Pour acquérir Panneaux Chambord, Norbord a dû céder son usine de Val-d’Or. Les opérations étaient suspendues dans l’une et l’autre des deux unités. Selon la direction de Norbord, aucun redémarrage n’est prévu pour l’instant.

« Cet échange d’actifs augmentera l’harmonisation de nos usines du nord avec notre stratégie commerciale », signe le président et chef de la direction de Norbord, Peter Wijnbergen. « L’usine de Chambord est plus grande et se trouve dans la région du Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, plus importante région de production de bois d’oeuvre au Québec. Bien que la conjoncture du marché ne préconise pas la relance immédiate de l’usine de Chambord, elle est en bonne condition, se trouve près de certains de nos marchés clés et représente une meilleure occasion concurrentielle pour Norbord. »

Les activités à l’usine Panneaux Chambord ont été interrompues en 2008. L’usine construite dans les années 1980 a une capacité de production estimée à de 470 millions de pieds carrés, précise le nouveau propriétaire.

Au Québec, en plus de Panneaux Chambord, Norbord exploite une unité de production à La Sarre de même qu’un centre de recherche et de développement à développement à Saint-Laurent.

Sur la scène internationale, Norbord Inc. est reconnue tel un chef de file mondial en matière de panneaux dérivés du bois et le plus important fabricant de panneaux de lamelles orientées. La compagnie cotée en bourse fabrique également des panneaux de particules, des panneaux en fibres de densité moyenne et des produits à valeur ajoutée connexes.

« Norbord compte des actifs d’environ 1,7 milliard $ et environ 2600 employés dans 17 usines aux États-Unis, au Canada et en Europe », indique-t-on.

Bank Simpanan Nasional (BSN) journey from a brand which was perceived by others as old, traditional or “laid back” to one which resonated with the every man was not built in a day.

Content was the route it took. But creating content also meant facing a constant stream of trials and errors.

Speaking at A+M’s Content 360 Malaysia conference, Puspa Marina Omar, SVP of strategic communications at BSN said that while management is quick to ask for justification and ROI, the role of content is not one which will lead to immediate results.

“You may not get ROI immediately with content, but content is about planting a seed in consumers’ minds. This is so in the consumer’s subconscious somewhere, they know that your brand, and in our case BSN exists,” Omar said. So while they might not spend with you immediately, you are in their awareness and this will pay off in the long run, explained Omar.

“Get the engagement, get the reach and essentially build the relationship. You may get consumers coming to see you now, or you may not but along the way you put the brand on their radar,” Omar added.

Content however is not new. It has been around for ages and is central to promoting your business. But the method in which content is now handled is different. The marketplace is changing hence challenges brands face in this current landscape is also evolving.

All industries face the content creation problem as the space to stand out gets even more narrowed.

“It is important for a brand to find its niche as customers no longer respond to a one size fits all approach,” she added.Brands, as such need to identify the challenges which is unique to itself, its industry in particular and especially within the organisation and business.

For BSN, she added, it is about building relationships.

“At the end of the day, in the minds of Millennials all financial products sound the same. A bank is a bank. For us in this industry, our clients don’t want just business solutions, they don’t want just personal financing, and they want all that and more,” Omar added.

In the case of BSN, said Omar, it faced a perception issue as customers saw it as a traditional brand. Following a brand audit which was done internally and externally, BSN took a long hard look at itself to mine insights on what affected customers and its various stakeholders in the business. The brand found that it had low brand recall. This was especially prevalent amongst the younger generation as they no longer felt they could resonate with BSN.

This, said Omar, helped the brand come a long way.

“Get to know your customers and be intimate. Really know what makes them tick such as their likes and dislikes,” Omar said.

Before it underwent its major rebranding, BSN decided on the values it wanted to promote which were of social togetherness and unity and resolved to make videos which showcased that. Its first project was #RojakBuah in 2014 which was set in conjunction with the Merdeka.

#RojakBuah was the first time BSN launched a digital campaign. It garnered a reach of 2.8 million with an engagement rate of 50,000. It also had more that 300k views which was above tghe YouTube views benchmark of 8%.

Omar added that while the company decided to try on a new communication tactic, what it had to stay true to was its brand positioning, no matter the medium it chose to undertake.

“You must say the same thing, tell the same story and stay true what the values and business propositions you are offering. If you do that then along the line you will create trust and build relationships,” Omar added.

Inspire by the success of the campaign, it decided to launch the (now very well known) Kucing Happy six part series which featured a talking cat. The video was sensational with viewers.

The response to Kucing Happy, said Omar, was beyond BSN’s imagination.

“We knew it would be doing six videos but after the first three we realised it had to rewrite everything because of the call to action was overwhelming and we had to respond to what was demanded from our audiences,” said Omar.

“People didn’t believe that the spot came from the brand,” Omar added.

While Kucing Happy garnered amazing response for the brand, he next concern was figuring out how to sustain that momentum. Consumer expectations of the brand and the content it produces was sky high.

“Deciding on the concept of the video after Kuching Happy was a big challenge,” Omar said. While her management demanded for a follow up to it, Omar and her team decided it was best that they let viewers stay curious and put the series on pause for the time being.

Instead, BSN decided to shift its content strategy to something else, in conjunction with Hari Raya celebrations.

Pengacau Raya was hence born from BSN wanting to stay true to its beliefs in respecting diversity and appeal to Asians at large. BSN had learnt from previous videos on what worked and what didn’t, even if it was small issues such as adding translation from Malay to English.

The video was inspired by real life stories of people who married into different Malay cultures. It features a young man called Aloysius who is excited about his first Hari Raya. In Omar’s point of view, the main takeaway from creating all the different videos over the past two years was creating content which resonates with consumers.

“It is all about trial and error. As you map your challenges and your objectives, don’t leave behind your gut feeling. It will tell you if something will work and stay true to what you believe in and how you want the company to be projected,” Omar said. She added staying alert to all that is surrounding you is also crucial.

At the end of the day, she added, its about being authentic and telling a story which keeps true to the organisations personality. A brand should not try to be something it is not as it needs to be able to create a sustainable campaign in the future.

“Say it in a manner that touches your viewers. Have an emotional connection to your viewers so you stay in their minds,” she added.

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In this Marketing Nerds episode, SEJ’s Chief Social Media Strategist, Brent Csutoras, was joined by Peter Leshaw, Director of Internet Marketing at MDT Marketing.

What Are You Doing with Automation?

Marketing automation is something that we do a lot with here at MDT. The clients that we work for are in a very competitive space. They’re tasked with generating as many leads as possible for two reasons, one, because they’re trying to keep their call centers active and warm and not stagnant. There are some times where lead generation is going to be a little bit more aggressive, and the intent of the prospect is not that great there.

There are the other times where we’re working to generate search-based traffic. Both of those leads go into a pile and ultimately our bottom line goal is to enrich those leads as much as possible and get the very best return on our investment. To do that, we need to focus on ways that we are getting as close to a one to one discussion with these prospects in our marketing automation system.

More Than Just Email

When we’re working for our clients and generating the search-based lead, the person is either going to do a search, land on a landing page, and they’re either going to pick up the phone, they’re either going to chat, or they’re going to fill out a form. That’s the exact order we would prefer to get them engaged initially.

The initial part is either making that phone call and reaching a representative, or they’re filling out that form. That’s going to be the first entry into the marketing automation system. From there, it’s about how often you want and what tone you want to speak back to that person in to keep enriching them about the services that you offer and why they should make that decision.

The first most realistic thing that’s going to go back is that email to verify, “Listen, we intend to provide you with information, further information that you’re looking for.”

Determining the Tone of Voice

The way to reply is based on the history and the depth of the conversation you’ve already had. For instance, if somebody is applying to fund their invoices, so basically they’re looking for quick cash, the selling points are going to be the interest rates. That’s something that changes quite frequently. In that sense, the tone would be more urgent.

In the case of clients we work with who are working adults looking to a career, so they’re looking to go back to college, you have to be a little more charismatic with them. We realize that they have a job, they might have a family, and that they also have a career.

The kind of tone in that sense should be inspirational and should be about, “This is what your future could be if you had that additional training, to allow you to advance your income.” Those are two different services. The lead generation is very, very important, and the tone is going to be very different.

How to Take it to the Next Level

The next point in the process for our line of work would be to schedule an interview with somebody, right? You got to get them. It may be convenient for them to sit behind their desk and find me. They’ve requested information; now I got to get them to physically come into my office. We need to provide them with information, so it is easy for them to make the decision to come into our office.

“We know that you’re interested. We haven’t heard from you in a couple of days. We have a couple of slots open for an interview this week. Did you realize you are only ten minutes away from our main office? Would you like to schedule that interview now? If so, press this button and a calendar notification would be put right into your phone.” That’s our next step. They requested information, there’s intent there, and we’re saying, “Okay, your next step is to come into our office. This is the location, this is the directions, it takes X amount of minutes. Click here to schedule it and put it on your calendar.”

From there, it’s about okay, you got to give them a little time to breathe. They’ve reached out to you, you’ve reached back to them, you told them what their next steps are. Let’s wait to see how long it’s going to take for them to respond. You might want to now start changing the tone to being a little bit more inspirational than getting them to act. Now they’ve said, okay, they have all the information. They know where you’re located, how to get there, how to schedule the appointment.

Well, what about making sure that that’s the right decision for them? The tone would switch to us, being more for the clients we’re working for, to demonstrate to these prospects that we’re the source that they should go to for this service offering. In that case, we would possibly send out a personalized video that could show them what their future could be. What would happen to their future as far as what that would be if they came on board and extended their career at one of the schools that we’re marketing for.

