Philips Healthcare, a global medical technology giant with major operations in Cleveland, Ohio, took a different approach to the launch of a breakthrough medical imaging product line. Here’s how “radical” B2B marketing paid off for Philips – and four valuable lessons for your smart marketing strategy.

A Dramatic Shift in Marketing Emphasis

Philips Computed Tomography (CT) products enable doctors to see inside the human body in extraordinary detail. A million scans a day are done using Philips equipment. Over 1,000 people work at Philips CT’s Cleveland operations.

At a recent meeting of the American Advertising Federation-Cleveland, Dominic Smith, Vice President/General Manager CT of Philips Healthcare, explained the marketing epiphany Philips experienced when preparing to launch its powerful new Ingenuity imaging products at the 2011 RSNA Show.

“We knew we had to be bold, with a strategic shift in our approach to marketing,” Smith recalled. “The value of the images to the diagnosis, treatment, and outcome is the key. We focused on the pictures our products created and the benefits to patients and doctors of having those pictures.

 “Our marketing used to be all about specifications,” Smith continued. “Now it’s outcome-oriented and experience-based. This is radical stuff for B2B marketing and a whole new focus: Not what it is, but what it does.”

Preparing for the Launch

Smith’s Cleveland-based team spent months preparing the launch strategy and marketing campaign, called Imaging 2.0. Among the key steps:

• Intense sales training: “Traditionally, the sales team was very engineering-focused, selling on product specifications,” Smith noted. “We had to train them to think and present information differently and focus on the clinical benefits;”
• Conducting focus groups to test campaign messaging;
• Developing videos featuring radiologists;
• Creating case histories localized by country;
• Developing an RSNA microsite and Twitter campaign;
• Developing new, more visual sales tools for iPads;
• Conducting aggressive outreach to journalists;
• Running teaser ads in print and trade publications “to create the expectation of something big.”

The campaign culminated at RSNA 2011 in Chicago, the most important event in the radiology industry, and with 50,000 attendees, the largest medical meeting in the world. “This is the true global event for our customers,” said Smith. The Philips exhibit, which required 53 tractor-trailer loads, was the size of five football fields.

Pictures Tell the Story – and Produce $100MM in Sales

Philips’ outcome-focused sales and marketing strategy was a smashing success. The company achieved $100 million in imaging product sales at RSNA. Post-show surveys showed extremely high awareness. Media exposure was more than three times higher than competitors, with articles in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times and 106 digital articles.

“It’s actually an easy message to get across,” Smith observed. “The marketing options are 45 pages of 8 pt. type or a picture: ‘There’s the cancer.’ That’s what gets you a $10 million deal.”

Smith says that in 2011, Philips CT had the highest market share gain in North America in 10 years, but the company’s most important goal is enabling better medicine.

“My mission is to help doctors see the disease earlier so they can treat it earlier. Five years ago, you couldn’t image the heart. Now, in five minutes, you can have an image of a heart beating. We’re already visioning the diseases we’ll be helping solve five years from now.”

4 Lessons for Your Smart Marketing Strategy

What did Philips get right in this B2B marketing strategy and what can smart marketers learn from it? Four key things:

1. Listen to the customer. Radiologists told Philips what they wanted to see in sales materials: How the products help doctors help patients. Philips gave doctors what they needed.
2. Integrate the sales force into the strategy. The Philips team placed heavy emphasis on training and new demonstration tools to help the sales team understand and execute the new approach.
3. Select the right marketing vehicles. Philips recognized that video was the best way to demonstrate this visual product line and tell the story.
4. Sell the benefits, not the features. The Philips Imaging 2.0 campaign is a classic example of an advertising axiom: Sell the sizzle, not the steak. By focusing on how its products gave doctors more powerful tools to produce better outcomes for patients, Philips achieved sales and marketing success.

P.S. A Shout-Out (with Pride) to Cleveland

As a Cleveland-based marketing consultant, I’m always glad to share marketing success stories about companies in Northeast Ohio. The Philips Healthcare campaign is a great example.

