Planters is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its having introduced the dry-roasting peanut process -- and its first dry-roasted products -- by adding two new flavors to the line. Its approach to the launches points up the brand’s shift to a greater focus on employing social media for marketing, as well as its increased emphasis on product innovation. The two new varieties of Planters Dry Roasted Peanuts -- Roasted Onion & Garlic and Honey Barbeque -- are indicative of the brand’s push to provide “a flavor for every palate,” says Ken Padgett, senior associate brand manager for Planters. The brand last launched a new dry-roasted flavor, 5-Alarm Chili, in January 2011, joining the regular, honey roasted, lightly salted and unsalted varieties. The newest products, which will be on store shelves across the country by mid-December, are initially being supported primarily through posts/promotions on the Mr. Peanut Facebook page, reports Padgett. Those will include a coupon for the new products, positioned as an anniversary “thank-you” from the brand to its fans, he notes. The Mr. Peanut Facebook page, which currently has nearly 500,000 “likes,” enables the brand to interact with fans through the engaging, comedic “voice” of the iconic character, Padgett says. (Mr. Peanut got an image makeover, and his first literal “voice” -- originated by Robert Downey Jr. -- starting with a late 2010 TV spot.) Planters is still solidifying its 2013 marketing plan for the new dry-roasted products, but expects to incorporate elements such as in-store promotions and traditional media, while continuing the dialogue on Facebook. Planters will also be communicating another milestone for its dry-roasted line: The unsalted and lightly salted varieties recently earned the American Heart Association’s “heart healthy” Heart Check Food Certification. The Planters brand as a whole is more than 100 years old. Its dry-roasting process for preserving peanuts’ flavor and seasonings without oil -- which was exclusive to the brand when first introduced in 1962 -- has changed little since then, although the dry-roasting facility has become more efficient, according to Padgett. Planters Dry Roasted Peanuts quickly became a "phenomenon" in the '60s, and the products today are found in one of every five American households, he adds.
It's the time of year for shiny ornaments and trend reports, and one thing that the people who do the reports can agree on is that like economists, they don't usually agree. Sheryl Connelly, the global consumer trends and futuring analyst at Ford Motor, conceded that point at the very start of Thursday's Ford-sponsored New York conference on 2013 consumer trends. Actually, in this case the panelists -- Connelly; social theorist John Gerzema, executive chairman of BrandAsset; Cheryl Guerin, trends analyst for MasterCard; and Grant McCracken, Harvard Business School cultural anthropologist -- generally agreed on the predictions that are elaborated in Ford's own first-ever trend report, "Looking Further with Ford." The report says people are getting some optimism back, although their buying habits -- particularly those of 20- to 30-year-olds -- are going to be radically different. The report lists 13 "microtrends." First on the list is trust, or "trust is the new black." Gerzema said there has been a 50% decline in trust since 2001, but a 35% rise in trust as a driver of brand equity. That suggests there's an opportunity for brands that open their arms wide and say, "Here I am with all my blemishes." "Customers want a reason to believe and brands who give them that will be better off," said Connelly. Gerin said MasterCard is doing just fine in that category -- as she said the brand is 87% more trusted than any other brand of any kind. McCracken said trust matters in a "black swan" world full of disruptive competitors. "The last 20 years have been a chronicle of brands behaving badly," he said. "The name of the game is absolute transparency." The good news for established brands is that assuming they have not been behaving badly, they have equity, while new competitors have nothing but VC money. To achieve trust equity functionally, the "front" of a company -- its brand, communications, what it claims to be -- must match the back, the invisible side, where it does what it actually does. The issue, noted Connelly, isn't that a company can't make mistakes, but that if it does, it needs to be straight about what went wrong, and if it doesn't know what went wrong, it should say that too. "People want sincerity. The assumption is it's never perfect, but you are supposed to make good." Connelly said -- and she has firsthand experience of this -- that the pace of technological change makes it hard to be perfect the first time out. Ford's MyFord Touch platform built off of Sync has had problems, but Ford has time to fix it, and can do that via a simple flash drive with a new version of the interface. "Consumers' tolerance for imperfection is correlated to what's in it for them." The report dubs another trend "Pioneering Pathways," in which people are diversifying their pursuits. "The underlying shift is that we have moved from a culture where people expect to draw from institutions a sense of life plan to a state where everyone is in "startup mode." It's a period of self invention -- Millennial as hustler. Everyone has five or six selves." A minimal maximist trend means doing more with less. Gerzema said 65% of consumers state they are happier with a simpler lifestyle -- citing a $12 billion barter economy, sites like "airbnb" whose average member makes $21,000 per year; and Seattle's micro apartment trend, where people are living in 220-square-foot spaces.
