Alberta Business Marketing

There was turkey, some new books, more turkey, and a few conversations spent defending the ethics and practices of marketing. Being home for Christmas gave me the chance to talk about advertising with people who don’t spend much time thinking about it - which is actually extremely refreshing. You see, as soon as you spend too much time inside the marketing space warp, you risk forgetting about the conventional perceptions most people have about what we do. It’s necessary to step back every once and a while and listen to the organic views they have on brands and their strategies.

However, I occasionally speak with people who have an overly aggressive viewpoint. It typically consists of marketers being evil, brainwashing, corporate devils that are out to destroy society. I call these people hippies. Regardless, they are consumers and we must pay attention to them. The first question I am typically asked is ‘Why are there so many bad ads out there?’ This is a valid question and one that has plagued the industry. There’s way too much crummy advertising. It’s undeniable.

Not every client can afford to hire a top-tier agency like BBDO or Taxi to create campaigns for their business. It’s hard to develop a clever concept, execute it perfectly, and have everyone love it. So, my defense goes something like this… You have to look beyond the cutesy jingles and cringe-worthy puns we see happening far too often. Advertising is all about positioning and presence. These two things happen on an almost subconscious level. For example, ask anyone to name off a couple adjectives describing Telus. Unless they’re a disgruntled customer, you’ll hear words like fun, silly, cute, and cool. Why would this reaction occur? Have you ever had a personal interaction with any Telus rep that could be described by one of these adjectives? The answer is probably no. It doesn’t matter though, because Telus has strategically positioned themselves this way by using effective branding and great TV spots that feature lemurs and festive hippos.

Apple is another great example. Many people say they are immune to advertising, yet they sure know how cool Macbooks are… Maintaining a strong media presence also works to improve the perceptions and trust of consumers. Effective media planning and solid frequency provides a sense of legitimacy to any product. It’s what separates brand names from cheap imitators. This is especially true for goods that the public doesn’t generally have a strong opinion towards – like pain-relievers, for example. By maintaining a prolonged and successful marketing presence, Tylenol and Aspirin have built rock-solid brand loyalty amongst consumers. I’m sure the no-name acetaminophen would work just as well and cost a dollar less, but I want the legitimacy of Tylenol. I’m willing to spend the extra money for an established product. I don’t think many people can recall a specific ad for Tylenol that was overly charming or memorable, but I’m sure they possess the same perception. Advertising is all about the intangibles. It’s built upon developing relationships – sometimes without the consumer even knowing – so that brands can eventually become successful.

So next time you run into one of these anti-advertising hooligans, let them think whatever they want. Chances are, they’ve already fallen victim to the genius of our work. And they don’t even know it.

By Brook Johnston @ marketingman.ca

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There are a number of options when it comes to computer systems to meet the daily needs of business across Calgary, Red Deer and all the other areas Bulletproof serves. There are a number of great solutions available that will meet many small business needs from leading IT providers and local computer system builders. [...]

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While your mechanic might want you to believe that your car needs an oil change every 6,000 kilometers, automobile and oil technology has progressed to the point where recommended service intervals are now 15,000 kilometers or more. While this saves money and time, the downside is that minor problems often go undetected and become major issues; thus, it probably makes sense to have someone pop the hood every once in a while. In much the same way, product marketing should conduct periodic checks to ensure things are running smoothly. A perfect time to do this is during the yearly planning and budgeting cycle. In this post, I will reveal three key trends that should be on the radar of every b-to-b product marketing executive in 2010.

One: A Role in Sales Readiness
Many organizations have a dedicated sales readiness function that resides in sales and owns coordinating, synchronizing and integrating field, inside and channel sales with a variety of marketing functions. Product marketing must work with this function to define a common lifecycle management process across product lines/business units and to develop field requirements for sales tools, which will help sales reps understand what will be available when a new product or service is introduced. Product marketing will also need to work collaboratively with field marketing and communications to build the tools and collateral necessary for sales to more effectively facilitate buying/selling cycles. Product marketing can also play a key role in the evolution of the sales and marketing portal still prevalent in many organizations. Newer sales enablement platforms give reps the ability to intelligently search a content database for opportunity-specific content and customize it. These platforms also encourage collaboration across sales and marketing functions through community features and support for embedded social tools.

