Brown Marketing - So what is your message?

School daze
After viewing focus groups of college bound students, Brown was leading a discussion with top marketing personnel from several leading private liberal arts colleges. The school officials were frustrated that despite all their efforts in “cool art direction” students were so critical of their marketing efforts. Time after time, the students referred to the marketing pieces as all looking and sounding alike. One official actually defended their marketing concepts by saying his school could not afford to be different. In his words, “What if we created a unique piece but it’s not what students wanted?”

BROWN – “These colleges need to back the truck up. Anyone with a high school junior or senior living at home knows how much is wasted in direct mail. Their solution can be found in generating a position that’s believable. Then figure out how to deliver it. And if they end up back in the mail, so be it. At least they’ll be noticed.”

Fake demand
Consumers spend money for a variety of reasons. In the collectibles category, they like to buy what is considered scarce. So it was not a surprise to Brown that a baseball card company was having trouble introducing their new product. The more they advertised, the worse the product sold. So Brown recommended they cancel consumer ads but just support the product in the trades. The product became the company’s most profitable line within 12 months.

BROWN – “We get to thinking our advertising is precious. It’s not.”

Got a quarter?
A company operating airport baggage carts wanted to improve sales. So Brown spent several hours in airports just watching consumers pick up their luggage. He watched many bend over and squint trying to read the directions while others fumbled in their pockets looking for quarters. The answer was quite simple – redesign the instructions to include larger type and even larger credit card insignia.

BROWN – “We get so caught up in our businesses that at times we fail to see what’s right in front of us.”

Too fast.
A client had invented a new product and received tremendous advanced publicity in the New York Times. The only problem was that the product was years away from production and distribution. Initial orders were good, but manufacturing was month away from production. By the time the new product was shipped, the buzz had faded and the product introduction failed.

BROWN – “Excitement and enthusiasm are wonderful to have. Now if we can only get people excited and enthused about planning.”