By Robert Channick

Cramer-Krasselt was named lead creative agency for Panera Bread, notching a win for the Chicago advertising community.

The St. Louis-based restaurant chain announced the decision Tuesday, choosing Cramer-Krasselt over three other agencies, including Y&R Chicago.

“We are very pleased to move forward with Cramer-Krasselt,” Michael Simon, Panera’s chief marketing officer, said in a statement. “We believe evolving to a more elevated message that better captures Panera’s soul can build deeper affinity with our customers and as a result create competitive advantage.”

Panera conducted an agency review after deciding to part ways with Boston-based Mullen, which had worked on the account since 2005. Other agencies in the running included Olson and GSD&M. The restaurant chain spent $42 million in advertising during 2011, according to Kantar Media.

Cramer-Krasselt, the second largest independent agency in the U.S., will handle national advertising for Panera out of its Chicago office, with Maxus North America continuing to provide strategic media planning and investment services.

By: Maureen Morrison

Published: in Ad Age, May 07, 2012

Indie agency Cramer-Krasselt has landed the creative account for Panera following a review.

Panera CMO Michael Simon told Ad Age that the new agency comes as the chain is looking to take a new direction, especially considering that many fast-casual and fast-food chains are promoting freshness and better ingredients.

According to Mr. Simon, Panera’s goal for its marketing will be to promote “how we embed purpose in everything we do. … C-K had an idea that we felt changed the dialogue and conversation from functional to affiliated values.” He added that the agency’s work will likely focus on how it sources and prepares its food, how it creates an environment where customers will want to linger, and how the chain ultimately gives back to the community.

The account will be handled out of C-K’s Chicago office. It had been at Interpublic Group of Cos.’ Mullen; the chain and the agency split in December over what appeared to be creative differences. The review did not affect WPP’s Maxus, Panera’s media-buying agency. Consultant AAR Partners oversaw the review.

In the final round of the creative pitch, the review was narrowed to four agencies: WPP’s Y&R, Chicago; indie agencies Olson and Cramer-Krasselt; and Omnicom Group’s GSD&M. But executives familiar with the review said that it came down to a shootout between GSD&M and Cramer-Krasselt.

Panera has been performing well for some time. Its systemwide sales were up 10.1% last year, to $3.3 billion, according to Technomic, and the number of its U.S. locations was up 7.2% to 1,480.

The chain nearly a year ago launched its first major TV campaign, “Make today better,” which was handled by Mullen. Panera has steadily increased its marketing budget under Mr. Simon, who joined the company in October 2009 and was previously at Campbell Soup Co. The company upped its measured-media spending 17% last year, to $42 million, from $36 million in 2010, according to Kantar Media. The company had spent about $23.6 million in 2009.

The news for GSD&M is mitigated by its win of the Walgreens creative account, which Ad Age reported earlier today.

By Danielle Arceneaux, VP and Director of Public Relations, Cramer-Krasselt New York
Published: March 16, 2012

As a public relations director at an integrated marketing agency, I advise clients every day on their social media strategies.  However, as an active participant in the anti-Rush Limbaugh social media protests, I learned more than is possible at any industry event or conference.

As a result of a highly organized and extremely passionate group of citizens, dozens of companies (and counting) have made a commitment to pull advertising from the conservative commentator’s radio show.  Regardless of which side of the debate you fall on, this is one of the most instructive – and fascinating – social media case studies to ever play out.

Below are five learnings brought to light by the “Flush Rush” movement.

1. Social media is not just Facebook and Twitter.

Intellectually, we all know that social media goes beyond Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, yet corporations are largely unprepared to manage other social channels.  For example, this social media revolution seemed to have been spurred by a single Reddit member by the name of jaybercrow.  On Friday March 2^nd, jaybercrow’s plea for action cracked Reddit’s top 10 list.  Angry consumers toiled away on Friday and Saturday, expressing their anger at brands through Facebook, Twitter and via the phone, and the brands started to drop like flies.

However, a breakthrough moment for ProFlowers occurred Sunday morning, when consumers frustrated with ProFlowers lack of response began organizing to leave negative comments on Amazon.com.  Shortly thereafter, ProFlowers agreed to suspend advertising.

The lesson: Any online medium where consumers can share information is social media.  Look beyond the obvious or you likely won’t know of an organized movement until it hits your brand wall.

2. Instantly review all your online assets.

ProFlowers initially issued a statement on its Facebook that stated, “We would like to assure you that we do not endorse the views expressed by Rush Limbaugh.  We understand your concerns and value your feedback.”  Meanwhile, their website said in giant text that the company was offering a special discount for Rush Limbaugh listeners.  While ProFlowers almost certainly offered the discount before Limbaugh made his controversial statements about Sandra Fluke, the discount contradicted ProFlowers carefully worded statement.

The lesson: A crisis demands that brands take an immediate audit of all online and social assets to ensure that they are communicating a consistent message across all platforms.

3. Ditch the platitudes.  Have a point of view.

This is where I feel real empathy for social media community managers.  While the Facebook pages of brands were receiving six or more negative posts a minute, most brands issued trite and meaningless statements, thanking consumers for their “valuable feedback.”  This may have been what their lawyers approved, but the pat responses infuriated the community.  Consumers outed these brands for not “getting” social media, and they were right.

David Friend, CEO of Carbonite, went a step further with a blog post that stated “Limbaugh’s remarks have us rethinking our future use of talk radio,” and “I have scheduled a face-to-face meeting next week with Limbaugh.”  But ultimately, in the face of continued consumer outreach, Friend made a sincere, from-the-heart statement that showed real courage:

“No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady. Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency. Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse.”

The lesson: Empower your community manager to respond to fans like human beings, not lawyers.  Have a social media crisis plan in place before disaster strikes so that the leadership team can make quick decisions.

4. Blocking people and deleting comments is not cool.

It’s a brand’s prerogative to delete comments and block users, but know that it won’t stop consumers from spreading negative sentiment about their brand.  In fact, it’s only likely to accelerate as that consumer becomes angry and moves onto other platforms.  I know, because it happened to me.  My posts weren’t vulgar or in violation of any Facebook rules, but the brand-that-shall-not-be-mentioned clearly didn’t like my tone.  So I moved to Twitter and shared my comments to an even larger group of citizens.

The lesson: If you cut off the head, it may grow eight arms.

5. Even small businesses are vulnerable.

The Reddit community is currently organizing a Phase Two of the Rush Limbaugh protests that involves targeting small businesses that advertise on local radio affiliates.  While I hope that these protesters maintain a civil tone with small business owners, it’s a reminder to us all that social media is a conversation.  All businesses – small and large – must be prepared to engage in an honest dialogue.

by Rich Kirchen, Senior Reporter
Published: Friday, March 2, 2012

Peter Krivkovich, who has led Cramer Krasselt’s growth into one of the top independently owned advertising agencies in America, recently turned 65 but has no immediate plans to retire.

Krivkovich told me he will keep working “as long as I’m healthy and feeling good and they (his management colleagues) feel I’m still contributing.”

I interviewed Krivkovich at Cramer Krasselt’s downtown Chicago offices last week while researching a story on Milwaukee and Wisconsin businesses that have expanded in downtown Chicago. CK is an example of a firm that moved its headquarters from Milwaukee to Chicago in 1999 and has done quite well in Chicago while maintaining a Milwaukee office.

Krivkovich told me that when it is time to retire, his replacement will come from Cramer Krasselt’s upper management team. That group consists of several long-time executives, including Betsy Brown, who is executive vice president and general manager of CK’s Milwaukee office; chief operating officer Karen Seamen and chief creative officer Marshall Ross, Krivkovich said.

Krivkovich has been with CK since 1981, when the then-Milwaukee-based agency bought his agency Hackenberg, Normann, Krivkovich and Partners. He and Paul Counsell in Milwaukee co-ran the agency for a decade or more and Krivkovich became CEO when Counsell retired.

The agency has 278 employees in Chicago and occupies three floors of an office building at 225 N. Michigan Ave.

The agency has assembled an impressive list of clients in Chicago including Corona beer, Porsche, H.J. Heinz, Edward Jones and Hilton hotels. Here are videos on the agency’s work for: Corona ; Porsche and COA/Milwaukee Public Schools.

Krivkovich attributes the agency’s growth to its independent ownership structure that has allowed it to invest early in trends like digital media and now in social-media analytics.

“We are able to invest, plan and gamble on opportunities,” he said.

CK opened an office in New York City about five years ago and now has about 50 employees there. The Milwaukee office in the Third Ward remains the agency’s second-largest.

“The Milwaukee office has grown because of the incredible base of companies in Wisconsin and surrounding states that are very loyal to their geography,” Krivkovich said.

Curated Commerce: How Retail Brands Can Cash in on the Latest Craze

Mashable – Jan 18, 2012 by John Doyle

As we kick off 2012, one of the most prominent online trends is an increasingly diverse array of content curation platforms. While sites like Digg and reddit have been around for years, a new crop of sites like Polyvore, Svpply and, most notably, Pinterest are allowing people to organize their favorite discoveries from around the web into themed collections that friends and contacts can follow.

