Lexus is continuing its up-shift to a more masculine, performance-oriented proposition with a highly, um, anatomical sponsorship of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Launch Week. Lexus is using the campaign, which comprises ads and video assets pertaining to a competitive driving course vaguely shaped like a supine woman, to spotlight the 2013 GS, the sport sedan featured in its Super Bowl ad. The theme of the campaign around the partnership is that the GS can handle all kinds of curves. All kinds. The campaign called TORI 500 involves a racetrack that is intended as an elaboration of the body lines of Tori Praver, one of the models featured in the swimsuit issue. The online video at Lexus.com/tori500 or youtube.com/lexus has two pro drivers, racer Scott Pruett and stunt driver Greg Tracy, competing on the TORI 500 track to see which of them gets to take Praver on a test drive around her body. There is also a four-page spread in the Feb. 14 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue and custom tablet integrations on iPad, Samsung Galaxy, Xoom and Nook. Ads, which show Praver in a bikini walking away from the car, say: "From this car forward, there's no going back." The company is also promoting an iPhone app called Supermodeled that lets people insert photos of Praver into pictures they shoot. The automaker will also be part of the issue's events in New York and Las Vegas, the latter called "SI Swimsuit On Location" and "Club SI Swimsuit." Lexus also serves as presenting sponsor of the inaugural, two-day "Beauties & Beats Music Festival" on Feb. 15 and 16 at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. Sports Illustrated says the 47-year-old SI Swimsuit Issue program, including the events around it, reach more than 70 million people per year and more 18- to 34-year-old men than the Super Bowl. There are, according to the publisher, some 20 product extensions in digital/social, broadcast, publishing, mobile and consumer products. The campaign is part of one of Lexus' largest efforts to date. Via El Segundo, Calif.-based TeamOne, it promotes the Lexus lineup as more design forward, more aggressive, and sporty, with the new GS as the poster car. Lexus also touted the GS sedan in the Super Bowl with a spot via San Francisco-based Attik.
With Toy Fair -- and the 100,000 or so new products that come with it -- now in full swing, experts say they are seeing clear trends emerge, including a shift back to pricey toys with a real “wow” factor. That news comes amid a downturn in toy sales last year, with the NPD Group reporting a 2% decline in U.S. toy sales to $21.18 billion, compared to $21.68 billion in 2010. And despite concerted efforts from chains like Walmart, Target and Toys R Us to impress families with affordable choices, often under $20, “the over-arching story for 2011 was that consumers made purchasing trade-offs. When they did buy toys, compared to last year they purchased more higher-priced toys at the expense of mid- to lower-priced ones," the Port Washington, N.Y-based market researcher says in its new annual analysis. “Consumers appeared to 'shore up' spending on toys for their own families, while share of dollars spent for 'non-family' members declined.” The trade show, now in its 109th year, says it is also seeing plenty of bright lights, often powered by LED, ever-more educational toys aimed at younger tots, and a genuine mania for app-driven playthings. “Toymakers continue to innovate at the speed of light to keep up with trends in other areas – from pop culture to technology – because they know that kids want to be a part of the mix and mimic what's happening in the world around them,” writes Adrienne Appell, the Toy Industry Association’s in-house trend expert. “The toy industry draws upon economic and birth rate data to determine price points and product lines, which accounts for the prevalence this year of big-ticket items and toys for infants and pre-school children.” Separately, the Toy Industry Association announced that LeapFrog won this year's coveted Toy of the Year honors for its LeapPad Explorer Tablet. Among the biggest trends of the year is what she calls the “save n’ splurge” effect, betting that parents will be increasingly receptive to higher-priced toys at the expense of mid- to lower-priced ones, as long as the toys “pack a high play-value punch or have a certain 'wow factor'," according to Appell. Apps are also driving the market, with “an abundance of toys that work with smart devices and apps. Toymakers are using technology to enhance classic play patterns, not erase them. Physical toys remain integral to the play experience; in many cases, companies have created traditional toys that interact with popular devices that are already in so many homes … while tying in educational or active components for a well-rounded play experience.” Other trends:
Improvements including menu innovations and ordering technology, combined with flat pricing and marketing/promotion pushes by leading pizza brands, are resulting in modest but improving growth for the industry amid the challenging economy and brutal direct and indirect competition, according to a new market size/forecast report from Mintel. In current price terms, U.S. pizza restaurants’ sales leaped 9.8%, to $32.3 billion in 2007, only to slow to 1.9% in 2008 and drop into slightly negative territory (-0.6%) in 2010, Mintel’s data show. However, sales began to recover in 2010 (up 0.5%), and rose by an estimated 2.2% last year, to $33.6 billion. This year, Mintel projects a healthier gain of 2.9% (to $34.6 billion), followed by 2% growth in 2013, with annual growth rates gradually slowing to 0.8% in 2016 -- at which point sales should reach $36.5 billion. (Mintel’s best- and worst-case forecast scenarios for 2016 are $40.5 billion and $32.6 billion, respectively.) To remain competitive, chains have kept prices fairly flat: The average pizza price has risen just 1% over the past three years. Restaurants have been making up for this by introducing menu innovations and increasing prices on other menu items, including vegetables (up 13%), desserts (up 12%), pasta (up 11%) and salads. Salad is the fourth-leading item mentioned on pizza menus, and it has garnered the largest sales increase (10%) during the past three years. In addition to the add-on orders and revenue, salads are helping pizza chains serve patrons seeking more healthful options -- a benefit likely to be of growing importance as chains are required to show calorie counts on their menus, Mintel points out. Convenient location, price, speed of service and pizza variety are the four most important factors in determining the choice of a particular pizza restaurant, each with more than 80% agreement among Mintel respondents who have purchased pizza from a restaurant in the past month. However, ready-made pizza and/or pizza buffet offerings by restaurants are also attractive to lower-income patrons and those with children in particular. Pizza’s perception as a “comfort food,” as well as its ability to feed a family/multiple diners at a relatively low cost, have helped buoy the industry through tough times, notes Mintel. However, major chains’ investments in technology to make ordering and tracking ever more convenient have also played a significant role. For example, Mintel points out, an iPhone and iPad pizza-ordering app launched by Domino’s in June 2011 contributed $1 million in sales within its first month. Stepped-up marketing, including growing use of online and social media, have also been important drivers. Mintel notes Papa John’s’ and Domino’s’ “official pizza” partnerships with the NFL and NCAA, respectively. (Not to mention there likely isn’t a Super Bowl fan anywhere who wasn’t somehow exposed to the multichannel, integrated campaigns for Pizza Hut’s Foursquare promotion with American Express, or Papa John’s’ “coin toss” freebie sweeps promotion.) So what are Americans’ preferences for those billions of pizzas being ordered and consumed? Crust-wise, thin wins: It’s the preference of 38% of pizza restaurant patrons, according to Mintel. Pan-style and thick crusts are nearly tied for second place (favored by 20% and 19%, respectively). Pepperoni by far tops in toppings, favored by 67%, followed by mushrooms, sausage and onions (53%, 53% and 41%, respectively). Anchovies, meanwhile, are the choice of just 5% of pizza patrons.
When it comes to watching entertainment programming, it turns out size doesn’t matter as much as people previously thought (or hoped). According to a new study conducted by Chadwick Martin Bailey (CMB), consumers are using their tablets and smartphones to stream video programming at an increasing rate, and they’re doing it in their homes, where televisions are available. According to the survey of nearly 1,500 consumers, 58% of people who viewed programming on a tablet did so in their homes -- and of these, 63% did so even though the program they were watching was available on their televisions. “The big media companies have been comforted in this notion that the biggest available screen is always going to win in any situation,” Peter Fondulas, founder of Fondulas Strategic Research, which worked on the project with CMB, tells Marketing Daily. “That may have been true a while ago, but people have become more open to devices and may even prefer [smaller screens] in some situations.” The survey found significant members of all demographics have watched video programming through a device other than their televisions. While 74% of consumers ages 16-29 had watched programming online, 39% of consumers 50-75 had also watched a television program or movie online. And their preferred method of watching such programming is either through a network Web site (27%) or Netflix (24%). Only 12% of consumers said they watched through their TV provider’s Web portal (such as Comcast’s Xfinity.com). Such findings could have serious repercussions as the cable and satellite industries work to continue their business models in the new era of Internet-connected television. According to the study, 43% of consumers said they’re likely to cut back on cable spending in the next year. However, the companies’ greatest fear (consumers cutting the cord entirely and opting for an Internet-only model) is less likely. Only 3% said they’d cut their cable entirely. More likely, consumers will be looking to “shave” services, such as cutting premium and non-premium channels, removing HD boxes and cutting down the number of boxes in their houses. “The people that we see shaving their pay TV service are in essence creating their own a la carte plan,” Jon Giegengack, a director at CMB, tells Marketing Daily. “My own hunch is that pay TV will have to switch to a model more like that. as there’s more attrition.” With the inevitability that more people will look to the Internet to watch television and movie programming (particularly with more Internet-connected televisions in the home), the opportunity is wide open for a company to come in with a different model that appeals to consumers’ individual tastes, Giegengack says. “One of the barriers we found [to cord shaving] was the ambiguity of what the options are and the services [consumers] have,” he says. “There’s this increasing group of people who are on deck and know that there are better of options available, but haven’t yet cut the service.” The company that does succeed will likely have to be strong on the three fronts that consumers said were important to them: streamable content (as opposed to owned content), a wide variety of programming available and, most of all, ease of use. “Lots of companies are working hard at this, and it’s only a matter of time before someone does,” Fondulas says.
