For more information contact
Barbora Krásná (barbora.krasna@blueevents.eu)

Sheehan visited the Czech Republic to present the findings of her company’s latest report on the International Marketing Congress, held in Prague. She has been managing a team of advisors who take care of clients who use news about consumer trends from Germany-based market research group GfK, such as Roper Reports Worldwide, which conducts surveys in 30 markets around the globe. GfK’s activities cover five business divisions: custom research, retail and technology, consumer tracking, media and health care. GfK has 13 subsidiaries in Germany and more than 130 subsidiaries and affiliates worldwide.

Some of Sheehan’s major clients include companies from fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector, media and advertising. At the same time, she is an external professor at the marketing department of the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (LIM) in New York. Prior to her arrival at GfK she worked for OgilvyOne Consulting Worldwide.
Sheehan says that due to the global consumer confidence crisis, big companies are already cutting marketing and advertising budgets. Marketers and advertisers will now have to spend money more effectively to address customers’ needs by directly taking their worries, such as rising inflation, into consideration.

Q: Can you summarize some findings of Gfk Roper Report Worldwide you presented at the conference?

A: I was talking about global trends that are happening with consumers. The first was about the control of consumers, how they are increasingly self-reliant and have a lot of power. Power has shifted from marketers and large businesses to consumers. The second trend I talked about was how people are increasingly culturally mobile and open to trends from other parts of the world. They are also virtually mobile because of the technologies and the easiness of getting in touch with people. The third thing I talked about was the paradox of how many times consumers increasingly say one thing and do another. One example is that more and more people have access to technology, but more and more people say they are not interested in it.

Q: You also spoke about three stages of globalization the world has gone through. Can you explain it more?

A: The first stage goes back to the 1980s, when mostly Western companies started operating globally and at that stage it was very much a unidirectional push of products and services across the globe; American companies going to new markets for instance. The second stage was still this kind of unidirectional push of Western companies abroad but somewhat tailoring the products to local markets. Now, in this third stage, it’s not about the push from West, it’s much more multidirectional. We can see, for instance, the emergence of Chinese brands. And it is also much more about individual consumers and the control I spoke about. It is no longer the case that just because something is an American brand it would be automatically successful. There is an increasing need to tailor the products to the local market.

Q: What are the major clients for your Roper Report Worldwide?

A: Our clients are basically large multinational companies, the Fortune 500, but I can’t disclose their names.

Q: Did it ever happen that your report displeased your clients in terms of reliability of its results and reflection of the market reality?

A: No, we’ve been doing the studies since 1995 and we do it every year. So the trends are based on quantitative findings with respect to each market and are reliable.

Q: What would you say consumer confidence globally is like these days?

A: One of the key insights is that inflation is definitely more of a concern for people than it has ever been in the past so in the U.S., the economy is slowing down and there is a lot of concern about the credit market and rising prices of oil. So there is definitely inflationary pressures on the global basis, people are becoming more concerned about their economic situation. So in terms of consumer confidence globally, there are more and more concerns on the side of consumers.

Q: For instance, consumer confidence in the U.K. is dropping rather significantly according to the latest news reports. Do you thing this is an unstoppable trend that will spread across Europe?

A: I do think that one of the trends we see is that the entire globe is much more global and interconnected today, so when something happens in the U.S. economy it can spread across the globe. I think that the chances of the spreading are higher than they were in the past as economy is becoming much more global, and this means that Central Europe is no longer insulated from events happening outside its borders.

Q: Usually when there is some crisis the first budget that companies cut is the one for advertising and marketing. Do you already see this trend among your clients?

A: We do see that. The economy has slowed down and marketers are getting increasingly concerned about the global situation and what they should do in the future.  They are increasingly interested in keeping their pulse on consumers to understand how they are reacting to the dynamic financial situation.

Q: In your opinion, what is a solution for marketers and advertisers?

A: One of the strategies should be to address the concerns of consumers directly. For example, in its advertising campaign, [U.S.-based carmaker] Chrysler is promoting $2.99 (€1.90/Kč 47) gallons of gas with the purchase of automobiles. This is an example of trying to directly address people’s concerns by offering consumers incentives. Another example is [U.S.-based] Subway, the quick-service food restaurants, are currently promoting “$5 foot-long” sandwiches in the U.S.   So there are marketers who have already adjusted their messages in order to try to ease the fears consumers have.

Q: Is this [budget-cutting] really a threat to a marketing and advertising business in general?

A: There is a lot of talk again in the U.S. that we are going into recession. And, as you said, marketing and advertising tend to be the first [areas] to be reduced in terms of budget, so it is possible that the clients’ spending [for marketing and advertising] will decrease moving forward.  This will place additional pressures on advertisers and marketers to be efficient in their programs.

Q: What are some other challenges to companies now along with the global credit crunch?

A: It is also the power consumers have, recognizing that consumers have a lot of choices. Companies should be very smart and very transparent in terms of what they’re providing to their customers.

Q: What role does the Internet have in this?

A: The Internet has a huge role in terms of transparency. If you have a product that is not a good product it is so easy for one person to communicate their bad experience through the Internet. Twenty years ago, one could tell probably only a friend and the message was somewhat controlled. Now, one can set up a blog and talk about his experience to thousands of people around the world and it could really become an issue for a company.

Q: What sectors are the most threatened these days?

A: Well, definitely financial services. Many banks have been impacted by the subprime mortgage events, credit crisis. Technology companies are not doing badly, but it will become increasingly challenging for them to keep up with innovation.

Q: What are some challenges for advertising business?

