April 4, 2011
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Affordably Build Your Brand
FedEx Global Brand Management Director Monica Skipper shares a cost-effective way to build a bigger brand for your small business.
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Last year marked a turning point for Victoria Varela Negrete, a veteran entrepreneur and founder of Impacto, a marketing communications firm based in San Antonio, Texas. In early 2010, Negrete and two partners decided to expand their business, which specializes in working with, and promoting, healthy food brands from the U.S. and Mexico. Their target: the lucrative Japanese consumer market.
After spending a year establishing an office in Tokyo for their new division, CZG International, in which they built relationships with various retailers, distributors and organizations like the French Chef’s Association in Tokyo, Negrete and her partners, Luis Ramirez and Miguel Angel Sanchez, decided to jump all in with their new venture in February 2011 by purchasing a logistics company based in Japan. That company would help manage their imports of some 100 items like organic chicken, tortillas and distilled spirits from the U.S. and Mexico. “We thought, ‘Hey, Americans buy enough stuff from Japan, so why don’t we see how we might even up that trade balance,’” says Negrete, a native of Mexico City who emigrated to the U.S. in 1990. “So we poured everything we had in terms of money and energy into making this come together.”
Then, four days after Negrete and her partners flew back to the U.S., the earthquake and tsunami struck. Fearing the worst for the employees she was now responsible for, Negrete reached into her own pocket and used her credit card to pay for the evacuation of CZG’s employees and their families from Tokyo to Osaka. “My life has changed and I still haven’t been able to sleep,” says Negrete, who had previously co-founded The Cartel Group, an advertising agency with clients like the U.S. Army and JC Penney, in 1994. “The emotional impact on our employees has been devastating since they had to leave everything behind without knowing if and when they would ever come back to Tokyo.”
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The tragedy also struck close to home for Negrete when she received an e-mail notifying her that her business contact at the French Chef’s Association was dead.
While Negrete continues to struggle with the emotional impact of the disaster— “The people I talk to in Japan say its much worse that anything we see on the news,” she says—she is also confronted by the fact that the business in which she invested so much has ground to a halt with no idea of when things might turn around. “The impact of the disaster hasn’t passed,” she says. “All we can do is donate to fundraisers and show the people in Japan that we care about them.”
Meanwhile, Negrete and the members of her firm not based in Japan have rolled up their sleeves and done their best to land work in the U.S. and Mexico to keep their business going. “I know the people of Japan will rebuild and rally,” she says. “And when they do, we’ll be ready for them.”
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