Blog / Prospecting
David Whiteside, Becoming a master of reinventing
Long-term success requires constant reinvention. David Whiteside, Director of Sense Advertising, a multidisciplinary creative agency based in Melbourne, believes that in order to stay relevant, “All great brands recreate themselves on a regular basis. And you can look at anything from a Virgin to a BMW to an Apple – over time it doesn’t appear that it changes, but it actually does. They stay contemporary with their audience. You’ve got to know who your audience is and what’s important to them. The brand values may stay consistent, but the look and feel of that will change over time”.
David says that if you look at a company like McDonalds, over the years, they haven’t changed what they offer but they understand their customer and respond to their customer’s mood. McDonalds are about the same three things – a burger, fries and a drink but David says, if you look at their current advertising, “It’s about a stick of celery, a glass of water and a wrap. So they’ve responded to health cues, understanding that most people are still eating the things that they like but just want to feel less guilty about it.” So it’s McDonalds as we know it, but it’s tweaked to the prevailing winds.
KFC have similarly continued to reinvent themselves, which David says reveals, “All good brands listen to their customers, they stay relevant and they keep a consistent view of what the brand stands for.”
To stay relevant therefore, it is the role of owners of businesses to listen to their customers, know what is unique about their business and drive the marketing of the business. David believes that, “Successful marketing needs to be owned by the director or the owner of the business and it needs to be planned and it needs to be integrated. No one activity will solve the problems.”
Having worked with Hocking Stuart for many years, David is of the view that, “One of the great successes of Hocking Stuart has been, since its inception, the fact that they’ve understood that branding is quite separate and it’s a long term exercise. And the tactical activities that happen throughout the year on a short term basis only work when you’ve got a strong brand behind you.”
David believes that marketing is a planning exercise that includes a whole range of activities. He says, “A marketing plan is about understanding who your customer is, understanding what you as a company are going to stand for and being different.”
David continues, “One of those activities is advertising. But it’s also the way that we dress, the way that we act, the way that the office looks, the promotions that we run, and that marketing mix is the plan that you go to for the year. Part of that will be advertising and you work out during the year what activities you do to attract customers, but it’s about the message.”
The message is king. David believes longterm success is all about communicating what makes you different and what your value proposition is. “Once you do that,” he says, “and you’re consistent with that, you start building up a brand, because a brand is not a logo; a brand is the feeling you get when you hear a particular name. And we’ve all got those famous brands that we know of. And, as soon as you’re in that position, the sales task gets easier. Advertising never replaces sales, but what it does do is that when the salesperson enters somebody’s lounge room, that customer already has an understanding of who you are. All you have to do is live up to that. You don’t have to sell above that.”
David believes that developing a marketing plan starts with a really honest conversation. David says, “Many of us believe, that we might be the best at what we do, but in many cases we’re doing things as well as other people in the industry – so we need to understand our competitors, we need to understand our customers, and then we need a very honest view of our own business. It’s not enough anymore, with customers becoming more sophisticated, to say “We have the best prices,” or “We’re the best negotiators,” for argument’s sake. We need to look at our business and decide what it is that we genuinely do better than others and then find ways of substantiating that, because we need to prove what we say. That is what good marketing and good advertising is about.”
Further, David is of the view that marketing should be based on genuine consumer insight. David says, “It needs to be something that’s important to the customer, not to you. And if you haven’t, and if you don’t know the (what is important to the customer) – and don’t feel ashamed of not knowing the answer to that – you better go and ask somebody. And that often requires, in the whole scheme of things, some fairly cheap research. It’s not hard to do.”
Have you thought about your brand path?
The lifecycle of your relationship with that customer is your brand path. They’re the chances that you have to make a difference and build knowledge or understanding in your brand. At the beginning of the path you’re going to be perceived by the customer as a commodity, just another supplier. At the other end your customer will be very brand loyal.
Often the first point of contact will be 12 months before somebody is interested in selling. A customer will see your office location and what you look like from the outside of an office. Then the customer will see your advertising, and what you do during auctions or open for inspections, and that’s even before they’ve decided to sell. Then it will be the first phone call they make to the office, the actual sales process itself, the process of selling the home and then the after sales experience, and then the relationship that you keep on after that. If you do these things well and consistently you’ll go from being a commodity to a brand that people are loyal to.
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