But you can’t tell this story without pointing out another important fact: Cleveland, Ohio is one of the world’s top clinical technology and health care hubs. “Some of the best doctors in the world are in Cleveland, Ohio,” Smith said. “Physicians, medical technology companies, hospitals, and the best stories: They’re all here.”

I love this name because it’s so simple and descriptive. He’s a black cat; his name is his color. To a child, this makes perfect sense. My niece and nephew once had a brown dog with white paws; her name was Sox.

As a marketing consultant, I think Blackie the cat and Sox the dog offer some helpful reminders about the principles of effective branding. Here are some branding insights for your smart marketing strategy, as demonstrated by the future marketers in the house next to mine.

What Marketers Can Learn About Branding from a Cat

If you’re creating a new brand for your company or product, you’re about to make a sizable investment in marketing. The cost of creating the branding strategy and brand identity is only the beginning. The real cost is deploying and promoting the brand in marketing campaigns. For major consumer marketers, this can cost millions of dollars.

Even if your company is a small one with a much smaller budget, branding is critically important. Your brand is the public representation of everything your business stands for. You’d better get it right.

So what does Blackie have to teach us about branding? Some basic principles that can be easy to forget when you’re in a big conference room with your marketing agency brainstorming branding ideas:

1. Make it simple. People are overwhelmed with information and they don’t have the time or energy to learn a hard name. Blackie’s name is two short syllables and it’s easy to say and spell.
2. Make it descriptive. Brands like Xerox® and Exxon® are made-up words that had no meaning until they became names of companies. I’ve never been a fan of brand names people have to “learn” to get. Blackie’s name is a great example. It’s the color of his fur. Enough said.
3. Make it memorable. You can invest a lot of money in advertising and marketing campaigns to make people recognize your brand, but it will happen a lot faster if the brand is easy to remember. When I see a black cat skulking in the bushes and driving my dog crazy, I know who it is.
4. Make it distinctive. The brand you select should be yours alone, with nothing comparable in your marketplace. There’s no other Blackie (or even another black cat) in our neighborhood. Blackie owns his brand identity.

Okay, But Blackie? How Realistic is this Example?

Granted, Blackie is a simplistic example of branding. And it’s not likely you’ll be able to come up with a name you can trademark for a business or a product that’s as short and descriptive as the name of a cat that’s been derived from a color.

But if you look at some of the top brands that have been launched in recent years – such as Facebook, Pinterest, and one of my favorites, SkullCandy headphones and earbuds — you’ll find identities that are simple, descriptive, and memorable.

My advice is to think about branding in the clear-minded way a child would. Select a brand identity that anyone can relate to, that sets your product or company apart in your marketplace, and that’s short, straightforward, and easy to say and remember. That’s a strong branding foundation for a smart marketing strategy.

A final note: When I was a kid growing up in Toledo, Ohio, I had a brown dog. Guess what I named him?

Winning awards for excellence is a valuable way to distinguish your company in a competitive marketplace, especially if you’re selling business services.

Here are 10 tips for increasing your chances of success in business awards competitions and using awards in a smart marketing strategy.

