The Early Bird Club - Richard Stollery

An Post was delighted to host the 3rd in the Early Bird Club Series

21/10/2009

The Early Bird Club is a series of high-level briefings for senior management. The third in the series invited Gerard O'Neill, CEO of Amárach and Richard Stollery, Senior Director of Consumer Experiences of The LEGO Company with Kevin Dundon of Dunbrody Country House preparing his take on the Irish breakfast.

There is light at the end of the tunnel

Gerard O’Neill, Chief Executive of Amárach Consulting kindly shared a snapshot of the findings from the An Post Mail Media Unit's research programme. The most recent wave looked at the realities of marketing budgets, how marketers feel about the future, and media trends and insights into how direct mail will play its role. An interesting finding is what truly innovative companies – or those companies most positively positioned to recover – are planning.

Amárach - Gerard O'Neill, There is light at the end of the tunnel (new window.pdf 2MB)

Toy Story for Irish Business

With 62 million LEGO bricks for every person on earth it is easy to understand why LEGO is still Toy of the Century.

Richard Stollery, Senior Director of Consumer Experiences with LEGO told the real life ‘toy story’ of business success. This is the latest in the An Post, Early Bird series which engages senior marketing executives with the potential power of Direct Mail within their marketing strategy.

Just five short years ago the LEGO dynasty was 1.4billion euro in deficit and facing collapse. Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, the grandson of founder Ole Kirk Christiansen, returned to take a more active role the LEGO Group and the Company is now back on track. In the first half of 2009 the LEGO Group increased its sales by 23% above the corresponding figure for the same period of 2008.

Richard Stollery explained the part that direct sales have had in the company’s dramatic rebuild. LEGO Group’s direct sales to consumers via its own brand retail stores plus internet and mail order sales increased considerably during 2008 and 2009. This was achieved through a marketing strategy using direct mail as part of the marketing mix.

With a classic, niche product LEGO ranks as the 4th largest player in the toy market. LEGO Club has 3 million members worldwide across 12 different countries. The size of the club has doubled in the last 3 years.

Richard explains: “The LEGO brand is more than simply a familiar logo. It is the expectations that people have of the company – towards its products and services, the brand acts as a guarantee of quality and originality.”

LEGO - Richard Stollery, Profitably Engaging Customers (new window pdf. 4MB)

Listen to Alex Gibson from the Persuaders interview with Richard Stollery and other attendees.(new window. mp3. 11MB)

Some pictures from the morning

Kevin Dundon and Amie Peters, An Post

Richard Stollery, LEGO and Amie Peters, An Post

Amie Peters, An Post and Patrica Callan, SFA

Alex Gibson, The Persuaders, Frank Kennedy, Honda, Neil Dalton, Honda and Robert Coyle, Bloom

Annette Crehan, Kraft Ireland, Colm Kelly, An Post, Sian Gray, Nokia and Gerry Davis, An Post

Mark Fielding, ISME and Amie Peters, An Post

Colin Stoddart, FBD, Yvonne Cassidy, Yvonne Cassidy, Marketing Services and Myles Burke,
An Post

Liam Sheehan, An Post and Gary Brown, RMG Target

Lisa Nicole Dunne, UNICEF Ireland and Michael Killeen, Dialogue

Paddy Kearney, An Post and Kay Price, Superquinn

Amie Peters, An Post, Gerard O'Neill, Amarach, Liam Sheehan, An Post and Richard Stollery, LEGO