jan zlotnick

“…all you have to do to win our business is come up with a more artful expression of black and white photography than Annie Leibovitz, Ansel Adams, and Richard Avedon did for Kodak,” smiled the CMO for Ilford…

COPY: Intriguing. Involving. Indelible. Ilford. Nobody’s wilder about black and white than we are.

COPY: Inventive. Irrepressible. Illuminating. Ilford. Nobody sees more into black and white than we do.

COPY: Interactive. Introspective. Inseparable. Ilford. Nobody knows the philosophy of black and white like we do.

“The best campaign I’ve ever seen for B&W, maybe all photography.”
– Paul Hope, Director, Worldwide Marketing, ILFORD

“Jan is a seriously creative person – genius, really…he and the agency turned our fortunes around by helping us compete head on with Kodak….he saw something in us, in our customers, that nobody else did and made a deeper connection with photographers — without one photo… amazing. ”
– Laurie Macomber, U.S. Marketing Director, ILFORD

Exec Summary
Category Thinking: Kodak is art.

New Insight: Photographers’ appreciation for art is not brand-related and goes deeper than the photographic image itself.

New Position: Ilford is B&W. You are the artist. You create the art.

Result: 0% to 3% market share in first year. Established Ilford as black-and-white expert, the b&w brand. Newfound respect and genuine relationship with customers and the trade. Positioned Ilford as authentic b&w artist tool, the insurgent next leader without the old big-brother corporate arrogance.

Full Case Study
Situation: A name brand in Europe for black-and-white film, paper, and equipment, Ilford had little brand recognition among professionals in the United States. The biggest problem? A competitor named Kodak with a $19 billion revenue stream, ad budgets in the hundreds of millions, and legendary photographers such as Annie Leibovitz, Ansel Adams, and Richard Avedon touting the Kodak name.

Category Thinking: Kodak is art.

New Insight: Nobody has a more colorful take on life than b&w photographers. Photographers’ appreciation for art is not brand-related and goes deeper than the photographic image itself. Observe, and absorb, a real conversation with them, and you’ll find that they actually distrust the notion of a Big Corporate Brand telling them what beautiful black and white is, out of a yellow box nonetheless. A deeper look into this iconoclastic soul reveals that they are so creative, so independent, so self-motivated, that you don’t need to, don’t dare, dictate creativity to them…but, instead, let them make their own creative judgment of which brand to trust for their b&w work, their art.

New Position: Ilford is B&W. You are the artist. You create the art.

Result: 0% to 3% market share in first year. Established Ilford as black-and-white expert, the b&w brand. Newfound respect and genuine relationship with customers and the trade. Positioned Ilford as authentic b&w artist tool, the insurgent next leader without the old big-brother corporate arrogance.

Solution: A way to break or even pause the professional photographer’s Kodak habit. A way to fuel their burning passion for b&w art while disconnecting them from Kodak. A way to gain trust and win trial. ReImagine a campaign that authenticates b&w photographers’ innate courage and that completely, confidently gives them credit for being the artist, for seeing beauty and value in their own imaginations. A campaign daring in itself: breaking ground in the photo industry by offering not a single photograph, yet communicating photographic expertise more powerfully, more empowering than any other brand.

Designer Adam Tihany took all of 30 seconds to describe his vision for a new boutique hotel. “Red, Yellow, Blue,” he said. He then drew three boxes on a whiteboard, slashing a single bold primary color into each and asked, “If each room features one dramatic color, one unique experience, how can we do the same for the story we tell of our hotel?”

“Brilliant. No hotel campaign has came close to this kind of customer involvement. The ads themselves are works of art we put in every room.”
– Time Hotel

Exec Summary

Category Thinking: All guests want the same thing: Service, Comfort, Location.

New Insight: Time hotel guests consider themselves creative. They like to play, to discover. They want a unique experience.

New Position: Time is A Place That Inspires.

Result: 90%+ room capacity. Breakthrough awareness for grand opening. Momentum for a sustained buzz and brand engagement.

Full Case Study
Situation: In New York, there was a trend in the hotel industry toward smaller, more personal, designer or boutique hotels. The international designer Adam Tihany had a vision of his own that went beyond the others: Not just trendy, but enduring. Not just great design, but great energy that touches the soul. At the visual center of Tihany’s vision: the primary colors red, yellow, and blue. When you entered a room at the Time hotel, you were seduced by a cool monochromatic space, then charged creatively by a dramatic stroke of one powerful color, as in a red bedspread, a red marble on a white towel, a red fruit in a beautiful vase…

Category Thinking: All guests want the same thing: Service, Comfort, Location.

New Insight: Tihany had something different in mind, a strategic “Zen” to his thinking.  Why the primary colors? How could his vision be communicated? What connects Time and its customer? Like the best designers and brand visionaries, Adam’s idea was, in fact, centered on the customer. And this customer was about more than location, comfort, and service. Those were givens. The customer was the on-the-move creative director from San Francisco, the aspiring filmmaker from London, the portfolio-toting fashion designer from Italy. Introducing a hotel was really about establishing a creative relationship, an authentic dialog, with this very self-motivated, discovery-obsessive customer.

Solution: Don’t just be a hotel, be a place of unique and inspiring discovery. A place that engages the creative being.

New Position: Time is A Place That Inspires.

Result: 90%+ room capacity. Breakthrough awareness for grand opening. Momentum for a sustained buzz and brand engagement.

