Merlin Blog

Is your pitch “Good enough” or Great?

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:00:00 -0700

An interview with sharon edwards, communications and presentation coach.

Sharon, why is it so important to pay attention to the presentation as well as the numbers?

I’ve witnessed the moments when an executive who has expertise, education and a sound business strategy, an excellent plan and millions of dollars on the line will throw away the opportunity to lever that foundation because there was no strategy for effectively sharing the company’s message out loud. A company’s message is not just about the numbers. It’s also about forming relationships, instilling confidence and showing leadership. That kind of experience comes from listening to an executive speak effectively.

What are some of the excuses you hear for not paying attention to the presentation?

When I come in to help an executive or IR team improve their communications strategy by levering their story in person as well as in print I often hear:

The numbers are good enough.
We don’t have time to practise the pitch.
The information is in the slides (or report).
Our CEO (or CFO) doesn't like speaking.
Or on the flip side of that one – our President is great "off the cuff".
It's just a quick conference call so...
And my all-time favourite – we're just going to wing it.

That’s quite a list. What are your solutions?

Everyone has numbers. What is your company doing to make sure that your strategy and your numbers stand out from the crowd? How are you telling your story? Who is on your team and why should an investor choose you?

Make the time to practise. Have at least one dry run so that the presenter can deliver the company’s story with confidence, clarity, and impact every time. That way the company doesn’t miss a chance to impress an analyst who may become a champion for your story.

Business is about relationships. People bond with people not slides! A strong presentation delivered with confidence is a great indication of internal leadership that tends to create shareholder value.

Make sure everyone is comfy. If an executive team isn’t comfortable with the pitch then it’s important to change the message to support the individual as much as possible. This is also
where the benefit of a dry run comes in. Practise the pitch — over and over — until the story can be shared effectively. That works for good news and bad news, by the way.

”Off the cuff” is so much more powerful when it is paired with a good strategy and key messages. The strategy doesn’t have to be scripted word for word, which leaves breathing space for an off-the-cuff presenter. But think about it – if an executive is comfortable without a plan, then the presentation will only be that much stronger when there is a plan.

For the ”wing it” people: An executive team doesn’t wing it when they utilize their collective expertise to grow the company or face a challenge in the markets or when riding the storm in turbulent economic or political climates. Why then would that same team take the chance and wing it when sharing the story they’ve worked so hard to create for stakeholders? The stakes are too high to be just “good enough” when you and your company are truly great!

Source:
The Talon Winter 2009, Click here to view the complete Merlin Edge newsletter in pdf format.

Branding of Kinnear Financial Limited

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 16:00:00 -0700

Over the past several years, Merlin Edge has worked with Jim Kinnear on a variety of projects during his tenure as President and CEO of Pengrowth Energy Trust and Pengrowth Management Limited. From annual reports to books celebrating the 20th and 25th anniversaries of the company he founded, Merlin has been a part of documenting many key events in his business history.

When he stepped aside from his role at Pengrowth, it was a natural step for Jim to look to Merlin to create a brand image and associated marketing materials for Kinnear Financial Limited, a venture by the man known throughout Calgary and beyond as one of the pioneers of the energy trust sector and equally well known for his generous philanthropic nature and keen business acumen.

Evidence is all over the local landscape from the Pengrowth Saddledome to the Kinnear Centre for Creativity and Innovation at the Banff Centre. There have been countless other contributions across the spectrum from supporting sporting events and individual athletes to the arts, medical community and the less fortunate here and abroad.

September 2009 marked the beginning of this new chapter in Jim’s business story. His departure from Pengrowth allows him to concentrate full-time on his newest ventures, Kinnear Financial Limited (KFL) and Caledonian Royalty Corporation. There he can focus on what he does best, applying innovative and forward-thinking business ideas, concentrating on the deal, and building on a rich history in successful business transactions that have brought investors strong returns.

The deal-making has already begun. In 2009 Caledonian negotiated the purchase of a 5 percent gross overriding royalty on the oil and natural gas properties of Compton Petroleum Corporation for a purchase price of approximately $100 million. This unique investment opportunity was not previously available in the Canadian oil and natural gas sector. It highlights the ability of Jim and the team of colleagues with whom he has worked closely for many years not only to see opportunity, but to create it.

Jim is supported by a team of highly qualified resource professionals including engineers, geologists and financial professionals with extensive expertise to complete strategic combinations, mergers and acquisitions, while advising on the technical issues related to the industry.

Merlin Edge is proud to work with the team at Kinnear Financial in developing its strategic branding package.

Source:

The Talon Winter 2009, Click here to view the complete Merlin Edge newsletter in pdf format.

Merlin's Clients: Graham Construction

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 16:00:00 -0700

The Graham Group has a vision to be North America’s premier integrated construction solutions partner. From a family-owned start up in 1926, the company now has extensive North American operations spread across Western Canada, Ontario, the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest.

In the last year Graham has undertaken an ambitious program to market and communicate their growth and vision by unveiling a strategy which will combine their plans of continual improvement, planned growth and related diversification.

For Graham the early 1980s were years of economic adversity and a challenge to their future, but they also led to the company’s rebirth. In 1985 they reorganized and re-launched Graham as an employee-owned company run by a small focused management team. In the next 20 years the company expanded on all fronts adding services, capabilities, equipment and regional offices entering new markets in both Canada and the United States. The company has grown to over 1,000 salaried employees and revenues of almost $2 billion. Leveraging their capacity, Graham entered into the next decade as the 4th largest construction services provider in Canada.

