It's one thing to watch a YouTube video on a smartphone, or perhaps even a clip from a television sitcom. In a new advertising campaign, Sprint wants to show off the capabilities of its newest phone when it comes to showcasing movies and other mobile entertainment. In a new advertising campaign for the Samsung Epic 4G, Sprint has launched "Epic Mini Movies," a series of short films that take the stereotypical moments from several movie genres to highlight the phone's capabilities. The tongue-in-cheek satires, which are being shown on TV as well as on a Sprint microsite (www.sprint.com/epic) go over the top when spoofing the genres. "Movies capture the imagination of everyone. It's the upper echelon of video entertainment," Marc Davis, group manager of national advertising, tells Marketing Daily. "The way we've positioned this campaign, the name of the phone is Epic. The titles are Epic -- what more content could you provide than an epic movie itself." In an action movie spoof, for instance, a police sergeant orders the burly hero cop to turn in his badge and weapon. The cop first lays down his gun, and then begins pulling out more weapons, each more ridiculous than the last: nunchucks, assault rifles, and finally a bazooka. Another, Epic Sound Effects, mocks the over-the-top sound effects of martial arts movies as two black-suited men pour sugar into their coffee. Moments from each of the films (upcoming titles include Epic Chase, Epic Hero and Epic News) will appear in various formats including television, print, online and out-of-home advertising. When viewed on the Web site, the movies are depicted as if shown on the screen of the Epic phone. Television commercials show about 20 seconds of the movies, pull back to them being shown on the phone and then cut to an array of features, Davis says. "The intent here was to created ownable content that we could incorporate for all media tactics," Davis says. All of the different executions heavily promote the site where all the Epic movies will be featured online. "The intent is to drive everyone to the Web site." The videos are also intended to inspire user-generated content. One of the buttons on Sprint's Epic page reads: "Epic Contest," listed as "Coming Soon." "It's an idea out there that's meant to invite participation of consumers and users to extend the viral nature of the campaign," Davis says. "We haven't fully developed the content, so that's all I can say about it at this point." The Epic 4G phone is the first of Samsung's Galaxy S smartphones to have access to the Samsung Media Hub, a mobile video store that offers users a library of acclaimed film and television programming. The Samsung Media Hub will also be featured in Sprint's print and online advertising.
The economy has hurt sports marketing, but the good news is that 2010 was a rare year, with the Olympics and World Cup happening at the same time. And TV ratings for sports are strong, especially compared to other entertainment. At the IMG Sports Marketing Symposium in New York, boasting record audience numbers on Tuesday, MillerCoors CMO Andy England opened the conference with a discussion of the "three R's": retail activation, relationships and reach. "Sports deliver the right audience for our media message. Sports deliver audience and reach I care about. That's why we spent 60% of media against sports," he said. He said the company also is looking to find ways to activate more strongly in the summer, which is when people drink the most beer. And he said activating at retail is the key. "Job number one is more assets to activate during the summer," he said, explaining that MillerCoors' largest trade channel is convenience stores, then on-premise at bars, restaurants and the like. Next comes grocery stores. "My point is -- retail activation of sports is critical." Understanding the local nature of the beer market is especially important and not just for craft brews, said England. "Consider this: Coors Light is the largest beer in New York, where we outsell Miller Lite, 8 to 1. But in Chicago, Miller Lite outsells Coors. Prior to the merger of SABMiller and Molson Coors Brewing Co., Coors had a 2 share in Washington and a 29 share in Idaho. Share is local, and so is pricing. And that means local using local assets for marketing programs are more important." England also said the focus of the company's marketing is on twenty-something beer drinkers, mostly men. "In my business, it's about hitting core users. The key is men, and Latinos are increasingly important. Not only do Latinos index higher than average -- they are not wine drinkers, and their age is lower." England said 24% of Hispanics are 21- to-25-year-old males. "And that will reach 31% in five years." This year, MillerCoors has launched sponsorship programs around soccer, including becoming the official beer of the Mexican Football Federation (FMF) in the U.S. "This is a big deal for us and the biggest breakthrough program we have developed this year," he said. In 2011, the brewer is upping media spend against sponsorship of Mexican soccer on media like Telemundo, Azteca, and Univision. Its social-media strategy to build relationships with consumers includes a big commitment to fantasy football on channels like ESPN.com, according to England, who said that if fantasy football were a separate sport, it would be the fourth-largest in terms of reach. "And 75% of people who play are beer drinkers, and the game is popular with 17- to-34-year-olds." He said the company is expanding its efforts in fantasy football to support Miller Lite.
While marketers are, of course, employing monitoring tools to track fan response levels to brands' Facebook page postings, publicly available research providing insights about how content type and timing affect response -- particularly across product/service categories -- has been scarce. A new white paper from social media management company Vitrue, "The Anatomy of a Facebook Post," provides insights on the relative effectiveness of creative elements or communication techniques, both across a wide range of product/service category clients and deeper digs into the quick-service restaurant/QSR and consumer product goods/CPG categories. For the research, Vitrue -- which delivers messages, content and applications to more than 265,000 fans or followers through its Social Relationship Management platform -- employed a third party to analyze client brand Facebook posts made between May 1 and Aug. 11 of this year, spanning more than 100 randomly selected streams or pages and representing 42.6 million Facebook fans (15.5% of total Facebook fans served). Engagement/effectiveness was measured by the gross interaction (comments, likes and shares) divided by the number of fans for a particular stream. Looking at content publishing options -- meaning text, image or video -- across all fans across the brands analyzed, image posts generated 22% more engagement than video posts, and 54% more engagement than text posts. Video, however, generated 27% more engagement than text posts. Within the CPG category or vertical, images generated 204% more engagement than video and 86% more engagement than text. However, among CPGs, an exception was found to video as the second-most-engaging format. Text was found to rank higher than video within this group (text generated 63% more engagement than video). Among QSRs, images generated 136% more engagement than video and 182% more engagement than text. While the intuitive guess might be that video would be most compelling, Vitrue suggests that images' superior engagement performance is perhaps not that surprising. "An image like a coupon or photo provides the visual impact that bland text lacks, in terms of grabbing consumers' attention, without the time commitment required for loading, watching and perhaps sharing a video," notes Vitrue CEO Reggie Bradford. "While video consumption, including on mobile, will continue to grow, there are practical limitations -- particularly at work." Furthermore, when it comes to QSRs and CPGs, the images being posted are often coupons or promotional offers -- which have, of course, become stronger-than-ever engagement devices in the current economy, Bradford points out. Looking at effectiveness by day of the week of posting, overall, Friday posts were found to generate more engagement, followed by Tuesday/Wednesday. Sunday and Saturday showed the lowest engagement rates. However, significant variance was seen among verticals. For CPGs, Thursday posts generated the highest engagement, followed by Tuesday/Friday. Wednesday showed the worst performance. Among QSRs, Wednesday posts performed best, followed by Thursday/Friday. Sunday was the worst posting day. Vitrue notes that the QSR pattern likely reflects consumers' propensity to pick Wednesday to dine out, as a midweek break from home dinners, while Fridays are prime time for checking out restaurant offers and choices for the weekend. Looking at effectiveness as a function of time of day of posting, the analysis found that overall, posts made in the morning (between 12 a.m. and 12 p.m.) had a 65% higher engagement rate than afternoon posts. Among CPGs, posts made before noon pulled 21% more engagement than those made in the afternoon, and among QSRs, morning posts generated 12% more engagement than afternoon posts. This, suggests Vitrue, likely reflects people's habit of checking Facebook early in the morning, and then again before lunch. The overall takeaway is by no means that all brands -- or all QSRs or CPGs -- should now pounce on a specific content format or day of the week or time of day, stresses Bradford. In fact, he says, the variability shown in the comparative results for QSRs and CPGs, and the variability seen among brands within a category or vertical (not disclosable for confidentiality reasons), underline the importance of brand-specific Facebook research. "While this analysis points to some rules of thumb, and we'll be doing additional research and analysis going forward, each brand must understand its own consumers and how they respond to posts, including content type, day of week and time of day," sums up Bradford. "Given the rapidly growing investment in Facebook and other social media, they deserve the same type of research that enables marketers to determine the optimal content and timing for communications in TV, direct mail, email and other media."
