Manage-Wise

Never stop celebrating your advantage

Your highly motivating WHO, WHAT, and HOW will be defined in the privacy of your office or conference room. The strategic framework that will come out of this process will be sound and smart, but it will still be a secret, known only to the few people who participated in the process. It’s not yet an Inside Advantage because potential customers are not aware of it, not curious about it, not captivated by it, and not drawn to it.

Worse! They don’t even know that the compelling customer benefits you have defined belong to your business and not to your competitors’. You don’t yet OWN IT! Once you OWN IT! your business will start growing.

The final component in the Growth Discovery Process will enable you to OWN IT! by making your uncommon offering well known to your core customer. It is easy and can be fun to create a series of imaginative acts that will celebrate your uncommon offering and link it inextricably to your business. When this happens, you will unlock your Inside Advantage and grow your business. The magical moment is when customers decide to buy your product or service and not your competitors.’

This is the very moment that customers experience your Inside Advantage. OWN IT! makes this magical moment happen by bringing your strategy to life with a series of imaginative acts. This is how OWN IT! fits in the Growth discovery Process:

WHO + WHAT + HOW + OWN IT! = INSIDE ADVANTAGE

WHO is the core customer most likely to buy your product or service in the quantity required for optimal profit.

WHAT is the uncommon offering that your business will own and leverage.

HOW is the persuasive strategy that will convince your core customer to buy your uncommon offering versus all competitive offerings.

OWN IT! is the series of imaginative acts that will celebrate your uncommon offering and make it well known to your core customer.

Here’s how it works in the marketplace: people are intrigued and motivated by imaginative acts because they highlight and dramatize the Inside Advantage of businesses and brands.

Like all things original, innovative, and yes, magical, imaginative acts must be experienced. So sit back and enjoy the many illustrations of businesses, big and small, that have grown with OWN IT! Then you will be eager to discover how to create a series of imaginative acts for your business whether you have a big budget or none at all.

Inventing imaginative acts

This example of the creation and execution of a series of imaginative acts in support of a product also happens to be the project that first inspired me to develop and give voice to the concept of OWN IT!

One day my agency received a call from our large client, Sandoz (now Novartis). This Swiss pharmaceutical giant wanted to reward us for our performance on its Triaminic and Theraflue brands by giving us an even more challenging assignment. Its CEO explained that Tavist, its highly successful prescription drug product used to treat severe cold and allergy symptoms, had just received approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for conversion to an over-the-counter (OTC) medicine. That meant that the brand could be sold in drugstores, supermarkets, and convenience stores.

The client had the strategic framework and packaging ready to go and wanted to mount a significant media campaign to announce that Tavist could now be purchased without prescription. From previous experience with conversions from prescription to over-the-counter (Rx-to-OTC) medication we understood the challenge: when a medicine becomes available over the counter, its formerly loyal users perceive it to be less efficacious, and potential new customers, as yet unfamiliar with the brand and its therapeutic benefits, and not trusting it, are reluctant to give it a try. However, we had plenty of time and moved forward with development of advertising.

Up jumped the devil. The FDA unexpectedly and inexplicably modified one element of Tavist’s official “monograph”, the product’s treatment protocol and efficacy. In simple terms, this meant that there could be no reference of any kind to the treatment of colds—it had to be marketed as a product for severe nasal congestion only! We were suddenly faced with two huge obstacles: we had a much smaller core customer base, given that we couldn’t talk directly to the big cold sufferers market, and we had a weaker offering—the relief of severe nasal congestion rather than relief from all the symptoms of a bad cold such as headache, coughing, and sneezing. And enough time had passed that we no longer had the luxury of a far-off deadline. We had to move, and fast.

The client concentrated on packaging changes and launch details; we were given the task of developing a blockbuster introductory campaign concurrent with the launch date now just around the corner. Given the set of obstacles that confronted us and the approaching deadline, I assembled a large group of specialists—media, public relations, writing and art talent, promotion experts, and the like—from all our US offices. We quickly concluded that traditional media advertising would be insufficient to generate the consumer awareness and customer trial required. We needed something bigger—something that would generate national impact and motivate potential customers to give the OTC version of Tavist an immediate try.

It was then that I remembered a remarkable event-driven concept developed by Marc Bourgery, an agency colleague in our Paris headquarters. Marc and I had worked together on client and new business opportunities in Europe. I thought him to be the most unorthodox and innovative strategist I had ever worked with. I had seen Marc’s concept produce the kind of impact and urgency we needed for Tavist. The event I witnessed firsthand was the introduction of a new fragrance brand that needed instant fanfare, notoriety, and press coverage. The product’s point of difference was its floral scent. Marc’s concept was put into action. On the morning of the brand’s introduction, Paris awakened to discover that several of the famous bridges over the Seine River were covered entirely with the flowers that created this scent.

Excerpt from ‘The Inside Advantage’ by Robert H Bloom. Reproduced with permission © 2008, Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Limited. Price: Rs 510. Vishwanath_Ghanekar@mcgraw-hill.com