At Thursday's ANA Brand Innovation Conference in New York, the focus was digital media. Kind of. Claire Bennett, SVP/Advertising, Marketing and Media at American Express, threw down a gauntlet at the outset: digital, traditional, grassroots--it doesn't matter if consumers don't want it. Paraphrasing Einstein, she said any marketing fool can overwhelm consumers with meaningless information, but it takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. Her message, delivered through a rundown on her own company's efforts, was that the opposite direction means moving from intrusion to invitation. "Are you making something better for your customer or intruding on an experience they are having?" she asked, rhetorically. "We want to be invited in by the consumer: from transaction to relationship; from disrupting to empowering." She said the proliferation of new media not withstanding, Amex's media spend remains evenly spread between traditional and non-traditional outlets. "None of the old media has gone away," she said, adding that Amex's marketing activity is shaped by its service-company vision: to become the world's most respected service brand. Bennett highlighted a recent execution within the company's longstanding cardmember campaign featuring the likes of Serena Williams, Tiger Woods, Tina Fey and Martin Scorcese. The 60-second TV spot, featuring designer Diane von Furstenberg, was part of a larger sponsorship/promotional campaign around Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York. "A lot of our programs tend to be in New York," she said. In terms of new media, she said the company is expanding efforts in mobile media, "and, from a travel standpoint, the online member community is new as well. We are always looking to make sure sponsorship of events is participatory. So we are looking for any media that will let us make that experience better." Bennett said the point of the campaign, which launched during the Academy Awards broadcast, was to use traditional and non-traditional media and the event itself to reinforce the service vision by offering card-members an entrée to fashion. The company also created an online video media channel that ran live web casts of the show. She said that this year the company delved into social media with "Members Know," a travel-centric microsite populated by content from Amex-owned "Travel and Leisure" and that lets card members give advice, chat, and generally share content and give advice. The company has also increased its sponsorship commitment to the U.S. Open tennis championships in New York, with a program that includes a number of free-to-member events, programs, and amenities.
Given the amount of research and media coverage focused on Boomers in recent years, you'd think marketers would be far past viewing them as an undifferentiated mass of country club-goers who can barely operate their Jitterbugs. Alas, you'd be wrong, according to the folks at Focalyst, the Millward Brown/AARP Services, Inc. enterprise devoted to researching Boomers and "Matures." "You'd be surprised by the Boomer misconceptions that still exist in today's top companies, and even more so by how many are simply not paying attention," says Heather Stern, Focalyst's director of marketing and client development. For many, "it's still about educating them on the basics," she says. "It can be difficult getting this message across--not only for us but for clients who are having difficulty in rallying their organizations around appealing to this market." Media stories about those born between 1946 and 1964 are ubiquitous, but most treat the generation as a 77-million-member "monolith" that thinks, acts, behaves and buys in a single way, using headlines that paint either a very positive or very negative picture, say Stern and her colleagues. Fighting fire with fire--actually, media with media--Focalyst this week dramatized the facts about Boomers with a release on the "Top 10 Boomer Myths," each refuted with data based on the 17,000+ Boomers surveyed as part of its 2006 Focalyst View study or other studies of the cohort. "While much of this is not new news, we felt this research deserved repeating," says Stern. "The Today Show," among others, picked up on the report, which summarized attention-getting stats such as: 72% of Boomers plan to work part-time or full-time when they reach retirement; a third are single; 37% have children under 18 living at home; 40% have virtually no net worth outside of home equity; one out of three have no basic retirement savings account; nearly four in 10 have no life insurance ... yet 74% plan to make a home improvement in the next year (average cost:$6,000) and 92% plan to buy a major household item (average cost: $2,200). The effort also drove home Boomers' active lifestyles and comfort with tech products and the Internet (82% of Boomers use the Net; almost half of those 50 and older visit video-sharing sites; nearly a third of bloggers are over age 45; more than 8 million women over age 45 use the Net to play online games ... and so forth). There were also some points aimed squarely at marketers: * Boomers are just as likely as younger generations to be motivated to buy a product or service based on an Internet ad (according to a new Focalyst/Dynamic Logic study, highlights from which are also soon to be released); * 67% say they're less likely to buy a product if the advertising is offensive to them; * 66% say that ads have gotten cruder in the past few years; * 61% wish that ads had more "real information" about products, and * 23% find ads geared toward their age groups insulting. Most pointedly, the firm stressed the diversity within the generation, noting that more life events occur between the ages of 50 and 65 than in any other time in one's life. The typical Boomer experiences two major life events around career, family, finance or health each year--ranging from buying a new home to starting a new job to retiring, they report. The opportunities for marketers who take a segmented approach to Boomers "are wide and varied," but those seeking a single "Golden Rule" for approaching this generation are misguided, says Stern. "There simply isn't one," she says. "It depends on the product, the category, the medium and, most important, the segment you are trying to reach."