How to Put Together a Personalized Video

What we do is we come up with a storyboard. Just to back up a little bit, the primary focus, and I’m just talking about it as far as an example for this conversation, is our higher education clients, which are career colleges and universities looking for students. In that case, we came up with a storyboard that was in three different segments.

A short video, could be a minute and a half. The video opens up with the entrance to the university or the college; then it shows an individual whether it’s a male or a female and it’s an over-the-shoulder shot of them filling out an application. You’re not really looking at the specifics of who the individual is, but you’re noticing that somebody is filling out an application.

The camera zooms in on an area of that page where they’re putting in their name. That’s a part that we can personalize with their name already filled in. There was a part of the video where we’re handing the diploma to the individual. The individual over another over-the-shoulder shot, you just see somebody taking a diploma, and when they go to look at it, it’s their name with the specific program that they’re interested in signing up for.

Lastly, the video rounds up with “Let’s walk down this hallway.” It’s a wide shot into a hallway and you’re passing by somebody’s nameplate on an office door to show them working or somebody behind a desk. That’s the third area. It’s not a lot, it’s just their name. It would be great if it could be more of their personality or their face, but that might be a little bit creepy and we’re not there yet.

What we’re looking to do is just show them that, “Look, we think that you’d be a great fit. We’re so indebted to that we want to show you and make you visualize what that experience could be.” Really the feelings that they get inside and saying, “Wow, this could have been me. It’s just filling out this simple form, then I can be getting my diploma a year or two from now and then I could be sitting behind a desk.”

Are People Influenced by Subtle Personalization?

As marketers, we always want to stand out from our competition. In our space, there are multiple offerings for a similar service in one area and it’s very common to fill out multiple requests for more information in one market. Realistically, they’re going to be inundated with responses from, let’s say they filled out three or four requests for information. I get three or four times, however many touch points are within that campaign. So they could be hit fifty times from just filling out three forms.

Yes, we do feel it makes a difference because video and visuals, storytelling, is the future of content marketing. People enjoy watching videos online. Having something that’s different, having something that’s not only different and personalized definitely resonates with people, especially in our market because we’re trying to paint a picture of their future.

We know that there are many, many tougher decisions that they have to make than just picking up our service, the fact that these are adults balancing life and family, so we want to make it easy to them and we want to give them a visual idea of what they can expect. It goes a long way.

The Metrics in Automation

Basically, if we’re tracking, if we’re doing A/B tests on the landing page, that’s just very simple. We use a tool called Unbounce. Unbounce is a great system because we can create a landing page for our client. We run it, we get some data on it, and then we say, “You know what? We’re interested in changing the headline and maybe the header image.” With a tool like Unbounce, you can simply copy that page, change the components on the variation, and launch it splitting the traffic as you want fifty/fifty, sixty/forty, whatever.

You don’t have to change any other programming on the server level because it all goes to the same URL and it’s Unbounce that separates the traffic from A to B. That’s a tool that we use there.

Tools Mentioned

• HubSpot
• ExactTarget
• Silverpop
• XMPie
• Unbounce

Connect with Peter

Twitter @peterleshaw and @mdtmarketingusa 

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Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Paulo Bobita
In-post Photo #1: alex150770 via Depositphotos

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Dive Brief:

• In three key battleground states, the Clinton campaign is running a marketing effort with video ads featuring YouTube influencers, according to an exclusive report in Variety.
• The ad content features one of three YouTube stars making surprise visits to fans in each of the three targeted states: Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The campaign hashtag is #StrongerTogether.
• The three YouTubers — GloZell Green, Todrick Hall and Sam Tsui — have a combined YouTube subscriber base of more than 9.4 million.

Dive Insight:

Few things are going to signal that influencer marketing has hit its full stride in the mainstream more than the recent move by the Clinton campaign. When even career politicians are making use of the format, it becomes clear it has demonstrable value across industries.

It’s especially telling that Clinton’s campaign is tapping influencers in order to reach a very specific subset of voters — millennials in this case — in states that are seen as critical to electoral success. Variety reports that the #StrongerTogether spots are designed to reach voters who don’t necessarily watch TV (typically meaning younger voters), and it will be unsurprising to see other politicians adopting similar tactics as more and more demos shift away from linear television.   

Presidential campaign advertising spend is notorious for being highly battle-tested, and the timing of this effort is significant. If the Clinton team just wanted to dip its toes in influencer marketing, the experimental phase would’ve happened long before the final two weeks of the season. It’s clear that this is a final dedicated push to win over indifferent or on-the-fence voters, with Hillary for America’s Director of Digital Advertising Jason Rosenbaum telling Variety, “It’s our campaign’s closing argument.” 

Marketers can glean what they want from Clinton’s influencer outreach, but to a certain extent this effort puts a sort of stamp of approval on influencer marketing as a valid technique for reaching millennials.