Dunkin’ Donuts’ new, all-Spanish-language Hispanic campaign marks the first use of its long-time tagline in Spanish: “América se Mueve con Dunkin’ (America Moves With Dunkin’).” The theme of the campaign -- Qué estás tomando? (What are you drinkin’?) -- parallels that of Dunkin’s multimillion-dollar general-market campaign, launched early last year. In the general-market ads, “average Joes” are shown answering the question with: “I’m drinkin’ Dunkin.’” The Hispanic campaign, from Accentmarketing, Dunkin’s Hispanic agency of record, uses a documentary style, featuring Hispanic Dunkin’ coffee drinkers in their communities, where they were “discovered” and recruited to do the ads. The coffee fans offer testimonials such as “Me pone de buen humor (It gets me in a good mood)” and “Se siente el sabor rico del café (You can taste the coffee’s delicious flavor).” These are followed by messaging reinforcement of the América se Mueve con Dunkin’ tagline. The campaign’s creative employs insights about the brand’s Hispanic customers to authentically portray “the ways in which they move with Dunkin,’” said Luis Puerta, Accentmarketing’s VP group creative director. The integrated campaign includes Hispanic television, radio, the brand’s site (there is a version with key elements in Spanish), social media, public relations and in-store promotions. The campaign “reflects the importance and the loyalty of our Hispanic consumers” and Dunkin’s’ focus on finding ways to deepen its relationship and brand loyalty among customers in multicultural communities, said John Costello, chief global marketing and innovation officer at Dunkin’ Brands. In recent years, in select markets, Dunkin’ has introduced limited-time and permanent menu items inspired by Latin culture, such as a Cuban Flatbread Sandwich and Café con Leche, Huevos Rancheros Wake-Up Wrap sandwiches and Latin-inspired donuts.
While it’s easy to assume that, by now, brick-and-mortar retailers are 100% on board shoppers’ multi-channel preferences, a new study shows they aren’t keeping up with consumers’ online expectations. In fact, the PwC survey finds, people aren’t waiting for stores, but inventing the multichannel experience for themselves as they go along. “Because most retailers haven't yet created efficient multichannel models, consumers are working it out for themselves, using different channels in ways that best suit them,” the report finds. “Consumers may choose to research a product in the store - a shoe perhaps - then use their mobile phone to find a better price online, and then call into the retailer's customer service line to order and have the shoe shipped to their home. In essence, consumers are creating their own multichannel experiences by leveraging multiple retailers across a single category or product.” In fact, in the U.S., 72% of online shoppers consider themselves “very accomplished.” Social media clearly has a large potential for retailers, with 32% of U.S. respondents saying they use some form of social media daily. (Both China and Hong Kong had higher social-media participation.) Yet overall, only 3% of the survey’s respondents have used it to actually make a purchase. The study, based on responses from more than 7,000 consumers around the world, found that while most people like online shopping because of its 24/7 convenience, it is the pricing, free and fast delivery, and a wide range of products that appeals to them most. Yet even though retailers would gain an additional margin opportunity of 8 to 12%, 59% of retailers still charge for shipping. In the U.S., two out of three shoppers say they’ll bail out of a transaction if it turns out they have to pay shipping charges. Online shopping’s appeal is also greater than many acknowledge. While 2010’s online sales penetration of total retail sales was 8%, once grocery sales are excluded, that rises to 11% of all sales. And in such categories as PCs and software, it’s 50%. Online shoppers buy in many more channels than some realize, the survey finds, with more than 90% of global online shoppers buying books, music and films, clothing and footwear online. And more than 60% of online shoppers have made purchases in categories with relatively little online shopping, such as jewelry, watches, sports equipment and outdoor goods. To make the most of these trends, PwC says, retailers need to focus more on what people expect from their physical stores, as well as the online experience. The store of the future, it says, will most likely be “a showroom where customers come for inspiration, to browse and to physically interact with, and to road test the products, as well as a convenient transaction point and customer service center, where customers come to complete a journey started on the web or to seek service for products bought regardless of the purchase channel.” Shoppers will likely enter these stores “knowing what they want and what price they expect to pay. They are using the store simply as a vehicle for completing the transaction and getting personal assistance that they can't find, or isn't available, on the web.” By 2015, PwC says, it expects U.S. e-commerce sales to reach $279 billion.