10 Tips for Success in Business Awards Competitions

1. Select the right competitions. Enter competitions that will give you the most visibility and the most meaningful recognition in your marketplace. You’ll have the best chance of success in regional or industry competitions where your expertise or market presence is an advantage.
2. Select the right categories. Study the available categories to decide where your entry belongs and where you’ll be most likely to win. Some categories get fewer entries than others, which improves your odds. If you’re unsure which category is the right one, ask the awards program for help. And if last year’s winners are posted online, see how your entry compares.
3. Shoot for high-publicity opportunities. Competitions with media partners that publicize the winners bring you the most visibility. Regional business competitions in larger cities, for example, usually align with business publications or websites to showcase honorees.
4. Enter individuals as well as your company. Many awards competitions recognize individuals who have achieved excellence in their organization or industry. Entering yourself or your employees in competitions creates opportunities for personal recognition that also reflects positively on your organization.
5. Broaden your thinking. Competitions in your industry should be the first ones you consider, but you could be eligible for awards acknowledging success in many aspects of your business. Your advertising, marketing, website, customer service, product innovation, business growth, staff/supplier diversity, commitment to community service, or even your role as a pioneer in your industry could make you a worthy recipient.
6. Strike while the iron is hot. If this is the year you blew past your goals and had phenomenal success with your business, a product launch, or an initiative that’s truly unique, capitalize on the opportunity to gain recognition.
7. Get professional help. If you have a great copywriter on your staff, have them write your entry. If not, hire a marketing consultant or professional writer who knows how to position your business and convey key themes and messages that will make your entry stand out to the judges.
8. Publicize your honors. When you win awards, tell your staff and your entire marketplace about it. Feature your awards in a news release, an email or e-newsletter to your customers, your trade show booth, sales materials, advertising, social media, and your website. If there’s an awards ceremony, ask a friend or staff member to take pictures and video. Post the video on YouTube, your website, and on your Facebook page and post photos on Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr.
9. Buy the ad. The media outlet that writes about the winners may offer you (and your accountant, lawyer, marketing agency, and banker) the opportunity to buy an ad if you win. Your suppliers may or may not want to purchase a congratulatory ad, but you should buy one – not to congratulate yourself but to help readers learn more about your business while your visibility is at its highest. And if there’s an awards ceremony, buy a table and invite your top clients to attend.
10. Learn from losing. If you’re not a winner, study the winning entries to see what they had that you’d didn’t. Use the opportunity to prepare for the next competition. Most important, don’t give up. Some very competitive programs are so selective you’ll need to enter multiple times before you win.

Why Being in the Spotlight is a Smart Marketing Strategy

Winning an award gives your company two powerful marketing advantages: Visibility and credibility. 

When prospective clients of our Cleveland, Ohio marketing agency find out we’ve received many honors from our peers for marketing achievement, it supports our positioning as an experienced resource for marketing strategies and campaigns that deliver results. That’s why we enter carefully selected competitions and use every channel at our disposal to tell our clients, colleagues, and prospects when we win.

If increasing visibility and differentiating your company from competitors are goals in your marketing plan, winning awards can be a relatively inexpensive way to achieve your objectives.

Have you won awards for your business? What advice would you share about how to become a winner?

Here’s why personal notes are so effective in building strong client relationships and how to use personal notes in your smart marketing strategy.

Why Personal Notes Work

Business-to-business marketers often use customer relationship management (CRM) systems to create regular touches with clients and prospects. CRM brings discipline to the communication process, which can be helpful in a long B-to-B sales cycle.

But CRM isn’t enough to build real relationships with real people. You also need one-to-one communication from you to the client or prospect.

You could send an email, a LinkedIn message, or a text. You could send personalized direct mail.

But the gold standard in business communication is the handwritten note. Here’s why:

• It’s unusual. In a typical business day, you’re lucky to get one handwritten note.
• It’s almost guaranteed to get past gatekeepers and reach the decision-maker’s desk.
• It sets you apart by making you a person who is perceptive, attentive, and memorable.
• Most important, it makes the recipient feel that someone they do business with cares enough about them as an individual to take the time to write.

6 Tips for Using Personal Notes

Follow these six tips to use handwritten notes effectively in business marketing and communication:

1. Look for opportunities to write: Find reasons to send personal notes to clients and prospects, such as:

• Thanking someone for their business, their loyalty, or a referral;
• Sending congratulations or condolences;
• Sharing news;
• Extending a personal invitation to an event;
• Acknowledging a development at your own company or the client’s company.

2.  Make it truly personal: You are writing to one individual and this should be reflected in the content and tone of your note. The recipient should never feel they’ve received the same note you sent to ten other people. And you should handwrite the envelope, too.

3. Use proper stationery: You’re representing your company and yourself as a trusted service provider, so high-quality stationery bearing your company’s brand is a must. Ask your marketing team to design nicely formatted note cards and envelopes; it’s a small investment with a big payoff.

