2001 Marketers of the Year

What a year. ▪ Promotion marketers laid new milestones in 2001. Some did it by intent (like Shrek and Xbox), others under duress (think McDonald’s). ▪ From numerous highs to one shocking low, PROMO’s 2001 Marketers of the Year deftly manned promotional campaigns that served both brands and consumers during the most difficult period in decades. Producing quality marketing amidst last year’s business and social upheaval deserves greater recognition than typical years. ▪ After great debate, we chose 14 individuals responsible for some of the most effective campaigns of the last 12 months, relying on concrete results as much as possible, but also examining the impact their activities had on the industry as a whole. We looked for the people most responsible for the success of a particular brand or campaign, although most of the winners would tell you they couldn’t have done it alone. They’re right. But their teams couldn’t have done it without them. ▪ Our selections are a diverse bunch who built a wide range of brands using several disciplines. Some aren’t even marketers by trade. (Witness McDonald’s ceo Jack Greenberg and author J.K. Rowling, who each made marketing their business this year when their brands’ integrity was at stake.) But all had a hand in shaping the industry, both this year and for the future. ▪ Some of the work pushes the boundaries of promotion marketing, like BMW’s online films, Upshot’s merchandising programs for Procter & Gamble, and Upromise’s ambitious loyalty program. ▪ Several picks recognize product launches or line extensions, like Mountain Dew Code Red and Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance. Road trips, mountaintop visits — even human sampling units — built awareness and brought new meaning to “stimulating trial.” These ain’t your everyday sampling programs, and that’s a testament to promotion’s role in building brand awareness. ▪ Doubtless, we missed a few marketers worthy of recognition. But we’re certain that these 14 are a credit not only to the brands they serve but to the marketing world as a whole. ▪ What a year, indeed.

Name Dropping

Myer Berlow is partnering AOL with every blue-chip brand in the business.

If you don’t have — or at least want — a marketing alliance with AOL, there are only three possible reasons:

You can’t afford it.

The competition beat you to it.

You work for Yahoo.

A massive array of entertainment properties and 135 million paying members worldwide gives you a lot of leverage, a simple fact that earned America Online the unofficial Most Sought-After Partner Award for 2001. And that makes Myer Berlow, president of AOL Time Warner’s Global Marketing Solutions Group, the man you most want to meet.

“He’s one of my favorite people to work with,” says Chris McCann, president of 1-800-FLOWERS.com, Westbury, NY. “Myer plays hard and fast, but he plays fair.”

Berlow, 51, reigns supreme from his New York City office, spinning deals and overseeing a channel-specific sales force that stays extra close to marketing partners. “We’ve instilled at every level a religion about the importance of partnerships,” he says. “It’s not about ad budgets. It’s about, ‘Are we better together then separate?’” says Berlow, who spent 20 years on Madison Avenue with the likes of McCann-Erickson and FCB before joining AOL in 1995.

The ranks of strategic partners range from the small (Princess Cruises, QVC, 1-800-FLOWERS) to the massive (Coke, General Motors, Target), and has been expanding at a rapid pace recently with the addition of Kraft Foods, Kellogg USA, Burger King, and Compaq. They’ve been signing on to share content, pool databases, and develop marketing programs — advertising, promotion, sponsorships, even technology development — that can stretch across AOL’s massive universe of Internet, TV, film, and music holdings. “Partnerships are a hard thing to maintain,” says Berlow. “To be successful, you have to share your partner’s pain as well as their glory.”

All Shook Out

Peter Blacklow’s offbeat style keeps Monster.com smiling through the Internet crash.

What did Monster.com do when the Internet economy began crashing down around it? Host pink-slip parties in the cities with the greatest number of layoffs, of course.

Marketing vp Peter Blacklow likes the crazy ideas that fly around Monster.com’s marketing department. You want alternative media? How about a five-acre, crop-circle rendering of company mascot Trumpasaurus along the flight lines of O’Hare Airport outside Chicago?

“Peter and his team understand the importance of brand building and buzz,” says Andy Maercklein, vp-management supervisor at Arnold Worldwide, Boston, Monster’s lead agency. “And they’re brave enough to take chances.”

Since joining Maynard, MA-based Monster.com from sneaker maker Converse in 1999, Blacklow, 32, has emphasized innovation and humor in a balanced mix of advertising, promotion, and event marketing. “Our brand identity never changes, but you can speak in a few different tones,” he says.

Rather than buying ad real estate for a recent commuter campaign, Monster instead sent in field teams for some “station domination.” “You couldn’t walk off the train without being barraged by Monster,” he says proudly.

Blacklow has always treated Monster.com like a major player, buying Super Bowl ad time three years running (and getting great reaction to some truly funny spots), then making the brand the first dot-com sponsor of the Olympics. (Activation includes post-Games career management services for volunteers and athletes.) With sales that jumped 62 percent to $420.2 million in the first nine months of 2001, it now is a major player.

“The foundation starts with the product,” says Blacklow. “Monster works and that makes the marketing challenges a hell of a lot easier.”

Promise Keeper

Michael Bronner rallies Corporate America to the Upromise cause.

Every marketer claims to love his product. When Upromise ceo Michael Bronner says it, you believe him a little more.

That’s because the 42-year-old ceo is founder of, and head cheerleader for, one of the most innovative and relevant loyalty programs ever: an interest-bearing account for college tuition that automatically stores a percentage of purchases from an ever-lengthening list of partnering companies.

And you won’t find a more impressive list of partners anywhere: AT&T, ExxonMobil, Citibank, General Motors, McDonald’s — all willing to make the Upromise logo as prominent as their own in support of the cause (and the acquisition of lifetime customers, of course).

“What’s amazing is that all of the partners are helping to promote the entire program,” says GM program manager Steve Walczak. “It feels good to able to help families as well as meet our business objectives,” says AT&T vp-partnership marketing Beth Ybarra.

“There’s always been talk about coalition marketing, but this is the first time I’ve seen it reach this level,” says Bronner, who in his first career founded marketing services shop Digitas out of his college dorm room — to help pay for his own tuition.

Launched last spring, Brookline, MA-based Upromise hasn’t divulged enrollment totals yet, but Bronner hinted at the magnitude by noting that 100,000 New Englanders signed up for grocery service shortly after that component first went live last November.

The national rollout of the grocery leg this quarter should be impressive, as the likes of Kraft, Procter & Gamble, Keebler, Coca-Cola, and Kimberly-Clark (not to mention nearly all leading grocers) add the Upromise seal to packaging on more than 4,000 SKUs. “Our intention is to create a ‘Upromise Way of Life,’” Bronner says.

Shreking Crew

Anne Globe turned Shrek’s campaign into DreamWorks’ coming-out party.

The history of marketing at Glendale, CA-based DreamWorks SKG will henceforth be divided into two epochs: B.S. and A.S. (Before and After Shrek).

Seven-year-old DreamWorks had hits before, both of the box-office and marketing-partnership variety. But it had yet to reach the level it did last spring with Shrek in either arena: $100 million in marketing support and $267 million-plus in ticket sales. The film’s video, which had its own boatload of partners for a November release, became the best-selling DVD in history with a $110 million take in its first three days. Hello, franchise.

Anne Globe, 37, the head of marketing and national promotions for the studio’s consumer products division, secured the marketing support, which in turn helped boost the box office.

“I can’t solely be credited. Everything we do here is collaborative,” says Globe, who cut her marketing teeth at Universal Studios Hollywood, then did stints at Universal Pictures and MCA/Universal before joining DreamWorks in 1996. “We were fortunate to partner with companies that saw the film’s potential success from the beginning.”

Those partners — H.J. Heinz Co., Burger King, Baskin-Robbins, Chevron, American Licorice, Kroger, and McFarlane Toys — rolled up their sleeves and got innovative, creating campaigns that in many cases were as entertaining as the movie. “Anne was incredibly motivated to help us try to improve our business,” says Joe Adney, director of marketing for Glendale neighbor Baskin-Robbins. “She has tons of great ideas, and there was never anything that we weren’t able to discuss.”

Personally, Globe considers Shrek to be her second-best production of 2001: The top honor goes to her first child, Sophia Rose, who was born in November.

A Serious Gamer

McDonald’s ceo Jack Greenberg dives into promotion to fend off a crisis.

When the Federal Bureau of Investigation told McDonald’s Corp. ceo Jack Greenberg last April that thieves were embezzling winning gamepieces, promotion marketing suddenly became urgent business.

Greenberg, 60, was highly visible Aug. 21 as law officials arrested eight suspects (43 more arrests followed); Right after U.S. attorney general John Ashcroft announced the theft of at least $13 million in prize money, Greenberg unveiled a make-good game to award $10 million.

“Customer confidence is at the very heart of McDonald’s business,” he said in a statement. “Once the FBI contacted us, we agreed immediately to cooperate fully with them.”

Greenberg has been silent since. McDonald’s declined comment for this profile. So did everyone else connected to the scandal and its aftermath — even the FBI.

It’s clear, however, that Greenberg took charge of the crisis, personally calling the shots with a small cadre of confidantes. McDonald’s ran a compromised game in July to let the FBI collect more evidence. Traffic didn’t jump during the Labor Day make-good game, which randomly selected 55 winners in stores. But it was a p.r. success, nipping much of the potential backlash (though not all the class-action lawsuits) in the bud.

U.S. sales rose only two percent to $15.1 billion in the first nine months of 2001. McD has yet to run another match-and-win game. In October, it traded lawsuits with former agency Simon Marketing, and announced the departure of two high-ranking marketing executives.

Despite the fallout, Greenberg deserves credit for shouldering the tough decisions and steering Big Mac through the worst promotion scandal in history.

Defending the Turf

George Harrison keeps Nintendo from sliding into Xbox’s shadow.

As if dealing with Sony and Sega isn’t difficult enough, Nintendo of America senior vp-marketing and communications George Harrison now has Microsoft to contend with.

He can handle it.

In a year when competition in the already cutthroat gaming industry went lethal, Harrison kept a cool head and focused on three things: brand, product, and target. “We don’t want to be tried and true,” says the 49-year-old. “So we decided to add a little attitude to our marketing.”

That strategy inspired two major product offensives. First came the launch of the hand-held Game Boy Advance, which was backed by a sweepstakes, account-specific activity, and a guerrilla campaign featuring street teams with multiple Advances hanging from their bodies.

Then came the November launch of GameCube, which went head-to-head with Microsoft’s Xbox release. In addition to scoring partners such as Dr Pepper, Redmond, WA-based Nintendo again hit the road, renting vacant stores in top markets to host Club GameCubes. “We launched the products in a way that we hoped would lead to Advance buyers turning into GameCube buyers,” says Harrison.

By the end of the year, Nintendo had sold more than 1.2 million Advances; more than 600,000 GameCubes sold through in the first 15 days after launch.

“George is a demanding taskmaster and sets high expectations,” says Mark Westcott, president of Nintendo shop Westcott Promotion Group, Bellevue, WA. “But he empowers the people who work for him to do their job and get the results he’s looking for.”

“Most teenagers don’t think their parents are cool,” says the father of two. “Mine do.”

Performance Builder

Jim McDowell shows that staying true to the BMW brand doesn’t preclude taking risks.

Borrowed equity is nice. Self-derived equity is even nicer.

Woodcliff Lake, NJ-based BMW switched from the former to the latter last year, launching the groundbreaking Hire Film Series in the spring, then backing away from MGM’s James Bond franchise in late summer after three straight movie tie-ins. It was a sign that the brand, though fully entrenched in its positioning as the world’s best-performing automobile, isn’t afraid to experiment executionally.

The series commissioned five top Hollywood directors to create shorts to be displayed on a special Web site. While certainly not an inexpensive concept (each short had a $2 million production budget), the effort was a huge hit with the media and portrayed BMW as truly hip — both culturally and technologically.

“BMW has a single-minded product philosophy, and we attract a single psychographic [customer]. That makes it easy to stay focused,” says McDowell. “But you can be true to your brand positioning and find new ways to play it out.”

Staying focused apparently pays off. In a down year for car sales, the brand’s U.S. sales volume rose 18.7 percent in the first nine months of 2001, and jumped again in October.

“The people here at BMW understand the brand, and nobody understands it better in North America than Jim,” says Tom Purves, chairman of BMW U.S. Holding Corp., who called McDowell and this year’s marketing initiatives “both brilliant.”

“One thing you’ll find among our team is a passion for the product,” says McDowell, 49, who has headed up the group for eight-plus years. “That’s what makes it fun.”

Word of Mouth

Big Fat’s Jonathan Ressler speaks his mind while clients sing his praises.

They say a little personality goes a long way. In Jonathan Ressler’s case, a lot of personality goes even further.

Blunt to the extreme, Ressler’s candor has helped create quite a reputation for Big Fat, the New York City-based agency he launched in 1999, primarily because his no-holds-barred attitude carries over into the shop’s work for clients.

Ressler and his equally candid staff have helped a growing list of clients do guerrilla marketing the right way — in some cases after telling them how they’re doing it wrong. “It’s amazing how many brands do the right things at the right times with the wrong people,” he says.

Big Fat concepts are original, to say the least. A Spring Break campaign for Pepsi’s FruitWorks reeled in co-eds with reality show-style “confession” tents; a summer effort for Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance (see pg. 47) turned field staffers into human sampling platforms; and a fall program for Nescafé sent brand ambassadors into college dorms with wake-up java. “He’s conceptually, tactically, and executionally solid,” says FruitWorks marketing manager Darrell Johnson. “He understands how to make a connection between the brand and the consumer.”

Maybe that’s because he isn’t so far removed from the consumer world. The 37-year-old was a Manhattan nightclub owner for 10 years before launching his first agency in the ‘90s, then serving stints at promo shops B-12 and TLP before opening Big Fat. The agency’s revenues more than doubled to break $10 million last year.

“I’m not that smart — I’ve just brought in the right people,” Ressler says. “I’d pay to do my job.”

Code of Conduct

Pepsi’s Tyler Ricks beats the urban bushes to put Code Red on the beverage map.

Lots of brands talk a good game when it comes to personalizing the message for consumers, but Pepsi-Cola senior marketing manager Tyler Ricks made sure Mountain Dew Code Red did just that when it launched this spring by eschewing mass media to literally get into the face of Gen Y.

Ricks joined Pepsi’s Marketplace Initiatives Development unit in 1997, and moved to Mountain Dew in late 1999. Initial work on Code Red began in August 2000 at a time when fickle, jaded teens weren’t buying just any new soft drink — no matter how many tattooed skateboarders were recruited for advertising.

“Pepsi has incorporated a lot of mass media into its promotions, but we understood that’s not the best way to talk to Mountain Dew customers,” says the 31-year-old Ricks.

Buzz for the new brand was first generated by distributing samples to athletes at the ESPN Winter X Games. College students got a taste in March when Code Red hosted on-campus parties at schools during the NCAA College Basketball Tournament. Last summer, the brand teamed with Simon Property Group on a three-week tour that constructed Code Red Lounges in malls.

The personal touch enabled Code Red to become a star right out of the gate. The brand sold 22 million cases in its first eight weeks, thereby topping its 34-week forecast by five million cases.

“Tyler played an instrumental role in developing Mountain Dew Code Red,” says Cie Nicholson, vp-Mountain Dew for Pepsi-Cola North America. “His beverage industry experience, along with his keen marketing insights, significantly contributed to the successful launch.”

Maintaining the Magic

Author J.K. Rowling holds marketers at bay to preserve Harry’s integrity.

Harry Potter has a fine guardian.

Warner Bros. had Hollywood’s hottest property, and would-be partners were beating a path to the door. Author J.K. Rowling kept an eye on the negotiations, consulting with the studio on each proposal.

Rowling didn’t have contractual approval, but the studio wanted to keep her comfortable, since it holds movie rights not only to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone but the next three books in the Potter series.

Warner Bros. started framing its Potter brand strategy soon after acquiring rights in 1999. The studio talked with a number of tie-in candidates, asking for cause-based marketing ideas.

The negotiations sometimes got messy. Rowling gave mixed messages about what marketing she’d accept, putting Warner Bros. in an awkward spot with some potential partners, says one source outside the studio. Diane Nelson, Warner Bros. senior vp-family entertainment for corporate worldwide marketing and planning, got credit for smoothing things over. “Diane stayed true to Rowling and to Madison Avenue,” the source says.

Warner Bros. gradually narrowed its sites to one partner, eventually signing an exclusive $150 million deal with Coca-Cola. The soda giant’s global literacy campaign donates books to schools over three years.

The film didn’t need much outside muscle due to its inherent strength (thanks to the work of U.S. book publisher Scholastic) and the availability of America Online and other AOL Time Warner divisions to spread the word. Harry grossed $200 million in its first 15 days. Walt Disney Co.-owned ABC shelled out a reported $120 million-plus for a 10-year deal to broadcast Stone and its sequel.

Meanwhile, Rowling is at work on the fifth Harry adventure.

Merchandising Matchmaker

Upshot’s Rich Scarle brings together P&G and retailers to serve their true master: the consumer.

Keeping both your client and your client’s client happy is easy if you remember one simple rule: It’s all about the consumer.

Working with Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble’s Customer Marketing Services group, 39-year-old Rich Scarle spends most of his days bringing brands and retail partners like CVS together for more effective in-store marketing. He also helps P&G in other areas, most recently in giving the company’s fabric care products greater presence in grocery stores — one chain at a time.

“People throw around the term ‘partnership’ pretty liberally, but you really need it,” says Scarle, who joined Upshot from Sears three years ago.

As a follow-up to last year’s successful launch of grl>lab merchandise “destinations” for Cover Girl in CVS stores, Scarle developed a Healthy Women station that groups relevant products and lifestyle information around a particular theme.

“Rich never loses sight of what the consumer needs,” says Brad Frank, a P&G marketing manager who left the company last summer and is now senior brand manager at Boston Beer. “He would constantly bring us and CVS back to the consumer voice.”

While plugging away last year on his new projects (which include a reorganization of Giant Eagle’s fabric care aisle), Scarle was pleasantly surprised to earn his first industry-wide accolades, for the aforementioned grl>lab and the 2000 launch of P&G’s Jeckles snack brand.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen an account person who was so in line with creative,” says Upshot ceo John Kelley. “P&G started as a one-shot client, and it has turned into a nice piece of business on his back.”

Peeling the Onion

Terry Spilde’s satirist background has GMR’s think tank humming.

Microsoft Corp. set its launch strategy for Xbox, and Terry Spilde got a call. Then Pepsi set plans for Mountain Dew Code Red, and Spilde’s phone rang again.

Spilde is creative director for ideation and head of GMR Marketing’s new-business team, a think tank that dreams up ideas for the New Berlin, WI-based agency’s account service groups. A former associate publisher for satiric newspaper The Onion, he joined GMR in 1998 to lead creative brainstorming.

His team, which can juggle up to 10 projects daily, includes a strategic writer, a copywriter, a researcher, and a changing cast of GMR staffers. For Xbox, Spilde recruited a half-dozen avid gamers across the agency. For Code Red, team members were aficionados of the urban youth lifestyle.

