Bella Katz on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

New Zealand is big on promoting itself as the destination of choice for thrill seekers and adventure junkies, but there’s an equally lucrative market they should be talking to more often and that’s young families.

The marketing of New Zealand, at least here in Australia, has long been around the sporty outdoor activity gig - a message now well and truly ingrained. If you want to go bungy jumping, jet boating, heli-skiing, mountain hiking… <insert double-barrel extreeeme activity here> - we know the country to go to.

Now here we are in holiday mode with a very young child and that type of action adventure is as far from mine and my husband’s reality as lounging around bars all day with friends in sexy European locations. It’s not because we don’t want to you understand, we just can’t.

As a New Zealander I know NZ is a great place for families with young kids, especially for neighbouring Australians who are a mere 3-4 hour flight away, but I wonder why NZ tourism hasn’t made a bigger deal about this segment of the market and made sure New Zealand is as analogous with family as it is with adventure.

Here’s my typical mental checklist for a holiday with young kids:

1. How far is it? My child/I will go insane on any flight longer than 4 hours - unless we’re going for a month plus
2. Is it safe? Nothing on the front page today on terrorism, floods, disease, crime
3. Is there good  stuff to do that kids can get in on too? Enough to keep the kids entertained and good food/wine/sights for us
4. Is it easy to get around? I can rent a car and drive everywhere easily or public transport is solid
5. Are prices ok? Accommodation, food, currency is working for me right now

Being from New Zealand, I know NZ ticks all these boxes (except perhaps public transport, but we can overlook that as driving is so easy there). From Australia you’ve arrived within a few hours, you can jump in the car and drive to some beautiful beach destinations, you can jump on a ferry and head to gorgeous island wineries, you can eat in some fabulous restaurants, you can hit the groovy boutiques for a spot of shopping, you can go fruit picking at the best farms around, it’s all there and it’s all very easy with little kiddies in tow.

So I wonder why NZ Tourism doesn’t feature families in their marketing more prominently.  They should run some campaigns in Australia (to start with) that talk specifically to parents, get us excited about having a “milder” NZ adventure, A.K.A. world class tourism that doesn’t necessarily involve leaping off a bridge or having to wear protective head gear. It’s a ripe message just waiting to be picked.

Bella Katz on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

ecostore is a New Zealand brand of sustainable household and personal care products that was founded in 1993 although I’ve only come across the products on Australian supermarket shelves quite recently. As they’re priced at the premium end of their category, I wonder how they will do and wonder whether the world needs and will buy into another eco household brand. How will this one stand out in a busy category?

New Zealand does have a knack at this enviro branding thing and this is another of those companies that has seemingly come from nowhere (or as they say on their website “from an eco village in New Zealand”) and it is generating significant buzz.

I’ve always been a bit of a sucker for products with environmental declarations and as a new(ish) mum am no doubt bang on their target market. I approach every product with the words organic and natural with suspicion, given how little we customers know of what goes on behind the scenes. For example, I got very excited about the big no parabens marketing schtick adopted by many skincare brands and was later told by colleagues in that industry that products without it can be more harmful unless very short use-by dates are strictly adhered to - and they usually aren’t. It’s a confusing category for customers and one rife with imposters.

ecostore has entered this space with an expanding, expensive range of natural products, a great look and their marketing strategy seems clever indeed.

For instance, founder Malcolm Rands, who started the company together with his wife Melanie, is apparently referred to as “ecoman” in New Zealand. He has an interesting bio and strong ties to environmental causes and councils. He is a believable ambassador for the brand.

Speaking of ambassadors, when launching the ecostore brand into the US, the company took the low budget approach of engaging with “mommy bloggers”. This strategy of sending numerous targetted emails and samples of product appears to have been incredibly successful. I am making assumptions of success because every time I came across a blog that mentioned ecostore, the write up was full of breathless praise. See here, here and here for starters - all randomly found by typing ‘ecostore’ into Google.

ecostore are priced at a premium and are open and unashamed about this. Their positioning is value for money via concentrated formulations and on their website they argue that cost per use often works out to be lower than ‘cheaper looking’ supermarket brands.

If you’re going for the top end of the market there need to be clear justifications for what customers are getting. I suspect we’ve all been broken in and naturally assume organic and environmental products carry a premium, in that way the category has been opened up for ecostore by previous players.