Marketers are excited about the trend’s subsequent opportunities, as it appears to be an evolution in online influence. (Consider that Pinterest, with only 5.3 million active users, drives more traffic to Real Simple than Facebook.)

Shoppers are turning to these curated experiences to help filter the Internet’s overwhelming amount of content down to manageable collections of products centered around shared taste. Unless you know specifically what you want to buy (in which case, search is the weapon of choice), browsing curated collections can be the most interesting way to discover new products and retailers. As an example of the power of human curation, just compare the results of a Google search for gloves with the same search on Pinterest. Now ask yourself which search makes you want to buy something?

With a little practice, shopping curated collections can be a lot like shopping in a real-life boutique — a boutique where the goods are selected and stocked to meet the needs of its best customer: you. And because these collections are created by real people (in many cases, friends from within the shopper’s own personal social network), the resulting shopping experience is authentic, powerful and hugely influential on purchase behavior.

The trouble for retail brands? Consumers often prefer curated collections, which tend to be absent of overt branding and promotion. They don’t turn to curated communities to learn about the Gap’s winter line or the latest sale on Macys.com. No, what drives both curators and the consumers who enjoy these experiences is discovering and sharing “products on the verge.”

But that doesn’t mean established brands and retailers can’t leverage this trend and capitalize on the powerful influence curated collections can generate. Try these three ways that brands and retailers can leverage curated commerce.

1. Look for Your Brand ‘In the Wild.’

Just because curated collections don’t often feature bigger brands doesn’t mean these retailers don’t show up at all. And when they do, it presents a huge learning opportunity for brand and store managers to see products in a new context — the way influential tastemakers see you. By understanding which other brands or products surround yours, you may discover a new dimension to your merchandising strategy.

A simple Pinterest search for “Brooks Brothers” yielded this visually rich and focused collection called “Preppy Cool.” Perhaps the Brook’s Brothers site could benefit by creating similar visual appeal, leading customers to purchase items that naturally fit a targeted style preference.

2. Bring the Outside In.

If you find that your brand has been included in a curated collection, take pains to identify the curator, explore past collections and try to gauge her influence and audience. If you can’t find yourself in curated collections, you can still look to identify tastemakers that share your aesthetic or ethos.

Once you’ve identified the right individuals, encourage them to consider adding you to their collections. Better still, invite these curators to create a collection on your owned site and in stores, thus giving them a new platform for expression and self-promotion, and you a fresh take on your merchandising. For an example of a brand that understands the power of bringing the outside in, check out J.crew’s partner-curated collections and brand partnerships.

3. Go Off Property.

Sure, you can curate a collection on your own website or other digital properties, but you’ll tap entirely new tastemakers and audiences by integrating your products within an existing community site. Just be sure not to focus too much on your own brand, or else you risk being labeled a shill and, thus, lose customer-valued authenticity. Your brand should be the garnish on a plate of freshly discovered “products on the verge” — never the main dish.

For example, check out how a few Sephora products benefit from a widened context on this color-themed Svpply.com set.

Leveraging the effects of curated commerce will require extra time, effort and imagination. However, it can have an extremely powerful impact on both shoppers and your brand. When it comes to influencing consumers, the human touch is everything.

John Doyle is VP of digital strategy for Cramer-Krasselt / Chicago. Keep up with him at johndoyle.posterous.com.

By: Nancy Miller
November 22, 2011

Fast Company asked several of the most creative ad agencies in the world to rebrand baby girls. Their mock campaigns recast girls as the No. 1 choice for consumers from China to the U.S.

Cramer-Krasselt

Target Demo: U.S. Couples

The Ad Folks:
This Chicago-based agency is America’s second-largest indie and has worked with Corona, Hilton, and Porsche.

Their Campaign Strategy:
Ads mock the conventional choice by presenting challenging, funny facts about raising boys. National print ads, signage in pregnancy-test sections of drugstores, and QR (quick-response) codes on boys’ clothing in retail outlets steer prospective parents to more data at hopeitsagirl.com.

Cramer-Krasselt

Target Demo: U.S. Males

The Ad Folks:
For our challenge, the competition between the two offices of Cramer-Krasselt pitted two of their creative teams in two different offices–Milwaukee and Chicago–to compete for the top ad spot. The Milwaukee team’s “Hope It’s A Girl” campaign made it into the magazine but their second runner-up, “Don’t Diss Daughters” was too good to leave on the cutting room floor.

Their Campaign Strategy:
The message is a humorous reality check: your future little girl doesn’t get to choose you either. A fully-function website, www.dontdissdaughters.com, helps drive the point home: before you go dissing girls, take a good look at yourself as a future dad.

Everybody Shout

Target Demo: Men Around the World

The Ad Folks:
Shout is part of She Says, a network of 3,000 ad women who collaborate outside their day jobs on campaigns directed at women.

Their Campaign Strategy:
This ad shouts what studies suggest–that female leaders can be more empathetic and inspirational. The ad evokes movie posters because its creators “expect to see plenty of successful females coming soon to a corporation, startup, or Oval Office near you.”

AKQA

Target Demo: Affluent Women in China

The Ad Folks:
This digital agency headquartered in San Francisco has done campaigns for Heineken, Gap, Nike, and the Xbox 360.

Their Campaign Strategy:
To help rural Chinese see women as precious, ads will nudge urban professionals, whose cultural influence is vast. The character on the lips is the female version of the word ni (“you”). The ad aims to speak to those who know they have value and those who don’t yet see that.

Leo Burnett

Target Demo: U.S. Men and Women

The Ad Folks:
Chicago’s legendary agency currently handles Allstate, Proctor & Gamble, McDonald’s–and many more.

Their Campaign Strategy:
The “Accidental Daughters” campaign would use humor and irreverence to upset stereotypes. First up would be Amy Poehler, followed by a series of other successful, iconoclastic women, like Lady Gaga.

72andSunny

Target Demo: U.S. Younger Males

The Ad Folks:
From L.A. and Amsterdam, these are the people who brought you K-Swiss sneakers “sponsored by” Kenny Powers.

Their Campaign Strategy:
With cheeky fake blurbs, this campaign appeals to would-be dads by hyping baby girls as the “high-performance” child. The downloadable configurator app borrows from popular high-performance automobile apps. Your girl as a souped-up Mustang–that’s an equation a guy can love.

LatinWorks

target demo: U.S. Men and Women

The Ad Folks:
The Austin indie has created popular campaigns for Domino’s and Starburst in the Hispanic market.

Their Campaign Strategy:
In a world that holds to a lot of false generalizations about women, this campaign simply aims to push facts that paint a favorable picture of girls. Many boys are loyal and compassionate–but according to the data, girls have those traits more often.

Everybody Shout

Target Demo: U.S. Males

The Ad Folks:
A team of female creatives from the She Says advertising network, which goes under the agency name Shout, created a series of provocative ads, including a concept titled, “Do It for Her.”

Their Campaign Strategy:
The ad makes a case for why girls deserve a chance in a heartfelt, yet provocative way. The “positions” series could be a campaign that also becomes a series of stunts to get people talking about the many reasons why they “do it,” including quirky yet, uh, educational executions. Point is: However you do it–just do it for her.

Cheil North America

Target Demo: Women, Future Parents In China/Global Market

The Ad Folks:
The award-winning global marketing company, headquartered in South Korea (with offices in the U.S, Mexico and Canada) specializes in Asian markets and had been the longtime agency of Samsung.

Their Campaign Strategy:
Here, the potential of a young woman is realized–in the form of an ad for a bestselling book by a fictional future CEO. That is, if she had been allowed to be born. The exploration of that thwarted potential is sobering and impactful–yet still remains optimistic.

Crown Deserves a Toast for Big Sales in Bad Times - Ad Age, November 7, 2011
By: E.J. Schultz

Innovative Corona Campaign, Profitable Modelo Brand Gives Brewer Reason to Drink to Its Success

In a year where big brewers continued to lose ground, Crown Imports stands out for one simple reason — it is actually growing sales, overcoming a tough economy with aggressive advertising on Corona and new investments in surging smaller brands.

The importer’s sales to retailers were up 5% through September, compared to a roughly 2% decline for the overall beer category, according to Beer Marketer’s Insights. “They are having a good year. It’s a down industry, and they are up,” said Benj Steinman, who runs the beer trade publication.

Crown’s flagship Corona Extra continues to stabilize after suffering big sales declines in 2008 and 2009 and a smaller drop last year. Crown is projecting a flat finish for the brand this year, but even that is an accomplishment in an age where older brands like Corona are facing new competition from craft beers and spirits brands, while dealing with recession-battered consumers spending less on beer.

“This year, in this environment, we are very pleased with the performance,” said Chief Marketing Officer Jim Sabia. “However, our goal is to grow this brand.”

To that end, Corona — which built its reputation as a beach vacation in a bottle — continues to make subtle moves away from the shore with its “Find Your Beach” campaign by Cramer-Krasselt, which is aimed at getting drinkers to consider more occasions for the beer. The latest spot — which features a couple sipping Coronas on a plane, but daydreaming about the beach — is simple yet elegant, and one of the few beer ads that drew unsolicited praise from distributors at a recent beer conference in Las Vegas.

