they also often evolve into something that looks quite
different from that which left the nest.
G
erry Wagner knew why he built IFPS. Decision Support Systems
(DSS) was a hot new concept at the time, and people were buying.
Execucom Systems was doing well. Businesses liked the powerful capability that was built into Execucom's software. Gerry's Interactive Financial
Planning Systems (IFPS), a sort of 4th generation language, did a lot of
wonderful things. So many, in fact, that their ad agency (KBA) had a difficult time achieving the focus that was required to build an effective ad
campaign.
The typical software system provides its users with dozens of benefits…
but who ever heard of an ad with a dozen headlines.
•
• The solution was obvious. Do research. Poll the user base and ask them
why they bought the system and what they're using it for.
It turned out to be quite a surprise. Users weren't using it the way they were supposed to. They found all
sorts of new applications. The bottom line… using management's perception of IFPS' major appeal
instead of the user’s would have caused the ads to miss their mark by a mile. The moral: There's no way to
know what's in a user’s head without getting in there. You may have built the system but you're not living
in the user environment. There's almost always a disconnect between design, development and actual use.
Unfortunately, the marketer often discovers it only after his budget has been consumed.
23
A
nother classic case involved Napersoft, a technology company that spent years developing a mainframe word
processing system. It was to be their first and only one on the market. Ads were developed, brochures produced and
an ambitious campaign launched. Then came unforeseen problems. First, IBM launched a similar product a month later.
Management's response to this was to launch a direct mail effort to DP Managers, mounting a much more aggressive sales
campaign than IBM put out. Second, the company came to find out the DP manager was the wrong target. This was
discovered after the ad agency’s (KBA) account manager personally called several dozen DP managers, made appointments and took the client’s president around with him!
It didn't take many visits to discover their system was perceived to be a marketing tool and generated no interest
whatsoever with the technicians. After a struggle, including a period where the product was sold to another
company, it became an accepted software tool for use as an automated text management system for companies
managing mass mailings for customer support and large-scale direct marketing merchandisers. Today, Napersoft is
doing well, but it took a while to find the right niche.
In marketing products and services in the technology industry the specific market is not always
obvious. If sales are flagging, spend more time with users doing research. Only a few years ago
beta testing involved hundreds of users and multiple test versions. Now I hear of products going to
market after a single beta site exposure. It's no wonder communications become misdirected.
Find out the differences between your perceptions of product benefits and the user’s
perceptions. Al Ries and Jack Trout address this issue to a degree in their book Bottom-Up
Marketing.
They write, “Traditional top-down marketing seems so logical. First you decide what you want to
do (the strategy). Then you figure out how to do it (the tactics).” In this pioneering book, Ries and
Trout explain why marketing should be practiced in the reverse. Find a tactic that will work. Then
build the tactic into a strategy. Sort of like Tom Peters’ (of Search/Passion for Excellence fame)
“Ready, Fire, Aim.”
WHAT’S THE POINT?
THE REASON YOU BUILT IT MAY NOT BE THE REASON THEY COME.
24
Lesson 7
POSITIONING: EITHER YOU CONTROL IT
OR THE MARKET DOES; BUT LIKE RELIGION,
EVERYBODY GETS IT, SOONER OR LATER.
Al Ries and Jack Trout get the credit for launching the
“positioning” concept. Their book, Positioning: The
Battle for Your Mind, has become a classic. Often
mistaken for “product positioning,” communication
positioning is not what you do to a product. It's what you
do to the mind of the prospect.
All products, other than those that are totally obscure, pick up a set of
traits over the years, much like a person's “personality” or “persona” as
we say today. The analogy with human life is quite appropriate. Products
are born, become entities separate from their parents; go through rapid
growth, adolescence, maturity, old age and death. There are a few, very
few that appear to be lingering forever, obviously offspring of Methuselah and Co. Inc. Through this aging process personalities emerge, created
both by heredity (inherent strengths and weaknesses) and environment
(the marketing communications programs that guide their growth). As with man, the age-old question
arises… which plays the greater role. And the answer remains as elusive as ever.
W
hile it's common knowledge that communications can't save a weak
product (often it even accelerates its demise), it is equally true that building a better mousetrap is no assurance the world will beat a path to your door.
25
Back in the early 1980s a couple of Northwestern University professors started a little software company in Evanston, IL called SIR
DBMS.
E
li Cohen was a brilliant technician. His R&D staff was continually
growing and being refined. His products were selling well in Europe.
Many major pharmaceutical companies swore by his system. His marketing efforts didn't go so well though. Eli didn't understand marketing; he
wasn't even really sure he needed it. His sales force and his marketing
management turned over a couple of times a year. His technology was so
new that the concept did not have a clear position, either in his mind or in
the market. Feeling that sales should be better, he hired KBA because of its
many years of experience in software marketing.
He described his system as a new way to manage data, but not in the common
hierarchical fashion. His approach was something he called “relational technology.” He referred to his product as a Relational DBMS and explained that there
really were no competitors, just a couple of small start-up companies in California… one called Oracle, run by some ex-Chicagoan named Larry Ellison, and
the other RTI, with a product called Ingres.
Before a serious campaign could be launched, Eli moved the company to spacious new quarters near
the Old Orchard shopping center outside of Skokie and expanded R&D even further. Serious marketing communications were put on hold while Eli prepared for the world to beat a path to his door.
It took about a year of heavy overhead and no marketing before Eli was forced to turn out the
lights at SIR DBMS and go home, leaving the world of Relational DBMS to those little California
companies. He also left his ad agency (KBA) holding the bag for $40,000. Positioning was just
something he never got the hang of and it cost him his business.
26
M
any technology companies choose to ignore the impact of positioning, hoping that based on the
quality of their product, the proper personality will emerge. They just figure that the character
traits ascribed by their company will be the ones customers will buy. What these people fail to understand, however, is that lack of paid advertising forfeits their control over the message.
All the news and opinion generated by competitors, ambitious editors, the public, industry gurus,
analysts, regulatory agencies and others in the field of public opinion, some unfriendly and some simply
misinformed, continues on with no balancing response.
The famous quote that everyone in marketing knows by heart is,
“I know that half my advertising dollars are wasted, I just don’t know which half.”
Take a look at your current marketing communications effort.
Better still, have a consultant or ad agency perform a marcom audit.
For an audit insight visit www.kbates.com/marcomaudit.htm
Do some research. Is the position you occupy in the mind of prospects and customers the one you
want… is it the one that's best for you? Or are outside forces encountering no resistance from you, shaping your company’s perceptions and your future in the minds of your prospects and existing customers?
WHAT’S THE POINT?
IT’S NOT IMPORTANT WHERE YOU FIT IN THE MARKET… BUT IT’S
VERY IMPORTANT WHERE YOU FIT IN THE PROSPECT’S MIND.
27
Lesson 8
IT'S NOT HOW MUCH YOU SPEND,
IT'S WHERE YOU SPEND IT.
TECHNOLOGY COMPANY A (to spare the guilty any further embarrassment)
spent 75% of its marcom budget on PR. The PR firm did a fantastic job. The
clipping book must have weighed 10 pounds. But the patient died. The company's not belly up yet, but
it’s definitely in its death throes. Why? Company A forgot one little detail in taking
its product to market. At some point you have to ask for the order!
S
ome wise old owl once said that marketing without
advertising is like winking at a pretty girl in a totally dark
room. You know you're doing it, but…
TECHNOLOGY COMPANY B, on the other hand, believed
very strongly in traditional advertising. I use “advertising” throughout this book in
the very broad, generic sense that includes all controlled communications – ads, mail, sales, promotion
and often PR because it too is a controlled communication media. Many companies define
“advertising” more narrowly as simply magazine or broadcast transmitted messages.
Technology Company B did very well, grew rapidly, and eventually made plans to go public. Plans for
the IPO quickly hit a snag when research indicated a very low awareness of the company. Plans for the
IPO were delayed while a new ad campaign was launched and a massive PR program was instituted.
The initial heavy advertising with its product-centric focus, sustained over years, made the product
names household words. But the corporate identity had always remained subordinate. Using 20/20
hindsight, a balanced marcom program would have used PR to keep the company in the limelight while
its products were battling it out on the front lines.
SOFTWARE COMPANY C somehow got the hang of balanced marcom efforts
early in the game and used the credibility of PR in conjunction with the control
offered by advertising to build the world's biggest software company.
28
This parable has an uncanny likeness to the story of the three little pigs, which is fine if it helps
you remember that a house strong enough to weather any storm uses advertising as the bricks
and PR as the mortar.
A study conducted by my ad agency of several dozen clients over the years resulted in a very interesting table regarding marcom budgeting. It seems that the average client, whether working with
$100,000 or $1,000,000, spends about 26% of its total marcom budget on media advertising, usually
print. This holds true no matter what the product or service. An exactly equal amount, another 26% is
spent on direct marketing, or lead generating activities such as direct mail, card decks, postcard inserts
and telemarketing. 10 to 15 % is spent on collateral, 10 to 15 % is spent on advertising/PR counsel and
the balance in 5% increments for trade shows, seminars, user groups, etc.
O
bviously there are exceptions, but these are averages. A couple of years after this study was done,
Business Marketing magazine did a similar study, only theirs was broadly based on the whole
business-to-business ad community and not limited to technology. However, the numbers were remarkably similar.
Like everything else in life, moderation is the key to success. Equal parts of awareness building
ads and PR, mixed with lead generating activities, is the safest road to success.
“Flip” Filipowski, founder of DBMS Inc. (now a CA company) and head of fast growing Platinum
Technologies, summed up the situation nicely in a short speech he gave at a Chicago High Tech Association meeting several years ago. I've forgotten the title and the exact words but the gist of it was simply that to be successful in business it's not enough to excel at one thing, you've got to be pretty proficient at everything. A single weakness can pull your company down like a house of cards. So balance
your company with equal strengths in technology, marketing, operations, etc. just as you must balance
your marcom with equal efforts put into ads, PR, direct response and sales promotion. (Flip, founder of
Divine, should have taken his own advice).
WHAT’S THE POINT?
IT’S NOT HOW MUCH YOU SPEND BUT WHERE YOU SPEND IT.
29
Lesson 9
IN SEARCH OF THE ELUSIVE USP or THE FINE ART OF
DIFFERENTIATION
Neil McElwee, a former principal in several Silicon Valley ad shops, gets
the credit for this innovative marcom tool. I modified it for my use. You may
modify it for yours, but the idea remains the same. Its purpose is to identify a
“unique selling proposition” for you to use as a product differentiator.
Start by analyzing your competitor’s messages to the
market (claims); weigh them against the market's
desires (demands) and produce a claims/demands
matrix that enables you to find the hole or
“USP” (unique selling proposition). The hole is a cell
in the matrix where a user demand is not being met by
a vendor claim. If you can fill this hole you have
yourself a unique selling proposition or point of
differentiation. As we all know, this USP doesn't have
to be real, it can be perceived: it also doesn't have to
be unique but it must be a promise no one else is
using. The chart to the right is a VERY old chart but
the process is still relevant.
PRODUCT POSITIONING MATRIX:
COMPETITIVE CLAIMS VS. MARKET DEMANDS
Sounds easy, doesn't it? Why doesn't
everybody do it and achieve instant
marketing success? Well, it's not nearly as
easy to execute as I've made it sound.
30
When it works, it works well. This approach was used in our development of a
copy platform for IBM as the result of the Communications Support Plan
KBA built for DB2. It opened some eyes. But IBM had done the necessary homework to support this approach. Most companies don't.
If you don't have access to research that clearly states what the market desires in a product like yours,
you have insufficient data to start the matrix. If you don't know which of the many benefits offered by
your product are considered primary and which are secondary, you'll have a problem. If you haven't had
a skilled communicator, intimately knowledgeable in your market, perform a marcom audit on all
your competitors, you'll have trouble assembling the claim portion.
And even after you've done all this there's still a chance you won't find a hole.
Even if you do, you now have the added challenge of producing powerful, heart
31
stopping, memorable advertising with the ability to reach people's emotional
level and change attitudes, and behavior, in your favor. Finally, there's the believability factor to consider. Just because your claim is true doesn't mean it will
be accepted.
If you'd like to try this approach start by producing a grid of 100 cells, 10 across and 10 down. Across
the top list market demands or desires in terms of functions and attributes. Put those most desired at the
left, least desired at the right. In effect you are creating column headings.
Now down the left side, in any order, list your competitors. With a list of their primary claims on a
piece of paper put an X at the intersection of each competitor’s name with the corresponding marketdesired function or attribute. This will tell you if the competitor is offering what the market wants and
hopefully, leave a position open or weakly covered for you to exploit.
F
oote Cone & Belding, one of the nation's leading ad agencies, developed a variation on this
theme for their consumer product clients called Gridlogic and used it successfully for many
years with multi-million dollar advertisers.
Try it, you'll like it. At best it could revolutionize your creative strategy. At worst you'll have a better
appreciation for the relationship between promises and desires.
WHAT’S THE POINT?
IF YOU CAN’T STAND OUT IN THE CROWD, SIT DOWN.
32
Lesson 10
OUTSOURCING INVADES MARKETING ... BECAUSE IT'S HARD
TO SEE THE FRAME WHEN YOU'RE PART OF THE PICTURE.
At the time, LPC (List Processing Company) was the fastest growing software division of Pitney
Bowes, that granddaddy of equipment makers for dealing with the US Postal Service. LPC is not a
new company. They've been around since the early 70's. LPC was founded by Jim Pehta,
intensely knowledgeable in the workings of the post office, who was once Chairman of the
Mailer's Technical Advisory Committee to the Postmaster General. Unfortunately, Jimmy's little
company wasn't growing very fast. Then they got a break. They ran into Don Landgraf, recently
resigned EVP of Pansophic and one of the key architects of that company's incredible success.
Jim
recognized an opportunity and immediately
outsourced his marketing management to
Don. Don took that sleepy little company from about
$500,000 in annual sales to $5 million in pretty short
order. As a token of LPC's appreciation, he was invited
on board as President. And there he stayed for many
years until the entrepreneurial itch started again. He left
to found AIRS, which also grew rapidly and became a
real thorn in the side for one of PMS's (Policy Management System) markets.
As you know, outsourcing has added a real twist in the area of data centers and it is beginning to
impact some marketing management as well. I'm not talking about the original outsourcing concept,
which says you get rid of hardware, people and the whole bit in favor of outside management.
33
I'm talking about the growing trend toward outsourcing the decision-making machinery through the use
of consultants at increasingly higher management levels. The advantage? Typically a much broader
experience base along with the hired gun mentality that says let’s get in there, get the job done and get out.
It’s ideal for today's business climate which defines long range planning as next year's activities. There
has been a lot of in-depth editorial on this topic over the years, but I don’t see it changing.
Now we're seeing marketing managers considering the same approach. Senior communications execs the
company couldn’t possibly afford to have on staff but possessing a huge experience database are being
brought on board. An obvious caveat is to avoid representatives of IBJ (in-between-jobs) Consultants, Inc.
A fast look at references and client lists usually resolves this potential problem.
KBA
got a pleasant surprise when we decided to package our marcom audits in early
1990. Before the ink was even dry we had nibbles from Dun & Bradstreet Software, IBM and Zenith Data Systems. Eventually ZDS signed up for a fairly extensive program
requiring nearly six months to complete. A simple audit can be done in 60 days, while IBM, which
is working primarily in-house, had been at it for a year.
For KBA Marcom Audit details visit our site at: www.kbates.com/marcomaudit.htm
A pitfall to avoid is the cost of implementing recommendations down the road. Once you have this
outsourced specialist's recommendations, do you have the budget, management's commitment, and the
resources to implement?
Another reason for considering the use of a communications consultant is the subjective bias of
disagreeing sales and marketing managers when it comes to strategy issues. This situation can force
you to use acceptable, arms length counsel to arbitrate the situation.
WHAT’S THE POINT? THERE’S A DEFINITE MARKET FOR THE HIRED
GUN, BUT CHOOSE CAREFULLY.
34
Lesson 11
THE CSP: ASSURANCE THAT YOUR MARCOM FLIGHT
ISN'T BOOKED WITH KAMIKAZI AIR.
People in general tend to think of marketing executives as visionaries. People who
plan for the future. Strategic thinkers.
But all of them aren’t. Many have trouble keeping a dozen balls in the
air while retaining focus on the horizon.
Enter the Adplan, Communications Support Plan (CSP), or whatever
you call it (today it’s a subset of KBA’s Marcom Engine, a six-step process that
drives all sales and marketing communications). A Communications Support
Plan is a subset of the marketing plan, which is a subset of the business plan,
which is a subset of vision and mission statements. But don't let this low tier position lull you into thinking it's a down-the-road exercise.
One
technology company that shall remain nameless put together an annual marcom
budget so skimpy as to be ludicrous. But it was all they had, and they were determined to make some noise in the market with it. Without a thought for the future, a blitz
approach was decided on. A $60,000 ad budget was deployed over a 90-day period; full
page ads ran in all major DP publications supported with inserts. Sales within 60 days of
the campaign’s end reached half a million dollars. Was a plan developed to build on this
successful tactic, to leverage these earnings into even bigger better marcom efforts? Not
exactly.
35
the company, who worked with KBA in assembling the CSP, felt that its
The president ofsuccess
was a fluke and that he’d better hire an experienced marketing
manager. So he did. And the marketing manager hired a staff. Three people. And when the agency head
called with a reminder that it was time to start the fall campaign guess what the response was?
“We don't have any money. Our budget's been consumed by payroll. We'll develop a program
in-house.” Well, they did. The marketing team stayed. They ran partial page ads off and on for a
while. Ten years later the company is still less than a major force in their market.
What is the secret ingredient of an ADplan? Mainly perspiration.
Heavy thinking. Homework. The table of contents of the plans we
produce for our clients spans four pages. Survival planning is not for
lazy people. Or lazy lions either. I'm reminded of a lazy lion I once met.
King of the jungle, powerful and normally a pretty fair strategist. He
knew all about protective coloration, getting upwind and waiting for his
prey to put their heads down while grazing to obscure his every forward
move. But on the day we met he was feeling lazy.
I was on safari, hunting southern Africa's vast Kalahari desert. It was June
and it was cold. Seasons are reversed south of the equator. The radiator in our truck
froze during the night. I had hunted lions before, unsuccessfully, in East Africa, and was informed that
Kalahari lions were a lot sharper than Kenya lions at defensive strategies. Kenya lions are hunted from
blinds. You hang a piece of meat in a tree and wait for a lion to come along. Sometimes they come in the
back door of the blind. Sometimes they catch you hanging up the meat. And sometimes they get very
mad and tear up both the blinds and the contents.
But Kalahari lions are different, I was told. They're planners.
36
F
irst of all, there are few bushes to hide behind in the Kalahari desert and there
are fewer trees from which to hang bait. So standard operating procedure
calls for the use of Bushman trackers. You simply find a big set of tracks in the
sand, follow them to the lion and add him to your bag.
Well, the lions figured this out a long time ago. And
somehow they have passed the information down
from one generation to the next. As such, they have
developed their own strategy for coping.
On this particular sunny morning I was trudging
along behind my 4' high Bushman tracker. At 6' 4" I
didn't have much trouble seeing what lay ahead.
We'd been following the tracks of four males for
several hours. I don't know how the Bushman
knows they're males, but I was assured that was the
case. Maybe big feet is a give away.
Our plan was to catch up to the lions, choose the desired one and dispatch him
promptly.
The lion's plan, based on years of successful experience, was to run ahead of the
hunter, far enough so as to be out of view, then make a big circle back and lie alongside the
trail. There he would wait until it was time to pounce. No more hunter. A full-grown male
lion in the 400 to 500 pound class can easily flatten himself in two-foot high grass and
disappear. Ninety percent of the lions taken in the Kalahari are done so at a full charge from
very close range. Hard on the nervous system but great for people who live on adrenalin
highs. However a fair number of hunters never returned.
37
Finally, we spotted our lions. They all ran different directions but we kept an eye
on the keeper, a big bushy headed fellow, but lazy. Instead of making a circle big
enough for me to lose sight of him he made a small circle. And being able to see
over small bushes I watched him as he made the circle, picked a bush adjoining
the track we were on, and settled in to wait for an
easy meal.
Well, since I knew which bush he hid behind I chose
not to approach too close… and today this magnificent cat stands in my house to the constant delight of
my daughter’s friends who run their fingers through
his mane.
Laziness in strategic planning is not conducive to marketplace longevity. Do your homework and
do your planning carefully. THINK. It worked well for IBM.
WHAT’S THE POINT?
PLAN THE WORK, THEN WORK THE PLAN.
38
Lesson 12
WHAT TO DO WITH AN AD AGENCY THAT
DOESN'T UNDERSTAND YOU... OTHER THAN THE
OBVIOUS.
And how IBM found a friend in KBA
If you've chosen an ad agency because you like their work, the
chemistry is right and the price is right but they're a little short
on street smarts in high tech, give them a hand, not the boot.
Not so many years ago it was hard to find marcom execs with
any real depth of technology experience. Not any more. So
there are a couple of options you can use to get your agency
up to speed.
F
S
irst, you can participate with the agency in the interviewing
process to hire a backup account exec. Help them write the
ad. Read the resumes and find one that's a good fit for both sides.
econd, this approach is more of a short term solution, but
then it also requires less of a commitment. Find a software
marketing consultant and hire him or suggest the agency hire
him to serve as liaison either on a per project basis or over some
period of time (typically six months) to help the agency get up to
speed.
39
IBM had this problem a few years ago. After an extensive
agency review of the many giant agencies that wanted IBM’s
business, they chose Wells Rich & Greene. A great agency with
outstanding creative credentials, but a little short on software
experience. This was at a time when the SAA (Systems Applications Architecture) story needed shoring up and AD/Cycle
(Application Development Cycle) was about to be launched.
So IBM hired KBA on a six month contract to develop a
Communications Support Plan, to sit in on agency meetings at
Wells Rich & Greene where IBM execs were presenting new
product concepts, and to edit strategy statements produced by
the agency before turning them over to creative. Ultimately
they were asked to develop the re-launch plan for DB2.
It's easy to hire and fire agencies. There are over 10,000 agencies in the U.S., 500 in the city of Chicago alone at last count.
But it's a lot more productive to find a shop whose creative and
strategic planning skills you like and help them fill the gaps in
their knowledge of your business and industry.
WHAT’S THE POINT?
MENTORING IS TAKING ON A NEW ROLE TODAY.
40
Lesson 13
BUYER RECEPTIVITY PROFILES
AND THE MAGIC TEN PERCENT.
Jeff Carr and Art Roldan were sitting in KBA’s conference room.
The topic: More leads and better qualified leads. PCR, which later
became the application software division of
Pansophic Systems, was selling MRP on the
System 38. They'd asked the agency to come up
with some new approaches to lead generation.
Mike
Fromer introduced them to the KBA’s A.I.M. program.
A.I.M. simply stands for Accelerated Integral Marketing.
In its purest form it is a lengthy, complex process but to reach the point
quickly, Mike asked a few short questions.
“How do you define your market?”
• Manufacturers with sales in the $10 million to $100 million range.
“How many of these companies are there in the U.S.?”
• About 15,000.
“O.K., we're going to call them all up and ask them how soon they might
buy a product that looks like yours.”
•
What are we trying to do… other than run up an enormous phone
bill?
41
“Statistics say that at any given moment 10% of your market is in a
buy mode. We're going to locate that 10%. A national sales force of 25
people can't handle 15,000 prospects efficiently. But they could
manage 1,500.”
The real goal of all marketing communications is to reduce the cost of sales.
If salespeople could focus their efforts on selling and get out of prospecting,
think how much more effective they would be.
The first step was to develop a buyer
receptivity profile.
• Second was to start the phone calls.
• The project was given to D&B's
Salesnet because they had automated a
portion of the process and calls to 15,000
companies began.
•
This is not a project to be taken lightly or one for
people who blow hot and cold over every new
marketing gimmick. The A.I.M. program requires a
serious time commitment of one to two years. As the
answers came in an in-house database began to grow.
Initially one woman was hired to manage it who
eventually developed an in-house team.
42
How well did it work? Lead flow eventually topped 1,000 a
month. And as I recall, sales doubled almost every year, going
from about $2 million to $4 million, to $8 million, to $16
million and was approaching $20 million
when the company
was sold to Pansophic.
So that you don’t think this is a panacea, a get rich quick scheme, keep in mind
there's more to sales than simply finding qualified prospects. The PCR marcom
effort was supported by a massive PR program, an ambitious print media
program, powerful collateral and endless innovative tools to support the sales
force. After you find 'em, you've still got to sell 'em.
WHAT’S THE POINT?
20 YEARS LATER “BUYER RECEPTIVITY PROFILING”
STILL WORKS.
43
Lesson 14
HOW KEN ORR APPLIED DSSD TO UNDERSTAND
THE MARCOM PROCESS.
As an early proponent of the structured methodology approach to systems
building, Ken Orr was a pioneer in the basics upon which CASE (computer
aided systems engineering) projects are now built. The Warnier/Orr
methodology ranks up there with Yourdon/DeMarco, Ward/Mellor and Hatley
and the rest, with his DSSD (Data Structured System Design) representing a
powerful approach to building mainframe applications.
Ken
was a familiar face on the lecture circuit
and his library on structured methodologies was in wide use across the land. Books
and lectures represented his primary source of
income. But business wasn't growing as fast as he
felt it could. So he hired a marketing manager and
assigned him the task of improving sales for Ken Orr
& Associates.
was called in at that point, and I was introduced to Ken. We
had several visits, quickly agreeing that he needed a more
focused approach to marketing his services, but failing to agree on the precise
point at where to begin.
KBA
44
Ken was uncomfortable with the approach I was using in those days.
It consisted of a relatively long questionnaire regarding products,
markets, sales history and procedures, and a variety of other bits and
pieces of knowledge that were needed before recommendations
were prepared. From the answers to the questionnaire, several
project proposals would evolve, priorities would be assigned,
and work would commence.
Living in his tightly structured world built for the development of software, he had trouble with the
looseness of my approach. To explain that marketing communications was not as rigid a
discipline as computer science got me nowhere. Ken wanted to start work with us but was
reluctant to give the green light until he could be shown that marcom development followed a
process not unlike his own DSSD. And he wanted it charted. It had to be tangible. I think he felt
I was selling vaporware, an accusation leveled regularly at the software industry.
I
n anticipation of acquiring this new account, I read several of Ken's books. They were relatively easy
to understand, given the complexity of the subject matter. To resolve our impasse I read them again.
And suddenly a light bulb came on, a small one to be sure, but still a glimmer that offered hope for a
solution to the problem of charting marketing communications in a way that Ken could relate to.
The light bulb came on as I studied one of his many charts. Ken was well known for
his use of brackets. A series of them getting progressively bigger (or smaller depending
on whether you read right to left or left to right) would carry the student through the
entire evolutionary process.
What if I took one of Ken's charts, removed all the copy, leaving only the
brackets and filled in the various steps in the marcom process?
45
I started with one big bracket and labeled it the ADplan Development Cycle,
next came four medium sized brackets. These I labeled Research, Planning,
Production and Monitoring. As I looked at those four labels it occurred to me
they fit a process Ken could relate to more easily, so I relabeled them Input,
Processing, Output and Analysis. Next came roughly a dozen smaller brackets.
I won't waste your time with several pages of detail, but all those little brackets
contained the stages that a good marcom planner should go through, from
secondary research to primary research to creative, production,
printing, media placement and auditing.
It worked. Ken loved it. He understood it and work began. It began on the same series
of projects as outlined earlier, but now their position could be plotted and a relationship
established with all the other elements in the planning process.
Ken
wasn't the only client we had over the years that wanted to understand the marcom
process better. That chart, changed only in minor ways over the years, has been used in a
hundred presentations, reaffirming what we all know is true… a picture is worth a thousand words.
On that topic, let me share a humorous anecdote. I was in an Air Force training school to become a
jet engine instructor. The teacher was trying to impress on us the importance of using charts and other
visual aids. So he decided to give us a demonstration of the old “thousand words” routine. He gave all
25 students a large piece of drawing paper and a pencil.
Then he proceeded to read very slowly and very carefully a 1,000 word description
of an aardvark, encouraging us to sketch along as he read. When he was done, we
put down our pencils and stood the drawings on a ledge around the room. He then
uncovered a large photograph of an aardvark. It was incredible. Twenty-five totally
different drawings and none of them resembled the real McCoy.
46
Since the development of the KBA ADplan chart, now called a CSP, there has
been only one modification. Recently the whole process was revisited to see if it
could be done in such a way as to follow the “accountability” precepts established
by Stan Rapp and Tom Collins in MaxiMarketing. That book made a big impression on me because even though my career path has gone from art to copy to
creative direction, I have a somewhat analytical mind that requires order in things.
I like the idea of accountability. I like hard evidence that says the creative stuff
I do works and works well in terms of hard dollars, measurable dollars.
If
the craft of advertising is to improve, it must subject itself to accountability. I couldn't believe any stronger in
the thought so simply put forth by Peter Drucker – “That which
is measured improves.”
I labeled my new chart A MaxiMarketing Approach to Measured Response
Advertising and give Stan and Tom all the credit for its existence. The heavy
thinking was theirs. The easy part was arranging the elements in a logical
sequence, not unlike the letters in a game of Scrabble.
WHAT’S THE POINT?
TO SELL YOUR MARCOM MAKE IT FIT YOUR
MANAGEMENT’S FRAME OF REFERENCE.
47
Lesson 15
THE BEAUTY OF VENTURE CAPITAL AND THE
CLEAN SLATE APPROACH.
ThumbScan came to me through the efforts of Pete Dignan (a
former senior exec at Deltak), Phil McKinney, and some pretty
sharp minds at the University of Illinois. They were pioneers in
biometric technology as applied to computer security systems.
The concept was simple. The execution was not. Basically you
put your thumb on a platen. The print was read, digitized and
stored for reference for some time in the future when you might
choose to log on. Comparisons would be made using a certain
number of points in the pattern that had to match.
Pete
called me up one day to ask if I'd like to
participate in competition with some
other agencies for his business. I agreed. And I went
to work on the presentation.
I have a checklist I use when invited to pitch a new account. It
consists of a bunch of questions and has evolved from materials
given me by Jack Mathews, an ad agency new business guru I
hired once and have a great deal of respect for. He really opened
my eyes and the eyes of my entire account management team as
to what's important, from a buyer's point of view, in assessing ad
agencies.
48
Anyway, one of the first questions I always ask is what's the history of the company, what do your current marcom efforts look like, and where do you feel we should begin?
P
ete's response was basically, “There is no history, there is no marcom
material, and I don't know where to begin. I have access to venture capital
but I don't know how much to budget.” Just between you and me this is my
favorite scenario for getting started with a new client. No sins of the past to undo.
No off target creative to try and overcome.
No confused market image to try and correct. Just a clean slate.
Of course, one of the problems is that these are not typically big budget affairs. Everyone recognizes that
wells run dry and deep pockets do have bottoms. So spending is usually done cautiously. But the beauty
from an ad man's point of view is the total control possible of the entire creative process. It's a chance to
practice "integrated seamless communication" with no obstacles. Our presentation consisted of some
spec creative and a mini ADplan. The mini ADplan is a three to six page overview of what becomes a 30
to 60 page Communications Support Plan eventually.
We
got the account, came up
with a photographic concept for using a pair of cat’s eyes to
symbolize security and were able to
include this graphic approach on all
ads, brochures, postcards, trade
show booths, direct mail, press releases, packaging and even the
product itself. The little handheld
key used with the Gordian systems
49
had a little
cat’s eye label
on it.
O
ur initial
photo session,
lasting one day,
provided enough
photographic material to satisfy all
our needs for almost three years
and ensured a continuity of appearance rarely seen in
a world of restless,
easily bored ad
people who tend
always to equate
something new
with something better.
If you find yourself in this kind of situation, be grateful. And use the clean
slate to your advantage. Before accepting a clever ad concept or graphic
symbol, ask your agency to show you (small sketches are OK) precisely how
they intend to expand the approach across all the communications options
open to you in pursuit of “integrated seamless communications.”
WHAT’S THE POINT? BEWARE OF CARRYING OLD BAGGAGE
INTO YOUR NEW MARCOM EFFORTS.
50
Lesson 16
MY ETHIOPIAN SADDLE AND OTHER
MARKETING VEHICULAR MISFITS.
In exchange for some advertising work a few years ago for their US
cargo services, Ethiopian Airlines provided me with an all-expense
paid safari into a remote region south of Addis
Ababa, the capitol of Ethiopia. We headed for
the Arsi mountains in search of the elusive
mountain nyala, riding small Ethiopian horses
with saddles like I'd never encountered before.
T
hey looked like real saddles, but covered by
colorful blankets it was hard to be sure what was
underneath. I can assure you they sure were hard. To
this day I am convinced they were constructed
simply of crossed two-by-fours with a 4 x 4 center
section. My guide, a former Ethiopian Army colonel
and hero of one of the Somali wars, knew better.
Each morning before climbing aboard his horse,
several assistants placed colorful silk pillows on the
saddle.
The stirrups, however, represented the ultimate
challenge. Each consisted simply of a slightly misshapen iron ring about three
inches in diameter. These were woefully inadequate for my size 12 boots. By
applying a great deal of downward pressure I could keep the toe of my boot just
touching the stirrup. But the tiniest jarring would knock my feet out, leaving me
suspended in air by a more sensitive part of my anatomy. With only two horses
51
in camp (although we had a dozen porters,
trackers, cooks, etc.) and the colonel possessing
small feet, it took me a painful week to figure
out what was wrong.
It seems the local people all go barefoot. Even
at high altitude, over sharp rocks, stubble and
even snow. Well, when an Ethiopian rides a
horse he simply jumps on and hooks his big toe
in the stirrup. If I had tougher big toes I might
have tried this. But I didn't. So I struggled with
this vehicular mismatch for seven days.
S
oftware companies produce vehicular
mismatches, too. And for some reason
management fails to spot them. Two
examples come to mind. One example is a midrange software vendor
we worked for. His problem was not unique at all. We encounter it on
a regular basis. The company was selling application software into a
variety of vertical markets. So where did they run their ads? In
computer publications with audiences of system software buyers.
The second example is the company that uses an identity which positions itself
as something other than what it is. We’re talking about Peat Marwick. They
bought a small software company that took them into the market for reengineering and CASE tools. But instead of hanging a new label on the company, they
simply sent it to market under the Peat Marwick banner.
52
Now, Peat Marwick has been around for a long
time. And everybody knows they're a great
accounting, tax, and audit firm. So it shouldn’t be
surprising that no one responded to their advertising
in this new market.
This foolishness is a carryover from the early days
of software buying when the sole audience was
comprised of DP technicians. Software marketers
who did their homework discovered years ago that
the emphasis on applications buying has moved
from the hands of DP into the end user’s sphere of
influence.
I
t's that old business of fishing where there's fish. If you're not sure, put
together a list of 50 prospects. Call them yourself and ask who's the best
person to address your product's appeal to. It will take some probing. We've
done it many times but it's a lot cheaper and faster than full-fledged market
research for those who can't afford formal studies.
WHAT’S THE POINT?
MATCH YOUR PRODUCT TO THE MEDIA.
OFTEN THE MEDIA IS THE MESSAGE.
53
Lesson 17
ADVERTISING VERSUS PUBLIC RELATIONS!
ARE YOU KIDDING?
A request came to my office once from a major trade publication
for an article on the advertising and PR needs of software
vendors. The title was given to me: Advertising vs. PR. Can you
believe it? As if they were adversaries!
Seems crazy but after 40 years in this business I still run into
people, and not all recent MBA's, who don't have a clear grasp of
the basic differences. So for those few (whose numbers may be
legion) here’s the difference:
PUBLIC RELATIONS PROVIDES CREDIBILITY,
BUT LITTLE CONTROL…
ADVERTISING PROVIDES CONTROL,
BUT LITTLE CREDIBILITY…
Like the old song “Love and Marriage, You Can't Have One (or shouldn't) Without
the Other,” advertising and PR go together and go well. They complement one
another and their proponents shouldn't be competing for budgets, but cooperating.
T
o put the advertising vs. PR situation another way, PR seeks to
“influence” while advertising aims to “persuade.”
54
ADVERTISING
VERSUS PUBLIC
RELATIONS!
ARE YOU
KIDDING?
Public relations, because of its (mostly) editorial integrity, is typically much
more believable than advertising. However, it appears at the whim of the
editors so companies have very little control as to when and where their efforts
will reach the public. There are those who think all that's required for successful
marketing communications is a potent PR program. This approach is usually
fatal, but there are rare exceptions.
Advertising, however, whether print, broadcast, mail or otherwise provides
tremendous control, not only over the message and physical appearance, but
audience placement and frequency of exposure as well. However its weakness
is its believability. All ad messages are taken with a big grain of salt.
Regarding PR planning, we often run into confusion as to who the target
audience is, what the objective of the campaign should be, and what some of
the tools and procedures of its practitioners are.
F
or openers, consider the many choices you have for a PR program. It can be
directed toward the financial community to help with an IPO or get stock
value up; public affairs if the nature of your business is impacted by legislators
either local or federal; your community, if the management of your business
affects people living around you; employees if there are enough of them to
form a community in itself; corporate, if it's important to influence the leaders
of other major businesses; and lastly, the more common marketing option,
needed to maintain news and goodwill in the marketplace.
In reviewing a PR proposal we submitted to Peat Marwick's Catalyst division
a few years ago, I came across a familiar cry, one that was paraphrased from a
Catalyst letter to the agency:
“We have an identity problem… we are perceived either as an insignificant
entity in the software industry because of our parent company, Peat Marwick;
or we are simply not perceived at all! The market doesn't know we exist.”
55
Has your company ever expressed similar sentiments? Have you ever felt that your
company or product was suffering an identity crisis? This is a common problem.
One of the most successful ad campaigns KBA launched for itself simply asked, "Is
your software having an identity crisis?"
O
ver the past 20 years we've run a lot of ads, always trying to keep in tune with
the market's desires as well as finding new ways to make our services
appealing. Another big winner was an ad labeled “Does Your Advertising Stink?”
A lot of people called or wrote, and said, “Our ads don't really stink but they don't
work well either.” When we tried to turn this into a direct mail campaign it failed.
A message that was acceptable in the impersonal manner of print advertising
became offensive when used in the personal aura created by direct mail. Angry
people called asking why we held such a low opinion of their advertising.
In preparing your own ads think about the shift in message required sometimes
between impersonal ads and personal mail.
For a fast checklist of PR tasks you can accomplish consider the following short
list. There are many others.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Editorial backgrounder kits
Visits and editorial mailings
Articles program
Case histories
News releases
Newsletters
User conferences
Press conferences
Social media
WHAT’S THE POINT? PAID MARCOM AND PR
COMPLEMENT, NOT COMPETE.
56
Lesson 18
THE STRATEGY STATEMENT,
CENTER OF YOUR MARCOM UNIVERSE.
A couple of quotes from Al Hampel, former EVP and Director of Creative
Services - Worldwide for Benton & Bowles, Inc., one of the world's great ad
agencies. Al's comments on the importance of copy strategies are taken from a
small booklet he titled, It's Never Been Done Before… And Other Obstacles
to Creativity.
He says, “If you want to panic creative people in an advertising agency, give them an assignment without a copy strategy.”
He also says, “No creative work should ever begin without a
written strategy that's been approved up through the highestranking client who approves advertising.”
T
here's no magic to preparing a strategy statement. The outline is straightforward enough. The primary challenge is getting all key people in the
marketing process, and this often includes the CEO and both marketing and
sales VPs, to agree. Each will have his or her own perception of the audience,
the problem and the best advertising strategy. It is not unusual to spend several
days thrashing out answers acceptable to all. Without it your ad agency is
simply playing guessing games.
What are the key elements? They vary a little between ad agencies, more
on semantics than any underlying difference in philosophy. The following
originated with Wells Rich & Greene.
57
1. Audience: Be sure you understand who you're talking to and their mindset
relative to your product.
2. The Problem: as perceived by your target audience. What problem, from
their perspective, are you offering to solve?
3. Advertising Objective: Remember, unless you're in the mail order business,
ads are better at creating attitude changes than creating specific sales. Think
about what it is that needs to be communicated.
4. Advertising Strategy: The answer to this often begins, “To position brand X…” or “To communicate that…” You need to understand your product's key differentiation to fill this in effectively.
5. Some agencies insert a point here labeled “Message” or “Key
Message” and it represents an early attempt to put the USP into
words that could conceivably become the ad headline.
