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Vestas New Marketing Approach
Albk was hired to develop Vestas marketing department and activities and to transform the
company into a much more customer focused one. He said:
We were competing with organizations such as Siemens which had large marketing
departments, while we only had a little marketing team as part of the communication
department. Before I joined, marketing was mainly about running large advertisement
campaigns in major global media. There was no clear strategy and most of the campaigns were
developed at headquarters. Our approach was as if we were a B2C brand: from 5% to 10% of
the marketing budget was used to promote our products and from 90 to 95% the wind agenda
and to a lesser extent our brand. [See Exhibit 12 for some old advertisements.] I thus
developed our global marketing department at headquarters by taking on board 16 employees
primarily from the communication department. In addition another 25 employees were
assigned to marketing in the different regions.
In terms of customer information, before Albks re-structuring of the department, marketing
collected mainly contact details through a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and
since 2007 it developed a loyalty index. The index was calculated by asking customers about Vestas
performance. In 2008, Vestas had also conducted a global study based on +100 interviews and had
discovered that their customers were interested in four different aspects of wind energy: business
case certainty or certainty for their investment; cost of energy or how much it cost to produce 1KW
per hour; partnerships which covered issues such as job creation and long term relationships; and
security which referred to the accidents on the workplace. Despite between 2006 and 2010 the loyalty
index grew from 48 to 64, Vestas was still too far away from its customer base.
Besides the limited marketing activities, the changing market conditions had made Vestas
marketing tools less effective. Hgsberg said, For example, in 2008 we launched a global media
campaign, based on placing our advertisements in the global press and main television channels such
as the American CNN and this did not really impact brand awareness despite major investments
were made. We are competing now with brands like Siemens and GE. Television has become like a
black hole for us.
Vestas other main marketing tool, the wind fairs, had also lost in importance. These were events
organized by institutions such as the European Wind Industry Association where the key industry
players participated in a series of conferences around wind. On these occasions, Vestas would set a
stand in the exhibition hallway, meet with the clients, hand out brochures and present the new
products. Lund said, Our large customers come more for a courtesy visit today. In addition,
tendering processes forbid utilities to talk to the potential suppliers before the tender is closed.
Albk first of all re-structured the new department at headquarters into four main units: product
launch management; global marketing and brand management; CRM and customer intelligence; and
global key accounts management, a new function that he had established to support the
professionalization of the management of large cross-border clients. He also mirrored this
organization in the seven local sales units, where the marketing team was headed by a local vice
president or director, who reported directly to Albk.
Secondly he widened the responsibilities of the new division at global and local level. The global
headquarters developed the global marketing strategy, defined the structure and scope of the
advertisement campaigns for the new product launches, and defined the tools to collect customer
information and processed the data. The local marketing teams implemented the campaigns at the
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local level, collected customer information together with the sales teams and developed the list of
potential customers in the scoping phase of the sales process. Albaek explained, All our marketing
concepts are developed globally but then the local managers can pick what they find more useful and
adapt them to their needs. For example we developed a new marketing tool, the wind summits.
These are events to which we invite customers and key decision makers to visit our headquarters and
production facilities for two days and a half, and discuss what is of interest to them. These summits
can also be held at our local offices and the local marketing managers would decide on the focus. By
October 2010, the new marketing department employed 52 employees at headquarters, and 60 people
and 20 key accounts managers in the local sales business units. Most of them were new hires.
Thirdly, Albk revised and widened the scope of the customer survey and defined four so called
customer excellence KPIs enabling the company to develop their reputation & loyalty scores
amongst their most important stakeholders. Hgsberg said, Thus, the brand development journey
began by developing a baseline and setting targets for each KPI. The first score was the reputation
score where the level of trust and admiration was measured, the remaining scores were the net
promoter score, the preferred partner score and finally the loyalty index. In the yearly customer
survey, Vestas now asked customers about their prices, product quality, relationship and several
other questions. These answers were collected by the marketing team and organized in a map (see
Exhibit 13 for a mapping example). For what concerned the scores, Baden-Kristensen explained:
The preferred partner score is calculated by asking the customers if we are among their two
best preferred suppliers and to rank us compared to our competitors. The net promoter score is
more complex but put it simply we ask customers if they would recommend us to others. Then
we calculate a score and we would come up with a negative or positive score according to if
we have a surplus of recommendations or not.
