It's time to outfit the kiddies to go back to school and OfficeMax is partnering with Payless for a second year with a cross-promotion offering two of the essentials: school supplies and shoes. By visiting an OfficeMax or Payless retail location, shoppers will receive a coupon at checkout to use at the other respective retail store. Through Sept. 6, OfficeMax stores will print a coupon for $5 off a $25 purchase at Payless that will be valid until Sept. 27. Alternatively, through Sept. 11, Payless retail stores will print a coupon for $10 off a $30 purchase at OfficeMax, which will be valid until Sept. 18. Although she declined to quantify it, last year's coupon redemption was successful for both retailers, Joan Burke, VP of advertising and marketing for OfficeMax, tells Marketing Daily. "We believe a common relevancy between OfficeMax and Payless during the back-to-school season helped to make the campaign successful," Burke says. " School supplies and shoes are quintessential items that kids need for back-to-school, so offering a promotion that links us together proved to be valuable to parents because it was convenient and logical." The Naperville, Ill.-based office supplies company is launching a marketing campaign including a new back-to-school supplies website, localized promotions and strategic partnerships to support parents, teachers and students. National TV spots including "Good-bye" by Chicago ad agency The Escape Pod and "Astronaut" by OfficeMax's brand team highlight the emotion around the back-to-school season and new opportunities that lie ahead for each child. The spots feature a new promotion each week and are supported by OfficeMax's official BTS website. It offers tools including a zip code search for weekly local promotions and recommended school supply lists for each grade level. To assist shoppers in-store, OfficeMax features school-supply lists on free-standing displays. OfficeMax also created a special BTS tab on its Facebook fan page that includes a "Can you make the grade?" quiz, allowing viewers to test their grade school knowledge or give out kid-centric status stickers such as "TMI," "Cat Lady" or "The PA System" to friends. The back-to-school effort is extremely important for OfficeMax, Burke says. "We compare the back-to-school shopping season to a typical retailer's holiday season," Burke says. "It is one of our largest promotional seasons of the year. We become a destination for parents, students and teachers at back-to-school time." New this year, OfficeMax is focusing on enhancing the shopping experience with value continuing to drive the overall marketing direction, she says. Besides the Payless cross-promtion, OfficeMax is sponsoring the Jonas Brothers' 2010 "Live in Concert" Tour and has launched the "Winning the Dream" sweepstakes to give five fans the chance to see the Jonas Brothers live in San Francisco with three friends. The sweepstakes runs through Sept. 4.
Subway Restaurants is teaming with Sony Computer Entertainment in a marketing alliance to promote both new PlayStation games and a new line of piquant foot-long from the QSR chain. The program gives patrons of both Subway and PlayStation a chance at such prizes as pre-launch gaming products. The companies say the prizes, which will total more than $1 million, will be awarded at the rate of one prize per minute during the promotion period, now through Oct. 17. The "Fiery Footlong Frenzy Fueled by PlayStation" program will focus on Subway's New Turkey Jalapeno Melt and Buffalo Chicken sandwiches. Subway says that when consumers buy the sandwiches with a 32-ounce drink, they can enter to win PlayStation's Move motion controller, which goes on sale next month. Other prizes include games like the collector's edition of Grand Turismo 5; LittleBigPlanet; Uncharted 2: Among thieves Fortune Hunter; the Sony Bravia 3D TV and HDTV entertainment packs; PSP entertainment packs that include a movie, game and PSP 3000; and Sony Bloggie Cameras. Consumers play by redeeming codes from 32-ounce drinks or SunChips snacks and Subway breakfast sandwiches at online or mobile versions of SubwayFreshBuzz.com. The companies say they are promoting starting this week through co-branded in-store and online marketing assets, and a national promotional TV spot. There will also be point-of-purchase materials both at Subway and at PlayStation retailers. Social media components include so-called "frenzy alerts" about the game and prizes inside Tweets called "Fire Drills" at @SubwayFreshBuzz on Twitter. The Tweets offer an entrance into the game as well. A PlayStation spokesperson says the Subway relationship is a first-time thing for the company. There is a tag at the end of the Subway Fiery Footlong commercials that includes the PlayStation promotion. "We are doing outreach on our side, so you will hear about it through the PlayStation blog, for example," she says, adding that Subway catered PlayStation's Christmas in July product preview.
