Marketing Charlotte NC

Enabling Deselection

Monday, August 2, 2010 by Jared Meisel

Shopper Marketing tends to focus on using shopper insights to enable selection at the point of sale. However, in categories that are complex, overwhelming or otherwise hard to navigate, enabling deselection is just as important. You have to enable your shoppers to deselect what they don't want before they are able to select what they want. I learned this lesson while working on Millstone, at the time a P&G premium coffee brand. In an intimidating category like premium coffee, we found that organizing the shelf based on shopper insights gained from research brought about more clarity and ultimately, more sales.

The above picture is a fun way to approach another category that can be intimidating - wine. Press in Charlotte, NC chose not to take the typical approach to categorizing wines by regions or varietals, instead creating fun categories based on what the shopper will experience. Deselection ultimately should enable better and faster selection and in this example, narrow down a large wine list into a smaller set of relevant options.

Shopper Marketer. Shopper-centric. Shopper savvy. Shopperist.

Friday, July 9, 2010 by Jared Meisel

All words pointing to the same thing – I am passionate about shoppers. I love the discipline it takes to find the issue or barrier keeping shoppers from purchasing a product. I love the vision it takes to find shopper insights and then bring it to life in a relevant way. I love the curiosity it takes to stay on top of the technology and trends that are changing how shoppers approach retail environments, whether brick or click (traditional stores or online).

10 years of shopper marketing experience has brought along some awesome opportunities. I have worked on some of the largest retailer and manufacture brands around, from Walmart to USPS, Walgreens to P&G and have lived in some great cities along the way, from Fayetteville, AR to Cincinnati, OH to Chicago, IL. And this experience has led me here, to birdsong gregory in Charlotte, NC. Why? The answer is based on how I view the future.

I believe the best way to predict the future is to create it. And I believe the role of future creators will belong to smart, strategic, neutral and nimble companies, those who choose to approach problems as conversations. A conversation requires approaching challenges engaged in actively listening, watching and focusing on what factors are influencing the situation before responding. birdsong gregory has taken a purposefully conversational approach to their 10 years of growth, building their business on the idea that facilitating a conversation requires low overhead and high access. The fact that Charlotte ranks 8^th in the US for Fortune 500 companies has provided a perfect regional and national proving ground for this philosophy.

Have a passion for shoppers? Have a shopper challenge you need help solving? Let’s start the conversation.

Best of the Superbowl Ads?

Monday, February 8, 2010 by Jim Cusson

Our family hosts a party each year for the Superbowl so I rarely get a chance to watch the game - much less the commercials - until about the second half. So the morning after I usually catch up on the advertising and marketing highs and lows. Advertising Age posted the commercials here . I didn't see much to rave about this year. How about you? Perhaps the economy is still at an awkward phase and marketers are reluctant to really let loose.

This blog post is from birdsong gregory a Shopper Marketing and advertising agency in Charlotte NC.

Shopper Marketing Trends From The Land of Kiwis

Monday, December 21, 2009 by Phillip Atchison

Let's look beyond Flight of the Conchords for a moment, shall we?

Hey. They're not exactly British. And they certainly don't sound like us bacon-eating, gun-toting Yanks. Yet shoppers in New Zealand have a lot in common with shoppers in Charlotte, NC – birdsong gregory's traditional stomping grounds.

NZ or USA: we can spot similar retail channels, the same consumption patterns, and a good trend marker of how today's shoppers are generally integrating their online brand experiences with the traditional trip to a bricks n' mortar touchpoint.

Here's a wonderful bit of FREE quantitative research from the (other) land down under.

Target Goes Where the Shoppers Are

Monday, December 7, 2009 by Jim Cusson

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.

NC Ad Agencies Figuring Out the Marketing Potential of the AppStore

Monday, December 7, 2009 by Jim Cusson

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.

Here's a link to the full article.

Monday, September 28, 2009 by Carolyn Colonna

Wow. This video, Part 1 of a demonstration of the amazing BumpTop, isn't just another conceptual touchscreen interface pipe dream; it's actual downloadable software, albeit only for Windows.

