PepsiCo this summer tapped 10 startup companies to be part of a new incubator program called PepsiCo10. Soon, those partnerships will start bearing fruit with pilot programs for PepsiCo's range of beverage and CPG brands. The program is designed as a new conduit for digital R&D within PepsiCo. The 10 firms in four "buckets" (place-based and retail experiential, mobile marketing, social and digital marketing, and digital games) run the gamut from mobile coupons to firms that are developing gaming platforms for consumers at retail locations, and social networking platforms that bring consumers together around common interests, such as music, TV and sports. Overseeing pilot programs are global venture firm Highland Capital Partners; social-media publication Mashable; OMD Ignition Factory; TracyLocke; and Weber Shandwick. As well as some bright lights at Pepsi. Marketing Daily spoke with Seth Kaufman, director of media strategy and investment for PepsiCo North America Beverages. Q: As part of this program you started with around 500 firms and got down to 10. That seems like a metaphor for the mind-boggling array of media platforms and tools out there for doing different new-media campaigns. How do you decide when to say "yes"?A: You have to acknowledge that you are not going to have it all figured out and understand the platforms. Once you realize that, you focus on what you can see. What are some emerging platforms? The other piece is flexibility and agility to react in real-time to change. Our approach is to partner in different ways as the landscape changes. Structurally, we have also changed to do that better. We have consumer engagement groups in beverage marketing, for instance, that stand outside of the brand team. Within the media budget we have a bucket of money carved out that was for innovation and technology. You have to see around the corner, so much of this -- doing it right and connecting with consumers -- knows what's next. Q: Why take the time and effort to cultivate untested companies in the first place?A: This is a very different approach, bringing young entrepreneurs and partnering with them to help them create a sustainable business model. It's about getting involved in innovation, not just putting our name on something. In general, our approach is finding ways of adding value to consumer experience rather than just develop advertising models. We are trying to add value. We are also trying to inspire new thinking and innovation. So I think it works not only to cultivate great platforms but also to find new ways to connect consumers. Q: How did you winnow down the number of competing firms?A: They were chosen on a few criteria. One was talent, and to be quite frank when we had a great two-day summit where twenty finalists were able to present to the whole organization, you could tell who the leading thinkers were. Second was the platform or technology that we felt fulfilled or solved a gap in the marketplace. Third was something we felt we could be commercialized quickly, "shovel ready," so to speak. If you think about it, we in the ad industry often have a tendency to talk a lot about what's changing and not do a lot about it. We didn't want to just talk about needing to partner with brand new startups. We wanted to choose ones where could get pilot programs fairly quickly. Ultimately they turn from pilot programs to part of everyday media programs. By then we can tell if they add value. The vast differences between the final ten illustrates how we are thinking about this. Miso (a social platform that allows users to "check-in" to their favorite television shows to earn points and unlock virtual badges, share what they are watching and see what friends are viewing, and engage with content throughout the course of a program) is basically a second-screen experience. If you think about consumer multitasking, arguably one of the biggest challenges facing advertisers, Miso takes the TV experience, puts it on a digital platform to make it social in a way that actually takes advantage of multitasking. There is a great opportunity there to become part of the equation when consumers engage in new content, and to add value to that multitasking experience. On the other hand, a company like Tongal (online platform that combines crowd-sourcing and games to harvest content from a worldwide community of creative types for campaign concepts, taglines, slogans, pitches, commercials, music videos, etc.) is not about solving a media problem, but recognizing the fact that as the consumer market fragments we have to reach smaller groups of consumers, we have to have more and more messages relevant to them. A company like AisleBuyer adds value to consumers when they are actively at retail. If I can find a way to engage them at the moment of truth, the power is enormous. Q: Is this going to go beyond ten firms ultimately? A: We are always obviously looking for new technology and emerging platforms. This is not a program that says 'We will only work with 10 firms.' It was a way to fast-track and put resources against that in a big way. We might do this every year or twice a year. PepsiCo10 is just a beginning. Q: What have you gotten out of the process so far?A: The two-day summit in and of itself was worth the effort. We brought in our whole marketing organization [from all consumer divisions], agency partners and experts in the field. We had those four buckets -- place-based, mobile, social and digital -- and for digital video, for instance, we brought in Blip TV to talk about how they had succeeded. So these competitive firms met leaders who had succeeded in the field. We just had great dialogue, learnings and questions. Personally, I walked out inspired to think about the landscape differently.
