Marketing Maestros
Global Marketing: Understanding a Country’s Unique Cultures
By Ken Beaulieu, senior director of marketing and communications, ANA
Posted: Mar 29, 2012 12:00am ET
This is part two of my recent interview with Chris Burggraeve, chief marketing officer at Anheuser-Busch InBev and president of the World Federation of
Advertisers. In part one, Chris explained the importance of understanding the strengths of your competitors in each market, and how AB In-Bev’s “Way of Marketing” creates sustainable brand health. Here, he shares his thoughts on overcoming the “ugly American” stereotype.
Q: Many companies have been criticized for introducing new products to new markets without taking the time to learn about the unique cultures that exist within each country. What valuable lessons have you learned about marketing outside “traditional” boundaries?
Chris: There are many entertaining and very instructive books about misfiring in global business, such as Blunders in International Business, by David Ricks. One can get “lost in translation” very easily. I will never forget one of my first trips to China many years ago. I was invited to a hotel by the local Chinese manager with a note saying, “Welcome at happy hour for drinks and snake.” He meant snacks. Many people have stories like that. But the interesting thing is that most of these stories are about Western companies expanding into so called emerging markets. Evaluating local opportunities through a parochial view, through a specific American lens, for example, can be very risky. It can lead to that “Ugly American” stereotype portrayed in the brilliant 1958 political novel by the same name. Recently, I saw a new Broadway show in New York City called Chinglish. It’s a hilariously funny story about a Midwestern entrepreneur and his first ventures in China. The theatre was filled equally with Chinese and Americans, yet everyone had a blast. The show made it clear, in a very elegant way, that getting lost in translation is not a one-sided phenomenon.
New ANA Recession Survey Results
By Bill Duggan, Group EVP, ANA
Posted: Mar 28, 2012 12:00am ET
ANA recently fielded the sixth edition of our “Recession Survey,” a survey initiated in the depths of the recession
in 2008 to understand how the economic atmosphere is affecting client-side marketers.
A key finding from the current survey is that client marketing budgets continue to be under pressure. 84% of marketers say that they are challenged with identifying cost savings and reductions in their current marketing and advertising efforts, which is a slight increase compared to last year’s survey (77%). It is notable that this stat peaked in early 2009 (93%).
Marketers who said that they are currently challenged with identifying cost savings and reductions in their marketing and advertising efforts were asked how they plan to reduce costs and expenditures. The most popular way is departmental travel and expense restrictions (68%). Additionally, many marketers plan on challenging their agencies to reduce internal expenses/identify cost reductions (52%) as well as reducing advertising campaign media budgets (48%).
The new reality is that marketers will continue to be conscientious of their spending, even as the economy recovers.
A Bigger Small World
By Bill Duggan, Group EVP, ANA
Posted: Mar 23, 2012 12:00am ET
Last week ANA and WFA (World Federation of Advertisers) partnered together for the first time on a Global Marketing Conferen
ce. In prepping for the event, I uncovered some simple, yet very interesting, population facts.
The world population just went over 7 billion this month. Meanwhile, the U.S. population is 313 million. 4.5% of the world’s population is in the U.S. Said another way, 95% of the potential consumers for many products and services are outside the U.S.
Many U.S. marketers are very U.S.-centric. We often think about the U.S. and then “ROW” – that odd term for rest of the world. Many of us speak only one language fluently. But that simple population fact—95% of the potential consumers for many products and services are outside the U.S.—is very enlightening.
Joe Tripodi, chief marketing and commercial officer at The Coca-Cola Company said it very well, “There is a new Atlanta somewhere in the world every thirty days.” The city of Atlanta, by the way, has a population of about 450,000.
Get Pinterested
By Caitlin Nitz, Knowledge & Research Specialist
Posted: Mar 20, 2012 12:00am ET
All of my female friends are on Pinterest. Really, all of them. So, it was time I checked it out. Within minutes, I was addicted.
What is Pinterest? It's virtual scrapbooking or bookmarking. You "pin" images on virtual "boards" with themes such as art, fashion, and of course, wedding planning (this is apparently a very popular board theme, regardless of whether or not you are engaged).
You can upload photos from your computer, or more commonly, you paste the URL of a webpage (say you're lusting over a pair of shoes from Bloomingdales.com) and Pinterest finds the largest images on that webpage for you to pin on your board. It will also pin the address of the webpage under the photo.
Now, this is a marketer's dream. I'm promoting your products on my board and other people are "liking" my posts and repinning your products to their boards, so that even more people are exposed to it and lusting over it.
However, I was dismayed to discover that so many of my favorite brands' websites are incompatible with Pinterest. Pictures loaded on websites with Flash are unpinnable.
