1. Know what talent you want and target them. If you want the best and brightest coming out of college, then target top-tier universities both big and small, and recruit on campus. Host college days at your office or have an internship program. If you’re looking for experienced, involved professionals, join associations specific to your line of work or your industry, and attend their events.

Creating a targeted recruiting strategy to make your brand and company visible where your ideal candidates live and interact isn’t dissimilar to creating a marketing plan, and researching and analyzing your target market. The best way to get someone to buy (or hired), is to get them to interact with your brand by being visible where they are.

2. Create a good “in-store” experience. When candidates come in for an interview, they should feel welcomed and comfortable. Greet candidates when they walk in the door. Smile. Offer coffee or water. Ask to hang up their coats for them. Introduce them to other employees walking in the halls. Give them an office tour, ask about their commute—and genuinely care to hear their responses.

Candidates are there for an interview, but they should still feel relaxed. They should feel your culture right away. Think about how you’re treated at an Apple store. Employees greet you, ask how they can help, and work with you one on one to offer personalized service. That’s the approach you should have with candidates.

3. Be authentic. Don’t try to sell the company as something it’s not. Don’t tell a candidate that the office is laid-back if it’s fast-paced. If employees work beyond the usual 9 to 5, tell candidates that. Talk about the dress code. Set expectations before an offer is even on the table.

The best example of this in marketing is a product example: If you buy Rogaine because you want to grow your hair back, but after three times using it, it does the opposite, and more of your hair falls out, you wouldn’t be very happy. In fact, you’d probably feel deceived. That’s how candidates feel when a hiring manager explains the role, and then they are hired to do something completely different, or the culture is described one way and, in reality, is completely different when they start.

4. Be considerate. Value every candidate’s time. Explain whether there’s an immediate need for the role, and give candidates a timeline for the interview process. If you’re not sure, say that. Be honest and manage expectations.

When candidates come in for an interview, don’t make them wait. Look at your experiences as a consumer and think about how it applies to the office. If you have to wait 20 minutes for a drink from Starbucks, you’ll probably be frustrated by the time it gets to you. Candidates will feel the same way. Be accountable and stick to your timeframe.

5. Be a resource. Every person who interviews with your company should walk away with something. Don’t just send candidates out the door if they’re not the right fit. Offer resume advice. Give them feedback on the interview. If a person’s wardrobe is unprofessional, tell them that. Offer tangible takeaways so that they can become a more competitive candidate.

Marketers strive to ensure that their companies do the same thing, whether it’s through content marketing and providing relevant information to customers or through sales reps. If you walk into the shoe department at Nordstrom with the intention to browse, employees will still help you figure out the best options for you. They offer suggestions so that you’ll know what to look for when you are ready to buy. Do the same for the people you interview. Candidates will likely share their experiences (both good and bad) with others: Make sure it is a good one.​

The post Why You Should Care ÂÜŔňÉçšŮÍřt Candidate Experience as Much as Customer Experience appeared first on ÂÜŔňÉçšŮÍř.

Advertising will become more and more about content, with a focus on storytelling. Campaigns and messages will be made with a more journalistic approach. That’s our strategy at HZ, and we’ll share it in whatever medium makes sense. Millennials, in particular, love to explore and discover, so our job is to create content and tell brand stories that they’ll connect with and truly like. Social platforms, by the way—like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat—will be considered part of the media mix, alongside traditional TV, print and out-of-home advertising. … Video is becoming increasingly important and powerful because of the ways it can be integrated into social platforms, from 15-second clips on Vine or Facebook to longer pre-roll in digital banner ads.

I also think consumers’ appreciation for design, as a discipline, will grow. That’s because millions of us are acting like amateur creative directors for our own personal brands. For example, when you snap a photo, crop it, choose a filter and post it to your Instagram feed, you’re cultivating a persona or an image to share with the world, so it’s no wonder that good design has become a more significant, more important part of our daily lives. 

Today, when we look at a product with great packaging—the type, the imagery—it tells us whether what we’re buying is luxurious, healthy, good for the planet, or 1,000 other things that extend beyond what is communicated with words. Websites do the same with their structure and [user experience]. The simple, clean and image-centric designs that are so popular today can be finessed to evoke many different moods or sentiments. Good design starts conversations, sparks ideas and triggers emotion.”

E-commerce will become a brand-building platform. Nov. 11th, 2015, [saw one of] the world’s biggest single-day sales through e-commerce: $14.3 billion USD in 24 hours. The majority of the sales were within mainland China. E-commerce is already part of people’s life in China. The development is getting deeper into people’s lives. For example, in the low-tier cities where people are not tech-savvy, Alibaba … sends people city by city to teach people how to use the e-commerce platform. 

The e-commerce platform is extending its reach to more than just one-dimensional online shopping, but also bridging the service from online to offline. Home delivery services are expanding quickly, from ordering food to cleaning clothes. … When e-commerce first started, people were just looking for a deal. Now, that deal is still important, but people expect more. When people spend more and more time on an e-commerce platform, the platform isn’t just about a deal or a transaction; it also [serves] as entertainment itself. Just like shopping in the mall, it is critical for brands to offer not just a competitive price, but also offer unique experiences related to the brand’s [identity]. …

Thanks to all of this change, brand strategy is more important than ever. Marketers are always trying to catch up and adjust their internal team and agency partners, but no matter how the world changes, brand strategy should be the core of the offensive. As the media consumption habits of consumers are getting more and more fragmented, it becomes more and more important for a brand to communicate with a unified brand idea. Getting on the new media bandwagon is easy, but building a long-term powerful brand is more of a challenge. Those who can harness the brand power will win the battle in 2016.”

“It is the emerging art director, the young guns, the new breed entering the industry that must be well-versed in motion graphics, interaction design, graphic design—more specifically, branding—coupled with a 360-degree approach to advertising that will inevitably change the creative course of the industry. This aforementioned knowledge of diverse disciplines coupled with the expanding media avenues of the Internet will dictate the creative direction.

For the older generations, the verdict has been etched into their brains: no change. Yet for the younger generations—or people in general who think and act young—given the way consumers now consume, attitudes will only change in proportion to the infusion of honesty, humor and humane dialogue coupled with meaningful storytelling.”

“A lot has changed in our industry, and the pace of that change is only accelerating. I’d even argue that our industry has experienced more transformation in the past 10 years since I became CEO, compared to the previous 70 since Leo Burnett was founded. 

One significant change that I believe will carry over in 2016 is the undeniable rise in CRM and data-driven marketing that will lead the change in creative direction. While we’re excited on how Big Data helps drive better consumer insight, we believe many have been blinded by the technology itself. In doing so, they’ve missed one of the most powerful opportunities: creativity. The way we think about it is to infuse creativity with Big Data, not the other way around. 

This creative reimagination of CRM means that we’re now able to go from ‘people’ to ‘person.’ Big Data isn’t simply a collection of a giant group of generalizations, it’s a colossal combination of unique human beings. Its true potential is realized when you put a human face to it, and develop creative solutions to solve human needs. This opens up remarkably creative opportunities and fresh angles for us to execute against. We live in a screen age. The proliferation of screens in our daily environment demands more quality content from marketers. Consumers are hungry for fascinating stories, beautifully told. 

At the heart of good content is a good story. Stories that intrigue, captivate and charm are also the stories that people love, tell and share. On the other hand, the way that social platforms are laid out, it only takes a few seconds for a viewer scrolling down to decide if a silent, rolling video ad is worth clicking through. 

To capture eyeballs and the initial curiosity that leads to that ‘click,’ art direction and design come into play. The bar is set impeccably high for standards in film craft. One only has a few seconds to hook a viewer in with visually arresting content.

