Episode 121: Supplier CMO Series, Eckhard Sohns with Swiss-based Prodir

Welcome to Skucast, the podcast for entrepreneurs in the promotional products industry. Skucast shines a light on our industry's best work, features maverick personalities, and discusses what's really involved in running a modern promotional products business. SkewCast is the official podcast of Common Skew.

Hello everyone, this is Mark Graham, and I am so excited to share this conversation I had with Eckart Sans with Prodear Pens. Headquartered in southern Switzerland, Prodear is an irreverent supplier brand in the promotional products industry, well known for its high design sense great quality pens, and unique approach to marketing and storytelling. But this podcast is not about a supplier pitching its pens. Rather, it's a deep dive into the philosophy of positioning and creating emotional connection within a vast and sometimes tired category, writing instruments. There are also so many lessons that distributors can take from this as we are also in the business of positioning and emotional connection. I have long admired Prodeer as a company that has zigged while others have zagged in the writing instrument category. In fact, I first learned of Prodeer after seeing their magazine and catalog in our office years ago. It immediately struck me as highly unique with its blend of storytelling and product information. I wanted to explore how the company approached its marketing which led me to its enigmatic Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Eckart Sorgens. This is a wide-ranging discussion that covers everything from how to position a brand within a crowded category to reminding the world that the Swiss aren't as boring as you might think. I hope you enjoy. I absolutely love the video that you have on your site. It's about ProDeer, and it starts off— for those people who haven't seen the video, and we'll link to this in our show notes— it starts off with the image of a cow, and it's all about—

she's called Marigold.

Marigold, yes, exactly. She's famous. And the whole idea of this video is debunking the fact that the world thinks the Swiss are boring and talks about all these surprising innovations like mustard in a tube and the internet, of course, that came out of Switzerland. And then, of course, it then ends in talking about Prodeer and your whole value structure. But it's an extremely well-produced video. It's extremely quirky and off the wall. And I can tell you that I have never seen a video quite like it. Produced by a promotional pen company. Can you talk to me about why that video was important and then more specifically why being Swiss was this key to your story?

Well, there are two aspects. First of all, I really appreciate and will pass on what you just said to all those people who were involved in that. It is part of it of what we live. I mean, we really love what we're doing and I think when you see this video, you see that we had a great time doing it. We really were laughing very often and we had a great time doing it. And that is fundamental for us. I think that you feel in many things we produce, we do, that it is passionate. It's really about something we love to do and it's a stimulating process also for us. Now, why did we do so? Well, because this element of being Swiss is really a fundamental aspect of our corporate identity. I mean, as I said before, we have 400 people in 3 factories here in Switzerland producing our products. We're producing in Switzerland, in the heart of Europe, whereas really today most of the products are certainly not produced in Switzerland and they're not produced in Europe either. So we are— that's part of what we are and that's part of what we want to be and that's a fundamental part of our identity, being Swiss, with all the aspects which are linked to it. Everybody knows it's about precision, it's about caring about detail, it's about all these, these very positive aspects linked to being Swiss. But we wanted to make sure that you understand that there's more to it, that our customers and the people, our partners, understand that there is this slightly anarchic part in it as well. That is, it's about trying to find new ways. And one of the key aspects in this video is, and that very often surprises people a lot, that on the global ranking of the most innovative countries in the world, Switzerland is in the first place. It's ranked first. So it's about being creative, it's about finding new solutions, and that's also what we are doing over here. We're really Trying to reinvent the pen every basic day, every day, basically. Yeah, that's what we're trying to do.

