Marketing in the Public Sector - By Jim Mintz

As someone who has been in the marketing game as an executive, manager, professor, consultant in the private and public sector for close to 35 years,  I sometimes wonder if politicians and their subordinates and bureaucrats have any idea  how to do stuff that is cost efficient and makes sense. We are living in an age of sound bites and instant decision-making where no one has the time to think things through and worst people don’t do their homework before making decisions. And oh yes when they do make a decision they don’t have the foggiest notion how to properly communicate it.  

How do you explain the stupidity of our municipal government cancelling the light rail project in Ottawa which will cost taxpayers 100 million dollars with nothing to show for it? After a few years of planning and endless meetings a decision was made to build a North South Light Rail. But after contracting the project out some new politicians come into power and recommend that we scrap the North South Line because we should be building an East-West line. Great… but if the right decision was to go East-West line why didn’t we do this in the first place and save ourselves millions of dollars. How are decisions made? Did the bureaucrats and politicians not know that the need was for East -West?

 The most recent blog I wrote about the provincial government’s  eco fee disaster which clearly demonstrates the lack of strategy and basic common sense. Did anyone do any thinking before they introduced the new eco fee? Apparently not.  The poor Minister of Environment had to eat humble pie and cancel the eco tax.  Now the taxpayer has to pick up the tab.

We have a Minister responsible for our Treasury Board at the federal level who wants to build more prisons, although crime rates are decreasing. His concern seems to be with unreported crime. So, let us follow the logic here: The problem with the current system is that it doesn’t punish crimes we’re not entirely sure are happening severely enough. That’s why the crime rate is so high, even though it’s not, but it would be if people reported all the crimes that are taking place.

Of course the crème de la crème is the government’s decision to cancel the mandatory long-form census questionnaire. Now actually I always felt that the government should rethink the census. Although the info we get from the census is great, for marketers and business much of the data comes to us too late. There has to be a way in this modern age of technology to speed up the process.  I also agree that threatening people with imprisonment if they don’t answer the mandatory long form was ridiculous and frankly Orwellian (although nobody has ever gone to jail for this crime). I also felt for many years that there were too many questions (and yes some very intrusive and probably should have been omitted.)

 But what I would have expected the government to do when making changes to the census is consult with the users of the census. The data generated by the long-form census questionnaire provide decision-makers in the public and private sectors with a deep and rich set of facts about Canadians, facts that are reliable at the local, regional and national levels.  Perhaps the Minister and his officials should have gone out and spend some time talking to people who use the data. Yes Consultation!

As the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association (MRIA) wrote in their letter to the government

“ the concern about the Government’s decision to cancel the mandatory long-form and introduce a voluntary  new National Household Survey (NHS) –  (which would have a wider distribution one in three households than the long-form questionnaire .) The concern of the MRIA is that the response rate will likely be substantially lower and the resulting data less robust, given that hard-to reach segments of the population will not likely be included among respondents. The experience of survey researchers and social scientists is that those in lower-income groups, ethnic minorities, and the wealthiest citizens are least likely to answer questions voluntarily.

This they claim would lead to skewed data and doubts about the accuracy of information that is relied upon by public policy and business decision-makers. Without robust census data, it will be exceedingly difficult for governments to respond effectively to shifting patterns of need in the populace or to introduce changes that provide the greatest value for money. One particularly problematic outcome of the elimination of the mandatory long-form questionnaire would be the eradication of the only reliable, national source of information on aboriginal educational achievement.

Census long-form questionnaire constitute crucial input for the sample designs of other national surveys. The long-form data are also combined with other survey data to compute and extrapolate rates for key social and economic indicators. For example, local health authorities can use their own survey data combined with census data to calculate rates of health service utilization and many other vital statistics.

The new National Household Survey – may be biased on important dimensions such as income, education, housing status, and many others. Researchers across the country, working on projects in all areas of public policy and business decision-making, will have no data with which to correct for these biases. It will also not be possible for researchers to compare numbers from census to census, and analyze trends. Source

Now you would think the people who make a living from polling people 365 days a year might have some valuable information to impart. Why didn’t someone in the government think of talking to people who represent the public opinion research and market intelligence industry in Canada before making decisions on the census?

So why Marketing?

Yes the decision to build a light rail transit which did not focus on East – West as opposed to North-South did not make sense. But why did we not know this at the beginning of the process. How was the decision made?

And yes it makes sense to charge a fee to keep discards out of landfills and, if possible, to recycle or reuse their components. Companies that make and sell stuff, and those of us who buy it, should take responsibility for what happens when we’re finished with it.

And maybe there is a good reason to build new prisons. Some of our prisons are very old and need substantial repairs. Maybe we need different prisons i.e. less maximum security and more medium security prisons to house white-collar crime which may be on the rise or maybe we simply want to put more criminals in prison for a longer time to keep our cities safer. I am certainly not opposed to being tougher on crime.  But what’s the deal with building prisons because of unreported crime? Who came up with that one?

Yes we certainly need to rethink the census. For example some countries have done away with the census but not in the name of privacy. The Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands and other European states have extensive administrative data bases that contain the same information that Canada gathers in the census. These data include registration numbers that are used to create linked data bases for all individuals living in these countries. The residents (citizens and non-citizens alike) in these countries are obliged to provide this information. All interactions with the state (health, education, taxation, the justice system, migration) are recorded in these data bases.

My beef with governments is not necessarily what they do but how they do it.

What would happen if government took a MARKETING APPROACH which requires them to get a full understanding of the environment in which they are making decisions and consulting with clients, customers, users, stakeholders, partners before introducing new policies, programs, products and services? A marketing approach would ensure that there are clear messages (based on solid marketing research) with clear rationales behind the decisions taken on any given initiative

In an era when governments need to be more responsive and accountable to the needs of the public, marketing can help governments accomplish this goal. With governments, crown corporations/agencies and other public institutions spending significant dollars delivering programs and services, there is a need for increased efficiency, accountability and transparency in the processes used to deliver these initiatives

I would be glad to sit down with policy makers at all levels of government to show them how taking a marketing approach to their program and policy challenges will result in better decisions and save the tax payer millions of dollars..

As a marketing communications professional who both works and blogs in the area of public sector and non-profit marketing and communications, I tend to see a lot of stuff … some good and some bad but I cannot remember in my close to  30 years in the business seeing anything worse than the Ontario’s eco fee disaster . If I was to ever write a case study of how not to public sector marketing and communications this would be it, although the most recent activities by the Harper government with the Long Form Census would come a very close second see my previous blog Research Has Become a Dirty Word: Part Two .

First let me say that I always felt over the years that the folks at Queens Park had their act together and were professional in their communications and marketing but the Ontario’s eco fee disaster makes me wonder who is running the show in Toronto.  Clearly the Premiers office and his communications folks in the bureaucracy let him down. After the e-Health disaster, I thought these guys would get their act together but this obviously is not the case.

As Ellen Roseman points out “it’s a relief to see the Ontario government suspend its controversial eco fee program for three months. I’ve rarely seen the citizens of this province react so angrily to a new initiative. In fact, I expected to see more hostility against the launch of the harmonized sales tax, as in British Columbia. Instead, people seemed to channel their rage into the eco fees, which had a lesser impact on their cost of living than the HST.”

“Maybe it was a case of unfortunate timing, since both came in on the same day (July 1). And maybe it was a case of having a well-executed communication plan for the HST and almost no advance notice for the expanded eco fee program – leading to distress when consumers started seeing mysterious charges on their sales receipts.”

Peter Gorrie Environment Columnist with the Globe and Mail explains “that the fee is part of a larger plan to keep discards out of landfills and, if possible, to recycle or reuse their components. The goal is for the companies that make and sell stuff, and those of us who buy it, to take responsibility for what happens when we’re finished with it. This concept began in this direction in the late-1980s, when the Blue Box was invented to reduce the mountain of garbage created by the switch from refillable pop bottles to single-use containers. Since then, the list of recyclable materials has expanded, and several payment schemes have been tried. The same is happening elsewhere in Canada and around the world. We are, in fact, already well along that road: We pay a tire tax and a charge for disposing used motor oil. Fees were introduced on some electronics products, and we began paying eco fees for some hazardous materials, and that list was expanded 17 days ago.”

Mike Arnett, president of Canadian Tire Retail suggests that the fees, which have been mired in confusion since retailers started charging them on thousands of new items July 1, were the victim of a “botched” roll out and “poorly handled” by everyone involved, “We just think that the whole program that was rolled out was not well-managed by anyone, really, and that it’s caused a great deal of confusion for our customers,” “We’re being asked questions that we don’t have good answers to, and we really think the program needs to be reworked. They set up a very complicated structure for charging eco fees and left retailers to sort it out. “Even more confusing, the ‘interpretation’ of these fees is left up to each retailer — meaning that five different retailers may charge five different eco fees for the exact same product — all depending on how they interpret the very complicated fee structure,”

Stewardship Ontario, an industry-led organization that oversees the program, collects certain fees from retailers and manufacturers. They, in turn, determine the fees that they pass on to consumers. Clearly they didn’t do a good job in preparing Ontario consumers for the new fees. Arnett points out that “Stewardship Ontario did not provide answers to the many questions customers and the media had in the face of fees that nobody understood” “We don’t have good answers — because the program itself isn’t built to be intuitive for either customers or retailers.”

Consumers, critics and some industry groups have been scratching their heads about why certain items are subject to the levy, such as laundry detergent, grass seed and environmentally friendly products that use natural ingredients.

The government initially did not take responsibility for the program shifting all the blame for this fiasco on Stewardship Ontario which obviously was a foolish communications strategy. The government should have never allowed the industry to effectively regulate itself with respect to the eco fees. As NDP leader Andrea Horvath stated “The government dropped the ball, it’s now up to the government to pick up the pieces and ensure the companies that profit off this waste should be responsible for getting rid of it — not their customers,”

Ontario Environment Minister John Gerretsen stated that he takes “full responsibility” for not doing a better job of communicating the introduction of the new charges. “The bottom line is Stewardship Ontario could have done a better job for rolling out the changes, and we, the Ministry of the Environment, the government, and I as minister, could have done a better job of helping them communicate their changes, and I take full responsibility for that,” said Gerretsen.

Yes Minister but where were you a few weeks ago when this fiasco first hit?

Roseman: Lessons for leaders in Ontario’s eco fee disaster

“Make it simple. You have to craft a quick summary of who you are and what you hope to do. It’s called an elevator pitch, since you want to sell yourself in the time it takes to ride from the ground floor to the top of a high-rise office tower. Stewardship Ontario didn’t prepare an elevator pitch. It provided no coherent explanation of eco fees at its website, nor an easily accessible list of fees to use on a shopping trip. Instead, its messaging was defensive and negative from the start – the media got it wrong, this is not a tax grab, we’re not a government body, we have no involvement in the setting or collection of eco fees and no authority over how stewards manage the fees.