Until now, Scion vehicles have only been available in the U.S. Starting next week, Canada will become part of the North American market for the Toyota division. Around 46 Toyota dealerships will begin selling 2011 editions of the brand's xB, xD and tC models in Montreal Toronto and Vancouver. The effort, via Los Angeles-based Attik -- which has had the Scion account since the brand launched -- includes print and online elements with the tag: "Introducing Scion. What Moves You." On Monday, Scion launched a 60-second 3D cinema ad for an eight-week run in Toronto movie theaters ahead of selected R-rated movies. The campaign also includes digital out-of-home boards, dealership elements, and many non-traditional elements aimed at the creative community, to include "chalk art" stenciling around urban centers and projections supporting Scion Sessions and other local events like Montreal's Piknik Electronik and Shine Night Club in Vancouver. Media is being handled by Dentsu Canada. Paul Harrison, Scion's marketing manager in Canada, says that of the nation's 48 dealerships, three -- one in each city -- is a stand-alone Scion dealer. He says that phase two of the Scion dealership rollout will begin next April, however, with retail points in smaller cities across the nation. Harrison says that, heretofore, there hadn't been a critical mass of younger consumers, both from immigration and from the children of immigrants to the country. "Also, we wanted to wait for this second product evolution. You only have one chance to launch a brand and, while we might have launched 12 months ago, we would have been launching with the late model tC. We have lots of favorable factors lined up for us now: the new tC, the iQ next year. That's two major new products to introduce the brand. He says that in Canada, as in the U.S., grassroots efforts will be key. "We have music events, wake-boarding and skateboarding events. We would be crazy not to follow a successful model in the U.S." Simon Needham, co-founder and creative director at Attik, tells Marketing Daily the effort uses creative from the U.S. campaign but tweaks it to reflect a different zeitgeist among younger Canadians. He says the agency found from market research that younger Canadians are more collaborative, more interested in their place within a community of creative peers, and less interested in going it alone, or in the allure of personal aggrandizement. "The target we are talking about is urban youth," he says. "But they are much more about looking after each other and being in a community rather than wanting to be rich and famous. In the U.S., we fight like hell to be the best and richest. In Canada, they don't have that same degree of pressure." Needham says producing cost- effective marketing for Canada was essential because the market is about one-tenth the size of the U.S. "What we wanted to have come across is that Scion is about taking on conformity and differentiation from the rest of the world. But the end of the ads and the print and outdoor ads are more raw, grungier because after doing research we recognized that there is a more artsy community among our target buyers in Canada. The look and feel of everything has more of a realness to it, less of an upscale feel." The last 10 seconds of the cinema ad that has text over a jagged background showing all three of the models is also running as 10-second loops on video billboards. In November, the 10-second spot will run on Canadian TV, per a spokesperson.
It's not Valentine's Day, but Ally Bank's customers are dewy-eyed in the financial institution's new campaign. Three new TV spots, the first of which launched Sept. 20, focus on why customers love the bank. They include a job applicant who lists the love of his bank as one of his interests. Creative for the other two spots includes a dog owner who teaches her pup to "say" the words "We love our bank" and a rock singer who interjects an ode to his bank in his song lyrics. The commercials end with: "Ally. Do you love your bank?" Since the bank rebranded from GMAC to Ally in May 2009, it has seen an increase in retail deposits each quarter, with more than $9 billion of deposits in the four quarters that ended in June. At the same time, customer satisfaction of more than 90% reflects the high service the bank has delivered, according to a survey conducted by the Detroit-based company. "We hear from happy customers every day in social media and through customer service chat and phone calls," says Sanjay Gupta, Ally's chief marketing officer, in a statement. "Our approach -- to be straightforward -- has clearly resonated." The new campaign -- which also includes radio, print and online -- will emphasize Ally Bank's customer-friendly services, products and features and will reflect the success of Ally Bank and focus on why customers love the bank. Previous ads, which began in May 2009, showed kids being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous man (who was supposed to represent other banks). "The previous campaign served as an introduction to the new brand and highlighted specific products, services and features of Ally Bank," according to a company spokesman. "This new campaign focuses on what we're doing right." Both campaigns were created by BBH New York.
The recession may have officially ended, but forecasters at Deloitte are predicting a holiday season that is more ho-hum than ho-ho for retailers. While it's still better than last year, Deloitte's retail group expects total holiday sales to climb just 2% to $852 billion this holiday period, excluding motor vehicles and gasoline. (The holiday period is defined as November through January.) Last year, sales edged up just 1% over 2008 figures. Deloitte attributed its subdued forecast to the continuing softness in both housing and employment, which is making consumers reluctant to spend. Adding that any good news -- like falling energy prices or a jump in the stock market -- might cheer them into spending more, "given the unsteady pace of economic recovery, retailers should expect only a small uptick in holiday sales this year," it says in its report. Experts believe that will translate into another heavy promotional season. "We're going to see holiday shopping begin earlier, and the consumer is going to be much more considered in terms of what they're buying and how much they're buying," Doug Stephens, president of Retail Prophet Consulting, tells Marketing Daily. "Their confidence is just not very high." He expects electronics sales -- especially smartphones and iPads -- to do well, "but in general, I don't think it's going to be a great year." Online is likely to be the major exception, as it was last year. Deloitte is predicting a 15% gain in e-commerce, and that it will continue to shape in-store shopping, with both social networks and mobile apps influencing how people buy their gifts. As a result, he expects to see heavy promotional efforts as stores try to woo every last customer. "And watch for massive national brand activity on GroupOn in the weeks leading up to the holidays," he adds.
