Just who, exactly, is Dr. Direct, and why is Tim Scott, vice-president of business development for Brooks Instrument, a Pennsylvania-based manufacturing company, his biggest booster? The unlikely pairing of Scott, a real-life engineer, and Dr. Direct, a whimsical comic-strip superhero, is at the heart of a grassroots marketing campaign that’s garnering a lot of attention in a traditionally low-profile industry.

The fictitious character — who is always accompanied by his trusty sidekicks, an edgy parrot and a brainy dog — is being used by Brooks Instrument to publicize the Quantim precision mass flow controller, a product the company considers the most innovative in its 56-year history. The surprising campaign — as well as the process Brooks used to create it — sheds light on how small businesses with little marketing background can produce innovative, low-cost strategies that work. The experience has taught Brooks that the company’s best marketers are found inside the business, people who really know their products and their customers.

Since its founding, Brooks Instrument has been producing devices that measure and control the flow rate of fluids used in manufacturing processes. And for all those years the company has relied on the standard marketing package for its sector: earnest, information-crammed manuals and brochures. But its totally innovative product — one that used unlikely scientific principles to add precision and adaptability to the manufacturing process in a completely new way — demanded a radically different marketing approach, Scott figured.

To come up with ideas for that approach, Scott enlisted the help of two Brooks employees who were intimately familiar with the technology and the quirky scientists and engineers who were Quantim’s target market. Though Scott participated in each of the team’s meetings, he gave its members autonomy to come up with any approach they wished. His position as a senior executive of the company ensured that ideas could be green-lighted immediately. On hand to help bring the pair’s ideas to life were Alan Gladish, president of Praxis Communications, which is Brooks’s marketing firm, and freelance copywriter Art Levy. “We had no preconceived ideas going in,” says Eric Heilveil, a Brooks product-marketing manager who was on the team. “We were free to make mistakes.”

When Scott’s team members came out of their first Quantim brainstorming session, in February 2001, their startling strategy involved a cartoon, a superhero, and loads of insider “geek” humor. By all accounts, a comic strip would be a marketing first in the industrial-instrumentation space, where dull and dense is the leitmotiv of most promotional literature. Dr. Direct was silly, unorthodox, even risky — and 15 months later, is a resounding success.

Dr. Direct debuted as an online comic strip in May 2001. Each strip cost close to $1,000, split between fees for an illustrator and a writer. The superhero could be found saving the processing day at places like “Acme Megachem” and “Acme Biotech.” The first series included 16 weekly episodes that potential customers could access by logging on to the Quantim site. There they could follow the exploits of Dr. Direct as he wielded Quantim to conquer real-world manufacturing problems.

Dovetailing with the online offering, the team came up with a 14-page color comic book to serve as the centerpiece of Brooks’s sales push at Semicon West, a key semiconductor-industry trade show that introduced Quantim to the sector’s major players in July 2001. In honor of Dr. Direct, Brooks employees donned lab coats and passed out stuffed parrots as a way of luring customers to the company’s booth. The effort accomplished its goal. Every few minutes the same scenario would take place at the booth, says Heilveil: gawky engineers would read the comic book and begin to laugh. As the engineers filed out of the booth Heilveil overheard comments like “Neat” and “Cool idea,” accompanied by knowing chuckles.

The Quantim team unknowingly accomplished something that all companies will have to do in their marketing efforts, says Sam Hill, president of Helios Consulting Group and coauthor of Radical Marketing. In a brand-busy world, Hill says, companies will be forced to learn how to fuse the medium and the message. “Consumers have gotten very good at chewing the advertisement but spitting out the commercial,” he says. “Brooks created an advertising message that was inherently interesting in its own right but one where the consumer can’t have Dr. Direct without Quantim.”

Heilveil admits it isn’t hard right now for Brooks to stand out in its market. Still, the comic book didn’t cost any more than traditional brochures do, totaling $12,000 for design and printing. After Dr. Direct debuted at Semicon West, Brooks saw a 50% increase in sales leads, says Scott. The comic book also pushed people to the weekly episodes on Quantim’s site, which experienced a 30% spike in traffic.

The experiment didn’t come without hazards, however. “If these things cause the target market to have a bad perception of the company or its product, they can backfire,” says Leonard Lodish, a marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and coauthor of Entrepreneurial Marketing. Heilveil personally knows of one potential customer who “thought the comic book was silly,” he says.

And that’s the conundrum in making something like this work — ensuring that the irreverence will attract rather than alienate core customers. Hill thinks that the key to success is marketing what you know to people you know. “The idea that a 32-year-old male Wharton M.B.A. can effectively market incontinence products to a 97-year-old Hispanic woman in Miami is insane,” he says. “But it happens all the time.”

Which means that Scott’s decision to involve Brooks employees familiar with its customers in its marketing campaign turned out to have been even savvier than he first thought. The team knew how engineers think — and laugh. “Show the strip to traditional marketing guys and they think we’re whack,” says Scott. “But show it to some of our customers and they’re laughing their socks off.”