I’ve never believed that we have a divine right to people’s attention, especially when advertising is no longer competing within its own world; we’re competing with the rest of popular culture. The only way to appeal and remain relevant is by being interesting, engaging and rewarding. Consumers today are also demanding more transparency, more authenticity and more purpose-driven work from brands. Responsible creativity isn’t just the right thing to do–it’s a way by which brands must engage consumers in order to build brand trust and long-term brand loyalty. … 

One thing that’s remained a constant in our industry is the power of creativity. We have seen time and time again that high creativity equates to great marketplace success. Quite simply, creativity is the most valuable asset in business–and it’s never been more valuable than it is today.”

Creative is not enough, and today, being creative is so obvious to everyone. Tons of videos, images and content are uploaded every day by people, but also by brands. Since all creative tools have been democratized, creative leadership is needed more than ever. Leadership by vision and exploring new approaches will have the power to become a game changer. The role of a creative director is more important, and there is room—much-needed room—for the role of content director and even chief content officer since brands today create more advertising and more content.

Consumers will be more suspicious and more aggressive against advertising, especially against annoying digital ads. As marketers are using more power to reach consumers, consumers will use more blocking power in return. I can’t see any good news in the near future. Consumers’ behavior is a mix of disappointment and lack of trust. On the other hand, they have more power than ever to ignore advertising or even to attack back using social networks and their own creativity. Sadly, the number of marketers who are trying to earn their trust again is small—too small. Generally speaking, most marketers are trying to target their messages with more money, but not with better storytelling. In order to fix attitudes, we need more brilliant ‘handmade’ thinking, and less automatic actions. You can’t fix attitude with an algorithm. … 

I believe outdoor will be stronger [in 2016]. As we have more technologies and options to block advertising or to consume content without ads, nothing can really stop outdoor advertising. We cannot zap it. We might ignore it when it’s not interesting, but outdoor at its best—bold, smart, great copy, wonderful images, with the element of surprise—can win.”

“In 2016, we will see brands relinquish even more control than they supposedly ever had with their ‘followers’ before. Smart brands will go from having followers to fueling fandoms. … Advertising in 2016 will open more doors for fandoms to activate and spread their own narratives, inspired but not controlled by the brands they enjoy. Smart brands will bring original and shareable content that inspire the fandoms to be more creative, egging them on to make their own spin. Our fans are becoming the spin doctors. They saw past advertising’s spin a long time ago. It’s our turn to put them in the driver’s seat.

Paradoxically, to my previous points about building fandom, in 2016 we will see an almost strangely out-of-fashion resurgence of the most powerful medium we’ve had in the last 50 years: TV. The latest body of evidence suggests that TV, though it has been declining as a percentage of advertising spending amongst marketers, continues to be the medium of choice, even for millennials around the globe. 

Professor Byron Sharp, in his book How Brands Grow, uses empirical data to show that targeting ‘light’ users with emotional, memorable, consistent mass advertising is the way to reach light buyers, and light buyers are the way to build a brand. It’s very difficult to increase purchase frequency in any category regardless of whether it’s a market leader. People don’t think about brands nearly as much as marketers do, so an important job of mass advertising is to maintain top-of-mind awareness for that moment when they want to make a purchase decision.”

“Advertising is in a constant state of flux, but it is proving increasingly harder to break through on traditional channels. In 2016, we’re going to see an acceleration of brands trying to create their own brand platforms, which act as a destination for their consumers to gather around a shared point of interest. Red Bull and GoPro have been incredibly successful in developing this type of ‘pull’ communications, where consumers choose to come into a branded space as it shares their interests or values.

As millennials continue to dictate mass market taste, we will see a return to

‘recent nostalgia’ as an awareness-driving mechanism. Millennials are the first group to have been able to share collective experiences in real time ‘memes’ and, as such, are extremely susceptible to nostalgia from the recent past. (‘Double rainbow,’ anyone?) Smart brands can tap into this and recycle ideas from the recent past to create a sense of connection with younger consumers.

From a design perspective, brands are having to rapidly create branded motion graphics to supplement their existing identities. With digital being the primary consumer interface, having a well-branded piece of animation becomes crucial in much the same way a jingle became a key branded element in the age of radio. Design will start to take on the language of motion graphics, even in static imagery.”

“As George Bernard Shaw once said: ‘The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.’ I’m confident that our industry will change in the coming year, but it’s the prospect of ‘unreasonable’ change that excites me most.

The beauty of our industry now is that the possibilities for the work that we create are virtually endless. Technological innovation has freed us from the set menu of fixed-time lengths and standard formats. That means that if the best answer to a client’s business problem is an exquisite 11-minute short film, or a series of interactive portraits of lovingly worn sneakers, that’s what we will create. The universe of potential creative solutions is virtually endless. It’s our responsibility to adapt, to understand and expand the possible ways a brand can interact with its audience, in order to push things forward and create work that really works. 

Dieter Rams once said: ‘Indifference towards people and the reality in which they live is the one and only cardinal sin in design.’ While he 

may have said that over five decades ago, I hope it’s a lesson that we will continue to remember and learn from in 2016 and beyond, and in video and beyond. If you haven’t read Pixar’s brilliant rules of storytelling, do. They remind us to keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. The two can be very different. No matter what medium we’re creating in, we overlook our audience and their interests at our peril.”

“Consumers will expect even more from advertising. The content will need to be increasingly honest, relatable and contextually relevant in order to help shift perceptions. With the continual evolution of in-stream ad products, the need for strong content will only increase. Brands producing content that feels taxing will fail, while others who understand the platforms for which they’re creating content will thrive, gain consumer trust and achieve social currency. The key here will be the shift away from the mindset of content as a window-to-window strategy and more as a perpetual way of speaking to the consumer through different lenses.

Art and design will continue to be a strong part of every aspect of advertising, but there will be an increased emphasis on data to help drive creative decisions. The combination of science, art and design will be used to test and learn to see what resonates. This methodology will increasingly become the primary way ‘big bet’ creative decisions are made, specifically in the form of video advertising. … Creative direction will be less focused on driving traffic back to a single destination, but rather on a holistic but distributed approach where many pieces of content are adapted to reach people where they are, specific to the devices that they’re using.

The big shift will be thinking about the future and the new technology that allows marketers to tell their story in unique ways. Through this, there may be older forms of ad models that are reinvented, but the focus will be on the new mediums and how they can best be utilized. There will be an increased awareness that there needs to be an adaption of the insight for the platform, which means that marketers will increasingly rely on creatives to be experts in all aspects of the evolving social space.”

“The only constant is change. As more marketers realize they are living in a world where almost no one has to watch ads, you will see ‘ads’ that try harder to be more engaging and entertaining—not creating engagement. Smart marketers are going to turn increasingly away from using advertising to disseminate information about their goods and services because the most valuable consumers no longer look to advertising for information, if they look at all. 

The role of advertising now, more than ever, is to create a relevant connection between a brand and what people really care about. More often than not, in the ad context, they do not care about your brand or products. They care about themselves: their lives, hopes, dreams and aspirations. The trick for marketers will be to forge compelling, emotional connections so that when a consumer is ready to buy a refrigerator, a car, a can of paint or a new flat-panel TV, their brand will be tucked warmly in the consumer’s synapses and rise to consideration at the right time. A recent article by Ian Leslie of The Financial Times summed this up very well: ‘The most effective ads don’t sell, but they do make people buy.’ Let’s hope so.”

“Advertising creative has to exist in ever-conflicting paradigms. First, the creative needs to be easily fragmented into an increasing array of media and content formats. Instead of working on a $3 million broadcast campaign, creative directors now need to work on 10 $300,000 projects or 30 $100,000 assignments. Creativity, therefore, needs to be malleable, ever-moving and multidisciplinary: Like water, to paraphrase Bruce Lee.

