Andrew Lark of Dell

Andrew Lark Andrew’s 20 years experience across business-to-business and consumer sectors spans leading award-winning programs and teams for Fortune and Times 100 companies, global brands, start-ups and the world’s hottest advertising and communications agencies.

During his career he has worked and lived in the majority of the world’s major markets and developed a reputation as a highly creative executive, reputation turn-around specialist, and, marketer. He is a prolific writer, blogger and speaker on marketing, emerging business strategies, marketing/communications measurement, and Web 2.0.

Today, Andrew is vice president, Dell where he is charged with leading the company’s communications, conversations and communities. Andrew joined Dell from LogLogic – a hot technology start-up backed by Sequoia Capital, Worldview and others. LogLogic provides breakthrough technology for collecting, storing and analyzing IT log data from systems of all kinds. Andrew lead all marketing activity as CMO and the company’s business efforts in Japan, Australia and New Zealand. As a member of LogLogic’s leadership team he is charged with growing the sales pipeline and driving business performance globally.

Andrew still plays an active role as Chairman of Group Lark – a consulting firm focused at the nexus of traditional and participatory technologies. Operating under the mantra “activating communities”, Group Lark advises enterprises on strategies related to Web 2.0 technologies including new product development, product extension and deployment of large scale, commercial blog, wiki, podcast and vcast projects. The company has completed consulting engagements for companies such as Southwest Airlines, Entrust, Palamida, Esphion, Visa, Textron, and Fleishman-Hillard. Andrew played a key role in the development and launch of journeytotorino.com – Visa’s first foray into the blogosphere and blog for its Olympic athletes, and, Southwest Airlines’ two hot blog properties. Group Lark is also actively engaged with a variety of Web 2.0 start-ups in developing technology, go-to-market, partnering and marketing strategies.

Carla Hendra of Ogilvy Back to Speakers Brandon Evans of Mr. Youth, LLC

WOMM-U: Day Two Case Study: Houlihan’s Restaurant

The final session of the conference featured a case study on Houlihan’s Restaurants, presented by Jen Gulvik, VP Marketing, Houlihan’s Restaurants, Inc.

In the past few years Houlihan’s has undergone a tremendous transformation. Spreading the word about this has been an interesting challenge. They’re not a national advertiser. While they are in some major markets, they don’t have the budget that many of their competitors do.

The task was to see if they could turn their customers into a marketing force. In the past many of their restaurants had established e-mail lists, it was one-way only. However they do receive a large amount of customer feedback, and this is increasing. She thinks this matches the trend of customers taking control of their brand experiences.

At a WOMMA event a year ago, Jen realized that they’re in an industry (food & beverage) that is heavily talked about. Why not take advantage of that?

First step was to determine who their brand lovers were. They created and sent out a survey. Some quick metrics: 114,949 sent, 18,695 received. From there they began to build out a program, an advisory group. This group would advise them on menu choices and other brand assets. They also developed a program for the HouliFAN’s.

The primary communication channel with the advisory group is the HQ, a password protected site that allows Houlihan’s to provide information to the fans. It also allows them to participate in coversations and get feedback.

One of the first things they did was ask the advisory group, what would you do? Early on they saw an issue related to the removal of fajitas from the menu, or as Jen said, a fajita-freakout.

Once the site was established with the advisory group, it expanded to the entire fan-base, the HouliFANs.

Soon afterwards they rolled out a new menu and used their fans and the site to spread the word. They found that 35% of the fans had spread WOM about the menu.

The program is still new and growing but they’ve been thrilled with the response and feedback they’ve received.

Andrew Lark of Dell

On the agenda

WOMM-U: Day Two Case Study: Houlihan’s Restaurant

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