Chrysler Group yesterday unveiled an extensive multimedia campaign for its 2007 Sebring to support the first stem-to-stern redesign of the mid-sized car since 2001. The new campaign reflects that the Sebring has one of the highest percentages of female buyers of any Chrysler vehicle--about 60 percent, the company says. The media buy includes female-skewing shelter and lifestyle books like Better Homes and Gardens, networks like Oxygen, a promotion around People's "Sexiest Man Alive" issue, and an online "Culinary Road Trip Sweepstakes" in December with the magazine "Everyday With Rachael Ray." A new 60-second TV spot, "Wind Tunnel," breaks tomorrow from BBDO, Troy, Mich. In it, an engineer watches from a control booth as the Sebring gets tested in a wind tunnel. When he leaves the room to get a cup of coffee, the stream of smoke slipping over the car comes to life and begins examining the car, while a voiceover explains the vehicle's benefits, such as the entertainment system, and heated and cooled cup holders. The spot will air initially on prime-time shows such as ABC's "The Nine" and NBC's "Biggest Loser." The campaign also includes interactive media, promotions and branded entertainment. The campaign also includes advertising aimed at Asian, Latino and African American consumers, created by GlobalHue, Chrysler's diversity-marketing agency. In addition to two TV spots, and several print ads, the campaign includes search engine placement buys; Sebring-themed podcasting and games at Chrysler.com; direct-marketing via email; and online "roadblock" type efforts. Later this month, for example, the Sebring will be the only product advertised on the home page of Amazon.com for a 24-hour period, which Chrysler hopes will garner 5 million impressions. The effort also includes heavy emphasis on product placement on TV programs like "Movie Night" on Oxygen, "TBS Movie Extra Spotlight" on TBS, and "Character Road Trip" on the USA Network. Susan Thomas, senior manager, Chrysler Global Brand Communications, said the effort reflects an effort to garner attention in as many different media as possible. "You have to play everywhere, and we are doing more in the digital area because it's a great way to get measurement," she said. Thomas said Chrysler will also do regional marketing in the Northeast with radio DJs talking about the Sebring during New York and Boston auto shows, and via key promotions in the New York area. "When we get into diversity marketing--with the Asian market especially--we will have heavy media buys in L.A., San Francisco and on the East Coast," she said, adding that GlobalHue will create spots in Mandarin, Korean and Hindi. The Web-based Chrysler cross-promotion with People, "Your sexiest men," asks consumers to go to www.people.com/yoursexyman and submit a headshot photo of their sexiest man. A photo mosaic of the headshots, in the shape of the Chrysler Sebring will appear in People's "Sexiest Man Alive" issue of Nov. 27. Chrysler will advertise the vehicle heavily in that issue, and online at People.com. As part of its second-year sponsorship of Time magazine's "Person of the Year" issue, Chrysler will run Sebring ads in several issues of the book leading up to and including the Dec. 18 Person of the Year issue. Chrysler is also sponsoring a promotion in which consumers, beginning on Nov. 13, can submit a digital headshot of themselves to the Time Web site, and it may be chosen for display on the 45-foot electronic board in Times Square in December. Selected consumer photos will also appear inside the cover page of the Dec. 18 issue. Chrysler Group has been weighed down by slack truck and SUV sales as it tries to re-ignite its car and small vehicle offerings. Trucks and SUVs constitute 75 percent of Chrysler Group sales, according to Global Insight.--and have kept the DaimlerChrysler division in the black until this year, which saw the group's truck sales decline 11 percent through September. Campaign spending for the Sebring effort was not divulged, but the company has said it plans to double in the second half the reported $527 million it spent in the first six months of 2006. Chrysler spent $1.6 billion in measured media in all of 2005, according to TNS. The Sebring campaign is the second of three major campaigns for the year. Chrysler launched a Jeep Compass campaign earlier this year and plans new ads for the new Dodge Nitro. Sebring, in dealerships now for $18,995, is critical for Chrysler, which reported a $1.48 billion Q3 loss. It has had nothing fresh to lure buyers away from mass-volume cars like Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic or Ford Fusion. Sales of the 2006 models of Sebring and Dodge Stratus are down 47 percent through September.
Those Avon catalogs may start to look a little slimmer next year as the direct beauty seller cuts back on the number of products in its portfolio. The 2007 initiative was put in place as the company announced a 47 percent drop in profits for the last quarter on lower revenues, even after doubling its ad spending from $32 million to $66 million. Formally called "Product Line Simplification," the SKU-cutting initiative will attempt to clean up the internal workings of Avon by dropping anywhere from 15 to 40 percent of Avon's SKUs, Avon Products' CEO Andrea Jung said last week. The idea is for the beauty seller to focus better by having a smaller product lineup. The program is also the last leg of a restructuring that has involved layoffs and cutting the executive staff in half, going from 16 to 8. As it cuts back in some areas, Avon will be beefing up others. It plans a major color cosmetics initiative next year, which will be a revamp of its Avon Color line. While reducing the product line may make sense to Avon managers, the move may not be popular among customers or Avon reps--a key group of employees for Avon, which is trying to step up its U.S. and global rep count. "Reps are attached to product lines that may not be profitable to Avon but probably are to the [them]," Morgan Stanley analyst William Pecoriello wrote in a research report. One example he pointed to is the Christmas line, with Avon centering many of its campaigns on the holidays and gift-giving occasions such as Mother's Day. "Reps are very attached to all Avon's catalog," Pecoriello wrote, basing his remarks on an Avon rep survey that Morgan Stanley conducted in 2004. In fact, even some core customers could be turned off to product elimination. Another Morgan Stanley study from last November found that with the churn of products, buyers are often frustrated when they can't find and reorder desired items. Nonetheless, Bill Schmitz of Deutsche Bank called the Avon shopping experience "extremely cluttered, with the catalog littered with heavily promoted and low-margin skus." Despite their concerns, Pecoriello and other Wall Street analysts are generally in favor of the program, which should cut operating costs.
Nissan kicks off a new live music sponsorship deal on Yahoo with a Nov. 15 performance by Christina Aguilera and the alt-rock band Incubus. "Nissan Live Sets on Yahoo! Music" will feature bi-monthly performances in front of a live studio audience on a sound stage created by Yahoo Music at music.yahoo.com/nissanlivesets. As sole sponsor, Nissan will advertise on the site using streaming video, games and animation. The Yahoo music site will also have live Q&A sessions with artists, and according to Yahoo, will give the artists control over the venue by letting them do B-Side projects and covers of other artists' songs. "The sponsorship of the 'Nissan Live Sets on Yahoo! Music' is an extension of our transformational marketing efforts designed to create a high level of engagement with our consumers by reaching them through non-traditional channels," said Jan Thompson, Nissan's vice president of marketing, in a release. "Music is a big reason people are online. We were drawn to the interactive platform of this program, the A-list artists it expects to attract and the opportunity to engage our customers through music." The music sets will be archived, and visitors will be able to download performances. Yahoo Music will also provide 30-second on-demand samples of each performance with links to purchase complete shows on Yahoo Music Unlimited. People who attend the concerts, to be held on a sound stage on Fox's lot in Los Angeles, will also receive Flickr-enabled phones to take photos, which can be uploaded to photo galleries on the site.
Pushing the Halloween season ever earlier, candy companies are once again enjoying robust sales. The National Confectioners Association said sales of chocolate Halloween candy were 14 percent higher during the four-week period ending Sept. 10 than the year-ago period, and non-chocolate candy rose 3 percent. Tootsie Roll Industries credited back-to-school and Halloween marketing programs for generating a rise of 5 percent in third-quarter earnings. Revenue grew by 7 percent. Hershey Inc., maker of Hershey's, Reese's and KitKat, also credited "good Halloween sell-in" for a third-quarter profit increase of 61 percent. Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co.'s United States sales grew by 9 percent in the quarter, helped by the performance of Orbit, Orbit White, Lifesavers and the new Doublemint Twins mints. Marcia Mogelonsky, a senior research analyst at Mintel, said one reason for higher Halloween candy sales is that the "seasons slop into each other." With back-to-school now starting in early August, marketers hit stores with school supplies, then snacks and then candy, she said. And the season doesn't end on Oct. 31. "The packaging of [some] candy is very clever," said Mogelonsky. "Think autumnal colors." Candies packaged in red, orange and brown foils, she said, can still be used for Thanksgiving. The National Retail Federation said consumers will spend $4.96 billion across the board on Halloween-related merchandise this year, up from $3.29 billion a year ago.
How does a chain make a good-selling menu item perform better? Promote it, of course. On Monday, Glendale, Calif.-based IHOP began offering a Super Rooty Tooty Fresh 'N Fruity breakfast, a bigger version of its signature Rooty Tooty Fresh 'N Fruity, which it introduced in 1984. The Super version, a combo breakfast, includes two pancakes topped with strawberry, blueberry or cinnamon-apple topping and whipped cream, plus eggs, bacon, sausage and hash browns in one of three sizes: regular, big or jumbo. Prices start at $4.99. Window clings, menu handouts and danglers will promote the Super Rooty Tooty in the stores, while spot television will give added support. The spots will continue IHOP's current theme of "Come Hungry, Leave Happy," handled by McCann-Erickson's Los Angeles office. The Super promotion is the first time IHOP has promoted the Rooty Tooty breakfast in a decade, according to an IHOP spokesman. He said the regular Rooty Tooty breakfast is one of the chain's best sellers, although he wouldn't release sales. The spokesman said that giving promotional weight to entrenched menu items is cycling around the industry, offering McDonald's promotion of its Egg McMuffin sandwiches in the Los Angeles market as one example. "There's an interest in chains promoting signature items, and putting them back in front of consumers very vividly, and doing it successfully," the spokesman said. IHOP has 1,278 restaurants in the United States and Canada. For the nine months ended Sept. 30, the chain posted system-wide same-store sales increases of 3.1 percent, and 1.3 percent for the quarter ended in September. IHOP officials attributed the increase to increased traffic, which offset a slight decrease in check averages.