Despite screaming headlines that tout the outrageous Internet success stories of the hour, it’s the true marketing innovations and quiet success strategies that quicken the pulse. Out of the unquestionably long list of candidates, we review two that are bound for ultimate marketing glory. Mail Boxes Etc. may not be quite as ubiquitous as McDonald’s, but it’s getting there. The franchise currently boasts 5,000 centers in 60 countries, with 3,100 in the United States alone. It is opening them at the rate of 200 to 300 per year. MBE touts itself as the world’s largest franchisor of retail business communication and postal service centers. Its primary services are packing and shipping, mailbox rentals, copying and most recently, a full range of services for the small-office and home-office (SOHO) market, a $45 billion industry. As recently as 1995, about 41 million Americans worked at home and, of this group, 24 million were self-employed. The good news for MBE is that 80 percent of its users are SOHO customers or proverbial road warriors who “touch” the chain 124 million times a year. MBE’s hard-charging president and CEO, Jim Amos, is a man with a mission. He believes that MBE’s success will be driven by relationships between the franchisor, the franchisee and the customer who ultimately represents lifetime business. It doesn’t end there. Amos also intends to make MBE the “merchant of the information system.” With recent technology developments now in place, ranging from a $10 million initiative to wire its U.S. centers with VSAT technology, to a five-year agreement with eBay and iShip to develop Web-based shipping programs, MBE is poised to become the physical pipeline running alongside the virtual highway. The VSAT satellite technology will provide high-speed communications and Internet connectivity for network operations and will also be used for computer time-rental work stations which will provide Internet access, Microsoft Office and Lotus Suite software and access to scanners and printers. Working with iShip.com, MBE has developed an integrated, online, retail shipping solution for the rapidly growing e-commerce industry. MBE Centers will serve as convenient drop-off and pick-up locations for e-commerce shipments. Virtual MBE Centers will provide customized online services that help small businesses complete many of their most common business tasks, such as marketing their products or services, finding employees or researching the competition. The excitement in watching MBE grow is not in the growth itself, but in witnessing the development of a strategy that is so perfectly attuned to the rapidly growing small-business market, and in observing a management team quietly implement that strategy with a combination of discipline, fanaticism and focus. This is a company that knows what it’s about from a marketing viewpoint, and nothing will get in the way. My prediction: Watch for them to acquire Kinko’s and Laptop Lane. The second company to watch is a start-up from Birmingham, Ala. that, because of its innovative technology, could seriously redefine an industry. Mobil TRAK addresses a problem that has been rampant in the media industry for decades how do you truthfully measure the audience? The prevailing system, which is based on listeners and viewers filling out diaries after the fact, is essentially a sham in which all parties (the stations, the advertisers and the diary-filling listener) are complicit. Mobil TRAK can solve that problem. Unbeknownst to most of us, every radio is also a transmitter. Using a high-volume sampling technique at dozens of detector sites, Mobil TRAK picks up the transmitter signals from passing car traffic. A small electronic measuring unit “sniffs” the signal from each car, identifies the station frequency and records the data on a real-time basis. In the four markets in which Mobil TRAK currently operates (Phoenix, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Toronto), about 90,000 samples are recorded each day, 2.5 million per month. The benefits from the system are immediate overnight listenership data, geographical-specific coverage and exceptional accuracy. Says Mobil TRAK Chairman and CEO Jim Christian, “Retail customers for years have been clamoring for accountability in advertising. What we do for them is deliver that accountability for the first time in history.” At Universal City Nissan in Los Angeles, a small metal box picks up the frequency of every car that drives by the dealership. According to Lenny Sage of Universal City Nissan, “We need to find out what station people coming into our lot are listening to, to determine the effectiveness of our advertising. We need to be able to target it more specifically, which is precisely what Mobil TRAK allows us to do.” Sage attributes a 31 percent increase in vehicle sales from weekend to weekend to Mobil TRAK. Mobil TRAK data are also a boon for radio stations and advertising agencies. While it won’t replace ratings data from companies like Arbitron, which compile data from listener diaries, it will certainly get rid of much of the guesswork and supposition. Marketing success comes in all shapes and sizes. The Internet IPOs are getting all the ink, but how many will survive? For true marketing excitement, keep an eye on the quiet ones. They’re the small, growing companies with a clearly defined vision, evangelistic leadership and a belief in providing what the marketplace needs, but cannot get. Like MBE and Mobil TRAK. Alf Nucifora is an Atlanta-based marketing consultant. He can be contacted via e-mail at [email protected], his Web site www.nucifora.com, or by fax at 770-952-7834.