Noonan Named Top Marketer For Changing Flahavans Fortunes

John Noonan, sales and marketing director, Flahavans, has been voted Marketer of the Year for his lead role in repositioning the famous Irish porridge oats food brand and for developing a long-term strategy in helping it to compete with the major cereal brands in Ireland, including Kellogg, Nestle and Weetabix with over 80 per cent of the market.

Noonan's efforts in repositioning Flahavans as a healthy food brand and shifting it from a production/distribution-led strategy to a brand-led focus resulted in its share growing from 63.9 per cent to 65.3 per cent in the year to August 2009 and a profits increase of over 15 per cent. Flahavans had a margin of over five per cent and turnover quadrupled.

In the year to August 2009, the hot oats category grew by 12.5 per cent in volume and 6.3 per cent in value to €20.5m, as measured by TNS. Growth in private label did not affect Flahavan, but took share from smaller brands. In the fiscal year ended June 2009, the company posted revenue growth of 8.6 per cent in their retail sales in the Republic.

From early last year, consumers were changing shopping behaviour and going for value and cross border shopping. In-store pressure on branded food suppliers was intense. Qualitative studies by Behaviour & Attitudes found that there were two issues which Flahavans needed to address and communicate to consumers if they were to increase share and they were brand value and health. With hot oats costing less than 10 cent a serving, the price of porridge was a less important issue to consumers than health.

Noonan developed a strategy which emphasised the brand's health credentials combined with the Flahavans core values of Irishness and trust. While value-for-money is a major factor for consumers, it need not translate as the cheapest brand and so a decision was taken not to fight head-on with competitors in their bid to highlight in-store pricing.

Noonan launched 18 new products in drums, sachets and portable pots, 16 of which are still on the market. The expanded Flahavans range includes a real fruit porridge range and a selection of oat biscuit snacks with strong packaging designs. The company sells to Asda, Sainsbury and Waitrose in the UK and has plans to export to the US next year.

To sustain brand equity, Flahavans hired Irish International BBDO to create a series of TV and radio commercials, emphasising the brand's emotional characteristics and defining the health benefits of eating porridge. Flahavans has an advertising budget of about €250,000 - a mere fraction of the cereal giants' €20m annual marketing spend.
A major public relations campaign was also undertaken for the brand by Walsh PR.

E Flahavan & Sons was founded in 1785 and is Ireland's oldest private family-owned food company. In August, the brand edged into the Checkout list of Ireland's top 100 brands, at number 99. Noonan, 48, a native of Cork, joined the company in 1997.

He started his career as an assistant brand manager with Guinness in London in 1985, after completing a BComm in UCC. He joined the London Rubber Company in 1989 and three years later launched its Durex range of condoms in Ireland. In 1993, Noonan returned to Ireland to worked for C&D Petfoods before joining Cahill May Roberts.

In 2007, he became Flahavans' sales and marketing director. Noonan was one of four finalists for Marketer of the Year 2009. The other three finalists were Damian Devaney, marketing director, 02 Ireland; Nicky Doran, head of marketing, Bord Gáis Energy and Enda Saul, programmes and communications manager, Crisis Pregnancy Agency.

SWEARS BY OATS John Noonan was voted Marketer of the Year for his strategy in repositioning Flahavans. Now in its 17th year, the award recognises and honours the best marketing talent in Ireland. The competition is organised by Marketing.ie in association with Alternatives.

Upwardly Mobile
Devaney faced a major challenge in the Irish mobile phone market at the end of 2007. 02 was struggling on the pre-pay front and they were in jeopardy of ending up as the number three operator in the category. On the billpay front, business was strong but there were branding issues which Devaney and his marketing team had to deal with as a priority.

The brand had been built on an old, outdated model and the market had reached saturation levels. Devaney's task was to develop a new strategy to win back young consumers and become the number one in billpay. On pre-pay, 02 pioneered free text and rivals duly followed. Devaney adopted a hands-on approach to marketing and comms.

02 redefined post-pay. Devaney adopted a strategy as it was evident that the market growth was younger consumers moving from pre-pay to post-pay. The launch of iPhone helped by accounting for a third of growth. The rest was based on the new marketing strategy and consumer insights. 02 as a whole established a new brand architecture.

The launch of the 02 concert venue was a huge step to encourage emotional attachment. Devaney was at the forefront of steering the initiative and delivering the rationale top secure the €30 million investment from the company's Telefonica parent company. The emphasis with the 02 is less about branding and more about playing to customer loyalty.

The 02 makes 61 per cent of customers more likely to be brand loyal. Some 24 per cent say that priority ticketing has an impact on reducing them to switch to a competitor. Since The 02 was built and officially opened, it has delivered 77 per cent spontaneous awareness of name change (Millward Brown) and 49 per cent of priority tickets.

The results of Devaney's product strategy meant that the run on prepay was stopped. 02 is now Ireland's number one mobile operator in postpay for the first time. On the sports sponsorship front, an opportunity arose with the Irish rugby team and the shirt deal that 02 agreed has become a valuable emotional experience with huge brand dividends.

Brand consideration at 50 per cent is on track with year end target and three points higher than a year ago, figures released by Millward Brown Lansdowne have shown. Market share grew for three consecutive quarters (ComReg). On outdoor, 02 had the highest recalled campaigns in February, March, April and November - PML outdoor research.

Project Switch
As head of marketing for Bord Gáis Energy (BGE), Doran was responsible for developing the strategy behind ‘The Big Switch' campaign and delivering customer numbers, awareness levels and brand build following the deregulation of Ireland's electricity supply market which began at the industrial commercial level.

Doran's first major task was to research the market and find out about Irish energy consumers, along with other deregulated energy markets overseas. BGE needed to let Irish consumers know that they were now a supplier of electricity to homes nationwide, that switching was easy and that BGE would be cheaper than the ESB.

Good value for money with no hidden catches was key to persuading people to switch to BGE. The target market which Doran and his team defined was nationally representative of the household responsibility population, but with a female bias. As well as customer numbers, it was essential that the campaign had strong branding and recall.

A project switch team was established and extensive studies were conducted into the energy market, including proposition-based research. Doran's communication strategy was to provide a ‘big idea' for the launch and, along with its advertising agency, they settle don ‘The Big Switch' which was fronted by RTE presenter Lucy Kennedy.

The campaign was launched in February this year. The initial target of 80,000 residential electricity customers was met by mid-March, within one month of going live. By the end of September, BGE had 250,000 customers, with total savings conservatively estimated at €25 million a year. The company will achieve 400 per cent of the original target.

Doran's research showed that pre-launch one in three respondents had known about making the change from the ESB to BGE. Post launch, it rose to 85 per cent. Spontaneous awareness of BGE as supplier increased from 15 per cent pre launch to 57 per cent post launch, with prompted awareness rising to 89 per cent post launch.

The results were achieved with a media spend for the whole of 2009 of €2 million. As well as managing ‘The Big Switch campaign, Doran put in place a complete new visual identity for BGE, managed an ongoing customer communication strategy and ensured the company's appliance servicing marketing continued successfully.

Thinking Contraception
Enda Saul has headed up the programmes and communications team at the Crisis Pregnancy Agency (CPA) since 2006. The CPA's task is to reduce and prevent crisis pregnancies in Ireland. Saul's job is to develop educational and communications strategies for the agency by spearheading campaigns based on extensive research.

Saul developed a marketing communications campaign, Thinking Contraception, to connect with the target audience and convey the message that the CPA was an authority on sexual health. Evidence showed many people recognised and accepted the risks in unprotected sex. People knew what they had to do, but avoided doing it.

So, the CPA had to overcome this disconnect. Saul led a team that developed a marketing message where the onus was on the individual and personal responsibility. Saul worked with various advertising and marketing agencies and developed an extensive media campaign, which included radio, TV, print and ambient (toilet room doors).

Research conducted by Lansdowne Market Research showed that the campaign had a huge impact on 18-30 year olds. Over four in every five respondents were aware of the strapline ‘Nobody else is going to do the thinking for you - Think Contraception'; 80 per cent were aware of the TV ad and 71 per cent said they had seen the posters.

The thinkcontraception.ie website attracted almost 18,000 visitors. Online advertising included the ‘Dodge the Sperm'game and new ideas to drive traffic to the site were created, including regular posting of news releases. A competition inviting people to create a contraception-themed message for Valentine's Day ran with no media spend.

Nine out of ten respondents cited ‘Use Contraception' as the campaign's message; 83 per cent of the target audience felt that the campaign was effective and 77 per cent of those in the high risk C2DE social grouping were aware of the campaign, which cost €310,000. The media campaign was achieved on a budget of 15 per cent less than last year.

Since the campaign began, there has been a 31 per cent decrease in the number of women travelling from Ireland to the UK for abortions, a 31 per cent decrease births to teenagers and a 46 per cent drop in the number of teenagers going to the UK for abortions. CPA will launch a campaign next month aimed at delaying early sexual activity in adolescents.

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