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BLUE CIRCLE
BUSINESS MARKETING
ADVERTISING / DIRECT MAIL |
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LAUNCH A NEW AND INNOVATIVE PRODUCT TO A CYNICAL AND STUBBORN TRADE AUDIENCE
NO MAYBES
The building trade, from a single man in a van to architects and civil engineers, are very resistant to change and to embrace new products. There is almost immediately a NO, they slowly become MAYBEs, and eventually they become a YES.
INCITEMENT
A slow take-up of a product at launch is not ideal. And the fact that this was the first product of its type to market made this even more of a problem. Our objective was to incite the industry to adopt this new product immediately. The product story lent itself to a very strong, hard, rational sell – it had a significantly longer lifetime, quicker application times, and more stringent quality control than cement and sand renders. It was the perfect solution to cracking due to pollution and freeze/thaw damage, commonly
seen in renders.
Relying on traditional business-to-business marketing at launch would not turn a NO to a MAYBE. So we used opinion formers in the trade press and the major construction bodies to incite the industry first – and followed this up with launch marketing.
PROFITABLE EXPERIENCES
A launch event in London was created, targeting opinion formers in the trade press and major institutions such as FMB, ASBA and RIBA. They then cascaded the story to the industry in general and/or their members. The first experience of Anticrak was more profitable because it had the authenticity of the trade press or industry bodies.
The conventional business-to-business marketing then commenced – except it wasn’t conventional. By communicating the hard rational benefits of Anticrak in an emotional way, the direct marketing and advertising campaign not only completely broke the
mould of cement marketing, but also all heavy marketing. The result was that it stood out completely from the competitor marketing, and created a very differentiated experience – which quickly became very profitable for Blue Circle.
EFFECT RESULTS
Over the 12 month launch period, orders exceeded client forecasts by 120%.
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