At the same time, people expect brands to stand for something more than just their creativity. Great creative work is rarely superseded by people’s desire to see brands walk the walk and not just talk the talk. All of those fragmented pieces of creative need to coalesce into a unified raison d’etre for the brand: What does it stand for and how authentically does it back it up? Creative direction, therefore, will be predicated on inventing novel ways to tell the brand story in dozens, hundreds or even thousands of different ways. 

Fundamentally, people’s attitudes toward traditional advertising will continue to be relatively negative. Unless it’s the Super Bowl, folks will still fast-forward through commercials. Ad blocking technology will keep pace with the proliferation of digital advertising. For the most part, old ways of advertising will carry with them the burden of disapproval, yet people love great storytelling. And, more importantly, they seek out new experiences. Newer forms of advertising, like experiential campaigns, are more likely to be appropriated and approbated by people. If people participate in the advertising experience, they are much more likely to share that experience and remember it. Same with a great story: If the authenticity is there, and the ability to authentically engage with the advertising, then there is the distinct possibility that people’s negative attitudes could become reversed.

Out-of-home and print have real potential for resurgence. Out-of-home can be more experiential than ever, and it’s an incredible platform for creativity. And if Instagram has taught us anything, the power of the image is as prevalent as ever. If print advertising can incorporate new ways to actually engage with the work, it can be a revitalizing force in not only advertising but content and publishing, as well.”

“[This year] is about reimagining advertising. Premium content and data will only become more important for advertisers. Whether that is through rethinking the viewer experience within commercial pods, better storytelling within branded content, or having the right tools and data to support stronger campaign decisions, our world has gotten more complex, but the opportunities have only gotten richer for marketers. What will need to happen, and has already started, is that marketers will need to evaluate the playing field to see who is currently set up with those capabilities, both in production and storytelling, and possibly more importantly in data-driven ad products. When you combine both of these parts, you have a powerful vehicle to drive your message home. With the right mix, you have great impact.” 

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As consumers engage more and more in the digital economy, these activities throw off digital “exhaust”—bits of information that leave a trace of our digital behaviors, from viewing habits to buying preferences to social media exchanges. The proliferation of this digital exhaust (some call it Big Data) is the currency of change that will continue to transform the practice of market research. The implication is simple: brands and marketers have a wealth of data at their disposal even before they put out their first RFPs or field a single survey. While “traditional” survey-based research will remain a tool in the marketing arsenal, it is just one input to the decisions clients need to make and, many times, they are being asked to make those decisions while research budgets are under pressure and insights teams are trimmed.

In the midst of this whirlwind of transformation, researchers have a clear choice. They can cling to old models and ride out the era of siloed information-gathering using time-honored survey methods and analyses. There is still some residual steam in this engine, so it will keep moving for a little while, albeit slower and slower. Or researchers can rebuild their vehicles while speeding down the highway, combining the knowledge they have gained over the years with some new skills to meet the challenge, and calling in a host of new talent to help them tap new sources of energy and smarter vehicle designs.

With an eye toward staying a few car lengths ahead of change, GfK and the Institute for International Research (IIR) reached out to hundreds of marketers, researchers, and other market research users to understand where we are and what the future may hold. Knowing how much change has already occurred, we chose not to look at some distant time; who can possibly say where we will be ten years from now, given the pace of evolution in digital technology and marketing itself? Instead, we asked about two years from now—close enough to be imaginable, using today’s bearings, but still a ways down the road. The 700-plus research pros who answered us—clients and suppliers alike, in roughly equal numbers—gave us a remarkable, inspiring and sometimes sobering look at consumer insights in a new time and place. Very few seem to think that the future will look just like the past, but what goals, methods and data sources will matter most still is open for debate. â€‹

Getting Data Without Surveys

We have all heard that Big Data—in general, passively collected data capturing consumers’ activities in the digital world—will have a huge impact on decision making. For some, it is already indispensable, but others seem to view it as a distant destination more than a clear and present resource. Today, only 12% of clients and 13% of suppliers see passively collected, consumer-specific information as an important source of insights, but those numbers more than double when looking two years out: 30% for clients and 27% for suppliers. We see an equally dramatic shift—in the opposite direction—when it comes to the value of custom surveys today and tomorrow. While almost half (46%) of both groups feel surveys are essential today, that figure drops to 29% for two years from now, bringing it roughly into parity with passive data.

When asked what data sources they will be using in two years, however, both clients and suppliers paint a very different picture. Roughly two-thirds (68% of clients, 69% of suppliers) say they are not using passive data and will not start using it by 2017. A relatively paltry one-quarter (25% clients, 26% suppliers) are not using it today but expect to be doing so two years out. The groups that expect to be using mobile apps for data collection two years from now are roughly double those for passive data. 

This simultaneous “approach and avoid” attitude around passive data is perhaps the single biggest challenge facing the industry. We recognize that it needs to happen, we want to get there, but few have the confidence or the vision about how to proceed. 

Clients and Suppliers: Same issues, Different Priorities

Clients and suppliers largely agreed on the key organizational issues facing the industry, both present and future: Budget limitations continue to be paramount, but there is also emerging concern about talent and training, combining multiple data sources and regulatory/privacy concerns. The results also showed important points of division between research firms and their customers. In general, clients were looking for dramatic innovation while suppliers were focused on incremental change—improving what we have instead of starting over. Clients are also more focused on the “So what?” aspect of research—learning for a purpose and with real practical use. 

For example, when asked what is the biggest “gap” in the market research industry today, clients were more likely to cite data integration to inform storytelling (31% versus 23%)—a more strategic topic—while suppliers showed greater concern about data quality (20% versus 15%), which leans toward the technical and tactical. Here, we see clients’ interest in “storytelling” as a proxy for actionability; if you can tell a story with the data, then you know how to apply it to real situations and glean some ROI. New insight, whatever the quality of data that it is based on, will be valued only if it can be activated to drive business growth.

Clients also place greater emphasis on speed to market—innovation that slows things down is of no interest to them. “Better” must include “faster” or be dismissed out of hand. Among market research professionals who say that generating actionable insights is a key challenge, almost half (45%) of clients said their business is impacted by “increased difficulty providing timely answers to business questions,” while just 28% of suppliers consider this a problem.

The truth is that clients and suppliers are flying down the same speedway together in the same slightly vintage sports car. They may disagree on which stops they are making, but they both are deeply invested in keeping this engine of insights and decision making going. We will be using this study as a continuing source of dialogue and discovery in the weeks and months to come, and we invite the industry to collaborate on its shared future—one rich in possibilities and rife with challenges.  

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As Rinck crafted advertising campaigns for S&H and, later, National Car in Minnesota, he inspired his son, Peter, to take up a career in advertising and open his own agency: Auburn, Maine-based Rinck Advertising, whose clients include Green Mountain Coffee, Dean Foods and Daily’s Cocktails. In October 2015, Peter was on the hunt to add fresh talent to the agency, so he turned to the most experienced advertising professional he knew: his dad. Larry was named the agency’s chief inspiration officer, and to celebrate the appointment, Rinck rebranded the agency’s website with Mad Men-themed photos of the agency’s staff, as well as Larry’s S&H Green Stamps headshot from 1965. In his role, Larry serves as a resource for employees and gives advice based on his years of industry experience

Marketing News caught up with father and son to discuss how advertising has changed,and stayed the same, since the 1960s, and how Larry continues to inspire theRinck Advertising team. (Photos, below: Lawrence Rinck in 1965 and today.)

