Looking for the "Right" Solution

The problem with marketing at high tech companies is that most of the marketers are engineers who think “marketing” sounds like fun. They are not genetic marketers. They were not "born to be marketers." In many cases, they do not even have a “recessive marketing gene.” These are the people who make up the marketing organizations at most technology companies (Apple being a notable exception) and the marketing working groups of most technology trade groups.

About three years ago, I was working with a sister organization who wanted to co-market 1394 with the 1394TA. They wanted to run an ad in the CES Show Daily to build traffic to their booth. I introduced them to one of the most creative people I know to help them create an ad that would "pop." If they were going to entice people to leave the Sony, Panasonic, and Samsung booths to see their demo, the ad would need to grab attention and create curiosity. 

This sister organization looked at a bunch of concepts from the creative company and migrated as a body to the least interesting ads presented. Anything truly creative made them uncomfortable. Their “engineering mind” kept raising doubts. They were second-guessing themselves to death. In the end, they selected the one concept that looked the most like all other ads in the magazine. Literally, when I picked up the magazine at the show to look for the ad, I flipped past it twice before I found it. It looked so much like every other ad, it was almost camouflaged.

It was at that moment that I had an epiphany. One reason why engineers make such mediocre marketers is because they are looking for the “correct” solution. The solution cannot be one that just feels right. It cannot be something that you just know is right but cannot explain why it is right. That “correct” solution must be the one that everyone else is doing. That is the criteria by which print ads are so often measured. 

With training, I have found that engineering marketers can be extremely creative, but this has to be nurtured. It will not emerge if they are left to their engineering training and logic.

 

James Snider is a Global Marketing professional, responsible for developing the 3.4 billion dollar 1394/FireWire market. James spent 16 years in marketing with 7 years working at "for profit" companies, 8 years as executive director of a non-profit and the past year as an independent global business development consultant.  www.linkedin.com/in/jamessnider

Stretching the Creative Muscle

After the "Cowboy" ad, I convinced the marketing group that what they had been doing was pure folly.  They simply were not solving a single problem.  They were spending money for no benefit...and to the contrary....they were spending money to hurt their cause by clogging up the voicemail of their sales team with customers who should be going to the distributors for samples.


 Since we knew who our target audience was and since that target audience was fairly small, it made better sense to go directly to the customer with our promotion.  Our sales staff kept asking for some sort of "leave behind" to build goodwill with their customers.  Our competition was always bringing trinkets to the customer.  We rarely did.


We went to work on developing a giveaway that would be unique, desirable, and used in the office.  A frisbee or stress relief "desktop toy" is pretty boring and usually goes home with a customer (or in the trash a day or two later) and does not stay at the office.  Our first effort was a "flashcard" flashlight which is essentially a flat flashlight about the size of a playing card but much thicker.  This was a decent first effort.  It was unique, not very expensive, useful (everyone needs a flashlight), and had plenty of surface area for a sales message.  It was just not very popular.


The group was now starting to think creatively. We'd just not stretched the creative muscle adequately...yet.

James Snider is a Global Marketing professional, responsible for developing the 3.4 billion dollar 1394/FireWire market. James spent 16 years in marketing with 7 years working at "for profit" companies, 8 years as executive director of a non-profit and the past year as an independent global business development consultant.  www.linkedin.com/in/jamessnider

The Cure was Worse than the Disease

The “Be the Cowboy not the Cow” idea was not ground breaking. It was not brilliant, but it was a big step in the right direction. We did something that stood out. The message, however, was lost on almost everyone. Our Asian counterparts did not understand it at all. They changed the headline to “One World, One Cable.” To our European associates, the message came across as “Be a Redneck…” They shrugged their shoulders and swallowed their embarrassment.

Our competitors Photoshopped the ad and changed the headline to read, “Where there are cows and cowboys, there is always a lot of fertilizer…”

However, a larger problem surfaced.  