Orlene King, Graham’s Director, Communications says: “Our marketing and communications efforts are focused on ensuring all our stakeholders – clients, partners, subcontractors and employees – are aware that Graham is the construction solutions partner of choice. We have a clear vision as well as the right strategies, talent and capabilities to guide us towards a future that will continue to be successful.”

For more information about Graham, please call:

Orlene King, Director, Communications at 403-570-5021.

Merlin Edge has been the agency of record with Graham for the past year and has worked extensively in helping to develop a branding communications and marketing strategy that is consistent with Graham’s overall goals and business objectives.

Source:
The Talon Spring 2010, Click here to view the complete Merlin Edge newsletter in pdf format.

Quick Tips for Improving Your Website

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 16:00:00 -0700

Are you making every effort to capture the interest of your clients and customers? When was the last time you offered them something of value in return for visiting your website?

Here are a few ways you can encourage your customers to visit your website more often:

Relevant industry news items, with a comment or analysis by your company’s top executives. Offering an editorial opinion makes your people the expert, and your customers will know to come to you for information on this subject, and how it will affect them
Case studies explaining how you saved another client or customer money, time, energy or other resources to get their job done better or more efficiently. Share your success stories
Show how your products and services are being used by the market in a wide range of applications. You want visitors to know your full range of capabilities
Video blogs are a great idea and can be produced simply and downloaded as quickly as it took you to read this sentence! You can purchase a video camera for almost nothing and do an informal set up with one of your leading experts to discuss the merits of a particular business offering. Keep the tone of the conversation light and keep it short. Video blogs can be an effective way of delivering your message! Flash video opens up many exciting new multimedia opportunities to present and sell your company’s products
and services.

Make Sure Your Website…

Quickly makes it clear what your company does and for whom.
Clearly articulates your value proposition and why your business is a better choice than the competition.
Backs up your claims. If you have won awards, show them! If you have associations with other organizations who are leaders in your industry, then show them! If you have customers who have written about what a successful experience they had working with you, then show them! If you have employees that love working for you, then show them!
Makes a promise and then delivers on it. Tell your site visitors what it will be like once they become customers…and don’t just say, “Great customer support.” Instead, use and show testimonials from employees who love working for your company, pictures of work you have done, etc.
Make sure there is a call to action. The last thing you want is to have the viewer say, “That’s nice, but now what?” You should be steering each visitor to the point where they can make a decision. You can go one step further and allow visitors to opt-in to receive information – like industry news, profiles of new customers and new products and services – whenever you post it.
Make it easy for your customers to take the next step. Make it easy for visitors to contact you with a link to an email on every page that is highly visible. Don’t bury the “contact us” in the navigation bar and hope for the best.
Avoid scrolling if possible. Keep the copy and visual support on the screen, so that it is easy to read and the viewer does not need to scroll and scroll and scroll and...you get the idea!

Each website or e-marketing program we develop is based on a thorough strategic and technical analysis of your company and is then brought to life with the imagination and enthusiasm of our creative team. Your website or interactive campaign will be as unique as your business
How to build your website takes 360-degree thinking because users don’t navigate in a linear fashion
The website can be used as an interactive medium and should encourage the viewer to stop, read or listen to the messages you want to deliver in an exciting and informative way
Merlin Edge designs user-experiences based on a deep understanding of your business’s value proposition, the external environment, your intended audiences and your strategic marketing purposes – all of which form the basis for your website’s core contents.

Source:
The Talon Spring 2010, Click here to view the complete Merlin Edge newsletter in pdf format.

Merlin Edge Profile: Margie Schuett

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 16:00:00 -0700

Being an account executive at a communications agency is being a relationship builder. There’s no better example than Merlin Edge’s Margie Schuett. Margie joined Merlin in fall 2008 and today combines her agency work with multi-faceted contributions to the community. Margie is a longtime community service volunteer and experienced sports leader. Among her extensive volunteer work was her recent trip to Rome as Chef de Mission for the Canadian team at the World Aquatic Championship.

Her long professional background working in Canada and the United States, plus international business travel, has given Margie a global business perspective. For decades, she worked on the client side – one of the reasons she is such an effective relationship builder with Merlin’s customers.

Among her senior previous business roles was developing long-term forecasts and merchandising direction as well as coordinating the merchandise selection for a retailer whose apparel component generated annual revenue of over $1 billion. She then became director of marketing for the same large retailer, deploying a $50 million budget to develop the corporate marketing and advertising strategies in that company’s “soft lines” of merchandise. Following this she was the company’s director of community investments and sponsorship.

It’s thanks to this background that Margie can honestly say, “Trust me, I’ve been there” when helping Merlin’s clients solve a communications challenge. In addition to building relationships with her growing group of Merlin clients, Margie provides helpful relationship-building advice to the entire team at Merlin.

Margie moved to Calgary in 2006 and after a brief attempt at retirement, decided to re-enter the workforce. Since joining Merlin she has enveloped herself in the agency world, becoming instrumental in the branding of new companies right through to project managing annual reports and helping to develop 100+ page websites.

Still active as a community service volunteer, Margie is Chairman of the Board of Camp Cadicasu, a Catholic children’s camp with a long presence in the community. Margie – herself a competitive swimmer and diver as a youngster – was included in the 2001 edition of “Heroes in our Midst”, a collection of personal stories from Canada’s top athletes and sports people who have participated at the elite level of competition.

Margie has built an impressive, nearly 35-year resume of national-level sport involvement, beginning at the Summer Olympic Games in Montreal and including dozens of events and organizations since then. She is a Founding Member of the Board of Directors of Motivate Canada, a not-for-profit organization that utilizes sports, recreation and the arts as a tool to promote excellence, innovation and leadership among Canadian youth. All of Margie’s involvement in business and the community has a common theme: engagement at the personal level and caring about people.

