B-to-B’s Global Optimism: Emerson Considers It Solved

St. Louis, Missouri-based Emerson is a diversified global manufacturing and technology solutions powerhouse, which has come a long way since its 1890 inception as a local manufacturer of electric motors and fans. Known for its engineering capabilities, the company offers products and services in the areas of process management, climate technologies, network power, storage solutions, professional tools, appliance solutions, motor technologies, and industrial automation. Emerson has more than 140,000 employees and approximately 265 manufacturing locations worldwide.

Last year, Emerson’s sales exceeded $22 billion, a new company record, especially since international sales totaled 52%, surpassing U.S. sales for the first time in the company’s history. This year offered a number of other landmarks. In May, Emerson was ranked 111 within the Fortune 500 listing of America’s largest corporations. In April, Emerson ranked 275 on the Forbes Global 2000, and appeared as one of the magazine’s 130 Global High Performers. And in March, Emerson was ranked second in its industrial category as one of America’s most admired companies.

Emerson’s marketing initiatives around the world are run by Kathy Button Bell, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, and she’s bullish about the world according to Emerson. The company may be a newcomer to corporate advertising as it launched its first campaign in 2002 with the tagline, “Emerson, Consider It Solved,” but has gained momentum quickly. In 2006 Emerson aired its first-ever commercials on business television highlighting the company’s global capabilities, called “Are You Ready?” According to Button Bell, “This campaign was important because it took Emerson well above our traditional problem-solving messages into a realm of bigger issues with broader relevance and impact.”
We have mentioned in past editions of The Internationalist how Kathy Button Bell is an outside-of-the-box thinker, and she also has been wonderfully candid about some of the marketing challenges she has faced with taglines, logos and languages in many markets. Today she shares with us some of the lessons she’s learned from running innovative B-to-B messages in the many countries where Emerson does business.

The Internationalist: Are you optimistic about global growth?
Kathy Button Bell: “The industrial marketplace has been very optimistic for some time, and continues to be positive. We are on a different business cycle from consumer goods, so we are not facing some of the challenges that some B-to-C companies may be experiencing. Emerson’s strong growth is based on a combination of factors; however, a key factor is that more than half of sales our sales are outside the United States in some of the world’s fastest growing markets. Our business is largely dependent on building out industrial infrastructure on a worldwide basis, and that’s a demand that won’t go away.”

The Internationalist:In which markets are you seeing the strongest growth?
Kathy Button Bell: “Of course, China and India are big growth markets for us, but Latin America is also developing very well. A market like Brazil can be quite surprising as there is already a sophisticated build out there, largely because it is a market rich with energy, particularly big oil and gas businesses. It is also a more familiar marketplace as it is still rooted in a Western culture and offers more similar experiences. Although India is important, you can’t compare it to Brazil in terms of the products and services we offer or obvious factors like culture or infrastructure.

Our business often follows the growth of key industries like oil, gas and telecommunication. As a result, the Middle East has been important to us. Qatar is key, and its vitality is reminiscent of Hong Kong 15 years ago. It is also a very accessible market for doing business, and one where Americans can easily be comfortable. We use it as regional hub now, and have come to work with some fabulous people in Doha, Qatar’s largest city. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait are also on our short list.

As a rule, we try to go into new markets early. Emerson has been in Russia for a long time, and actually bought a process company in Chelyabinsk some years ago. In fact, it has become an engineering center for us. We learned that if we can find good educational hubs, they can become great engineering hubs, as happened with Chelyabinsk. We will often grow locally to keep our product development close to the end market.”

The Internationalist: How do media choices vary by market?
Kathy Button Bell: “If media is a good reflection of culture, then Brazil is more like the U.S. or Western Europe in terms of the establishment and reputation of its business media. Both China and India media markets are not as mature yet, in that they have not gone through a ‘tightening’ process. For example, it is not uncommon for there to be 50 trade magazines in a single category or a large number of newspapers per province. We’ve yet to see a maturation process.
The Middle East has similar issues in terms of the amount of business media, and this obviously affects our advertising. In the Gulf Region, it may take 6 publications in a specific sector to cover the market, but in the U.S. or Western Europe, you can usually get adequate coverage with just one or two publications.”

The Internationalist: Do you have a specific example of a program in a new market?
Kathy Button Bell: “Our Qatargas Project is a good example. Qatargas’ goal is to produce 42 million tons of liquefied natural gas annually by the end of the decade and become the world’s largest supplier. Our Process Management division designed a digital automation system that works with more than 10,000 digital intelligent field devices to make production facilities safe, efficient, and reliable. Natural gas produces much less pollution than other fuels, and Emerson also worked to help Qatargas liquefy the gas for more cost-efficient transport to the world.
Our interaction with Qatargas from a marketing standpoint offers an interesting case study in appropriate localization. We actually partnered with our customer’s marketing department to insure that we understood all possible Mid-Eastern sensibilities. In fact, a Qatargas employee was an intern in my department during the initial marketing phase.

We then presented all of our ads to their CEO to be sure all of our marketing made local sense.

We wanted to double-check, re-check and check again, because addressing local cultural sensitivities is important. Qatar is one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, and it is a country with tremendous national pride, although we found the executives to be both modern and humble people. We needed to insure that Emerson gained prominence for their country, and did so with the right growth message on international TV and in print. The project was a win-win for both Qatargas and Emerson.”

The Internationalist: How are these new marketing frontiers shaping Emerson’s worldwide brand thinking? Are you adapting more to local markets?
Kathy Button Bell: “Emerson and other large industrial companies have a sophisticated sales process where we value consistency more than more localization. Industrial sales frequently require consensus with multiple decision-makers in multiple locations. A big project could easily require 100 people with critical input around the world. As a result, we need a consistent message.

In our corporate marketing, we don’t’ localize our global brand message. And our ‘Consider It Solved’ tagline runs worldwide in English. When testing the tagline, we found that it could be considered ‘friendly and accessible’ when translated, or ‘an example of authentic Western technology’ if not translated. We opted for the latter image. It is idiomatic; it cannot be exactly translated. Our message is that you can depend on us to for technological solutions and to continue to care with advice and service.

For us, the tagline is more than an advertising slogan, it is an important visual brand element to see and recognize. In that manner, it is not unlike many B-to-C logos. ‘Consider It Solved’ talks about how Emerson as a company goes about solving its customers’ problems and how they can depend on us in any industry we serve.

Nonetheless, through DDB’s global team, we work to minimize local risk. For example, we may picture a building in India in our marketing, because it will be easily recognizable to the world as an Indian site. It becomes a metaphor for India in other markets. However, in India, that same building might be a temple, which could be disrespectful to the local market — and a market with which we are doing business.
We want to underscore that we are a global company. When we film a spot in Doha, it may actually feel local when it runs there in Arabic on AlJazeera. But when we translate it into 6 languages so that it runs on broadcast outlets around the world, we reflect our global presence. ”

The Internationalist: Are you seeing any new marketing trends emerging — particularly in a world with increased digital accountability?
Kathy Button Bell: “In the digital world we are moving from nearly 600 local websites to a single, modular Web presence— www.emerson.com. This is designed to create a greater feeling of continuity, and it becomes infinitely easier for global prospects to translate our offerings around the world. Whether you’re a Chinese customer looking for solutions to power plants or an American looking for help with air-conditioning, the site eventually will cater to our broad customer base.

Today the big shift in digital is on how we use it. The process continually evolves, and the tools now are more sophisticated, and it has very interesting industrial applications in terms of both social media forums and blogging. We are finding that our customers are willing to talk about applications of products and what’s good—whether they are plumbing trade groups or people in process management for the oil industry. B-to-B sites can offer very honest third-party conversations, and now you can live 24/7 with your customer.”

Kathy Button Bell, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Emerson, joined the company in 1999 and became the first person to hold a corporate marketing job. Prior to her role, marketing duties were conducted by over 60 individual divisions.
She has been instrumental in helping the industrial giant carve out a success global brand strategy that has brought the company significant worldwide growth, and has been applauded for reinventing the company's logo, accentuating the singular name Emerson, and initiating Emerson’s first global advertising campaign.

Prior to Emerson, Button Bell was president of her own market consulting company, Button Brand Development. Earlier in her career, she served as executive director of worldwide marketing communications for Converse Inc. and director of advertising and public relations for Wilson Sporting Goods Co.

Originally from the Chicago suburbs, Button Bell says that she learned a lot about marketing from her father, who was also in the business. She has a bachelor's degree in psychology from Princeton University.
Contact: Katherine.buttonbell@emerson.com