BumpTop is a desktop environment, designed to enhance traditional computer desktop functionality by more closely supporting the normal behavior of a real-world desk. It is aimed at stylus interaction, making it more suitable for tablet PCs and palmtops.

In BumpTop, documents are described by three-dimensional boxes lying on a virtual desk. The user can position the boxes on the desk using the stylus or mouse. Extensive use of physics effects like bumping and tossing is applied to documents when they interact for a more realistic experience. .

BumpTop currently supports Windows XP/Vista/7, and Mac/Linux will potentially be supported in the future.

In-Store Branding in Your Grocery Store

Thursday, September 17, 2009 by Phillip Atchison

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.

Apple Computer is Coming To NC

Tuesday, August 4, 2009 by Jim Cusson

And in a big way. Plans were announced this summer that Apple will invest $1 billion in a computer data center over nine years.

The data center is expected to have at least 50 full-time employees, although another 250 contractors could be employed to manage security, landscaping and heating and air conditioning systems. Including construction jobs, the presence of the facility could put a total of 3,000 people to work, according to Department of Commerce estimates. This would provide a significant economic boost to local communities, the state, and possibly Charlotte branding agencies and the wider Charlotte graphic design community.

The exact location is still undecided, but Apple has to build the data center in one of North Carolina’s more economically distressed counties, according to provisions in the incentives legislation. It is expected to choose a location in the western part of the state, likely between Charlotte and Asheville.

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

Why You Have to Pay to Play

Wednesday, July 22, 2009 by Carolyn Colonna

Today, it’s not enough to have a well-designed website or a secure e-commerce presence. You need people to actually go there and interact with your online brand. And if you are a member of the branding Charlotte or marketing Charlotte, NC communities, you know you have to pay to play.

Pay per click search engine marketing is a form of online advertising where the advertiser pays to be listed in the sponsored link section of the search engines. When you launch a PPC advertising campaign, you pay only when someone clicks on your ad. Of course PPC ads, also called sponsored links, are related to the searches made by the users. You have to buy keywords using an auction feature that determines the Cost Per Click (CPC) of a given keyword, this bid also has an influence on your position among the other ads on the page.

You then set a maximum budget for your campaign. That means that if you set a $500 budget for a $1 keyword your ad will virtually be printed on search pages until five hundred users have clicked your ad and landed on one of your website’s pages.

Charlotte, NC advertising agencies please take note: PPC advertising is one of the most effective marketing methods used on the Internet. According to some experts, online marketers will spend more than 5 billion dollars on PPC campaigns by 2010. Consequently the competition for keywords is likely to get tougher and tougher as time goes by, making the optimization of that process ever more necessary for North Carolina advertising agencies, from Charlotte to Raleigh.

Want to Make Your Brand Strong and Memorable?

Wednesday, July 22, 2009 by Phillip Atchison

Then tell a story. That’s the top finding from an intensive three-year study released earlier this year, and Charlotte advertising agencies should pay attention.

The Advertising Research Foundation and American Association of Advertising Agencies, both based in New York, set out to measure consumers’ emotional responses to TV advertising. What they discovered is that advertisements that tell a branding story work better than ads that focus on product positioning.

The report contends that in many ways, advertising is stuck in the past. The 20th century was dominated by a one-way transactional focus where ads were pushed at consumers. Today, consumers interact with ads to “co-create” meaning that is powered by emotion and rich narrative. “Advertising has been standing on the sidelines, stuck on the language of positioning,” said Jim Cusson, Principal at birdsong gregory, a Charlotte, NC branding and marketing firm. “Telling a story about the brand is more engaging, memorable and compelling than telling a bunch of facts. What worked 30 years ago with a 30-second spot doesn’t work today.”

Thirty-three ads across 12 categories, from brands like Budweiser, Campbell’s Soup and MasterCard, were analyzed by 14 leading emotion and physiological research firms. The research tools varied from testing heart rate and skin conductance of the ad viewer to brain diagnostics.

One such pattern was that a campaign like Bud’s iconic “Wassup” registered more powerfully with consumers than Miller Lite low-carb ads that essentially just said, “We’re better than the other guys.” Why? Because Bud told a story about friends connected by a special greeting.