Volkswagen of America is touting its Routan minivan via a partnership with Discovery's TLC.com around family and travel. The Herndon, Va.-based automaker will be premier sponsor of family travel content on TLC.com, and will feature an original Webisode series titled "The Great Getaway," plus family-related travel information from destinations to tips for packing powered by Discovery-owned website HowStuffWorks.com. "The Great Getaway," which launched on Wednesday, follows the seven-member Woods family on a road trip through Sedona, Ariz. The series, done reality-show style, begins with a segment showing the family bouncing around their ranchy house trying to get their act together, find iPods and the like, before hitting the road. The automaker and TLC.com say the webisode series will run throughout the next three months, highlighting the family's travels and associated foibles as well as the antediluvian wonders of the Southwest, petrified trees, fossils, deserts and all. According to TLC, the Woods family was chosen through a casting call by TLC's talent resource center. The series was a joint project of TLC.com, Volkswagen and VW’s AOR for media, Deutsch. The Routan minivan gets a starring role in the series, with the vehicle's features, such as roomy seating, foldaway seats, and storage capacity, and getting special attention when, for instance, the family is loading up and rolling out with their "Fun not foolish, safe not sorry" Tony Robbins-esque motto floating on the breeze as the car rolls away to Sedona. Volkswagen will bookend the series with 30-second Routan TV spots before the segment, a drive to VW.com after, and a banner next to the video window. The Family Travel section on the TLC Family vertical will be VW-branded as well. The destination offers family-related tips and advice. Harold Morgenstern, SVP advertising sales at Discovery Communications, tells Marketing Daily that VW is advertising on all Discovery's digital properties, including contextual and behavioral targeting. VW launched the Routan in 2008 under the Das Auto banner with Brooke Shields as spokesperson. The campaign has continued with "Dub Punch" ads suggesting the minivan has a soul of a VW bug. Morgenstern says Discovery has a long-standing relationship with Volkswagen. “Volkswagen approached the marketplace to help launch the Routan. Similarly, TLC.com was introducing their TLC Family vertical, which provided a perfect promotional platform for the Routan,” he says. “We proposed and created the webisode series specifically to and for the Routan.”
In an economic climate that hasn't been kind to many gift categories, consumer food gifts grew by 9.6%, to $14.9 billion, between 2007 and 2009, according to a new "Food Gifting in the U.S." report from Packaged Facts. In comparison, total consumer gift purchases rose by 7.4%, to $112.9 billion, during the same two-year period. However, total 2009 sales of gift cards slipped 3.4%, and while per-person total gift expenditures rose between 2006 and 2008, spending declined in all gift categories but household supplies, small appliances, transportation and education. The food-gift trend was the reverse: Per-person spending declined between '06 and '08, but rose substantially last year and is expected to rise again in 2010. Packaged Facts projects that healthy growth across all food-gifting channels will drive sales to more than $21 billion by 2014. Meanwhile, corporate food gift-giving increased 3.8%, to $2.7 billion, between 2007 and 2009. Total corporate gift-giving, which is a mature market that grows slightly each year, rose just 1.3% (to $8.1 billion) during the period. Specialty foods -- meaning gift-packaged foods other than chocolate/candy -- are driving food gifting's growth (although gift chocolates sales have also increased, to a lesser degree), according to the report. "Specialty foods are the main component of food gifts and baskets because people want to give gifts that are unique, personal, indulgent, convenient and fun," as well as likely to be used by the recipient, points out Packaged Facts publisher Don Montuori. "And for many consumers, buying specialty foods during a recession is an affordable luxury that meets their criteria for an 'ideal' gift for others, or even themselves" -- explaining why food gifts have historically done well during tough economic times. Continuing consumer interest in organic, natural and gourmet foods, as well as more sales of "healthy" gift baskets, are also fueling specialty food gift purchases. Supporting the market opportunity for quality, healthy food gift items, Packaged Facts consumer research conducted in May/June of this year found that 53% of adults are interested in high-quality foods and 30% say they want healthy products -- both of which represent increases in interest compared with PF's 2007 survey. This suggests that there's a clear market for better and healthier food gift items, the report points out. Consumers also like the convenience of food gifting. For example, 74% of 2010 survey respondents said that they like being able to purchase specialty food gifts online. However, while online food gift retailers account for about a third of the market last year, brick-and-mortar retailers still had a nearly 50% share (and mass merchandisers have the lion's share among those traditional retailers). Purchases through direct marketers make up the rest of the market.
Scoring Martha Stewart is a big deal for Hallmark Channel. So big, that it has unleashed a cross-platformed, multimillion-dollar marketing effort -- the largest in the network's history. The push signals a new daytime direction for the family-oriented channel, anchored by the sixth season of "Martha Stewart Living," which begins Sept. 13. "The Martha Stewart Show," distributed by NBC Universal Domestic Television, announced the Hallmark alliance in January. A big reason for the partnership, according to Charles A. Koppelman, executive chairman of MSLO, was poor syndication performance. For the "Martha" syndie run, TV stations were increasingly moving the show to overnight or other time periods starting next year. A lack of consistent airings was adversely impacting ad sales. Koppleman said then the new relationship "greatly extends our media platform and reach." Susanne McAvoy, senior vice president of marketing for Hallmark Channel, calls the alliance "a game-changer." To ensure its new cable home reaches Stewart's core audience, she says the new marketing campaign "signifies the magnitude of our commitment to this launch." It's anchored by a new tagline: "Make The Move With Martha." In fact, it's all Martha, all the time, daytime wise. Hallmark's new block of lifestyle programming from Stewart's Omnimedia airs Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. In addition to the domestic diva, new shows include "Mad Hungry with Lucinda Scala Quinn" and "Whatever With Alexis and Jennifer." The cross-platform effort embraces national paid media, out-of-home placed-based ads, sponsorships, sweepstakes, Web sites, social media and a running stunt with all-female running organizations in 26 cities. Key retail partners, such as Macy's, Home Depot and PetSmart, will push in-store signage, online visibility and OOH efforts. MLSLO is also promoting multiple Facebook pages and communicating with Stewart's nearly 2 million Twitter followers. Digital kiosks and billboards will be placed in 105 malls in 19 markets. "Our goal is to have our message be wherever the consumer lives," says McAvoy.
