For all the buzz generated by the recent Masters -- Phil Mickelson's amazing win, Tiger Woods' impressive comeback, and a big jump in TV ratings -- golf still has a bit of a problem. While a healthy 25.6 million people swung a club back in 2008, there was a sharp falloff last year, as people worked more, played less, and cut back on discretionary and luxury spending. In 2009, participation fell to 22.2 million, reports the National Sporting Goods Association. Specialty retailer Golfsmith, based in Austin, Tex., is looking to lure more golfers back to the greens with a first-ever money-back offer, introducing it with a new TV and radio campaign from GSDM Idea City: If the clubs you buy don't improve your game within 90 days, you get full in-store credit toward another set. Matt Corey, SVP/ marketing and business development, tells Marketing Daily about how the new campaign evolved. Q: "We promise these clubs will improve your game" is a pretty bold promise, considering how inconsistent so many golfers are. What inspired you?A: Any good retailer is hoping to beat prior-year numbers, and because we had some innovative promotions last year, we wanted to step out and do something really new, really different. So we kept saying, 'What's the benefit of buying new clubs?' Everyone wants to have fun and enjoy the game. But at the end of the day, they want to get better. So we decided to put together a guarantee that will inspire golfers. First, they get custom-fit for their clubs, which is cool. Second, they can relax, because they know that if they don't play better, the clubs are returnable. There isn't anyone making that promise on a national level. Q: And you think you can win back some of this discretionary spending?A: Yes. This offer is a way to get attention and add value without discounting, per se. Last year, we were working with the same idea, and gave away 45,000 free rounds of golf with purchase. That is not discounting -- it's giving away something golfers want anyway. So there is a great perceived value. And we partnered with local courses, so they got exposure, and it was a good benefit for them too. Q: How will this coax golfers into spending more?A: Because this season's kick-off custom-fitting event focuses on a driver or a set of irons, and those are much higher-ticket items than our average ring. So this incents customers toward a bigger, more considered purchase. Q: Will it be enough to bring back all the golfers?A: No. To be frank, we believe 2010 is going be a lot like 2009, and there is going to be continued consolidation. In the golf retail space, five years ago, there were 1,800 stores; now there are 1,250. The number of stores is shrinking. We grew our doors and market share in that period, but we're still very cautiously optimistic, and believe golf will grow a tiny bit this year. It's going to take time to get back to the 2007/2008 levels. Q: The golfers in these spots are young, and there's even a woman. What demos are you aiming for?A: The avid core golfer, generally, is still a male, between 40 and 60. But we absolutely want to attract more women and juniors, even though they are smaller audiences, and we'll do things around Father's Day to promote that. Also, we all know she influences him. I come from the Home Depot, and there are similarities. When you come in and build a birdhouse with mom and dad, it's not about the birdhouse. Q: What will help golf get through this bumpy patch?A: Golf has actually never been more affordable than it is right now. Prices have come down so much -- a driver that used to cost $600 is now $249, and it's the best technology that has ever been out. So golf has gotten less expensive. Q: Tiger Woods has generated so much publicity -- good and bad. Is that good for Golfsmith?A: Yes. Every time he plays, viewership on TV doubles. That's why the tour wants him back, and the players want him back. He's good for the game, despite his off-course issues. And avid golfers just love to watch him play -- he's an incredible athlete and does things other athletes just can't do. When golf is on TV, and when it's exciting, like it was [during the Masters], our stores are full of people."
