Seasons greetings from your friendly tropical produce company

I have what I consider a luxury in print ads, I can do a holiday ad. Short and sweet glad tidings to our customers.

One year my predecessor choose to have an illustration drawn with avocado, papaya and starfruit cartoon characters dressed up in festive holiday gear playing a song on the beach for a holiday ad. "Merry Christmas" intoned the ad.

What do Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists think when they open a "Merry Christmas" card from one of their vendors? I'm thinking not so warm feelings and maybe a little let down that the vendor doesn't seem to know them. And I don't want to even fathom what agnostics and atheists think.

As my first holiday season came around I proposed instead of paying an illustrator to do anything, give the money to the Redlands Christian Migrant Association (RCMA) who every year sells holiday cards drawn by the children they work with. The RCMA kindly lets us use the holiday card artwork in our ads. In addition we buy their holiday cards to send out to your customers.

It's been a winner. The RCMA has been super. The artwork simply cute as a button, and I never talk like that. My only requirement is that the card artwork has fruit in it.

I'm grateful I didn't have to think of some holiday theme for an illustrator to deal with. I'm also grateful that I was able to talk my boss at the time into not putting 'Merry Christmas' in the ad and cards

Buying media

Media buying from my inexperienced vantage point

Buying media has never been my forte. I've never done consumer media buying and the B2B advertising I've done has been very focused, hence limited number of media venue.

Upfront I'll say that for consumer and large b2b advertising, I strongly believe a heavy weight media buyer is worth their agency commission.* Without this person, I'm sure many a media buy was based on emotion rather than logic. "I read this magazine and my product is for people like me..." Or the proverbial, "our customers are wealthy (read: they're the only ones that can afford the product) so we need to be in a 'shiny sheet'."**

Does anyone remember the Lane Bryant (retail clothes store chain for women sizes 14+) advertising executive who bought radio spots on Howard Stern? Even Howard questioned the buy. Apparently the ad exec demanded a meeting with Stern. What an expensive and wasteful way to meet an airwaves favorite. Made more costly because it also pissed off any listening Lane Bryant customer, Howard makes fun of women over size 8 (and that's being generous). That ad exec was 6 sizes too small and focused on the wrong sex for his company's britches.

But I'm in the B2B world and, except for five years in the advertising department of a retail chain right after college, I always have been B2B.

Why I felt the need to buy media on my own

When I first landed this job, I had been open to letting an agency handle my media buying but a couple of rotten proposals changed my mind.

Agency #1

The first was a page and a half listing all 70 insertions with the following data "date/media/featured product" on a single line. To get all the insertions on a page and a half he used a might small font and didn't give a line break even between months.

We're are talking about annual commissions totaling just under $30K. I know it's not an IBM or an SAP budget, but $30K is nothing to sneeze at. And whatever ad budget you have, however small or large, no ad agency should treat it like it's pitlings.

Always remember, small and medium sized businesses may not have a lot of advertising clout but who ever 'gets' our accounts will get better ad rates*** that could entice other new business for the agency. More volume, lower advertising rates, and the agency decides if you the customer gets the breaks or if agency profits just increase.

Agency #2

The second proposal didn't give me a schedule because "that wasn't done until we agreed on how we would work together." I was assured that they had some great ideas for our advertising campaigns, if only I signed the agreement.

This second company did, however, show me a sample schedule. Although I was grateful for some white space on the pages (5 in total), the information was not much more than "date/media/featured product" nicely formatted.

DIY - more information, more flexibility and more money to advertise

I admit it; you're not going to see a complicated media schedule. But it is a solid schedule built on management input, media editorial calendars, and our advertising needs.

The schedule is only one worksheet in a medium sized spreadsheet that pulls together my overall budget. Of course, the numbers and some of the projects have been altered or deleted to protect my company's confidential information.

The spreadsheet builds from right to left, going from ad prices to ad schedule to annual budget (the names in italics are worksheet names in the spreadsheet:

1. Ad prices - just states the prices with discounts based on insertions. I wanted to be able to change the insertion rate, if desired, one place and have it filtered throughout.
   
2. Ad detail - This is the list of ads with "date/media/feature" enhanced. Costs are added up by month/year/product/media, The number of insertions are tallied by month, by media, by product being features. Ad prices are pulled from the previous worksheet.
   
   This gives me a lot of flexibility. After I set-up a 'strawman' schedule, I sit down with my management and juggled things around based on harvesting schedules, how much we want to advertise for a particular product, how many times a product should be advertised before a tradeshow, etc., etc. If I didn't have this flexibility, I would have to redo the schedule a dozen times. It's spending a good deal of time in the beginning to avoid spending a lot of time near the end.
   
3. Ad dates - are simple schedules that I use during the year as general look-up (what ad is next...). I make each of the media venues a copy with just their information on it.
   
4. 07 project detail - has the advertising budget one line in it but details all the other projects and expenses I have during the year. Again, if I change an ad in the ad schedule an hour before handing in my overall budget, my budget is ready to print with the change.
   
5. Budget - is just a line-by-line of my budget with no details. This is what I hand in to accounting.
   
6. Actual - is a worksheet where I keep myself posted on how well I'm doing with my budget. Yes accounting gives me the numbers, but I like to play around with them.

View spreadsheet

*For those not familiar with media buys
Generally speaking a newspaper, magazine or other venue will publish rates and give advertising agencies a 15% commission off that rate. The venue invoices the agency minus 15% and the agency bills you the full rate plus any fees to pull together the ad. Please note: if you - the advertiser - gives the media outlet an electronic file ready-to-go they'll bill you with the 15% deducted off your invoice.

Why use an agency if you know what media you need to be in, how big of an ad you should do, and when it should run? Because a really good agency (for your product or service) will have enough customers buying the same media that you'll get a better rate even with the 15% tacked on. Also an agency who buys a lot, can demand a lot (better positioning, etc.).

The real reason to use an agency with a good media buyer is because that buyer can change your perspective on what media you should be in and how much and big you should buy. A good media buyer is well worth the commission.

**I did do a stint in a small Palm Beach ad agency. The reference to a 'shiny sheet' was the nickname for the newspaper that was popular in that area with the upper class and those aspiring to be.

*** A media venue will list its rates based on the number of insertions or frequency of ads. So if you run 10 ads chances are you'll pay more per ad than if you ran 20 ads. Know your media venue's rate cards. Make sure you don't advertise 19 times not knowing you could have advertised 20 times and gotten a better overall rate. Any good sales rep will alert you to this, but you should know it up front.

Recognizing phenomenal change

Maybe I finally recognized the phenomenal change because of what I did that day.

That morning, the President of my company wanted to invite his top management team (all fifteen of them) to a nice dinner to thank them for their year's work. His wife had set-up the dinner, the invites were my-to-do. Within ten minutes, I had gone online picked out an invitation template, filled it in, selected a matching envelope and added our return address on the envelope. Everything, including shipping, came just under $24.

It was later that day, during the first of an Adobe Illustrator class that I had my epiphany.

A man introduced himself as printer. He spoke about proofs and how customers came in to his plant to view them, some having actually flown in to do so. The printer spoke about runs, saying he priced jobs so he never had to do anything under 1k. And he laughingly spoke about customers always wanting their jobs next week.

I must have been staring at the guy, cause he asked me what was wrong.

"I didn't know they did hard-copy proofs any more," was my reply.

That got a loud guffaw from the gentleman. As he chortled away any idea that you could print without hard-copy proofs. "Obviously," he conjectured, "you've never done quality printing."

From the endless lists of marketing collateral you print, an annual report is the only thing I can think of that I haven't done. So I've done more than my fair share of trots to the printers to view a proof, or hovering over a fax machine to check lay-out and wording, or opening a FEDEX package to view a crudely put together proof.

But it's been years since I've done so. And I'm not going back (I don't have the time). A PDF proof has worked just fine for me. It makes me wonder what I'm missing or more importantly what my collateral is missing from more scrupulous attention to prepress detail.

But then I think though what I've printed in the last four years. Through my online printers, I've printed posters, canvas artwork, brochures, flyers, overhead banners, large-scale tradeshow booth backgrounds, laminated point of sale material for my retailers, fruit labels, and now invites. I've made only a couple of complaints and each complaint was reprinted at no cost.

By the way, the invites just came in the mail. They look great. I'm going to have to save my receipt to prove I didn't pay a lot more.

Digital marketing campaigns

Digital marketing campaigns (DMCs)are short-lived updates to our home page, online advertising, email signatures and header to our market updates. Basically anything our customer might click on or view via their computer.

DMCs can be whimiscal or just plain thoughtful, they can reflect the efforts of a major marketing campaign (such as the We're Back campaign, DMC images shown below). My definition of a DMC is that they are short-lived, two weeks tops. Yet they're very important.

We are in constant contact with our customers, having the same email signature, online ad or market update header week in and week out may strengthen recognition but weakens the spark that draws them into your marketing piece. Refreshing your marketing pieces draws interest to the content. In an industry that isn't in the race to keep it fresh, by definition it's refreshing and good marketing.

Home page animations are a different animal. Our web site is more attuned to our customers' customers - the consumer. I'll do a post on my strategy for the home page. It's different, and my gut feel is that it's the way to go for most businesses.

Here are examples of a digital marketing campaign, the left image is an email signature and the right and wider image is the top image for a market update bulletin.

We're Back Marketing Campaign

Here's the copy for the "We're Back" Marketing Campaign. As for background information, keep in mind that the papayas were out of the market for over six months because of Hurricane Dean. With our absence, less than top notch papayas filled the market.

--------------

We're Back!

Caribbean Red and Caribbean Sunrise Papayas

Quality is Back!

And it’s back, with the premier fruit that has the sweetness and the shelf life you’ve been missing. Brooks Tropicals’ papaya fields were hit hard by Hurricane Dean last August, but after a lot of hard work, our Caribbean Red and Caribbean Sunrise Papayas are back.

Call Brooks Tropicals today to have Caribbean Red and Caribbean Sunrise Papayas coming back to you today.

--------------

This marketing campaign was echoed on our website, email signatures and topped our weekly marketing update.
Blogger's note: For better blog flow I kept this blog post next to the blog post that discussed this marketing campaign even though true chronological order would have necessitated this post to be in January.

Major marketing campaigns

My definition of a major marketing campaign is a compilation of marketing materials - print ads, digital media, point of sale materials - with one marketing message.

I kind of see myself as a SC Johnson with a widely diverse product line that includes Glade air freshener, Off insect repellent, Zip-Loc bags, Windex and so on and so on. Each tropical specialty deserves its own cache, its own identity and marketing message. So I've created a major marketing campaign for each of our major products: papayas* avocados, starfruit, limes and a general ad that address tropical produce in general.

These campaigns build up recognition in our trade rags through repetition. My plan is to make these campaigns last for at least one year. I've yet to test this parameter. My predecessors didn't change ads for years on end. And my management, when they really like an ad, will push to keep the status quo.

• There are exceptions to the 'least one year' plan. The "We're Back" campaign which highlighted the return to market of our papayas after Hurricane Dean. The campaign was extremely popular but necessarily short-lived. You don't want to be saying "We're Back" six months, even three months after the fact.

Keep in mind, the vast majority of our marketing efforts focus on grocery retail chains, produce wholesalers and foodservice companies. Our ads are in a select few publications centered on this industry.

There's an overall look and feel to each of these campaigns that signals it's a Brooks ad. Actually its a distinct look that sets the marketing collateral totally apart from our competitors. Bare in mind, our competitors' ads usually center on photos of:

Gorgeous produce

Gorgeous people or kids eating or salivating over gorgeous produce

The not-so-gorgeous owners

The not-so-happy children of the owners

A beauty queen - who found the ladder to Miss USA a bit slippery - succumbing to a tittle with a fruit name in it.

The fields (with or without the owner in it)

And when photos just won't do, cartoons of the fruits and vegetables taking on human characteristics (this week, the Idaho Potato Association drew a mad-scientist potato in his lab)

Kudos to the Marketing Director that courageously combined all, showing a field with the owner and his family standing in a row holding tomatos. Also holding tomatoes and standing in front of the family were two 'Miss Beefsteak Tomatos'**, one real and one cartoon.

**Names have been changed.

Postpartum tradeshow departed

Our largest tradeshow of the year is over. I should be clicking my heels in the air, but I too tired.

For the event I'm the shirt buyer, event coordinator, produce buyer, travel agent, social director, exhibit installer, and exhibit break downer. I do it all with a lot of advanced planning and a lot of help. I'll take volunteers but I'm not afraid to hire as need be.

And I'm not talking a 10' x 10' booth. Our booth is 20'x30'.

I'm stuck with a booth my predecessor had made. It's eye catchingness is completely offset by its uncompromising girth in shipping and required feats of brawn in installing. To ship, it takes up an entire 18 wheeler with no room to spare. To install it takes an entire 8 hour day.

My shipper threatens annually not to ship it again. Luckily a year tends to soften his memory and he still shows up to help crowbar it back into his truck. My installers change every year with the location of the show. Apparently there's no virtual water cooler with the exhibit installers. They, the unknowing, show up wiser by the day's end.

When I started with the firm, I thought I knew tradeshows. It turns out I only knew how to show up. Every year I learn more. Every year I learn more questions to ask.

It's over for now. I wonder what I'll learn next year.

Gotta start somewhere

A large computer company recently hired a VP of One-on-One Marketing. This gentleman heads up a team that "works" the strategic flow of information about the company on the Web. Blogs, podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are the man's domain.

I don't know whether to be overwhelmed or amazed.

Being Marketing Director for a small-, it may be considered medium-, sized company is a super job, but It also can be very isolating since I'm the lone employee in my department. Let's face it, sales, accounting and HR don't want to hear a marketer's vent.

Yet there's so much to talk about. Marketing has changed so much. I want to talk to someone about my work. The guy, who heads up a team that basically just answers questions or issues floating out on the web, has a great job but probably couldn't relate.

I've got a feeling I'm not alone. Hence this blog.