Top 10 DMAs in which reside adults whose most recent automobile purchase/lease was with a trade-in: 1 Harrisburg/ Lancaster/ Lebanon/ York, Pa. 2 Pittsburgh 3 Boston (Manchester, N.H.) 4 Ft. Myers/ Naples, Fla. 5 Albany/ Schenectady/ Troy, N.Y. 6 Providence/ New Bedford, Mass. 7 Syracuse, N.Y. 8 Buffalo, N.Y. 9 Wilkes Barre-Scranton, Pa. 10 Hartford & New Haven, Conn. Source: GfK MRI's Market-by-Market study, www.gfkmri.com
The endangered gray wolves in Idaho got a new lease on life this month, when a federal judge ruled that they be offered the same protection as their "need a license to kill" counterparts in Wyoming. But there's another species on the endangered list that the kind-hearted judge might not be able to rescue: experts in the online advertising industry. We have our fair share of experts in the advertising space: Broadcast experts. Online branding experts. Search advertising experts. Email experts. Social marketing experts. Rich media experts. Digital video experts. And many others. Masters of their trades, domain-specific experts have held sway since the early days of advertising. Some have expounded on the intricacies of GRPs, others the nuances of email deliverability and still others on the finer considerations of pre-roll. They spoke. And we listened. But as the old bard once sang, the times they are a-changing. With every passing day, even as they speak more and more, we listen less and less. And here's why. Nowadays, we cannot hope to get our message through to consumers by focusing our efforts and spend on one channel. No longer are consumers spending six hours working with a single medium. They are now watching TV on TV, watching TV online, watching videos on their iPads, sharing clips via email and Facebook, recording shows on their DVRs and shooting mutants on their Xboxes. They do all of this and, often, they do it all at the same time. A Nielsen media usage study released recently shed light on our media consumption. Assuming that all of United States' Internet time was condensed into one hour, we spend 13 minutes and 36 seconds on social networks, 6 minutes and 6 seconds playing video games, and a further 5 minutes on email. In fact, there are more than 10 discrete activities we carry out in less than an hour. And that's just online. If one were to factor in the media consumption habits across all media forms, we would undoubtedly have to grapple with a far more complicated picture. With such highly fragmented consumer behavior, how can we have domain-specific experts setting our strategies? As the Nielsen study shows, it simply isn't sufficient to have mastery over one area. The new media strategist will have to acquire knowledge across multiple disciplines, so as to be able to have a unified strategy across a TV commercial, its online teaser, the mobile call to action, and the messaging elements that will spark the next big thing on Facebook. This multi-disciplinary approach is also good for creativity. In a recent article in The New York Times, Thomas Friedman quoted Marc Tucker, the president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, as saying: "One thing we know about creativity is that it typically occurs when people who have mastered two or more quite different fields use the framework in one to think afresh about the other." He gives the example of Leonardo da Vinci -- the great artist, scientist and inventor, who used knowledge in one field to form new concepts and executions in the others. In his article, Friedman serves a timely warning: "... if you spend your whole life in one silo, you will never have either the knowledge or mental agility to do the synthesis, connect the dots, which is usually where the next great breakthrough is found." So the Nielsen media usage report is not an opportunity for social marketers to tout their relevance, or for email marketers to thump their chests, or for search marketers to point out just how much time consumers are spending searching for new products. On the contrary, the report serves as a wake-up call. It tells us that marketers need to gain proficiency in multiple disciplines so that they can craft campaigns that are in keeping with highly fragmented consumer behavior. No longer can brand marketers be content to simply run display banners. Instead, they have to learn how to acquire new consumers and engage them through one-on-one conversations on Facebook and Twitter. No longer can social marketers bemoan the lack of accountable metrics. Instead, they must learn how to segment, track and optimize campaigns from the world of email -- which, after all, is the original engagement vehicle. Successful media strategists will have to master the ability to transplant ideas between fields effortlessly. These are the experts who will prosper. And the others? They'll go extinct.