Consumer Promotions

 
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!

I’m not sure how I feel about this. In mid-April, the makers of Dawn liquid dish detergent started running TV spots that played up its reputation as the soap of choice among nonprofit groups who clean birds and marine mammals affected by oil spills. Procter & Gamble, the maker of Dawn, ran commercials mainly in April, before Earth Day, about cleaning birds after spills. Then, two days before Earth Day, the Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico.

 

The timing must have created a uncomfortable twist for the marketers of Dawn, who were watching their commercials recreated in TV news reports about hapless birds covered in oil, which resulted in an accidental bit of free product placement.

 

The number of damaged birds, dead or alive, collected and cataloged by the federal authorities has soared in recent weeks to nearly 1,400 as of Tuesday, and cameras now routinely catch images of Dawn bottles in the background as brown pelicans and laughing gulls get hosed off.

 

“It is a tough thing,” said Susan O. Baba, a spokeswoman for Dawn, made by the consumer products giant Procter & Gamble, which has sent 7,000 bottles of the detergent to the gulf at no charge and is planning to send 5,000 more.

 

And yet, sigh, it is a marketing opportunity. “An oil spill is exactly the situation where Dawn is able to help and exactly what we want communicated about the product: tough on grease, yet gentle,” Ms. Baba said.

 

But, she adds, the company has not put out any press releases, or made any commercials specific to the gulf disaster. She says the brand has not even decided if it will extend its current campaign past the end of June, when it was scheduled to end.

 

I suppose that helps deflect cynical accusations of opportunism and shameless self-promotion

 

Furthermore, Dawn does have its fans in the scientific community, including the International Bird Rescue Research Center. And, according to wildlife rescue experts, while other dish detergents were good, Dawn has the right ratio of “surfactants” – cleaners that cut oil – to be effective yet not irritate the birds and other animals like otters and seals.

 

Organizers also liked that it was readily available at any store and that it did not hurt animals’ ability to whisk away water.

There are as many shopper classification tools as there are shopper marketing agencies. The original VALS spectrum still brings a lot of clarity the "plan and brand" process, and most of the proprietary segmentation models agencies try and sell their clients are still heavily derivative of the original Values, Attitudes, and Lifestyles psychograpics developed in the 1970's by Author Mitchell.

 

The folks at Henkel Consumer Goods recently annouced the results of a study that examined three years of data from multiple retail channels, covering 300 food and non-food categories commonly carried in supermarkets. This data was collected from the Information Resources, Inc. Consumer Network Panel and other sources

 

Their findings? Shoppers can be divided into three general categories: Shoptimzers, Mainstreeters, and Carefrees.

 

Shoptimizers are most likely to be influenced in their choices by pre-shopping stimuli such as circulars and coupons. They also are most likely among the three groups to regard a clear everyday low price (EDLP) strategy as an assurance of value. Once inside an EDLP shopping environment, Shoptimizers may be likely to respond to in-store cues.

 

Mainstreeters do far less pre-planning and rarely save coupons, so their channel choices are more likely to be influenced by location, convenience and price reputation. Once inside the store, however, this group is most likely to be sensitive to in-store promotions and offers.

 

Carefrees avoid EDLP channels and bypass most pre-planning and in-store promotions. Interestingly, they totally trust club stores to deliver value appropriate to their consumption patterns. Once inside a store, they tend to ignore prices and buy what they like.

 

Some other interesting tidbits:

 

• Coupon Use is almost entirely confined to Shoptimizers, who make up about 25 percent of households and 30 percent of household spending. Coupons are seldom used by Mainstreeters and virtually never by Carefrees.

• Private Label products are purchased more frequently (higher dollar-sales index) by Shoptimizers and less frequently (lower dollar-sales index) by Carefrees. Mainstreeters purchase store brands at about average levels.

• Trip Frequency varies significantly among the behavioral groups, with Shoptimizers visiting stores about four times per week, compared with two-and-a-half times per week for Mainstreeters and twice a week for Carefrees.

• Shopping Basket Size also varies among the behavioral groups, with Shoptimizers spending the smallest dollar amount on each occasion and Carefrees spending the most. Shoptimizers, however, due to their trip frequency spend the most per year, +16 percent versus Mainstream, and +32 percent versus Carefree.

• In-Store Promotions are primarily effective at influencing Mainstreeters, who make up 44 percent of households and dollar sales. In-store promotions have relatively little influence on the purchase decisions of Carefrees.

One of our favorite advertising clients is Bloom, a different kind of grocery store. On March 17th they will open a new flagship store in Charlotte's Dilworth neighborhood. There is a lot of excitement around this opening because Bloom is introducing novel shopping conveniences that are new to the brand. This store will have one of the largest selections of Gluten free products anywhere, a convenient drive through pharmacy and eventually "pick and click" online shopping. Bloom is all about providing Guests a convenient shopping experience, and we play a significant role in communicating these features to shoppers in the store environment through point of sale materials and consumer promotions. As you can see from the picture above, with less than 5 days to opening, there's a lot of work to be done. Stay tuned....

