Texas company hopes to strike oil; hard water can mean oppt'y
Ronald Cormick, CEO and president of Epic Energy, has been producing oil in Ukraine, in the Crimea basin area. Finally. The breakthrough came after $20 million of efforts since 1992 - money spent on oil-and-gas related expenses as well as attempts to drill through bureaucratic barriers.
The goal in Poland would be to "develop an environmentally beneficial use of natural gas," including using it for heating. Cormick says Poland has a "small to moderate" oil and gas potential, something he said was far better known in decades past to the KGB than to Polish energy authorities. And the KGB made sure it stayed that way until after the fall of the system when they could no longer control information.
But then the early Solidarity governments "got big in the head" and enacted energy taxes that ultimately "scared away the Amocos and Texacos. Now the tax is going to be revised," Cormick says.
It's the kind of cause-and-effect jostling that goes on with multinational companies and the companies they rest in, often temporarily, Cormick says. "Poland does not have 'elephant' sized fields but more in the medium range. Poland and Hungary and Romania are the playgrounds for the smaller guys, not the big guys." And there are lots more medium-range playgrounds in the world.
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Got your kawa-sipping mood on? You'll have lots more outdoor cafes this year than last. On Nowy Swiat, the business association has planted tall, young trees in planter boxes up one side of the sidewalk, offering some future shade. And a few more cafes and bars are opening on the side streets as well as on the fancy shopping street itself.
But this year's changes include some kawa-and-people-watching outdoor spots on the main drag of town as well. The twin restaurants Garrett and Odeon were setting up outdoor seating right on their wide swath of sidewalk on Marszalkowska. And that's not counting the new restaurants in parks, such as Vivaldi in Saski Park near plac Bankowy. Things are looking up.
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PepsiCo-Wedel would like to correct the record. Poles didn't reject Frito corn chips - they weren't ever actually introduced here. Apparently, the decision was made after preliminary market research indicated that Poles were hooked on potato chips, and might not give the time of day to those Texas-origin, curly corn chips.
As a result, they introduced Lay's which PepsiCo PR woman Jolanta Grygorczyk said is the market leader in chips, with more than 50%. So where does Blue Cactus get its corn chips, which are a credible offering if not the real thing? Do they make their own - like they do their bagels for Sunday brunch?
lll
There are expats among you who hanker for bagels. One of them is Procter&Gamble marketing guru Brenda Bence. Any footloose expatriate entrepreneur in her reach will get an argument to "try bagels."
Venture capitalists say there are several reasons why they won't fly here - starting with hard water and also a different type of flour. By the time you softened the water and brought over the bagel-friendly kind of flour, you've added so much to the cost it wouldn't make sense. Or should that be cents?
lll
P&G, for one, found a way to make the hard water problem pay off. They kept getting customer complaints that even with the highest-cost P&G detergent whites didn't get white. So why not?
P&G country manager Stef G. H. Kranendijk says they looked into the situation and found that 95% of Poles suffer from hard water. So they put water softeners in their high-end detergent Vizir - and advertised the fact. And, as part of the TV advertisements, they put in a toll free number that offered Poles a free kit for testing their own water at home. An astounding half-million people took them up on their offer.
lll
Sue Lafferty, P&G's account manager at Bates Saatchi & Saatchi, says market researchers have concluded that Poles are extraordinarily curious. About everything, but especially about what goes into the products they're buying.
Maybe it comes naturally, this curiosity, after suspicion about inflated claims from a half century of communist propaganda and "thought control." Not that anyone could control the Poles.
But Lafferty says marketers working here have to provide far more information to consumers than they would, say, in the United States or Western Europe. All that fine print may look too dense for comfort. But have you ever watched people reading labels in supermarket aisles? Dozens of them?
"They even take apart a Pampers diaper, to see how it's made," says Lafferty.
The goal in Poland would be to "develop an environmentally beneficial use of natural gas," including using it for heating. Cormick says Poland has a "small to moderate" oil and gas potential, something he said was far better known in decades past to the KGB than to Polish energy authorities. And the KGB made sure it stayed that way until after the fall of the system when they could no longer control information.
But then the early Solidarity governments "got big in the head" and enacted energy taxes that ultimately "scared away the Amocos and Texacos. Now the tax is going to be revised," Cormick says.
It's the kind of cause-and-effect jostling that goes on with multinational companies and the companies they rest in, often temporarily, Cormick says. "Poland does not have 'elephant' sized fields but more in the medium range. Poland and Hungary and Romania are the playgrounds for the smaller guys, not the big guys." And there are lots more medium-range playgrounds in the world.
lll
Got your kawa-sipping mood on? You'll have lots more outdoor cafes this year than last. On Nowy Swiat, the business association has planted tall, young trees in planter boxes up one side of the sidewalk, offering some future shade. And a few more cafes and bars are opening on the side streets as well as on the fancy shopping street itself.
But this year's changes include some kawa-and-people-watching outdoor spots on the main drag of town as well. The twin restaurants Garrett and Odeon were setting up outdoor seating right on their wide swath of sidewalk on Marszalkowska. And that's not counting the new restaurants in parks, such as Vivaldi in Saski Park near plac Bankowy. Things are looking up.
lll
PepsiCo-Wedel would like to correct the record. Poles didn't reject Frito corn chips - they weren't ever actually introduced here. Apparently, the decision was made after preliminary market research indicated that Poles were hooked on potato chips, and might not give the time of day to those Texas-origin, curly corn chips.
As a result, they introduced Lay's which PepsiCo PR woman Jolanta Grygorczyk said is the market leader in chips, with more than 50%. So where does Blue Cactus get its corn chips, which are a credible offering if not the real thing? Do they make their own - like they do their bagels for Sunday brunch?
lll
There are expats among you who hanker for bagels. One of them is Procter&Gamble marketing guru Brenda Bence. Any footloose expatriate entrepreneur in her reach will get an argument to "try bagels."
Venture capitalists say there are several reasons why they won't fly here - starting with hard water and also a different type of flour. By the time you softened the water and brought over the bagel-friendly kind of flour, you've added so much to the cost it wouldn't make sense. Or should that be cents?
lll
P&G, for one, found a way to make the hard water problem pay off. They kept getting customer complaints that even with the highest-cost P&G detergent whites didn't get white. So why not?
P&G country manager Stef G. H. Kranendijk says they looked into the situation and found that 95% of Poles suffer from hard water. So they put water softeners in their high-end detergent Vizir - and advertised the fact. And, as part of the TV advertisements, they put in a toll free number that offered Poles a free kit for testing their own water at home. An astounding half-million people took them up on their offer.
lll
Sue Lafferty, P&G's account manager at Bates Saatchi & Saatchi, says market researchers have concluded that Poles are extraordinarily curious. About everything, but especially about what goes into the products they're buying.
Maybe it comes naturally, this curiosity, after suspicion about inflated claims from a half century of communist propaganda and "thought control." Not that anyone could control the Poles.
But Lafferty says marketers working here have to provide far more information to consumers than they would, say, in the United States or Western Europe. All that fine print may look too dense for comfort. But have you ever watched people reading labels in supermarket aisles? Dozens of them?
"They even take apart a Pampers diaper, to see how it's made," says Lafferty.
