News
Signalwrite confirms “Epicenter of business”The recent Online Marketing Summit featured dozens of speakers and hundreds of attendees, including Richard Laurence Baron. He was there with clients and colleagues to stay current with online marketing trends and tips. The Summit ran from 7.30 in the morning to almost 9PM.
“I’d be hard-pressed to single out one takeaway,” said Baron. “I’d want to underscore the need for companies to maintain a transparent online image. A company’s website has become the epicenter of business today. Brands (and marketers) ought to recognize that very little can be hidden from their stakeholders.”
Like good advertising, an active Web presence can turn on a company if the firm’s products or services don’t align with the expectations of its markets. “This ‘alignment’ is a buzzy word right now,” offered the Signalwrite principal. “It’s a fashionable way of helping clients focus on ethics and believability – that’s where the transparency comes in.”
In Baron’s view, OMS delivered another important message: The increased availability of effective measurement tools for online marketers. “The real-time value is tremendous,” advises Baron. (Event photo, left to right: Laura Kamrath, Marketing, INEXS; RLB; Brian Bearden, Business Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Zephyr Salvo.)
Work, Healthcare, WellnessDespite evidence (large-scale campaigns for energy companies, e.g.) to the contrary, strategic work in the healthcare segment is no secondary activity for Signalwrite Marketing Communications.
Richard Laurence Baron has completed brand development and copywriting projects for a bioinformatics company, a nationwide surgical specialty clinic and a SaaS-delivered health insurance provider. He’s particularly active in the American Marketing Association-Houston’s Healthcare Special Interest Group and its upcoming seminar on community marketing.
His most recent local appearance, though, was at a Health Museum get-together for the Houston Wellness Association. The HWA was developed by members of the Mayor's Wellness Council to maximize the strengths of the Houston economy and its entrepreneurial character to create a private-sector wellness initiative – a little different from “marketing” right now.
The need for more effective wellness marketing is important. It’s not enough to provide preventive goods and services to all sectors of our community, but to actively promote wellness “alternatives” to traditional remedial healthcare. (Photo, left to right: David B Sords, Vice President – Public Affairs and Communications, Coca-Cola Enterprises Bottling Companies; Kathy Mackey, Director of Marketing Communications, Ascent Synergy Solutions; and RLB. Appreciation to the HWA’s Nick Martinez for the picture.)
Turning to a New Brand ApproachWhen Wood Group Gas Turbine Services, a division of international energy services company John Wood Group PLC, felt it was time for a change in its brand – and brand-related communications – it turned to Richard Laurence Baron.
Wood Group Gas Turbine Services is a leading world-wide independent provider of operations, maintenance, repair and overhaul services for gas turbines, steam turbines, generators, and other high-speed rotating equipment, including pumps and compressors. The company also repairs gas turbine accessories and components for industrial and aero customers.
The new brand approach, a fresh verbal-and-visual direction, had to remain consistent with the overall Wood Group corporate brand while establishing its own global look.
Guided by the GTS management team, the rebranding program uses a new theme line, KEEP ON TURNING, which refers to GTS’s products and services.
Visually, the campaign uses a clean, crisp design, four colored versions of the planet Earth, and the use of “global” photographs which portray the worldwide extent of GTS’s business. Baron has been supported in the new brand’s creation and execution by Houston-based Prism Design.
“ The client’s understanding of its major goal, to keep its customers’ operations going, provided a very strong foundation for the entire sub-brand strategy,” said Baron. Consistency of image and message has been strongly maintained as the fresh brand look is picked up by GTS operating units throughout the world. It is already being deployed in new brochures and datasheets; new print advertising; and a comprehensive suite of tradeshow materials. [Another striking example, “Show Turn,” is here.]
Baron Talks TurkeyOne of Turkey’s leading advertising agencies, ÖYKÛ joined Dialogue International in July, 2006. ÖYKÛ staffs more than 50 people in two offices, Istanbul and Ankara, the nation’s capital.
This past December, Dialogue Chairman-Emeritus Richard Laurence Baron visited with the agency’s principal Necati Özkan and his creative teams in the new ÖYKÛ Istanbul office, in the cosmopolitan city’s upscale Akmerkez district.
Having recently pitched and won new clients like Kiddo, the Turkish childrens’ footwear store chain as well as the Laressa Furniture store chain, ÖYKÛ has also started its own Word-of-Mouth division with projects for Danone. The Istanbul office is buzzing. For Baron, visiting Turkey for the first time, it was an adventure in a tremendously dynamic marketplace.
“Here’s an outstanding group of people, passionate advertising professionals,” said Baron. “Istanbul is a dramatic city. The country is on the move. ÖYKÛ is intimately involved with the whole Turkish market because of its client base, its advertising activities, and magazine and book publishing (through its vital partner, Kapital Medya). You can feel the vibrations of the economy in the ÖYKÛ office.”
ÖYKÛ will host both Dialogue International’s Managers Meeting and Creative Forum in Istanbul in April, 2007.
Baron noted, “I can’t think of a better addition to Dialogue International as it stretches itself into new territory – and the opportunity for productive linkages with other Dialogue agency members and clients is outstanding.”
ÖYKÛ feels just as passionate about the 20-year-old network of independent marketing communications agencies: it has formally added ‘Dialogue International’ to its company name.
Lantern Won and HowThe Business Marketing Association conducted its 2006 Lantern Awards of Texas Gala Exhibition and Awards Dinner. Prism Design principal Susan Reeves accepted the Lantern Award for the “How To” manual, created for client PreCash.
“If there’s one thing better than winning a creative award, it’s taking home a Lantern in front of so many of the professionals in our business,” said Reeves.
Two other Prism pieces gained Awards of Excellence: the ad campaign for Premium Drilling and the recruitment campaign for Baker Hughes.
Richard Laurence Baron worked with Prism not only to conceptualize the award winners, but to write the content for most of the elements, from manual to print ads. Most critically, he established the foundation for the PreCash manual, which is aimed at point-of-sale users of the cash-card system.
“There are plenty of ways to do an ops manual wrong,” Baron pointed out. “But there are just a few ways of doing it right. Using a ‘best practices’ approach for the PreCash piece has been the key to its terrific success out in the world.”
“Prism capitalized on this approach in the design phase as well – it’s easy to understand and easy to use. And it obviously attracted the eyes of the judges,” Baron stated. “Winning a Lantern never gets old.”
Winner Take ThreeThe Premier Company has announced that its “Take a Break” direct mail campaign, written by Richard Laurence Baron, won two Crystal Awards from the American Marketing Association’s Houston chapter, plus a National Fasson Choice Award from the Fasson division of Avery Dennison Corporation.
The four-part campaign, based on an idea by Martha Justice, Premier’s president, was art-directed by Gayle Smith, Senior Designer of eQ Strategies in Austin, TX; and then printed, assembled, and mailed by the client to its customers throughout the state.
At the recent Crystal Awards ceremony, Premier’s innovative mailers gained First Place in the direct mail – two or more pieces category; and a second top Judges’ Favorite award. Then, Avery Dennison/Fasson, the pressure-sensitive label company, presented the “Take a Break” campaign with its 2005 Gold National Fasson Choice Award for excellence in label printing.
The 3D mailers featured a variety of snack-packs – brownies, cookies, microwave popcorn, chocolate, coffee, and tea – in bold, brightly colored boxes. Each box urged the company’s customers to take a break by letting Premier handle their printing and mailing chores. Every package featured a strong call to action, plus a small pamphlet focusing attention on one of Premier’s four main ‘product areas,’ printing, database management, mailing, and fulfillment. “We combined 3D with comfort food – you can’t get better than that,” said Baron.
Speech, SpeechGulf Publishing, publisher of industry-leading magazines such as World Oil, tapped Richard Laurence Baron to give the “footnote” speech at its Spring Marketing in the Oilfield Conference at the Houstonian Hotel in Houston. He delivered a wake-up call to more than 70 oil & gas company marketing managers, sales managers, and marketing communications directors. His presentation, entitled: Lead Generation: Where Marketing Collides with Sales, focused on lead management rather than lead generation.
”I think that ‘lead generation’ is a code phrase, “says Baron, “that corporate and division execs use when they are really asking how marketing is going to turn leads into sales, how marketing is going to track advertising dollars – even how marketing is going to justify its own existence.”
Speakers from Landmark Graphics, Siebel Systems, Rice University, CB&I Howe-Baker, and Microsoft shared best practices for integrating marketing and sales. Peter Bernard, President of Landmark Graphics (Halliburton Digital and Consulting Solutions) gave the keynote address, pointing out how the strengths of the Landmark brand helped make its salespeople’s jobs more effective.
“Gulf Publishing had me batting clean-up, “says Baron. “I guess that makes my presentation the ‘footnote’ address. But the attendees stayed ‘til the end, and I wanted to help them understand that management of the leads is still more crucial to successful selling than just generating them.”
For a copy of the presentation, e-mail richardlaurencebaron@signalwrite.com.