Source:
The Talon Winter 2009, Click here to view the complete Merlin Edge newsletter in pdf format.

Does My Company Need a Marketing Audit?

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 16:00:00 -0700

The Merlin Edge Marketing Audit is essentially an effort to step back and take a penetrating look at the basic ideas which are the ultimate source of your company’s marketing program. It is an
attempt to define and verify what your company is doing to maintain its competitive edge in the marketplace. Our seasoned and professional marketing experts can reveal the potential and focus on the possibilities for capitalizing on the strengths and eliminating the weaknesses of your current marketing activity.

Questions to ask yourself to know whether you need this type of evaluation could include:

1. Do you understand what differentiates your brand from your competitors?

2. Can you summarize in 30 seconds exactly what your brand represents to potential customers? To your employees? To your shareholders?

3. How long has it been since you updated the look, tone and message of your website?

4. Do your internal and external stakeholders have a comprehensive understanding of how your brand is positioned, and is the message content and design of the marketing materials consistent for each group of stakeholders?

5. Do you have a strong brand management program in place that is continually looking for new and more effective ways to protect and enhance your brand throughout your organization?

We believe that no marketing operation is ever so good that it cannot be improved. Even the best can be better.

Source:
The Talon Spring/Summer 2010, Click here to view the complete Merlin Edge newsletter in pdf format.

Basic B2B Marketing Mistakes to Avoid!

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 16:00:00 -0700

1. Too many opinions – Do not make the mistake of circulating the copy and layouts to every one of your stakeholder groups. Managing creative marketing by ‘committee’ is the surest way to curtail creativity. GOOD marketing should provoke a reaction – even stir up some controversy, occasionally. Coming up with a campaign based on the lowest common denominator to please everyone is never good for your brand.

2. No Tracking – If you fail to track and measure your campaign’s results, you’ll never find out what you know and what you need to know. Keep in mind that measuring the return on a single mailing or advertisement is not enough. You have to consider the lifetime value and impact of your campaigns. Metrics are needed so you know how to improve future campaigns.

3. No Follow-up Plan – Planning the follow-up strategy after your campaign is as important as planning the first step in your campaign. The follow-up by your sales reps or senior management in some meaningful way like using smaller, focused promotional mailings, announcement ads, news bulletins on your company, etc. will help to establish an ongoing relationship with your clients and customers.

4. Nothing Special – Having a ‘regular’ announcement or sending out an invitation to do business with a B2B customer is no longer just about ‘asking’ for business. It is about meeting an expectation or keeping a promise. It is about sending something special to the prospective customer they’ll be glad they received. Metaphorically, it’s about wrapping your message around a “chocolate bar.”

5. Not making your case – The standout companies today are marketing what they know and the fact that they know more than their competitors. You must communicate this through your marketing materials in a clear and focused way. Using a lot of words does not mean you know more….it means you like to talk more. Every point must count. Make it meaningful and make it smart.

6. You forget about your customer – Time is the enemy and reading through a lot of pontificating about why YOU think you are great is not the best way of getting your customers to KNOW you are great! Stick to the important facts. Then add in something short and memorable about who you are or how you do business – and do it in a clear, focused and creative way.

7. Failure to lift off – Missing deadlines, even self imposed ones because you are “tweaking” the marketing materials can be the biggest cause of campaign failure. Missing opportunities, minutes, days and weeks because your materials are supposedly not “perfect” will cause you to miss business opportunities. Remember: business opportunities happen all the time, not just when you want them to happen.

Source:
The Talon Spring/Summer 2010, Click here to view the complete Merlin Edge newsletter in pdf format.

Looking Beyond the Bottom Line

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 16:00:00 -0700

Corporate social responsibility/sustainable development reports are important to many stakeholder groups –including your employees

Let’s be clear about corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainable development (SD) activities: there is no proven relationship between corporate good deeds and your stakeholders’ ultimate attitude. There is a perception, however, that sustainable development activities – properly communicated – can help enhance reputation.

Environmental, social, workforce and community issues initially gained greater prominence in annual reports – then made the leap to their own reporting process, and have become important areas of corporate reporting. In some cases, companies are following the Global Reporting Initiative’s core metrics. These aim to make reporting on economic, environmental and social performance comparable to financial reporting. In other cases, companies are determining which metrics are best-suited to capturing their own sustainability focus and are reporting to stakeholders in their own way.

You can’t please every stakeholder group

A sustainability or CSR report can be an effective tool to communicate with multiple stakeholder groups. It’s important for publicly-traded companies to remember, however, that sustainable development initiatives are ultimately funded by shareholders. These shareholders expect a return on their investment. It’s important to show that your sustainable development initiatives are good for your business as well as doing demonstrable good for the environment and/or society.

Ask yourself: Is there a graphical way to show readers how sustainable development initiatives are funded and the return on that investment? Or, how sustainable development initiatives have created business opportunities, or led to innovation or a competitive advantage? Drawing a straight line between your business’s sustainability initiatives and success in executing your growth strategy could become the centerpiece of your report.

No matter what industry you’re in – energy production, biotech or manufacturing – it’s a valid business, with no apologies necessary. Yet we have seen global company after global company in effect apologizing for the business they’re in, despite tens of thousands of good jobs created and billions of dollars in taxes paid.

Part of that is the number and range of stakeholder groups weighing in on CSR and SD reports. You can’t meet everyone’s expectations or implement all the initiatives that every activist demands. Is it really necessary for an outside environmental organization to vet your SD report?