While consumers are bombarded with cause-related marketing pitches, it seems they still can't get enough. The new Cone Cause Evolution Study, part of its 17-year benchmark study, reports that 83% of Americans want to see more. (Moms and Millennials, ages 18-24 years, are the biggest fans.) But it seems letting consumers pick how the money will be spent--despite the popularity of the Pepsi Refresh Project -- doesn't work as well as most marketers think. We caught up with Alison DaSilva, EVP of the Boston-based marketing agency, to find out what's up in the pink-, green-, yellow- and red-ribbon jungle: Q: So what's up with mothers?A: They are so committed -- in any study, there is always a small group of naysayers, but not here. In the general study, 88% of people say it is acceptable for marketers to use causes -- it was 95% with moms. In food and beverage products, 94% of moms want to know about causes; in manufacturing, it's 91%. They are also more passionate about causes, including health and disease, education, and economic development. Q: And Millennials?A: In this group, 94% say cause marketing is acceptable, and 53% have bought a product benefiting a cause this year, versus 41% for the total study. A company's support of social or environmental issues is more likely to influence their decisions outside the store, too, including where to work (87% vs. 69% average) and where to invest (79% vs. 59% average). Q: But you found they want to do more than read about it on Facebook. So maybe the Pepsi Refresh Project isn't such a success?A: Pepsi Refresh ignited so much buzz and excitement. Pulling out of the Super Bowl last year caught everyone's attention -- it was a big, bold dramatic decision. It identified the need for consumers to be a part of the cause-related experience. But the majority of consumers want more. In our study, 61% say they would prefer to see a company make a long-term commitment to a focused issue, rather than voting themselves. Q: But don't consumers like to "like" things?A: Yes, but it is difficult to sustain over time, and marketers need to ask how to bring consumers in beyond the click of a button. And consumers want more -- eventually, consumers will want to know what the social impact of the campaign was. Pepsi is going to struggle with their microsponsorship, because people will ask: "Where is the social outcome?' Since Pepsi Refresh has raised so much in one-time grants and small efforts, that makes it hard to point to large-scale accomplishments. Q: So Pepsi stands for too many causes?A: Well, they are consumers' causes, not Pepsi's causes. Campaigns like this don't build long-lasting brand equity -- they don't define what the company stands for. Q: What kinds of campaigns do?A: It's different for different companies. Those that stand for causes that relate directly to their business can be leaders in a different way. Companies like Whole Foods Markets, Timberland, Starbucks, and the Body Shop -- the causes they align themselves with relate directly to what drives their business. And they've made it their job to make those issues relevant to their consumers. Q: Should companies strive for that?A: Not always. Educating the public about something like fair trade practices, for example, takes a big commitment. There has to be a strong institutional will to take that on -- it's not for every company.
Airstream Inc., the 80-year-old recreational vehicle company known for its iconic -- and patented -- silver-bullet designs has been stealthily turning up the flame on efforts to reach younger, creative affluents with partnerships, celebrity efforts and media programs. The company, whose products are about three times the cost of the average RV and whose sales represent about 1% of the total market, is nonetheless the most easily identified brand in the segment. This month, the Jackson Center, Ohio-based company is partnering with Bloomingdale's for its fall "Hot" campaign wherein an Airstream trailer will appear on the cover of the home catalogue, and across Bloomingdale's marketing platforms in stores nationwide. In the travel-themed campaign, Airstream vehicles will be in the Men's, Women's, and Home catalogues, and on store signage. Bloomingdale's is also hosting lifestyle events where Airstream dealers will show their best-selling travel trailers and touring coaches. Bloomingdale's is also conducting a consumer sweepstakes with a grand prize being a 2010 16' Sport -- Airstream's premium compact travel trailer. Airstream's VP of marketing, Sue Dooley, says there are three groups of buyers: retirees -- people with time and money to travel; outdoor enthusiasts, the largest buyer segment; and the newest buyer demographic, younger creative types who are attracted to the Airstream design elements. "It is the fastest-growing segment," she says. "We are attracting people who appreciate the design, and are typically using it for alternative, often stationary, purposes: guest house, home office or studio." Ironically, much of the press