Looking ahead I wonder whether there is a place in the (still) relatively niche market of natural household products for a big player? ecostore is not big yet, but looks set for serious growth.

Will the market continue to embrace a brand that had such humble beginnings as it grows on an international scale? What happens when production moves, as it is shortly due, from New Zealand to include the US? Do we believe that big successful companies can continue to have the same ethical responsibility as a little backyard brand started by an enviro-happy couple?

Look at the demise of Macro Wholefoods in Australia and the very different mood around Anita Roddick’s Body Shop versus L’Oreal’s Body Shop.

ecostore has all the makings of a small business about to hit the big time, but I wonder whether its rapid growth will be its undoing? Hopefully NOT.

NOTE: I work with New Zealand companies but thought I should add that ecostore is NOT one of my clients. I’m a recent buyer of their products via Safeway/Woolworths as it seems to be on sale most of the time. Sale price is still more expensive than most competitive products, but I’m always happy to trial a new brand and pay a premium if it does the job better.

Bella Katz on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Pumpkin Patch children’s clothing is a big deal in New Zealand, being its second largest publicly traded retailer. The chain, which launched as a catalogue business in 1991, now has 235 stores worldwide with close to half of all revenue coming from Australia.

But Pumpkin Patch is in decline. Several weeks ago they announced they would close 20 of 35 US stores in order to curtail further losses. They largely cited the recession as reason for a 7 percent fall in half year profit to NZ$9.5m and attributed the strength of their brand to having cushioned the blow.

I have some other thoughts…

Some of the world’s best marketers talk about how recession can lead to troubled times for one particular type of retailer: the one that’s bang in the middle. This is the brand that is neither premium nor low cost. It is that huge space that occupies the middle market and when finances get tighter it’s just easier for customers to walk away. (For a great article on how premium luxury has no fear of recession, read Luxury Stands its Ground by Mark Ritson.)

Pumpkin Patch sits right in this middle space and, contrary to their belief that they are an ‘innovative retailer’, they have over the years become just another middle of the road brand.

I would argue that when they first launched they sold uniquely designed, well-made, age appropriate clothing out of natural fabrics, such as merino wools and other fibres that New Zealand is known for. They were an immediate success in New Zealand and very quickly became one in Australia. As I’ve mentioned in the past, New Zealanders are fierce supporters of all things home made and ‘Brand New Zealand’ has a premium all of its own too.

So what has happened to that delightful little label? I suspect the same thing that happens to many delightful little labels as they grow up: they start focusing mostly on their bottom line and don’t keep as close a watch on their brand.

Pumpkin Patch now seems to make average-quality, above-average priced clothing in the same designs that low cost retailers such as Target produce. They use a lot of synthetic fabrics such as acrylic and polyester, and just about - if not everything - is made in China. These are not reasons in themselves for A brand’s downfall, but they are all reasons for THIS brand’s downfall. This is not what they set out to be and this is not what attracted loyal customers to them back in 1991.

I have a 2-year old daughter and before she came along I had no idea how determined and researched a customer I was going to become. Authenticity, heritage and craftsmanship are things new parents are prepared to pay a real premium for. For everything else there is Target. I wanted to buy from Pumpkin Patch (because I would argue that expat New Zealanders are even fiercer supporters of NZ products than those living there) but I never did.

There is a Pumpkin Patch in a premium retail position on the children’s floor of Melbourne’s huge Chadstone Shopping Centre. This is the shopping centre where mums are literally lining up as doors open at 9.30am - having an outing with their prams, passing time before baby naps or just being out of the house for a change. There are many children’s stores down there such as Fiona Scanlan’s BIG, ESPRIT, Gumboots, Early Learning Centre, SEED, Cotton On Kids (I’d argue the most successful of the lot). Then there’s always Target, David Jones, Myer etc. There’s a lot of competition and clothing from Pumpkin Patch simply doesn’t stand out.

Before writing this blog I did a quick survey of a few mums about what they thought of Pumpkin Patch. Here’s what they had to say (and I’ll add to it as comments come in):

• “I reckon it’s pretty crappy - I don’t like the designs and it’s pretty overpriced for what it is.”
• “NQR (not quite right) as in age inappropriate designs. Also quite expensive but they’ve had sales most of the year.”
• “I stopped buying from Pumpkin Patch 6 months ago because they are overpriced for stuff that looks like Target, also the stuff doesn’t wash well.”
  