Brooks is planning to run another series of the comic strip, thanks to Dr. Direct’s success so far. Though Scott declines to give out exact sales figures, he says that “we met our objectives for our first year, and we’re projecting sales in year two to be between three and four times our results in year one.” The marketing people at Brooks have gotten a bit attached to Dr. Direct. Will his shadow cloud their vision for the future? Probably, and that sort of sentimentality isn’t necessarily bad, according to Hill. “Marketing is a little bit like romance,” he says. “Professionalism is no substitute for passion.”

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What is Brand Equity?

Brand equity is an intangible asset that depends on associations made by the consumer. There are at least three perspectives from which to view brand equity:

• Financial - One way to measure brand equity is to determine the price premium that a brand commands over a generic product. For example, if consumers are willing to pay $100 more for a branded television over the same unbranded television, this premium provides important information about the value of the brand. However, expenses such as promotional costs must be taken into account when using this method to measure brand equity.
• Brand extensions - A successful brand can be used as a platform to launch related products. The benefits of brand extensions are the leveraging of existing brand awareness thus reducing advertising expenditures, and a lower risk from the perspective of the consumer. Furthermore, appropriate brand extensions can enhance the core brand. However, the value of brand extensions is more difficult to quantify than are direct financial measures of brand equity.
• Consumer-based - A strong brand increases the consumer’s attitude strength toward the product associated with the brand. Attitude strength is built by experience with a product. This importance of actual experience by the customer implies that trial samples are more effective than advertising in the early stages of building a strong brand. The consumer’s awareness and associations lead to perceived quality, inferred attributes, and eventually, brand loyalty.

Strong brand equity provides the following benefits:

• Facilitates a more predictable income stream.
• Increases cash flow by increasing market share, reducing promotional costs, and allowing premium pricing.
• Brand equity is an asset that can be sold or leased.

However, brand equity is not always positive in value. Some brands acquire a bad reputation that results in negative brand equity. Negative brand equity can be measured by surveys in which consumers indicate that a discount is needed to purchase the brand over a generic product.

Building and Managing Brand Equity

In his 1989 paper, Managing Brand Equity, Peter H. Farquhar outlined the following three stages that are required in order to build a strong brand:

1. Introduction - introduce a quality product with the strategy of using the brand as a platform from which to launch future products. A positive evaluation by the consumer is important.
2. Elaboration - make the brand easy to remember and develop repeat usage. There should be accessible brand attitude, that is, the consumer should easily remember his or her positive evaluation of the brand.
3. Fortification - the brand should carry a consistent image over time to reinforce its place in the consumer’s mind and develop a special relationship with the consumer. Brand extensions can further fortify the brand, but only with related products having a perceived fit in the mind of the consumer.

Alternative Means to Brand Equity

Building brand equity requires a significant effort, and some companies use alternative means of achieving the benefits of a strong brand. For example, brand equity can be borrowed by extending the brand name to a line of products in the same product category or even to other categories. In some cases, especially when there is a perceptual connection between the products, such extensions are successful. In other cases, the extensions are unsuccessful and can dilute the original brand equity.

Brand equity also can be “bought” by licensing the use of a strong brand for a new product. As in line extensions by the same company, the success of brand licensing is not guaranteed and must be analyzed carefully for appropriateness.

Managing Multiple Brands

Different companies have opted for different brand strategies for multiple products. These strategies are:

• Single brand identity - a separate brand for each product. For example, in laundry detergents Procter & Gamble offers uniquely positioned brands such as Tide, Cheer, Bold, etc.
• Umbrella - all products under the same brand. For example, Sony offers many different product categories under its brand.
• Multi-brand categories - Different brands for different product categories. Campbell Soup Company uses Campbell’s for soups, Pepperidge Farm for baked goods, and V8 for juices.
• Family of names - Different brands having a common name stem. Nestle uses Nescafe, Nesquik, and Nestea for beverages.

Brand equity is an important factor in multi-product branding strategies.

Protecting Brand Equity

The marketing mix should focus on building and protecting brand equity. For example, if the brand is positioned as a premium product, the product quality should be consistent with what consumers expect of the brand, low sale prices should not be used compete, the distribution channels should be consistent with what is expected of a premium brand, and the promotional campaign should build consistent associations.

Finally, potentially dilutive extensions that are inconsistent with the consumer’s perception of the brand should be avoided. Extensions also should be avoided if the core brand is not yet sufficiently strong.

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The contingency plan needs to be developed by a team representing all functional areas of the organization. If the organization is large enough, a formal project needs to be established, which must have approval and support from the very top of the enterprise.

One of the first contingency planning tasks to be undertaken is to prepare a comprehensive list of the potentially serious incidents that could affect the normal operations of the business. This list should include all possible incidents no matter how remote the likelihood of their occurrence.

Against each item listed the project team or manager should note a probability rating. Each incident should also be rated for potential impact severity level. From this information, it will become much easier to frame the plan in the context of the real needs of the organization.

Once the assessment stage has been completed, the structure of the plan can be established. The plan will contain a range of milestones to move the organization from its disrupted status towards a return to normal operations.

The first important milestone is the process which deals with the immediate aftermath of the disaster. This may involve the emergency services or other specialists who are trained to deal with extreme situations.

The next stage is to determine which critical business functions need to be resumed and in what order. The plan will of necessity be detailed, and will identify key individuals who should be familiar with their duties under the plan.

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The Ascott Group, a hospitality player with a presence in India, is one of the world’s largest international serviced residence owner-operators.

Banyan Tree made the Conde Nast Traveller’s Gold List 2006 in the ‘Best for Rooms’ category. It also won a Travel & Leisure Award for being the world’s 33rd best hotel group and 11th best in Asia. Millennium Copthorne Hotel Group is among the world’s 40 biggest hotel groups.

Indian market

According to Reginald Wee, regional director for international operations in South Asia at International Enterprise Singapore, the 40-odd Singapore-based global hospitality enterprises operate 513 hotel and serviced residence properties with 89,554 keys outside Singapore, excluding Shangri-La.

‘The Indian market remains the most important in South Asia for Singapore-based hospitality players,’ Mr Wee says.

‘At the latest count, there are 10 Singapore players in South Asia, which by end-2010 will manage 34 properties with 3,656 rooms.’

They are Ascott, Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts, Hotel Properties, ALiLA Resorts, Bonvest Holdings, COMO Hotels and Resorts, Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts, Raffles, Aman Resorts and Millennium & Copthorne International.

Skilled worker shortage

Mr Wee says potential challenges in the hospitality business include a shortage of skilled workers, retaining quality workers and a lack of government incentives such as capital subsidies, tax holidays and low interest rates.

‘Retention of the workforce is a real problem, with high attrition levels,’ he says. ‘One of the reasons is comparatively unattractive wages compared with those in other sectors. So despite a boom in the services sector, many hotel management graduates choose to join other industries like retail and aviation instead of hospitality.’

Many governments do push for investment in the hospitality sector. Their backing is confined mainly to concessions such as stamp duty and electricity consumption, he adds.

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At least three reports this year have given the country top marks in many areas of economic influence, including the ease of doing business, legal and political framework, economic stability and government efficiency.

And last week, Singapore leapfrogged major rival Hong Kong in a ranking of the most influential commercial centres around the world.

At first glance, the reaction by many might be: ‘So what, they are just surveys and mean little in the real world.’

But industry players told The Straits Times that Singapore’s high marks do much to boost investor confidence as well as attract foreign investment and more multinationals to set up operations here and so increase opportunities for local enterprises.

Ms Thong Pao-Yi, the Economic Development Board’s executive director for communications, said: ‘Naturally, these rankings will help us in our investment promotion or talent attraction work.’

Ms Chew Mok Lee, the group director of enterprise promotion at Spring Singapore, agreed: ‘The favourable ranking will help boost confidence in engaging Singapore businesses as partners, suppliers and even customers.

‘Our reputation as a pro-business country will be a key differentiating factor for businesses to leverage in terms of an ideal gateway to the region.’

That can have only beneficial spin-offs for Singaporeans, said Mr Mark Ellwood, the managing director of recruitment firm Robert Walters Singapore.

‘Companies that set up operations here will have to find local talent, train them and impart knowledge, which will naturally increase the overall quality of the labour force.’

The key surveys this year have been varied in focus sand findings, but Singapore’s consistently high rankings indicate it is firmly on the right track in a competitive environment.

One such poll was the MasterCard Worldwide Centres of Commerce Index, which is said to be used by multinationals to help guide investment decisions.

It ranked Singapore as the second most influential centre in Asia, just behind Tokyo, and the fourth most influential in the world.

It is up two places from last year’s inaugural ranking and ahead of Hong Kong.

The survey also found Singapore was the easiest of 75 cities polled in which to do business.

And in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, Singapore topped Asian countries, narrowly trumping Japan.

In its related study, the Logistics Performance Index that ranks 150 countries according to how easy it is to ship goods across borders, Singapore was No. 1 in the world.

According to the 2008 findings of the World Competitiveness Yearbook published by Swiss business school IMD, Singapore is the second most competitive economy after the United States.

The 20-year-old study assesses how a nation creates and maintains an environment that sustains business competitiveness. Singapore scored 99.33 points, up from 99.12 last year, with the survey organisers tipping that it may topple the US from top spot in coming years.

Singapore has topped international surveys and rankings for at least a decade.

In 1995, it ranked first in Fortune magazine’s list of best cities for business and led the World Economic Forum’s competitiveness ranking.

So does this mean Singapore could one day be Asia’s leading business centre?

Mr Lawrence Leow, the president of the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, said: ‘For foreign businesses that are thinking of setting up in Asia, Singapore will become a more attractive option than other Asian cities.

‘These are strengths that Singapore can leverage on to become the centre of all Asia.

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