Hotels.com, a consumer site for online hotel booking, is unifying its brand presence worldwide. The company says new changes to the global branding platform will continue throughout the year, with most countries seeing the largest part of the change effective in the second quarter this year. There will be new advertising, logos, tagline and Web sites in various global markets, per the company. The brand's spokesperson in its advertising over the past several years has been an animated "educated consumer" character. The company, however, is replacing the consumer with an erudite concierge who is full of ideas on how to find the right hotel and enjoy the stay. Also gone is the use of real animated clay characters, or Claymation, which the company is replacing with computer-generated imagery. The new campaign features the concierge, who like his predecessor is named "Smart," along with family members and friends, according to the company. Also new is a logo, a multi-hue, 3D "H." The logo -- in which the capital letter has several layers, each one a different color -- is, according to the company, intended to represent the "abundance of choices hotels.com provides in destinations, hotel types, and price points." The company says the logo and a palette of sub-logos are intended to be visual identifiers for various sales categories. And there's also a new tag, which was chosen via Facebook poll: "Finding you the perfect place is all we do." Hotels.com is a division of Internet consumer travel consortium Expedia, Inc., which was spun off from Microsoft in the late 1990s, acquired by TicketMaster than spun off again. Expedia, Inc., whose eponymous consumer travel site competes with Orbitz, Travelocity and Priceline, also owns Classic Vacations, eLong.com, Egencia, formerly Expedia Corporate Travel, Hotwire Group, and Venere.com. Expedia.com is near the top of a list of 15 travel sites aggregated and ranked by eBizMBA, which runs a continuously updated average of each Web site's Alexa Global Traffic Rank, and U.S. Traffic Rank from both Compete and Quantcast. Number one is TripAdvisor, followed by Yahoo Travel, Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline, Orbitz, Kayak, Hotels, TravelZoo, Hotwire, Booking, CheapTickets, LonelyPlanet, VirtualTourist and TravelPod.
In the next few months, Facebook will welcome its billionth member. That’s more than one-sixth of the world’s population -- all sharing thoughts, concerns and what they had for dinner with their online “friends.” Facebook is a perfect example of what is being called “big data,” which is a broad and somewhat subjective term that refers to data sets too large to be manipulated and managed by standard data tools. Data sets that qualify are measured not in gigabytes or terabytes, but in petabytes and zetabytes. All of those postings on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, along with history from the various search engines, are saved, catalogued and can be mined for insights. Facebook and Google make money by offering narrowly targeted ad space to marketers, which makes the ad both more effective and seem less intrusive to the target audience. Retail marketers have been exploring the underlying premise of big data for more than 20 years through the use of loyalty cards, with mixed success at best. The quantities of data gathered -- roughly one gigabyte per store per week on average -- were more than most retailers were prepared to handle internally. While they continued to gather information, loyalty card programs quickly became discount tools that offered no real value to the shopper. With social media and a nearly universal reliance on the Web for information, the data available for analysis via loyalty programs, social media, search engines, etc., is expanding exponentially. Therein lies the challenge for marketers. Not only will standard tools such as relational databases not suffice to glean insights, but few marketers have the training or experience to deal with them effectively. Big data has the potential to make everything we do as marketers more effective and more measurable -- and it will change what marketing is and how it’s perceived. True one-to-one marketing is becoming an option, both from the insights we can derive from big data, and the near-ubiquity of mobile phones. As consumers become more cynical, and get more tools that allow them to avoid advertising, big data will do more than just bridge the gaps. It will close the chasm between marketer and buyer, providing relevant, timely and compelling offers based on history, interests, and psychographics, all gathered from consumers who willingly offer up personal facts and a peek into their minds if they receive relevant value in return. Several hurdles remain, but the first players to use big data will reap the greatest benefits, and it won’t be long before data analysis skills will be part of everyday business just as IT is. While many of the technical requirements have yet to be resolved, what is clear are some of the ways big data will help retail marketers to drive sales, lower costs, and improve overall shopper engagement: • Cross-selling—using customer data to offer relevant cross-sell opportunities. This means mass personalization—going beyond the segment level and actually drilling down to individual needs. Amazon is doing this already, using customer data to generate a “you might also want” prompt for each product purchased or visited online. It claims to drive 30 percent of sales via this method. • Integrating all the touchpoints across the path to purchase. This is using big data to tie offline, online, in-store and out-of-store promotions together, making for a more consistent and compelling customer offer. • Location-based marketing. Geo-fences and in-store tracking are becoming more common, along with knowing when a shopper is near a store. All of this allows the marketer to direct real-time, highly relevant messages to persuade the customer to enter the store, or an aisle, that the shopper might not have otherwise. • Optimizing assortment. Instead of the idea of “stock-keeping unit (SKU) rationalization,” or removing underperforming SKUs from inventory based on prior sales data alone, big data will allow retailers to look at other relevant data points (which items drive other sales; what is competitive availability, etc.) to make more informed decisions. • Real-time intelligence. Big data will allow all businesses to operate using real-time data that can be acted upon quickly, rather than using day- or week-old reports that are backward looking and may not accurately reflect the present. Big data is not yet fully-baked as a marketing tool. But it’s coming, and quickly, and we need to prepare now to make use of it when it arrives. The impact will be unlike anything we’ve experienced before.