Stefan Stroe – Independent Brand Strategist

Am fost la gala cu sperante pentru colegii din Grupul Leo Burnett care au muncit pentru redactarea celor 6 studii de caz inscrise.

In final a iesit bine pentru Leo Burnett (Gold pentru cele ambele campaniii Bergenbier inscrise, Gold pentru Tide Supermame si Bronz pentru Joe Nestle), cu sperante de viitor pentru Starcom (campania Avon “1 din 8″ femei a fost nominalizata).
Castigatorii ii puteti vedea inca de azi noapte pe Adplayers. Mai jos sunt speech-urile pentru cele trei Gold Effie castigate de Leo Burnett, speech-ul lui E.H. Buxbaum si decernarea Grand Effie (unde Headvertising cu Gazeta Sporturilor a fost marea surpriza a serii).

Felicitari tuturor (organizatori, juriu, participanti, comitetul de organizare), Effie creste considerabil an la an, ceea ce va conta mult pentru industria de strategie din Romania.

TIDE SUPERMAME (1:53 min)

BERGENBIER EQUITY (2:19 min)

BERGENBIER Q-PACK (1:00 min)

ERICH H. BUXBAUM AND GRAND EFFIE (8:56 min)

Today will be the BIG DAY for 2007 Romanian Effie Awards competitors, as the gala starts at 19:30 (CET+1).

Starcom Romania participates with an Avon case study (I cannot tell you what chances we might have in the category because I haven’t seen it yet), as for Leo Burnett with Alpinia, Tide, Bergenbier (2) and Joe.

If you like these brands, keep your fingers crossed for us!

For those who received an invitation – I’ll see you there!

Today I attended a 2 hours introduction of what we will work as teams tomorrow during the 8 hour brand positioning workshop.

Erich had a this evening a nice presentation – I realised that some of his pages are similar with the ones I teach Marketing students (e.g. Interbrands Top global brands) – but he added more insights from his Unilever marketing & chairman experience and I enjoyed every minute.

He is a very smart and tonic Austrian guy – not German, like Felix Tataru presented him – he really made us smile.

His blood carries Unilever’s positioning school, which I saw during planning projects that stimulates through simplicity and clarity insightful and creative campaigns, often better than of its main competitors (Axe vs. TAG, Dove vs. Pantene).

My business colleagues from P&G Romania/Balkans have no reason to get agitated, I think they should’ve attended this workshop… I’m really disappointed by their absence since the President of the Organizing Committee EFFIE 2007 is one of P&G Romania marketing directors. And I am even more sad since they are aware that their US leaders declare publicly for some time that they are trying to stop Unilever’s domination in Cannes Awards (I would add also IPA and APG Awards, where si a similar situation).

Rhetorically speaking… how can a brand overcome a competitor when it doesn’t monitor and analyse its behaviour?

Anyway, here are some of Erich’s thoughts that I enjoyed tonight:

1. Brand value is sometimes negatively influenced by marketing staff migration (when a new BM comes, he/she makes changes that really count at brand level)

2. Trade is also damaging brands but in terms of margins, as KA are powerful negotiators that are able to take out thousands of products from shelves in just one day (I would say that client’s sales force + the trade suppliers are partners in brands crimes)

3. Close consumer observation (like monitoring people in private spaces or ethnographic research studies) proved marketers that they would get valuable insights.

Stay tuned for the next post on Effie workshop and gala (starts at 19:30).