Reports of BlackBerry’s death have been slightly exaggerated. The company, which recently released its BlackBerry 10 line of devices, is seeing its best U.S. consumer perception in 14 months, according to YouGov BrandIndex. “It’s very, very good news for BlackBerry, but it’s early days,” says Ted Marzilli, senior vice president and managing director of BrandIndex. “But it’s sort of the first chapter of a story being written. [The questions now become] is it sustainable and does it lead to additional action on the part of consumers?” For the first time in more than a year, BlackBerry’s brand has been receiving more positive consumer feedback than negative -- movement that could be attributed to the introduction of its latest “10” platform. In recent days, in fact, BlackBerry’s perception has been inching closer to industry leaders Apple and Samsung, according to the daily poll, which asks consumers whether they have heard anything about a particular brand, either positive or negative. Scores, ranging from 100 to -100, are compiled by subtracting the negative feedback from the positive. Although BlackBerry’s score hovered around zero from December through mid-January, it has recently risen to around 7. Samsung’s Galaxy, having had a score of 2 at the beginning of January, has moved up to 16 in recent days, and Apple’s iPhone scored a 17, down from its peak of 38 in October 2012 and off 10 points from the beginning of January. “There’s a couple things going on,” Marzilli says about Apple’s dwindling scores. “They sold a record number of iPhones, but their [earnings] outlook didn’t impress investors, and they’re one of the most closely watched stocks. The negative fallout from their earnings release is reflecting badly on them.” These buzz scores also correlate with the loyalty rates for smartphones, as measured by YouGov’s InvestorView data. According to InvestorView, only 18% of BlackBerry owners indicated a preference for buying another BlackBerry device when queried between April and June 2012. During the current time frame (January to mid-February 2013), that number had risen to 43%. (Purchase intent for the same device among Apple owners has fallen 7% over the same period, and intent for the Samsung Galaxy has increased 7%, during that same period.) “A year ago, it looked like their customers were going to flee, but now [purchase intent] has more than doubled,” Marzilli says. “But what this [data] doesn’t say is if BlackBerry is attracting people from other brands.”
Golf shoe and apparel company FootJoy recently launched a broadcast and print advertising campaign to support the brand’s new tagline, “FJ. The Mark of a Player.” The new advertising creative is the first phase of an larger campaign that will reach avid players through broadcast, digital, mobile and social marketing channels. The complete press release announcing the new campaign is included below. The effort, via Innocean USA (which is also Hyundai Motor America's AOR), launched in January, and will continue with broadcast, digital, mobile and social marketing channels, per Innocean. The emotive campaign focuses on the game and the feelings of pro and amateur players get when they step foot on the golf course: competition and camaraderie, escapism and performance. Several top-ranking FJ Tour professionals were featured in the broadcast campaign including: Adam Scott, Bubba Watson, Hunter Mahan, Luke Donald, Zach Johnson, Lee Westwood, Steve Stricker, Stacy Lewis, Webb Simpson, and Jason Dufner. “When we started working with FJ on developing this campaign we discovered – which later became the theme of our campaign – that committed players, regardless of their skill level, feel an unbreakable emotional bond with the game,” said Greg Braun, ECD at the Huntington Beach, Calif. agency. The new television campaign comprises three commercials, two 30-second spots and one 60-second spot, which started appearing on the Golf Channel in January. FJ’s print campaign includes unique print ads for each of the major product lines for the brand plus a general ad for the brand moniker, “FJ. The Mark of a Player.” Print ads will appear in national golf publications beginning in January.
Best Western International is breaking away from the trend of amenity-based advertising and launching a major new campaign that shifts the spotlight back onto the people who provide the hospitality. The hotel chain's new “Stay With People Who Care” campaign launches this month and is supported by a mix of advertising, sponsorships and social media strategies -- including new 30- and 15-second television spots airing on more than a dozen major cable networks. The spots were created by Gotham Inc. and the media buy is from Initiative Media. The new campaign is rooted in research that showed customer care, personalized service and supporting local businesses were key for travelers when picking a hotel brand, but are virtually ignored in current hotel advertising. The Phoenix-based hotel company believes that these factors, and a commitment to providing a personal connection with guests, are differentiators for Best Western and its locally owned member hotels. To help spotlight these individual hoteliers, the brand is releasing a new series of three-minute documentaries focusing on the personal stories of the brand’s local hotel members. Working with Gotham, Best Western conducted research to determine what is important to guests when selecting a hotel. While amenities such as free Wi-Fi and breakfast are important to consumers, customer care, personalized service and supporting local businesses were also cited as important factors in the decision-making process. In the mid-scale hotel market, offering amenities is considered the price of doing business, says Dorothy Dowling, senior vice president of sales and marketing. But it is the personal connection that Best Western hoteliers have with their guests and their local communities that builds trust and loyalty in the brand and sets it apart from the competition, she says. “The message is really about reminding people that hospitality is the essence of the Best Western brand,” Dowling said in a release. In North America, spots will air on cable networks including CNN, ESPN, USA, TBS, MLB Network, The Weather Channel, CBC News, National Geographic Channel and TNN. Digital advertising will run on travel sites and portals including Yahoo, Google, Amazon, Kayak, and TripAdvisor and sponsorships include organizations such as MLB Network.