GMR keeps a profile of all staffers’ interests, then taps people for think-tank duty on their favorite topics. “No one person will ever get credit for any of our ideas because of the way our process works,” says GMR president Jay Lenstrom.

“We leverage people’s personal passions,” says Spilde, 38, whose career includes stints in rock radio promotions and programming and theater management.

GMR has used a central think tank for four years to serve account teams in several offices. Xbox came through New York City (via senior vp Rick Arnstein) and Code Red through Chicago (via senior vp Steve Jarvis). Spilde presents to the account teams, who translate for clients.

“It’s been a charmed situation,” he says. “This is the unbridled creative job you always dream of. I date a lot of clients and a lot of consumers, and my thrill is the change and the challenge of that.”

The Xbox Rebellion

Cindy Spodek Dickey proves there’s more to a product launch than spending piles of money.

Quarterbacking Redmond, WA-based Microsoft Corp.’s largest product launch ever is a daunting task. But group manager of national promotions Cindy Spodek Dickey has risen to the occasion with enthusiasm and moxie.

Armed with a $500 million marketing budget to spend over the next few years, she’s put together a plan designed to build buzz for Xbox while giving Microsoft the credibility it needs to crack the competitive game market. “We started from zero with no strategy, no history, and two very solid competitors [in Nintendo and Sony],” she says. “We knew we’d need to prove ourselves.”

A partnership with SoBe Beverages kicked off the promotional calendar last summer with Xbox demos at Team Lizard events. The Xbox Odyssey übervehicle hit the road in the fall, shortly before the November launch. A holiday sweeps with Taco Bell gave away one console per restaurant. Analysts were predicting in early December that Microsoft would meet its goal of shipping 1.5 million units by year’s end.

And that was just the beginning: A tie-in with Frito-Lay leaves the gate next month to jump-start 2002 activities.

“Cindy rocks,” says Debbie Myers, Taco Bell’s vp-media services, entertainment, and licensing. “She’s brave and open-minded. And she knows that, for her to be successful, her partners have to be successful.”

Spodek Dickey, 41, started her career in radio promotion and spent time at Walt Disney Co. before landing at Microsoft in 1995. She dove into Xbox in 2000. “I gave up my life for a year and a half,” she says. “But if I didn’t take this opportunity, I would have regretted it for the rest of my career.”

Warped, and Loving It

Chris Strain has Vans acting like the coolest brand around.

While most marketing to Gen Y tries so hard to be hip that it borders on parody, Vans vp-marketing Chris Strain has kept the decades-old brand real and vital. “We continue to build ourselves on an originality and authenticity that’s lasted 35 years,” says Strain.

A former brand manager and sports marketer at Pepsi, the decades-old Strain joined Santa Fe Springs, CA-based Vans in 1999 with top-shelf credentials in youth marketing. And he hasn’t disappointed, creating not only marketing campaigns but corporate initiatives that prove Gen Y is willing to embrace marketing sponsorships that understand and cater to their wants and desires.

Those programs include the Vans Skate Parks operating in 10 malls around the country (with more to come in 2002); the wildly successful Vans Warped Tour for alternative music, now entering its fourth year; and the Vans Triple Crown, the brand’s answer to the X Games, which aired nationally on NBC in November.

Being so tapped into the teen zeitgeist, Vans naturally didn’t miss a chance to partner with Microsoft’s Xbox, which it signed up to sponsor Triple Crown events.

“For all his personal success and the storied accomplishments of Vans, Chris never rests on prior achievements,” says Bill Carter, president at Fuse Sports Marketing, Burlington, VT, which represents Triple Crown sponsors like Mountain Dew. “He markets Vans like a start-up and keeps the brand ahead of its competitors.”

“Our connection with youth has never been stronger,” Strain says. “We have a covenant with our customers based on respect. That’s respect for their intelligence and respect for their time.”