TMCA

How Demographic Shifts Affect Marketers

I was recently contemplating the demographic and ethic challenges that face marketers while reviewing a fascinating tool created by the New York Times.

Take a few moments to interact with the New York Times map and consider the challenges of communicating to the Swedish target market in 1920’s or the Irish target market in 1900. As you watch the demographics ebb and flow, you can gain an appreciation for the additional complexity that marketers need to reconcile in market where labor is mobile and populations migrate.

When I started interacting with the NYT map, it occurred to me that shifting demographics adds another dimension to the challenges marketers have. As we cater to changing demographics, marketers should remain sensitive to their audiences, the language the target market is most comfortable with, and the cultural subtleties that will make our messages resonate. This challenge is daunting, but not new. 

Marketers face a daunting task. They must to keep pace with the rate of change in:

• Technology and the emergence of new mediums
• Industry trends and economic swings
• Tools to do the their job and the tools that their audience is using

It makes me wonder what the next great shift will be in the wake of the current economic crisis. I welcome your thoughts on how this will challenge marketers over the next generation.

Tom Nightingale

VP Communications and Chief Marketing Officer , Con-way, Inc.
Chairman , TMCA

A better conference, a better leader

Many TMCA members may recall last year’s conference keynote speaker Bill Webb, who delivered a great talk on leadership. I was recently re-reading parts of his book, Igniting the Blue Flame and it struck me how true his messages were, particularly in light of the year that has passed.

Two particular passages jumped out at me. Bill wrote, “Leadership is not an assignment. Leadership is a decision."  He then states later in the book, “Managing is what happens while you and your people are in the room together — while leadership is what occurs after you leave the room.”

As I look forward to the upcoming TMCA conference and our speakers’ messages, I can’t help but look back at the 12 months since the last conference in Jacksonville. In the past year, we have seen more turmoil in fuel, economics, and public policy than I can remember. I can only guess what the next 12 months will hold. However, one thing is certain in my mind: this year’s conference will help me and hundreds of other transportation marketing and communications professionals prepare for whatever the future may hold. I’d like to think that is will help us all be better leaders…‘after we leave the room.’

See you there.

Tom Nightingale

VP Communications and Chief Marketing Officer , Con-way, Inc.
Chairman , TMCA

Compass Award winners announced

Congratulations to this year's recipients of the TMCA Compass Award! From the TMCA Compass press release:

This year, TMCA received nearly 165 entries from more than 70 organizations. Approximately 12 percent of those entries received awards of excellence, with another 28 percent receiving awards of merit. All entries were evaluated by three regional judging teams in Illinois, Ohio, and Tennessee, using a 6-point scaling system. Fifty percent of the total score is based on the Work Blueprint—a detailed write-up on the marketing campaign. The remaining 50 percent is based upon the actual creative work samples.

Compass Award recipients will be honored at a formal gala June 2, the final event of TMCA's Annual Conference at the Rancho Bernardo Inn in San Diego, Calif. Two solo awards for overall high scores—Best in Business-to-Business and Best in Business-to-Consumer—will be announced live during the gala in Florida.

Virtual conferences?

I presented in a virtual conference April 1 sponsored by MarketingProfs.  Joe Pulizzi, who runs Junta42 (specializing in content marketing), invited me to speak.  Some of you who have been around the industry for a few years may remember Joe from the days when he was with Penton’s Logistics Today, which is now Outsourced Logistics.   

When the initial request came in from Joe, I was intrigued by the venue.  In a year when travel budgets are constrained, I thought the medium was worth exploring and expected it to be a success. 

The session went well—but the reason for this blog post is not to promote the conference, but to open a dialogue about the venue.  We’ve all attended webinars, but a virtual conference with concurrent sessions was not something I had ever invested time into attending. 

I think I may have seen a glimpse of the future. This virtual conference had over 14,000 pre-registered and we had over 672 people “visit” our session.  The technology platform that MarketingProfs used made it easy for the presenters and created audience engagement by allowing them to ask hundreds of questions during the presentation.  It was an amazing means for a wide swath of people to come in, grab a bit of knowledge and then depart on their own terms.

I fully acknowledge that a web-based conference model lacks the ability to create networking opportunities and a community like we get at the TMCA annual conference, but as I look at the future of TMCA, I am curious to get the TMCA’s members thoughts on how something like this might fit into our future.  Let me know your thoughts…

Tom Nightingale
VP Communications and Chief Marketing Officer , Con-way, Inc.
Chairman , TMCA

Compass Award judging begins

14 marketing pros gathered at Ozburn-Hessey Logistics (OHL) March 18 to judge one-third of TMCA Compass Award entries. From the TMCA press release:

This year, there were nearly 170 entries in the TMCA Compass Awards Program, according to Brian Everett, ABC, TMCA's chief executive officer. Two other judging sessions will take place next week - one in Illinois (at the Echo Logistics corporate headquarters in Chicago), and the other in Ohio (at the Pacer offices in Dublin).

Judges on the Tennessee Judging Team were: Brad Brown of Averitt; Sherri Tipton of Cornerstone Systems; Emily Summar of Comdata Corp.; Larry Perry of Epic One Media; Tara Tocco and Leigh Marie Lunn of Gish Sherwood & Friends; Karen Hall, Christy Brown, Michelle McManus, and Eli Dolgansky of OHL; Mason Kauffman of WorldLogistics.org; Patricia Harris-Morehead of Nashville Metropolitan Transit Authority; and Diane Green of ProVenture Commercial Real Estate. Brian Everett was proctor of the session.

Recipients of the 2009 TMCA Compass Awards Program will be announced in mid-April, after all judging sessions have been successfully completed.

PR in a down economy

We are all feeling the effects of the economic crisis.  Therefore, in the spirit of misery loving company and facts that help affirm our perception of reality, I thought I would share some recent research that I came across. The University of Southern California Annenberg Strategic Communication and Public Relations Center recently published a report entitled “The Economic Situation on Public Relations/Communication.”

Here are a few of the facts that I found particularly disturbing:

• 40% of the companies surveyed are decreasing their PR budgets in mid-stream compared to the budgeted amount
• 69% of those surveyed have reduced or plan to reduce their agency fees
• Of those who decreased their budgets, 94% of them were doing it in response to economic conditions
• The average decrease was 18.8%

The Real Enemy

I recently had a long stretch of airplane time and had a chance to get a bit of reading done. In my queue I had the good fortune of pulling out The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene (a follow-up work to his previous book, The 48 Laws of Power). Both are outstanding books that provide an approachable means to equate history and to business and if you have not read them, I give them both an enthusiastic two thumbs-up. 

The purpose of this blog post is not to plug Greene’s book, but to call out a specific chapter.  In the very first chapter, “Declare War on Your Enemies – The Polarity Strategy”, Greene got me thinking.  He states, “Without a sense of polarity, without an enemy to react against, you are as lost as the Greek mercenaries (an example cited earlier in the chapter)…Your enemy is the polar star that guides you.  Given that direction, you can enter battle.”   This chapter really made me think about our industry’s current fixation of blame on the economy and whether or not we have the right enemy in our sights. 

In my 20+ years in business, I have not managed through such a daily barrage of bad news, had to cut costs so dramatically. or have not had as many excuses as we unfortunately have today. 

The truth is that we are indeed in a cyclical business and that the economy is hurting all of our companies.  However, in times like these, we should remain even more conscious of the truisms of which that Greene speaks.  The economy is not our enemy.  We should all pick our enemies wisely because the right choices will make us sharper and better.  Choosing the economy as your enemy however, is an unwinnable battle.

Tom Nightingale

VP Communications and Chief Marketing Officer
Con-way, Inc.
Chairman
TMCA

 

Success breeds success…and a heap of ad equivalency dollars.

This locution has never been more appropriate than in the world of public relations. In this blog post, I’d like to share a recent example where the virtuous cycle played out and Con-way wound up with the kind of air time and public accolades that money can’t buy.

While many companies shy away from PR or it’s slightly smaller counterpart, media relations, I content that those companies who do, will be left behind. In studies from universities and in books from marketing thought leaders, media relations is widely believed to be at least as effective as advertising.

There are two fundamental differences. First, you have less control over your message in the media relations world. While you can issue press releases until the cows come home, you’re going to have to give up some control and place a subject matter expert on the phone in an open-ended question and answer session with the media if you really want to get ink. And, while there are rare occasions when editors will misquote, more often than not, the preponderance of the blame is due to a lack of coaching and preparation.

Drive the Vote

 OK, so maybe it’s a shameless rip-off of MTV, but those are the copywriting skills of a Truck Marketer.  As the end to an brutally fascinating primary and Presidential election campaign draw to a close next week, I encourage all TMCA members to get out and vote. 

This one really maters.  In years past, some including me would have argued that one vote would not have mattered.  Or, that the outcome of the election would not have made a difference, because the lobbyists or the filibusterers would have offset the apathy or the poor voting decisions.  Not this year.

The next President will come into an economic headwind  and a global anti-American sentiment that most of us have never experienced (OK well maybe Denny Grim has been around long enough to remember it, but he doesn’t read this blog anyway).  This president will directly affect the legislation on critical initiatives that will directly impact the viability of the freight economy and our livelihoods. 

Above Average!

As many of you many know, each year the renowned executive search firm, SpencerStuart studies the tenure of CMO’s.  In the most recent published study the average tenure has improved and climbed to a whopping 26.3 months.  This past week, I am pleased to report that I am now officially, above average.  While many would debate this point with me, I am limiting my self-assessment to the math of my tenure.

In this posting, I’d like to discuss two items; what causes the short tenure and what can be done about it.