Category Thinking: Healthcare brands focus on themselves. It’s all about them, their doctors, their facilities, their awards.

New Insight: Consumers are disenfranchised: “What does UPenn have to do with me and my family’s health?” Bring the people of Philadelphia back into the conversation with bold messages around the city that communicate U Penn gets what you are going through, from the nervousness of pregnancy to the exhaustion of being Super Parent, to getting back into shape.

New Position: U Penn Health gets you, and gets you help.

The healthcare CEO wanted to get her people, and sales, excited again. Our counterintuitive insight was to tone it down and talk like their customers’ brokers do, plain and simple…

“…smart, talented, wonderful intuition.“
– Judy Roman, CEO, AmeriHealth

Exec Summary
Category Thinking: Healthcare carriers see themselves as The Heroes who everyone has to listen to…

New Insight: The broker is the small-business owner’s true Hero. Employer and broker have a trusted relationship that ought not be disrupted by the carrier. Let the broker be the more credible and enthusiastic advocate of the brand. Serve, don’t usurp, this relationship, by engaging brokers and their customers in a fresher approach: simply be nicer. And let the broker be the one seen by his clients as the hero to an easier, less aggravating experience.

New Position: AmeriHealth is the hero’s hero.

Result: Launched in summer, result was record Q4 sales. More importantly for long-term, it changed the culture internally, spurring a coming together of the company’s south and north divisions and goals. Externally, a breakthrough engagement with brokers that “hey, maybe these guys really are different” and a fair new trial to see if being simply nicer to deal with will trump the larger carriers’ networks that come with the bigger headaches, aggravation and loss of productivity (in their own client relationships and sales growth).

Full Case Study
Situation: Healthcare, in general, receives low marks from its own customers on key drivers like trust and customer service. The competition had positioned themselves as “the answer (cure) to healthcare ills” or “your neighbor” or “your business partner” – in other words, as “THE Hero.” There was no credibility in these positions, and consumers rejected them outright. The other position expressed was “We’re Big” as in our network is big. But being “big,” being national, didn’t help and, in fact, fanned the flames of negatives.

Category Thinking: Healthcare carriers see themselves as the Heroes.

New Insight: Business owners saw the brokers as their most trusted partner in their healthcare plan decisions. Brokers saw healthcare carriers as the third wheel in the relationship. AmeriHealth, a relative unknown in northern Jersey, had developed a good reputation for being reliable and friendly in the south. What if we just got out of our own way? What if we recognized that it’s the broker-business owner dynamic that is sacred? What if we recognized the real “hero” to be not us, the healthcare carrier, but the broker, and standing with the broker, the business owner and physicians? What if customers, through their brokers, saw greater intrinsic value in a local, more accessible, less frustrating, less time-wasting carrier? Greater savings not just in dollars, but in time and energy and stress — than bigger, chest-beatin carriers? What if being simply nicer meant being simply healthier, less aggravated? How heroic would the broker, and by extension, the AmeriHealth brand be then?

Solution: Be the hero’s hero…with its attendant personality (and culture) of being naturally and refreshingly more down to earth, reliable, authentically local and human…in a little-big way: simply nicer.

New Position: AmeriHealth is the hero’s hero.

Result: Launched in summer, result was record Q4 sales. More importantly for long-term, it changed the culture internally, spurring a coming together of the company’s south and north divisions and goals. Externally, a breakthrough engagement with brokers that “hey, maybe these guys really are different” and a fair new trial to see if being simply nicer to deal with will trump the larger carriers’ networks that come with the bigger headaches, aggravation and loss of productivity (in their own client relationships and sales growth).

“How can we tell people about all the incredible things we do…” asked a doctor at UMDNJ who was frustrated with the current marketing.  ”…and yet be the single source of hope people can look to for answers?”

One responsible bank didn’t like being tossed in with the big bad apples. “People don’t want to hear from banks these days…” said the CMO. “Well, let’s see if your bank can hear from the people,” I said.

BELOW: Microsite where prospects and customers placed orders for biscuits, just the way they like ‘em. And delivered fresh and hot by a Countybank officer.

“Zlotnick showed us how to build on being a trusted local bank….Met our goal of creating face time…generated 80 sales calls, a three-month backlog of meetings, 22 new customers, revived six dormant accounts, and 35 new deposit accounts with $1.36 million in balances and 10 new loan accounts…”
– Bill Jenkins, Marketing Director, Countybank, Greenville, S.C.

Exec Summary
Category Thinking: It doesn’t matter that banks are failing and can’t be trusted with people’s money, consumers will get over it — as long as banks just keep advertising how everything’s fine, we got our acts together, don’t worry, yadayadyada…

New Insight: People rebuild relationships where they can find real conversation again: up close and personal, one on one, in real time.

New Position: You can talk to the people at Countybank (which just may lead to you trusting them).

Result: Met goal of creating face time. Generated 80 sales calls, a three-month backlog of meetings, 22 new customers, revived six dormant accounts, and 35 new deposit accounts with $1.36 million in balances and 10 new loan accounts for $516,000…and led to 70 “other” accounts and investment advisory services for $225,000 in new premium dollars.

Full Case Study
Situation: Countybank, located in Greenville, South Carolina, was a bank in the worst national and global banking and economic crisis since, well, maybe ever. But Countybank knew what it was doing and wanted to grow its business: by relationships, one at a time. It had a new customized business banking service called The BizKit. This birthed the idea of delivering good ol’ southern hospitality in the form a hot, fresh biscuit. Each biscuit could be custom ordered “as they like” — plain, ham, chicken, or sausage. Traditionally, Countybank’s media, like outdoor, would be overloaded with info: phone numbers, Website address and too many marketing 1.0 features and benefits. It was too much and, in effect, was contradicting the authentic message they wanted their prospects to feel: Countybank is a refreshing bank to deal with in these toxic-bank times.