Simplicity breeds adoption, especially when it comes to online advertising and marketing. "In an ideal world complexity wouldn't exist; a product would be so simple every small business could use it," said Dan Levy, the social network's lead for small business, at the BIA/Kelsey interactive conference. "Until that day comes, we think there's a lot of third-party service providers that can help companies use Facebook with tools and services." Levy said it's important for Facebook to understand what these companies provide, and how the social network can make it easier for small companies to connect with their customers. Levy also said Facebook will look into supporting third-party companies that offer services, extending its network beyond the preferred marketing developer program it offers today for large and small businesses. It all comes down to helping smaller companies create a Facebook page, with a lot of attention given to mobile, advertising and real-time location. About one-third of the 100,000 small businesses that have published Offers are new Facebook advertisers, and about 30% are claimed on mobile devices. Levy said about 2.5 million posts have been promoted since the product launched in June, and that 75% of daily Promoted Posts are purchased by repeat customers. Facebook supports more than 13 million small and local business pages. Active Pages grew about 40% this year, and the number of Pages owners -- businesses self-identified as local -- who bought advertising nearly doubled. About 150 million people visit Pages daily, and nearly half of those visitors come from mobile, which now contributes 14% to Facebook's global revenue. The recently launched Promoted Posts aims to provide a simplified way for businesses to reach consumers without using Facebook's more complex ad system. About 300,000 pages have used the solution to write a status update and prompt it. About one-quarter are new advertisers on the site. The local-mobile model plays nicely into Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg's description of a recommendation engine for the social site. In the past, he has described the ultimate Facebook search engine as a cross between a recommendation and Q&A tool. "Friends ask friends for recommendations, so if you follow the theme we hear about listening to customers, there's clearly opportunities," Levy said. "Small Businesses from Shutterstock"
Nissan's European operations has done some offbeat things with its offbeat performance car, Nismo Juke-R, like racing on the streets of Dubai against a sheik and his Ferraris. The company has also based an entire marketing program around gaming, with the Nissan GT Academy, via a partnership with Sony Computer Entertainment. As part of that program, which is in its fourth season, really good players of Gran Turismo go to a Hell Week-style racing camp in the U.K. to vie to be a Nissan professional racer. The company is back with another gaming campaign that gives people who have a knack for the digital racetrack a chance to drive the Juke on a real one. To promote the launch of the latest version of the car, which goes on sale early next year, the alliance with game maker Gameloft's Asphalt 7: Heat aims to find the 10 best mobile Nismo drivers and give them a VIP trip to drive the car in Barcelona. The game features the Nissan Juke Nismo, and Juke-R. Part of the deal is a free release download for 48 hours on Dec. 8 and 9 in the App Store, per Nissan. One of the virtual courses in the game is on a Nissan racetrack, in Tokyo, which features a section where drivers pass the Nismo Omori factory, per the automaker. The company says the game has been downloaded by 50 million people for iOS and Android, and to enter, players must first register their details via an app on the Gameloft Facebook page or through the game and then drive a Nissan Juke Nismo in the Asphalt Academy game mode. A leaderboard records the times of the fastest drivers. The competition runs from Dec. 17 to 31, at which point two winners will be selected at random (one iOS and one Android) from the top 10. The effort will be done in the UK, Spain, Germany, France, and Russia.
The so-called “purchase funnel” for consumers is no longer linear, and it no longer stops, thanks to social media. According to a new study from the Advertising Research Foundation, nearly one-third of shoppers said social media influenced their brand preference, either by introducing those consumers to brands they were unfamiliar with or changing their opinion of a brand during the shopping process. The study also determined that, thanks in part to social media, the purchase process never ends. With constant updates from social networks (including from friends and colleagues who are talking about their own recent purchases in social networks), consumers are constantly shopping, even if they are doing it in a passive manner. “People have a [predetermined] mental image of the marketplace even if they’re not in it. Even if you’re not a snowboarder, you probably have an image of what the market is like,” Todd Powers, executive vice president, primary research, the Advertising Research Foundation, tells Marketing Daily. “By the time you start that active search, you already have the view of the marketplace. The old image we had was using the funnel. Those stages still exist; they’re not linear anymore.” While the study, “Digital & Social Media in the Purchase Decision Process,” determined there was no single path to purchase for modern consumers, social media plays a role on every point of the journey. More than a fifth of consumers (22%) agreed with the notion that social media played an important role in their purchase decision. The study also found that emotion is a very important part of the purchase process, both before and after making a purchase. The study found that posting on social sites, particularly positive comments expressing “joy” doubled after a purchase as people sought assurances that they made a smart buy, Powers says. “The digital resource of social media provides both information and emotional input,” he says. And social media is one of those things that does both of these things.” At the same time, the wealth of information available to consumers can sometimes lead to analysis paralysis, where they can’t pull the trigger on a purchase because they want to get as much information as possible. Social media, according to the study, is expanding the range of trust for consumers, with the influencers of a decision growing beyond the family, friends and colleagues on Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets, to blogs, online forums, and other digital sources. “In today’s world with the ready access to advice and information, consumers have more than they need,” Powers says. “There’s so much information that the big challenge is making sense of it.” The study, conducted with partners such as GM, Google, Kraft, The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, Motorola, Firefly/Millward Brow, comScore, Converseon, Communispace and Y&R, combined surveys with Web-listening and social media content analysis, as well as in-depth interviews, ethnography and information gathering from online communities. "Mobile Shopping from Shutterstock"
Is the digital era driving a heightened sense of vanity in a world where nearly everyone can quickly upload pictures and other images to a Facebook or Google+ page? Are people opting for cosmetic surgery to put forth a more attractive countenance when using services such as Skype or FaceTime? New research from Mindshare would suggest so. "Vanity is strong word,” said Mark Potts, managing director, Consumer Insights at Mindshare Worldwide. But there’s no question that society is generally “more conscious of physical appearance,’’ at a time when photo sharing is becoming as commonplace as texting. “Today’s culture is much more visualized, with the consequence that people are much more aware of how they look,” said Potts who oversaw a just-released study from the agency about the digital impact on societal notions of beauty. The study, part of the Mindshare’s Culture Vulture series of consumer insights reports, notes that chin implant procedures in the U.S. last year soared 71%. Many of those procedures, the report asserts, were done by people who wanted to look better while chatting on FaceTime or Skype, or who just wanted to exorcize a double chin for a shot on Facebook. The report cites the so-called “'FaceTime Facelift,” a term coined by a Washington, D.C.-based cosmetic surgeon, who noticed patients increasingly asking to have their faces “corrected" to look better in video chat calls. In response, the surgeon developed a liposuction surgery technique that does away with the double chins and turkey jowls accentuated by the camera’s angle. Potts said that many of those procedures were requested by middle-aged patients, for whom sagging faces are a bigger issue than among millennials. But younger folks also go under the knife to correct perceived flaws. Potts noted separate reports that have detailed younger people resorting to cosmetic surgery to stop bullying from peers -- actions that are often facilitated by social media. The Mindshare report, Culture Vulture Beauty, explores how the increased visualization wrought by digital has affected societies around the world, and provides a number of takeaways for marketers. “There are a lot of ways to express brands more visually,” said Potts -- and ways to drive consumer interest in brands by utilizing relatively new media behaviors such as digital photo sharing. The full report can be found at http://www.mindshareworld.com/s/CultureVulture.
