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Everything Old Is New Again
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Business New Haven
2/23/1998
By: Susan Banfield
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There used to be two fundamental and distinct types of marketing. There was consumer marketing, which targeted individual buyers of products ranging from automobiles to toothpaste. And there was business-to-business marketing, which sold large quantities of expensive capital goods to businesses.
Traditionally, these two types of marketing have employed quite different approaches and techniques. Consumer marketing has been much more often emotionally based. Customers have been persuaded to buy a particular make of car or brand of toothpaste by glamorous ads which implied that their products would make the life of anyone who bought them equally glamorous. Impulse buying has frequently been encouraged.
On the other hand, “There is no impulse buying” in business-to-business marketing, says John Tiernan, president of Greenwich Corporate Advertising and past president of the Connecticut chapter of the Business Marketers Association.
“There is no glamour associated with it,” Tiernan explains. “You have to sell benefits, competitive advantages, so a buyer can justify the purchase to management. A buyer is responsible to management for his or her decision - and it had better be a sound one. A decision involves millions of dollars.”
Recent conversations with marketing executives at several area companies seem to indicate that the two approaches to marketing are no longer so distinct.
There have, for sure, been some new trends in consumer-oriented companies that follow the divergent underlying philosophies outlined above. One of these is that of increasing sales through diversification of the product line - trying to tap every facet of a market by offering something for everyone, or something for each of a customer's different whims.
Jeff Brown, marketing manager of stationery products at BIC, refers to this strategy as “new-products-driven” marketing.
“It used to be,” he says, “that a pen was a pen. This year alone BIC has eight new products.” These include “fashion” pens with '70s or comic-strip motifs, pens with wider bodies, a new type of marker, and pencils that also come in a variety of fun, fashion designs.
Brown has recently been using sampling to introduce customers to the new products - including, say a new “Soft Feel Bold Permanent Marker” in a package of regular stick ball pens.
Susie Watson, director of marketing at Timex in Middlebury, uses a similar approach, which she calls a “multi-brand strategy.”
“All products are labeled 'Timex,' but we also have subgroups so that we make sure we can appeal to particular niches in the market,” she explains.
Various Timex lines include Expedition watches which play off the popularity of the new corporate-casual style, Ironman Triathlon watches, a line of sports watches, Winnie-the-Pooh watches that are popular with children and as a trendy accessory for teens, and Essentials, a line of upscale women's fashion watches.
The idea is to seek out new niches and to boost sales incrementally, Watson says.
BIC, which recently became more firmly entrenched in the consumer-based marketing camp with the creation of a new consumer marketing division (it used to market mainly to retailers), has also had recent success with the time-honored consumer marketing tactic of promotions.
The company has enclosed free stickers in pencil packages, and offered baseball caps and other merchandise in exchange for a certain number of proof-of-purchase coupons and the cost of shipping and handling.
Brown says this strategy has been effective in persuading customers, confronted with a choice of several different pen brands, to buy BIC products.
However, as consumers become more savvy - and more cynical - the gulf between consumer marketers and business-to-business marketers has narrowed.
Increasingly, individual consumers as well as businesses are demanding demonstrable value and advantages in the products they buy. Because of the increasing skepticism of consumers, Watson says that Timex is relying less and less on advertising as a marketing tool, and more and more on public relations.
“Twenty percent of the public thinks advertising is the least believable of all things,” she says. Now, “We have an incredible nationwide PR effort. If people read things editorially, they're more likely to trust them. We believe very much in newspapers.”
Watson credits her company's impressive No. 3 ranking among favorite fashion brands of American women to Timex' “high profile in newspapers.”
Timex has had success as well with its strategy of promoting special features that customers find genuinely practical. Its Indiglo glow-in-the-dark faces and Fast-Wrap (Velcro) straps have brought on board numerous new customers looking for a genuine advantage in a product.
Brown reports that BIC has reintroduced its famous 1960s slogan, “It Writes First Time Every Time,” and in general has returned to “pushing our strengths” - quality and value.
In business-to-business marketing, salespeople have traditionally played a key role. “It's very important that the supplier be reputable,” says Tiernan.
Sales personnel play a key role in building a company's reputation for integrity. At Executone, salespeople are central to the company's marketing strategy.
Kirsten Farris, vice president of marketing for Executone's Claricom Networks division, describes her approach as “sales-focused marketing.” She does little with advertising or PR. “We're not interested in creating an image,” she says.
Instead, Farris sees her goal as making her salespeople more effective to customers. Claricom salespeople use a very consultative approach, meeting customers in their offices, finding out what their telecommunications needs are, and offering to help them meet those needs.
Jeff Brown reports that “Salesmen have gotten more important” at BIC, too. “We spend 20 times more time [than previously] teaching salespeople about categories and competition than we used to,” he says.
Watson says that at Timex, too, sales representatives are “invaluable.” It was salesmen, she says that helped make Indiglo a success.
While consumer-based marketers have moved closer to business-to-business marketers in their approaches, the latter have developed new approaches of their own.
Farris notes that business customers today are “less cost- and price-oriented.” Instead, she says, “You need to build trust and [push] the integrity of the service. That's how telecommunications companies keep customers. People feel comfortable.”
Another recent trend in business-to-business marketing has been, of course, the increased use of electronic media. “The Internet is getting a huge amount of attention in this business,” says Tiernan.
Farris adds that this is particularly true on the West Coast, where she worked until recently. “It's more high-tech [out West],” she says. “Web pages are more important.”
Most of the marketers interviewed for this article boasted success for the various new approaches they are employing. Not all, however, are so glowingly optimistic.
John Tiernan, for example, isn't so sure the new focus on the Internet is a good thing.
“A lot of companies are building Web sites and don't know why they're doing it - just because everyone else is,” says Tiernan. Right now, he notes, the Internet “has a limited role in selling.”
He suggests that business marketers focus more on the tried-and-true media of print advertising and “real physical [not virtual] trade shows.” BNH
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