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Does blogging help build brands? Apparently so. The latest findings from Technorati’s 2013 Digital Influence Report show that “consumers are turning to blogs when looking to make a purchase." Consumers said that blogs rank higher than Twitter for shaping their opinions and higher than Facebook for motivating purchasing decisions.

Buying decisions, especially by women consumers, aren’t only being shaped by online advertising or brand websites. As bloggers become a greater influence in the media environment, they are making a greater impact on consumer buying behavior. Studies show that half of blog readers say they find blogs useful when making a purchase decision. Frequent blog readers say that they trust relevant content and that blog posts about a particular product or service influences them when they are making buying a product, more than the content they get from social networking sites.

Whether it’s discovering or deciding on a particular product and service, consumers are exploring new blogs to seek out advice on product information. They aren’t just seeking out the views of one blogger, but rather they read more than one blog per session. Unlike the traditional journalist, bloggers are building bonds with their readers. Frequent readers return to their favorite blogs time and time again because they trust their advice. Just like you seek out the advice of your family and friends – people you trust – before you make a major purchase, blog readers are going to the written resource that they are beginning to trust – their favorite bloggers. So if you're looking to develop a blogging strategy for your brand, give our Charlotte marketing agency a buzz.
 

Major consumer brands have been using various neuromarketing techniques for years, but most have been reluctant to talk about that activity. The idea of measuring a consumer’s subconscious preferences has always felt a bit Orwellian, but companies are now coming clean in their efforts to go beyond the (often) glib responses of qualitative research to gain a better understanding of what's really going in our minds when we interact with brands and their advertising.

According to Millward Brown, a global agency specializing in brand and consumer research, this year’s commitment from Unilever and Coca-Cola represents the largest-scale adoption of facial coding technology in the industry to date.

The facial platform uses proprietary software to interpret viewers’ facial expressions to gauge how viewers feel about the ads they see. “Facial analysis adds depth to our understanding and builds on our validated metrics to delivery new insights in an easily applied and cost-effective way,” Graham Page, head of Millward’s neuroscience practice said.

Millward, which says it’s used the facial analysis on over 400 advertising research projects, expects to see great growth in the use of this technology this year.

Millward doesn’t only use the facial analysis to gauge effectiveness – results are also compared with survey responses to help marketers better craft and target campaigns.

Besides targeting ads, shopper marketing agencies are also looking to get their hands on facial recognition technology built into TVs to monitor television ratings and get a sense of how many people are watching ads at any particular time, as well as how they are emotionally responsive to them. 

While the technologies used in these projects don’t involve actual measurements of brain waves or activity, the commitment of major brands to the importance of measuring subconscious preferences is significant for the neuromarketing business as a whole – and a trend our Charlotte marketing agency is closely watching.

Heck. We hope you have, but if you've never given this excellent mix of genres and smooth transitions a listen, you definitely should. It's not in iTunes. Rather, you have to go to their website and open up a stream. At our Charlotte ad agency, we spend a LOT of time sitting quietly in front of a computers either designing or researching, and a mellow, aurally interesting flow of tunes is indispensable to the quality of our office life (a couple of Rocketfish wireless speakers help ensure high fidelity).

Plus, the DJ's speak French and have a sugary, über-cool tone of voice and style.

FIP (originally France Inter Paris) is a French radio network, founded in 1971 as part of the Radio France group. The concept behind FIP has scarcely changed since its founding: continuous music interrupted only for traffic updates, occasional announcements about forthcoming events, and a short news broadcast at 10 minutes before the hour, but no advertising.

FIP's programming is an eclectic mix of musical genres: chanson, classical, film music, jazz, rock, world music and more, but with careful attention paid to smooth and unobtrusive transition from item to item. FIP is one of the few stations in the world to transmit this type of programming around the clock. The broadcasts are presented live from 7 am to 11 pm, after which a computer replays a selection of the music broadcast earlier in the day.