Holland America Line is offering savings for consumers and sales support for travel sellers during its “Sail & Save” sale on select cruises. The sale begins Dec. 10 and features savings on multiple cruises and destinations. To get ready for the 2013 sailing season, travel sellers booking a Holland America Line cruise can offer their clients savings of up to 50% off select cruise fares and free or reduced third and fourth fares on select voyages, as well as a free hotel stay on select Canada/New England and Alaska cruises and CruiseTour departures. Marketing support includes direct mail and email to consumers, as well as an array of online travel seller promotional and sales tools that are available in the Travel Agent Headquarters portal accessed via hollandamerica.com. These include customizable "Build Your Own" emails, personalized PDF flyers and Web banner ads. The promotion also is being supported on Twitter, Facebook and the Holland America Blog. Consumers can access all social media outlets via the Online Communities quick link on the company's home page. "Our goal is to always make sure that our travel partners have the best tools available to promote Holland America Line to their clients," said Richard Meadows, executive vice president, marketing, sales and guest programs, in a release. "We encourage all of our travel partners to take advantage of this popular annual promotional to jump start their 2013 bookings." Cruise destinations featured in the Sail & Save sale include Alaska cruises and CruiseTours, Asia, Australia/New Zealand, Canada/New England, the Caribbean, Europe, Grand Voyages, Hawaii/Tahiti, Mexico, Panama Canal and South America itineraries.
Rounding out a strong year for We Are Social, Lenovo has named the London-based social media agency as its new global social media agency of record. Rod Strother, director of digital and social for Lenovo, said We Are Social won out in a four-way competitive pitch. (The other agency contenders were not named.) What set We Are Social apart? Along with its focus on conversational marketing, Strother said: “They understand the importance of weaving social media into the heart of an integrated marketing approach.” Going forward, We Are Social will be expected to manage Lenovo’s social media activities at a global level, with the partnership being led from the agency’s New York and Singapore offices. The shop will provide strategic support and advice to the company’s in-house social media team, partnering with Lenovo to develop a long-term strategy across all social media channels. We Are Social will also recommend and implement suitable metrics and measurement tools, support global product and provide what Lenovo calls “a full crisis management consultancy service.” The agency formed its regional hub in Singapore last year, which likely helped it win the Chinese computer maker’s business. It only opened its first U.S. outpost in New York earlier this year, with initial clients Adidas and DeBeers Diamond Jewelry. Additional clients include Heinz, Unilever, Heineken, eBay, Jaguar, Intel, Moët & Chandon and Expedia. In a similar partnership, the agency was recently appointed by Tiger Beer to work with its in-house team to develop a global social media strategy. We Are Social also has offices in Milan, Munich, Sydney and Sao Paulo.
Planters is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its having introduced the dry-roasting peanut process -- and its first dry-roasted products -- by adding two new flavors to the line. Its approach to the launches points up the brand’s shift to a greater focus on employing social media for marketing, as well as its increased emphasis on product innovation. The two new varieties of Planters Dry Roasted Peanuts -- Roasted Onion & Garlic and Honey Barbeque -- are indicative of the brand’s push to provide “a flavor for every palate,” says Ken Padgett, senior associate brand manager for Planters. The brand last launched a new dry-roasted flavor, 5-Alarm Chili, in January 2011, joining the regular, honey roasted, lightly salted and unsalted varieties. The newest products, which will be on store shelves across the country by mid-December, are initially being supported primarily through posts/promotions on the Mr. Peanut Facebook page, reports Padgett. Those will include a coupon for the new products, positioned as an anniversary “thank-you” from the brand to its fans, he notes. The Mr. Peanut Facebook page, which currently has nearly 500,000 “likes,” enables the brand to interact with fans through the engaging, comedic “voice” of the iconic character, Padgett says. (Mr. Peanut got an image makeover, and his first literal “voice” -- originated by Robert Downey Jr. -- starting with a late 2010 TV spot.) Planters is still solidifying its 2013 marketing plan for the new dry-roasted products, but expects to incorporate elements such as in-store promotions and traditional media, while continuing the dialogue on Facebook. Planters will also be communicating another milestone for its dry-roasted line: The unsalted and lightly salted varieties recently earned the American Heart Association’s “heart healthy” Heart Check Food Certification. The Planters brand as a whole is more than 100 years old. Its dry-roasting process for preserving peanuts’ flavor and seasonings without oil -- which was exclusive to the brand when first introduced in 1962 -- has changed little since then, although the dry-roasting facility has become more efficient, according to Padgett. Planters Dry Roasted Peanuts quickly became a "phenomenon" in the '60s, and the products today are found in one of every five American households, he adds.
It's the time of year for shiny ornaments and trend reports, and one thing that the people who do the reports can agree on is that like economists, they don't usually agree. Sheryl Connelly, the global consumer trends and futuring analyst at Ford Motor, conceded that point at the very start of Thursday's Ford-sponsored New York conference on 2013 consumer trends. Actually, in this case the panelists -- Connelly; social theorist John Gerzema, executive chairman of BrandAsset; Cheryl Guerin, trends analyst for MasterCard; and Grant McCracken, Harvard Business School cultural anthropologist -- generally agreed on the predictions that are elaborated in Ford's own first-ever trend report, "Looking Further with Ford." The report says people are getting some optimism back, although their buying habits -- particularly those of 20- to 30-year-olds -- are going to be radically different. The report lists 13 "microtrends." First on the list is trust, or "trust is the new black." Gerzema said there has been a 50% decline in trust since 2001, but a 35% rise in trust as a driver of brand equity. That suggests there's an opportunity for brands that open their arms wide and say, "Here I am with all my blemishes." "Customers want a reason to believe and brands who give them that will be better off," said Connelly. Gerin said MasterCard is doing just fine in that category -- as she said the brand is 87% more trusted than any other brand of any kind. McCracken said trust matters in a "black swan" world full of disruptive competitors. "The last 20 years have been a chronicle of brands behaving badly," he said. "The name of the game is absolute transparency." The good news for established brands is that assuming they have not been behaving badly, they have equity, while new competitors have nothing but VC money. To achieve trust equity functionally, the "front" of a company -- its brand, communications, what it claims to be -- must match the back, the invisible side, where it does what it actually does. The issue, noted Connelly, isn't that a company can't make mistakes, but that if it does, it needs to be straight about what went wrong, and if it doesn't know what went wrong, it should say that too. "People want sincerity. The assumption is it's never perfect, but you are supposed to make good." Connelly said -- and she has firsthand experience of this -- that the pace of technological change makes it hard to be perfect the first time out. Ford's MyFord Touch platform built off of Sync has had problems, but Ford has time to fix it, and can do that via a simple flash drive with a new version of the interface. "Consumers' tolerance for imperfection is correlated to what's in it for them." The report dubs another trend "Pioneering Pathways," in which people are diversifying their pursuits. "The underlying shift is that we have moved from a culture where people expect to draw from institutions a sense of life plan to a state where everyone is in "startup mode." It's a period of self invention -- Millennial as hustler. Everyone has five or six selves." A minimal maximist trend means doing more with less. Gerzema said 65% of consumers state they are happier with a simpler lifestyle -- citing a $12 billion barter economy, sites like "airbnb" whose average member makes $21,000 per year; and Seattle's micro apartment trend, where people are living in 220-square-foot spaces.
