MOVERS&SHAPERS
THE LAW The Names: Bob Butterworth, Janet Napolitano, Skip Humphrey
Titles: Florida Attorney General, Arizona Attorney General, Former Minnesota Attorney General
The Difference: Consumer protection spawned new regulations for direct-mail sweeps (FL); tightened database targeting (AZ); and, from the ashes of the tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, gleaned fodder for a new kind of promotion: advocacy marketing (MN).
Butterworth (pictured) led the charge against direct-mail sweeps that had seniors convinced they needed to buy to win. Federal law kicked in this March requiring scrupulous notification and database management.
Napolitano forced RJ Reynolds to pony up about $10 million to clean its database after two Arizonans (one of whom had been dead 18 years) got unsolicited cigarettes in the mail. These days, Napolitano is eyeing Philip Morris book covers that may carry subliminal messages.
Minnesota kids study Big Tobacco’s marketing memos in TV spots and school tours thanks to Humphrey’s 1994-98 lawsuit, which brought 33 million documents to St. Paul. Other states tap the repository for anti-smoking campaigns. The documents are “very powerful for youngsters to persuade their peers. I’m glad we provided the fuel for that,” says Humphrey, now consultant with communications management firm Tunheim Group, Minneapolis.
The Last Word: “Within 15 minutes of being accepted in court, those documents were in the hands of D.C. decision-makers,” Humphrey says. Now they’ll go online for analysis “to see what went wrong to allow these companies to break the law” and target kids.
NORMAN MAYNE Title: President Company: Dorothy Lane Markets
The Difference: He’s the unofficial patron saint of retail loyalty programs. Officially, he’s chair of FMI’s Privacy Task Force, which issued database marketing guidelines in January requiring notice, choice, security, access, and enforcement.
Mayne is demure over the worldwide reputation his two upscale grocery stores have gained for top-notch loyalty marketing. Dorothy Lane combs its database regularly to send Thank You postcards with offers based on past purchases: Bakery fans get a free loaf of bread, heavy milk buyers get a gallon discount. “We do everything we can to satisfy our customers,” Mayne says. “We make less gross profit than we could, but in our mission statement – `To create satisfied customers resulting in profitable growth’ – the satisfied customers come before the profitable growth.” Mayne & Co. adds a third store next year in suburban Dayton, OH. “By the time I’m 180, we’ll have six stores,” he jokes. He is stepping down as FMI vice chairman, but will stay involved in the coming year.
The Last Word: FMI’s privacy policy “is an integrity statement that needs to be made. If manufacturers and other [retailers] don’t like it – I can’t imagine they won’t – that’s their concern” he says.
R.J. MILANO Title: VP-U.S. Marketing Company: McDonald’s Corp.
The Difference: He has kept McDonald’s one of the industry’s gold standards. To wit: Summer Music Event and Olympics-themed Taste Trials.
McD imposed an 18-month planning cycle (up from the previous three to six months) to get franchisee and partner input. That lets the marketing staff implement the “Listen, learn, and lead” mantra, Milano says, and lets the company better produce huge quantities of premiums. “At the beginning, [the longer time frame] was a bit difficult for partners, but with the toy companies and Disney it’s now going very well.”
Milano won’t give sales results, but says Summer Music Event helped cement McD’s reputation with tweens, and Taste Trials gave a third-quarter boost with local overlays complementing a national sweeps. For 2001, the plan is to “raise the level of food as co-star with promotions,” with product-centric events that play as well as a Happy Meal.
There’s been loud speculation that Milano is destined for a bigger role in a management shakeup some consider imminent.
The Last Word: A Sydney trip let Milano do some homework for the 2004 Salt Lake City Games. “I learned how to make the Olympics more than just a promotion; how to wrap ourselves in the spirit and the ideals McDonald’s shares with the Olympics,” he says.
JIM NOTARNICOLA Title: Executive VP-Chief Marketing Officer Company: Blockbuster, Inc.
The Difference: The former 7-Eleven vp-marketing has energized Blockbuster with envelope-pushing Hollywood tie-ins, online initiatives, and in-store programs like the new Freebie instant-couponing service and a partnership with satellite-content provider DirecTV.
Following an 18-year stint at 7-Eleven, Notarnicola was hired in 1997 as Dallas-based Blockbuster was in the midst of a seven-percent same-store sales decline. He reorganized the marketing department and switched from a one-size-fits-all execution strategy to one in which umbrella programs are customized for individual stores. Two years later, same-store sales were up 21 percent.
Marketers take note: Notarnicola simultaneously works on a national, regional, and local basis for heavy-hitting results that reach well beyond the point of sale.
Next year will bring new efforts backing the DVD format as well as an online rental reservation service (currently being tested in Colorado and Texas). The company will continue hyping Blockbuster Rewards, which boasts six million paid members who spend 22 percent more than non-members, and will seek to align all global marketing programs under the “Bring Entertainment Home” tagline.
The secret to Notarnicola’s success? A marketing strategy with the right blend of brand-building and sales-lifting activities.
The Last Word: “This is where retail meets Hollywood. We think like a brand, then act like a retailer.”
DAVID PHILLIPS Title: The Pudding Guy Employer: University of California-Davis
The Difference: If this is the Year of the Consumer, David Phillips is its Most Valuable Player. The civil engineer first made headlines last year when he “did the math” on a Healthy Choice free-mile giveaway and earned himself 1.25 million miles by purchasing 12,150 single-serve pudding cups (cost: $3,000).
He become a veritable cause celebre in the promotion industry, earning another cool million miles last summer in a LatinPass contest that required passage on a dozen Latin American airlines over a six-month period. After that, Phillips was a natural to serve as celebrity judge for a WebMiles contest that ran earlier this fall. Next month, he’ll help Healthy Choice promote an even bigger miles giveaway.
He’s had “phases where I was clipping coupons,” but otherwise has never been a promotion fanatic. He is a fervent mile collector, which sent him down the Healthy Choice path.
The Last Word: Did he at least become a Healthy Choice customer? “I’ve still got plenty of pudding left, so there’s no need for me to buy anymore,” says Phillips, who donated most of the inventory to charity. “But I do buy their other products.”
RICHARD POUND Title: VP, Marketing Committee Chairman Organization: International Olympic Committee
The Difference: His integrity and marketing savvy kept the bribery scandal that rocked the IOC in 1998 from permanently tarnishing the Olympic Games, and helped make this year’s Summer in Sydney one of the most successful in history from a marketing standpoint, even after some well-publicized early defections.
“It was the most coordinated Olympic marketing program in history,” says the native Canadian and former Olympian swimmer, who competed in the 1960 Games. “It had a look and feel that was designed in and around the Games in Sydney.”
A tax lawyer who claims he fell into his position by “failing to avoid eye contact” at a meeting one day, Pound began his IOC career in 1978 negotiating television contracts. After years of criticizing the organization’s marketing strategy, “they told me to do it myself.” In December ’98, the IOC gave him the reins of the ad hoc committee investigating allegations of bribery in Salt Lake City.
Pound’s marketing philosophy is simple: “Don’t promise more than you can deliver, and then deliver what you promised. Know what you want to accomplish, and establish good relationships with sponsors.”
The Last Word: “I think the IOC and the Olympic movement are genuine forces of good. I wouldn’t let the bad conduct of a dozen members destroy the worldwide movement.”
MARK SHAPIRO Title: Chief Executive Officer Organization: Momentum North America
The Difference: Whether you consider agencies that enter awards programs to be justifiably proud partners seeking recognition for their clients or self-indulgent opportunists, Momentum’s track record in 2000 was truly praise-worthy: four Reggies, five PRO Awards, and a Globe.
That recognition went a long way to making a name for St. Louis-based Momentum, whose corporate moniker was imported from the U.K. in ’99 by parent McCann-Erickson to cover the former Louis London and whatever promotion shops it might pick up in the future (which since then has been Diamond Group and Waylon Co.). But the agency’s glowing reputation is built as much (and more solidly) on the accolades provided by its clients, who cite a deep understanding of the brand, limitless creativity, and a knack for executing some extremely complicated campaigns.
“I think we have a more democratic way of running the business,” says Shapiro, who is working to bring the culture of the old Louis London – one of the first promo shops to start pitching brand-building capabilities – to the larger Momentum network. “We have empowered people within this organization.”
The Last Word: “I know it sounds like a cliche, but we’re a client-first organization. That means taking the brand where it needs to be … in any way that the client needs it to be done.”
ELI PRIMROSE-SMITH Title: VP-Worldwide Sports Sponsorships Company: IBM
The Difference: It takes guts to sever a 40-year relationship and walk away from a global Olympic sponsorship. But Primrose-Smith had the moxie to put Big Blue first and cut the cord when the IOC made the technology category too cluttered. In doing so she sent a message that all sponsors should hear: protect your own interests.