Q: What were some of the major changes you experienced in the advertising world over the course of your career? How did you adapt?

Lawrence Rinck: The biggest change is the change in media available. In the 1960s, it was TV and radio versus print. I switched to TV when it became available, but most of the time, [advertising] was local. We didn’t get involved in network ads until later on, and I enjoyed that part of it. There was an emotional quality in advertising at that point that you had to abide by. The most important word in advertising is results. 

The results could be increased sales, or increased awareness of your brand. Sometimes your brand is not wanted or needed by everybody, so you do the best you can.

Q: Are you a fan of t​he show Mad Men? How accurately does it depict the advertising world of the 1960s?

LR: Yeah, I watched the show, and I think it was a little bit exaggerated, to be honest. My clients and coworkers were much more reserved than they were. There was a big blackout that happened in New York, and I lived in New Jersey. The interesting thing was, when the blackout occurred, we found out that a lot of people at the agency had whiskey bottles at their desks. They pulled the bottles out during the blackout because they were stuck there for quite a while. We weren’t supposed to drink at lunch, but we discovered that you could smell gin on your breath, but not vodka, so we started drinking vodka. 

Q: Tell me about one of the best campaigns you worked on throughout your career. 

LR:One of the best ads we created was a full-page magazine ad, with heavy [paper] grain. At the center of the page was a single S&H Green Stamp. S&H Green Stamps were founded in 1896. The caption was, ‘What can you do with an S&H Green Stamp issued in 1896?’ and underneath the stamp it said, ‘Redeem it.’ [It showed that] the stamp was good after all of those years.

Q: Why did you decide to get back into the advertising game through your appointment as Rinck’s chief inspiration officer?

LR: I didn’t push Peter to get into advertising. He did it on his own, but he has been quite successful at it, so he gave me the [title] of chief inspiration officer. I don’t know if I’m inspiring anybody at his agency or not, but they’re on Facebook all the time, so I got to know the key players [through Facebook]. … One of the first things I did when Peter put me into this inspiration [role] was say, ‘Do I get a bonus?’ [Laughs.] He didn’t have an answer for that.

Q: What advice do you have for today’s marketers?

LR: Repetition is paramount in advertising. Somebody’s not always interested in what you have to say, and people don’t always need your products at certain points in time, but people remember slogans. They stick with them. 

Q: Why did you decide to hire your dad? What advice has he given you over the course of your advertising career, and how does he inspire the Rinck Advertising team now?

PETER RINCK: In a way, my dad has always been the Rinck in Rinck Advertising. When a small group of people and I started the agency, they voted to put my name on the door. That was great, but my dad has always been an inspiration to me. He worked at such a fascinating time in the business, and I wrote my first ad when I was six. He took me to one of those ‘take your kid to work’ days at S&H Green Stamps, and they took me to the art department​ and gave me a big piece of paper and I thought, this is so cool, this is awesome, this is so much fun. Like any good teenager, though, I rejected that. I wanted to be a classical DJ. I played the violin and was very interested in classical music, so I chose a college based on its orchestra and classical radio station. I was the only DJ who could pronounce Tchaikovsky, so I became the host of the nightly classical radio show for four years and worked at the local NPR station. I had a great professor who sparked my interest in advertising again and, sure enough, Dad was right. Dad inspired me all the way. Over my career, as I had the usual ups and downs, I always relied on his advice. Post 9/11, we opened our ad agency. His advice initially was, ‘I’m not sure this is the right time to be doing this.’ But he said, ‘If you’re going to do it, be fair, be transparent, and do great work.’ Those are the hallmarks of what he always did, and that’s what we try to bring to our clients.

Q: How has your dad’s appointment and Rinck Advertising’s new Mad Men-themed website helped the agency’s PR efforts? 

PR:We appointed Dad to the position because he’s always been there. When he visits the agency, he always talks to the employees. We’re instituting a Skype program so that some of the newer employees who haven’t had the opportunity to hear him tell these stories can hear him talk about what it was like in the old days and impart some of his humorous yet wise points of view on the business. He’s 94, and he’s always been the Rinck in Rinck Advertising, so we decided to add him to what we do, and do a Mad Men makeover of our website. The series just ended, but that was such a stylish time of the business, and it’s an analogue for what’s going on now. Now, with the rise of the Internet and social media and digital advertising platforms, it’s as an exciting a time as the advent of television or radio 50 years before that. Digital advertising platforms are so technologically remarkable, that it’s as exciting a time as the 1960s.  â€‹

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From the farmlands of Jamaica, legendary reggae musician Bob Marley started a musical legacy that still lives on.

Marley’s music was released in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, but legions of fans spanning all age groups and corners of the globe still connect with his songs and their messages of social change and redemption, downloading them by the millions more than 30 years after his death. Bob Marley & the Wailers’ greatest hits album, Legend, originally released in 1984, hit the top 10 on the Billboard 200 chart in 2014, thanks, in part, to a surge in Google Play downloads. Marley has a robust social media following as well, and his 1.4 million Twitter followers and more than 74 million Facebook fans still check in for historical photos and quotes, and updates on his children’s charitable and business enterprises. 

One such enterprise is Denver-based , through which Bob’s son, Rohan, is forging his own movement, of sorts, from the same Jamaican farmland where his father grew up. Marley Coffee, whose corporate name is Jammin Java Corp., took root in Jamaica, and in three years, Rohan and his team have grown the business to $10 million in annual sales by slowly and strategically building a fan base.

Although one of Bob Marley’s early songs, “One Cup of Coffee,” accompanies Marley Coffee’s promotional videos, and the company’s tagline, “Stir. It. Up.,” is named after one of his songs, Rohan doesn’t want the brand to stand on his family’s celebrity, alone. “It’s a family business, but it’s not ‘rah, rah, rah.’ Those fans know my father. They don’t know me,” Marley says. “I’m introducing myself as a businessman who does things the organic way, in a way that’s going to be sustainable.” He’s attempting to stand out in a crowded coffee category—above giants like Starbucks, Peet’s and other CPG brands—by telling the story of the land and the coffee, the company’s commitment to the farmers who grow it, and the Marley family legacy.

A Business Percolates

Rohan Marley was a reluctant coffee entrepreneur, at first. He initially set out to be a professional athlete, playing in the Canadian Football League for one season and then getting a tryout to play professional soccer in Scotland. “But I looked at the weather in Scotland and saw how cold it was, and said, ‘There’s no way I’m going to be able to do that,’ ” he says. In the late ’90s, Marley was inspired to forge a more traditional career path by former girlfriend and Fugees frontwoman Lauryn Hill. “She was having success in her career, winning a lot of Grammys, and I was just a house husband. One day, she said, ‘What do you actually do for a living?’ I was trying to figure out my life.”

Rohan Marley. 

Marley had just received $200,000 in royalties from a publishing deal for his father’s music when a friend told him about land in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains that previously had belonged to the Marley family. He fell in love with the property, and bought it, in 1999. “I thought, did I just commit $200K to something I don’t know what to do with? I’m walking on the property, and I’m thinking, what did I just do? At the same time, I can’t let the guy [showing me the farm] think I’m a joker. I asked, ‘What is the community known for?’ and he said, ‘Coffee.’ I didn’t know anything about coffee … and farming is hard in Jamaica if you don’t have the right qualifications. Then, I asked, ‘What’s on my property?’ and he said, ‘Coffee.’ And I said, ‘Do you know anything about coffee?’ and he said, ‘Yes, Mr. Marley, we’ve been farming coffee all of our lives.’ So I thought, that’s it. I’m in the coffee business.” 