The station was founded in 1971 by Jean Garetto and Pierre Codou, both week-end presenters at France Inter. It was broadcast from Paris on 514 m (585 kHz) medium wave, hence its original name of France Inter Paris 514. 

You don't have to be a boutique shopper marketing agency like birdsong gregory to understand the marketing power of well-designed packaging. Not only does packaging have a longer shelf life (pun intended) than an advertising campaign or promotions program. There is no other consumer facing media that creates such a powerful one-on-one experience. From the time a shopper notices your brand on the shelf and then buys it, stores it, and (re)uses it, they have formed an indelibly physical relationship.

Fact: you can renovate or launch new packaging for less than 10-25% of the total cost to produce a TV spot or run a big print ad campaign.

Which is why brand strategies are now being built from the package outward and successful brand managers and designers increasingly understand the value of starting with the package first. In a major shift in the shopper marketing universe, brand expression is now centering in the package design and using that design to architect all other brand touch points.

As part of the 2013 HOW Design Conference, this year's Dieline Package Design Conference will help package designers will discover how to gain recognition and respect by articulating what design means to a brand.

Now in its 3rd year, The Dieline Package Design Conference has become the leading design conference focused solely on the package design industry and package designers. The Dieline Package Design Conference is an extension of TheDieline.com, the popular design blog and the world’s most visited website on package design. 

We hope some other Charlotte advertising agencies will be able to attend HOW Design Live, which takes place June 22-26, 2013 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California. It consists of four design conferences: HOW Design Conference, InHOWSE Managers Conference, Creative Freelancers Conference, and The Dieline Package Design Conference. More than 3,800 design professionals together will gather for training, professional development and networking with peers at this annual event produced by F+W Media, publishers of HOW Magazine and Print.

I don’t buy 10 cartons of Yoplait because I can’t (won’t) eat 10 cartons of yogurt before they go bad. I’m lucky if I can eat my way to the bottom of one carton. So when my local Food Lion has a great deal on yogurt, I tend to pass. From a shopper marketing perspective however, such outlier behavior is generally atypical of how middle America reacts to a ten for $10.

Using buying patterns detected from loyalty cards, receipts, and other research, grocery chains are searching for the multiples sweet spot. For example, Kroger currently has lemonade, socks and Kroger gummi bears candy on sale at 10 for $10. And, to the chagrin of right-brained finger counters everywhere, the old gimmick — buy one, get one free — has been expanded to include some pricing equations based on complex NASA-inpsired algorithms – or at least it appears so to my mathematical challenged mind.

Most grocery shoppers make a list before going to the store, according to two recent studies,  In one, Acosta Sales and Marketing, which advises clients like Nestlé on pricing, found that 84 percent of shoppers make a list, 23 percent make fewer grocery trips than a year ago, and that, over all, shoppers are spending less per trip than a year ago.

Then, throw unemployment, rising gas prices and more expensive food into an already meager stew, and you get consumers who have become extremely value driven, budget minded, list minded, less impulsive, and very deal oriented. So in order to get someone to buy something that wasn’t on their list (or more of what was), grocers need incentives to nudge shoppers outside their typical behavior. And it’s working.

Well advertised, relevant multiples push customers a little higher than their typical purchase rate. People tend to buy the amount, or buy in increments, that are advertised – ten boxes of tortellini for $10, for example. According to John T. Gourville, professor of marketing at Harvard Business School who studies pricing strategies, even though shoppers usually do not have to buy the suggested amount to get the discount, they do anyway. “It is all about the power of suggestion,” he said. Ad agency Charlotte.

Anyone? Because prior to the late 1980's, it was called "Downtown." Which makes sense, since (everywhere but in Charlotte) the term "Uptown" refers to a spatial relationship between different parts of a city center. Commonly, the uptown neighborhood or neighborhoods, separated from a city's lower or central business district, may often be residential, sometimes with particularly upscale or fashionable connotation. In New York, for example, you have a Downtown, a Midtown, and an Uptown. But not in the Queen City ... 

There's much confusion brought about by the use of the terms "Uptown" and "Downtown" for Charlotte's center city area, since these terms don't reference different areas of town and are thus interchangeable. Personally, I still call it Downtown for the same reason I call "Bank of American Stadium" Panthers Stadium. I don't like to have my vocabulary manipulated by Charlotte advertising agencies and politicians (ironic, I know).

Prior to the mid-late 1980s, the term "Downtown" was used by residents, media and city leaders for ...well...downtown. During the 1980s, however, a massive campaign was launched to revamp the seedy image of the downtown area and the term "Uptown" was introduced to the general public. On February 14, 1987, the Charlotte Observer began using the term "Uptown" as a way to promote a more positive upbeat image of the center city area, and (in a rather Orwellian twist) schools were provided with "historical" documents justifying use of the term to teach to students (e.g. a barely noticed proclamation designating central shopping and business district as Uptown Charlotte by City of Charlotte Mayor John M. Belk on September 23, 1974).

Whether at the Friday night Plaza Midwood foodtruck scene, the Southend food truck rally, or Uptown during lunch time, our Charlotte advertising agency loves to sample the cuisine from these roving restaurants. And although the food truck scene is still unfolding here in the Queen City, it's been booming for years in bigger cities like Los Angeles and New York. What's the underlying marketing force behind this trend? 

It's called scarcity marketing

Scarcity marketing involves motivating people to buy something by telling them there is a shortage in what is available and a limited time to act. The goal is to create a sense of urgency through an aggressive call to action; to make people scared that they will not be able to acquire something that they want if they don’t act fast.

It’s difficult to pinpoint the first instance of scarcity marketing, but companies have used the technique for many years. One of the most notable examples of scarcity marketing – the Disney Vault – started during the 1980s. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment began to reissue limited editions of their films and urge consumers to purchase these films before they went back into the “Disney Vault.” Because each Disney film is only for a limited time before it is put in the vault and not made available for several years until it is released again, consumers are driven to act fast when a new video is released. Apple Computer is another company that clearly understands and uses scarcity marketing. And the Cabbage Patch Kids craze makes a poignant example of scarcity marketing from my own childhood.

The primary benefit of using scarcity marketing in your business is being able to position your products as services as a commodity. This drives up the perceived value of what you’re selling, and the fear that it has limited availability makes people act fast to purchase. Scarcity can also present an opportunity to engage your audience in a new way. By creating an interesting background that shares the reason for the scarcity (such as a one-of-a-kind product or special edition that has significant meaning), you can capture and keep the customer’s attention. Lastly, when it’s done effectively, scarcity marketing can also create a cult following – the kind of blind loyalty that makes people wait for days in freezing temperatures to buy the new i-Phone.

Forget the size zero supermodels – bigger girls can mean bigger profits say researchers.

A new study from Warwick Business School has found that when consumers are blatantly exposed to idealised images of thin, beautiful women those shoppers are more likely to use a defensive coping strategy to boost self-evaluation by denigrating the pictured woman. This can negatively affect the products these models endorse through the transfer of the negative evaluation of the model to the endorsed product.

The female subjects of this study were put through various experiments including being shown magazine pages that contained different ads, one of which was for a vodka. Some women received ads that did not feature an attractive model, other women received ads that had a bikini-clad model on the opposite page to a picture of the vodka (meaning they were subtly exposed to the idealised female image) and the third had the attractive model on a whole page next to the vodka (meaning they were blatantly exposed to the idealised female image).

This study was published Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes and is called Defensive reactions to slim female images in advertising: The moderating role of mode of exposure.

Here is the download info, if you want to read it for yourself. Or, you can let the insightful minds here at our Charlotte ad agency give you the executive summary – and help you make sure your current advertising strategies are helping – and not hurting – your brand.