Category Thinking: It doesn’t matter that banks are failing and can’t be trusted with people’s money, consumers will get over it — as long as banks just keep advertising how everything’s fine, we got our acts together, don’t worry, yadayadyada…

New Insight: Countybank’s instinct for building an authentic relationship was remarkable in the bank category: simple, neighborly, no fine print and strings attached. How could we speak simpler in the messaging, yet engage and peak curiosity? How could we drive people to the microsite without the usual bank-speak and over-load of information?

Solution: A campaign that authenticated their best instinct. Simple yet engaging messages that would peak prospects’ interest and then reward them by leading them to simple, engaging truth: Countybank is just saying hi and offering you a honest simple biscuit, any way you like it. No strings.

New Position: You can talk to the people at Countybank (which just may lead to you trusting them).

Result: Met goal of creating face time. Generated 80 sales calls, a three-month backlog of meetings, 22 new customers, revived six dormant accounts, and 35 new deposit accounts with $1.36 million in balances and 10 new loan accounts for $516,000…and led to 70 “other” accounts and investment advisory services for $225,000 in new premium dollars.

“Brand loyalty among teens needs rethinking,” the fashion guru challenged. “Ever think of being an anti-brand?” I answered.

FASHION TRADE COPY: Underground isn’t just about clothes. It can’t be. In fact, we’re of the opinion that nothing is only about what we see on the surface. There’s something else going on. Something wicked. Or kind. Or stupid. Or wonderful. We’re sure about this, because every one of us has a very private world going on underneath. Secret. Dark. Deep.

(Station: Marble Arch): There’s this other world underneath that they’ll never know about me. It’s a place I need to go all by myself when I want to go anywhere.

(Station: Rayners Lane): I stared him down and he just froze and stared back, and there was this thing we were both thinking of, which was the time we were really little and we set fire to the umbrella on the patio in his backyard, and it kept spinning in the wind and throwing off these bullets

of fire.

(Station: Chalfont & Latimer): My father keeps asking me if everything’s all right. He thinks he doesn’t know how to talk to me anymore. He thinks I forgot when we used to be best friends. I didn’t forget anything, I just don’t need to watch old videos to remember. That’s all, it’s really no big thing.

(Station: Liverpool Street)

(Station: Mornington Crescent): My theory on this thing is that ideas are more powerful in motion, and me and my large man are flying into an electric storm of some pretty nastified  experimentation of the heart.

So be it girl.

(Station: Morden): Everybody’s looking at me and seeing my father or boyfriend whatever. But what the hell, a girl can’t get her face cross checked into the glass and smashed into the ice by some goon sent in to stop the scoring spree in the first period or something? Speaking of periods goddammit

(Station: Stratford & Barking): My dick is just sitting out there with my wrinkled balls flapping in the breeze and nobody in this car has a clue how this feels at 60 miles per hour and they still think we hang our tongues out because it’s the way we breathe or whatever. Hey (sniff, sniff), do I smell a morsel or did she fart again?

(Station: All Saints): I saw myself 60 years from now sitting across from me. (I saw myself 60 years ago sitting across from me.) I thought God you’re so old you don’t know shit. (I thought God you’re so young you didn’t know shit.)  I decided to confess something to myself 60 years from now. (I decided to accept my confession 60 years ago.)

(Subway  Station Great Portland Street)

Last stop, fictional station: DEEP

Exec Summary
Category Thinking: Just give ‘em photos of supermodels in cool clothes, slap on the logo, and pray.

New Insight: The 13-21 year old market prides themselves on not being fooled, not being loyal followers. Give them a “place” for venting their own deep feelings about…anything, to each other. Give them a pen and paper, a microphone, a wall, a site. Give them space and a place to speak, to cry out, to be pissed off, to feel something deeply and express it freely, outrageously, without fear of anything or anyone. Out of sight and underground.

New Position: Underground doesn’t belong to us. Underground is theirs, it belongs to them.

Result: Ask Jan, this one’s deep and purposely cryptic in its development…

Full Case Study
Situation: A fashion guru with Guess and XOXO and Jones New York and others in his portfolio, wanted to start a new line of clothing for teens and young adults, 13-21. Brands and the stores that cater to this segment proliferate. Margins keep getting tighter. Stores have insane leverage on everything from price to display. Yet, retail is as hungry for the revenue from this market as are their manufacturing and design wholesale vendors.

Category Thinking: Just give ‘em photos of supermodels in cool clothes, slap on the logo, and pray.

New Insight: You may think that just because they wear a brand name, they’re brand conscious or brand loyal. You may think they’re going through the same puberty and adolescent angst you went through. You may think lots of things, but it may not be right, or even close to what they’re really thinking about and going through. What if the very attempt to understand this lucrative but fleeting young market was the problem itself? In trying to “get them” you betrayed your ignorance of ever getting them or “it.”  What if you listened, really listened, for a change.  Give them a “place” for venting their own deep feelings about…anything, to each other. Give them a pen and paper, a microphone, a wall, a site. Give them space and a place to speak, to cry out, to be pissed off, to feel something deeply and express it freely, outrageously, without fear of anything or anyone. Out of sight and underground.

Solution: Underground (think the iconic London subway logo) would be a brand that’s not a brand. Or at least isn’t our brand. It’s theirs. They invent it from the grassroots, logo up.  Via their own media choices and inventions (diaries), they’re the ones who buzz and spread it, change it, communicate it, kill it, revive it, celebrate it, criticize it, love it, hate it, make a whole new world for it. We just get them started, with 10,000 blank new diaries spread around where they hang, in real time, online, wherever. And we get them going with the first few pages of real kids with their real entries. Note the graphic overlay of each local subway station/map locationwhere the diary originates or travels through. This is their territory, their ‘hood, and in that way, the more authentic expression of the brand they identify with.

New Position: Underground doesn’t belong to us. Underground is theirs, it belongs to them.

Result: Ask Jan, this one’s deep and purposely cryptic in its development…

“Harley-Davidson doesn’t belong in the same sentence with BMW,” said the CMO. But I knew BMW couldn’t speak softly over the roar of Harley’s branding engine…

HEADLINE: Eat this, fat boy.
BODY COPY: Chrome. Leather. Steel. Technology. Had enough?
TAGLINE: The Ultimate Riding Machine

Exec Summary
Category Thinking: Cruisers and BMW in same sentence!?

New Insight: BMW riders carry a secret torch for Harley and the Cruiser (low-riding “posing” bikes). Harley riders grudgingly respect BMW reliability and engineering. What if BMW alchemized the two fantasies of mind-blowing engineering and hot+heavy-metal sex appeal? What if they showed their own sexy-fun side and challenged the rebel in language very unGerman-like?

New Position: The ultimate sexy-fun riding machine.

Result: BMW’s successful launch into a totally new riding category (cruisers) in its 100-year history. Inroads into the lucrative, growing Cruiser market. And a successful marriage between BMW’s image of engineering/performance and a new sense of fun and glamour.

Full Case Study
Situation: BMW motorcycles were always seen as very serious machines. This was a good thing for the kind of high-performance, top-engineered motorcycles they’d been selling for 100 years. With the R1200C, they were attempting to enter for the first time the “Cruiser” category: a segment owned by Harley-Davidson with bikes like their famousFat Boy, devoted to bike enthusiasts who put looking great and sounding loud ahead of performance and engineering.

Category Thinking: Cruisers and BMW in same sentence!?

New Insight: BMW riders carry a secret torch for Harley and the Cruiser (low-riding “posing” bikes). Harley riders grudgingly respect BMW reliability and engineering. What if BMW alchemized the two fantasies of mind-blowing engineering and hot+heavy-metal sex appeal? What if they showed their own sexy-fun side and challenged the rebel in language very unGerman-like? The BMW rider secretly admired Harley for its sheer glamour, its beauty, even though he viewed it as “surface beauty” and incomparable to the real beauty of the near-perfection of a BMW bike. To have a glamorous “Harley” that was as exquisitely engineered as a BMW was a deep, repressed fantasy. On the other side, the Harley rider secretly desired his bike to be as reliable and high-performing as a BMW. Here was, for the first time in  BMW’s history, a bike engineered to ride both fantasies. A cruiser that delivered on all emotional and rational cylinders.

Solution: Loosen up BMW and make a hairpin turn in tactics without skidding off the path of their 100-year success based on engineering superiority. Rethink the emotional connection between a BMW rider and the bike he said he shunned: the Harley (Fat Boy, its iconic model.) Communicate an edgy, fun attitude: “We’re glamorous, sexy fun, and oh, yeah, we’ll eat Harley’s lunch while they eat our dust.” In other words, give the Cruiser customer all the beauty and glamour he wants, but give him BMW’s legendary performance to boot.

New Position: The ultimate sexy-fun riding machine.

Result: BMW’s successful launch into a totally new riding category (cruisers) in its 100-year history. Inroads into the lucrative, growing Cruiser market. And a successful marriage between BMW’s image of engineering/performance and a new sense of fun and glamour.

The bank president said he had one-tenth the marketing budget of his local competition. Then, he shook my hand and told me he expected 10 times the return on his own.

BODY COPY: Maybe “Employer of the Year” is more what you had in mind. After all, you have big ideas when it comes to your future. And we have the small business loans you’ll need to make them come true. Just call 201-success.

TAGLINE: You’re bound for success.

BODY COPY: Your kids are hungry for the kind of future that only

comes from the best education they can get. And now you can be sure

they’ll get it. Just call 201-success. TAGLINE: You’re bound for success.

BODY COPY: Get ready to make all the noise you want. In your own home. Select your documentation mortgage for 1-to-4 family, owner-occupied homes. Just call 201-success. TAGLINE: You’re bound for success.

Exec Summary
Category Thinking: Banks are all the same, they just want our money, they’ll never really understand what we’re really about.

New Insight: There was something about the town of Ironbound. A deeper truth about its people, relationship to family, work, and community. And no bank was truly getting this, or even trying…

New Position: Ironbound Bank is success. (Yours.)

Result: A positive, welcoming personality where once there were blank walls and faceless tellers. An increase in commercial and personal accounts, revenue, and brand value, as evidenced by a highly profitable sale of its brand to a multibillion-dollar bank (2.5 x book value).

Full Case Study
Situation: A $120 million community bank that had either a negative or blank image among businesses and the public, depending on their experience with its prior board of directors. Ironbound rebuilt its board and resolved to communicate that it was a different place of business.

Category Thinking: Banks are all the same, they just want our money, they’ll never really understand what we’re really about.

New Insight: There was something about the town of Ironbound. A deeper truth about its people, relationship to family, work, and community. And no bank was truly getting this, or even trying. Despite a blue-collar label, the people of Ironbound are entrepreneurs and hard-working men and women who intend their work to pay off, for their families. They are proud, successful, community-centered, and understand the importance of customer service in making a business go.

Solution: What made the Ironbound Bank prospect tick…the deeper truths about this customer in this community. How to build trust between this customer and a bank. Establish a dialog with this customer. Relate to their lives. To their ambitions. Create an authentic feeling that this is a bank that understands their dreams. Then back it up with the experience. Give this customer a reason to believe. Create a campaign that communicates, with personality, humor, that Ironbound Bank is a place where they’ll feel comfortable doing business. And get help to be a success.

New Position: Ironbound Bank is success. (Yours.)

Result: A positive, welcoming personality where once there were blank walls and faceless tellers. An increase in commercial and personal accounts, revenue, and brand value, as evidenced by a highly profitable sale of its brand to a multibillion-dollar bank (2.5 x book value).

Steve Wynn is known for going on and on about every detail of his hotels. When I said I have an idea that said it all in four words, his CMO said, “This I have to see.”

MUSCLES:MELT    / YOU:WYNN

PERSONAL:TOUCHES     /    YOU:WYNN

TASTES:REFINED / YOU:WYNN

Exec Summary
Category Thinking: Vegas has it all, and Wynn has it all… and more.

New Insight: Wynn guests are the busiest people on Earth; they crave peace.

New Position: Wynn casino hotel is simple, peaceful, perfect.

Result: Ask Jan what Wynn’s CMO (PR director) had to say about campaign.

Full Case Study
Situation: Steve Wynn spent billions on his new casino hotels. Years in the planning, he couldn’t just crap out when the economy rolls a seven. And he couldn’t rely on his high-end clientele alone to turn a profit. Maybe, if Wynn could load the dice with a smarter marketing play? But to Wynn, smarter isn’t less. Smarter is more; more is more.

Category Thinking: Vegas has it all; Wynn has it all and more, more, more…

New Insight: It’s not about the casino, it’s about the getaway – the getting away, from work, from home, from the 1,001 things that tie up your whole body, your whole being, in a big knot of tension. So, given all the other reasons to come to Vegas, and in particular to come to a Wynn hotel, it shouldn’t really matter if you can’t justify gambling away your sinking portfolio or hard-earned cash in your federally insured bank account. Just as it shouldn’t really matter if you’re not great at the blackjack or craps table! Is there another way for guests to just simply come and “play” without losing? How can you virtually guarantee that when you come to a certain casino hotel in Vegas that you will always win? How do you keep your casino top of mind, even in a bad economy? How do you re-define Wynn without diluting the brand equity of being the standard of excellence in the casino industry? How do you elevate an already lofty name like Wynn to a whole other level of consciousness in the market? Without turning off the stressed out, over-timing, middle-income segment of the market trying to justify an indulgent trip to Vegas? And for the high-end, what if you UNloaded an over-stimulated, over-scheduled clientele?

Solution: Wynn guests are the busiest people on Earth; they crave peace. Hmmm…what if they felt this calm even while looking a Wynn communication? A simple, sensual campaign that makes you feel relaxed and de-stressed just looking at it.  And, like a cool, soothing massage that instantly feels good and stays with you long after, it occurs to you that you need, not just want, this Wynn-Win situation for yourself.
New Position: Wynn casino hotel is simple, peaceful, perfect.

Result: Ask Jan what Wynn’s CMO (PR director) had to say about campaign.

When the woman we were watching was being seduced and disrobed by her boyfriend, my client said, “Damn, this is going to drive ‘em crazy!” Handing him a bottle of cold water, I put the competitor’s TV spot on pause and offered, “….Or miss the woman’s R-spot completely.”

“…Zlotnick connected with the woman’s purer romantic desire, an emotion totally untapped in the men’s cologne market… very smart.”
– Timberline, MEM Fragrances

Exec Summary
Category Thinking: Women buy men cologne to be sexually seduced by the men who wear it.

New Insight: Women are looking for R, as in Romance. Something to give more meaning to sex. A moment between the sexes when all that matters is pure romance, an uncomplicated sweetness, and at the same time, a fiery hot discovery of each other. A moment when they both see the forest for the trees…at a timberline of desire.

New Position: Timberline is pure, unadulterated romantic desire.

Result: High awareness, successful re-launch, increased sales.

Full Case Study
Situation: An over-crowded fragrance category during a cluttered holiday market environment. How to re-position and re-introduce an old brand to a new, younger audience.

Category Thinking: Women buy men cologne to be sexually seduced by the men who wear it.

New Insight: Women are looking for R, as in Romance. Something to give more meaning to sex, return it to an act of love. A moment between the sexes when all that matters is pure romance, an uncomplicated sweetness, and at the same time, a fiery hot discovery of each other. A moment when they both see the forest for the trees, at a timberline of desire. The woman who buys fragrance for the man is looking for him to be totally into her R-Spot, as in the Romance she wishes he’d more actively pursue with her. The man is looking for the romance to be sexually rewarding, but at the same time he doesn’t want to be stereotyped as any more single-minded on this subject than the woman. The counter-intuitive insight here is that there is a time in romance when the couple is “allowed” to be more childlike, carefree, even silly — a time, a place, a “timberline,” when what matters most is the playfulness, the innocence that builds to a charged energy between the two and the rewards of the hunt and gamesmanship, of getting together, of getting to The Kiss, and maybe, just maybe, to falling in love. How do you introduce a new scent in a market over-stimulated by scents? How do you sell romance and sex in a way that’s fresh and different and memorably tied into this brand’s name and essence? What is the essence of this essence?

