A product-launch campaign for the Halls cough drops brand is the first out-of-home effort to employ near field communications (NFC), according to Kraft Foods. The campaign, from Halls’s shopper-media planning and buying agency, Horizon Media, is using both NFC technology from Thinaire and QR codes, on posters located at 33 Chicago bus shelters. The concept: The posters promote Halls’s new Warm-Ups product – which combines the brand’s mentholated cooling properties with a warming sensation – and encourage consumers to use their cell phones, via the NFC function or QR code on the posters, to connect with and like the brand’s Facebook page, then vote for one of the two Warm-Up flavors: Apple Cider or Mocha Mint. The newly launched campaign is designed to build awareness among on-the-go consumers about the product’s dual properties – and in particular the hot beverage-like warming sensation that consumers crave for soothing and warming their throats during cold-and-cough season, according to the research behind Warm-Ups – by engaging them in the Facebook voting, explains Halls brand manager Mindee Elam. The chosen bus terminals are all close to convenient points of purchase (including Walgreens stores), and at two of the terminals, commuters can actually self-dispense Warm-Up samples from machines. For Halls, allowing consumers who have NFC-enabled smartphones to use Thinaire’s “Tap and Snap” NFC platform to connect with and vote on the brand’s Facebook page is a cutting-edge, easier-entry engagement method that also brings with it expanded, real-time data-collection capabilities beyond those possible via QR codes. The Thinaire-generated data, accessible at any time via a dashboard, show user activities such as sharing Facebook votes with friends, and even purchases of the product, where consumers are using NFC to make mobile payments. At the same time, having the QR-code engagement capability ensures that consumers without NFC-enabled mobile phones can participate. For the uninitiated, NFC is a short-range wireless technology that allows for connections, data exchange and transactions that are both simpler and more diverse than those possible with QR codes. The NFC chips embedded in a growing number of smartphones can send encrypted data a short distance (usually a few centimeters). When the user simply waves the phone near or (at least in the case of Thinaire) taps any NFC-tagged poster, sticker, product tag or other medium, the phone’s chip reads the embedded information, enabling a connection to a Web site, video or in theory virtually any type of content/service. In other words, there’s no need to perform manual actions like snapping a picture, or downloading one of the device/platform-compatible barcode scanners needed to read QR codes. The ability to make effortless mobile payments via NFC – waving a phone at a tagged product or checkout scanner to pay instantaneously from your electronic wallet – is generally considered NFC’s “killer” app. And, as noted, for marketers, expanded, real-time data-collection capabilities are another major advantage. However, the speed of full realization of NFC’s potential for revolutionizing interaction, marketing and transactions depends on many factors, including the pace of release of NFC-enabled Android and iOS smartphones (iPhone 5 did not include NFC enablement). And while Google’s decision to phase out QR code support for Google Places, in favor of supporting NFC, made headlines early in 2011, marketing (and even tech) pundits point out that, at present, each of these platforms has its plusses and minuses. (Among many recommended reading pieces: Tim Supples of Ettend on Engage365.org, and Vest Advertising’s Susan Gosselin on InsiderLouisville.com.)
For online shopping, the holiday season is off to a solid start: comScore reports that U.S. spending has reached $9.7 billion in the first 20 days of the holiday season, according to Reuters. That represents a 14% leap from the same period last year. And increasingly, women seem to emerging as a more powerful spending force. A new study just out from Boston Consulting Group reports that 98% of American women it surveyed are using the Internet, 80% of them daily, and 60% have access to three or more Internet-ready devices. And shopping is a major part of why they use the Internet, with 24% looking for product information, and 21% comparing prices. Nor is it just young women: More than half of women, across all ages, say the sudden loss of Internet access would have a big negative impact on their lives, BCG reports. "American women told us that they rank money and time as their key concerns,” writes Michael J. Silverstein, a BCG senior partner and author of Women Want More. “They are online now saving in both columns. They search for information, get prices and inventory availability and then close the sale out. They do this on their time schedules and with a dramatic improvement in price information. It's occurring in categories that range from appliances to shoes." The study found that while men and women spend comparable amounts of time online, men are more likely to use price comparison sites, while women are more apt to refer to social media and seek personal recommendations. Whether it’s men or women clicking, the weekend ahead is key. New data from Deloitte finds that 51% of holiday shoppers will either be online or in stores this weekend, with 26% planning on shopping online on Thanksgiving Day, 50% intending to shop online on Black Friday, and 41% intent on CyberMonday shopping. And comScore reports that in 2010, U.S. shoppers spent almost $22 billion online between early November and December 10.
The near-iconic phrase “what happens in Vegas….” must be resonating with consumers because the Las Vegas tourism industry is showing signs of a steady recovery, with officials forecasting 39 million visitors in 2011, only the second time in history they will reach that mark. Through the third quarter of 2011, the Nevada city has experienced 19 consecutive months of growth in visitor volume and the average daily room rate. Occupancy at Las Vegas properties has increased more than 4 points to 85.2 percent, more than 20 points ahead of the national average. The growth is expected to continue in 2012, says Vince Alberta, vice president of public affairs for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. “The ‘What Happens Here, Stays Here’ branding campaign will continue to be a core element of our marketing efforts,” Alberta tells Marketing Daily. “We plan to double our marketing efforts overseas and execute consumer research and ad campaigns in key markets.” Due to the strength of the tourism economy, the authority developed a three-year business plan that outlines aggressive strategies to further expand the Las Vegas tourism market. The plan promotes growth by targeting key market segments, specifically international and business travel. International travelers make up 18% of overall visitation in Las Vegas. The goal is to increase the market share to 30% over the next decade. The authority also has committed $5 million in enhancements to the Las Vegas Convention Center. “Historically, the tourism industry has been the first to emerge from a recession,” Alberta says. “We have two target audiences: A group of travelers we refer to as ‘core' that represents about 42 million travelers. They know Las Vegas very, they are doers and leaders. The other target audience is a group we call ‘persuades.’ They need to need to be reintroduced to Las Vegas and need a reason to come here.”
Toyota is partnering with American Express Publishing, and its Food & Wine lifestyle publication to promote its new Prius v car through integration with an epicurean customer content program called "Star Chefs' Kids Cook." The effort serves up tips and recipes from five chefs: Chefs Hugh Acheson, Barbara Lynch, Marc Murphy, Andrew Zimmern (who is also doing the Toyota Venza culinary and helping-hand road show "Appetite For Life"), and Michael Schwartz are featured in the multi-media program. The central motif is a kind of "you can too" theme, where the top chefs make cooking a family affair by including their own kids in the preparation process, and then offering tips on how viewers and readers can do likewise. The content will live as a digital rich-media site and a custom print section that includes things like instructions on how to do kid-friendly dishes, make meal preparation something both kids and adults can do, plus Q&A's with each chef, and the chefs' own memories about cooking with their kids. Dionne Colvin, Toyota's national media manager, said the tie-in made sense as the Prius v is positioned for versatility (which is, actually, what the "v" stands for.) “The Prius v was designed to meet the needs of young families with active lifestyles," she said in a company statement. The January issue of Food & Wine, which hits news stands mid-December, will carry the “Star Chefs’ Kids Cook” program announcement; the program also gets support in the magazine's e-newsletter “F&W Daily” and weekly e-newsletter “The Dish.” There will also be display ads on foodandwine.com and through a sponsored Facebook chat on the Food & Wine Facebook page. The effort, a joint program of Food & Wine, Toyota and Toyota’s AOR, Saatchi & Saatchi LA, follows the early November launch of the Prius v ad push by Saatchi. Nick Van Sicklen, digital ad director at Food & Wine, tells Marketing Daily that, while the publisher has an ongoing relationship with Toyota, this is a first spotlighting Prius. "We created the framework but worked with Saatchi & Saatchi to refine the overall program," he says. "It was kind of born around conversations [with the agency] about spending more time with family." He adds that Saatchi brought it to Toyota and they liked it as it aligned with the Prius v as a vehicle for more possibilities for active families, and epicurean lifestyles. The program also aligns with Toyota's focus on 360-degree integration, and thus brought something new to the table for AmEx Custom Publishing: a campaign that leads with digital. "That is new for us," says Van Sicklen. "We have print and social attached -- there are in-book advertorials and elements on social media driving the promotion." He says Toyota and Saatchi & Saatchi liked the idea of premium content, plus quality audience, and a custom solution. "The digital is the meat of the thing where all the content lives, though Saatchi wanted other extensions -- a 360 approach with touchpoints in social and print," he says. "So we are promoting this via Facebook and Twitter: Prius v will sponsor [the social program] 'The Kitchen Insiders,' where we bring in chefs, and fans can ask questions about cooking and recipes." Toyota is turning the Prius line into a bona fide sub-brand. There will also be a Prius c (for "compact") joining the Prius v and the original version of the car, as well as a Prius PHV (“Plug-in Hybrid Vehicle”). The Torrance, Calif. automaker also introduced a sporty limited-edition version of Prius, called the Prius Plus Performance Package, in July.
For those who don’t want to head out to the stores at 4 a.m., eBay has the solution, and it’s called “Couch Commerce.” Buoyed by reams of data (including some from its PayPal subsidiary), the online marketplace is expecting a shift in the way people will do their holiday shopping over the Thanksgiving weekend. As soon as the meal is done, consumers will head to their couches to shop with their smartphones and tablets as they digest their big meals. “We know it’s going to be a huge holiday for mobile,” company representative Amanda Coffee tells Marketing Daily. EBay is predicting it will see $5 billion in mobile commerce in 2011, while PayPal will see more than $3.5 billion in mobile volume. “‘Couch Commerce’ is all about not rushing to the mall.” To encourage the trend, eBay has revamped its mobile app with a new feature called “Watch with eBay.” In essence, the new feature, which appears as a tab on eBay’s app (which has been downloaded 58 million times) syncs with the shows people are watching on television to offer products that have the same appeal as the television programming they’re watching (Justin Bieber on Rachael Ray, for instance). To enable the app, consumers will have to enter their zip code, cable provider and channel they’re watching and confirm that the scheduled program is on. The app will then use show and event-specific keyword searches to provide relevant merchandise for the consumer watching the programming. (The company has created an amusing online video, “Feldman Discovers ‘Watch with eBay’,” explaining the whole process. “EBay is uniquely positioned for television commerce,” Coffee says. “We’re basically the only place where, if you see something on televisions, we’re going to have it.” To promote the new feature, eBay is setting up “Happy Holiday Hotspots” in New York City and San Francisco. The hot spots will feature trucks that deliver free food, free WiFi and free app downloads so consumers can experience eBay’s marketplace first-hand. “We’re trying to get people used to the idea that they don’t have to be in the mall to shop,” Coffee says of the two events.
Fashion brand Tommy Hilfiger is launching an international holiday TV campaign this week called "Holiday Par-tay." The effort, via N.Y.-based Laird+Partners, continues “The Hilfigers” extended-family theme launched this time last year by the division of PVH Corp. "The Hilfigers" are a diverse "family" of Americans living in a mansion, with trendy threads and a Millennial demographic, save for the fashionable patriarchs, perhaps meant as avatars for the real Tommy Hilfiger. Besides television, in-cinema and online, the effort includes a global print and outdoor campaign. The ad puts viewers at the fictive Hilfigers' home, dubbed "Casá Nobiliùs Maisõn-us" where one hears the sounds of a disco party. The door opens and the viewer is ushered in and surrounded by the Hilfiger family -- models all -- decked out in new Tommy Hilfiger tartan apparel, though in various states of undress. They dance about the house until the family basset hound, Morgan IV, pulls the plug on the music. Besides touting the family, the campaign showcases the brand's “Preppy Holidays” collection, which is available at retail worldwide and online at www.tommy.com/preppyholidays. "We are bringing consumers a seamless, unique take on the season,” said Avery Baker, CMO of Tommy Hilfiger. She tells Marketing Daily that the firm spent $175 million in advertising, marketing and communications across all channels in fiscal year 2011 and adds that the TV campaign will break in the U.S. during Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. The ad will also run on Taxi TV in New York City, starting this week, and the TV spot will be the first that Tommy Hilfiger will run on national television in Canada, per Baker. The company is also running the spot in Italy, Spain, France and German starting in early December, and will also air the spot in a number of South American markets. Baker says that the adds will be identical and in English, regardless of the market. "English is the language of the brand, and it adds to the American flavor,” she says. In the U.S. spots, Macy’s will be tagged. The company is also running the spot on its YouTube channel. The company's web strategy for the campaign involves putting the “Preppy Holidays” collection in local- market digital advertising, social media campaigns and on tommy.com and Facebook. National print and outdoor placements in key cities around the world will round out the integrated campaign, running throughout the holiday season.
Puma is introducing Pumagility, an extra-lightweight cross-training shoe for both men and women, just in time to jog through the holidays. The German shoe company says the launch is the largest investment it has made in the U.S. this year, and that the new sneaker offers maximum stability and flexibility, with funky foam shapes that compress on impact to widen the base of the shoe. Puma could use a lift, says Matt Powell, an analyst who follows the sneaker business for Princeton Retail Analysis. “Right now, Puma isn’t doing very well in the U.S.,” he tells Marketing Daily. “But it’s a very resilient brand that always has a place in the market.” The campaign, themed “Get A Move On,” includes TV, with a spot created by Droga5 scheduled to run on ESPN, Comedy Central, MTV and VH1, as well as live sports broadcasts, such as Monday Night football and prominent NCAA games, and late night on "Jimmy Kimmel Live." Print includes Men's Health, Women's Health, and ESPN The Magazine. And there will be public relations and social media efforts as well. Puma is also using a large experiential component, heading to malls to give consumers a chance to try on the futuristic new shoes, as well as play a video game based on the Pumagility concept. "Today, consumers want to know what a sneaker can do for them,” Tara McRae, VP/marketing for Puma North America, says in the company’s release. “We wanted to highlight those end-user benefits while fusing the best of the brand attributes, from our use of color, design, humor. This is a true product-focused campaign and it’s brought to life in every step of our marketing mix."
The Canadian Tourism Commission is launching a new user-generated content travel website and mobile app, “Explore Canada Like a Local.” Users can build an itinerary on the web ite and/or in the application and use it on their smartphone while traveling. The website and application consist entirely of user-generated content from both locals and visitors. Users can choose a suggested itinerary based on region, city, activity or type of traveler to start planning a trip. Using the mobile app, visitors can also check in, add comments, upload photos and publish their itineraries to share with others on Facebook and Twitter. Serving as a singular resource for travelers to plan, learn, navigate and share, the site pulls in open source APIs from Foursquare, Yelp and Gowalla. This means that visitors to the site and app are benefitting not only from insiders, but also fellow travelers who have shared recommendations and sample itineraries from their past trips. Users can see location check-in frequency and real-time reviews and also comment, plus upload their own images and videos. Travelers can also suggest adding a spot to the site, and even share their discoveries via their favorite social media platforms. First-time visitors will find the site easy to navigate after viewing a short how-to video.--Tanya Irwin
Got engagement? You’d better hope so. Customer engagement is an important indicator of marketing and value proposition performance. It takes on increased urgency in a recessionary environment that demands businesses get more value from existing customers (especially given the cost of acquiring new ones). Effectively influencing customer engagement takes understanding how they engage, and what drives their behaviors, like the business’ and its competitors’ actions, natural customer characteristics, and changing category dynamics. Typically, most businesses try to grow this understanding of customer engagement through more static, point-in-time approaches. They tend to classify present customers in segments based on here-and-now behaviors as revealed by database information captures. But it’s more telling to dig into customer behavior longitudinally, to understand the variations in engagement patterns that occur over time. Moreover, first impressions are critical: customer behaviors in the initial stages of their relationship with the brand are key predictors of their future engagement. That makes it valuable to study behaviors of specific, defined sets of customers – cohorts – rather than merely the current base. Consider this three-step process: Step 1: Diagnose customer engagement. Pick a representative cohort of your customers to follow over time (e.g., three years). Use a simple, easy-to-understand customer engagement metric, such as revenue or number of transactions. Determine the patterns of engagement that exist in your customer base, using advanced analytics. Step 2: Identify opportunities to improve engagement. With engagement patterns identified, you can grow your understanding of what makes customers tick by amassing information about those falling into specific patterns: attitudes and motivations; category behavior with your brand and competitors; experience across your channels; service experience; transactional behavior; and exposure and response to marketing efforts. This all can be gathered through various forms of primary research and by leveraging various internal databases. It’s also important to understand how category dynamics have evolved over time. Analytics can also help determine the relative importance of different elements in driving improved levels of customer engagement. This, combined with inspired ideation, can lead to a host of tactics to improve customer engagement. Step 3: Start realizing results and develop a test and learn agenda. Step 2 will typically reveal low hanging fruit that can be acted upon right away, but you’ll also come up with more complex ideas that will need to be tried out and evaluated. Develop an efficient test and learn plan that prioritizes the ideas and helps build a business case for the most effective ones Here’s how a digital photo services provider put the steps into play. Facing intense competition, changing category dynamics in photo sharing, high levels of customer churn, and a growing reliance on price promotions to maintain the top line, it was under intense pressure to do more with its marketing dollars and improve customer engagement. Customer engagement analytics identified eight different patterns that helped them better understand current customer engagement, and also dispelled some long-standing myths. For example, because significant revenues were produced during the holidays, it was assumed that a large portion of its customer base shopped only during the holidays. Yet, pattern analysis showed these shoppers represented only 7% of the total customer base. The company also needed to gauge the relative effectiveness of its various digital marketing campaigns to enable greater customer engagement while reducing the marketing spend. Although campaign effectiveness was tracked, the reports utilized by the marketers didn’t provide the analysis that would yield deep insights. Gaining them required a longitudinal view of campaigns and how they drove business results via multivariate modeling. For the first time, the company united marketing and customer service data to understand the impact on customer engagement. Not only did this quantify the likely business impact of customer service improvements, but also informed the marginal value of a dollar when invested in customer service versus marketing. Customer engagement insights have allowed a 35% reduction in marketing campaign investments, yet resulted in a 10% increase in annual revenue. Non-performing investments were cut, and strong performers were bolstered through better targeting and focus on the most engaged customers. All told, the changes significantly enhanced customer engagement and topline results – making this a highly effective marketing approach. By organizing around the customer lifecycle versus acquisition channels, the company embraced a more effective marketing approach. Smarter marketing is something all businesses want to see, especially when the economy is lackluster. Taking a closer look at customer engagement, and across the lifecycle of the brand relationship, will yield deeper, more actionable insights that help make customers more valuable – and those marketing dollars work harder.
Sales calls on a smartphone are unheard of. Texting is reserved for friends and family. Apps only reach select audiences. Social media is fine for listening -- but not for selling. But if you want to really want to have a relationship with mobile device users -- soon to be another name for the majority of Americans -- the channel that works best is email. Think about it. The one thing everyone does on their tablets and smartphones is check their email, as a recent Merkle study confirmed. Moreover, if you use mobile email to deliver value in the form of information and personalized offers, it has a longer shelf life. People will navigate away from a mobile Web site or forget an SMS message, but they’ll hang on to a useful email. Like any other media channel, there are good ways and bad ways to use mobile email. Clearly spam is never justified. But the mere fact that customers can send and receive mobile email while on the go gives you an unusual advantage. Encouraging prospects to opt in to your email distribution list while in a store, at a dealer showroom, at an amusement park, trade show or other public venue, for example, allows them to receive discounts and promotions in the moment, while instantly building your database with qualified sales leads. The easiest way to offer an email opt-in is for people to sign up via text message. Ask them to opt in immediately in order to take advantage of a reward they can redeem while they are still on site. Mobile email can also complement your mobile app. You can increase downloads of your app through email notifications, and build your mobile email list through the app itself. For messages delivered through mobile email, consider formatting them for the device experience, not for the desktop. Many successful mobile email campaigns are formatted specifically for mobile devices. If your business allows you to know when and where your customer is -- travel and hospitality brands are prime examples -- you have further opportunities to connect. Many times people will leave their laptops at home or in their hotel rooms when they travel, but rest assured -- they have their smartphone with them every moment. Linking your customer to local offers, in-house specials and other cross-promotions is an excellent way to generate add-on revenue and increase your brand’s value. Mobile email isn’t just an alternative to the desktop experience. Today, it’s a complement, and soon it will supplant it as the way people receive business and personal email. Morgan Stanley, Gartner Research and other firms are predicting that within the next four years, mobile devices will be the number one access point to the Internet worldwide. It’s also the way the average person experiences music, video, news and an increasing array of services tailored to location. The real-time availability of mobile email means that your messages can have an instant response. They can prompt behavior and build sales at the moment your audience is most interested. To be successful, however, you need to leverage the mindset and motivation of mobile users when asking for email participation, as well as in the messages you send. If you do, the revolution that is moving the digital marketplace is one that can move your business forward as well.