General Motors will be the exclusive automotive sponsor of the first TV network to be exclusively devoted to environmental issues. The Discovery Communications Planet Green, a 24-hour eco-lifestyle network, launches June 4. Kelly Cusinato, spokesperson for GM marketing and communications, says that as national sponsor of Planet Green for the initial year, GM will run a mix of corporate and divisional ads, including a series of eight, two-minute-long documentary-style ads produced by Discovery Studios, and featuring GM executives. The two-minute ads, two of which are GM corporate ads--four are for Chevrolet, two are for Saturn--deal with advanced technology, fuel alternatives, hybrids, and GM's environmental commitment, including things like environmental impact of its production facilities. Besides featuring GM vehicles, they "star" execs like Beth Lowry, VP/environment, energy and safety policy, Larry Burns, VP/research and development, and Frank Weber, GM vehicle line executive with oversight of the Chevy Volt electric-car concept. As part of the deal, GM's Chevrolet division will be sponsor of--and have product integrated in--the network's "Greensburg," a 13-part documentary series produced by Leonardo DiCaprio's production company, Appian Way, along with Pilgrim Films & Television. The series is about the tornado that struck the Kansas town last year, and its aftermath. "In terms of ad creative, we are going to do a mix of existing and new work," says Cusinato of GM's national sponsorship. She adds that Chevy ads for the "Greensburg" series will continue the division's "Gas Friendly to Gas Free" message that Chevrolet bowed in 2006. "It's a great way for GM to educate and inform consumers about all we are doing in the area of sustainable transportation," said Betsy Lazar, executive director, GM advertising and media operations, in a release. "Planet Green programs will attract consumers who also want to know what GM has to offer in terms of fuel-efficient cars and trucks, hybrids and alternative fuel vehicles." There will also be GM vehicle and content integrations in select Planet Green programs and online properties. The automaker will also support Discovery Education Live Green Teacher Grants, which was custom-created for GM.
High-end retailer Nordstrom is taking a page from the big-box stores, and says it's testing a "Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store" option for its Web shoppers. Right now, the service is available for the women's and men's apparel, as well as women's shoes and cosmetics. By September, the retailer says it will be available in all merchandise categories. Nordstrom has 159 stores in 28 states. Ever since Circuit City set the e-commerce world on its ear with the success of in-store pickup in 2006, larger retailers have embraced it, and it has become a major component in cross-channel selling. "It's a feature consumers really are asking for," says Ed Stevens, CEO and founder of Shopatron, a San Luis, Obispo, Calif.-based company that works with both manufacturers and retailers. "Our experience is that upwards of 50%, and sometimes as high as 75%, of a retailer's Internet customers say they want this feature. In fact, what's caused the relatively slow adoption of this isn't consumers. It's just taken stores a little while to figure out the technology." "Convenience is back in style," he says, explaining that what customers love about in-store pickup is that it allows them to break the task of shopping up into smaller pieces, which they can work into their schedule. "So let's say I need to buy my son a birthday present. I can fit the shopping portion into a 10-minute time slot between business meetings in the morning. And I can squeeze the pickup into a 10-minute slot after work, and have lower blood pressure all day." Like all retailers, the Seattle-based Nordstrom is struggling for any competitive advantage in a tough consumer spending environment. Last week, the company reported first-quarter sales of $1.88 billion, a decrease of 3.8%, while comparable-store sales fell 6.5%.