4. Practice: If you’re unsure exactly what you want to say, write a draft on your computer first so you can edit and polish your message before you write it by hand.

5. Making note-writing a habit: Set aside 15-20 minutes on a specific day of the week to send notes. Make note-writing a scheduled event in your week and a regular business practice.

6. Train your staff to write notes. Every person on your team who interacts with clients or prospects — or who seeks referrals to generate new business — should be trained to write personal notes. It’s a powerful way to strengthen all kinds of business relationships.

A Final Tip for Your Smart Marketing Strategy

One of the smartest people I’ve ever known, the late, great Mike O’Hara of the AB&C Group, who was a dear friend and the first client of my marketing agency, taught me an important lesson when I launched my business in Cleveland, Ohio in 1992.

“Business is all about relationships,” he told me. “Getting clients is one thing, but to keep them, you need a great relationship.”

Mike was right. CRM systems can help facilitate relationship-building and play an important role in a smart B-to-B marketing strategy. But when your marketing communications plan also includes real, personal, human communication, you’ll have a much better chance of building relationships that last.

Take a minute right now to think about the people you do business with, especially your most important customers. Which ones could you write notes to today?

The reason is simple: Social media is where your customers and competitors are talking about your market and probably your business. You need to be an active participant in these conversations to influence the dialogue, represent your brand and products, engage customers and prospects, and keep competitors from gaining an advantage.

Here are seven ways to make social media marketing a top priority in your company’s smart marketing strategy:

1. Make social media the official job responsibility of one or more staff members. Give them the task of monitoring social media, creating posts, curating and sharing content developed by others, and generating activity and conversations. They need to do this every day at multiple points during the day, not just a few times a week.
2. Create a social media team in the marketing department that meets regularly to develop ideas, source content, review results, plan initiatives, and assess competitors’ activity.
3. Create a blog for your company’s website. Blogging is the best way to make content creation a systematic process and consistently generate information to share on social media.
4. Develop in-house training to help everyone in your business understand how social media works, how to use (and not use) social media, why social media is important to your organization, and how to contribute content and ideas.
5. Ask for help from subject matter experts in your company to develop rough content for your blog that the marketing staff can edit.
6. Be on the lookout for customer successes you can share on social media. Ask your customer service team to alert you to potential stories.
7. Train your sales representatives to educate clients and prospects about your social media accounts and give them easy tools to connect with you on social media, such as a branded premium or a card-sized handout that lists your social media addresses.

Social Media: Now Part of Every Smart Marketing Strategy

Smart marketers know they need to be where their customers are – and for most organizations today, that place is social media.

Here are more tips from my experience as a marketing strategist and consultant for getting started with social media, getting your company excited about social media, becoming a great content curator, and getting better results from blogging.

I’ve spent my career in advertising and marketing and have owned a marketing consulting firm in Cleveland, Ohio for 20 years. Here’s why I believe Della Femina is right about advertising and marketing and my advice for anyone considering a marketing career.

A Crazy, Creative, Rewarding Way to Spend Your Life

Della Femina’s quote came to mind recently when I was working on a new public service advertising campaign for a regional government agency. We’re using real firefighters, police officers, and first responders to help local citizens in Northeast Ohio understand the need to be ready for a community emergency like severe weather or a hazmat spill.

As they read their lines on camera, I was struck by the authenticity of these first responders and the realization that this campaign will actually help save lives if an emergency occurs here in Cleveland.

