Posts tagged Advertising Age

More Than Words – Product Packaging

January 19, 2011 · Filed under Marketing & Advertising · Tagged , , , , , , , ,

We as marketers spend countless hours planning how to most effectively market retail products through both external and in-store advertising. Often, the external advertising, most commonly recognized, includes a diverse mix of traditional and nontraditional means of communication: television, radio, print, outdoor, online, etc. In-store advertising, while sometimes overlooked, can prove to be as effective or more effective (depending on the product and the circumstances) in persuading a consumers’ purchase.

What many marketers fail to consider is that oftentimes target consumers of their products may not see either type of advertising effort—we may miss the commercials or not see the promotional display in the store. So what can we do to catch consumers’ attention? Product packaging.

Today’s AdAge gives a further explanation—

“First, packaging is the only marketing vehicle that 100% of the consumers who buy your product see. Not every consumer sees the brand’s advertising or is exposed to the exciting social media that your brand is doing. But all of the consumers who buy your brand do interact with your humble package.

Second, and equally important, the package is really the only vehicle that you have 100% control over in-store. While your product can end up in the wrong location or shelved in the wrong direction, the package remains a constant, and once it has a consumers’ attention, it starts conveying your message (Black, 2011).”

While marketing of the past assumes that product packaging is only useful for “closing the sale,” the role of a product package has significantly evolved—attracting new customers and retaining current ones, communicating a new position and closing the sale.

Read further into the post —very interesting and valuable information for future retail marking endeavors!

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When Agencies Play Nice – I’m Lovin’ It

May 12, 2010 · Filed under Emerging Media · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

An expansion on my most recent discussion on the re-released and reinvented “I’m Lovin’ It” campaign by McDonald’s—

An additional article featured on AdAge online brought out some interesting points in regard to the campaign and the collaborative effort that was required to produce such a campaign.

McDonald’s employs a number of different agencies to aid in the global marketing and advertising efforts—and being a part of the industry—I certainly understand the difficulty on getting everyone on board (ego’s included) to collaborate on a project like the new “I’m Lovin’ It”.

As the article humorously points out, “What’s it take to get cut-throat agency competitors to play nice? A $2 billion global budget doesn’t hurt. It’s at least one reason McDonald’s can get its agencies to collaborate on strategy and major messaging before releasing them to develop their own spins.”

Mary Dillion, McDonald’s Global CMO, who orchestrated the reinvention of the iconic “I’m Lovin’ It” campaign extends a great deal of credit to the ability of the companies’ agencies to collaborate— In fact, the company sees that collaboration as crucial to its advertising success.

“I really fundamentally believe that our advertising wouldn’t be where it was today if our agencies didn’t collaborate,” explains CMO Mary Dillon said in an interview. And while it’s not always easy, she said, “They know that’s what the expectation is.”

Even in the midst of some extraordinary original and reinvented campaigns, analysts are hesitant to credit marketing for McDonald’s sales and market-share gains over the past several years.

David Palmer of UBS pointed to the chain’s operational improvements and increasing variety of better-for-you products that have overcome veto votes, particularly from women. He did acknowledge, though, that the chain does some of the industry’s most-effective marketing, and the idea of it getting better is “a little scary.” Stumbles from rivals Burger King and Wendy’s in recent years, he said, demonstrate just how easy it is to make big mistakes.

“McDonald’s is receptive to great creativity,” said Mark Tutssel, global chief creative officer, Leo Burnett. “And when you have a client demanding great creativity, demanding the bar is raised higher, of course it attracts the finest talent.”

McDonald’s marketing success has stemmed from forming clear expectations that motivate creative innovation that encourages collaboration.

 

Making the big kids play nice has resulted in a big impact for McDonald’s marketing.

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I’m Lovin’ It – Version 2.0

May 10, 2010 · Filed under Emerging Media · Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

As has been discussed all semester long, the increased popularity and capabilities that come along with emerging media has brought on some major players to its roster.  This is just one of those instances.

America’s favorite fast food chain, McDonald’s recently re-released its epic “I’m Lovin’ It” campaign.  After more than a year of extensive consumer research, McDonald’s global chief marketing officer unveiled an updated campaign.

“I’m Lovin’ It” is now the company’s most successful and longest-running campaign, surpassing the iconic “You deserve a break today,” and “Food, Folks and Fun,” both in longevity and sales gains. The tagline actually predates CMO Mary Dillon, who took over McDonald’s global marketing in 2005. “If you look at the business success, there would have been no reason” for changing the campaign, she said in a subsequent interview, “except for ego.”