Luxury carmaker Infiniti has launched a multiplatform partnership with American Express Publishing and Time Inc. that gives the Franklin, Tenn.-based automaker top billing in a Food & Wine magazine series, "Supercharge Your Senses," as well as a series of epicurean foodie happenings at top-shelf restaurants and hotels, featuring top chefs. Automaker deals with publishers that include event activation are not new, but this is a first with American Express and Time, Inc. for Infiniti, per Kathy Roznowski, senior media manager at Infiniti. "We have done in-book and online, but this gives us an opportunity to leverage great epicurean events." The partnership, with a "sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell" theme, launches in May print issues and this week on the Web. There are also mobile elements and events. Central to the program are food and culture recommendations around the country, cooking secrets from assorted chefs and wine-tasting lessons. Central to Infiniti's presence in print are three gatefold features in the May, August and December issues of Food & Wine and in select copies of other American Express Publishing and Time Inc. titles like Essence, InStyle, Golf, Real Simple and Travel and Leisure. Infiniti will be the sole advertiser within these editorial sections. The first part of the three in-magazine sections will be devoted to travel with featurettes on 25 food and culture experiences to "see, hear, and taste" in Oakland, Calif., Chicago, Washington, D.C., Dallas, Miami and New York. The August section will look at chef innovation and the last will focus on wine. A microsite at FoodandWine.com, also sponsored only by Infiniti, will include a weekly video series featuring F&W wine editor Ray Isle, among other things. An iPhone application, "F&W's Best of," locates coffee bars, dessert shops and cocktail bars in each region of the United States. Jim DeTrude, senior manager of Infiniti marketing, says that the launch event last week -- "F&W Best New Chefs" at Four Seasons New York -- gave Infiniti a chance to show off its new QX crossover, first unveiled at the New York Auto show earlier this spring, and the M sedan, which Infiniti somehow had installed inside the hotel. "Sensory Dinner Series" will be in key markets and will feature Infiniti model launches in restaurants in Los Angeles, Houston, and Miami in June, and Chicago and Atlanta in July. "We are still working on restaurants and dates for the five additional exclusive dinner experiences but they will showcase the all-new M for three of them, and the QX for the last two," says DeTrude. He says the events will each bring in around 100 invited guests. Roznowski says invitees are not culled from the lists of current Infiniti owners, but are subscribers to American Express publications that Infiniti deemed ideal potential conquests. "We are working with American Express to use some of their customers from magazines like Food & Wine, Travel and Leisure, or Golf." She adds that invitees will not -- and ideally should not -- be Infiniti owners. "It's less about loyalty, more about introduction of Infiniti to people who may know who we are but right now are not putting us on their lists." The partnership comes from a meeting several months ago at Nissan headquarters in Tennessee, says DeTrude. "We went to all print, digital partners primarily and we pulled them together and said, 'These are our objectives for the upcoming business year, these are products we are launching and the direction we are taking with "Inspired Performance" [Infiniti's theme line] and the creative direction.' We said, 'Come back to us with best ideas on how to incorporate your properties with our launch efforts.' We reached out to all partners." DeTrude says the ad elements tied to the "Supercharge your Senses" sections of the magazines extend Infiniti's overall brand campaigns that use Japanese shodo calligraphy as a metaphor for creative vehicle design. It's not just specific to a model but also to features, he says. For the sections, Infiniti is focusing on Active Noise Control, the "Forest Air" air conditioning system, an option in the new M sedan; and interior materials like interior-panel wood that has been impregnated with silver powder. "This work is meant to be contextually relevant to the audience: it says we are building a luxury car one sense at a time; so we took existing M work and tried to make it relevant, and very sense-oriented," DeTrude says.
In celebration of Earth Day, Burt's Bees is launching FindYourBurt.com, where guests can learn how to be more eco-conscious. The microsite FindYourBurt.com, which can be accessed via the company's main Web site, is a nod to the Morrisville, N.C.-based company's namesake and co-founder, Burt Shavitz, who is no newcomer to the green movement. Shavitz participated in the first Earth Day celebration four decades ago and went on to create Burt's Bees 25 years ago. Now he's encouraging everyone to "Find Their Burt" by discovering their earth-friendly potential. The company is promoting the microsite via social media, including its company Facebook page. The company is planning Earth Day events in New York City. On April 22 in NYC's Union Square, Burt lookalikes will hand out samples as well as free "Burt" beards and hats. At the microsite, guests are invited into Burt's world and asked to discover for themselves pieces of Burt's simple, nature-loving persona and practices through an augmented reality experience. An uploaded picture or webcam view of the site visitor is transformed or "Burtified" by adding the company founder's signature beard and cap. Guests will also learn about the ways Burt's Bees is "finding their Burt," such as limiting waste sent to landfills and reclaiming water that can be used again in the manufacturing process, saving an estimated 750,000 gallons of water per year. "A lifestyle of well-being and sustainability for all is the company's hope, but they too are on path to the greatest good," according to a release. "It's a path of learning and being inspired by those who came before, like Burt and those who are leading the way forward, 40 years after the first Earth Day. That's all of us."
PepsiCo International and Microsoft have teamed up to create an integrated digital advergaming campaign to take advantage of what's expected to be increasing interest in soccer as the World Cup gets underway. As part of the program, Microsoft Advertising's Creative Solutions team created an interactive game, in which users move from "Zero to Hero," manipulating avatars through five interactive games, unlocking reward videos to share via instant messaging, e-mail and social networks. The games will be integrated into content on a dedicated PepsiCo International-branded Football Hero Web site as well as games on several Microsoft properties, like Windows Live Messenger, Xbox.com, XboxLive, Hotmail and MSN sports and entertainment channels. The companies will promote the game through the Windows properties, as well as through on-pack and in-store retail promotions from PepsiCo. The effort is aimed specifically at the international soccer-loving audience and will run in 14 international markets, including Europe, the Middle East and South America. It was unknown whether the program would be promoted or even available in the United States. "As excitement ahead of the 2010 summer of football grows, there will be a significant upsurge in demand for information and entertainment around the game," said Darren Huston, Microsoft's corporate vice president, global consumer and online, in a statement. "The 'Football Hero' campaign will help PepsiCo International tap into this summer's football buzz by positioning it as a brand that is well attuned to the needs of its target audience."