Simplicity breeds adoption, especially when it comes to online advertising and marketing. "In an ideal world complexity wouldn't exist; a product would be so simple every small business could use it," said Dan Levy, the social network's lead for small business, at the BIA/Kelsey interactive conference. "Until that day comes, we think there's a lot of third-party service providers that can help companies use Facebook with tools and services." Levy said it's important for Facebook to understand what these companies provide, and how the social network can make it easier for small companies to connect with their customers. Levy also said Facebook will look into supporting third-party companies that offer services, extending its network beyond the preferred marketing developer program it offers today for large and small businesses. It all comes down to helping smaller companies create a Facebook page, with a lot of attention given to mobile, advertising and real-time location. About one-third of the 100,000 small businesses that have published Offers are new Facebook advertisers, and about 30% are claimed on mobile devices. Levy said about 2.5 million posts have been promoted since the product launched in June, and that 75% of daily Promoted Posts are purchased by repeat customers. Facebook supports more than 13 million small and local business pages. Active Pages grew about 40% this year, and the number of Pages owners -- businesses self-identified as local -- who bought advertising nearly doubled. About 150 million people visit Pages daily, and nearly half of those visitors come from mobile, which now contributes 14% to Facebook's global revenue. The recently launched Promoted Posts aims to provide a simplified way for businesses to reach consumers without using Facebook's more complex ad system. About 300,000 pages have used the solution to write a status update and prompt it. About one-quarter are new advertisers on the site. The local-mobile model plays nicely into Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg's description of a recommendation engine for the social site. In the past, he has described the ultimate Facebook search engine as a cross between a recommendation and Q&A tool. "Friends ask friends for recommendations, so if you follow the theme we hear about listening to customers, there's clearly opportunities," Levy said. "Small Businesses from Shutterstock"
Nissan's European operations has done some offbeat things with its offbeat performance car, Nismo Juke-R, like racing on the streets of Dubai against a sheik and his Ferraris. The company has also based an entire marketing program around gaming, with the Nissan GT Academy, via a partnership with Sony Computer Entertainment. As part of that program, which is in its fourth season, really good players of Gran Turismo go to a Hell Week-style racing camp in the U.K. to vie to be a Nissan professional racer. The company is back with another gaming campaign that gives people who have a knack for the digital racetrack a chance to drive the Juke on a real one. To promote the launch of the latest version of the car, which goes on sale early next year, the alliance with game maker Gameloft's Asphalt 7: Heat aims to find the 10 best mobile Nismo drivers and give them a VIP trip to drive the car in Barcelona. The game features the Nissan Juke Nismo, and Juke-R. Part of the deal is a free release download for 48 hours on Dec. 8 and 9 in the App Store, per Nissan. One of the virtual courses in the game is on a Nissan racetrack, in Tokyo, which features a section where drivers pass the Nismo Omori factory, per the automaker. The company says the game has been downloaded by 50 million people for iOS and Android, and to enter, players must first register their details via an app on the Gameloft Facebook page or through the game and then drive a Nissan Juke Nismo in the Asphalt Academy game mode. A leaderboard records the times of the fastest drivers. The competition runs from Dec. 17 to 31, at which point two winners will be selected at random (one iOS and one Android) from the top 10. The effort will be done in the UK, Spain, Germany, France, and Russia.
