In its effort to increase the relevance of Ck one fragrance for Gen Y, Coty says its digital #ckmeforme effort, powered by Snapchat, Tumblr and Twitter, is providing plenty of lessons in how to drive digital engagement. The Ck one brand — which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year — already has a strong millennial following, which relies heavily on social channels as well as such celebs as Korean pop star Taeyang, singer/songwriter Dev Hynes, and such models as Edie Campbell and Lucky Blue. “But when we went into TV production for the new campaign, we wanted to develop a true 360-degree campaign — one that had digital at its core,” Kristen D’Arcy, VP, global digital at Coty, tells Marketing Daily. Coty then created a room it called the Self Exploration Lab, and during production asked all the talent connected with the shoot to use their smartphones to take pictures, selfies and video. “We then used that exclusive content — about 200 pieces — to seed the new campaign,” she says, “asking users to take their turn.” (Some fans found the Ck one Snapchat account via Tumblr, while others found it via high-profile models and influencers, including Taeyang.) The results of the effort, launched back in June, have been “fantastic,” she says. In Snapchat, where it claims to be the first fragrance campaign, “we have seen more than 1 million views in just a month and a half.” She adds that its engagement scores on the platform, which reportedly has a median user age of 18 and is said to be tapped daily by some 77% of college students, “are also really strong, even compared to other categories.” D’Arcy says the brand has achieved 15% engagement on Snapchat, and some 150,000 views on Tumblr. And the effort’s Twitter exposure has reached 10 million. “We’re really happy,” she says, “and we’re now figuring out how we can create these social results sooner and better for other brand campaigns.” In addition to seeing changes in other upcoming Calvin Klein fragrance efforts, she says Coty has also been stepping up digital efforts among such brands as Sally Hansen and Rimmel. In its most recent quarterly results, Coty reported a 4% increase in sales of all its fragrances, to $508.1 million.
McDonald’s is looking to bring a little bit of tailgating into people’s everyday lives with a new promotional effort celebrating its second year as the official restaurant of the NFL. Next week, the chain is launching a national “Tailgate Photo Sweepstakes,” encouraging fans to share their photos (and six-second Vine videos) via Twitter, Instagram and Vine using the hashtag #McDTailgateSweeps. One entrant will be randomly selected to win the ultimate McDonald’s tailgate experience, which includes having a mobile McDonald’s restaurant (housed in a semi-trailer) roll up to their party with enough food for 200. “We’re a food company, and we know we’re not traditional tailgating fare,” John Lewicki, senior director of global sports marketing at McDonald’s, tells Marketing Daily. “But we wanted to take that idea of tailgating [and do it] McDonald’s-style.” As the official restaurant sponsor of the NFL, McDonald’s will also be distributing QR codes on its medium drinks (which will also include NFL-themed packaging) granting access to exclusive NFL Now video content. QR codes on french fry packages, meanwhile, will grant fans access to a “Pick The Play” Sweepstakes, which shows consumers a clip from EA’s Madden NFL 15, and asking them to guess the outcome. One person will win a trip to the Super Bowl and a Madden NFL 15 game room. “It’s a different opportunity to engage fans with NFL Now to deliver unique content,” Lewicki says. “This gives fans a way to engage with the NFL throughout the week.” McDonald’s will promote the partnership through its social channels and via 15- and 30-second spots set to air nationally, as well as through its social channels and activations in 15 markets where local restaurant groups have affiliations with NFL teams.