To help expand his business, Marley enlisted current Marley Coffee CEO Brent Toevs (left, image courtesy of Brent Toevs Twitter account), a former coffee executive who previously ran the U.S. division of Timothy’s World Coffee and worked on celebrity-chef-branded coffees for Wolfgang Puck and Emeril Lagasse. “ÂÜŔňÉçšŮÍřt five years ago, I met Rohan. I wasn’t sure if it was a licensing deal or what, but Ro was insistent that I go to Jamaica,” Toevs says. “If you get him going on the history of the company, he goes back to [talking about] his childhood, and growing up as Bob’s son in Jamaica, then moving to the U.S. and back. He said, ‘If you go to Jamaica, you’ll get it.’ I went there, and I was sold. Not knowing anything about coffee is an interesting way to start, but it really shaped him, and our company.”

On the farm in Jamaica, Marley set some ground rules. “I said, ‘You can’t use any chemicals on my property’ because if they were building a business that was going to make my life better, I wanted to make the community’s life better,” he says. “We also doubled [the farm workers’] wages. Whatever they paid, we doubled it; I didn’t care.”

Says Toevs, “When he made the decree that no chemicals be used on his farm, the farmers thought he was crazy. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee is some of the most expensive coffee in the world and, back then, none of it was really all that sustainable.”

For the next seven years, Marley figured out how to manage his farm, Toevs says. “For seven years, he got his farm whipped into shape without really selling anything. He realized that the farming thing was really tough, but trying to sell a product is even tougher, especially in the U.S. You’re dealing with the grocery industry, which is made up of billion-dollar brands. There’s a reason why a lot of small brands don’t make it: There’s a lack of funding.” 

Furthermore, they needed more product to sell. Enter Marley’s 2006 visit to an Ethiopian monastery, which helped him tie the bean to his Rastafari religion and increase the company’s coffee production. 

“[I’m] a Rasta man, and Rasta men don’t drink coffee. But I walked into the monastery and the first thing I saw was coffee trees, and I was laughing to myself. I came to a realization that this is a monastery, so it doesn’t get holier than this. Whatever I see here, it has to be right.” – Rohan Marel

As Toevs puts it, “It clicked that he didn’t need to be a Jamaican coffee company. He could be a worldwide coffee brand, so he started bringing beans over from Ethiopia.” The company now sources beans from Ethiopia, Central and South America and Jamaica, and all are sustainably grown and ethically farmed. Marley officially founded the business in 2007, and it was incorporated under the name Jammin Java in 2009. Product hit the shelves in 2012.

​Green Beans

The farming process used to extract coffee beans from the soil sometimes can pollute local rivers and drinking water supplies, so Marley Coffee works to combat that by supporting clean water initiatives in communities where it sources its beans. Marley Coffee works with , a company that helps coffee mills in Ethiopia reduce water use, compost coffee waste, plant grass wetlands and build aquifers and filtering systems. Marley Coffee donates one cent to Water Wise for every single-serve cup it sells in stores, and contributed more than $80,000 to the organization in 2014. Marley Coffee and Water Wise teamed up to produce a documentary on Water Wise’s efforts, which appears on both companies’ websites. The documentary includes interviews with coffee farmers in Ethiopia, who discuss their families’ coffee farming history, and details coffee’s negative impact on the environment and water supply in Ethiopia and Water Wise’s efforts to combat it. Viewers are encouraged to visit Water Wise’s website to donate to their efforts, and tweet about the movement using the hashtag #WaterWiseMovement. Marley Coffee promoted the documentary through media outreach efforts and social media. 

The partnership with Water Wise and the documentary have alerted consumers to Marley Coffee’s commitment to sustainability in an authentic way, Toevs says. “What we’re doing is quantifiable. We’re letting people know that we’re making a difference … and consumers tell us they feel good when they drink our coffee. Once they understand what we’re all about and what we’re doing, it’s a no-brainer.”

Like the company’s sustainability initiatives, Marley Coffee also rests some of its branding strategy on telling the story of its Jamaican roots, with a short video on the history of coffee and coffee farmers in Jamaica on its website, showing what conditions are like for the farmers. “Ours was one of the first organic farms in Jamaica, and it’s important to me. One should care where their products come from,” Marley says. 

Toevs’ team takes inspiration from his visits to Jamaica for the company’s marketing efforts, he says. “A lot of companies kind of make up the story, and build marketing campaigns around it, but our coffee brand came from a coffee farm. When I went to Kingston and saw 300 women sorting coffee by hand, and went to a farm and talked to the farmers, I was blown away by their stories. I thought, if this makes me want to work for this guy, and we can translate it to consumers, they’re going to want to drink our coffee.”

Marley Coffee’s sustainability efforts also are reflected in its product line, which includes recyclable K-Cups, single-serve coffee pods used in Keurig coffeemakers. In October 2015, it launched a social media effort to promote them with House of Marley, the Marley family’s retail product arm, asking fans to post about their efforts to clean up the environment on Instagram using the hashtag #EcoCup. The effort garnered 3,400 posts on Instagram. Overall, the company’s sustainability story helps it compete in crowded coffee category, Toevs says. “We’re not making up catchphrases. It starts with a great story and product. Then, we walk the talk. Our competitor, Green Mountain, said they wanted to [have recyclable packaging] by 2020, and little Marley Coffee beat them to the punch by five years. Having an innovative product like that is phenomenal from a marketing perspective.” 

Anita Nelson, president of , a Minneapolis-based food marketing agency, says this is a smart strategy. “It’s such a crowded space that anything they can do to bring forth the sustainability message even stronger is good. Getting granular and focused on what they’re doing with sustainability is a great way for them to break through in that space.” 

Scaling Up

Marley Coffee now is available in 61 grocery store chains across the U.S., and 14 in Canada, with distribution in Mexico, Colombia, Chile and South Korea. It opened seven Marley Coffeehouses in Seoul in 2015 and will open 18 more in 2016. Toevs credits the global appeal of the Marley name for the brand’s expansion in South Korea. “Our distributor in South Korea was mostly focused on food service. They were looking to open a coffeehouse, and the CEO saw our brand and said, ‘Let’s do it.’ If you go to downtown Santiago, you see Marley Coffee signs everywhere. It’s incredible. Ro is a larger than life person, and we get calls every week from all around the world.” 

Although the celebrity name has helped the business grow, to a point, its marketing strategies have gotten them the rest of the way, Toevs says. “Having the name Marley helps, and gets us in a lot of doors, but that only goes so far. You have to have a great-tasting product, and you also have to have the marketing programs behind it.” 

Those marketing programs include in-store promotions and a careful pricing strategy. “The grocery business is very scientific. It’s about getting on the shelf, which is hard. What’s even harder is moving off the shelf. It takes massive amounts of money,” Toevs says. “We know what moves the needle, and it’s basically putting something on sale. We’re $9.99 [per pound], and we know that when we go on sale at $6.99, that’s when people buy the product.” In the past year, Marley has switched its focus from getting new accounts to driving its product off the shelf through sales, demos, promos, experiential campaigns and events at grocery stores. 

The company also sends its products to coffee critics and conducts sampling efforts with the media. Marley and the company have been profiled on The Daily Beast, Fox News, MSNBC, InStyle, Food & Wine and The Guardian, among others. And Marley Coffee also activates the power of Bob Marley’s social media following to post about company news, albeit very sparingly and strategically, Marley says. “My dad’s Facebook is not my promotional tool. We don’t use it that way. I use my social network. It’s my word first, so I stand by it.”

Adds Toevs, “There’s power in that Facebook following, but it’s very non-commercial. There are no Marley Coffee ads. We’ll only put [Marley Coffee] messages up if we feel something is really unique; for instance, when Ro was [honored by] Water Wise Coffee. In 24 hours, we had 75,000 hits on that post and 5,000 comments. It’s crazy stuff.”