on Airstream has been not in RV magazines but design and fashion books. Antenna Magazine did a feature on Airstream this fall. This summer, Sunset, a West Coast lifestyle book, ran a spread on Airstream and put one of the trailers on its cover. Modernism also ran a piece. There is also a long queue of celebrities who own the silver live-in lozenges. "Someone's agent will call and occasionally we create a deal for them, but we don't undermine our dealers," says Dooley. The list is long: Johnny Depp reportedly has one as a pool house; Steve Carrell bought one he wanted on the set of "The Office" as an ... office. Dooley says Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock have them. "Guitar Aficionado" reported on Lenny Kravitz's Airstream slash recording studio on a private beach in the Caribbean. Sean Penn -- as is probably well known -- lived in one up in the hills above L.A. for a while. The company also has a trailer on loan to Academy-award winning screenwriter Diablo Cody, who wrote the "United States of Tara" series, and has been using it as a setting for a celebrity interview show called "Red Band Trailer." "As a marketing person, I know these people are influential; they are trend setters so we need to be top of mind with those folks," she says. But she concedes it is something of a delicate balance to promote Airstream as an alternative-lifestyle vehicle without alienating her core outdoors and travel buyers. She says Bloomingdale's actually approached Airstream. "They loved Airstream, and they wanted to put it on the cover of their catalogues. And we do a ton of PR; since our design is patented and nobody can replicate it, we have huge demand in the PR world among people who want to use the vehicles in magazines and fashion spreads. There's a ton of editorial coverage, and we have lots of requests in film and TV." And a roster of boutique hotels has grabbed the silver bullets for promotional activity and as outré hotel rooms, accessories for bars, rooftop lounges and the like. In Cape Town, South Africa, the Grand Daddy hotel has a "penthouse trailer park" on the roof, and sibling Old Mac Daddy's, a "luxury trailer park" uses them for guests. In the States, Ace Hotels is doing a tour in an Airstream to promote its properties. The tour, visiting Portland, Ore., San Francisco, Los Angeles and Palm Springs, Calif., ended in the last city with at an annual celebration of modernism around mid-century design, per Dooley. "There was a special installment of vintage Airstreams," she says. "People are attracted to them. We did an event with Sunset in Palo Alto this spring. People waited for 30 minutes outside in sweltering heat to sit inside an Airstream." Dooley says the company sparked a rediscovery of the brand among a wider, design-centric audience three or four years ago, when the company partnered with Design Within Reach. "Around that time, we also worked with [industrial designer] Christopher Deam, who helped us create the International series of Airstream trailers. It had almost a Soho loft interior with dark cabinetry and accent pieces, great fabrics, a very cool statement for us."
Before putting a call-to-action message in online advertising, marketers should carefully consider the objectives of a specific campaign, because new research from Dynamic Logic shows there's little difference in brand performance of ads that have a call to action and those that do not. "Calls to action tend to work as well as ads without calls to action," Lindsay Leon-Atkins, research director at Dynamic Logic, tells Marketing Daily. "But if a specific action is a campaign goal, there can be some [calls to action] that do work differently than others." While time-sensitive online ads (such as those announcing the end of a sale) work to create brand awareness, ads that encourage consumers to create their own versions of a product (the color of a car, for instance), have more impact in raising brand favorability and consideration. "'Create-your-own' ads have a really nice impact in terms of persuading people," Leon-Atkins says. "It really drives engagement with the brand." As with any marketing technique, consideration of which messaging format to use depends heavily on the campaign's objectives. Too often, Leon-Atkins says, marketers want to put too many divergent messages (such as call to action along with a 'create-your-own' element) in an online display ad, forgetting that consumers have extremely short attention spans while surfing the Internet. "Bottom line is -- it's about goals of the campaign for the specific ad itself. The best practices around creative remain the same: It's still about prominent, consistent branding with simple, concise and easy-to-understand messaging," Leon-Atkins says. "When you talk about digital display advertising, you really have a limited amount of time to communicate to a consumer, so whatever you can say simply and quickly is what they're going to take away. If you aren't that focused, you'll fail in the online space."
Farmers from the Organic Valley cooperative are going on a 16-day road trip of Northeast college campuses starting Oct. 6 to educate young consumers about the benefits of organic. The tour begins at Organic Valley's La Farge, Wis. headquarters and ends at the U.S. Capital in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 21. Stops include Bennington College, Williams College, Harvard University, Brown University, Yale University, Columbia University and Barnard College. In Washington, the company hopes to make a visit to First Lady Michelle Obama's organic garden at the White House. They will also meet with key decision makers on sustainable agriculture and related issues. The bus, fueled by sustainably produced biofuels, will be driven by Generation Organic, a group of young farmers who have recently joined the 22-year-old organic farming cooperative. These Organic Valley farmer-owners, ages 18 to 35, are "a new generation of sustainable agriculture leaders who believe in the power of organic to change the world," according to the company. The tour also aims to share information about the viability of a career in organic farming, and educate and inspire people about the many benefits of organic through presentations, school garden visits and grilled cheese socials. The farmers will urge consumers to "own their food" as they aim to educate them about how personal food choices affect the health of our bodies and our planet, as well as driving their future. The tour is being promoted on the company's website at www.organicvalley.coop/GenerationOrganic and also via social media. The company will post tales from the road, photos and videos at www.organicvalley.coop, on Twitter @GenOrganic and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/GenerationOrganic. According to the USDA Census of Agriculture, farms have declined by 4.5 million farms since 1935. Most of the 2.1 million farms that remain are operated by farmers with an average age of 57. In contrast, the average age of Organic Valley farmers is 44. The organic industry is one of the fastest-growing, most dynamic sectors in U.S. agriculture, according to Ken Cook, president of the Washington, D.C., based non-profit Environmental Working Group.
Top 10 DMAs in which reside adults who spent more than $200 on groceries in the past week: 1 Honolulu, Hawaii 2 New Orleans 3 Mobile, Ala./ Pensacola (Ft. Walton Beach), Fla. 4 Sacramento/ Stockton/ Modesto, Calif. 5 Austin, Texas 6 Fresno/ Visalia, Calif. 7 Bakersfield, Calif. 8 Dallas/ Ft. Worth 9 Fort Myers/ Naples, Fla. 10 Orlando/ Daytona Beach/ Melbourne, Fla. Source: Scarborough Research, www.weknowthelocals.com
In celebration of its 100th anniversary, the ANA has created The Marketers' Constitution. Its goal is twofold: to acknowledge the marketing industry's many contributions to our society, and to help the marketing profession move beyond the inefficiencies, limitations, restrictions and unknowns of the past to a new, effective, transparent, economical and socially responsible model of marketing and media for the future. The Marketers' Constitution sets forth what the ANA believes are ten essential "musts" of marketing for the next 100 years. These will help ensure that the industry thrives and continues to contribute to the growth of the nation's businesses -- as well as to the economic and social well-being of our society. Read the entire Marketers' Constitution and show your support for its tenets by digitally signing it. - - - The sixth tenet of the Marketers' Constitution states that the marketing ecosystem -- including agencies, media and suppliers -- must become increasingly capable. The concept of the marketing ecosystem was first coined in a landmark cross-industry study, Media and Marketing Ecosystem 2010: Digital Darwinism. The study, conducted by Booz & Company, was completed in partnership with the ANA, the 4As and the IAB. One of its core findings was that a capable marketing ecosystem is more than just an essential. It is fundamental to marketer's ability to make targeted, confident and effective business and brand building decisions. The term "ecosystem" is an appropriate metaphor for what marketers increasingly need to compete effectively in the rapidly changing consumer and media landscape. Marketers' ecosystems are a dynamic, complex and interconnected community of advertising agencies, media organizations, research firms, production companies and other resources that support wide-ranging needs. Marketers must have their hand on the pulse of evolving consumer needs and patterns, evolving media, enhanced measurements, streamlined business systems and thought leadership. Marketers cannot do this alone; their ecosystem partners must continuously support them to create new ideas and core competencies -- like powerful branded entertainment vehicles, thought-leading intellectual capital, breakthrough licensing opportunities, original digital media properties, proprietary software applications, two-way consumer conversation facilitators and ingenious media packages. Agencies are marketers' most important partners. Yet this relationship has been under considerable strain due to a variety of factors including: