Peter A. Blackwell
Managing Partner at 4thought Marketing Consultants

His 20 years’ experience with some of the most successful and well-known Consumer Packaged Goods and Retail companies is drawn upon to lead organizations in the complex, yet essential goal of achieving full Marketing integration across all marketing channels, all parts of the marketing organization and its agencies and all other areas of the business.

What has he done?
Peter started as a Marketing summer intern and now he’s Managing Partner at 4thought Marketing Consultants.
He began his career in Brand Management at Adams Confectionery he oversaw brands like
Trident Gum and Halls Cough Drops – each $50mil brands in Canada, interfacing with teams in
Mexico, Brazil and Japan.
He then served as Director of Corporate Strategy for Kraft’s $3 bil Canadian business after
which he spent five years as VP Marketing for Canadian Tire – a 90 year old, $7billion Mass
Merchandising Retail icon and Canada’s most beloved retail brand. Peter was responsible for a
budget of $400 mil in Marketing spend, including a team of 130+ marketing colleagues working
with over 20 agencies.

What will you learn?
His innovative and unique approaches to solving business and people challenges will make you understand that a brand is not only a logo, a slogan or an advertisement. He will explain that a Brand is the sum of every experience a customer has with your business/organization, why it’s important to put Brand first in your business and he will help you assess if your brand is truly the heart & soul of your business.

Actionable learning for you to take home?
‘To succeed you must increase the practice of putting the Brand first – establishing a clear, compelling Brand Purpose followed by processes & policies that align, guide and inspire everyone in the company to deliver consistent, on-Brand, superior customer experiences at every single touchpoint – always! ‘
Join us at Leaders in Marketing on October 18, 2012 in Bucharest, Romania to hear more about Peter A. Blackwell and our roster of international Marketing heavyweights.

Leaders in Marketing
Get Smart …stay Smart!
Smart people welcomed

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Michael Ruckman
Relationship Centricity Pro, Founder, President and CEO
Michael presents a framework for building mutually beneficial relationships with customers. This man has a vision, a different approach. Although using a banking approach first, Michael’s holistic approach to reaching out to customers and securing relationships can apply to other industries as well such as telecoms, broadband, cable and utilities.

What has he done?
Michael worked in his twenty-year career both as a banker and as a consultant for retail banks in over twenty five countries around the world. He is also known for his leadership in promoting the value of Customer Experience in retail banking, he has a tremendous experience in distribution network development, alternative channel roll-outs, sales development, alliances and ventures, systems implementation, and corporate culture development.
He has authored a unique methodological approach to operationalize the Customer Experience principles in practical use, resulting in greater customer loyalty, increased sales, and better customer service. He regularly writes articles for a number of professional publications in Europe and the United States and makes appearances in international conferences as a guest speaker. In addition, Michael has been a guest professor at an Eastern European MBA program, introducing students to modern economic theories and their practical implementation in the business field.
Michael’s work portfolio includes a number of large-scale transformation projects for brands such as Abbey National, Alfa-Bank, Atlantico (Millennium BCP), Banco Venezolano, BNP- Paribas, Citibank, ING, Vneshtorgbank, Bank Menatep SPb, Nadra Bank and many others.

What will you learn?
Like in any business, the most important stakeholder is the Client. Michael explains that relationship-centricity is the concept that a provider and a customer can have a mutually beneficial relationship. Learning what your customers really want just might be the key to creating a relationship-centric relationship.

Actionable learning for you to take home?
“We must stop selling products. Instead, we need to sell solutions that help people to achieve certain results. Regardless what can be found in the package, it is important to that it offers a solution for a specific purpose. First, we should find out the customer needs and then start developing a plan for ways to achieve those goals. And I am not talking just about the goals that the customer has today, but those that he may have in six months, a year or two…”
Join us at Leaders in Marketing on October 18, 2012 in Bucharest, Romania to hear more about Michael Ruckman and our roster of international Marketing heavyweights. See http://leadersinmarketing.ro for more details.

Leaders in Marketing
Get Smart …stay Smart!
Smart people welcomed

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In fact do you know what is worse than a customer complaining?
A customer that does not complain (…and walks).

