The Art of Integration: Merging Brand and SolutionsThe Art of Integration: Merging Brand and Solutions

The Art of Integration: Merging Brand and Solutions Transcript:

Announcer: You’re listening to The Kula Ring, a podcast made for manufacturing marketers. Here are Carman Pirie and Jeff White.

Jeff White: Welcome to the Kula Ring, a podcast for manufacturing marketers brought to you by Kula Partners. My name is Jeff White. Joining me today is Carman Pirie. Carman, how are you doing, sir? 

Carman Pirie: I am happy to be here. How are you doing?

Jeff White: I’m doing great. Yeah. It’s a lovely day in the summer here on the East Coast. 

Carman Pirie: Yes, it’s part of the podcast, ladies and gentlemen, where we must talk about the weather and how it just basically impacts our mood it seems every day. So there you go. Yeah, we’re creatures of the weather here on the East Coast of Canada. So today’s good. Yeah. Yeah. The one day a year where it is. 

Jeff White: That’s not necessarily true. 

Carman Pirie: You know, it’s not that bad, but look, I’m excited for today’s conversation. And one thing I like about, I mean, I like a lot of things about marketing. I’ve chosen it as my profession for some reason or another, but I guess one of the interesting things about marketing and marketers is that. Man, you end up here in a lot of different ways, you know, so I think that’s kind of a fun part of today’s conversation. It’s just the background of today’s guest and how he’s leveraged it for success in marketing. It should be fun.

Jeff White: I also like that this is our third guest from this really interesting company. And I love how we now have kind of a trilogy of stories of very different approaches to marketing that all kind of align within this organization. 

Carman Pirie: Yes and not to put too much pressure on today’s guest, but I believe those other two episodes are pretty good. 

Jeff White: They were. We’ll link them up in the below for sure. But I’m sure our guests will be able to hold their own. 

Carman Pirie: Well let’s introduce them and get on with it. 

Jeff White: All right. So joining us today is David Starck. David is the senior director of corporate marketing at ProMach. Welcome to the Kula Ring, David. 

David Starck: Hello, Jeff and Carman. How are you doing? 

Carman Pirie: All is well, all is well. It’s great to have you on the show, David.

David Starck: I appreciate you having me. I’m looking forward to this. 

Carman Pirie: How did you yeah, give us a bit of background for our, first off, for our listeners who maybe haven’t heard the other two episodes featuring ProMach, let’s introduce the company first, and then we’ll get into your background, how you ended up there.

David Starck: Sure. ProMach is an OEM packaging and processing equipment manufacturer represented by currently, 53 product brands. The cool story we like to tell about the company is when you walk into a grocery store or market our solutions literally touch every single item on every shelf. So from filling to capping, to labeling, to coding. Pretty much anything you see, we have a hand in getting that item to the shelf, which is really kind of cool. 

Carman Pirie: That is very cool. 

Jeff White: And the company’s grown primarily through acquisition from what I understand as well. 

David Starck: Yeah, 100%. Yeah. That is the growth strategy. We average about three or four acquisitions a year. Over the past several years, we’ve had two so far this year and continue to grow, which keeps us busy. 

Carman Pirie: Yeah, it would. It would keep you on your toes for sure. David, tell us your background? How did you know, kind of, what’s your formal training? 

David Starck: Formal training is a mix. I have a degree in graphic design and photography. Minor in copywriting so creative communications in a variety of visual and written aspects. I’ve worked for a very reputable international branding agency. That was my first job out of college, which was a great experience. I’ve worked on my own for 15 years, and I’ve worked in the various sectors of finance, fitness, and lots of different areas. And then I landed at a print and apply labelling manufacturer, Panther Industries in early 2018, which Panther was acquired by ProMach in September 2020. So that’s how I came into the ProMach orbit. And it’s been an absolutely wonderful experience since that acquisition. The traditional fear is when companies are acquired, those centralized services like accounting, marketing, and HR can be affected, but the way the business is built and modelled, they embrace those experiences and competencies within those acquisitions to just make the overall organization that much more effective. So I was fortunate to hang on with the company and I’ve made my way through various channels within the organization in those short four years. 

