Brand Keys' 10th annual Super Bowl Engagement Survey finds that only half of Super Bowl XLIV’s advertisers will get real ROI from their Super Bowl purchase. Among the winners are Doritos, Hyundai and Cars.com. Those that the survey suggests will get nothing or worse are: Budweiser, Century 21 and Dannon. On Jan. 14 and 15, the firm polled a national sample of 1,500 men and women 18 to 65 years of age, who said they are going to watch Super Bowl XLVI. The poll's aim was to determine whether among those who intend to watch the Super Bowl, a brand's image benefits or is degraded by the mere fact that it plans to advertise during the game. The firm classifies advertisers as “winners” if they get at least a five-point lift in brand equity), and “losers” if they lose five or points of brand equity points). Unchanged means a tie. Doritos (+13), Hyundai (+12), Cars.com (+10), Audi (+9), Coke (+8), Pepsi (+7), GoDaddy.com (+6), M&Ms (+6), CareerBuilder (+5), Skechers (+5), and Toyota (+5) can feel okay about their spend. But Kia (-5), Teleflora (-6), Dannon (-6), Best Buy (-7), Century 21 (-8), and Budweiser (-9) might want to tap a keg and rethink -- or at least acknowledge -- that their creative will be swimming upriver against consumer sentiment, if the firm's data can be extrapolated. Unaffected are Chrysler, Volkswagen, GM, NBC’s “The Voice,” Bud Light Platinum and Honda. Robert Passikoff, Brand Keys’ president, tells Marketing Daily that a brand can't make awareness the goal. "Everyone's advertising is known by everyone. But what did you get besides time and exposure? Did you get engagement? Did you take the brand, put it in an environment and come with people thinking better of you? Does the brand exceed expectations people hold for the category because of the ad? What we absolutely know, and independently validated, is that the more a brand is seen to better meet consumers' ideal, the better it does in the marketplace." Amy Shea, EVP of global brand development at Brand Keys, says yogurt is a good example of a category that isn't helped by being served in a Super Bowl. "How good will a yogurt ad have to be or different to make yogurt suddenly resonate in that environment, when the whole idea of the Super Bowl is built on this 'letting go' pleasure? The creative can be wonderful, but brands forget that creative can only go so far in terms of whether or not there is fit between the brand and the Super Bowl." Within categories, Passikoff suggests that Hyundai scored well because it has established itself as a kind of heroic brand among automakers through programs like Hyundai Assurance, where people could return their Hyundai vehicles if they lost their jobs. But, he says, Kia didn't have that kind of meaning, so isn't as good a fit for the big game. "What we are looking for is a more rigid measure in terms of brand engagement. Neither Amy nor I nor you understand whether an ad will be good or bad," says Passikoff. "The fact that they are running the ad on that venue guarantees attention, but it doesn't guarantee strategy."
The Super Bowl is one of the five biggest days in the year for pizza chains, and they seem to compete more fiercely for a share of that pie each year. Last year, Papa John’s, the NFL’s official pizza sponsor, opted not to advertise during the game, instead running a double-whammy promotional strategy. The chain promised a free, large, three-topping pizza to all of its online rewards program members if the game went into overtime -- and further primed the pump by giving away a $45 Papa John’s gift card every 45 seconds to randomly selected consumers who ordered its pizzas online during game day. Results: Papa John’s sold more than a million pizzas on Super Bowl Sunday, besting its own previous record of 940,000 sold during game day in 2010. (Prior to the 2011 game, rivals Pizza Hut and Domino’s Pizza estimated that they would sell 2 million and 1.2 million pizzas, respectively, on Super Bowl day.) Papa John’s sales lift came, of course, without having to give out free pizzas –- since the Super Bowl maintained its own record of never having gone into overtime. Not to mention upping its loyalty program membership numbers “very significantly,” according to a spokesperson. Capturing the customer data that enables targeted promotions to drive more online/mobile orders is, of course, the name of the game for pizza chains, along with many other restaurant chains these days, and Papa John’s is still the only pizza chain with a system-wide rewards program. How to follow its own act? This year, Papa John’s is giving its fans much better odds by making its offer to give a free, large, one-topping pizza and a two-liter Pepsi MAX to its millions of Papa Rewards members contingent on the game’s coin toss. Specifically, rewards program enrollees can call heads or tails on the toss online at papajohns.com, as part of an interactive video, and if the preponderance of their votes turns out to correctly predict the toss, all members will get the freebies (instructions for redemption will come by email). Coin-toss voting ends Feb. 1, and the chain will pre-announce the voting results on Feb. 2. Papa John’s also changed its sweeps strategy this year to maximize pre-game-day orders. This time around, it’s been randomly selecting winners from among online pizza-orderers every 46 seconds each weekend leading up to the Super Bowl, starting on Friday, Dec. 30, and ending on Saturday, Feb. 4, the evening before game day. (Actually, per legal requirements, rewards members also can enter without ordering a pizza, by following online instructions.) Also, this time, it’s awarding large, one-topping pizzas instead of $45 gift cards -- likely a sound financial move, given that up to 15,963 pizzas could be given away over the 17 entry-period days leading up to the Super Bowl. Papa John’s investment skin in this promotional game isn’t, of course, limited to the cost of free pizzas -- however many that turns out to be. The elements of the ambitious marketing campaign supporting its “Coin Toss Experience” include:
Maine retailer L.L. Bean is turning 100 this year, and as part of the birthday festivities, is targeting America’s couch-potato kids. Working with the National Park Foundation, Bean will spend $1 million to increase outdoor recreation among families, and introduce more children to America's national parks. Called the Million Moment Mission, the effort is based in part on research that shows the average kid spends less than one hour a day outdoors. The company is also celebrating with vintage catalog covers, and a ginormous Bean Bootmobile, currently tootling through America, where it will invite people to them to get outdoors and try a new activity, with the help of the company’s expert Outdoor Discovery Schools guides. (The Boot could probably kick the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile’s buns: Bean says it is 13 feet high, 20 feet long, and built true to scale, so that it is exactly 20.5 times larger than a traditional 12" tall boot.) Of course, whether such birthday events impress consumers is another question. "Heritage brands need to stay relevant, and can't trade on history alone,” Ted Zittell, a partner at McMillanDoolittle, a retail consultancy, tells Marketing Daily. “Clarity of offer is key,” he says, and consumers have to see that the brand, and the events, are relevant to them today, not just a page in history, however beloved. “Otherwise, it's a celebration for company insiders only,” he says. “Customers won't come.” That said, Zittell thinks the Bootmobile concept “could be a great idea. Mobile and pop-up take well-defined brand experience to the customer in an innovative, convenient way.” For Bean, based in Freeport, Maine, the thinking seems to be that linking the brand to the great outdoors is that key to relevance, and certainly, helping sedentary families get moving is on many people’s radar these days. “Our founder, Leon Leonwood, believed that spending time outdoors was fundamental to happiness in life. This belief was the guiding principal our company was founded on and still continues to drive us in all we do, 100 years later," says L.L.Bean CEO Chris McCormick in announcing the new program. "Through the decades we have received many letters and stories from people sharing their passion for nature and outdoor recreation. In the world we live in today we have the ability to share and influence the conversation in a way we hope will re-ignite America's love affair with the great outdoors and help families pass that passion on to the next generation." But Bean isn’t neglecting its own heritage. New catalogs, now arriving in mailboxes, feature a photographic version of the company’s first-ever catalog, mailed back in 1933, with an old man and his fancy fishing pole grouchily paying a kid with a stick and a string for his trout. (The photo was shot in Maine’s own Acadia National Park). Bean is also selling prints of both covers for $99 each. The privately held retailer says its 2010 annual net sales were $1.44 billion. Separately, the company says it has signed a three-year partnership with Gold Medalist Seth Wescott, also a Maine native. In addition to appearances, the famed snowboarder will work with the company’s outerwear developers testing and development.
Women, who have long been considered the CEOs of the American household, are exerting more influence than ever before on the purchases they make for themselves, and they’re exerting greater influence over their friends’ purchases as well, according to a new research study from Fleishman-Hillard International and Hearst Magazines. According to the fourth “Women, Power & Money” study, 54% of American women believe it’s their responsibility to help their friends and family make smart purchase decisions, and a similar number said they regularly influence friends and family to buy or not buy a product or service. When the first study was conducted in 2008, only 31% felt they regularly influenced those decisions. “A lot of outside forces have magnified their role and how they’ve stepped up and taken the reins of that role,” Nancy Bauer, senior vice president and senior partner at Fleishman-Hillard, tells Marketing Daily. “The recession has really moved women into the role of helping each other.” And help each other they have. According to the survey, a third of women (33%) have recommended a product or service in the past six months. Only 19% said they recommended that someone should not buy a specific product or service. “They’re going to talk about good experiences with products and services,” Bauer says. “[She’s] looking for practical solutions. [She] wants to know a product is reliable and that it’s good.” And most of their influence is coming through social networks. In the past year, the number of brands a woman follows on Facebook has increased 12%. (And 65% of women are a friend or fan of a company, compared with 52% of men.) At the same time, 73% of women use Facebook, compared with 65% in 2010.
