BRANDING

THEIR APPROACH TO BRANDINGHAS ALWAYS BEEN BIG AND BOLD.NOW MICHAEL COLLINS AND TIM HILLARE APPLYING THEIR PROVENSTRATEGIES TO REVAMP THEONCE..STAID SAGA SOfTWARE

THE SAGAof a turnaround

BY TRICIA CAMPBELLphotograph by douglas woods

APRIL 1999

For Hill and Collins, the key ingredients the new teamneeded were creativity, a strong work ethic, and above all,enthusiasm. But how to convince talented professionalswith these skills to come to an unknown company?According to Hill, the two traded on their reputations.News of the turnarounds at Iomega and Falcon had spreadthrough the high-tech community, and, as Hill puts it,"We used our past successes to pull them into the fold."As a result, the new marketing department comprisespeople who, according to Hill, "go to bed thinking aboutSAGA, because they're so jazzed up thinking about whatthey're going to do the next day or the next week, andthey wake up and they can't wait to get to work."

Formerly of EuroRSCG-DahlinSmithWhite ScottKempema is that type of person. At last April's IT Forumin San Francisco, Kempema, SAGA's director of market-ing communications, hired a Broadway productioncompany to stage a presentation of The Man in the IronMask, turning the plot into a metaphor for SAGA's newmiddleware products, which simplify gaining access todata stored in legacy systems.

BRANDING

many blue-chip customers. But when the next technologywave, client/server systems, hit, the company beganfalling behind. Although Software AG was able to retainsome of its largest customers, its lack of a focusedmarketing strategy kept its reputation lagging behindthose of its competitors, which include Oracle, ComputerAssociates, and IBM. As Roy Schulte, an analyst withGartnerGroup, puts it, "You can't be halfhearted if you'retrying to fight against Oracle." Indeed, Oracle spokes-woman Karen Houston says bluntly, "We don't considerAdabas at all in competition with Oracle's product-it'sreally not even up to the same level."

Clearly, Software AG desperately needed some newproducts. In recent years it began making inroads into thefield of middleware. The company's first middlewareproduct, EntireX, was launched in 1997. But as SAGAbecame an independent entity, it saw middleware's poten-tial and decided to delve more deeply into the market.

This was largely brought about through collaborationbetween Hill's team and middleware expert DavidLinthicum, who was hired as SAGA's chief technology

officer in December 1997."David's team and myteam have really been thechange agents," Hill says.

"If there's anything that's going to drive a company's newdirection, it's going to be R&D, because [it develops] theproducts you've got to sell globally, and it's going to bemarketing, because [it's] responsible for getting the spinand creating the demand worldwide."

Thus the concept of solutions-oriented middleware(SOM) was born. While SAGA press releases breathlesslycall it "rniddleware on steroids," a more detailed defini-tion is this: like traditional middleware, SOM enableseasy access to information trapped in the mainframe. But

COMPANY TO MARKET LIKE ONE""For a company this size, and a company in this

[market] space, it was very unique," Kempema says.Kristina Cortes, director of marketing services, is

another "jazzed-up" SAGA marketer. After more than twoyears with the company, Cortes, frustrated with its lack ofdirection, considered resigning in 1997. The arrival ofHill and Collins convinced her to give Software AG onemore chance. Today Cortes is responsible for all ofSAGA's marketing collateral, and she's the proud chief ofthe Brand Police. "This is a breath of fresh air," she says.

Apparently, not all former Software AG staffers wereas happy with the change as Cortes was. There are hintsthat those who resisted the new guard were, as regionalsales director Mike Lun frankly put it, "trimmed from thetree." Hill confirms that SAGA's turnover rate has beenapproximately 25 percent in the past year, a fact hedismisses as typical of a management shakeup. "Peoplewho like to be challenged, we're going to give themplenty to be challenged with," he says matter-of-factly."People who don't-well, there's always a place for them,too. We all need mechanics, and postal workers, andlaborers, just like we need executives and politicians."

new identity, new productsHILL AND COLLINS BOTH SAY that re-creating a team like theone they worked with at Iomega is their proudest accom-plishment. But they knew that turning SAGA into a majorsoftware player would take more than aggressive market-ing-the next step in revitalizing the company's imagewas to play down its ties to its former parent, SoftwareAG, partly by developing its own product line.

