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National Marketing Report
Upon my arrival in October of 2008 I began a review of the industry marketing activities and past practices as well as familiarizing myself with the responsibilities of the Ontario Regional Manager.  Initially I looked at our communication strategy and how effective it had been, it appeared to me that given the nature of our industry and the network that John Galt had developed, that we were strategically position to enjoy the advocacy of the Fire Chiefs in certain areas while other still did not understand the benefits our industry provided both the public and their firefighters. We had also effectively worked post major fire incidents to capture media interest in our products as a viable alternative to both fire fatalities and fire financial losses.  We had also enjoyed some progress with certain building officials while other had simply disregarded us as a special interest group rather than a proactive community member.  In an effort to extend our reach with these groups we are attempting to enter into a partnership with the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs to help distribute a common message to fire chiefs across the country, we will also make this messaging available to the chiefs on our web site.  This will help to ensure we have all fire services speaking from the same page.  We will attempt to do the same with the Alliance of Canadian Building Officials in the coming months.

What has struck me in my short tenure is the commitment of CASA members to the greater good rather than just the bottom line, not that financial gain is overlooked but the commitment to doing a good job and ensuring public safety is just as important as the bottom line.  This commitment has provided me with a considerable foundation for a broad marketing strategy.  Given this perspective of our members I believe that it would be beneficial to give an award to the architect, engineer or designer that accomplished the most innovative building design through the use of our products, this should have a multiyear effect of causing theses construction professionals to consider out products early in the design process and incorporate fire sprinklers in methods that may not have been previously considered.  This should include an all expense paid attendance at our AGM where the recipient can receive their award in front of our members.  The development of this initiative will be done in conjunction with Canadian Centre for Architecture.

Upon review of marketing type events I found that most of this activity was taking place in Ontario and was very much centred on the development of residential business.  This seemed to fit with Shannon  Violo being positioned in our head office in Ontario.  The nature of the events she had attended allowed for Industry advocacy to be developed within the general public but it was not being capitalized on.  Not having visited the other regions it is hard for me to comment on their programs as of yet. The previous activities have had a positive effect on our position in the community and I believe that if the other regions have not yet attended similar events then we should be advancing our attendance at these events in the respective regional communities.  To exploit our presence at shows the Ontario Regional Group agreed to a booth redesign which has incorporated the “Fire Sprinkler Save Lives” tag line and uses an image of a child’s bedroom with the phrase “ This child’s room is protected by a fire sprinkler is yours” .  While this image and phrase appears directed at residential products it actually acts as a catalyst for all of the work we do as an industry, everyone can relate to a child and protecting a child, in this way the booth act as a catalyst to initiate conversation regardless of the group we are presenting to.  Ideally both the Western Regional Group and the Eastern Regional Group will purchase similar booths and begin promoting our industry in various theatres; this joint effort will provide a significant basis of advocates that can be called upon when we are moving national code changes.

In Ontario we have participated in the National Women’s Show and are planning to attend the National Home Show.   The lessons we have gained from the Women’s show have caused a substantial reassessment of our show commitments.  Booth costs are very high to combat this I have purchased much of the booth material for our use in Ontario this means we will only have to spend the money once, and the materials should last us about one year. With the reduced costs, participation in these events is more attractive and we will have the opportunity to increase our communication strategy to include the general public.  The downside to these events is getting people into the booth, to combat this, in the past; CASA has given away flameless candles.  While an effective promotional item they are costly and do not provide adequate views for their cost.  We have changed this strategy to a 10 min long distance calling card, the card is custom branded with CASA artwork and includes a 17 second sprinkler message each time it is used.  This allows us multiple views for one fifth the price, also we have established a communications database where recipients sign up for a quarterly public newsletter about fire sprinklers and the benefits they provide us all on a daily basis. The content of these quarterly newsletters shall be created in conjunction with the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs and the Fire Marshals Public safety Council.  This will provide addition public acceptance and consideration. We  have given away WII Fit game devices on a limited basis the attraction of this device is providing a moderately priced promotional item at events we are only giving away one per selected event.

Casa Notes is another area we are reviewing, traditionally we have only enjoyed sponsors and advertisers from our industry, this unfortunately means we have not tapped a market of support services and products that our member use on a daily basis, we will reach out to these organization across the country and try to provide our members with access to alternative advertisers while increasing magazine revenue. This has been extended by John Galt prior to my arrival as well through the addition of sponsorship to Quick Response, this form of advertising is becoming more the norm and we have recently created a competitive price guide for this advertising.  We have also included an article called member focus, the goal of this article is to promote a member from each region in an article written by myself including photographs of the member organization,  as distribution increases we will effectively be self promoting our members to the country.  Regional representatives will be responsible for providing a twenty point organization overview and photographs for inclusion in CASA notes.

This extended communication/marketing strategy will be ineffective without the completion of the CASA web site. Currently we are including the phrase “fire sprinklers save lives” on all public documents, and the web site to help our logo describe our industry. We have also begun incorporating images from the website into brochures and other public presentation media. This continuity will provide us with a image that is recognizable by all of our target groups and make it easier for us to communicate with everyone.   Recently the ORG suggested that we conduct a full logo review to help enable this communication process, if the board feels this is required we will engage in a logo design process and request options for consideration from the regional groups.  In the interim the web site home page will be redesigned to assist in our communication strategy and provide instant links to each of our designated communication target groups.  As each of these groups visits our website, our goal is that they will be able to find solutions to their questions and problems within three clicks.   This industry standard will ensure people will want to return to our web site and over the next twenty four months it should be come the landing point for all fire sprinkler information in the country.

Given the investment of both money and time in the current National Research Council reports on lightweight home construction and the previously strained relationship with Canadian Home Builders I have successfully lobbied for standing with in the BILD group and the Canadian Association of Home Builders.  We have in the past sponsored their annual meeting at a high level; while this will happen again for 2009 I will reduce this sponsorship for 2010.  This affiliation has provided insight into the strategies this industry is using to combat our direction as well as their financial reports for the industry on the whole.

Our continued member ship in the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition has been very assistive in my learning process the strong connection between NFPA and this group is a benefit to our organization.  HFSC has begun creating Canadian versions of their handouts, the brochure directed at the fire service will be a particular benefit and we are expecting to begin distributing these in the spring of 2009.  The continued collaboration on activities has provided us with staffing and research support which can be invaluable.  Currently HFSC is working with a university to study the environmental benefits of fire sprinklers.  This report will provide good information for our industry but I am concerned about the validity of the complete report given it will be very American.  I would like to conduct a brief test here which would support the US study and Provide good Canadian data validated here.  The test would include a side by side burn with water metering, air quality and water quality testing both during and post the burns, this would be a simple relatively inexpensive test that we could video tape and release with the data on our web site and to municipal governments.  Ideally all regions would share the cost of this test.

The upcoming CASA Annual General meeting has been moved due to the lack of sprinklers in the hotel that was originally chosen for this year’s event.  Having come into this roll late in 2008 John Galt has been very supportive in the transition of responsibility, we have been working together with Nadina Caplice to generate a registration package and event plan that will provide attendees with valuable information  and interactive activities designed to bring the industry together.

Each of the areas covered in this report are in an early stage of development and implementation, continued progress will revolve around continued funding availability and commitment from all regions.  Given the current economy the implementation of a strong marketing communication strategy to increase product use at all levels is critical, I believe that this strategy combined with legislative changes should secure our market position over the next 24 months.