BMW will back the United States Olympic team for the next six years, starting with next year's London summer Olympic games. Those games are still a year off, but the Woodcliff Lake, N.J.-based BMW U.S.A. crossed the Hudson on Wednesday for a Manhattan press briefing, where it revealed how it is applying "vision" technology developed for cars at its Silicon Valley tech center in Palo Alto, Calif. to Team U.S.A. training. The automaker also brought along a subset of its "BMW Performance Team" of 10 Olympic athletes and hopefuls it is sponsoring. On hand were Trudy Hardy, director of marketing for BMW of North America, and Gold medal winners Bryan Clay and Janet Evans and Olympic hopeful Matt Chrabot, three of the current roster of BMW-sponsored athletes. Broadly, the multi-year deal makes BMW Group, which includes BMW, Mini, and BMW Motorrad (BMW motorcycles) the "Official Mobility Partner" of the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC.) The automaker is also backing the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Teams through 2016; and the 2011 and 2015 U.S. Pan American and Parapan American Teams. Hardy tells Marketing Daily that the program also makes BMW sponsor of four USOC summer and winter national governing bodies (NGB's): track and field, swimming, speed skating and bob sledding/ skeleton. She says BMW's support of the Team U.S.A. might therefore be thought of as a three-tiered partnership. "We are partnering with USOC; we are supporting four NGBs, and we are supporting the [11] individual athletes," she says. The company this year is doing several activation events featuring the BMW-sponsored athletes Clay, Evans, and Chrabot in markets like Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. It will advertise the Olympics partnerships next year around a global pillar of innovation and technology. "We have committed to advertise during the Summer Games next year and we are going to be the only premium automotive advertisers during U.S. broadcast of the games, as well," says Hardy. She says the overall communications platform around the programs will be "Driving Performance." Sponsorship like BMW's is pretty much life support for U.S. Olympic athletes because, as Hardy pointed out, the U.S. is the only country that doesn't support its team. The automaker this summer launched a retail program, "BMW Drive for Team USA," in which, for every consumer who test-drives a vehicle through Aug. 13, BMW is giving a $10 donation to the Team U.S.A., up to $200,000. The company is also leaving one "BMW Performance Team" spot open, and, as part of "BMW Drive for Team USA," is encouraging people to vote among three finalists: indoor-rowing world cup record holder Ursula Grobler; Evelyn Stevens, who left a cushy Wall Street gig to be a competitive cyclist; and wrestler Henry Cejudo -- one of whom will round out the 11-member team. Hardy tells Marketing Daily that BMW is getting the word out about the "Drive For Team USA" campaign on www.BMWUSA.com and via events, with voting Aug. 31. Darren Liccardo, senior advanced technology engineer at the BMW Group Technology Office in Palo Alto, said the company is applying automotive "night vision" technology to athlete performance video analysis at the Olympic training center in Cula Vista just south of San Diego, where 20 athletes are training in sports like rowing, kayak, track and field. Evans, an Olympic swimmer and winner of multiple medals, tells Marketing Daily that BMW's support isn't just about the dollars. "I can't think of a sponsor who has done anything like this before," she says. "You think about sponsors as giving financial support, but [BMW is] actually helping us with what we do best, which is compete."
Mobile gaming revenues, which are expected to be just under $5 billion worldwide this year, are expected to more than triple to $16 billion by 2016, according to a new study from ABI Research. "[That estimate] is a bit on the conservative side," ABI senior analyst Aapo Markkanen tells Marketing Daily. "There's a large pool of potential users that will be using [mobile games] in the near future." This development is spurred by the explosive growth in touchscreen smartphones as a gaming platform, coupled with the innovation among developers to create games that are simple to understand and play. "Developers have finally figured out what makes a good mobile game," Markkanen says. "It's inclusive, accessible, and a player can have a meaningful gaming experience in short bursts." Much of the revenue growth, however, won't come from the sales of games themselves, but rather from in-game purchases, such as buying access to additional levels or accessories within the game. In 2011, these in-game purchases account for a third of the total revenue base, Markkanen says. By 2016, they'll account for half of the total. In-game advertising will also increase considerably as more marketers view casual mobile gaming as a mass media. "It's a serious mass medium for the future," he says. "The [advertising] market will double in the near future." Still, the rise of mobile gaming is not "inevitable," Markkanen warns. As consumers get more content (particularly video) through their mobile devices, there could be encroachment on the stranglehold mobile games have in quick, simple entertainment. "The games have got something of a head start," he says. "But once the other segment develops, it may provide some serious competition for mobile games."
