MarketingMasters Luncheon Seminar
Dow Corning’s Randall Rozin kicks off 2009-2010 Luncheon Series
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For Dow Corning, a New Marketing Formula for Silicone
Say you’re a market leader—with a sterling reputation for high product quality, custom solutions, and unmatched technical and customer support.
Then, through customer research, you learn that a significant customer segment doesn’t need all that extra value and simply wants a lower-cost, self-serve ordering option for your most standard products—and they want to buy them online.
That’s the dilemma (or opportunity) that the Dow Corning Corporation faced back in 2002.
While another company might have ceded such price-sensitive customers to competitors, Dow Corning put their marketing and engineering savvy to work and launched XIAMETER, an ambitious, low-cost, Web-based business model that has revolutionized the way bulk silicones are sold.
Seven years later, Dow Corning’s experience with the XIAMETER® brand has become a much-heralded global business success story, generating significant profitable growth for Dow Corning and glowing assessments by marketing consultants, authors and numerous business publications, including the Harvard Business Review and Forbes.
In From Strategy to Execution: Turning Accelerated Global Change into Opportunity, Mark Johnson and Josh Suskewicz write, “The XIAMETER story shows that established, mature companies can succeed at accelerating innovation by leveraging the unique resources at their disposal to beat out nimble, disruptive entrants.”
In a Harvard Business Review article titled, “Strategies to Fight Low-Cost Rivals,” Nirmalya Kumar writes, “Dow Corning’s creation of XIAMETER is an excellent illustration of how companies should use the two-pronged [branding] approach.”
In his September 9 keynote presentation at The Standard Club, Randall Rozin will explain how additional customer research led Dow Corning to transform its dual brand strategy by re-launching and greatly expanding the XIAMETER® business model while further defining and refining its innovative
Dow Corning® brand.
Dow Corning® brand.
Under this new dual brand strategy, customers and channel partners with complex problems that require customized solutions with specialty silicones can continue to choose Dow Corning branded silicones. Customers who only need standard silicones will now have access to roughly twice the XIAMETER product offering previously available and can also buy XIAMETER® silicones through distributors, providing additional ordering options and local convenience.
“We are always listening to our customers and looking for ways to develop solutions that matter to them in terms of what they buy and how they prefer to buy our materials,” Rozin told BtoB magazine in a July 2009 article.
The fully integrated marketing and communications campaign that
Dow Corning launched this summer engages the company’s own employees as well as its engineer and product formulator customers in such industries as life sciences, energy, automotive and electronics. The multimedia campaign includes:
• Internal branding pieces that instill a sense of corporate pride and engage employees.
• Ongoing and proactive media outreach efforts that communicate corporate messaging, enhance credibility and secure third-party endorsements.
• Provocative and unique creative that distinguishes the Dow Corning and XIAMETER brands from their competitors.
In the print portion of the integrated marketing campaign, ads are running in a variety of b-to-b publications, including Chemical & Engineering News, Chemical Week, Design News, Renewable Energy World and Solar Today. On the online front, the company is getting the message across with banner ads featuring links to a microsite that describes the new business strategy in greater detail.
In one print ad featuring Stephanie Burns, Dow Corning’s chairman, president and CEO, a headline reads: “We’re always working to understand your business. That’s why we’re changing ours.”
Customer research was an important, but not the only, factor that weighed in Dow Corning’s decision to transform its two brands, Rozin said. Other factors were such global megatrends as the drive for efficiency, the increased focus on alternative energy and clean water and the rapid urbanization in fast-growing emerging geographies.
While many b-to-b companies are cutting their marketing budgets because of the current economic downturn, Dow Corning is increasing its marketing investment, Rozin told BtoB magazine.
“We need to communicate clearly with our customers—this does not stop with a down market,” he said. “Strong companies should be communicating, regardless of economic conditions.”
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About Randall Rozin
Randall S. Rozin is the global director of brand management and marketing communications at Dow Corning Corporation, a global leader in silicones, silicon-based technology and innovation and a joint venture equally owned by The Dow Chemical Company and Corning, Incorporated.
In this role, he has been leading efforts to define and launch a new branding framework for the corporation, including the revitalization of the
Dow Corning brand and the original creation and global re-launch of the company’s XIAMETER brand.
Dow Corning brand and the original creation and global re-launch of the company’s XIAMETER brand.
Rozin has also led the ongoing development for the company’s Molykote® brand of lubricants and its Silastic® brand of elastomers. He serves as principal adviser to the many business units and joint ventures of the company on brand strategy, creation, revitalization, brand asset management, internal branding and employee engagement, helping transform Dow Corning into a brand-driven organization. He has also served as chairman of the company’s Global Marketing Excellence and Global Brand councils.
In addition to his brand management role, Rozin is also global director of marketing communications, leading the company’s corporate advertising programs and online activities. Previously he was a board member for the Automotive, Appliance, Assembly and Maintenance business unit and led the company’s cross-business initiatives to deliver a more prominent, higher value basket of goods and services to customers within the automotive industry.
Rozin is very active in the marketing arena outside of Dow Corning as well. He is an active business-to-business editor of the International Journal of Brand Management and The Journal of Communications Management. He has served on the executive committee of the Conference Board’s Council on Corporate Brand Management as well as the Association of National Advertisers’ Business-to-Business Communications and Global Marketing committees. Rozin is also a frequent speaker at national conferences on marketing, communications and branding.
His bylined articles have appeared in the International Journal of Brand Management, Advertiser magazine and Business Marketer magazine. His work has been referenced in a wide variety of international business newspapers, business Web sites, and within business and academic marketing textbooks and course curricula worldwide.
Rozin holds a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma and an M.B.A. in International Marketing and Innovation Management from Syracuse University. He has also completed the Executive program on Strategic Brand Management from Dartmouth College.
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