Take accountability. When you get bad press, which often happens when you tamper with the status quo, you have to make yourself visible. It’s a time when a chief executive has to respond to every media call that comes in and squeeze as many interviews into a schedule as possible. It’s not a time to hide from the public, as Stewardship Ontario’s CEO Gemma Zecchini did for a week before issuing a contrite news release. And need I mention that the Premier hasn’t made any statements, delegating everything to his environment minister John Gerretsen?  Keep control. When you’re a leader, you can’t escape responsibility for failure by blaming others. You’re in charge and you must maintain oversight of any arm’s length bodies that carry out your wishes.”

One last thing and this is a message to all public sector and non-profit programs, first have a strategy to consult with stakeholders and make sure they are totally in the loop. When instituting major changes to policy, it is important to conduct some public opinion research to ensure that you won’t receive a backlash from consumers. It is pretty standard to have a communications plan but do you also have a plan to SELL your program or policy? Have you considered doing some marketing… we use marketing to sell products and service so why not programs and policies? Too often we hear program mangers tell us at the Centre that they don’t have time or money to run a proper marketing (public education) program but this is a reminder of the consequences of not running and effective marketing program . I hope that the folks at Stewardship Ontario and the Ministry of Environment have learned their lesson.

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The Professional Certificate in Public Sector and Non-Profit Marketing 2011

Why You Should Attend

• Develop an action-oriented, strategic marketing plan for your organization
• Become skilled at setting realistic, practical marketing objectives and goals
• Learn how to communicate messages effectively to key stakeholders and the public
• Share experiences with marketers in your sectors and expand your network

Who Should Attend

Managers working for government, crown corporations/agencies, non-profit organization and associations who are responsible for:

• Marketing programs, products and services targeted to the public, business and government
• Sponsorship and partnership development
• Membership development and revenue generation
• Exhibit and event marketing
• Social marketing, community outreach and public education programs
• Strategic communications, media relations and media advocacy
• Online and web marketing, social media and digital marketing.

For information click here for link

When I wrote my blog Research has become a “Dirty Word” in the Federal Government , I had no idea how far the government would go in dismissing  valuable research to help guide important government decision making.  Well the recent news about the long –form census being canceled threw me for a loop. When I first heard the news that government would oppose the mandatory long-form census, I thought it was a rumour, or worse a joke or prank but no this is really happening.

Based on news reports, last fall the government decided that they would oppose the mandatory long-form census. Since then, nothing has changed their mind. This policy is being denounced by almost every leading institution and commentator in Canada. See Maclean’s for list

Tabethy Southey in her column: Long-form census? Nah, we’ll ask Paul the octopus points out the  Industry Minister  explained that they can compensate for the fact that certain demographic groups are likely to forego completing the long-form census because “statisticians can ensure validity” with a “larger sample size.” ( i.e done voluntarily).

This isn’t the case. Simply put, no matter how broad a sample size statisticians use, the fact that some groups are likely to be underrepresented will mean that the database will be faulty.

You wonder why this decision was made. (the privacy argument is quite weak- the government knows there are provisions in the legislation preventing answers from being linked to the person giving them. They also know that neither the privacy commissioner nor the committee that crossed the country studying what should be in the census heard complaints about long-form privacy concerns. Canada’s privacy watchdog has received only three complaints about the census in the last decade). Perhaps it has more to do with how this government wants to develop policy.Without detailed data it will be easier to promote and defend public policies that appeal to conclusions based on personal opinions. Politicians seldom want to let the facts get in the way of their opinions based on what their constituents tell them at their local Tim Horton’s. In other words we have government who would rather not be confused by the facts.  But is this the way to run a government?  It means the country’s course will be shaped more by assumption and emotion than by proof and reason.

As Jim Travers points out , credible information is the starting point for sound decisions. Municipal, provincial and federal planners rely on the census for that information, as do businesses, academics and ordinary folks curious about their changing world.

For example, when political parties, including the party in power, want to get elected they make a great deal of use of the census long form demographic results in tailoring their campaigns and advertising.

Let’s face many people happily divulge large amounts of information on the comments card at a chain restaurant, and provide their phone numbers; they give intimate details to dating sites. They provide tons of info on web sites and they have no idea that when they sign up for a card that gives them points or some type of membership they are giving corporations an incredible amount of personal information.

How about social media sites like Facebook? Any privacy issues there?

Without scientific information, parliamentarians fly blind when developing policies or approving legislation… I suspect they like this scenario.

REGISTER NOW

The Professional Certificate in Public Sector and Non-Profit Marketing 2011

Why You Should Attend

• Develop an action-oriented, strategic marketing plan for your organization
• Become skilled at setting realistic, practical marketing objectives and goals
• Learn how to communicate messages effectively to key stakeholders and the public
• Share experiences with marketers in your sectors and expand your network

Who Should Attend

Managers working for government, crown corporations/agencies, non-profit organization and associations who are responsible for:

• Marketing programs, products and services targeted to the public, business and government
• Sponsorship and partnership development
• Membership development and revenue generation
• Exhibit and event marketing
• Social marketing, community outreach and public education programs
• Strategic communications, media relations and media advocacy
• Online and web marketing, social media and digital marketing.

For information click here for link

I have been a strong supporter of the private sector being involved with health programs for many years. Our group at Health Canada was involved in developing more than 300 public-private partnerships including ones for tobacco, alcohol and drugs, impaired driving, active living, healthy eating, diabetes prevention, healthy pregnancy, SIDS, children and seniors programs, injury prevention, West Nile virus, organ and tissue donation.  As I point out in an  article in Social Marketing Quarterly there needs to be some criteria and some common sense in engaging with the private sector, especially in the health field.

So I recently read about a partnership in Great Britain that made me wonder if the new British government have sold out to the private sector and has really hurt the credibility of private/public partnerships.

Food marketers in the U.K. are being asked to step up efforts to educate the public about healthy eating, after the new British government is cutting its $120 million Change4Life anti-obesity marketing campaign. In return the government will not impose new restrictions on food marketing.

The move is part of a wider plan for marketing cutbacks of up to 50% by the cash-strapped U.K. government, which is currently the biggest-spending advertiser in the U.K., ahead of Procter & Gamble.

Agencies are reeling from the dramatic budget cut, but marketers welcome the opportunity to take a bigger role in the debate, and are also relishing the government’s promise–in return for their help–not to increase regulation of food and drink marketing. The Conservative Party’s health secretary, Andrew Lansley, has ditched the three-year; $120 million budget set aside by his Labour predecessor and urged a “new approach to public health.”

“I will now be pressing [the commercial sector] to provide actual funding behind the campaign, and they need to do more,” he said. “If we are to reverse the trends in obesity, the commercial sector needs to change their business practices, including how they promote their brands and product reformulation.”

The Business4Life initiative brings together marketers including Kraft, Coca-Cola, Kellogg, Mars, Nestle, Pepsi Co, Tesco, Cadbury and Unilever and claims on its website that the group will offer the equivalent of $300 million worth of expertise to encourage better diets and more exercise.

“Business is ready to play its part,” said the group’s leader, Ian Barber. “We welcome being seen as part of the solution rather than being constantly castigated as being part of the problem. We are more likely to get the right results if we have a positive role than if we are constantly having mud chucked at us.”

“We have to make Change4Life less a government campaign, more a social movement,” said Lansley. “Less paid for by government, more backed by business. Less about costly advertising, more about supporting family and individual responses.”

Marketers and media owners see Lansley’s decision as a reprieve from moves to instigate a pre-9 p.m. ban on TV advertising of food that is high in fat, salt and sugar, which would have threatened more than $400 million a year in advertising revenue, according to government regulator Ofcom. Source

The reaction has been quite critical:

In their latest attempt to stem the tide of British obesity, the national government is asking junk food producers to fund healthy living campaigns in return for a promise to not slap any taxes on fatty, sugary, salty, processed foods .And in keeping with this new style of governance, the Prime Minister will also be asking London’s crack and crystal meth dealers to fund the nation’s “Say No to Drugs” programs in return for repealing the nation’s drug laws. They may also looking into new funding arrangements with the tobacco industry, industrial polluters union #666 and NAMBLA.So, why would junk food producers want to fund successful anti-obesity / healthy living programs? Answer: they wouldn’t. But, they probably won’t mind spending a few million on ineffective programs if it means they can continue making billions selling crap food to the British public. Source

In the Daily Mail a very interesting piece by Sophie Borland and Nick McDermott

And for all those non-Brits out there, don’t think that your government wouldn’t sell you out just as quick. Major food firms will be asked to fund healthy living campaigns but controversially in return will not face a clampdown on fatty, sugary and salty meals, the health secretary said yesterday.

Manufacturers of some of Britain’s most well-known soft drinks, chocolates and snacks will be asked to pay for public advertising campaigns. And in exchange, Andrew Lansley will not pass any new laws on foods which are deemed to be unhealthy.

He told a conference for public health doctors he wanted to free food and drink firms from the ‘burden of regulation’  and would invite them to take on a greater role in public health.Mr Lansley said Government programmes cannot force people to make healthy choices, adding that individuals must take more responsibility for their choices.

‘It’s not about good food or bad food because that way, you just close companies out. It’s actually about a good diet or bad diet, good exercise or lack of exercise, it’s about people having a responsibility,’ he said.

He added it’s ‘perfectly possible to eat a bag of crisps, to eat a Mars bar, to drink a carbonated soft drink’ as long as it is in moderation.

But health campaigners immediately condemned the Government’s decision to go cap in hand to companies such as Cadbury, Mars and Coca-Cola in a bid to motivate people to follow better diets and take more exercise.

Tam Fry, board member of the National Obesity Forum, said: ‘It sees them as nothing other than a bare-faced request for cash from a rich food and drink industry to bail out a cash-starved Department of Health campaign.

‘The quid pro quo is that the department gives industry an assurance that there will be no regulation or legislation over its activities. Source

Betty McBride, director of policy and communications at the British Heart Foundation, said: ‘We wait with bated breath for the fast food merchants, chocolate bar makers and fizzy drink vendors to beat a path to the public health door. ‘Meanwhile, parents and children continue to be faced with the bewildering kaleidoscope of confusing food labels and pre-watershed junk food adverts.’ Source

 

In an article Children are Obese due to Overfeeding Not Lack of Exercise Scientists found that lack of exercise is not to blame for increased levels of childhood obesity. A new report suggests that physical inactivity appears to be the result of fatness, not its cause. Researchers now believe that overfeeding by parents and children eating more junk food is the root cause of weight gain. The report also said targeting nutrition rather than exercise was the best way to help obese children lose weight Source

Over at ParticipACTION the national voice of physical activity and sport participation in Canada. We find that Coca-Cola Canada has pledged $5 million to support Sogo Active , a national program that challenges Canadian youth aged 13-19 to get active and overcome the physical inactivity crisis. Source. Also check out

Here is the latest press release from Participaction and Coca Cola.

August 12, 2010   |   By Kristin Laird

Coca-Cola Canada and ParticipAction are challenging Canadian youth to get physical and motivate others with the latest phase of its Sogo Active national physical activity program.This year’s initiative includes the “Can You Fill These Shoes?” contest. Teens can register online at SogoActive.com to create their own challenges and encourage friends to join.The 90 teens with the most recruits will receive a prize and the chance to become a Sogo Active Ambassador, for which they’ll receive $5,000 to put towards their education, a $500 grant to support physical activity in their community, Adidas gear, and a Sport Chek gift card.The goal is to have teens increase their physical activity levels by joining national or local challenges or by creating their own and involving their friends, explained Kelly Murumets, president and CEO of ParticipAction.”Sogo Active is encouraging and supporting youth to inspire each other to take responsibility for their own health and find new reasons and new opportunities to be active,” she said.Since launching two years ago, nearly 13,000 youth and 1,300 host communities have joined Sogo Active. As part of the program, Coca-Cola invited 1,000 members to carry the Olympic torch earlier this year. 

“The first phase was to marry together the strengths of the respective organizations, and to market physical activity to make it look cool to the teen demographic,” said Amy Laski, spokesperson, Coca-Cola Canada.”We’re not experts in physical activity, but we’ve brought our marketing expertise to help the program,” she said.Some may consider the partnership an odd match considering some Coke products are loaded with sugar. But ParticipAction’s Murumets says Coca-Cola is “an absolutely amazing partner.”"They’re aware of the image they have and have been responsible in the way we’ve set up Sogo,” she said. “Whenever we have an event we always serve the healthiest Coca-Cola product… And  [The partnership] is with the company and not a particular brand.

Concerned Children’s Advertisers (CCA), whose activities include nationally televised Public Service Announcements and curricula for children in kindergarten to grade eight, as well as tips and tools for parents and community workers has a campaign  in the area of healthy living and healthy eating . Their messages include the importance of balancing food and activity and encouraging kids to “eat smart and move more. “To extend the campaign they also develop and produce comprehensive educational programs for children in kindergarten to grade eight. Long Live Kids teaches kids to “eat smart, move more and be media wise,” to create a healthy, balanced lifestyle.But when you look at their partners  you find MacDonalds, Hershey’s, Nestles and Pepsi Co,

White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity to the President. The report included recommendations in a few key areas:

1. Empowering parents and caregivers with simpler, more actionable messages about nutritional choices based on the latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans; improved labels on food and menus that provide clear information to help make healthy choices for children; reduced marketing of unhealthy products to children; and improved health care services, including BMI measurement for all children.
2. Providing healthy food in schools.
3. Improving access to healthy, affordable food, by eliminating “food deserts”.
4. Getting children more physically active.

The report also reports that in 2006, $1,600,000,000.00 were spent on food ads aimed at youngsters. The majority of products were unhealthy. In response, the Council of Better Business Bureaus established the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative , a self-regulatory industry body. By 2009, 3 years later, no substantial changes in marketing to kids were noticed. Read: miserable failure.

In “Out of Balance,” , Consumers Union and CPEHN looked at data from Advertising Age to analyze the amount of money spent on the unending barrage of food brand advertising. The groups found that food, beverage, candy and restaurant advertising hit $11.26 billion in 2004, compared to a mere $9.55 million to advertise the Five a Day campaign, which promotes eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables daily. The ad budget for the top-spending fast food restaurants alone came in at $2.3 billion, roughly 240 times greater than the communications budget for the 5 A Day campaigns combined. The advertising budget for Snickers, a single brand of candy, is nearly eight times greater than the advertising budget for the entire 5 A Day California and federal programs.

Michelle Obama’s childhood anti-obesity campaign got a big boost when a coalition of major food manufacturers, including Campbell Soup, Coca-Cola, Kellogg, Kraft Foods and Pepsi Co vowed to introduce healthier food options, and cut down calories in existing products.

Some believe that the hidden motive here is to convince government to back off and not regulate the industry,” said Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. ” Source

To summarize I strongly support partnerships between government Non Profit agencies and the private sector, but there has to be limits to these partnerships and frankly a little bit of common-sense, having producers of candies, chocolate and soda pop is not an ideal partner for those involved in the Obesity battle especially when their ultimate objective is not to be regulated by government.

I would love to hear what you think.

Some top 10’s for marketers which should be of interest to you. The first are the top 10 technological advances marketers can’t live without and the other is 10 must-do marketing tips for 2010.

Michael Porter, the Harvard Business School professor and economic theorist, calls innovation “the central issue in economic prosperity.” In the midst of the economic morass , these are some of the year’s best innovations in media and marketing — some that look to have lasting influence, others that could even prove to be real game changers for digital media, in-store marketers, the TV networks, even architects of political campaigns

According to the Association of National Advertisers here are the 10 technological advances marketers can’t live without.

SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media has brought the conversations that consumers were having online, giving marketers the chance to monitor, further and contribute to them in real-time.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
Search engine optimization is one of the most important and cost-effective ways to attract customers on the internet. Research has found that almost two-thirds of the time, people look only at the first page of their search results. They rarely make it beyond the first 10, and virtually never beyond the initial 30 results.

INTEREST-BASED ADVERTISING (BEHAVIOURAL TARGETING)
Behavioural targeting allows ads to be more relevant, valuable and thus persuasive to the consumer. This has given the marketing industry an unprecedented level of precision.

ONLINE VIDEO: VIDEO ON DEMAND
The arrival of video on demand and sites like YouTube  signalled a huge change in the industry. People started looking to the web for entertainment, and advertisers redirected dollars to take advantage of the growing world of online video. MOBILE: This burgeoning platform is seeing a meteoric rise thanks to the proliferation of cellphones, smartphones and tablet computers.

MEASURING ACTIONS VS. IMPRESSIONS
Online ads originally mimicked those in traditional media, where marketers paid for the amount of exposure gained.

INTERACTIVE TV
As DVRs made their way into consumers’ lives; many industry pundits mourned the end of the 30-second spot and wondered how advertisers would fare now that people could skip through their commercials. The answer was not just to formulate ads that worked in fast-forward, but to introduce interactive TV ads that worked within and in tandem with regular programming.

BRAND-SPECIFIC COMMERCIAL RATINGS
More than $70 billion is spent each year on TV advertising. With such a large amount of funds devoted to commercials, the industry began calling for a better way to assess whether they were getting their money’s worth. Where, on one hand, the digital realm was providing precise statistics on an ad’s effectiveness, TV ratings were still based on the average of all commercials airing with a program. The industry is now starting to see a potential pathway, as a test conducted by Nielsen shows that the move toward brand-specific commercial ratings is clear.

MOBILE ADVERTISING AND PAYMENTS
According to eMarketer, the mobile advertising industry is expected to be worth more than $1.56 billion by 2013. This burgeoning platform is seeing a meteoric rise thanks to the proliferation of cell phones, smartphones and tablet computers. Apple’s iPhone and iPad specifically have brought the mobile arena to the forefront, as consumers increasingly look to their phones to aid in more aspects of their lives.

MARKETING-MIX MODELING
Marketing-mix modeling provided researchers and analysts the opportunity to think more precisely about integrated marketing. Technologists found ways to create highly productive media-decision models by weaving together analyses of consumer sensitivity to a company (or brand’s) media platforms. This tool gave media planners the opportunity to increase the effectiveness of an integrated marketing plan while reducing overall costs. Modeling has become more difficult with newer forms of media; the management process for conceptualizing integrated media plans remains the same. This is expected to improve as marketers and agencies better assess consumer sensitivity to digital media platforms.

AD-ID
Since 1970, advertisers, agencies and TV networks used the ISCI commercial coding system to identify TV commercials. To help bring a higher level of accuracy to the coding process and consistency to advertisement identification, as well as enable the industry for digital convergence, a new identification system was created. It has since been dubbed the “UPC code of the advertising industry.” Ad-ID helped transform the marketing industry for the digital revolution.

Ivana Taylors CEO of Third Force, has come up with her top 10 marketing tips for 2010

1. Get on Your Soapbox: A solid brand position is rooted in a passionate commitment to the customer.  What do you believe about your industry, product or service?  What possibilities are you creating for your customer?  What’s your customer’s burning issue and in what ways does your company solve it.

2. Update Your Site and Start a blog: If it’s been more than three years since you’ve updated your site – it’s time to take a fresh look.  Have you started a blog?  These days, web sites and blogs are almost interchangeable.  They can be hosted for free and often come with free high-end design templates that only require you to write content.  Look at your web site and blog as free or low-cost advertising to your prospects and customers.  Use the blog to tell them about the latest new products or services

3. Create a social media policy: Social media is not a fad any more.  It’s time to stop experimenting and start managing your social media strategy.  Create a policy around social media, even if you’re only a one-person operation.  Your social media policy should include your objectives for each site and any rules you have around posts, articles, pictures, etc.  Creating this policy will eliminate employee confusion, problems and PR and potential digital reputation management nightmares.

4. Build and Combine Lists: You probably have some kind of customer list (or three) lying around.  This is the year to combine these names into a single customer list.

5. Market Directly: Why spend thousands of dollars on advertising that you can’t control?  If you know where you customers live, you can reach out to them personally and directly.  You’ll find your marketing spending power double or triple by simply diverting your advertising dollars to direct marketing.

6. Do Videos: If you have a product or service that shines in demo mode, then videos are an ideal and cost-effective marketing tool for you.  Open a corporate YouTube account and upload demos and live presentations for your prospects to find and customers to access.

7. Productize Your Services: It’s much easier to understand and purchase something that looks like a product.   Turn your service into a product by giving it a name, describing your process as a specification and then charging a flat rate instead of by the hour

8. Mobile Marketing: Globally twice as many people use text messaging than e-mail.  Chances are your customers interact more with their PDA than they do with their computer.  Mobile Marketing Programs allow your customer to opt-in and request certain kinds of messages and updates from you.

9. Referral system: Stop treating referrals like a happy accident.  Run a referral program that includes regular meetings with people who agree to enthusiastically refer you.   Put your focus on attracting “Centers of Influence” and “trusted advisors” who will refer you to their clients and customers.

10. Focus on Ideal Customers: Decide to only work with profitable customers.

Hope you find these useful.

If you have any other top 10 marketing lists, please let me know.

In my previous blog Branding Canada’s National Capital I discussed the importance of marketing as an important function for governments, particularly cities. I pointed out that in an era in which governments need to be more responsive and accountable to the needs of the public; marketing can help public sector organizations accomplish this goal. With public sector organizations spending significant dollars delivering programs and services, especially in the area of tourism promotion there is a need for increased efficiency, accountability and transparency.

I also pointed out that in recent years many cities and regions have chosen to market themselves in one fashion or another.  Such marketing initiatives characteristically suffer from a lack of creativity and innovation and fail to benefit from the lessons that decades of marketing experience in the private sector have taught managers in business. Such difficulties can be minimized, however, with overall expert marketing oversight and approach.

Finally I discussed the National Capital Commission (NCC) working to develop a catchy yet dignified slogan,  that’s meant to brand the capital region as a source of pride for all Canadians. The slogan according to the article is to be part of a five-year $2.5-million branding and marketing project that the NCC began last year.

2.5 million and you wonder what they came up with . Well here it is .

It’s a city where shouting, insults and arguments are encouraged in the town’s major workplace; where everyone seems to be either watching political TV shows or appearing on them.

On any given day, you might run into a former prime minister at a newsstand, or a foreign dignitary strolling by the canal. And on the nation’s birthday, Canada Day, it’s a city where people paint their faces red and white and pour into the streets by the thousands for a giant party.

But really, in Ottawa, they’re “just like you.”

That’s the brand-new, poll-tested catchphrase chosen to sell Canada’s capital to the rest of the country — and perhaps to itself, too. The National Capital Commission formally approved the slogan at a meeting this week.

“Just like you” beat out a couple of other contenders for the new, national-capital slogan — “the capital of being Canadian” and “where Canadian stories live” didn’t quite cut it. The new slogan is also a bit friendlier than one chosen by the city of Ottawa nearly a decade ago, when it was trying to re-brand itself as a high-tech centre: “technically beautiful.” Then there was a more a recent effort by some city councillors a few years ago to label Ottawa the “city of trees.” Neither tag stuck.

This newest phrase isn’t just for Ottawa alone, but the area on both sides of the Ontario-Quebec border that encompass the National Capital Region. But it’s not just geography; as some NCC directors noted at their meeting this week, the capital is also a state of mind— and now, that’s best described as “just like you.” It’s not about differences or diversity, but where we’re all the same. (Yes we are all the same here in Ottawa)

In polling done for the NCC by the Environics Research Group, “just like you” was deemed most effective “in terms of connecting on a personal level, catching attention and inspiring people,” according to a presentation given to the NCC board of directors on Tuesday.

Sample ads were thrown up on the screen, featuring various scenes with tag lines such as: “Green. Just like you”; “Grateful. Just like you” and, risky, in tourism terms, “Frostbitten. Just like you.” (Ottawa residents sometimes boast that only the Mongolian capital is colder than Canada’s, but actually, Ottawa’s average annual temperature puts it somewhere in the middle of the top 10 of the coldest capital cities in the world, including Moscow, Helsinki and Reykjavik.) Source

NCC chief executive Marie Lemay said the new slogan will be less of a big, bold ad campaign and more of a stealth operation, with “just like you” slipped into everything the capital commission runs. It’s part of an overall, $2.5 million, five-year marketing operation and coming up with the slogan reportedly cost about $100,000.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be there, making a speech to thousands of Canadians on Canada day and accompanying the Queen on her rounds. Just like anyone else on Canada Day — “just like you,” you might say.

Once tag lines and logos are finalized, the NCC is to start rolling out the slogan during events such as Canada Day broadcasts and Winterlude.

NCC chief executive Marie Lemay said it would be “integrated in everything.”

“You’ll probably be hearing a lot of ‘Canadian: Just like you’ in the next little while,” Lemay said Tuesday, after the board endorsed the slogan.

The slogan isn’t necessarily meant to draw more visitors to the capital region, but to get the area into minds and hearts and reflect its importance and relevance to all Canadians, the board heard.

(So we are spending 2. 5 million bucks to make us feel good but not to attract visitors to the capital… I am sure the tourism industry will be pleased to hear this.)

“Just like you” and “The Capital of Being Canadian” were found to be equally effective for making the capital feel relevant, showing off its importance and role and reflecting Canadian values.

The other slogan, “Where Canadian stories live,” was found to be “generally less effective in delivering the desired messages to Canadians,” according to the presentation made to the NCC board.

It cost about $102,500 to research, develop and test the concept: $42,500 for consultants’ work with staff, and $60,000 for Environics to conduct market research. Source Also check out the following link

So what has been the reaction so far to this great marketing event :

Kelly McParland comments in the National Post: July 2 2010 states the following

What is it with Ottawa and its desperate need to find a slogan that city poobahs hope will convince Canadians it’s more than just a boring place filled with politicians, bureaucrats and museums?

In a big announcement that almost no one paid attention to, the National Capital Commission revealed on Wednesday that it spent $102,500 coming up with yet another slogan.

Wanna hear it? OK, wait for it … “Just like you”.

Yup, that’s it. Ottawa, just like you.

What’s it mean? God knows. Only a city jammed with civil servants would consider it a good idea to spend $102,500 to “research, develop and test the concept” of a lame-ass slogan like “Just like you.” Apparently it costs that much to discover that people think “Just like you” is catchier than “The Capital of being Canadian” and “Where Canadian stories live”, two other equally lame possibilities that were considered.

Grow up folks. Slogans only work for cities that already have an image in the public imagination. The slogan has to catch that image, it can’t create it. Continually blowing money in the hope that some ad campaign will magically transform boring Ottawa into a sexy tourist destination is just a sign of rampant civic insecurity. And a waste of money, to boot.

Actually, we have to concede that its very meaninglessness makes “Just like you” less lame than the other two painfully earnest and truly astoundingly lame slogans that were apparently in contention, though the mind boggles. So way to go NCC!

From the Citizen

The National Capital Commission has hunted for a short slogan and come up with “Just like you.” While it may succeed on one level, it fails on too many others.

To be fair, that’s not quite the whole slogan. This was supposed to be the tail end of a variety of short summaries of Ottawa and Gatineau. The NCC wants to tell the rest of the country that the capital is, for instance, “Green. Just like you,” and “Canadian. Just like you,” and for winter sports, frostbitten, just like everyone except perhaps Victoria.

Focus groups liked the slogan, so let’s hope it works. It’s a big step up from “Technically Beautiful,” the last ill-fated attempt to brand this city.

“Just like you” plays to one of Ottawa’s strengths, our position as a comfortable place to live. As urban analyst Richard Florida noted in a recent visit here, we appeal to people who want a city with interesting restaurants and good schools and hospitals, but who aren’t willing to pay the price of big-city pressures.

In that sense, “Just like you” aptly conveys Ottawa’s democratic sensibility. Unlike Manhattan or even Toronto, Ottawa isn’t particularly status-obsessed and we don’t have huge extremes of wealth and poverty.

But in playing up the relaxed, Everyman aspect of Ottawa, we risk failing to make the city sound distinctive and exciting. We can’t be the same as everyone else and have a distinct identity at the same time. This is where the new slogan falters. It’s bland. We’re comfortable, yes, but we don’t want to be predictable. Would tourists want to spend money to come here, if all we can promise them is more of what they have already experienced?

Good slogans, pitches and campaigns grab you, and you remember the product even when no one names it directly. Sadly, the NCC’s phrase doesn’t have the energy or the distinctiveness required .

And by the way, is it even true? That is to say, are we really “just like” everyone else? Anyone from the capital region who has travelled in Canada knows that the rest of the country does not see itself as like Ottawa. They see us as a privileged city that takes their tax money and regulates their lives.

Auto workers enduring the recession in south-western Ontario might want to see Ottawa someday and same with western farmers whose fields are too soggy to plant. But to say that we in Ottawa, who thanks to the federal public service enjoy a certain economic stability, are just like them might not be the best approach.

Pretty depressed … wait there is still some hope…

“Hip” Ottawa has awoken from its slumber: report Ex-pat writer calls nation’s capital ‘lively, smart, quirky’

By Vito Pilieci, The Ottawa Citizen July 12, 2010

What he found was a buzzing food scene, quaint and attractive neighbourhoods on par with New York’s famed “Greenwich Village” and “serious attractions” such as the Royal Canadian Mint, Rideau Hall, Parliament Hill and the Museum of Nature.

While the large institutions impressed, it was the city’s vibrancy that he couldn’t stop raving about.

“They (the institutions) used to be the reason for a visit to Ottawa, with restaurants and shopping an afterthought. These days don’t be surprised if you find the opposite to be true,” he wrote.

Kaminer said he particularly liked two Ottawa restaurants: ZenKitchen, a vegan eatery located at 643 Somerset St. W, which he calls one of Ottawa’s “hottest tables” and the Murray Street Kitchen, located at 110 Murray St., which he called “an aggressively Canadian bistro,” that “epitomizes Ottawa’s new spirit, with serious creative chops.”

He also applauded Ottawa coffee chain Bridgehead, where he claims he had the perfect espresso.

“Larger cities get the glory, but Ottawa’s kitchens might be some of North America’s best kept secrets,” writes Kaminer. “Creativity here arguably rivals that of San Francisco or Chicago, albeit with less ego, zero attitude and gentler prices.”

He then continues to praise the city’s vibrancy by drawing attention to the patchwork of communities that make up the city. During his visit Kaminer travelled to the Glebe, his favourite area which he claims reminded him of Georgetown. He also had high praise for Westboro, Hintonburg and even the Byward Market, “if you avoid touristy strips such as York Street” he states.

The article was being promoted by Ottawa Tourism as positive news for the nation’s capital, which has had a harder time attracting American’s to Ottawa since new travel regulations, requiring all Americans to carry a passport, took effect last year. In the first three months of 2010, the most recent period for which statistics are available, only 22,000 American tourists travelled to Ottawa. During the same time frame more than 138,000 visitors from Ontario and Quebec made the trek to the national capital.

For his part, Kaminer believes Ottawa is being overlooked by tourists. The writer is already planning a second visit to the city in the coming months.

“Ottawa isn’t Toronto or Montreal (nor do I think it wants to be). But it felt lively, smart, quirky and confident: a city waking up to its own potential after many dreary years.” he wrote.

Lively, smart, quirky and confident now that is the type of branding I want to see.

What do you think?

In  my blog “The Lifeblood of Tourism is marketing”, I discussed the importance of marketing as an important function for governments. With public sector organizations spending significant dollars delivering programs and services, especially in the area of tourism promotion there is a need for increased efficiency, accountability and transparency. Not to mention some common sense.

I also pointed out that in recent years many cities and regions have chosen to market themselves in one fashion or another.  Such marketing initiatives characteristically suffer from a lack of creativity and innovation and fail to benefit from the lessons that decades of marketing experience in the private sector have taught managers in business. Such difficulties can be minimized, however, with overall expert marketing oversight and approach.

Our organization the Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing mission is “To advance the marketing discipline in the public sector”. We applaud great efforts in public sector marketing and we continually strive to work with our constituency to produce great marketing.

It is with this in mind that we have to speak out about the most recent activity to try to “Market Canada” using fake lakes and other “misguided marketing activities.

First some background on the situation regarding tourism in Canada.

As the Ottawa Citizen points out in their editorial “Sell Canada” the summer season is approaching, and millions of vacationers from around the world are about to pile into planes in search of that perfect holiday. Unfortunately, many of them will head to places other than Canada. David Goldstein, president and CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada has collected some alarming data: Between 2002 and 2008, Canada dropped like a stone in the ranking of tourism destinations.

The numbers are based on a country’s ability to attract international visitors. In 2002, Canada was seventh in the world. By 2008, Canada was 14th, no longer just behind the likes of Italy, France and Spain but also far behind Ukraine, Turkey and Mexico. (I suspect at the rate we are going we will soon  be behind countries like Slovakia and Croatia.) Source

It is hard to imagine a more beautiful country than Canada with all it has to offer. Canada’s under performance is frustrating because we have a terrific product to sell: our cosmopolitan cities, our natural attractions, our reputation as a nation of peacekeepers and otherwise decent and wonderful people, a variety of products from coast to coast, our natural beauty, our lakes, mountains, surrounded by oceans, our amazing Parks, great cities like Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver and oh yes Ottawa. Skiing in winter, we got some of the best ski resorts in the world. I could go on but you get the point. .

Goldstein feels that the problem is in large measure one of “benign neglect.” Canadian policy makers, and maybe Canadians themselves, might think that the Maple Leaf can sell itself. It can’t. Self-promotion might not come naturally to Canada, but aggressive marketing is essential in the competitive world of international tourism. Source

So what do we get from our federal government … a 20,000-square-foot pavilion, called “Experience Canada,” at the G8/G20 which has a Muskoka portion for journalists in Toronto who may not have a chance to see Ontario’s cottage country, the site of the G8 portion of the talks?

The chief organizer of G8/G20 ,  Sanjeev Chowdhury, Director-General of the summit’s management office, states that it will be a “captive audience” for marketing Canada  in defending  a $1.9-million media pavilion. Source .

Our prime Minister is quoted as saying “In fact, it’s a $2-million marketing project,” and “We must not miss this opportunity.” Source

With all due respect to Chowdhury and Harper, this is not intelligent marketing . Nor is it very strategic.

“A lot of people are coming there — a captive audience — to our media centre. This is a great opportunity for us to highlight the best of our country to these journalists,” Chowdhury told CTV’s Question Period.

He also defended the cost of the pavilion as minor compared to the overall price-tag of the summit. Based on security costs alone, it has exceeded $1 billion.

“I think that some of the elements … are very minor costs when you look at the overall expenditures that are being spent on hosting the summit,” states Chowdhury… source

What kind of image do  we give the media when Toronto does not look like a vibrant city this weekend but an armed camp or a police state in a Communist country? Is this the so called marketing image we want to give to those people looking at us this weekend?

And what about the marketing of Toronto? This weekend  would normally be a very busy time for the Toronto.  But theatre productions have shut down for the talks, the Blue Jays have moved a three-game series to Philadelphia, the University of Toronto has closed its downtown campus, and some financial institutions have asked employees to take vacations or work from home. Traffic will also see major disruptions as police monitor a thick security perimeter to keep world leaders safe. source

This is not smart marketing.

If the government has a billion dollar to spend and are really concerned how about tourism in Canada, how about looking at high-speed rail that would make it easier for visitors to see more of the country? Or better still, how about consulting with the Tourism industry e.g Tourism Industry Association of Canada and its provincial counterparts to see what we really need to do to market tourism in this country.

As the citizen editorial points out the lost economic opportunity for Canadians is severe. Tourism is one of the fastest growing economic sectors in the world, generating huge numbers of jobs. Canada needs to compete in this area just as we do in other sectors of the globalized economy. The rise of a middle class in China and India — these are people with holidays to take and money to spend — means that the pool of international tourists is expanding rapidly. Canada would do well to catch their attention. Source

This is not done by building fake lakes and pavilions.

Postscript

G20 summit hits Toronto tourism hard

by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) on Jun 26th 2010 at 9:00AM

If you’re in Toronto to sample the Canadian city’s great shopping, culture, and nightlife, you picked the wrong weekend.

The G20 summit has caused many of the downtown businesses to shut, reports travel site Martini Boys. The site gives an long list of major restaurants, theaters, and other attractions that will close their doors this weekend. Even the iconic CN Tower will be shut up tight and the Toronto Blue Jays have moved their next three home games to Philadelphia.

Fearing protests, G20 the police have set up a 4 km (2.5 mile) long barricade around the convention center, cutting off much of downtown and disrupting some 2,000 businesses. The U.S. State Department has posted a travel advisory suggesting people stay away. Many places are shutting down for the duration. Nobody is sure what the economic impact of all these closures will be, but the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association says that restaurants alone will lose $23 million Canadian (US $22 million) this weekend.

The idea that this was an effective way to show off Toronto to foreign guests is bewilderingly stupid.

Canadian authorities created a city no citizen could recognize and no visitor could admire. Then, they allowed a pack of brutes to trash it.

John Cruickshank Publisher Toronto Star

Marketing in the performing arts such as small theatres is a challenging business, the public does not always pay attention to marketing tactics, and theatres compete with a tremendous amount of competition like cinema, sports, other theatres and yes television. Also marketing in the arts is not a refined strategic exercise as lot of it is “hit and miss “ without very much planning , which is a shame because communities need live theatre to help make it a vibrant place to live and work.

It is of course difficult to market theatre with only a small amount of money or to gauge impacts on such amounts. But with some proper planning and good marketing strategy one could expect to see strategic marketing efforts having an impact in the entertainment marketplace.

A recent news article in my local newspaper the Ottawa Citizen caught my eye and made me wonder about business practices and marketing in the performing arts.

“The Great Canadian Theatre Company has been given a $175,000 grant as it tries to raise funds to cover a bank loan. Council on Wednesday approved the grant, although a couple of councillors had pushed for the city to provide the money as an interest-free loan instead. Money for the grant will be taken from interest that has accumulated on provincial funding for a new concert hall, instead of the city’s account for one-time and unforeseen expenses. The GCTC asked for the money as it works with a fund-raising consultant (paid for by an anonymous donor) to come up with money it owes Scotiabank. The theatre company took out a $1.6-million loan in 2007 to cover a shortfall in the money it raised to cover the cost of the $11.7-million Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre on Wellington Street West. By June, GCTC is supposed to have paid off $294,000 in interest and principal on its bank loan. “

OK, so the city bails out this theatre which is questionable as governments should not be bailing out theatres or any other business (of course this does not include banks which are too big to fail and General Motors and Chrysler). This should not be the role of government. Funding the arts is one thing and I do support this type of funding , but covering loans etc. is another story.

What really troubles me is the reaction of the theatre after receiving this money. The theatre rep  was on local radio a few days later after receiving this money. When asked what they were going to do to increase revenues for their  theatre the reply  was  hiring a fund raising consultant who would help them  find ways to get grants from governments and foundations for the  theatre.

Not once in the interview were  the words marketing or promotion mentioned. If they were then I must of missed something.

Rather than paying a fund raising consultant would they not be better off hiring a marketing consultant with experience in sponsorships and event marketing, as well as theatre and or arts marketing. Who knows they  may have found some volunteers with this experience but the  knee jerk reaction was to find a fund-raising consultant.  Perhaps it is not surprising that on average 63% of revenues in theatres across Canada comes from box office or box office-related activities. (source).

I do not claim to have expertise in theatre marketing although the first marketing plan I ever wrote as a student  was for the Centaur Theatre in Montreal as a marketing project. That was a long time ago and fond memories of working with them, especially Artistic and Executive Director Maurice Podbrey who felt that marketing if done right could put “bums in seats” . The Centaur Theatre Company is Montreal`s largest English-language theatre company. It was founded in 1969 by The Centaur Foundation for the Performing Arts. From what I understand the theatre is going strong as it continues to market itself with a diminishing English community in a very French environment. It enjoys a subscription base of over 6,000.

To those who toil in the world of the performing arts I recommend you get a copy of  the following book Standing Room Only: Strategies for Marketing the Performing Arts by Philip Kotler and Joanne Scheff.  The authors apply the full spectrum of marketing principles to an industry that has long resisted them–the performing arts. Drawing on a wide variety of primary and secondary sources, the authors review all of the key marketing functions–from segmentation to pricing to public relations–in the context of arts management, illustrated through numerous examples. They argue that by embracing fundamental marketing principles and launching innovative marketing strategies, music, theater, and dance organizations can fulfill their artistic missions while building strong customer bases.

What do you think? Let me know, especially if you are in marketing for the performing arts.

At the Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing  (CEPSM) we are always looking for innovations in the field of marketing .One of the items that is very important to myself and my colleagues at CEPSM these days is understanding where we believe there is growing value for our clients, particularly with the advent of social media and seeing growing numbers transition from learning to doing.

My colleagues and I  have spent the last number of months researching what areas are going to have the highest impact.  A clear winner and a social media area that we feel confident in steering our partners and clients to consider is crowdsourcing.  Crowdsourcing is a broad social media term coined to capture the actions of bringing together a group or set of stakeholders to help to solve challenging issues.

Crowdsourcing (which is sometimes also referred to as Innovation Management) in its simplest form gets the “crowd” to put forward ideas, make improvements to and comments about those ideas, and the participants rate the ideas put forward.  A great way to understand more about crowdsourcing and why it should matter to you would be through books and blogs, of course.  Here is a good blog here (that provides insight into a good book that explains crowdsourcing).

The sponsors of a crowdsource engagement, assuming that the process is sound, are left with a wealth of ideas, many of which have been improved through the engagement, how the ideas compare in rating from the participants, and, ultimately, some ideas that will move to implementation.

In his article, “Power of Crowdsourcing”, Matt H. Evans contends that “Crowdsourcing taps into the global world of ideas, helping companies work through a rapid design process.” This is usually available at relatively no cost, as people are always willing to share their ideas on a global scale.

Perceived benefits of crowdsourcing include the following:  source:

• Problems can be explored at comparatively little cost, and often very quickly.
• Payment is by results or even omitted
• The organization can tap a wider range of talent than might be present in its own organization.[
• By listening to the crowd, organizations gain first-hand insight on their customers’ desires.
• The community may feel a brand-building kinship with the crowdsourcing organization, which is the result of an earned sense of ownership through contribution and collaboration.

My colleague Mike Kujawski is fresh back from the big Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington.  One of the clear takeaways from the many keynotes and sessions that took place was the unofficial crowdsourcing theme throughout the Expo.  Clearly, the resonation of crowdsourcing in so many of the discussions, breakouts, and, most importantly, in the activities of the public sector is the strongest validation that we have seen yet of its evolution.

The Canadian federal government has not been immune to the evolution in crowdsourcing, something that CEPSM has been very interested in.  There are a number of recent examples of successful crowdsourcing engagements from the feds.  As far as we are aware, the only crowdsourcing company devoted to and supporting the public sector, is PubliVate. We have found them to be not only collaborative and innovative but also very much aligned to the principals and focus that we have at CEPSM. Moreover, we have been impressed by their solutions and their results with their public sector clients.  A quick snapshot of that is below from a “quantitative” perspective with their 5 most recent engagements and a look at the number of ideas (blue dots) and comments/improvements to ideas (orange dots) across from each.  In the “worst” case (Engagement D, which also had the fewest participants) their end to end solution produced about 100 ideas and 250 comments and improvements to those ideas to Engagement C where they had almost 1,200 ideas and about 2,800 comments and improvements (the blue dot is hiding behind the orange one).

When you couple this with another element that we appreciated which was the focus on one’s business objective, it is pretty impressive stuff. Lastly, I should mention that their methodology is great; all of the data shown above is was collected with participants in a 3-4 week period where there was both some urgency but also some idea “incubation”. As we know  speed is of the essence from time to time and crowdsourcing is a solution to marketing challenges which can be turned around quickly.

As we all continue to learn and start to become “practitioners” of social media, it is important to understand the outcomes that you can expect and make sure that those are aligned to the outcomes that you desire.

From what we have seen, crowdsourcing is a strong wave that is starting to grow within our community and we want to be there to be as an active participant as well as ensuring that we are providing the solutions to you that you need.  That is one of the reasons why we have established an association with PubliVate and are pleased that they will not only be at MARCOM but – we hope – will be with CEPSM for the long haul as crowdsourcing picks up and ends up being a primary tool for many of our clients.

Regardless, of our associations (although we think we have picked a very good one), I would urge you to find out more about something that is highly flexible, outcome-based, and provides strong returns in many ways to your business objectives utilizing the principles of social media.

Professional Certificate in Public Sector and Non-Profit Marketing

REGISTER NOW

For more information please contact jim.mintz@publicsectormarketing.ca or 613 731 9851 #18 leslie_love@carleton.ca 613 520-7507

There is a rising need for highly-skilled marketing professionals in the public and non-profit sectors to effectively bring their organization’s products, services and messages to the marketplace.

In keeping with changing times we have made some alterations to our program. First we reduced it from 10 to 8 days. Second we have expanded our social media segment from 1 to 2 days and third we changed the term project from a full report and study to a 15 minute presentation and executive summary. Also our program will be more interactive, engaging participants to more applied form of learning

The Professional Certificate in Public Sector and Non-Profit Marketing is uniquely designed to equip participants with the information, tools and solutions necessary to skillfully and mindfully navigate their way through the fascinating and complex world of marketing. This program engages participants in a rich learning environment that reinforces theory with practical, real-life examples based upon the extensive experience of the instructors.

7 Course Modules – 8 days over 4 months

Module 1: Fundamentals of Public Sector and Non-Profit Marketing Jan. 19, 2011 Module 2: Marketing Research and Evaluation Jan. 20, 2011 Module 3: Creative Marketing Techniques Mar. 1, 2011 Module 4: Social Marketing Mar. 2, 2011 Module 5: Partnerships, Strategic Alliances and Collaborative Arrangements Apr. 8, 2011 Module 6: Strategic Social Media Engagement Apr. 20-21, 2011 Module 7: How to Create and Sustain a Marketing Culture / Presentations Day May 13, 2011 Final Exam – Online
(no class attendance) May 23, 2011

Why You Should Attend

•      Develop an action-oriented, strategic marketing plan for your organization

•      Become skilled at setting realistic, practical marketing objectives and goals

•      Learn how to communicate messages effectively to key stakeholders and the public

•      Share experiences with marketers in your sectors and expand your network

Who Should Attend

Managers working for government, crown corporations/agencies, non-profit organization and associations who are responsible for:

• Marketing programs, products and services targeted to the public, business and government
• Sponsorship and partnership development
• Membership development and revenue generation
• Exhibit and event marketing
• Social marketing, community outreach and public education programs
• Strategic communications, media relations and media advocacy
• Online and web marketing, social media and digital marketing

Tuition

$3,995 + HST

Deposit of $800 required to reserve a place in the program.

Course fee include:

• Refreshments
• Breakfasts & Lunches
• All text books and course materials
• Framed certificate of completion from the Sprott School of Business

Course Modules

Module 1: Fundamentals of Public Sector and Non-Profit Marketing

• An overview of marketing in the public and non-profit sectors.
• Understand how marketing differs in the private, public and non-profit sectors.
• The processes to develop and implement an action-oriented, strategic marketing plan.
• How to develop a client-based mindset in a public sector and non-profit organization
  • Review the format and guidelines for developing a marketing plan for your organization

(See Module 7, Course Project Components, below)

Module 2: Marketing Research and Evaluation

• Understand how to use market research to support decision-making framework.
• Key concepts in consumer behaviour.
• The most effective methods for acquiring and using market intelligence.
• Develop a system for measuring progress and monitoring performance.

Module 3: Creative Marketing Techniques

• The latest trends in marketing and how the shift from “transactions” to “relationships” is changing the way organizations are communicating with its stakeholders;
• The role of various marketing mediums and their impact on moving target audiences along the causal chain of changed behaviour;
• How other public sector organizations are using innovative approaches to reach and engage their constituents;

Module 4: Social Marketing

• A step-by-step structured approach to preparing a social marketing plan that is actionable and will have maximum impact.
• Implement a social marketing program on a very limited budget.
• How social marketing is different from public education, outreach and other communication strategies.
• How to use social marketing to give you a single approach for mobilizing communities, influencing the media, lobbying/advocacy, building strategic alliances with business.

Module 5: Partnerships, Strategic Alliances and Collaborative Arrangements

• Knowledge of  process for establishing strategic alliances and partnerships, assessing challenges and risks, prioritizing and selecting partners, developing “value propositions” and proposals to private sector and other organizations, implementation and managing collaborative arrangements.
• Knowledge of measuring the impact of strategic alliances, e.g. impact indicators that alliances are working, including objective setting, assessment methods, defining and measuring success, establishing baselines and measuring and  assessing value-for-dollar

Module 6: Strategic Social Media Engagement

• Incorporate automated social media monitoring activities into your daily schedule.
• Move away from one-way communication and enter the world of two-way conversation.
• Mitigate risks in both public sector and non-profit organizational environments
• Measure your return on effort

Module 7: How to Create and Sustain a Marketing Culture / Presentations Day

• Examples of organizations that have created a marketing culture in the public and nonprofit sectors.
• Best practices in creating a marketing culture in public and non-profit organization.

Student Presentations

During this session all course participants will present their course project for approximately 15 minutes and submit an executive summary report as a supporting document to the presentation

Course Project Components

1)       Final Presentation: 15 minutes, highlight key elements and  sell your marketing strategy

2)       Executive Summary Report: supporting document for the participant’s presentation

Final Exam – Online (no class attendance)

Professional Certificate in Public Sector & Non-Profit Marketing – Faculty

Jim Mintz (Program Director)
Formerly Director of Marketing and Corporate Communications Division at Health Canada, Jim is the Director of the Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing. In addition to being the Program Director of the Professional Certificate in Public Sector and Non-Profit Marketing, he also teaches this subject at the University of South Florida, College of Public Health in Tampa. Jim is Past President of the American Marketing Association (AMA) Ottawa Chapter and served at AMA International in Chicago. He is a recipient of the AMA Ottawa “Marketer of the Year” award. Jim has also served on the Federal Government Communications Policy Committee. A frequent speaker at conferences and workshops in North America and around the world, Jim has also published articles on social marketing, public/private strategic alliances and other related topics. Prior to joining the federal government, he held senior marketing positions in the private sector.

Bernie Colterman (Program Director)
Bernie is Co-Founder and Director of the Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing and President of the Colterman Marketing Group Canada, an Ottawa-based marketing solutions provider whose clients include federal, provincial and municipal governments, national associations and non-profit organizations. Bernie has facilitated numerous marketing campaigns for the government and the non-profit sectors. A master at brokering strategic alliances and partnerships, he has facilitated hundreds of collaborative arrangements for both industry and government – raising over $25 million in sponsorships and spearheading high profile partnership initiatives for Industry Canada, Canadian Heritage, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Public Safety Canada, Province of Ontario and National Capital Commission. Bernie is Executive Producer of MARCOM, an annual marketing symposium dedicated to the specialized needs of the public and non-profit sectors. He is a regular contributor to publications and speaks at conferences aimed at government and non-profit audiences.

Judith Madill, PhD
Judith Madill is the Paul Desmarais Professor at the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa. She was previously Professor and Coordinator of the Marketing Area at the Sprott School of Business, Carleton University. She has taught in Europe and other parts of the world. She has authored over 40 papers and reports, including From Public Education to Social Marketing: The Evolution of the Heritage Canada Anti-Racism Social Marketing Program. Judith is a frequent speaker on marketing and consults in the areas of public sector/social/relationship marketing and partnerships.

Mike Kujawski
Mike is a passionate marketing & social media strategist, who works solely with public sector and non-profit organizations. He now leads all of the Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing digital marketing projects. Mike’s most recent tasks include the development of strategic digital marketing and social media engagement plans for the Public Safety Canada, National Gallery of Canada, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority and the Foreign Credential Recognition Program at HRSDC. He also worked on the development of comprehensive marketing and communications plans for the Department of National Defence, the Public Service Commission and the City of Burlington. Mike is a distinguished speaker, engaging blogger, and highly praised workshop facilitator in his field. He created Canada’s first national workshop and comprehensive workbook on how to develop a social media marketing strategy in a public sector setting. Mike also created the Government 2.0 Best Practices Wiki, which has garnered international attention as the first collaborative central archive of government social media initiatives in Canada and abroad.

REGISTER NOW

For more information please contact jim.mintz@publicsectormarketing.ca or 613 731 9851 #18 leslie_love@carleton.ca 613 520-7507

One of the most important responsibilities of a government is to ensure that tax payers get value for money. So it came as a big surprise to find out that “federal departments are heading into the latest round of spending review without the information to help them make informed decisions about what to cut according to the Auditor-General Sheila Fraser. According to Fraser departments haven’t been evaluating their programs and services to determine what is working or not.”

The government has taken many stabs over 40 years to make evaluations routine. Evaluations are touted as key tools for departments to determine whether programs are working. Done well, they can be used to develop policy, implement or revamp programs, improve spending, write cabinet submissions and report to Parliament.

“But Fraser argues that when governments are looking for savings, evaluations are indispensable in providing “objective” assessment of whether programs are working. Fraser based her concerns on an audit she did last year on the evaluations of six departments — She found they were doing a poor job and evaluations covered only a fraction of the money they spend — between five and 13 per cent. Of the evaluations done, most had “inadequate data.” Source

Without information, parliamentarians and bureaucrats fly blind when approving legislation or deciding what programs work.

“Research is a dirty word in Ottawa right now, “said Frank Graves of Ekos Research Associates.”It’s not being done when the country is going through a period of turbulent change and enormous challenges.”

The public service used to be the research and evaluation powerhouse for policymakers, but that has changed when the Mulroney government disbanded the Economic Council of Canada. In the 1990s, policy research took a hit when the Chrétien Liberals hollowed out departmental evaluation and internal audit shops to help wipe out the deficit without cutting services. Then, as one long-time bureaucrat said, “came the Conservatives with their mania for secrecy and they cut off access.”After the cuts, the public service has never rebuilt its policy research capacity.

