»  Charlotte Social Media

It's been fun to watch companies of all shapes and sizes scramble to win the hearts and minds of shoppers through a bevy of evolving new media channels like Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, and YouTube.

Some have gotten it right (like Starbucks or Blendtec.)

But far more companies are struggling to navigate the singular paradox inherent in social media marketing: it's not about your company – it's about the shopper.

So with that in mind, here are few broad guidelines to consider.

1. Focus on the needs of your audience or the community as a whole by showing that you care about your customers and the public. This can be accomplish in a variety of ways. Use community boards, comment on prospect and customer pages and/or blogs. Or, take a page from Mountain Dew's playbook and provide a forum where customers can show off their creativity.

2. Give shoppers multiple paths to purchase and connect. For example, let them use Twitter as another customer service option or a smart phone app to order groceries.

3. Provide useful content by contributing to an informational blog, creating useful infographics, or giving away a free e-book. The key is to tailor your content to meet your shoppers' needs. If you’re not sure what they want, ask them!

4. Ask your community how you can better satisfy their needs. Starbucks has a community board to collect suggestions where the community votes on them.

Hope this helps, and if you'd like to find out more about ways we've helped our clients connect with shoppers via social media, give us a buzz.

This video explains Facebook commerce (f-comm) in a pretty simple way. As shopper marketing expands beyond the walls of traditional retail to include digital shopper marketing, the fundamentals of understanding shopper behavior to create a positive shopper experience is still critical to retail success.

While brands and retailers are still trying to figure out how to use Facebook, this video proves there is a lot of opportunity for creating meaningful shopper engagement through social media.  



Looking for a partner to help you determine if you should enter f-comm or help you differentiate your f-comm from your m-comm? Reach out to bg - we believe not all comms should be treated equally. In this digital age, we are an equal comm opportunity shop that loves helping clients navigate the new world of retail activation.  

Retail Marketing continues to evolve. Retailers have become manufacturers, creating brands and products to sell in their stores. Manufactures as retailers, looking to create more direct interactions with shoppers. Based on this, here are two interesting examples of manufacturers blurring the lines beyond their traditional roles.

Pepsi's Social Vending Machine:
This new execution from Pepsi mixes the lines of retailing, manufacturing and social media. As the video shows, you can purchase or gift a drink as well as explore ways to get involved with their Refresh project. Will it result in more sales? Increased brand engagement? Stronger brand preference? Maybe, but more importantly, the ability for shoppers to interact with products and as a result, for Pepsi to gain shopper insights from those interactions can be priceless.  



P&G's Art of Shaving Store:
While not a new execution, I had my first visit recently and came away impressed. From the merchandising to the store employee training, it is obvious P&G has invested a lot into making this store work. And while it may or may not be successful, the learnings, interactions and sampling the Art of Shaving provides could be a differentiating factor as P&G looks to evolve the men's grooming business.


There are many examples I could pull from, as evolving roles continues to be a trend changing marketing. While the implications are many, the central focus for retailers and manufactures is the same - relevance. In today's shifting landscape, having an opportunity to engage consumers and gain shopper insights is critical to keeping your store and brand relevant.

Facebook announced that they are launching their version of Groupon called "Deals" on Tuesday April 26th. It was reported that Deals first launched in the following 5 citites: San Francisco, Atlanta, Dallas, Austin and San Diego. These deals will be delivered through the user's facebook feed and via email. Users can share the details of the deals with their friends through messages, likes or posts.

Facebook is now not only a social platform to connect people, it's a social platform to connect people to companies and events and offerings. This expantion of services really opens the gates to gain shopper insights and buyer behavior.

Here in the Charlotte Social Media world, the big companies that offer local deals are Groupon, Living Social, Charlotte Half Off, and Restaurants.com where offers are emailed to you directly. However, I don't know how I feel about advertising the fact that I bought teeth whitening or boot camp to the entire facebook community. Also, as much as I care about Sue eating lunch, or Bob going to France, I really could care less what they bought that day for half the price. And it's just another way to fill up all your friends walls and inboxes, cluttering things up and potentially annoying all the friends you have.

Needless to say, I will never opt out of a deal if it seems to fit my lifestyle, so I am curious what the results will be from this program and how facebook users will take to this extra additive. If you live in one of the above cities, I encourage you to check it out, and post a message back to me talking about your experience.

Interested in how mobile, social media, and geolocation are changing the way we shop – forever? Then take 3 minutes to watch this powerful video from Resource Interactive shown at the 2010 Shop.org Annual Summit.

 

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.

