Following last week’s news that it will air a Super Bowl ad for the first time, Wonderful Pistachios has announced a three-year, seven-figure partnership with the Harlem Globetrotters, starting with the Globetrotters’ current exhibition-game season. In addition to its presence at the Globetrotters’ North American games through signage, program advertising and sampling, the nut brand’s “Get Crackin’” logo will appear on the team’s jerseys. The North American leg of the Globetrotters’ 2013 World Tour will stop in more than 240 cities. Also, a Wonderful Pistachios spot featuring the Globetrotters will launch on national television and the brand’s Get Crackin’ site starting Jan. 21. Marc Seguin, VP marketing for Wonderful Pistachios parent Paramount Farms, said the partnership is a natural fit because the Globetrotters and their fans “enjoy healthy snacking.” “We are selling a record number of pistachios at sports events because consumers want better food choices when they’re watching a game,” he said.
If you don’t own a tablet or smartphone by now, chances are you will by the end of the year. Driven by the explosive growth in mobile technologies, the Consumer Electronics Association is projecting overall revenues for the consumer electronics sector to reach a record $209.6 billion in 2013, up 3% from 2012’s $204 billion. Tablets and smartphones will continue to grab consumers’ attention. The CEA predicts tablet sales will hit 116 million units this year, up 45% from the 80 million units sold in 2012. (The tablet category alone will generate $37 billion in revenues, up from $31 billion in 2012, according to the CEA.) Along those same lines, smartphones will also continue their advance, with unit sales reaching 130 million this year, up from 111 million in 2012. Smartphone category revenues will pass $37 billion, up from $33 billion in 2012. Overall, tablets and smartphones will account for 36% of the total CE industry revenues in 2013, according to Steve Koenig, the CEA’s director of industry analysis. “Revenue growth for these combined categories in 2013 is projected to be 16% as prices decline and unit growth slows,” Koenig tells Marketing Daily. “We talk about cannibalization coming from these categories and the growing revenue share illustrates this effect.” In other categories, unit sales and revenues for LCD televisions are projected to increase, with shipments to dealers reaching a record-high 30.4 million, producing nearly $15 billion in revenue. Sales of TVs with 3D functionality are expected to increase 39%, with sales of more than 5.7 million units. Internet connected displays will also increase nearly 30%, with more than 12 million projected unit sales. To enhance performance of these TVs, soundbar shipments are projected to increase 22% and network-enabled, set-top boxes are expected to hit 7.4 million units, a gain of 13%. “Having upgraded their TVs, consumers are starting to come around to enhancing their audio for a more immersive entertainment experience,” Koenig says. “The soundbar is enjoying success for two reasons: form factor and price. [They are] much easier solution than discrete channel audio and most are $299 or less. The soundbar has been a savior to audio and a great margin booster for retailers selling TVs.”
Yes, Sisyphus would have rather been told to choose the 10 best automotive spots of the past 25 years, instead of rolling boulders around, but that doesn't mean that hand-picking best-ofs over a quarter century is a snap. In any case, the list has to include BMW's "The Hire," definitely Honda's Europe-market ad "cog," VW's "Milky Way" ad (if for no other reason than it introduced Nick Drake to most people), and Chrysler's Eminem ad that resurrected Detroit. The One Club agrees, and lauds those and the other seven top ads at Cobo Hall on Tuesday, at the 2013 North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Picked from 60 entries by a panel of some 70 top advertising creatives and journalists, including Jeff Goodby, Mark Tutssel from Leo Burnett Worldwide, and Cliff Freeman of Cliff Freeman & Partners, here are the winners (oh, there was also a public opinion winner in Saatchi & Saatchi L.A.'s “Camry Reinvented” ad for Toyota): 1. "Grrr" - Wieden+Kennedy/London and Honda - 2004 2. "Cog" - Wieden+Kennedy/London and Honda - 2003 3. "The Force" - Deutsch/Los Angeles and Volkswagen - 2011 4. "The Hire" - Fallon/Minneapolis and BMW - 2001 5. "Sheet Metal" - Goodby, Silverstein & Partners/San Francisco and Saturn - 2002 6. "Born of Fire" - Wieden+Kennedy/Portland and Chrysler - 2011 7. "Toys" - TBWA\Chiat\Day/Los Angeles and Nissan - 1997 8. "Lamp Post" - BMP DDB/London and Volkswagen - 1998 9. "Milky Way" - Arnold Worldwide/Boston and Volkswagen -1999. 