Marketers, you're missing out! I have purchased fashion items that I have pinned. If I can't pin your image, you've lost a potential purchase, and my opinion of your brand is diminished.
Isn't it about time you got pinterested?
Everything is Brand
By Bill Duggan, Group EVP, ANA
Posted: Mar 12, 2012 12:00am ET
One of my daughters is in her high school band. An annual fund raising activity for the band is the sale of citrus-those grapefruits and oranges are just delicious.
When our delivery arrived recently I found it curious that a box of oranges was labeled "California Navels" and included an outline of the state of Florida with the initials LBG. California oranges from Florida? 
This reminds me, yet again, that every touch point a product has with the customer is a branding opportunity. Marketers need to use those touch points wisely or suffer the consequences. Branding is no longer just about an ad campaign; rather, it consists of so much more - the call center, counter staff at retail, service at restaurants, web site, packaging, etc..
A quick web search provided lots of background on LBG. Langdon Barber Groves, is based in Florida, and "has been meeting the fundraising needs of all types of organizations since 1966. Our approach ... is to provide a healthy alternative to the cavities and calories of other fundraising products."
Reading that told me something very special about the company and made me feel good about them. LBG has a great opportunity to make their packaging harder working-yes, a branding opportunity-rather than confuse me re: California oranges from Florida.
Color Changes Everything
By Bill Duggan, Group EVP, ANA
Posted: Mar 9, 2012 12:00am ET
I love the new Target "Color Changes Everything" campaign. The advertising is fresh and memorable. It communicates a clear benefit-get this-without a single spoken word of English in the advertising. Watch it here. 
I'd love to see the creative brief that led to this work. Clearly, the client wasn't asking for a laundry list of benefits and support points to be shoe horned into the advertising. There's been a lot of chatter in the industry lately about the poor state of creative briefs. In Target's case, a simple brief helped lead to simply outstanding work.
Here's how good the advertising is - yesterday I saw a 30-second execution and was actually disappointed that it wasn't the 60! It's hard to remember the last time I saw a commercial and wished it was longer.
Kudos to Target and its agency!
Global Marketing: Understanding Your Competition
By Ken Beaulieu, senior director of marketing and communications, ANA
Posted: Mar 5, 2012 12:00am ET
I recently interviewed Chris Burggraeve, chief marketing officer at Anheuser-Busch InBev and president of the World Federation of Advertisers, in
advance of his address at the ANA/WFA Global Marketing Conference on March 14 in New York City. He offered a veritable treasure trove of insight on building a global brand, introducing new products to new markets, reaching consumers at a local level, capitalizing on digital media, and meeting the needs of society across the world. I can't thank him enough for his time and candor.
Over the next few weeks in this space, I will share Chris' responses to my list of questions. Let's get it started:
Q. When it comes to implementing a global marketing strategy, why is it important to understand the strengths of your competitors in each market, especially new competitors?
Chris: For a global top five FMCG like we are, with 200-plus brands, three of which are global (Budweiser, Stella Artois, and Beck's), having a strong global marketing capability is critical, but marketing can never win the fight alone. One can only win over the long haul by sharing a same culture, by being systematically better operators, by being systematically better at bottom-line management, and by being superior at topline management. Within the topline capability, the key is to be better at resourceful brand building than the competition - in every country where we operate, and across countries.
For us that means having a clearly articulated AB InBev "Way of Marketing," rigorously implemented globally by all our marketers and clearly supported and understood by our operators. The AB InBev Way of Marketing is about art, science, and discipline. It is the one language spoken by all. It consists of three key pillars. The first pillar relates to brand portfolio management, starting with proprietary demand segmentation models aimed at capturing existing, latent, and emerging demand. The second is about connecting in relevant and efficient ways with our drinkers. The third pillar is all about ongoing renovation and innovation. All our marketers go through a total of 24 modules in our AB InBev Marketing University - and the training never stops. Many people from other functions also go through a marketing training "boot camp," as marketing is too important to be left to the marketers only. The AB InBev Way of Marketing is part and parcel of our overall company performance and reward system, and it is clearly linked to our overall business model. It is designed to create sustainable brand health. And we all share a deeply held belief that "brand health today, is topline growth tomorrow."
In our strategic planning and outlook sessions each year, we assess our progress versus our own stated dream of "becoming the best beer company in a better world." We see if the deeper underlying values held by consumers have changed, whether new products have appeared that serve the same consumer need as our beers, how our industry is perceived differently by stakeholders, etc. Of course, we always take a step back to see what we can learn from existing and new competition. All the input is then used to make choices and various time horizon plans for every global function, including marketing, and for every country.