Once again, I found myself loving my job and remembering all the reasons I’m glad I chose a marketing career. See if you agree with what I think makes this business so much fun:

• You get to tell stories. Every marketing campaign is an opportunity to tell a story about a product, service, or organization. As storytellers, we can change perceptions, create emotional connections between marketers and their customers, and even get people to behave differently.
• You get to work with really fun people. The most interesting people I’ve ever met are creative writers and designers who develop marketing campaigns; they truly see the world in a different way. Yes, they can they be prima donnas, but I’ll take the occasional fit of creative pique for their ability to craft messages that capture attention and resonate with the audience.
• You always have new toys to play with. Social media, mobile marketing, and the web weren’t even concepts when I started my advertising career. It’s thrilling to explore these new marketing technologies and help clients use them to build brands and customer relationships. And there’s even slicker stuff on the horizon — it’s an exciting time to be in this business.
• Best of all, you can help great organizations do great things. A smart marketing strategy produces measurable results in brand awareness, lead generation, and sales, and it can transform an organization’s ability to achieve its mission. As marketers, we get to help great companies grow and help nonprofits serve important causes. I’ve been honored to provide marketing guidance as a board member to two wonderful cancer support organizations here in Cleveland – the American Cancer Society and The Gathering Place – and there’s nothing more rewarding.

A Career You Can Love – if You’re Passionate about People

My career in advertising and marketing began more than 30 years ago. All these years later, I still love what I do and can’t wait to get to work every morning. 

Should you consider an advertising and marketing career? Ask yourself these questions:

• Do you have the planning skills and discipline to meet deadlines?
• Can you stay focused under pressure?
• Do you have the flexibility to adjust to rapid change?
• Can you work well as a member of a collaborative team?
• Are you excited about and adept with technology?
• Most important, are you passionate about understanding the needs and desires of people? Can you focus that passion on helping a marketer find creative ways to show how their products and services make peoples’ lives better?

If the answers are yes, welcome to the wonderful world of advertising and marketing. It really is the most fun you can have fully dressed and we’re glad to have you.

Do you love marketing, too? What are your reasons for choosing a marketing career?

Publishing meaningful content in a blog demonstrates your knowledge, especially if you’re a business-to-business (B2B) marketer. Adding fresh, keyword-rich content to your website via a blog can have a big impact on your Google rankings and site traffic. And blogging can help you keep up with – and even influence – trends in your marketplace.

But blogging is a big commitment. Do blogs produce real results for B2B marketers? Does blogging truly lead to fame and fortune?

I’ve just completed my second year writing this blog about marketing strategy. Here are seven ways I’ve used the blog to increase visibility for my business (fame) and get new clients (fortune) and some blogging tips for your smart marketing strategy.

7 Insights for More Effective B2B Blogging

Every B2B blogger has two goals: Increase visibility and generate leads for new business. Here’s what I’ve learned about achieving these objectives with a B2B blog:

1. Treat your blog like a product. I view my blog as a product produced by my marketing agency, just as important as any marketing campaign we’d create for a client. Thinking about the blog this way helps make it a priority in my schedule and requires me to develop content that reflects the high quality of the marketing materials we produce for others.
2. Use real examples from your daily business. I find that the easiest blog posts to write are ones that relate to marketing planning discussions I’m having with clients about real marketing challenges. When a client asks about a specific aspect of developing a marketing strategy – such as how to build a social media marketing plan or market effectively at a trade show – I turn the basic tenets of my advice into a blog post.
3. Share insights from experts. Attend conferences and seminars and blog about what experts in your industry are saying. They’ll be flattered you covered their presentation and often will share your blog with their followers. You’ll be curating valuable content that can help your followers stay current with your industry. And when you add your perspective, you showcase your own knowledge.
4. Write about your professional passions. I have a lifelong love of direct mail marketing and I often find blog ideas in the direct mail I receive at my office and home. A particularly bad campaign from Verizon was an example of how not to win back customers using direct mail, while a mailing from Chico’s was a master class in how to do it right. When you write about things you’re passionate about, your expertise shines through.
5. Blog with lead generation in mind. Every blog post I write creates another opportunity for prospective clients looking for marketing advice to discover my Cleveland, Ohio marketing consulting firm. It’s more than using the right keywords. I focus on what I know best – how to develop a marketing strategy built on proven principles of effective marketing – and share ideas, tips, and recommendations from my experience. Nearly every prospect who has contacted me in the last two years has read my blog before they call to see if I know my stuff. And I’m pleased to report that I have gained new clients as a result.
6. Blog about the big guys. When you write about a large company, your post can get a significant amount of attention. A recent post about how my UPS driver exemplifies the UPS brand caught the eye of UPS corporate. The UPS social media team has posted my blog repeatedly on their Facebook and Twitter pages and circulated a link to the blog throughout the company. I didn’t write the blog with that goal in mind (it was a real-life lesson in building customer loyalty—see #2 above), but it was a nice bonus!
7. Market your blog everywhere. I want people to start with my blog when they are learning about my business, so it’s referenced on my website, company and personal LinkedIn pages, Facebook page, Twitter bio, Google+ page, business card, email signature, and presentations. I also promote each post in social media. Put your blog front and center in everything your company produces.