I Wish Charlotte Had More Creative Eats

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 by Phillip Atchison

If you read websites about food, NYC or general wackiness, there's a good chance you've recently run into Scanwiches—a Tumblr with nothing but flatbed scans of bisected deliciousness. It's a fun, creative concept and I can envision how a site like this could anchor the social media marketing strategy for a Charlotte, NC sandwich shop.

At the same time, since most Charlotte graphic design studios have a scanner on the premise, you have to wonder if our sandwich landscape is fertile enough to support a project like this. Probably not.

Here a link to the story behind the site.

Why Branding is a Myth

Friday, June 19, 2009 by Phillip Atchison

Remember the mythology stories you learned back in school (Zeus and his thunderbolts or King Arthur and his sword)? Myths are narratives about divine or heroic beings, arranged in a coherent system, passed down traditionally, and linked to the spiritual or religious life of a community. In earlier cultures, myths allowed us to project ourselves into these compelling, exciting stories and to imagine interactions that never took place.

While the clumsy machinations of the Greek gods may today read like a bad soap opera, our need for and ability to create new myths help companies sell products and build brand loyalty throughout the marketplace. There’s clearly a Google mythology. And a Starbucks one as well.

For some reason, we feel differently about brands like these than we do about, say, Seattle Roasting Company or Altavista.

Here at birdsong gregory, our Charlotte NC ad agency occasionally has the opportunity to help a client create a new brand (or reinvent an existing one), and we think about the process in terms of creating a new brand myth. To accomplish that, we make sure there is a compelling, rich story, not just a product or a pile of facts. We aim for a story that promises (and delivers) a heroic outcome. And there needs to be growth and mystery as well, so the user can fill in her own blanks. Because at the end of the day, whether we’re working on marketing communications, logo design, or foundational brand development for one of Charlotte area clients, we aspire to create something that will truly connect with the intended audience.

Remember people use a Dell, but they are an Apple.

A Bidding War With Hershey Over Facebook “Kisses” Page

Tuesday, June 16, 2009 by Phillip Atchison

How much would you pay for a Facebook fan? That’s a relevant question if you’re considering a potential Facebook fan page acquisition opportunity. Not many local companies are using Facebook to communicate with customers and build a stronger online brand – yet – but here at birdsong gregory, our Charlotte NC ad agency is helping clients make smart use of their online marketing dollars.

Orabrush, a tongue cleaning product, just announced that they’ve acquired the generic “Kisses” Facebook page which has over 1.15 million fans. The page was acquired from Dominic Holland who created the page back in January. While the company won’t say the exact price that the page was acquired for, fans that were acquired since the Facebook redesign are selling at a premium to old fans. Orabrush won the page in a bidding war against Hershey’s who is well known for their “Kisses” product. Facebook has not discussed the terms surrounding the sale of Facebook pages but the companies who bid for the page clearly were confident in the ability to retain the Kisses page.

There is no clear policy on generic Facebook pages but many large brands have been complaining about the challenge of building a branded page when there are extremely successful generic pages. One alternative is to acquire the generic versions but that will clearly spark a land grab (which has already begun).

To learn more about how our Charlotte advertising and marketing agency can help you create a measurable, unified online brand that drives fans – and revenue, please visit birdsong gregory or contact Jim Cusson at 704-332-2299.

Website Design Trends for 2009

Wednesday, June 3, 2009 by Leslie Kraemer

As a Charlotte NC ad agency, we’re increasingly finding the need to strengthen and evolve our clients’ online brands. A strong online brand means more than a well-designed website. Whether you’re trying to reach a retail audience, or your company needs to strengthen its B2B marketing channels, there are a whole host of online branding opportunities for Charlotte, NC companies, including social networks like Facebook, video/photo sharing sites like YouTube, and microblog tools like Twitter.

Having said that, smart, engaging web design is still critical since a large function of online marketing is to drive traffic to more robust branded environments (like your corporate website or an e-commerce engine). Here is a fun look at a few forecasted website design trends for 2009.

Please take a look, and if you would like to find out more about ways you can enhance your online presence to take full advantage of the relationship building power of Web 2.0 – or if you’d like learn more about the branding, marketing, advertising, and design services our agency offers – please visit birdsong gregory online, contact Jim Cusson at 704-332-2299, or stop by the next time you’re in downtown Charlotte.