As someone who is not Swiss, so I'm Canadian. But you are almost Swiss. Thank you. My knee-jerk reaction when I hear something is Swiss is positive. I think of premium. I think of quality. I think of bespoke. I think of small. In a good way, not a bad way. And so those are my immediate knee-jerk reactions: premium, luxury, all that kind of stuff. And so I can certainly see why promoting this Swissness is a positive thing. But what is unique— when I think of these traditional Swiss brands, I think of Montblanc. I know that to some extent they'd be a competitor, maybe on the higher-end side. Or I think of Swatch, or I think of Toblerone. But what really struck me as interesting about Pro Deer is that you certainly communicate these elements of design and quality, but you're also promoting this idea of quirkiness and personality, and as you say, anarchism. And I must admit, I've never connected Swiss to those ideals, and I think that that's what makes the Pro Deer story so interesting. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

It's this link to creativity which is very fundamental for Prodier. People who work here, people who are attracted by Prodier, people who want to work for Prodier share this common idea that this is a very creative place to work, and that's true. This covers people who, because as I said before, we have this components business, We have nerds who think really from the morning to the evening, 10 hours a day, about how to improve inks and refills and tips, and they're really, really good at that, and they do this with a tremendous passion and creativity, as much also as the people who are working on new designs or new production technology, etc. So this being still a rather small company where everybody knows everyone else creates a very creative atmosphere. And we try to bring some of this atmosphere into this video because it's about us also means transferring to who sees this video the atmosphere we feel here and we wanted that this video transmits the idea of how we see the world and that's— we're very proud to be Swiss, yes. And there's more to it. And that's what you feel in this video.

Right. So from my vantage point as someone who started a distributor and now is in the software space in the promotional industry, the writing instrument category in the promotional products is, I would define it as two things. Number one, it's huge. And number two, it's pretty straightforward. It's pretty traditional. I don't mean that in a negative way, but most writing instrument companies position themselves through the lens of reliability, good pricing, or maybe very good pricing because the pen category can sometimes be a race to the bottom in terms of price. And you also have some pretty large sophisticated players that dominate the space. So that's from my perspective. So it appears to me that by promoting this Swissness, this quirkiness, this personality, this concept of like high design but for a fair price, to me, strikes me as very savvy marketing and positioning on your part. Is that a fair observation? And I'd be curious as to know how you viewed the landscape in the '90s when you were coming into the space, because the quickest way to fail in introducing any product to a market is to just look like the other guy. And so I'm just wondering how intentional you were in playing up these differences when you were coming into this very crowded and somewhat commoditized category in the promotional space.

When Prodeer started, the— They did something new. What did they do? What did we do? I say they because that happened a couple of years before I actually started to work with the company. We did, we created something, a new combination which you also find in the video we were just referring to. We combined two things in a new way which was a pen and a design made from plastic, which was at that— these days was considered to be a rather cheap thing. And we transferred or we transformed this idea of a cheap plastic pen through a great investment of great designers working on these forms into something which from its shape had all the appeal of a product which was premium. That's— we're back to Switzerland again. But we did something else. The combination, the new combination, was that within such a plastic pen, which for the first time had a very appealing, very attractive, very Swiss timeless functional design, had a great refill inside, fantastic refill technology because we have the know-how in-house. We know what it takes to create a great refill, and we combined this— what used to be a cheap sort of promotional product, a plastic pen— we combined this plastic pen by inserting an excellent refill of high quality, also this Swiss-made quality, with a fantastic design, adding for the first time a whole set of new colors, focusing the communication aspect of this product through new surfaces, etc., being innovative in this market by continuously inserting new options, we changed what is the perception of a plastic pan within the promotional market. Yeah, yeah. I don't know whether that's an answer to your question, Mark, but No, absolutely.

And I know my question was somewhat broad as well. I think it's just fascinating. And I've always loved brands that come into a space and are able to redefine what the product is. And so it doesn't become a race to the bottom with, hey, we've introduced another plastic pen that is 2 cents cheaper than such and such a competitor. And I think you definitely see that happening in the writing instrument category, but it's always, I think it's just so, it's so much more interesting when a company can come in and lead with innovation and creativity by changing the perception of the product. And what that does is it opens up a whole new category. So you're not necessarily competing with the price people, that's fine, they can do their thing. But you're coming in, you're growing the pie, which I think is really key in this industry. Sorry, you were gonna say?

