Town Hall Meeting: Do You Love Our Brands Like Our Consumers and Customers Do?
With key business updates from Romain, this town hall meeting focused on our brands, asking everyone the question “do you love our brands like our customers and consumers do?”. We took this to the polls, live in session, with interesting insights to act on.
But first, to business.
Romain provided an overview of business activity. If you missed the live session, then we highly recommend spending time to watch and listen to his updates. It’s important for everyone at Colart to stay informed. We’ve summarised this for you, as follows:
- Connecting the "3 P's": Romain explained how we can better connect the three pillars of People, Planet, and Profit. Addressing speculation from the previous town hall meeting, he reiterated the following points:
- Profit enables both People and Planet.
- Sustainable value creation and profit are primary; they serve as the enablers.
- People and Planet initiatives can only happen if the company can invest (through Profit) in the future. There is no magic "pot of gold" waiting to be utilised.
- Our objective is to support the rebuild towards profitable growth - Financial Update for 2023:
- Romain provided a snapshot of the first five months of 2023.
- The first quarter showed solid performance.
- By the end of March, we were ahead of the budget.
- However, April and May results fell below budget, resulting in a deficit of $2 million compared to the forecast for 2023, which is 20% below expectations. - Based on the financials, our focus should be on putting "business first," which involves:
- Strengthening our competitive factories.
- Improving efficiencies in our orders.
- Providing agile services.
- Ensuring marketing teams stay closely connected to the markets.
- Encouraging sales teams to maintain close relationships with customers and stay active in the field.
- Supporting teams to enhance agility in all aspects of their work.
- Leaders taking charge, setting expectations, and providing guidance.
- Romain provided a snapshot of the first five months of 2023.
- Budget Process for 2024:
The budget process for the next year has commenced, and the timeline is as follows:
- GLT (Global Leadership Team) will work on the budget and aims to complete it by the end of June.
- Workshops will be held in September.
- Key strategic headlines will be communicated to the Board in September.
- Detailed budget and mid-term business plan will be shared in November.
Led by Gareth in the Communications Team, we recently conducted a session focused on you, our people, as brand ambassadors. During this session, we conducted several polls to gain valuable insight into your thoughts and actions.
Here is what we learned:
Out of the participants, 64% had seen the statement, "Do you love our brands like our consumers and customers do?" It was pleasing to find that 86% of you confirmed that you actually do love our brands. With our reputation, focus on quality, and heritage, it's no wonder why.
We specifically discussed the Love Liquitex campaign and highlighted the branded merchandise launch from Liquitex. Through the polls, we discovered that there is some additional work needed to ensure that we deliver future internal campaigns that align with your preferred way of receiving information. When asked to rate how relevant the campaign was to you personally on a scale of 1 to 5, we received a score of 3.1. Similarly, when it came to how well the email campaigns informed you about the merchandise, we scored 3.5 out of 5. However, the most significant insight came from the 74% of you who mentioned that the campaign didn't motivate you to spread the word among your own networks. This clearly indicates that there is work to be done in this area, and we would greatly appreciate any suggestions you may have (please add them in the comments box at the bottom of this page).
During the session, we shared a quote from Forbes Online that we felt resonated with the theme of the session, particularly regarding "love." The quote states: "In the world of work, do we talk about love enough? I don't think so. In terms of people, it sounds light and fuzzy, but love is at the root of talent management: attraction, recruitment, hiring, engagement, retention, and employee recognition. And it's about passion. Whatever our role, we are aiming for a momentum and stamina that's driven by passion because that's what we can leverage into better performance, better sales, better results. Among ourselves, our teams, our colleagues, our customers, our partnerships."
Eden Cook-Watson from the UK Marketing team featured in a discussion in this session. Eden, the winner of the Love Liquitex campaign, exemplified the exact qualities any brand or business would want in a brand ambassador. We encourage you to listen to what he had to say and extend a massive thank-you to Eden for his valued contribution.
Relating to the last three polls in the session, we asked you what being an ambassador at Colart means to you. The top three selections, in order, were:
- Feeling proud to be associated with our brands.
- Being passionate about making the brands successful.
- Encouraging people to use our brands and products.
Interestingly, when we asked which of the same selections you actually embody, the same three statements tied for first place. It's great to see the emotional consistency here.
Lastly, we asked how we can help build your love for our brands, and the two most popular responses were:
- Brand information tutorials on Colart Academy.
- Invitations to branded events.
The polls provided invaluable real-time insights that confirmed what was previously just a hunch. While we can't promise immediate action based on your feedback, we will strive to make changes step-by-step. We'll keep you updated on any new initiatives and thank you to everyone who contributed.