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One size fits nobody
Saepio uses technology to make marketing easy
Why expect an artisan bread maker to also be an expert on fonts, direct mail and the dimension of a point-of-purchase sign? That's the thinking behind Great Harvest Bread Company's adoption of high-tech marketing last year. It asked Kansas City, Missouri-based Saepio Technologies Inc. to simplify a marketing communication process so its 218 franchised bakeries nationwide could exercise the same kind of creative freedom it gives them in their bread recipes.
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Making complex technology user-friendly translates into nontechies being able to do their own printing, advertising and direct marketing. |
For Great Harvest, with plans to add 10 to 15 franchisees a year, the technology was right in keeping to its "pure and simple" philosophy of being un-franchise like. "We want to be as far as possible from the chain store model," says Marketing Director Kate Ord referring to the company's belief that the best products in each store are created from a local recipe, using local ingredients, sourced in that market. Her company recognizes that its operators can play a part in localizing its marketing. The one size fits nobody mentality about its bread products is also true for its marketing.
Saepio is plugged into this kind of thinking. It understands how franchises and franchisees in any segment engage in that daily dance of brand standards and customization, of keeping some things tightly managed at the corporate (brand) level, while ceding enough flexibility and control to those on main street who must respond fast to changing market conditions. "We are media agnostic," says VP of Marketing Stephen Tucker. "Our clients decide what tools they provide their local markets."
On the fly
Because franchisors often work with advertising agencies, Saepio's software allows the agency to create templates for menus, newspaper ads, mailers or posters, and directly upload the material to the client's Web portal. Then when the franchisee pulls up the most current piece to adapt, the intelligent software running in the background lets that user grab that template, resize it, edit the text, choose from a library of pre-approved images, to create press-ready art.
All this happens on the fly. What's most impressive is how the software intuitively recognizes the language of that end user -- detecting the alphabet from the keyboard being used -- and dynamically transposes the copy in that native language. Meaning the copy in a brochure or advertisement is rendered as if that piece of collateral had been originally designed in that language.
In the U.S. we may not think much of this, but consider the complexity of logging in from, say, Hong Kong, and interacting with the software that needs to make pricing and character conversions to Chinese? While that franchisee is seeing the template change in real time from English to Chinese, another franchisee in Israel could be localizing the same artwork in the Hebrew script. Not only would the fonts be substituted, but in languages that read from right to left, the layout would dynamically adjust too.
Versatile and user-friendly
This language feature is a big asset to Curves, the largest fitness center franchise now operating in 10,000 locations in 50 countries including Japan, South America and Europe.
Curves' international expansion phase has added some 40 franchisees in the Middle East, Israel, Hong Kong and Singapore, a perfect test for globalization-meets localization software.
Curve's London-based ad agency "transcreates" advertising based on domestic U.S. campaigns to fit all its markets. Once the marketing material is fed into the Saepio interface, anyone in those four markets is able to download and localize the artwork templates from the company's intranet. They select photos, headline and body copy, and the software converts the double-byte font and renders it in Arabic or Hebrew. "One of the reasons our franchisees have embraced the program is that it's very simple to use," says international marketing manager, Olga Yurchenko. "A one-hour session at Curves' week-long training camp for new franchise owners is normally all it takes to get them up to speed."
Curves uses what's called the "Dynamic Content Engine"Ðessentially Saepio software running behind the scene -- which resides on the corporate Web site and automates the versioning of templates. This "engine" allows users to print the marketing collateral at, say, a Fedex-Kinko's down the street.
And speaking of printers, Saepio has a program for them as well. It's called Lights Out Digital Printing, where the printer can shut the store at night, and let the print order, including complex functions such as variable data printing, perforating, tabbing, scoring, folding and packaging, flow through.
In an era of rapid globalization, decentralized, on-demand printing opened the door to targeted communication. Digital asset management takes it to its logical conclusion -- to orchestrate a marketing campaign from the user's desktop, not the corporate office.
