The Windy City certainly lived up to its name during the annual Shopper Marketing Expo this month in Chicago. We were buffeted by winds up to 55 miles per hour. Fortunately most of my time was spent indoors at the historic Navy Pier. The Expo brings together the brightest minds in the shopper marketing space and serves as an opportunity to share best-in-class examples of practical applications at retail. During one of the dinners I was seated next to a senior brand manager from Kimberly-Clark and we toasted each other for being fellow Gold Hub Prize winners. His team won for work related to Kotex and Poise feminine care products. It was gratifying to realize that our young, agile studio in Charlotte is competing at the level of national and international brands like Kimberly-Clark and their agency partner JWT/OgilvyAction. As we like to say, sometimes the biggest ideas can come from the smallest agencies. Learn more at www.birdsonggregory.com
Most shoppers look for the iconic cigar chomping Vlasic stork in the pickle aisle, but lately, thanks to a new instore ad campaign for one of America's most popular pickle brand, you can find the stoutly billed Groucho Marx-imitating bird in other parts of the your supermarket. Like next to ground beef in the butchers case. After all, what goes better with a hamburger than a nice crisp dill pickle? Research shows that a majority of burgers are served with pickles, and as grilling season gets underway the timing is good.
Along with shelves and grocery carts, vinyl ads also will appear on supermarket floors, while displays near the pickles themselves will dispense coupons and recipes. Along with this in-store advertising, which will run through September, the new Vlasic campaign includes recent ads in print magazines like People and Dash and on websites including FoodNetwork.com.
Vlasic, a brand of the Pinnacle Foods Group, spent $7.9 million on advertising in 2009 and $8.4 million in 2010, according to the Kantar Media unit of WPP. Eric Hintz, vice president for marketing at Pinnacle, declined to reveal the exact cost of the new campaign, but said marketing expenditures in 2011 would increase by double digits over last year.
As a Charlotte based shopper marketing agency, birdsong gregory is experiencing this trend firsthand and is excited about how retailers and product brands increasingly understand the importance of being relevant at the shelf.
According to a recent survey by the GMA and Booz, 55 percent of brands plan to increase spending on shopper marketing by more then 5 percent annually over the next three years, which is more than those intending to increase spending on social media (52 percent), Internet advertising (41 percent), print media (14 percent) or television (7 percent).
Some other examples of fun instore marketing juxtapositions:
To promote its soy and teriyaki sauces, Kikkoman dispenses recipes for marinades and coupons from a shelf display in the meat section during grilling season and places turkey brining recipes in the poultry section before Thanksgiving.
In an instore Valentine’s Day promotion to encourage using M&M’s in recipes, the Mars brand recently placed displays in the bakery aisle at supermarkets with cupcake recipes featuring the candies.
2011 has been a busy year for Birdsong Gregory, Shopper Marketing agency out of Charlotte, NC. One of our big new ventures this year has been launching a campaign for our client, Husqvarna with a new category of riding lawn mower. With this, we created campaigns and brand identities around their three core brands: Weed Eater, McCullouch & Poulan Pro within this new division. BG promoted this new product by creating identities through naming, logos, print ads, banner ads, videos & websites for each of the three brands and the category.
To learn more about this new product and to see some of our work, please check out the following:
A recent post from Advertising Age sheds a little bit of light on a planned in-store kiosk from Kraft to take shopper marketing to a new level.
Using a consumer's list and shopping history (derived from scanning your loyalty card and/or shopping list), it regurgitates suggested recipes and adds new items to the shopping list that are needed to cook the meals. Kraft has not deployed it anywhere yet, but is in discussions with unnamed retailers about possibly launching it soon.
"Shoppers struggle with 'What am I going to make?' every single night for dinner," said Don King, Kraft's VP-retail experience. "This is designed to try to help that process go smoother." Along the way, it drives more purchases at the store, including more Kraft brands.
The kiosk also includes a small camera that scans an image of the shopper's face. Using video analytics technology, the machine derives a basic profile -- such as age and gender. Now if the kiosk could only come to my Charlotte home and cook for my family!
From the blog at birdsong gregory, a Charlotte, NC shopper marketing and advertising agency.
In what may be the beginnning of a trend in marketing magazine subscriptions, Sports Illustrated has announced plans to eliminate the option of only subscribing to a print edition. Acccording to a post at AdAge.com, "The idea is to offer a universal price for access to the brand on any platform you like. That will please the kinds of subscribers who've complained in the last year about being asked to pay again for their magazines' app editions."
With so much communications going digital these days, how long will it be until we see then end of printed news? Keep an eye on this blog from Charlotte advertising and shopper marketing agency, birdsong gregory, for more insights.
What will Google think of next? The newly released Google app for your iPhone or Android has a function that recognizes a product simply by hovering over it, regardless of whether you're holding your phone over a bar code, packaging, or even a print ad. Although this technology may not work as well as typing search terms into a web browser, it certainly makes it easier for brands to be recognized at the point of sale.
Working at our Charlotte ad agency, my mind can't help but explore the possibilities this object recognition app could bring to the fabulous world of branding? Featuring products could become an art form. No more bad ads with page cluttered by huge logos and tacky starbursts.
For now at least, Google has done it again and Googles 1.3 provides consumers with another source for obtaining information about a product with a simple click of a button.
Check out the top 10 words you can now find in the dictionary that began as trademarked brand names for new products – fun stuff like pogo sticks, granola, jungle gyms, and heroin. Here at birdsong gregory, our Charlotte ad agency, which, by the way, specializes in POS design, is currently working with a couple of clients on projects that have the potential to add a new word to the dictionary. Exciting marketing and branding challenges, so please stay tuned.
The creative team from Birdsong Gregory will be participating in the 2nd annual GUTS competition. This years event will be held Thursday - October 28, at the corner of Trade and Tryon in uptown Charlotte.
"GUTS is a friendly pumpkin carving competition organized and created by HAWSE, A Brand Agency in Charlotte, North Carolina with assistance from Charlotte Center City Partners. It's purpose is to provide Charlotte creative professionals can enter into healthy competition with their peers that creates awareness of the talent in Charlotte, and more importantly, raises money for Levine Children's Hospital."
Check out the site to learn more on how to donate or purchase merchandise.
Our grocery client Bloom is at it again with another scented billboard - this time using peach to promote the fresh offerings at its new store location in the Dilworth neighborhood of Charlotte. If you're in the Southend area of Charlotte roll down your windows near the Chik-fil-A and soak in the peach. The chain achieved international attention earlier this year by erecting the nation's first scented billboard to promote its Sheffield & Sons beef brand. That charcoal and BBQ scented board drew the ire of PETA, but was generally praised on the internet for its innovative approach. Learn more about our Shopper Marketing agency by visiting www.birdsonggregory.com
That's right. birdsong gregory is beefing up its shopper marketing capabilities to help retailers and manufactures spend their marketing dollars in a more effective fashion, i.e., where it counts – at the store level.
We have a couple of new hires that will be starting this month who have worked for big, global retail branding agencies – and small retailer brands you may not have heard of - like WalMart. ;)
Together with our existing team of designers, writers, and brand strategists, we have some robust expectations for what lies ahead. We'll keep you posted…
Here at birdsong gregory, a Charlotte-based shopper marketing agency, we've known for years that in-store advertising is a great way to reach people in that critical "moment of truth" where decisions are made on which brand of charcoal or cat food to buy.
And now Bloom, one of our retail grocery clients, is making a bet that broadcast ads delivered between the aisles will be an effective way to reach the kind of purchase-focused, motivated audience in a way that top-of-the-funnel living room broadcasts cannot.
Automated Media Services plans to test its system, 3GTV, this summer in Maryland and Virginia at nine Bloom stores. Known as A.M.S., the company has been working for years on a system that would deliver television in retail environments; and one that would enable ad agencies to plan and buy commercial time in stores just as they do on the networks, channels and stations shoppers watch at home.
We'll keep you posted on what Bloom's shoppers think
Bob Noorda died last week. As the designer known the world over for giving the New Your City subway system its iconic modernist design, Noorda introduced simplicity to what (to me) still appears to be a confusing welter of express trains, dank passageways, and garbled announcements. At least the signage is friendly.
Here's an excerpt from his New York Times obituary:
"Mr. Noorda had helped found Unimark in 1965, teaming up with a group of American and European designers, including Mr. Vignelli, who initially set up shop in Chicago and Milan. Theirs was among the first international design firms to base their work on the Modernist principle that a good design could have a positive effect on all aspects of life, not just on business. An early proponent of unified branding -- the consistent use of distinctive type and imagery to identify a company -- Unimark has been credited with awakening the corporate world to Modernist design thinking."
Here at our Charlotte branding agency, we're following in Mr. Noorda's footsteps and trying to help our clients adopt and successfully use unified branding systems. Not always easy, but the payoff can be huge.
There's a funny article in the most recent issue of AdAge Magazine suggesting that advertising agencies are willing to do just about anything to promote their client's brands. It seems that the Dallas Cowboys can't find a naming-rights sponsor for the team's gleaming new stadium -- but the city of Irving, Texas, found one to blow up the old facility.
Kraft Foods is marketing the demolition of Texas Stadium later this spring in a promotion it intends to call the "Cheddar Explosion," tied in with its Kraft Macaroni & Cheese product. The company entered into negotiations with the Irving City Council last month, and the council last week agreed to a $150,000 deal to have Kraft sponsor the implosion. The money will be evenly split -- Kraft will pay the city $75,000 in cash to be distributed by charities selected by the city, and the company will also provide $75,000 worth of its products for other local charities.
With all the historic buildings that Charlotte seems to bulldoze these days, you'd think birdsong gregory should be able to attach one of our clients to an event. Maybe a Bloom Boom?
Popup shops used to be the domain of seasonal stores selling cheap costumes or tacky holiday gifts but the ever changing world of retail and shopper marketing has turned that on it’s head. Popup shops (where a company takes over an unused space for only a few weeks or months and then closes) have now been used by companies all over the world. Cheap chic retail king Target opened up popup shops for their collaborations with both Steve McQueen and Anna Sui. Likewise, eBay opened it's own popup shop showing off some of the things you could find on the site.
