ABG — Global Brand Marketing Services, Business Operations, and Career Sanity Exercises

ABG contracted me in January 2013 to lead and produce global company rebranding initiatives; a complete overhaul and reinvention of internal collateral materials, products, and online identity. They had limited marketing direction pre-2013 and were relying on late 90s-to-mid 2000s brand materials to represent themselves. Their marketing efforts were stuck in the past and it also showed in their industries served, with sales stagnant and attracting no momentum for over a decade combined with an ownership restructuring. Oh, and the recession.

The challenge seemed daunting at first but ownership allowed me the freedom to uproot and gut its brand, its products, its internal and public identity across all media. The goal to rebrand, plan, attack, and shift industries served along with product branding initiatives commenced and continues to this day (2020). Cause and effects of the mass marketing overhaul aimed to replace aging accounts spread across low-profit industries with new businesses from a high-profit industry, Electric Utilities. Establishing brand and product awareness outside of the midwest within the Electric Utilities industry was the underlying motive for my marketing brand direction.

Rebranding ABG within 3 months time from logo to website dev to collateral sales materials and signage influenced ownership with offering me an Executive Director position to come inside, steer, and solely establish ABG’s present and future 360° global brand initiatives. Daily to weekly Initiatives includes: Web Development, Product Development, Print, Web, Signage, Trade Shows, Merch, Ads, Email Campaigns, SEO Campaigns, Marketing, Vendor Negotiations and Contracts, Ecommerce Development and Integration.

ABG’s focused marketing initiatives successfully resulted in replacing low profit, stagnating accounts with higher profit, recession-safe clientele. Previous to my hire, ABG’s AGR was stagnating for over a decade due to a lack of target-marketing while servicing low-profit, bulk bag commodity accounts across pigment/inks, chemicals, food and medical grade industries. Electric Utilities industry accounts barely equaled 10-15% of the company’s sales before my hire. ABG’s success and growth since 2013 is marked by an increase in target-marketing Electric Utilities accounts with our patented products being marketing as safety tools for linemen.

Electric Utility sales comprises more than 78% of our annual revenue as of 2020—compared to less than 15% before my hire. Ownership made a decision along the way to abandon customers with low profit margins from previous served industries before my hire. Not wise in hindsight from a company revenue growth perspective. Despite decisions being made by ownership that I oppose the logic of—and there are many—rebranding and marketing ABG from the ground up attracted new business sales to replace low-profit customers that ownership opted to refer away.

Sales have increased 42% during my tenure as marketing director and it has done so against many odd and risky ownership decisions combined with zero hiring, zero budget allocation, and zero internal support for my end of initiatives that would collapse most companies from the inside. Managing many marketing responsibilities and roles, supervising operations, and having oversight on everything you can think of that drives a modern manufacturer—IT, Network Comm, Employees, Freight logistics, Business planning and growth—often takes priority over the company’s brand marketing responsibilities.

Bottomline, I continue to do an amazing job for this company as it grows and succeeds to fulfill a void in the needs of linemen within the Electric Utilities industry. The flipside is that there is no more room for me to grow my career here from a professional perspective. Financial responsibilities to my family keeps me grounded here while remaining open and focused on a brighter future elsewhere. Location is everything, they say, and I’m willing to up and move my wife and son for a mutually respectful opportunity.