State Farm is launching four TV spots featuring "Saturday Night Live" characters Hans and Franz (of “They’re here to pump you up!” fame.) Featuring actors Kevin Nealon, Dana Carvey and Rob Schneider, the campaign from DDB Chicago launched earlier this week with a high-profile placement during the MTV Video Music Awards. The integrated campaign marks the start of a relationship with Lorne Michael’s media and entertainment company, Broadway Video Entertainment and its Saturday Night Live properties as SNL celebrates its 40-year anniversary. The characters Hans and Franz (played by Nealon and Carvey) and Richmeister (played by Schneider) first appeared 20 years ago. In the debut spot, “Steve’s Kid,” State Farm Agent Ashley saves her customers money with a “Discount Double Check” and they run into a surprise guest in the copy room. The effort also features a digital and social branded content push that includes search and social media-relevant online videos that will reach consumers without taking them out of the moment and a “Double Check the Archives” consumer promotion. The new commercials and branded content build upon the success and expand the reach of previous work that resulted in “Discount Double Check” becoming part of the current pop- and sports-culture lexicon, says a representative from DDB Chicago. The “Discount Double Check” move and terms like “grill class” have transcended the advertising world and are frequently used in social media and personal conversation, the agency representative says. Aaron Rodgers will continue his three-year relationship with State Farm and the Discount Double Check, appearing in two of the four new spots. The campaign will focus on the broader general market, while continuing to appeal to the football/sports audience.
Twitter, Path and other tech companies are asking a federal appellate court to make it harder for consumers to win class-action lawsuits over unwanted SMS messages. The tech companies say that the recent proliferation of lawsuits alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act is forcing them to choose between avoiding text-based services or running the risk of litigation. They add that lawyers for consumers “have sought to transform a statute intended to target abusive telemarketing practices into an extortionist club used to coerce windfall settlements.” Twitter, Path and the trade group Computer & Communications Industry Association make the argument in a recent friend-of-the-court brief backing Yahoo in its battle with Philadelphia resident Bill Dominguez. He is suing Yahoo for allegedly sending him thousands of misdirected SMS messages. Dominguez argues that Yahoo violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which prohibits companies from using automated dialers to send SMS messages to consumers. That law provides for damages of $500 to $1,500 for each text message that violates the statute. U.S. District Court Judge Michael Baylson in Pennsylvania recently dismissed Dominguez's lawsuit, ruling that he hadn't shown that Yahoo used an automated dialer to send the messages. Dominguez is now asking the 3rd Circuit Court Court of Appeals to reinstate the case. He filed the appellate papers under seal, so the details of his argument aren't yet known. Yahoo is opposing that request. The company argues that its SMS system, which converted emails to text messages and sent them to users' phones, didn't rely on automated dialers. Twitter, Path and the CCIA agree with Yahoo. They say that an automated dialing system should be defined as equipment that can automatically generate -- as opposed to merely dial -- phone numbers. “This interpretation avoids absurd results, helping to ensure that legitimate companies ... can continue offering innovative text message based services that consumers request and desire, without facing the risk of extortionist TCPA strike suits,” the companies argue. They add that a broad definition of automated dialers “would have serious consequences. Under that approach, the TCPA would regulate nearly every call or text from a smartphone,” the companies say. Twitter and the others add that Congress passed the law to prevent telemarketers from using automated systems to generate calls to “unlisted phone numbers, hospitals, or emergency organizations.” Twitter and Path are among the numerous Web companies that have themselves been sued for violating the law regulating SMS messages. The companies say in their friend-of-the-court brief that around 1,200 new potential class-actions were filed last year alone. “Companies in every sector of the economy -- footwear retailers, apparel manufacturers, fast-food restaurants, banks, sports franchises, electronic payment services, and online social networks -- have been swept up into a litigation maelstrom,” they write. Many of those cases were filed after the influential 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2009 that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act applies to SMS messages. Since then, judges have reached different conclusions about the definition of automated dialers. Even though Baylson agreed with Yahoo, U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel in the Southern District of California, who is presiding over a separate lawsuit, ruled that Yahoo's SMS-sending system was an automated dialer. In that case, California resident Rafael David Sherman alleged that Yahoo told him via SMS that he had received messages from the company. Yahoo recently asked Curiel for permission to immediately appeal his ruling to the 9th Circuit. Curiel rejected that application in July. Numerous other companies have settled similar lawsuits for millions of dollars. For example, Google recently agreed to pay $6 million to resolve allegations that an app operated by Slide (acquired by Google in 2010 and later shut down) used an automated dialing service to send SMS messages to people. That service allowed individuals to send group texts to up to 99 people at one time. In the case against Yahoo, Dominguez alleged that he believed the former owner arranged to receive SMS alerts from Yahoo whenever he received emails. Dominguez -- who doesn't have a Yahoo email address -- alleged that he received almost 5,000 SMS messages from Yahoo in the five months preceding his lawsuit. He said he complained to Yahoo, but was informed that only the phone's former owner could arrange to stop the texts.
Since I can never find a Coca-Cola bottle with my name on it, I'm rather enjoying this campaign for the brand that launched over the summer in China. The brand created "Lyric bottles," adding song lyrics from China's most famous and best loved songs to bottle packaging. Bottles allow users to express their feelings with sayings like: "When I think of you, I'm happy" and "Baby, I'm sorry." Users can scan a QR code on each bottle to unlock a 10-second animated musical clip that can be shared with friends via social media outlets. Isobar, the agency behind the campaign, is calling these snippets "Musicons" (for "musical emoticons"). Check out an intro video here. See two animated clips here and here.
In its effort to increase the relevance of Ck one fragrance for Gen Y, Coty says its digital #ckmeforme effort, powered by Snapchat, Tumblr and Twitter, is providing plenty of lessons in how to drive digital engagement. The Ck one brand — which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year — already has a strong millennial following, which relies heavily on social channels as well as such celebs as Korean pop star Taeyang, singer/songwriter Dev Hynes, and such models as Edie Campbell and Lucky Blue. “But when we went into TV production for the new campaign, we wanted to develop a true 360-degree campaign — one that had digital at its core,” Kristen D’Arcy, VP, global digital at Coty, tells Marketing Daily. Coty then created a room it called the Self Exploration Lab, and during production asked all the talent connected with the shoot to use their smartphones to take pictures, selfies and video. “We then used that exclusive content — about 200 pieces — to seed the new campaign,” she says, “asking users to take their turn.” (Some fans found the Ck one Snapchat account via Tumblr, while others found it via high-profile models and influencers, including Taeyang.) The results of the effort, launched back in June, have been “fantastic,” she says. In Snapchat, where it claims to be the first fragrance campaign, “we have seen more than 1 million views in just a month and a half.” She adds that its engagement scores on the platform, which reportedly has a median user age of 18 and is said to be tapped daily by some 77% of college students, “are also really strong, even compared to other categories.” D’Arcy says the brand has achieved 15% engagement on Snapchat, and some 150,000 views on Tumblr. And the effort’s Twitter exposure has reached 10 million. “We’re really happy,” she says, “and we’re now figuring out how we can create these social results sooner and better for other brand campaigns.” In addition to seeing changes in other upcoming Calvin Klein fragrance efforts, she says Coty has also been stepping up digital efforts among such brands as Sally Hansen and Rimmel. In its most recent quarterly results, Coty reported a 4% increase in sales of all its fragrances, to $508.1 million.
As part of our recent focus on wealth, our previous two columns — "Millennials Are The Future, But Boomers Are Today" and "Gen X Is The Generation That Affluent Marketers Can’t Afford To Ignore" — addressed where household income and wealth currently reside among upscale consumers. Plus, for the first time, we also included mass-market consumers in order to provide affluent marketers with a benchmark of the rest of America, which is often one of their target markets. These two columns led a number of readers to question what we believe differentiates the Millennials as far as affluent marketers are concerned. In that regard, we're nowaddressing this specific question by focusing on how some demographic characteristics differentiate them from the Boomers and the Gen X'ers. Millennials are definitely the generation that affluent marketers cannot afford to ignore based solely on their numbers, but how valuable they will be to affluent marketers depends on three uncontrollable factors: 1) how the economy evolves, which will determine how much they eventually earn and how much wealth they accumulate (the ways marketers define affluence); 2) how many eventually marry or partner; and 3) how many have children, which materially changes how affluent adults spend their earnings and wealth. Following are recent statistics from the Bureau of the Census for American adult generations showing the percentage of each that are currently married and the percentage that currently have children younger than 18 living in their households. The estimated number of adults in each group, again based on Census statistics, follows the generation's name. Generation (size) % Married % With Children Under 18All Adults (236.9 million) Millennials (67.9 million) 28 45 Gen-X (60.4 million) 64 63 Baby Boomers (74.9 million) 66 19 Seniors (33.7 million) 55 6 Notably, of the 68 million Millennials, who now range in age from 18 to 33, about one quarter (28%) are married, but a good number already have children in the household, perhaps through partnerships that the Census doesn’t characterize as marriage. Of course, some of these Millennials with children in their households are actually siblings. But we don't know how many of the Millennials will eventually get married or form partnerships and then have children, which changes their primary focus to their families. A further look at the Millennial generation reveals the following that is of importance to marketers:
