Locals may be well on their way to digging out after Hurricane Sandy, but JetBlue says it is still learning from the cause-related program it hustled to put into place in the days after the storm. Working with KULA Causes, JetBlue set up a giving platform just days after the storm passed through New York and New Jersey, which allowed the airline’s frequent fliers to donate directly to the American Red Cross. What made the program different, though, is that JetBlue rewarded its members for doing so, doling out six TrueBlue points for every dollar donated. “We went to KULA and asked them to help us get this in place quickly,” Dave Canty, JetBlue’s director of loyalty marketing, tells Marketing Daily. “We put the information out on our Web site and pushed it out through social networks. We had thought we might generate $40,000 or $50,000, and that JetBlue would match it. And the results were extraordinary. We surpassed that goal within the first hour, and in November, raised a total of $800,000.” It was especially important to the company, he says, “because we are the hometown airline of New York, and this was right on our doorstep. Not only were customers affected and displaced, “so were our crew members. We had already been in conversations with KULA, and we really just wanted to get funds to the Red Cross as quickly as possible.” Following the success of the Sandy donations, JetBlue and KULA then cooked up another twist on True Giving, letting each member turn their unused JetBlue points into gifts for 2.5 million nonprofits in 80 countries. “We’ve gone out and talked to TrueBlue customers, and asked them what they wanted,” Mark Dority, KULA’s director of marketing, tells Marketing Daily. “And customers have always said, 'I’d love to be able to donate my points.’” Customers can make donations to the charity of their choice by entering a group’s name, a region, or a cause, and make donations in points, with JetBlue matching some gifts. They can even click within functions in each group, so they can send their points-as-cash gifts to focus on such areas as development, training, or advocacy. KULA then emails the receipts to customers. For Canty, the success of the Sandy program and the new True Giving isn’t just raising cash for causes, it’s that it is doing so in support of the brand’s personality. “Our mission is bringing humanity back to air travel,” Canty says, “and these efforts really speak to that, to the brand’s humanity.”
This year turned out to be a bumper crop for advertising. Creative and brand integration were up and U.S. ad spend for the first three quarters of 2012 was up 2.5% across all media types compared to 2011, according to tracking firm Nielsen. From a sector perspective, the big spenders were the categories that traditionally put a lot of budget toward marketing: automotive, which includes OEM and dealer; fast food; telecom/wireless; pharma; retail; motion picture and auto insurance. The biggest advertisers by spend during the period included Procter & Gamble, AT&T, GM, Toyota, Ford, and Comcast. Nielsen said the best-liked ads and integrations include Ancestry.com’s spot featuring Ellen Harrington, Subway’s placements on “The Office” and JCPenney’s Ellen Degeneres ads. In fact, JCPenney, despite its financial troubles, had 4 of the top 10 ad efforts. The firm said that the most-liked ads of the year worked because of audience-appropriate humor, an ownable creative concept and a relatable, emotional appeal. Product integration in entertainment also helped boost this year’s top 10 campaigns, "which suggests that using a storyline to deliver brand messages is effective in traditional creative and in branded integrations as well," said the Nielsen report. After JCPenney, the rest of the top 10 were Wendy's "My dad Dave Thomas"; Ocean Spray’s Cran-Cherry effort; KFC's "Hide and Seek"; M&M's "I'm Ms. Brown"; and Ford's ad for the 2013 Mustang. Nielsen chose ads that aired up to Nov. 30, excluding the Super Bowl, filtered them by parameters like brand recall and brand association, and based likeability on the top ads' versus the mean score of all ads during that period. The brand integrations on show episodes that consumers remembered the most were Subway on "Community"; Porsche on "2.5 Men;" Chevrolet on "Hawaii Five-0;" Tootsie Roll on "Mike & Molly"; Louis Vuitton on "Person of Interest"; M&M's on "The Good Wife"; Charmin on "Revolution"; Chevy again on another episode of "Hawaii Five-0"; and Kit Kat on "The Middle."
Jello-O Pudding is taking a light-hearted approach to the end of the world in theory predicted by the end of the Mayan calendar on Dec. 21. The Kraft Foods brand is running a multi-element “funpocalypse” campaign to “fun things up” during the days leading up to the date in question. Throughout this week, the brand is running 60- and 30-second TV spots with a “Fun to the Rescue” theme, and sponsoring apocalypse-themed programming on cable channels. The ads, from CP+B, show intrepid brand reps braving the jungle to reach a Mayan temple and attempt to save the world by offering the gods Jell-O Pudding (as opposed to the “boring” vegetables and beans that actual Mayans offered the gods to win their protection). In addition, the brand is running a Twitter-based sweeps. Through Dec. 20, it will randomly select 12 entries per day to win $100. Winners are supposed to use the money toward completing their “bucket lists,” in case Jell-O proves unable to save the world after all. To enter, consumers need to follow @JELLO at Twitter.com/JELLO; tweet @JELLO with hashtag #funpocalypse; and share what they would like to cross off their bucket lists. Jell-O will also have street teams in five major metro areas handing out leaflets to assure people that “the end isn’t near; the fun is”; and is offering cards with humorous apocalyptic messages through a partnership with Someecards.com. Campaign rationale? Food has been “over-intellectualized,” says Jell-O senior brand manager Greg Gallagher. “Fun is in the DNA of Jell-O, and by inserting ourselves in the cultural conversation of the Mayan apocalypse, we will remind people to have some fun with their food.” Jell-O also commissioned a national survey about Americans’ perceptions of the Mayan apocalypse. Findings: While just 4% actually believe the world will come to an end, 82% say they’d “party like there’s no tomorrow” if they knew for certain that the end of the world was actually impending. About half say they’d be most excited about never paying taxes again, and 24% say they’d be most excited about never counting calories again.
Apple and Android continue to dominate the mobile market on the metric that matters to marketers most: ad impressions. According to mobile ad network InMobi’s latest Insights Report for the U.S., Apple leads the North American mobile ad impressions with a 46% market share, and growth increasing by 4.1% from the previous quarter. The Android platform, meanwhile, has a 43.6% market share, and grew at a faster rate (5.4%) during the quarter. “It’s a validation of a lot of other trends we’re seeing in the market place,” Taimour Azizuddin, global insights analyst at InMobi, tells Marketing Daily. “When we look at the market share side of things, Apple and Android are continuing to increase, while RIM is continuing to show declines.” The data, which comes from InMobi’s mobile ad network from September to November 2012, showed that Apple continued to lead the market when it comes to overall manufacturer ad impressions, with a 46% market share. Among Android device makers, Samsung had a 17% market share and HTC had an 8% market share. Among devices, Apple took the top three spots in terms of share of impressions, with the iPhone (27.5%) well ahead of the iPod (11.5%) and the iPad (7%). Amazon’s Kindle Fire came in fourth with 2% share of impressions. “Amazon is slowly but surely making a rise in market share,” Azizuddin says. “That’s [a testament to] the continuing popularity of the Kindle device. Last quarter, the Amazon Kindle wasn’t on the list. Now, it’s number four.” For Windows’ mobile platform, which just recently launched at the data collection period, there were minor gains, though Azizuddin says the platform has a long way to go before threatening the top two. Of all of the manufacturers included in the report, only BlackBerry manufacturer RIM dropped its share of impressions over the previous quarter, continuing a downward cycle for the company, particularly in North America. “It’s been declining steadily for the past several months,” Azizuddin says, noting that the company still has strength in global markets. “But, across the board, we’re seeing a downward trend with RIM and we have been seeing that for quite some time.”
Analytics leader Ace Metrix is introducing the Emotional Sentiment Index (ESI), a new metric for determining the level of emotional engagement that consumers have with ads. The index does not judge an ad, but rather gives the advertiser an index score to understand how the ad engages with viewers on an emotional level -- positive, negative or neutral -- relative to every other ad in the database, other ads in the category and other ads from the brand. The ads currently seated highest on the index today are from a Dawn campaign “Dawn Saves the Wildlife,” which depict ducks, penguins, and otters being rescued and cleaned by Dawn dish soap. This series of ads, originally airing back in April 2010, remains at the top of the index with emotional index scores of 96 and 100. The campaign engages the viewer on a purely positive emotional level, with each ad earning more than 300 voluntary verbal responses. Likewise, an advertiser intending to evoke a negative emotional reaction finds success by ranking low on the emotional index. A Terminix ad “Tentacles Over Cupcakes” holds one of the lowest places on the index at 12. Featuring up-close animations of bugs and critters invading the home, the ad elicits 283 voluntary verbal responses laden with the terms “gross,” “disgusting,” and “bugs” -- likely exactly the reaction the brand intended to get. The metric is one more way that brands can measure their ad creative as it relates to specific objectives, said Peter Daboll, Ace Metrix CEO. “For some campaigns the objective is rational -- for others, emotional,” Daboll said. “Take Visa, for example, who publicized their intention of going ‘100% emotional’ in their Olympic sponsorship ads this year. Their Olympic ads earned the highest spots on the index among all of the 144 Olympic ads.” One of the inherent benefits of the syndicated model is the ability to introduce a new metric and retroactively apply it to the contents of our database, he added. “As such, advertisers not only have this new metric to assess the emotional impact of their latest ads, but the Emotional Sentiment scores are available for all of our 22,000+ ads dating back to 2009,” Daboll said. Using natural language-processing algorithms, Ace Metrix calculates the positive and negative words used in the hundreds of voluntary verbal responses, or verbatims, collected from each ad through the Ace Metrix proprietary testing environment. The Emotional Sentiment Index is represented on a scale of 1 to 100. An ad’s Emotional Sentiment score indicates where the ad sits relative to every other ad in the database. While the Ace Score provides advertisers with detailed measures of persuasion -- desire, relevance, change, attention, information, likeability, and the ad’s watchability, the Emotional Sentiment Index provides advertisers with a measure of emotional engagement. In reviewing the data from more than 22,000 ads, Ace Metrix determined that the Ace Score and Emotional Sentiment are essentially independent, thus providing the advertiser with entirely different dimensions to assess the effectiveness of their creative.