After the ad hit EETimes, I received a phone call from one of the sales reps I knew pretty well.  He complained that he hated it when we ran ads.  "Every time an ad shows up in a magazine, my phone starts ringing off the wall.  My voicemail fills up with requests for pricing and samples from garage shops who will probably not be in business next month.  At best, they will buy a few samples to play with.  I don't have time to mess around with these people!  I meet my sales targets by serving the needs of my tier one customers.  You guys in Dallas are killing me with these ads!"

I quickly took this information to the marketing group. Unimpressed, they responded, "Yeah. The sales people tell us that every time we run an ad." 

They knew this already, but failed to see the problem.  I was reminded of something one of my marketing professors told us, "No person should ever work as a marketer until they have worked in sales.  You do not understand what the sales person is dealing with until you have done their job."

I finally succeeded in killing ads altogether and began to work with the group to come up with different promotion methods.  "Be the Cowboy, Not the Cow" looked like a failure at first, but what happened over the next few weeks showed that it was actually a game changer for this group.  It marked a turning point. The team started to get the idea that they did not have to go with the same old boring stuff. It was time to get creative. We turned our attention to some of the most creative marketing being done in the industry.  

James Snider is a Global Marketing professional, responsible for developing the 3.4 billion dollar 1394/FireWire market. James spent 16 years in marketing with 7 years working at "for profit" companies, 8 years as executive director of a non-profit and the past year as an independent global business development consultant.  www.linkedin.com/in/jamessnider

A Game Changer

After several meetings with the ad agency, we finally convinced them that we wanted something more than the same boring ads. They were trying to be a little creative but were holding back. After showing us several ad concepts which were marginally better than previous efforts, they pulled out one last mock-up. It was an image of a 1394 cable lassoing the world. The headline was “Be the Cowboy, Not the Cow”.

The room was silent. A stunned silence.

I liked it. I did not love it, but I at least felt like we were doing something different. Something that would stand out. Something that would get attention. Something with some punch.

Be the leader not the led. Be the one making things happen, not the one to whom things are happening. You have a choice, you can lead and be at the top of the food chain or you can be passive, not make a decisive step to add 1394, become part of the herd and eventually get eaten.

The idea was growing on me. It was quirky and a little risky (the message was a little convoluted) but it was a far cry from “the same ol’ same ol’.” My boss and I said almost in unison, “I like that one.”

The ad agency responded, “We were not serious. You wanted something ‘out there’ so we brought this as a joke.”

But we wanted and we got it. It was not destined to go down as a major marketing success for my employer, but it was a game changer. What we learned with this ad campaign changed the way this group of "engineers turned marketers" would see promotion for the rest of our time together.

James Snider is a Global Marketing professional, responsible for developing the 3.4 billion dollar 1394/FireWire market. James spent 16 years in marketing with 7 years working at "for profit" companies, 8 years as executive director of a non-profit and the past year as an independent global business development consultant.  www.linkedin.com/in/jamessnider

Determing the Problem

After the ad agency left, I had a heart-to-heart with the marketing team. The best justification for running a print ad they could muster was "to build awareness."
 
"Awareness of what?" was my response. In the back of my mind, I was thinking two things. Everyone who is interested in FireWire is fully aware that TI is the leader in the 1394/FireWire silicon market. "Awareness" is not a problem there. However, there was a general lack of awareness of the benefits of FireWire, how it differs from USB, who is designing in FireWire, and what competitive advantages there are to having FireWire in a device. The response to my question was disappointing.
 
"Awareness that we are the leaders in 1394," was their response. This was not a good answer. It did not justify spending a bunch of dollars. It did not fix a problem.
Most of these "marketers" had taken "Introduction to Marketing" as an undergrad and one or two other random marketing classes. Some of them had general purpose M.B.A.s but I was the only person in the room with an M.B.A. in marketing and 4 years of experience. Here was an opportunity to train an eager team of marketing wannabes.
 
"Who does not know that TI is the leader in 1394 silicon?"
 
"Well...we want to reinforce that message."
 
"Are we in danger of someone taking that position away from us?"
 
