Jane Payfer, Chief Marketing Officer @ Ergotron

I attended an interesting Brand Matters session at the U of MN Carlson School of Business this morning. Mary Rapaport, now VP of Marketing at Universal Hospital Services, spoke about her experience taking a 50-year old, Minnesota engineering based organization, Minco,  into the 21st century.  The integrated re-branding campaign she spearheaded in 2004 produced impressive results; revenues grew 40% the first year after this significant and comprehensive effort.

Ergotron had similar (even better) success when our new CEO, Joel Hazzard, took over that same year. Sales jumped from $58 million to $92 million, that first year, and have grown steadily since. Under Joel’s leadership, we pretty much overhauled and reinvented every aspect of the company,  BUT our ”brand.” 

It got me thinking.

Later this morning, while refilling my “signature” candy jar,  I off-handedly commented to a colleague that I was running out of my no-fat favorite Hot Tamales.  She suggested it was time for me to try something else in the candy jar. Another colleague, who happens to be named Mike, chimed in that he thought Mike and Ike’s would be a nice change for the summer. And then he said, get this: “Jane, you’re in marketing, you should be ready for CHANGE.”

OOOOOHHHHH.  Hard to ignore the  message when hearing it from two very different people on the same day, isn’t it?

I may be changing to Mike and Ike’s. Knowing what needs changing and knowing what doesn’t  are ongoing, important considerations marketing leaders wrestle with on a daily basis.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 2:01 pm and is filed under Branding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.