It's a slippery road to take when you start generalizing about auto shows and how each one differs. One show may have a lot of trucks and another a lot of hybrids, but there's a lot of crossover -- no pun intended. But while the just-passed LA. show did, in fact, give a lot of attention to alternative drivetrain technology, the Detroit show will be more about muscle, trucks, and premium offerings. The Detroit muscle focus is a little ironic as Southern California car culture used to be all about muscle cars. In any case, certain portions of the upcoming North American International Auto Show are shaping up to be an automotive Muscle Beach. And the car doing the most sand-kicking will be the brand new, totally redesigned, mega anticipated, seventh-generation Corvette. The nameplate is 60 years old, incredibly enough. Incidentally, rather than being named after an animal or reptile, which tends to be the case with fast cars, the Corvette is named for a smallish naval gunship. And Chevrolet will set sail early, showing the car to the press folks (who manage to arrive early Sunday) the new 2014 Corvette in a big space, and not Cobo Hall. Chevrolet has also been seeding the Web with a trio of black-and-white videos about the new Corvette. They don't show the car, but rather designers and engineers carving it out of clay, taking it on hot laps, and testing its aerodynamics and performance. Infiniti, and Lexus are also both unveiling performance cars at the show. The latter will focus on the latest iteration of its 12-year-old IS nameplate, a performance car that does double-duty as an entry-luxury vehicle. BMW will add another even number to its lineup (the way it works is a two-door coupe of, say, a 5 Series, is called a 6 Series.) The new concept will be the 4 Series, a coupe version of the venerated 3, BMW's highest-volume nameplate.
In the age of the customer, brand building is more important than ever to differentiate offerings and create long-term customer value. Consider this: 45 percent of U.S. online consumers who frequently recommend brands to others say that it is very important that a brand surprises them with the way it interacts with customers -- compared with just 22 percent of all U.S. online adults. Add to that the notion that 42 percent of U.S. online adults are Always Addressable -- owning and using at least three connected devices and going online multiple times per day from multiple physical locations -- and it becomes clear that brands must form an emotional connection with digitally empowered customers. Companies need to shift their mindset from thinking of brand building as an expense to viewing brands as an asset that creates business leverage. Why? Because strong brands are key enablers in opening the door to new categories, new markets, and new distribution channels. But building a twenty-first century brand takes more than a media budget. To attain all of these benefits and build the business case to their C-level peers, marketing leaders must account for four categories of investment that:
Make no mistake. Big Data is getting some awful big coverage these days. Google the phrase and over 1 billion hits result. From lecture hall to The New York Times, Big Data is on everyone’s lips. But why? And what does Big Data mean? To answer the second question first, “Big Data” entered popular culture in 2008, and speaks to the information generation and the rate at which the human database grows, aided chiefly by digital technology. So rapidly has data growth accelerated that IDC’s 2011 Digital Universe Study predicts a 50-fold increase in the amount of worldwide data by 2020. Big Data is a Big Deal because of the degree it overlaps other emerging technologies. That’s why in October 2012 research firm Gartner ranked “Big Data” in its Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2013 -- because it correlates with many other list trends including mobile devices, apps, cloud computing, and consumer analytics. For Big Data, consumer analytics is where the action is at and why it’s rapidly being recognized as the ultimate renewable resource. Properly managed, stored, analyzed and acted upon, Big Data helps marketers better engage their customers by painting an accurate, granular shopper picture. The more that picture improves, the better they can attract, engage and retain a customer. In other words, real-time actionable data, gathered via SMS messages, mobile email, digital Wi-Fi along with Bluetooth-enabled signage opt-ins, and the latest generation of proximity detection -- all capable of gathering average price points, typical purchases (even in-store and near-store dwell times along with gender and likely customer demographic) -- are beginning to deliver marketing gold. Of course, capitalizing on Big Data requires some major restraint. And despite the information influx, consumers are rightly concerned over data security, privacy, and the distribution of their personal information to third parties. To that end, here are my Big Data observations and how marketers can best use this information in a responsible and profit-maximizing manner.