P3M helps clients create demand
By Shari Kaplan
These days, it's hard to be a company that relies on business from other companies, now that so many are tightening their collective belts by cutting budgets, cutting employees or--as a permanent solution to economic woes--closing their doors.
One company that has its head still well above water is P3M--Paradigm 3 Marketing--a 10-year-old business founded in Los Gatos. Although some people may have wondered when they saw P3M vacate its 575 N. Santa Cruz Ave. storefront in September, the company is fine, says founder and CEO Laura Cannestra--it's even expanded to include branches in San Francisco and Atlanta, Ga.
Because many of P3M's Silicon Valley clients have cut their budgets, P3M did likewise, consolidating from three local buildings to two. Although it no longer sits on N. Santa Cruz Avenue, business is brisk at the company's 513 Monterey Ave. headquarters. There's also a smaller office on Andrews Avenue.
For every company faltering in difficult economic periods like that of 2001, there are also many companies proactively striving to either become successful, or stay successful. "In times like this, new innovations often come out. People go back to the drawing board to try to get ahead of their competitors," says Cannestra, a former Saratogan who now lives in Los Gatos.
And that's where P3M comes in, with diverse services that let it help in almost any facet of a business: advertising, marketing and website production. It's more specific than that, of course.
Advertising--those eye- or ear-catching snippets on magazine pages, billboards or radio and TV stations--accounts for some 20 percent of P3M's business, Cannestra says, with another 30 percent devoted to creating and maintaining clients' websites. The other 50 percent is on the marketing side, in what she calls "demand creation."
"The big buzzword in recent years was 'branding'--creating a logo for a company that didn't have an image," she says. "Today, branding doesn't translate into sales; now it's demand that's important because that generates direct sales."
Demand creation is currently P3M's biggest division because many clients' biggest goals are generating and keeping revenue. Helping clients put together workable business models is also important, Cannestra says, because if the model doesn't work, all the sales-generation in the world won't necessarily keep a company afloat.
"You have to get into a business that fulfills a need the public has. In fulfilling that need, you also have to make enough of a profit," she says.
Among the Bay Area companies P3M has worked with--be it in branding, demand creation, advertising, marketing or web design--are Concentric, eBay, Embark, Marimba, Metricom, Palm and PeopleSoft. One of the most locally successful projects took place at Montalvo--formerly Villa Montalvo--in Saratoga.
"This is a good example of re-branding. Most people knew Villa Montalvo as a concert venue or a place to have a wedding. But it's really an amazing nonprofit and does a lot for the community. It's a hidden gem," she says of Montalvo and its community outreach programs, which bring arts and cultural experiences to students, the mentally challenged and others. P3M gave Montalvo a shortened name, cutting-edge slogans and visual imagery, and an attention-getting advertising campaign, kicked off during the annual media luncheon this past spring.
"It was fun and invigorating, [and] all of the feedback we've gotten has been very positive," Cannestra says.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
