Marketing - Business in Vancouver

September 2012

marketing Mix and match

Together forever

Spring Advertising’s Rob Schlyecher sees an end to the separation of new and traditional services in ad agencies

Integration of traditional and new strategies net Fasken Martineau and marketing director Blair Lill an industry award

Personal goals

Tracy Dallas, co-founder, Total Staffing Solutions, allows staff to access their own social media to look for candidates

Switching channels

An emergency shutdown of their offices had Omicron’s Bev Attfield and Bill Tucker testing different lines of communication

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September 2012

marketing Perfect blends Taking risks isn’t something business owners tend to feel comfortable with, but experimenting without knowing specific results is nothing new in the field of marketing. Now, in the era of Facebook, Foursquare, blogs and tweets, on top of print, radio and television, it’s hard to know where to place one’s bets.

In this third of Business in Vancouver’s Business Excellence series for 2012, we look at integrated marketing strategies that leverage the best of traditional and new media. Can direct mail work for a web-design company? What about YouTube for a law firm? The answer would be “yes” and the message is clear: no matter what media you use, keep your goal in mind.

Graphically Speaking, for example, is interested in providing education; DDB is after the emotional reaction; and Spring taps into personal values to stand out from the crowd. But in each case, the integrated campaigns use strategic personal interactions, both faceto-face and online, to gain clients and keep them engaged.

Along with our published Excellence series, BIV presents a breakfast series with panels of experts in each area of business. Join us for our Marketing Breakfast panel with Bev Attfield, marketing director, Omicron; Blair Lill, marketing director, Fasken Martineau; and Rob Schlyecher, creative director, Spring Advertising; September 25, 7-9 a.m., Marriott Vancouver Pinnacle, 1128 West Hastings. Visit www.biv.com/events/biv for tickets and more information.

– Baila Lazarus, features and magazines editor, Business in Vancouver

Contents 4 Keeping score

Setting marketing goals, along with focused strategizing, needs to be a part of any marketing mix

6 First position

Integrated campaigns can help keep companies high on Google rankings

10 Alternative solutions

Radio spots followed by outside-the-box web interaction and guerilla marketing a perfect fit for Spring Advertising clients

14 Crowd control

Omicron leveraged every online and offline solution it could to keep in touch with clients during an emergency

16 It’s in the mix

Leveraging the best of traditional and new media yields success for the Counsel Network

20 The art of hospitality

Hotels and restaurants follow personal contact with online posts to keep clients

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Whatever medium is used, tapping into heart-felt values is always in vogue

Major score with Canucks partnership Law firm leverages hockey team’s popularity to raise its own profile

W

By Michael Bernard

hen the Vancouver Canucks were shut out in Game 7 of the 2011 Stanley Cup, millions of fans were left deflated and depressed; but not Vancouver’s largest law firm.

Win or lose, Fasken Martineau considered its unique partnership campaign with the NHL team was a resounding victory for the firm, its clients and its internal staff.

“It turned out that Game 7 was the most viewed playoff game in history [with more than 50 million watching it on TV],” said Blair Lill, the law firm’s director of marketing and business development.

“And our sign was there.”

While it was a high-profile moment, it was really but a blip in a lengthy and intense marketing and public relations campaign for which the firm used a blend of both traditional and new forms of marketing to communicate its message of support for the Canucks.

The integrated campaign won the firm the Legal Marketing Association’s HELM (Honouring Excellence in Legal Marketing) Award this year.

4 Business IN VAncouver Excellence Series

The campaign has its roots in a partnership started five years ago when Fasken Martineau decided it needed to do something to promote its unfamiliar name in town after absorbing the 120-year-old Vancouver firm Russell DuMoulin in one of a spate of law firm consolidations across Canada.

“My thinking at the time was if we could get a relationship with the Canucks, the type of things they stand for – teamwork, excellence, community involvement and community service – would be the type of things [that would be identified with the firm],” said Vancouver managing partner Will Westeringh.

“We would also get our name in a venue like Rogers Arena where corporate Vancouver and the business people are.”

Westeringh said getting key partners on board was critical. While they all eventually agreed, “I think some of them saw it as outside of the box. It was a risk.”

It was also important the campaign didn’t run afoul of the rules and regulations governing advertising by the legal profession.

“I would be embarrassed if we as lawyers didn’t check out the legality of what we were proposing to do, so we definitely did our due diligence. We never had a

question from the Law Society or anyone else.”

The Canucks’ playoff campaign kept the firm’s five marketing professionals engaged full time, from January 2011 on. They set a number of external goals, Lill said. Those included using the firm’s existing Canucks sponsorship to increase the profile and brand awareness, gaining greater media exposure, giving clients and lawyers networking forums to further develop business relationships and increase firm revenue, and creating a unique client experience in the firm’s guest suite and club seats.

This last goal – which represents the traditional side of law firm marketing – was central to the campaign.

“That was where a lot of the planning and research comes into play,” said Lill.

“Will and I looked very closely at key clients, strategic guests that we would like to bring into the fold. And we would basically handpick who would like to go (to the suite and club seats) and then bring along the lawyers for that game, and take it game by game.”

To draw in a select group of new and existing clients, Fasken created “Hockey Talk,” a breakfast event where Canucks senior management spoke to a packed

Dominic Scheafer

Will Westeringh, Vancouver managing partner (l), with Blair Lill, director of marketing, Fasken Martineau: using values espoused by the Canucks to connect with their own brand

room of clients and the firm’s lawyers, giving them a unique experience and a chance to talk hockey behind closed doors.

“You can’t go and buy a ticket to something like that,” said Westeringh, noting that “nothing went outside the room.”

Added to that were electronic tools such as the firm’s website, email signatures, YouTube, Twitter and, most

importantly, customer relationship management (CRM).

These sophisticated software systems have come into their own in the last decade, allowing companies to initiate and monitor thousands of contacts with clients every day with the push of a button.

“Everything we did for the Canucks campaign was done using our CRM: the invitations went out electronically, every-

one RSVPed electronically and we tracked and managed things electronically.

“If we were doing it the old way by printing and mailing invitations and managing RSVPs by taking phone calls or emails it would have been very hard to be as nimble as we were able to be during the playoffs.” continued on page 19 Business IN VAncouver Excellence Series 5

6 Business IN VAncouver Excellence Series

Dominic Scheafer

Darrell Hadden, president of Graphically Speaking: “we try to be different in our marketing approaches; that allows us to stand out”

Print works Web agency Graphically Speaking aims at top positioning on Google

F

By Lorne Mallin

or the head of one of B.C.’s largest website developers, traditional media plays an important role in both marketing his company and the services he offers his clients.

“We try to be different in our marketing approaches; that allows us to stand out,” said Darrell Hadden, founder, president and CEO of Vancouver’s Graphically Speaking Services Inc. “That has been very, very different for a web agency to do traditional advertising and it has been very successful.”

However, print work is secondary. Graphically Speaking’s primary focus for its business development and marketing is top positioning in Google.

“We do that through what’s called organic SEO (search engine optimization) and that means we don’t pay for it,” Hadden said. “It’s cost-effective, number 1; number 2, the click-through rate is far higher with organic results than on the paid advertising.”

He explained he uses keywords such as “web design Vancouver,” “SEO services Vancouver” or “e-commerce services Vancouver.”

“We have identified approximately 60 key phrases that are used by our target audiences within Google to find a company like us.”

A quick Google search of “web design Vancouver” brought up three paid-for listings on top, and below them, Graphically Speaking was the third one down.

Speaking of numbers, the company is number 4 on Business in Vancouver’s list of the 25 largest web developers in B.C. with 47 employees.

Hadden said many of his personnel come from traditional media backgrounds.

“It’s absolutely fantastic for them to keep those skills and hone them even further,” he said.

Graphically Speaking designs brochures marketing its services and inserts them into trade publications.

“We have experimented with Business in Vancouver, the Vancouver Board of Trade and B.C. Business. We’ve had great Business IN VAncouver Excellence Series 7

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I think [Graphically Speaking is] right on the money. To discount any channels is really not doable in this day and age because attention is split in so many ways

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Hadden said all organizations should be experimenting, changing and fine-tuning their approach.

“The most controversial one we’re doing right now is we’re testing direct mail.

No one in our industry would think about doing direct mail. We’re having some success with that. It’s still a work in progress.”

The company’s third major initiative is sponsorship of local associations to support its target audience of marketing and communications professionals.

8 Business IN VAncouver Excellence Series

In 2011, Hadden was president of the B.C. chapter of the American Marketing Association, and Graphically Speaking vice-president and web strategist John Almond was president of the B.C. chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators.

The company is redoing its email marketing and social media to emphasize education and not selling.

“Our whole focus on those initiatives, which will be rolled out late summer or early fall, is just to provide useful and relevant information to our target audience about building websites, how to do social

media, how to market,” he said.

There is no mention of traditional media services on Graphically Speaking’s website. But the company does create brochures, reports, trade show displays, logo development and some branding.

“We have purposefully not put that in as it has not been our new client focus,” Hadden said. “We will not do traditional media for someone unless they are a client.”

One such client is Vancouver-based forest giant Canfor Corp. Christine Kennedy, vice-president of public affairs, said Graphically Speaking was hired last year

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“We’re really pleased with the outcome,” she said. “They work with us on an ongoing basis to keep it current and fresh.”

Kennedy said that because Canfor liked Graphically Speaking’s creative approach, the web agency was also used to design the 2011 annual report and sustainability report, keeping them consistent with the website formats.

“They’re a great company with a very creative base … a friendly, competent crew that focused on getting the job done and getting it done exceptionally well, so we would certainly look forward to working with them again in the future.”

Vancouver communications counsel Sheri Wisnowski said Graphically Speaking is effectively using a wide range of marketing.

“I think they’re right on the money. To discount any channels is really not doable in this day and age because attention is split in so many ways.”

She said the web developer is “quite brilliant” in expanding its services to focus on integrated communications and cover digital and print with the talent within the company.

Working only digitally can be limiting. “When you get too many silos in marketing and communications you run into all kinds of trouble.”

Wisnowski said she knows first-hand that Graphically Speaking’s direct-mail pieces are reaching their target audience because she receives them regularly.

“I haven’t done a website for myself. They are keen to do it.

They have been sending the right material with the right information. So when I’m ready to make that decision, that’s a conversation I would want to have with them.” •

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By any means (or media) possible Spring Advertising mixes traditional and new media to make marketing magic

T

By James Dolan

alking to 18 to 25-year-olds isn’t always easy, especially when what you’re talking about is school. Yet that’s exactly what John Casablancas Institute Vancouver needed to do if it wanted to grow its business: grab the attention of this notoriously hard-to-reach demographic, then persuade them to consider a career in fashion, makeup and cosmetology.

Spring Advertising was up for the challenge. As Spring’s partner and creative director Rob Schlyecher explained, since taking on the institute as a client six years ago, the agency has relied on a mixture of both traditional media and new media to create an innovative, award-winning campaign that has produced impressive business results.

“The hinge of the campaign is a slogan called ‘Born to do this,’” Schlyecher said.

The slogan came from an insight into the client’s target audience: young women who aren’t exceptional at academics, but share an intense passion for aesthetics and fashion.

“Many of them have always been unaware that that was a piece of them that 10 Business IN VAncouver Excellence Series

You can’t click on a newspaper to see the video or explore the site or play the game.

That said, you can’t replace a radio spot with a YouTube video while your customer is driving the kids to school Rob Schlyecher partner and creative director, Spring Advertising

Dominic Schaefer

Rob Schlyecher, partner and creative director, Spring Advertising: “clients are pushing for change. The separation of new and traditional service in an ad agency is on its way out forever”

could lead to a career,” Schlyecher said.

“So ‘Born to do this’ was turned into kind of a destiny call.”

Traditional media has always been the foundation of the campaign, in the form of an ongoing series of lighthearted 30-second radio spots. “We used traditional media very carefully so we could place parent and child in the car when the child was going to secondary school, or even a job right out of secondary

school in the morning and getting a ride,” Schlyecher said.

As Schlyecher explained, the spots were strategically written with laughs in mind.

“These two people [are] sitting in the car, at eight in the morning, and Mom is wondering what this kid’s going to do with her life. And the kid’s wondering how she’s going to tell her mom what her report card looks like. And they both have a laugh at an ad for hair, makeup Business IN VAncouver Excellence Series 11

Jim Falconer, president, John Casablancas Institute Vancouver: even though clients may be spending more time online, advertisers still need traditional media

and fashion school. They reach common ground around that particular purchase decision.”

The campaign’s traditional media drove traffic to the new media component: a purpose-build website, the tone of which was 180 degrees from that of the radio campaign. “[We] immediately switched gears from comedy into professional-grade postsecondary education in the industry,” Schlyecher said. “The interface on the website looks like you’ve arrived in the school.”

The campaign also includes a number of guerilla executions, including a 30-foot-long billboard intended to mimic the front door of a refrigerator covered in a colourful mural of a fashion model created from alphabet magnets.

On the social side, Spring built a Facebook app entitled “Freak your face,” offering users the ability to apply horrormovie makeup to their Facebook profile.

As Schlyecher pointed out, the execution 12 Business IN VAncouver Excellence Series

has pass-along value that would be impossible to replicate with traditional media.

Even six years in, the campaign for the John Casablancas Institute still holds considerable appeal to Jim Falconer, its president.

“The whole Born to do This campaign has been great,” he said. “It’s such a perfect fit.”

Falconer knows the message is getting through – mostly because his clients tell him so.

“They write essays when they [apply to] the program. I would say at least 50% of them quote they were ‘born to do this’ in the essay at some point.”

To Falconer, the success of the campaign comes down to the strategic mix between traditional and new media. “[We] need the combination,” Falconer said. “Our clientele … is living on the Internet, on Facebook and other things, but they still have to find out about us through other methods. We have to give

them a reason to go online to find us.”

And the bottom line? Since the campaign began, John Casablancas Institute has grown steadily, despite an intensely challenging business environment.

“It’s very competitive. There are options for these kids,” Falconer noted. Every year, however, there seem to be more clients – a fact Falconer attributes largely to Spring’s campaign. “It’s definitely successful.”

Looking back, Schlyecher believes the John Casablancas campaign is indicative of a shift to merge traditional and non-traditional media. “Clients are pushing the change,” he said. “The separation of new and traditional service in an ad agency is on its way out forever.”

And to Schlyecher, that is exactly as it should be. “You can’t click on a newspaper to see the video or explore the site or play the game. That said, you can’t replace a radio spot with a YouTube video while your customer is driving the kids to school – I hope!” •

Messages flood in

Omicron embraces new media after

Dominic Schaefer

a devastating day at the office

Bev Attfield, director of marketing, and Bill Tucker, CEO, at Omicron. After both floors of Omicron were flooded, the firm’s marketing team used a variety of traditional and new media channels to communicate timely updates to staff and clients

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By Ingrid de Jong Joffe

f all the emergencies that may be anticipated by people who work in Vancouver’s office towers, a flood may seem the most unlikely. But one recent spring morning, staff from Omicron arrived at Bentall Three tower to learn their two lower floors had flooded due to a broken water pipe on the 18th floor.

Omicron’s offices suffered the worst damage and were pooled with several inches of water, along with water-ravaged computers and workspaces.

“When I had my first look at our office space, it was like a war zone. I was amazed by the power of water; it’s so destructive,” said Bev Attfield, director of marketing and communications for Omicron.

With more than 120 staff, Omicron is 14 Business IN VAncouver Excellence Series

one of Western Canada’s largest integrated design and construction firms. Communication is number 1 priority to keep projects running.

“We’re unique in the marketplace and effective messaging is critical. [Our response] had to be timely, as the entire industry is schedule and deadline driven,” said Bill Tucker, CEO of Omicron.

For Attfield, the flood required a multichannel and immediate communication approach for staff as well as clients whose projects were affected. It reflected the brand’s existing communication strategy.

“We use a combination of traditional and new marketing channels,” said Attfield. “Our emphasis is on sustainability so we are moving away from printed material.

Brochures have been replaced with memory sticks loaded with data or QR codes.”

Omicron is also working with Industrial

Brand, an agency that specializes in working with partner-driven professional services firms, to evaluate its goals and marketing rebrand strategy.

“Omicron has to look at all opportunities of online and offline media and evaluate them to decide which platforms to be on. There is no single solution,” said Ben Garfinkel, partner and strategy director of Industrial Brand.

Attfield’s marketing team used new media as well as traditional methods while the office was shut down for a day and a half and in the weeks of the flood’s aftermath.

“We used different channels to communicate with people, from internal staff to our clients. Our employees’ health and safety concerns were our first priority as people came to work and wanted access to the building,” said Attfield.

The first line of communication was the most traditional: word-of-mouth. The company’s phone system operated through its servers, which were flooded, so calls and voicemails were not an option. Key members of staff met people in the lobby and were told to return home to await further instructions.

Next, Attfield’s team prepared a response for staff and used an iPhone app to send a blanket text message to 150 cell phones of the staff. Then they sent an email blast to 3,500 clients using MailChimp, a cloudbased email marketing system. For clients whose projects would be affected by the delays, Omicron needed to diminish the damage with remote working options.

“There was a fantastic response from people to the flood.

It really speaks to our industry. Our competition actually stepped up and offered their extra desks and workspace to help us out and keep us working,” said Tucker.

Meanwhile, the marketing team put together a blog in WordPress to provide real-time updates. The blog was launched the first day of the flood and its link was sent in a text to staff.

“The staff was very grateful we were able to provide a robust source of information so quickly. It provided a sense of calm and order,” said Attfield.

After the second day of the flood, people were able to return to the office but it took weeks to

repair the damage and replace highly specialized equipment.

Ceiling tiles, carpeting and baseboards had to be replaced as well as about 100 damaged computers and high-end drawing software.

Today, Omicron is fully functional and the flood is a memory, until someone opens a seldom-used file drawer to find water. It serves as a reminder that communicating a message to the right audience using the right channel is crucial.

“In traditional advertising, you know who to talk to and how to reach them,” said Garfinkel. “The ways people interact with digital content has changed with smaller devices like smartphones, iPads and laptops. Businesses can’t rely on one medium. You need to create layers to build messaging and your brand.”

“There is no single way to communicate with clients anymore,” said Tucker. “Bev and her team have always demonstrated an interest in social media and quickly found innovative ways to deliver the message.”

Said Attfield: “It’s very important to have consistent messaging and and be very nimble and agile. It was a good experience to go through and test systems and review things we would now do differently.

In the future we will use Twitter, a more robust and immediate solution than blog, which is more static,” said Attfield. •

We’re unique in the marketplace and effective messaging is critical.

[Our response] had to be timely, as the entire industry is schedule and deadline driven Bill Tucker CEO, Omicron

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Business IN VAncouver Excellence Series 15

Recruitment firms create a unique marketing media mix Key to successful marketing still lies in networking, both online and in-person

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By Jen O’Rourke

here’s no question that the rise of new media in the past few years has altered how businesses approach and execute their marketing strategies. The question is, how different is the ball game in a business-to-business marketing setting?

Media strategist Paula White of Whiteway Media Solutions believes it still boils down to the same basic marketing principles of knowing your target market, building lasting relationships and creating brand authenticity.

She suggests, as a first step, finding out exactly where potential clients are hanging out both in the digital world and the brick and mortar world.

“Essentially, you’re still going to have to get out there and network … find out where these companies are socializing and then be there,” said White.

Conveniently, creating a social media account with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn can help businesses learn more about what their markets are doing and where they are hanging out.

For Warren Smith, managing partner 16 Business IN VAncouver Excellence Series

at the Counsel Network, a legal recruitment firm, it’s been about recognizing the different advantages that both traditional and new media present to his particular industry.

“With Twitter, for example, there are two sides to it for us,” said Smith. “We definitely use Twitter to keep tabs on what’s going on in the market. We use it to see what our clients are doing, we use it to see what’s going on in terms of market movement and trends and issues.”

For the purposes of a recruitment firm, he’s found that online media offers a time-effectiveness never before seen in print media and quite advantageous to a business that relies on timeliness and efficiency.

“There’s a speed with which recruitment has moved to over time,” he said.

“There’s an expectation that you have to be able to know your market, find your candidates and present in a fairly effective manner.”

That’s not to say, however, that there still isn’t power in traditional methods, such as print media, for these businesses, Smith said. The key is in knowing the different strengths each medium offers.

“What we use print media for … where it’s a more powerful tool for us, is to reinforce who we are, what we do and our story and what our brand is in the market.

So we will run a much more brandingcentric campaign there.

The firm then relies on new media, such as its Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages to get the most current postings out, which results in a quicker response time in filling client’s positions.

Along a similar line, Tracy Dallas, Total Staffing Solutions co-founder and vicepresident, operations, has seen that allowing her staff to tap into their personal social media accounts creates a greater opportunity for finding the perfect candidate for her client.

[In our business], we’re searching candidates, we’re looking at people’s resumés.

All these young people in the office they have hundreds and thousands of people as friends on Facebook. … They’ll reach out to their friends … and maybe find someone with that perfect skill set,” she said.

As for using traditional media, when Total Staffing Solutions was first created in Vancouver in 2006, Dallas used the most traditional method available in

Dominic Schaefer

Warren Smith, managing partner, the Counsel Network: new media allows businesses to reach out to their clients on a more personal level

marketing – hitting the pavement.

“Getting myself out there was the first step,” said Dallas. That’s basically been our marketing strategy – getting out there, meeting clients, … our business has excelled because of our referrals, companies referring us to other companies,” said Dallas.

Her advice on using print media? Make sure it’s consistent.

“We know there’s no point in advertising one month here, one month there, ” she said. “You need to be consistent … if you’re going to do print, you need to do

There’s a speed with which recruitment has moved to over time. There’s an expectation that you have to be able to know your market, find your candidates and present in a fairly effective manner Warren Smith managing partner, the Counsel Network

Business IN VAncouver Excellence Series 17

Media strategist Paula White of Whiteway Media emphasizes the importance of networking in business-to-business marketing using both traditional and new methods

For a unique twist on using social media, Tracy Dallas, Total Staffing Solutions vice-president, operations, encourages employees to use their personal sites to reach a broader audience for job postings

You need to be consistent … if you’re going to do print, you need to do it on a monthly or weekly basis and see where it takes you from there Tracy Dallas co-founder and vice-president, operations, Total Staffing Solutions

it on a monthly or weekly basis and see where it takes you from there.”

When it comes to determining the right combination of traditional and new media, White points out there is no blanket solution. Businesses must know their marketing budget and decide what’s most relevant and effective for their particular industry and spend their money accordingly.

For example, for a recruitment firm like Total Staffing Solutions, Dallas feels it’s vital to allocate funds to building a presence on an online job-board site 18 Business IN VAncouver Excellence Series

such as Monster.com Though membership does come at a cost, Dallas explains that it has a multitude of benefits for a recruitment firm.

Among the biggest perks offered is the ability to advertise to a large pool of candidates. “[We do] advertising in terms of posting our positions, getting our name out on the big job boards, like Monster, so people see those,” said Dallas. “Maybe it’s not a role they’re interested in at the moment but they see the company name and the logo all the way down. The more roles

that we’re able to post on there, because we have an account with Monster, the better it is.”

Going beyond the usual suspects in social media, White suggests joining websites and groups that are relevant to your industry and revolve around networking, such as meetup.com and Rapid Time Networks (rapidtimenetworks.com) to make new connections.

“You may not meet the person that you’re immediately networking with as your client, but you never know what their rolodex is.” •

Fasken Martineau’s logo, well-placed below the Canucks’ bench, was seen by 50 million viewers during the 2011 Stanley Cup final

major Score Continued from page 5

Nimble is not a word you would normally associate with law firms but the nature of the playoffs demanded the firm be able to turn on a dime or, in fact, on several thousand dollars in half-page ads.

Advertisements headlined “Keep Going!” to be run following a Canucks win or “Thanks for the Memories” after a Canucks’ loss had to be designed in advance for publication in the Vancouver Sun. With the playoff games ending right around the daily newspaper’s deadlines, Lill worked on a minute-by-minute basis monitoring the game outcome to make sure the right ad was published.

For YouTube, the firm produced a video summarizing its activities to ensure that its 300 employees were fully engaged in the campaign that included jersey days,

towels and the expected paraphernalia of hockey watching. And while it wasn’t part of the plan, the younger lawyers in the firm were active on Twitter with about 300 tweets back and forth keeping clients and colleagues up to date on the promotion and amplifying the campaign’s impact.

An industry observer who teaches lawyers and firms how to market to clients says the Fasken Martineau campaign is unique.

“It is really embracing a very new trend of partnering with clients in a marketing campaign,” said Gary Mitchell, principal of OnTrac Coach of Vancouver. “They have totally engaged the Canucks, the players, the management, all of their own staff and their lawyers and integrated the two organizations in this marketing campaign.

“That is very cutting edge in the legal profession.” •

[Fasken Martineau] is really embracing a very new trend of partnering with clients in a marketing campaign Gary Mitchell principal, OnTrac Coach

Business IN VAncouver Excellence Series 19

Everything old is new again Vancouver’s hospitality industry relies on face-to-face interactions combined with online follow-up for best results

Dominic Schaefer

Chuck McIntosh, partner, Pourhouse Restaurant: “a lot of the [marketing] we’ve done has been grassroots, from people coming in and having an unbelievable experience – it kind of spreads”

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By James Dolan

he phrase “cutting edge” isn’t often associated with the hospitality industry.

While new hotels and restaurants open all the time, the fundamentals of the business don’t change much over the years; except perhaps when it comes to marketing.

In a bid to attract an affluent, technologically savvy community of business customers, Vancouver restaurants and hotels are combining traditional and new media in innovative ways.

When it comes to marketing, Chuck McIntosh, a partner at Pourhouse Restaurant in Gastown, has taken a “back to the future” approach. Instead of using newspapers, magazines or banner ads to promote his business, he prefers to do his marketing the old-fashioned way: by 20 Business IN VAncouver Excellence Series

spending time talking to customers.

“Advertising – we don’t do a whole lot of that,” McIntosh admitted. “A lot of the [marketing] we’ve done has been grassroots – from people coming in and having an unbelievable experience. It kind of spreads.”

McIntosh believes this is a far more effective strategy for building repeat business with existing customers (and new business with their friends and colleagues) than any traditional advertising campaign.

“You can’t put a price on getting out there and talking to people,” he said.

McIntosh then uses new media to leverage this personal contact.

By posting on his website, his blog, or via social media (mostly Twitter and Foursquare) what customers, bloggers, reviewers and food critics are saying about his business, McIntosh can take word-of-

mouth marketing to a whole new level.

“It’s kind of word-of-mouth on steroids,” he said. “Everything that comes through, I monitor it online; I have alerts.

Whenever that comes up, I check it out.

If it’s bad I try to fix it. If it’s good, I promote it.”

When it comes to marketing her hotel’s Tableau Bar Bistro, Lilliana De Cotiis, director of marketing and principal at Loden Hotel, agrees with McIntosh: personal methods are usually better than advertising.

“It’s very much a word-of-mouth industry. Everybody knows that,” she said.

For her hotel, however, De Cotiis uses a mixture of traditional and new media.

“It’s a balance between the two of them,” she said. While the portion of her marketing budget spent in new media has risen steadily, De Cotiis believes traditional media still have a big role to play.

“Would I take one over the other? Absolutely not. I still think some of the [traditional] publications are foundations. They still exist and people still go to them.”

De Cotiis’ strategy is to first build awareness within her target market (executives, senior directors and ownerprincipals) with traditional ads placed in the business press or online with Google AdWords. She then uses social media to promote packages and deals that appeal to this clientele. The hotel also hosts special events and luncheons for executive assistants, in an effort to influence those who schedule business travel for their bosses.

De Cotiis has been very successful with a number of non-traditional strategies including partnerships with other businesses and charity co-sponsorships.

The hotel is also featured prominently on reality television, with appearances on Real Housewives of Vancouver, The Bachelor Canada, and The Proposal. Such exposure is then posted online via the hotel’s website and social media to create marketing buzz for the property.

Rodney Payne, founder of Think! Social Media applauds such efforts to merge traditional and new media tools. Even so, he believes that rather than bolting on a new media element to a traditional campaign, hospitality businesses may be better served by rethinking their marketing from the ground up.

“Trying to tack [new media] onto old media efforts is usually very difficult,” Payne said.

Part of that rethinking process should be to drop the traditional-versus-newmedia debate.

“The biggest mistake people make is focusing on the tools first,” Payne said, adding that whether you should go to market with a print campaign or an activation or a Facebook page is irrelevant if you can’t provide a first-rate customer experience.

“The point isn’t so much to get your message right. The point is to get your product right.”

For those using new media for the first time, Payne suggests a three-step approach.

Lilliana De Cotiis, director of marketing and principal, Loden Hotel: “some of the [traditional] publications are foundations, and they still exist and people still go to them”

“The biggest opportunity is to listen first … to what people are saying about you,” he said. “Then to build some relationships through conversation. Once you build

some relationships and perhaps a small community of advocates, you can start doing things to engage those people, or asking them for input on your business.” •

Everything that comes through, I monitor it online; I have alerts. Whenever that comes up, I check it out. If it’s bad I try to fix it. If it’s good, I promote it Chuck McIntosh partner, Pourhouse Restaurant

Business IN VAncouver Excellence Series 21

Courting corporate hearts

Though their content permeates a variety of digital spaces, colourful brochures have not been abandoned

Why drama trumps data in business-to-business marketing

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By Peter DeVries

arty Yaskowich, managing director of digital marketing at DDB Canada, doesn’t care much for boring marketing strategies.

The stereotype of chart flipping, number crunching boardroom meetings doesn’t sit well with his belief in the power of appealing to the humanity of his customers.

Neither does it maximize the use of modern digital media tools, now ubiquitous in almost every forum of business.

He believes businesses need to ask themselves what they’re doing to stay engaged with not only their current customers, but also with those of the future.

The effort doesn’t boil down to a onetime shot, he said, and whereas build22 Business IN VAncouver Excellence Series

Having traditional media behind [a campaign] has always made it more successful Marty Yaskowich managing director of digital marketing, DDB Canada

ing and nurturing an ongoing relationship with the client used to take form in personal, face-to-face interactions, it now takes place through a variety of media in a host of different forums.

Using social media and other digital tools such as blogs, discussion boards and newsletters, will help keep the relationship alive, and creating this kind of ongoing relationship carries over once a

client has made a purchase.

“We strongly believe that there has to be a great engaging social hook in what we’re doing,” he said. “Whatever we’re creating, we want people to be able to engage with it, interact with it, pass it along and participate in it in some way.”

Business to business customers are now more savvy in this respect than ever before. There exists in the market an un-

Dominic Schaefer

precedented level of detail in a client’s ability to track and assess a campaign’s effectiveness. It’s made their standards more exacting.

“Customers have grown ever more demanding when it comes to realizing return on investment,” said Yaskowich.

“In the past we would put a campaign together, and put media materials out in the market, and then six months later we would find out if the campaign was a success.”

Now, results can be tracked virtually instantaneously – clients have the ability to see how well a given marketing campaign is working in real time.

It’s led marketing firms like DDB to change the way they develop marketing products for businesses looking to maximize the effectiveness of a marketing campaign intended to improve the market performance of a client’s product.

One technique, explained Yaskowich, involves what he called casting a wide net.

This involves sending out large numbers of a variety of slightly differing messages. Marketers then track their individual effectiveness via tools like Facebook likes, clickbacks and a host of tracking mechanisms.

Those messages that receive the best results are further developed, and then relaunched. The process is repeated until the message is honed to its most effective version.

Doing this, said Yaskowich, also generates the best information to identify leads for follow-up marketing.

That’s not to say that more classical media formats have been abandoned.

“Trade publications are still a really important part of the process. [People] still read these magazines, so being there, having a presence there, is still really important.”

For this reason, he said, marketing can never abandon the conventional products that invariably lie behind the substantial

Marty Yaskowich, managing director of digital marketing at DDB Canada: modern advances in digital marketing have changed the game – but not at the cost of traditional means

technological buzz involved in a marketing campaign.

For their work with Telus in creating a campaign for the Mike phone, a durable construction-industry-grade device, DDB pushed the image of a tough guy by associating the phone with work rules about welding and wearing steel-toed boots.

In developing a campaign for the Vancouver Convention Centre, they worked from the idea that the facility embodied and showcased the surrounding area’s natural beauty, and that this set it apart from other venues around the world.

“Having traditional media behind it has always made it more successful, more

viral,” said Yaskowich, emphasizing his belief that compelling images, beautiful graphics and inspiring design must sit at the foundation of the marketing product they create.

He said that’s because social media tools are ultimately a conduit through which clients are linked to businesses.

And even though the digital relationship with customers has become increasingly about content and digital ubiquity, the idea that the quality of the content must remain high, that it must inspire, persists.

“The message has always been the key,” he said. “We’ve just found new ways to deliver it.” • Business IN VAncouver Excellence Series 23

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