Case Study:Creating WinningSell-in Presentations For LG mobile

The product sell-in presentation is one of the most crucial pieces of marketing material a trade marketer will produce. A good product presentation will engage retailers and significantly increase the number of products ranged in retail stores. In an industry where there is high competition and low margin for error, global mobile phone manufacturer, LG, wanted to ensure its product pitches were of the highest quality — both sales-driven and emotionally engaging. Experiencing our pitch and presentation skills first-hand, LG’s European division, LG Mobile Europe, was confident in WrightObara to do the job — and more importantly had

faith that we would go above and beyond what was required. Naturally, in such a fiercely competitive industry saturated with mobile manufacturing giants such as Apple and Samsung, the stakes were high. Pitching new handset concepts, LG needed mobile operators such as Vodafone, T-mobile and O2 to make a commitment to 10,000 units before the handset would go into production. This is how WrightObara transformed LG Mobile Europe’s product pitches to impress a multitude of buyers and sell in to major retail stores across the continent.

WrightObara offers LG Electronics that elusive combination of responsiveness, creativity and strategic thinking. They have managed to position themselves as almost an extension of the European Team and continue to deliver new, fresh ideas even after6 years of working as part of the team.James Marshall, Head of Product Proposition Marketing,European Mobile Communications at LG Electronics

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One of the first things WrightObara did was create a storytelling structure to engender an emotional connection with the buyer. Cognitive research shows we make decisions through emotion first, and then later rationalise the decision with logic. With LG creating a range of feature phones, each phone would appeal to a different target audience. Firstly, WrightObara set the scene by creating buyer personas. “This helps to focus the sales teams’ and buyers’ minds to appreciate who the target audience is,” says Phil Wright, WrightObara’s Managing Director. “It creates an emotional connection with the retailer and enables them to put themselves in the position of the persona and think in detail about what they’re looking for in a handset.”

Creating Winning Sell-in Presentations For LG Mobile

Messaging And Storytelling

Rather than presenting simple stock images of buyer personas, WrightObara created polaroid-style images of the personas, bringing them to life through ‘pocket portraits’. These provided an insight into the buyer personas’ lives, showing the contents of their pockets or purse.

“We presented car keys, gym memberships, magazines or anything the persona would like to read,” adds Wright. “This helps the retailer get a sense of the buyer persona’s lifestyle and values, helping underpin the handset’s benefits to the consumer. The retailer is also looking at what they currently range and want to know if there’s a gap in their product line-up. This provides a clear picture.”

COMMUNICATING WITHTHE CONSUMER

Creating Winning Sell-in Presentations For LG Mobile

As the relationship with LG and WrightObara progressed and smart phones increased in popularity, phones became more and more homogenised rather than having a clear USP based on one or two distinct features.

“Initially the USP was obvious and specified, but as handsets became increasingly similar with multiple features, we had to be more creative with our USPs,” says Wright. “This compounded the need for LG to have an effective story, thus they really relied on us for our storytelling skills, conceptually, strategically and visually.” The next stage of storytelling was to highlight the consumers’ pain points. WrightObara utilised videos to powerfully communicate the pain points in a succinct manner. To communicate market research, WrightObara shot ‘vox pop’ interviews, explaining what the consumers’ issues were and edited together similar demographics to build a solid picture of the target audiences. Further market research statistics were represented visually with infographics and graphs, helping the retailer to easily remember key findings.

Creating Winning Sell-in Presentations For LG Mobile

WrightObara then presented the solution: the particular mobile phone. Using a combination of product videos and beautiful product imagery, WrightObara was able to ‘sex up’ the product, creating a strong impression. The video would represent the product positioning, while explaining how the mobile addresses the consumer’s pain points.

A major challenge for WrightObara’s design team was to ensure the product imagery made the phones look as aesthetically pleasing as possible to the retailer. LG’s R&D team, comprised of South Korean engineers, provided its marketing team with a lacklustre collection of low-resolution renders of the various handsets. “You must make the product look desirable, not just a cut-out,” says Jan Obara, WrightObara’s Creative Director. “When working on the LG imagery, we added highlights and flares where light glistens off the corner of the handset. We worked on the colour to ensure it popped and put a screen on the handsets to make them look like they were on, rather than just a black box. In some cases, we put the handset in a still-life setting to represent the consumer’s lifestyle.”

MAKING THE PRODUCT ‘POP’

Creating Winning Sell-in Presentations For LG Mobile

With retailers sitting through a number of presentations, it was also essential that the presentation was as digestible as possible for the retailer. WrightObara presented three simple features and benefits to ensure each handset was easily understood and memorable. Once the features and benefits were presented, the next step was to highlight marketing support. As is often the case, companies may state how much marketing budget they will allocate to the product’s promotion. However, WrightObara wanted to engage the retailer with a clearer picture of what LG’s marketing may look like to support the products, allaying

any concerns within the retailer that the product wouldn’t be promoted enough to drive sales in their stores. WrightObara created dummy marketing campaigns, focusing on the key messages. “We created concepts and designs of the product’s POS material and above-the-line advertising such as designs of billboards and magazine adverts,” says Obara. “We also showed what a retailer specific promotion might look like, adding the retailer’s branding to packaging. If there’s an image that brings the marketing to life, it makes it feel real to the buyer and increases your chance of sell-in. What’s more, it shows you’re serious.”

To wrap it all up, WrightObara created a recap screen. “This shows an image of the phone, key specs, three key features and benefits, when the phone is available to retailers and pricing,” says Wright. “You’ve taken the retailer on a journey and now it’s time to summarise in an easily digestible format so they finish with it fresh in their minds.” One point Wright is keen to highlight is the presentation doesn’t end there. “You must have a clearly defined call to action, be it inviting the retailer to try a prototype, or handing out marketing collateral which explains how to order.” In WrightObara’s case, it created a printed booklet, following the same format as the recap slide so the retailers could easily remember key information and set it apart from competitors. It also placed the presentations onto LG-branded USP keys.Images were watermarked with the name of the person who was presented to, ensuring security and confidentially. Additionally, WrightObara made elements of the presentation interactive. In some cases, buyers were invited into another room which was turned into an exhibition space. WrightObara branded the space and created interactive displays for each of the products being presented.

Creating Winning Sell-in Presentations For LG Mobile

While WrightObara had worked on the content of LG’s product presentations to ensure it was solid, it equally required a professional design to make the information engaging and easily digestible. WrightObara ensured the presentation was on brand by building upon LG’s corporate presentation template. This used LG’s own corporate font, with titles and logos consistently placed throughout. However, the design had to consider the journey LG was taking the retailer on. “If you have a complex slide, begin by showing a small section of the information, then have the slide animate, gradually adding more information, explaining each point as you go along” says WrightObara’s Claire Appleby. “So many times, I’ve seen presentations where they present masses of information on one slide. Strip it back. At each stage you can build a picture. If they were presented with a complex diagram to begin with, they would be overwhelmed. If you take the retailer on the journey, they get it.”

“If I were to give you just one piece of presentation design advice, it would be to ensure consistency across all of your slides and don’t cram too much information onto each slide.”Claire Appleby, Senior Designer, WrightObara

PresentationDesign

Creating Winning Sell-in Presentations For LG Mobile

Over a six-year period, LG Mobile Europe managed to get a multitude of its products ranged in major retailers across Europe. LG Mobile Europe was consistently scored highest on presentation material by mobile service providers.

RESULTS

Creating Winning Sell-in Presentations For LG Mobile

We should be justifiably proud of our endeavours with the various global accounts…ranked number one on the things we jointly work on — presentation & supporting material.James Marshall, Head of Product Proposition Marketing,European Mobile Communications at LG Electronics

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WrightObara has over eight years’ experience producing sell-in presentations for both large manufacturers and SMEs. If you’d like to discuss how we can help you produce engaging sell-in presentations and get your products ranged in major retail stores, call us now on:

020 70 60 2711

No sales pressure. No obligations. No fuss.

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