Solution: The notion of “falling” as a hard-earned relief and reward, a giving up of fronts and affectations, of stopping the chase and letting things go. Of seeing the chase in a new, romantic, even innocent way: as playful, child-like, to counter the images and pressures of the adult world. Re-Intuit and re-imagine an environment of desire that is natural, outdoors, evokes an honesty, a genuineness in the hunt itself: no trappings of the typical male-POV singles scene, but instead, a natural to the brand name, Timberline.

New Position: Timberline is pure, unadulterated romantic desire.

Result: High awareness, successful re-launch, increased sales.

The governor of New York and his PR director said it was very simple: do a new campaign for the anniversary of their I Love NY theme…just like it’s always been done. Hey, just do as I’m told, collect the commissions, and be happy, right? Not if it’s wrong for the success of the client…

“We had no idea the I Love New York campaign was actually hurting regions outside the City… Zlotnick had the guts to stand up to conventional wisdom and show us how to do it smarter and better,      which we needed to hear.”
– Neville Bugwadia, Empire State Business Development

Exec Summary
Category Thinking: I love New York is about the city, not the state.

New Insight: Ten of the 11 regions of NY State were not seeing an ROI from the I Love NY campaign. There were deeper truths driving the market. To change the conversation, we needed to show that it is the State, not the City, that has surprisingly more to offer. And, ah, by the way, do consumers really care about the original objective: to tout the anniversary of the “ILNY” campaign? (Answer: No.)

New Position: New York State is everything to love. (and like nothing you ever expected)

Result: Standing ovation for the Governor at the campaign’s preview at The Egg Center for Performing Arts in Albany, and a nod to me, by the previously disenfranchised 10 “other” regional directors of tourism. Hotel occupancy rose from 65.6% to 71%. Travel expenditures 35% to $32 billion. The only Northeast state in double digits for awareness.

Full Case Study
Situation: A legendary “untouchable” theme and song in its 25th anniversary year.  It brought back the city from a recession in the ‘70s when New York was hurting and in trouble financially.  Yet, for complicated political and economic reasons, New York, the State, was not experiencing success in travel and tourism. What do you do for a 25th encore that would be meaningful to this changed market?

Category Thinking: I love New York is about the city, not the state.

New Insight: Ten of the 11 regions of NY State were not seeing an ROI from the I Love NY campaign. There were deeper truths driving the market. To change the conversation, we needed to show that it is the State, not the City, that has surprisingly more to offer and is worthy of being loved. New York, known first and foremost as The City, had a great unappreciated, uncommunicated secret: It’s The State, not NYC, that offers some of the country’s premiere whitewater rafting (class 5), fishing, skiing, hiking (the largest state park in the country), canal barging, antiquing, and, with 115 vineyards, world-class winery touring. The legendary “I Love NY” communicated “Come to NYC” when it needed to say “Come to New York State.” Just how meaningful and effective anymore was the “I Love NY” theme and song? Why were the 10 other regions of New York State, other than New York City, not realizing revenue from travelers in their own and neighboring states? And, by the way, who among consumers really care about the original objective to tout the anniversary of the “ILNY” theme song? (Answer: Nobody)

Solution: Associate “I Love NY” with the State, including, but not intuitively pandering to the City. Challenge travelers’ perceptions and surprise them, memorably, with all the perceived “far-away” adventures that the State offers them, affordably, conveniently closer to home. Rethink and repurpose the role of the “I Love NY” theme song within each communication. Add that New York edge and attitude in an original tag line, to further underscore the new idea of a necessary new message, “Hey, what did you expect? This is New York.

New Position: New York State is everything to love. (and like nothing you ever expected)

Result: Standing ovation for the Governor at the campaign’s preview at The Egg Center for Performing Arts in Albany, and a nod to me, by the previously disenfranchised 10 “other” regional directors of tourism. Hotel occupancy rose from 65.6% to 71%. Travel expenditures 35% to $32 billion. The only Northeast state in double digits for awareness.

Healthcare visionary John Ferguson had an idea for a hospital 10 years ahead of its time. But he first had to open people’s minds that the best medical care in New York just might be in New Jersey…

COPY ON FOREHEAD: The most uncomfortable part of a breast examination is felt here. COPY ON BREAST: Not here.

“What Jan did was look and listen, like nobody ever did before.”
– Anne Marie Campbell, VP, Hackensack Univ Medical Cntr

Exec Summary
Category Thinking: Serious health problem? Go to New York.

New Insight: People in the New York area will consider a New Jersey hospital for serious needs if they feel it is sophisticated and authoritative in specialty areas. They will empathize with and relate to surreal emotional moments resolved by real reasons to believe.

New Position: Hackensack is the New York hospital, in New Jersey.

Result: Awareness, respect, and credibility for Hackensack’s capabilities, not just in cancer treatment, but overall.

Full Case Study
Situation: Hackensack University Medical Center was this sleeping giant of a hospital, in the relatively quiet New York marketplace of New Jersey. And it happened to have one of the nation’s most respected pediatric oncology programs and breast care departments, as well as one of the best stem-cell treatment centers in the country. The Big Picture was its plan, led by its president, John Ferguson, a visionary healthcare leader.