The reputation score was calculated from the answers of potential customers and other
stakeholders who were asked how likely they were to have a positive perception of Vestas in a rank
from 1 to 10.These new scores were not only used to evaluate Vestas performance vis--vis their
customers. Since January 2011, also 20% of Vestas bonuses came from the customer excellence KPIs
(see Exhibit 14 for the survey questions and the customer excellence KPIs calculations).
Another initiative that was launched was the project dialogue survey which consisted of a group
of questions on Vestas performance which was administered to the customer at the end of the sales,
and construction phases, and every six months in the service phase. Baden-Kristensen said, For
example, at the end of the sales phase, we send out an electronic survey of about 10 technical
questions aimed at understanding what they would like us to improve. The questions are usually
closed but a few are also open ended. Then the sales person will discuss the answers for one hour
with the customer, do a summary and send it to us. Vestas had lessons learned surveys in the
past, but they were less organized and systematic. Finally Albk changed Vestas vision on what
marketing should be about, and introduced new marketing tools. He explained his new vision, The
majority of our communication has to focus on promoting the company and the products rather than
the industry and has to be tied to Vestas value propositions: business case certainty, cost of energy,
partnership and safety & citizenship. When launching new products, Vestas should approach the
markets strategically, selecting the customers to target and the markets to prioritize and addressing
the customers in a customized and unique way.
In terms of new tools, in October 2010, he created a Vestas profile in the social network Facebook,
where online visitors could be informed of the latest developments at the company, post blogs and
dialogue with Vestas. Vestas was also represented on the social networks Twitter where they
published their latest news and recruitment information, and Linkedin, which allowed reaching
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those working in the industry as well as administering tailored surveys. Vestas also had a user profile
on the video sharing web site youtube. When launching new products, in particular major
technological breakthroughs, Vestas would also rely on new marketing tools such as direct emails,
online newspapers, and google adwords, which was an online keyword pay-per-click advertisement
program developed by the search engine Google Inc in which ads would appear as sponsored links
on the Google results pages. These new tools would be used together with wind fairs, wind summits
as well as the local media, and local billboards. Albaek tested his new approach and tools for the first
time with the launch of the V112 for which he also developed a new web 2.0 tool.
The V112 Campaign and its Tools
The V112 is the most customized product campaign ever conducted in the business of wind, and that was
also the aspiration, making sure that no campaign whatsoever was alike hitting our customers.
Albk
Although their customers were mainly interested in the four value propositions identified by
Vestas in 2008, not all of them gave the same priority to these issues. To capture this diversity for the
launch of the V112, Albaek and his team had asked the local marketing and sales managers to
identify the existing and potential customers to target and the value propositions to prioritize. They
also launched in parallel 12 general campaigns all taking a starting point in the value propositions, of
which eight were targeted towards four stakeholder groups, while the remaining four campaigns
were targeted across the different stakeholders. All the 72 V112 campaigns had two phases: a first
phase which consisted in attracting the audience to personalized web pages through the media; and
the second phase which was based on navigating Vestass new web 2.0 platform, the World of Wind.
The Media and Direct Mailing Campaigns
In the first phase of the campaigns Vestas placed advertisements in the offline and online global or
regional media (including Linkedin, google adwords and Vestas website) for the 12 general
campaigns, or in the local media for the one to one customized campaigns. Hgsberg and his team
had developed several advertisement prototypes for the customized media campaigns from which
the local teams could choose the one appropriate for their customer. The idea was to attract the
attention of the customer by calling them out. Hgsberg said:
Ideally the advertisements would read: Dear [name of the customer or CEO of the
company], this product is for you, if you want to know more log into this webpage. If you go
to Canada you would have on the background of the billboard or the local press advertisement
pictures of mountains and forests. If a customer is investing in offshore, you would have the
sea. We would also place the advertisement on the billboards next to the headquarters of our
customer, in the local press and on the bus shelters of the main commuting areas. Yet most
local sales and marketing people prefer not to call out the customer by name.
A few local sales people preferred to call out the customer by using a general title such as
certainty seeker, cost optimizer, or safety champion according to the existing or potential customers
main value driver (see Exhibit 15 for examples). Mirella Amalia Vitale, Director, Marketing and
Customer Insight, Mediterranean Region, said, When running such a targeted campaign you must
have a great in depth knowledge of the customer. In some cultures it can be perceived as a little too
direct to call them out. For example, utilities do not always appreciate co-branding and want to keep
options open. In other countries, utilities received pressure to source from local suppliers and did
not want to show strong relationships with foreign firms.