Yeah, no, I think we are, uh, at a certain point we decided that we are not in the pen industry. We're not selling pens. Yes, we're selling pens. We were selling them in the communication market. So our market is not the pen business, but we are having a product which is produced by highly qualified people who are among the world's leading experts in producing pens, but we are introducing it as a product in the communication market. Now, if we are in the communication market, we need to live up to the standards of this communication market, which basically means that our communication must be appealing to those who in the end use these products to communicate their message. They must see in what we do that we understand what their needs are. We must show to them that we know what it means to tell a story well and what it means to convey a message an incredible way and an original way. And as you've said in our— by looking at our video also— an original way. This competence in communication is what we insert into our products, which are pens, through permanent research in focusing those elements which makes them even better communication tools, but making a great difference between communication and becoming gimmicky. We're not interested in producing things which last 3 weeks and then look old. We want— and that happens actually. I still have the pen when I was a marketing director in a company 22 years ago. I ordered— that was my first contact with Prodia. I ordered a Prodia pen, a DS3, and I still have it. It's It still works. So this, I still write with it. So that means that these parts really have a long lifetime and they are true communication tools and we need to convey our competence in this area of communication as much as we do in conveying the message in a credible way that we actually know precisely what it takes to make a great pen.

I was going to make an observation about this, that this idea that you're really in the communication business as opposed to the pen business, which I think is a really interesting way of positioning your product. So I've been following the rise of Casper, the mattress company that has done exceedingly well in the foam memory mattress category. And I remember speaking with one of their marketing executives a little while ago, and what she was saying is that they're actually not in the mattress business, they're in the sleep business. And it's really interesting when they talk about that because their content, their marketing, their branding is all in the service of a better night's sleep. And this concept that we maybe stressed out North Americans, I know Europeans are not stressed out, but maybe stressed out, sleep deprived North Americans need to sleep more and they need to celebrate that. And it's almost like they've created this whole aura around the respectability of sleep. And so within that, they've got foam mattresses, they've got pillows, they've got dog beds, and so on and so forth. And so I make that comment to say two things. One, that I think some of the best modern marketers are ones that rise above their products, and you clearly have done that. And then number two is if Prodere is really in the communication business, do you see additional product lines coming out that are in the support of communication, like maybe journals? Or do you see yourself as exclusively a pen company and would never want to deviate from that specific category?

That's a difficult and very interesting question, Mark. What I cannot exclude that one day there will be another product line. But there's a big but. If there is one, and I honestly cannot tell you today if there is and what it could be, but if there is one, it must have the same features as, let's say, the relation we have to our writing instruments. We are really experts in making writing instruments. We know what it takes to make them really, really good. We are the only producer worldwide today, although we are a little small, promotional company who offers a refill with an ink which does not have the so-called substance of very high concern, so toxic substances anymore. A blue writing refill, we're the only one who produce. So we have a great expertise in what we're doing, which also gives us the confidence to say that this product is great. Now, this is part of us, this is part of our DNA, And we're not going to give this up by just adding bits and pieces to a product line and sort of just make a bit more turnover, but really giving up this fundamental idea that we know, love, and understand our products in a very profound way. This is going to be fundamental that we are not going to do. But what we are doing obviously in our communication is precisely that.

That we are.

I mean, we have our own magazine where we sort of propose ourselves as being able to tell stories well. So in our communication area, we live this promise of professional storytelling through pens on a different level. Yes, from a product line, I cannot exclude that, but for the time being, this is There need to be certain parameters to be respected before we actually do that.

Well, I think that's a great segue. I want to talk a little bit about your magazine. So for those that don't know your magazine, it's called Open, or I think maybe just quite simply O. And it functions as a cross between thought leadership and communication with a little mix of anarchy, I would say, coupled with a pen catalog. And I've got, at least that's my perception. And over the years, we've received this and it is, I'm not just saying this because I'm speaking to you, has got to be one of the most interesting, quirky, and yet effective pieces of sales literature I have ever seen. And so I want to dig a little bit into how it is, or why don't you talk a little bit about the magazine and then I've got some questions for you in terms of why it is that you chose to do it.

A magazine for us is an expression of our passion for communication. I mean, we are, we're not in a virtual world. We, of course, when it comes to sales, we need online, we also have a blog, but our product is a pen, which is a product you can touch, you can feel, which is not virtual, but it's in the real world. And a magazine is an expression of this real world as well. And why is it called Open Now magazine? Because our pens are open. These pens can be filled with so many different messages that they are to be declinated, defined in so incredibly infinite individual ways that they are able to tell many, many different stories in their own particular way. Open is an expression of this, that we try to also tell very, very different stories which we like, which caught our attention, and which are linked a bit to what we're doing. You said, and I really appreciate the way you described this before, it's about also how we see marketing, it's about how we see communication, and it's always about one theme which we have as a red thread leading through all these stories, trying to convey things which we find interesting. And what we find interesting, we hope to share with the people who like and buy our products in such a way that they understand what's happening in our minds. What are we thinking while we're doing these products and proposing new colors, new materials, whatever. And that's why the pens are in there as well. They're part of this. They're part of this storytelling, little storytelling universe which we have created around our pens because they are storytellers. That's part of what they are.

Was there ever any, or let me reframe the question. I'm curious as to how the decision was made to invest money into a magazine that primarily talks about things like hiking or the dogs of your human resources manager, Carla, just to cite some examples in the most recent issue. This is not inexpensive to produce. I imagine this costs a fortune. It's beautifully produced. It's an analog thing. Tell me about how you as a business decided to devote money to this as a marketing resource, because you're not doing this out of the goodness of your own heart. You clearly have to see an ROI. And I think many companies would struggle connecting this to an ROI, and clearly you have. So tell me about that.

You, you, the structure of our market obviously implies that we have basically 3 people or 3 institution parts of who in one way or the other has a relation to our product. It's the dealer who sells or the distributor of the dealer, it's the company who uses this product for its communication, and the person, this consumer, the single individual who actually receives it to write with. Now the opened the magazine. We had one magazine before which was called Pending, so it's actually the second edition of this project. It was based on the idea that although we have a very clear idea that we work with distributors, we support our distributors in any way we can, that we wanted to make sure that also end users, if they get into contact or they're interested in us, get what we are in such a way that it's not only talking what the purchasing department probably would do about prices and all these other aspects which are linked to buying a pen. So we wanted to create a tool where we can freely show and talk about what's important to us, what we think is important, and show explicitly also that many of the issues they are thinking about, in the sense of what is marketing about today, what are the problems, what are the challenges, that we show what we are thinking, what's our position on this matter. So Open and the other magazine pending was in a push-and-pull strategy, basically something we thought we would offer to end users and show that's what we are, that's the world of of Prod'ear and the product which is going with it offers you something of a competence in storytelling and a competence in marketing which you get when you buy this product. That's the, that's the universe this little magazine is positioned in.

Right. I think that's a wonderful answer and I love how you talked about the three different people in your ecosystem, at least on the customer side. You've got the distributor, you've got the end client or the corporation that's ordering the product. And then of course you've got the recipient of the product, which I like to call the end client. And that person is arguably the most important because that's the person who decides, is this a piece of junk or is this something that I have a strong emotional connection with? And I think that the smartest suppliers in the promotional products industry are the ones that, A, have great respect for the supply chain and the order of sales. So in terms of your supporting distributors, distributors are your way to market. But at the same time, you're creating literature and you're creating a story that makes it easier for the distributor to sell your product because if a company starts to recognize Pro Deer and the company has got this brand lodged in their mind as something that they identify with, then they're going to be requesting Pro Deer and that makes the sale that much easier. It's very, very clever, but I think what's risky in this approach, and I'd be interested in you talking about this, is that this is an investment that does not see a return immediately, or sorry, that's an assumption that I'm making. Is that true, or did you find that producing open generated a fairly quick return on investment?

There are several levels of the return on investment. Let's maybe reframe it in such a way: in one way or the other, we need to be able to communicate novelties in a convincing way throughout the year. Now, Open comes out twice a year, we have two issues a year, and these two issues are linked to our launching phases 2 launching phases for a new product in a year, and every edition of Open is linked to one of these launching phases. Now, in the past, what happened? In the past, sample sets have been sent out, which is quite expensive as well, to be honest. And if you do it in a very capillary way, as we did and still at times do. That also requires quite some investment. We thought this is not enough. Yes, we need to get out, and that's what we do when sending it open. There's always a pen going with it, so you don't only receive the magazine, you also receive a pen with it.