Corona has also revamped its media-buying strategy, targeting more sports programming. The shift is a result of a complete marketing audit made by Mr. Sabia shortly after he joined the importer three years ago from Constellation Brands, which owns Crown in a joint venture with Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo. While Corona had previously focused on entertainment and comedy programming, Mr. Sabia said Crown learned through research that Corona consumers “were very active in sports.”

But Crown’s biggest success story — and the key to its recent growth — is Modelo Especial, one of the hottest brands in all of beer with store case sales up nearly 19% in the year ending Oct. 2, according to SymphonyIRI, excluding Walmart. The Mexican import is particularly popular among Hispanic consumers. This year, Crown moved to broaden the beer’s appeal, selling it on tap in more places and introducing new retail promotions. The marketer also hired Omnicom Group’s Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, which is prepping the first general-market campaign for the brand, which now ranks as the 14th-largest beer brand, according to SymphonyIRI. The brand’s Hispanic agency is La Comunidad.

Mr. Sabia, whose resume includes a 17-year stint at Coors Brewing Co., has made a conscious effort to expand Crown’s agency roster, including shifting English-language advertising on Corona Light this year from La Comunidad to Goodby, while assigning Victoria and Pacifico to GSD&M.

Identity, Education
10.10.11

The Milwaukee Public Museum is a natural history museum that had, somewhat ironically, become mired in the past. People didn’t believe that anything at the museum ever changed. In an attempt to put a fresh face on the familiar, local agency Cramer-Krasselt developed a new logo, tagline and graphic system to cultivate curiosity and lure people back. The logo and graphic system convey the breadth of the collections by employing layers built from some of the millions of artifacts at the museum, and a new tagline serves as an invitation… “What will you find?”

Shawn Holpfer, art director/designer
Jim Jodie, writer
Chris Buhrman, creative director
Chris Jacobs, executive creative director
Marshall Ross, chief creative officer
Frank Dalton, photographer
Kelli Buchholz/Karen Kirsch, producers
Cramer-Krasselt (Milwaukee, WI), ad agency
Milwaukee Public Museum, client

Published in the September 01, 2011 issue of PRWeek

Ad agencies are offering PR services as part of the integrated solutions clients are increasingly demanding. Chris Daniels looks at the opportunities and obstacles this presents to PR firms.

At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity earlier this year, the PR Grand Prix was awarded for the second straight year to an ad agency. Australia’s Clemenger BBDO won for National Australia Bank’s “Break up” campaign, which staged a public breakup between the bank and its rivals through paid and earned media. TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles, won the year prior for Gatorade’s Replay effort. Ad agencies are dominating the PR categories at Cannes – despite the fact marketing dollars have shifted from traditional paid media to earned media and channels such as social media, what should be the sweet spot for PR service providers.

This doesn’t mean ad agencies are trying to replace PR firms, however.

“We don’t want to displace any of the current PR functions or PR agencies of our clients,” says Joani Wardwell, global PR director for Wieden + Kennedy, a leading independent integrated ad agency. “We’re never going to be a PR firm that takes on clients outside of our current roster.”

While the majority of ad agencies may not want to replace their PR counterparts, ad agencies are positioning and organizing themselves as integrated providers who can provide ideas and expertise across virtually every discipline, from traditional creative and media planning and buying to digital media and, now, PR. In the case of the latter, they are achieving that through in-house capabilities and, in larger part, through strategic alliances and affiliations.

Clemenger BBDO, for example, can tap into its “consulting network,” which includes four different PR firms, among them Porter Novelli.

“That’s the real question facing firms like ours,” says Dave Senay, president and CEO of Fleishman-Hillard and Cannes PR jury president. “Competing against an ad agency with a PR firm is not nearly as intimidating as pitching against a multifaceted firm ‘made for integration.’ ”

Senay tells PRWeek that’s why Fleishman’s work inside its holding company is so vital. “We have more than 100 collaborations under way right now with non-PR agencies within Omnicom. We are also increasingly pitching as part of integrated teams, often with ad agencies in the mix.”

“Clients are driving all of this; they want more and more integrated solutions,” he adds. “They don’t care if we are leading the integration or if we are simply part of a team. They just don’t want to work with eight different agencies and eight different contacts.”

Outside of marketing communications PR (see “Maximum exposure” sidebar), Simon Bond, CMO for BBDO and Proximity Worldwide, says collaboration has become the name of the game for integrated campaign execution.

“We have close relationships with Omnicom partners Ketchum, Porter Novelli, and Fleishman-Hillard,” he explains. “We recommend them when we can, but we also work with anyone.”

The search for talent

With clients increasingly looking for integrated advertising solutions, PR firms and ad agencies alike are looking for individuals who are comfortable working across marketing disciplines.

Dale Bornstein, senior partner and director of global practices at Ketchum, says, “We understand that to be at the integrated marketing table, we have to be able to speak the client language and understand what they are looking for in terms of outcomes.”

In addition to staff training, Bornstein says Ketchum is hiring more people with strong MBA backgrounds, non-traditional backgrounds, as well as practitioners from integrated marketing firms.

Ad agencies are also looking for PR talent who can demonstrate their ability to work on integrated campaigns. Peter Krivkovich, president and CEO of Cramer-Krasselt, says, “Recruiting is hard for a fully integrated firm like C-K because up until recently PR was isolated from other disciplines, as were all the others from each other. What we look for is someone who has either had exposure to strategic processes in a company, reported to a CMO, or has a degree that included marketing in addition to journalism.

“The last thing we want when we’re recruiting,” adds Krivkovich, “is someone who is so steeped in one thing.”

Slow rise to prominence
Five years ago, Wieden + Kennedy brought on Wardwell to help integrate PR into the agency’s thought process for clients. She admits it didn’t happen overnight.

“For the first two years, I was begging the creative teams to invite me into brainstorming meetings with clients,” she says. “At the time, nobody [at the agency] really understood PR. They just thought it was crisis management, and that’s certainly part of it, but that’s not exactly what I wanted to be doing on a daily basis.”

Today, she has four people reporting to her at the Portland, OR, head office, in addition to one PR pro in each of Wieden + Kennedy’s seven other offices. Those practitioners are assigned to specific client accounts.

“Creative teams now come to us and say, ‘Can you help add some PR thinking to this creative deck that we’re presenting to the client?’ Or clients will say, ‘Hey, can we brainstorm with you?’” says Wardwell.

While Wieden + Kennedy may provide the strategic thinking for PR elements of a campaign, she says it then often hands over the execution to an outside PR firm with more resources. Perhaps the most high-profile example of that approach is the work for P&G’s Old Spice featuring Isaiah Mustafa. Wieden + Kennedy came up with the idea, while PainePR helped promote it.

But Wardwell says some PR firms are resistant to partner with Wieden + Kennedy because they worry the agency is after its accounts. “I tend to go with smaller firms. The bigger firms are so scared,” she says. “And fear is going to be a PR firm’s demise. Unless they adapt, start working together, and sit at the same table with us, they are going to be siloed and, eventually, outdated.”

Some PR firms have adapted, or at least are trying to do so. Ketchum, for instance, trains both its senior managers and account managers on the role they can play in integrated teams, says Dale Bornstein, the agency’s senior partner and director of global practices.

The training helps staff understand the role of various marketing disciplines, and the kind of metrics clients expect to see from each. “We want our current and future leaders to understand what it means to do really good integrated marketing, in terms of both leading at the table, but also contributing well with other agency partners,” she says.

It is undoubtedly a paradigm shift – competitors one minute can be your partners the next. But Bornstein says by being the best possible partner, other agencies both within and outside Omnicom will be more likely to work with them again or suggest them to a potential client.

Not all ad agencies, however, have adopted a collaborative model. Cramer-Krasselt, the second-largest independent ad agency in the US, offers a full suite of in-house services, including PR.

Because the agency has no profit centers, Peter Krivkovich, president and CEO, says staff and resources can be shifted to where a campaign idea naturally takes them.

“Even in a pitch for an advertising account, we may say, ‘OK, here’s the portion you asked about in the RFP, but we think the real solution is here with this PR initiative,’” he explains. “Now if you don’t want to do it all with us, that’s fine, you can parcel it out, but this is what we think you need to do to solve the problem.”

He says the problem with the collaborative model is ultimately each provider is still going to push a solution they are most comfortable with and that will bring it the most revenue. “The client can try and coordinate it all, ” he adds, “but are all these players going to play nice in the sandbox? Probably not.”

Maximum exposure

In the past, some ad agencies wanted the creative to speak for itself. Today, agencies from Wieden + Kennedy (which began adding a PR function about five years ago) to big multinationals grasp the need to extend their campaigns’ reach through earned media.

“We try to have a PR element built into all campaigns, especially in the social media space,” says Simon Bond, CMO for BBDO and Proximity Worldwide. “We want to give our campaigns maximum exposure and reach.”

BBDO has created campaigns and supported them at launch through PR for clients including GE, Pinnacle Foods, and HBO. BBDO has a five-person PR team in North America led by Roy Elvove, EVP, director of worldwide communications.

For GE, the agency has secured coverage about its ad campaigns in the business section of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

“There is a huge advantage in working with your ad agency in terms of consumer marketing PR,” says Judy Hu, global executive director for advertising and branding at GE. “Roy’s team is there from the start, from strategic planning through to creative and development. They know what we’re working on before we’ve finished it, so they fully understand it and can move forward before launch.”

Danger ahead?
The other potential issue is one that could befall PR firms in a few years – and one that is facing digital shops now. Initially, digital pure plays enjoyed fantastic growth, but have since scaled back considerably.

“One executive at a digital agency told me they are not getting as much work from the ad agencies as they used to; the traditional agencies can do it in-house now,” says Krivkovich. “Everybody’s learning the other’s craft, just like the ad people and the PR people are now sitting in the same room together from the very start of a campaign.”

As ad agency executives better grasp earned media, could PR firms eventually lose their place at the proverbial table?

Dean Jarrett, SVP of marketing communications at Martin Agency, part of the Interpublic Group, doesn’t think so. In fact, he says the agency has seen less opportunity to provide PR counsel to clients than it did five years ago.

“As we’ve grown and secured more national brands, a lot of those companies already have PR counsel in-house or externally with a PR firm,” says Jarrett. “You can come here and get analytics, strategic planning, creative, media planning, and buying – just about everything – but PR seems to be the one area where clients typically do their own thing.”

With the increased exposure social media and even Cannes has brought to earned media, Bornstein says there is also no reason why PR firms can’t lead integrated efforts, as well. “I don’t think clients today are automatically turning to their ad agency,” she says. “They are turning to the agency where great ideas are being brought forth by great talent. And that is a real opportunity for PR firms.”

Senay says PR firms can help seize that opportunity by being world class in terms of earned media and proactively creating partnerships outside of their core competencies.

He explains: “PR firms would be wise to find partners for various adjacent disciplines and develop the ability to nimbly dance between them and create momentary alliances as required by each unique assignment.”

http://www.prweekus.com/competing-for-the-pr-dollar/article/210166/

The iconic boat sandal Crocs had become both mocked and imitated, but the brand’s fortunes have been rejuvenated through a character-led story based on its Croslite technology

AdMap – June 2011 by Marshall Ross, Cramer-Krasselt

It’s a CEO’s dream: a product catches fire almost by accident and then takes off like a rocket, seemingly able to soar without the cost of marketing. But then you wake up and realize that the growth would have limits and the product’s story was being written by others – others who don’t like you.

This is the dream-to-nightmare scenario that global footwear maker Crocs recently experienced. A euphoric high, and then a slam back to Earth. But it’s also an example of how fast-acting the power of story can be. Just months after experiencing near-death lows in late 2009, Crocs has control over its narrative, is on its way to broader and healthier growth and is making new friends all over the world.

MARKET CONTEXT

Crocs began life in 2002 as a boat shoe. That explains a lot about why the Crocs iconic sandal looks the way it does. It’s designed to work well in water. Its rubber-like material, actually not rubber at all but a proprietary closed-cell resin called Croslite, helps you keep your grip on wet and slippery surfaces, won’t absorb water and then weigh you down, dries quickly, and is mold and mildew resistant. Just what boaters need.

It’s also incredibly comfortable. Croslite, precisely because it isn’t rubber, forms to your foot. After just a few hours, your pair gives a custom fit. They’re so comfortable that boaters didn’t confine their Croc-wearing to their boats. They wore them everywhere. Which is how the rocket was lit. Crocs don’t exactly blend in.

It wasn’t long before the sandal’s unusual looks became a kind of magnet. Suddenly, everyone wanted a pair. The company sold more than 100 million pairs and could only just keep up with demand. But the winds of fashion are nothing if not fickle – even for shoes some would call anti-fashion. The look of Crocs and their sudden ubiquity drew haters. Backlash set in.

While the sandals continued to sell, growth stalled dramatically. And new styles, designed to draft off the sandal’s success while widening the brand’s appeal, faltered. Crocs was left with excess inventory, which it began to sell at heavily discounted levels. The stock nosedived from a high of $68.98 in October 2007 to a low of $1.04 in November 2008. Wall Street was not happy. People were beginning to write the brand’s epitaph.

OBJECTIVES

We had two simply stated tasks: First, create distribution and sales success for new styles, while promoting the original sandal, which still represented the bulk of the company’s sales. Second, create a brand out of a product. Crocs was a one-shoe wonder. That wouldn’t work for long. Crocs needed to be something bigger in sales and message.

THE BIG IDEA

Crocs was being framed by rejecters as a homely shoe for people without taste. As Jerry Seinfeld might say, they were the sweat pants of shoes. In that kind of light, the new styles – 250 of them and counting – simply could not be seen.

We reckoned the fastest way to the future was to go backward, and explain the shoe for the first time. Remember Croslite? This feather-light, odour-resistant, form-to-fit material is what makes a pair of shoes a pair of Crocs. That story needed telling to combat against cheap imitators selling rubber look-alikes at a fraction of the price and drive home the comfort and ergonomic properties of all Crocs shoes – including the surprisingly diverse and fashion-forward new styles.

Crocs needed a new face. For a large group of people, it had the opportunity to be recast from a quirky look to a sensory brand, a distinctive champion for your feet’s well-being.

STRATEGY

One of the most important things many marketers fail to recognize when they attempt a reboot is that no matter how hard you try, you can never get away from yourself. Crocs, even without a story, was not a blank slate. The personality we would give it and the people we would seek to share it with had to somehow ring true.

Ken Chaplin, Crocs’ new marketing chief, had a smartly intuitive sense of where the brand’s real heart and soul might be found. While we would ultimately compete against fashion brands for people’s footwear dollars, Ken believed Crocs should not attempt to mimic that model. Could we gain serious consideration, he challenged us, without taking ourselves too seriously?

Key to making that happen was a strategy that focused our work on a group of independently minded women we call the Moxies. What makes Moxies special is their willingness to look past labels and see a product independent of its brand. (Yes, millions of these women actually exist.) If they think they’ll like something, they’re far more willing to give it a whirl than their more label-conscious friends. They still want style. They still want compliments. They’re just more open-minded about how to get them.

Embracing this mindset liberated the work from those mysterious rules of fashion communications that celebrate pretension over purpose and doom a brand to nothing more than a logo-flavored stylebook. Besides, Crocs had tried to follow the ‘image-first-meaning- never’ approach when it first launched its new styles. It didn’t work. So the Moxie mindset, with its brave willingness to hear a story, was the right kind of mental match for a brand with a story to tell, helping to distinguish Crocs from cheap imitators and trend-chasing competitors, such as Skechers, Sperry TopSiders and Havaianas.

EXECUTION

The Crocs brand needed a second look. So we created something that’s hard to ignore. Meet Croslite.

Croslite is the miracle material that makes every pair of Crocs your foot’s best friend. And now it’s the icon that’s helping to transform Crocs from a strange looking clog to a brand that makes your feet feel really good. In any style.

The campaign launched in support of the brand’s 2010 spring/summer line, spanning TV, print, out-of-home, point-of-sale, social media, digital and public relations, all carrying the ‘Feel the Love’ message, touting Crocs as the shoe that loves you back.

Moxies have their own media habits and we made sure Crocs shared them. Advertising appeared on programming and in publications that appealed to our adventurous and confident target, such as Lifetime, Bravo, E!, the Real Simple website, US Weekly and In-Style. We blanketed several key markets with prominent and unexpected out-of-home ads – a first for the brand. We also considered the retail experience, bringing the campaign both in-store and online.

We also enlisted influencers such as celebrity life-stylist Allison Deyette for events and press outreach to encourage people to take a fresh look at the brand and learn more about how Crocs shoes fit within their life and wardrobe all year round.

Finally, we leveraged the large numbers of devoted and passionate fans Crocs already had online to launch a new Crocs community called Vitamin C. We named five fans to serve as official ‘Crocs ambassadors’ as part of the roll-out. These correspondents for the brand attend events, blog about their lives and connect with other fans.

RESULTS

Less than a year since the launch of the campaign, the turnaround is dramatic:

• Sales are up 31% on the previous year and the average selling price has increased by over 12% since the beginning of the campaign.
• Knowledge of Crocs’ diverse range of designs is up by 57%.
• Consideration of the Crocs brand among purchasers and non-purchasers has increased by 8% and 22% respectively.
• Crocs was ranked tenth in a YouGov 2010 Most Improved Brand Buzz Ranking.
• Wall Street has responded, with the stock price doubling since the campaign began.

The effort has so resonated that Crocs distributors in Europe are supporting the brand with their own budgets, extending the campaign to the uK, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain and, most recently, Brazil.

And while the goal was never to convert those who would probably never be converted, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that even some former haters have seen the light.

The real win, though, is that the brand now knows unequivocally what it stands for and what its role is in the world.

And thanks to the Croslite character, Crocs designers can continue to reshape the look of the brand, tweaking its style, knowing its unique comfort story will always be there.