A column in last week’s Wall Street Journal highlights the Oreo cookie’s journey from America to China and what it finally took for Kraft Foods to find success in appealing to the most populated country in the world.

In 1996, Kraft introduced the Oreo to China – hoping the popular cookie would be as big a hit as it has been in the U.S. But sales remained flat for more than 10 years until Kraft began to rethink its marketing strategies, or lack thereof, and decided on some new approaches.

“Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity — doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results –- ‘characterized what we were doing,’” according to Shawn Warren, vice president of marketing for Kraft Foods International.

So Kraft went to work and during its research learned, for one thing, the Chinese weren’t big cookie eaters. Traditional Oreos were too sweet for Chinese tastes and the packages of 14 Oreos priced at 72 cents were too expensive.
The company developed 20 prototypes of reduced-sugar Oreos and tested them with Chinese consumers to come up with the right formula. A new taste and the repackaging of fewer cookies at a reduced price, combined with major grassroots marketing and PR campaigns, began to generate sales.
While the remade Oreo looks almost nothing like the original (the new Chinese Oreo consists of four layers of crispy wafer filled with vanilla and chocolate cream, coated in chocolate), the new concoction is now a best-selling treat. Over the past two years, Kraft has doubled its Oreo revenue in China, with those sales contributing to revenue that topped $1 billion worldwide for the first time last year.

In the end, Kraft overhauled the entire essence of its 96-year-old Oreo and it worked.

The Chinese version of the Oreo cookie is a powerful reminder to all of us, namely:

• Invest in the necessary research & homework up front before launching a product

• Know your consumers and give them what they want; focus on your target audience for the most important information.

• Remember other cultures often have vastly different preferences than Americans

Finally, when a tried and true recipe doesn’t appeal to a new audience – or no longer works for the same audience – it’s time to come up with new ingredients for success.

While public relations and marketing experts use different methods and media to communicate their messages, the goals are the same: to get maximum visibility for clients and generate responses from target audiences.

When well planned, PR and marketing are a dynamic duo. PR leaves off where marketing should pick up, and visa versa. In fact, it should be a continual tag team of picking up the client’s ball and running with it.

If one agency handles both PR & marketing, the client is positioned to be ahead of the game – both strategically and financially. When PR & marketing are not under the same roof, it’s critical the client asks each firm to communicate and work with one another, or the risks can include mixed messages, misunderstandings, and missed opportunities.

Here are two examples of a well integrated PR-marketing team:

• A client gets a great interview in a highly visible publication or with a major news station. Once the story has run, the PR and marketing team will keep it alive for as long as possible. The interview will turn into reprints for company brochures and press kits, as well as links and podcasts for the company web site, social media web sites, and news releases, etc. Mentions and/or portions of the interview are used in advertising and/or branding campaigns, and the news piece is highlighted in company backgrounders, press pitches, future media opportunities, and proposals for prospective clients.

• A marketing department holds a major event, with proceeds benefiting a charity. The role of PR is to publicize the charitable aspect of the event and work toward media coverage. Each function is promoting the same event using different avenues to generate responses and engage different participants. When PR and marketing work in sync, the chances are greater the message will cover more bases that reach a larger audience.

And, with PR and marketing working as a team, an added value to the client is the brainstorming sessions from “two sides of the house” (as we say here) that result in fresh and innovative approaches, ideas, and campaigns. When pooling creative resources from different areas, the agency launches more initiatives in a more efficient way – which leads to more success for the client.

A former coworker once told me that managing multiple projects is a lot like to balancing your grandmother’s best china in the air and making sure that you don’t drop any of the plates. 

Whether you’re trying to meet the needs of your clients, your bosses or your staff, you need to be organized.  As soon as I have a firm deadline, I use my outlook calendar to record notes about what I need to follow up on each day. It’s kind of an electronic “To Do” list that pops up for me each day.  I check with the designers, clients, vendors multiple times on any given project to make sure things are moving along as expected.  I try to set realistic expectations for everyone.  We can’t do a good job for clients if we are not given an appropriate amount of time.  If a client wants a 12 page brochure in 3 days, it is my job to let them know that is not likely to happen.

It is also about prioritization, as everyone knows. That is where experience can come into play…I know which projects I might be able to squeeze an extra day or two out of, but I also know which projects have “drop dead” deadlines and obviously those you don’t want to miss. Working with different clients, different products, different designers, different vendors each day…well that’s what keeps the day exciting. 

As an account supervisor, it is my job to make recommendations to our clients and to offer different options or solutions to help them achieve their marketing objectives.  Most clients recognize that the experience of the entire agency is behind those recommendations, and we offer solutions based on successes we have had over a number of years. I try to convey that. That being said, if a client is insistent about trying something which we don’t recommend, we will still assist them. In the end it is their right to decide how to spend their marketing dollars.  And you never know, we might learn something in the process.

Thirty years after the idea first came along, the concept of “the medium is the message” is more relevant than ever. If you don’t know what this concept is, look it up and you’ll learn something. If you’re familiar with this idea, which medium is delivering more of the “message” these days?

Back when I lived in New York, I’d see an escaped child’s balloon bouncing against the ceiling of Grand Central Station every now and then. The ad guy in me would look at it and think: if I could attach a message to a few balloons and control their altitude so they’d hover just over people’s heads, I’d have a pretty noticeable billboard-especially during rush hour. Flash forward to 2007 and a company called gearfactor has come up with a very cool riff on the idea. www.gearfactor.com.hk

Trying to do PR in a marketing vacuum can be very challenging. Being at an agency and working with clients that combine their branding, marketing programs, web strategy, and advertising together with their communications strategy, I am able to see firsthand how all the marketing processes can fit together and build on one another towards a common goal. It makes a world of difference. I am now a firm believer that a public relations campaign that includes other aspects of marketing will help maximize its effectiveness. Plus it’s fun to work on “both sides of the house” so to speak. Public Relations is so much more than just pitching traditional media. Creating a brand identity and maintaining it in the press is just as important. Sitting in as creative briefs are being prepared, and watching the client pick logos and banner ads gives you a much better sense of the direction the CEO is trying to take the brand. For instance, perhaps pitching a quirky consumer pub isn’t quite right if the company is trying to create a more serious, old school image. This kind of information is not as readily available when the marketing is being handled by numerous firms. Teaming up with media buyers is also a great way to maximize outreach potential. Advertorials are a great way to leverage messaging. PR pros and media gurus can split up demographics and make sure each target vertical has a little bit of editorial, and a little bit of paid media. Again, this kind of planning and strategy is much more difficult when two or more firms are being used in the overall marketing campaign.

CCA was named to Inc. magazine’s list of the 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in America. This list, which is an extension of Inc. magazine’s annual Inc. 500 list, catches many businesses that are too big to grow at the pace required to make the Inc. 500, as well as a host of smaller firms. Taken as a whole, these companies represent the backbone if the U.S. economy.

CCA, which grew nearly 40% in the last three years, continues to expand its client base through its success in adapting marketing and public relations programs to the new content-driven web era. CCA provides a level of service and service integration not typically found at traditional advertising and marketing agencies. The agency provides unparalled expertise in developing marketing and public relations strategy for its clients.

The agency was also recently ranked the 5th Largest Advertising & Public Relations firm in the Worcester Business Journal’s Annual Book of Lists, (July 16, 2007). The listing includes companies in Central Massachusetts and the MetroWest areas.