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A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE
7/22/02
3:08 PM
Page 9
August 2002
Filtration Industry Analyst
A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE Advertise – or perish? Ken Sutherland looks at the filtration industry’s apparent attitudes to advertising, and their consequences for the future. It was, I believe, Oscar Wilde who wrote: “there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” This is much the same philosophy as lies behind the more recent saying that any advertisement is better than none. And while I am quoting, let us not forget Henry Lever, Viscount Leverhulme’s reported statement that: “Half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted, and the trouble is that I don’t know which half.” From all of this, you will begin to gather that my subject for this month is advertising, and its effectiveness, as applied to the filtration industry. A number of recent events have drawn my attention to this topic, beginning with the sad death, a few months ago, of Simon Broadbent (no connection, as far as I know, to a certain centrifuge company in Huddersfield, UK). Simon was a pioneer in the measurement of the effectiveness of advertising in general, whose books have become standard works on the subject, and who certainly believed that advertising, or, at least, good advertising, not only worked, but could be proved to do so. On the other hand, when I worked for a (different) centrifuge company many years ago, we had a very good marketing services manager who firmly believed that all spending on advertising was wasted, and that direct mail was the only marketing tool that worked.
The second recent event in this context was a small job that I did, which required my giving very detailed study to the annual Buyers’ Guide, published by our sister magasine, Filtration+Separation. Not only the advertisements therein, but also the directory entries, were intriguing, not only for who was there and who was not, but also how companies described themselves – especially in terms of directory entries. The issue has over 100 advertisements, many of them in the small panel style – which can be as informative as a full page. The third event was the arrival on my desk of the annual English language issue of Filtrieren und Separieren, which also, of course, carries advertisements, fewer in number, and mainly smaller than in a comparable British journal, and on the whole using more words, more textual material, than a typical British advertisement. The final activity (rather than event) concerned my recent involvement in the writing of a second edition of Derek Purchas’s Handbook of Filter Media (for Elsevier Science). In the course of this work, I wrote to every manufacturer or supplier of filter media that I could find in the then-current edition of the Buyers’ Guide, asking them to send me copies of their literature, and in particular to advise me as to what was new among their products. The results of this trawl astonished me – I got replies from less than 1% of those to whom I had written. I must admit that I had expected manufacturers to fall over themselves in their
keenness to appear in the handbook. I therefore took less care than I should have done to find the name of the person to write to, and I addressed most to “the General Sales Manager”. But less than 1%! In the end, of course, I had to make personal contacts with those companies that I felt must be considered for the sake of the reader of the Handbook, and most of these did respond well. But not all – a few did not, and a small handful expressly refused to allow me to include their product details – for fear of giving information to their competitors. In these days, where vast amounts of information are available from the Web, including all of that which I might have wanted to include, this does seem a strange attitude. So, where does all of this leave my view of the advertising habits of the filtration industry? Not very impressed is the easy answer. I have, for the purposes of this article, looked back over some of the journals to which I have subscribed, or received on controlled circulation, over the first part of 2002. The first thing to deal with is the “advertorial”, a widely used tool, in which a piece of manufacturer’s publicity appears in the columns of the journal, as though written by the editor or a correspondent. I have counted this as an advertisement, although where an obvious press release has been used as the basis of a specially written piece on the editorial pages, I have allowed it to rest there. As far as advertisements in The Chemical Engineer, the house journal of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, are concerned, the filtration industry barely exists. In seven issues, there was just one main display advertisement (from an American company), one repeated classified advertisement, and three small ads in the
issue that carried a special page of advertorials. Things are not much better in Process Engineering, the other UK journal for the chemical and process industries that includes specially written articles. Seven issues of that journal carried a dozen or so advertorials, two different quarterpages, each repeated twice, and one large feature advertorial. The picture does not change much across the Atlantic. One issue of Chemical Engineering carried a single new product advertorial, a single entry in a special advertising section (Italy), one half-page display, and two end-of-magazine panel ads. The latest issue of Filtration+Separation is, of course, full of filtration industry advertisements, but even here there is a strange situation. Of the 27 display advertisements, only one was from a UK company, although 4 out of the 10 panel ads were British. Fourteen (of the 27 display ads) were for filter media, 5 were for equipment, and 8 were for ancillaries and services, while the 10 panel ads were split 6 for media, 3 for equipment and one for ancillary/service. So that is why I am not over impressed by the filtration industry’s advertising attitudes. It looks to me as though the filtration equipment suppliers, especially those based in the UK, are making life hard for themselves – and if Simon Broadbent is to be believed, may not be long for this world. Ken Sutherland has run his process engineering and marketing consultancy, Northdoe, for 20 years. Northdoe is largely devoted to filtration and other separation technologies. He can be contacted at: Tel: +44 1737 242 499 Fax: +44 1737 242 465 E-mail: ken@sanspeur. demon.co.uk
9
PERSPECTIVE
FIAAugust.qxd
3:08 PM
Page 9
August 2002
Filtration Industry Analyst
A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE Advertise – or perish? Ken Sutherland looks at the filtration industry’s apparent attitudes to advertising, and their consequences for the future. It was, I believe, Oscar Wilde who wrote: “there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” This is much the same philosophy as lies behind the more recent saying that any advertisement is better than none. And while I am quoting, let us not forget Henry Lever, Viscount Leverhulme’s reported statement that: “Half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted, and the trouble is that I don’t know which half.” From all of this, you will begin to gather that my subject for this month is advertising, and its effectiveness, as applied to the filtration industry. A number of recent events have drawn my attention to this topic, beginning with the sad death, a few months ago, of Simon Broadbent (no connection, as far as I know, to a certain centrifuge company in Huddersfield, UK). Simon was a pioneer in the measurement of the effectiveness of advertising in general, whose books have become standard works on the subject, and who certainly believed that advertising, or, at least, good advertising, not only worked, but could be proved to do so. On the other hand, when I worked for a (different) centrifuge company many years ago, we had a very good marketing services manager who firmly believed that all spending on advertising was wasted, and that direct mail was the only marketing tool that worked.
The second recent event in this context was a small job that I did, which required my giving very detailed study to the annual Buyers’ Guide, published by our sister magasine, Filtration+Separation. Not only the advertisements therein, but also the directory entries, were intriguing, not only for who was there and who was not, but also how companies described themselves – especially in terms of directory entries. The issue has over 100 advertisements, many of them in the small panel style – which can be as informative as a full page. The third event was the arrival on my desk of the annual English language issue of Filtrieren und Separieren, which also, of course, carries advertisements, fewer in number, and mainly smaller than in a comparable British journal, and on the whole using more words, more textual material, than a typical British advertisement. The final activity (rather than event) concerned my recent involvement in the writing of a second edition of Derek Purchas’s Handbook of Filter Media (for Elsevier Science). In the course of this work, I wrote to every manufacturer or supplier of filter media that I could find in the then-current edition of the Buyers’ Guide, asking them to send me copies of their literature, and in particular to advise me as to what was new among their products. The results of this trawl astonished me – I got replies from less than 1% of those to whom I had written. I must admit that I had expected manufacturers to fall over themselves in their
keenness to appear in the handbook. I therefore took less care than I should have done to find the name of the person to write to, and I addressed most to “the General Sales Manager”. But less than 1%! In the end, of course, I had to make personal contacts with those companies that I felt must be considered for the sake of the reader of the Handbook, and most of these did respond well. But not all – a few did not, and a small handful expressly refused to allow me to include their product details – for fear of giving information to their competitors. In these days, where vast amounts of information are available from the Web, including all of that which I might have wanted to include, this does seem a strange attitude. So, where does all of this leave my view of the advertising habits of the filtration industry? Not very impressed is the easy answer. I have, for the purposes of this article, looked back over some of the journals to which I have subscribed, or received on controlled circulation, over the first part of 2002. The first thing to deal with is the “advertorial”, a widely used tool, in which a piece of manufacturer’s publicity appears in the columns of the journal, as though written by the editor or a correspondent. I have counted this as an advertisement, although where an obvious press release has been used as the basis of a specially written piece on the editorial pages, I have allowed it to rest there. As far as advertisements in The Chemical Engineer, the house journal of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, are concerned, the filtration industry barely exists. In seven issues, there was just one main display advertisement (from an American company), one repeated classified advertisement, and three small ads in the
issue that carried a special page of advertorials. Things are not much better in Process Engineering, the other UK journal for the chemical and process industries that includes specially written articles. Seven issues of that journal carried a dozen or so advertorials, two different quarterpages, each repeated twice, and one large feature advertorial. The picture does not change much across the Atlantic. One issue of Chemical Engineering carried a single new product advertorial, a single entry in a special advertising section (Italy), one half-page display, and two end-of-magazine panel ads. The latest issue of Filtration+Separation is, of course, full of filtration industry advertisements, but even here there is a strange situation. Of the 27 display advertisements, only one was from a UK company, although 4 out of the 10 panel ads were British. Fourteen (of the 27 display ads) were for filter media, 5 were for equipment, and 8 were for ancillaries and services, while the 10 panel ads were split 6 for media, 3 for equipment and one for ancillary/service. So that is why I am not over impressed by the filtration industry’s advertising attitudes. It looks to me as though the filtration equipment suppliers, especially those based in the UK, are making life hard for themselves – and if Simon Broadbent is to be believed, may not be long for this world. Ken Sutherland has run his process engineering and marketing consultancy, Northdoe, for 20 years. Northdoe is largely devoted to filtration and other separation technologies. He can be contacted at: Tel: +44 1737 242 499 Fax: +44 1737 242 465 E-mail: ken@sanspeur. demon.co.uk
9
PERSPECTIVE
FIAAugust.qxd