In the fast-paced software industry, Software AG wassomething of a dinosaur: Founded in 1969, the companywas a pioneer in the field of enterprise-wide software forcorporate mainframes, and its Adabas database manage-ment product and Natural programming language won it

hard-to-miss marketingSAGA'S BRAND NEW PRINT ADS (BOTTOM) INCORPORATE THE "FREEDOM"THEME. BELOW, THE COLORFUL BUTTONS THE COMPANY USES TO CREATEA STIR AT TRADE SHOWS.

APRIL 1999

according to Linthicum, SOM enables more informationto be accessed more quickly.

The first project to come out of Linthicum's R&D lab,an SOM application called Sagavista, will be available inthe second half of 1999. In the meantime, the companycontinues to market and distribute Software AG productslike Adabas and EntireX, while Software AG has agreedto distribute Saga vista and the rest of the SOM family.Hill calls this arrangement "a beautiful business model":It maintains an amiable tie to the former parent, allowingSAGA to take advantage of Software AG's large customerbase and international presence.

"SAGA is headed in the right direction," says MikeGilpin, an analyst with the Giga Information Group inCambridge, Massachusetts. "Sagavista is very much whatcustomers are looking for."

aggressive promotionAs LINTHICUM IS QUICK TO POINT OUT, however, it's themarketing effort that will make or break the success ofSagavista. "If the marketing's not there, the technologydoesn't win," he says.

But the marketing certainly is there, and SAGA fightsto win. "We'll go to great lengths to get exposure,"Director of Marketing Communications Kempema says.He should know, having worked with Iomega on theagency side, where Hill and Collins perfected the conceptof promoting dull products in exciting ways. Many ofSAGA's trade show stunts, such as providing attendeeswith the biggest and most noticeable tote bags, camedirectly from Iomega's event strategy. "It's a formula, andit works," Kempema says.

Part of that formula is creating advertising that empha-sizes a brand rather than a product-a type of promotionrarely seen in the high-tech industry. Iomega's offbeatads, such as one series that parodied different musicalgenres, ran on television and radio as well as in publica-tions like Newsweek. At SAGA, under Kernperna's direc-tion, a similar ad blitz debuted in the fall of 1998. Thecompany's new in-house creative teamdesigned the campaign, which revolvesaround the tagline "Free your information,"referring to the capabilities of SAGA's newmiddleware products. Each of the three adsdepicts a symbol of freedom: A newbornbaby drawing its first breath, the Statue ofLiberty, and Russian workers dismantling astatue of Lenin. The ads have run in busi-ness and high-tech publications likeBusiness Week and Info World.

But SAGA's marketers are even moreexcited about. their enhanced presence atindustry trade shows. "We don't just showup-we come to dominate," Collins says."It's all about looking larger than life." Oneof SAGA's most successful tactics, besidesenormous tote bags and flashy theaterproductions, was scheduling a user confer-ence in the same venue as the much largerIT Forum. This guaranteed that SAGA's1,000 "evangelists" would circulate IT

SALES & MARKETING MANAGEMENT

Forum's floor outfitted in SAGA promotional gear,spreading the word about the company's new products.SAGA also distributed logoed buttons, each printed withsuch slogans as "SAGA Rocks." Hill and Collins hadsuccessfully employed a similar tactic at Iomega, wherethe buttons were so popular that they ended up on thecover of USA Today.

At SAGA, Collins' and Hill's team again hungers forthis kind of exposure, and a new public relations strategyfocuses on giving it to them. Steve Ellis, SAGA's directorof corporate communications, says that his main goal is tochange journalists' and analysts' perception of thecompany. Before, he says, Software AG's tiny U.S. PRteam returned calls but didn't take the initiative with themedia; as for analysts, they went to the company's head-quarters in Darmstadt, Germany, for information. When hefirst assumed his post, Ellis says, "I wanted to establish anew identity, but I also wanted to build credibility, so thatSAGA would become a source for reporters even if theydidn't write about us." To this end, his expanded team triesto respond quickly to reporters' requests for interviews orinformation. "They know that I will get them the highest-ranking person that it's appropriate for them to speak to,"Ellis says. "I refuse to be the spokesperson."

Certainly, SAGA's marketers don't disguise the factthat media exposure is crucial to them. At the annual saleskickoff meeting, Hill discussed the need to "parade DanGillis and David Linthicum in the media," while new VicePresident of Sales Gary Voight referred to "installing"articles in major publications.