It's good news for Shopper Marketing agencies like birdsong gregory when national brands declare the continued need for increased spending on advertising, in-store promotion, shelf signage, coupons and packaging. Turns out the recession has persuaded many shoppers to "trade down" to private label store brands and the big guys are feeling the heat. We'll see increased spending on traditional advertising, but I suspect investments at the shelf level will see the biggest jump as brands employ shopper marketing strategies and increase consumer promotions to lift sales.

Good question. Especially since the use of trade promotions by manufacturers of consumer packaged goods continues to soar. As largest expense companies face (second only to the cost of goods and accounting for approximately 70% of a manufacturer's marketing budget), manufacturers rely on trade promotions to counter the popularity of lower-priced store brands, to pass along a discount to a price-sensitive segment of shoppers (e.g., through a frequent-shopper program), to enhance brand exposure with target consumers, or simply to provide additional stimulus to move excess inventory or counteract competitors.

Retailers, in turn, favor trade spending because it builds store traffic, improves retail margins, and, in general, the majority of the costs (and risks) are borne by the brand manufacturer.

So as consumer products companies continue to spend a significant chunk of revenue on trade promotions, here at birdsong gregory, we're  excited to see how innovative technologies from companies like Siperian are now helping consumer goods companies make more informed, holistic decisions when it comes to marketing spend in the trade channel.

Check it out.

 

 

 

Add this item to the "are you serious" folder of consumer promotions. This week's Advertising Age highlights how White Castle is offering a reservations-only romantic rendezvous for Valentine's Day. 

The chain is marketing a "steamy," "candlelit dinner" of 10 sliders, two 21-ounce sodas and French fries for $10.49, "leaving plenty of room in the budget for flowers, candy and entertainment." Staff will also upload a photo of your "romantic rendezvous" to the White Castle website. The restaurants will also be decked out in "theme" décor

In a statement, Jamie Richardson, White Castle VP-corporate relations, said the Valentine's program has been a "huge hit because a lot of our loyal customers -- fondly known as 'Cravers' -- either met in a White Castle Restaurant or have other enjoyable memories they like to celebrate here.

Indeed last year, White Castle hosted nearly 4,000 couples at 157 locations (the chain has 419). The Louisville, Ky., market even played host to a wedding. Their cake was in the shape of a slider. As a market, Louisville led the pack. Participating restaurants hosted 423 couples and had 110 groups on the waiting list.

Not sure you'll see anyone from our Charlotte advertising agency on the list. 
 

Facing paper-thin profit margins on a lot of what they sell, grocery stores rely on private label brands to drive revenue and provide customers with a lower cost, same-quality alternative to big national brands. So to improve margins and raise customer perception, Food Lion, the internationally-owned grocery store company headquartered in North Carolina, asked our branding agency to create a comprehensive promotion of its new private label brands, including health and beauty. To competitively position these products above national brands in the minds of consumers, birdsong gregory developed more sophisticated, female friendly POS advertising campaign built around a “good for body, good for your bottom line” theme.

To learn more about the branding, marketing, advertising, and design services our agency offers, please visit birdsong gregory online, contact me at 704-332-2299, or stop by the next time you’re in downtown Charlotte.

Whether you’re marketing, branding, or advertising in Charlotte, NC or Dongguan, China, it’s important that you protect your company’s distinctive brand elements like a logo or a tagline.

A trademark is any phrase or symbol that functions as a brand, that is, it tells the public that there is a particular source or manufacturer for products or services (e.g., “Mattel” is a trademark for the toy company; the Apple logo is a trademark for the computer company). The scope of what can be a trademark is very broad — words, images, sounds and colors can all function as trademarks. Even packaging and promotional concepts for products or services can be protected as “trade dress,” which is another form of trademark rights (e.g., Apple’s iPod ads).

So North Carolina advertising agencies take note, trademarks must be distinctive, which means consumers recognize the mark as a designation of source, rather than just a phrase or decoration. Unfortunately, what makes a mark “strong” from a legal standpoint may be the opposite of what Charlotte graphic designers and their clients might think of as a strong mark. Under trademark law, marks that describe or suggest some feature of the goods or services are “weak.” For example, “Apple” would be a weak mark for a bakery that sells apple pies. Other food businesses would be able to use Apple marks without infringing the bakery’s trademark rights.

The strongest trademarks are made-up marks, or words or images that don’t suggest the goods or services. Xerox is a classic example of a made-up mark. Apple and the Apple logo for computers are also strong marks.