Chevrolet is running programs centered on MLB this year, including its "Official Vehicle of Major League Baseball" status. But the automaker is shifting the weight of its efforts toward local activation, both in grassroots activities and team-by-team programs, versus national advertising efforts hitched to the MLB wagon. For example, the automaker has this year grown the roster of MLB teams it is sponsoring, and is doing a national grassroots program with MLB and Scotts Company (Official Turf of MLB). The "Building Diamonds and Dreams" promotion will refurbish five youth baseball fields in the United States. Team fans can go to ChevyBaseball.com and enter their ZIP code for a chance to win the field makeover, and either a new Chevy Malibu, Traverse, Equinox or Silverado. Chevy is also sponsoring the 2010 MLB All-Star Game in Anaheim, Calif. on July 13, a program that puts Chevy vehicles on display as well as a fleet of Chevy vehicles in the "Red Carpet Show Presented by Chevy" and a free parade down the streets of Anaheim that gets national coverage on MLB networks. The General Motors brand is also sponsoring the Roberto Clemente Award. But the automaker's national promotions manager, Phil Caruso, says national-to-local is the buzz phrase for everything the automaker is doing this year on the diamond. "This year, we have really focused the effort around rallying at the local community level. Everything that we have, from national asset to local youth baseball, is really integrated for the first time in quite a few years," he says. "On a national scale, we connect more digitally and at some of the major events. But local is really critical because, if you look at the audience attendance for MLB for the last five years -- except for last year -- it's been record growth with over 70 million per year." Caruso adds that the automaker has expanded the number on its team roster this year to 19. "Teams are all about selling tickets and merchandise. And we are all about how can we touch these communities," he says. "We do dynamic drive events and quality product engagements. Each year from a national perspective, when you look at all the properties we have with baseball, we have increased our level of interaction with product and sales," he says. The "Diamonds and Dreams" program runs until July 16, with TV, digital, radio and local dealer ad support, plus turnkey activation at 1,200 dealerships. "And it's connected directly to some 2,000 youth baseball leagues, so it's very well integrated throughout," says Caruso. The local dealer spot features the Chevy Silverado, and shows a baseball diamond being built, with a call to action driving people to ChevyBaseball.com. Caruso says baseball is the biggest platform Chevy uses to promote core cars and crossovers. "The baseball fan indexes very high in midsize cars and crossover SUVs," he says. "You will see Silverado more from a divisional statement standpoint, so our focus will be primarily vehicles like Malibu, Equinox and Traverse." "From product availability and consumer demand we are the division of choice for baseball fans," he says. "That being said, there are some 170 million or so MLB fans, depending on who you talk to, so it's a very broad fan base; but we also know the core of them are very affluent import intenders -- they index very high against imports, so we have a challenge as well. But it's easier for Chevrolet to get in there and make that statement than any other [GM] division."
As the first quarter of the new decade draws to a close, signs of economic recovery are showing their faces in measured financial stability, slowly emerging confidence, and a global thirst for rampant and re-defining change. What the Obama Administration may lack in the way of tangible progress, the business landscape has made up for in the way of re-invented principles and mantras that are delivering next-generation success and bringing us a step closer to a newly defined world. A push for real and meaningful innovation permeates the business environment. Leading brands embrace innovation as a tangible driver of business performance as opposed to a meaningless moniker-and inculcate true innovation and entrepreneurialism into their cultures, employees and overall enterprises. Innovation in the Re-Invention Economy shows its evolved self in every aspect of organizational drive and is industry agnostic in its rapid manifestation. Disruptive innovations and trickle-up ideas populate the landscape -- as leading brands seek to accommodate economic pressures and consumer demand for new ideas -- by re-inventing existing concepts to make them even better. Think of the iPad that Apple CEO Steve Jobs openly claims "will walk on the shoulders of the Kindle" or the proliferation of net books which were originally created to offer computer connectivity to lower income consumers in the emerging world and Acer's sudden rise to dominance in the space. Think too of the new glory achieved by Hyundai for similar reasons -- taking a targeted low-market car to the masses. Industry across categories also undergoes massive transformation by embracing innovation to create a new generation of manufacturing, ushering in a modern day Industrial Revolution. The capabilities provided by the power of technology and the Web alter the old realities of what it takes to effectively produce goods and manage the supply chain. As such, a new crop of small upstarts in manufacturing emerge, forever changing the global business playing field as the do it yourself (DIY) craze catalyzed by the advent of the Internet migrates from the consumer world to the business-to business arena. As innovation online and off increasingly moves from moniker to mantra and is called upon to drive business performance, so too do both sustainability and creativity. As the newly re-invented world unfolds, change is being driven by