From the front lines...

When  am working on a new client account, I love getting to know everything about the company. Not just the product we are campaigning for, but the team, the history, the customers (the good and bad) and the industry. It is really what makes LSM different. We only take on so many clients each year because we spend so much time in the trenches with our beloved clients ans getting to know their customers. We have a saying: that by the time we are ready to market you, we know you so well we could run the company! Well, our newest project Sangar Cargo Security is no different but the trenches have been very interesting.

You see, Sangar Cargo Security is the premier safeguarded, monitored trucking industry providers of secure trailer drop yards. They keep million of dollars worth of cargo safe very night throughout the nation. As awesome as that sounds, that means our work has been both in the war room creating a campaign and at...yup, you guessed it- truck stops. I have seen more ladies of the night, met more crazies and drank more liter sized sodas in the last 8 weeks than I have in my life! (I had no idea that truck stops were so treacherous - they actually have worst truck stop boards posted on forums online.) But the truckers have been great and I have learned so much about the cargo transit industry from them. They are extremely brand loyal, they know what they like and they are very well educated on the ins and the outs of the industry news. Things such as varying transit legislation that takes place from state to state and changes in the federal employment mandates of truckers. What I learned most of all? Never judge and industry by it's cover. I did not have a bad image in my mind about this group of consumers, but I did think I had it all figured out before I hit the pavement. I mean, I know what truck stops look like. I am friends with a couple of drivers. They didn't seem much different form other groups. I didn't know it then, but I was way off. It was until I started spending so much time learning about the ins an outs of the trucking world that I realized how passionate truckers are about their lives and what they do each day to bring home the bacon. I learned that they think of those loads as their babies and they, for the most part, protect them with their lives.
I wonder what other consumer groups are layered like that. I wonder how many advertising firms have run the typical research through online surveys and store front questionnaires and completely missed the mark on what their customers needed to know most of all - the heart of their potential customers.
Food for thought on this subject. I know that I will be spending Monday morning running other client research through the mill and looking ways to get to know more. Let's see what else we can uncover??