THENEWRATPACK - Strategy

���������������Expats
���������������Expats
professor at Queen’s. Though it’s been almost
10 years since she taught him, Cunningham
recalls Norton vividly. “Jeff stands out in one’s
memory…I knew he would be a leader.”
In Hollywood, his creative/business combination
gives him an edge. “I think he has a split brain…
divided between creativity and business, and that’s
rare,” notes Charlie Rivkin, president/CEO of
San Francisco-based animation studio Wild Brain
(and former CEO of the Jim Henson Company,
where Norton worked under him). “He’s able to
deal with creative people as well as with investors
very well.”
While at P&G, Norton’s creativity helped him
build activation plans that broke new ground
for the fi rm. He was very inspired by Malcolm
Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point, and crafted
unique word of mouth promotions around the
Febreze and Dryel launches. “The concept of
infl uencing the infl uencers really made sense.
It resonated with me,” Norton says.
“I was given Febreze when it was just a
concept – a fabric refresher. I was given
the opportunity to run with it,” he recalls.
“We realized that the education aspect was
essential…at the time, the concept of spraying
a liquid on your most expensive pieces of
furniture and clothing was quite
out there.”
Norton worked with his PR
agency, Toronto-based Manning,
Selvage & Lee (MS&L), to fi gure
out just who the infl uencers for this
new product would be. They ended
up mailing out 5,000 gift-wrapped
full-size bottles to select targets
across the country, including 1,000
mobile home operators. “We went
after PR in a major way. We wanted
to weave Febreze into everyday
life,” he says.
Leading up to the 1999 Canadian launch,
Norton spent a lot of time in Phoenix, the
American test market for Febreze, observing
how consumers were reacting to it. “I sat with
a woman who was trying to spray a couch with
the tiny [trial] bottle. She even said: ‘Gosh, my
fi nger really hurts,’” Norton says, explaining
that this observation supported his hypothesis
that the 100ml mini-bottle trial sizes being used
in the U.S. could be problematic. He opted
18 STRATEGY September 2006
not to run trial sizes in Canada, a decision
that inspired his European counterparts to do
the same. Another tactic picked up overseas
(in the U.K., this time) was Norton’s decision
to include an informational booklet on the
package to help people understand how to use
this strange new product.
Clearly, Norton’s intuition paid off: the
Canadian launch of Febreze took just three
months to meet the volume forecast for the
entire year, planting the seed for Norton’s
reputation as the launch guy. “Almost as soon
as Febreze was launched, they asked me to do
it again for Dryel,” he recalls, adding that at
age 25, he was the youngest person working on
the Dryel global team.
Once again, Norton worked with MS&L on
WOM-building efforts. “He was particularly
excited about the potential of word of mouth
when it was still in its very early days,” notes
Gayla Brock-Woodland, managing director
at MS&L. They did a 25-mall tour with four
dryers, demo-ing how Dryel works. “Consumers
were afraid of putting their garments into a
plastic bag and putting it into the dryers,” says
Norton. “They literally had to see it before their
eyes – it normalized the behaviour.”
Norton also tried to reach out to the dry-cleaning
community to present Dryel as a complement
to, not replacement of, dry cleaning to help keep
them from telling all of their customers not to use
Dryel. He even spoke at a dry-cleaning trade show,
and recalls that it was a very hostile crowd. While
he wasn’t able to win the community over enough
to do co-promotions with them, Norton thinks
his primary task, to deter them from bashing his
product, was achieved.
www.strategymag.com
FIVE QUESTIONS
Above:A double major in film studies and commerce prepared Norton for his eclectic career path
Favourite movie
Die Hard. The story of one man’s
triumph over impossible odds.
I wrote a fi lm studies thesis on it
at Queen’s.
Favourite website
Globeandmail.com. It’s what keeps
me connected to Canadian news.
Favourite TV commercial of
all 5time
“Apple 1984.” I can still remember
watching it during the Superbowl
with my Dad.
First job
I started working very early, to
save money to travel to Expo ’86 in
Vancouver. I did anything I could to
earn a buck. My fi rst full time/
part time job was at the local
movie theatre.
Greatest strength
Leadership. Inspiring others to do
their best work.
Anticipating future competitors, Norton
positioned Dryel as a fashion-enabler to create
an emotional connection to the brand. He
and MS&L partnered with about a dozen
Canadian designers to do Dryel fashion shows.
“We did arguably some of the fi rst generation
word of mouth efforts,” says Brock-Woodland.
“He has vision and tenacity, and that’s an
extraordinary combination,” she continues. “I
always had a vision that he is someone I would
read about in Fortune magazine one day.”
With Norton's fi rst DVD release in the
CYOA series under his belt, and his next
projects in pre-pro, Rivkin agrees that Norton
is one to keep an eye on: “This is just the
beginning of a very, very interesting career for
this guy.”