John Noonan is Ireland’s top marketer

A big congratulations to John Noonan, Sales & Marketing Director of Flahavans who won Marketer of the Year last week. He’s the man behind the resurrection of one of Ireland’s most well known brands.

It is great to see that it was his marketing strategy creation and implementation that won over the judges. They said that they were particularly impressed by Mr Noonan’s strong focus on research and insight to identify customer trends and frame a very successful product development strategy to grow the business.

As a marketer, he clearly led and implemented his strategy successfully with the support of management and demonstrated that in this difficult economic climate (and against aggressive competitive challenges), marketing and effective leadership will achieve success.

I’ve always said that marketing is more than promotion and Mr Noonan certainly is one to share that view. Operating in a highly competitive  market where Flahavans competes successfully against international food giants Kelloggs, Nestle and Weetabix, he was responsible for crafting a finely tuned re-positioning of Flahavans which has resulted in market share growing to 65.3pc in the year to August 2009.

The brands profits increased by over 15pc and with a fourfold increase in turnover.

Well done to John and his team with congratulations to the other finalists.

Awards Fever Grips Business Community of Drogheda

Yesterday I had meetings in Drogheda and I met with some business owners. Well the beat on the street is certainly one of excitement.

As this is my first year as a short-listed company, I can certainly share in the excitement. And I have two clients in for awards aswell.

The Drogheda Excellence Awards will be held on Saturday night at the 4-star City North Hotel and over 300 guests will gather to celebrate the short-listed companies and winners of 10 award categories.

I spoke to five companies short-listed for various awards and the excitement of the awards coupled with the nervousness of interviews is palpable.

Today I’ll have to spend time preparing for my interview. These awards should be recognised in itself. A completely impartial judging panel of 6 judges adjudicate the written award application forms. Size does matter because the form is only four pages long with six questions asked. It doesn’t allow for long-winded answers. The form makes up 70% of the award with the interview or mystery shopper evaluation making up 30%.

Best eat that frog - and print my application form.

If anyone has any tips on how to overcome nerves in an interview talking about your company, please feel free to share them. Many, many thanks!

What’s the difference between Marketing & Advertising?

While networking earlier in the week, I got the age-old comment “So you’re in marketing. I tried advertising but it didn’t work.”

I spent the next 30 minutes explaining the difference between marketing and advertising and then asking what why his advertising didn’t work.

It’s a comment that I get frequently. So I’m throwing it out there -

What do you think is the difference between marketing and advertising?

This is my understanding:

Marketing takes in the whole process of getting and keeping customers. It is at the core of every business success. It takes in promotion but also covers understanding the environment in which a company operates, the effect of competitors, pricing, product choice, consumer behaviour, political changes and the list goes on.

Advertising is just one way to promote a business to a mass audience and it’s generally paid for.

What is your understanding of it?