The company uses emerging media, combined with fresh creative in aim to make a significant mark on global business. The campaign seeks to bring out the company and to more effectively utilize a more consistent point-of-view and to celebrate “uniquely McDonald’s moments” all while creating advertising with a purpose—to build the brand and generate sales.

The new advertising is expected to raise the bar on McDonald’s global creative efforts. The work also appears to be using a more humorous and emotional-driven approach on a better grounded storyline— the messages “communicate key points like family bonding and fun with food. It also helps with unenviable task of getting marketing up to speed with the “I’m Lovin’ It” promise.”

A couple of those “McDonald’s moments” can be seen here:

I can say about McDonald’s 2.0—“I’m lovin’ it!”

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Privacy, please!?

May 3, 2010 · Filed under Emerging Media, Interactive Advertising, Social Media · Tagged , , , , , , , ,

As with any medium, there are potential disadvantages to utilizing certain platforms for marketing, including: the possibility for inconsistent experience (online vs. offline), damage of brand integrity or reputation, not a “fit” for a particular brand, improper use/underused of medium and of course privacy/security issues.

There is a potential for failure of security in both personal and business context. Businesses and individuals alike have the possibility of being over-exposed and under-protected when utilizing social media sites—stricter guidelines could help to regulate information sharing.

And for those of you (including myself) that are avid users of the social networking site, Facebook—our privacy may be threatened now, more than ever.

Facebook launched its “Open Graph Platform” that extends the social net’s web across third-party sites—Facebook now automatically shares user data with third-party sites, as well displaying user activities on those sites in the Facebook environment.

And this privacy threat is certainly not being taken lightly—by users or by Washington.

In fact, two days after the site announced its changes, Sen. Charles Schumer wrote a letter to the Federal Trade Commission in response to the launch of new features on Facebook. Schumer said new privacy policies limit the ability of users to control how much about themselves gets shared with sites that partner with Facebook. He said the FTC should set guidelines for how social networking sites use and share private information.” Vera-Phillips, 2010

And it’s not just Facebook—a federal regulation would extend to all online advertising. Online advertising is facing the very real possibility that it will be regulated in the form of privacy legislation that would require publishers, networks or marketers to receive specific consent to use consumer data for a variety of purposes on the web.

Some 20% of online ads are targeted based on online behavior, but that’s just the beginning. A new generation of companies, including Facebook and Twitter as well as Foursquare and GroupOn, are on the cusp of a new wave of location-based marketing. It’s not about where you are or where you’ve been on the web — it’s about who you are connected to and where you’ve shopped, dined out or just browsed shelves. Learmonth, 2010

 Also from the article:

The company sits on one of the most valuable troves of user information; not just interests but human connections — thought to be the single most powerful determinant of consumer behavior. Facebook has, in many ways, been circumspect about monetizing that and generally puts the consumer experience first in everything it does. But for a company all about sharing information, it has shown remarkable clumsiness in communicating what it is doing to the public.

In fact, Facebook’s creator Mark Zuckerberg has been quoted saying that the site basically offers little to no privacy. Todd Dagres, partner at Spark Capital noted “The Facebook presumption is that privacy is not important — so if you really want privacy you have to opt-in and turn the dials to get the privacy you want. The issue becomes when people have different expectations of what privacy is.”

One former Schumer staffer told Ad Age the senator has a strong bias toward “opt-in” — that consumers should be asked before their data is used.

That said, the thought is that Mr. Schumer may determine that in the open web, there’s no expectation of privacy, and that “opt-in” presents too big a burden on the emerging online ad industry.

I’m more concerned about my rights then the “burden” it might cause to the online ad and social networking industries—as a service to its participants, privacy should be respected and rights upheld.

What do you think?

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Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

April 21, 2010 · Filed under Blogs & Vlogs, Emerging Media · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The volcano in Iceland had personal relevance for me this week—as one of my clients who traveled to London over a week ago was just able to arrive back in the states today.

In light of the international crisis that is the volcano, better known in more recent days as a “the ash cloud that has halted air traffic and cost the U.S. travel industry hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue”—there is a silver lining to this cloud…for video conferencing. 

According to an article on AdAge.com, the video and web conferencing industry is booming:

Citrix’ GoToMeeting web-conferencing service reported that its traffic has doubled this week compared to the week before the ash began shutting down travel. Cisco has also noted big increases in online web and video conferencing use.