A: There are more and more media channels, which brings media fragmentation. [This]  means it is a lot harder for marketers today to reach their target audience. And also … people feel overwhelmed by so much advertising and are tuning it out. Creating communication and messages that get to people so they don’t tune them out is a main challenge. 

source cbw.cz

Highlight of the first program part was a speech of Kathy Sheehan (GfK North America), who has concentrated on new consumption trends and held the interest namely by examples of how to take use of consumers paradoxes in marketing communication. Ladislav Trpák followed with the analysis of new marketing tools impact on creation of products, prices, communication and distribution and won the favour of participants for the pleasant and interactive way of presentation.

The conclusion of the first block brought a useful confrontation of different viewpoints related to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its communication within company marketing. Opposite poles were represented by  Donors Forum (Pavlína Kalousová) or Henkel company (Lidija Erlebachová). Lucia Tarbajovská presented a specific case study of T-Mobile.

Full space in before-lunch block was reserved for the keynote speaker George Silverman who has confirmed reputation of the leading word-of-mouth marketing worldwide speaker and kept the attention and interest of participants for over one hour. His „outstanding speakers abilities and well structured/vividly performed presentation “ were evaluated by the excellent average mark 1,44. 

Afternoon program was variegated namely by the show of Tomáš Mrkvička and Daniela Nacházelová (Ogilvy Group) focused on Brand Entertainment. Interesting examples of brand entertainment cases mostly amused participants, although they also raised doubts that „neither very profitable and successful companies in Czechia will be encouraged to do such type of brand entertainment advertising“.

The concluding discussion proved that many companies only start to work actively with application of new marketing tools, and that the answers to questions how to work with them in marketing budgets and how to measure their efficiency are highly important for them.

In spite of overall positive assessment, the survey among participants collected also a number of inputs to improve next years. The greatest lack of Marketing Management 2008 was an absence of more specific case studies as well as the wrong time management of the morning sessions that limited discussion possibilities. The organizers thank to the participants for precious comments, and already now employ them when considering preparations of the next jubilee 10^th year of the Marketing Management congress (to be held in June 2009).

The congress was organized by the company Blue Events, in co-operation with the professional guarantor Blue Strategy and it was realized thanks to the support of the Gold Partner SAS.

For more information see www.marketingmanagement.cz, or contact the program guarantor Roman Řípa (roman.ripa@bluestrategy.cz).

Qualities of the conference program are proved not only by average marks given by participants in the survey (main speakers received the average mark 1,93 and discussion workshops were evaluated even better by the average mark 1,69), but especially by the fact the most from nearly 250 participants kept fine the whole program marathon and stayed in the hotel from early morning till late night. All conference papers had a very balanced high level, the most attractive ones were presented already in the first morning block specialised in situation and trends in hospitality sector and moderated by Rostislav Vondruška, Managing Director CzechTourism.

Experience tour operator and hotel manager Viliam Sivek (EuroAgentur Hotels & Travel) precisely described the current state and business barriers in our hotel industry and gained clearly the best top speaker evaluation, although his open critics of the current economic and legal conditions in the Czech hotel business left a frozen impression on participants („however it is somehow necessary to say it in such a harsh way“).

On the contrary the performance of the second evaluated speaker Stephan Sigrist from Switzerland focused on prospects of hospitality sector in broader relations and attracted especially by visualisation of global trends that are reflected in consumers life style and pass an indisputable influence on services of tourism industry.

The second plenary session chaired by Pavel Hlinka, president of Association of hotels and restaurants in CR, was targeted on specific case studies - best practices of individual hotels, restaurants or pensions in our market. Also these contributions met a very positive response, most of all the concluding paper of Josef Svoboda, Chef of Top Hotel Praha speaking about “How to prepare a hotel breakfast with the intention of generating repeated business among customers”. The theory was then clearly linked with the practice, because the following lunch was prepared as a demonstration of hotel breakfast offer possibilities.

Within afternoon workshops the greatest attention was given to sections „Where is the end of education and the start of the training“. The part specialised on hotel services training had the best visit rate, the part focused on training in gastronomy moderated by Karel Mayer received the best evaluation – average mark 1,46 („knowledge sharing /brainstorming – excellent inspiration“).

Waiting for the start of the festive dinner was filled with an attractive competition of bartenders Prague Vodka Cup, accompanied by the program dedicated to the Day of Cocktails that falls just on May 13.

The festive dinner co-organized in co-operation with the journal Food Service in „western“ style worked out very well. Participants put off their jackets and dressed into cowboy hats and scarves could not sometimes recognise each other… Comfortable clothing and well-being atmosphere evoked good mood and good fun, especially for those guests who joined country dances or electric bull ride …

And all participants enjoyed specialities of American cuisine, inc. remarkable beefsteaks grilled outside. Granting of J. Vašata prize, this year for the concept of Švejk restaurants, accompanies by shooting– „This was definitely a completely different Vašata, that will be long remembered.“

The conference was supported by the agency CzechTourism, and was realized thanks to sponsorship of gold partners– companies Makro, Bohemia Sekt and Nestlé. The traditional co-organizers were Blue Events, Czech Confederation of Trade and Tourism, University of Economics in Prague and specialised journal Food Service. The program was completed thanks to contribution of other program partners, such as Association of hotels and restaurants, Czech association of cooks, Czech bartenders association and COT Business.

For more detailed information about the conference see www.horeca21.cz/summit or contact the program guarantors Barbora Krásná: barbora.krasna@blueevents.eu or Karel Mayer: mayer@incoma.cz