It's possibly the oldest shoe company in Japan, but unless you ran track in the 1970s, you may not have even heard of it. Onitsuka Tiger was one of the biggies in the running and hoops department against Adidas, and Nike. But the brand, started by a Japanese military officer after World War II, all but disappeared in the late ’70's, when it became part of the three-way merger that created ASICS. Now it's back big time, with its first campaign -- a global effort -- in years, and a new positioning as a fashion lifestyle brand. Created by new global and U.S. AOR, Culver City, Calif.-based Pitch, the campaign carries the tag “Born of Sport, Made of Japan.” The effort, which runs for a year, per the companies involved, spotlights the brand's past and its Japanese heritage. The visual motif -- appropriate enough given that the campaign runs during the Olympic year -- is a winner’s podium, combined with an arrangement of the plum blossom, a traditional Japanese flower. "They saw that it had potential to be a fashion-forward brand, so this year and next they have increased the number of shoe styles and colors and radically expanded distribution toward fashion and higher-end retail outlets," says Rachel Spiegelman, SVP, group account director at Pitch, which started working on the brand last year and is also handling media buy and events. Spiegelman says the effort is a whimsical play on the brand's sports heritage. "It's not to compete with ASICS athletic shoes. It's wear-to-work stylish." Print ads will run in such men’s and women’s lifestyle, fashion and music magazines as Nylon, Complex, Teen Vogue, Filter, Fader and Vice. There will also be online ads, point of purchase elements, and branding and product at music and art events and festivals and, per the agency, through grassroots promotions. Spiegelman says the buy in magazines like Teen Vogue also reflects an effort to market the brand to women, with color schemes and designs that depart from the brand's blue, yellow and red heritage.
With 2011 in the rear view mirror, it's time to take stock and look ahead. If your company has been sitting on the sidelines unconvinced of the need for a social media strategy, then 2012 brings you the gift of clarity. You need a social media strategy -- your customers, your sales force and even you investors demand it. And if that doesn’t convince you, just watch your competition. So for everyone waiting on the sidelines, let's talk about getting social. Perhaps you have been a bit hesitant about diving into what appears to be an uncontrollable, unpredictable world. But this is no longer an early-adopter situation. The fat part of the bell curve is here, and if you’re not in, you’re out in the cold. But other than just jumping on another bandwagon, what are the compelling business reasons to get on board? Forrester Research recently neatly summed it all up. What they discovered is that across all of social media, there are relatively few voices shaping the discussion. Typically it's about 20 percent of the audience who start discussions. Then once the topic is set, another 20 percent get engaged. But the bulk of the online population stays in the shadows, happy to soak it all in behind the anonymity of their monitor. That's in general. But when you look at many industries, such as financial services, the power to influence opinions is concentrated in even fewer hands. According to Forrester, when it comes to discussions about financial topics, the initial content is created by only 15 percent of the audience. And it gets worse. Those who jump in and discuss those topics are only 10 percent of the audience. That's less than half of other industries. (By comparison, it seems everyone is an expert on marketing topics). So if you’re in the financial services business, or another slow-to-move industry, it’s high time you made sure your voice is heard. You can talk about FINRA regulatory issues being a challenge, but they are no longer a barrier, and the complexity of your business is no excuse either. Social media is really just a large, busy coffee shop where you need something relevant and different to get attention in the hubbub. That something is content. The coffee clutch doesn't like being interrupted by your marketing messages, but they love content -- especially if it brings them knowledge. The right content -- and it comes in many forms, feeds the conversation, and before you know it they are talking about you. So here's your moment of clarity to start the New Year. Who knows more about your business -- you or the emboldened faceless few? Isn’t it time you were part of the conversation, so you can influence the perceptions of your customers, your sales force and your investors? If knowledge and thought leadership is a key competitive differentiator in your industry -- and it is in most industries with complex value propositions -- your company needs its point of view to be heard where the conversations are taking place. Right now, it’s not too late for industries like financial services that have waited on the sidelines. Yes -- the audience is ahead of you, but the trail has been well-blazed and you can leverage considerable experience to craft an intelligent, informed entry into the social media world. But before you jump in, it’s important to remember that social media is not a strategy in and of itself. It is rather a communications channel -- an opportunity to be heard. Of course, what you say and how you say it -- the content of the conversation -- is always the secret sauce, but more on that next time.