Marley Coffee also runs print and outdoor ads in Denver, where the company is headquartered, and has partnerships with local sports teams including the NFL’s Denver Broncos and MLB’s Colorado Rockies, which both serve the coffee in their stadiums. “The [Broncos] owner has one complaint: When visitors come in, all of the coffee in the visitors’ clubhouse gets taken,” Toevs says.

So far, the promotional efforts are working. “When I first met Ro, he sold $25,000 worth of coffee, then we went to $450,000 to $1.8 million, and we did $10 million last year,” Toevs says. “Consumers are really loving the product.”

While the company is doing everything right on paper, it will be difficult for Marley Coffee to stand out in the coffee space long-term, says Allen Adamson, founder of New York-based branding and marketing consultancy . “They’re tied to the right causes, they’re doing the right branding execution. The challenge is, in this category, scale matters, and the big guys—Starbucks and Peet’s—are doing the same thing and have so much more leverage and scale. While Marley is being authentic and true to what he believes in, at the end of the day, I don’t think he’ll succeed,” he says. “The coffee category is brutal. The one card he has to play is that his dad’s music will live on. Rather than resist it, he should embrace it. He’s trying to be his own person and move away from his father’s legacy, and I think he should double down on it.”

Cynthia Jones, director of strategy at the Cincinnati office of global branding agency , whose clients include Keurig, agrees. “If you go down the coffee aisle and you see all of those brands, every one is shouting louder than the other, and with the influx of new brands, it’s getting tougher. It’s great to focus on sustainability, but all of the major coffee brands also have sustainability efforts as well. To hang their hat there is fine, but it’s a very interesting choice to put the Marley name in the background when there definitely could be more that could be leveraged there. They’re in a bit of a tough spot.” Still, she adds, “Starbucks didn’t grow to what it was overnight. To get the distribution that they have and be such a young brand, they’re doing pretty well.”

Toevs remains optimistic about the company’s future. “We’ve grown very quickly, but it’s been very calculated. We have an opportunity to be a significant worldwide brand. We have big aspirations. Starbucks was once a privately held company, and look at what they’ve done. It can be done. People love coffee, and we’ve got a passionate following, something that’s resonating with people, so we’ll keep doing what we’re doing.”

Marley is a bit more poetic about his coffee brand. “It’s a journey. I didn’t inherit [Marley Coffee], I created it, put my face on the bag and my signature so, if it fails, you can blame me. It’s wonderful that I came from a place where I didn’t know anything about coffee to be able to be in this business. It’s great to be able to tap into something that was here centuries before me and is going to be around long after me. I’m not only doing coffee, I’m creating opportunity for people, enriching the land, teaching people to be more self-sustainable, and advancing the organic movement. I hope the coffee-drinking community understands that I’m not kidding around. Coffee has been in Jamaica since the 17th century. It’s part of my DNA.” 

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With “Help a Child Reach 5,” Lifebuoy’s mission is to save lives by spreading the importance of good handwashing habits around the world. The program’s mission is to get 1 billion people to develop better handwashing habits in order to prevent many of the 2 million deaths of kids under 5 that occur each year. The campaign is driven by two facts from Lifebuoy: 1.) Every year, 2 million children fail to reach their fifth birthday because of illnesses like diarrhea and pneumonia. 2.) Handwashing with soap at key occasions can reduce diarrhea by 45% and pneumonia by 23% worldwide, thus reducing infant deaths substantially.

A pivotal event in Lifebuoy’s “Help a Child Reach 5” effort was the implementation of a showcase program in Thesgora, a 1,500-home, diarrhea-prone Indian village. The program, which showed a reduction in diarrhea from 36% to 6%, helped Unilever decide to accelerate program expansion throughout India and in 24 other countries.

Lifebuoy executes the “Help A Child Reach 5” program with creativity and flare. In India, 1,500 Unilever employees have volunteered to help teach school children the importance of handwashing with the help of child-friendly materials, including comics, songs, games and rewards. The importance of washing for 20 seconds on five key occasions throughout the day is driven home using a device that illuminates germs that are still around after one handwashing session. The program doesn’t stop there, either. Unilever focuses its educational efforts on mothers, too, because over 40% of infant deaths in India occur during the first 28 days of life. Unilever retrofitted water pumps in villages so that children can embrace the habit more easily. The firm even put the phrase, “Did you wash your hands with Lifebuoy today?” on over 2.5 million pieces of flatbread called “rotis” during a Hindu holiday. Lifebuoy also leverages global Handwashing Day on Oct. 15th. On Global Handwashing Day in 2012, Lifebuoy’s office in Dubai set a Guinness World Record when they got people from 72 countries to simultaneously wash their hands.

Most remarkable of all were the many videos that Unilever created, each telling a story that illustrates the impact of this initiative on children, parents and communities as a whole.  Stories are the currency of content marketing and have become a hot topic with firm after firm, hiring editors, writers and videographers to find and record brand stories. It’s useful to look closely at two of these three-minute Lifebuoy viral video stories to see the success, firsthand, of the Lifebuoy program, and insight into what makes a good video story.

The first video, shot in Thesgora, has over 19 million views. The story inspiration came from a local practice of expressing gratitude by doing something like sacrificing a favored food or walking a long distance. In the film, a father is shown walking on his hands through fields, puddles and a stairway to the nearby temple, a considerable distance, to seek God’s blessing. Along the way we see real village people following him and playing music. We then learn that he is overcome with delight that his boy reached 5 years old. We see the emotional connection between the father and his boy, and we also learn about the 2 million children that die before their fifth birthdays and the Lifebuoy handwashing program.  

In the second video, which has over 11 million views, we are introduced to Utari, a women standing next to a tree. She waters it, dances by it, shoos away water buffalo, places a ribbon around it and stays next to the tree into the night. Why? In the middle of the video, her husband advises her to go to bed because tomorrow is a big day: Her son will turn 5. We then learn that it is a village custom to plant a tree when a child is born. After five years, many mothers have only a tree left because their children have died before reaching five. Utari is one of the lucky ones, and her worship of the tree is a way to reflect that gratitude. The video closes with an explanation of how the Lifebuoy handwashing program works to reduce those deaths.

Stories are much more impactful than facts but need to be seen to work their magic. Getting exposure requires a bit of luck, but the lucky ones tend to have exceptional content and quality. It helps to have an intriguing narrative with suspense, authentic characters, a surprising fact, and real emotions that draw people in. In addition, the video needs to be professional quality and deliver a relevant brand message.

“Help A Child Reach 5” is a winning social responsibility program. It has already reached more than 250 million people, and is on target to hit its goal of reaching 1 billion people by 2020. It certainly adds energy and a higher purpose to the brand, and generates social and emotional brand benefits as well.

In my view, there are four reasons why this program stands out: First, it attacks a visible, meaningful and emotional problem that is relevant to Unilever’s core international markets: the life expectancy of infants. And it does so with a concept (handwashing) that has demonstrative value. Second, the design and execution of the program is creative and effective. Kids and moms are taught and motivated to wash “the right way,” using a wide variety of tools and methods. Third, the videos are powerful and professionally done. The stories precipitated strong emotions, drawing people in who were curious about the very real characters, and who were surprised to learn of the global tragedy of infant deaths. Fourth, the program and videos are intricately tied to Lifebuoy as handwashing suggests the use of Lifebuoy soap. Further, the linkage draws on Lifebuoy’s heritage as a disease-fighting soap product. Although other organizations are also active in the handwashing movement, Lifebuoy, for many, has become the exemplar.

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1. Describe a weakness of your former boss

Most candidates know that the cardinal rule in an interview is to never say anything negative about past employers. Focus on positive experiences with your managers and how you have been fortunate to work with great managers. If forced to share something negative, select something minor. Then show how you dealt with it, so that it was not an issue for either of you. An example may be that a manager that did not update staff on corporate news, so you worked around it by asking questions in order to keep informed.

2. Describe an example of a project that failed or fell short of expectations

Spare the interviewer the gory details of the “project from hell” that would never end and the incompetence of others. The blame game is never a good idea during an interview. What is more effective is to explain your understanding of why the project failed and how you learned from the failure. Focus on processes, not people. Most importantly, express what you learned from this so that it won’t be repeated. This question tests your analytical and team-building skills, and your resiliency.

3. In which areas do you feel you need to improve your knowledge?

The answer is not, “I really stink at Excel.” Stick with the theme of positivity. An easy answer is you are always eager to learn. You might say that in this industry, change is rapid, and you are continuously building new skills and knowledge. Reference recent workshops that you’ve attended and industry groups in which you participate. 

4. Tell me about your biggest problem at work and how you handled it

This can be a big or small problem. This is a test of how well you solve problems. There are three main components to work into your answer: How you analyzed the problem, the plan you devised, and what you learned from the situation. Just like the failed project question, don’t be tempted to blame a coworker, even if asked by the interviewer. 

5. What did you like least about your last (or current) job?

This is a fairly common question. It makes sense. You would not be looking for a new job if you were very happy. This is where the “sandwich feedback” model is effective. Start with something positive, such as, “I have learned so much in my current position.” Then insert your reason for seeking a change using the most respectful language. It might be that you are ready to expand your skills and scope of responsibility. Avoid talking about failures, regrets and issues with the management. Finish your sandwich with something like this: “I have met so many supportive and talented people. I’ll miss it when I leave.” 

Practice with a friend or a career coach until you develop excellent interviewing skills. Soon you will be adept at turning every potentially sour statement into an example of your professionalism. You’ll stay on point, even when facing a seasoned interviewer. 

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We are all attempting to determine the nature of truth, rumor, lie and error in our information-rich, always-on culture. What once seemed easy—“I know it’s true because I saw it in the newspaper”—is now endlessly called into question. Political candidates spin tales based on their own interpretation of facts, and those tales get spun again by the media and again by your friends (or in-laws) on Facebook. Celebrities of all types use their social media channels to promote their favorite causes, and our kids interpret their endorsement as a substitute for actual fact-checking. 

All of this creates a high degree of ambiguity in the world around us, and makes me ever more skeptical of everything I see and read. Having been trained as a social scientist, I’d like to think I’ve developed a pretty good sense of the difference between hype and fact, or at least between science and speculation. However, I am not sure I can say the same for the generations raised on a steady diet of the Internet. 

Yet the marketer in me understands the potential opportunity here. If the line between fact and fiction has gotten so blurry, how can marketing deliver messages that matter to our target audiences? We talk a lot about credibility, authenticity and user-generated content as the way in which to market our products and break through to millennials and other online audiences, but I fear this is simply another way to leverage the new information economy to our advantage, bringing us no closer to any real truth. 

Marketing often relies on (legally) bending the truth just enough to create something memorable, something that will cause a brand or product to be recalled in the future when a purchase is made. But marketing should also clearly identify itself as such, not allowing itself to fall into the murky abyss of content that might subsequently get reposted as fact. Should there be a standard digital “signature of inauthenticity” embedded in all marketing to prevent future confusion?

Consider the recent kerfuffle over the ads that Amazon placed in New York for its new drama, “The Man in the High Castle.” The story, an alternate history in which Japan and Germany won World War II and divided up America between them, is heavily laced with questions about truth and propaganda and what people believe. It is also full of signs and symbols from that era that many people find disturbing and offensive. Amazon (and its agency behind the promotions) may have made a tactical error here, but the bigger question to me is how those ads—turned into tweets and Instragrams—may reappear in some future Facebook post about the Nazi takeover of New York. It is not too difficult to imagine the marketing of fiction today becoming the “secret facts” being kept from us tomorrow.

When we market, we must think about our intended audience as well as our unintended audience. Everything gets thrown into the information machine and comes back out in often unexpected ways. I can already imagine my future grandchildren asking me why the man bun was the preferred hairstyle of world leaders from Washington to Obama.

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Getting your first car was once an important, liberating milestone for teens, but now, just 54% bother to get their driver’s licenses by age 18, according to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. Today, members of the millennial and Gen Z generations express themselves through social media feeds and smartphones, not by the make and model of their rides. As a result, they’re less inclined to buy, let alone work on, cars. Motor oil brand Pennzoil, headquartered in Elk Grove Village, Ill., and owned by Shell Oil Co., recognized a need to boost relevance among a demographic that’s more into iTunes than tune-ups. “We’re an oil brand, and it’s a fairly low involvement category from a broad consumer perspective,” says Doug Kooyman, global brand director at Pennzoil. “We’re striving to change brand perception and drive brand preference in a very unique category.” 

Action

Pennzoil, along with its New York-based agency of record MediaCom, partnered with Los Angeles-based music media and events company Live Nation Inc. to create a campaign called Backseat Pass, with the tagline “Motor oil reimagined.” The campaign, which included video, Web and experiential marketing elements, tapped recording artists like OK Go, Teagan and Sarah, Godsmack and Delta Spirit to create unique versions of their own hit songs and were filmed performing and recording in the back of a Pennzoil-branded Durango that drove around Los Angeles over the past year. The performances were filmed and lived on a Pennzoil-branded microsite, PennzoilBackseatPass.com, which also promoted a campaign sweepstakes in which one fan won a flight and VIP tickets to a Live Nation festival of their choice. 

“Pennzoil is like most brands: looking at younger consumers, wanting to expand their audience and find new drivers,” says Jeremy Levine, senior vice president of digital sales at Live Nation. “[The campaign] is less about the old school gear head and more about Joe Smith, who drives to work every day and wants to be as efficient as possible.” 

Levine says they also wanted to make sure they hit the broadest base of “younger” consumers as possible, so the team was very thoughtful about the types of musicians featured. “We wanted to have a wide enough appeal that you could be 17 or 40 and think it was interesting content.” 

The campaign ran from October 2014 through October 2015, and coincided with the release of Pennzoil’s Platinum with PurePlus Technology motor oil. The campaign’s microsite featured videos of the performances, a photo gallery, and product information on the Platinum motor oil. Backseat Pass was created through Live Nation’s content marketing arm, and was promoted through a mostly digital ad placement strategy, including social media mentions and ad buys, banner ads on Live Nation’s website, and e-mail promotions. 

Pennzoil has been building a music-based marketing strategy for years, featuring country music star Tim McGraw as a brand ambassador. Kooyman says that while Pennzoil does do marketing in the motorsports space, as most of its competitors do, he sees music-based marketing as an opportunity to reach young, new consumers. “We wanted to play in a space that was an open territory. Data shows that our consumers are listening to a lot of music and going to concerts, so why not capitalize on that in a relevant way for the brand?”

Results

Between July and September 2015, the campaign garnered more than 90 million total impressions across all social media, more than 180,000 microsite impressions, more than a million views of the videos to date, and nearly 80,000 sweepstakes entries. The videos averaged a 27% action rate, meaning viewers clicked through to the campaign microsite or to a Live Nation site after viewing, which exceeded his team’s 20% benchmark goal, according to Kooyman.  

“From a brand perception standpoint, aligning Pennzoil in this way and seeing how it resonated from a consumer and a retailer perspective, this was something that was building awareness for the Pennzoil brand name in the motor oil space,” Levine says. “We’re working with Pennzoil to see where we can take music marketing from here.” 

The campaign is a success thanks to the obvious connection between cars and music, says Dominic Sandifer, president of ad agency and content production firm GreenLight Media & Marketing, where he’s worked on experiential and video projects for clients including Under Armour and Verizon. “I would look at Pennzoil in the automotive category, in general, rather than just motor oil because people who are car enthusiasts exist in every genre, and that goes for entertainers like musicians,” Sandifer says. “Pennzoil is pivoting off of the relationship they have with Tim McGraw and trying to get a different audience to think about their brand and products. It’s an easy jump. It’s smart that Pennzoil is sticking with the music-focused marketing and has identified the fact that there’s an audience that loves music and is interested in cars. They’ve found a unique way to use music as a vehicle to help reach that audience with their message.” 

For more on music in marketing, check out “Music: The Unsung Hero of Advertising” from the October 2015 issue of Marketing News at ´Ą˛Ń´Ą.´Ç°ů˛ľ/˛Ń˛š°ů°ěąđłŮžą˛Ô˛ľąˇąđˇÉ˛ő​. 

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The reunification of West and East Germany resulted in major political shifts in the German marketing world. The unique ability and willingness of Western Germany to invest grand sums in the market-based approach strongly encouraged the emergence of certain marketing perspectives. Twenty-five years later, an entire generation has been exposed to new market interactions, orientations and rules. There are now population groups with key differences in perspectives regarding migration policy, employment planning and education options.

There is a link with the newly emergent “curative marketing” approach, which advocates the fulfillment of the field’s mission as a social science: to improve life and society by restoring economic and spiritual health for all. Here, we offer thoughts on the marketing environment, both as an influence on consumer behavior as well as context influenced by consumers, advertising and purchasing decisions.

Environment and Consumer Behavior

When the Berlin Wall suddenly collapsed in 1989, East German marketers were few, and their products faced a Herculean task to compete. Companies and products that had been protected by 60 years of state planning now faced global competition, particularly by West Germany. The companies that did not go bankrupt were often taken over by western companies. However, these new owners feared intra-company competition, and often terminated their East German products, even if they were better than their own. One example is the disappearance of the ecologically friendly Foron refrigerator from East Germany. 

Often, East German products failed to be introduced in the purchasing plans of western supermarkets and retailers. Market shares of all East German products dropped after reunification, since people switched to West German products for their novelty and better quality. Today, the East German identity is again tied much more to products, with strong emotional connections leading erstwhile East Germans to consume products from their home region. The “good old things” from the past are now considered fashionable or hip. Many producers are using this wave of eastern reminiscences to relaunch and expand their brands.

Typical Consumer Behavior Influences

German population statistics tell us that within 25 years, the five former East German states (excluding Berlin as a city-state) experienced a population decline of 4 million, with many young, female and educated citizens heading west. In 1991, every 10th citizen in the region was over 65 years old; it is now every fourth. Eastern unemployment figures improved from 18% to 12%—still considerably higher than the 6% of the western provinces.

When marketing entered the Eastern German economy, some regions never recovered from the breakdown of the socialist system. With the exception of a few municipalities in Dresden, Leipzig and Berlin, most consumers in Eastern Germany still live with a unification treaty agreed upon average available income below $19,000, which compares to only 80% of the Western German average of $25,000.   

The relatively high unemployment rate and an aging population influence the consumption patterns in former East Germany by, for example, leading to the popularity of discounts. East Germans are also using a more differentiated pool of criteria when making purchasing decisions. In spite of the gap in consumption expenditure per capita, overall consumption patterns in East and West Germany are becoming increasingly similar, which indicates a lower price level in East Germany. Private households in both parts of Germany spend the biggest proportion of their income on housing (East: 34.2%; West: 34.5%). The next largest expenditure is on transportation (East: 13.9%; West: 14.3%). Only the food, beverages and tobacco category presents a slight difference of 1.1% (West: 13.6%; East: 14.7%).

There are almost no differences in the frequency with which people go shopping for consumer goods. East and West Germany are similar in terms of shopping day and time preferences. Differences exist in how often consumers go to supermarkets: Eastern Germans usually prefer only one big purchase a week, while Western Germans prefer two in order to take advantage of the biweekly advertising cycle.

Consumption Behavior  

Germans in the former East Germany have a different attitude toward marketing in general and advertising, in particular. While most West Germans are used to the ubiquitous noise of sensational promises by product advertisement, East Germans were raised in a less glitzy environment. For them, advertisement had and still has primarily an informative component. East Germans use it to compare and explore options before going to the supermarket and making the purchase. Some were disillusioned and felt betrayed when the promises of a product—such as looking like a model after eating chocolate bars—did not materialize.

Promotion and Products

On the product level, there are still visible differences, especially for large white and brown goods. Only every fifth household in the eastern provinces has a clothes dryer (22.2%), while 43.8% have one in West Germany. Less dramatic but still major is the difference in terms of refrigerators: 40.9% have them in the East, and 53.1% have them in the West, the German newspaper Die Zeit reports. For dishwashers, the numbers are 59.4% in the East and 69.5% in the West). Eastern German households have as many microwaves (71.8%) as their Western counterparts (72.7%), and have also caught up with telephones (West: 99.8%; East: 99.8%). Twenty years ago, only every second household in East Germany had a phone. At the same time, four out of five East German provinces are under the national average in terms of household Internet access. There is also a significant difference in Internet usage, where all five eastern provinces are far below the German average.

Buyers and Brands

Today, the overall popularity of brands from East Germany is increasing. However, there is only one product from the territory of the former German Democratic Republic: a fine sparkling wine called “Rotkäppchen,” which is one of the top 10 most popular German brands in both Western and Eastern Germany. In the field of alcoholic beverages, eastern products are becoming stronger and more recognized, such as Radeberger, Hasseröder and Köstrizer. More important, eastern products are overcoming the old stereotypes of being of low quality and cheap. Nowadays, both Eastern and Western German consumers describe their local brands as being “trustworthy,” “iconic/hip,” and “likable.”

At the same time, East German producers can count less on eastern German patriotism as a defining characteristic of customer behavior. Studies show that local patriotism is a much stronger factor for consumers older than 40 than for those who are younger. Half of the over-40 East German consumers would prefer Eastern German products, while this is only the case in a quarter of the 18- to 29-year-old age group. The producers need better marketing strategies to keep this younger generation of consumers close to their products.

What are some principal insights that we can observe after a major market disruption?

First, there is no shortcut for change and its acceptance. Eastern and Western Germany essentially presented optimal conditions in terms of available funding, ability to transfer funds, and willingness of the population to adapt. Nonetheless, one generation later we can still observe key differences from both a geographic perspective, where the East has remained more socialist in its orientation than the West, and also from an age perspective, where different age groups vary in their desire and success of leaving politics and socialism behind. 

Second, there seems to be less willingness to accept differences across former boundaries, which can lead to disagreements of a substantial nature. The current debate about substantially different migration policies may serve as an example.   

Observing the often hesitating processes of realignment, we should prepare for delays and disagreements with nations such as Cuba or Iran. Even if there is significant goodwill on all sides, the adjustments are slow and tedious. There will be less exuberant enthusiasm, leading to more delays and conflicts.

It is also noteworthy, however, that the success of a market orientation and of marketing thinking does, over time, typically improve lives and society. All this is likely to occur not by government fiat but by the choices devised and implemented by the private sector. Reduction of governme​nt involvement in former socialist nations helps growth and innovation. An orientation in favor of competition, risk-taking, private property and profit can enhance life experience and lifestyle, supporting the belief that self actualization resulting from taking individual economic and marketing decisions can be the great reward for all.

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