Category Thinking: Serious health problem? Go to New York.

New Insight: People in the New York area will consider a New Jersey hospital for serious needs if they feel it is sophisticated and authoritative in specialty areas. They will empathize with and relate to surreal emotional moments resolved by real reasons to believe. To be relevant in the New York market, and dominant in New Jersey, Hackensack first had to be considered in the same conversation with New York hospitals. Consumers pay attention when the images, the words, the mood and tone, feel authentic. And they retain and recall the message even longer when it triggers a fascination and deeper connection with the surreal memory of an event. Let the value of Hackensack’s specialties be felt, one by one, in each story, rather than cram self-serving facts and intuitively predictable images into each message.

Solution: a surreal step beyond the predictable testimonial: a deeper, surreal empathic lens through which a 12-year old boy relates his experience of his father’s cancer…and through which a unique emotional perspective emerges of the patient himself. Fear not long copy to the parents and family and friends of a child with cancer — they want to know everything and will respect more the message that doesn’t try to appeal to them on an over-simplified, predictable marketing level. Appeal to women who procrastinate on getting their breast examinations not just because they find it a scary thing, but because it’s something that makes them feel uncomfortably disconnected from it, as if the exam and environment were constructed only from men (which intuitively it was). Rethink and ring true with messages that have an uncanny, counter-intuitive understanding of The Person. Messages from a hospital that truly listens to the way that particular consumer feels, be it a woman or man, husband or wife, parent or child.

New Position: Hackensack is the New York hospital, in New Jersey.

Result: Awareness, respect, and credibility for Hackensack’s capabilities, not just in cancer treatment, but overall.

The entertainment mogul didn’t like being squeezed. Especially by competitors he knew couldn’t hold a halogen lamp to his innovative Lifetime Studios in the legendary Kaufman Astoria lots. “Any game-changing ideas, Jan?”

“…totally turned this category upside down, and gave us the smart, sexy makeover that caught every producer’s eye, and brain.”
– Lifetime Studios

Exec Summary
Category Thinking: Production space is production space…

New Insight: A producer has to make a million-to-one shot happen. She has to make magic happen. How? Where? Aha! The “where” is how magic happens …. The “where” must offer something more, something intangible, beyond mere square footage.

New Position: Lifetime creates the magic (that produces the hits).

Result: Space-leasing rate up 20% with a new category-of-one awareness, respect, and brand value. Cool.

Full Case Study
Situation: Lifetime Studios needed to distinguish itself from other, better-known production studios located in Manhattan and Los Angeles.

Category Thinking: Production space is production space…

New Insight: The producer is looking for a production studio that delivers on more than square footage alone. More than the proximity to the hot restaurants and nightlife, but not unaccommodating to that desire. What is going through the producer’s head, and heart?  What does this customer really want and need? What drives producers and directors emotionally? What might bond producers and their clients to Lifetime in a way that over-rides all other perks a competing studio might provide? A producer has to make a million-to-one shot happen. She has to make magic happen. How? Where? The “where” must offer something more, something intangible, beyond mere square footage.: Beyond location, space, technology, communications, and facilities, a producer needs to feel inspired about their choice of production studio. It had to feel right — be a creative place where a show on paper could find that magic chemistry and become a hit.

Solution: Be proud and true to yourself, Lifetime. Authentically communicate your brand essence: a legendary, inspirational heritage of magic chemistry in entertainment, and a facility that rivals NASA for technology. Marry the two and appeal to Lifetime’s prospects on two emotional levels: 1. Total confidence, technologically. 2. A magical place where success can happen.

New Position: Lifetime creates the magic (that produces the hits).

Result: Space-leasing rate up 20% with a new category-of-one awareness, respect, and brand value. Cool.

Consumer Reports is more trusted than the Bible. But God knows how hard it is to get people, let alone corporations, to do a good thing. Especially big companies with big to-do lists.

“We were faced with a near-impossible task: To get the world’s most recognized companies to sign a public pledge to uphold standards of credibility and transparency for their Web sites. The campaign was a startling success….Jan has a level of commitment I have rarely seen.”
– Beau Brendler, Director, Consumer Reports WebWatch

Exec Summary
Category Thinking: Consumer protection watchdogs are often all bark.

New Insight: To get people to do a good thing, particularly those in positions of power in big brand companies, sometimes you need to show them how bad things can get (for them) if they do nothing at all. Name names and let the world know about them.

New Position: Consumer Reports WebWatch is all teeth.

Result: Got 95 pledges. 18 months ahead of schedule. On budget.

Full Case Study
Situation: Consumer Reports WebWatch, a project of Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, was created through foundation funding to fix a broken trust between consumers and online brands. The objective was to win pledges from companies to commit to five basic guidelines for their websites. The charge was to accomplish this through an introductory awareness campaign. A close look into WebWatch’s business plan revealed it would lose funding, basically cease to exist, if it didn’t get 95 pledges before the end of its 3-year funding. Our business analysis redirected the effort from an awareness campaign to a tactical “Get 95 Pledges or Die” campaign.

Category Thinking: Watchdogs are all bark.

