Editor's Note: This week, Marketing Daily brings you exclusive coverage of the Brand Keys 2012 Customer Loyalty Engagement Index. Each day, expect a full report on key product/services categories from among the 83 surveyed for this year’s study, including automotive, electronics, retail and technology. This first installment focuses on highlights from “consumables” categories: food and beverages, restaurants and spirits/beer. More than ever, the core drivers of brand loyalty are emotional rather than rational. That’s the takeaway from the 2012 Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index (CLEI), which marks the survey’s 16th year. While emotional engagement factors have become more critical each year, the influence of two core, overarching components rose markedly in 2012: the brand’s “values” and the consumer’s brand “experience.” In a nutshell, Brand Keys’ definition of “brand value” is what a brand stands for or means to the consumer on an emotional level, explains the consultancy’s founder and president, Robert Passikoff. “Across most of the 83 product categories, we found that consumers’ loyalty now hinges more than ever before on the degree to which a brand has established a clear core value proposition -- a differentiator that goes beyond the basic utility of a product or service,” he says. “Today, delivering on the ‘rational’ reasons to buy a brand -- good or superior quality and value for the price -- is just the ‘door-opener.’ If that’s all a brand is doing, it’s in grave danger of being commoditized. In fact, it’s not a brand; it’s a category placeholder.” Brand experience is closely tied to value, but depends heavily on the “delight” factor: To what degree the brand exceeds baseline expectations by delivering benefits or an emotional connection that enhances the consumer’s day-to-day life in small or significant ways, he explains. Just as important, this year, Brand Keys found that in a significant number of categories, consumers’ expectations for brands also have risen markedly, Passikoff stresses. To put the findings in context, a quick explanation of Brand Keys’ survey methodology: Respondents self-select the product/services categories in which they are consumers, and the brands for which they are customers. Surveyed consumers determine which brands, and how many brands, make the rankings within a given category in any given year. Assessments are based on an independently validated technique that identifies the core rational and emotional factors that drive consumers’ “ideal” for each specific category. The rankings in each category reflect how well (on an indexed basis) each brand met or exceeded the “ideal” for its category. With rare exceptions, even the top-ranking brands’ scores fall short of the ideal, in part because consumers’ expectation levels continue to rise. Across categories, expectation levels for “brand value” have risen by 25% over the past 16 years, while brand-value rankings have risen only 7% to 8%, Passikoff reports. This year, Brand Keys surveyed 48,000 consumers between the ages of 18 and 65, drawn from the nine U.S. Census regions. The survey’s technique/statistical analyses result in a test/re-test reliability of 0.93. Consumables Categories: Major Shifts Afoot Here are ranking highlights for key beverages, food and restaurant categories: Soft Drinks
Just days after sparking one of the biggest brouhahas in social media, pink-ribbon pioneer Susan G. Komen Foundation issued an apology, and promised to restore funding for breast-cancer screenings to Planned Parenthood. While the news is clearly being viewed as a win for women’s health advocates who support choice and a loss for those who don’t, what is less clear is just how damaging the tempest will be to Komen -- by far the largest brand in the cause-marketing world, not to mention the hundreds of companies that partner with it, and the dozens of other breast-cancer charities that benefit from cause relationships. “The whole point is that you don’t politicize cause marketing,” Robert Passikoff, founder and president of Brand Keys, tells Marketing Daily. “It was so easy to give money to that cause, because it seemed so benign. Now, because of this, when consumers see the color pink, they won’t just think of breast cancer. They’ll have to think about what it says about their point of view on choice.” The furor on Facebook and other social media sites has been intense, explains Lisa Joy Rosner, CMO of NetBase, a San Francisco-based company that tracks online buzz, including public posts on Facebook and Twitter, and in blogs. In its sentiment analysis, it found that 66.7% of the chatter about Komen is negative, while only 33.3% is positive. Rosner says she was stunned by how quickly postings turned into a kind of online melee, “like nothing we’ve seen, really, since the “Motrin Moms” episode a few years ago.” (In that kerfuffle, Johnson & Johnson took it on the chin for a snarky ad it created, poking fun at overzealous moms.) “What we’re seeing is a new speed and ferocity to social media, strong enough to take down governments and [to] cause groups like this to reverse their position,” she says. “We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives,” Komen founder and CEO Nancy G. Brinker says in a statement, announcing that it would continue funding its grants to Planned Parenthood, which uses the money for breast-cancer education and to provide screenings. “The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.” While it’s clear the move alienated many of its core individual supporters, it’s too soon to say how the foundation’s corporate partners will react. That includes hundreds of American marketers; American Airlines, Bank of America, Ford, Walgreens and Yoplait are among the largest. “This was really treading into dangerous territory,” David Hessekiel, founder of the Cause Marketing Forum and a contributor to MediaPost’s Marketing:Causes, tells Marketing Daily. “In the world of cause marketing, what marketers are looking for are causes they can embrace that will bring people to them, that will engender goodwill. What they don’t want is a cause that makes 50% of people love you, and have the rest of the people hate you.” While only time will tell whether people will embrace Komen’s reversal, and go on to support it as before, he says, it’s hard to undo polarization: “It suddenly has associated breast cancer with choice.” Still, he says, the whole uproar raises serious considerations. “It is very important for causes to be true to their mission,” he says. “And there are occasions in which it is the right thing for an organization to take steps that may not have the best outcomes for their corporate relationships. The key is to try and handle communications in the most delicate and proactive way you can, and that was not the case here.”
Subaru of America is bringing back its “Dog tested. Dog approved” campaign with a new pack of dogs and added canine-specific social applications. This is the third year the campaign has run. When Super Bowl playes take the field on Feb. 5, Subaru owners and their four-legged friends will hit the streets for the second annual Subaru Game Day Dog Walk event by taking the pledge on the automaker’s Facebook page. Last year 88,000 dog owners did so. "Dogs have always been a large part of Subaru culture; we also know that dogs play a significant role in the lives of our owners," said Alan Bethke, director, marketing communications, Cherryhill, N.J.-based Subaru of America, in a release. Tied to the campaign, Subaru partnered with MapMyFitness to launch the MapMyDogWalk mobile application for iPhone. MapMyDogWalk provides dog owners with access to an innovative geo-mapping application that allows users to track and store their daily walking routes in an online database. Users will also have access to a searchable database of millions of routes across the globe, fitness calculators, dog event listings, and a dynamic social network of healthy and active individuals and their four-legged friends. Canine social networking site Dogbook rolls out with an all-new design and Subaru integration. The Dogbook Facebook application boasts all-new "Dogline" features: larger profile pictures, bigger news feed photos, a new My Life Story section, a Dog Years Calculator and customizable My Favorites Sections. Also included in the update are a Happy Birthday Video feature and a faster, high-definition photo uploader. Subaru drivers are two times more likely than the average car owner to have a pet. In fact, seven out of 10 Subaru drivers have a pet, and Subaru owners are also more likely to engage in skiing, camping, boating and other sporting activities. To reflect these passions, those activities are depicted in the four new commercials.
Tough as the economy has been on the restaurant industry, the National Restaurant Association projects that its sales will grow by 3.5% in 2012, to reach a record $632 billion. The association’s 2012 Restaurant Industry Forecast reports that 2011 sales topped $600 billion. While the report summary announcement did not specify how that compares to 2010, last year’s forecast projected that 2011 industry sales would reach a record $604 billion, which would represent a 3.6% increase over 2010’s sales. As of 2000, the industry’s sales were $379 billion. Overall employment in the industry will reach 12.9 million this year, representing 10% of the total U.S. workforce, according to the report. Restaurant jobs should grow at a rate of 2.3%, versus the projected 1.3% gain in total U.S. employment. In 2011, wholesale food prices had the largest annual increase in three decades. In 2012, prices are expected to continue to rise for some commodities, but decline for others. One-third of restaurant sales go toward food/beverage purchases. Consumer Trends The good news is that there’s substantial pent-up demand for restaurant services: Two out of five consumers say that they are not using restaurants as often as they would like. Restaurant operators who understand and leverage consumer trends, and offer the right incentives, will succeed at attracting new customers and increasing repeat business, the association notes. Food quality, customer service quality and value are consumers’ top priorities in choosing a table-service restaurant, according to the association’s research. For QSRs, customers’ top priorities are food quality, value and speed of service. The top menu trends relate to local sourcing and nutrition, and kids’ nutrition, in particular. Nearly three-quarters of consumers say that they’re more likely to visit a restaurant that offers locally produced food items, and more than half of all restaurants currently offer locally sourced produce. Similarly, nearly three-quarters report that they’re trying to eat more healthfully when they dine at restaurants, as compared with two years ago. A majority of restaurant operators concur that customers are ordering more such items. Technology Trends Although wireless payment and iPad menus are not yet commonplace, there is strong consumer interest in such options. Nearly 4 in 10 consumers say that they’d be likely to use an electronic ordering system and menus on tablet computers at table-service restaurants. About half indicate that they would use at-table electronic payment options and a restaurant’s smartphone app to view menus and make reservations. At QSRs, about 4 out of 10 consumers say that they would place online orders for takeout, use in-store self-service ordering kiosks, and use smartphone apps to look at menus and order delivery. Email and text messaging are proving effective ways for restaurant operators to reach consumers. About 3 in 10 adults say they’d like to receive an email with daily specials, while about one in five prefer text messages with similar information. Social media is also opening up growing marketing opportunities. Nearly a third of consumers say that they would be likely to sign up if a restaurant made its specials available on Facebook or Twitter. More than 9 out of 10 operators report that their restaurants will likely be using Facebook within the next year or two, with use of Twitter and smartphone apps expected to rise, as well.
BMW is launching the sixth generation of its 3 Series in part with six playful digital shorts, two of which will air during the Super Bowl in specific U.S. markets. The videos are intended to illustrate specific new technologies in the car and how they address specific customer issues, but in a humorous way. The videos, set to air during the Super Bowl in the New York tri-state area, Southern California-Los Angeles, Atlanta and Houston areas, tout the car's heated steering wheel and in-vehicle communications, albeit in humorous ways. The first shows a bunch of people getting into a 3 Series car on a cold day. The driver moans in pleasure and the other passengers look at him oddly. Then they all suddenly grab the steering wheel to get some of what he's getting. The ad, obviously, touts the heated steering wheel. The other spot has a guy rolling up to his house in the car, when he gets a text-to-voice message through the car's BMW Connected Drive feature that his mother-in-law is there. He immediately backs up as another message comes in. "Honey, Where the F…. (the car honks) are you going?" Another spot demos how a driver and his much-taller companion can share the driver’s seat, thanks to driver’s seat memory. A fourth demonstrates the no-hands rear trunk release. A woman with packages in her hands strolls out to her car and opens the trunk by extending her foot beneath the sensor under the bumper. As she leaves, her dog does the same thing to get a squeeze toy. The videos all conclude with the voiceover: "We only make one thing: the Ultimate Driving Machine." The ads are on BMWUSA.com but also on the automaker's new YouTube channel. The shorts begin airing Feb. 7 online at additional sites including NBC.com, ABC.com and Hulu. The global campaign launching this month via Interone, Munich includes print and TV, with a pitch for the hybrid model BMW ActiveHybrid 3, which rolls into the market this fall. The campaign goes back to BMW's core identity around performance-car passion. There's also a competitive theme to the ad text, which uses "versus" as a central motif, as in "Grip vs. Rain." TV uses the Olympic Stadium, and biathlete Natalie Björndalen, and Billy Idol’s “Dancing with myself” as the score. The automaker's last big consumer marketing program in the U.S. was in November, and tied into the premiere of the latest "Mission: Impossible" film. The automaker had a significant presence in the film. That effort included what the Woodcliff Lake, N.J., automaker called a "self-destructing" sales offer and special screenings of the film for customers as well as the i8 concept and the 6 Series convertible driven by the Ethan Hunt character. BMW North America launched an across-the-board agency review last spring, and for the time being is using New York-based Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners on a project basis. BMW revealed the sixth-generation 3 Series to reporters last fall at its huge Munich plant, where the car is built. The company made it a global event through a live-streaming element on social-media channels. Meanwhile, the fifth-generation car is going out with a bang. BMW of North America sold 6,698 3 Series cars in January, a 16.2% increase versus January of last year.
Experian Marketing Services has come up with a way to derive the relevance of Super Bowl ads via data from its Experian Simmons unit. The Super Bowl Ad Relevancy score (SBAR), as it's called, is based on a combination of brand purchasing behaviors, universe of brand users, and Super Bowl viewership statistics, per the firm. As the baseline is 100, Volkswagen, for example, has a SBAR score of 129 -- meaning a 29% lift in purchase likelihood for the brand when targeting the Super Bowl audience. The top three SBAR scores are for Audi, Cars.com, and Bridgestone. At the bottom of the list are Kia, Dannon and H&M. Brands such as Chrysler, Honda, Pepsi, and Doritos fall in the middle. The firm says all of the brands -- except for Kia -- will likely see positive lift from targeting Super Bowl viewers. Why not Kia? "Its SBAR score indicates the brand could achieve better lift by targeting non-Super Bowl viewers," says the firm. Specifically, Kia has put a lot of its eggs in the NBA basket as top-shelf NBA sponsor, and use of Los Angeles Clippers all-star Blake Griffin in a multiyear sponsorship deal. Kia's hijinks with Griffin, argues Experian, generated much more buzz than the brand is likely to get in the Super Bowl, whose Kia ad is off-center from its core sports association around hoops. The firm points out that last year’s NBA All-Star Slam Dunk Contest -- where Griffin’s winning dunk had him soaring over the hood of a new Kia Optima, which was later turned into an ad -- was a huge brand boost. The firm also notes that given the $3.5 million price tag for a 30-second commercial during the game, it is reasonable to argue that a luxury brand like Audi is wasting its money on a shotgun approach "because the market size of potential Audi buyers is relatively small compared to other brands like Coke and Pepsi," says the firm. But "by rescaling the SBAR score to take into consideration the number of likely buyers, the picture changes." The firm argues that by dint of the sheer number of viewers of the ad, the cost of the ad per thousand likely buyers reached is low, and the equation balances because Audi doesn't have to sell millions of vehicles to justify the buy. In other words, a gigantic net (while not environmentally sound) is as useful a tool for catching an elusive, even rare fish as a collector's net, as long as you don't mind throwing back the fish you don't want. "Assuming that each advertiser runs a single 30-second spot, the top three brands (lowest cost per likely buyer) are Coke, Doritos, and M&M’s. The bottom three brands (highest cost per likely buyer) are Teleflora.com, Audi, and Kia. But considering the low price point for a six-pack of Coke and a bag of Doritos or M&M’s versus the starting price for an Audi or Kia, the economics and overall ROI from the ad could result in any of these brands coming out as a winner." Also scoring well on the list are Budweiser with a SBAR of 136; then Volkswagen, Best Buy, and CareerBuilder.com. M&M's also does well.
Marketers today have more choices than ever, with an influx in digital media, social media channels and other viral components. While having many choices can make it easier to maximize your marketing budget and have your company found during the customer buy cycle, it also can increase the potential for error. In any industry, even the most seasoned marketing professional can fall prey to mistakes in tactics or implementation. Here is a quick review of the 10 most common pitfalls and how you can easily avoid them for the year ahead. 1. Failing to continually monitor your marketing programs. The phrase “you can only manage what you measure” is true. Online marketing offers you the ability to measure your marketing programs. This allows you to determine what components of your marketing program are working, and what you should consider refining.