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Marketing Penetration

How to effectively reach your target audience

Published in Hebrew in Status - Management Thinking Magazine, June 2003 (issue 142)
By Ari Manor, CEO, ZOOZ

Part II

C. Tel Aviv - New Work 1996

This time, I thought to myself, we have really gone too far. Our task was to reach senior managers in the world's largest advertising agencies and sell them workshops on creative advertising. An absolute Israeli "Hutzpa".

Not that I doubted our ability. I knew that the method we teach, called Systematic Inventive Thinking in advertising, is an excellent one. I knew it worked. I knew it produced great advertisements. I knew it saved creative teams precious time. Israeli advertising agencies that had tried it won big bids and clients. When we presented it in the UK, which is an advertising capital, John, a senior manager in one of the bigger agencies, was so thrilled that he left his job and started up an independent agency and asked to be our UK representative. R. Horowitz and J. Goldenberg, the researchers who had developed the method, kept on refining it and wrote academic articles for the most prestigious magazines. But how do we convince an American manager that Israel, hardly the summit of creative advertising, is the source of such a revelation?

In addition, we had only limited resources available to us. The company I was head of at the time, SIT, was founded a year earlier as a subsidiary of the Simbol-Peres advertising agency, and hadn't yet produced significant income. In fact, the advertising agency was funding us, and we kept on going only because of its owner’s vision. I couldn't dream of a campaign of any kind at all in New York, were 25 out of the world's top 50 advertising agencies keep their central offices. Only direct marketing could be considered. With 25 potential clients to begin with, and a budget for a one week travel and stay in New York, we somehow had to make them meet us exactly during that week. Considering the fact that these are very busy managers, which usually set up meetings months in advance, and that spend half of their time away on business, it was obvious that on any given week, many of the managers that would even agree to see us, would be unable to do so.

Imagine for a moment that you are sitting in SIT offices in Tel Aviv. Try to focus on our New York clients. A senior manager at a huge advertising agency, with offices worldwide. Usually a 40-50 year old male who climbed the corporate ladder. A fat paycheck. Incredibly busy. Talented. Has a personal secretary to screen nuisances. Has voice mail but does not return calls. A decorated office on the 40th floor of a high-rise building.

How do we approach him? How do we reach him? What's on his mind? What’s so important that he would give us an hour of his precious time for? What draws his attention? What are his needs? What excites him? What is he looking for?

Is he looking for a method for creative advertising? Not necessarily. Not really. Actually, really not. He has his own methods. He has acquired a lot of knowledge and experience. He doesn't really believe that anyone can really surprise him. Even if he does - what's in it for him? Is this what thrills him? Perhaps.

Maybe he is still excited by learning and knowing. But maybe very different things excite him. Think of the advertising world. Do you think a senior advertising manager wants you to teach him? Maybe he'd rather teach you something?

Advertising is a world of egos and pride. It is difficult to teach veteran advertising professionals how to be creative, but they would be more than happy to teach you. In the letter we wrote we addressed the senior managers as "professional colleagues". We wrote that Israeli researchers have developed a method for creativity, and that we would be happy to present it to them and learn what they think and suggest. We did not mention paying for our workshops or even trying the method in their agency. We turned to them as experts on the field, and kindly requested their feedback.

Following the faxes we sent, 13 meeting were set up (two were later canceled when we reached New York, due to other obligations). Some of the managers were excited by the method. Some were even interested in trying it out. McCann-Erickson, the world's second largest advertising agency, was SIT's first client. The two workshops given by Amnon Levav, SIT’s overseas manger at the time, received rave responses. Ogilvy & Mather became the second client and involved SIT in an annual international creative conference they hold for outstanding employees worldwide. Since then, SIT has led numerous workshops for these and other agencies. Five of the world's biggest advertising agencies are now its clients.

D. Herzelia 2003

My company, ZOOZ, provides marketing consulting and management services to companies in Israel and abroad. Over the past four years we have assisted many companies in their business development efforts. We help them form strategic partnerships, raise investments, and present new technologies, products or services to the world in various conferences, sometimes for the first time. In order to successfully promote these issues I discover time and time again that one should focus on the target audience - the client, the investor, or the potential partner - and ignore the product, service or technology at hand, innovative as it may be.

Ignoring one's product or technology, even for a moment, is not a trivial matter, especially in areas where most people come from a clearly technological background. Is there some way to draw their attention to the heart of the matter?

I decided to offer a new service: marketing consulting for the stage of market penetration. The idea is simple - assist companies that have already developed a new product or service to meet their market, that is: guide them through the penetration stage, with a primary objective of landing a meeting or an initial contact with potential clients or strategic partners.

The idea is simple, but offering it to my own potential clients is not that simple. Why should a marketing manager, business development manager or CEO trust us of all people? How can we interest him? What will make him meet us? How do we convince him of the subject’s importance?

I decided to write an article that would help clarify the importance of penetration stage consulting and would demonstrate ZOOZ's abilities in this field. If I would have used direct marketing - would you have been convinced? Perhaps I should simply publish it in Status Management Magazine?