To say that this blog post is way overdue would be an understatement. By the time I've finished writing this, progress on SXSW 2012 will have already been made and the details of this years conference will have faded. As a first timer to both Austin, TX and the festival, I spent the first day or so just getting acclimated to the city and figuring out what's what. By the end of it all, I was both exhausted and excited by the things I had experienced and heard. Plenty of articles have been written as "a rookie's guide to SXSW" but here are the top 10 things that left a lasting impression on me, in no particular order of course.

10. Book your trip sooner than later. The longer you wait, the more expensive every single aspect of the conference / trip will be. Procrastinate till the last minute, and you might be forced to rent a bedroom apartment in the ghetto and bike 2 miles each way back and forth into the city.

9. Plan ahead. There is so much to do and so many people competing for entry into each event that unless you get a head start on the day, you better be prepared to move on to the next best thing.

8. Free food isn't always good food. No matter how good a freshly fried donut topped with potato salad and pork BBQ might sound, it doesn't always work out so well under the scorching Texas heat.

7. QR codes are lame. OK, you're going to have to give me more information than a giant bitmapped square on a poster in order to get me to scan your QR Code. I don't care how cool your site is, when you are competing with a million other promotions and well designed graphics, a single QR code just isn't cutting it.

6. Too far off the grid. I've never seen such a wired up bunch in my life. Could have sworn I saw someone talking on a blue tooth while texting someone as he checked his gmail on a laptop and surfed the web on a tablet. As marketing and design people we must often remind ourselves that less than 20% of consumers are these hyper tech savy purchasing machines. Sure you'd love to convince your client that developing a mobile application is in their best interest, but depending on the demo, chances are a well conceived traditional marketing plan with solid follow-up can be just as effective.

5. Flash isn't dead. Toby Miller and Elliot Chong did a entertaining job of arguing both the pros and cons of the debate between HTML5 and Flash. While the primary purpose of Flash seems to be shifting at the end of the day they are both tools, and it's the developer's responsibility to know when each is applicable and appropriate.

4. Cinnamon Bourbon isn't all that bad. Especially at 3:30 in the afternoon with a Lone Star chaser.

3. The Game Layer is here! Seth Priebatsch from LBS Scvnger was the keynote speaker on the first Saturday of the conference. Amazingly energetic and sharp as a tack, Seth presented a pretty convincing argument on how game dynamics can influence behavior and ultimately create better markets. Check out his speech.

2. Social Media is just that. If the recent events in Egypt are any indication, social media is a great tool to get the word out there, mobilize your base and grow fans. But as the euphoria of a potential democracy fades, we see that social tools like Facebook or Twitter provide very little in terms of taking it to the next step. Yes, you're able to assemble protests using social media, but it won't write a constitution or stop corruption.

1. It's all about human behavior. The underlying theme of many discussions, new platforms, and applications being unveiled at SXSW point at one thing... getting to know what makes humans tick. And that is precisely the goal that drives the creative we present to our clients. The sooner we find out what is relevant to people, the closer we get to understanding one another. The better we communicate that relevance, the closer brands will become to a consumers heart.

Back in the days of traditional advertising, before the days of social networking, the path-to-purchase was a clear and distinct road to follow:

awareness--> consideration--> preference--> purchase--> retention

Now that there are new realms to influence decision making, the brick and mortar, in-store marketing is taking a back seat to social media. So much can be done online, and every step of the purchase funnel now includes some aspect of online presence.

Shopper insights take the form of facebook posts, yelp reviews, product review websites.  More than ever brands are finding new ways to get their message out there in more targeted forums that hit the consumer from every angle, rather than just radio, TV, print or OOH. This can be a positive point of sale for a brand and a free boost in a brand's image (through Word of Mouth), but can also pose a potential risk if consumers have even just one bad experience. Brand's beware, shoppers have a strong influence and voice today.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on the impact of social media during the recent Egyptian revolution. Quoting the article, "The events in Egypt reflect different roles for different kinds of social media. Rafat Ali, founder of paidcontent.org, says Facebook helps organize people, such as detailing how and where to gather physically, while Twitter is for "amplification," enabling people in real time to share news and comment... For authoritarian leaders used to controlling media and events, time and technology are not on their side."

From the bg blog - Charlotte advertising and shopper marketing agency, birdsong gregory.

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As the saying goes: "Any press is good press."  For Taco Bell this may ring true. In light of the Taco Bell beef controversy, the company has taken this opportunity to embrace the press by placing full page ads in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and New York Times thanking Beasely Allen for filing a class action lawsuit against them, enabling the release of the not-so secret ingredients in the seasoned beef. The company has even addressed this issue on their web and social media sites adding a little humor stating that "plain ground beef tastes boring."

