Some Practical Lessons in How to Get the Message Across

The methods may vary, but the purpose of every marketing campaign is to effectively convey a specific message to a targeted audience. For this issue and its focus on sales and marketing, BusinessWest offers four examples from local companies of how they’ve done just that. The clients’ products, or messages, range from laser-guided pistols to a circus; from a health care provider’s unique approach to a construction firm’s long history of excellence. In each case, the mission was the same — getting the point across.

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It’s Personal

Smith & Wesson Campaign Takes Aim at Specific Markets

The ads and imagery are for a product called ‘the Bodyguard,’ and Mike Coakley and Ralph Frisina were right on target when they called this a “fully integrated campaign.”
Coakley is vice president for account services for Winstanley Partners in Lenox, and Frisina is a vice president and the agency’s creative director. The Bodyguard series of firearms is one of the latest offerings from Smith & Wesson, and both men said that the campaign is a bit of a departure for this long-time client of theirs.
“Typically, they will introduce a product, and we’ll follow on the heels with the advertising,” Frisina said. But for this new line of firearms, the first with a fully integrated laser sight, it meant that the ad execs took a different shot at the campaign.
Coakley described the traditional methods employed in their past work with the Springfield-based arms manufacturer. “The way these campaigns will start usually is that the S&W marketing people will give us a creative brief, with details about the products, who the target market is, what their goals and objectives are. And then we’ll come back with the concepts. We typically will go to S&W with about four to six very different and unique concepts. They’ll choose from them, and make some remarks and tweaks, and then we’ll move forward with that choice.”
However, this campaign was different. Winstanley was hired to help with the official launch of the .380 pistol and a .38 caliber revolver at the annual SHOT Show convention, one of the largest trade shows for the firearm industry.
“When we say this is a fully integrated campaign,” Coakley explained, “it means that we started out by introducing the product, and then followed up with graphics, 30-second spots and a long video, a catalog, a brochure, and print ads for both consumers and the trade.”
The two products are designated as “personal, concealable firearms,” with a target for personal protection. Historically, revolvers are marketed toward women, and pistols — with their chambers integral to the barrel of the gun — are geared toward men.
Frisina said that one important distinction for the Bodyguard campaign was to address that traditionally targeted marketing, and to show how the two products are suited to both genders, using individual full-page ads in trade publications and TV spots that air on such networks as the Outdoor Channel and Spike TV.
In the 30-second pistol video, a well-dressed gentleman walks down an alleyway. “He is probably coming home from work or some situation like that,” Frisina said. “You see a shadowy figure pass behind him with a crowbar. That figure passes from one dark, shadowy area to another.
“What we focus on is the gentleman reaching in and drawing the gun out,” he continued, “and then focus on the product itself. The threat, after having seen the laser, presumably, is gone. That’s the reinforcement of personal protection and deterrent.”
The ‘woman’s video’ is similar: an imminent threat wielding a switchblade is averted when she pulls out the revolver and sweeps the barren parking garage behind her with the laser sight.
Coakley said that these videos accurately convey the message for the Bodyguard line.
“They reinforce the fact that these are lightweight and compact for personal, concealed carry,” he explained. “The idea is that you can protect yourself easily. But we never show the gun firing at a person. Part of this concept is that these are a deterrent. And if you feel confident, then that’s the idea. Thus the concept and headline of, ‘It’s Personal.’”
The personal protection market is a fast-growing segment of the industry, Coakley said, adding, “And this was one of the larger segments of the market already.”
“If you’re in that category,” he said, citing the innovative sight systems and products’ size, “these ads would persuade you.”

What’s the Big Idea?

Campaign Helps Bring Home Nurse Service’s Message

Bob Demetrius, senior creative director for LSHD Advertising in Chicopee, says that understanding marketing strategy is an important first step in the process for his clients.
“In other words, what is your message; what does your company bring to the market?” he explained, referring to some of the questions that must be answered by the client. “And what’s the real idea that’s going to resonate with the audience they’re seeking? You have to find out what your customer hopes for and cares about, and then from there, you craft a unique, differentiated message — something that your business can bring to your clients which no one else can.
“We sum that up by saying that it’s all about coming up with the big idea,” he added.
Fran O’Connell of Holyoke was a registered nurse when he first approached LSHD to craft a marketing strategy for his home health care business, O’Connell Professional Nurse Service (OPNS). “He had this great service and this unique business model,” Demetrius told BusinessWest, “but the problem was that no one knew who he was, and no one knew what he did. Fran told us that he was losing business to competition with less-qualified service.”
O’Connell approaches nursing and home-based health care with a more philosophical approach. His business looks at the person as a whole, not as a textbook or lockstep process. “Companies are often very focused on, ‘the medical journals tell us this, and if it’s this indication, it’s this drug.’ And so on,” Demetrius said.
“But what OPNS does is take the time to actually find out everything about that person, and what makes them tick,” he continued. “From a spiritual standpoint to cultural standpoints, they compile all this information to get a much bigger snapshot of who the person is that they’re trying to help and provide care for.”
The strategy, and ultimately the tagline for many of the ads for OPNS, became “Understand That I Am More.” This idea was integrated into radio spots, regional print ads and circulars, corporate pieces, and the company’s Web site.
“The core idea that we helped to create for OPNS is that it’s not just a person that you’re treating,” Demetrius said. “It’s your aunt, or my sister, or your brother-in-law. It gives immediacy to it, so that you see that it’s someone you care about; it’s someone you actually know.”
Finding the target audience for such service was easy, he added, saying that it’s Baby Boomers like himself who now have the challenge of thinking about their own parents or grandparents. And strategically speaking, an ideal spot to launch the ads at that demographic was the radio.
“You want to get them during their drive time when a lot of people are listening to the radio,” he explained. “That’s the best first place to go — if you’ve got two bucks and you want to spend it right, our recommendation is to get it on during morning and afternoon drive times. Point them to the Web site, and proliferate that way.”
The results from this foray into the marketplace met the highest expectations — “to the extent that Fran came back to us and said, ‘I want to double my marketing budget from last year,’” Demetrius said. “There was a direct correlation between the first few weeks of the ads and the phones ringing off the hook. The only thing they did differently as a business at that time was to get that resonating message out there.”
The success of this big idea means that OPNS has branched out into neighboring communities, and there are plans to extend even further.
“That’s one of the things that I’ve always been proud of in this agency,” Demetrius said, “to put our brains to work and then distill that into creative insight. For OPNS, their target group was looking for the answer, and we gave it to them.”

Circus with a Purpose

Campaign Touts Shriners’ Event That Goes Well Beyond Entertainment

Michelle Abdow says that, while her firm is at home working on some of the larger marketing campaigns in the area, with clients in health care, financial and legal services, and higher education, one account hits all the points of her multi-faceted approach to marketing. And it all happens under the big top.
From the Market Mentors offices in West Springfield, she said that “we offer full-service agency services — media buying, planning, broadcast production, creative messaging, graphic design, PR, events, social media, all of it. And what we do in a very short span of time for the Melha Shrine Circus, which happens once a year in April, is what we do all year with all of our clients.”
Nationwide, attendance at the circus has been dwindling, and the big names for those big tops have downsized their operations to a fraction of what they once were. But the Melha Shrine Circus, in its 58th year of operation, has posted its best seasons ever in the last three years.
Abdow said that, when the Shriners first came to her eight years ago, they had several different people performing the various roles her office now handles. “There was no continuity to anything they were doing,” she explained. “Our first order of business was to bring all that in and give the circus an over-arching personality.”
Working with the Shriners’ marketing committee and their circus chairman, Al Zippen, Abdow said the process for this campaign utilizes the entire core services of her office.
“For the Shrine Circus, we happen to do everything,” she said, “because they are a volunteer organization. We designed their Web site, we handle the ticket sales through the Big E, we do all their press, their creative concepts, the graphic design, and the media buying. Even though we do all that for them in a short period of time, that’s how we approach the work that we do for all our other clients.”
From year to year, the overall campaign will be revisited, and Market Mentors and the Shriners will evaluate what was successful, what can be reused, and, sometimes, what will need to be tweaked for the new campaign.
“Last year we built the Facebook page,” Abdow said. “They didn’t have a presence with any social media. It quickly grew, and now there are ways to stay in touch with their Facebook fans. Social media needs to be a part of certain clients’ marketing initiatives, but it’s not the end-all, be-all. We think it works very well for the Shriners, though.”
This year, the campaign will again highlight the importance of this event benefiting the community.
“A circus is a circus,” she said, “and you’re not going to change that fundamentally. But this is a circus with benefits beyond the entertainment value. The money raised here will stay locally. It allows the Shriners to do the great work that they do in the community.
“‘The Circus with a Purpose’ is the theme that we have been employing for the last few years, and will continue this year as well,” she added.
Reflecting on the core strength of the firm’s campaign for the circus, Abdow said that, in her opinion, the success of her marketing is reflected by the increased attendance posted in the last few years.
And while the circus might not be the largest of her clients, Adbow said that the efforts which define this campaign are no different than what the firm does for all other industries.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about results,” she explained. “And when circus attendance nationwide is declining, yet we have produced results of increased ticket sales in the last three years, that’s a great story.” n

Building a Brand

For This Firm, It’s Part of the Framework for Success

Branding is one of those terms that has become incredibly popular in marketing, said Nancy Urbschat, owner of TSM Design in Springfield.
“A lot of people say they do it,” she explained, “and they may or may not. But branding is serious business.”
Branding is, essentially, the process of building a business identity — who they are, what they are, and what their message and voice is.
“Businesses and organizations are living, breathing organisms,” she continued. “They’re people. There are values. The brand is the promise that the business makes: ‘this is what you can expect from us.’”
She told BusinessWest that the first true branding proposal she did was back in 2001. At that time, she encountered a description of the process by Dan Wieden, the West Coast ad exec who coined Nike’s famous “Just Do It” tag.
“I’ve always liked this statement,” she said, and then proceeded to read aloud, “‘a great brand is in it for the long haul; it can be anything. It knows itself. It invents or reinvents an entire category. [It] taps into emotion. It’s a story that’s never completely told. It has design consistency. And it’s relevant.’
“And all of that still holds true,” she added.
A TSM branding campaign is currently in the works for the construction-management firm Barr & Barr, headquartered in New York City but maintaining eight offices across the Northeast, including one in Springfield.
Urbschat said it began last summer when a man contacted her after having seen a successful branding that TSM had completed for an architectural firm.
“As we started talking,” she recounted, “it became clear that he represented a longstanding company with a rich and wonderful history. They started in New York City during the Depression. One of their first construction jobs was Rockefeller Center. The richness of the stories was just incredible.”
Barr & Barr wanted some help with its proposal system, its responses to requests for proposals, or RFPs.
“As we started digging deeper and looking through materials, we realized that all of the richness and all these amazing marquee projects that they had worked on — this wasn’t coming through in their materials,” she said.
“So we started to have conversations with the president of the company, and his senior vice presidents,” she continued, “and it became clear that, when you got them around a table, it was magic. The stuff they talked about, their commitment and their process … it was incredible. And it hadn’t changed since the company started, these really strong, core values.”
She said that she told the client, “‘we really need to find out who you are and what you are, beyond just the simple designation of a CM [construction management] firm.’”
Urbschat said that TSM is currently in the midst of applying this brand positioning to Barr & Barr’s proposal system, what she called the logical first example of brand application, and the original reason for that first meeting.
“But we had to establish the foundation for their identity before we could apply it,” she explained, “to communicate the richness of their history in such a way that generates revenue — and brings together all their expertise — in one document.”
Any institution or business can benefit from branding, she said, “but you have to be ready for it, because it involves some heavy lifting on the client’s part.”
For her work with Barr & Barr, Urbschat said that one of the best parts about this process is the potential to measure the brand’s effectiveness. “We will soon see measurable results,” she said.
“CMs go through interview processes, and ultimately it’s about the expertise of the people that are going to be on the team,” she explained, referring to the company that eventually gets the work. “But getting in the door, getting shortlisted, and where you go from there to the point where you got the job — that’s when we’ll know how successful we’ll be.”