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The 12 global campaigns had instead been developed at headquarters. Of theses, the eight
stakeholders group ones addressed the audience by category, such as Dear Energy Advisor, while
the four more general ones were addressing the customer also with a general Dear World (see
Exhibit 16 for examples). For the customized one to one campaigns, Vestas also sent out direct emails
or letters to a group of decision makers inside the targeted companies. This group, which initially
was of 430 people across 57 companies (three of the original companies were left out from direct
mailing), grew to 732 across 157 companies by the end of 2010 as the local teams kept expanding the
list of people to contact. The direct email and letters were customized by the local teams.
Vestas World of Wind
The second phase of the campaign consisted of the navigation through the World of Wind. This
website contained 42 videos and several information sheets on the four value propositions, the V112
and Vestas. World of Wind allowed the sales force to customize the landing pages and the content of
the website. Albk said, For the one to one campaigns, the sales people prioritize the videos they
believe would be of most interest and thus guide the visitor through the website.
All the media campaigns and direct mailings invited the targeted audience to a link which led to a
general setting of the World of Wind for the global campaigns and to customized websites for the one
to one campaigns. Once the targeted customer had connected to the World of Wind, he would receive
a more or less customized welcoming message and listen to an introductory video of Vestas CEO.
Then, for the one to one campaigns, the visitor could either continue the journey as predefined by
Vestas or decide to explore the website by themselves.
For the 12 global campaigns, there was no online pre-defined journey and after the CEOs video
the visitor could choose among four videos presenting the four value propositions. At the end of each
video, the visitor was presented with another series of videos on topics related to the specific value
proposition. The visitor could click further and get to other videos until the visitor would end up
choosing between factsheets on different sub-topics (see Exhibit 17 for details).
All the websites allowed the visitor to share the videos with other people and to include a
personalized message for the recipient of the shared video. They could also save videos on the
mypage space, send comments to Vestas, and ask to talk to a sales person or to receive further
information. To use the mypage function, the person had to create an account and share contact
details. A mini survey of two questions would pop up during the journey.
The web 2.0 tools allowed Vestas to track what the visitor was clicking on, the time spent on each
video or web page and what was shared and with whom. Yet, Vestas could not identify the visitor
unless he registered himself to save data on the mypage space or requested further information. The
marketing department at headquarters collected the web information through an automatic program
and prepared a report for the local sales people with details on if the customer had asked for further
information, their contact details, the visited pages and further information.
Albk did not think that the new tools would radically change the way they went to the market.
Baden-Kristensen explained, We have a limited number of customers and it makes sense that our
primary channel is direct meetings. As a source of new leads, especially in mature markets, the online
channel could be useful; but it will always have a secondary role. Sren Madsen, Senior Vice
President, Sales, China, added, In my market, we tell our customers that this turbine is for them. The
next question is: what is the price? Our financial and technical people are those who will convince the
customer to buy the turbine not an advertisement. There is no emotional decision when you invest in
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a wind farm. Our campaign allows us to explain to the public that if they want renewable energy we
need help [government support]. In my market, the campaign is less useful in B2B.
Nevertheless the web could help prepare the actual customer meetings. Lake explained, We can
understand what is in the mind of the client in a meeting. However, if you can engage them on a
website and track where they go, how they get there, and what they explore that would give you
additional information. At the next meeting you would know what to focus on in your presentation.
Albk added, Digital enlarges the use of physical meeting and makes the physical more productive.
The sales person could use the website to develop the agenda of their follow up or first meeting. It
would also help them manage customer relationships and help Vestas to identify new customers.
Most sales teams used the new tools in parallel with the more traditional ones. For example, the
Mediterranean region diversified their approach according to if the customer was an existing or a
potential one. Vitale said, For our more established customers we placed the advertisement on the
local media, but for the others we preferred to rely mainly on direct email which were sent out
during the September wind fair in Rome. People would see our banner at the fair, the local press and
then they would receive our email. In the Mediterranean region we were already used to sending out
emails, but now we added a personalized link leading to a web site, the World of Wind, tailored to
the customers main interests; technology, financing and so on.