These shops are great for testing a new area or launching a new product but their real strength lies in creating buzz around a brand. Giving a consumer an amazing shoppping experience along with a smart product is the ultimate way to earn loyalty and trust. So if you think your brand or product could benefit from a well designed and executed pop up shop, I know a Charlotte Advertising Agency that would be a perfect fit!
Brought to you by birdsong gregory's favorite computer/application/smartfone/digital lifestyle company – delivered in their own fun, clever, rapacious flavor of brand personality.
And from all of us here at our shopper-centric Charlotte agency, have a safe, peaceful, meaningful end of the year and a bitchin' Yuletide.
There was a great article on page 1 of the NY Times business section last Sunday that explored the wild success of Apple's App Store. Featuring tens of thousands of applications that run on an Apple's iPhone and generating increasingly large amounts of both popularity and opportunity, the App Store, as this article points out, is compelling for several reasons. It generates as much as a billion dollars a year for Apple and the legion of third-party developers who create, code, and market apps. And the wide range of available applications means there is a potential market for anything, from a silly game to a sophisticated brand touchpoint for a company looking for a fun new viral marketing channel, a potential new revenue stream. Or both!
Here at birdsong gregory, our Charlotte marketing agency has both programming resources and a couple of good ideas about how help the right company extend it's online persona into the rapidly developing smart phone ecosystem.
Some of the luckier folks here at birdsong gregory, a Charlotte branding agency, scored coveted tickets to the Neko Case show at the new Knight Theater – which adjoins the still unopened Bechtler Museum of Modern Art. The theater is on the left, museum on the right, but from the second floor of the Knight lobby a wall of glass lets the Warhols and the Giacomettis join the party.
Designed by Thompson, Ventulet, Stainback, and Associates, the Knight Theater is a 1,150 seats theater that will be the primary venue for the North Carolina Dance Theatre, and will also feature performances by Opera Carolina and the Charlotte Symphony, as well as plays, lectures, films, and epic performances by bands like the notorious Deer Tick (who opened for Neko).
Advertisers watch out ... at least if your products are sold in San Francisco. A recent story from the Examiner details how San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera sent a scathing letter to Kellogg Co. for claiming that Cocoa Krispies and other of its “sugar-laden” breakfast cereals will help boost children’s immunity to illnesses.
In the letter sent to the company’s president and CEO, Herrera expressed “serious concerns” about the large font printed on the Cocoa Krispies cereal box that reads, “Now Helps Support Your Child’s Immunity.”
The city attorney says that is likely false advertising, a potential violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law. He has asked Kellogg’s to prove its child immunity claims within 30 days. If the company fails to respond within that time, the City Attorney will “seek an immediate termination or modification of the advertising claim,” the letter said.
The claim is also printed on the Rice Krispies, Frosted Krispies and Jumbo Krispies cereal boxes. The products began appearing on shelves in San Francisco stores in recent months, Herrera noted.
I'm not sure how many parents are scooping up Cocoa Krispies for their health benefits, but this case does highlight the scrutiny that all advertising agencies and their clients can expect when making controversial claims for their products.
Stay in tune with the latest headlines from the worlds of advertising and design by subscribing to our blog feed. birdsong gregory is an innovative Charlotte advertising agency providing creative branding and marketing services to clients throughout North Carolina.
Although technically still in the food business, supermarkets now find themselves increasingly looking at their operations from the perspective of a media company. Why? Because sixty percent of all in-store purchases are unplanned, according to James Maskulka, associate professor of marketing at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. This means our snacky impulse purchases can be influenced by a variety of in-store marketing communications: everything from coupons and end-of-aisle displays to digital cart screens and networked kiosks. Even better, a grocer's in-store marketing efforts can be accurately measured for ROI and efficacy, unlike traditional print advertising or TV spots.
To find out more about how our Charlotte, NC branding agency can help your company bring harmony and results to today's increasingly competitive retail environment, please call Jim Cusson at 704.332.2299.
For a Charlotte, NC branding agency, we like think we're wide open when it comes to using viral craziness to promote a product, service, or good cause.
Remember the guy who said he’d get a tattoo if 25,000 people joined his Facebook group? Or the lady Well at least that was entertaining (and novel) for the time. Now, however, people are starting to plumb the depths of bad taste and internet-fueled excess. Yes, a man is offering to name his son Batman if he can get 500,000 people make him their Facebook friend.
There are currently about 486,000 fans, so chances are he’ll have reached his goal by now. This questionable parent is also encouraging fans to give him their e-mail addresses so that he can e-mail him the birth certificate once his son is born.
Sounds to me like the “media” company behind the whole thing just wants 500,000 e-mail addresses.
In what may be the beginnning of a trend in marketing magazine subscriptions, Sports Illustrated has announced plans to eliminate the option of only subscribing to a print edition. Acccording to a post at AdAge.com, "The idea is to offer a universal price for access to the brand on any platform you like. That will please the kinds of subscribers who've complained in the last year about being asked to pay again for their magazines' app editions."
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