Corner Office Conversations: John Greening, Associate Professor and Director of Advertising-Sales Promotion sequence

Angela Martin

John is an Associate Professor and Director of the Advertising-Sales Promotion sequence. Prior to joining Northwestern, John spent 27 years at DDB Chicago, where he was an Executive Vice President and Director of Client Services as well as the Worldwide Account Director for the Anheuser-Busch account in the U.S. and 22 other countries. During that time he led the team (over 400 globally) that produced popular Budweiser campaigns such as the "Frogs," "Ants," "Spuds McKenzie," "I love you, man," "Yes, I am" and "Whassup." These efforts helped Anheuser-Busch increase its share of sales, as well as share of the alcoholic beverage margin pool, for 7 consecutive years.

In addition to his teaching duties at Medill, John has lectured at the Kellogg Center for Executive Education, International Mass Retailers Association, NRF Retail Advertising Conference as well as many other sponsored meetings. He maintains active consulting relationships with Kraft, Google, Henkel Consumer Adhesives, Visible Customer (manages customer relationships), EURO RSCG, Rand McNally, Valassis Interactive and Vibes, a mobile marketing company. He also serves on the boards of Advanced Circulatory Systems, Medialink, Visible World and Riverwest Brands, as well as non-profits Chicago Communities in Schools and Chicago Catholic Charities.

Question: Given the current economic situation, how can advertisers differentiate themselves from their competition? Is it truly all about the deal or price offered to consumers?

Greening: It depends to whom you are talking. In every category segment I believe in "need segmentation." And within any category there is a price sensitive group who is strictly looking to pay the absolute least amount of money that they can. But that's not the entire segment and it may not be where the profits will be found.

And in fact if you hit discounting too hard, you can destroy your margins in the category, because the one thing you have to realize is that every time you give consumers a monetary incentive, you're taking the dollars out of your pocket and putting it in theirs.

I think now more than ever, it's important to understand that there are needs other than economy. How we anticipate those needs and make offers to people that better fit the way they're leading their lives, or the way their needs must be met, is crucial.

Let me give you an example – Last year a grocery store in San Antonio, Texas discovered that 75% of people who work do not know what they're having for dinner by 4 o'clock on the day of that dinner.

In other words, the whole idea a few years ago was that dinner was planned and shopped for weeks in advance, and today dinner is a very spontaneous thing. In learning that information, they took a look at their fresh food counter and set up the dinner club. What they would do at 4 o'clock is send a text message: "Today we have a baked fresh fish dish, a chicken dish, and a beef dish. Can we have a couple of selections waiting for you to pick up on your way home from work to take to your family?" There was no offer of any kind or price discount, but they had taken the time to understand the customers' needs and the entire brand experience, not just about the products. They saw their sales go up 300%!

So I think that's the direction marketers have to go today, addressing the one thing that people have the least amount of – time. We're multi-tasking, we're working, we have families and we're trying to do everything for everybody. And if marketers help consumers save time so they can do something else – a la not having to think about dinner – you have a very compelling offer without having to reduce your margins.

I believe we have to market products so people buy them for a reason other than just low price. If price is your only differentiator, you are a commodity – and typically commodities don't have high margins.

All that being said, I do believe that offers have a role when it comes to trial. An offer does a great job in lowering the risk of the purchase so that a consumer can get the experience of the product.

Question: Keeping on the topic of economic conditions, it's always been said that it costs more to obtain share or new customers than to retain current customers. Given our current situation, many advertisers are cutting their ad and promotion budgets; is that a short sided approach? If so, what effects do you think that might have moving forward?

Greening: Yes. If you think about it, marketing communications is a momentum game. If you cut the budget you won't immediately start losing sales, but you will over time. It takes as much time to build that momentum as it does for that momentum to decline.

This has been the dilemma in the marketing communication area – in the short run you can cut your marketing communications dollars and your message will stick with people for a while. However, once you fall out of their mind, getting back in again is hard and takes even more money. So it's the short-term, long-term type thing.

Now the other part is that a current customer is three times more profitable than a new one. And the reason for that is because the current customer doesn't need to be sold. You don't have to give a coupon. In fact, all you have to do is just keep letting that person know that you care about them and you become habitual, particularly with the grocery products. And you want to keep that habit.