In a few cases, the sales managers relied less on the web tools and emails but still used the World
of Wind videos. A manager said, In my region, a few government officials do not use the web and
the emails. We prefer to rely on the press coverage and on billboards and send them letters with a
memory stick where theyll be able to see more or less what is on the web. Online is a great media for
technically heavy campaigns but it is also a slow media.
Finally, the new tools could help sales identify new customers or stakeholders. Baden-Kristensen
said, World of Wind has basic information. Our customers should already know these things. Yet it
could be used to identify new industry entrants such as financiers. That being said, we should know
pretty well the few 1,000 key individuals in the different stakeholder groups. Hgsberg concluded,
I do not think that a marketing campaign will make the call we will buy that turbine, yet it will
make the customer feel special. Sales will have to reach out as soon as the campaign is launched to
harvest from the campaign. With a total budget of 1% of Vestas revenues, management expected the
campaign to cost about 60-75% less than the previous campaigns.
The First Results of the V112 Campaigns
Albk planned to track the campaigns progress by looking at the evolution of the customer
excellence KPIs, In the meantime, they were monitoring among many other measures, the number of
visits to their website, the average time spent, how many videos they looked at, what videos were of
interest to them and if they shared content. In addition, Vestas also monitored the customers
readiness to interact not only by keeping track of how many visitors asked to be contacted, but also
by developing a score which gave different percent points to the web visitors according to how they
used the website, if they asked to be contacted and if they shared information (see Exhibit 18 for
details). Vestas also tracked the number of media impressions and the click through rates,
15
and the
number of customers who received a direct mail and how many of them visited the website. All these
measures were compared to predefined targets.
By December 31, 2010, the number of single visits to the World of Wind was more than three times
higher than the set target of 20,000 (see Exhibit 19 for details). The website registered on average
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4,732 visits per week (compared with the targeted 1,250). People spent on average 11 minutes on the
website, viewed 1.7 videos and had shared 94 videos. Of the original 430 contacted individuals in 57
of the initially 60 targeted companies, 58% visited World of Wind. The global media campaigns
generated a weekly average click through rate (CTR) of 0.14% (see Exhibit 20 for details).
Despite these first results, a few managers claimed that the campaigns tools were not always
appropriate to reach the targeted audience and not sufficiently customized. A manager said,
Utilities do not want to be the front runners with new technologies. But if they are interested in
testing new turbines, they would contact us and ask for due diligence, but not by email. They were
annoyed that we were spamming them with our emails. Also, I am not sure the billboards are the
most effective tool. We sell investments, not bread or butter. The manager continued:
We should better define what the clients needs are. For example in one country we
launched the V112 offline campaigns with pictures which did not match the landscape where
the targeted customer was operating. The local units should have more room of maneuver. In
the campaigns we could not change the concept, but only a few words. In addition, the
message should be customized according to whom in a company we are targeting: a
commercial or executive person looks at different things than a technical one.
A few of the first V112 campaigns launched were a little too localized. Vitale said, Planning
around the customers agenda is essential. For example, in Portugal, we launched the V112 campaign
in the local media, targeting a Portuguese utility at their Lisbon headquarters, while the company had
a board of directors meeting in their US offices. A lot of the managers who could have opened the
local daily news were not there.
Conclusions
Just recently Albk had received a formal letter from Centrica saying that the campaign will not
influence their decision. Albk thought, Just the fact that they sent a formal letter is important.
Orders had increased also due to the sales of the V112. Hgsberg said, We have already almost sold
1GW of V112 turbines. There is a lot of fuss around the V112 in the market. Further by monitoring
our reputation among our stakeholders we can see that we have improved. The V112 campaign and
our new marketing approach have for sure been strong contributors to these achievements.
Albk agreed that the tools were too generic and together with Hgsberg he was working on
new, more detailed videos and information sheets. They also wanted to develop a campaign platform
which could address various issues such as environmental related topics, job creation possibilities,
company- and other product specific related issues. Albk added, The ideal would be to create a
sort of online database which the customer could consult. Here the customer would find customized
and tailored information adapted to their needs. For example, we could develop product brochures
tailored to the specific customer explaining in detail how that product would fit their project or have
a tool that would allow them to calculate the economics of their investment.
While he believed that companies had to become more customer focused if they wanted to
survive, Albk wondered if their new strategy was better suited for a B2B company selling highly
technical products. Were they using the right tools? Were they fully exploiting the web 2.0 tools?
How should they measure the success of these tools? How far did they want to go in the
customization of their company and of their marketing approach?