Right, that's smart.

And when you open up the magazine, the first thing you see is the pen. And the magazine itself also talks about, very often, in a way that the specific character of this pen is also reflected in the themes which are treated in the magazine in such a way that it becomes a very coherent little— I always say universe, but it's a small universe— but it's the positioning of this pen you receive in such a way that it is reflected in many, many different things, many different stories, images. We have beautiful photographs by great photographers in there, and it gives a value to the product, and that's the value we see in this product. That's the value we ourselves perceive in it, and it's just sharing what we see in this product with whom receives it for the first time when the product is launched. So this for us is not a luxury. This for us is a necessity because we are not in the pen business, but we are in the communication business. I'm not just sending you a pen like any other pen and you can substitute it with any other pen. No, there's something very special about this pen and we want you to see what we feel is special about this pen in such a way that you can, when reading it, and it's going to be hopefully touching points of of themes, of ideas which now you're probably also thinking about because they are in the air, that all this somehow links up. So it's not a luxury, and measuring the return on investment is relative. I think in the long run, the return on investment is very clear, and on the short run, basically talking very clearly about the costs. Producing open in such a way and sending the sampleless new products with it as we do today is not more expensive than shipping new— shipping the samples out twice a year. So it's something we consciously do. It's part of the way we see our business, we see our products,. And we think it's to be fundamental to share this with our clients in such a way that they understand that we have what approach we have to this problem.

So it's really fundamental. What a brilliant answer. I so appreciate that. And it makes me think, given my supplier or sorry, my distributor background, that while your comments are bang on for the suppliers, I think about my experience on the distributor side that the best distributors in the promotional products industry are the ones that take that same approach. So, on one hand, you've got the transactional distributor that drops off a catalog and says, "Hello, Mr. or Mrs. End Client. Tell me what you want. I'll get you a good price and I can put that order in." I'm simplifying it, but that's category 1. And category number 2 is more the agency solutions, creatively driven distributor that may sell the exact same pen, but they wrap it around storytelling. They wrap it around content. They wrap it around what I call emotional connection. So that way the end client goes, this distributor is more than just a product pusher. They're someone that can inspire our marketing campaign. And so I think that what you just said is bang on for the suppliers that are listening to this, but equally, equally important for the distributors that sometimes forget that.

And in fact, I'm sitting in Switzerland now, you're sitting in Toronto. In fact, we are looking and working and love to work with distributors who have the same idea about this business, just the way you described it before. For us, the affinity of seeing this world of the products and the relation to customers in the same way is fundamental. In our business relationship. So it's also here, we don't need to work with everyone. We would love to work with people who see our products, our business, the same way as we do. And we do this in the United States, we do this in Canada, finding companies, finding distributors who really see this world in the same way.

Is the US and Canadian market for you any different than the global market?

This is a very difficult to answer question in a very short time. Yes, of course it is different for many, many reasons, but to go into these reasons is— let's make it short. I must say first of all that I think there's a difference between the Canadian and the US market. Market. First, having said so, that the character, however, of this market, especially when it comes to promotional products, is that it is a price-driven market. Yes. More a price-driven market than some, not all, of the European markets. Yes. In those markets in Europe where Podyea is really, really strong, we call them popular luxury markets, where you have other aspects than just price, which have a real impact on the buying decision. UK, for example, is a typical price-driven market also in Europe. Why am I saying this? So in the US and in Canada, what I said before, this finding and working with distributors who share our philosophy is a fundamental success factor. We cannot— in this price-driven market, we need partners who understand and share our philosophy. Anything else wouldn't work, and that's what we do, and that's what we're successfully doing. We're finding companies who in this market who has specific features, love to have products for this niche, and take Prodeer with its products and philosophy and share it with the customers. That's the situation. But global market, coming back to your question, is a big word. I mean, we really work in Europe, that's by far our most important market, the US, and we also sell promotional pants in China, and that's again a completely different world. But however, Also, it means that in China, so that's where all the highly price-driven pens are coming from, all these produced at low prices, we manage and sell successfully our Swiss-made promotional pens because it's perceived to be something different than what they get from their Chinese brands.

That I find is absolutely fascinating. And I think there's also a fundamental irony there in that you're right, a huge portion of the writing instruments in the promotional product space are made in China at primarily very low cost. And I find that ironic that a Swiss manufactured product at a premium price has done so successfully in the Chinese market. As I say, that's perhaps another podcast altogether, but that is just, I think, maybe the ultimate sign of success.

But it's also what you said when talking about our video about us. It's about being the original, and there's a great demand also in China for what is the original here. Which is, what is a copy is fine, we know that, but what is the original? They appreciate that a lot. So I've been to Shanghai in March, and I visited many dealers, and I must say My perception is very, very clearly that yes, they understand the message, they understand the product, and the product is perceived to have a great potential in China. That's what we see, and that's what we also see when it comes to turnover.

All right, I want to ask one final question and move this beyond writing instruments. Can you share with me the maybe 2 or 3 brands outside of writing instruments that you admire the most and why?

That's a difficult question. I like to ask those. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I will disappoint you now. I will disappoint you now. You know what? I do not admire brands. I do admire people who create great brands. I do admire people who build brands because it's always the construction of something which hasn't been there. It's a tremendously difficult and demanding task to create a successful brand and people, and it's never only one person, it's not only Steve Jobs behind Apple, it's many people who have created this and this work is something which I admire tremendously. And this work of creating a brand is not only linked to those very famous brands like Apple, Google, Facebook, or Tesla, and many others which immediately pop up in our mind. But it's— there are also these very small brands which with great care do something, maybe even on a regional level, and create something new, a little disruptive product which maybe only in the region in Ticino where I'm living, somehow then comes up and they create a very strong brand image for something they really like and they do with great success. And this is what I have respect for. It's not about being a big brand, it's not about being only successful brand, it's about creating, constructing, building and the people who actually do this job, which is different. So, I can't give you an answer. There are many different brands which are great, but it's always the people behind them that make them work.

And you know what? You're not deflecting at all. I think it's actually a very insightful, very interesting answer. And I agree as someone who has loved building brands myself, that it's a very challenging thing to do. And you're right. I think celebrating the architects and the people and the teams behind that is very worthwhile.

And they're very often no names. Nobody knows who they are. They did tremendous work and nobody knows who they are. So it's not the brand, it's the people who built them.

Yeah. So Eckhart, in our closing minute or two, is there anything that I neglected to ask that you wanted to talk about, or any closing words that you'd like to share with the listeners of the CommonSkeew podcast?

I cannot think about anything. It's only that I really hope that you follow my invitation, Mark, and we see each other here in Switzerland. I can show you the production and we meet up for a great risotto in Ticino and we continue this conversation. I really enjoyed it and I really would like to invite everybody who's listening to us now that they look at our products at Prodier now maybe with different eyes than before. And if they have any questions or need anything else, Raffaele and I, we're really always there to support you in anything you need.

Yeah, well, that's wonderful. And I can tell you that The SkewCast has actually traveled to a number of places in North America for some live recordings. And I can tell you that nothing would be more interesting than a Swiss version live on location. Fantastic. Thank you for the invitation.

That's a deal.

That's a deal, Mark. There you go. And we can have some fondue and some milk chocolate with maybe some mustard in a tube as as well. And I will present Marigold to you, promise. Yes, exactly. She's just out back. Well, Eckhart, thank you so, so much. I know that this podcast was months in the planning and a real privilege to have you on here. And this was a very intellectual discussion around brand building and company building and product positioning. And I think that's really— I wasn't surprised, and I think that this will be a real treat to those that are listening to this. So thank you again on behalf of the entire community.

Thank you very much, Mike. It was a true pleasure, and whenever you want, I'm there.

Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of Skucast. Be sure to keep up with our latest content by subscribing to Skucast on iTunes or to our blog at community.skucast.com.

Community.comonscue.com.

Until next time, friends, thanks so much for listening.