Toyota is doing something that (it's fair to say) few, if any, automakers have tried: the Torrance, Calif.-based U.S. sales arm of the company is introducing its newest Prius car to Gen Y consumers by explaining to them the dealership experience. Say what? Isn't that like using a Taser to get a date? The idea is that since these consumers have probably never entered the labyrinth of new-car buying, they might need help, and they are likely to listen to it if it comes in the form of dryly humorous, straight talk. Since Toyota is pitching the Prius c to "transitional Millennials," those who are moving into job and marriage responsibilities as well as acquisition mode, the campaign also borrows its motif from the Milton Bradley game that was huge before they were born: Life. The campaign, "The Game of Life" via long-time AOR Saatchi & Saatchi, L.A., manages to deliver the dealership pill in a coating of tasty, inspired creative direction, and especially casting, writing and music. The storyboards somehow manage to get across the jaded Gen Y zeitgeist without making the dealership experience something you look forward to about as much as, well, getting an electric shock. Life, which is now a Hasbro brand, is about to get its own relaunch in digital form. The new Prius c compact is central to all of the creative, which comprises both long and short videos. Some of the videos, which live online, are focused entirely on the dealership experience, and some focus entirely on Prius c vehicle attributes. The former have Bill Nye, "The Science Guy," talking metaphorically about things like regenerative braking. The dealership tutorials, on things like financial planning and, yes, dealership paperwork feature an actor whose delivery is drier than the Dead Sea scrolls, and a lot funnier. Not that the Dead Sea scrolls aren't funny. Not only is the media strategy pretty much entirely digital and social, but Toyota got YouTube to do something new for the campaign in creating a branded page that is entirely redesigned for the Life motif and a Google Maps mash-up that compiles driving history to help with decisions to lease or buy. The launch video shows Gen Y people competing in an updated version, real-life take on the game, which involves facing and solving life's challenges: a player's dog is depressed and needs acupuncture; another player fails horribly in his effort to make sushi. "We were looking for someone who could deliver relatively straightforward content in an unexpected way," says Bill Roden, creative director at Saatchi L.A. "We knew he was right when he walked into the room in terms of his body language and demeanor. [The target] sees itself as funny, and sophisticated. They get inside humor and don't take things too seriously. They dress well, but aren't trying hard." He tells Marketing Daily that the media strategy reflects a target that really doesn't have time for traditional advertising. "They won't go on a scavenger hunt; they don't play lots of online games. But they really like to watch videos online and share them. They don't have cable, they spend time on Hulu." He says the company is, in fact, negotiating to run the videos as pre-roll on Hulu. "I know it's a cliche, but it's the right content, right consumer and right channel." The automaker is doing digital takeovers and ads to drive consumers to the new YouTube branded video channel. Toyota and Saatchi & Saatchi worked with YouTube's development team to create the new channel. "It has been a scramble to build this, but the target has probably never even been to a car site." He says the new channel includes a custom car configurator that was created to be a complete surprise. "These consumers probably don't know you can configure a vehicle. So what we created was a theatrical car configurator with a Cirque Du Soleil feel." In the configurator, launching later this month, instead of the usual palette of color options and accessories, dancers and acrobats depict the vehicle and its components, a tactic that Toyota has used in Prius ads in recent months to depict flowering landscapes and -- in one case -- a giant person.
TV ads featuring CEOs continue to be fairly rare. That’s in no small part because advertising professionals view them as risky -- potentially either grand slams or strikeouts – with the CEO’s reputation, as well as the company’s, riding on the outcome. What’s the reality? According to a new study from Ace Metrix, CEO-starring ads actually perform better, on average, than other ads. Among the 13,000+ TV ads assessed by Ace through consumer surveys and proprietary scoring methods since January 2009, Ace’s database showed just 76 CEO-starring ads, spanning 12 categories. The average ad-effectiveness Ace Score -- calculated based on measuring component scores for “persuasion,” “watchability,” “desire,” “relevance,” “change,” “attention,” “information” and “likeability” –- was 556 for CEO ads and 512 for other ads. (Ace Scores and component scores range from 1 to 950; the median scores fall around 535.) CEO ads also performed at least somewhat better than other ads, on average, on each of the eight components. In particular, CEO ads tended to score considerably higher on desire (the extent to which viewers want a product/service); relevance (how well they relate to the ad’s message); and information (their perception that they learned something new from the ad). Moreover, Ace found these patterns holding across gender and age groups. However, Ace is quick to stress that not all CEO ads are effective. Winners: Papa John’s, Samuel Adams The standouts on the positive side were Papa John’s ads featuring CEO John Schnatter, and The Boston Beer Company’s ads for Samuel Adams and Sam Adams Light, featuring CEO Jim Koch. Ace Metrix tested 47 Papa John’s ads featuring Schnatter, and seven without him. The average score for ads with Schnatter (over 580) was well above the average for all ads, and nearly tied for the top of pizza-category ads with Pizza Hut and Domino’s. Those without Schnatter scored 60 points lower, putting them below the all-ads average. Papa John’s ads, 87% of which feature Schnatter, also show significantly less variation in performance than its competitors’ ads. Papa John’s ads “rarely miss the mark, do not alienate, and generally yield predictable outcomes,” notes the report. (Interestingly, by the way, more than three-quarters of all 76 ads featuring CEOs were from the restaurants and QSR categories.) All 10 Samuel Adams/Sam Adams Light ads tested by Ace featured Koch. Samuel Adams’ average score of 558 is 62 points above the average for the beer category, and more than 25 points above the average for the next-best-performing brand, Miller High Life (496). It also eclipses industry giants Budweiser (486) and Bud Light (463). Samuel Adams’ ads also show strong consistency in performance, compared to most competitors’. The ads for Sam Adams Light, with an average Ace Score close to 450, rank in the top 20 among all beer-brand ads tested. Losers: Sprint, Coldwell The five worst-performing ads featuring CEOs were:
The Meow Mix Jingle is returning to the airwaves for the first time since 1996 to launch the brand’s Tender Centers cat food. In a recent survey conducted by Kelton Research, 50% of respondents recall most -- if not all -- of the lyrics to the catchy tune. In addition, 81% of respondents claimed to have heard the Meow Mix Jingle in the last 18 months -- when in reality, the classic version of the jingle stopped airing in 1996, 16 years ago. "The Meow Mix Jingle brings back a sense of nostalgia and is a classic advertising spot that many people can even recite by memory," said Sue Resnicoff, director of cat food marketing for Del Monte Foods, in a release. The new 30-second TV spot includes a split screen with two different felines (a long-haired orange cat and a gray tabby) singing the famous “Meow” lyric in different tones. The English “translation” of their singing is communicated via subtitles. According to the survey, the Meow Mix Jingle is the number two most memorable American jingle, second only to the Oscar Mayer song. The recognition isn't only coming from the human persuasion, either; 15% of respondents even said their feline can identify the jingle. (Note: This reporter’s dog started barking upon hearing it coming from the computer speakers.) The digital age also takes a backseat to the cats: the survey concluded that more than one in three (39%) respondents know the Meow Mix Jingle better than all of their online passwords, including Facebook, their email account and more. In addition, 32% of all respondents admitted that the Meow Mix Jingle was easier to recite than the Pledge of Allegiance, although not as patriotic. The Meow Mix survey was conducted by Kelton between Feb. 23 and March 1, using an email invitation and an online survey. Results of any sample are subject to sampling variation. In this particular study, the chances are 95 in 100 that a survey result does not vary, plus or minus, by more than 3 percentage points from the result that would be obtained if interviews had been conducted with all persons in the universe represented by the sample.
This may be the era of big data, but many marketers are still not getting as much out of it as they could, primarily because they don’t know what to look for. According to a survey of more than 250 senior corporate marketing executives conducted by Columbia Business School’s Center on Global Brand Leadership and the American Marketing Association, 29% of marketing departments have “too little or no customer/consumer data,” and even among those collecting the data, 39% said it’s not being collected fast enough to make real-time decisions. The findings were presented at Columbia’s annual BRITE Conference this week. “We’ve seen an increase in the amount of data, but we are not yet using it effectively,” David Rogers, executive director of BRITE, Center on Global Brand Leadership, tells Marketing Daily. “We are not yet using it to make smart marketing decisions.” When it comes to collecting data from new technologies, marketers are also lacking, according to the study. Only 19% of marketers are collecting customer mobile device data, while 35% collect social media data. (Comparatively, 74% of marketers collect demographic data and 60% collect usage data.) At the same time, marketers are quick to jump on the latest technologies, although they aren’t really sure how to gauge the impact. More than half (51%) of marketers are using mobile ads and 85% are using social network accounts (including Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Foursquare). However, only 14% are tying their social accounts to financial metrics and 17% are doing the same with mobile ads. (Comparatively, 41% of marketers connect email campaigns to financial metrics.) The biggest problem continues to be an ability to communicate the data across different departments within organizations, Rogers says. Even there, many are having a difficult time determining exactly what constitutes “ROI.” According to the survey, 31% of the respondents said they believe measuring audience reach constitutes ROI. A majority of respondents (57%), meanwhile, are not basing their marketing budgets on ROI analysis and 28% are relying on gut instincts. Only 21% are tying their marketing budget to financial metrics, despite 70% saying their marketing efforts are under greater scrutiny than in the past. “We have a lot of new digital tools that consumers are adopting and are being rapidly being adopted by companies as well,” Rogers says. “They’re leaving a digital footprint everywhere. They’re not electing that data as well as they could.” For top marketers, it seems the conclusions are the same as they have been for years, Rogers says: determine objectives first, design metrics linked to those objectives, gather the correct data for those objectives; clearly communicate those objectives throughout the organization, and reward based upon how those objectives are achieved. “For the whole big data story, there’s excitement but people aren’t really [applying] it yet,” Rogers says. “It has to start at the top and you have to set clear objectives and you have to design your metrics that are going to be linked to those.” Full details of the study can be found here.