10. "Snow Covered" - Bozell Worldwide/Southfield and Chrysler/Jeep - 1994 "The Hire" was not just a new idea, but a new idea in a new medium. Nobody had done online video at that level. Bruce Bildsten, CD at Fallon, oversaw the 2001 series from start to finish. He tells Marketing Daily that just doing the technology aspects was a problem. Consider that the online video series launched before YouTube and social media were on the scene, and when big bandwidth was as exclusive as a Fisker. "There was no way to distribute it," says Bildsten. "You had to download the films from the site essentially overnight." The agency had to invent the channel. "Quicktime existed in crude form, so we used that for the bones of it, basically creating our own YouTube." As for the creatives and marketers involved, Bildsten says it had a big influence on the agency creatives, account people and marketers involved. "If they were honest with themselves, they would have to admit that it absolutely influenced their thinking." He says, for example, that Fallon's Cadillac ATS "ATS Versus the World" campaign last year reflected that. The effort, as much a Discovery Channel exploration of exotic locales as an ad campaign, "was a bold move that went much deeper than the traditional TV spots." Lance Jensen, who was Executive VP and Group Creative Director at Arnold Boston (now the Chief Creative Officer at Hill Holliday), says the "Milky Way" spot for Volkswagen's Cabrio, set to Nick Drake's "Pink Moon," offered a transcendental look at the benefits of driving with the top down...at night. "It's a simple and honest story: four friends driving through the country with the top down, enjoying the moon and the night," he says. "The Cabrio is a strange little car, wasn't a big seller, and they'd never bothered to make a commercial for it, so we thought of it as a brand halo spot." It helped, he adds, that Steve Wilhite, much-lauded North American director of marketing for the brand, and Liz Vanzura, VW's marketing director at the time, had a clear vision of the brand, and knew the agency could deliver on the intangibles. He adds that the night-driving inspiration drew from his own youth, when he tooled around with the top down. As for Drake, he died young, famously hated performing live, and had fairly severe depression and insomnia (for what it's worth). His music's arc was like that of "Moby Dick," which also remained obscure for years. It wouldn't be far off to say Arnold Boston was to Drake what critic Raymond Weaver was to Melville's tome: the agency had a major role in resurrecting the artist and creating a new fan base. "We'd been listening to a lot of Nick Drake at the time," says Jensen. "We were all in bands on the side. We were looking at rough cuts and said, 'How about this song,' and it was meant to be."
On a freakishly warm, rain-soaked night in the Motor City, Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz reflected with their pre-show presentations a larger theme in the luxury market: expansion of portfolios. Not up, mind you, but down, in an effort to get younger consumers -- future loyalists if things work out -- into their brands. Jaguar touted the new F-Type, which launches toward end of spring, as part of its conquest strategy. This is not an entry vehicle in the least, as it inhabits a fishbowl with Porsche, and perhaps with Mercedes AMG sports cars and BMW 6-Series. But it is a lure for younger, affluent consumers. Phil Popham, group sales director for the Land Rover sibling, said the F-Type -- first shown at the Los Angeles Auto Show -- will be a conquest vehicle with 80% of buyers new to the brand. He said that based on early interest, the sports car will defy prognostications that sports coupes will vanish from the market. "After we showed it in Los Angeles, we got 25,000 hand raisers. And the average age is 10 years below the current age [for Jaguar buyers]," he said. Mercedes-Benz talked about its forthcoming CLA compact car, introduced on Monday and also meant to mine -- and conquest -- younger buyers looking to get into luxury. The automaker held a presser on Sunday night as well, showing off the vehicle with a "Three Men and a Baby" reference and an opening act by a hipster band with YouTube fame. Dieter Zetsche, chairman of Daimler AG, said the car would appeal to younger buyers more than C-Class. The CLA will play a role in the Super Bowl but I can't talk it about ... yet. There's a risk in going "downmarket," of course, as Mercedes-Benz knows from an experiment a few years back, when the brand was playing budget allocation tug-of-war with Chrysler, briefly under Daimler. Larry Dominique, president of TrueCar's ALG research division, noted in a pre-show briefing that entry luxury is challenged by the up-featured, higher end of the mass market as even affluent buyers look for value. And lower pricing has its own drawback. "The badge is really important, but lower MSRP to compete with mass hurts luxury brands." Dan Creed, VP marketing at BMW North America, tells Marketing Daily that BMW doesn't have the latter issue with its BMW 1-Series partly because it began in the U.S. as a maker of small sports sedans."BMW was built from the bottom up. We have other competitors that started up and have worked down [to smaller vehicles]; it's better to go bottom up than top down.”
