Consumer groups have filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, alleging that PepsiCo and its Frito-Lay business are engaging in deceptive and unfair practices in marketing to teens and children. The Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Action, Consumer Watchdog and the Praxis Project allege that Frito-Lay is engaging in “covert” advertising/marketing efforts through “immersive experiences” including social media and video games, collecting users’ personal information without adequate disclosure, and using information in ways that are inconsistent with its privacy representations. "Frito-Lay has infiltrated the lives of teens by developing covert advertising campaigns centered on things teens love — video games, music, horror, sports, contests, and social networking," charges the complaint. The complaint specifically alleges that Doritos is using “Snack Strong Productions” (an area to which Doritos.com visitors are directed upon entering) to make its promotional videos/games/online events seem to be emanating from an “online entertainment company.” A few of the specific examples cited as being used to engage in deceptive marketing practices include the “Crash the Super Bowl” UGC video contest, the “Unlock Xbox” UGC video game, horror-themed game site Hotel626, and online experiences such as a “global music event” on Doritoslatenight.com that featured Rhianna and other popular performers. The FTC told the New York Times that it will review the complaint carefully. PepsiCo has not yet issued a response to the complaint. The complaint is based on research conducted for a new report from the National Policy and Legal Analysis Network to Prevent Childhood Obesity. The report details food/beverage company digital marketing practices that it contends “pose particular threats to children and youth, especially when used to promote foods that are high in fat, sugars, and salt, which are known to contribute to child and adolescent obesity,” states the complaint. The methods criticized in the report – to which, say the researchers, teens are “uniquely susceptible” --include creating immersive environments (using state-of-the-art animation, high-def video and other multimedia applications); “infiltrating” social networks by using prizes, free products and other incentives to get teens to interact with brands and share their marketing messages/content, as well as tracking users’ online behavior without adequate notice; using location-based and mobile marketing/incentives for purposes including “triggering cravings” at “the exact point when a teen is near a fast-food restaurant”; using incentives/engagement tools to collect personal data used to hone/personalized marketing efforts; and using “neuromarketing” techniques based on scientists’ brain research to “trigger the unconscious.” While the report identifies numerous examples of use of such techniques by various food and beverage companies, the complaint contends that Doritos’s efforts are “particularly problematic,” as PepsiCo/Frito-Lay has “pioneered a strategy for marketing to teens that other companies are just now beginning to embrace.”
Nielsen has struck a partnership with Carrier IQ to measure the performance of mobile services, networks and devices. The alliance will leverage Carrier IQ’s software deployed on more than 150 million mobile devices worldwide. That allows the company to monitor performance directly on phones, providing carriers with data about the user experience. Carrier IQ’s technology will be paired with Nielsen’s expertise tracking mobile service quality from the U.S. consumer perspective through surveys, device metering, retail measurement and opt-in consumer panels to discern mobile trends worldwide. It already provides insight in many areas, including the number of U.S. mobile subscribers, market share among devices and mobile operating systems, customer satisfaction and mobile ad effectiveness. A Nielsen spokesperson said Carrier IQ’s extensive device-metering platform would complement its “drive test” efforts to evaluate quality of network service. The combination of Nielsen’s consumer panels and Carrier IQ’s metering will be used to provide service benchmarks for voice and data network performance. For voice service, this will include tracking things like dropped calls, ineffective attempts, signal strength and signal quality. On the data side, the metrics will include connection success rates, throughput and task failures. One fertile area for the companies’ joint tracking service could be the competing 4G services being launched by the major carriers. Because of the lack of a defined standard for 4G wireless broadband Internet, the carriers are marketing different technologies, delivering different connection speeds, all as “4G” service. Research by Nielsen and Carrier IQ could help sort out disparities among the 4G offerings. Investors already are betting big on Carrier IQ, which has raised $55 million in venture capital to date, including a $12 million fourth-round last year, according to VentureBeat.
Coca-Cola ranks as the world's No. 1 brand in a Covario study focusing on the Facebook health of 100 leading advertisers. Hyundai, MTV, Disney and Bayer round out the top most liked and Wal-Mart rates best for engagement. With the number of global Facebook users exceeding 750 million, its importance as an advertising medium is undeniable and growing fast, according to Covario, Inc., a provider of global search marketing services and technology solutions. Coke has a huge following on Facebook with more than 34 million fans, which is growing at a monthly rate of nearly 3%. The brand also has strong fan engagement, typically posting seven items a month on its page with each garnering more than 235 comments and nearly 1,750 "likes." The study, which included the top 100 spending advertisers, examined both reach and engagement. They do not necessarily go hand-in-hand, says the study’s co-author Craig Macdonald, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of San Diego-based Covario. "Several advertisers -- Bayer and SC Johnson -- have built followers, but their engagement statistics are relatively low,” Macdonald says. “This is a huge branding opportunity for the firms." AT&T, Wal-Mart, Dr. Pepper and Fox have excellent engagement, but lower than expected “reach” statistics, he adds. Wal-Mart ranks on top for overall engagement. The nation's largest retailer has huge engagement with its Facebook fans, receiving an average of 7,390 comments and 726 "likes" on every post, which far exceeds all of the other advertisers in the study. Apple is the only company among the nation's top 100 advertisers that does not have an official Facebook page. The top Apple listing is a user page with 188,000 followers. The study broke out Facebook leaders by vertical industry segments, including automotive, consumer packaged goods -- sundries (Johnson & Johnson), consumer packaged goods -- food and beverage (Coca-Cola), entertainment and media (MTV/Viacom), financial services/insurance (American Express), pharmaceuticals (Bayer), restaurants (Wendy's), retailers (Victoria's Secret), technology (Hewlett Packard) and telecommunications (DirecTV). Covario used a proprietary, weighted model to profile each brand's reach (number/ growth of followers), engagement (monthly posts, likes, comments and applications), technical aspects of its Facebook page (brand name usage, linkage to a brand's website) and reputation (particularly negative, user-generated Facebook sites about a brand). Having many outbound posts is not an optimization factor, according to the white paper from Covario. Less is more with Facebook and quality is what counts. Quality is measured by the number of "likes" and comments received per post. The best brands at engagement obtain upwards of 750 comments and 1,500 "likes" per post. There is no magic to the type of posts being run by successful brand advertisers. While promotions are rampant in advertiser posts, often posting generalized questions is more successful than hard promotions, according to the white paper.
Hyundai Motor America (HMA) brought a fleet of new Veloster cars to the New York metropolitan area on Tuesday to give reporters both a rundown on the vehicle and a chance to drive it from the waterfront of Hoboken, N.J., on up the Hudson River. If the drive took the cars through familiar, well-traveled territory, the car occupies a region of the market that is terra incognita in terms of market potential and even defining precisely what the vehicle is: it’s not quite a coupe, but not quite a sedan, not quite a sports car, but not your basic Accent. In short, it competes with cars that are not intended so much to garner huge volumes as added personality to a region of the market that is traditionally packed cheek by jowl with boxes on wheels. It’s a good time for Hyundai to experiment. Scott Margason, director of product planning at HMA, began a discussion about the vehicle by summing up Hyundai's remarkable ascendance over the past five years, although one could reasonably go back to the advent of the company's 10-year, 100,000-mile guarantee early in the millennium as the point of turnaround. And the strategy is still going as Hyundai this year extended its Assurance program (launched during the recession, and offering to buy back cars from people who lost their jobs) with a trade-in value guarantee, which does for consumer perception of residual value what the 10/100 warranty did for perception of quality back in 2001. "We wanted to focus on trade-in value because there's still the perception that Hyundai resale value isn't as good as others, and that's not the case," said Margason. Trade-in value or not, Hyundai's retail sales are up 31% this year and market share in the third quarter was 5.6%, achieved with the lowest incentive spending -- down 38% year-to-date through September versus 10% for the industry -- of any mass-market brand, he said. Margason added that March was, in fact, the first month in the Seoul, Korea-based company's history in which the U.S. market became its volume leader. "Consideration for Hyundai is at an all-time high," he said, citing GfK data showing the Fountain Valley, Calif.-based company enjoys 36% consideration, and is closing in on Nissan’s 42%. The other car Hyundai launched this year was the 2012 Accent, which in July -- its first month of sales -- topped volume for subcompacts at about 7,000 units, followed by Nissan Versa, Ford Fiesta, Honda Fit and Chevy Aveo, per the company. Margason said marketing for the new Veloster car aims to reach Gen Y consumers with a tripod strategy focused on sports, music and technology. TV spots, with an "Engineered for whatever" tagline and voiceover by actor Jeff Bridges, show the vehicle's flexibility, on-board technology, visual profile and appeal to different -- if disparate -- lifestyles. The ads are feature-centric, touting the vehicle’s third rear door (it's somewhere between a coupe and a sedan as it has only one door for back seaters), the fact that the car is an "octane sippy cup," that on-board technology is stacked with things like Blue Link telematics that also has things like "geo fence" where people (think parents) can be notified if the vehicle wanders beyond certain geographic parameters. Also spotlighted are the seven-inch multimedia touchscreen that integrates all entertainment and telematics with a visual matrix of icons. One ad has a couple of cops pulling up on motorcycles on either side of the car, but they say nothing because you can text and drive without getting a ticket, via voice recognition technology. Senior Product Manager Brandon Ramirez explained that the car's purpose is to be a kind of reverse halo. Typically a halo car is a desirable vehicle at the high end of an automaker's portfolio that lends some of its sparkle to other cars in the showroom. In this case the automaker is hoping to create a kind of halo car at the low end to entice younger buyers looking for an affordable car (Veloster starts at around 17 grand) that isn't an appliance with wheels, but one "Where people will find emotion and high image," he said. "And when you compare it with the other cars in our lineup, it’s highly differentiated." Those other cars are more the more traditional Accent subcompact and Elantra compact car. As far as the competitive goes, the company is positioning the car, which is being built in Ulsan, Korea, against other Dr. Dolittle-esque vehicles like Scion tC, Honda CR-Z, VW Beetle and Mini Cooper Countryman. The car's telematics/entertainment platform includes Gracenote album cover art and voice recognition through iPod and Pandora internet radio through iPhone, and it even has a couple of fuel-economy games: Blue Max which, over a 10-minute period, gauges how economically you drive, and Eco Coach, which tracks fuel economy at precise times. And it even has design elements intended to evoke motorcycle cues, such as a profile slightly reminiscent of a motorcycle helmet and a motorcycle-like RPM and velocity binnacle.
The Allstate Foundation is partnering with the YWCA for a campaign in conjunction with Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The main component of the program is its website, www.PurplePurse.com, which is disguised as an online shopping magazine. After scrolling down the page, the visitor will find a variety of information and resources about domestic violence embedded into the content. The site was created in this way because many women who need help are constrained to get it, according to an Allstate spokesperson. They live in households with controlling partners who closely monitor them, including their web surfing. To kick off the campaign, the Allstate Foundation and YWCA, along with top bloggers, are organizing TweetUps in nine cities across the country, including Birmingham, Ala., Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, El Paso, Texas, Los Angeles, New York City, Seattle and Tucson, Ariz. These events are designed to explain the story behind the Purple Purse, share information about the issue and encourage individuals to help spread the word about the campaign. TweetUp attendees will also have the opportunity to hear from a domestic violence survivor at each event. As an additional incentive to inspire more people to get involved, The Allstate Foundation will donate $100 for each TweetUp attendee, up to $10,000 at each event, totaling a $90,000 contribution to the YWCA. Individuals across the country are encouraged to participate in the campaign and show their support by carrying a purple purse or bag throughout October, posting their favorite purple purse pictures to PurplePurse.com and downloading the Purple Purse widget available on the website. Even though domestic violence affects one in four women in their lifetime, more than one-third of Americans have never discussed the issue with a friend or family member, according to a survey conducted by Allstate. Three out of five believe that it is a difficult issue to discuss. Each year, the Allstate Foundation contributes more than $3 million in grants and programming to support economic empowerment for survivors and to help end domestic violence. “What many people don’t realize is that abuse can be financial in nature such as withholding banking information or controlling a partner’s money or misusing her financial identity and ruining a person’s credit. This occurs just as frequently as physical abuse,” said Michele Mayes, Allstate executive vice president and general counsel, in a release. “We are rallying people behind the Purple Purse because it stands for economic empowerment and represents the center of a woman’s financial domain. It’s also meant to convey the message that it’s okay to talk about it.”
The secret to marital bliss? Maybe it’s dancing his ’n’ her fountains, naturally available for a cool million from the new Neiman Marcus’ 2011 Christmas catalog. In a twist meant to make the annual splurge-book a bit more civic-minded, the Dallas-based retailer says eight charities are linked to sales of catalog items this year, including water.org, which will get a $10,000 donation for every set of fountains sold. Designed by WET, the fountains will be the first-ever created for a private residence. And for $500,000, one lucky soul will get to choreograph The Fountains of Bellagio to a song of their choice, which will generate another $5,000 for water.org. Of course, fountains won’t appeal to everyone, and Neiman Marcus has plenty of other over-the-top ideas, including plenty of gift experiences. There’s an International Flower Show tour, which includes air travel on a Gulfstream G-IV through a Swiss Tulip Festival, a Greek flower show, the Altera Rosa Festival in France, and the famous Chelsea Flower Show in London, for $420,000, which generates a $5,000 contribution to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. There’s also a daytrip for six to the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, outside New York, including an edible garden lesson and lunch at its Blue Hill restaurant ($9,500, with a gift to the center.) Knowing that many of its customers would prefer to spruce up the house, instead of travel, it’s offering an Assouline Custom-built library, tailored to each individual’s tastes, with “custom carpeting, objets d’art, and beautifully framed prints—as well as your intellectual viewpoint.” Priced at $125,000, each purchase generates a $2,500 donation to First Book, which provides new books for children. There’s also a “Dream Folly,” a yurt inspired by no less a design guru than “I Dream of Jeannie.” The tent is packed with one-of-a-kind, down-filled pillows from designer Rebecca Vizard. The $75,000 yurt triggers a $5,000 donation the Breast Cancer Research Fund. Neiman Marcus, which has published its catalog since1926, says this year’s offerings “live up to the time-honored tradition of presenting our customers with the rare and unusual, while also incorporating connections to a group of wonderful charitable organizations that will see a tremendous benefit from the sale of their corresponding fantasy gifts.” Other choices include a $250,000 special-edition Hacker-Craft Speedboat, with 15 coats of hand-brushed varnish representing 1,400 hours of labor and gold-carat leafing; a $45,000 rubber table-tennis table by artist Tom Burr, “which doubles as a contemporary work of art … with low-key glamour;” and a $395,000 2012 Ferrari FF, which zooms from 0 to 60 in fewer than 3.7 seconds and reaches top speeds of more than 200 miles per hour. (The purchase includes a Winter Driving Experience in Aspen, Colo.)
Recyclebank, an organization that rewards people for taking green actions by giving them discounts from local and national businesses, has launched Recyclebank Ecosystem, which involves other companies and brands who reward people who do eco-friendly activity and commerce. Most of the consumer brands involved are rewarding consumers for essentially using their products. The organization says inaugural network partners include Barnes & Noble, Preserve, MillionTreesNYC, thredUP, Earth911, Rent the Runway and UncommonGoods. Preserve makes eco-friendly household products sold through stores like Whole Foods and Target. Preserve will be rewarding consumers for purchasing their products. "Recyclebank realizes that to make a measurable environmental impact, we need to motivate millions to act in ways that creates a more sustainable future," says Ali. C. Mirian, Recyclebank Ecosystem General Manager, in a statement. "We cannot do this alone, however, so the launch of the Recyclebank Ecosystem dramatically scales our reach by connecting Recyclebank with communities of other like-minded, eco-conscious brands…our goal is to create a network of relationships with consumers and brands that collectively generate greater impact than any individual or single organization could make on their own." The organization, whose CEO is former head of 24/7 Real Media, rewards consumers by measuring the amount of material each member home recycles then issuing Recyclebank points based on that. Reward points can also be earned through the Visa Gconomy Card, GreenNurture, Kashless, electronics recycling, and at eBay's Green Team program. Recyclebank also does “Learn and Earn” quizzes where Recyclebank users get points for correctly answering questions on environmental issues and promotional activity on social media. Hsu has said he looks to make the organization the first mass-market green brand. Featured partner brands also include Kashi, Ziploc, Aveeno, Unilever, Friskies, Dagoba and Coca-Cola. Recyclebank said it is working with publishers, e-tailers, retailers, utilities and environmental and governmental organizations as well as technology companies. The network, citing comScore, says that with its current brand base it is already more than 3.6 million consumers each month. Partners joining the coalition collaborate with Recyclebank to develop rewards for actions their customers and audiences can take that have a positive environmental impact. The organization says "green actions" could be sustainability-related educational content, eco-friendly purchasing decisions, eco-conscious transportation and signing up for paperless billing. The way it works is that after completing one of these or other green actions through a partner, people earn points that can be redeemed for discounts and deals from local and national grocery stores, restaurants and retailers. Some examples of how brands are using the program: Barnes & Noble is rewarding people for purchasing Nook eReaders; MillionTreesNYC, a citywide, public-private program, rewards people for adopting trees in New York City; thredUP, a site where parents trade kids' clothing and toys, rewards people for joining their community; UncommonGoods, an e-tailer of sustainable gifts, rewards people for buying eco-friendly products. Other partners exploiting their membership in the network this fall include Macy's, Rent the Runway, Kids Konserve and ChooseUp, which will reward their users for selecting paperless bill pay, renting previously worn clothing, packing waste-free lunches in eco-friendly bags and curbing energy use with energy-saving products, respectively.
Mining and understanding customer feedback creates a powerful lens into the customer experience. The problem, however, is that while many brands are listening to the online chatter, too few are deciphering what they have gathered in a meaningful way. In fact, a recent survey by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services found that while more than half of the surveyed companies are using social media, less than one-quarter (23%) are using any form of social media analytical tools and only 5% are using some form of customer sentiment analysis. Diving deep into online customer chatter is an unprecedented opportunity to identify and remove the obstacles to delivering superior customer experience. Social analytics is an increasingly used methodology to achieve these goals. Unfortunately, most available analytic programs gravitate toward tangible metrics such as “followers,” “likes,” or star ratings because they are measurable but severely lack the actionable analysis and value executives need to drive business decisions. Social business intelligence -- or the intersection of social media customer feedback, business intelligence, and industry-specific technology -- provides brands with clear industry-specific performance indicators and opportunities to grow their business. By capturing and aggregating a complete view of social media feedback and synthesizing it into customer insight, social business intelligence turns volumes of unstructured mentions online into a real-time performance indicator dashboard that provides clear opportunities to improve customer experience. A true social business intelligence platform delivers four key areas of actionable insight: Social Customer Satisfaction: Your customers are tweeting, posting, and blogging, about whether they will buy your product again, return to your store, or recommend you to their peers. As a result, it is critical for brands to not just resolve the existing issues, but to be proactive in averting future issues that may come down the pike. Advances in analytics -- including sentiment and credibility analyses -- give marketers the power to drill down into the most relevant customer feedback and identify ways to enhance the overall customer experience. Social Competitive Intelligence: In today’s socially connected, consumer-led world, there are few places that are more effective at helping companies gather a goldmine of information than social media. Social competitive intelligence enables brands to capture competitor performance, as defined by customers online, and analyze it so they have a clear and timely understanding of competitor strengths, weaknesses, and the latest initiatives. Social Marketing Intelligence: With the rise of social media, how do marketers better understand when, where, why, and how consumers choose to engage with their brand? How do they know what social media channels are most effective? Analyzing online feedback gives executives insight into the most relevant customer impressions of their brand and identification of and access to the most pertinent online influencers. Brands also gain critical demographic data on customers online, engagement opportunities, and true voice-of-the-consumer insight. This level of intelligence gives marketers the ability to measure the value of specific social media interaction, which is vital to developing online marketing strategies and informing ROI measurement. Social Advertising Intelligence: Every brand wants to capture new audiences, add revenue opportunities, and maximize the value of advertising inventory. Mining and analyzing volumes of real-time, highly influential online customer feedback gives advertising executives the intelligence they need to learn from and transform messaging campaigns. Armed with this direct social media feedback, retailers can easily measure the efficacy of campaigns during and after their run! A comprehensive social business intelligence picture is a must-have. By mining and analyzing customer feedback intelligently, organizations gain the depth and breadth of customer insight needed to leverage social media for a true, bottom-line competitive advantage.