The National Football League is preparing to throw open the doors to its huge pop-up store on Sixth Avenue and 41st Street. The store, the league's first-ever pop-up venue in New York, is timed with the NFL Draft, to be held April 26 just blocks away at Radio City Music Hall. At the "NFL Shop At Draft" store, which will be open all of April, some 50 licensees will show and sell everything from a line of toasters that emboss slices of bread with the team logo to $500 Anastasia Modo handbags. Tiffany Bishop, manager of consumer products for the NFL, points out that the first such store was two years ago in New Orleans, a boutique that sold only NFL women's apparel. She tells Marketing Daily that the success of that shop was a reflection of the strong demand for branded products. "There were lines around the block and it was during a heat wave," she says. Bishop says the NFL will promote the 10,000-square-foot store via social media and local-media advertising, and that the league is mulling doing another one in New York during kickoff week. The store also spotlights the NFL's new marketing partnerships with Nike and New Era; the brands' products will have the run of a large section of the store that abuts 42nd Street. The store also supports new apparel programs with Nike, New Era, Under Armour, GIII, VF, Outerstuff and '47 Brand. "We will be doing several fan events at the store, through the month," says Bishop who adds that the upstairs "fan cave" area will host equipment maker Wilson, which installed a football manufacturing facility there where it will make real footballs that consumers can purchase. "They will essentially be bringing their factory. Fans will be able to sign the inside of the ball and watch it being made." There will also be player appearances through the month and Bishop says the store will change week after week with new merchandise and displays. The Vince Lombardi Trophy will be on display at the store April 4 -14; the Super Bowl championship rings will be on display there April 8 -14. Rhiannon Madden, the NFL's director of apparel and consumer products, tells Marketing Daily that the league is putting a bigger focus on licensed products because of unmet demand. "We realized a couple of years ago when we did a segmentation study that while we had a big offering there was a lot more we could do." The NFL Draft, she explains, is the right place to show off the array of merchandise because the draft is a major draw. "It's on prime time; it's sold out -- it’s becoming much bigger." Madden also point out that the league is expanding into women's products more aggressively now. The league first advertised women's apparel two years ago and has seen a big take-rate. She says about 20% of sales of NFL products are to women. Braden Dahl, a representative from the Irvine, Calif.-based New Era, says the store is a big deal for the brand since New Era is now the official cap maker of the NFL, and that the store will have caps for all 32 NFL teams. NFL commish Roger Goodell and current and former players will do the ribbon-cutting honors on Monday April 2, where the first 500 customers get a commemorative 2012 NFL Draft coin.
All this talk about the connected home and digital ecosystems is not going away anytime soon. According to International Data Corporation, nearly 1 billion connected computing devices (including smartphones, PCs and tablets) shipped last year, and that number is expected to double by 2016. “We have for a long time counted the PC market and the tablet and smartphone market separately,” Bob O’Donnell, vice president of clients and displays at IDC, tells Marketing Daily. “Increasingly, we see those worlds melded together. Almost anyone you talk to has multiples of those devices.” In 2011, shipments of those devices (which doesn’t include connected non-computing devices such as televisions or Blu-Ray disc players) totaled 916 million units, with revenues of $489 billion, according to IDC. The company predicts unit shipments for those devices should top 1.1 billion by 2012 and will reach 1.84 billion units by 2016. “Those are enormous numbers,” O’Donnell says. “Yes, most of those will be smartphones, but PCs and tablets are still relevant devices. They’re all part of a large computing ecosystem.” The increasing dependence on several devices will have an impact on the operating systems running all of those devices. While IDC projects Windows-based devices to slip from a 36% share to a 25% share of all devices by 2016, Android and iOS will account for 31% and 17% of devices, meaning that none will really hold a dominant lead over any of the others, O’Donnell says. “It’s going to be a very diverse world,” O’Donnell says. “There’s not one solution. There’s no one winner here. If I’m an application developer or service, I have to be cognizant of the fact that I have to [work on] multiple platforms.”