organizations that are embracing sustainability as a performance driver and a cultural cornerstone -- as opposed to a nice-to-have moniker that impresses key constituencies but does little to actualize world change or improved business results. Creativity also continues to move from the ground floor to the executive suite as cross-collaborative, out-of-the-box innovation defines success in the new world order. Unlikely partners and pairings that advocate change and activate new business offerings are no longer unusual but are rather everyday occurrences driving success. Whether it is Royal Caribbean partnering with Cisco to ensure that a wireless world accompanies at-sea adventure or Jimmy Choo infusing a higher-class appeal with a co-designed shoe for the college staple Uggs, cross collaborative partnerships and innovations breed creativity and catalyze much of the new world re-invention and pushes brands from sluggishly complacent to cunningly competitive. A shift from total quality management -- a given in today's market -- to total experience management -- the new "extra" in business -- also pervades. Businesses from commercial banks to fashion boutiques innovate from the inside-out to construct a seamless brand experience that goes from the beginning of the supply chain and initiation point of re-invention to the end point of either eliciting indecision or commanding connection. Whether it is demonstrating sustainability from ingredient sourcing to at-home users or providing innovative delights that engage the consumer at every point of brand interaction, brands fight to not only make quality products that people want (a given) but persevere to win consumer loyalty by providing unmatched brand engagement, interaction and experience (the new "extra"). From Citi re-architecting its ATM interaction to include a multitude of features designed to delight the consumer to Giorgio Armani creating an elite eatery for its customers and potential patrons to enjoy that exudes the brand's elegance and European style, the world's re-invention becomes largely hinged on re-defining the traditional supply chain-and extending it beyond point of sale through to point of engagement. As successful brand performance continues to be predicated on the ability to move at the speed of culture, inculcation of brands directly into the worlds where their consumers live, work and play drives the measure of success in today's re-invented world -- making communication toward consumer connectivity a paramount driver of both business performance and long-term growth potential. As change brews, brands will adapt in many ways. Some will seek to truly innovate, to grow and thrive and ensure future success. But as history has proven, others will choose not to truly change in the ways that matter and will fail to drive much needed re-invention; they will instead grow in size and presumed stature by taking advantage of current market conditions and preying upon the weak, much like the banks did in the decade preceding the 2008 economic near-collapse. A new evil industry to watch is the tech sector. Think of the emerging one-stop-shop giants: Cisco, IBM and Google. Their looming threat, though, is not money; it is a more modern currency: technological connectivity. Brands must not only engage with their consumers and customers to innovate -- and drive financial performance -- they must collaborate and unite to prevent against the impending future disaster the unabated hubris of others will likely bring. A new era of "ethical crowdsourcing" is on the horizon as was witnessed when the government and private sector banned around the Toyota crisis, prompting an agile and responsible response by the company. The media community will too face the challenge of how to respond to this call to action -- again pitting the values of a newly energized traditional media community against the power of a rapidly splintering new media world. An environment where the media's role in protecting democracy and ensuring the preservation of society against the ills of greed, immorality and untruth is questioned and weighted against the ability to turn a profit. However, it may be in a new media model where we find our saving grace. Laid-off traditional media journalists are banning together to create a new version of the fourth estate, ushering in a new Chapter of potential media uber-advocates and a new legion of DIY manufactured news sites. Think of former BusinessWeek Executive Editor John Byrne's C-Change Media, a digital media company bringing together talented journalists "to take advantage of the sea change that is roiling the traditional media business." Traditional media brands continue to fight for life amidst these changes but finally begin to embrace the undeniable need for vibrant complementary online properties, particularly as the advent of the iPad holds the promise of a cultural shift in how society reads, works and plays and proffers an industry resurrection similar to that of the music business. As these changes ensue, the constitution of media continues to skew online -- particularly as online video thrives and promises to be as rampant as TV if not stronger within the next five years. Communication innovation -- moved from the end of the supply chain to the initiation process of reinvention -- increasingly plays out online. Online video thrives and promises to be as dominant, if not more, than television. The evidence is around us -- even at this year's former advertising holy grail, the Super Bowl, with its lackluster display of made-for-TV ads. Much change awaits in the weeks and months ahead. How astute brands recognize and respond to these changes will predicate much of how the future will unfold and whether the re-invention economy becomes synonymous with idle rhetoric or true restoration. Changes to look out for in the quarter ahead include: