The Idea Makers

PROMOTION PROS touched every aspect of marketing in 2004, from screen to shelf. Branded entertainment took over prime time as early deals like product placement in Queer Eye for the Straight Guy segued to full-blown marketing gigs for Crest and Pepsi on The Apprentice.

Packaged goods marketers caught “shopper marketing” fever, thanks mostly to two agency reviews at Procter & Gamble. Its holistic planning assignment (a reported $4 billion across all brands) made shoppers the focus, and bundled media buying and retail strategy — a watershed moment that makes the shelf set as important as the TV set. (Starcom MediaVest and Carat split the win in July.) A simultaneous integrated-marketing review gave 35 HBC brands one-stop shopping for below-the-line services, bundling promotions, in-store, direct marketing and account-specific work. (Arc, Saatchi & Saatchi X — with ThompsonMurray at its core — and The Integer Group divvied up the business, with first work expected this quarter.)

Text messaging evolved to catch consumers at the right time and place. “Mobile social software” — MoSoSo, for high-tech hipsters — lets people ping friends (and friends of friends) in the vicinity via cell phone. Absolut used eight-month-old Dodgeball.com to invite New Yorkers to nearby on-premise parties. Wavemarket launched Crunkie, with maps and location-based blogs, in November. We can't wait to see how marketers experiment with this in 2005.

For now, we're happy to profile some of the newsmakers who moved the industry forward in 2004 and set the stage for more innovation this year.

Rocket Man

Best Buy's MIKE LINTON has music in store

Mike Linton has made some good friends for Best Buy — Elton John, The Rolling Stones, Ronald McDonald. Each has boosted store traffic and brand image, but two stand out. Best Buy got first dibs on The Stones' Four Flicks DVD set (for holiday 2003) and Elton Johns' Dream Ticket DVD set (holiday 2004). A four-month exclusive on John's DVD runs through February; a four-month deal with The Stones ran through 2004, helping to take their DVD 19-times platinum.

“Entertainment and technology without each other aren't much, but together, they're magic,” says CMO Linton, who came to Best Buy in 1999 as senior VP-strategic marketing.

Best Buy set the stage with its 2000 Sting concert in Central Park, then took it in-store, cutting distribution and marketing deals directly with bands. “We take the exclusive on it, which lets us put our marketing money behind it,” Linton says. That means TV, Internet, circulars, extensive P-O-P (“It jazzes up the store.”) and a Golden Ticket in-pack sweeps awarding a trip to meet John at his Las Vegas concert.

McDonald's came to Best Buy in 2002 for its October 2003 relaunch of Monopoly. “Best Buy Bucks” on fry boxes ($1 to $5,000) and distribution of game boards via 570 Best Buy stores spurred a brisk trade; McD ran out of game pieces and ended it early. Best Buy measured redemption (Linton won't give figures) and liked the results enough to repeat Monopoly in 2004.

A good Best Buy partner provides brand exposure that the store can't get on its own, and drives meaningful traffic to stores. “This does,” he says.

Other 2004 highlights: Loyalty program Reward Zone (new in August ‘03) hit four million members, and “Thousands of possibilities” ads won an Effie — extra sweet since Minneapolis-based Best Buy does marketing in-house. (2003 ad spending: $356 million.) Toughest part of his job? Using consumer data. “Our ability to talk to consumers is expanding like crazy. We're constantly working on coordinating that.”

In 2005, “I want to make each [marketing] tool better, build new tools, integrate them better, improve our math and keep up with the marketplace — which can leave you behind in a flash.”
— Betsy Spethmann

On Air

COLLEEN BARRETT pilots Southwest's leap of faith

Call it anti-product placement: Southwest Airlines gave A&E full access to film the series Airline — and put zero ad dollars behind it.

It was a gutsy documentary deal, premiering in January 2004 just as reality TV segued to branded entertainment. A&E can film all Southwest's operations (except national security procedures). Southwest sees episodes before they air, but has no editorial control.

The gamble paid off: The day after Airline's premiere, job applications at Southwest tripled. The show continues to be good (if gritty) p.r. for Southwest's customer service. (The airline has topped the Dept. of Transportation's customer satisfaction rankings for 13 years.) Southwest re-upped for a third season starting spring 2005, adding Houston Hobby Airport to filming at Los Angeles International (LAX), Chicago Midway and Baltimore/Washington International.

President Colleen Barrett green-lighted the show to get visibility, especially in the Northeast as Southwest added Philadelphia flights — and to preempt competitors, especially Jet Blue, from doing the show. “Plus my p.r. dept was begging because they knew we couldn't afford the advertising to get that much coverage,” she laughs. (Southwest's 2003 ad spend was $160 million.)

Her favorite episode showed an LAX counter agent helping a passenger with Alzheimer's. “You can't watch it and not cry. He handled the man with such dignity,” Barrett says. The episode that most troubled her? “The one where a flight was oversold by 32 passengers,” Barrett says. “I about died. I was sick about it,” especially because re-runs would amplify the error.

Southwest doesn't advertise on Airline so viewers won't think Southwest pays for the series. Paid product placement? Barrett would rather put the money into customer service. Southwest's marketing strategy — act like a hometown airline in each city — plays out mostly via local campaigns and employee volunteerism (five times the average corporation).

“I've gotten letters from employees of other airlines that say, ‘Thank you for having enough faith in your people to let film crews go behind the scenes. Our management would never do that,’” Barrett says.
— Betsy Spethmann

NASCAR's New Spirit

ZAK BROWN led the pack to overturn racing's liquor ban

Zak Brown was just a baby 32 years ago when NASCAR officially decided to prohibit spirits brands from sponsoring any of its teams or events.

But Brown, a former racecar driver turned founder and CEO of Indianapolis-based Just Marketing, Inc., convinced NASCAR to change it ways (in fact, the sport had been spiritless for 56 years, since liquor sponsors had been frowned upon as far back as the 1940s). In November, NASCAR ended its prohibition, and spirits brands may come aboard beginning in the 2005 season.

Brown paved the way for Just Marketing client Diageo's Crown Royal brand to become primary sponsorship of reigning NASCAR NEXTEL Cup champion Kurt Busch during the 2005 season, including the Brickyard 400. (Jack Daniels followed suit in December.)

Brown said NASCAR had many concerns, especially how its associates would view the inclusion of the spirits category.

“We began an intense lobbying effort some 18 months ago with NASCAR and its partners,” Brown said. “We concentrated on one simple premise — how inclusion of responsible spirit producers would be good for the sport.”

Brown cited positive examples from Major League Baseball and the Indy Racing League in his arguments.

It helped Brown's case that Diagio's Smirnoff Ice malt liquor brand was already a successful sponsor of Roush Racing's No. 17 car, driven by Winston Cup champ Matt Kenseth, and had a year under its belt as title sponsor of the International Race of Champions series.

“Zak knew the people and the pitfalls, but he was not reluctant to pursue a quest at which others had failed, because he had the right answers,” said Geoff Smith, president of Roush Racing.
— Tim Parry

Apple's Comeback Kid

STEVE JOBS rises again, this time via the small but mighty iPod

Call him the phoenix of high tech. Steve Jobs has reinvented at least twice the company he took public in December 1980 — and in the process, he has continually reinvented his role as a leader in electronics marketing.

Though he left the company for a period in the early 90s, Jobs returned with a vengeance in 1998, determined to repolish an Apple Computer that had lost its edge during his absence.

Now CEO and director of Cupertino, CA-based Apple, as well as CEO and chairman of Pixar Animation Studios (which is a marketing saga unto itself), 49-year old Jobs' latest coup has been the introduction of the iPod digital music player.

Not only has the distinctive music device, with its slim candy-colored casing, earned cachet with everyone from club kids to corporate commuters, but the iPod's capacity and ease of use have fostered fanatical loyalty that has left late-comers to MP3 manufacturing struggling to catch Apple's momentum (Sony is a distant second).

In addition, iPod has become the premium du jour, with cross-branding partnerships that have encompassed Volkswagon (for the “Pods Unite” iPod-with-purchase Beetle campaign), Delta's Song airlines (which gave iPods to travellers booking three or more round trips this past fall; those who booked one round trip got 100 songs from Apple's iTunes), and the rock mega-group U2, which premiered its latest album, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, via iPod. (The band also helped introduce iPod's new black and red “U2” editions in exchange for a slice of the business.)
— Kathleen M. Joyce

Olympic Risk

Athens Mayor DORA BAKOYANNIS sold her city to sponsors and the world

The 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens may have been the riskiest investment in the history of sports marketing. The odds of the Games being interrupted by construction delays, terrorists or a decision by the U.S. not to compete were stacked against sponsors and networks that had paid millions to align themselves with world sports' grandest event.

But in May and June, Athens Mayor Dora Bakoyannis went on a worldwide media tour to promote her city and the Olympic Games as they prepared to return to their birthplace.

“In an uncertain world, Athens will be the safest city [during the Games],” Bakoyannis said. “Athens will be ready on time and Greece will surprise the world.”

Beginning with the Aug. 13 opening ceremonies, it was and it did. Despite drug scandals involving a handful of athletes and lower-than-expected attendance, the Games went without a hitch. the International Olympic Committee declared the 2004 Games the greatest ever.

“Dear Greek friends, you have won!” IOC President Jacques Rogge said during the Games' closing ceremonies Aug. 29. “You have magnificently achieved the difficult goal of hosting the Games.” At least some of those laurels go to Dora B.
— Tim Parry

Shop Keeper

P&G, Saatchi pick ANDY MURRAY'S brain

Andy Murray became the poster boy for shopper marketing in June when Saatchi & Saatchi bought his agency, ThompsonMurray, and made it the centerpiece of in-store marketing network Saatchi & Saatchi X.

CEO Murray and crew spearheaded Saatchi's pitch in Procter & Gamble's review parceling out all below-the-line work for its HBC brands. Saatchi X split the win with sister shop Arc Worldwide and The Integer Group. First work breaks this quarter; P&G's approach has already made “shopper marketing” the latest craze.

“The store really is the battleground for the brand; it's not just another consumer touchpoint,” Murray says. “You don't switch brands in front of a billboard. You do it in the store.”

A longtime P&G shop, ThompsonMurray had to sell or slow its impressive 39% annual growth to about 10%. Murray talked to 10 CEOs of $1 billion businesses (half sold, half stayed private), then decided to sell — to Saatchi, another P&G shop.

Saatchi folded in its New York-based Collaborative Marketing division and shops in London and Paris, then opened a Cincinnati office.

The biggest challenge now is staffing up; Murray woos top-drawer talent with the promise of quick promotion and a cultivated agency culture. Candidates balk at moving to Arkansas, but 500 companies have relocated their top reps there to serve Wal-Mart, and CEOs are always coming into town. “To have access to the Fortune 500's top people, you couldn't get to a better location,” Murray says.

The P&G veteran (1984-93) sold his house and cashed his P&G stock to open Brandworks consultancy in 1997, then merged with ad shop Thompson Earnhart in 1999. The Springdale, AR-based shop grew via P&G, Wal-Mart, Smuckers, Perdue, and added Gerber Novartis in 2004.

“I thought I'd want to go to Fiji” after selling the agency, Murray says. “But I'm working just as hard and I feel more creative — and people say I seem to be smiling a lot more.”
— Betsy Spethmann

Search and Deliver

DOUG ROLLINS routed Coke's Unexpected Summer

Doug Rollins was waiting for a phone call. The Coca-Cola brand manager and Coke's Unexpected Summer Search Team spent several anxious days waiting for their first winner to push the red button on his Coke can, and set the prize delivery in motion.

Coke spent 11 months prepping for Unexpected Summer, then spent 12 weeks tracking 100 winners via GPS-enabled Coke cans. Five teams stationed across the U.S. tracked winners for four to 10 days, then swooped in to deliver 45 Chevy Equinox SUVs, home entertainment systems and cash. (Key retailers got about half the cans for their own overlays.)

Coke tested cans relentlessly, even running them through airport X-ray machines (though Coke advised winners not to fly — it's hard to track GPS pings on a plane). Coke got clearance from the Federal Communications Commission and Transportation Security Administration, kept winning-can graphics off P-O-P so consumers couldn't duplicate it, and layered in extra authentication measures.

“When it all comes down to it and the packaging is in market, you still wonder if it's going to work. The best moment was when that first call came in,” Rollins says.

One New York City winner was shopping on Navy Pier when a barge delivered her SUV, a helicopter hovering overhead. Another family was swimming when their can rang: The search team needed someone to unlock the pool gate.

Most winners liked the dramatic delivery; a few didn't want to be tracked. They got “a more typical, mundane prize fulfillment” through a local Chevy dealership.

This was Rollins' first national promotion after eight years Coke (three on the brand team). Now back on Coke's interactive team as Senior Interactive Brand Manager, Rollins oversees youth site www.cokemusic.com and ponders the marketing potential of cell phones. The regular kind.
— Betsy Spethmann

The Art of the Donald

TRUMP markets himself first, brands next

Love him or hate him, Donald Trump was ubiquitous last year, turning up everywhere from dusting himself off in a TV ad after retrieving a Visa card from a New York City dumpster to giving the peace sign while promoting his new namesake board game.

The Donald even has a new fragrance, named, what else, “Donald Trump, The Fragrance,” in a deal with Esteé Lauder.

His success with The Apprentice speaks for itself and he has spent plenty of time promoting spin-offs from the show.

Last summer, Hasbro Games introduced Trump the Game, a board game in which the winner can make millions of dollars. At the launch, fans crowded into Trump Tower in New York City where Trump selected five participants to step into a money machine to grab as much “Trump” money as they could in 15 seconds. The contestant who grabbed the most won a trip to Trump's Taj Mahal Resort in Atlantic City, NJ, via private roundtrip limousine. Supporting the launch were retail displays embedded with motion-activated voice chips that called out “You're Fired” when a shopper walked by.

Last fall, Trump took his reality TV show to his Taj Mahal Resort for a reality promotion where guests were called to the “boardroom” — a replica of the infamous boardroom on The Apprentice — for a one-on-one with Trump, who gave business tips and personal advice. After talking by speakerphone with each of eight contestants, seven heard those loathsome words “You're Fired” while the last one standing walked away with $500. Periodically a contestant could win $5,000 playing “Survive the Boardroom” at The Donald's request. The grand finale game was played on New Year's Eve with Trump in person.

All this, and bankruptcy too!
— Patricia Odell

Civil Service

RUDERFER, COHN mix politics and history with marketing

The CNN Diner started as a hangout for Republican National Convention-goers, and ended up as part-time studio for CNN programming. The promotional pop-up slung hash for everyone from AOL Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons to former Mayor Ed Koch in the one week it was open.

“When I saw [senior White House advisor] David Gergen drinking coffee with Paula Zahn and Mario Cuomo into the night, I knew we did it,” says Stuart Ruderfer, co-CEO (with David Cohn) of Civic Entertainment Group, the New York City agency behind the CNN Diner.

Civic made over a neighborhood favorite, the Tick Tock Diner, into the CNN Diner — and broke it gently to the owners that the agency would replace their cook and wait staff for the duration. (Civic hired a catering firm.)

“Jerry Falwell came in to the diner and kept calling me ‘the most expensive waiter in America,’” Ruderfer recalls. “I don't know what he meant by that, but he never did tip us.”

The promo shop specializes in public-spirited campaigns: It runs Save Our History for The History Channel, with a White House tie-in (a first), and last month negotiated a $19.5 million partnership between The History Channel and New York City to boost tourism.

Ruderfer and Cohn have built political and promotional acumen since founding the New York City's Marketing & Special Events division in 1994 and opening Civic in 1999. Save Our History won a top PRO Award for Best Idea in 2004 (December PROMO).

“My proudest moment was at the awards dinner at the Smithsonian, watching a slide show of students working on restoration projects,” Ruderfer recalls. “We had been so buried in doing the work, but at that moment I saw the people and places we had affected.”

Is anyplace fair game for marketing? “It's hard to know hypothetically,” Ruderfer says. “In public spaces, the rules are different because of the dignity of those places and because consumers don't expect to see marketing messages there. The true test is whether there's a legitimate purpose, a creative context, and a connection between the medium and the message that consumers will plainly see. Without that, it's not worth the risk that consumers will reject it.”
— Betsy Spethmann