We hear the cliché that ‘Customers comes first’ or ‘The customer is number one’ but those clichés remain clichés unless the brand has the ability to deliver SOUL in our day-to-day transactions.

In simple terms, the Soul is what the brand represents…it’s the promise delivered every day. This is what a Marketing leader must convey but at times when it comes to frontline staff talking or meeting customers that ‘fire in the belly’ or that brand soul may not come across loud and clear when its desperately needed. This is an area where Branding can help.

Let me give you an example (yes banking).

I deal with a bank that it based in a country that has received a lot of attention lately. The staff are great helpful and courteous. So far, so good.

4 years ago my debit card had to be renewed and the bank rep told me that I needed to wait for my new card. After 1 week I called and they told me ‘nope not ready yet’- pretty impractical since if I wanted money, I needed to go in person in a branch to get cash ( when was the last time you did that?).
After another week – same answer and they could not tell me. Well this went on for total of 6 weeks when the paperwork or ‘form’ was lost or whatever (remember, I’m a customer – I really don’t care of the reason) I finally get my card.

In my next meeting with the Branch manager I tell him ‘Catalin, you’ve got great people at this bank but unfortunately your processes suck…’ I was sincere. How is it possible that a client has to wait 6 weeks to get a renewed card?’

Fast forward 4 years now. Same bank!

They called up my friend who recently traveled to Dubai and told her that because of recent fraud issues in Dubai, they strongly recommended to her to cancel her card and to get another one. That’s pretty progressive right? A bank calling you to deter potential fraud.
My friend agreed and also agreed to go to a nearest branch to fill out a form to get her card renewed.
At this point I started to worry!

It took 5 weeks to get a renewed card after multiple calls – probably for the same reason…again we don’t care about the reasons – we’re the customer.
When we went to a branch in Baneasa mall and spoke to a bright looking fellow and my friend told him the story about the card. Then I added then . ‘Yep in my case 4 years ago I had to wait 6 weeks.’
We were pretty cool and not upset by this point.
His reaction? ‘Humm’ is what he said, his head nodded, then went back to filling the form.

Not ‘well we’re really sorry about this’…
Not ‘well let me look into this…this is unacceptable to make customers wait 5-6 weeks to get card’…
Not ‘I will look into this and get back to you’ or…at the minimum…’I will report this to our customer care team and I will ensure that someone calls you to give you an update/explanation. I will personally follow up with our customer care department to make sure someone gets back to you’
In other words…Initiative, attention to the customer and a bit of empathy (not apathy).

Ok you’re going to tell me Paul this is a customer care issue and the bank probably needs to take care of its customer care policy or this your fellow was not properly trained or worse… this is Romania. NOT!

I don’t agree. Before that fellow gets on the phone and follows Customer care procedures, he needs to WANT to get on the phone and put out this fire! Training is important but you can’t train people to HAVE the initiative. This has to come from the soul; the soul is what the brand is all about.
In other words are people going to kill themselves to solve this problem? If so, THAT my friend is brand loyalty and brand affinity.

I had the pleasure of working for brands that I wanted to kill myself for those brands; I wanted to please my customer and I wanted to make a difference.

Why? Well because I felt part of the brand. When I showed people my business card I was proud that I worked for Bell Mobility, Connex or Orange. It was a cool place to work; we were going to ‘invade the nation’ with this brand and unbeknownst to me, the Marketing leaders at the time (Tim McChesney, Aneta Bogdan and Paul Phillips in this order) had managed to instill that sense of pride, joy and the SOUL that made me wake up every morning and do the best for our brand!

A little naive?
Want more proof?
I challenge you to listen to any interview of an Apple employee that was involved in the IPod, IPhone or IPad. Look at how their face lights up when they explain how much they were part of the Apple development team. Of course Steve Jobs made this an amazing place to work but Apple employees are passionate. We don’t all work for Apple but the same unbridled enthusiasm is possible for you, the Marketing Leader to instill regardless if you sell paints, pharmaceuticals or yogurt.
The brand makes it happen.