You can tell April is on the wane when the Corona campaign turns to Cinco de Mayo. New this year is a 30-second national TV spot called, simply, "Cinco." Created by Cramer-Krasselt, Chicago, it opens on a Corona Extra and lime set against the backdrop of the iconic Corona beach. Hushed whispers turn louder as viewers watch two beachcombers make their way toward festive music and a brightly lit beach party. As the camera follows the couple, the front view of the Corona Extra reveals five chilling Coronas with limes (Corona Extra and Corona Light) in an ice block. The last bottle displays "Cinco" on the label and becomes part of the tag, "Happy Cinco de Mayo." "Cinco" will run on the same national program/network rotation that current Corona ads run, including "Jimmy Kimmel Live," "The Late Show with David Letterman" and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." "For authentic brands from Mexico, Cinco de Mayo is the ultimate holiday," says Timm Amundson, VP/marketing for Corona Extra and Corona Light for Crown Imports, in a release. "It's the perfect time for our portfolio of Mexican beers to increase sales before the summer season and get consumers even more excited about the brands." The campaign is also supported through two new :60 radio spots, which begin airing Monday on local spot schedules, and a range of on- and off-premise support materials, including a mass display piece and Cinco countdown calendars in bars, taverns and clubs. Corona also will sponsor a Cinco de Mayo-themed online invitation template available for consumers planning Cinco parties on Evite.com beginning Monday. "We always see Cinco as Corona's moment," says Marshall Ross, chief creative officer of Cramer-Krasselt. "During most of the year, we work to manage Corona's escape mystique." The Cinco-themed campaign continues Corona's 2008 marketing plan that includes fresh TV, print, out-of-home, radio and online executions.
If any company has a history in branded entertainment, it's Procter & Gamble. The company has, for some 70 years, sponsored, produced or otherwise expedited radio shows soap operas--and lately, digital properties. At Thursday's Association of National Advertisers conference in New York, Steve Knox, head of P&G's in-house word-of-mouth agency Tremor, talked about how marketers succeed or fail when it comes to getting consumers to talk amongst themselves. Tremor works with Procter & Gamble's P&G Productions, a production studio and branded entertainment shop. Knox says the obvious by way of an intro to word-of-mouth. "First, you have to identify the right consumer," he said. "We chased early adopters for years, and what we got was tremendous variability. Sometimes marketing to early adopters was effective, sometimes it wasn't." Instead, says Knox, Tremor goes after a group called "connectors." "They are people who have social networks five to six times larger than normal people." What the agency does, among other things, is to tap into a network of several thousand connectors to find out what they think. "What we have learned in eight years is that there is a message the consumer wants to hear, and really doesn't mind [being subjected to] advertising as long as it's relevant," he says. But, he adds, in terms of campaigns intended to generate buzz, marketers are shooting themselves in the foot. "There is a message the consumer wants to share with friends, and it is always different than the advertising message." Knox said that two factors--advocacy and amplification--are intrinsic to the success or failure of campaigns meant to generate conversation among consumers. "The issues, for consumers, are 'why do I care? And if I do care how do I share?' There are brands that are amplified but nobody talks about them." Crest Strips, he says, are a good example. They have a lot of awareness, but nobody will want to say "Look at my teeth! Crest Strips did it!" "The danger zone no marketer should inhabit is brands or products that are highly amplified but not advocated: never use the term 'buzz marketing.' Buzz marketing is the danger zone." He says the Office Max Elf buzz campaign--in which consumers create and email to friends, animated dancing elves of themselves during the holidays last year--is an example of sound and fury signifying nothing. "Some 123 million people 'elfed' themselves," he says. "It got incredible viral amplification. But same-store sales declined 7.5%. Don't go for the head fake." He said Tremor was able to create the opposite condition--both amplification and advocacy--with its work on P&G's Febreze brand of air freshener by using its 'connectors' network to study what consumers actually say about Febreze. "What we uncovered was that what they were saying had nothing to do with what the advertising was saying. What consumers shared with each other was that it could freshen a house in 60 seconds: 'In one minute my in-laws are coming over. What can I do?' That's what they talked about." He says the agency created a word-of-mouth campaign touting how Frebreze can do the job in 60 seconds, and then activated it through Tremor's network of moms.
Bring on the casseroles and the leftovers. It turns out that the steep increases in food prices are changing the way Americans shop, cook and eat. "Among people who are worried about finances, almost 60% say they are eating leftovers for dinner at least once in a two-week period," says Harry Balzer, VP of The NPD Group, a market research company that recently issued a report on changing food habits. "That's a lot-and for dinner, not for lunch." And 55% say they are preparing more meals at home than they did a year ago, while 54% are stocking up on groceries. The report, which found one third of adults feel their financial situation is worse this year than last, says those with larger families are most concerned. The biggest winner, he says, is a cozy four-letter word: Home. "In uncertain times, home is going to become a greater source for meals and snacks. It's where we have always liked to eat," he says, pointing out that one of the few growth areas in restaurants in recent years has been in take-out. Last year, 80% of meals and snacks were consumed at-home versus 20% at restaurants, and NPD says the restaurant industry posted no organic growth in 2007. But supermarkets also stand to be big gainers, he says. "If the last century was the century of prepared foods, this will be the century of prepared meals," he predicts, "and supermarkets are now providing both." American consumers, who first fell for the prepared meal concept back in the 1990s, as popularized by chains like Boston Market and then by Whole Foods Markets, are happy to buy prepared products at most supermarkets. "People love this stuff, and when people talk about how expensive Whole Foods is, I think they may be missing the point-I don't think most shoppers feel Whole Foods is expensive compared to other stores. They think it's cheap compared to restaurants." Part of what makes shifting consumer habits so intriguing now, he says, is that for the first time, a sharp rise in food costs isn't being offset by hordes of women joining the workforce. "It's the single biggest change in my 30 years of watching the food industry," he says. "Every year, there would be a greater proportion of women participating in the labor force than the year before. So, despite any economic downturn, there would be more money in the household, less time, and greater pressure for companies to provide value-added food." That ended in 2000, he says, when workforce participation leveled off. Still, despite food increases of 17%, it's probably a little soon to predict just how willing Americans are to rethink their meal strategies. "It's hard to change," says Frank Badillo, chief economist, TNS Retail Forward. "And for a lot of shoppers, changing your food-shopping habits is especially difficult." He expects that definitive evidence of bigger consumer changes-whether it's a spike in freezer sales, as more people buy in bulk, or stocking up on Tupperware-is probably a few months away. "People know they're hurting and that they have to change, but there's a lag. They don't do it right away."
As Time Warner and Yahoo weigh a cash infusion to seal an AOL/Yahoo deal, Userplane, an AOL subsidiary acquired in 2006 to lead the company into the social networking/ad supported business, prepares to release a video playback platform in May and a bulletin board platform in June. According to comScore's March 2008 Media Metrix report, Userplane's ad network displayed nearly 28 billion ads during the month, ranking the company at 27 among the top 30 ad networks. Marketing Daily caught up with Mike Jones, founder/CEO of Userplane, at AdTech in San Francisco. He shared his thoughts on a potential Yahoo/AOL merger and what it would mean for the companies. Q: What would an AOL/Yahoo merger look like? A: Jeff Bewkes (Time Warner president and CEO) will do what's best for Time Warner shareholders. My hope is that he will also consider what's best for the AOL brand. I hate to see the AOL brand washed away or clouded through a merger with Yahoo, but I also feel AOL is a company that needs a public currency to compete. Without a publicly tracked stock, or one that doesn't become diluted by Time Warner's other holdings, it becomes difficult for AOL to attract and retain top talent. It also would drive people to innovate inside the company. I'm excited for a world where AOL has that type of currency, and it could be gained through a merger with Yahoo. I haven't gone through the products to understand where AOL and Yahoo work well together and where there is duplication. First you answer the question--where does the merger sit with Time Warner shareholders? Then you look at where products are similar, and will the final company be big enough to compete with Google and others. Q: What's the motive behind the merger? A: It's simple. If there's potential for Time Warner shareholders to see a larger volume of return, it's something Time Warner absolutely must do. I would love to think Bewkes is so into technology that he has personal feelings about saving Yahoo from Microsoft, but at the end of the day he's a strong CEO of a massive multifaceted corporation. I don't think he's strategically positioning against Microsoft. He's making a decision based on the best interest of shareholders. Hopefully, he's also considering the best interest of AOL and its users. I don't see this as a game of chess where he's strategically pitting to weaken Microsoft in the long run. Q: What would AOL/Yahoo look like in the future? A: I knew what the future AOL would be about a year and a half ago under Miller's rein as it moved to an ad-based platform. AOL is a company that owns and operates product, content and services, along with a third-party ad network it monetizes, and that's a healthy mix. It's Google's mix. It's Yahoo's mix. It's Microsoft's mix. Everyone knows the future is far from dial-up services. If AOL and Yahoo come together, it would have substantial user reach and top-tier products, and a giant safe advertising network for the leading brands in the world, which ironically are similar to AOL's and Yahoo's independent missions. It gives them a bigger bouquet to work with--all those products under one roof. Q: Are the platforms that run these ad networks compatible? A: I haven't looked at it that closely, but I assume it will be a very difficult integration. You're taking two--probably the largest--Web software entities that exist today. Both have gigantic authentication systems and ad network platforms. There are obvious things that would remain--for example, the AIM brand is so insanely strong that it makes sense for instant messaging to come together on that platform. Yahoo Messenger and AIM both have a substantial amount of users. On the other hand, it can't be easily argued that one company is so technically dominant over the other that you should always migrate to their platform. It's not going to be an obvious integration.
I just read a great post on Robert Kozinets' Brandthroposophy blog suggesting that when you approach "community" or customer collaboration with incentives (cash, coupons, free product), you are doing your brand a disservice, because you are falsely motivating and therefore diluting the underlying value of the relationship with your customers. In Kozinets' words, "Now, what does this say about brand 'communities' where the people are actively recruited, given rewards such as coupons or products (as in P&G's VocalPoint or Tremor communities; or BuzzAgent's word-of-mouth communities) or are monitored and paid for community contributions (such as in Communispace's model)? My interpretation is that these forms of community and word-of-mouth will, over time, inspire dissatisfaction with the community experience and the brand. But it won't be particularly visible. More intrinsic than extrinsic, particularly in the short-run." I share his position on incentives wholeheartedly -- don't offer them. I frequently discuss best practices in customer collaboration with chief marketing officers, consumer cultures heads, product innovation directors, customer experience officers and researchers from many of the world's most innovative companies, and one of the primary benefits of customer collaboration and community is authentic advocacy for the brand. True advocacy is an informed message coming from a trusted source - in other words, advocacy is not a media buy. One inherent benefit of customer collaboration is a brand's ability to drive advocacy. "Advocates" are those individuals who are fully committed to a brand beyond the typical relationship of brand and customer. They express the greatest level of involvement with the brand and don't need incentives. They are active, vocal and proud by choice. In my experience, these advocates have an emotional bond with the brands that they regularly use. Their lifestyle mirrors that of the brand and they are proactive in talking about their brand experience with others. By engaging them, a brand will gain further insight into exactly who these customers are, what motivates them, why they make the decisions that they do, who they might influence and why and how they do it. Companies that are true to the collaborative approach will consistently demonstrate relevancy to each customer as an individual and ultimately endure the test of time. Forging a collaborative relationship with your most valued customers is critical to the efficacy of your brand. As Kozinets notes, it's not about diluting the underlying value of your relationship through offering incentives. If you simply take the time to ask your customers what they want, they will tell you. If it sounds simple, it's because it is. Your customers don't need incentives to act; if you empower and inform them, they will have the ability to drive more favorable opinions and build the feeling of "I helped build that" and "I'm part of this brand." Ownership promotes active participation and a desire to accumulate more knowledge, and results in the truest form of brand advocacy.