Mays Business Online News In Every Issue Archives
May/June 2005

When I first pursued Cosentino USA (makers of Silestone quartz countertops) a year ago as an advertising client for Freed Advertising of Sugar Land, I was not sure what the true potential really was or where the business would lead. In fact, with the blessing of my colleague and boss Gerald Freed, I flew out to a national trade show in Las Vegas to learn more about the client, their product, and their competition. We rolled the dice, and that was appropriate since the show was in Vegas. A major goal, I hoped, was to spend more time getting to know the Silestone marketers as individuals.

True to their character, they were extremely gracious and ultimately impressed that I would spend the time and resources to get to know them and their market. I had succeeded in capturing their attention.

When I eventually asked for their business, the simple truth was explained to me: Unless an ad agency could demonstrate knowledge of their brand and how it should be positioned in the marketplace, an agency would not be hired. I volunteered to provide a roadmap to a solid positioning for the brand, within two weeks, in exchange for a meeting with the senior management team, which included CEO Roberto Contreras. Silestone readily agreed to my offer and, on the eve of the presentation, we sent over a heavy-duty combination safe containing the new positioning statement and tag line. Of course, we did not send along the combination to the lock. That safe was to be opened at the appropriate time by the agency at the next day’s presentation.

The next day, we presented our thoughts and strategies, and the client absolutely thought we nailed the solution to positioning the Silestone brand.

In the days and months following we developed marketing strategies and examined creative concepts to launch the brand nationally. Our firm spent days, nights and weekends developing creative content. Then, while discussing media strategies with the CEO, he suggested using the Super Bowl as the initial launch of the brand.

The spot would cost $2.4 million for thirty seconds of time, and our target was women, ages 25-54. We examined the sensibility of making that the launch point of our campaign and with some analysis, found that the numbers made sense. Nearly 47 percent of the Super Bowl audience is female. And research shows that the majority of women tune into the game for the commercials. We were able to hit more than 47 million women (and more than 100 million viewers overall) on the largest media stage in the world, many there to watch the commercials rather than the programming. It was a brilliant idea, yet we can’t take credit for the strategy.

What we can take credit for was the creative elements. The client wanted us to run one of a new series of TV ads we were producing that were soft, sophisticated spots directed at our female market, scheduled to run on HGTV and during shows like “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” The campaign concept was to leverage Silestone’s vast array of colors and design flexibility by appealing to the consumer with the message: “Bring you inner-self to the surface.”

We knew that they needed something stronger for the Super Bowl, something that would generate buzz. We approached the client with an alternative: Hire big name, manly-men ex-football players to claim they were “Diana Pearl,” one of Silestone’s many colors of countertops. Diana Pearl is the most feminine-sounding name in the group of colors. On top of that, we wanted to include an ending shot of the most outrageous sports figure out there, Dennis Rodman, in a Silestone-surrounded bubble bath, definitively making the claim that he is “Diana Pearl.”

Silestone loved the creative, but not the price tag. They turned us down. We felt strongly about our advice and approached them twice more before they finally agreed to the special production…but we had to put our fees on the line. It had to generate publicity, or we would lose our fees for the project. No problem, since we knew we were on the right track.

We made offers to Mike Ditka, William “Refrigerator” Perry, Jim McMahon and Dennis Rodman, and within days they all accepted. Next we rented a mansion on the cliffs overlooking Lake Michigan in Chicago, and filmed the spot with the three ex-Bears of the NFL. There is not enough room in this article to discuss the unique personalities and issues that arose in dealing with these former football greats, but let’s just say that it was interesting and something I will never forget. One of the three taught me a string of expletives that I had never heard. Another showed me what it is like to be retired on the merits of one Super Bowl win, and still have an attitude and air of greatness (mostly shared only by him and his agent). Once we settled in for the long day of shooting, all of them were pleasant and professional, and did a magnificent job in front of the camera.

Dennis Rodman and
Mike Albrecht

Rodman was flown to Houston to be filmed in a specially-built set where we could control his appearance to the best of our ability. In fact, he is so naturally outrageous, all we had to do was paint his hair orange. Thirty-seven takes later, we had a shot we could use of Rodman saying “I am Diana Pearl.”

The press coverage of our spot for Silestone garnered well over $1 million in publicity. The spot was covered in Sports Illustrated, New York Times, USA Today, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Reuters, Access Hollywood, Advertising Age, ESPN and hundreds of other media spots. The commercial aired in the two-minute warning of the first half of Super Bowl XXXIX. It was the single most exciting 30 seconds of my entire career, and I will never forget being there with the client as we watched a relatively unknown brand propel its way into the American conscience.

There is nothing like being a part of something that is the biggest event in your industry. To take part in making a client’s dream come true in elevating their brand to a household name is quite an experience. Silestone is a marketing partner in the truest sense of the term, and I am honored to be a part of their success. They possess the unique blend of aggressive market thinking along with a product that has no equal. I have no doubt that Silestone will be a household brand name in the future.

Note: Mike Albrecht is currently with Freed Advertising in Sugar Land, Texas. He managed his own ad agency in Houston for nearly 15 years before being acquired by Bates Worldwide. In January 2004, Mike left Bates with his clients to join Gerald Freed at Freed Advertising. Mike handles business development for the agency and is account director for Silestone USA. He is past president of the Houston Advertising Federation,

Albrecht graduated from Texas A&M in 1982 with a BBA in marketing. He frequently guest lectures at Texas A&M and has worked with many university organizations in advertising and marketing, including the 12th Man Foundation and the University Library System.