Jill Lajdziak began plotting Saturn’s flight path before the automotive badge had even launched. Tapped by General Motors in 1987 to work on the brand’s initial concept team, she stands as General Manager of Saturn more than twenty years later. The original six-person team Lajdziak was a part of has grown to 11,000, but the brand has also hit some potholes over the past several years. Lajdziak detailed her brand strategies and plans to get the automaker back on track in a recent Q-and-A with Brand Connections’ CEO Brian F Martin.

Lajdziak broke into the automotive sector in 1979 and initially worked on GM’s Chevrolet brand, but she realized her true calling when offered a new position. “I was fascinated by the concept of just changing how we do business in every aspect,” she says of the Saturn opportunity. “The kind of relationships we were going to have with the dealers … And I loved the kind of skunk works philosophy of ‘We’re going to change things up here. We’re going to change the world, we’re going to be different, and by golly we’re going to go tackle this thing.’”

Many Americans likened the car-buying experience to going to the dentist, according to early GM data, and many still do. That’s why Lajdziak’s team knew there was demand for “A Different Kind Of Company, A Different Kind Of Car.” In seeking to create a consistent and enjoyable dealership experience for consumers across the country, they studied successful non-automotive brands including McDonald’s and Southwest Airlines before the 1990 launch. Saturn was wildly successful with its debut model right out of the gate, but it did not adequately grow its portfolio over the next 10 years, according to the General Manager. Failing to grow the brand also made it difficult for Saturn to keep its name at the front of consumers’ minds. “You have to make sure your product or service continues to evolve,” Lajdziak says. Company research showed that people still loved the Saturn brand, but the product had not kept pace with consumer expectations. Lajdziak knew it was time to shift gears.

In an effort to reconnect with the market, the Spring Hill, Tenn. -based company conducted over 40 focus groups probing modern Americans’ thoughts and feeling. Concerns ranged from the economy and Iraq to fuel economy and rising gas prices. The findings also showed most Americans are still optimistic. Lajdziak and Deutsch/L.A. keyed on that mentality in the company’s new “Rethink American” campaign, linking it with Saturn’s penchant for seeking different and better business methods. “In many ways I think this goes right back to the roots of Saturn when we launched (‘A Different Kind Of Company, A Different Kind Of Car’) where we told America that we were different…,” Lajdziak says. “I think that ‘Rethink American’ is just a contemporary execution of what this brand is all about.”

She also offered insight as to what makes for a successful agency/client relationship. “Agencies that have a deep understating of the consumer and are grounded in strategic planning are agencies that I find to be the best.” The top groups also have creative teams that listen to what the strategic planning and research teams are saying, according to Lajdziak.

Saturn and Deutsch/L.A.’s new positioning campaign challenges consumers to rethink assumptions about not only the badge, but their own lives – and that may be its true powerhouse. “This brand is not just a product brand,” Lajdziak says. “This brand is very much a cultural brand and we’ve got to connect with consumers emotionally.” There was a period where people at Saturn muddled the roles of core values and strategy, according to Lajdziak, but she’s working to realign things. “[Saturn] became very much a cultural brand whose brand is founded in a group of values, and we have never walked away from the values. Strategies change, but your core values should never change.”

Jonathan Achenbaum’s resume offers a study in classical marketing. He first cut his teeth with Pilsbury before moving on to Quaker Oats and Helene Curtis. Currently CMO of Global Strategic Marketing for Bayer Healthcare Diabetes Care, Achenbaum recently finished up a nine-year stay at Unilever where he was responsible for several Dove line extensions. Brian F Martin, CEO of New York City-based Brand Connections, interviewed Achenbaum about the insights he gleaned from his past experiences and asked whether they apply to his new role in the Rx category.

One of the challenges Unilever tasked Achenbaum with was extending the Dove label’s share of the crowded health and beauty aid segment – specifically into hair care and antiperspirants and deodorants. But rather than simply line extending, he instituted a new paradigm requiring that new products had to not only leverage the equity of the brand but simultaneously build brand equity. “That,” he says, “was the hard part.”

It seems like a no-brainer that people want their hair moisturized. Even though moisturizing has long been the calling card of the Dove label, competitors were already using that claim for hair products of their own. Achenbaum and his team devised a solution that positioned the new label as a “weightless moisturizing” product, thereby retaining the brand’s strategic equity while differentiating it from established players. In the under-arm department, Dove marketers surveyed the landscape and decided to introduce a need for moisturizing in a deodorant category where “protection” had long reigned supreme. Thus was born the “strong but gentle” pitch. It bears noting that both propositions are thriving globally and in the U.S.

Achenbaum has also explored the difference between what he calls strategic equity and executional equity. He explains strategic equity as something consumers associate with the brand – in this case the moisturizing qualities of Dove products and the plain, simple communication methods. Executional equities might include packaging colors and aesthetics and can help to reinforce new lines, he says. “The key, I think, to growing brands, is figuring out how to leverage those equities but keep them contemporary. You usually have more ability to change over time the executional aspects of a brand, and those things will then influence the strategic equities. It’s hard to really change strategic equities, and that’s when people get into trouble in my view. It’s when people walk away from, they ignore those important strategic equities.”

While Achenbaum concedes that competing in the HBA segment is difficult, he also says consumers are constantly looking for new innovations and products to solve their personal care demands. “It all starts with the consumer,” he stresses. Understanding your target audience and their stated and unarticulated needs is critical to staying ahead of the curve. But if the old principles still apply, implementing them in new ways is the latest challenge that marketers face, according to Achenbaum.

Since starting with Bayer 14 months ago, Achenbaum says many of the same marketing principles apply. The basics of building brands, creating and launching new products, gaining insights into your target audience, and creating rigorous but highly innovative product promotions are all equally relevant in Bayer’s diabetes care business. “The biggest difference is you go to market differently.” The major change is that doctors and nurses are often the most important player in the initial decision making processes. In that regard, Bayer faces the challenge of informing and convincing more than just the patients they’re targeting. That’s why Bayer uses a diverse media plan that includes multiple sales organizations that call on retailers and pharmacists directly, while also using direct CRM marketing more extensively. The firm also hopes the plan will blunt some effects of media fragmentation.

“You have to be consumer or customer centric and media agnostic,” Achenbaum says of the changing media landscape. He stresses the need to start the communications development process with a deep dive about your target. Understand what they consume and what they like and allow that information to drive your overall media communications plan and messaging. This is a change from the old days when marketers would first develop a TV ad and go from there. “The first thing we do here at Bayer is work on a ‘buying analysis’ where we really try to understand the most important influencers in the overall decision making process in terms of the purchase of our product. That not only drives message development, but also drives where we’re going to make our biggest investments.” Quite a change, but one that could help Achenbaum write a modern classic.