On the other hand, one stakeholder group you should always keep top-of-mind is your employees. A well-written, accurate, fair and credible report can become an important tool in recruitment and retention and generally building your internal brand.

Building a reader-friendly report

Few stakeholders have time to read the entire report. Organization and hierarchy of information is key. Communicate the things that make sense from a business point of view and that fit within your corporate philosophy and objectives.

Transparency and candour are also essential. Let your corporate voice come through. Be true to your values and what you really believe in. For too many companies, sustainable development is little more than a grand PR exercise or an attempt to purchase self-respect. Your SD report should reflect your business’s actual values – your brand should be the real you. You shouldn’t pretend to be something you’re not or espouse things you don’t believe in.

Take a strong stand on the initiatives you are implementing, setting out why they are good for your business and good for society, your employees or the environment. Your SD and CSR policies are unlikely to be the same as the company’s in the next building. Your priorities and goals are likely to be different. Your report should be entirely your own!

Laurie Watson
President, Merlin Edge

Source:
The Talon Spring/Summer 2010, Click here to view the complete Merlin Edge newsletter in pdf format.

Expect more from your Website

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 10:00:00 -0700

The growth of the Internet has changed how Canadians find and present information. Internet usage has exploded over the past decade. Today an estimated 25 percent of the world’s population uses the worldwide web. In Canada, the ratio is 73 percent.

Merlin Edge has an enduring commitment to ensuring that its customers receive the highest-quality communications services. Our Interactive Services department has expanded its service offering through applications, leading-edge structures and designs and customer-focused solutions, all resulting in websites that work as strategic tools and assist our clients in pursuing their day-to-day business.

To aid companies’ investor relations, Merlin’s Interactive Services team has developed the Investor E-Toolkit. It is a small application that enables fast and easy searches and downloads of disclosure documents on a company’s website. This can save your Investor Relations department time and money, and offers the user an immediate response. The Investor E-Toolkit can be viewed on Superior Plus’ website www.superiorplus.com.

We have long-established relationships with stock market information providers, ensuring investors are kept up-to-date with website feeds that provide both historical and current data (delayed only 15 minutes).

At present we are exploring further web-based applications to create efficiencies for our clients, such as the XBRL filing guideline, which facilitates online financial data reporting. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is another area where Merlin Edge is researching best practices to help our clients maximize their presence on the web. This often-overlooked area of website fine-tuning and maintenance helps deliver visitors to your website in the most efficient way.

There are two main ways to drive visitors to your site: organically and through paid marketing. Websites should be optimized organically to help search engines find both the home pages and content pages. It can take up to six months for a website to appear in various search engines. The parameters are complex and constantly evolving, but the upshot is that proper optimization can help a website improve and broaden its organic search results.

In addition, pay-for-service options exist and Merlin Edge has established a strategic partnership with a leading-edge SEO-focused organization to provide our clients with innovative and cost-effective options based on their individual needs.

Social media is a much-talked-about and rapidly growing category of Internet publishing and usage. We’re talking about blogs, newsgroups, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, among many others. Social media has evolved from personal connections to important channels of business, professional and political communications. Merlin management and staff attend seminars and training programs to ensure we are aware of the trends and what they mean, and are able to
offer our clients sound advice on their individual needs.

Incorporating each client’s individual needs into a website that delivers is a core element of Merlin Interactive Services. Please call Jeff Robinson, Vice President of Strategic Marketing and Business Development, or Carmen Marsolais, Vice President of Interactive Services, to set up a meeting to discuss ways we can help you meet your website and interactive communications needs.

Another way to make a website work for you is through a direct e-mail campaign. Recently Merlin Edge launched an international e-mail campaign for one of its clients. It included designing and building dedicated website landing pages, designing custom e-mail creative and negotiating with mailing list providers. The respondents are channelled to registration-required landing pages, enabling construction of a prospect database that will receive future rounds of communications. This is an innovative e-marketing campaign whose follow-on phases include carefully constructed Google Adwords and banner ads on selected websites. We’d be happy to tell you more about it.

Merlin Edge Clients are winners at the Oilweek annual report awards

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 08:44:00 -0700

Congratulations to Merlin Edge clients Rock Energy, Laricina Energy and InterPipeline Fund for their Oilweek annual report awards which were handed out in late November. Both Rock, a junior E&P company and Laricina, an oilsands producer and innovator, were dual winners in the design and editorial category, as well as the Financial Disclosure category. InterPipeline Fund also won for Financial Disclosure. The Rock annual report was centered on the company's very stable heavy oil operations and upside from Deep Basin natural gas which is resonating extremely well in the current market. Laricina's annual report used multiple visuals – both photographic and illustrative – to weave together a complex story of diverse oilsands assets and innovative enhancements. We're proud to be partnered with all three companies in the development of their annual reports.

The Significance of an Employer Brand Strategy

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 16:00:00 -0700

It is often said that an unsatisfied customer tells 10 people about his experience while an unsatisfied employee will tell 100!

What is Employer Branding?

An Employer Brand is the image of an organization as a great place to work in the minds of its current employees and key stakeholders. It is the development of an organizational culture which fosters a sense of belonging with the company and encourages those employees to share the organizational goals of success. It represents the core values of an organization. It requires a lot of introspection by the company: answering questions like, “What kind of company are we and what kind of company do we want to become?”

Employer Branding is all about marketing an entire company as though it were a product. Instead of selling a specific product or service, the company is selling the people and employee experience that can be found at the company. Be assured that Employer Branding is all about business and ensuring operational effectiveness. It reflects the work culture in an organization and contributes to developing pride, attachment and trust towards a company.