Comments like these underscore the fine line betweenpromotion and excessive spin. In fact, during the prepara-tion of this article, SAGA's marketing team repeatedlyattempted to take control of the accompanying photoshoot. Along with detailed suggestions for the setting,subjects and tone of the photos, the company sent a proto-type of an S&MM cover, complete with logo and cover-lines and emblazoned with Collins' and Hill's images.According to the photographer, the marketing team also

THE GOAL: To create a new identity, increase sales, and obtain morename recognition for Software AG Americas, a small software distribu-tor in Reston, Virginia.THE STRATEGY: In August 1997 Software AG Americas CEO DanielGillis hired Tim Hill and Michael Collins to orchestrate a brand reinven-tion for the company. Hill and Collins Had previouslyled similar remand-ing projects at Iomega and Falcon Microsystems. They rechristenedSoftware AG Americas SAGA SOFTWARE to remove the ties to theparent company, then created a more streamlined and efficient market-jng structure and filled the department with creative, energetic staffers.Hill and Collins also worked with the new eTO, David 'iJinthicult!,on asfrategy to develop solutions.orientedmiddleware (SOMha new prO'ductline in the middleware market.

RE-CREATING A BRAND

THE RESUI.TS: In the 20 months since Collins' and Hill's arrival SA.GA'srevenues have grown 30 percent, to $249 million. in April 1998 thecompany was named Turnaround of the Year by research firm FCWGovernment Technology Group. SAGA also boasts a new researcH anddevelopment department, led by linthicum, that will release its firstmajor product, Sagavista, in the second half o.f 199"9.

"THIS PLACE IS JUMPIN', BABY!"Michael Collins exclaims on a videotape, as the rollickingsound of the Brian Setzer Orchestra's hit "Jump, Jive, an'Wail" fills the ballroom of the Hyatt Regency Hotel inReston, Virginia. On this wintry day in January, more than300 SAGA SOFTWARE reps viewing the tape are trans-fixed as they watch the entire new marketing team-everyone from Collins, the Vice President of WorldwideCorporate Marketing, down to the executive assistants-bounce wildly on a trampoline.

The playfulness is infectious: By the time the songends, the salespeople in the ballroom are buzzing withexcitement. Indeed, when the "live" Collins stops thetape, the crowd goes wild, applauding as long and hard asif it was watching the winning touchdown at the SuperBowl rather than its annual sales kickoff meeting.

Scenes like these might seem out of place in the rela-tively stodgy world of enterprise software. But they're thenorm at SAGA, a company that not so long ago was farmore staid than sizzling.

"YOU DON'T

solemn than Collins-who at 35 has the youthful, cleancutlooks of a student council president-Hill, 40, has the sameplayful streak. ("I'm a big Pearl Jam fan," he later tells a visi-tor to his office, proudly displaying the band's latest CD.)

This lightheartedness illustrates the color that the duohas injected into the company culture--color that wasbadly needed. When SAGA CEO Dan Gillis took over thecompany in 1997, it was known as Software AGAmericas, the newly independent American arm of a largeGerman parent. For 25 years the marketing strategy hadremained the same, and the company had never even runan advertising campaign. Collins' and Hill's job was tochange all that-and Gillis, having worked with the twoat Falcon, had confidence that they could. "They reallyunderstand the discipline of marketing," Gillis says."They have a proven methodology." With Collins andHill's help, the company has gone from distributing little-known mainframe software to making inroads in hot newtechnology sectors. Where once it lacked even a cohesivemarketing structure, SAGA now has a new brand image,new products, and soaring sales. In the 20 months since

AVE TO BE A BILLION·DOLLARThis is not the first time that the marketing savvy of

Collins and his business partner, Tim Hill, has brought afresher, hipper brand image to a struggling company.Before arriving at SAGA's Reston headquarters in August1997, the two spent several years at Chantilly, Virginia-based software maker Falcon Microsystems, where theyoversaw the company's repositioning from a third-partyreseller of Apple platforms to a cross-functional solutionsprovider. In 1994 the two left Falcon to head up themarketing department at personal-storage manufacturerIomega, rescuing it from near obsolescence with a brand-new product line and an aggressive advertising campaign.Under Hill's direction, Iomega made headlines with itsconsumer-oriented advertising and its impossible-to-misspresence at trade shows. Former Iomega CEO KimEdwards, who hired the duo in 1994, says of Hill, "He'sone of the strongest brand marketers in the country. WhenI hire people, I'm less concerned with their experiencethan with whether they have 'high beams.' Well, Tim hashalogen lamps."

At Iomega, Hill and Collins nearly perfected a blue-print for brand reinvention that they're now successfullyemploying at SAGA. Their philosophy, which they repeatlike a mantra, is to make every marketing dollar spentlook like $5. As Collins puts it, "You don't have to be abillion-dollar company to market like one." Their three-step plan: Build a brand new marketing team, revamp anaging product line, and promote the new brand image asaggressively as possible.

a colorful duo"LUUUUUKE .. .1 AM YOURRRR FATHERRRR." Collins is

leaning across the table in a Reston cafe, giving his bestimpression of the late Chris Farley doing Darth Vader inTommy Boy.

Hi111aughs out loud. Although he looks older and more

SALES & MARKETING MANAGEMENT

Collins' and Hill's arrival, revenues are up 30 percent, to$249 million.

The key step in the duo's SAGA makeover was toreorganize the company's scattered marketing departmentinto a single entity with five distinct sections, eachresponsible for a different aspect of the marketing effort.The product marketing team identifies product needsthrough market analysis and customer feedback, whilecorporate communications staffers spread news of SAGAto the press and analysts. Advertising is coordinated bythe new marketing conununications team. And marketingservices, dubbed the Brand Police, is responsible forenforcing SAGA's new brand identity by making sure thatall communications have a consistent look and message,from the logo to product information. Finally, the channelmarketing group acts as the conduit between the sales andmarketing departments, making sure that sales conveys aconsistent message to customers.

Almost as important as reorganizing the department'sstructure was changing its culture. The company hadalways been content with the status quo; Hill says that acommon complaint in the first few months was, "We'venever done it that way before." For Hill and Collins, thefirst step in banishing this attitude was to assemble a newmarketing team. "A lot of people will tell you that[success] is all about doing great work," Collins says, "butwhen it comes right down to it, it's the people that makethe work great." The two focused on hiring marketers whopossessed the creativity and enthusiasm needed to over-haul a culture. Several of these employees came fromIomega, lured by the opportunity to continue working withHill and Collins. "I didn't know a lot about SAGA, but Iknew Michael and Tim," says Dan Shirra, SAGA's direc-tor of channel marketing, who previously held that posi-tion at Iomega. "One of the key reasons for my coming tothis company was working as a team with them."

insisted that the article was slated for the cover-some-thing they had not, in fact, been promised. Ellis may callthis approach proactive, but it's a potent reminder thatmarketing as effective as SAGA's is all about control-ofthe message and, if need be, of the medium.

"sales overnight,brand over time"

BUT OVERALL,SAGA'SIS A SUCCESSstory, because all thehype, all the showmanship, and yes, even the attempts tocontrol the media are backed up by real result . As thefirst half of the January sales meeting draws to a close,one thing is clear: SAGA is making its numbers, and itlooks as though it will continue to do so as its new iden-tity takes shape. As Collins puts it, his and Hill's ultimategoal is "sales overnight, brand over time."

Collins and Hill are relaxing in the Hyatt lobby.Outside the ballroom the salespeople, many still animat-edly discussing Collins' video, examine the booths at the"mini-trade show" that's assembled there. The variousdisplays outline SAGA's sales and marketing strategy, anda booth in the corner is distributing the 1999 sales "toolkits" for reps to take home. The largest crowds have

BRANDING

assembled around the six Lucite boxes that are scatteredamong the displays. Each box contains a prize; among theofferings are a Sony Discman and a digital camera. Theboxes are locked, but each toolkit contains a key that repscan use to try to open them. According to Hill promotionslike this one help foster camaraderie between the salesand marketing teams, leading to a greater understandingof how the departments work together. "The wholeconcept is to make selling easier," he says. "And itworked. This is the most participation I've ever seen fromthe [sales] team in my tenure here."

Hill and Collins are pleased that the audience is begin-ning to seem as excited as they are about the changestaking place at SAGA. But neither one wants to take allthe credit.

"I'm really proud of our team-" Hill begins, whenCollins cuts him off.

"I thought you were proud of me," he says with mockjealousy.

