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Rebuilding a brand.
Transforming a company.
+30%
jump in sales in the first 30 days
+73%
increase in brand awareness
71%
advertising recall
Transformed consistent losses into
+50%
overall national growth in just 18 months.
TAKING A BITE OUT OF TERMITES
By the early-1990s, the termite fighting business was in a free fall. The only truly effective product on the market - Chlordane - had been banned by the EPA, forcing the industry to fall back on marginally effective treatments. Termites? Well, they simply bored around, tunneled under, or even boldly walked right through those other chemicals - costing pest control operators millions of dollars in re-treatments, free warranty work, and even lawsuits.
Enter PREMISE from Bayer.
Unlike traditional "barrier" and "repellant" treatments that tried to keep the insects away, Bayer's Premise featured a new "non-repellent" approach that actually used the bugs' behavior against them. Undetectable to termites, the insects would walk through Premise, track it back to their nests, and pass it on to each other. In about two weeks - like a virus - the ingredients would activate and Premise would wipe out the colony.
Almost overnight, Premise had quite literally saved the entire industry!
AN EVEN BIGGER THREAT
Twelve years later, Premise was collapsing. Termidor, a new non-repellent competitor, was seizing market share at an alarming rate. This was primarily driven by homeowners actually asking for Termidor by name - thanks, in large part, to a popular homeowner-targeted advertising campaign. Reasoning that they, too, needed their own ad campaign, Bayer quickly hired Minneapolis agency Colle+McVoy and I was handed the assignment.
After three weeks of field research, however, I announced my recommendation: At that time, a homeowner-targeted advertising campaign would be a complete waste of time and money!
As you can imagine, no one was happy to hear that!
THE REAL PROBLEM: SEQUENTIAL (DIS)CREDIBILITY
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1) Using independent trials, university scientists offer endorsements of brands and products.
2) These endorsements then influence distributors to push certain brands and products to professional pest control operators (PCOs)
3) In turn, the PCOs recommend and deliver those preferred products and brands to their homeowners and commercial customers.
As account lead Cynthia Clanton and I explained to the clients and agency, Termidor had launched an attack on this delicate infrastructure - a vicious behind-the-scenes smear campaign to discredit Premise, that included...
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Biased reports.
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Slanted product tests and questionable data.
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Negative testimonials from paid activists.
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And a handful of influential college professors on the payroll.
Since Bayer hadn't realized this was going, the company remained silent. As a result, the brand's lack of response was seen by scientists, distributors, and PCOs as a silent admission that Termidor's claims were true.
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Premise - the brand that had once rescued the entire industry - was now scorned as useless!
No amount of consumer advertising would fix this problem: In fact, I explained, it would have the opposite effect. Encouraging homeowners to ask for Premise now would drive them directly into Termidor's misinformation campaign, allowing misguided PCOs to turn homeowners against Premise...perhaps permanently!​
Instead, it was time to get to work - rebuilding this thing from the ground up!
The pest control category - and especially the termite vertical - is driven (and governed) by sequential credibility.
PHASE I: STOP THE BLEEDING
The first step in the strategy was to restore faith in Premise by breaking our silence and demonstrating how strongly Bayer stood behind the brand. Along with our incredible PR partner Steve Albertini, we helped Bayer craft a landmark Backed by Bayer warranty program that was unmatched in the industry. We also provided PCOs unparalleled access to technical teams and other support to make sure Premise users consistently received the best results possible.
Result: This definitely raised some eyebrows. The sleeping giant was waking up.
PHASE II: CATALYZING OUR BASE
"Everyone is abandoning Premise!"
This Termidor-spawned rumor had become a mantra of the smear campaign. So, we set out to shatter this lie. The real truth was that many highly-successful PCOs across the country had always enjoyed excellent results with Premise. We countered Termidor's misinformation with trade-targeted stories (designed by our fantastic creative director Greg Wetzel), describing how Premise was continuing to save homes and rescue businesses, all while earning and sustaining the confidence of PCOs and homeowners, alike. We even promoted the fact that several national landmarks - such as the White House and Abraham Lincoln's childhood home - had been successfully protected by Premise for years.
Result: Bayer's confidence began to turn the tide.
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PHASE III: GETTING PERSONAL
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Organized Bayer's disparate scientific, marketing, and sales teams into one cohesive fighting force.
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Held a national event at Pinehurst, NC, bringing in the top 50 pest control companies from around the country, to unveil Bayer's new positioning/direction: Science. Business. Leadership.
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Flew dozens of influencers, key stakeholders, and operators into Bayer's one-of-a-kind training facility in Clayton, NC, as we rekindled relationships between the tech team, the academic community, the distributors, and the PCOs.
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Revealed new performance data, along with a sneak peek at new proprietary products in the works.
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​​Sponsored training clinics all across the country where PCOs and distributors were exposed to new techniques and new innovations from Bayer.
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On the agency side, we even worked with pest control companies to help improve their marketing, advertising, and sales techniques.
As we moved into the next phase, things really heated up. The combined agency/client team...
Result: The brand's newfound energy was now palpable.
PHASE IV: DISRUPTION - TAKING THE GLOVES OFF
With sequential credibility restored, it was finally time for consumer advertising.
But what could we say? How could we differentiate ourselves? What unassailable position could we take?
Research among homeowners, PCOs, and others had provided us a number of insights. For example...
1) We knew the #1 concern among homeowners was to immediately and mercilessly kill invading termites. But we also knew that homeowners had a second and much more emotional concern lurking below the surface: A desperate fear that insect-killing chemicals posed a danger to their children and pets.
2) We also knew that this was Termidor's weakness. Several reports had been published (and quietly pushed to the back burner), noting some health concerns with Termidor's ingredients. PCOs were clearly aware of this, so it created serious tension for PCOs - between the demand for Termidor, the health of their employees, and a liability for their customers.
Perhaps, we explained to the client, this was our opportunity to leverage these two things against each other.
Time to take an incredibly disruptive approach...
In the chemical industry NOBODY talks about safety. EVER! It's a 'people in glass houses' thing. And true to form, the clients' initial reaction was to run away from this idea...fast! But we had two things going for us.
1) The Competitors: Emboldened by their past success - from lawsuits to payoffs - Termindor increased their dirty tactics. And this just pissed-off the leaders at Bayer. They were fed up and ready to do whatever it would take.
2) The Bayer brand name: Instead of focusing on the Premise brand name (little known to homeowners), we shifted the conversation to focus on the Bayer brand. As a result, we changed the conversation from one about 'product safety' to a story about homeowners making a more comfortable choice - thanks to Bayer, a household health brand that had been trusted for decades. I mean, which do YOU think is a more responsible decision for your family and pets - a product from a global chemical conglomerate...
...or a solution from a company devoted to human health?
Wait...it gets even better!
MEET ZACK'S MOM...
So, how do we talk about safety without actually talking about safety?
During our early work with the Bayer tech team, we learned about Zack, a 7-year-old New Orleans boy whose family home was invaded by Formosan termites (the worst!). That wasn't the only crisis. You see, Zack suffers from a rare blood disorder. Household chemicals are deadly to him. So, how could they ever treat the home with an insecticide???
The pest control operator (along with Zack's mother) called Bayer in a panic. Bayer reassured them that Premise was completely fine to use - Zack would be in no danger at all. Still, to reassure the PCO and the family, Bayer sent a team of lab technicians, PhD entomologists, and even an MD to supervise the treatment of the home. More than seven years later, there are still no termites in the house. And Zack? He's a happy, healthy, and very active teenager.
Forget any slick advertising - all we had to do was let Zack's mom tell this story!
That's precisely what we did...and homeowners responded!
PERFORMANCE
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After seeing the advertising, homeowners began requesting...and even demanding...Premise!
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This consumer demand drove PCOs - once loyal to the competitor - to abandon Termidor in exchange for Premise.
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Within the first month after the campaign launch, markets were reporting sales growth as high as +30%.​
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Halfway through the year, new distributor orders topped +44% and kept climbing.
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By year's end, Bayer was not only reclaiming it's losses, but had grown sales by more than +50%.
On a personal note: At the end of this work, at a hotel bar in Dallas, Bayer's Managing Director gave me one of the greatest compliments of my career - a 'thank you' for helping his team to believe in themselves again. This was a final step of a year-and-a-half odyssey that rebuilt the Bayer team, breathed new life into the Premise brand, and left a lasting impression on everyone involved.
Indeed, a special shout out to my additional - and indispensable - Bayer teammates (along with so many more people) who made this turnaround possible: Dean Huff, Ann Strong, Travis Hawton, Laurie Christen, Chris Strohmeyer, Steve Burt, Pete Farno, Kent Hathaway, Jody Rowland
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