Re/Max ranks highest in customer satisfaction among both buyers and sellers, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2011 Home Buyer/Seller Study, released July 27. Although it's still a buyers' market, home buyers indicate they are less satisfied with real estate company services compared with 2010, while home-seller satisfaction has improved during the same time period. The study, now in its fourth year, measures customer satisfaction of home buyers and sellers with the largest national real estate companies. Overall satisfaction is determined by examining three factors of the experience: agent/salesperson, office and variety of additional services. Four factors are examined for the home-selling experience: agent/salesperson, marketing, office and variety of additional services. Re/Max's high ranking is based primarily on strong performance in the "agent" and "office" factors in the study, says Jim Howland, senior director of the real estate and construction practice at Westlake Village, Calif.-based J.D. Power and Associates. "Specifically, agent behaviors such as responsiveness, returning phone calls in a timely manner, keeping clients informed throughout the process really drive the agent ratings," Howland tells Marketing Daily. "In terms of the offices, this is an area where in recent years, some brands have scaled back. Our study shows that the office is still an important factor, and can be a differentiator for the brand." Re/Max scores have been improving over time, and in this last study wave they managed to maintain consistent scoring from previous waves, while some other players dropped a bit, Howland adds. It is the only company to rank high on both the buyer and seller side. "I'm not convinced that the seller side and the buyer side always get equal attention in the marketplace," Howland says. "In terms of benefits like word-of-mouth, referral, customer willingness to use the same agent and broker for their next transaction, there is value to having a focus on both sides of the transaction." Overall satisfaction among home buyers averages 797 on a 1,000-point scale in 2011 -- a decrease of six points from 2010. The decrease is primarily due to lower satisfaction with the agent/salesperson, which is the most influential aspect of buyer satisfaction with the real estate company. Agent/salesperson satisfaction averages 814 in 2011, compared with 828 in 2010. In the home-buyer segment, Re/Max ranks highest with a score of 805. Following Re/Max in the rankings are Coldwell Banker (802) and Better Homes & Gardens (801). Coldwell Banker performs particularly well in the agent/salesperson factor, while Better Homes & Gardens performs well in the variety of additional services factor. Among home sellers, Re/Max ranks highest with a score of 791 and performs particularly well in the agent/salesperson and office factors. Next is Prudential (786) and Century 21 (785). Century 21 performs particularly well in the variety of additional services factor. The 2011 Home Buyer/Seller Study includes more than 4,200 evaluations from more than 3,680 respondents who bought or sold a home between March 2010 and April 2011. The study was fielded between March and May 2011.
Especially after last year's massive recall of salmonella-contaminated eggs, a shell egg that presents no risk of salmonella or food-borne illness, even when used raw, would seem to have built-in appeal. But when you've come up with a scientific improvement on a food staple like the egg, educating people -- as well as building brand awareness -- is very much a marketing priority. That's why Safest Choice Pasteurized Eggs, which are contamination-free inside and out, has partnered with award-winning chef Giuliano Hazan to spread the word about the product's combined safety and taste benefits. The product uses FDA-approved pasteurization -- a natural, warm-water bath process performed within the shell, with computerized controls -- patented in the '90s by James P. Cox, who developed it with R.W. Duffy Cox. The Safest Choice brand was actually launched in 2003, when Lansing, Ill.-based National Pasteurized Eggs, Inc. (NPE) acquired all rights to the process/technology. But until recently, NPE has focused primarily on marketing the product to the foodservice industry, including health-care facilities and restaurants, explains Tom Izzo, senior director of global marketing for NPE. The safety factor is particularly critical in foodservice, and in particular in serving people who have weakened immune systems or are highly susceptible to food-borne bacteria, such as seniors and children under 10, those with diabetes, and pregnant women. NPE began its first major push into marketing Safest Choice at retail within the last year. The brand has established a significant and still-expanding national footprint, with distribution in major supermarket chains (including Publix, HEB and ShopRite) that carry "value-added" egg products such as organic and cage-free, reports Izzo. (The brand recently introduced its own cage-free version.) Privately owned NPE doesn't reveal its revenues, but does report that it has pasteurized more than 1 billion eggs since 2003 -- and its site indicates that Safest Choice will soon be marketed in countries around the world, as well as in North America. While NPE's direct-to-consumer marketing plan includes those at greatest risk from food-borne illnesses, consumers' heightened awareness of the dangers of food poisoning clearly opens up the potential market to mothers and basically all people who are concerned about safety but don't want to compromise on taste, notes Izzo. Safest Choice eggs taste -- as well as look and cook -- like standard fresh-shell eggs, and have been awarded the American Culinary Federation Seal of Approval, he points out. Like other "value-added" egg varieties, Safest Choice is somewhat more expensive than traditional eggs (generally in the $3.49 retail price range), but sales of those varieties are growing at about four times the rate of standard eggs, reports Izzo. However, according to the Safest Choice site, "organic" eggs can't be assumed to have a lower risk of food poisoning than non-organic eggs -- and four out of five salmonella cases originate from raw or undercooked eggs. Moreover, a surprisingly large number of dishes (including classics like Caesar salad and eggs prepared "over easy") involve raw or lightly cooked eggs. Raw eggs have also become increasingly popular as a protein-booster in smoothies. Cooking videos are a primary element in NPE's recently formed partnership with Hazan -- author of four cookbooks, including The Classic Pasta Cookbook, and proprietor, with wife Lael, of a renowned cooking school near Verona, Italy. The first two videos feature Hazan using Safest Choice in preparing two recipes calling for raw or lightly cooked eggs -- tiramisù and spaghetti alla carbonara. The chef is also making live appearances on behalf of the brand, including some in-store cooking demonstrations, and more videos are likely to be developed, Izzo says. NPE, a heavy user of social media, is driving awareness of Hazan's spokesperson/educational efforts by featuring the videos in its Facebook page (which currently has about 2,700 fans), aggressive Twitter activities (including Twitter "parties" around topics related to using pasteurized shell eggs), and outreach to food bloggers as well as other PR initiatives, reports Izzo. Safest Choice is also selectively employing traditional media, including print advertising in geographic splits within AARP The Magazine.
It's one thing to effectively talk oneself into the "green" game, but that can backfire if the company doing the talking isn't doing the walking. Toyota is doing both well. In a first-ever "Best Global Green Brands" study by Interbrand, Toyota comes in first. Second place goes to 3M, with Siemens, Johnson & Johnson and Hewlett-Packard rounding out the top five. The study attempts to go beyond consumer perception of environmental corporate cognizance and action to distinguishing between actual performance and perception. The firm says the foundation of the ranking is the 2010 Best Global Brands report, since the brands involved has a global presence. Study findings suggest that green brands consistently are involved in green activities that consumers find relevant, and follow profitable green practices across their organization. "As corporate citizenship increasingly becomes the norm, green initiatives may be among the most visible and easiest to claim, and yet can be the most challenging to deliver performance against," said Jez Frampton, global chief executive officer at Interbrand, in a statement. "We believe the strongest green brands lie at the intersection of performance and perception: their ability to build stronger connections with consumers as a result of actionable and credible environmental practices." The study said Toyota was a leading example of making the environment a core management priority, while also engaging in a meaningful way with audiences around the world. In terms of market segments, automotive and electronics lead both because they implemented sustainable practices, and also because they communicated their efforts effectively to the public. Those that had gaps between performance and perception included L'Oréal, Nokia, and HSBC, all of which scored significantly higher in performance than perception. McDonald's, GE, and Coca-Cola, on the other hand, all scored significantly higher in perception than performance. The rankings are based both on consumer polls in the 10 largest markets (U.S., Japan, China, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Brazil, Spain, and India) and performance scores from Deloitte, which was hired to create an environmental "sustainability performance" methodology based on publicly available data.
When parents start their back-to-school shopping next month, look for little clouds of inflation fears hovering over the lunchboxes and looseleaf paper. A new study from Deloitte finds that while 86% of the adults in its recent survey plan to spend at least as much or more this year, they are ultra-aware of rising prices, both at the pump and at the grocery store. In fact, inflation was listed as the top concern, with 72% mentioning higher food prices, and 70% citing higher energy prices. Concerns about the job market came in a distant No. 2, named by 51%. Not surprisingly, that means they plan to be more militant about pricing in the weeks ahead, with 65% saying that good deals are the things they will look for most. (And 29% say they are finding that back-to-school items are more costly than they were last year at this time.) They've even mapped out their deal-seeking strategies, with 64% of smartphone owners planning to use their phones to check back-to-school prices, 55% saying they will buy only what their family needs, 35% planning to use social networks, 28% consolidating trips to save on gas, and 26% reusing last year's items. "Retailers need to be prepared for a consumer who is sensitive to prices, especially with the pinch households are feeling from higher gas and energy costs this summer," Alison Paul, vice chairman, Deloitte LLP and Deloitte's retail & distribution sector leader, says in the report. "Retailers should monitor customers' reactions closely to recognize where they are flexible, and where promotions are necessary, to drive traffic and generate purchases of higher-margin products in the store." The survey, which included 1,000 parents of school-age kids, found that among those earning $100,000 plus, confidence is much higher, with 82% of those respondents saying it was the same or better than last year, compared with 66% of those earning less than $100,000.
For an industry that preaches diversity, in the broadest sense of equality, the secret shame of the ad business lies in how it practices. The multicultural/mainstream debate spotlights a decades-long undercurrent of separatism, exclusionism and discrimination that rages to this day. It's time for the industry to become one advertising nation, indivisible. Multicultural shops toil in mainstream's shadow. The mainstream largely perpetuates the status quo. Mainstream agencies target the American race, while multicultural agencies handle what's left. The time for that inequity is past. It is time for a single industry aimed at the human race. Thirty-five years ago, a young couple fled the Soviet Union for America. The two of us worked in television. We launched a New York agency called Euramerica, when the term "multicultural" was barely a whisper. By the time Ogilvy acquired us, our efforts had reached 100 countries in 80 languages. "Multicultural" was just gaining currency when we formed, in the early '90s, a second agency, YAR Communications. We continued to do global work. The long-distance phone wars were heating up. AT&T needed an agency to corral America's ethnic communities. Mainstream shops were neither equipped or especially interested. With some 40 nationalities on our team, we won the business. We created thousands of executions aimed at 15 different ethnic markets simultaneously. How do you define such an agency? Global? Mainstream? Multicultural? The question underscores the heinous inequalities the multicultural ad business has faced for decades at the hands of the mainstream, agency and client alike. Our current agency, with all those years of domestic and global experience behind it, is considered a hybrid. Because we are neither wholly multicultural or mainstream, we have never been asked to join a search. We are not, as the consultants say, "a pure play." Thankfully, to some clients, talent is talent, no matter what the label, and we share a good number of mainstream and multicultural advertisers that are interested only in our work, not our color, culture or category. Agency "purity" sounds like a concept from an era we'd all like to forget. Yet many searches today -- in a kind of reverse discrimination -- insist only multicultural shops need apply, or that agencies be owned solely by a minority. So you wind up winning business on the basis of race, or on what you are not, a mainstream agency. Instead of being an equal-opportunity client, advertisers appear to believe less in the universal merit of creativity and more in a segregated view of who should handle the business. Let's kill the myth that prevents some of the brightest lights in the industry from working on -- and having an equal shot at -- business, regardless of what part of the marketplace it represents. The divide between multicultural and mainstream must disappear. For the good of the industry and its long-term growth, talent and results should be the single most common denominator for winning and holding business. May we, in a moment of self-indulgence, offer up our current agency as a model of peaceful coexistence amid the multicultural/mainstream wars? Perhaps it stems from the neutrality of our global experience, where everything outside the U.S. was mainstream and America was "the other." Perhaps it is our approach, where the minds of dozens of cultures are brought to bear on a single advertising challenge. To us, advertising is advertising. We have a global footprint and an American one. We see America as a single marketplace of many cultures. For some clients, we work entirely in English. For others, it may be Spanish or even Chinese. Six years of work for a telecommunications giant has demonstrated how "multicultural" campaigns can work equally well in the "mainstream" -- if given a chance. Our agency, which operates under a single roof, is as polyglot as the Web. Thus we find ourselves in demand, not only to create multilingual sites, but to globalize the brand presence of others. Every agency, it seems, claims to be the agency of the future. We're no exception. From a single creative hub, we can reach the world. Long before it ever became fashionable, we had a global cloud of hundreds of consumer-culture experts feeding us market intelligence from around the world. How do we, finally, define ourselves in the connected world? Neither multicultural or mainstream. Just an agency for its time.