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Last Friday afternoon I wrote about people… specialty gas customers… not knowing about Air Liquide America Specialty Gases. Only a couple of days later I received a Google Alert about a blog post made by the editor of ICIS Chemical Business in which he states, “And how many industrial gases companies are out there of any size? In the US, you’re down to Air Products, Praxair and Airgas. Outside the US, there are France’s Air Liquide, Germany’s Linde and Japan’s Taiyo Nippon Sanso.”
Arrrghh!
That typo on ‘gases’ wasn’t the editor’s only error. (Me being a writer who repeatedly proves his inadequacy at proofreading his own work–happily I have a crackerjack project manager cum proofreader who saves my bacon every time–I’m willing to let the typo slide.)
Now, about that comment about being down to three players in the US gas marketplace: this makes it sound as if, assuming Air Products is successful with its uninvited offer to purchase Airgas, you’re pretty much gonna have to get your gas from AP or Prax. AS IF. Not by a long shot, a short shot or any other kind of shot.
Way back at the beginning of the year when the nasty business of the takeover began to cook, several members of the journalistic world speculated that (guess who) Air Liquide would be the only other gas company with the financial resources to possibly make a bid for Airgas. That’s not too bad for being a “hardly-worth-mentioning” supplier of industrial and specialty gases in the United States marketplace.
Air Liquide of course has passed on that opportunity. As our Chief Executive, Benoît Potier, stated back in February, “The question doesn’t really come up in the sense that our strategy is one of expansion in emerging countries and in new markets, or essentially in growing markets.”
One of the ways Air Liquide has grown the U.S. market was through acquisition of Scott Specialty Gases, which was the largest producer of EPA protocols and a well-known world supplier of other high-end specialty gases. These gas mixtures, still produced using original Scott technology, are being marketing under the SCOTT™ brand name in Europe, Asia and South America as well as in North America.
Another is the recent Air Liquide Large Industries U.S. LP acquisition of assets and business activities of Lion Copolymer Geismar Services (LCGS), an industrial utilities provider based in Louisiana’s Geismar basin, near Baton Rouge. This complements Air Liquide’s already strong presence in the Geismar basin, which is anchored by two large air separation units producing oxygen and nitrogen for supply via the company’s expansive Mississippi River Pipeline System.
I won’t get into how ALASG is part of a global team of some 43,000 members operating in over 70 countries. Regardless of how the Airgas/Air Products issue shakes out, Air Liquide IS and will remain a major world supplier of industrial and specialty gases for virtually any application imaginable, and that includes in the good ole USA.
P.S.I had submitted a comment regarding the post I mentioned above. Since writing this post, the editor accepted and published my comment, and indeed acknowledged Air Liquide’s large presence in the US. —THANK YOU, JOE!
Call me old-fashioned (I’m getting up there in age, so I can admit to this without apology) but I usually prefer the real deal.
My wife and I were at a pool party a couple of weeks ago, and while she was bobbing in the pool with our grand daughter, I was sitting comfortably in the shade and chatting with a few of the twenty-somethings who were also seated under the umbrella. A tune came on an iPod that was broadcasting music poolside: Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door by Guns ‘N Roses.
It wasn’t my iPod that was playing mind you; nah, I know better than to even attempt to play it at such gatherings. Despite having nearly three thousand songs on my black classic, including Booty Call in a playlist isn’t enough to satisfy partiers these days. Anyway, as the GnR song played, I made the comment that I preferred the original.
As I recall, and in retrospect I should have known better than to phrase it this way, I said something like, “I like old Bob Z’s rendition so much better.” One of the gals gave me a ‘huh?’ look, to which I clarified, “Ya know, Bob Zimmerman.”
Still huh.
“Bob Dylan.”
Double huh.
I added, “His real name is Zimmerman. And most of his songs I like better when someone else does them, but his one I prefer Dylan’s version.” Then I caught on. It turned out the gal barely knew who Bob Dylan was, let alone that he wrote and recorded the song before she was even born. I could see that she was amazed, and even a little bummed, to learn that a song she liked, and assumed belonged to her generation, turned out to belong to mine.
What’s this got to do with specialty gases? My poolside conversation about pop music reminded me of a situation our company encounters in the specialty gas industry. Despite the fact that Air Liquide operates in 73 countries, we are not particularly well known in the United States as a supplier of specialty gases. This is changing, but Air Liquide America Specialty Gases sales people still run into customers who simply don’t know us. So they assume we’re a new comer in the specialty gas industry, then are surprised to learn that we’ve been in the business for over 100 years. They are even more surprised to learn that Air Liquide is world leader in gases for industry, health and the environment.
When it comes to pure and mixed specialty gases, compared to everyone else, we’ve pretty much been there and done that with a dozen or so T-shirts in the drawer. As I said at the beginning of this post, I prefer the real deal, so working (and blogging) for the original is fine by me.
Most marketers know the power of the money-back guarantee. When a consumer is teetering on the buy-don’t-buy fence, the money-back guarantee is often compelling enough to result in a sale. So it makes for good marketing strategy, especially when you consider that statistics show how most consumers never bother to file a claim on that money-back promise, even if dissatisfied with the product. Go figure.
That’s in the B to C world, but does it work when marketing B to B? Considering this lousy economy in which nearly every company on the planet (including our customers and prospective customers) is struggling to remain competitive AND reasonably profitable, we’re thinking it can’t hurt. This is why we recently introduced a program we call ALeviate. It “alleviates” any concerns a potential customer may have regarding our products or services by offering a 100% refund within 60 days of purchase.
Is this risky for us? Not really. Our QC and analysis procedures are such that we make very, very sure that our mixtures are well within the proper specifications. However, let’s say for the sake of argument that we delivered, say, an EPA protocol mixture that was somehow out of spec. Firstly, shame on us, because as the leading supplier of this type of gas mixture, we’re the best in the world at making them. But let’s face it, mistakes can happen, so if it DID happen, we’d surely make good on it by supply a replacement free of charge–no ifs, ands, or buts.
This sort of product assurance is reactive. ALeviate takes matters to a higher level by making our assurance proactive. It highlights, up front, that we have great confidence in our ability to not only supply pure gases and gas mixtures that satisfy our customer’s application need, but also in our ability to service their account in a fashion that makes them feel good about their decision to select us as their supplier.
Essentially it amounts to being a performance challenge; a self-imposed test of our product and service quality. This has to say something in the mind of a customer who may be considering choosing Air Liquide versus some other gas supplier.
Air Liquide ALPHAGAZ trade ad
I just completed this new ad for our ALPHAGAZ pure gases, which is scheduled to run in American Laboratory in their June/July issue. Advertising, at least in North America, is something that Air Liquide hasn’t done much of in previous years. I’m not saying that trade advertising is the end-all-be-all when it comes to capturing market share, but I do believe it’s one of the reasons why our sales people encounter perspective customers who claim they never heard of Air Liquide.
Imagine that: a company with 43,000 employees in nearly 75 countries, and there are specialty gas users who have never heard of Air Liquide! Clearly THIS needs to change.
It’s the same story with most things in the promotion/marketing business: a matter of awareness. Thankfully I have tools at my avail to help with the task of creating awareness. This ad is a good example. It would have been nearly impossible, or at least cost-prohibitive to photograph high-pressure gas cylinders that were realistically adorned in animal prints. Enter PhotoShop software running on a Mac computer.
It truly is an almost magical tool. Just to give you an example, here’s the original “before” photo that my designer started with when I asked him to dress it up with animal prints. There was a time when I would have been mesmerized with the transformation, but thanks to technology (and the fact that my designers are that good), I don’t even hesitate to ask them to do what just a few years ago would have been unreasonable.
I remember getting an indignant email from a gentleman chastising me for using a stuffed Scottish terrier with blue glass eyes in our ads for Scott environmental specialty gas mixtures. Stuffed dog? I beg your pardon, but we use a PhotoShopped real deal. I wonder if I’ll receive complaints from customers about not being able to order ALPHAGAZ in designer zebra stripped or snake skin clad cylinders as shown in the ad.
Allow me to apologize up front. It’s just an awareness thing; you know, trying to get our ad noticed in the magazine. I mean, after all, studies show I only have 2 seconds to capture a reader’s attention before the page gets turned. To those who do pause long enough for an impression to sink in, please know that while the photo may be the product of my imagination, the actual product and features are quite real.
Specialty vs. Industrial
When it comes to compressed gases, there is often confusion over the difference between industrial gases (sometimes referred to as commodity or bulk gases) and specialty gases (sometimes referred to as cylinder gases, although industrial gases can also be supplied in cylinders). The Compressed Gas Association (CGA), who sets standards to which suppliers of all types of compressed gases conform, defines its mission as being ‘dedicated to the development and promotion of safety standards and safe practices in the industrial gas industry. In a broad sense, in that most compressed gases are used for some sort of industrial application, all could be considered to be industrial gases. So to define the true difference between industrial gases and specialty gases, one must look beyond the application to other factors such as complexity, level of purity and certainty of composition.
According to the CGA compressed gases are often grouped into five loosely defined families: atmospheric; fuel; refrigerant; poisonous; and those having no obvious ties to any of the other families. Assignment to these families is somewhat arbitrary and typically based on the origin, use or chemical structure of a gas. Specialty gases can belong to any of these five families. Essentially, they are industrial gases taken to a higher level. The dictionary describes one of the definitions of the word specialty as: an unusual, distinctive, or superior mark or quality. Specialty gases then, can be defined as high-quality gases for specific applications that are prepared using laboratory analysis and other preparation methods in order to quantify, minimize or eliminate unknown or undesirable characteristics within the gas. Regarding specialty gas mixtures, precise blending is also necessary to achieve very specific concentration values for the components contained within the mixture.
Bob
