Success stories
The Chief Executive Officer of Babies R Us was in search of a way to gain a foothold in the traditional bricks and mortar environment of selling “at retail” through his 200+ locations, rather than lose market share to big box retailers and the internet.
After collaborating with the company’s senior marketing team, the Linchpin-at-Large, Stephen Warshaw, facilitated the notion of leveraging the corner store by cornering the “market” on information, education and product knowledge for expectant mothers, parents and grandparents alike.
“The Road to Motherhood”, a dynamic, live educational experience subsequently visited Babies R Us locations throughout the country, bolstering same-store sales, garnering many local news stories and currying favor and loyalties from grateful mothers and parents seeking insight that busy doctors (offices) could not otherwise provide.
The Head of Consumer Marketing for Bravo Television was interested in a novel way to promote her fledgling new television franchise, “Top Chef”, to a core audience of “affluent foodies”. Increase the number of these “desirables” that watch the show, and you’ll increase your appeal to food-oriented advertisers seeking to connect with these audiences, she reasoned.
After a collaboration with the network’s cable affiliate marketing team, the Linchpin at-Large facilitated the notion of creating a road show for the television show that would be locally sponsored (advertised) by the cable affiliates in each market. This would help Bravo “spread the word”, and the affiliate capture local advertising revenues. As the size of each of these regional audiences grew, so too would the composite of the national audience.
Some four years later, “Top Chef: The Tour!” has visited nearly 100 cities; hosted tens of thousands of consumers at free cooking demonstrations featuring “Top Chefs” from the Emmy-nominated show; and has fueled ratings, advertising revenue and even a spinoff: Top Chef Masters.
The General Manager of Sales and Marketing for the Americas for GE Healthcare was challenged with the issue of how to present a new, state-of-the-art, potentially life-saving digital mammography system to healthcare providers for purchase consideration. Her specific challenge: knowing that practitioners would have to see, touch and try it first.
After a collaboration with the company’s “Women’s Healthcare Marketing” team, the Linchpin at-Large facilitated the notion of taking the machine on the road to meet, greet and influence buyers and beneficiaries alike. Take a consumer-centric approach, he argued, and ask the local healthcare provider to staff the equipment at a local health fair or festival, putting them (and the machine) at the fore of proactive breast health education in the local community. The resultant goodwill, he continued, would sell the machines better than anything.
The “GE Women’s Health and Wellness Tour” was ultimately expanded to include comprehensive and complimentary breast, heart and bone health screenings to over 250,000 women throughout the Country over a 5-year tour cycle; was featured in over 70 local, regional and nationally-televised news stories (including on NBC’s “The Today Show”) and was attributed to selling over $100M in medical equipment.
The Assistant Vice President for Disability Insurance Marketing at Mass Mutual was seeking a dynamic way to launch their new web and educational initiative, “www.halfapaycheck.com” to the business community. The premise for the initiative was as follows: most insurers (other than Mass Mutual) did not offer anywhere near 100% coverage for one’s expenses when disabled, and most buyers of disability insurance had no idea that this was the case.
After a collaboration with her Senior Marketing Team, it was discovered that the group had an opportunity to activate their strategy at the US Open (tennis), through the company’s larger sponsorship presence at the event. The Linchpin at-Large facilitated the notion of creatively merging the “big ideas” of “half” and “tennis” to arrive at a solution that would dynamically “talk” to the affluent, impressionable and vast (1,000,000+) audience that attends this annual experience.
The “Half A Paycheck.Com Tennis Challenge” attracted tens of thousands of attendees over the course of the 2-week event who (attempted to) hit a tennis ball traveling at 20 miles per hour over a net with a custom tennis racket that had actually been cut in half. When asked, “Why half a racket?” the rote response was, “This will help you to imagine how challenging it would be to live on half a paycheck”. Thousands subsequently visited the web site, where they filled out a disability insurance questionnaire; hundreds asked to consult with a disability insurance salesperson; and one lucky player actually won half a paycheck!