A new survey, conducted this month by The Hartman Group among its opt-in HartmanSalt.com consumer panel/community members, finds that 45% of respondents visit food- and beverage-related Web sites during the course of a week. While 10% of respondents report never visiting food/beverage sites, 17% say they visit such sites daily (once or more often), and 17% say they visit them once or twice each month. Among those who do visit such sites, 30% report that their primary reason is looking for recipes. Nearly one-quarter (23%) say their primary reason for visiting food-related sites is looking for nutritional information; 17% say the main driver is to watch videos about food preparation and cooking; and 13% say the main driver is to obtain coupons or specials from manufacturers or retailers. While this particular survey of HartmanSalt.com members, conducted via the Internet and mobile phones, is not statistically representative of U.S. consumers as a whole, Hartman reports that the results are consistent with the results of its surveys that are statistically representative of U.S. consumers.
Scion, the Toyota division stocked with vehicles meant to swerve from a mass-market audience and appeal as well to a younger prospect, has evolved. Advertising had, until pretty recently, been as off-beat as the brand's vehicles. Now the creative and integrated marketing strategy is more about people -- artists, entrepreneurs, and creative people of all kinds -- whose pursuits evince the Scion brand. The latest program, "Make Every Second Count," by long-time AOR Attik, features young culinary, promotional, retail and design entrepreneurs documenting their daily lives with the brand. Scion VP Doug Murtha talks to Marketing Daily about how -- and why -- Scion's message has evolved. Q: Tell me about how creative and marketing has changed for the brand.A: I would say that's less a function of a change in strategic direction and more a response to the market around us. When you rewind to our launch in 2003, you had a lot of folks who came of age in the ’90's. They were pretty carefree; they had either means themselves or access to means through their parents. And their situation allowed for rebelliousness -- they just had more opportunities. Fast-forward to 2013 and about 60% of that under-35-year-old population we are targeting has changed. These folks are a lot more pragmatic; they are a lot more resourceful. They are still expressive but not in the same way they were five, ten years ago. We honestly we have had to adjust our message a little bit to resonate. Q: So it's a completely new generation you are talking to now? A: There is still a 40% holdover from the folks we were after at our launch. But, by and large, even those folks experienced 2008 and watched their parents' home values go down, and lose their jobs. There has been a fair mind-shift with them as well. Q: Has Scion built loyalty to Scion, or to Toyota, which I think was the original purpose of Scion?A: Objective number one was to bring someone into the Toyota family who would not have otherwise considered us. Seventy-five percent of our buyers had no Lexus or Toyota experience at all. Now, obviously, the key is keeping them in the fold -- finding a way to put them in another car. And we had wanted move a lot of people up to the Toyota brand and potentially Lexus. While we are obviously happy keeping them in Scion, too, the balance of that has stayed a little more Scion than we thought. That we have seen a bit more people staying in the Scion fold we like to think is a tribute to the Scion brand proposition in addition to the product lineup, so we don't consider that a "failure" although it's definitely different than our initial target. Q: From the other perspective, are you worried at all worried about Scion veering toward Toyota's territory?A: I think there's still something unique enough about the products we are bringing to market that it isn't going to pull the average buyer away from a Corolla. Conversely, I think there is still enough of a disincentive [for Toyota owners to move to Scion]; there are 300,000 Corollas on the road. So both from the perspective of people interested in what Scion has to offer and the types of products Scion has, we are still staking a different claim. That said, we need to continue to monitor that, because if we do start to converge the reason for our existence starts to erode a bit. Q: Scion campaigns used to be very stealth, very "under the radar." That's changed.A: We had just come to the conclusion that you can still be distinct as a brand but, at the end of the day, you need to build some sort of awareness, and quite frankly we weren't happy with those numbers among our target audience. That resulted in some fine tuning of our ad mix. The launch of FR-S last year gave us great tailwind out of media attention, but we'd still like to build awareness more than where we are today. Q: is there room for event or sports sponsorship activity for Scion?A: It's a very saturated market for autos. And the price of entry is high. Also I don't think, from a brand alignment perspective, it's who we are. Really, it's a constant struggle to avoid drifting toward the mainstream.
