ANA Marketing Musings

Creating Communities

As you are aware, earlier this month the ANA convened its “Masters of Marketing” Conference. Held annually at the beginning of October, the conference is designed to bring to life the case histories of Chief Marketing Officers and other senior marketers.

This year, our focus was on Reinvention and Innovation – a particularly relevant topic since many brands are being compelled to rapidly change the way they reach and connect with consumers and customers. In this age of advancing technology and increasing segmentation, marketers struggle with the adaptation, implementation and reinvention processes to keep brands fresh, relevant and profitable.

This is a daunting task – one that is complicated by an ever-changing media landscape, the introduction of new technologies, pressures for increased accountability and the need to restore vitality to aging, mature franchises. At the conference we were feted with a bevy of reinvention stories. Marketing execs from P&G, Wal-Mart, Hewlett Packard, Sony, Charles Schwab, Burger King, Yahoo and more made their way to the stage to discuss how they reinvented flagship and fledging brands.

What was uncanny was the consistent, resounding theme that marketers needed to cede control to the consumer. Stephen Quinn, SVP, Wal-Mart said that the retailing giant had “to learn more about customer needs by answering the question, "What does she hire us to do?" A.G. Lafley, CEO, Procter & Gamble noted that consumers own brands and implored us to “stop looking at brands from the corporate viewpoint and to begin building brands on her terms.”

But perhaps the most intriguing discussion was engineered by Jim McDowell, Managing Director of MINI USA – the tiny but remarkable auto division of BMW. What Mini has done is to create a “community’ of MINI owners that have an incredible level of devotion and loyalty to the MINI brand. McDowell asserts that MINI owners are completely different. They are a community of “glass half full” people that combine their personal lives with the automotive experience. MINI owners hold their own events and literally create new features for the car. In fact, 60% of the estimated 40,000 MINIs built each year are customized. 93% of owners recommend their car to their friends – which is the highest referral rate in the industry.

You can’t build loyalty like that overnight. But it sure is encouraging to know that, with the right reinvention strategies, brand building of the highest order can happen – and it can payoff big time.

ANA Board Unanimously Approves Contract Extension with SAG/AFTRA

ANA Board Underscores Importance of Joint Study on New Talent Compensation Model And Encourages Collaboration Among All Industry Constituents

At the ANA's Annual Meeting this week, the Board of the ANA unanimously approved a two-year extension of the Commercials Contracts with the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG/AFTRA). The agreement provides for a joint study that will examine alternative methods to compensate performers for their participation in commercials appearing on television, radio and the growing array of new media.

The Board’s action, which follows approval by the SAG/AFTRA Boards and ratification by union membership, represents the final step necessary to authorize the agreement and implement its terms.

We now look forward to engaging a qualified independent consultant to conduct an in-depth study over the next two years to rethink the economic model under which actors are fairly paid, and advertisers achieve an appropriate return on their investment.

Jim Stengel, outgoing Chairman of the ANA and Global Marketing Officer of Procter & Gamble, said, “In conducting the joint study, we plan to engage all constituents in the advertising industry in a transparent, thoughtful, inclusive manner.”

The results of the joint study will form the basis for renegotiating new Commercials Contracts in 2008. “Great challenges lie ahead,” said Douglas Wood, lead negotiator for the advertising industry. “Ensuring that talent payments in the rapidly changing marketing environment are handled in a mutually beneficial way will require all parties to act with a great spirit of collaboration.”