Domino's took this same approach with their "Oh yes we did" campaign by admitting that their pizzas were not up to par and working to make sure the taste, quality and ingredients used in their pizzas were not just sub standard, but a notch above the rest for a mass produced pizza chain. Late night hosts asked people walking down the street how they felt about the news of the Taco Bell scandal, and most people didn't seem to care. They didn't go to Taco Bell for a quality or nutritious meal, as long as it tastes good, they are happy. My fiance and his friends went as far as supporting Taco Bell even more now that this news has broke, claiming that "as long as there is not cat meat mixed in, a couple oats and some sand are not going to hurt me."  

There's something about being honest and taking accountability in order to make things better. It's often referred to as brand transparency and can do wonders to gain trust, respect and brand loyalty with consumers. Case and point: Domino's alone had a 14% increase in 1st quarter sales, due in part to their advertising campaign. In an economy where trust is hard to come by, it's a breath of fresh air to have all the facts up front. If consumers find that a brand is continuously transparent and doing "the right thing," they will become repeat customers, and word of mouth marketing will be the primary source of communication. And what company doesn't want free word of mouth marketing? So, Taco Bell, props to you for taking the high road, and making your beef transparent.

Interesting insights from PROMO Magazine on trends impacting Shopper Marketing and the world of consumer promotions in 2011 ...

1) Leveraging the power of social media to drive commerce Groupon is setting the bar and we're watching for how its success may fundamentally change distribution, effectiveness, and efficiency of promotional value offers to consumers. For example, Groupon recently launched “Grouponicus,” a holiday dedicated to “filling your loved ones’ gift buckets with experiences, not gift cards.” The daily deal shopping Web site also recently entered into a partnership with eBay to offer incentives to eBay loyalty members who participate in Groupon deals.

2) Integration of mobile (handheld) into shopper marketing programming As marketers and retailers look for new touch-points along the path-to-purchase we're seeing the use of more digital applications such as QR codes.  Interestingly, marketers are trying to get on the leading edge of the trend and capture the early influencers while driving greater awareness and usage for the majority vs. waiting for overall adoption rates to hit critical mass. Canon was one such brand, testing QR codes in September on its printers in a number of retail stores, including Best Buy.

3) Marginalization of "brand.com" promotional websites Virtually all clients are looking to platform their promotions on social networking sites (Facebook), sharing sites (You Tube) or partner with existing content/audience relevant sites (e.g. WebMD) vs. building their own stand alone sites.

4) Localization of promotion We're having a lot more discussions about driving promotion down to the local grass roots level. The Web is certainly enabling this but also indicative of a trend toward greater personalization/customization and a backlash against big high-profile events as the economy continues to teeter. We’re seeing this realized often in cause marketing and at retail.

5) Continued blurring of the line between content and promotion We're looking at, and our clients are asking for, more content integration opportunities across all platforms (TV, print, digital, social, gaming).  Marketers want the promotional message to be almost indistinguishable from the content because of the ability to deliver promotional messages in high-value brand environments. We're working on a host of videogame integration opportunities right now and traditional CPG marketers are seeing that as a new frontier to reach their audience.

Contact birdsong gregory to see how we can help your brand navigate 2011.
 

 
Approaching shopper marketing with a more intuitive, right-brained approach is just like a Triscuit or a tomato you grew in your backyard: fresh, simple, and delicious.

At least that's the case here with Kraft's new oblique campaign for its Triscuit brand of snack crackers that centers around helping people discover the simple joy of growing and eating their own herbs and veggies.

Kraft Foods' Triscuit crackers brand is partnering with nonprofit Urban Farming to create 50 community-based home farms during 2010, and the brand's new home farming initiatives also include offering free basil and dill herb seed cards on four million boxes of its original and reduced-fat varieties, and a website featuring tips on starting home gardens or volunteering at a local Urban Farming garden.

 

The Web site includes a tool that advises consumers which vegetables and herbs are best to plant (and planting dates) based on their regions/ZIP codes and the amount of sunny space available (ranging from a single pot on a balcony to two 4-foot by 8-foot gardens). Another tool enables users to find nearby community farms, and add their own home farms to a map. Forums and sharing tools are prominently displayed.

 

The site also features step-by-step advice for creating and maintaining a home garden from HGTV "Gardening by the Yard" host Paul James, who will make appearances at the openings of the sponsored community gardens.

 

The home farming theme meshes with Triscuit's "Weave Some Wonder" marketing campaign, which launched last year and marked the brand's return to TV advertising after five years. The broadcast component of this campaign emphasizes the crackers' "simple, authentic goodness" and quality ingredients, such as the "soft white winter wheat" from North American farms that gives the product its crunch and "22 grams of delicious whole grain goodness per serving."

 

What else? The home farming initiatives are being supported by PR, print ads, banner ads on gardening, women's general interest and other sites; messaging on the product boxes (which also drives consumers to the microsite), some outreach to blogs and tweeting through the Kraft Foods Twitter presence; and the community forums and sharing tools on the microsite. Rather than focus on promotion via Triscuit's Facebook page, the brand decided to make it easy for users to share the home farming movement site's existence and usefulness through their own social media pages or channels. Now that's tasty!

If you've been keeping your finger on the shopper marketing pulse, then you've been hearing plenty about the great benefits of integrating social media into a retail brand environment (the ability to listen and respond to customers, build long-term relationships, in-store connectivity, etc).

Well here's a look at the downside, a rampaging Twitter flash mob.

 

 

A recent study of over 1500 consumers by market research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies found that if a brand has a social media presence, then 60% of its Facebook fans and 79% of its Twitter followers are more likely to recommend that brand since becoming a fan or follower. Considering Facebook’s over 400 million users, the opportunity is great for social media marketers.

 

While social media is not the shopper marketing silver bullet that some pundits claim it to be, it is an extremely important and relatively low cost touch point that has a direct impact on sales and positive word of mouth. In fact, companies not actively engaging are missing a huge opportunity and are saying something to consumers – intentionally or unintentionally- about how willing they are to engage on consumers’ terms.

 

The study also uncovered perceptions among consumers that those brands not engaging in social media are out of touch. Below are some answers to the question “What does it say about a brand if they are not involved with sites like Facebook or Twitter?”

• “It’s EXPECTED that a company have some digital face – whether it’s on FB or Twitter I don’t know – but they need a strong electronic presence or you doubt their relevance in today’s marketplace.” Female 50-54
   
• “Either they are not interested in the demographic that frequents Facebook and Twitter or they are unaware of the opportunity to get more exposure in a more interactive method.” Male 35-39
   
• “It shows they are not really with it or in tune with the new ways to communicate with customers.” Female 18-24.
   
• “If they’re not on Facebook or Twitter, then they aren’t in touch with the “electronic” people.” Female 55-59

Who doesn't love tracking Social Media? Ad Age has recently started tracking the 10 most popular brands on twitter and it makes for a good read (check it out here). This in itself isn't what concerns me, it's more the content that is being tweeted. If Justin Bieber, whose fans are so young I'm surprised they can even use twitter, can make on the list who knows what will be next on that list? A terrible remake of another Nicholas Sparks book? Oh wait...

Our Designer Extraordinaire Leslie sent this to me the other day. It’s a chart that (based on known stats) shows the growth of social media all across the web. It’s amazing to see how fast things change and it’s just another illustration of how powerful and ever present Social Media has become.

From this week's Advertising Age: In an effort to build buzz in select urban markets this holiday season, Target plans to unveil three pop-up stores modeled after a fast-food joint.

Target to Go stores will be open in New York, Washington and San Francisco (hmmm no Charlotte, NC?) from Dec. 11-13 and will stock 50 popular gift items that shoppers will order by number.

"The design is reflective of where guests are at now," said Shawn Gensch, VP-marketing at Target. "They're time starved, so this is a quick experience that gives them great products at great, wallet-friendly prices."

The shops are meant to attract attention in urban markets where Target doesn't have a significant presence, said Mr. Gensch, adding that the success of the stores will be measured based on traffic levels, sales and buzz.

Stay abreast of the latest trends in advertising and marketing by subscribing to our blog. And to learn more about how birdsong gregory can help you with social media, branding, advertising and marketing, visit our web site.

Interesting article from the New York Times about how increased advertising spending on blogs, Facebook and Twitter has caused the FTC to require that endorsers disclose payments in cash or in kind from companies whose products they endorse. This demonstrates how important these "testing grounds" for advertising are becoming. In 2007 spending on consumer-generated and social media sites reached $1.01 billion. Stay informed on the latest news by keeping in touch with birdsong gregory advertising, Charlotte, NC

 

At birdsong gregory, we call them traffic coordinators. 

Terry Tate: Office Linebacker was a series of short comedy TV commercials created by Reebok featuring Lester Speight as "Terrible" Terry Tate, a fictitious American Football linebacker who "gives out the pain" to those in the office failling to follow the rules.

 

Originally Reebok produced 6 episodes between August to December 2002, and this advertising campaign was one of the most successful of those in the history of the Super Bowl halftime shows.

 

Memorable catch phrases include:
 

 "The pain train's comin!"

 

"You kill the joe, you make some mo!'"

 

"You can't cut the cheese wherever you please!"

 

"Cu'z when its game time, it's pain time!"

 

"Don't bring that weak ass stuff up in this humpty-bumpty!" 

 

 

Though successful in attracting viewers and attention, the ads ability to increase recognition of the Reebok brand has been questioned, with only 55% of respondents on an on-line poll indicating they realized the ad was affiliated with the company. However, despite being aired only once on national television, the short was downloaded more than seven million times from Reebok's website.

The branding power of indirect social media, anyone?