If you aren't reaching Millennials on mobile devices, you probably aren't reaching them. That is no less true in the auto sector, particularly when prospects are within a stone's throw of purchase. Unfortunately, a lot of dealerships subscribe to the old-school philosophy: if research starts online, consideration and choice still happen in the showroom. Clayton Stanfield, senior manager of dealer training at eBay Motors and a former dealership Internet sales manager himself, says things are changing when it comes to how dealerships are handling prospects. "It used to be about turning leads into showroom traffic, so you'd hold back information to bring them to the showroom," he says. "But I think because of digital, consumers are so far down the purchase funnel when they reach out that all they want to do at the dealer is take delivery. 'I don't want to do all this research and then go to a dealership and take four hours there.'" He adds that eBay Motors is in the process of teaching dealers not to force younger shoppers into these circumstances, but to focus on convenience. "The main role now is to make the process as painless and enjoyable as possible. You become a consultant." They might want to speed up that learning curve: results of a new consumer survey from the online shopping and research site suggest that Millennials -- about a quarter of the U.S. population -- are going mobile to research, narrow the field, and choose autos. The eBay Motors online survey -- a poll of 1,028 adults between 18 and 60 years old who intend to buy a vehicle within the next five years -- shows that one-third of Millennials use a mobile device to research information while shopping for a vehicle, vs. 19% non-Millennials. One in five Millennials said they would consider purchasing a vehicle using a mobile device. And over half of older shoppers say technology is changing the way they shop for vehicles too. When it comes to narrowing choices, 44% of eBay Motors respondents said that even at dealerships they would whip out mobile devices to compare prices or research. Only 27% of the non-Millennials surveyed said they would do that. And because consumers-- especially younger ones -- are eschewing laptops for mobile devices, it's critical that automakers and retail offer ways to expedite financing on the 3.5-inch screen. "You don't want someone shopping on mobile and discovering that you don't have a credit app, meaning [he or she] has to go to a desktop," says Stanfield.
"If you're not storytelling, I think you're dead in the water." So admits Stevie Benjamin, director of media at MillerCoors. Consumers today want to be entertained and engaged rather than advertised to, she says, and advertisers that have developed strong relationships with publishers and networks are better positioned to provide content that breaks through the media clutter. "Millennial consumers grew up on DVRs and marketing through video games," says Benjamin, who will speak at the 2013 ANA Media Leadership Conference, February 24-26, in Miami, Fla. "They turn off messaging if it's not appealing. That doesn't mean the end of the 30-second spot; it means the middle ground of webisodes, games, programming, information, and music also needs to be part of the mix." Benjamin explains the role of media today at MillerCoors, which new media platform excites her most, and how the company is reaching Hispanic consumers, among other topics. Q. How has the role of media changed in the marketing of MillerCoors' brands?A. Historically, media teams were more focused on where to run the brand message. That's changed. Now, it's not just about finding a place for the message, it's about creating the message. We're striving to get our brand more integrated with content, and our consumers more integrated into our brand. We built a media team that understands content marketing, and that's not by accident. In partnering with publishers and networks -- and their world-class production talent -- we can develop entertaining spaces for our brands. I think the place where media can really shine is the in-between space, where the brand message is built into the entertainment that consumers want. The media industry is well poised for that space right now. Q. While TV continues to be a dominant medium for MillerCoors, which new media platform excites you most?A. We do try to think about screens holistically. After all, the consumer really doesn't differentiate between platforms or ads. I understand we're not quite there yet. As an industry, there are separate sales teams, separate agencies, separate groups in marketing. I suppose until TV becomes smarter and phones have better content, we'll think about them differently. We do remain excited about all screens, and we have good success bringing online ideas to TV and TV ideas online. But overall, mobile is a screen where we continue to place more bets. It's really integral to a beer-drinker's life. Mobile is especially critical to us right before a sale. We can do a nice mix of brand-building work and drive to retail. We trademarked the phrase "Cold Hard Facts," and brought it to the sports world through ESPN's successful ScoreCenter app. We're building equity in that property with the more than 22 million active users. We're also piloting partnerships with some pretty big retail chains to help beer become part of the digital experience. People are spending a good amount of time with mobile content - we've actually been pleasantly surprised. We recognize that there are some awesome opportunities with mobile that are very different from television. But at the end of the day, we want to be consistent across screens. Q. In what ways has the evolving media landscape helped MillerCoors better engage multicultural audiences?A. Multicultural marketing has really gone mainstream, which is pretty exciting. Take the Hispanic segment. Seven years ago, the Spanish-language programming and content was so much more limited. In fact, the No. 1 Spanish-language online activity was online banking, because there just wasn't enough content. It's been exciting to see an explosion in this space, which we're pretty passionate about. Also, we may have been one of the first advertisers to sign on with ESPN Desportes. That allowed us to get on the ground floor and establish a content presence early. We want to support and reward our network partners that are creating great content for the multicultural consumer. Q. What type of progressive "experiences" is MillerCoors creating to better connect with Hispanic consumers?A. A good example is our Coors Light Hispanic Futbol campaign. While U.S. Hispanics are passionate about Mexico's Primera Division futbol league, there was a lack of information about the league, the players, and the community around it in the U.S. Since the teams and games are in Mexico, we wanted to bring the league to our fans here. Our current campaign features sponsorship of the league in the U.S., a Coors Light/Univision digital hub, massive game-viewing parties, an actual U.S.-based match, and a Coors Light/Univision TV show, Fanatico. The show airs once a week throughout the season. It's really an extension of the digital hub. There are fan interviews, fan videos, plus a lot of high-end talent from Univision who normally commentate on the matches. It's very professional, and we keep adding to the program. Working with a great media partner like Univision is so beneficial. They have access to great content and a large audience. They do what they do best and we do what we do best, which is to provide our fans with a great experience with Coors Light. The fan is always at the center of these activities, and Hispanic Coors Light beer sales are on fire. Q. How important is consistency of message with these audiences? A. Because so many Hispanics are bicultural, message consistency across languages is critical. We stay very true to our brand positioning, but recognize cultural relevance. We have employed "crossover" creative that can run in both Spanish and English. Consistency with cultural relevance is key. Q. Are you actively taking advantage of real-time marketing?A. We're definitely trying to. What we have learned is that it takes a ton of preparation to be spontaneous, but the results are worth it. Our Miller Lite NASCAR driver, Brad Keselowski, recently won the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Before the race, he directed his 355,000 Twitter followers to the Miller Lite handle, where we tweeted for him during the race. He won the Cup on a Sunday, and just as the race ended, our home page takeovers went live. On Monday afternoon, Brad drove a Miller Lite beer truck to ESPN for a SportsCenter interview, and David Letterman interviewed him the following day. By listening to consumers, we learned the vastly oversized Miller Lite beer glass Brad drank out of right after his win was becoming a trending topic. We quickly launched the @bradsglass handle. We also auctioned the actual Miller Lite glass on eBay with the proceeds going to charity. All this activity spanned just a few days. If we didn't hit that crucial peak consumer interest point, it would have been too late. The consumer would have moved onto the next thing. Q. How are you measuring success?A. It does and always will come down to selling beer. We always strive to tie our activities to barrel sales. But we also recognize there are so many marketing factors that could lead someone to, say, order a Blue Moon. So, we are using every tool available to us and then pushing for more. Right now we are piloting some pretty interesting work with our agency Initiative that helps quantify paid, earned, and owned channels both separately and as a whole. Q. MillerCoors is well known as a creative organization. Do you have a formal process in place for generating new ideas and boosting creativity?A. We are proud of our innovative history, and we recruit for that trait. If you interview at MillerCoors and are asked: "How have you challenged conventional wisdom," we're definitely listening to the answer. So, our great people are an important component. But we also have a process called 250 forward that creates integration across teams and agencies. Working together and not in silos enables better ideation and creativity. Plus, we are a company that is passionate about beer; our employees look forward to coming to work. It helps to be creative if you are happy about what you're creating.
Although most markets are fiercely competitive, with so much focus on demand generation, many marketers cannot allocate sufficient resources to anticipating competitors’ moves. Companies need to make a myriad of strategic and tactical decisions regarding how they will operate in the market and engage with customers. These decisions often require a strategic lens that considers both the customer and competitive environment. A focus on customer insights is a good thing -- but when marketing organizations fail to anticipate competitors’ moves that affect customers, all the insights may be for naught. When was the last time you and your team took time to consider how your rivals operate, or might operate based on changes that you make? For example, if you brought a new product or service to market: