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Category Archives: Bernard and Company News

Tim’s Take on the Industry

WHEN I WAS A BOY…

That’s how one of my favorite high school teachers started out many a lecture. Father Cochran taught me logic at the all-boys Catholic prep school I attended. From him, I learned Aristotle and Aquinas in Greek and Latin, plus all the modern thinking of the day. His opening set the tone, namely, encouraging us to keep all things in perspective and never forget the lessons of our youth, no matter what changed along the way.

My point? In today’s ad agency, we have technologies galore that didn’t exist just 43 years ago, when I was a…fledgling copy boy at my first ad agency, writing display classified ads on a “modern” electric typewriter for the agency that handled the American Grease Stick Company, maker of products such as SqueakEase, DoorEase and LockEase. Thrilling, I can hear you say.

Today, we offer clients social media, website development with full back-end tracking, augmented reality to enhance trade show and online experiences, Google ad word programs that capture people seeking their products and equipment, then put an ad in view online through retargeting with back-end tracking protocols, highly complex interactive blasts and conferencing options for training and press events, plus the very cool (is that still a multi-meaning adjective?) technology of mobile attraction, whereby we put a message from our client on every phone in a zip code or x-mile radius of a trade show venue. People come up to the booth and say “show me,” whereupon I smile knowingly at the client and say, “Told ya it would work!” And it does. Call me and I’ll tell you how. (Actually, one of the young guns here will do that.)

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A Not-So New Face Adds Value

My name is Ioana and I’ve been a part of the Bernard & Company team for almost three years. My activities as a marketing information specialist help our clients increase their profits and become better-known within their industries.

One of my primary duties is to read magazines for our clients’ PR. Once identified, the appearances are scanned and archived online. When one of our clients meets with us to talk about the results of their PR campaign, they are presented with magazine clippings and online access to PR that appeared both online and in print. This benefits our clients in two ways. First, clients like Grieve and Suhner, who sell their products in many markets, see which magazines are most responsive to their PR. Secondly, it is very helpful for them to see their ROI. Some clients consistently realize ROI in the 15-20:1 range, depending on the quantity of releases, the occasion of success stories, and the breadth of their master media list.  We have clients who sell to very limited markets such as forge, foundry, tire and rubber molding, while others sell power tools, electric motors and industrial heat processing equipment to almost every industry.

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Tim’s Take on the Industry

From time to time…

After 43 years in the agency business, always as a copywriter, I’ve seen many “evolutions” in the agency business.  I started in a world of print, when direct mail was the sizzle product and bingo cards were the “proof of performance” metric…a word we never used, as we said yardstick.  Funny.  New ads and PR took 30-45 days to appear, now we have our PR online in 30 minutes or less.

Today, the emergence of the internet and social media have radically altered the face of industrial marcom, which remains a lap behind the consumer world, but not because our business lacks the talent or foresight to implement the changes in technology.

Rather, the fundamental driver in our business…and yours, as captains of industry…is one that hasn’t changed a bit, over time.  It’s the fact that all 33 of our clients sell to only a small slice of the viewing public.  We have several clients with less than 1000 prospects in all North America, including one who sells tiremaking machinery.  Talk about a limited head count.  At the opposite end, we have a client who sells every market you can name with a piece of discretionary capital equipment, as I call it.  Requires a very different approach.

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