No Pleasure Cruise
By Bill Duggan, Group EVP, ANA
Posted: Mar 2, 2012 12:00am ET
The Today Show on March 1 witnessed a horrific collision between content and advertising. Within the first fifteen minutes of the show, a segment aired about a cruise ship that had lost power while in the Indian Ocean. According to the segment, it took three days to tow the ship into port, through waters known for pirate attacks, and during that time passengers endured stifling heat and had to spend nights sleeping on the top deck. The cruise ship belongs to Carnival and the story noted that this was the line's second PR disaster in less than two months, while flashing to images of the Costa Concordia still on its side off the coast of Italy.
It only took ten minutes for the next PR disaster.
During the very next commercial break an ad for Carnival ran - the one with the Todd Rundgren track ("I don't wanna work, and wanna bang on the drum all day") opening with a teen age girl blowing a big bubble watching dad totally unwind on the cruise vacation.
Why, why, why - in this day and age isn't someone at the network (or local station level) monitoring the news content and looking at the commercial log to make sure embarrassments like this don't happen? Advertisers deserve better.
This is an age old issue. But the stakes are higher now as mistakes like this are amplified via social media.
My guess is that the Carnival spot aired in a local break on WNBC in New York (and perhaps other markets). But checks and balances need to be applied at both the national and local levels.
The Mile High Club Meets the 21st Century
By Caitlin Nitz, Knowledge & Research Specialist
Posted: Feb 27, 2012 12:00am ET
The old saying "Don't judge a book by its cover," is more relevant than ever in today's Web 2.0 world. From LinkedIn to online dating profiles, we now judge other people based on tiny 100x100 pixel images. Never before has image control and personal promotion been more important to get a job, a boyfriend, and now a good seat on an airplane.
KLM, a Dutch airline, has introduced its "Meet & Seat" program, which lets passengers pick who they'd like to sit next to during the flight by browsing other passenger's Facebook or LinkedIn profiles. The airline touts it as an opportunity to sit next to someone "interesting" and "expand your network." Promotions for the program on the airline's website feature two handsome young business men meeting at the airport lounge before the flight, chatting it up onboard, and sharing a cab ride into the sunset after landing.
It's all so wonderfully naïve. I can't help thinking that Meet & Seat could create the blind date from hell, where there's literally no exit strategy and no "emergency phone call" from your best friend to rescue you.
Thank goodness the Meet & Seat fine print reads, "every passenger reserves the right to change his or her seat and KLM reserves the right to assign or reassign a seat at any time, even after boarding of the aircraft" - in case you did a poor job of judging that book by its cover.
Alive & Well
By Bill Duggan, Group EVP, ANA
Posted: Feb 22, 2012 12:00am ET
"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." Mark Twain uttered those now famous words in 1897 upon hearing that his obituary had been published in the New York Journal.
In recent years, many pundits have been predicting the death of television. At the ANA TV Forum in 2003 there was a session titled "Is Commercial Television (as we know it) Dead?" which was described as follows: a challenge to stop the madness of spending billions of dollars in a medium where returns are increasingly hard to get. Thought
leader and creative thinker Joe Jaffe (and a friend of ANA) published a book in 2005
called "Life After the 30-Second Spot" which was pretty much an obituary of television.
But alas, the recent Grammy Awards were watched by 39 million viewers - the second highest all-time and best showing since 1984. The Super Bowl was watched by 167 million viewers and set a new record as the most widely viewed event in American television history. The average household watches 8 hours 29 minutes of television a day - also an all-time high. Now, it's the American television industry that has the right to say, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." This resurrection of the industry has been brought on via vitality in traditional television as well as new opportunities with TV and video. Some of those new opportunities are described below.
For the past year ANA and Canoe Ventures have worked together on a study measuring the effectiveness of ITV. The insights were promising as key brand metrics-including brand recall, likelihood to seek additional information, and likelihood to purchase-were
significantly higher when accompanied by a RFI interactive offer.
"Social TV," a term most of us hadn't even heard of a couple years ago, provides a platform for consumers to interact online with one another as well as with programming and brands.
Online video remains hot-YouTube, VEVO, Hulu, pre-roll, post-roll, etc. Jack Myers predicts +48% annual growth for online video advertising revenue over next the next four years.
Out-of-home video (also called digital placed based media) is everywhere-in stores, gas stations, airports, elevators, taxi cabs, and more. According to the newest ANA/Forrester survey, 63% of marketers agree that out-of-home video is increasingly important.
And then there's mobile. 2011 seems to have finally been the year of mobile. I recently heard a prediction that by 2016 there will be 7 billion people in the world and 10 billion mobile phones. Wow.
"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
Mark Twain, 1897
Television (& Video) Industry, 2012