It’s not just dogs and cats who rule the roost. American pet owners live in the company of 116 million fish, birds, small animals and reptiles, according to a report from market research firm Packaged Facts. While research into the human-animal bond tends to focus on the special relationship between people and dogs that has evolved over thousands of years, today’s pet owners do not limit their connection with animals to dogs or cats alone. A wide range of other animals have found their way into the households and affections of pet lovers, according to “Pet Population and Pet Owner Trends in the U.S.” Fish tanks can be found in 7.2 million households and bird cages in 4.6 million households. Reptiles are pets in 1.8 million households. Tens of millions of adults, as well as their children, enjoy the companionship of non-canines and non-felines. The report finds that 15.6 million adults reside in households with fish and 10.4 million own birds and 2.5 million have rabbits. These pet owners represent big business for the pet industry. They groom and board their birds, buy toys for their iguanas, purchase medications for their turtles, take their gerbils to the vet and light and decorate their fish tanks. Food is bought for all of the tens of millions of pets that are owned in addition to cats and dogs. A recurring theme of the report is the critical role that parents and children play in this segment of the pet market. Compared to pet owners who have cats and dogs exclusively, owners of fish, reptiles and small animals are much more likely to have children under the age of 18 in their households (57% vs. 34%). Nearly 90% of households with hamsters have children, and 87% of these have children under the age of 12. Around 60% of households with fish, rabbits and reptiles have children under the age of 18. The spending power of owners of pets other than cats and dogs has a significant impact on the bottom line of marketers and retailers of pet products and services, said David Sprinkle, the research director for Packaged Facts. After a noticeable recessionary slump, ownership of fish, birds and small animals is on the rebound. Marketers can take advantage of an improving market by leveraging the connection that consumers have with their pets, Sprinkle says.
Your business logo is more than just a picture and some text -- it stands as a symbol of familiarity and trust within your brand. A lot of thought and effort must be given to choosing and designing a new logo, and it can be difficult for small business owners to determine what fits their business and its image best. Keep these three pointers in mind as a starting guide as you begin building your brand with the right logo. Try not to shock and awe Bright colors and exciting fonts are not your friend. I realize how tempting they may initially appear to a business looking to grab their target market’s attention, but it is far too easy to step over the line separating eye-catching and garish. When choosing a color, focus on consistency. Go with the color that you have used the most so far when it comes to promoting your business, be it on your Web site or your business cards. And unless you’re in an artistic industry, try not to delve too deeply into the wide world of fonts. Readability should always take precedence over style. So don’t sacrifice a clean logo and font for an over-the-top mess even if you think the flamboyant display will draw a customer’s eye faster. Chances are they will be more annoyed than intrigued. The smaller you are, the harder it will be to change Big business has a little bit more leeway when it comes to changing its logo or brand. As long as some aspect remains the same as what the audience is accustomed to seeing, their advertising budget and name recognition means that they can rest assured customers will still recognize and accept a new logo without too much of a backlash. Small businesses don’t have these kinds of resources at their disposal. And since people generally prefer familiarity to change, switching your logo -- even if the switch isn’t too terribly dramatic -- can take some time to get used to. Keep the longevity of your new logo in mind, as you will most likely be using it for some time to come. If you do eventually decide to change later on down the road, do so incrementally. It is much more effective to ease your customers into something new than to present a dramatic change and expect them to immediately accept it. Always, always, ALWAYS protect your logos! For any iteration of your logo that you may decide on, you still have to protect it. As a small business owner, you are building a brand -- all of the blood, sweat, and tears that you have poured into making your company known and trusted are represented by that logo. If you change your logo and decide to use it on your Web site, in mailings, on business cards, or anywhere else, file for trademark protection with the USPTO. It’s a little pricey to do so, but worth the investment as this will keep your logo protected from being copied or stolen. Choosing a logo will always be initially difficult to decide on, but changing it is even harder. The key here is to be happy with your decision and how the design reflects your company, as you’re most likely to plaster that image onto everything you send out. Be consistent, keep it simple, and remember to protect your investment –- and watch as your brand takes off!
Increasingly, the first stop for many car shoppers today is not the dealer showroom, but the Internet. And while conventional wisdom would suggest that shopping car Web sites improves sales performance, a recent surveyof 13,000 drivers in 11 countries finds that the current state of industry Web sites may impact performance. The study finds that consumers want content on auto industry Web sites customized to be more relevant to their specific car-buying needs and believe such a change would make the process simpler and faster. As car shoppers depend more and more on Web sites to make their car-buying decisions, it only makes good business sense for companies to put as much effort into developing an effective, interactive digital marketing platform as it does to create extraordinary physical presentations like the show and establish successful brick-and-mortar enterprises. Better digital marketing sites are key to future car-buying, according to the survey. Specifically: