The media business may be becoming more and more automated, with algorithms determining everything from media mix to creative, but Kim Kadlec, speaking at the OMMA Global conference on Tuesday morning, said that ultimately, some very human factors determine how successful a brand is or isn't -- even in digital realms. And a lot of that has to do with the lost art of decorum. The worldwide VP of marketing at Johnson & Johnson -- who is responsible for agency management, marketing communications, and media planning -- said "the art of courtship" has been sacrificed to the speed of communications. "It's overwhelming, but as marketers we have to shift from reach and frequency to reach and relationships if we want to engage consumers. Marketers and agencies need to connect in different ways. It's about bringing back 'pitching the woo.' We have to add charm." To that end, Kadlec articulated eight traditional rules that are also -- or maybe especially -- pertinent to social media: 1. Show up. "You have to have something to say, you have to be interesting, and charming. It's not enough to just paste together a Web page and hide behind it," said Kadlec. "You can't be a wallflower." To make her point, she asked the audience who they thought the top three Facebook brands were. Nobody guessed Facebook itself, YouTube and Coca-Cola. YouTube "shows up" by having someone "feeding it all the time: clips from movies, user-generated content. Home Depot, she said, is also strong and maintains a presence by making sales associates web-savvy curators. The company has some 6,000 posts and thousands of video clips from 30 countries. 2. Be a creature like no other. "You have to differentiate yourself, and it's not easy," said Kadlec. "You have to combine heart and creativity." Her example is Zipcar, which has an online community of "Zipsters" who share "random acts of Zipster kindness." Another is BMW's Alter/Egos short film series profiling celebrities and the passions with which they are not usually associated. 3. Be generous. "Generosity is more and more important." The Japanese retailer Uni Qlo, which is opening a store in New York, offers deals based on the volume of tweets. 4. Be a good listener. The example here is Virgin America, which gets 300 to 500 in-flight tweets from customers daily, "And they respond to them immediately," noted Kadlec, offering a case in which a passenger tweeted a complaint about a meal. "It was replaced in minutes." 5. Choose your words carefully. Think of new ways to target consumers based on terms, such as what Converse does with its "Domaination" program tied to the Scripps spelling bee. The company created its own digital spelling bee that circled back to Google and linked advertising to correctly spelled words. 6. Celebrate special moments. "In marketing, even the smallest celebration of a milestone can go a long way," said Kadlec, noting that Nike Plus allows runners to track their mileage accomplishments, share them on Facebook, and use virtual trainers. When you register on Subway's consumer page, you get a free meal on your birthday. 7. Be the first to apologize. Kadlec contrasted Netflix's poorly received apology for a service change from its CEO with a video apology on YouTube from Domino's Pizza's CEO after two employees from a North Carolina store posted a video in which they defiled the company's food, which got a million hits before it was taken down. 8. Don't worry if they like you, but make sure they love you. "Moving from like to love is a tough order, but it's possible," said Kadlec, finally using her own company to supply an example: Listerine's efforts in Brazil that involved a cause-marketing program around helping unemployed Brazilian youth get their resumes together and get work. "It comes down to old-fashioned rules of etiquette as we shift from reach and frequency to reach and relationship. As Mark Twain said, 'Etiquette requires us to appreciate the human race.'"
The National Retail Federation says 161 million people -- the highest in the 10-year history of its survey -- plan to get their ghoul on this Halloween, and are expected to spend $6.86 billion. The survey, conducted by NRF and BIGresearch, reports that seven in 10 Americans -- or 69.6% -- will celebrate, up from 63.8% in last year's survey. Spending is also expected to rise, with the average person ponying up $72.31 on decorations, costumes and candy -- up from $66.28 last year. Those in the Northeast are most likely to observe the day, and those in the South the least. It looks like consumers are really eager to have some fun, with 43.9% planning to dress up in costume (up from 40.1% in 2010), and 34.3% either throwing or attending a party (compared with 33.3% last year). Some 73.5% will hand out goodies to local goblins, 49.5% will decorate their homes, 47.8% will carve a pumpkin, and 32.9% will take children trick-or-treating. Americans are expected to spend $1 billion on children's costumes -- up from $840 million last year -- and $1.21 billion on adult costumes -- up from $990 million last year. And of course, the 15% who plan to dress up Fido and Fluffy will spend $310 million on pet costumes. Plans for ghastly décor include a big bump in life-size skeletons, extra large inflatable pumpkins and fake cobwebs, amounting to $19.79 of total spending. And they plan to spend $21.05 on candy. The survey also found that despite bigger plans than last year, consumers are still cautious, with 32.1% saying the U.S. economy is scaring them out of spending. Of those, 87.1% say they will try to spend less overall. And 40.2% say they will hand out less candy. Retailers are already catering to the value-conscious, with Walmart touting "Spook more. Spend less." items on its home page, Sears and Kmart offering up to 25% off its "Totally Ghoul" products, and Petsmart cutting 20% from pooch and kitty costumes.
Hot dogs, pretzels, knishes and pizza will have to make room for "real" food at Madison Square Garden (MSG) this year as the company renovates -- transforms, in official argot -- its main property. As part of the rollout of the new garden, the company is opening a series of bistros by top chefs and restaurateurs Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Andrew Carmellini, Drew Nieporent and Jeremy Marshall. Each chef is developing an exclusive bistro and menu under the MSG Signature Collection name, which will launch in November after the garden opens in its new form late next month. MSG will have completed only the first phase of a three-year construction project. The new eateries cleave -- at least thematically -- to the traditional idea of stadium food as one-hand friendly, with a focus on burgers, dogs and sandwiches, but they eschew the commoditized nature of such food by redefining for haute cuisine things like burgers and dogs. As part of the epicurean evolution, restaurateur Nieporent will open "Daily Burger," offering such variants as a cheese and bacon burger with onion jam; Carmellini and partner Luke Ostrom will open "Sausage Boss" whose menu includes a beer-steeped cheese bratwurst weinkraut and mustard; Vongerichten will open "Simply Chicken," which will have things like a chicken hot dog with kim chee and spicy mustard; Marshall, who oversees Aquagrill, will open "Lobster Shrimp Roll by Aquagrill" at a number of locations. There will also be Carnegie Deli and Hill Country Barbecue, as well as gluten-free and kosher foods, and "Carlos and Gabby's" desserts from Magnolia Bakery. Hank Ratner, president and CEO, said the organization will not advertise the new venues, but will get the word out via direct mail, new branding and signage at the venue and earned media. "We are finishing the first phase now," said Ratner of the reconstruction. "The whole lower bowl will be done by October with all new seats, an all-new concourse, more food stations and more bathrooms." At the event level, there will be 20 suites, a new Delta Sky Club, 8th- and 10th-floor viewing areas where people can get food yet still view the bowl. "We took feedback from fans and customers. MSG is commonly known for events, but now it will also be known for food that can only be gotten at MSG." For the new venue, JP Morgan Chase is the garden's first marquee partner. Delta Air Lines, Coca-Cola, and Anheuser-Busch are signature partners.
A new holiday spending forecast from Deloitte predicts a 2.5 to 3% gain this holiday season, with November through January retail sales expected to reach between $873 and $877 billion. Last year, sales grew 5.9%. "And while 3% is nothing to celebrate, if you just looked straight out at the facts, you might come up with a lower forecast," Alison Paul, vice chairman of Deloitte LLP and U.S. retail and distribution sector leader, tells Marketing Daily. "But if past is prelude, the consumer continues to surprise up by being fairly resilient, and retailers keep finding new ways to draw people into stores. People may not be buying second homes or speedboats, but they are giving themselves little rewards and self gifting. They're saying: 'The hell with it, life is too short. I am going to buy this new cut of blazer.' That's why we have a little more faith in consumer spending this holiday." She also expects tech items, especially smartphones and tablets, to drive sales. "They are becoming necessities, and people are saying 'I need that' and 'My kids need that.'" The forecast is also calling for a 14% jump in non-store spending, with 75% taking place online, and the rest in catalogs and interactive TV. "The online channel still has plenty of room to grow," she says. "There is still a percentage of people that don't buy online, or that buy online consistently, and they are coming from unexpected places." Higher gas prices feed that, she says: "People think, 'I am not going to drive around to three stores for something I can find easily online.' And it also helps that retailers have become more sophisticated with the online experience, enhancing sites and making them unique to their brands." She also predicts a big jump in mobile commerce this year. "Last year, it was still an experiment for stores. But more stores have put together mobile apps, or reformatted sites so that mobile content really pops. They're getting that you can't just put on ad from the Sunday circular on a phone and have it work."
Participating 7-Eleven locations will offer free medium-size cups of coffees on Thursday morning in honor of National Coffee Day. The promotion, dubbed CofFREE Day, runs Sept. 29 from 7 to 11 a.m. and includes a Dip-a-Drip interactive game on Facebook. The game, at www.facebook.com/7-Eleven, allows 7-Eleven fans to launch a ball that dips a "drip" (i.e., obnoxious person) into a giant 7-Eleven coffee cup at a live event to be held Sept. 28 at Union Station in Washington, D.C. To set up the game, visitors to 7-Eleven's Facebook page were invited to vote on who they deemed the most annoying stereotype, such as the Headset-Talker, Know-It-All, Snooty Barista, Over-Sharer and Horrible Boss. Participants can take a shot at dunking the target, both in real life outside Union Station and virtually. Fans can log onto Facebook at www.facebook.com/7Eleven to RSVP and queue up for their turn. All participants can watch the Dip-a-Drip in real time as the game will be streamed live on 7-Eleven's Facebook page. Each successful dunker will receive a $25 7-Eleven gift card. 7-Eleven is promoting the giveaway via social media as well as in-store signage, radio advertising, store events and publicity. This is the first time 7-Eleven has participated in National Coffee Day on a large scale. Individual stores have taken part, but this year the company engaged its franchised, corporate and licensed stores in the U.S. and Canada. 7-Eleven claims to be the first retailer to sell coffee in to-go cups, back in 1964. The promotion targets everyone who likes a "fresh, piping-hot cup of coffee," says Nancy Smith, 7-Eleven VP of marketing and guest experience. "It's an opportunity to feature our coffee as well as say 'thank you' to our customers," Smith tells Marketing Daily. "We'd like to build this program to become almost as big as our Slurpee giveaway on 7-Eleven Day (July 11)." Stores will offer one free cup per customer as long as coffee and medium-size cups are available between 7 and 11 a.m. The price of a medium coffee varies by market, but it's typically about $1.50. "Our hope is to double the number of cups we normally sell each day," a 7-Eleven spokesperson says. "And we typically sell a million cups of coffee a day." In a survey conducted earlier this month for Dallas-based 7-Eleven earlier this month by Opinion Research Corp. (ORC), more than half of respondents said that making a cup of coffee to match their taste preferences is the most important factor in preparation. The ORC survey also showed three of four respondents said they prefer to fix their own coffee rather than rely on a barista, food-service employee or machine. That same number said drinking coffee is a part of their daily routine and that they always have their coffee fixed the same way. The U.S. is the No. 1 coffee-consuming country in the world, followed by Germany and Japan, according to coffee-statistics.com. Assisting 7-Eleven in developing CofFREE Day and the Dip-a-Drip interactive game is FreshWorks, 7-Eleven Inc.'s advertising and marketing agency, which is a consortium of Omnicom companies.
Now that it looks like the release of a new Apple iPhone is imminent (the company has invited the press to its headquarters next week to "talk iPhone," according to published reports), it may be time for the makers of Android phones to look for an angle to compete. One possible solution: speed. According to analytics company Localytics, just over a third of Android-powered phones (37%) are capable of running on 4G networks (which in itself is a bit of a construct as there are several different formats that the companies are calling "4G"). What's more, the number of 4G-capable Android-powered smartphones has increased sharply, up 50% since the beginning of the year. "Looking at how much it's grown in the calendar year, it's a significant amount of growth," Daniel Ruby, director of online marketing for Localytics, tells Marketing Daily. "For people going out looking for a smartphone, they see 4G as a thing that is appealing to them." Moving into the fourth quarter, when many people may be looking to purchase smartphones in the holiday season, the makers of Android-powered phones (which include Samsung, Motorola and HTC) may look to push these phones' faster capabilities to compete with the expected late October release of the iPhone 5 (particularly if that release includes availability through Sprint, which would mean the phone is available from the nation's three largest carriers for the first time). "Connectivity is going to be the key," Ruby says, adding that the makers will have to "pound the table" to stress that connectivity is keeping consumers from getting the most out of their phones. "That becomes a major part of Android manufacturers' efforts to compete, to say, 'Don't buy into the hype of Apple. We've got a faster network and phone.'" Much is not known about Apple's latest iPhone. But Ruby and other tech observers have expressed doubt the phone will be 4G capable at the outset. Such phones require bigger batteries (or have faster battery drainage) and larger antennas than the iPhone generally has or Apple is willing to work into their design, Ruby says. "If it were anybody but Apple, I'd say it's a bad decision," Ruby says. "But they have shown time and again that they're dictating where consumer demand is going."
When brands find they are losing sales, share, and profits, there are three well-used approaches that usually get served up right away. The first is to hearken back to better times, remind consumers of who you used to be, and go into the film vaults, and pull out classic advertising and edit it for current demands. The second is to reformulate the product. The third is to change the packaging. Wendy's has opted to do all three. In what is being positioned as an "homage," it's dipped into the Classic Slogans department of the Advertising Hall of Fame, and is bringing back a newly designed cheeseburger as an answer to the classic advertising tagline "Where's the beef?" Wendy's has had cheeseburgers since it opened in 1969. But in the face of falling sales and consumers' desires for more healthy and natural quick-serve foods, Wendy's has given its cheeseburgers an overhaul. It's calling them "Dave's Hot 'N Juicy Cheeseburger" in honor of Dave Thomas, the company's founder, with the burger being introduced by Dave's daughter, Wendy, of the firm's nomenclature. Basically, Wendy's is going natural -- much like Burger King did recently and McDonald's had done quite a while ago. In a category that used to be driven by Price-Value, consumers -- considering their Ideal Quick-Serve Restaurant -- are now looking for "Healthy Choice and Quality." Before "Variety" and even before "Service." But to provide that so it impacts your bottom line, you have to have a believable offering and not just a reconfigured meat patty. All the research in the world doesn't add up to a pile of fries unless consumers are of a mind to think the brand can actually deliver what it promises. According to the current Customer Loyalty Engagement Index, when it comes to "Healthy Choice and Quality," among the brands we track that might offer up a cheeseburger, here's how brands rank on that particular culinary dimension:
1. McDonald's 2. Burger King 3. Hardee's 4. Wendy's 5. Jack in the Box/Carl's Jr.These consumer loyalty ratings correspond very strongly with behavior and sales and market share. These days, when it comes to burgers, McDonald's has 49% of the market, Burger King serves up 17%, and Wendy's trails at 12%. Wendy's dipped a fry into a natural ingredients program last year when it kicked off a campaign heralding a new recipe for French fries. That, too, was positioned as the "biggest overhaul" of its fries in 41 years -- also in 1969, when the company was founded. Consumer loyalty drivers apparently take time to make themselves felt within the Wendy's organization. At that time, unfortunately, it didn't have a classic slogan to wrap the campaign in, so it used sea salt. Anyway, according to Wendy's, there's a new buttered and toasted bun and thicker, never-frozen beef patties. They're still square, but not as precisely cut as previously, so they are supposed to appear more natural. They have shifted to red onion, something called "hand leafed" iceberg lettuce, and thicker tomato slices. And they reengineered, crinkle-cut pickles, added two slices of American cheese, and promise "precise" amounts of ketchup and mayonnaise. Oh -- and a new half-box that was developed to protect the burger. So you want to beef up your brand? The best thing you can order from the Loyalty menu is a real understanding of what the category Ideal looks like -- how consumers view the category, how they will compare offerings, what they will believe, and ultimately, what they will buy. Prepared correctly it comes with three sides: an understanding of consumer expectations, increased brand engagement, and consumers' willingness to really believe. That's a deal no marketer should pass up!
When Continental and United Airlines merged last year, the need to present the new company with a consolidated image was obvious. Continental's globe logo survived, while United Airlines kept the name, albeit with Continental's old font lettering. The United 'U' was scrapped altogether. Some graphic design-minded critics have argued that the merged company should have launched with a fresh face. However, history shows that with logos, tradition matters. Brands like Coca-Cola and Apple dominate partly because their images are so ubiquitous and unmistakable. Unfortunately, when it comes to updating your logo, it's rarely as cut and dried as a merger. If you've been considering an overhaul, perhaps you fit one of these scenarios. 1. Business Is Slow. Maybe you let a friend design your logo, and it's simply not eye-catching. If you have yet to build a loyal customer base and are looking to make a big push for you company, consider an image overhaul. Spend the capital to do it right, including a professional logo and accompanying marketing campaign, so that people actually see it. 2. Your Logo Looks Outdated. Design goes through trends, just like fashion, and if you've built a reputation with an existing logo in place, it would be foolish to scrap it. But tiny tweaks to keep it en vogue? Go right ahead. Look at the subtle changes BMW has made over the years as a great example of how to evolve while staying the same. 3. Your Logo is Too Flashy. Maybe you launched with a complicated, intricate drawing as your logo, and now you're faced with steep printing charges every time you want to put your seven-color logo on a new letterhead or business card. If your logo doesn't translate well to black-and-white, or at least to a two-color format, it's wise to simplify. Remember how Apple used to squeeze the whole rainbow into its fruity logo? Its shift to a simple silver has served it well. 4. Lawyers Come Knocking. If you realize that your branding may overlap with an existing company's copyrights, seize the opportunity to create a new logo with life of its own. Mozilla Firefox's Internet browser (perhaps you're using it now?) was called Phoenix in 2002, with a fiery red bird logo. The company ran into problems with the word Phoenix, first changing its name to Firebird before realizing the opportunity a complete rebrand it could offer. 5. Divine Inspiration Strikes. If you've been shuffling along with a logo that was simply "good enough" when you started, don't be afraid to listen to that lightning bolt of creative genius that strikes you. Of course, talk to your trusted business confidantes and a few loyal customers before making a major change, but there's a far cry between a "golden arches" piece of marketing gold and a simple picture of a burger. Give your gut some credence, but don't ignore the value of consistency. Still, if the perfect logo falls out of the sky in front of you, take it to the bank and cash it. Chris Wallace is vice president of marketing at Amsterdam Printing.