Carman Pirie: Yeah. I seem to recall one of our conversations with ProMach was around that M&A approach and just how they, it’s a very progressive approach, it’s not acquiring and gut it’s quite the opposite of that.

Jeff White: More acquire and keep and…

Carman Pirie: yeah, and nurture and they have a really strong playbook for integrating into the firm. I think it’s impressive.

Jeff White: I would like to note it. You know, this is one of the few times where. We get to have two designers on the show against one marketer, you know, although David’s a hybrid, you know, it isn’t often that I have someone else on the show that got more of a background in design. Like I do so.

Carman Pirie: didn’t realize that we were, we were going to be doing battle. However, the versus part surprised me, but now I guess I’ve been warned. But, well, yeah, your point is taken care of in that. You know, graphic design, photography, copywriting, obviously very big pieces of marketing, but not often part of the skill set and competency of the leaders or people in marketing. So I think there’s, it’s skill sets that they leverage more often than not. David, what do you feel is the biggest difference between you and the other marketers that you encountered who don’t have that background? 

David Starck: Oh, that’s a tough question. I think it’s the curse of that design background where when you, when you’re crafting a campaign or a message or a strategy, you’re not just thinking of the words, you’re thinking of the visuals and so you’re, your brain’s kind of doing double duty of how do I, how do I bring this, Message effectively to the right person in the right space at the right time, not just from a written perspective, but also from a visual perspective. And that can be a little bit challenging because you’re thinking it, from both directions. And not to say that, you know, your traditional marketer can’t do that. It’s just my tendency to gravitate more to the visual solution. First, because of my background, but then, you know, the other aspect of that kicks in, you know, what’s the message that you want to surround it and then ultimately rolling that up into what’s the overall strategy that you’re trying to implement into, into the marketplace. So, it forces me to start with strategy and then you get into the visual and the written part of it. 

Carman Pirie: Yeah. It’s almost like because you know that it needs to come to life visually, and that is a skill set. You kind of jump ahead to it a little bit, or that’s your inclination. It’s almost, I suppose for me, it’s the opposite in that, you know creative ideas come to life in copy more for me initially, because that’s please don’t ask me ever to draw or anything that’s design related. So, yeah, and it does create a bit of a blind spot. Interesting that you would be seeing both sides of this. Well, 

David Starck: you know, I, I think about, you know, as, as a, As a pipeline, right? You want that, that flow to be going both ways equally. You’re thinking strategy, but you’re also thinking tactical implementation. So when you’re having strategic conversations with your sales leaders, your business leaders, and we’re talking about where do we want to go? What do we need to do? That mind is racing back and forth between, okay, I need to come up with a strategy for this based on what they’re saying, but then how am I going to execute it and what’s that look like? What does it sound like? What’s the voice, what’s the story? So all of that is kind of circulating in my brain simultaneously. And that can get a little noisy sometimes. 

Jeff White: And not only have you kind of come from this design and copy background into a more marketing and strategy sort of world, but you know, your background has also kind of progressed from more product marketing into, into corporate marketing as well, especially. You know, within your, your role here at ProMach, how, how does that influence how you think about it and kind of bring those, those solutions to bear for ProMach? 

David Starck: That, that’s a great question, Jeff. And I think what I found, easiest about that transition from a corporate marketing perspective is you are forced to focus on that strategy first because you’re not marketing specific products per se. You’re focusing on the overarching strategy and competency surrounding the suite and portfolio products that the company delivers. So, that visual and strategic noise that I mentioned a couple of seconds ago, I think has been diminished a little bit because it’s forced me to start at more of the strategic level first. Whereas at a, you know, product level, you’re thinking about the tangible thing. 

Carman Pirie: I want to understand how you’re thinking about the strategy side of this equation. Because I have an inkling there’s kind of, you’re still thinking about it visually in some way, shape or form, or there’s a visual mind at play. How would you, how would you summarize the business of strategy or the challenge of strategy in your role? 