Question: Let's turn to shopper marketing. Connecting with consumers and shoppers has become challenging in recent years with all the media and communications avenues available. Given that 70% of purchase decisions are being made in-store and 68% of in-store purchases are impulse, how do you think shopper marketing will grow and change in the future?

Greening: Shopper marketing happens when a consumer is in the store and an advertiser tries to take them from a buyer ("I'm going to buy these ten things and then I'm leaving the store") to a shopper ("I didn't know I wanted that!").

The smart companies are figuring out that the customer is now in control. What do you do? How do you curry favor with somebody who's in control? That's the big question.

I believe it's "show me": if I'm in control, show me how you can help me do what I need to do, how can I better myself or in fact how can you serve me? Do not bombard me with messages – serve me. If you can make things easier for me, and because you make things easier for me, then you and I will develop a relationship.

I think the market has gone from "find me, sell me" to "know me, help me." In other words, I'll let you know me, and in fact I'll give you all the information you want if you're helping me.

One of the best examples of this is Amazon – everybody uses them because they just make it too darn easy. Consumers don't have any problem with them knowing their credit card numbers, where they live, phone numbers, all of the important information. They don't have an issue with it because they make things easier. It's the prime example of "know me, help me."

I've been talking to people about shopper marketing and the theory I have is: what if you knew what was going on in the store at a point in time? And if we again take shopping as buying something "I didn't know I wanted," what if I knew that when I'm in the store the top 20 products people are buying are "X, Y and Z" and that showed up on an LCD?

What if I looked at the screen and wondered, "Why are they buying so many marshmallows, so many pickles and so much bread?" Then I would think, "Maybe I ought to buy that."

All of that is not about selling as much as it is about servicing and providing interest. What it really means is the only way that we can help people – the only way that we can predict how people will act – is to understand their motives.

And if you understand a consumer's motive, you can anticipate what they will do next. Wayne Gretzky said, "I was such a great hockey player because I could skate to where the puck was going to be." Well, as marketers we're trying to understand where the puck is going to be before our competitors.

So what I see as the goal of shopper marketing is increasing the shopping which is buying the things "I didn't know I wanted."

Question: With 78 million baby boomers in the U.S. having an estimated annual spending power of nearly $3 trillion, are advertisers marketing to this group as accurately as they should? If not, what suggestions do you have to help them reach this desired group?

Greening: It's hard to put boomers into one whole group. To say that there would be one way to reach them would be difficult because there are different ways for different categories.

One of the truisms we're talking about is that in their head, boomers think they are still 25. I know I look in the mirror and I wonder "who is this guy staring back at me who is losing his hair and has all these wrinkles?" I'm still thinking about the guy in college! But the point is that nobody wants to be treated like a fossil.

And I think the "know me, help me" strategy is probably even more important to the boomers who might require a little more service or who are willing to pay a little bit more for that little extra convenience.

It's very hard to say exactly how they should be advertised to, because they're like everybody else who grew up in this new media world. We were all part of the TV generation and we've all adapted to the new technology. Take a look at the heaviest use of the Internet and it's the very young and the very old.

The boomers were always the center of attention and I think that's what's happening – people are staying younger longer, trying to be as fit as they can be and to be as "young" as they can be. For example, take a look at how many radio stations are still playing "our" music.

Everybody, especially boomers, wants to be talked to where they are today – know what I'm doing today. I'm not like my parents were at this age, things are different today, so talk to me where I am now.

Question: In your tenure at DDB Needham, you certainly worked on memorable campaigns for Anheuser-Busch from the Budweiser "Frogs" to "Whassup." Can you give an example of a recent campaign you believe will be memorable for years to come, and why?

Greening: Well I think one of the campaigns that has done the best job and it's probably even sold the product better is the Apple PC commercial. And what a great job in not only entertaining people but also making their point!

One of the things that we were trying to do with Budweiser was to use our insights that people usually drink beer with friends and they look for things to talk about. And so let's give them something to talk about. We were really presenting a 30 second sitcom. And then we tried to work up new ideas before the current ones burnt out. For example, "Whassup" or the "Yes, I am" guy were stopped before they started to get old.

I think the Apple PC advertising is very entertaining, but you have true product differences and it does a wonderful job in demonstrating those differences, but in a way that consumers will watch.

You know it's horrible when somebody talks about himself or herself – don't you get a little squirmy sometimes? You think "this person is too self important" and advertising can be the same way. But the Apple PC advertising makes the point without being too self-important or too braggadocios.

They have the same two gentlemen, but what they talk about is always different and the way they present it is always different. But when you see the commercial you know exactly what you're looking at – you know what it is because it's familiar to you.

Again, it comes back to the "know me, help me" strategy – differentiating yourself from the competition while providing assistance to the customer. So creating a memorable spot is really about just understanding why it is that people want or need your product.

Question: At Medill, the focus is on integrated marketing communications – what does that mean to you? And how do you think it's changing our marketing strategies from what we've done in the past?

Greening: Let me give you kind of a clinical definition: it is insight driven communications using the appropriate tools in the marketing communication toolbox to create a behavioral result.

Some people say it's being consistent, others say it's synergy, some say it's database and yet other people say it's measurements. And the truth is it's all of that.

If you start with an insight or a motive, that's the fuel that drives your car. If you don't have a motive – if there isn't something that I'm solving, if I'm not appealing to a need – then why am I talking to the consumer?

Then taking the tools in the toolbox, we're looking for the synergies. We're looking for the one plus one equals three. And the classic example of this goes back to the early 80s; advertisers would run a television commercial that would point to the offer running in the newspaper. We would get four times the redemption with both ads together than if we just run with one ad.

It's the same strategy, but in every category those combinations and synergies are different depending on the person and the need. So what you have to do is find out what tools work best together. But what you're really looking for is, how can I create the biggest return for the least amount of money?

To give an example: Imagine you're a symphony conductor. A symphony conductor can conduct the horns, the strings and the percussions. And they can play one song here and one song there using a little bit of drums in one symphony and a lot of drums in another, but they know what to do to make it work.

There's a shortage of "conductors" just because we have all been functionally trained. And the industry is looking for the people who can pay attention and notice when we get a better return when we combine all the elements.

There really is no magic formula or silver bullet because every category and every person responds differently, so you really have to pay attention and keep track of what you did on your brand – what worked and why. In fact the old model was the GRP model - the more GRPs you run, the better your success. The new model will be that there is no model.

In today's environment where the consumer is in control, you've got to know what they want and you have to deliver it in an interesting way; otherwise they're just not paying attention.

Question: A final question that has become a staple in our Corner Office Conversations: what are you passionate about in the world of marketing and advertising?

Greening: Well, I'm passionate about being a part of inventing the new toolbox that is going to be used in marketing communications. About figuring out what "know me, help me" really looks like in different categories.

And I'm interested in figuring out how we really bring that "know me, help me" to life. That's one of the reasons I'm doing what I'm doing today at the University. You have the windows open on all four sides with lots of ideas coming in all the time. I have the opportunity to be exposed to a lot more ideas than if I worked for a company where everyone is just trying to sell the company's products and not always sharing things with you. As the professor, I can walk in like the guy from the United Nations. Everybody's willing to share anything with me, and I've gotten smarter only because I've been exposed to different categories and I really think the insight from one category will be what will drive another category.

Let me give you an example of a theory I'm working on right now – what if marketers thought about marketing the same way we humans think about making friends? And since I'm looking for a relationship, how do you make a friend? There is an introduction – I have to say something clever, find our commonalities, and learn about your interests or your situation. We typically offer something, too, in a friendship – I can help you with that, I know somebody who can fix a car, or I'm very good at this and I can do that for you. Gain their trust. The definition of trust is treating someone else's interests equal to your own.

So I believe that if we were to take the friendship model and apply it to marketing, that's where the future is headed. Now what does that look like? I have no idea. I do know what the friendship model is, but what the marketing version is going to look like is a day-to-day thing.

And the fact is that we do have "friendship" communities developing out there on the Web and there are places we can go to look at what other people are saying. Before buying a TV, you can go to four or five blogs; read about someone else's experience to find out if the TV you're looking to purchase is really the right one. You no longer have to go to the manufacturer's site to get your information.

That's what I'm passionate about and what excites me about the future.

Angela Martin is the Editor of Marketing Solutions and Marketing Communications Manager for Valassis. She has over 20 years experience in marketing in the specialty retail and food service industries. She leads the business to business marketing communications for the company.