David Zussman, Jarislowsky chair in public management at the University of Ottawa, says “uninterested parliamentarians, who don’t demand information, free deputy ministers to cut research when reining in spending. Nor, he says, is the government asking bureaucrats for information.” This government has an agenda. … It already knows the answer so they aren’t collecting information,” Zussman said. (In other words don’t confuse me with the facts I have made up my mind)

Spending on public opinion research, for example — which includes polling and surveys often used for evaluations — has tumbled since 2007 to $7 million a year from $31 million a year. Graves at EKOS has worked 30 years for departments under governments of all stripes, but says he has never seen “such a collapse of interest in knowledge and evidence especially for what the public thinks.” He states that we have a policy community operating without evidence and empirical guidance. Every major debate from national unity, free trade, health care, bank reform should have extensive public opinion research to see what the public thinks.”

Finding evaluators has also been a problem. The auditor general found that 90 per cent of evaluations she examined were done by contractors, taking their expertise and knowledge with them at job’s end. Treasury Board says the government is recruiting evaluators and has a pool of 1,500 with more than 500 working in government now. However, Zussman said “rebuilding evaluation capacity in departments could take years and questioned how many departments would plow money into it when faced with budget freezes and strategic reviews.”It could well take five to 10 years to rebuild capacity. You can’t just turn it on and off.” Source

This is a very sad commentary on the public service here in Ottawa. It is hard to believe that in this day and age a government who spends billions of tax payers’ dollars on programs and services can’t evaluate their effectiveness and performance measurement has become as rare as a “ham sandwich at a Jewish picnic.” Can you imagine the private sector operating this way? Most corporations would go bankrupt!

For public sector marketers and communicators this is a major challenge as marketing and communications decisions are normally based on public opinion and marketing research. So what we are finding is that marketers and communicators in the federal government are flying by the “seat of their pants” making marketing and communications decisions based on secondary research OR ,based on my experience, personal opinions, or worst the personal opinions of political staff.

Hypocrites on the hill

While we are on the topic of accountability … another dirty word in Government, Members of Parliament are refusing to let Auditor-General Sheila Fraser examine their expenses, saying she has no right to look at their books – and they don’t plan to give her one. At a time when all federal departments are cutting programs and squeezing budgets to reduce the deficit, MP’s officially rejected Ms. Fraser’s suggestion that her office could help find further savings in the way Parliament spends more than $500-million a year. “Following careful consideration, the Auditor-General will not be invited to conduct a performance audit of the House of Commons,” reads a statement released Thursday afternoon as many MP’s and Senators headed for the airport to get a jump-start on a one-week recess. Source

And you wonder why there is such cynicism in the country on what goes on here in Ottawa.

MARCOM Professional Development, taking place June 10 & 11 at the Hilton Lac-Leamy.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out the program  or review the speaker roster , then I strongly encourage you and your colleagues to review the great line-up, make it part of the training plan and register before April 16.

Here are our key-note speakers:

Mitch Joel: President, Twist Image

He is a marketing and communications visionary, interactive expert, community leader, Blogger and Podcaster. In 2008, Mitch Joel was named Canada’s Most Influential Male in Social Media. Mitch joins MARCOM to deliver the Opening Keynote on June 10th.

Terry O”Reilly: Age of Persuasion Host CBC Radio.

O’Reilly looks at what animates creativity and how the art of persuasion informs our culture. He delights both general audiences and advertising veterans, pointing to trends and dispatching timeless lessons. O’Reilly is an ad man in love with the promise of advertising but not blind to its shortcomings. Attendees of MARCOM 2010 will hear Terry deliver a keynote on June 11th.

I will be Giving the Following Workshop at MARCOM:

June 9, 2010 – Workshop 09:00 – 16:30 Social Marketing Planning – Implementing an Effective Campaign: Jim Mintz | Director, Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing

One of the biggest challenges in Social Marketing Planning is the Implementation stage. Many organizations develop great plans, but poor execution leaves them wondering why they didn’t achieve the desired results. In previous editions of MARCOM, Jim Mintz has taken participants through a proven process for developing their social marketing strategy and plan. At MARCOM 2010, you will learn how to transform Strategies into Action! Jim will briefly review the social marketing plan process and then move into detailed discussions surrounding how to successfully implement your strategy. In this tough economy it’s important to ensure maximum impact for marketing dollars; especially when you are moving from planning into implementation where the majority of your budget will be allocated.

You will learn 7 key areas for social marketing plan implementation:

1. What questions to ask when working with marketing and communications suppliers;
2. How to develop a creative brief to ensure your communications agencies remain on strategy;
3. The Do’s and Don’ts for smooth supplier relationships;
4. Innovative ideas to fully leverage a limited budget;
5. How to present and “sell” your social marketing strategy to management;
6. How to approach and capitalize on strategic alliances;
7. How to evaluate your campaign progress and success.

Hope to see you there.

MARCOM 2010 … Don’t Miss it!

Introducing the Social Marketing Planning – Implementing an Effective Campaign – June 9, 2010 – Hilton Lac Leamy – Gatineau

Jim Mintz – Presenter

Are you finding it difficult to convince senior management to provide sufficient funds to run an effective campaign?

Are your  budgets diminishing but you are expected to deliver social marketing campaigns that have maximum impact on changing attitudes and behaviours?

Are you running campaigns which have a multitude of tactics but lack a coherent strategy?

Are you finding it difficult to demonstrate to your management that your campaigns are having real impact?

Are your campaigns based on solid analysis and research?

Do you have the evaluation tools and performance measures to demonstrate success?

Do you find that you develop plans but your campaigns never get off the ground?

Do you find that poor execution skills in your organization results in campaigns which are poorly implemented

You Will Learn:

• How to use a step-by-step structured approach to  preparing a social marketing plan: that is actionable; has maximum impact and  lead to successful implementation.
• How to present and “sell” your social marketing strategy to management.
• How to Implement a social marketing program on a very tight budget.
• How  social marketing  gives you a single approach: for mobilizing communities; influencing the media; advocating key stakeholders and  building strategic alliances with business.

The Course Workbook (included) guides you through the process for creating your own Customized Social Marketing Action Plan.

Special for MARCOM only  !

For those who register for Jim Mintz ‘ workshop  receive a complementary 1 hour telephone consultation with him to discuss strategies related to your social marketing initiative.

The Social Marketing Planning – Implementing an Effective Campaign is presented as a pre-conference workshop at MARCOM 2010, the premiere educational forum for public and not-for-profit marketers and communicators. Click here for more details about MARCOM.

Investment: $395.00 to attend Social Marketing Planning – Implementing an Effective Campaign (June 9 2010 )

Or take advantage of the 3-day MARCOM package (June 9-11) at $1,190.00 (Public Sector) or $945.00 (Not-for-Profit Sector) where you’ll hear from Canada’s top marketing experts and share ideas with your peers in the areas of strategic marketing planning, branding, social media and much more.

Here’s what participants said about Jim’s most recent workshops:

• “Great workshop –the step by step approach to social marketing is a great asset!  I will be able to use the information immediately.”
• “This workshop was a uniquely valuable experience and I like the focus on outcomes”.
• “The workshop gives you a systematic, audience-based approach to marketing to stimulate behavior change.”

Take the next step: Join Jim Mintz and move your plan into action!

Click here to register!

June 9-10-11 is very special here in Canada’s National Capital. The premiere educational forum for not-for-profit marketers and communicators takes place at the Hilton Lac-Leamy in Gatineau, Quebec.

MARCOM understands the daily reality in public and non profit sector marketing; where the focus is more about how to make large-scale changes with limited resources than conceiving of multi-million dollar campaigns. MARCOM takes a look at the trends and topics that matter most to public sector and not-for-profit marketers and communicators.

It’s a chance for those of us who work in this area to enhance our marketing knowledge and keep up to date on the latest trends. It is also an opportunity to network with those in the field and pick up practical tools and tips especially in the area of social marketing and digital marketing /web 2.0  .

This is the 12th year of the event and this year’s program is outstanding. This year’s theme: Marketing with Authenticity reflects on  how we breathe life into our causes, our campaigns, our livelihoods. When you’re authentic, you’re connecting in a deeper way – being truly heard, believed, remembered and trusted. People deal with people they like. People deal with people they believe. People want to deal with real people.

MARCOM offers inspiring keynotes, 15 concurrent sessions, Peer2Peer Round-tables and a Networking Reception. There are also 3 pre-forum Workshops and as always, there’s an Exhibit Showcase of marketing vendors who can elaborate on how their solutions can help you in your initiatives. This is an event not to be missed.

Who comes to MARCOM? Managers and service delivery professionals from functional areas such as:

• marketing communications,
• online marketing and web management
• social media and web 2.0
• branding
• strategic communications
• community outreach,
• program management,
• exhibit management,
• partnership development,
• fund development,
• client services and
• social marketing.

KEY NOTE SPEAKERS 2010

Mitch Joel: President, Twist Image

He is a marketing and communications visionary, interactive expert, community leader, Blogger and Podcaster. In 2008, Mitch Joel was named Canada’s Most Influential Male in Social Media. Mitch joins MARCOM to deliver the Opening Keynote on June 10th. Mitch’s keynote a few years ago at MARCOM was one of the most inspiring presentations I had ever seen. Frankly his keynote alone is worth the price of admission.

Terry O”Reilly: Age of Persuasion Host CBC Radio.

O’Reilly looks at what animates creativity and how the art of persuasion informs our culture. He delights both general audiences and advertising veterans, pointing to trends and dispatching timeless lessons. O’Reilly is an ad man in love with the promise of advertising but not blind to its shortcomings. Attendees of MARCOM 2010 will hear Terry deliver a keynote on June 11th.

Every Saturday I make it a priority to listen to Terry on CBC’s The Age of Persuasion   http://www.cbc.ca/ageofpersuasion/ and Terry never disappoints. He produces a high quality show which if listened to every week is like a course in marketing communications. I have always encouraged my university students who take my Marketing Communications course to listen to his broadcast.

I will be personally involved in the following sessions at MARCOM:

June 9, 2010 – Workshop

09:00 – 16:30 Social Marketing Planning – Implementing an Effective Campaign

Jim Mintz | Director, Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing

One of the biggest challenges in Social Marketing Planning is the Implementation stage. Many organizations develop great plans, but poor execution leaves them wondering why they didn’t achieve the desired results. In previous editions of MARCOM, Jim Mintz has taken participants through a proven process for developing their social marketing strategy and plan. At MARCOM 2010, you will learn how to transform Strategies into Action! Jim will briefly review the social marketing plan process and then move into detailed discussions surrounding how to successfully implement your strategy. In this tough economy it’s important to ensure maximum impact for marketing dollars; especially when you are moving from planning into implementation where the majority of your budget will be allocated.

You will learn 7 key areas for social marketing plan implementation:

1. What questions to ask when working with marketing and communications suppliers;
2. How to develop a creative brief to ensure your communications agencies remain on strategy;
3. The Do’s and Don’ts for smooth supplier relationships;
4. Innovative ideas to fully leverage a limited budget;
5. How to present and “sell” your social marketing strategy to management;
6. How to approach and capitalize on strategic alliances;
7. How to evaluate your campaign progress and success.

Take the next step: Join me and move your plan into action!

June 10, 2010

08:30 – 09:45 Session 1: “Leading the Charge” Panel: Learning from Marketing-Driven Organizations in Government

Facilitator: Jim Mintz | Director, Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing
Karen Dufton | Senior Director General, Service Canada, Head, Marketing and Communications
Greg MacDougall | Director, Communications, CATSA
Lisa Allaire | Director General, Production and Advertising Services, Department of National Defence

What is a marketing-driven organization? What are some of the challenges faced in transforming a bureaucratic culture into a customer-centric organization? How do you get buy-in across the organization? These are some of the questions that will be answered by our panel of public sector marketing leaders who will share their experience and expertise on how they are creating a dynamic marketing culture in their organizations and what you can do to advance marketing as a powerful business transformation tool.

Register Today!

Hope to see you there.

Note the Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing is a strong supporter of MARCOM 2010

Come visit us at our Booth.

In my blog “The Lifeblood of Tourism is Marketing” , I discussed the importance of marketing as an important function for governments, particularly cities. I pointed out that in an era in which governments need to be more responsive and accountable to the needs of the public; marketing can help public sector organizations accomplish this goal. With public sector organizations spending significant dollars delivering programs and services, especially in the area of tourism promotion there is a need for increased efficiency, accountability and transparency. With the managerial shift of the public sector to mirror a business-like approach, the adoption of marketing and related managerial practices can serve as a key component in strengthening accountability in public sector operations

I also pointed out that in recent years many cities and regions have chosen to market themselves in one fashion or another.  Such marketing initiatives characteristically suffer from a lack of creativity and innovation and fail to benefit from the lessons that decades of marketing experience in the private sector have taught managers in business. Such difficulties can be minimized, however, with overall expert marketing oversight and approach.

So  here is the latest missive from the wonder folks from Canada’s National Capital Commission (NCC)

The National Capital Commission is working to develop a catchy yet dignified slogan, to be unveiled in June, that’s meant to brand the capital region as a source of pride for all Canadians. Based on public opinion research conducted for the NCC, it’s unlikely the capital will be branded as: “fun,” “dynamic,” “modern,” “cosmopolitan,” or “innovative.”More likely, the region will be portrayed as “historic,” “interesting,” “beautiful,” and “welcoming,” while the NCC also strives to make it “inspiring,” “environmentally friendly,” and to make sure it “reflects the entire country.” “It’s not just a phrase. It’s about: Why does (the capital) matter to you as a Canadian?” said NCC chief executive Marie Lemay. “There are a number of things that are important to Canadians that are not, in their mind, reflected in the capital. Those had to do with the environment, with making it more reflective of the country, and inspiring. Working on those is really important. … It’s about the value of the capital to Canadians.”

The slogan according to the article  is to be part of a five-year $2.5-million branding and marketing project that the NCC began last year. Yikes 2.5 million and this is what they come up with!!!

Here is a question? How does this overall initiative integrate with the City of Ottawa’s  4 pillars described in my previous blog “The Lifeblood of Tourism is Marketing” ?

• Ottawa as a capital city (Parliament Hill and environs);
• Ottawa as a cultural centre (our museums and galleries);
• Ottawa as a place to enjoy nature (the Gatineau Hills and green space);
• Ottawa as an urban experience (restaurants and shopping).

Do the people at the NCC talk to the people who run the Ottawa Tourism Board? Who Knows?

However, later on in the article you get the clue that the branding may not be for Canada’s Capital City Ottawa but the National Capital Region an outmoded concept that has never worked but the NCC keeps trying. Don’t they ever give up?

For example, “NCC chair Russell Mills and member Jacquelin Holzman, a former Ottawa mayor, questioned whether it would be possible to create a brand for the national capital region, rather than a specific city such as Ottawa. Holzman recalled that previous efforts to market a “Canada’s Capital Congress Centre” had failed, leading to the moniker “Ottawa Congress Centre” instead.”

Yes Ms. Holzman we who live here remember it well. But does the NCC have no corporate memory?  Guess not.

Also board member Frieda Martselos, from the Northwest Territories, said that representing First Nations in Ottawa will take actions, not just words.”When I come to the capital I find I don’t see a lot of First Nations portrayed here. A couple of hoop dances on July 1 and an ice sculpture at Winterlude isn’t going to do it. … Until I see something permanent, we haven’t fulfilled our mandate,” she said.

Also the survey points out that four out of five Canadians have a positive impression of the place. (Considering all of the negative media towards Ottawa politically every day of the year this is a very positive if not surprising result) Most people saw the capital as historic, interesting, beautiful, welcoming, and culturally rich. Fewer saw it as fun, dynamic, modern, cosmopolitan and innovative.

“It doesn’t matter that much — they don’t expect you to be those things,” said Ipsos-Reid vice-president Alexandra Evershed.”

(Yes but why don’t we surprise people when they come to Ottawa and work on being a little more dynamic with some pizazz as our Mayor keeps telling us. Also what is so special about being modern, don’t you want to visit a place that has a bit of history. If you want a modern city go to Calgary. We may not be cosmopolitan but innovative…  now that would be a challenge for Ottawa, let’s work on it. In other words maybe we need a little repositioning for our city so Ottawa does become a FUN place to come to. Why don’t we strive to become what sells a city rather than focus on what people’s perception is of our capital? Isn’t part of marketing to change or alter the product offering?  )

Alexandra Evershed. States that a large number of respondents want the capital to be inspiring, environmentally friendly, and reflective of the entire country, yet feel that it fails to achieve those characteristics.

Inspiring, not sure what that means and how do you make a destination inspiring? Environmentally friendly, what does that mean (Our claim to fame environmentally is  we dump our raw sewage in the Ottawa River?) and would love to know the underpinnings of why this will encourage people to come here ( not sure they come here to swim) .  Finally I always thought that Ottawa (at least the National Capital) was reflective of the country. If not, what is missing? As Kelly Egan states in his article in the Citizen “The capital covers two provinces, two cities, two main language groups and myriad dis-similar places: from the Peace Tower to the peaks of Gatineau Park, from the bicycle paths to the National Gallery, from Greenbelt to grunge. Not to mention the people: three founding cultures, our hyphenated latecomers, young, old, the handicapped, the notable dead, war heroes, scores of politicians, and Alanis”.

WARNING: Some marketing advice based on my experience , beware of marketing researchers trying to be marketing strategists . This happens all the time. The marketing researcher will look at the data and make recommendations on how to develop the marketing strategy. The problem is most of these folks  are researchers and not strategists . They look at the research results and suggest that their clients abide strictly by the findings.  But that is not what marketing is all about . Marketing is not only a science but an art. Marketing is taking what is there the customer’s present perception and trying to reposition the product to better provide a product that the customer will love and enjoy.

A marketer will come up with : Las Vegas – “What happens here, stays here.” Hip, sneaky, hints at the wild side — exactly what the gambling mecca is about.

“Virginia is for Lovers” is considered one of the best, most enduring campaigns, as is “I Love New York.  As opposed to  a horrible slogan  like  “Ottawa: Technically Beautiful,” Yuk.

Oh one more thing  branding gets thrown about as a synonym for “new logo,” or “slogan”  but if that were the case, then branding would be the domain of graphic designers and copy writers  alone. I thought this was supposed to be a marketing strategy and there is a heck of a lot more to marketing and branding than a slogan. To find out how branding works, and how to build a brand in government and non-profit sectors ; Check out our Guide to Branding in the Public and Non Profit Sectors which has been published by the Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing.

Another reminder to  readers of my blog to register for MARCOM Professional Development, taking place June 10 & 11 at the Hilton Lac-Leamy.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out the program  or review the speaker roster , then I strongly encourage you and your colleagues to review the great line-up, make it part of the training plan and register before April 16.

Here are our key note speakers:

Mitch Joel: President, Twist Image

He is a marketing and communications visionary, interactive expert, community leader, Blogger and Podcaster. In 2008, Mitch Joel was named Canada’s Most Influential Male in Social Media. Mitch joins MARCOM to deliver the Opening Keynote on June 10th.

Terry O”Reilly: Age of Persuasion Host CBC Radio.

O’Reilly looks at what animates creativity and how the art of persuasion informs our culture. He delights both general audiences and advertising veterans, pointing to trends and dispatching timeless lessons. O’Reilly is an ad man in love with the promise of advertising but not blind to its shortcomings. Attendees of MARCOM 2010 will hear Terry deliver a keynote on June 11th.

I will be involved in the following sessions at MARCOM:

June 9, 2010 – Workshop

09:00 – 16:30 Social Marketing Planning – Implementing an Effective Campaign

Jim Mintz | Director, Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing

One of the biggest challenges in Social Marketing Planning is the Implementation stage. Many organizations develop great plans, but poor execution leaves them wondering why they didn’t achieve the desired results. In previous editions of MARCOM, Jim Mintz has taken participants through a proven process for developing their social marketing strategy and plan. At MARCOM 2010, you will learn how to transform Strategies into Action! Jim will briefly review the social marketing plan process and then move into detailed discussions surrounding how to successfully implement your strategy. In this tough economy it’s important to ensure maximum impact for marketing dollars; especially when you are moving from planning into implementation where the majority of your budget will be allocated.

You will learn 7 key areas for social marketing plan implementation:

1. What questions to ask when working with marketing and communications suppliers;
2. How to develop a creative brief to ensure your communications agencies remain on strategy;
3. The Do’s and Don’ts for smooth supplier relationships;
4. Innovative ideas to fully leverage a limited budget;
5. How to present and “sell” your social marketing strategy to management;
6. How to approach and capitalize on strategic alliances;
7. How to evaluate your campaign progress and success.

Take the next step: Join Jim Mintz and move your plan into action!

June 10, 2010 08:30 – 09:45 Session 1: “Leading the Charge” Panel: Learning from Marketing-Driven Organizations in Government

Facilitator: Jim Mintz | Director, Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing
Karen Dufton | Senior Director General, Service Canada, Head, Marketing and Communications
Greg MacDougall | Director, Communications, CATSA
Lisa Allaire | Director General, Production and Advertising Services, Department of National Defence

What is a marketing-driven organization? What are some of the challenges faced in transforming a bureaucratic culture into a customer-centric organization? How do you get buy-in across the organization? These are some of the questions that will be answered by our panel of public sector marketing leaders who will share their experience and expertise on how they are creating a dynamic marketing culture in their organizations and what you can do to advance marketing as a powerful business transformation tool.

Hope to see you there.