6. Support: Sometimes referred to as copy points or reasons to
believe
7. Desired Response: This can be a simple statement of the action desired as a
result of an attitude change, or it can be couched in words or thoughts that
the reader might have upon completing the ad message.
8. Required Mentions: These are often key elements that are important not to
overlook, and often contain specifics regarding response incentives.
Ideally this completed document will require no more than two pages. There are
exceptions but watch out for them. As Al says, “A strategy that's overloaded with
selling points presents a terrible obstacle to creativity…" and one that simply says,
“Our product is best” or “Go with the leader” is no strategy at all.
Contrary to what you might think, a world of unlimited possibilities is a
frightening prospect to seasoned creative people. The disciplines of a written
strategy are most welcome.
WHAT’S THE POINT? DON’T LAUNCH CREATIVE
WITHOUT A STRATEGY STATEMENT OR CREATIVE
BRIEF.
58
Lesson 19
ADAM AND EVE
AND OTHER MEMORABLE AD PHOTO SESSIONS.
Behind the scenes tales
The assignment was to create a graphic parallel between the evolution of software and the evolution
of man for an audiovisual presentation that was part of a sales pitch. The storyboard was simple
enough. A lizard would depict the first creatures rising from the sea, a chimpanzee would suggest
early man and then, mixing a little theology with evolution, we decided to introduce Adam and Eve.
W
e lined up a photo studio, got
everyone and everything on the
set and started shooting. That's the
precise moment everything started to go
wrong. The iguana was big and ugly and
frightened people. The chimpanzee made
a puddle on the sweep. Eve was gorgeous, especially in her birthday suit, as
you might expect from a Playboy model.
So pretty in fact that she inspired part of
Adam to stiffen up, causing a certain
amount of embarrassment to all present.
After a long day of trauma on top of trauma we finished shooting. The film was sent to an outside
lab to make sure the processing was done professionally. Thousands of dollars of time, prop rentals,
models, etc. went into the shooting.
The film was returned the next day. Ruined. Apparently something went berserk in processing
and all the film came out blue.
59
These are the days that cause advertising executives to die 10 years sooner
than the national average according to one study. If that study is accurate I
have 60 days to finish this book.
The Python That Wouldn’t Hold Still
Another memorable incident involved a ball python,
shot for HarrisData. The python wasn't bad but he
wouldn't hold still. The original perpetual motion
machine. I suggested putting him in the refrigerator to
slow him down, a tactic often used on cold blooded
animals. The handler refused. Sometimes their heart
slows too much and they can't get it going again, she
says. She does it with small snakes and lizards
occasionally… and invariably forgets to remove them
in time. The python, however, was too expensive.
W
e were having trouble persuading the snake to
wrap itself around an apple until we discovered he had a strong reaction to the strobe. Then it got
easy. One flash of the strobe to make him recoil
against the apple. And one flash for the photo.
The Case of the Salivating Malamute
For ABC we rented an Alaskan malamute to sit by the side of a little girl using a
PC at her desk (see ad in Lesson 3). The day was hot, the studio was hotter and the
malamute, with all his shaggy protection from the arctic cold, appeared he was
about to die from heat prostration. He was perspiring, saliva was pouring from his
mouth in a steady stream and there was no way to stop it. The photo session ended
eventually, but some expensive, unanticipated retouching was required to
minimize the saliva situation.
60
Then there was the client who wanted a beautiful piece of crystal shot in such a
way as to emit various esthetically pleasing light beams. A lengthy search produced
a photographer who claimed he could probably do it. The cost of his experimenting,
he estimated, would run $10,000 to $20,000. I found a talented lesser genius that
did a very credible job for $500.
Resurrecting Stone Age Tools
Bakco Data settled on an ad theme in which a comparison was drawn between
stone age tools and Bakco's modern tools for warehouse management. The studio
needed references for building the appropriate Stone Age tools to photograph.
It seemed like an easy task. I loaded my Nikon with ASA 1600 Kodacolor and
headed for the Field Museum. Chicago's Field Museum, by the way, is one of the
world’s largest. They have everything there. Except the stone age tools I needed.
They had just been removed from public display the day before and packed away
into storage. It seems all the caveman dioramas were being disassembled and removed to make way for additional research offices. A call to the head taxidermist (a
friend from my days of contributing hides and horns to their collection) helped locate the man in charge of old bones. He was kind
enough to get me a pass to visit the bowels of the
museum where I was able to photograph actual tools,
250,000 years old, as they lay on his desk.
The Woman Body Builder with Way Too
Much Body
Then there was the assignment to photograph a
woman body builder for a Catalyst ad. A pro
was hired. Very friendly, cooperative and with
an incredible body. Turns out she was a national
champion. One look at the prints by the client
and we had to start over. Problem was she didn't look feminine enough.
61
The next model we hired was great, even understood all about software. When quizzed on her unusual store of software lore she
confessed to being the daughter of a Cullinane executive. Small world.
SEX
Building the Tree of Knowledge
For Consumer Systems we needed an ad graphic to symbolize miniature
production databases for fast, no coding testing. It was decided to create a tree
of knowledge. The actual trunk would consist of hundreds of cubes from the
game of Boggle, all drilled, wired together, and then twisted to resemble the
gnarled trunk of a tree. Real leaves were hung from the wire branches. I
cautioned the photographers not to get cute and build bad words into my tree.
It was weeks after the shooting before someone noticed the
cleverly placed "sex" near the top of the trunk. They could have
done much worse.
Getting Four Dobermans to Smile Can be a Challenge
To illustrate a copy theme of "Discipline Your VAX" for ISA
Solutions (they were selling system software) we chose to
photograph four Dobermans, one for each product. Each big male
Doberman must have weighed close to 100 pounds. The handler was
a small woman. Needless to say things didn't go well.
S
o I got on the set, wrapped the chains from 400 pounds of Dobermans around my wrist and attempted to exert some control. To
make a long story short, our photo lab did an incredible job of stripping a whole
bunch of negatives together while our retoucher did an equally incredible job of
making all the dogs appear docile. The ad was a smashing success. But the photo
lab/retouching bills would choke a horse. Hard to build that kind of thing into an
ad budget before concept is even settled on.
62
The Smoking Skeleton
or Pansophic, the Easytrieve skeleton wasn't
too tricky. A medical supply house supplied the
skeleton, which was identified as a Philippine
woman. An assistant photographer working on the
set stuck the smoking cigarette in her hand just for
laughs; but we left if there. The major challenge was
retouching to remove hundreds of little bolts, nuts,
screws and wire that held it all together. This was
long before digital tools such as Photoshop. The ad
graphics were stolen years later and used by a group
against smoking.
F
JD Edwards Second Little Girl Fizzled
or JD Edwards we decided to create a
new photograph of a little girl to
complement the stock photo of the girl at a
grand piano. An elaborate set was built, the
photo taken and the ad completed. But no
one felt the appeal was as strong as the girl
at the piano so the new ad was quickly
discontinued while the piano ad ran for
years.
F
63
Coaxing a Cat to Smile Was a Challenge -- Briefly
The Siamese cat we hired for the ThumbScan ad campaign refused to cooperate.
She would never look at the camera, rolling her eyes constantly all around the studio. Everywhere but into the lens. Then we hit on the idea of using our small
white mouse, also scheduled for ad use, to get her attention. We started by holding
the mouse up by its tail several feet in front of the cat. It didn't work until we
actually bumped the cat's nose with the mouse. Apparently the whole affair was
traumatic for the mouse. He died in his sleep that night.
Simple Concept, Murder to Execute
A shot for Wallace's computer labeling system proved almost as much of a
challenge. The headline read, “Any label you can conceive Wallace can achieve.”
We got a mannequin head, created a 35mm slide full of bar codes, and put the
slide in a projector we hung from the ceiling. A very dramatic ad resulted but no
one anticipated two whole days of studio work to get it done. (See ad in Lesson 1)
Hoisting Freightliners Into the Air Can be Challenging
To illustrate Roads, a system that would support truck
dealers, we contacted a truck dealer. The local Freightliner
facility was finally persuaded to let us jack up one of their
trucks and slide a small computer underneath. But only at
3:30 in the morning. They said any other time would
disrupt their business.
So we all showed up at 3:30, jacked the truck up as high
as it would go, and discovered we were 2" short of
getting the computer underneath. All that work for
nothing. So we shot the truck, shot the computer, cut out
the prints, retouched the whole thing ...and faked it.
However, it was worth it. The first day the ad ran a
major trucker called. Result - a big sale.
64
T
ry Getting a Librarian Into a Small Box
Then there was our "librarian in a box," a text
retrieval PC system from Zylab. It took a lot of
tricky shooting, double printing, etc. to get a
scrunched up librarian to appear as though seated
in the box. We even went so far as to lean a huge
piece of plate glass to squash all her clothing on
one side as it would appear if she were really
squeezed into a transparent PC package.
T
hen Try Getting a Zipper Onto the
Spine of a 727
For AAR Corp. a photo was needed of a
727 on the ground shot from above. From
the original photo we stripped in a zipper
down its back to support Air Finance International's contention that their leasing skills made it easy to switch
aircraft. What wasn't easy was getting permission for our photographer's
helicopter to hover over O'Hare airport to take the photos. We finally gave up
and flew to Midway.
What's the point of this long drawn out expose of photo sessions that
went awry? To remind you that the creative process is almost always trial
and error. Budgeting without room for the unexpected is either unfair to
your agency or results in mediocre work. Be tolerant of budget overruns
when creative is involved.
A parting thought, and standard procedure at KBA. If you hire a photographer
who still shoots film, shoot everything in color and black and white. If it isn't
65
practical to do both, then shoot
convert to black
Even though
originally
black and
whether for
budget reasons,
eventually be a
for a color verbrochures, trade
or simply next
one turns out well.
color and
and white.
many ads
appear in
white,
esthetic or
there will
need or desire
sion; posters,
show graphics,
year's ad if this
F
or the cost of
photography
these days it
also makes a lot
of sense to shoot as
many alternatives to
the original concept as possible at the time of shooting. I have used back up photo files often for
years without having to reshoot. Plus, location shots that are prohibitively expensive
or difficult to reshoot. My files contain quality background photos that range from
arctic regions near the north pole to mountain tops, to rain forests and architectural
ruins across all of Africa, South America, Europe, Canada, the Pacific, and places I
don't even remember.
Digital photography is changing the way we shoot ads these days, but it’s still true
that giving yourself the widest range of options when capturing the initial images –
even if they are going to be heavily reworked in Photoshop – is always a good idea.
And it will save you from a lot of headaches down the road when you can’t find just
the right shot because you wanted to or needed to cut corners.
WHAT’S THE POINT? YOU CAN’T BUDGET FOR THE
UNEXPECTED. JUST DEAL WITH IT.
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Lesson 20
“THEY ARE READY TO RUN ALL RISKS…
AND TO SPEND MONEY… UNDERGO ANY
SORT OF TOIL… EVEN TO DIE… FOR THE SAKE OF…
A NAME WHICH SHALL BE ETERNAL.” Plato.
The technology industry has a history of sucking up new names as quickly as an
aardvark sucks up ants. Voraciously. Insatiably. If you've tried to clear a new name
with the U.S. Trademark Register you'll know what I mean. Yet the quest goes on
because of the readily acknowledged inherent strength of a good name.
Our experience with the naming process as a marcom tool goes back over 15
years. I had need for some professional help and had heard of a man doing some
pioneering work in using computers to develop name candidates.
A
fter some detective work Scotland Yard would
envy, I located Will Doyle and his company,
Brand Group. Over the 15 years that have passed
since that first meeting we've become good friends
and his collection of major American corporations
for whom he has developed both product and corporate names numbers in the hundreds. Technology
companies in this lineup include such recognizable
names as Ashton-Tate, AT&T, Catalyst, Entre Computers, Execucom, Ferox Microsystems, ICE Inc., J
D Edwards, PCR, and Signa Corporation. Will and I
were even invited to review IBM's naming strategy
and make recommendations to strengthen it.
How important is a name? Read the lesson on Brand
Equity. Martin Sorrell felt the name Ogilvy & Mather
was worth $294 million and put it on his balance
sheet, an acceptable practice under U.K. accounting
rules.
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The “importance” of a name is much more significant when a product is
launched. This is the critical time to do it right. As years go by “importance” is
replaced by “value,” that which accrues because of the product/corporation's success in the marketplace. Importance is given, value grows.
T
he process is summed up as “marketing linguistics” and the approach is part scientific and part
marketing. The staff to which a naming assignment may be given will range in expertise from the
technical – linguistics, computer technology, trademark law and market research; to the creative – product
and package design. Such a staff tests names through a variety of programs including evaluation of existing
product identities, brand name candidate research, market language testing and systematic brand name
development.
How do good names come to be? Critical characteristics of a winning name
include its physical performance, psychological factors and promotional and
performance characteristics. Marketers need to determine specifically what to
communicate, how best to communicate it and how to evaluate that message.
W
hen evaluating existing names, studies are conducted to determine
attitudes, awareness, penetration and positioning of its client and
competitors. This process can be useful in determining whether an existing name
can be successfully extended to a new product. Brand name candidate research
also involves screening to determine a name's psychological appeal.
In working with an outside resource for naming its particularly important to
involve your ad agency or graphic designers in order to efficiently integrate
positioning and communication objectives.
For the benefit of those new to this process, let me take you quickly through a
series of step-by-step procedures and techniques that address every crucial aspect
of brand naming, from planning, developing and screening name candidates
through securing trademark protection, supporting tracking and managing brand
names.
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A structured brand name development program typically includes the following
key steps:
A briefing meeting is held to thoroughly analyze need and explore objectives.
The briefing is followed by strategic creative and linguistic planning. Following
the sometimes lengthy planning process is the actual development of brand
name candidates. The initial pass through the computer can generate thousands
of candidates, so next is a screening process. The screening consists of several
phases. First, internal screenings and workshops are conducted to reduce the
candidates to a manageable number. Then preliminary trademark screening is
performed, followed by market research and finally, an international language
review. After this sometimes drawn out process is completed, results are
analyzed, conclusions reached and recommendations made. Typically at this
point 5 to 10 candidates are submitted for full legal study.
F
ringe benefits of this naming process can be company names,
product names, generic and descriptive terms, themes and
slogans, or keywords and phrases for use in advertising and informational text. In addition to language components this process is also
valuable in building company and product identity systems and brand
name pools, which are pre-developed and screened collections of
brand name candidates for possible line extensions in selected
categories handling what many people feel is marketing's most
valuable asset – a name.
WHAT’S THE POINT? SHAKESPEARE
WON’T AGREE BUT A ROSE BY ANOTHER
NAME OFTEN SMELLS SWEETER.
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Lesson 21
PAPER BENCHMARKETING: WHY SUCCESS
IS OFTEN RESERVED FOR THE BEST DRESSED.
A few years ago I felt the need for some in-depth research for one of my
clients. I wanted the kind of one-on-one feedback you get from a focus
group but without the distractions and time constraints. Specifically, I
wanted to find out which of the many marcom tools my agency was
applying on our clients’ behalf were having the biggest
impact on closing a sale.
Was I in for an eye opening experience!
Our client was Professional Computer Resources (PCR), a
major MRP vendor supporting the S/38, now AS/400 market.
Even in the mid 80's there were a lot of people selling systems
to help manufacturers.
W
ith my client's blessing and armed with a list prepared
by them of six recently signed up customers and six
still-in-the-prospect stage, I climbed into my car for a twoday jaunt around Wisconsin, Southern Michigan and
Northern Indiana. The appointments had all been made and
my overnight planned for Green Bay.
I learned a lot about the impact of communications at the
grassroots level in those two days, but one interview in particular
sums up the whole trip...
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S
omewhere in central Wisconsin a DP manager shared his marcom culling process with me. It began about nine months earlier when the man I'll call Fred (my
apologies for forgetting his real name, and being unable to locate it in my aging files)
decided that his distribution, manufacturing and accounting systems had all the
patching they, and he, could stand. He'd been feeling that way for some time,
bombarded on both sides by management needing a more sophisticated system and by
vendors with some hard evidence that he was falling behind.
One afternoon Fred called in his secretary, sent her to the evergrowing pile of trade magazines and asked her to pull out all
those either supporting manufacturing or midrange computers.
W
ith the pile on his desk, Fred proceeded to flip through
them looking for familiar faces. There were many as
Fred worked for a big company and his name appeared on
every major software vendor’s hit list.
Every MRP vendor in the country, big and little, had
called Fred, or mailed him something, or visited him over
the previous couple of years. Finally it was time to take a close look at
their offerings. But he was a little intimidated at the prospect of interviewing several
dozen vendors.
Instead, he tore out the ads of about a dozen and a half that he knew to be offering full
systems and that were familiar to him. He had his secretary call those companies and
request the literature they offered but refused all advances for demos at this point.
It took a few weeks for all the brochures to come trickling in. Believe it or not, some
never responded. But eventually a huge pile of literature was accumulated. It was a
pretty impressive pile and Fred was a little daunted at the prospect of reading it all.
So he decided to indulge in what I call “paper benchmarking” (works
with websites, too).
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He picked up the large pile, carried them into a conference room, and laid them out side-by-side from
one end of the table to the other.
Then going on the assumption that there was a commodity-like aura around all the leading packages, he
picked up a wastebasket, walked the length of the table, and pushed in those that weren't physically
attractive or failed to communicate instantly some message of value.
The pile of 18 shrank instantly to about a half dozen.
The half dozen he read very carefully and then tossed three of these. The remaining three were invited in
for presentations. And eventually one was selected.
I
t's not fair to say that this selection process was based solely on the cover design of the
brochures. The company's reputation and ad continuity played a key role or the brochure
would never have gotten onto the table in the first place.
But think for a moment of the burden this places on your communication skills, on the importance of graphic design and of the importance of saying something, in either words or
pictures on the cover that has a powerful, relevant impact on potential customers.
WHAT’S THE POINT?
WHO SAYS APPEARANCES AREN’T EVERYTHING?
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Lesson 22
WHY IT'S IMPORTANT TO BUILD AN AD EVEN
IF YOU NEVER INTEND TO USE IT.
In attempting to define the concept of focus during a client strategy
presentation one day I picked up a hammer, a block of wood and a big
16 penny nail.
The issue we were trying to resolve was which of the many marcom tasks
to be performed for an upcoming product launch should be put into work
first. Budget restrictions prohibited simultaneous development of all the
tools required.
This was to be a major campaign, employing a variety of communications
vehicles but with heavy emphasis on direct marketing: mail, inserts,
package stuffers, collateral, telemarketing, trade shows, seminars, print
media and perhaps some broadcast. All were being considered. And there
was plenty of time. This was summer and the rollout was scheduled for
the beginning of the new year.
Some of the marketing teams insisted that collateral be done first. Their
argument was that the fulfillment object or response incentive should be
completed and on hand before any lead generating activities were put in
place. Another opted to begin writing the direct mail program, claiming that there were many
elements to be developed and the refining process would be very time consuming.
T
here were two problems on the table before us. Both focus oriented. One, we
couldn't agree on a start up priority. And two, while a strategy statement had
been written and approved, a focus on concept, words and pictures had yet to
evolve.
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My recommendation, which prevailed this time but doesn't always, was to begin with an ad. My logic?
Only an ad is a sufficiently simple enough vehicle to achieve the focus required to act as a beacon for
the more complex creative required of all the other marcom tools.
And to make my point I picked up the hammer and nail. Placing the point against the wood I easily
drove it deeply in the block with a single blow. Then, using the claw to extract the nail, I turned it
around, placed the broad, flat head against the wood, and gave it another hard blow. It barely made a
dent.
The concept of focus was clearly demonstrated.
A common problem in developing marcom programs is the tendency to build
from the complex to the simple. It doesn't work. You've got to build from the
simple to the complex.
Only the restrictions imposed by a 7" X 10" rectangle over your entire
communications concept can provide the discipline necessary to achieve the
focus that drives your message home.
A
nyone can describe product attributes in the 5,000 words of a
typical brochure or the 2,000 words of a mailing kit. But where's
the focus? Now take an ad headline of 7 to 10 words. That's a challenge.
That's where you learn to cut the fat from your message. That's when
you learn to get to the point.
Once you've achieved the focus a single ad forces on you, it's easy to expand on it without losing that
focus. Now you're on your way to achieving “integrated seamless communications”… the concept and
buzzwords that are sweeping the ad industry today.
John O'Toole, outgoing president of the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4As), described
this concept in a spring 1990 speech as “The New Advertising.”
WHAT’S THE POINT? WITHOUT A CREATIVE REPOSITORY YOU’LL
NEVER ACHIEVE INTEGRATED COMMUNICATIONS.
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Lesson 23
A SIMPLE LITTLE FORMULA FOR
DETERMINING IF YOUR SALES AMBITIONS
ARE PURE BLUE SKY.
In the course of a planning session the topic of advertising objectives is inevitably
raised. Sometimes the quest is for objectives “in general,” other times for
“specific, measurable objectives.” From this we move quickly into management
ambitions. In choosing a direction some managers have their feet on the ground,
others their heads in the clouds.
PMS
(Policy Management Systems) a major
insurance software company, wanted
to double sales over the next 12 months back in the
1980s. Not an unreasonable ambition… until you
discover sales are already at $60 million and the total
marcom ad budget they offered me was something
less than $100,000.
Leads cost money. Sales cost money. Exceptions to these
rules offer worse odds than winning the lottery.
In order to maintain a realistic perspective when starting out to set
the world on fire we developed a two-part answer to the question of
“What might we get from our marcom efforts?”
The answer usually fits on a single piece of paper and seems so simplistic I'm a
little reluctant to include it in a book designed to appeal to practicing marketing
professionals. But I'm doing so because I continue to get an enthusiastic response
whenever I include it in a plan.
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To start out are the three very basic benefits “in general” of advertising (in the broad sense).
1. First, we seek to strengthen the client's identity in the marketplace, establish
them as a major contender. In other words, build awareness.
2. Next, we provide direct support of the selling effort by providing a continuous
flow of quality leads, which in turn are supported by strong sales materials. Lead
generation and collateral.
3. Finally, under "generalized" benefits we seek to generate advertising that will
influence beliefs and attitudes in favor of our client's products over the
competitor’s.
N
ow we get to the “easy, measurable” stuff.
The foregoing is not easy to measure.
Awareness and attitude changes are usually
measured by pre-and post-campaign surveys,
typically separated by 6 to 12 months.
Our "measurable" objectives are usually detailed as
follows:
(Note: Rather than deal in the abstract we are providing an actual
example from a recent client whose average sale price was
$83,000 and whose annual sales ambition was $18 million.)
Here it is:
• Increase raw lead flow.
• Increase conversion percentage of qualified leads to sales from
2.5:1 (40%) fiscal year “X” to 2:1 (50%) in fiscal year “Y”,
which represents a 25 % increase.
• To achieve sales of $18 million, 216 orders (averaging $83,000)
must be filled.
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Based on a raw lead to pipeline ratio of 10 to 1 and a pipeline to sale ratio of
2.5 to 1 (.40) yield, we have an overall raw lead to sale ratio of 25 to 1.
Therefore, 216 sales will require 5,400 raw leads (216 X 25). 5,400 leads divided
by 12 months indicates a monthly average requirement of 450.
If we succeed in improving the pipeline to sale ratio by 25% (to 2.0:1,
a .50 yield), the overall raw lead to sale ratio becomes 20 to 1, which
offers two possibilities:
1. The number of leads required to reach the sales target of $18 million drops
from 5,400 to 4,320… or…
2. Sales increase (by holding to the 5,400 leads) to 270 orders worth $22.4
million.
Based on 18 salespeople and 5,400 leads annually, we will provide
25 leads per man per month.
The improved pipeline to sale ratio could drop this to 20. It is our
hope that the pipeline (qualified lead) to sale ratio will be favorably
impacted by:
•
•
•
Improving the qualification process through the Buyer Receptivity Profile
(telemarketing) resulting in faster location of A leads, and fewer B, C and D
leads.
Improving sales tools (brochures, AV material, etc.) to shorten the selling
cycle, speed up the selling process and free salespeople to work on new
prospects.
Increasing awareness in the marketplace which will produce more
opportunities to participate in "A" lead discussions.
WHAT’S THE POINT? IT MAY BE OLD MATH BUT IT
STILL ADDS UP IN TODAY’S MARKETPLACE.
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Lesson 24
BEFORE YOU CRAFT A MARCOM
MESSAGE, WALK A MILE IN YOUR
CUSTOMER’S SHOES.
The transition had already been made in database management systems
(DBMS) from hierarchical to relational some years earlier. Two companies pretty
much owned that market –Oracle and RTI with their product Ingres. And they
were doing well. The efficiency of relational over hierarchical was awesome and
very popular. Oracle and RTI were growing rapidly, so rapidly in fact that they
caught the attention of IBM, who pioneered the original database concept with
their mainframe product IMS.
R
elational, however, was stealing IBM’s thunder.
So they decided to respond to an obvious opportunity and they joined the fray by building DB2.
DB2 did not set the world on fire.
DB2 in fact, was perceived in a
sort of ho-hum manner by a
market that seemed satisfied with
the existing products from Oracle
and Ingres. You could even say
that Oracle was on its way to
becoming the proverbial 800
pound gorilla in the market.
So IBM launched and nothing
much happened.
78
Several months after the introduction of DB2 I was talking to Bob Berland, a
VP from IBM, following one of his many speeches before ADAPSO. ADAPSO,
which stands for Association of Data Processing Service Organizations, was the
original software industry’s trade association, (today it’s ITAA) and Berland was a
regular speaker on behalf of IBM.
H
aving attended many of these meetings, Bob and I were fairly well
acquainted and on this occasion we got into a discussion of DB2. I
asked how the launch was going. He responded, “Not well.” I suggested
that IBM’s copy pitch was totally misdirected and he listened. I explained
that someone at IBM’s ad agency didn’t really grasp the significance of
hierarchical vs. relational and simply took the attitude that this was heavy
technical stuff which should be directed to propeller heads and wrote the
copy accordingly.
This was in the days when technology product stories were directed to DP
managers on the theory that only technicians would understand them. Hard to
believe when measured against today’s marketing efforts, but it took many
years to understand that end users who buy technology don’t care how it
works, only what it does for them.
But this was the early 1980s.
ENTER...
Bob listened closely and took my story back to Armonk. Before long a group of
IBM execs showed up in my small office in Chicago. We spent the afternoon
talking about the communications aspects of launching complex software. At the
end they thanked me for my time and went home.
79
Before long I got a letter stating that IBM would like to hire my little agency to relaunch DB2 but they were concerned that I just didn’t have the resources to handle an
account the size of IBM. So they suggested an alternative.
Would I consider working with their marketing department in a
consulting role? Would I? Does a cat like catnip? You bet I would.
And did.
S
o for the next two years I flew into White Plains almost every Friday,
spending the day with Byron Quann and his marketing group to develop a
new strategy for DB2 as well as helping with SAA and AD/Cycle. I also spent
time in New York City with their agency Wells Rich & Greene, helping their
creative people understand how to reach DB2 end users.
And the rest, as they say is history. DB2 is alive and doing well
today and regularly challenges Oracle for dominance in that
market.
In hopes that this effort on my part for IBM would generate a great case study or
reference for my agency I asked for DB2 sales data. I was reminded of the 16-page
contract I signed with a five-year span that prohibited me from publishing the fact that
I had done this work for IBM. Nor would they release any sales figures.
H
owever, because they sympathized with my need for PR they
said I could tell people, not publish, just tell people, that my
communications support plan and strategy had a positive impact
on $8 billion of software sales. Which isn’t bad, I guess. At least
they said my stuff worked.
WHAT’S THE POINT? WHAT COUNTS IS WHAT IT DOES,
NOT HOW IT WORKS.
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Lesson 25
HOW A PAIR OF SUMO WRESTLERS WRESTLED
LAWSON INTO A WINNING POSITION.
The Lawson brothers had a nice little software company in Minneapolis that
provided accounting, distribution and HR services to IBM and Burroughs
mainframe users as well as owners of the relatively new midrange S/38.
But they were not setting the world on fire. They somehow knew their marketing
communications was not communicating, but attempts to fix it failed, even after
several tries. So Ken Holec, the company’s president at the time, called me up. I
had just completed three years of work getting JD Edwards up to speed, which was
preceded by four years of work with PCR (acquired by Pansophic which was
subsequently acquired by Computer Associates). And I was familiar with the S/38AS/400 market.
Lawson’s problem was a common one. Heavy
text-oriented ads
with a heavy
technical bent
directed toward
DP managers.
Long on
features, short on
benefits. I guess
they had never
encountered that
old bromide that
says a picture is
worth a thousand
words. This old saying has been substantiated by studies of brain
chemistry, incidentally. But that’s a story for another day.
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Taking a clue from the highly successful JD Edwards campaign that acknowledged the need for usercustomizing software capability, we put together a headline that recognized the failure of most
accounting software to function as a perfect fit to the user’s needs.
A
fter many, many headlines and many, many graphic approaches we settled
on a two-page spread that was 80% pictorial and 20% simple user-friendly
copy. The picture we settled on? A close up of two struggling sumo wrestlers! In
the 1980s this was a radical departure from the typical technology ad. Just as JD
Edwards’ little girl at a grand piano had been.
In the process we redesigned Lawson’s logo and gave them a tagline that stated simply: “Whatever it
takes.” Lawson found the tag so appropriate they used it many years before finally giving in to some
new ad agency’s suggestions.
After limping along for many years, Lawson’s sales took off under the new campaign and they operate today as a very healthy organization. It took a pair of sumo wrestlers to change their luck.
WHAT’S THE POINT?
A FRESH LOOK THAT’S RELEVANT COULD CHANGE YOUR LIFE.
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Lesson 26
MEET FRANKENSTEIN, AND LEARN WHY IT
DOESN’T PAY TO TAMPER WITH SUCCESS.
In 1991, during the final days of flying under its own flag, Pansophic Systems
launched a product called PAN/LCM (for life cycle manager). Using the words
of Computer Language magazine in August 1991, PAN/LCM was described as
“representing a comprehensive solution to version control and configuration
management with special emphasis on security and data integrity.”
PC WEEK named the product their
“Analyst’s Choice” and wrote, “For large
networked programming shops,
Pansophic Systems, Inc.’s PAN/LCM
was judged best… on the basis of its
multiuse security, ease of operation and
integration…”
As great as the product was, it wasn’t
selling well.
KBA, having been Pansophic’s ad agency from 1974 to 1979, I was invited to come in
and talk to Tony Paoni. Tony said he needed a powerful, attention-getting presence and
was receptive to powerful graphics. After writing perhaps 50 headline candidates two
were chosen, one as the headline and the other as a subhead.
The head said, “Without change management your programs may take on a life of their
own!” And the subhead, “Application developers need configuration management to
avoid creating monsters.”
After toying with a few graphic concepts a light bulb came on. This ad called for a
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prominent display of the likeness of Frankenstein. After shopping at a few of the
local costume houses I found a very realistic rubber mask, photographed it against a
dark background and stripped it into a stock photo of a lightning filled sky. We
added a touch to this ad that was uncommon in those days and turned the ad into a
direct marketing vehicle showing the package, prominent pricing and an 800
number to call to place an order.
T
he campaign was a smashing success – for about two months – and then
was stopped when Pansophic was sold to Computer Associates. The ad
disappeared. About a month after the acquisition was completed I called CA’s
VP of Marketing Larry Meyers, who I was acquainted with, and asked about
the PAN/LCM ad, wanting to know why such a successful campaign had been
stopped.
Larry’s response was an admonition. “Keith, you of all people
should know how important it is for a company to maintain a
consistent look across all their marketing communications
materials.” My plea of “but this one’s a proven winner” fell on
deaf ears. In parting I suggested that Larry do his homework
before killing the goose that was laying golden eggs.
I
magine my surprise when two weeks later I get a frantic
call from some other VP at CA wanting all the art, film and
other assorted materials from the Frankenstein ad FedEx’d
overnight to his attention. Apparently Larry had done his
homework.
Within another two weeks my Frankenstein ad appeared in all
the major trade publications again with only a relatively
minor change...PAN/LCM was now CA-PAN/LCM. And the
ad ran untouched for a full year.
WHAT’S THE POINT? DON’T TAMPER WITH SUCCESS,
REGARDLESS OF PRECEDENT.
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Lesson 27
CAN PIGS FLY? YOU BET!
SEE HOW A WARTHOG GOT SALES
SOARING FOR CROSSACCESS.
I had met Ray Navarra years earlier. He and Andrew “Flip” Filipowski had
recently left John Cullinane’s giant Cullinet Corporation to come to Chicago
and found DBMS Inc. for whom my agency had done some work.
But eventually Flip and Ray had a falling out and Flip left rather unceremoniously
(through a window I believe) and went on to form Platinum Technology from which
Divine Interventures evolved. But we’ll save that horror story for another day.
Ray got involved with a company called CrossAccess and invited me in to work
with my old friend Tony Paoni from Pansophic to get their product launched
against a well entrenched competing product from Information Builders called
EDA/SQL.
T
ony and I had assembled Frankenstein to launch PAN/LCM
so he wanted to know if I
could apply the same creativity for
CrossAccess. I could, and did!
CrossAccess was brought into the marketplace at about the time the concept of
client/server was introduced to the computing world. Very simply, the problem
was portability of diverse data from both
relational and non-relational databases.
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The CrossAccess product provided a proven SQL interface for seamless, integrated
enterprise-wide data delivery from either environment. The challenge posed for the
marcom company was whether a complex product could be presented simply
enough to generate a meaningful lead flow.
R
ather than beat around the bush relative to competing products, we
decided to call a spade a spade and launched a head-on attack
against EDA/SQL. Our headline read “Embedded SQL vs. proprietary
API… like comparing
the good, with the bad
and the ugly”.
The subhead read,
CrossAccess… the only
known alternative to
EDA/SQL!”
And the photo was a closeup of a really ugly African
warthog’s face, spread
across two pages in all the
leading tech magazines.
T
hen we added a little chart comparing side by side features. To make a
long story short, within a few weeks the campaign drew more than 700
leads and this was for a $250,000 product.
WHAT’S THE POINT?
TO GET PEOPLE TO READ YOUR AD, FIRST YOU’VE
GOT TO STOP THEM DEAD IN THEIR TRACKS.
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Lesson 28
HOW A LITTLE CHICAGOCHICAGO-BASED, KOREANKOREANMANAGED, VIOLIN SHOP BECAME A BIG
DEAL IN THE LIFE OF VIASOFT.
Mike Lyons was a prominent figure in the software industry at one time and one of
the companies he managed was Asyst Technologies in Naperville, IL. His company
employed Gary Rippen as its VP of Marketing and Gary, knowing of the work my
agency had done for Pansophic, invited me in to discuss their advertising needs.
After coordinating some nice work but frustrated with management, Gary left
the company and joined a small software vendor in Phoenix called VIASOFT.
VIASOFT had
a unique product, a product
whose time had
definitely come with the advent of CASE (computer aided systems engineering).
Business applications built in the early 70s and 80s were now getting a little long in
tooth and needed updating. Definitely candidates for CASE.
V
IASOFT’s Existing Systems Workbench (ESW) consisted of
a powerful set of software tools that created a re-engineering
framework for restoring youth to aging business systems.
It consisted of both tools and consulting services to enhance, maintain, redevelop or
re-engineer existing business apps and included tools for COBOL analysis, editing,
testing, documentation and re-engineering for extraction and reuse of existing code –
all critical to the redeployment of programming resources for application development
or migration to CASE. The products supported SAA and AD/Cycle, both IBM
products.
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This was pretty heavy, technical stuff. What sort of powerful graphics and simple
copy could sum up all of that?
A
fter exploring many options, Gary was attracted to one of the concepts that he then
sold to management. Now came the challenge. Our copy started with the line,
“Time takes its toll on all things. From violins to viable systems for managing your
business.”
So we needed a photo of a violin shop. First place to start were the stock photo houses.
None of them had a photo that was acceptable.
S
o we decided to
create our own. Now
all we had to do was find
a violin shop, one that
repaired or restored
aging violins. The
Chicago Yellow Pages
produced one possibility
we could explore. And it
turned out to be ideal.
It was situated on an upper
floor in a grubby old building
on State Street in downtown Chicago and it was run by a bunch of skilled Korean artisans
who were most grateful for a little extra revenue for renting out their shop for a two-hour
photo shoot.
We hired an old man and had him explaining the intricacies of violin repair to a
little curly headed blond boy. The ad ran as a 4/C spread for a year and grew
VIASOFT’s sales 150%, from $12 million to $18 million.
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From Viasoft Gary joined Transform Logic, another Phoenix-based software company, and
again invited KBA to help with their advertising.
A
fter working with Transform Logic for
several years Gary was invited to join Intersolv Corporation
in Rockville, Maryland.
Struggling for a while to get their
marcom up to speed, he eventually
invited my agency to help him again
and we produced a four-ad series that
boosted their sales from $80 million
to $150 million over the next two years. Intersolv later merged with
Micro Focus to form the giant Merant Corporation, which was acquired by Serena Software in 2004.
WHAT’S THE POINT?
A JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES BEGINS ONE STEP AT
A TIME. CREATIVITY OFTEN TAKES ONE DOWN A PATH
WITH NO CLEARLY DEFINED ENDING.
89
Lesson 29
HOW THE QUEST FOR A UNIQUE
PHOTO TOOK NAPERSOFT TO NEW
ZEALAND AND BACK ONLY TO
DISCOVER TREASURE IN THEIR OWN
BACK YARD.
B
art Carlson is a long time friend and many-time
employer of my little boutique software industryfocused ad shop.
This time he invited me to help with the development
of booth graphics for Napersoft’s Outbound
Document Management software. Our
strategy was to position the client/server
system as the most versatile document
distribution process available.
The objective of the promotion was to
generate leads by using a poster as an
incentive to visit the Napersoft booth at
various trade shows. Postcard
invitations were mailed to an audience of customer service
managers. Along the way we decided that the Napersoft logo
needed a new look so that became part of the creative assignment
as well.
90
A
fter exploring a
great many
theme/image concepts, which is typical
of the approach KBA
uses, we settled on a
decision to use a
series of unique baby
photos as only the
famed baby photographer Anne Geddes
could do.
I
found several
photos of hers that
we thought fit our
layouts being offered
by a stock photo
company and
inquired about the
cost of usage.
Normally this is a
simple request and is
answered promptly.
In this case, we were
told we would have to
get permission and
costs directly from
Anne who lived in
Auckland,
New Zealand.
91
After a flurry of discussions between her agent (her husband I believe) and Larry
Turner, a west coast attorney, our request was rejected. Their argument? They felt our
use would breach other relationships! There was no further explanation.
N
ot one to give up a good idea easily I decided to locate local
talent and duplicate Anne’s work. Which we did, but not
without some challenges. The job went from a simple challenge to
a nightmare of logistics and involved dozens of babies, two photographers and some very expensive computer retouching. Lucky
Curtis, one of the finest “people” photographers I have ever
worked with, managed to turn several dozen screaming babies
into five beautiful photographs.
Then Jeff Schewe put his genius to work in photographing the hands the babies were
to lay on and assembled babies, hands, flowers and other assorted props into a single
photo. Jeff’s skills at computer imaging are nothing short of awesome.
The photos were assembled into ads, postcards and a 40’ booth that stood out
from everything else at the shows they attended. Requests for posters of the little
babies were overwhelming and leads continued to roll in for months after each
show.
WHAT’S THE POINT?
THE BEST SOLUTIONS ARE OFTEN THOSE RIGHT
UNDER OUR NOSES.
92
Lesson 30
WHEN EVERYTHING ELSE FAILS YOU CAN
FALL BACK ON SERENDIPITY.
SEE HOW EOLAS MADE SOME BIG BUCKS
ACCIDENTALLY.
E
olas Technologies was in the newspapers and magazines regularly in
2003 and 2004. What got them fame, and possibly fortune, is the fact
that Mike Doyle invented a critical portion of the technology that
powers Microsoft’s Internet Explorer… technology on which Eolas
holds the patent and which Microsoft helped themselves to in their battle
to dominate Netscape for control of the browser market a few years ago.
Eolas filed suit.
Almost 10 years of patent proceedings and trial
delays culminated in the trial held in Federal Court
in Chicago during the summer of 2003. After five
weeks of arguments Microsoft lost the case and the
jury awarded Eolas $520 million in damages.
Needless to say, Microsoft appealed and the case
was settled between the two companies in 2007.
Eolas then turned around and sued 23 other companies for infringement, including Apple, Google,
YouTube and eBay. Those suits are pending.
W
here’s the serendipity? I met Mike
almost 10 years ago when he was a
professor at the University of Illinois’
93
Chicago campus. I was introduced by his cousin Will Doyle, founder of Brand
Group, with whom I’d been working for many years in the development of
brand names, both for corporate and product use within the software industry.
E
ventually Mike was wooed away by the University of California at San Francisco and went out there to teach. That’s where he and a couple of his buddies
created the browser technology that powered Netscape originally and later Internet
Explorer.
Once the patent was filed, Mike came back to Chicago to start up Eolas
(www.eolas.com) but
finances were tight. Because
of our friendship, KBA helped
with the launch of several
products but the company was
under-capitalized so nothing
set the world on fire. In the
process of getting Eolas up to
speed Mike suggested that I
explore a new logo design. In
short order the popular @ was
turned into the initial “e” in
Eolas, and with a little tweaking was finished and put to
work. This ad never ran. It was
put on hold indefinitely.
Now comes the good part.
94
IBM
, always on the
lookout for
contemporary graphics and
design, stumbled upon the Eolas
design one day and decided that
the elegant, Internet-inspired
“e” was just the prefix that was
needed to append all their “e” products.
So Mike was contacted, negotiations entered into, and a large sum of
money changed hands. However, Eolas retained the right to use its
own “e” so that only IBM and Eolas have the right today to use this
unique, contemporary design. And Mike’s Eolas came into a nice little
windfall, very serendipitously.
WHAT’S THE POINT?
WHEN IN AN INVENTIVE MODE, WATCH FOR
PERIPHERAL OPPORTUNITIES.
95
AND NOW A CLOSING THOUGHT
BECAUSE THE WORLD OF MARKETING
COMMUNICATIONS IS CHANGING RAPDILY.
WHEN DIVING INTO THE SOCIAL
MEDIA WORLD TODAY, REMEMBER IT’S
OFTEN AS MUCH ABOUT THE MESSAGE
AS THE MEDIUM.
Social media – Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in particular – seem to be getting
all the press these days. Businesses are flocking to the Internet in droves to Tweet,
post Facebook status updates and upload videos to YouTube with all the frenzy of
a Justin Beiber Fanclub member.
Unfortunately, many of these businesses have no idea how to use social media to
generate BtoB leads. Worse, many don’t even have a clue what social media is.
S
o let’s start with the basics. Social media is any medium that provides
users with the chance to interact, respond or supplement the marketer’s
message. Think of it as a dialogue, not a monologue.
While the Big Three listed above get all the media attention, social media
channels have been around for about five years. They include blogs, LinkedIn,
96
online newsletters, podcasts, surveys, virtual conferences and tradeshows, webcasts
and webinars – anything where people can contribute to the dialogue and join in the
conversation.
Social media isn’t always digital either. Bylined articles, direct mail and focused
print media with contact data, Customer Visitor Centers, experiential marketing,
telemarketing, road shows – the list goes on – can also be considered social media.
Twenty-nine percent of word of mouth discussions about you and your product
happen online. The rest, 71%, occurs offline.
B
efore you develop a social media presence, you really need to develop a social
media strategy. So this lesson is about managing both media and messages
within your Marcom Engine process.
The responsibility for social media in business falls squarely into two
laps. The media is often controlled by the Director of ConsumerGenerated Media or the CMO. The message, on the other hand, could be
the responsibility of the client’s VP of Marketing, the creative director at
the ad agency, your creative consultant… or even the market.
So, where do we begin? With the messages, of course.
These come in two flavors: client-driven messaging and consumerdriven messaging.
Client-driven messages evolve from the Communications module of the six-module
Marcom Engine we developed here at KBA. The first three modules are Audit, Strategy and Communications. These represent the Planning Phase. The second three
modules, Arsenal, Deployment and Measurement, represent the Execution Phase.
97
In the Communications module itself, we assemble a creative
repository, which is populated with core intelligence that we
extracted from the Audit and Strategy modules. This is blended
with the “big idea”… the theme and image standards developed
by your art director, ad agency or creative consultant. The
success of this effort is based heavily on your value proposition,
which should have evolved during the core intelligence process.
Now, consumer-driven messages also evolve from our revised Marcom Engine.
But it doesn’t occur at the same point in the process as client-driven messages. It
comes during Deployment in the Execution Phase, not the Planning Phase.
N
ote that I said “revised.” That’s because at this stage in the process,
marcom (for marketing communications) becomes “marcon” (for marketing conversation). We no longer control the message but monitor it and
participate in it instead.
It’s an important difference and entire books have been written on the subject,
including Joseph Jaffe’s Join the Conversation.
The success of marcon is heavily dependent on the quality of our responses as we
participate.
Paul Dunay, Global Managing Director-Services and Social Marketing at Avaya,
said that social media has the power to transform the role of the CMO as executives who understand social media can evangelize its benefits organization-wide.
98
Says Dunay, “If you have someone who really knows the social media landscape, they
can galvanize the company around the customer. Social media is not just a marketing
thing; it is a finance thing, a product thing, a customer-support thing. Social media has
the ability to integrate all of these functions and get them to work in a more fluid
manner.”
As I noted earlier, word of mouth marketing accounts for a large part
of social media, both online and offline. So let’s clear up some common
misconceptions about word of mouth marketing before we move on.
These misconceptions include:
“It spreads like wildfire.”
WRONG. Rarely does it do so without accelerated contagion.
“All you need is a good product.”
WRONG. Products need to have inherent interest to inspire a conversation and
activities are required to accelerate the process.
“With good PR you don’t need marketing.”
WRONG. Traditional marcom tools are needed to convert enthusiasts into buyers. The
focus needs to be on making sales, not generating contacts.
“All you really need are early adopters.”
WRONG. Visionaries only start the process. You have to think pragmatists to get rich!
“Do it all online. No need to do offline.”
WRONG again! Using just one is suicide. You need them both.
So, what are all the tools and processes employed by word of mouth
designed to accomplish anyway?
99
According to the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), there are
five major activities involved:
Identifying people who are most likely to share their opinions.
Educating people about your products and services.
Providing tools that make it easier to share information.
Studying opinions as to how, where and when they are being shared.
Listening and responding to supporters, detractors and neutrals.
Now, there are a lot of tools in the arsenal to influence relations with your audiences.
F
or example, in initiating the relationship you may utilize personalized or email
correspondence, care packages (a product trial, for example), information packages, forwarded articles that may be of interest, direct response or event interception.
Contact opportunities include recognition awards, company conferences, influencer
spotlights, briefings, webinars, road shows or lunches/dinners.
You can also use involvement strategies such as influencer brainstorming, a product
review board, speaker’s bureau, testimonials, CEO summit or a day at the company.
Each of these can influence relations by promoting ongoing opportunities for
dialogue, which is central to effective social media strategies.
The good news is that the Marcom Engine that KBA developed embraces the
framework set forth by WOMMA. It also offers marcom professionals something that
has in the past been missing from many programs – clear accountability.
I know what you’re saying. Accountability has been an important part of measuring
marketing performance for some time now. While proving the ROI of marketing isn’t
100
new, the recession has really put a lot of pressure on those in marcom to make their case.
Even as the economy recovers, this pressure will remain and tools will need to be employed to analyze, measure and justify activities at all levels.
John Seifert, Chairman-CEO of Ogilvy & Mather North America, New York, put it well
when he said, “More [businesses] are demanding the math behind the creativity.”
M
easuring has never been more important and tools like the Marcom Engine
can help you make the case for keeping your existing budget while campaigning for an increase to handle your rapidly expanding social media responsibilities.
To visit Keith’s POV on Social Media for B2B lead generation see his PowerPoint at:
http://www.kbates.com/images/Social_Media_for_Lead_Generation.pdf
Or to see a white paper on Social Media Marketing you could look at:
http://www.kbates.com/images/SocialMediaWhitePaper.pdf
Plus, if you’re new to the concept of Word of Mouth Marketing visit his white paper at:
http://www.kbates.com/images/Word-of-Mouth-White-Paper-042005-v1.pdf
If you’d like to see more ad examples check out my 50+ pages Ad Portfolio at:
http://www.kbates.com/images/THE_AD_PORTFOLIO.pdf
Worried that half your ad dollars are wasted? Wanna know which half?
http://www.kbates.com/MarcomAuditeBook.pdf
WHAT’S THE POINT?
IT’S NO LONGER ENOUGH TO CREATE THE MESSAGE,
YOU HAVE TO JOIN IN THE CONVERSATION.
101
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Keith Winfield Bates is an online/offline technology companies-focused creative
strategist. Operating as CEO/Creative Director of the nation’s leading high tech ad agency
from 1970 to 2000 the agency has recently downsized and evolved into a consulting firm
with a focus on creative strategy and lead generation. The Marcom Engine, developed by
Keith in the ‘90s, is the backbone of the firm’s efforts.
His agency’s work is responsible for sales exceeding $20 billion of technology products and
services worldwide. He is also a serial entrepreneur having launched six corporations.
Keith is a well known professional in the field of high tech marketing communications, contributing
author to numerous industry publications, and communications consultant to Boeing, Computer
Associates, JD Edwards (now Oracle) IBM, KPMG, SPSS and over 100 others. His ad career began
over 30 years ago with Foote, Cone & Belding, then the world’s leading consumer ad agency.
He is a Charter Member of WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Assn), active in the BMA, and for
many years performed as a judge for the CDMA design events. He is also a 35 year member of
the Chicago Adventurers Club and recently completed a three year effort to develop and
launch a social network for adventurers. You can visit the site at: www.MyAdventures.com.
IN THE
WORKS
Keith’s competitive advantage stems from his creative skills, planning expertise, and an ability to
translate complex ideas and technologies into easily understood product attributes. The company has
won dozens of Advertising Achievement Awards, given for achieving specific sales levels, not for
simple esthetics.
He is available for consulting on the development of Marcom Audits, Creative
Strategies, and Communications Support Plans, all of which can be
reviewed on his website at www.kbates.com.
THE AD PORTFOLIO
Check out his PPT on Social Media for B2B lead generation:
http://www.kbates.com/images/Social_Media_for_Lead_Generation.pdf
Or view a white paper on Social Media Marketing:
http://www.kbates.com/images/SocialMediaWhitePaper.pdf
New to the concept of Word of Mouth Marketing?
http://www.kbates.com/images/Word-of-Mouth-White-Paper-042005-v1.pdf
For more ads check out Keith’s 50+ pages Ad Portfolio at:
http://www.kbates.com/images/THE_AD_PORTFOLIO.pdf
Wanna know which half of your marcom dollars are wasted?
http://www.kbates.com/MarcomAuditeBook.pdf
102
APPENDIX
Client List: 1970 to 2010
This is just a partial list of accounts, both business-to-business and business-to-consumer,
served by Keith Bates & Associates Inc.
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
ACCOUNTS
ABC Technologies
Access Computer Co.
ADAPSO
Advanced Systems
Concepts
Airplan Systems
(System One)
Aladdin
Antares Alliance Grp.
Applied Learning Corp.
Asyst Technologies
Authentify
Automation Design
AIRS (INSTEC)
Bakco Data
BCR Enterprises
BGIS
BlackInk Software
Boeing Computer
Business Modeling
Caelus Inc.
Cambar Software
Capsco Software
Catalyst (Peat Marwick)
cfSoftware
Charter Data Services
Chasm Institute
Cimlinc Inc.
Cimnet Systems
Coe-Truman Tech.
Coherent Networks, Inc.
Com-Co-Tec
CrossAccess Corp.
Cullinane, John
Cynosure
DBMS Inc.
Delphi Information Sys.
Design Data Systems
Deltak/Applied Learning
DH Dial
Digital Systems House
Discrete Time Systems
Distribution Sciences
Diversified Technologies
Electec Corporation
Emphasys Software
Endeavor Info Sys.
Eolas Technologies
Empower Geographics
Equal Employment
Opportunity Consultants
Exceed Corporation
Excalibur Tech.
Gateway Systems Inc.
GBC/ General Binding Corp
Gemma International
Group 1 Software
HarrisData
HyperSecur
IBM
ICE, Inc.
Information Management.Tech.
Innovous Multimedia Inc.
Inn-Room Systems
InterAccess Co.
Intersolv Inc.
ISA Solutions
IsoQuest (SRA)
Jason Software
J. Baker & Associates
JD Edwards & Co
KDM Associates
Ken Orr & Assoc. Inc
Kirchman Corp.
KPMG
Lakeview Technology
Lansa
Lawson Associates
LPC/Pitney Bowes
Marketing Info Sys.
Meta Systems
Metrix Inc.
McCabe & Associates
Midwest Visual Equip.
Mobius Mgmnt. Sys.
Mutare Inc.
mVerify
Napersoft Inc.
NETG
Neal Nelson Assoc.
Northwest General Data
NOVARRA
Olympic amis
Output Reporting
Pansophic Systems
Planned Maintainance Sys.
Price Waterhouse
Prime Computer
PCR
Proxy Message Center
PSC, Inc.
Rand McNally - TDM
Retail Target Marketing
Rexnord
Ricardo North America
RN Act
Robert Routman
Salare Security
Sam Albert Assoc.
Sam Albert Assoc.
Scientific Info Retrieval
Sentry Publishing Co.
Shaker Computer
Silvon Software
SKK, Inc.
SmartForce
Software AG
Software Corp. Amer.
Software Design Ass.
Software Plus
Software Systems Co.
SPSS (IBM)
Standard Software
System 5 Inc.