Two: The Rise of Hypersegmentation
Effective b-to-b organizations target at a sub-vertical level rather than stop at macro verticals, as buying triggers, trends, regulations and propensity to buy often vary wildly. This calls for increasingly defined target-level segmentation, or hypersegmentation, then choosing the strongest targets relative to one another. As product marketing tends to serve as the go-to source for information on an organization’s target markets, it will primarily fall to these marketers to educate the rest of the organization about deeper industry segmentation possibilities and how they can help provide a competitive advantage. Tighter targeting helps product marketing deliver better intelligence in such key areas as markets and roles, competitive threats and opportunities, win/loss analysis and pricing. Product marketing should help develop processes to take advantage of a hypersegmentation model without having to continually recreate individual programs to target.

Three: Program Interlock
One common theme for every marketing role is program interlock, or the process of marketing counterparts building integrated programs that align reputation, demand creation, sales enablement and market intelligence goals under a common campaign framework. Besides streamlining activities, this level of integration supports the reuse of content and best practices across marketing programs. Working together to align campaigns will also help raise the visibility of product marketing within an organization. Product marketing can provide field marketing input on product/solution positioning and messaging to ensure consistency, but also share its customer knowledge with field marketing to take advantage of hypersegmentation, which should improve the performance of demand creation programs. On the reputation side, product marketing can contribute to communications programs with unique value propositions for various audiences, then work collaboratively to define the mix of tactics that deliver them.

Product marketing is a hub of marketing, providing a foundation of intelligence and content that can be leveraged by the entire marketing function. While its capabilities and value to sales and marketing processes are often overlooked, product marketing can take concrete steps to integrate its expertise across a wide range of marketing programs.

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Happy Holidays from Bulletproof InfoTech Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from your partners at Bulletproof! Thank you for allowing us to serve you in 2009 and best wishes for 2010. Please note, our office hours during the holidays are as follows: Thursday, December 24: 8am – 2pm Friday, December 25: Closed Monday, December 28: Closed Friday, January 1: Closed Of course, [...]

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I opened up a Christmas card the other day from my cousin and was thrilled to receive two pigs (she assured me there was no pun intended). Will my pigs be arriving in a one horse open sleigh on Christmas day? Hmm good question, if they are arriving via one horse open sleigh I won’t be seeing them; they’re going direct to Zimbabwe. I’m guessing this was in response to the goats I gave her last year.

In this festive season we often get caught up in consumerism. We’re decking the malls and buying incredible amounts of stuff for people that “have everything”. We’re so busy purchasing, partying and stressing all of the holiday festivities that we forget to adopt an attitude of gratitude.

This year, we’ve all experienced some kind of financial repercussions from the economic downturn. That being said, we’re still well over half way up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs while a good chunk of the globe is in need of food, shelter and clothing.

And don’t even get me started on our political freedom. As a post boomer female, I haven’t experienced workplace prejudice; I’ve shared equal rights with my male counterparts and had the ability to be all that I can be. It may seem like a small thing but on the world stage where many girls are struggling to get an education it's paramount.

It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day hassles, focus on the things that aren’t going right and believe that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Wake up, we are in Shangri-La and the grass doesn’t get any greener. We have the right to choose and an attitude of gratitude and the good life is a choice. I learned this little trick many years ago that may help if you’re down, feeling sorry for yourself or otherwise irritated. Write down 5 things that you are grateful for. Do it every day and eventually that feeling will disappear. As Aristotle so aptly quoted “We are what we repeatedly do – excellence then is not an act but a habit”. Why not start the New Year with new habit – an attitude of gratitude.

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