The so-called “purchase funnel” for consumers is no longer linear, and it no longer stops, thanks to social media. According to a new study from the Advertising Research Foundation, nearly one-third of shoppers said social media influenced their brand preference, either by introducing those consumers to brands they were unfamiliar with or changing their opinion of a brand during the shopping process. The study also determined that, thanks in part to social media, the purchase process never ends. With constant updates from social networks (including from friends and colleagues who are talking about their own recent purchases in social networks), consumers are constantly shopping, even if they are doing it in a passive manner. “People have a [predetermined] mental image of the marketplace even if they’re not in it. Even if you’re not a snowboarder, you probably have an image of what the market is like,” Todd Powers, executive vice president, primary research, the Advertising Research Foundation, tells Marketing Daily. “By the time you start that active search, you already have the view of the marketplace. The old image we had was using the funnel. Those stages still exist; they’re not linear anymore.” While the study, “Digital & Social Media in the Purchase Decision Process,” determined there was no single path to purchase for modern consumers, social media plays a role on every point of the journey. More than a fifth of consumers (22%) agreed with the notion that social media played an important role in their purchase decision. The study also found that emotion is a very important part of the purchase process, both before and after making a purchase. The study found that posting on social sites, particularly positive comments expressing “joy” doubled after a purchase as people sought assurances that they made a smart buy, Powers says. “The digital resource of social media provides both information and emotional input,” he says. And social media is one of those things that does both of these things.” At the same time, the wealth of information available to consumers can sometimes lead to analysis paralysis, where they can’t pull the trigger on a purchase because they want to get as much information as possible. Social media, according to the study, is expanding the range of trust for consumers, with the influencers of a decision growing beyond the family, friends and colleagues on Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets, to blogs, online forums, and other digital sources. “In today’s world with the ready access to advice and information, consumers have more than they need,” Powers says. “There’s so much information that the big challenge is making sense of it.” The study, conducted with partners such as GM, Google, Kraft, The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, Motorola, Firefly/Millward Brow, comScore, Converseon, Communispace and Y&R, combined surveys with Web-listening and social media content analysis, as well as in-depth interviews, ethnography and information gathering from online communities. "Mobile Shopping from Shutterstock"
Is the digital era driving a heightened sense of vanity in a world where nearly everyone can quickly upload pictures and other images to a Facebook or Google+ page? Are people opting for cosmetic surgery to put forth a more attractive countenance when using services such as Skype or FaceTime? New research from Mindshare would suggest so. "Vanity is strong word,” said Mark Potts, managing director, Consumer Insights at Mindshare Worldwide. But there’s no question that society is generally “more conscious of physical appearance,’’ at a time when photo sharing is becoming as commonplace as texting. “Today’s culture is much more visualized, with the consequence that people are much more aware of how they look,” said Potts who oversaw a just-released study from the agency about the digital impact on societal notions of beauty. The study, part of the Mindshare’s Culture Vulture series of consumer insights reports, notes that chin implant procedures in the U.S. last year soared 71%. Many of those procedures, the report asserts, were done by people who wanted to look better while chatting on FaceTime or Skype, or who just wanted to exorcize a double chin for a shot on Facebook. The report cites the so-called “'FaceTime Facelift,” a term coined by a Washington, D.C.-based cosmetic surgeon, who noticed patients increasingly asking to have their faces “corrected" to look better in video chat calls. In response, the surgeon developed a liposuction surgery technique that does away with the double chins and turkey jowls accentuated by the camera’s angle. Potts said that many of those procedures were requested by middle-aged patients, for whom sagging faces are a bigger issue than among millennials. But younger folks also go under the knife to correct perceived flaws. Potts noted separate reports that have detailed younger people resorting to cosmetic surgery to stop bullying from peers -- actions that are often facilitated by social media. The Mindshare report, Culture Vulture Beauty, explores how the increased visualization wrought by digital has affected societies around the world, and provides a number of takeaways for marketers. “There are a lot of ways to express brands more visually,” said Potts -- and ways to drive consumer interest in brands by utilizing relatively new media behaviors such as digital photo sharing. The full report can be found at http://www.mindshareworld.com/s/CultureVulture.
Holland America Line is offering savings for consumers and sales support for travel sellers during its “Sail & Save” sale on select cruises. The sale begins Dec. 10 and features savings on multiple cruises and destinations. To get ready for the 2013 sailing season, travel sellers booking a Holland America Line cruise can offer their clients savings of up to 50% off select cruise fares and free or reduced third and fourth fares on select voyages, as well as a free hotel stay on select Canada/New England and Alaska cruises and CruiseTour departures. Marketing support includes direct mail and email to consumers, as well as an array of online travel seller promotional and sales tools that are available in the Travel Agent Headquarters portal accessed via hollandamerica.com. These include customizable "Build Your Own" emails, personalized PDF flyers and Web banner ads. The promotion also is being supported on Twitter, Facebook and the Holland America Blog. Consumers can access all social media outlets via the Online Communities quick link on the company's home page. "Our goal is to always make sure that our travel partners have the best tools available to promote Holland America Line to their clients," said Richard Meadows, executive vice president, marketing, sales and guest programs, in a release. "We encourage all of our travel partners to take advantage of this popular annual promotional to jump start their 2013 bookings." Cruise destinations featured in the Sail & Save sale include Alaska cruises and CruiseTours, Asia, Australia/New Zealand, Canada/New England, the Caribbean, Europe, Grand Voyages, Hawaii/Tahiti, Mexico, Panama Canal and South America itineraries.
Rounding out a strong year for We Are Social, Lenovo has named the London-based social media agency as its new global social media agency of record. Rod Strother, director of digital and social for Lenovo, said We Are Social won out in a four-way competitive pitch. (The other agency contenders were not named.) What set We Are Social apart? Along with its focus on conversational marketing, Strother said: “They understand the importance of weaving social media into the heart of an integrated marketing approach.” Going forward, We Are Social will be expected to manage Lenovo’s social media activities at a global level, with the partnership being led from the agency’s New York and Singapore offices. The shop will provide strategic support and advice to the company’s in-house social media team, partnering with Lenovo to develop a long-term strategy across all social media channels. We Are Social will also recommend and implement suitable metrics and measurement tools, support global product and provide what Lenovo calls “a full crisis management consultancy service.” The agency formed its regional hub in Singapore last year, which likely helped it win the Chinese computer maker’s business. It only opened its first U.S. outpost in New York earlier this year, with initial clients Adidas and DeBeers Diamond Jewelry. Additional clients include Heinz, Unilever, Heineken, eBay, Jaguar, Intel, Moët & Chandon and Expedia. In a similar partnership, the agency was recently appointed by Tiger Beer to work with its in-house team to develop a global social media strategy. We Are Social also has offices in Milan, Munich, Sydney and Sao Paulo.
Today’s networked mom is thankful for so many things. With the advances in technology and the advent of social media, she now has the tools at her disposal to share ideas, connect with others who share her passions and the ability to amplify her voice to affect change whether it’s personal growth to sharing her voice for causes she is passionate about. The term “mommy bloggers” is simply not indicative of today’s networked mom. So what is today’s networked mom thankful for? She’s thankful for technology: It helps her stay connected to family, friends and current events. She likes being knowledgeable and in touch despite the fact it can often be seen as a time suck. Technology and social media have enabled her to create businesses she can run from her home while managing her job as mom. She’s thankful for creative and intellectual outlets: The internet is always available and accessible, so she doesn’t feel starved or alienated during times that have historically made women feel alone and unheard. She can still tap into the conversation, while she’s pregnant, taking care of a newborn, raising kids, in between jobs, taking care of a loved one in need, etc., all the jobs that women have bravely and more often than not, quietly, gone about doing, in order for the family, society, world to function. She’s thankful for how technology has enabled a sense of inner fulfillment: Social media and smartphones enabled her to be a first responder in the days following Sandy. And if she wasn’t able to be there physically, she was able to use social networking to mobilize the community. She’s thankful that her voice and her rights played a significant role in this election: We don’t need to belabor this point. We all know it, and she acted on it, resulting in this election’s outcome. She’s thankful for inspirational role models: Women like Michelle Obama and Hilary Clinton --mothers who are managing to be amazing global citizens while raising healthy, happy and intelligent children. She’s thankful for instant answers:The instant she has a question, about her kid’s health, the best driving route, how to effectively help her community, she has the answers at her fingertips. She’s thankful kids are a part of the digital generation: The dialogue she’s able to have with her kids is nuanced, multi-dimensional, and constantly changing. And it’s given her children access to information and learning tools. She is thankful the world is beginning to pay attention:The world is slowly recognizing gender inequalities and the important role mothers play in business, the world’s health and the global economy. She’s thankful for brands are paying attention: and beginning to catch up to her discerning taste, and understanding pomp-and-circumstance tactics will not sway her. So let’s all start by dropping the term “mommy blogger.” She’ll be thankful for that, too.