Edge shave gel is enlisting comedian Jason Jones as the new face of the “Edge Men” campaign. Jones, best known as a correspondent on "The Daily Show," will give away thousands of “micro-grants” to men in need of an Edge. The program will introduce a group of everyman heroes who will give men the tools they need to get their edge in life, spearheaded by Jones as Edge “Fund Manager.” In partnership with the brand, Jones will dole out Edge Endowments via social media to arm men with whatever they need to achieve success. Jones will identify people, via social media, who aren't quite as well-endowed as he is, and will distribute cash "micro-grants" to get them ready to do whatever it is they want to do. Men who want a chance at an endowment are required to tweet at Jones via the @EdgeShaveZone Twitter handle and tell him what they're getting ready for using hashtag #WellEndowed. Then, Jones and a panel of Edge readiness experts will make the call on who is most deserving of an endowment. This isn’t the first “edgy” campaign the Shelton, Conn.-based company has undertaken. In 2011, Edge helped Anthony Morton go from an unknown student artist in search of gallery space to having his artwork spotlighted on the biggest canvas he had ever worked on, a huge NYC billboard. Team Edge winner Chad Mendes went from underdog to top contender in the UFC. In 2012, the brand is again looking to give guys an edge -- with a team of Edge Men, including Morton, Mendes and Jones, to help identify guys in need of an endowment. In addition to Endowments distributed via social media, consumers can enter the Edge Men sweepstakes by visiting www.edgeshave.com and uploading a photo and caption explaining how a cash endowment could help them get their edge. One grand prize winner will receive a $10,000 Edge Endowment, 130 First Prize winners will receive $1,000 and 130 Second Prize winners will receive $50 Endowments. The brand is promoting the initiative on Twitter @EdgeShaveZon and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/EdgeShaveGel
Global agency Euro RSCG Worldwide has been publishing research and thought leadership content for years. It is expanding into a new series area, the Consumer Conscience Study. The study's raison d'être is that growing numbers of consumers are "activist consumers," thinking about where products come from and how they themselves can influence policy and corporate behavior with their purchases. Kate Robertson, Euro RSCG UK group chairman talked about the findings from the first in the series “Blueprint for a Sustainable Brand.” It was released at the 4A’s Transformation Conference in Los Angeles. She warned that brands can no longer assume -- and social media obviously is the elephant in the room -- that they aren't the subject of close scrutiny. "The tidal wave of the social media revolution is inexorably rolling over us and exposing all -- everything will come out, if not today, then for sure tomorrow,” she said at a panel. Nearly half of Americans believe the greatest change agent in the future will be “the people, empowered by social media” -- more than twice the number of respondents who chose politics or corporations as the greatest agent of change. The study, which surveyed 4,000 adults in Brazil, China, France, India, the UK, and the U.S. in 2007 and again in the winter of 2011, found that people are more focused than ever on corporate values and reputation. Sixty-nine percent said they are “paying more attention than in the past to the environmental and/or social impact of the products [they] buy,” and 71% said they believe “the most successful and profitable businesses in the future will be those that practice sustainability.” Sixty-seven percent of respondents said they prefer to buy from companies that share their values. Nearly three-quarters said businesses that are most likely to succeed now and henceforth are those that are open and collaborative. But beyond that, they expect companies they deal with to be drivers of social change. Nearly three-quarters said business has as much to do with positive change as governments. And when businesses fail to meet those expectations, people are punishing them: 70% of consumers worldwide said they have a responsibility to “censure unethical companies by avoiding their products.” China (91%) and India (89%) were the markets most likely to believe that consumers have a duty to censure unethical companies by avoiding their products.