For most B2B marketers, blogging can be an extremely effective marketing strategy. My blog has drawn thousands of people to my website, propelled my site to page one on Google, and created valuable new client relationships. I hope these tips can help you achieve success.

Are you blogging for your business? What strategies are you using to achieve fame and fortune as a B2B blogger?

Now the bad news: It might not belong to you, even though you paid for it.

Many companies hire marketing agencies or freelancers to develop marketing campaigns and materials.

But marketers often overlook a critical step in the process: Ensuring that they own the intellectual property they’ve paid a marketing team to develop. And marketing agencies often fail to protect their legal rights to materials they’ve produced.

What are the most common intellectual property mistakes marketers and agencies make and how can you avoid them?

Here are some tips for your smart marketing strategy from an expert on legal issues in marketing.

What Intellectual Property is – and Why it Matters in Marketing

Sharon Toerek of Licata & Toerek is an attorney who specializes in legal issues related to marketing. She’s President of the Cleveland, Ohio chapter of the American Advertising Federation and Chair of the Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE), an organization that provides business services and support to thousands of Northeast Ohio companies.

Toerek represents marketing agencies and marketers in intellectual property (IP) issues and she recently shared her expertise at a meeting of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) in Cleveland.

Intellectual property is a broad term that applies to trademarks, copyrights, patents, and trade secrets.

One of the biggest legal minefields in marketing concerns trademarks and copyrights. The key question: Who owns the rights to the intellectual property created in advertising and marketing campaigns? The client? The agency? The freelancer?

Many people think they know the answer – and they’re often wrong.

True or False? Three Common IP Marketing Myths

Test your knowledge of intellectual property issues in marketing. Are these statements true or false?

1. Once the client pays for creative work, they own it: False. “The agency owns the rights to all the work it creates, even AFTER the client has paid for the work, unless there’s a written Work for Hire provision in the engagement agreement, a written assignment of completed work by the agency to the client, or a written grant of a license to use the work,” Toerek explains.
2. Ideas the agency presents in a new business pitch belong to the agency: False. “If the agency doesn’t have an ownership and nondisclosure agreement in place before it pitches concepts to a client, the agency does not own the rights to the ideas it presents,” Toerek says.
3. Agencies own the work of the freelancers they hire to develop creative for a client: False: Again, unless there is a written Work for Hire agreement in place between the agency and freelancer, the freelancer retains the rights to work they develop.

Intellectual Property Tips for Smart Marketers

Toerek advises every smart marketer and marketing agency to clearly state the terms of ownership of creative work in every agreement. “I’m passionate about protecting IP,” she states. “I believe it’s the lifeblood of our economy.

“Marketers should have standard Work for Hire and Assignment documents to use for all contractors, vendors, and freelancers who provide creative work on a project basis,” Toerek advises. “Don’t engage a freelancer or independent contractor without a written Work for Hire agreement signed in advance.

“If you’re an agency,” she continues, “a strong rights ownership clause should be in every contract you have with a client. You can and should agree to transfer the rights to the client but not until payment is made.”

Agencies also should have Work for Hire and Assignment documents in all their agreements with freelance contractors, she adds. Including copyright notices and copyright ownership clauses in all proposals is also a good standard operating procedure.

The bottom line for smart marketers: You might love your creative, but you might not own the rights to it. Be sure by protecting your intellectual property rights.

Best and worst lists are already out. Many spots were creative and funny. But when you look more closely at Super Bowl ads, a smart marketer has to wonder about their strategic marketing value.

A 30-second spot cost $3.5 million. Even if the ads were clever, at that price, were they a smart marketing strategy?

Here are seven criteria for evaluating the strategic effectiveness of advertising and my assessment as a marketing consultant of this year’s ads.

1. Does the ad connect with the target audience emotionally? Emotional connections were hard to find this year, though Clint Eastwood’s Chrysler spot hit the mark. Some nostalgia-driven ads were strong, especially Honda’s Ferris Bueller spot, but Coke’s bears felt mechanical and predictable. Plus, few people under 25 even know who these characters are.
2. Is the creative approach a simple one the audience can immediately grasp? Chevy’s graduation gift ad was the best example. Everyone got the joke in an instant. Skechers nailed it with Mr. Quiggly and H&M used David Beckham’s body with great effectiveness.
3. Does the creative concept support and exemplify the brand? More misses than hits. VW’s dog was cute, but the connection with the brand was weak. Acura’s exclusivity message is true to its brand, but Jerry Seinfeld’s star power outshone the car. Chevy’s end-of-the-world truck spot supported its brand positioning, though the Twinkies joke at the end is the most memorable moment.
4. Is the product woven into the creative concept so well that the concept couldn’t survive without it? Or could you insert any product into the concept with the same result?  Doritos was successful with its blackmailing dog; you can’t recall that ad without remembering the dog owner eating Doritos. Chrysler did well, too, with its emphasis on Detroit’s survival. Miss Brown, the newest M&M, had all the attitude and personality that have made M&Ms characters so beloved. But most ads failed here; plug almost any car brand in any car ad and there’d be little difference.
5. Does the ad demonstrate some differentiating product value or attribute? Skechers’ Mr. Quiggly did this well and Samsung’s ad showcased the phone’s stylus (though everyone I followed on Twitter mocked the technology as outdated: “I’m pretty sure there’s an app for that.”) Audi’s bright headlights are so close to daylight, they vanquish vampires, but the concept felt creepy. See below.
6. Does the ad make you feel differently about a product or marketer? GE’s ads with workers who meet the people who benefit from GE technology was almost heart-warming, but the execution was ponderous and it felt a tad false. (Employees who make cancer screening medical devices don’t know ANYONE who’s survived cancer?) At the opposite end of the spectrum, GoDaddy.com cemented its reputation as a lowlife marketer with trashy ads. Besides young single guys, would anyone seek out GoDaddy.com for a web URL as a result of these spots?
7. Most important, is the ad part of an integrated marketing strategy? Last year’s Chrysler spot with Eminem is the classic example of a Super Bowl ad with the depth and breadth to be the foundation for a full campaign. H&M is already building a campaign around Beckham and Miss Brown is sure to be the star of M&Ms marketing in the year ahead.

My List of Super Bowl Advertising Hits and Misses

• Worst disappointment: The first bad eTrade baby spot; sad to see such a great campaign fall so flat.
• Best cameo appearance: The midget from Twin Peaks as the last living Munchkin in the Acura Seinfeld spot.
• Most confusing: Hulu’s baffling spots with Will Arnett, the Okay Go guys using a car to record a song, and the Chevy Sonic doing stunts. What was the point exactly?
• Can’t remember the product: The cheetah who would rather eat the guy who opened the cage than race a car (which car was that?); the sled driver who buys a car and returns to the igloo (again, which car?); a team of workers singing the Rocky theme to inspire a coworker (name the company).
• Tired concepts that should have stayed in the can: Another Mean-Joe-Green-in-the-tunnel ad (Downy); CareerBuilder’s chimps (same concept they used six years ago); the beautiful Clydesdales (wasted in a Budweiser spot—remember when they were great?).
• Worse “ewww” factor: Audi’s blood delivery to a vampire bonfire (a tasteless mismatch with such an upscale brand); Hyundai using a car to revive a man whose heart has stopped; a robot baby from Toyota.
• Should have saved their money: Cadillac, Toyota, Best Buy, Chase, Suzuki, Bridgestone, TaxAct.com—weak, forgettable ads that were lost in the shuffle.
• Best paid product placement: Motorola headsets worn by the coaches, bearing no less than six brand references per headset.
• Best unpaid product placement: Apple iPhones being held by Giants players who shot pictures of the Lombardi trophy.
• What I won’t do next year: Preview all the ads online before the game. Most felt stale by the time they ran and many suffered in the shorter format, especially Honda and Acura.

The Bottom Line: What Do You Really Remember?

Two days after the Super Bowl, most of the ads have disappeared from the American consciousness. Smart marketers have to ask if this massive investment of marketing resources paid off.

My bottom line on the value of Super Bowl advertising in a marketing strategy is this: A day or a week or a month later, will you remember an ad primarily for the PRODUCT or for the creative?

If it’s the former, it’s a smart marketing strategy. But if it’s the latter, the marketer probably wasted their money.

One strategy is to focus on the knowledge and experience of the firm’s employees. I recently wrote about the importance of selling what you know (your smarts), not what you do (your services) to effectively market a professional services business.

There’s another factor that can help differentiate your company in a competitive market: How your employees make your customers feel. Case in point: My UPS delivery guy, Tom.

What can smart marketers learn about marketplace differentiation and customer retention from a UPS driver in Cleveland, Ohio? Here are some tips for your smart marketing strategy.

Delivering Packages and Much More

I opened a UPS account almost 20 years ago when I started a marketing consulting business from my home near Cleveland. A driver named Tom was assigned to my area. Later, when I moved the business to a nearby office building, Tom’s route covered my home and business.

Tom’s been serving us in both locations for many years. Like most UPS drivers, he’s smart, courteous, and efficient.

But Tom delivers much more than packages. He provides an exceptional level of personal service that you won’t find in a job description for a delivery truck driver. As the competent, caring face of the company, Tom helps ensure our loyalty to UPS.

Here are five principles of customer loyalty and retention that Tom practices every day:

1. Know the customer. Tom figured out quickly that my home was also my business. From the very beginning, he treated me like an executive, even when my office was 10 feet from the kitchen. As we grew, he came to know our whole team and what our business is about.
2. Value the customer. Though ours is a small business, Tom gives us the same respect as a large client. Our packages seem to be just as important as the ones he’s delivering to the biggest tenants in the building.
3. Anticipate the customer’s needs. If there’s no one available to sign for a package, Tom will deliver home-bound shipments to our office and vice versa. That may not be in the UPS rule book, but it gets important packages to us without delay and we love it.
4. Know your own business. Tom can answer almost any question about shipping via UPS. We can consult the UPS website (and we do), but it’s nice to get the right answer from a real person.
5. Delight the customer. When my business was home-based, my children helped answer the door. Tom brought them Dum-Dum lollipops and Tootsie Rolls. All these years later, he still leaves treats for my dog. Is this a corporate strategy to protect UPS drivers from dog bites? I doubt it. I think he’s just a genuinely nice guy who cares about the people he serves.

Lessons for Your Smart Marketing Strategy

If you’re marketing professional services, you’re selling what your people deliver. Promoting their expertise is essential, but so is promoting how they exemplify your commitment to great customer service.

Here’s how to make customer service excellence a core part of your brand and your marketing:

• Hire and train employees who make your customers feel so good about your company that they wouldn’t consider switching vendors because they place so much value on your team.
• Ask customers to help you tell your story in marketing campaigns through testimonials and case studies. Feature employees alongside customers in your advertising.
• Never forget that business is about relationships. Building great relationships with customers – who have the power to refer you to new prospects – is the smartest marketing strategy of all.