The International Council of Beverages Associations' (ICBA) announcement of new guidelines on marketing beverages to children is another significant step forward for the industry on the issue of childhood obesity--or not, depending on who is being asked. The guidelines essentially extend self-regulatory guidelines that are already in place in the U.S. through the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI) to the international arena, and also extend the scope of the self-regulation. Under the CFBAI, launched in November 2006 and administered by the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB), participating companies agreed to devote at least 50% of their advertising directed to children under 12 to promote healthier dietary choices and/or to messages that encourage good nutrition and healthier lifestyles. Healthier-product pledges must be consistent with established scientific and/or government standards, including USDA Dietary Guidelines and MyPyramid, as well as FDA standards for health claims. Each company participating created its own pledge describing the specific terms of its commitment, in part to reflect a company's specific product line. Companies also agreed to incorporate healthier choices within their product lines; not engage in food/beverage product placement in editorial and entertainment content geared to children; reduce the use of third party-licensed characters in advertising that does not meet the Initiative's product or messaging criteria; limit products shown in interactive games to healthy dietary choices or incorporate healthy lifestyle messages in the games; and not advertise food/beverages in elementary schools. The 13 companies that signed on (Burger King, Cadbury Adams USA, Campbell Soup, The Coca-Cola Company, ConAgra Foods, General Mills, The Hershey Company, Kellogg Company, Kraft Foods Inc., Mars, Inc., McDonald's USA, PepsiCo, Inc. and Unilever US) were estimated to have accounted for more than two-thirds of children's food and beverage television advertising expenditures as of 2004. Under the ICBA guidelines, member beverage companies voluntarily agree not to place any marketing communication/advertising for a wide range of beverages--including carbonated soft drinks--in any paid, third-party media whose audience consists of 50% or more children under the age of 12. The policy includes paid media outlets such as TV, radio, print, Internet, phone messaging and cinema, including product placements. Waters, juices and dairy-based beverages are not included, because not all ICBA members market these. The guidelines were developed within the framework of the F&B industry's wider commitment to collaborate with the World Health Organization to implement the 2004 WHO Global Strategy on Diet. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have announced that they will implement the ICBA guidelines throughout the world by the end of this year. According to its Web site, in addition to its CFBAI pledge, Coke already had a global policy prohibiting marketing full-sugar beverages on television programs viewed primarily by children. The company has also said that it will review other forms of marketing practices, such as use of licensed characters and sponsorships, in schools and other channels involving children under 12. PepsiCo's CFBAI pledge calls for all advertising directed primarily to children under 12 to feature Smart Spot products, which are products that meet or exceed CFBAI's nutrition standards. 'Enormous Progress' Or Mainly Window Dressing? Dan Jaffe, EVP for the Washington, D.C., office of the Association of National Advertisers, calls the ICBA and CFBAI initiatives "the most extensive self-regulatory steps ever taken within the food and beverage industry," and perhaps in any category. He also stresses that these are part of "much broader" industry efforts to address the challenge of childhood obesity, including greatly expanding the range of healthier products offered. For example, he points to a Grocery Manufacturers Association member survey that found that marketers had added over 10,000 new and reformulated products in recent years to address nutrition and calories issues, and to the Ad Council's extensive public service advertising to promote education about nutrition. "We are far from declaring victory, but the industry has made enormous progress over the past four to five years," Jaffe says. "Childhood obesity is clearly a multi-causal problem. The industry is taking very substantive steps to address it, but it cannot solve it alone. Other groups, and the government, also need to be involved in education and health-oriented programs-and increasingly, they are." Indeed, the FTC is currently conducting a study on all methods of marketing foods and beverages to children and adolescents, expected to be released by summer or early fall. The study is delving into types of food marketed; the types and nature of marketing techniques used; marketing expenditures; and any marketing policies, initiatives, or research in effect or undertaken by food and beverage companies. The study aims to investigate not only traditional media, but movie theater/video/video game advertising; company-sponsored Internet sites; other Internet advertising; other digital advertising; in-store advertising and promotions; specialty item or premium distributions; public entertainment events; product placements; character licensing and cross-promotions; sponsorships of sports teams or individual athletes; packaging and labeling; word-of-mouth marketing; viral marketing; celebrity endorsements; in-school marketing; advertising in conjunction with philanthropic endeavors; and other marketing expenditures. Manufacturers are, of course, being debriefed on all of this. Meanwhile, the Washington Post just ran a five-part series on childhood obesity. Children's activist groups like the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood maintain that the increasing pressures from the government and the public, and the threat of lawsuits, are the main motivators behind industry guidelines. These groups also express the same basic criticisms about the ICBA guidelines that they did about the CFBAI guidelines. Namely, that self-regulation isn't working and that formal, regulatory oversight is needed, because marketers simply find ways outside of the guidelines to reach children. For example, marketers' own Web sites do not fall under the guidelines-and of course, large numbers of children watch many shows that also do not fall under the guidelines. "It's very hard to distinguish that line of who under the age of 12 is going to be viewing a TV show or other marketing channel," points out Laura Ries, partner in branding consultancy Ries & Ries. "On face value, it's of course good to say that you're not