Follow my next post as I describe areas where as a Marketing Leader, you can unleash this SOUL so that your team members actually enjoy killing themselves for the brand.

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A moment of truth is that one magic moment where a company is evaluated – fairly or unfairly for the way its products perform, the way it interacts with the customer, the way it delivers its service or any instant that consumers come across a product/service.

I will always remember a speech given by Tom Peters (Passion for Excellence) where he was emphasizing a moment of truth by using a quote from an airline executive. The executive said ‘Tom, when passengers see a coffee stain on the tray table in front of them, they automatically assume that we have engine troubles.’
A bit extreme but if you follow the logic from the passenger’s point of view, the passenger is thinking ’ Well if they can’t at least take the time to clean the coffee stain, I hope that they are taking the time to service the engines…?’

Another example of moment of truth is when a fellow Romanian steps out his car to help you push your car out of the snow during our last snow storms. You certainly did not expect it but it gave you a renewed reminder on how hospitable Romanians can be when things are not going well.

Here’s my example. Someone very dear to me received this sms for an outstanding balance on her bank card:

Cod IDclient XX8644YY: La 06/02/2012 suma datorata este 67.41 RON. Restantele se raporteaza Biroului de Credit.

In English the translation is: Client code: XX8644YY, as of 06/02/2012 you have an outstanding amount on your bank card (owed to the bank). Unpaid sums will be reported to the credit bureau.

Context: Yearly fees were accumulating on the card which had not been used for quite some time principally because my friend has other cards and her main banking was done with other banks.
I assume that banks know that clients have multiple cards and accounts.

Assessment: First of all, total lack of politeness. No ‘Dear Mrs’…or ‘we would like to raise to you attention’…
Second no explanation – we go straight to the credit bureau.
Third: No warnings; this came ‘out of the blue’. No emails, no attempt to call and perhaps enquire as to why this was left unpaid or inactive. Perhaps there was some confusion; who knows what can happen when we call customers to get information or feedback!

I sound cynical (my Canadian heritage) but I am mostly disappointed as a marketer!
This bank which will remain nameless spends a tremendous amount of money on Above the line (ATL) advertising in TV, Print and outdoor with 3 Romanian sport figures.

I mean the visuals are nice, creative, welcoming, and frequent and judging by how long these 3 celebrities have agreed to promote the bank, I assume that the campaigns are working. In fact my friend held on to the card (albeit inactive) for that very reason…it had a celebrity on the card. Now that is powerful Marketing.

Result: My friend was upset with the message and she was not aware that the card had become inactive (I mean the last time I checked, we were all too busy to check to see how ‘active‘ we have been with some of our bank cards right!?). This whole matter was unbeknownst to her. She proceeded to call the bank and cancel the cards, rather…all cards, if this is how they treat customers. Ouch!

The solution:
All touch points and customer facing departments have to be in unison, like a classical music symphony. They need to follow the same music, the same beat and the same song book. Product Managers and Marketing communications folks busy trying to get new customers need to be attentive what the customer care staff or retention/loyalty or collections teams are sending to the customer via SMS. This is inexcusable.

Don’t spend money by swaying customers with nice ads with powerful icons unless you as marketer have complete control of all touch point messages. We don’t expect Marketing to actually make collection calls however any message, let me repeat ANY message to customers has to be consistent with the brand and what you are conveying to the market.

All customers bring value even if their revenue seemed insignificant. The value they bring is how well they will refer you or speak about how they were treated by your company even if the relationship between your company and the customer had to end. Do it gently.

Your homework
As the marketing leader emphasize upon your peers that interact in some way or another with customers such as Sales, customer care, retention/loyalty, collection, PR and operations that all messages to customers, have to be consistent. Get your team to collect all messages (‘canned’ or pre preprogrammed) that were sent to customers in the past and insist that all need to be reviewed by Marketing.

This may be a long laborious task but well worthwhile the time – you may uncover other ‘shockers’.

As the lead Marketer, make it a point to continuously communicate to all your peers that Marketing owns the messages to customers. By rallying your organization with this precious yet effective direction you will be on your way to ensuring that those moments of truth are fair ones.

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