Primrose-Smith has already moved on, shifting Olympic marketing bucks into budgets for other properties within IBM’s sponsorship portfolio, which contains the biggest properties in sports. And she activates those sponsorships by showing off what her company does best, creating customized technology applications for each property. Those e-business solutions power online and offline campaigns connected to the National Basketball Association, the Professional Golf Association, the United States Tennis Association, and others.
A former Pan American Games gold-medal swimmer, she joined Armonk, NY-based IBM in 1994 after stints with the Los Angeles Olympic Committee and an impressive turn as managing director of World Cup USA. In 2001, Primrose-Smith will, among other things, reorganize her department and implement wireless marketing efforts into the sponsorship scheme.
The Last Word: “Our message can’t be a frivolous one. We partner with sports properties in order to bring an experience to the fans.”
SPONSOR-FRIENDLY SINGERS The Acts: Britney Spears, N Sync, Christina Aguilera, The Backstreet Boys
The Difference: Product endorsements and concert sponsorships are nothing new, but never have an era’s hottest pop stars been so willing to cooperate with corporate partners.
Brands are admittedly dishing out big bucks to bask in the spotlight of teen singing sensations. But the returns have never been greater. The Backstreet Boys provided exclusive music to both Sears and Burger King, and even made fun of their own shilling ways in a TV spot for the latter. Christina Aguilera chatted online with fans who got an Internet-ready CD with purchase of Levi’s merchandise from Sears.
Spears (pictured) lead the way, working with McDonald’s, Got Milk?, Clairol, and Polaroid. For the camera maker, she built use of the new I-Zone camera into her stage act. (Heck, she even sat for a PROMO cover shoot.)
The Last Word: “It’s OK for artists to do it. It doesn’t hurt their credibility one bit,” says Arnold Stiefel, manager for rocker Rod Stewart, who has been around since the days when corporate sponsorships were anathema (and whose “Forever Young” is currently soundtrack for a Pampers spot). “It’s also a nice addition to the bottom line of a tour.”
JOHN VAIL Title: Director-Digital Media and Marketing Organization: Pepsi-Cola Co. North America
The Difference: While most brands are still paying lip service to the integration of online and offline promotions, Vail proved its value by leading the development of PepsiStuff.com, which last summer gained more than two million participants and became one of the most successful online marketing programs ever.
A 10-year Pepsi vet who took on his first digital duties back in ’92, Vail recognized that the original PepsiStuff continuity program, which relied on print catalogs, was in dire need of a hipper, more efficient platform to keep the brand current with its youth-oriented target market. Yahoo was brought on as a partner to add some contemporary pizzazz. The offer was made on more than 1.5 billion packages – the largest single-serve promotion in company history – to keep it grounded in traditional marketing, but participants were directed online to store their points and pick their prizes.
“When PepsiStuff launched four years ago, we had no idea what was going on until the program’s end, when we saw results brought in by snail mail,” he says. By moving online, the company was able to trumpet one million registrants within a month.
The Last Word: “We’re hitting where we thought we would with 13- to 30-year-olds. We were concerned that PepsiStuff.com would be a Northeast and West Coast phenomenon, but it’s played well in the heartland.”
LEONARD ZUK Title: Promotions Manager Organization: CCL Label
The Difference: This guy makes labels exciting. Labels!
Recruited by a corporate printer out of college, Zuk rose through the ranks learning about direct mail. He left after 12 years for printer KoBel, Inc., then jumped to Rosemont, IL-based CCL Label – which was looking to make a push into the promotional printing arena – when KoBel was sold four years later in 1999.
The Vermont native is charged with spreading knowledge of the industry internally and building relationships with brands externally. Along the way, he’s made a name for himself as an idea man. “I never wanted to sell for CCL,” he admits. “I’d rather come up with strategies and show brand managers something special.”
The word is out. CCL’s promotion business is now its hottest-performing business unit. Zuk helps build unique technologies and capabilities into new products, such as the upcoming Spinformation twist-and-turn packaging and the recent Aqua Play wash-and-win system. (He frequently persuades brands to try something other than what they initially request.) Marquee brands will work with CCL in 2001, says Zuk, who acknowledges his ultimate worth rests in the results of his ideas.
The Last Word: “Clients want to see the Wizard of Oz, not the guy behind the curtain,” he says. “I’m the idea guy, but we still have to come through beyond our initial ideas.”