No matter how old a person is, getting a great deal on a good product is nice. But a new survey from Brodeur Partners finds that when Gen Y goes shopping, it is expecting an entirely different experience than are Baby Boomers. Gen Y, those between the ages of 18 and 34, are more likely to wonder “What does this brand say about me?” and “How can I share this with people I know?” Boomers, on the other hand, are much more focused on practicalities, such as price and quality. For example, a Gen Y shopper is twice as likely to say that their favorite retailer delivers an experience they’d like to share. And the ability to “make me smile” is one-third more important to Gen Y than to Boomers. “What was fascinating is the almost linear progression of the importance of that functional component in the older cohort,” Jerry Johnson, EVP/Strategic planning, tells Marketing Daily. “What we can’t know from this, but what’s interesting, is whether that happens over time, and rational values become more important as we age. Or will Gen Y hang onto the importance of the sensory part of shopping as they age, just as Boomers have hung on to some of their 1960s-era craziness?” Despite those differences, he says, “self-identification with a retail brand, the 'I shop there because that’s where people like me shop’ thinking, is consistent across all age groups.” The study included 2,000 adults, and asked people to name their favorite stores, and then explain what they liked best about the experience. Brodeur found that all types of sensory experiences made more of an impression on younger shoppers, and are key to their buying decisions. The study asked people about 12 different statements to help establish how relevant a given retail brand is to them, and how they connect with them. For example, they may primarily excite (Apple, Target and Red Bull) or communicate shared values (Ford) or stand for dependability (Wal-Mart). Those values fell into four categories, explains Johnson, who is based in Brodeur’s Washington, D.C. office: Functional, social, values and sensory. “For the older group, 88% fell in the functional category. For the Gen Y group, functional was also the most popular, with 50% choosing it as No. 1. But the remainder was equally split among social, values and sensory. “So if I were a CMO of a retailer who had been devoting a lot of time and spending on social and sensory marketing,” he says, “I’d be feeling pretty good. To Gen Y, this stuff really matters.”
The writing’s on the Facebook wall: Our transformation to a mobile society will completely change the nature of marketing. Mobile technology is bringing profound shifts to the ways we communicate with each other; how we share and process information; and where and when we choose to work, play, and engage with brands and content. Just look at this quick roll call of facts and figures. This year alone: · Tablet ownership has doubled · U.S. smartphone users have hit 107 million (eMarketer) · Teens have tripled mobile data usage Our world is becoming freer, with consumers increasingly on the move. Google noted in December that over 700,000 Android devices are activated daily -- that’s more phones than babies born. Desktop computers make less sense every day, which is why sales are disappearing. Any new device that isn’t super-portable, super-useful, and super-relevant gets quickly cast aside. As a result, marketers need to change up their game to make their brands relevant to our mobile lives. With guidance from my colleagues and other industry experts, I have identified five best practices for the present -- and future -- of mobile marketing: 1. Come On, Get ‘Appy: Brick-and-mortar retailers are concerned about “showrooming,” where people use their phones to comparison shop (via Amazon and other merchants) while in a retail store. According to JiWire, 34% of consumers are using their mobile devices to do just that. Marketers can fight back with their own “app attacks,” building platforms or working with companies such as Milo and Shopkick to create feeds of local retail offers and encourage store visits and purchases. Keep in mind what Chris Silva of Altimeter has said: “A mobile strategy should not focus on demonstrating the means -- mobile platforms -- but on meeting the end needs of customers.” 2. The Multi-Screening Room: We’re changing the channel on traditional TV. There’s been a huge surge in multi-screening, with nearly 80% of smartphone owners using them while watching television. We’re tweeting, updating our status, and chatting. But we’re also keen to try out new bridge applications, such as social TV apps Viggle and Shazam, which bring us more interaction with content and brands. Marketers should also look to harness tailored cross-platform strategies, following the lead of companies like Volvo. 3. Break with the Past: In the past year, mobile video viewing has soared 36.9%, but that doesn’t mean marketers are simply replicating TV and online strategies on phones and tablets. Traditional banner ads -- even roadblocks -- have their appeal as an in-app format. However, we are looking at new, less intrusive solutions that work better on mobile -- a whopping 68 times better, according to one report. This means user-initiated branded video as opposed to forced views of repurposed TV spots. It means elegant in-image ads integrated into the photo content that we all love to view on our phones. Geotargeting features will create a whole new layer of hyper-relevance for consumers and brands. 4. Build Bridges: While they are often lamented, QR codes and other offline triggers play a valuable role as bridging technologies that connect the offline “real world” with users’ mobile devices. But marketers must be relevant: The user has shown interest in learning more. You know they are on a mobile device. What kind of offer, opportunity, or relevant content will you deliver? 5. Let Them Talk Back: Next time you’re in a restaurant, look around. Chances are nearly everyone you see is engaged with their phones. Consumers are social and they are sharing their impressions of dining, retail, travel, and entertainment experiences in real-time and with real consequences for marketers. Smart marketers are tapping into the resulting data to open a two-way dialogue with customers -- and companies such as Bazaarvoice are helping. The mobile evolution will continue unabated, as we move toward an untethered tomorrow -- one in which we only ever need a device or two, always with us and enabling a wonderfully uncluttered life. By following a few best practices, smart marketers can secure their place in that wireless future.