What is the process of developing an Employer Branding strategy?

Merlin Edge has developed a four-step process in building an employer branding strategy:

1. Assessment – We will gather pertinent data about the organization including information on the core business, the brand promise and employer profile (the brand promise is what the employee perceives they can expect from the company).

2. Strategy development – Merlin will facilitate a group of employees to organize and articulate research findings into a marketing and communications strategy which will include:

a. Research in developing a unique, compelling and believable brand promise

b. Develop a marketing icon/slogan that will bring the promise and brand to life in a unique and exciting way

c. Design and develop marketing support materials in a variety of media that will best communicate to the target stakeholder groups

d. Survey and evaluate success periodically to understand how well employees can articulate the employer brand promise and whether they know how they can positively impact the company’s success

3. Implementation – Establish and prioritize the elements and drivers through a creative communications and marketing approach.

Now, the question is….which is first: The chicken or the egg?

It is important to understand the correlation between realizing corporate business objective and high engagement and performance objectives. Can you wait to implement this strategy at another time or should you do it now?

FACT CHECK!!

By 2020, there will be shortage of 1 million skilled workers in North America
Only 53% of employees surveyed say they trust their organization's senior leaders
1/3 of managers do not fully leverage their employees’ unique capabilities each day on the job
Disengaged employees cost companies as much as $350 billion annually in lost productivity in the United States alone
57% of North American employees do not know what they want to do next

Source:
The Talon Fall 2010, Click here to view the complete Merlin Edge newsletter in pdf format.

Merlin's Clients: Flint Energy Services Ltd.

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 16:00:00 -0700

Flint Energy Services Ltd. was originally started in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1910 by the Flint family, making wooden derricks for the oil boom in Oklahoma and Texas. Like scenes out of the movie “There Will be Blood”, wells were drilled using primitive wooden derricks which were left over the “hole” after wells were drilled and completed. In time, Flint shifted technologies to making steel derricks which were used on multiple well completions, and added other services like construction of pipelines and other field facilities.

In the early 1950s Flint Construction followed drilling activity into Alberta after the Leduc discovery by Imperial Oil, near Edmonton. Flint’s Canadian operations grew rapidly and in time revenues from Canada soon eclipsed revenues being generated in the United States.

In 1998 the Flint family sold their oil field construction companies in Canada and the United States to SCF Partners. After a series of acquisitions the modern Flint Energy Services Ltd. was created with the Flint brand recognition taking precedence over the other acquired Companies.

The Flint brand had been left more or less unchanged since the inception of the company; however, in 2008 Flint started working with Merlin Edge and began a process of understanding the Flint brand’s recognition and power in the market and capitalizing on this recognition.

One of the more interesting insights of this process was Flint’s unique position as a public company without clear comparable peers in the market. Some investors and industry analysts felt that Flint’s stock value was being affected by Flint being too diverse and not being able to measure Flint against a “pure play” peer. In 2009, Merlin Edge suggested Flint turn this negative around. Flint proudly communicated that it was “Incomparable” in large font on the cover of its 2009 Annual Report. Management then opened investor meetings and conferences by saying that Flint was a unique, incomparable investment opportunity and using this as the basis of differentiating the company from its pure
play peers.

In 2010, following on the success of the investor communications, Flint’s business development and sales team worked with Merlin Edge to come up with a new branding slogan to help reposition the company with its customers. After reviewing many potential slogans, the one that resonated with the market and management was “Tough and Trusted”. This built upon Flint’s long history and reputation for getting things done, many times under difficult conditions, and never letting customers down. The Tough and Trusted slogan and related communications materials were rolled out across Flint’s North American operations in September 2010, and additional steps were taken to register and copyright-protect Flint’s name, logos, and new branding slogan in Canada and the United States. This in itself was significant, as Flint had never before developed a company-wide branding and communication strategy for operations in Canada and the United States.

After 100 years, Flint has built a strong reputation and a recognizable brand. The work Flint has done with Merlin Edge has helped to further capitalize on its brand to position the company with unique branding and communications messages.

Source:
The Talon Fall 2010, Click here to view the complete Merlin Edge newsletter in pdf format.

Merlin Edge Profile: Laurie Watson

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 16:00:00 -0700

Laurie Watson is one of Calgary’s leading independent marketing communications entrepreneurs. A co-founder of Merlin Edge 17 years ago, she has grown the company into one of the city’s most respected strategic business-to-business marketing and communications agencies – one that has a deep understanding of the energy business and culture. Her day-to-day focus is leading the communications strategies and creative direction for all clients.

Laurie believes that the purpose of all marketing and communications is to provide clarity around a company’s value to all stakeholders, whether investors, customers, employees or communities in which a company operates. She is well-known for delivering creative solutions and innovative brand positioning for annual reports, websites, corporate profiles, presentations and other critical investor relations communications support materials. And she drives the communications and creative for a wide range of business-to-business clients.

Under her creative direction, Merlin Edge has won numerous Oil Week/ATB Financial industry awards for design and strategic communications, as well as awards in the business-to-business marketing space.

Laurie is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Canadian War Museum and Canadian Museum of Civilization and is passionate about photography, birdwatching and flyfishing.

Source:
The Talon Fall 2010, Click here to view the complete Merlin Edge newsletter in pdf format.

Leveraging Your Community Investment Contributions

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 16:00:00 -0700

Social marketing was “born” in the 1970s, when it became an important additional strategy for companies wanting to re-position their brand and/or build more meaningful relationships with their customers. It uses the same marketing principles that are used to sell products but rather “sells” ideas, attitudes and behaviors. Social marketing uses the benefits of doing social good to secure and maintain customer engagement.

There is an increasing amount of confusion around the terms being used to rationalize this type of marketing. Some companies refer to it as “community investment” and others refer to it as “cause marketing”. There are many nuances that reflect differences in all of these, but we shall, for ease of understanding, use the term, “cause marketing”.

Cause marketing or cause-related marketing refers to a type of marketing involving the cooperative efforts of a for-profit business and a non-profit organization for mutual benefit. The term is sometimes used more broadly and generally to refer to any type of marketing effort for social and other charitable causes, including in-house marketing efforts by non-profit organizations. Cause marketing differs from corporate giving (philanthropy) as the latter generally involves a specific donation that is tax-deductible, while cause marketing is a marketing relationship generally not based on a donation.

Sponsorship vs. Philanthropy

Sponsorship/Cause marketing

Undertaken for the purpose of achieving commercial objectives.
Involves a fee paid for promotional rights, including rights to logos or association and an emphasis on consumer recognition.

Philanthropy

Support of a cause without any commercial incentive, e.g. in the form of a grant.
Usually involves limited donor recognition

Important guidelines to consider when developing a cause/social marketing investment:

The ultimate objective is to influence some kind of action;
Marketing efforts must incorporate the "4 P's" of basic marketing;
Know your target audience and understand their needs. Be clear on what you are trying to achieve and work to develop alignment with their needs and yours;
Analyze and beware of your competition; and
Monitor your involvement and maintain flexibility to react when necessary.

To survive today's highly unpredictable and competitive business environment, leaders need to utilize every opportunity to "talk" to both internal and external stakeholders to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.

Leveraging your cause marketing investment is often a difficult task. To position your brand in a way that does not appear to be self-serving can be challenging and complicated. To communicate or market your involvement takes finesse and a strategic plan to ensure a maximum return.

The questions to ask include:

Does your organization have a cause marketing plan?
Does the marketing department have a budget for cause marketing or sponsorship?
Do internal team members understand the difference between cause marketing and philanthropy?
Are the causes that are supported in alignment with the beliefs and interests of the internal team?
Have measurable goals been established for cause marketing expenditures?
Are the causes you support held accountable for delivering all contracted marketing support?

It is statistically proven that approximately 85% of people who have a choice between two similar companies, will lean towards the one that is standing for something good. This differentiation is also vital for potential new employees.

Merlin can help your company identify the internal and external influences on marketing planning as it relates to cause and/or sponsorship marketing. The Merlin Edge Marketing Audit is a process which Merlin Edge has developed in which our strategic marketing experts, who have many years’ experience working in the corporate and not-for-profit sectors, work with you to evaluate the impact of your current cause marketing expenditure and make a variety of recommendations if necessary.

A topline version of this service is being offered to you on a complimentary basis.

For more information please contact
Jeff Robinson or Margie Schuett at 403-237-7684 or
email: jrobinson@merlinedge.com or mschuett@merlinedge.com

Source:
The Talon Fall 2010, Click here to view the complete Merlin Edge newsletter in pdf format.

SEO: Quick Tips for Improving Your Website

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 16:00:00 -0700

Search Engine Optimization?

Many of you are very familiar with Search Engine Optimization (SEO). We still have
many people asking us to explain SEO and
how it works.

Simply put, SEO is the process of improving the quality and volume of web traffic to a website by employing a series of proven SEO techniques that help a website achieve a higher ranking with the major search engines when certain keywords and phrases are put in the search field.

To put this into context, consider your own Internet search habits. When you want to find information, your first instinct is to use a search engine because it is the fastest and easiest way to get it. Once the search results are posted, you’re far more likely to explore the links on the first page of results because they are the most relevant to what you are looking for and allow you to find what you’re looking for easily.

Getting you on that first page, as high up as possible, is the goal of SEO. To optimize your website so that the major search engines rank your site as highly as possible which, in turn, leads to a greater volume of qualified traffic. SEO can level the playing field for your business, whether your business is a Fortune 500 company or a brand new business venture trying to get noticed in a competitive field. Done properly, SEO puts your site on the left side of the page where it gains instant credibility with the very people whom you wish to reach.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content and HTML and associated coding, both to increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.

Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or spamdexing, uses methods such as link farms, keyword stuffing and article spinning that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.

Google says it ranks sites using more than 200 different signals. The leading search engines, Google and Yahoo, do not disclose the algorithms they use to rank pages.

Increasing your ranking

A variety of legitimate methods can increase the prominence of a webpage within the search results. Writing content that includes frequently searched keyword phrases, so as to be relevant to a wide variety of search queries, will tend to increase traffic. So will updating content so as to keep search engines crawling back frequently and giving additional weight to your site. Adding relevant keywords to a web page’s meta data, including the title tage and meta description, will tend to improve the relevancy of a site’s search listings, thus increasing traffic.

Search engines’ algorithms prefer that web page files are really descriptive and relevant to the information displayed on the page.

SEO is merely effective marketing, making efforts to deliver quality content to an audience that has requested the quality content. It can make a major difference to the success of your organization and should definitely be considered as part of your ongoing marketing activity.

Each website or e-marketing program we develop is based on a thorough strategic and technical analysis of your company and is then brought to life with the imagination and enthusiasm of our creative team. Your website or interactive campaign will be as unique as your business.
How to build your website takes 360-degree thinking because users don’t navigate in a linear fashion.
The website can be used as an interactive medium and should encourage the viewer to stop, read or listen to the messages you want to deliver in an exciting and informative way.
Merlin Edge designs user-experiences based on a deep understanding of your business’s value proposition, the external environment, your intended audiences and your strategic marketing purposes – all of which form the basis for your website’s core contents.

Source:
The Talon Fall 2010, Click here to view the complete Merlin Edge newsletter in pdf format.

What is “Brand Management”?

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 16:00:00 -0700

A question often asked of those of us working in strategic marketing and communications is: “What exactly do you do?”

Simply put, we help companies manage their brands in a way that will effectively communicate their business positioning and business strength and/or capacity……..AND, do it in a way that is inspiring, relevant and different from their competitors! It is a challenging and exciting business and those of us at Merlin Edge thrive on the challenge.

Good brand management is:

All about defining the personality of the company
It is about the way a phone gets answered, about the way customers are followed up with, about the way business is done, about the way the employees feel about who they work for, about the way people look or react when the brand name is mentioned!

In other words, it is all about….everything! Your brand is a promise. Merlin works to help you deliver the perceived promise in a way that will meet your overall business objectives, but do it in a way that is creative and inspiring

If you would like to begin your own brand assessment and explore your operational strengths in creating, communicating, living and managing your brand, you should take a few moments and answer the questions we have listed. Score yourself, and find out where you stand!

Performance

# Questions
(Rating 1 = poor, 2 = below average, 3 = average, 4 = above average, 5= excellent)

We actively investigate what is important to our external stakeholders using research, face-to-face interviews, questionnaires
We understand how our external stakeholders feel about our company, our business strategy and/or our products and services
We understand how our employees feel about working for our company
We understand the attitudes of our external stakeholders and their changing views and needs
We have aligned our organizational structure, operations and culture with our brand values
We have a strong brand positioning statement that is easily understood by anyone who reads/hears it
Our induction program includes education on our brand and the role it plays in enhancing our competitiveness
Everyone in our organization understands what our brand stands for and can articulate it simply and clearly
Everyone in our organization knows what they have to do to deliver on our brand promise
Branding is championed by everyone in our organization, from the CEO down
We receive regular internal communications detailing what our brand is about
Our branding strategies are proactively driven and do not depend on what our competitors
are doing
Details of our brand and the strategy that drives it are well documented and that information is available to those who need and desire it
We actively engage our external agency(ies) as our strategic partner and actively engage them in organizational and communications planning and review sessions
Our marketing and communications teams have an integrated understanding of our brand and are in constant communication over brand-related activities and issues
Our brand messages are 100% consistent in all of our marketing and communications materials
We review our brand and what it stands for with our agency at least once a year
The value of our brand to our business is included in our financial reports
We have a brand management program in place that is continually looking for new and more effective ways to protect and enhance our brand throughout the organization
Included in our performance management systems is an assessment of the contribution each individual makes to growing and enhancing the brand

Scoring your brand management performance:
0-20 Poor 21-40 Good 41-60 Average 61-80 Above average 81-100 Excellent

Top ten international consumer brands in 2010

Coca-Cola – 70,452 ($ millions)
IBM – 64,727 ($ millions)
Microsoft – 60,895 ($ millions)
Google – 43,557 ($ millions)
GE – 42,808 ($ millions)
Mcdonalds – 33,578 ($ millions)
Intel – 32,015 ($ millions)
Nokia – 29,495 ($ millions)
Disney – 28,731 ($ millions)
HP – 26,867 ($ millions)

Source: Interbrand.com

Source:
The Talon Fall 2010, Click here to view the complete Merlin Edge newsletter in pdf format.

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes officially launches Jumo, social network for social activism

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 08:44:00 -0700

Status update from Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook and the social media whiz kid behind Barack Obama's presidential campaign: On Tuesday he officially launched Jumo.

Hughes describes Jumo as a social network for social activism. The idea behind Jumo is to help people discover causes that matter to them and to their friends and, over time, deepen their ties to those causes, he said in an interview.

Read the full story at: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/

Merlin Edge joins BBN

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 08:44:00 -0700

Merlin Edge Inc joined BBN today with a view to giving its clients access to communications expertise in major business centres around the world.

“Joining BBN will give Merlin’s clients operating around the world access to local market and cultural insight, and logistical resources. At the same time, we’re looking forward to working with a new group of international clients seeking entry into the Calgary and Western Canadian markets,” said Jeff Robinson, Vice President Business Development and Strategic Marketing at Merlin Edge.

BBN approached Merlin Edge in February this year about becoming a partner agency because of its depth of expertise in B2B marketing and investor relations, plus its 18 years’ experience in the oil and natural gas upstream, service and supply and midstream sectors.

“Merlin Edge will become one of several agencies involved with BBN’s newest initiative: BBN Energy. We are delighted that Merlin Edge has chosen to join our international team of energy industry marketing specialists and public relations practitioners,” said Richard Brelet, Executive Director, BBN International.

Merlin Edge’s President, Laurie Watson is excited about the opportunities joining the BBN will open up to Merlin Edge and its clients. “Merlin Edge has assisted Western Canada-based clients with telling their story to an increasingly sophisticated and diverse international audience of customers and investors. BBN will give our clients access to valuable local market insight, and us the resources to extend our services’ reach even farther.” She added, “Our people will also benefit from working with top-tier partner agencies and international clients.”

Merlin Edge is a Western Canada-based agency specializing in business to business and industrial marketing, and investor relations.

Article source: www.bbn-international.com

The Talon – Fall 2010 Newsletter

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 08:44:00 -0700

Merlin publishes a biennial newsletter called The Talon. It's loaded with business advice, success stories, interesting articles on best practices in our areas of expertise and profiles of some of our people.

The Talon

Date: Fall 2010 Newsletter

Merlin Edge hopes you enjoy the second edition of our new, semi-annual newsletter called The Talon. It's loaded with business advice, success stories, interesting articles on best practices in our areas of expertise and profiles of some of our people.

In this issue:
• Community Investment
• Employer Brand Strategy
• What is Brand Management
• Search Engine Optimization
• Merlin's Clients: Flint Energy Services
• Profile: Laurie Watson

Click here to view The Talon newsletter

A Line in the Branding Sand

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 13:49:00 -0600

An article by Merlin Edge Vice President George Koch from the August 2010 issue of Alberta Venture magazine:

The BP disaster shows that advertisers ignore authenticity at their customers' peril

It was a widely hailed marketing coup, a much-talked-about case study and the biggest antler rack on the ad agency's trophy wall. BP would no longer stand for the storied brand British Petroleum, but for Beyond Petroleum. In a world of climate change angst, becoming one with the green zeitgeist seemed a winner. Applying it to BP - new name, neo-pagan sun-disk-style logo, a prolonged PR campaign by the urbane English CEO, millions shovelled into politically correct foundations and lobbying to buy new friends and convey positions at odds with a global oil giant - was outsized in audacity, but not in concept. Pointing out it was BS wasn't just in poor taste, it revealed your deafness to the era's sensibilities.

Still, it was at heart a self-contradictory approach. Among the few things approximating a bedrock principle for the post-modern left is "authenticity." In a relativistic world - where there's no factual truth or falsehood, let alone right or wrong - one can't be objectively good or bad. The best you can be is true to yourself - authentic. "Keepin' it real" was a rallying cry before it became cliché. If realness is the singular goal, fakery's a capital offence. And BP's re-branding and new marketing were based on laughable improbabilities if not lies. Despite its alleged move "beyond" petroleum, BP's crude production continued to grow.

If authenticity is postmodernism's apotheosis, how could such a rebranding even occur? By colliding with two other leftist neo-virtues: the obsession with stated intentions or sentiments versus actions or outcomes (a dead give-away is today's constant talk about "commitments"), and the environmentalist branch of all-encompassing political correctness. What counted for BP and its ad agency weren't results, but the motivating sentiment. It wasn't about actually moving beyond petroleum. It was about claiming you wanted to. It wasn't a policy, it was a pose. Popular, though innately inauthentic.

Adopting poses creates three huge risks. First, public exposure. It's a fine line between pose and fraud - and once you lose your audience, there's no going back. The environmental movement was already lashing out against false claims or "greenwashing." Now, the Deepwater Horizon disaster smashed BP's environmentalist aura. Second, fashions change. U.S. voters have become enraged at the pending CO2 cap-and-trade law. BP (along with Enron) was an early, vocal promoter of cap-and-trade. Today, such corporatist parasitism is widely despised. BP's decade of White House and Congressional lobbying lies in ruins.

Third, and most toxic, inauthenticity disconnects management from rank-and-file, which is profoundly demoralizing and potentially destructive. We'll never know whether BP's succession of safety disasters - the Texas refinery fire, the cracked North Slope pipelines and the Deepwater Horizon calamity - stemmed directly from former CEO Lord Browne's years spent yammering about global warming. But it couldn't have been great for recruitment or on-the-job dedication. BP's attitude and performance both stand in sharp contrast to Exxon-Mobil's, which remains unabashedly an oil company and, however hated, is a superb technical operator boasting Big Oil's best safety record.

The same principles and pitfalls apply whether a company has 30 employees or 30,000 and whether the marketing budget is bazillions or barely enough for one ad. There are always fashionable causes and trends gyrating seductively in the marketplace of ideas. Exploiting them is tempting -and caters to intellectual laziness. It's far less work for marketing/advertising people to concoct some link to a hot trend than to grind through learning the technicalities and substance of specialized industries and their complex niche products.

Say your company has developed a new process to capture solution gas in oil wells, or a new igniter for the relief/emergency flare on those same wells. Current fashion virtually dictates telling customers it's a new way to "meet your greenhouse gas reduction commitments," to "green your company" or perhaps to avoid government emissions penalties. Everything else - the technical specs, what makes it special, its cost-effectiveness, maybe that it resists corrosion years longer than the competition - hardly registers. Easy and superficially effective, but your product's future hangs on outside political/sociological trends. So fashions evolve, priorities change, recession sets in and suddenly your customers only care about cost. To them, "green" products mean double the price for half the performance. Your sales collapse - even though what you produce is tougher, longer-lasting, more efficient and cheaper over its life cycle.

Tonight while you're watching TV, instead of running to the fridge during commercials, pay attention to that new Mazda ad. Today's automotive marketing is largely about fuel economy, safety and eco-friendliness. Mazda doesn't make a Prius or Smart car. You won't get far pretending 40 miles per gallon is better than 70. You're not going to "out-hybrid" Toyota. You actually build sporty, agile, fun-to-drive cars. So how about remaining true to yourself? Show a guy planting a blue flag and write a script declaring, "... I will never sacrifice joy for the sake of practicality." Brilliant, because it's authentic. The ad also declares: "A line needs to be drawn in the pavement." Few truer words were ever spoken in advertising. If you spend any time on marketing or advertising, you should print that in gigantic type and paste it to your wall. Remaining authentic and truthful seems like the harder road, but it'll protect the integrity of your brand and reputation for now and in the long term. It's good in and of itself - and it's ultimately the pragmatic course.