Your Mom is Online: Niche Marketing Power of Web 2.0

Monday, June 1, 2009 by Jim Cusson

There’s no question that “Mommy Bloggers” are an interesting demographic, and recent statistics show there are more than 36 million of them online. Because having children means you have to go shopping (for clothes, toys, car seats, etc.), these online Moms definitely wield influence in purchasing power – which is why many companies (and Charlotte advertising agencies) think this community is particularly open to a word-of-mouth campaign.

A few key facts about Mommy Bloggers:

Of the 36.2 million women actively participating in the blogosphere (either as publishers or readers), 46% – or just over 16.5 million – have children at home.
67% of Moms online look for help making a purchasing decision.
Overall, full-time working Moms use technology at the highest rates.
The mobile phone is the technology used most often by Moms to communicate with their kids, and 80% say it is the direct line to their child and babysitter.

But at birdsong gregory, a Charlotte branding and marketing agency, we think the notion of a homogenous Mommy (or Daddy) blogger block is a little shortsighted. In fact, Moms online are just as diverse as the rest of us. And while it’s tempting to think these mouse-clicking Mommas do things in lock-step, there are many different niches and interests the well-aimed marketing efforts of a Charlotte company can explore. Lifestyle, safety, green, frugality, parenting, sports and family issues are just a small set of the segments you can speak directly via online marketing channels. And aside from the blogs, the above chart breaks down the top 10 activities of Moms online.

Looking at the points of transaction, it opens up an opportunity for conversation and engagement with Moms on other sites and platforms as it relates to those activities. To learn more about the branding, marketing, advertising, and design services our agency offers, please visit birdsong gregory online, call me at 704-332-2299, or stop by the next time you’re in downtown Charlotte, NC.

National Gypsum – Architectural Direct Mail

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 by Jim Cusson

National Gypsum, headquartered in Charlotte, is a fully integrated building products manufacturer and one of the leading gypsum board producers in the world. Placed end-to-end, the company’s annual gypsum board production would travel around the earth over 14 times. National Gypsum also offers a full line of interior finishing products including joint compounds, tape, and textures. Its growing cement board product line has a strong customer base in the United States and several other countries.

To build brand awarness among architects and material specifiers, National Gypsum selected birdsong gregory to develop and execute a B2B marketing campaign that touts the versatility of their PermaBase product. Our Charlotte NC ad agency responded by desiging and producing an intelligent visual narrative and sample kit that catches the attention of a discriminating B2B audience.

To learn more about our 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.

Old Tricks, New Technologies, and What Makes Online Marketing So Complex

Monday, May 25, 2009 by Phillip Atchison

Here at birdsong gregory, our Charlotte NC ad agency has done a lot of conventional advertising and marketing for clients over the years, and we’ve provided the same model that global agencies provide to Fortune 100 brands, i.e., a company has a new product or new message it wants to sell, and so it pays an ad agency to come up with creative ways to reduce complex ideas and brand ideals into a short, single, overarching message.

Think “We bring good things to life” or “Just do it.”

Now, of course, it’s getting harder and harder to grow market share through yesterday’s advertising and marketing strategy. Charlotte, NC companies are increasingly looking to connect with consumers online in deeper, more authentic ways than a few blinking banner ads. But going online and talking about oneself can be risky – not to mention difficult.

Even in the digital age from a brand and marketing perspective many companies (and many Charlotte graphic design firms) are used to and most comfortable with the messaging and branding tactics of broadcast.

But online brand representation is not really an exercise in message reduction; interesting complicated thoughts don’t need to be condensed into a singular message. Brands now have to tell stories and plan activities along parallel pathways. They might even need to tell different stories at the same time and have their audiences filter them out, trusting that they’ll find what they like and ignore what they don’t like.

Let’s use Nike and Blendtec as examples of two extremes of online brands. Nike is a huge company with a lot of products. Its marketing-led brand image is a big part of the value of their products, so they need to do innovative online marketing. There are many brands operating like this, e.g., fashion, car companies, spirits, where marketing is a key component of the brand value.

At the other extreme is Blendtec. You would never have considered buying its $600 industrial blender for your home until you saw a charming guy in a white lab coat asking you, “Will it blend?” This is the more significant extreme: a brand that probably didn’t do any significant marketing until the Internet showed up. Then someone somewhere realized that there is a low-cost medium where you can just be funny or clever and gain a huge audience. Blendtec used the Internet to transform itself from a B2B to a B2C company in barely a year.

What we’re seeing here in Charlotte, however, are thousands of small to middle market companies that have a static website but are slowly waking up to the fact that the Web 2.0 has become much more than a place to park your information and hope potential customers stumble across it somehow. You have to be active for anyone to notice. You have to tell rich stories with a believable, informed, friendly voice. You have to have to take the time to build a conversation with the market – not just throw clever slogans at it. And above all, you have to begin building an effective, believable online brand sooner rather than later. The Internet isn’t going away, and companies that figure out to use content-rich social media to deepen consumer relationships will gain a whole host of cost-effective benefits. If you’d like to know more, please visit birdsong gregory online or give Jim Cusson a call at 704-332-2299.

Apple's iPhone has Great Marketing Potential

Tuesday, May 19, 2009 by Leslie Kraemer

Hardee's iBurger

In the past several months, companies such as Burger King Holdings Inc., Zippo Manufacturing Co. and Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. have experimented with promotional software applications that can be downloaded onto the iPhone, or they have created ads that are placed within other popular applications for the device. So if you work at a Charlotte ad agency or a Charlotte marketing agency, please take note.

At the most basic, marketers are taking advantage of the iPhone's advanced video and screen capabilities by creating streaming video ads. But some are taking things further by offering ads disguised as apps. The latter allow users to do such things as play games or manipulate images by touching the phone's screen.

CKE Restaurants Inc., based in Carpinteria, Calif., recently tried iPhone advertising. To promote the Western Bacon Thickburger at its Hardee's fast-food chain last month, CKE launched an iPhone application called iBurger.

People who download iBurger can tap on the iPhone's screen to open a Hardee's box containing a burger photo. They can also take "bites" out of the burger by making lipsmacking sounds into their device's microphone.

Steve Lemley, CKE's vice president of media and field marketing, says he thought of the iPhone as a new way to target 18- to 34-year-old men who "are difficult to reach on television but spend a lot of time on gadgetry." He adds that it is too early to gauge the effectiveness of the ad, which was launched April 27.

Industry executives estimate that the iPhone could help push overall mobile advertising spending this year to as much as $200 million, excluding search ads and ads sent via text messages. That would be nearly double last year's $100 million.

Many marketers find advertising on the iPhone attractive because the device's audience has grown so quickly since it was introduced two years ago. The iPhone now has more than 20 million users, and more are likely to buy in because Apple is widely expected to unveil a new model in coming months. Analysts estimate that Apple's iPod touch, which can also run downloaded apps, adds at least 15 million more users to the market.

In addition, many iPhone users are young, have high incomes and spend more time with their device than users of other types of smartphones. According to Mobclix Inc., which analyzes iPhone usage, iPhones generate more than half the total Web traffic from smartphones. The average iPhone user has installed five to 10 applications on the device, compared with fewer than two apps for the overall smartphone market.

As someone who owns an iPhone (and who has worked in marketing in Charlotte, NC for over a decade), I'm excited that iPhone advertising is also relatively inexpensive. CKE said it spent $12,000 to create its hamburger application. That's much less than the millions of dollars it might have spent for a quality TV spot.

i-Connect — Identity Development

Monday, May 11, 2009 by Leslie Kraemer

i-Connect, a Charlotte, NC area data networking technology start-up, turned to birdsong gregory when they were ready to develop a new brand identity around the twin attributes of connectivity and partnership. The new logo features an intimate lower case typography and a “cable” motif that serves as a versatile design element. The logo is blind embossed to illustrate the “behind the scenes” nature of the cables and devices that power commercial data networks. In addition to helping this young company elevate their visibility in the B2B marketplace, the logo birdsong gregory created was selected as an 2008 Silver ADDY winner at the annual Charlotte version of the national advertising agency award show.

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