If you've ever worked in advertising, graphic design, apparel, or dozens of other aesthetically-inspired fields, then you know how important a role the Pantone color system plays. After all, one designer's concept of "taupe" is another's "wheat."

Today, we take this universal system of color for granted, but 50 years ago, it didn't exist. At least not until Laurence Herbert, an employee of the Pantone printing company, created the world's first standardized color reproduction system. Charlotte ad agencies

By the 1970s, Pantone was making more than a million dollars a year in licensing fees, and as the Pantone system spread from the advertising world to textiles to food science, it  has been put to some unexpected uses – like defining the color of a Ben & Jerry’s brownie.

Here's a short article about the origins and global reach Pantone.

The Chrysler Group is bringing to life the advertising theme for its Chrysler brand, “Imported from Detroit,” through an innovative partnership with a coming Broadway show that bears the Detroit-inspired name of one of the most famous brands in music. The commercial above is believed to be the first time that a Broadway show has had such paid national television exposure as it prepares to open in New York. 

This historic partnership unites Chrysler and “Motown: the Musical,” about the musical legacy of Berry Gordy and Motown, the record label he founded that is now owned by the Universal Music Group. The musical, scheduled to open on April 14 at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater, is the beneficiary of an elaborate promotional initiative by the Chrysler brand that supplements the show’s own efforts to encourage ticket sales. The automaker’s efforts extend beyond the product placement and sponsorship agreements that have become increasingly prevalent on Broadway as theater enters the realm of so-called entertainment marketing with television, movies and video games. Unlike the provisions of many of those deals, the Chrysler name is not being added to a lyric of a Motown song, nor are there plans to park a car in the lobby of the Lunt-Fontanne.

The centerpiece of the Chrysler brand’s support is this broadcast spot that has been running nationally since December, featuring Mr. Gordy riding in a Motown Edition of a Chrysler 300C sedan as the seminal Motown song “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” plays on the soundtrack. The commercial, created by a Chrysler Group agency, GlobalHue in Southfield, Mich., begins with Mr. Gordy at the original “Hitsville U.S.A.” Motown headquarters building in Detroit and ends with him arriving at the Lunt-Fontanne and declaring: “We are Motown. And this is what we do.” As Mr. Gordy enters the theater, the Chrysler slogan appears, altered to read “Imported from Motown.” It's great to see the Detroit renaissance take another step forward, although after screening Detropia, the grim post apocalyptic documentary, for our Charlotte marketing agency, it will be a few more years before we open up an office of birdsong gregory in the Motor City.

The Chrysler Group is spending an estimated $6 million to $8 million to promote “Motown: the Musical.” The budget for the ads from the show’s producers, Mr. Gordy, Kevin McCollum and Doug Morris, is estimated at $2 million.

The purpose of "purpose marketing?"

In a nutshell: to make you feel good about buying a company's services or products. 

Purpose marketing (also known as "pro-social marketing," "advertising for good," and "conscious capitalism,") woos consumers with information about the values, behavior and beliefs of the companies that sell the products. 

The goal is to convince potential customers that the companies operate in a socially responsible manner, and seeks to go beyond tactics like making charitable contributions or selling a product in recyclable packaging.

As a new subset of shopper marketing, purpose marketing is becoming popular on Madison Avenue because of the growing number of shoppers who say that what a company stands for makes a difference in what they do and do not buy.

Consumers are seeking “authentic emotional connections” with brands, said Mandy Levenberg, vice president and consumer strategist for cause and sustainable living at CEB Iconoculture, a consumer research and advisory firm that is part of the Corporate Executive Board Company. Among marketers, there is a gowing perception that certain “shared values” can increase loyalty and drive basket size.

Such consumers, frequently referred to as socially conscious shoppers, are assiduous in their research of corporate policies. That means a company doing something deemed at odds with its purpose-based mission statement or high-minded advertising campaign runs the risk of eliciting disappointment — or even a sense of betrayal — among socially conscious shoppers who consider themselves misled.

Panera is the latest corporation to jump on the socially conscious bandwagon and use altruistic acts to sell more (flavorless) sandwiches and (watery) coffee (in the humble opinion of our Charlotte advertising agency).

Read all about here in this NYT article.

Have you always wanted to know the difference between a pictogram and an ideogram? Or where America's first advertising agency opened its doors? (FYI: it was Philadelphia in 1841).

Then check out www.designhistory.org. This wonderfully illustrated site begins with the origin of symbols and type before moving through the various cultural movements (Bauhaus, Arts and Crafts, etc.) that influenced and eventually evolved into the modern digital state of design and advertising.

Here at birdsong gregory, the graphic designers and branding gurus at our Charlotte ad agency are always looking for ways to sharpen their craft and deepen their knowledge of this creative, mercurial industry. So to that end, this site is a helpful collection of facts, faces, and inspiration.

Tonight the men and women of Charlotte's creative class (thank you Richard Florida) will gather for drinks, hors d'ouevres, and mutual recognition of 2012's best locally produced marketing, advertising, and branding work. At birdsong gregory, our shopper marketing agency is sending some folks to this annual gala, but, truth be told, we've always had an ambivalent relationship with award shows.

There are at least 39 award shows in advertising. In alphabetical order they are; the Ace Awards, the ADDYS, the District 2 ADDYS, the Ad Age BEST Awards, the AME International Awards, the ANDYS, the Art Director's Club, the A+ Awards, the Athenas, Auroras, CA Annual, Cannes Lion, the Caples, Clios, Creativity, Cresta, D&AD, Echo, Effie, Good Samaritan, Graphis, Icon, Interactive Media and Marketing, Kelly, Marcom, Mercury, Mobius, New York Festival, Obie, One Show, Portfolio, Print Regional Design, Reggie, Silver Microphone, Summit, Type Directors Club, Telly, and the Visual Club Awards. And I'm sure I left out a bunch.

Award shows strike a nerve with ad people. Some see awards as an important and necessary industry acknowledgment of high creative standards and achievement. On the other side of the fence, some of us regard self-awarded industry awards as a self-indulgent distraction from what really matters – the client's bottom line.

As an executive creative director, I can appreciate both points of view, but I think the most important question any agency should ask itself is this: at the end of the day, how impressed are clients with creative awards and does the increasingly expensive entry fees and ticket prices to award shows result in a significant return on that investment?

Here's a local cover-up our Charlotte advertising agency is interested in getting to the bottom of. Something to do with black helicopters, ice in the old Hornets arena, and the CIA ...

There’s no denying a shopper's path to purchase is considerably different today than it was a decade ago. With the advent of smartphones, shopping apps, mobile coupons, and a plethora of other innovations, how can it not be? Yet, when our Charlotte ad agency looks at the data from POPAI’s* series of long running shopper research, we see that in-store marketing still plays a critical role in the path to purchase.

Understanding the needs, purchasing behavior, and changing lifestyles of today’s shopper is critical in being able to deliver on their immediate and future needs. And while pundits love to trumpet the fact that a shopper’s decisions are no longer limited to in-store (and bricks & mortar will soon be OBSOLETE), this 2012 Shopper Engagement Study reveals that now more than ever shoppers are making an overwhelming number of their purchasing decisions in-store. 

The study is based on solid primary metholodogy and sampling rates, and is also supported by secondary EEG (i.e., electrodes on the scalp) and eye-tracking data.

Here are few key takeways:

• The in-store decision rate has climbed from 70% in 1995 to 76% in 2012. 

• In 1995, 47% of displays were placed in secondary locations. By 2012, this number rose to 60%, as retailers have embraced the notion of cross promoting items and locating displays away from the home aisle.

• More than 1 in 6 purchases are made when a display with that brand is present in store. 

*POPAI is an international trade association for the marketing at retail industry. Founded in 1936, POPAI prepares to celebrate its 75th anniversary with over 1,700 member companies representing Fortune 500 brand manufacturers and retailers, as well as, marketing at retail producer companies and advertising agencies from six continents and over 45 countries from around the world.
 

These days, nearly everyone knows how to click past or block banner ads and pop-ups. Meantime, consumers are spending more time online, especially on social-media sites. As a result, these two trends are dramatically changing the way our clients connect with their target audiences.

In one word: content.

From blog posts, white papers, webinars, podcasts, slide shows, and videos, the key is that it engage customers and spur them to share it with others. Creating content for your own website, though, is only part of the content play. With millions of users each, social media's Big 8 (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, and YouTube)  present exponential opportunities to acquire and engage audiences. But you can't do it via banners, coupons, and other traditional approaches. Instead, at birdsong gregory, our Charlotte ad agency is helping our clients engage in something the jargon class has labeled "native advertising."

Native advertising is simply advertising that follows the format, style, and voice of whatever platform it appears in. The goal is for someone browsing a site to see the advertising as something integral to, rather than an intrusion on, his or her overall experience of the site. And it seems to be working.

On Facebook, for example, the average click-through rate for "sponsored story" ads in the second quarter of 2012 was 53 percent greater than that of display ads, according to TBG Digital. And online publishers such as The Atlantic and Gawker Media are offering more opportunities for sponsored posts and videos tailored to the interests of their readers. Making the shift to content will not be easy. Unlike old mthods of marketing, in which brands could keep campaigns going for months at a time, social media requires constant refreshing.

To learn more about our Charlotte ad agency's content marketing strategy and in-house content creation assets, please give us a call.

Seriously? Is that Charlotte's unoffical moniker? Our Charlotte advertising agency is thinking about running a SNS contest to help find a fun, fresh, and apt slogan for this fair city, and up from the depths of the World Wide Interweb bubbles "Crunkville." Check out the 1st entry in the Urban Dictionary.

Is that better than the "Queen City?" It sure isn't any worse ...

Check out this fun advertising campaign for the Science World museum up in beautiful Vancouver. Comprised of a series of ambient installations and billboards dedicated to promoting science, the campaign includes smartly placed factoids that give out funny, interesting or sometimes even gross information right on the streets.

2012 marks birdsong gregory's third year of participation in GUTS, a friendly pumpkin carving competition for creatives in the Charlotte area, which helps raise money to support the Levine Children's Hospital. After two years of narrowly missing the title, bg finally took home the coveted team winner's trophy! With only 90 minutes to carve, we competed against 18 carving teams, the largest turn out in the history of GUTS! Together we raised $20,000 for the Children's Hospital, and put on a great show for friends, families, and Charlotte advertising agencies to see. We're so thrilled to have been part of such a great cause, and look forward to defending our title next year in GUTS 2013! Bring it on carvers, we'll be ready.

A huge thanks to my GUTS 2012 bg teammates: Allison Klus, and Griffin Glaze! Check out the photo gallery of all the amazing creations from this year, and years previous here.

While doing some research, I stumbled across this incredibly beautiful advertising campaign (mostly print advertising) for the Chamber ensemble of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. The idea, by German art director Bjoern Ewers and copywriter Mona Sibia, is to bring viewers as close as possible to the music; visually representing its alluring drama through a brilliant, but unexpected perspective. Photographer Mierswa Kluska produced macro photographs taken inside the cramped spaces of instruments making their inner workings appear vast and spacious, almost as if you could walk around inside them. A violin, a cello, a flute, a guitar, and a pipe organ were some of the instruments used for this inspiring project. Check more of them out here. 

To get more inspiration and to learn more about our Charlotte Advertising Agency, stay tuned here each week, and check us out online at birdsonggregory.com.