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MARKETING, ADVERTISING & SALES
Team Players
The stars behind the marketing success of some of the region's largest corporations
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Business New Haven
9/6/1999
By: Susan Banfield
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Look carefully at the companies that stand out in an industry, those that are at the head of the pack, and what you will find is that first-rate marketing has frequently been largely responsible for their success. Thus it's hardly an exaggeration to honor those who head up the marketing departments in such companies with the designation "superstar."
These are men and women who constantly have to meet challenges in their respective industries for which no coursework could possibly have prepared them. They are adept managers who have been able to draw on a wealth of business experience, plain common sense and good instincts in order to figure out how, often against daunting odds, to make a particular product or service a best-seller.
Robert E. Hoxie Jr., director of marketing, DataViz, Shelton
If ever in the course of doing business you need to convert a Macintosh file to IBM, or vice-versa, or you need to open a Macintosh e-mail attachment with a PC, you most likely use DataViz software to do the job.
DataViz' MacLinkPlus, Conversions Plus, Mac Opener, Attachment Opener and other similar packages dominate the field of conversion software. The man largely responsible for the success of these products is Rob Hoxie, who has been with DataViz for almost nine years, since the company was first forming.
Hoxie's previous experience in marketing had been through several college internships with companies such as Proctor & Gamble. He found that marketing high-tech products such as the DataViz software packages presented a number of challenges he had not encountered working on campaigns for Oil of Olay. Perhaps the main one - which faces anyone marketing a high-tech product - is helping potential customers to understand what a product is and does.
"Our products are relatively complex," Hoxie explains. "Everyone knows what laundry detergent does. We have to explain from the ground up what our product does."
Hoxie met this challenge by creating a one-line, simple description for each product. To promote brand recognition, all the descriptors utilized the word "instantly."
Another challenge Hoxie faced was that of being a relatively small player in the software industry. His policy of creating consistency among packages, logos and tag lines has been part of his strategy for meeting the challenge.
"Every time you see an ad, you start to recognize DataViz," he explains. As marketer for a smaller company, Hoxie has also had to cope with the reality of not having what he calls "a Super Bowl advertising budget." His solution here: ride on the coattails of the big guys. For a while Apple bundled a version of MacLinkPlus with all of its computers. Hoxie also does co-marketing with Microsoft, mainly in the educational arena.
Additionally, Hoxie has faced the challenge of trying to create recognition for products that are basically invisible. Once DataViz software is installed on a customer's computer, he or she simply opens whatever files or documents are needed, without being aware of the software that makes the operation possible. To make the software "visible," Hoxie imbedded splash screens in it that announced to users that their conversion was almost complete, and that it was a DataViz product that was helping them.
While the company has virtually no competition for its compatibility and conversion products, recognition remains an important concern because of DataViz' newer line of software - products which "synchronize" information on a customer's personal organizer with that on his or her desktop or laptop. In this arena DataViz has several serious competitors.
Finally, Hoxie faces a challenge all too common in the fast-changing computer industry: the unpleasant reality that the niche the company's products were created to fill could quickly disappear. If Microsoft ever succeeds at an industry takeover, the need for such products as Conversions Plus will vanish.
"We've been worrying about this ever since I've been here," Hoxie says. At DataViz, staying on top of technology and where it's going - which Hoxie says is of critical importance in high-tech marketing - has proved the key to a solution. He forecasts that personal organizers are going to be very big - that cell phones will soon do double-duty as both organizers and phones. This insight lies behind DataViz' foray into its new line of synchronization products.
Charles E. Rudnick, vice president/strategic marketing, SNET
Even the average person on the street is aware of the principal marketing challenge SNET has faced in recent years. He has received too many dinnertime phone calls from salespeople trying to sell him on some new long-distance carrier or other not to be. It is the challenge of the long-distance price war.
SNET's Charles Rudnick feels that his intimate knowledge of every phase of his company's operations, including especially strong customer knowledge and product knowledge, is what enables him to meet the situation with confidence. Rudnick has worked for SNET for 18 years.
The long-distance war is a war SNET is determined to win. The company has more market share in interstate service among Connecticut phone consumers than all its competitors combined, and is the winner, for three years running now, of the J.D. Power award for best long-distance service.
Like Hoxie, Rudnick believes strongly in the importance of making his company's services simple for customers to understand. An SNET ad for its voice-messaging service, for example, pictures a dog sitting by an answering machine and pawing the "erase" button after each of its master's messages (all from women who sound interested in him).
The real key to SNET's long-distance strategy, however, lies in cultivation of its reputation for trustworthiness and ease of doing business with. "We went back to brand-tracking," says Rudnick. "This showed that customers thought of us as trustworthy, simple to do business with."
"We never fell into the promotion route," he says. "We try to take the higher route." Although SNET cannot compete with the advertising budgets of some of its rivals (much like DataViz), it has worked hard to drive home its message: "local, honest, simple."
The marketing department also makes extensive use of focus groups and customer surveys to accurately assess what consumers are looking for. This has been the basis of the main features of its service, all in keeping with the "simple, honest" image: no gimmicks, no fees, one bill, one-second rounding, competitive rates.
Another key feature of SNET's marketing strategy has been to create customized bundles of various services, such as caller ID, voice messaging and Internet services, and offer these for an attractive price. While they may not even try to win the price war when it comes to long-distance service, here, with bundled services, the company can and does focus on a message of "value."
As a player in another very fast-paced high-tech field, other marketing challenges are looming for SNET, the results of recent technological advances. Chief among these, says Rudnick, will be the challenge of marketing the company's high speed Internet services. How he will play this one, however, is a hand he prefers not to reveal for now.
Paul M. Philpott, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, Physicians Health Services, Shelton
The field of managed health care is vastly different from that of telephony, and the marketing challenges HMOs face are of a very different order from those encountered by telephone companies. Yet the winning strategy hammered out by Physicians Health Services' Paul Philpott has much in common with that followed by SNET.
And there is little doubt that it is a winning strategy: PHS is today the largest HMO in the state, and for the third year in a row has been selected by the Sachs Group as one of the ten best health plans in the nation.
The main challenge that faces any HMO is the complexity of the way in which the product is purchased. The employer is the first customer, but most employers are supported by insurance brokers or consultants who help them make their decision, and who must also be "sold" on the product. Finally, there is the end-user, the consumer, who typically chooses from among several plans.
As a result of this complex purchasing process, "We have to target several groups," says Philpott. "There's constant tension between all stakeholders. People want liberal, rich health care benefits. The employer, who sponsors the plans, wants to provide health-care benefits on a cost-effective basis."
Philpott has found, however, that one approach has worked well with all these groups. Basically, it is similar to the one adopted by SNET - that of positioning his company as one that offers quality service and which customers trust. "In the marketing world there are only two choices," Philpott explains. "Either you are the price leader or, if not, you must explain why your product or service is worth the additional premium. We differentiate ourselves based on extremely high levels of customer satisfaction, and very high levels of customer loyalty and customer service."
In harmony with his positioning of PHS, Philpott has worked to create an advertising campaign he describes as "filled with integrity. We want to under-promise and over-deliver," he says. "Those few times where we've stretched a little bit - over-promised - we've regretted it."
Cynthia P. Belak, first vice president of marketing, People's Bank
Cynthia Belak came to People's Bank four and a half years ago, while People's now-famous Stop & Shop initiative - placing bank branches in more than 40 local supermarkets - was in the planning stages. Although she had more than 16 years of experience in marketing for banks and other financial institutions, Belak says the Stop & Shop initiative was a real marketing challenge.
Not only was there the logistical challenge - 40-plus locations opening over a short period of time, each of which would require its own localized marketing campaign - but there was the challenge of finding a way to capitalize on the initiative to get out a broad-based message about the bank being customer-focused.
A key element in Belak's strategy was to enlist the services of a first-rate advertising agency. Belak herself had spent a number of years working for an agency that managed such accounts as Bankers Trust and Dime Savings Bank. She knew how much a good agency had to offer.
"I really look at an agency as a strategic partner," she says. "I treat them as a partner, not as vendors." Belak selected North Castle Partners of Stamford. Together they worked to create a campaign of high-impact messaging. They utilized billboards and television, after having been off TV for seven years.
Belak also decided to capitalize on the widespread consolidation going on among People's competitors, and to use customers' frustration with their banks' repeated management and name changes as an opportunity to differentiate her institution.
In her campaigns she stressed the fact that People's had been in the state for 150 years, and that the bank knew Connecticut and knew its customers. In this, Belak's approach was similar to that employed by SNET and PHS: she built on people's desire to find an institution they could trust, and on the already existing reputation for trustworthiness People's had. Belak reports that she has been "constantly amazed at the reservoir of good feelings" there are for People's.
The results of Belak's strategy are, of course, by now well known. The Stop & Shop initiative was not only a huge success - it was quickly copied by other banks. In addition, the image of People's that Belak hoped to create has been established, and has helped to win thousands of customers.
If there is any key to success that all four of these marketing mavens agree on, it is that good marketers must above all be in touch with what their customers want. "Marketing is nothing more than being able to put yourself in a potential customer's shoes," says Hoxie.
Speaking of shoes, "The best marketers understand that one shoe doesn't fit all. It takes experience to learn how to listen to your customers," says Rudnick.
Yet most stress the importance of other qualities and abilities as well - especially leadership and management skills. "I'm a big believer in the value of leadership," says Philpott, who says he is grateful for his years in the Marine Corps. There, he says, "I had the privilege of working for some outstanding leaders."
"It helps to be very organized," adds Hoxie.
Has marketing changed much over the last few years? Charles Rudnick is one who would answer with a strong affirmative. "When I first came out of school marketing was not so sophisticated as it is today. It's become more and more analytical because of the information explosion.
"Today you need to be analytical," he adds. "There's so much information available to you. You need to be database-savvy. It's not just an intuitive business any more."
At SNET Rudnick has been involved with creating a special marketing curriculum for employees, one that stresses these new analytical skills. The analytical side of marketing, he says, "doesn't just come without education."
Still, his colleagues are not so quick to downplay the intuitive side of their business. "Of course you have to do your homework," says Belak. "You have to have your facts." But Belak also believes that an important quality in a successful marketer is that of having the conviction to be able to stand up for an intuition one believes in.
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