David Starck: I think, I mentioned it a little bit ago. It’s, you know, how do you deliver the right message at the right time to the right person so that they take action? And, you know, some of that builds over time. And some of that can be somewhat, I’ll use the word immediate, where there’s a reaction to the message that you’re putting out there. That’s all driven by a data analysis you know, strategic framework. It can’t be all speed in no direction. You need to have a plan for your plan. And I think that’s where the team that I work with is exceptional. We have a great group of individuals that have a variety of different backgrounds. So when we’re talking about corporate marketing strategy, we bring a lot of different perspectives into that, but we’re starting with what’s the overarching essence of what we’re trying to accomplish. And then how do we bring that to market with the various tools and resources we have at our disposal or where do we need to get those resources?

And what’s interesting about our company is, you know, the corporate marketing team is responsible for the corporate aspect of the business in terms of positioning and branding and consistency. But then the brands themselves, they’re responsible for their own individual product marketing. So we also serve as kind of a resource. For them to share strategic thoughts, best practices and resources that they might find valuable to help their own efforts too. So there’s a little bit of, I’ll say mentoring and coaching going on with the brands in addition to the exceptional efforts that they’re already doing. 

Carman Pirie: This is a, maybe a really bizarre, weird question, I don’t know. But I mean, I’m just trying to think like, there’s a lot of different brands within the portfolio, a lot of different products. And, you know, as you think about this from a corporate level, of course, you’re probably desiring a level of consistency or symmetry between them, but man, it would seem that that just gets difficult at the number that you’re managing. Can you think of an example of a brand within the portfolio that just has a personality that is vastly different than ProMach where the alignment is maybe a little more counterintuitive? 

David Starck: You know, I would say in our, in our systems and process business line we have some brands that are more centred around integration. So it’s not necessarily manufacturing the equipment. It’s how do you get all this equipment working together and solving the problem for the customer? So it’s a different type of message. It’s a different type of approach where you’re not dealing with the production of a tangible thing. You’re dealing with the integration of a number of different solutions, most of which are ours, but in other, in some cases, solutions that are not manufactured by us, making that work in concert. Most of the brands that we have in our portfolio are OEM manufacturers. They make fillers, they make cappers, they make labellers. It’s that, that software integration side of the business that can be a little different. 

Carman Pirie: Yeah, that’s an interesting point. I mean, there are some self-reference criteria at play for me right now. Cause of course we have an industrial automation client where we work with their global service division that is responsible for that integration piece that you just mentioned kind how do you make all this work together and how do you think about it at that level? And it is a different personality and kind of a different sale. They talk a different language, even really. 

David Starck: And I think, you know, the benefit of our size is we can talk more holistically about, you know, buckets of solutions, if you will, we do systems and process, we do labelling and coding, we do filling and capping. So they may not be familiar with some of our brands. Yet, because we haven’t engaged with them to that level of conversation, they understand the bucket or the business line aspect. It’s a much easier introduction because they know they need a filler or they know they need a label or the brand that will then ultimately support them and provide them with the solution that comes second or third in that conversation. 

Jeff White: What’s their aware of that? How are you, I’d love to hear about some examples or how you’ve kind of brought that to life for one of the brands and just kind of talk us through a little bit, you know, the development of the strategy and the concept and the execution and sort of how that was received.

David Starck: Yeah, I think there’s a, there’s a strong focus on, you know, market verticals, you kind of, you look at pet care. Or you look at distilled spirits as an example, where we play a fairly big role in that space. And so, when you’re talking to these, these customers that are in that space, They know what they need. They know where their pain points are. So you develop a dialogue and relationship to say what’s working for you, and what’s not working for you. Here’s what we can do to improve your throughput, improve your bottom line through our various solutions and the key differentiating benefits that we bring to the table that maybe one of our competitors might not.

So you start, you start that conversation a little more broadly, obviously, because you’re, you’re looking at it holistically. But eventually, that will gravitate down to, okay, here are the various solutions that we can provide. And here are the brands that support that solution from a customer’s perspective. That, makes a lot of sense because we’re looking at it through their eyes, right? They’re not out there looking for. Necessarily this, you know, pick a brand solution. They’re looking for this overall agnostic solution. It’s a print by applicator, right? We have a variety of different solutions and brands that can support that based on what they need in the space that they’re in, we can kind of guide them to, the supporting brand that will help 

Carman Pirie: David switching gears a little bit. I want to It’s interesting. I mean, you joined really in the, just when the pandemic was, in the heat of that in 2020. It feels a little strange. I don’t know. Four years can go pretty fast, I suppose. But, you know, I’d be curious to learn some of the kind of any kind of interesting kind of campaigns or initiatives that you’ve undertaken over these first four years. That, you know, is there anything that kind of jumps out as like, yeah, that was, that was pretty cool. I think we really made an impact there. 

David Starck: Yeah, we did a campaign when I was with our labelling and coding group and leading that marketing team we did a campaign centered around Pet care solutions. So, we crafted the campaign to touch various aspects of primary packaging, secondary packaging and tertiary packaging the labelling and coding solutions touch all three of those aspects of the production line. So we we did a multifaceted campaign that ran for several months. That spoke to the benefits of each aspect of our solutions as they interact in those stages of production. And I’m a big fan of that advertorial type message where it’s a little more, you know, tongue in cheek, think Apple, think Nike, where that, that message really cuts through in a succinct and creative way. And so the, the, the positioning that we did for that was this overarching, you know, we, we can do all these things, but the, the, the granular message associated with each of those things was kind of tongue in cheek related to the industry. So for example, and I know, we talked about this in another conversation, Carman. One of the headlines that we came up with was premier labelling and coding solutions, We Shih Tzu not. Play off the dog, stuff like that. I think it’s a little more unique for our industry certainly, but we, we had really good really good reaction and attention to that, that specific aspect, we had, we had other tongue-in-cheek headlines. As part of the campaign, but that one kind of stuck out as a little different, maybe a little edgy for the industry. 

Carman Pirie: It’s always funny when, as conservative as B2B marketing reputation is, I haven’t met a whole lot of particularly conservative people in B2B manufacturing marketing. And, frankly, the organizations themselves tend to be I think quite okay with having a laugh and having a joke, but they don’t always integrate it into their marketing. It’s a hard gap for them to bridge, I think. 

David Starck: Well, it’s so easy to show off, your big shiny piece of equipment, right? Because it’s, you know, big and beautiful and it’s high-tech. And there’s a place for that, but I think where you can really kind of separate yourself is those. Those different types of creative approaches that are maybe a little bit unexpected in that space. I have a funny story about that particular headline. We have a new marketing manager for one of our end-of-line and robotics divisions. In the company and she joined from, another company in the industry. We had a little meet and greet because I like to interact with as many of the marketing teams as I can because we have over 50 different marketing individuals within our company. And, so as she was new, just kind of getting to know her and talking, and she actually mentioned that Shih Tzu not. Headline. She saw that when she was with this other company, she’s like, I want to work for that company. And that was not to sound like I’m trying to pat myself on the back, but that that’s the type of, you know, Cutting through and getting that message across in a unique and memorable way that I think can have a positive impact on your business because you stand out because you’re a little different, right?

Carman Pirie: Did you have any pushback on it before you ran it? Were people, nobody saying maybe not? 

David Starck: No, I think everybody internally chuckled at it and they’re like, yeah, this is. This is great, it’s going to get noticed. 

Jeff White: How do you follow that up? 

David Starck: That’s the challenge, isn’t it? 

Jeff White: Always. 

David Starck: One step better every time.

Carman Pirie: Yeah, what have you done for me lately? That’s the marketer’s challenge for sure. 

David Starck: Now that works great at the product marketing level. When you get to the corporate level, it’s a little different. I don’t want to say a little more conservative, but you have to dial that back a little bit because you’re talking about the overarching organization, not just specific products and services, 

Carman Pirie: probably that sentiment, that feeling that you need to dial it back is probably what also would make it stand out even more in that space though, wouldn’t it?

David Starck: Absolutely. 

Carman Pirie: It must be incredibly hard to navigate positioning for a company with that many brands and that many products at a corporate level. Like, what do you think about ProMach’s positioning and personality that it brings to market? We’re kind of knocking on the door of that when we talk about whether or not we’d use the Shih Tzu not line.

David Starck: Yeah. It’s probably easier than you think. Because you can parlay this portfolio of literally any type of packaging and processing solution into literally we do that. And that was a campaign that ProMach ran a couple of years ago. We’ve. Recently introduced a new campaign. It’s one source, nearly infinite solutions, same sort of neighbourhood. But as, as you look across the portfolio and the, you know, 50 plus brands that make up the business you’re dealing with one source. And that one source has nearly infinite solutions. So there’s, there’s kind of a natural, dialogue that occurs from the conversations that the sales teams have with customers that bubble up to marketing and I think having that great relationship with the sales teams that I know the marketing teams within the business do it almost makes it easier because you’re, you’re getting that Intel from the boots on the ground, if you will to help craft that overarching message. So that’s a long-winded way of answering your question, Carman. But I find it a little bit easier than the individual product marketing efforts. 

Carman Pirie: That’s interesting to me. It’s not intuitive to me that it would be that it would be that you would find it easier. Yeah. How obviously it’s a core part of the strategy to continue to acquire new brands bring them into the family and cross-cross-sell them into your customer base. And that can, you know, there can obviously be a number of, of cross-selling challenges, if you will. And I’m kind of reminded there’s an awful lot of manufacturers out there that are trying to do this similar thing. They’re trying to communicate to the customers, that you think we only do this, but we also do this, this, this, and this.

Any secret sauce that you would share there? How do you get people to, take you credibly that you can do more than how they, where they perceive you play within their space today? Is there any kind of tricks of the trade that you would offer in terms of how you message that more comprehensive solution?

David Starck: No, I think it’s doing what you say you’re going to do, right? It’s listening to the customer. It’s understanding where their pain points are and then offering solutions that solve them. I don’t know that there’s any secret sauce other than, you know, good service and good solutions. And if you can demonstrate that consistently and repeatedly, then you know, that’s your brand. That’s your reputation, right? 

Jeff White: I have a little tangent on that. Maybe just wondering, you know, the notion and the conversation about cross-selling. How does that change with people who were customers of the labelling solution that you sold before as you bring them into the ProMach fold? Like if they knew you only when that was the only part that you delivered, how are you, are you approaching them a little differently than maybe you are kind of net new people or organizations that are looking for the more total solution that ProMach provides? 

David Starck: I don’t know if it’s different. I think it, you know, it comes down to paying attention to what the customer needs. And as you develop that relationship for that one thing, as you mentioned, Jeff, say it’s, you know, you had labelling and coding business with that customer for a number of years. And then suddenly you’re part of this, this bigger enterprise that has these other solutions as you look around their business and see opportunities and hear what they’re saying. Well, I’ve got this other aspect of my business that is, I wish it worked as well as my labelling and coding equipment did. And you can say, well, let me have you talk with someone related to that thing. So there’s a, there’s immediate credibility that you can hand off to one of your coworkers within the business. And say this other person is going to help you with that. And so, again, I think it’s easier in that regard because you’ve got this broad portfolio of solutions that you can draw on and leverage that relationship you’ve built with that customer. Whether it’s a longstanding customer or even a new customer you’re still doing a little bit of discovery, right? You’re having a conversation and you’re exploring, like I said, what their pain points are and then offering. Either what your brand provides or what another brand provides. And, we spend a lot of time internally building those internal relationships and having those cross-selling conversations. Making sure everybody is aware, as much as they can be, of everything that we can offer. So when you are talking to a customer you do have that ability to pivot and say well let me put you in touch with this person and he can help you or he can help you with that aspect of your business. 

Jeff White: I have to imagine too that when you’re going in there With an organization that has more than 50 different brands. Then you probably have a lot of existing customers from the previous company that already had other ProMock solutions in place for other parts of their process. So there must be some discovery internally as well about, Hey, where do we share customers and what’s missing in between there that our other brands might be able to fill 

David Starck: Absolutely. And, I think that’s where, you know, the value of the marketing teams being engaged with those, those sales individuals to hear what they’re hearing because then we can take that knowledge and weaponize it into the messaging that we’re, putting out there related to the company or the brand. So it kind of circles back to what we were talking about earlier in that, that, you know, sales and marketing alignment, that is a critical component of what we’re doing in the marketing areas. To make sure we’re hearing what the sales teams are hearing so that we can either adjust or implement from a communication perspective accordingly.

It’s all tied together, I guess is what I’m saying. 

Carman Pirie: I want to let our listeners know that we’re going to reach the part of the show where you have to take a drink every time we say AI. So, the good news is, that David has a lot of the company that helps the distilled spirits category extensively as we’ve learned. So it even weaves in more and more ways to, you know, but I just want to bring it back a little bit, David, to your training as a graphic designer and thinking about things visually as we, as we close the show out because there are, there’s a lot of changes as to how brands are coming to life both visually and with copy given the impact of AI. I think a lot of. What gets talked about is it seems to be more about the copy in nature or research or, or that kind of thing. Not that there isn’t discussion about AI, in visual assets, but I guess it just seems that some of those conversations aren’t as extensive. So I kind of want to lean on that a little bit.

And get your thoughts and project, how do you think that brands will come to life differently from a visual perspective, say, two, three, or four years from now? Have you thought about how to, manage brands, and visual assets in the world of AI and where we’re headed here? 

David Starck: Yes, we have. And I’m going to sound, I’m going to date myself here, but I’m probably a little more old school in, it doesn’t matter what tools or resources you have to produce the thing, whether you’re doing it by hand or you’re doing it computer generated or AI-generated, you still have to have a strategy in place.

And it starts there. So I think, kind of get back to your question, AI will play a role in our business in terms, of crafting content, potentially crafting visuals, but that’s only as good as the strategy as it’s supporting. And I continue to impress my team is strategy first execution second. And AI is just another tool to help the execution. 

Carman Pirie: Yeah. I mean, that makes sense to me. I’m just trying to think about, you know, even owning visual assets as a company three, four years from now, when they can be so rapidly repurposed. And don’t know how much that landscape changes. Like I know that for certain, and when it comes to just you know, content creation, asset creation. Copyright is going to be a huge challenge in this world. It’s just, it’s interesting to hear how marketers are thinking about that, especially somebody who comes at it from a more visual point of view. 

David Starck: Well, and to that last point, Carman, I saw something the other day in one of my feeds where there was an ad and the individual in the ad, you knew it was an AI-generated image because their legs were not quite right. One was bent a little funny and the stripe on their tracksuit was running around the side and in the back and then around to the front again. So it was just, it kind of took you out of the moment visually. And I think my point is until some of those nuances are corrected, refined and improved, in my view, it’s a little early in our, in our world here at ProMach to just embrace AI fully for the visual content creation because of the example that I just shared with you. If you’re not paying attention and you’re not crafting it the correct way. It’s going to get noticed and then it kind of defeats the purpose of what you’re trying to communicate. 

Carman Pirie: Yeah, we had an odd tangent on that. We had a political leader up here in Canada a week or so ago. There was an AI-generated photo basically of them on top of some mountain or whatever. But when you look at their legs, to your point, it did not make any sense. Like, the knee going the wrong way. It’s like, did they break a leg on the way up the mountain or something of that sort? But so yeah, it’s like, if you don’t have enough visual sensibility to be able to look at that and see that there’s something askew, you can get into some problems. This has been an interesting conversation, David. I’m, really you know, ProMach continues to to fascinate me as a company and continue to enjoy, to learn from all the smart folks that work there. Thank you so much for sharing your experience with us on the show today. 

David Starck: Well, thank you. I appreciate you having me. It’s, it’s been a lot of fun chatting with you guys. 

Jeff White: Thanks, David.

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