Not too late to make 2006 marketing resolutions

Written by Shirley Lichti for The Record, January 18, 2006

The tradition of new year's resolutions dates to 153 B.C. when Janus, a mythical king of early Rome, was placed at head of a calendar. With two faces, Janus could look back on the past and ahead to the future.

Although generally it's individuals who set resolutions, the beginning of a new year is also a good time for companies to reflect so I asked some local organizations to share their "marketing resolutions" for 2006. Here's what they had to say.

Sleeman Breweries Ltd.
"The big thing for us in 2006 will be to continue supporting our premium brands and to more aggressively compete in the value brand market," says John Sleeman, the chairman and CEO of Sleeman Breweries Ltd. in Guelph.

The company's premium brands have been the main focus in the past. Last year Sleeman says the company sat back and watched to see if the value category was here to stay or not. "It is," he claims. "So we decided to after it more vigorously. We've got some great value brands in Old Milwaukee and Papst Blue Ribbon with good brand equity."

Another change for Sleeman (www.sleeman.com) will be in the use of media. "Last year we spent a lot of money on television advertising and didn't find it was effective," Sleeman says. So the company is changing its media buy to include more radio and billboards.

Moon Shade Blinds
Waterloo-based Moon Shade Blinds makes retractable blinds that can be customized to fit most arched or half-arched windows. The company won first prize in last year's LaunchPad$50K, a venture creation competition sponsored by Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo.

"Since we're a new company, our 2006 marketing goal is mainly to get our message out there as quickly as possible to as many people as possible," says co-owner Cameron Hall.

Distribution was a challenge for Moon Shade Blinds (www.moonshadeblinds.com) last year. You may think there are lots of blind companies out there, but in reality there are only a few key ones and they are big.

"They could easily squash us so we need to go under the radar," Hall says. "Our strategy this year will be to use localized sales reps selling door to door in neighbourhoods where builders have used arched windows."

The goal will be to conquer one geographic area at a time, starting in the Waterloo region and then expanding outside Ontario and Canada.

WordsWorth Books
"We did a lot of partnering with other organizations last year and will continue to do more of this in 2006," says Tricia Siemens, CO-owner of WordsWorth Books, an independent bookstore in Waterloo.

Siemens notes that running a bookstore (www.wordsworthbooks.com) gives her a lot of flexibility. For example, she contacted the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery about holding a joint event in February to promote The Judgement of Paris, a book by Ross King about the rise of impressionism.

"Partnering works both ways," says Siemens. "People who might not otherwise have gone to the art gallery get to visit it and people who don't know about WordsWorth Books find out about us."

Another partner event is planned with the Princess Cinema in February, featuring author Devyani Saltzman daughter of filmmaker Deepa Mehta. The event features a screening of Mehta's movie, Water, followed by a reading and a question-and-answer session with Saltzman about her book, Shooting Water, about the making of of the movie.

University of Waterloo
With the world's largest co-operative education program, the University of Waterloo (www.uwaterloo.ca) has ever growing numbers of students and employers to connect each year.

As the executive director of cooperative education and career services at the university, Peggy Jarvie has not been on the job long, coming from the insurance industry in mid-2005.

But it didn't take her long to realize the process for matching students to employers has been a bit of a one-size fits all model.

Yet, "the needs of the market and the skills of our students are not at all homogenous," she says. "Our process needs to support (everything from) small startup companies looking to hire a couple of junior students for programming jobs to large companies who hire dozens of senior students with responsibility for complex projects."

Jarvie says the university has not taken a systematic approach in understanding its target markets. So her 2006 goal is to go back to marketing basics and really get a good understanding of employers, students and their needs. Then she'll adjust existing processes to bring them into alignment with the needs of these target markets.

Research in Motion
Waterloo-based Research in Motion is best known for its BlackBerry wireless email device and in spite of an ongoing patent dispute in the United States, the mood at the company is optimistic.

"The upcoming year presents substantial opportunities for RIM to extend our leadership globally," says Mark Guibert, vice-president for corporate marketing.

The company (www.rim.com) claims there's still lots of room for Blackberry sales to grow in the corporate and government markets.

Guibert notes that individual buyers have come to "recognize Blackberry can make a big difference in their personal lives. So, besides continuing to roll out Blackberry in new countries around the world, we will also be busy establishing brand awareness and relevance with new types of customers."

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