There’s been an ad flashing by on the tube for the past couple of weeks while Canadians ate their way through the holiday season and made a host of new year’s resolutions.  It depicts a man in slow motion, surrounded by his happy family.  The captions are along the lines of “I did it” and the music is something along the lines of “she’s so proud of me”.  And then there’s a logo shot.  Champix.  Go to black.

It’s taken me about 7 or 10 viewings to notice that I have no idea what the man has done, nor why his wife and /or daughter would be so proud of him.  Hmmm… Tonight after being back on the ball for a few days, I realized that I could solve the mystery for all Canadian television viewers.  I Googled “Champix”.  Apparently it is a smoking cessation aid.  But oddly enough, the first page of search returns brings up a host of warnings and side effects from medical organizations from around the world — including a globe and mail article with this intro:

“Just one year after it was approved for use in Canada, federal health officials are investigating safety concerns about smoking cessation prescription drug Champix amid fears it is linked to suicide and serious psychological problems.”

The company’s website doesn’t appear anywhere on the first page of results.  (SEO catastrophe!) And being kind of a smarty pants, I guessed that the website could possibly be: champix.ca.  BINGO!

New roadblock.  There is absolutely nothing on the home page that tells me what Champix does or who it’s for.  There is a log in screen for a patient support group and a log in for physicians.  No where to go for the curious television viewer with a bee in her bonnet.

The timing of the campaign couldn’t be better: new year’s resolutions and all. But outside of the logo, the product is not mentioned nor discussed.  And nor is the “disease” it’s supposed to cure. And if the strategy was to force the viewer to turn to Google, the cure may be worse than the disease.

Or perhaps some Canadian Health organizations have placed restrictions on what can and cannot be said about smoking cessation products, given the litany of complaints received by Health Canada?  If that’s the case, then Pfizer’s agency should have recommended a strategy that does not include television advertising.

The due diligence of every client and every agency is to make sure that the strategy solves the business problem at hand.  Not that it simply fills a budget item for “tv advertising”.

After all the marketing efficiency audits I have conducted over the years, I have developed a list of “low hanging fruit” that I look for to score some easy wins, early on in the project. These are the easy savings – painless ones that can contribute 25% of the target cost savings. They’re also the kind of costs that that have become embedded in the daily wallpaper of life – no one even notices they’re there… and won’t miss them when they’re gone.

So, without further ado, here’s my first “top five” list of low hanging fruit to look for – fruit that is so low it’s already fallen to the ground and just ready to be kicked to the curb:

1: Second page letterhead – a waste of money for two reasons: laser printing and pdfs have all but removed the need for a designed (and inventoried) second sheet when a blank piece of paper (or screen) could be lasered with the information. And secondly, if your letters typically go longer than one page, you need an editor, not a second page.

2: Obsolete inventory – the volume discount made the per-unit price attractive, but clearly the supply exceeded the demand and the inventory of brochures, newsletters, flyers etc. is now out of date. Just like fashion, it will not come back into date, and the archival value of more than one or two copies is marginal. What most employees don’t realize is that in business, shelf space costs money. And before you expand the warehouse or build a bigger tool shed, clean the shelves and closets. You will be surprised at what you find.

3: Postal rate optimization – oversized letters require oversized postage. Standard letters require standard postage. Remove non-standard envelopes from your inventory and you will remove the majority of oversized postal charges.

4: Color copies vs black and white – these days with color printers and copiers in many if not most standard offices, there seems to be no limit the number of color documents that can be produced easily and efficiently. Yet in most offices, the cost of one page in color generally exceeds a black and white copy by about seven to ten-fold. Take a look through the recycling bins at night. And then work with the management team to come up with some rules about the use and distribution of color originals and copies. Or move the color printers and copiers to a centralized location – less convenient, but still available when needed.

5: Management Reports – the larger the organization, the more reports a manager tends to receive. Daily reports. Weekly reports. Monthly Reports. And yet with all those reports, when you need a piece of information, it’s like trying to take a sip of water from a fire hydrant. The easiest thing to do is just go online, find the most recent report and the stat you need. As a first step (since many management reports are automated) at least build a subscriber list for reports and cut off the distribution to those who only “pile and file”.

I’ve already reached five… and as the old Monty Python movie “the Holy Grail”, these five are “just a scratch”, not even a flesh wound. There are no programs to cut, no jobs to be lost, no customers to be ignored, no brand to be hurt. Just plain cost savings.