Alberta Business Marketing

Earlier in 2011, Quizative was cast to participate as “Marketing Mentors” in Canada’s biggest reality show – Recipe to Riches airing on the Food Network. Each week the final two contestants were told that they’d be meeting with two “of the most creative agencies in the country” and one of them joined us at our Quizative offices for an intense product marketing session. In less than 24 hours we helped them name, brand, design, and sample their products on the streets of Toronto. They battled for their chance to win $25,000, earn ultimate bragging rights as their products were sold in Loblaws stores across the country, and secure their spot in the final battle for the big prize of $250,000. This weekly blog will discuss one marketing lesson from each episode inspired by the experience. Win or lose, the lessons of the competitors offer insights for marketers big and small.

Recipe to Riches: Episode 1
Marketing Lesson: We are who we are.

In this episode the two finalists were Canada’s newest sweetheart Glo McNeil with her Luscious Lemon Pudding and nice guy Brad Gash with his Maple Pudding Chomeur. Brad joined us at Quizative as we set about helping him name, brand, and market his product. The pudding (or pouding) was a simple, sweet maple flavoured cake. Here’s the thing for those who don’t know what chomeur means - it literally means “poor man’s pudding.” It was first created during the great depression by female factory workers who could only afford the basic ingredients that make this traditional French-Canadian dessert.

Let’s face it, this isn’t exactly rich ground for marketing a product that is competing in a national cooking show vying to win the big prize. It is poor man’s pudding after all! So where do we go from here? Maple syrup! One of the ingredients in the recipe was maple syrup, and Brad wisely decided to call this out right from the beginning. What’s more Canadian than maple syrup? This conjures thoughts of sweetness, national pride and all things Canadian. The strategy wasn’t to hide from the history of the cake. It wasn’t to try to rebrand it “new and improved” with a flashy name or fancy title. The strategy was to take the “chomeur” name and put it front and centre right alongside that wonderful ingredient – maple syrup. The judges seemed to like the decision – especially as Brad drew the analogy to poutine.

Glo on the other hand – good old Glow – was just that, old. And that’s not a bad thing. At 82 she has more energy than some people half her age. She’s a grandmother. And that alone made her different than the other competitors. In the world of marketing, different is good. The team at FUSE Marketing Group decided to take this and run with it calling her product Grandma Glo’s Luscious Lemon Pudding. When it comes to food, the category that is most likely to benefit from the association with grandma is baking – so the recommendation on the product name was a reasonable one. However, there seemed to be some disagreement about that. She didn’t really think of herself as a grandmother. The judges were mixed on the choice of the name with some thinking she’d be better off making a reference to J-Lo. At the end of the day, despite the debate, it didn’t hold her back and she took home the $25,000 prize.

Here’s the thing. In today’s marketing and advertising world the reality is that digital media, social media and the internet make it almost impossible to hide from who we really are. Glo is an 82 year old grandma, Brad’s chomeur was “a poor man’s pie” and they both took the truth of their products and themselves, and they ran with it. The owned it, they marketed it and they didn’t have to make the effort to try and convince customers that they were anything other than what they really are.

The lesson: We are who we are. Don’t try to fight it. Take it, own it, and make it a strength. If we can’t be proud of who we are, then how can we expect others to be?

Adrian Capobianco

Tags: Branding
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Some business succeed to due to a lack of competition, others succeed in spite of it. If you can make it in the airline business my guess is you could make it in pretty much any industry. Consider the following. First, you need a whack of capital to start and build your business. You are navigating a number of “uncontrollables” like fuel costs, airport fees, and catastrophe’s like 9-11. Yet in spite of the odds being stacked against him Robert Deluce of Porter Airlines rolled the dice and began Porter Airlines almost 5 years to the date. For Small Business Week he’s out and about sharing his story from a Chamber keynote this morning to an interview with Lang and O’Leary earlier this week. (Skip to end of video to see Porter segment). As one who looks for patterns of success and has a fondness for synthesizing information I thought I would take a crack at recounting the “Porter Success Formula”.

1. Culture Counts – One of Porter’s biggest successes and an on-going challenge is building and maintaining a strong corporate culture. Engaged employees spawn loyal customers. Loyal customers improve profitability – enough said.

2. Resilience Matters -The business plan was written, the real estate (aka Toronto Island Airport) secured, the plan for the bridge to transport people over was designed – and then it was turned down. Some would have thought – no bridge, no business. Instead Mr.Deluce picked himself up, dusted himself off reworked the business plan, dug deep to find more capital and made sure he had the best and brightest senior executive team to get the job done. Roadblocks are a fact of life; overcoming them is critical.

3.Little Things Add up to a Lot – Free beverages (and not just any beverage – wine and beer), pleasant snacks, more leg room, leather seats, a lounge with great seats, wifi and the crème de la crème friendly people! Customers like to feel special. Porter’s customers feel cared for. So much so that their customer satisfaction rating was 83% - a higher number than Ipsos Reid had ever seen in the airline industry. Crafting a good customer experience and aligning all of your touch points provides a solid pay back.

4. KISS – Keep it simple s_ _ _ _ _ _ ! Speed, convenience, service – those are Porter’s foundational pillars. Whether you create a guiding principle like the Four Season’s (do unto others as you would have done unto you) or foundational pillars like Porters; a simple, succinct message that helps your employees understand what matters most makes sure your unique competitive advantage gets walked and talked every day.

5.Cost Controls are King – Sure it’s great that you can provide a superior customer experience but if you can’t do it efficiently you’ve got a hobby not a business. Porter’s breakeven load factor hovers around 50% in comparison to other industry giants – low cost carriers come in at 73% while legacy carriers are at a whopping 83%. Figure out how you can give more than your competition and keep your costs lower and you’ve got a recipe for success.

So next time you’re sitting around the board room table lamenting that it can’t be done. Look at someone like Porter who has done it and do a bit of brainstorming as to how you can apply the same principles in your business.

Shelley McQuade

Tags: Branding, Strategy
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Tags: Branding, Eminem, Marketing Intel
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I've never before written a post after someone has passed away.

Perhaps it's because I'm writing this on a MacBook Pro. Perhaps it's because we have over a half dozen Apple devices in our home. Perhaps it's the way I see my 3 year old daughter effortlessly using an iPad and technology without a second thought. Or perhaps I still remember when I first used a computer (Apple IIE) and how it was a moment of 'child-like wonder'.

I'm sure you have heard, Steve Jobs the founder of Apple and until recently its CEO, passed away yesterday due to the scourge of cancer. He left behind a wife and young family. He also left behind a legacy as an innovator and someone who demanded excellence. Someone who never contented himself or his company with the status quo.

Indeed I had the privilege to work at Apple but I only saw him once from a distance when I travelled to headquarters in Cupertino, California. But let me tell you that you felt his presence throughout the Apple and it was firmly ingrained within the company DNA.

Words that come to mind as it relates to Steve Jobs and Apple as a former employee? Excellence. Drive. Innovation. Marketing. Simplicity. Financial Performance. Ruthlessness. Secrecy. Vision.

Now I'm not about to suggest that Steve Jobs was perfect. But really who amongst is? He was no deity but one would be naive to deny the tremendous impact Steve Jobs had on marketing, technology and perhaps our society at large especially in the past decade.

Whether it was the founding of Apple. Being later unceremoniously removed from the very company he founded. Returning back to Apple to help it rise like a phoenix from the ashes and the precipice of bankruptcy. Taking Pixar Studios to the next level and making it a blockbuster company in terms of computer animation. Steve Jobs consistently made his mark.

Steve Jobs took an almost bankrupt company (with financial help from Microsoft) and made it one of the largest companies in terms of market capitalization on the planet. He did so by launching innovative and revolutionary products such as the MacBook, iPod, iPhone and iPad. Each of which significantly raised the bar in terms of the quality of products that companies in the consumer electronics industry produced. Each also severely disrupting other established industries such as music and entertainment.

So here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. Like Steve.

Sulemaan Ahmed
Twitter @sulemaan

Tags: Branding, Customer Experience, Digital, Get it off your chest, technology, This and That
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Whether brands are aligning with a cause, assessing the environmental impact of their operations or going to market with new green products, there’s one important group of stakeholders they shouldn’t overlook: their employees.

Employees aren’t just the suppliers of expertise or facilitators of transactions. They are an essential part of a brand, particularly in industries with a customer or client service component. From the team behind the counter at a quick-serve restaurant to a specialist at a professional services firm, employees are responsible for making a brand come to life with their every interaction.

For this reason, a brand needs to be much more than just a framework for external communications, as noted by Ruchika Joshi of Interbrand. If a brand is to successfully convey its promise, it needs to inspire employee engagement and provide guidelines for employee behaviour.

This is not an easy task. A brand is much more than a logo, tagline and set of customer promises. A brand must also reflect a company’s strategy for coping with a changing society, one where the public expects business to be accountable for a growing list of environmental and social issues. When employees buy into their employer’s brand, they are by default buying into its sustainability strategy.

And, in truth, no brand could successfully pursue a sustainability strategy without the support of its workforce. Brands depend on employees to align company operations with corporate values. As explained by the National Environmental Education Foundation, employees make decisions everyday that can have sweeping environmental and social consequences for a brand. Or, to put it more simply, in today’s marketplace, “all jobs are green jobs.”

Engaging employees in sustainability issues isn't just good for the health of the brand. It also has an impact on recruitment and retention, particularly among the next generation of workers.

A PricewaterhouseCoopers study found that 88% of Millennials will choose employers whose social responsibility values reflect their own – and 86% would consider leaving if the company’s values no longer matched their expectations.

In fact, a third of CEOs decided to take action on sustainability issues specifically because of the impact on employee engagement and recruitment, according to Accenture’s 2010 CEO Study.

Establishing a sustainability strategy and getting employee involvement quickly becomes a virtuous circle for a brand.

A clear sustainability strategy signals to the marketplace that this is a brand with longevity in a world where supply chains are under increased public scrutiny and any misstep quickly ricochets though Twitter. Employees are then attracted to companies with a progressive stance on environmental and social issues. And those engaged employees will ultimately build a stronger brand.

Stephanie Myers

Tags: Branding, corporate social responsibility, Human Resources
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