1960s WORK
0197 Condor to Brand Leader
My greatest marketing achievement was to move Condor from No 2 in the pipe tobacco market to become the brand leader. This was a major achievement in a marketplace which was supposed to be dying. As has been seen elsewhere, in the section on market research, our newly gained information had – surprisingly - showed that this was achievable. Accordingly, I made a presentation to the main board, the main gist of which was that we should double our advertising from one million a year to two millions a year. At the same time we would be changing our packaging, product and promotions, as well as the creative message. All this, though, was based on the marketing research we had done. It was a classical marketing campaign; everything based on research.
Accordingly, because it was a big investment we did the conventional thing and put it into television test market; in the Tyne Tees Television area in north-east England. We sat back and waited for the results. To our horror, the results showed sales actually went down! We later found out that the north-east was leading the country into a recession, and this was the reason. But it was scarcely a story that I should have found comfortable presenting to the board. Accordingly I had to come before the board and explain myself!
I used my econometric model to explain what should have happened, and what didn't happen. I was quite convincing -- as I really did know what I was talking about. But I suspect that I may have been helped by the atmosphere, which distracted them. It was the first time I used an overhead projector and I proceeded to actually write on the screen with my magic marker rather than on the acetate. They found it so funny, almost falling off their chairs, that they forgot about the main issue and agreed that we could go national anyway. Even so, I like to think that they were a very brave board. And at the time they were, because it when they were pushing Gallahers from an old-fashioned firm to be at the very leading edge of marketing. In any case, fortunately when we did launch the campaign nationally, the expected results were achieved. Thus Condor, instead of declining one per cent every year, increased at ten per cent per annum and soon became the brand leader -- to the great surprise of Imperial Tobacco.
It also had another hidden effect. The York Street factory was renowned as having the worst labour relations in the company. When you went across to talk to the workers they used to tell you about the time, in the 1930s, when Gallahers had laid off the whole workforce a week before Christmas and then hired them again after Christmas; simply so they could avoid paying the Christmas bonus. This was so long before that there couldn't have been any worker in the company who had actually been around at the time, but it was one of those myths which is so ingrained that it defines the culture of the organisation. In fact it proved very easy to dispel this, though I didn't realise at the time. For, when I went back to the factory after Condor started selling 10 percent more each year, it was smiling faces all round. Labour relations had changed overnight. It turned out that the real reason for them being miserable previously was that they could only see the brand declining and were waiting for the whole operation to be shut down and they to be made redundant! Now, all of a sudden, they had a future and were enjoying it.
We moved into top gear as a marketing group. In particular we started to look for a new brand extension to move Condor even more into the main market. We developed the concept of Condor Mild, which was exactly where we wanted position the new brand. But this was thought to be too adventurous, risking the Condor name, and senior management were not quite so brave in this instance. So, instead, we developed and launched Condor Ready Rubbed. The ready rubbed version of a pipe tobacco was literally ready to put in the pipe. With the flake version the pipe smoker took the individual flake and rubbed it in the palms of his hand to loosen strands so he could then pack these into the bowl of the pipe. In the case of ready rubbed this was already done for him by machinery. The important fact though was not that ready rubbed was easy-to-use but that -- quite illogically -- it was actually seen to be a milder tobacco. This, combined with changes of pack design and the actual product change, enabled us to move the Condor brand even further into St. Bruno territory. As, in particular, the pack was green not brown - supposedly to differentiate the ready rubbed version so smokers didn't make a mistake - this gave a much softer image.
We also upped our marketing activities, mainly our advertising, but also by the making more use of the salesforce. As was the case with PST, we bought ‘majors’ and ‘minors’ from the salesforce. A minor -- which was at a lower cost -- allowed us to get the salesman and merchandisers put in small bits of promotional material. A major, on the other hand, was much more expensive and meant that they had to feature the brand in the call. This was an important development in selling to retail outlets, since it allowed you to control the use of the salesforce across a wide range of brands.
We also produced PR material. In particular, to try bring new pipe smokers, I produced an illustrated book about how to start pipe smoking. I was the best person to write this since I had just gone through the process. Pipe smoking was very ritualised -- not least since it's quite difficult to actually get the pipe alight and keep it burning. Pipe smoke is also much stronger than any of the other types of tobacco. Even so, some smokers still breathe it into their lungs -- that I never could do. Real pipe smokers, however, have a collection of pipes -- again part of the mystique -- and my favourite was a meerschaum (though only the Falcon version where just the bowl was meerschaum!).
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