Andrew Barrett wants to talk about emotional positioning.
I'm game.
The skies are gloomy, so why not turn our attention to Chocolate phones and red steam washing machines and televisions as thin as a stick of gum and the global domination objective of a South Korean company that aims to be a world-beater by tying you, emotionally, to those electronics you know you crave.
Design. Lust. Touch. Sensory indulgence.
All part of the planned brand positioning, says Mr. Barrett, vice-president, marketing, for LG Electronics Canada Ltd.
It seems like only yesterday that LG was a rather ordinary, personality-less, original equipment manufacturer. "The only way LG could shake the shackles of being lesser known," Mr. Barrett says, "was to be seen as a brand of desire." (The italics are mine. The word "desire" sounds better that way.)
Feeds and speeds? Techs and specs? It is predictable that consumer electronics companies are going to try to compete on that platform.
Desire? Much more interesting.
It's been a little more than two years since Mr. Barrett stepped into his role. He recalls October, 2006. The Chocolate phone had launched in Seoul and in Europe and was set to be unveiled in Canada on Nov. 1. So, Mr. Barrett asked: "How do I get an update on the [Canadian] launch?"
The response: "Well, you're here."
In other words, very little had been done.
The chosen brand positioning: Nothing is more tempting than chocolate. Before you can say Even-in-My-Scanties-I-Like-to-Carry-a-Phone, the concept of Chocolate lingerie fashion shows had been imagined.
"The Chocolate phone was the first, best product ... that literally had the ability to send that message to internal constituents and to set a tone with customers, consumers and key influencers that this was going to be a different LG going forward," he says.
Under Mr. Barrett's leadership, LG Canada made the single largest marketing investment it had made to date: a fully integrated campaign running close to $2.5-million. Eight weeks later and, Mr. Barrett says, the company had achieved 50 per cent brand awareness, substantially aided by heavy promotion on the part of the phone's carrier partners.
Marketing was not part of the old LG culture.
The new strategy: To seed the company's global operations with a marketing mindset geared to a sense of style.
Style implies taste, and taste can be tricky. Consider Scarlet, the LG TV with the brazenly red back panel. "When your positioning is based on style ... the TVs can't just be a black box that looks like everybody else's TVs," he says. The reaction to the Scarlet has been polarizing. "There were some who absolutely loved it, and others who were appalled by it and never wanted to see it in their home," he says.
Mr. Barrett's job is to market whatever LG cooks up next. To this task he brings his experience from his days at Procter & Gamble Inc. (he launched Sunny Delight in Canada) to Pillsbury Canada Ltd. where, he says delightfully, "I ran the Doughboy business."
The Doughboy business was in the dumps. "When I joined no kid had seen the Doughboy," he says of Pillsbury's brand positioning in the mid-'90s. "It was all mom-based advertising directed specifically to moms. Kids didn't even know who this character was."
Mr. Barrett righted this egregious wrong by reanimating the dumpling man in the chef's hat. Tickle Me Elmo was big at the time, he adds, explaining the inspiration behind the tickled Doughboy, or, as Mr. Barrett phrases it, "We launched the woo-hoo Doughboy."
In the summer of 2000 he jumped to Molson, which was then enjoying the popularity of the Joe Canadian rant. He lasted two years, which, he was told, was a fairly long run for that organization. "I was told if you're lucky you'll last a year. If you're really good, you'll last two."