targeting kids. But the guidelines are effectively vague, and companies like Coke and Pepsi weren't advertising on shows that are geared specifically to kids anyway, like cartoons. Many kids obviously watch the comedies and the Super Bowl and just about everything else, including "American Idol," Coke's biggest marketing venue. Childhood obesity is a major problem, but it's hard to see how these kinds of guidelines are going to make a big difference." On the other hand, Ries says she would be very leery of any governmental effort to ban advertising and marketing of food, beverages or for that matter, most other products. "That is a slippery slope," she says. "This is America, and these are not deadly products, like cigarettes. Companies need to be socially aware, and increasingly, they are. They're getting called out and experiencing bad PR when they cross the line, and that's the last thing they want, so they're changing their behavior. "Companies get into trouble areas when they start marketing products in schools, and as a parent and branding professional, I have to wonder what Coke is thinking when they do commercials showing families passing around big-liter bottles of Coke at dinnertime. But I can't see how you can argue against being able to market on something like 'American Idol.' "It's complex," Ries continues. "For instance, who decides what's healthy? Can an occasional piece of cake be part of a healthy lifestyle? Of course. Do we really want to try to tell high school kids that they can't choose to have an occasional can of soda? Who makes these decisions? The reality is that we are all constantly exposed to temptations that aren't necessarily the healthiest, and not only through advertising. There's a big element of parental control and educating your kids about healthy lifestyles and advertising influences." In response to questions about the 50% under-12 audience demographic threshold and other limitations of self-regulatory guidelines, major beverage marketers have made similar points. For instance, after the CFBAI guidelines were announced, a Coke spokesperson told ABC News that "Coca-Cola respects the sanctity of childhood and the role parents play in raising their children and determining what they eat and watch. Media buys are made on the basis of brand strategy ...that has 50 percent or more adults [as an audience]. For every child that gets exposed, there is an adult present. If they as a family are involved in a certain media and they expose children, that's a decision they are making for their family. It's about intent, not exposure." Meanwhile, studies of advertising to kids for F&B and other products continue to proliferate. There's the recent Stanford study on the "Effects of Fast Food Branding on Young Children's Taste Preferences," which found that children as young as three differentiate between brands ... and that 75% of children had toys from McDonald's in their homes. But there's also the FTC study that found that found that, as of 2004, children were actually being exposed to fewer paid ads and fewer minutes of TV advertising than in 1977-and that their exposure to food ads, in particular, was no more extensive than in the past. (Food ads accounted for 22% of total TV ads viewed by children.) Still, the study also found that children get about half of their food advertising and about a third of their total television advertising exposure from programs for which children represent at least 50% of the audience. There's also the basic reality that sheer market dynamics continue to push beverage manufacturers to shift focus toward beverages other than carbonated sodas. Less marketing to children may well be "inevitable anyway," observes Harry Balzer, VP, The NPD Group. "Carbonated soda consumption by young people has been trending down for some time." In fact, according to NPD data, the average U.S. child 12 and under consumed 134 carbonated soft drinks in 1998, but just 79 last year-a 41% drop. Nevertheless, beverage and food manufacturers and fast-food restaurants know they can count on increasing media visibility for kids' nutrition issues, including a major round of coverage and public debate following the release of the FTC's new study later this year.
Piaggio Group's Vespa scooter brand has its wheels in the Warner Brothers film "Get Smart" and is promoting its scooters, the movie, and $5 Subway sandwiches with a cross-promotional arrangement with the restaurant chain this summer. In the film starring Steve Carell and premiering June 20, Vespa's LX 150 scooter is Carell's ride of choice. The promotion puts the LX 150 and other scooters in a Subway online instant-win game and sweepstakes, with 10 Vespas as grand prizes, and free food and gear as lesser prizes. Vespa is offering a free $5 Subway card with a test drive or product demonstration at dealers. Subway is promoting Vespa by telling participants about the "Get Smart" Eat Fresh Instant Win Game and Sweepstakes in which Vespa is offering a free Vespa Soft-Touch helmet, which retails for around $300, with the purchase of a new Vespa scooter. The efforts include online, print and in-store promotions through August at all Vespa dealers, Subway's 21,500 restaurants in the U.S. and at SubwayFreshBuzz.com and VespaUSA.com. The LX 150 is "the meat of our product range," says Paolo Timoni, president/CEO of New York-based Piaggio Group Americas. "It's perfect for city riding but it can also ride on-highway. In the movie, it is used as an alternative form of transportation--the main actor uses it to go from place A to place B." That, he says, is something that people have been doing for years in Europe, but has been a slower sell in the U.S.--until now, thanks to soaring gasoline prices. "In fact, sales in the first four months this year are up 40% versus the same period last year," says Timoni--who says the phenomenon is not just in urban markets, where destinations are relatively close together. "It's kind of all over the country; in fact, in some of the smaller cities the sales growth is even faster." He says while sales of all Vespa scooters are up, the biggest growth is in entry-level scooters, the 50cc bikes. "So, clearly we have a significant portion of people approaching the product for the first time, to save money, and they are looking at the entry level." He says the scooters get between 70 and 90 miles per gallon. Vespa actually began talking about Vespas as a fuel-efficient and traffic-jam-relieving form of transit two years ago when it launched its umbrella campaign, "Vespanomics." That effort continues online, and with some advertising, per Timoni. As for product placement, "we have done it in the past and will continue to do it in the future," he says. "We think product placement is a good component of our overall marketing strategy."
What do Apple's iPhone, Canon's PowerShot G9 and Nintendo's Wii have in common? They are all among the most sought-after consumer electronics devices by so-called "Super Buyers," who contribute to the majority of retail purchases. A Parks Associates study, "Super Buyers: The Key Broadband Segment Buying CE Products," released this week reveals that 87% of the 2,500 consumers with broadband Internet access who responded to the survey had purchased one consumer electronics product within the past 12 months; nearly 67% had purchased two or more. More than half of the survey respondents had spent at least $500 on consumer electronics, and one-quarter spent upwards of $2,000. Fifty percent earn less than $75,000 annually, and only 4% earn more than $200,000. "A small minority makes up the bulk of the purchases," says John Barrett, research director at Parks Associates. "Many of them are not uber-rich, even if they spend like they are." Reaching these tech-hungry consumers takes skill, and marketers need to understand the triggers that influence buying decisions. Barrett says Super Buyers are younger and better educated, tend to purchase new products first, view devices as an extension of their identity, and are less likely than others to shop at big-box retailers Best Buy and Circuit City or discount club retailers like Costco. Instead, they gravitate toward specialty electronics stores. They are less influenced by television, radio or print ads, tend not to take advice from friends or family members, and know the difference between marketing and packaging hype and well-designed devices. They do, however, seek out expert reviews, forums and online shopping comparison sites where they can discuss a product's pros and cons. "These buyers are part of a community who share information about gadgets," Barrett says. "It's a form of viral marketing, but different than posts on MySpace because they are focused on finding information consumer electronics." Women, more than men, tend to believe the devices keep them connected to friends and family better. All are less likely than others to perceive consumer electronics devices as being expensive. Nearly 40% of survey respondents who earn less than $35,000 and spend $2,000 or more annually perceive consumer electronics products as too expensive, compared with 25% of those who average yearly salaries between $75,000 and $99,999. Positive experiences with one product typically influence the decision to purchase others, and not necessary in the same category. This makes it easier for brands like Apple, which sells the MP3 player iPod and cellular phone iPhone, or Sony, which offers Cybershot cameras and Vaio computers, to have similar successes in multiple product categories. Unfortunately, it can cause failures to extend from one category to another, too. A bad experience with an MP3 player, for example, may undermine a buyer's loyalty to a line of televisions.
For the past four years, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has maintained a Web site designed to help consumers make better decisions when choosing a hospital. The site has included information about mortality rates and procedural specialties, but it wasn't until earlier this year that new measurements of consumer satisfaction were added. Now, the HHS is ready to promote the site, having taken out ads in 58 newspapers across the country to promote Hospital Compare (www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov). "There are a lot of things a patient should know when choosing a hospital," HHS representative Don McLeod tells Marketing Daily. "What we want to do is get people aware of this site and the information on it." The ads, which ran on Wednesday, highlight two benchmarks recently added to the site: the percentage of patients who always received help when they requested it and the percentage of patients who were given antibiotics one hour prior to surgery. Each ad was tailored to its market, including only hospitals in the area. ("It wouldn't do any good to give information from a hospital from somewhere else," McLeod says.) The ads also included state averages for those two categories. The information ran under the headline, "Compare the Quality of Your Local Hospitals" and a call to visit the Hospital Compare Web site. The Hospital Compare site includes data on 26 "quality-of-care" measures. The two used, however, were intended to highlight the new information on the site, as well as resonate with consumers. McLeod says the department is aware that several factors influence hospital choice--from physician availability to insurance coverage--but the site is intended to demystify things when multiple choices are available to a consumer. "It gives someone an idea," McLeod says. "We wouldn't expect people to choose a hospital based on only two measures." HHS has no further marketing plans beyond the full- and half-page ads that ran Wednesday, McLeod says. "We'll see how it goes and decide what to do next," he says. "The print gives people something to look at and an idea of the Web site. Radio wouldn't do that; TV might, but it would be too expensive."
1 Olive Garden 2 Applebee's 3 TGI Friday's 4 Cracker Barrel 5 Red Lobster 6 Chili's 7 Ruby Tuesday's 8 Macaroni Grill 9 Red Robin 10 Carrabba's These are ranked according to a survey of adults and their willingness to recommend a restaurant in May. Source: BrandIndex is a syndicated market-research product from YouGovPolimetrix and can be found at brandindex.com.