Today I had the privilege of attending the BCAMA Vision 2009 Conference at the Four Seasons Hotel Vancouver. It was a fantastic event with excellent speakers.

I thought I would post my notes here for anyone to reference. Some may not make as much sense as others, but there are some key takeaways I found that I’ll share at the end of the point-form notes for each speaker.

Speaker #1: Ken Schmidt

Former Communications Director, Harley Davidson Motor Company, Leading Fortune 500 Consultant
Topic: Revving up Customers to Make the Big Noise

• In 1900 people could choose 2 modes of transportation: horse or bicycle
• Harley Davidson was born with a vision to adding a motor to a bicycle
• At the same time, Ford was building the first cars
• Bad guys ended up using cars; police ended up using motorcycles
• Big ideas were missed at that time: 1) Motorcyclists liked to gather together, and 2) Groups of motorbikes attracted a crowd
• Motorcycle races became one of the world’s biggest sporting events – racers would go over 100mph with no brakes
• Only Harley-Davidson and Indian survived the depression
• Used the downtime to play with colours and stylistic changes
• During WWII all Harley-Davidson bikes were built to support allied troops in the war effort
• After the war, soldiers who had used motorbikes in the war wanted to ride them for fun
• Pilots were also drawn to riding
• An elite group of flyers were called the “Hell’s Angels” – after the war they focused on motorbikes and started removing all unnecessary parts from their bikes i.e. mufflers (called chopping = choppers)
• Media determined that motorcyclists were to be feared
• Harley-Davidson had always tried to have a brand reputation based on being clean-cut, simple and useful. They tried too hard to show a clean image.
• Honda then appeared on the scene with very good quality bikes and a slogan of “You meet the nicest people on a Honda”. Millions bought Honda bikes.
• By 1985 Harley-Davidson could barely sell 30,000 bikes worldwide
• The media then basically printed Harley-Davidson’s obituary by telling Americans they could get better quality from overseas
• The best way to make change is to simplify. Don’t make it more complicated.
• Harley-Davidson was not creating demand. They were focused only on product: Creating a great product
• Standard operating procedure, as a rule of thumb, is wrong and shortsighted. Don’t do things the same way everyone else is doing things.
• At that time, Harley-Davidson came out with the world’s first V-twin engine – the first new bike engine in 20 years. Media jumped all over it and it graced the covers of all industry magazines but people were still not buying.
• Only tried and true Harley riders were still buying.
• Quality message had no impact because the entire industry was high quality
• Everything they’d done had failed; what would they need to change?
• There was no such thing as a motorbike test ride at that time so they decided they’d take truckloads of bikes to where blue collar guys were congregating and let anyone who was fit enough to ride one take a bike for a spin.
• While they were on the road at these events they talked to people. Loyal customers were upset at where the company had gotten to – the brink of bankruptcy – and wanted answers. Over that time they developed some answers to the questions so they could have those conversations.
• Each test ride was an opportunity for market research, so they asked the question, “What do we need to change to make you want to buy it?”
• Every single answer was something to do with customization – handlebars higher, wider, further forward, further back, lower seat, higher seat etc.
• The key was customization. Ask the customer what they want, build it, then sell it to them.
• The 1986 Harley-Davidson parts catalogue was 56 pages; it is now 1500 pages.
• Customers enjoy giving suggestions; people want to be listened to. They want to be important to you. They want to be heard
• People want someone to do something special for them.
• All things are equal to someone who doesn’t own your product yet
• Every employee models the behaviour of their leaders
• People need to be nurtured and made to feel special
• Create a great culture; people need to love their jobs
• People support what they feel they helped to create (employees and customers)
• Harley-Davidson then started a Harley Owner’s Group club – a social club that gets together at their home dealership. There were chapters all over North America.
• Customers and staff were becoming friends
• Word of mouth ->advocated -> ambassadors
• We go where our friends tell us to go
• We are an invisible species; all of us want to be noticed. Look at me I’m important.
• A new Harley-Davidson slogan was created: “We don’t care how everyone else does it.”
• What are you willing to do differently today than you did yesterday?
• Sales in 1985 were 30,000 bikes; in 1989 they sold out at 70,000 bikes and in 2005 sold 320,000 bikes.

Key Take-Aways

It’s about customization. People want something that’s cusomized for them and they want to be a part of the process. They want to know their ideas are not only heard, but found to be valuable and implemented. People take ownership over things they are involved in creating; they want to be on the inside. If you involve them in the processes, they will be loyal to the outcome. This applies not only to consumers but to employees. People model the behaviour of their superiors, so if you have a behavioural problem, it’s quite possibly a top-down problem. If you lead by example and embody the corporate culture, people will follow suit and create success.

Speaker #2: Brad Gamble

Senior Director of Marketing, McDonald’s Canada
Topic: still lovin’ it

• In 2001 sales were trending down within restaurants; sales growth was coming only from new restaurants.
• McDonald’s was operating under the philosophy of “build it and they will come”

What needed to change?

• They needed to increase sales at each location; they needed to be more customer-focused; they needed to build a rock-solid foundation; they needed to ensure the right organizational structure
• and they needed to make their brand more relevant.
• Growth comes from being better, not bigger.
• Five drivers of superior customer satisfaction: people, products, place, price, promotion
• New products were brought in: salads, angus burger, ciabatta buns, sandwiches etc.
• New décor that was more inviting “come and stay a while” feel
• Those 5 drivers would be the way to achieving enduring profitable growth

What were the results?

• 6 straight years of same store growth
• 25% increase in guests served; now 58M daily
• In 2008, same store sales growth was 7%

Building Brand & Retail Energy

• Surprise and delight the consumer
• Challenges: navigating new and ever-shifting landscape; consumers are equal partners in brand formation; raised bar on flexibility and transparency; everything moves at the speed of light; your brand is global
• How do you build a true relationship? Create a connection, an intimate bond. Be relevant – trends, build on emotive connectivity. Become their favourite. Make them say, “I like what they offer.”
• Think like a brand; act like a retailer. Provide retail solutions that fit their needs.
• Internal – perfect execution, commitment to improvement, engaged staff, collaboration at all levels
• External – all touch points must reinforce brand vision: design, menu, packaging etc. Positive talk value = personal endorsement ->brand loyalty. Do the unexpected
• Surprise and delight = Retail Energy
• Transform brand ‘friends’ into brand ‘lovers’
• Cannot create enduring profitable growth by discounting
• No one touch point will do it; it’s a process

Key Take-Aways

I didn’t particularly care for this presentation. Don’t get me wrong, I can see how McDonald’s is a very high profile brand that has worked very hard to grow and maintain market share in an ever-fragmented world, but I felt it was a bit self-congratulatory. If there were any take-aways for me they were change, evolve, stay relevant.

Where I think McDonald’s does do a fantastic job is in their commitment to operational excellence and consistency. Having said that, as I sat with an old colleague of mine we couldn’t help but notice the brand new coffee cup they have just rolled out (which they left for each delegate) is non-recyclable and has a cute little drawing on it showing it should go in the garbage can. That kind of rubbed us both the wrong way in this age of environmental responsibility. I also have a hard time getting on board with marketing that aims to sell food products that have made a huge impact on the North American population’s obesity epidemic, but that’s a whole different discussion I guess.

Speaker #3: Jim Carroll

Futurist & Marketing Trend Consultant to Fortune 500
Topic: Innovation in the High Velocity Economy
Jim Carroll’s Website
Jim Carroll on Twitter

• Cell phones, blackberries, iphones to become the credit card of the future
• People are looking for inspiration; we need to know things are getting better
• Broadcast and entertainment industries are changing rapidly
• Location intelligent professionals; technology is being used to create competitive advantage e.g. using google earth to do market research and target communications by house size
• For people completing science degrees and trades, ½ of what is learned in 1st year is obsolete by the time they graduate. Technology is changing that fast.
• Product lifecycles are significantly reduced. The typical digital camera has a product lifecycle of just 3 months before it will be rendered obsolete by the next development.
• The world is evolving. How do we respond fast?!
• Regular ongoing terrorism in the press – economy, layoffs, stock market, mortgage crisis, swine flu etc.
• We have been here before; recessions are not new.
• We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next 2 years and underestimate the changes that will occur in the next 10.
• What can we predict with 100% certainty? Economic growth. We just don’t know when.
• When do we innovate? Now or once the economy starts to rebound?
• We have to innovate, change and adapt faster than we’ve ever done this before in order to survive.
• The time to innovate, change and explore new opportunity is NOW.

Future Trends & Opportunity

• Relentless focus on growth; find a new growth opportunity every day – business or personal
• Need an ability to respond faster to market change; business cycles are way faster than they used to be e.g. a new video game launch produces 55-75% of it’s profit within the first 4-5 days of launch. Everything MUST be in order.
• Ask, “Are we seeing increased signs of velocity in our business? Are we able to respond as fast as the velocity change?
• How?” 1) Faster time to market, 2) Rapid ingestion of new technologies/methodologies, 3) Rapid refocusing of resources for opportunity or threat, 4) Operational excellence
• Customer service is more important than EVER
• Response to volatility
• How do I structure my team? How do we transition products, image and experience to remain relevant? Evolve product, image and experience.
• Brand image will be continually refreshed and re-enforced at every touch-point
• Hyperconnectivity. Experience will be far more engaging
• Rapid experimentation with price and product mix with operational excellence
• We’re going to increasingly take our digital lifestyles outdoors
• The world is a global idea factory – look around
• There’s a changing source of innovation from North America to Asia
• Leading R&D is taking place in India and China
• A shift from corporate R&D to open R&D – global ideas machine. Open source. Crowdsourced?
• Smaller organizations work faster and accelerate development
• There’s a shift from hidden innovation to public innovation
• Re-orienting our creativity will allow us to move faster and respond quicker
• Brands are like people: they get stuck. They resist change and become irrelevant. They have lost touch with their core essence.
• Your brand is not what you say it is; it is what THEY say it is
• It costs substantially more to maintain brand relevance today; interactivity is the most significant part of brand image
• Invest heavily in experiential capital – take the risk to try something out
• Experiential capital = we’re not sure what’s right but we’re investing anyway
• Don’t wait until the economy picks up

Ten Steps

1. Observe
2. Think
3. Change
4. Dare
5. Banish (banish idea killing)
6. Try
7. Question
8. Grow
9. Do
10. Enjoy!

• Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century

Key Take-Aways

I loved this session. Even thought the key take-aways seem quite simple, it was a very inspiring presentation. It made me feel like I’m on the right track with my goals and philosophies. So here’s what I got from this: Now is the time to innovate. Evolve your brand. Move towards mobile. Connect. Engage. Try new things. Keep learning and changing.

Speaker #4: Richard Bartrem

Vice-President, Culture and Communication, WestJet
Topic: Five Secrets to Success

• Airline industry is tough – net loss of 14B over the last 58 years. It has not made money.
• 63 Canadian airlines have gone under in the history of passenger airlines
• In the mid 90’s, WestJet’s founders looked at Southwest Airlines and wondered why no one was using that business model in Canada; they visited and studied them and learned.
• There are 7800 WestJetters (employees), 1200 unsolicited resumes received weekly, 270000 guests per week, 4,150,000 cookies consumed each year.
• The coldest day ever for TAC (turn around crew) was -54C
• Management and executive help out with TAC at Christmas
• They have had 432 marriage proposals on board WestJet flights
• All new staff get a 3-hour presentation from the company President and various VP’s
• Hire intelligent people and then empower them to decide where they can be loose with the rules and where they should be tight with the rules
• Their fastest ever aircraft turn time is 6 minutes. Every WestJetter traveling on any plane whether for work or pleasure cleans up the plane before deplaning – including management and exec.

WestJet’s Paradigm Shift

• New way to price fares – simple with few rules, cost structure allowed massive reductions and breakthrough pricing; competition unsure how to react
• The right language – Team Leaders (vs. Supervisors), People (vs. Employees), Promises (vs. Policies), Guests (vs. Passengers)
• Unique culture of care – understanding what your people need to succeed: 1) appreciation, 2) sympathy to personal problems, and 3) feeling “in” on things
• All employees have a mission/vision/values statement on their lanyard at all times and refer to them during the decision making process
• Their culture supports a great guest experience, which delivers great business results
• “We succeed because I care” – mantra of all WestJetters

The 5 Secrets:

1. We Care to Plan – Culture Department
Create a remarkable experience – CARE Department (execution arm of Culture Department). For every WestJetter who has a death in the family, new baby, marriage, graduation or special moment, each receives a hand-signed card from the President and all VPs.

2. We Care to Share
Employees share purchase plan. Owners try harder; over 80% of WestJetters are shareholders. Profit share parties – their people have earned over $155M in profit share since inception – twice yearly party where a % of profit is divided amongst WestJetters

3. We Care to (REALLY) Listen
Listen to their people: culture connection, tech talks, airport visits, test ideas – uniforms, commercials, snacks on planes etc.
Listen to guests: e.g. every commercial is tested with guests and WestJetters before going to market

4. We Care to Design
Design all experiences and processes to 1) make sure our WestJetters can be proud and successful, and 2) ensure our guests are getting value in everything we do
WestJet Care-antee

5. We Care to Celebrate and Have Fun
Profit share, kudos, birthday parties, new destination launches, incorporating family, fun is part of the fabric of our culture

Key Take-Aways

Wow. WestJet really leads the pack when it comes to treating people well – looking at people in a way that is so fundamentally different than how traditional business looks at people. This session got me thinking about how engaging people online is really just an easy way to build relationships and talk about stuff. When that stuff is business it’s a win for the company. Again, it’s all about people – people being made to feel special. People going out of their way to create great experiences, people being encouraged to share questions, concerns and suggestions and being really heard. It will become absolutely imperative if it isn’t already.

Speaker #5: Brian Scudamore

President & CEO, 1-800-GOT-JUNK?
Topic: Corporate Culture Turns Local Entrepreneur into Awarded International Brand

• A company is a group of people; a brand is a group of people working together towards a common vision
• You can never compromise on the quality of people
• Business became boring because he had no vision
• Print the picture, tell the story, get everyone on board. Don’t worry about the how, just look to the vision
• Tough times are the impetus for change; innovate now
• All new employees read the story before doing anything else; they need to be on board
• Always know what you stand for – what you’re about
• If you don’t have a vision, how will you get there? How will you know where ‘there’ is?
• You can’t motivate people; you can inspire them to take action
• They use a “Can You Imagine” wall of ideas. You can add your idea to the vision and it can be a really big dream, but you have to put your name to it and it’s there permanently.
• It’s all about people; at one point in the early days, he fired his entire staff of 11 people and started over.
• “It’s all about people” became an accountability statement; it’s what they stand for
• People don’t fail; systems do
• Know your values. Values are who you already are, what you’re about.
• Systems are results by design
• Communication was the #1 problem during growth.
• Every day they have a 10:55am huddle – good news from the field, celebration of successes, new business intelligence, update from one department (different each time), Q&A, good news and then a group cheer (teambuilding)
• Systemize your priorities. Every employee should have top 3 priorities for each week and adhere to them; don’t give in to the pressure to complete less important tasks because they’re easier

Key Take-Aways

You need to have a vision. You need to make that vision public. You need to paint the picture, tell the story, work towards the vision. Imagine it. Believe. Know where you’re going and make sure everything you’re doing is advancing that goal. Everyone has to share the vision because it is all about the people.

The Yahoo! Big Idea Chair: Panel Discussion

Kerry Munro, General Manager, Yahoo! Canada
Ken Wong, Acclaimed business professor, author, strategist
Maggie Fox, CEO and Founder of Social Media Group (Maggie on Twitter)
Clare Meridew, VP Creative Director Interactive, GREY Canada

Intro from Kerry Munro:

• Why do companies not have ratings and reviews on their websites? That shows a lack of interest in your customers and a lack of engagement with them

Initial statements from Maggie Fox:

• Origins of social media: connecting with people who share like interests
• You need to know what you want to accomplish with social media for it to be effective
  Ex. Yamaha corporate blog explained the 8month recall process which, in turn, significantly reduced negative online buzz
• Social Media press releases can net huge returns as they did for Ford. Give people the tools to share your information with the right info and images.
• Social media is not cheap; it’s only slightly cheaper than face to face

Statements & opposition from Ken Wong:

• Opposing view of social media use – parable: Everyone agrees it’s important to be in top physical condition; we all know how to obtain top physical condition; we have not all committed to do that.
• How to market in a recession:
  1) Do NOT cut price
  2) Do NOT cut spending
• 30-40% of companies will cut marketing spend in the face of a recession to justify price cuts
• What this tells us is that CEO’s believe marketing is a business expense, which means it must be made up this year. It’s not seen as an investment in the future.
• If we make a promise and don’t keep it, it’s a lie. Marketing has to impact operations.
• Hold steady with budgets and plans; the economy will begin to pick up in 2 quarters (plus a lag for unemployment, which is the last thing to be reversed)

Intro and Show & Tell from Clare Meridew

• Stop interrupting what people are interested in; be what people are looking for
• Dare to be different. Be brave, but be relevant.
• Augmented reality ads; interactive is not just on computer screens anymore:
  Case: GE Plug Into the Smart Grid
  Mini Cabrio augmented reality magazine ad (Video here in case the one in page doesn’t work)
• Viral example: Whopper Sacrifice – Facebook Campaign

General Panel Discussion:

• What’s Hot? Social responsibility/cause marketing, recession marketing (making things cheaper, last longer etc), mobile, personalization
• Where are we going? Screens merging, there will be one single platform, content will be (even more) personalized, pay for performance?
• Answer the question “How are you creating value?”
• Traditional segmentation is useless
• Average Facebook user is mid-30’s; fastest growing segment is women over 55
• How do we buy media now if stereotypes/demographics don’t work anymore?
• You need an insight channel; get the information from the web but do something with it
• There is so much insight to be gained but you need to implement change as a result.
• You must have the right person on the ground to implement corporate social media engagement; they need support, budget and staff
• We need to retrain marketing teams – universities don’t teach marketing well at all i.e. most students will receive 90 minutes on market segmentation when it’s one of the most important concepts
• We make excuses for the brands that ‘get it’ i.e. WestJet, 1-800-GOT-JUNK… because it’s too hard, too daunting, too challenging and calls for change
• If frugal is the new black, blatant materialism is not going to cut it
• Back to the original question: why aren’t you putting your customer service surveys online?
• Negative feedback is generally self-moderated by the community of loyal brand enthusiasts; it’s an opportunity to address a legitimate customer service concern.

Conclusion

Over all I was really happy with the event. I left with a really great feeling about much of what I’ve already started doing in my business life. Now I want to create a Jerry McGuire style manifesto that’s either going to inspire a leap into the future, or it’ll have me looking for a new job