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PCBC - Meet Us
Under the Clocktower cont...
Cees de Jager,
Marketing Consultant

The "meet us under the clocktower" message is being sent out to over 15,000 builders who will be attending this year's PCBC Show in San Francisco as part of their registration. The WRCLA has identified this show as the ideal venue to launch our tradeshow strategy for 2003. PCBC® The Premier Building Show is presented each year in San Francisco's Moscone Center by the California Building Industry Association. Serving residential builders and their project teams, PCBC® 2003 is expected to draw more than 23,000 homebuilders, developers, architects, contractors, product manufacturers and representatives of associated industries.

The booth continues to evolve into a dynamic and (potentially) award winning presentation of Cedar in all three primary applications (Siding, Decking, Yardscape). As mentioned last month, the booth has been designed on a modular concept that will ensure usage of this asset well beyond one show. Still Creek Forest Products has been a very patient and accommodating supplier of some of the finest Cedar available in the marketplace (all member product of course). The booth will be strategically positioned on the show floor between James Hardie and Trex to show the clear differences in beauty and versatility of Real Cedar versus the pretenders.

Member participation at the show is essential. We will be mailing formal invitations to each of you and encourage you to join us as we promote Real Cedar to thousands of builders and architects. However, hotel space is limited and we recommend that you book your rooms and flights as soon as possible. For those of you who are interested in help us man the booth, please send me an email (cdejager@hunterconsulting.ca).

Come see how Real Cedar stacks up to the competition!

Here are the important details:

PCBC® The Premier Building Show
Moscone Center, San Francisco
Wednesday, June 18th 10am - 5pm
Thursday, June 19th 10am - 5pm
Friday, June 20th 9am - 3pm

Registration is available on-line (www.pcbc.com)

WRCLA Booth location: North Hall #5931.

A large banner shown below will be displayed in the South Hall to attract visitors to our Booth in the North Hall (click to enlarge)

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While hardly evidenced by recent market conditions, findings from both builder and consumer internet surveys undertaken at the end of fiscal 02/03 point to a strong affinity for Cedar for all end uses. In fact, Western Red Cedar is the primary material of choice for consumers when they are presented a full list of options. On the other hand, when consumers were not provided a list of options, Cedar was cited as the primary choice by only 1% of consumers. When we talk about needing to put Cedar "back on the radar scope", then, our imperative is to generate and sustain a much higher degree of "top of mind" awareness. This underlines the critical need for aggressive advertising and promotion to ensure Cedar's visibility at the retail level, at the show level, editorially and on the internet.

Concerns about high maintenance were cited by consumers particularly and builders to a lesser degree. We must work to overcome this exaggerated perception; certainly our substitute friends have exploited this, more than any other subject, to considerable effect. Among initiatives being explored are cooperative promotional efforts with leading coating companies, who are also threatened by perceptions of high maintenance for wood products.

Maintenance issues notwithstanding, Cedar is the undisputed front runner in aesthetics, quality, adding value to a home and being consistent with personal taste, particularly at the high end of the market. Cedar also enjoys the second highest level of planned re-use amongst consumers, indicating a strong measure of satisfaction after product trial. Tellingly, Cedar is also the number one choice for siding on builders' own homes. We can conclude that the fire very much still burns and this augers well for Cedar's prospects. The caveat to securing Cedar's future, however, is fanning this fire against a growing conflagration of substitute promotion and market penetration.

In addition to probing consumer and builder perceptions, use and intentions, we also used benchmark research to evaluate our promotional strategy and tactics, including choice of media, messaging and positioning. We are encouraged by the findings as we appear to be on the right tracks. Some highlights of the findings relating to promotional strategy are:

" We suffer from a lack of top of mind awareness so highlighting our new brand is key (the next, most critical step in this process will be to fully incorporate it into product, packaging and member promotional material).
" Cedar trades on aesthetics, quality and personal taste, which justifies our approach to play upon look and snob appeal. It also underlines the importance of Cedar "seen" and in direct comparison to substitutes, where it really shines.
" Lifestyle and home improvement publications including those that we are employing are the number one source of consumer information for products like Cedar.
" Home and Trade Shows also figure heavily in consumer and builder reference as does the internet, all of which comprise key components of our strategy.
" Builders cite the strong influence of consumers on the choice of siding materials so we're on target to pull at their heart strings with our trade approach "You have certain customers who expect real cedar".

Including tables and cross tabulations, each of consumer and builder survey findings are over 70 pages so for ease of reference, our plan is to provide members with distillations of each, citing the most pertinent findings.

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REAL CEDAR
What Dreams are made of... cont...
Cees de Jager,
Marketing Consultant

Real Cedar will be prominently featured in two major Street of Dreams events in the Pacific Northwest.

The WRCLA is a title sponsor of the Seattle Street of Dreams being held in Issaquah, Washington. The Seattle Street is the nation's largest attended one-site luxury home and garden tour. Approximately 125,000 people attend this annual summertime event. This year's show consists of five luxury homes each utilizing Cedar in both conventional and unique applications. The show will open Saturday, July 12 and run through August 17, 2003. For more information on the show, visit their website www.seattlestreetofdreams.com or email me (cdejager@hunterconsulting.ca).

The second Street of Dreams takes place in Portland. The 28th annual Street of Dreams is presented by the Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland and is located at Renaissance Pointe on Cooper Mountain in Washington County. Thanks in large part to the efforts of Paul Mackie, Castle Rock Homes will be featuring Cedar siding, trim and decking. In addition to this partnership, the WRCLA will also contribute Cedar for the public deck. Show dates are from July 19th through August 17th. Additional information on the Portland Street of Dreams is available on the Internet at www.streetofdreamsusa.com

The WRCLA's participation at both events is supported by print advertising and on-site displays. In addition, the sponsorship package for the Seattle Street also includes radio, television and banner promotion. If you are in the area of either street, be sure to visit to see Real Cedar in action.

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Peter Lang,
General Manager

Performance Measurement cont...

One of the great challenges of investing in a promotional campaign is determining whether the activities being undertaken are having the desired outcome. This is especially important for our campaign because given the difficult times, promotional dollars are hard to come by. As a result, performance measurement practices are being - or will be applied to most of the activities of WRCLA. In this edition of Real Cedar News, two articles are devoted to aspects of performance measurement.

Our internet strategy is intended to expand the presence of cedar on the internet. We are tracking web statistics on a monthly basis, and when you read Cees's comments, you will see that there is a strong correlation between the increased investment in our web technology and increased traffic to our sites.

Our consumer and builder advertising programs are intended to increase the awareness on cedar in these market segments. We are spending a lot of money in this area. How do we know if we are being effective? One way is to take a snapshot of the market awareness/ perceptions and propensity to use cedar pre-campaign. This is called benchmarking, and John speaks to the results of the initial benchmark surveys. We will then go back to these market segments and ask the same questions after the advertising has had a chance to permeate the market and determine whether the ads have had a measurable impact.

Similarly, we will be applying performance measures of our other key activities: point of purchase program, trade show participation, training, education etc. The combined outcome on the results of each of these activities is the expectation that there will be a reduction on the rate of market share loss that cedar is currently experiencing.

We will report to you on measurement results as they become available.

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Cees de Jager
Marketing Consultant

Leveraging Technology to Sell Cedar cont...

The WRCLA's Internet strategy continues to register fantastic results after just a few months of implementation. In recent years, the Internet has grown in prominence as the source for information in the building materials sector and a leading influencer of purchasing decisions. We continue to adapt and refine our strategy to ensure we present the association, its members and their products as effectively as possible.

A recent survey of consumers by the WRCLA points out just how important an effective Internet presence is in today's marketplace. The Internet is now has greater influence than the in-store sales representative in helping the consumer make the purchasing decision. Currently, only print media advertising ranks higher in purchasing influence, but not by much. These findings are consistent with the results of the WRCLA's focus group testing earlier in the year. Given the cost effectiveness of the Internet in reaching millions of potential consumers, it offers a very good return on investment.

We continually monitor the effectiveness of our Internet strategy through the use of monthly usage reports. These statistics show a dramatic increase in the exposure of our sites and our message. As mentioned in last months article, Cedar-Siding.com has doubled in visitors over the previous month. Our main site, wrcla.org is experiencing similar growth with monthly users approaching 60,000. To ensure these consumers have access to member product, we have added the "Purchasing Cedar" tool to the main site. Even our spoof sites continue to receive traffic, with nearly 4,500 people visiting these web pages. In total, WRCLA websites received almost 2 million hits from over 82,000 visitors for the month of April.

There are two key activities that are at the root of our success on the Internet. First, all our promotional material and our ads in particular, feature our portal website (realcedar.org). As a result, millions of readers have been introduced to our message and directed to the Internet for more information - clearly many of them have responded to this call to action. The second activity is our search engine ranking and pay-per-click efforts. Due to a clearly defined and systematic strategy, WRCLA websites now rank prominently on all main search engines. This has helped keep the Cedar message ahead of the competition.

In the months to come we will be launching a new website focused on the "Outdoor Living Space", adding slideshows to our portal and developing on-line training modules. Of course we will also be paying close attention to any new opportunities that may present themselves and make every effort to take advantage of them. If any of you have ideas or recommendations on how we can enhance or expand our Internet strategy, please give me a call.

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Field Report
AIA Convention San Diego cont...

Arnie Nebelsick
Midwest Field Manager

The Western Red Cedar Lumber Association was one of the more than 600 exhibitors participating in the AIA 2003 National Convention and Expo held May 8 - 10, 2003 at the San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California. Exhibitors representing all areas including electronic technology, products, and government agencies displayed for more than 20,000 attending architects from all architectural disciplines.

Questions regarding quality, specification writing, finishing, installation, technical data, availability, and many others topics about Western Redcedar were answered by WRCLA field persons Paul Mackie and Arnie Nebelsick. In addition several discussions with architects regarding wood certification took place.

The 2003 AIA convention proved again to be a very productive opportunity to promote WRCLA Member products to key targeted market segments. Approximately 200 requests for Specifiers' Guides were received and over 800 pieces of WRCLA literature were distributed from the booth.

The next AIA Convention and Expo will be at McCormick Place, Chicago, Illinois June 10 - 12, 2004. The WRCLA has committed and reserved space for 2004. For additional information, contact Arnie Nebelsick (630) 369-2828.

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