Top 10 DMAs in which reside adults who have a dog in their household: 1 Tulsa, Okla. 2 Oklahoma City, Okla. 3 San Antonio, Texas 4 Knoxville, Tenn. 5 El Paso, Texas 6 Little Rock/ Pine Buff, Ark. 7 Lexington, Ky. 8 Colorado Springs/ Pueblo, Colo. 9 Albuquerque/ Santa Fe, N.M. 10 Spokane, Wash. Source: Scarborough Research, www.weknowthelocals.com
Four years ago, my preteen daughter sent me a text message. "Where R U" she asked. My initial thought was, "@ wrk". Before sending a response, however, I considered the real meaning of my daughter's question. She was not actually interested in my physical location. Instead, she really wanted to know when I would be home. She cared about timing, not location. I replied, "@ wrk, b home in 30." As I meet with people in large enterprises, I often ask the same question -- "Where R U?" Or more pointedly, when will your organization fully embrace interactive text messaging? When will text messaging be fully integrated into your proactive marketing, customer care, and collections processes? I have found that very few organizations in 2010 can answer this basic text-messaging question. The rise of mobile messaging No longer do American consumers lag the rest of the world in text-message adoption. Text messaging has become the preferred communications channel for millions of people, and not just teenagers. Ninety-one percent of all Americans currently carry mobile phones. Twenty-five percent of households do not have landline phones. We send over 3 billion text messages per day. While U.S. consumers are fully embracing text messaging, very few enterprises have followed suit. Some organizations have begun adoption, but others continue to overlook the mobile data phenomenon entirely. Here are four critical considerations that an enterprise should consider when implementing an interactive mobile messaging strategy: #1: Get started. Establish a presence in the text-messaging channel. It would be foolish for any company to operate without an Internet site. Similarly, the time has come when consumers expect basic text-messaging services from the companies they know and trust. Consumers expect proactive notifications and visibility into account information, order status, store locators, FAQs, and more. Far too many companies do not support text messaging at all. The key ingredient for most companies is simply to get started. #2: Demonstrate proficiency. Text messaging can be effective at all stages of the customer life cycle, such as marketing, customer care, and collections. By demonstrating to consumers that your organization has text-messaging proficiency early in the customer relationship, it is possible to fully leverage the channel throughout all the sub-processes of customer acquisition, support, and retention. It is important that customers understand that your organization speaks the language. #3: Keep it short. Text messaging is well-suited for sending and receiving information that is relevant, timely, actionable and brief. Consumers expect text messages to be highly relevant to their needs and interests. Unwanted or unnecessary text messages will damage customer relationships. Timely delivery of information increases the value of information and the likelihood that it will be acted upon appropriately. In fact, no other communication channel can elicit an immediate response like text messaging. By definition, text messages must be short and concise. If you cannot convey the message in 160 characters and you cannot send a message quickly then the message is probably not suited for text messaging. #4: Integrate all channels. Text messaging rarely stands on its own. There are situations where a text-messaging program may produce revenue or reduce costs independent of other communications channels, but those programs are rare. In most cases, text messaging is used to augment other communications. A great example of blended and integrated channels can be found on cellular 411 calls. When directory assistance finds the telephone number you requested, it provides the option of receiving the information as a text message. The text message allows you to record detailed information without writing it down. Multichannel blending is essential for any organization. Consumers are now asking your organization, "Where R U?" When will you respond to their text-message inquiries? Not long ago I reviewed the Web sites for all of the Fortune 100 companies in America. Under "Contact Us" on the Web site, not one company listed text messaging as a supported channel of communication. They provide mail address, 800 numbers, email addresses, and even TTY for the hearing impaired, but none listed text messaging. The time has come to fill this void. It is time to speak the new language of the consumers, to embrace interactive text messaging in marketing, customer care, collections and more. I welcome your questions and comments on interactive text-messaging strategies. Please contact me if you require additional information or would like to engage in a deeper dialog.