New Insight: To get people to do a good thing, particularly those in positions of power in big brand companies,  sometimes you need to show them how bad things can get (for them) if they do nothing at all. There was a reason for no signed commitments in 12 months of spoken promises by C-level management at top online Web sites: they weren’t being held accountable for anything they said in a meeting. C-level management had a vague at best understanding of  a “pledge” of commitment. Consumer Reports WebWatch wasn’t quite sure who the real decision makers were…. what their decision-making process and hot-buttons were. How to move Consumer Reports WebWatch  and its”Pledge” to The Top of every decision-maker’s “To Do” list. Not just making the list or a short list — but the top of the list.

Solution: Name names and let the world know about them. In no unmistakable terms, show which brand names are “for consumer protection” and which “are not” by virtue of who pledges and who doesn’t pledge to uphold some simple consumer-protection rights on their Web sites. Execute a Tactical, Direct-Response campaign:  Full-Size proofs presented in person, emailed, and couriered in giant envelopes directly to C-Level decision makers to elicit one immediate, top-of-the-To-Do-List response: “Holy Shit, This is Serious, Get Everybody in Here Now.” Attached to proofs was a note saying this ad was ready to run and be seen by customers, board members and shareholders in a national media blitz, including their local regional papers and such national standard bearers as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

New Position: Consumer Reports WebWatch is all teeth.

Result: Got 95 pledges. 18 months ahead of schedule. On budget.

ABOVE: the pre-ordained “Cool” lobby…

BELOW: the redefined “Warm is Cool” lobby

…and the new warm-is-cool rooftop pool

BELOW: Campaign for newly named “240″ residence: outdoor and integrated media

“…Unprecedented stuff….This is marketing on another level for us…we changed our blueprints for goodness sake.”
– Corcoran Sunshine Management

Exec Summary
Category Thinking: Build it cool (and they will come).

New Insight: Before you build it, you better understand your customer’s definition of what Cool really is…

New Position: Warm is cool.

Result: A change in the way sales team communicated this property. A new excitement among brokers who now had a fresh, invigorated story to tell, a story that didn’t sound salesy, because it rang true.

Full Case Study
Situation: Real estate brokers were bored with their own sales pitches. All the buildings were generally the same, being sold with the same kind of marketing tools, based on the same kind of real estate marketing thinking. This became especially problematic when the property wasn’t in an ideal location. Our particular property, a 250-unit rental conversion, was in an “off” location and being targeted to first-time buyers, mostly young singles and couples. Corcoran needed to devise with the developer a blueprint for new design and structural renovations that would be “cool” in the eyes of their target buyer. When design and construction blueprints were already far along, Jan was asked to make sure all was indeed “cool” …

Category Thinking: Build it cool (and they will come).

New Insight: Before you build it, you better understand your customer’s definition of what Cool really is. Ask the deeper questions, engage the deeper, more revealing conversation beyond the traditional focus groups. Challenge our own marketing-design group’s notion of “cool” because we ourselves weren’t the market, and the idea of cool was the driving factor for every decision that would distinguish this property from competitor buildings with superior locations. When Jan moved the conversation past the typical intuitive responses one gives to marketing researchers, prospects shed new light on what they considered “cool.” And it wasn’t what the almost-approved blueprints were showing. These 24-35 year olds led us to designs, venues, color, textures, feelings, that weren’t explored before. They gave us new insight into “cool” — revealing to us their true emotional perspectives, which moved us 180-degrees from the slick “cool” of our original designs, to a wholly different kind of cool — an eclectic, real, honest, ring-true place that helped us re-focus, re-imagine, and re-inspire our every decision.

Solution: Under the umbrella of a new, counter-intuitive customer insight — “Warm is Cool” — we reconsidered what this first-time, Y- and X-Generation market needed and desired. And we developed new blueprints, new design, a new culture that was warm, true…authentically cool.

New Position: Warm is cool.

Result: A change in the way sales team communicated this property. A new excitement among brokers who now had a fresh, invigorated story to tell, a story that didn’t sound salesy, because it rang true.

Officemax thought the best way to get more traffic on its site was to identify its best-selling stuff and tell people they can get it fast online. Just like Staples does. I asked, “What if we do Staples one better and express the one thing about your customers they’ll humorously identify with themselves…”

COPY: Making sure the conference room has an extra stash of pushpins makes you feel drunk with power. TAGLINE: You need help. Fast.

COPY: Knowing there are twenty just-sharpened #2 pencils in the boss’s desk makes you feel all warm inside. TAGLINE: You need help. Fast.

Exec Summary
Category Thinking: Business supply stores only need to open their doors for you, because, hey, you’re the one that’s always needed THEM. (Weren’t that the good old days for them.) All they have to do is tout how their inventory and discount is better than the competition’s, and you, the small-business owner will come, happy (well let’s say resigned) to buy at whatever price you end up getting.

New Insight: With brutal competition, skinny-ass margins, and the critical convenience and cost factor of ordering online, supply stores are big-box business, and they too often make the frantic, rushed-for-time small-business customer feel that way:  like they’re in a big box, alone, looking for what they want and a way out to get back to work. Hmm… so, what if one smarter brand cultivated an authentic empathy, a refreshingly light-hearted, self-effacing affection, for what the small-business psyche bordering on neurotic is all about?!  And what if this I’m-Ok-You’re-Ok ethos was focused on the Office Manager, the go-getter of all things, fast, that makes the business run, and keeps the boss sane!

New Position: Nobody knows what you (office manager) need, and how fast you need it, like OfficeMax.com

Result: Won’t know until OfficeMax hires me…. if you know anyone there, have ‘em call Jan at 973.454.8536. Hurry, their brand needs help fast!