Who runs the marketing program?

[dbdreams]

Does it really cost 250 million to for a successful ad campaign?

You just asked us to run commercials during sporting events. Yes, to create an ad campaign that stands the slightest chance of actually creating solid brand or product awareness you are going to spend some serious coin.

I am just a small business man, a one man show and I am no marketing guru. I just did not realize it would cost that much but again I think they should target the end user/consumer more.

Advertising to us dealers is like "preaching to the choir"

[kats2112]

Throughout the years I marketed my companies all over the place from doing interviews, mailings, air waves, even our logo on an Indy Car. Do I think my competition benefited from my work, absolutely. But I benefited more than they did. Did it stop me from promoting my industry, no.

Way back when I converted to an AltaMere, I complained about their suggestion to advertise more. Seemed the others were promoting the "idea" enough

and I had a great location with plenty of business.

"Own this town on the radio and see what happens". So I did. Within 2 years 3 of the oldest shops were either gone or moved to cheaper warehouse type

locations and I was the big fish.

This may have nothing to do with the thread subject, but the right advertising worked.

Oh, and F the yello pages as always!

[Fiveofeen]

This is the attitude with manufacturers. Why advertise your product to the public when other manufacturers will benefit? Instead of banning together and promoting the industry as a whole, they prefer to let the dealers do it. And now the manufacturers are competing against their dealers.

Many of us have been saying for years that the manufacturers need to ban together to generate product knowledge, but it has been on deaf ears.

Here is a quick question, say in your market there are three to four very professional dealers. Members of the chamber of commerce, BBB A+ etc...

Then there are a few not so great dealers, perhaps unlicensed but still large in size but have questionable practices and then there are a hand full of smaller shops ($99 tint) etc

Say you are one of the three to four big dogs, would you be willing to pool your funds to market window film in your area while the others refuse to.

so...do car mannys think this way when they are spending millions on advertise for their cars.

we are not going to advertise our vehicle because we are advertise other vehicles just like it.. ..what is the difference.?

a burger joint is not going to advertise a burger because they will be advertising for the burger joint down the street.?

Hold on, my response was in regards to why film manufacturers do not pool funds together for a national ad campaign to build awareness on window film. Let me know when Ford and GM advertise together to build awareness of the automobile. Lets compare apples to apples here.

I highly suggest everyone who is actively reading or posting in this thread reaches out to their supplier and finds out what actions they are taking to build the awareness of window film. I would say there are about four suppliers doing 90% of the work to build awareness for the window film industry right now.

[TomTint]

Good morning Tim. One idea I will throw out there would be for a mfr to allocate .07-.10 per s/f of film they sell to a targeted campaign.

[Fiveofeen]

Good morning Tim. One idea I will throw out there would be for a mfr to allocate .07-.10 per s/f of film they sell to a targeted campaign.

Morning Tom.

I wonder if dealers would be willing to pay that additional amount right off the bat even if results did not appear instantly.

Each MFG who is part of the IWFA does do this already. I do not know the dollar amount but each commits a certain value towards supporting them and their efforts for the window film industry. Once again I'll give a shout out to these select few who are putting an effort towards growing this industry as a whole.

Johnson Window Films, CP Films (Solutia), Madico Window Films, HanitaTek Window Films, 3M Window Films and SolarGard Window Films.

[TomTint]

Tim for as long as I have been doing this (1985) film in general has always been a mystery product to the general public. 25 years ago you could walk into any mall in America and ask 100 people what they know about window film. If you found 5 people that knew what you were talking about, 3 of them would say "it's that stuff you put on cars that turns purple" . Now 25 years later the products are better but the public is still in the dark for the most part. Go to the same mall and ask 100 more people and you will probably get similar answers. The status quo is not working and has not worked for 30 years. I think it needs to change.

[DenMcM]

ASHRAE, AIA, NAESCO, USGBC, AEE, ASIS, ESC ...and the list goes on ...true, we don't market to Ms. Jones, but we are working to build awareness to your potential buyers.

[PJF]

Good morning Tim. One idea I will throw out there would be for a mfr to allocate .07-.10 per s/f of film they sell to a targeted campaign.

Morning Tom.

I wonder if dealers would be willing to pay that additional amount right off the bat even if results did not appear instantly.

Each MFG who is part of the IWFA does do this already. I do not know the dollar amount but each commits a certain value towards supporting them and their efforts for the window film industry. Once again I'll give a shout out to these select few who are putting an effort towards growing this industry as a whole.

Johnson Window Films, CP Films (Solutia), Madico Window Films, HanitaTek Window Films, 3M Window Films and SolarGard Window Films.

I agree that the fisrt step should be that all reputable manufacturers join the IWFA. The manufacturers pay dues based on the amount of film that they sell, (at least that is how it used to be). So this is kind of what Tom was saying by the manufacturers contributing a part of each sq. ft. to an organization that is looking out for the best interests of the industry. Sadly, not even all of the film suppliers contribute to the IWFA. You should ask your supplier if they are an IWFA member and if they are not, ask them why not. Being a member is investing into the future of our industry. Whether a manufacturer, distributor or dealer, we should all be members.

If we cannot even get everyone to agree to support the IWFA, a national campaign to promote the industry is never going to happen. However several manufacturers are doing different things to drive business at the customer level and passing the leads to their existing dealers. I know for a fact that some of these drive a fair number of leads that result in numerous jobs per month/year for the local dealer. Again, if your supplier is not doing this, maybe you should consider another supplier.

[TomTint]

VQuest, I'm sorry but I don't understand what you are saying.

Sorry Tom. Let me elaborate. There are two places for suppliers to market, retail and wholesale. Retail marketing would develop business for your wholesale market but but what do you think marketing to wholesale develops? My answer would be "it develops more dealers." Putting an add in a trade publication is a perfect example.

I agree, this is why I say if they advartise from the top down instead of from the bottom up.

[vquestfilms.com]

It becomes a double dip if you take a percentage from MFG and than another from distribution for a national campaign or IWFA. How much do you guys want to pay for film? It is coming out of your costs one way or another. I'm just being honest here.

As for our company's investments into awareness. We are CEU instructors for AIA and ASID. We are memebers of IFMA, BOMA, and a few other organizations. Several of us are active speakers and go our regularly to educate architects, engineers, LEED AP's, CEM's, other speakers especially the renewable fanatics... I was out over 60 days last year traveling doing CEU courses, homes shows, trade shows, car shows, boat shows, green shows... the message was "efficiency improvements has the largest returns" and "window film is amongst the best returns when it comes to efficiency." While it is not a national advertisement (we alone cannot afford to do that) we did dump some serious money into all of this and did what we could instead of waiting for someone upstream from us to do it.

Can we do more? Yes we can and we will be expanding our outreach and awareness campaigns for 2012. Heck, sponsoring this forum in whatever way we can keeps an online resource for consumers up going... I'm sure a lot of consumers land here if they do a search on window film?

We're trying guys, if you have any good ideas throw em all out here. Seriously, I'm taking notes.