Logitech, too, has seen a spike in business — its Vid service saw a “significant spike” in video calls on Saturday compared to previous Saturdays, particularly in England and France. And so Logitech decided to use the ash cloud as a marketing opportunity. On its blog, the company is asking people to send in their stories about “how you used (or are planning to use) video calling as your back-up plan.” The company is offering the top three submissions $100 American Express gift cards. Bulik, 2010

Not only do incidences like these teach businesses the vital necessity for being technologically prepared for similar situations—it teaches marketers that in the midst of crisis, there is the chance for a silver lining and to capitalize on not-so-obvious marketing opportunities.

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Yo Sumo – 2010 Census

April 3, 2010 · Filed under Blogs & Vlogs, Emerging Media, Interactive Advertising, Social Media, Word of Mouth (WOM) Strategies · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Digital media is quickly growing in influence and becomes more mainstream every day. The rapid evolution of technology, coupled with decreasing costs and increasing access, is allowing more people to access digital media…WVU

This access, popularity and cost effectiveness is exactly the formula that PepsiCo is capitalizing on for the 2010 U.S. Census to communicate with the nation’s largest minority group. As the nation’s largest minority group, “Hispanics have a variety of national backgrounds: 66 percent are Mexican, 9 percent are Puerto Rican, 4 percent are Cuban and the remainder generally comes from Central America.” WVU

PepsiCo is taking advantage of the 2010 Census with an initiative called “Yo Sumo” (Spanish for “I count”) that encourages Hispanics to go beyond just being counted numerically and to share their experiences that have helped shape the American landscape. Advertising Age

The campaign has even brought celebrities on board like Eva Long actress Eva Longoria Parker, who will make a documentary based on the stories posted to the pepsiyosumo.com website set up by Pepsi.

The campaign is utilizing a mix of emerging media and traditional media tactics to reach its target audience—social media was a part of its soft launch, which prior to the official campaign launch boasted an average of 100 new fans per day.

Many fans have already begun posting stories on the site, in a mix of Spanish, English and Spanglish, about growing up Hispanic in America, or arriving as young immigrants—giving further evidence that perhaps traditional Spanish-language advertising is in fact not the most favored, used or preferred method for second- and third-generation Hispanics in the U.S.

In fact, current advertising for the PepsiCo campaign has already taken this into consideration:

The 2010 poll is expected to give a big boost to Hispanic advertising as well as provide more insights into effective methods of reaching this powerfully growing segment of society—as marketers are expected to be impressed by the sheer number of Hispanic consumers and how fast that market is growing.

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Nuevos medios de difusión, Hispanic Creative Awards

March 31, 2010 · Filed under Emerging Media · Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Title Translation: Emerging [New] Media

Our lesson and class discussions this past week focused on the growing usage of emerging media to reach minority markets, thus sparking my interest of further research -

Minorities are “groups whose members share unique behaviors based on a common racial, language or nationality background. According to the Census Bureau, the growth of ethics groups in the U.S. is booming; in fact, the non-European population will increase from 24 percent in 1990 to a predicted 37 percent by 2020.” P.I. Reed School of Journalism, WVU

Minority groups are certainly showing a substantial impact of growth, and not just in population, but in influence, consumer preference and buying power—trillions of dollars per year combined. It is no wonder that with the growing popularity of emerging media tactics that marketers are utilizing to reach a variety of target audience segments, that these minority groups would be a substantial factor and inclusion element in that reach.

“The first thing a business owner should do to begin advertising to minorities is to consider what media they are already receiving. If a company was looking to gain more customers from the Hispanic community, for instance, you might look into advertising in publications printed in Spanish, marketing experts say.” Orlando Business Journal

Of the various minority groups in the U.S., Hispanics make up the nation’s largest minority community. It is this group that many corporate marketers have been and are looking to actively target—and as the media that they are “already receiving” has in recent years grown substantially toward emerging media—so do the strategies employed to reach this group.

The corporate interest and participation has grown so much in recent years that Advertising Age now gives annual awards to recognize outstanding achievements and efforts by companies who utilize various media to target the Hispanic community—Pepto Bismol took Best of Show for best campaign—and while there are a number of different award categories, for the purposes of this discussion, the winners of the Non-traditional/Guerilla Marketing (check them out) category were:

  • Gold Award: “Agua Sucia” – UNICEF
  • Gold Award (Puerto Rico): “5 Women, 5 Composers” – Susan G. Komen
  • Silver Award (Puerto Rico): “Green is the New Black” – Heineken
  • Bronze Award: “Dirige a Tu Equipo” – T-Mobile USA

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