Hill grins at his partner. "Well, I'm proud of you, too,"he concedes. "But what makes me really proud is work-ing with such smart people. It's exciting to see peoplespread their wings and do great work. You can replicatethe model, but you can't replicate the people." 0

APRIL 1999

respectMarketing With Punch

ON A RECENT flight to Chicago, I was engrossed in a terrific book, King of the World, David Remnick'saccount of the rise of Muhammad Ali. Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, has populated the book withthe boxers and personalities who swirled around the ring in the early 1960s: genteel Floyd Patterson,menacing Sonny Liston, and a host of sportswriters, trainers, mobsters, and hangers-on. Of course, thesecharacters paled in comparison to the flamboyant, charismatic, irrepressible poet-warrior Ali, who not

only revolutionized boxing, but changed the world. (Our October 1998 issue hailed him as one of "The 80 MostInfluential People in Sales and Marketing History.")

Occasionally, I looked up from my book and surveyed the scene on the flight. I was among a sea of businesstravelers, all of us outfitted in the grays, whites, and blues that are the uniform of Corporate America; and all ofus-when not reading books-hunched over gray reports, memos, and budgets. Our conformity stood in striking

contrast to the individuality and vitality of Ali, whose energy seemed to jump from the pages. Iwondered: Is it possible to bring even a fraction of this fighter's singular spirit to business? Cansome of Ali rub off on us?

The answer is yes, and Sales & Marketing Management endeavors to find companies whosecreativity could inspire even the most staid of organizations. This month Associate Editor TriciaCampbell profiles one such company, SAGA SOFTWARE ("The Saga of a Turnaround").SAGA's marketing efforts, spearheaded by dynamic executives Tim Hill and Michael Collins,are nothing if not bold and colorful. If you're in the tech business, you've probably seen Hill'sand Collins' work: At a recent trade show, they hired a Broadway production company toperforrn The Man in the Iron Mask (it's a metaphor for SAGA's middleware products, theyexplained). Hill and Collins make lots of noise at sales meetings, too. They recently introducedSAGA' new marketing team by showing a video of all of its members jumping wildly on a tram-poline. Hill's and Collins sheer brashness would make The Greatest proud. They, like Ali, knowhow to get attention. And, as Tricia's story shows, they know how to get results.

Most important, Hill and Collins seem to make business fun, like Ali made sports fun. "Whatstruck me about them was their incredible enthusiasm," says Tricia, who has gotten some atten-tion of her own lately, particularly with her outstanding February story on how a Fuji product

launch narrowly averted disaster. "Tim and Michael really love what they do, and it shows."The fact is, you may wear gray suits, pore over gray reports, and fly on gray airplanes. But don't let your think-

ing or your strategy become gray. In an overcrowded marketplace plagued by commodity-driven sameness, theheavyweights aren't afraid to be bold. Y\ch!::f

gbrewer@salesandmarketing.com

Oil the front, top row, left to right, Michael Collins, Vice President, Worldwide Corporate Marketing, Kristina Cortes, Director, Marketing Services,Dan Shirra, Director, Channel Marketing. Bottom row, left to right, Tim Hill, Vice President, Worldwide Marketing and International Operations,Scott Kempema, Director, Marketing Communications, Steve Ellis, Director, Corporate Communications.

~freeyourinformation.~

SALES & MARKETl 'G MANAGEME T COR0278-010499

About SAGA SOFTWARE, Inc.SAGA,based in Reston, Virginia,provides enterprise systems software and a fullsuite of enterprise integra-tion solutions that support billionsof mainframe transactions dailyfor some of the world's largest organiza-tions. SAGA'ssuite of mission criticalproducts and associated professional services take customers fromtheheart of the enterprise to the desktop, freeing their informationand leveragingtheir IT investment. SAGA'sparent company is traded on the NewYorkStock Exchange under the symbolAGS. For further information,please visitthe company's Web site at www.sagasoftware.com.

SAGA SOFTWARE, Inc.Worldwide Headquarters11190 Sunrise Valley DriveReston, VA 20191·5424T. 703 860 5050F. 703 391 69751 888 SAGA FYIwww.sagasoftware.com

SAGA SOFTWARE (Canada) Inc.151 Savage DriveCambridge, Ontario NH 1S6CanadaT. 519 622 0889F. 519 621 05531 888 SAGA FYI

SAGA SOFTWARE, S.A. de C.V.Blvd. Manuel Avila, Camacho No. 88Torre Picasso-Pisos 10 Y 11Lomas de Chapultepec11000 Mexico, D.F.T. 525 201 3600F. 525 201 3610

SAGA affiliates are located worldwide in Asia-Pacfic, Eastem and Westem Europe, Japan, Latin America, the Middle East and South America.