• “My sister gets an esale email almost every day.”
• “I find the designs a bit naff and the fabrics are all fakes like 100% acrylic cardigans.”
  

If I could end on a few words of advice for Pumpkin Patch, as I’d like to see it get through this and find a strong niche, really I would.

1. GO BACK TO YOUR HERITAGE, back to Pumpkin Patch 1991. What did you want to stand for then? Be honest with yourself, do you stand for that now?

2. If you want to continue producing largely mass market designs out of fairly average fabrics, DROP YOUR PRICES. Become a lower cost retailer. There’s a market for that: see Cotton On Kids, Target et all as examples.

3. If you want to stick with the higher priced label IMPROVE YOUR DESIGNS AND QUALITY. Start producing truly exceptional pieces out of beautiful natural fabrics. You may even be able to charge even more and get more profit from fewer customers.

4. DO SOME MARKET RESEARCH. Talk to mums, talk to your current customers, old customers, non customers. Look around at what successful and unsuccessful children’s retailers look like. Work out your position in the market.

5. DON’T TRY AND BE EVERYTHING TO EVERYONE. Don’t be afraid to lose customers if it means you can get more from better ones.

These are a few of the New Zealand children’s labels that I think are stealing Pumpkin Patch’s premium customers. Hopefully they don’t go down the same path as they become more and more successful.

• mokopuna merino
• Nature Baby: organic NZ baby wear
• Merino Kids

Bella Katz on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

The research showed that it wasn’t always the big obvious firms such as Deloitte, PWC, Accenture, McKinsey etc that had the most compelling websites or communicated their expertise and connected visitors to professionals (just a few of the criteria for a successful PS website identified in a 2008 survey by Bloom Group LLC.)

A few of the recommendations I discovered may seem obvious when written in bullet points, but you’d be suprised how few companies actually apply this:

1. An effective website is written from the prospect’s standpoint, not from yours or the firm’s. Begin by looking through your prospect’s eyes and why they would search for your service, what their key need is when they land on your site. Structure the website around that logic.
2. Showcase and back up all expertise with information published online such as whitepapers, articles, research papers, blogs, case studies.
3. Write copy in a way that shows a client’s issue and how you solved it.
4. Provide news about the client’s industry and publish that news within a practice group or category the client would see themselves in. (Not a category as devised by your firm and in a jargon only your staff use.)
5. Don’t be afraid to make your professionals accessible by having their direct contact details. If a headhunter wants to poach them, they’ll always find a way. Whereas if a prospect has to wade through your site to find out who and how to contact a specialist, they may just fall away.
6. Discuss your expertise in a matter-of-fact way, the more puffery there is the less believable it sounds.
7. Keep content up to date, links current, offer a newsletter to maintain regular contact and compel visitors to sign up.
8. To make the website an accountable asset, make the goals around it tangible ones. For example if your objective is to attract new customers, measure the whitepaper downloads or newsletter subscriptions, knowing that a certain number will be converted into bonafide customers.

There are two professional services sites that I keep coming back to. They are

      1. New Zealand Trade and Enterprise - www.nzte.govt.nz
      2. Boston Consulting Group - www.bcg.com

Why?

NZTE: As soon as I land on the page I can see my question answered. Am I a New Zealand company looking to export? Yes. Then go HERE. Am I looking for funding? Yes. Then go HERE. Am I looking to make use of NZTE’s expertise? Yes. Then go HERE. It’s all very clearly outlined right there on the homepage and I see it within seconds of landing. I know this wasn’t just made up by someone in the marketing department, it clearly comes from thinking about and identifying the main types of enquiries NZTE gets and categorising them accordingly. Simple and brilliant. A wealth of information expertly and logically organised.

BCG: Though not the most exciting website to look at there is a very simple reason why I keep referring clients to BCG as a great example. Apart from the topical article on the homepage, telling me they know and have advice on an issue that pains the entire world right now, the organisation of content on this site is slick. I find the industry or business topic most relevant to me. When I go to that section I see all the articles, case studies, whitepapers, content, everything related to that industry right there. When I’ve read enough and want to contact someone and talk further it gives me all the people who work in that group - their CVs, profiles and direct contact details. No time is wasted labouring through the site and getting lost in irrelevant areas and I think if their staff are half as efficient as their website, that’s a company I’m interested in.

Are there any professional services sites you think are best of breed?

Bella Katz on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Today I realised what it is about New Zealand that makes it such an attractive package, both in its marketing of the country and in the reputation of its businesses. It’s all in the attitude and New Zealand has a young, upbeat one that is believable in all its marketing because… it’s TRUE.

It is not that controversial to say New Zealanders are adventurous, cutting edge, fun loving and creative. I’ve always thought that at the heart of many successful ventures around the world there’s a Kiwi amongst it quietly leading the show.

I should point out that I’m about 65 percent New Zealander. Though I’m Russian born and now live in Australia, I spent my entire childhood and early adulthood as an Aucklander. However as many New Zealanders do, I graduated, left and never returned. But that’s a topic in itself.

The New Zealand attitude has nothing to do with age. The country is young, it’s far away from the rest of the world and it has a population of only 4 million. Because of (despite?) this, New Zealand has a fresh approach and they give things a go. I even think traditionally corporate and risk averse industries have a young attitude in New Zealand. (Is it just me or is this NZ government website really good?)

In its most visible communication with the rest of the world, tourism advertising, the optimistic attitude is palpable, especially in these not-so-fun economic times. I watched the latest 100% Pure NZ ad, loved the song choice, imagined the presentation to the board by the agency and even though I potentially saw a room full of execs in their 40s and 50s, I could imagine them singing along and going “Yep, love it. Love the song, lets go for it.” 

I hope New Zealanders don’t lose this edge or take it for granted. It took a long time to build such a fiercely cool reputation but it wouldn’t take much to chip away at it.

Bella Katz on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

For a number of small New Zealand companies, breaking into the Australian market is a necessary next step in taking the business to that other level. I’ve worked with a number of fantastic little businesses whose passionate owners, the ‘creative entrepreneur’ types or ‘two sisters with an idea’, have had great success in NZ and are not sure where to begin in marketing to Australia.

New Zealanders and Australians are very close culturally and geographically and the populations tend to pretty much blend in (ignoring the obvious jokes we make about one another) but there are definite differences when it comes to launching new products or services. Australian buyers require a lot more nurturing to take an interest in your business.New Zealand has long been a fierce supporter of its own creative talent and the NZ brand.(A quick word about the NZ brand: when an entire country gets behind its own innovative image, when the government introduces and believes in its strapline ‘New Zealand New Thinking’, that can only be good thing.)

I have to say it, chic and slick sales materials really do go a long way, and that’s true whether you’re in the skincare business, the fashion business or the accounting business. When you’re the new company trying to carve out a niche customer following and excite people, it pays to look sophisticated in your presentation.

This means investing some initial dollars and working with a good designer to create a great looking brand that can be carried across all your sales materials. Even if you’re a one man band. (Especially if you’re a one man band.) These are not costs in the tens of thousands, you may strike it lucky with a particularly good designer who can do great work for several thousand dollars, maybe even a few hundred.

Once you have the right materials that best represent your business – a quality booklet that showcases your business and products in depth, a top-level summary that can be left behind as a reminder, samples that can be distributed to the right people, materials that support the future sales force or excite distributors, a website that reinforces the professionalism of your business – then you can start nurturing the right contacts.

A few reminder points for the small New Zealand company about to embark on an Australian marketing tour:

1. Be confident you have the best materials that showcase your product or service to potential buyers – unless you have a REALLY good home printer and a background in design, don’t even go there. Get this all designed and printed professionally.
2. Do some research into your Australian market (it’s amazing what business info you can get after a few hours on Google).
3. Develop a contact list of the key people and places you need to speak with (Google - again, a gem of info).
4. Make contact and appointments before leaving the country. You may be surprised at just how often a seemingly small design store gets solicited with products and how much they hate being dropped in on. (If you, like me, are not a fan of cold calling, email is always a good option for contacting people. They come to it in their own time, when they’re good and ready, and in the mood.)
5. Have your emailable materials ready to go as follow up. Again, a professional slick pdf booklet made with computer-viewing in mind i.e. visual and not pages and pages of words.
6. If you weren’t able to meet in person, follow up again by snail mail – send samples of your products and, again, those materials to leave behind. It’s still a treat to get a parcel in the mail, especially if you’re trying to generate publicity through magazines and the recipients of your samples are often 22-year old PR girls who love a freebie product.
7. And of course, don’t be put off by the rejection. If you have a good product and good story, nurture those contacts on a quarterly basis and keep them informed as your business develops.

I find for small companies with minimal budgets and time, PR may well be the best way to go.