It was becoming clear to everyone that we needed to talk a lot more before we were ready to invite the ad agency back in.
What I had to do was to take the team through the reasons for running an ad:
1) Build awareness
2) Correct misinformation
3) Build reputation/image
4) Damage control
and there were several more on my list.
 
None of these were an issue for TI. If they wanted to maintain our position, there were other more effective and less expensive ways to do it. But first, I was going to walk through the process with them and run one more ad.
 
Then we could do a postmortem.

James Snider is a Global Marketing professional, responsible for developing the 3.4 billion dollar 1394/FireWire market. James spent 16 years in marketing with 7 years working at "for profit" companies, 8 years as executive director of a non-profit and the past year as an independent global business development consultant.  www.linkedin.com/in/jamessnider

A Solution without a Problem

When I returned to TI as Worldwide Strategic Marketing Manager (after a two year round trip to Philips Semiconductors in Albuquerque) I found that the marketing organization had grown considerably. Attending marketing meetings were a fresh batch of new marketers who were engineers a year or two before. Most of them had no marketing training and certainly no experience. I found that their decisions were not based on sound marketing logic. All they knew about marketing was that they got to travel on company money, go to trade shows, and decide what cool give away to hand out this year. Marketing was fun and they were there to have fun.

While I'd been away, TI started running print ads in EETimes and other major tech magazines. The ads were pretty boring and did little more than state that TI was the undisputed leader in the world of 1394/FireWire silicon. The unstated goal (but clear to me) was to establish TI as the safe choice. This was similar to the old IBM ad which stated, "No one ever got fired for choosing IBM". Of course, most of you don't remember when IBM was in the computer business....so what does that tell you?

I attended a meeting to select the next ad from a stack of a dozen boring ideas. I did not like a thing I was being shown. I'd known advertising majors in the MBA program and knew them to be the most creative people on the planet. What we were being shown had clearly been "made safe for engineering consumption." I.E. they only brought to TI the sort of safe, boring ads that engineers could accept. These people were no fools. They knew what TI was like. However, I'd been entrusted with the task of creating an innovative marketing team. Business as usual was no longer acceptable.

I wanted to move the group in a better direction, but first of all I needed to know what direction they wanted to head in. I needed to know what they were trying to accomplish by spending tons of money on print ads. Being new to the group, I asked the obvious question, "What is your reason for running a print ad? What is it that you want to accomplish?" It was a "deer in the headlights" moment for these young marketers who'd never thought about why they were running an ad. They were "marketers" and "marketers" run ads. That is "marketing."

The answer surprised me but I was pretty sure I knew what needed to be done. The short discussion that followed set into motion a quick series of steps that changed the way this team did marketing forever.

James Snider is an global marketing professional with 15 years experience in the semiconductor and high-tech industry. He is currently working as a consultant while looking for a permanent position. 

www.linkedIn.com/in/jamessnider

The Ying and Yang of Creativity in the Business World

When I was working on my M.B.A., I took an Advertising class. From the first night, the room was divided into two types of people. “Business Major Types” and “Creative Types”. The M.B.A. people were dressed in Dockers or slacks with a starched cotton shirt; with or without a loosened silk tie. The Advertising Majors were dressed in shorts and t-shirts with visible tattoos and things pierced that your Grandparents never imagined could be pierced.

The professor commented that he could tell a person’s major by the focus of their term assignments. The business majors were focused on ROI, spreadsheets, how to measure success, and business justification…with very boring ad campaigns. The advertising majors spent almost no time on numbers and gave all their attention to outlandish, entertaining, and very creative ads.

That was my introduction to the Ying-and-Yang of the business world. “Creative” and “Business” will always be at odds. Each one contributing what is required to keep the company going but always in conflict. In the business world of technology, Ying-and-Yang are not in balance which leads to problems which are masked by growing markets.



James Snider is an International Marketing professional, responsible for developing the 3.4 billion dollar 1394/FireWire market. James spent 15 years in marketing with 7 years working at "for profit" companies and 8 years as executive director of a non-profit.

James is currently looking for employment: www.linkedin.com/in/jamessnider