Systems Mgmt. Inc.
SRI
Systems & Software
Teleconsultants, Inc.
Talentology (People Filter)
Telcorp Inc.
Teledata
Titan Technologies
ThumbScan Inc.
Thomson Software
Timeworks, Inc.
Transform Logic
Trimark Technologies
2Confer
Ultra Corporation
Uniq Computer Co.
University Commun.
Value Group
VASCO Data Security
Viasoft Inc.
Wallace Computer
Wheels Inc.
Xpress Software, Inc.
Zink & Katich, Inc.
ZyLAB Corporation
Zenith Data Systems
103
Client List: 1970 to 2010 (continued)
INDUSTRIAL, CONSUMER and
U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTS
AAR Corp.
Adventurers Club
Air Finance International
Air Namibia
Airplan Systems
Airponents
All America Plastics
Allen Aircraft
Allen Airmotive International
Allied Electronics
Allied Mills
Canada North Outfitters
Casa Bella
CCH Condominiums Corp.
Chamberlain Manufacturing
Colt Industries
Constitution Life Ins.
Consumer Guide Magazine
Continental Bank
Continental Casualty
Crown Marketing Svstems
Detectronic Corp.
Digital Pix
Dormeyer Industries
Edens Plaza Bank
Enesco Imports
Erik A. Lindgren Assoc
Ethiopian Airlines
Explorers World Travel
Falcon International
Girl Scouts of America
Gravity Investments
Hinckley & Schmitt
Humes & Berg Mfg.
Inter/Agriculture
Intermountain Invest.
Jeffrey Elevator Co.
Kitchens of Sara Lee
La Costa of Arizona
Lane Banks
Mongerson Gallery
MyAdventures.com
North Community Bank
Peace Corp (U.S.)
Pert Products
Quick-Set Tripods
Ramco International
Safari Club International
Safari Magazine Inc.
Safari Outfitters
Sears
South African Airways
Standard Elsmere
Systema, Inc.
The John Volk Co.
Trout & Grouse, LLC
U.S. Action Agency
U.S. Air Force Recruiting
U.S. Army Recruiting
U.S. Army Corp of Engineers
U.S. Dept. of Health, Education
and Welfare
U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA)
ViaDIRECT Travel
Wildlife World, Inc.
Zenith Electronics
104
A FEW OF OUR SUCCESS STORIES:
The ultimate test of marketing communications. Here's how a few of our clients fared.
IBM
Positive impact on $8 billion in software sales. (percentage of increase proprietary).
Re-launch of DB2. Today $20 billion plus.
JD EDWARDS
$15 million to $60 million: 3 years. Grew to $1 billion. Now owned by Oracle.
LAWSON ASSOCIATES
$15 million to $20 million: 1 year. Today $500 million+.
LPC (PITNEY BOWES SOFTWARE)
$500,000 to $5 million in 3 years.
PANSOPHIC SYSTEMS
(Now Computer Associates) $3 million to $30 million: 5 years, Sold to CA for $280 million.
PEAT MARWICK ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY (KPMG)
$3 million to $6 million in 1 year.
PROFESSIONAL COMPUTER RESOURCES
(Now Computer Associates product CA/PRMS) $2 million to $16 million:
doubled sales every year for 4 years.
UNIQ COMPUTER (Launched UNIX)
$0 TO $500,000 in 4 months.
VIASOFT
$12 million to $18 million: 1 year.
INTERSOLV
(Merged with Micro Focus to form the giant Merant Corporation)
$80 million to $150 million:
105
INDEX OF COMPANIES REFERENCED
AND LESSONS WHERE THEY CAN BE LOCATED
AAR Corp. Lesson 19
ABC Technologies, Lesson 3, 19
ADAPSO, Lesson 24
AIRS, Lesson 10
Ashton-Tate, Lesson 20
Asyst Technologies, Lesson 28
AT&T, Lesson 20
Bakco Data, Lesson 19
Benton & Bowles, Lesson 18
Burroughs, Lesson 25
Catalyst, Lesson 1, 17, 19, 20
Computer Associates, Lesson 2, 4, 25, 26
Consumer Systems, Lesson 19
CrossAccess, Lesson 27
Cullinane, Lesson 19, 27
D&B Salesnet, Lesson 13
D&B Software, Lesson 10
DBMS Inc., Lesson 8, 27
DEC, Lesson 1
Deltak, Lesson 15
Divine, Lesson 8, 27
Entre Computers, Lesson 20
Eolas, Lesson 30
Execucom Systems, Lesson 6, 20
Ferox Microsystems, Lesson 20
GBC, Lesson 1
Group1, Lesson 1
Groupe Bull, Lesson 1
Harris Data, Lesson 19
IBM, Lesson 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 20, 24, 25
ICE, Inc., Lesson 20
Information Builders, Lesson 27
INSTEC, Lesson 10
Intersolv, Lesson 28
ITAA, Lesson 24
Intersolv, Lesson 28
ITAA, Lesson 24
J.D. Edwards, Lesson 1, 19, 20, 25
Ken Orr & Associates, Lesson 14
Lawson, Lesson 25
Leo Burnett, Lesson 5
LPC, Lesson 10
Merant, Lesson 28
Micro Focus, Lesson 28
Microsoft, Lesson 30
Montgomery Wards, Lesson 2
Napersoft, Lesson 6, 29
Northstar, Lesson 1
Ogilvy & Mather, Lesson 5, 20
Oracle, Lesson 7, 24
Pansophic, Lesson 2, 10, 13, 19, 25, 26, 28
PCR., Lesson 4, 20, 25
Peat Marwick, Lesson 1, 16, 17
P M Advanced Technologies, Lesson 1
Pitney Bowes, Lesson 10
Platinum Technologies, Lesson 8, 27
PMS, Lesson 10, 23
Rome Reports, Lesson 1
RTI (Ingres), Lesson 7, 24
Signa Corp., Lesson 20
SIR DBMS, Lesson 7
SMI, Lesson 19
System 5, Lesson 1
Televideo, Lesson 1
Thumbscan, Lesson 15, 19
VIASOFT, Lesson 28
Wallace Computing, Lesson 1, 19
XA Systems, Lesson 1
Zenith Data Systems, Lesson 1, 10
Zylab, Lesson 19
106
Keith Bates Library for Technology Marketers (partial)
1970 to 2010
Word of Mouth Marketing
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
All Marketers are Liars by Seth Godin
Beyond Buzz by Lois Kelly
Buzz by Marian Salzman, Ira Matathia, Ann O’Reilly
Buzz Marketing by Mark Hughes
Citizen Marketers by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba
Connected Marketing by Justin Kirby and Paul Marsden
Creating Customer Evangelists by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba
Grapevine by Dave Balter and John Butman
Implementing Word of Mouth Marketing by Idil Cakim
Measuring Word of Mouth, Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, by WOMMA
Pyro Marketing by Greg Stielstra
Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customer Tell 3,000
by Pete Blackshaw
Secret and Mysterious Order of Word of Mouth
The Anatomy of Buzz by Emanuel Rosen
The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited by Emanuel Rosen
The Influentials by Ed Keller and Jon Berry
The Listening Playbook by Steve Rappaport
The New Influencers by Paul Gillin
The Secrets of Word of Mouth Marketing by George Silverman
Unleashing the Ideavirus by Seth Godin
Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz
Social Media
1. Click by Bill Tancer
2. Facebook Marketing for Dummies by Paul Dunay and Richard
Krueger
3. Join the Conversation by Joseph Jaffe
4. Marketing to the Social Web by Larry Weber
5. Social Media 101 by Chris Brogan
6. Social Media Marketing for Dummies by Shiv Singh
7. Social Media Metrics by Jim Sterne
8. The AdSense Code by Joel Comm
9. The Cult of the Amateur by Andrew Keen
10. The Little Black Book of Online Business by Paul Galloway
11. Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith
12. Twitter Power by Joel Comm with Ken Burge
13. Viral Loop by Adam Penenberg
14. YouTube for Business by Michael Miller
Technology
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
ASP.NET 3.5 for Dummies by Ken Cox
Behind the Cloud by Marc Benioff
Designing for the Social Web by Joshua Porter
Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug
Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good by Sarah Lacy
QuestionPro for Dummies by Jennifer LeClaire and Vivek Bhaskaran
Rocket Surgery Made Easy by Steve Krug
Search Engine Marketing, Inc. by Mike Moran and Bill Hunt
Starting an iPhone App Business for Dummies by Aaron Nicholson,
Joel Elad, Damien Stolarz
10. The CSS Anthology by Rachel Andrew
11. Web 2.0, A Strategy Guide by Amy Shuen
12. WordPress for Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Branding
1.
2.
3.
4.
A New Brand World by Scott Bedbury
Beyond the Brand by John Winsor
Emotional Branding by Daryl Travis
Emotional Branding by Marc Gobe
Contemporary Marketing
1. Accelerated Disruption by Eric Lefkofsky
2. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
3. Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Dealing with Darwin by Geoffrey Moore
Email Marketing by the Num8bers by Chris Baggott
Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
FutureShop by Daniel NIssanoff
Guerilla Marketing for Consultants by Jay Conrad Levinson
and Michael McLaughin
9. How Customers Think by Gerald Zaltman
107
10. I Love You More Than My Dog by Jeanne Bliss
11. Networlding by Melissa Giovagnoli and Jocelyn Carter-Miller
12. On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins and Sandra Blakeslee
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
Open Brand by Kelly Mooney and Nita Rollins
Passionate & Profitable by Lior Arussy
Permission Marketing by Seth Godin
Purple Cow by Seth Godin
Rocket Branding by Ian Miller
Selling to the Old Brain by Patrick Renvoise and Christophe Morin
StrADegy, Advertising in the Digital Age by Steven Fredericks
Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
The Big Moo by Seth Godin
The Mirror Test by Jeffrey Hayzlett
The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott
The Power of Nice by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval
The Ultimate Question by Fred Reichheld
Trust or Consequences by Al Golin
Virus of the Mind by Richard Brodie
World Wide Rave by David Meerman Scott
Your Gut Is Still Not Smarter Than Your Head by Kevin Clancy and
Peter Krieg
Business Management
1. Business Without Borders by Donald DePalma
2. Cultivating Communities of Practice by Etienne Wenger, Richard
McDermott, William Snyder
3. Diffusion of Innovations (5th Edition) by Everett Rogers
4. Guerilla P.R. Wired by Michael Levine
5. How They Did It by Robert Jordan
6. Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
7. Mastering the VC Game by Jeffrey Bussgang
8. Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
9. Smart Startups by David Silver
10. Success Built to Last by Jerry Porras, Stewart Emery, Mark Thompson
11. The Cluetrain Manifesto by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc
Searls, David Weinberger
12. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
Creativity, The Deciding Factor
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2.
A Whack on the Side of the Head by Roger von Oech
Attitudes and Persuasion by Phil Erwin
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Casting for Big Ideas by Andrew Jaffe
Corporate Identity Design by Veronica Napoles
Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain
Hare Brain Tortoise Mind by Guy Claxton
Mindworks by Charlene Swansea
Mysteries of the Mind by Richard Restak
The Art of Animation by Bob Thomas and Walt Disney staff
The Art Spirit by Robert Henri
The Creative Age by Gene Cohen
The Creative Vision by Jacob Getzels, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
The Intelligence Edge by George Friedman, Meredith Friedman, Colin
Chapman, John S. Baker Jr
The Pursuit of WOW by Tom Peters
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
Virus of the Mind by Richard Brodie
Visual Explanations by Edward R. Tufte
My Heroes—Words of Wisdom from Yesterday
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Confessions of an Advertising Man
Creative Management by Wm. A. Marstellar
Essentials of Advertising Strategy by Don Schultz
From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor by Jerry Della
Femina
How to Make Advertising Make Money by John Caples
J.Walter Takeover by Richard Morgan
Law and the Writer edited by Kirk Polking and Leonard Meranus
Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy
Radio Advertising by Pete Schulberg
Real Time by Regis McKenna
Reality in Advertising by Rosser Reeves
Relationship Marketing by Regis McKenna
Saatchi & Saatchi by Philip Kleinman
Tale of the Blue Horse by Stanley Arnold
Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples
The Art of Writing Advertising…Bernbach, Burnett, Gribben, Ogilvy, Reeves
The Benevolent Dictators by Bart Cummings
The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard
The Regis Touch by Regis McKenna
The Trouble with Advertising by John O’Toole
The Unpublished David Ogilvy by David Ogilvy
Sales—Ask for the Order!
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2.
3.
4.
5.
7 Steps to Fearless Speaking by Lilyan Wilder
Anatomy of a Successful Salesman
Beware the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt by Harvey Mackay
Effective Speaking by Dale Carnegie
For Those Who Sell by J.S. Crockett
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Going For It! By Victor Kiam
Guerrilla Teleselling by Jay Conrad Levinson, Mark Smith, Orvel Ray Wilson
How to Sell Yourself by Joe Girard
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
I Can See You Naked by Ron Hoff
Let’s Get Real by Mahan Khalsa
Mastering the Complex Sale by Jeff Thull
Samurai Selling by Chuck Laughlin, Karen Sage
Say It With Confidence by Margo Krasne
Solution Selling by Michael Bosworth
Spin Selling by Neil Rackham
Straight Talk for Monday Morning by Allan Cox
Strategic Selling by Robert Miller, Stephen Heiman
Successful Large Account Management by Robert Miller, Stephen Heiman
Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive by Harvey Mackay
The 5 Great Rules of Selling by Percy Whiting
The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino
The Mentor by Jack Carew
The Power to Get In by Michael Boylan
Total Customer Service by William Davidow and Bro Uttal
What’s Your Point by Bob Boylan
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