McDonald’s is looking to bring a little bit of tailgating into people’s everyday lives with a new promotional effort celebrating its second year as the official restaurant of the NFL. Next week, the chain is launching a national “Tailgate Photo Sweepstakes,” encouraging fans to share their photos (and six-second Vine videos) via Twitter, Instagram and Vine using the hashtag #McDTailgateSweeps. One entrant will be randomly selected to win the ultimate McDonald’s tailgate experience, which includes having a mobile McDonald’s restaurant (housed in a semi-trailer) roll up to their party with enough food for 200. “We’re a food company, and we know we’re not traditional tailgating fare,” John Lewicki, senior director of global sports marketing at McDonald’s, tells Marketing Daily. “But we wanted to take that idea of tailgating [and do it] McDonald’s-style.” As the official restaurant sponsor of the NFL, McDonald’s will also be distributing QR codes on its medium drinks (which will also include NFL-themed packaging) granting access to exclusive NFL Now video content. QR codes on french fry packages, meanwhile, will grant fans access to a “Pick The Play” Sweepstakes, which shows consumers a clip from EA’s Madden NFL 15, and asking them to guess the outcome. One person will win a trip to the Super Bowl and a Madden NFL 15 game room. “It’s a different opportunity to engage fans with NFL Now to deliver unique content,” Lewicki says. “This gives fans a way to engage with the NFL throughout the week.” McDonald’s will promote the partnership through its social channels and via 15- and 30-second spots set to air nationally, as well as through its social channels and activations in 15 markets where local restaurant groups have affiliations with NFL teams.
It’s easy to say “teens” but it’s a whole lot harder to pin down what it means. Sure, there’s the simple chronological definition (with a bit of blurring at either end) but being a teen means more than being between 13 and 19. Understanding a teen, as every parent of one knows, is an impossible task. Part of the challenge is that teens are at least as diverse as any other group, and the other part of it is that people change more physically and emotionally over the course of their teenage years than at any other time of their lives. First, let’s look at the obvious. A 13-year-old Mormon girl living on a ranch in Wyoming and a 17-year-old boy whose family just moved to New Jersey from India probably aren’t going to have that much in common. So, as with any big and broad demographic group, teens need to be classified and categorized so they can be reached effectively. Knowing your audience isn’t rocket science but knowing your teenage audience is no small task. Why? Because the teens they are a changin’ and here are three big areas of change: Stuff they can’t control – Teenagers’ brains are developing like crazy. People used to assume most brain development was all wrapped up in the first few years of life but it turns out that isn’t the case. Scientists continue to make new discoveries that may (or may not) help adults make sense of teens. Stuff they can control – Perhaps as a result of the whole brain thing, teens are also in the process of exploring and developing their identities. Kids want to try things on for size. Their ideas around things like music, fashion, friends, food and everything else can change in the blink of an eye. There are a million places kids can hang their hats and some seem determined to try every one of them from anarchopunk, to bronie to LGBTQ to nerdfighter. And even though the shift from being a jock to an emo kid can seem jarring from the outside, to the teen it is as natural as changing their shoes. Stuff they think is cool/uncool – This is an offshoot of “stuff they can control” but its roots can be a little easier to understand. Trends in device adoption or app downloads can happen across all of the various teen identities out there. Goths, gamers, mods, cosplayers and k-pop fans are all going to gravitate to a fixed number of handsets, messaging apps and social platforms. What they do will differ but at least there’s a common infrastructure. Of course, what’s cool today can be totally uncool tomorrow, and if it’s uncool then teens will drop it like a bad habit. So what, if anything, can a marketer do with this information? When it comes to things teens can’t control you can factor in sleep cycles or hormonal changes but for the most part you’re not going to be able to do much than hang on tight and go along for the ride. When it comes to things teens can control, you can pay attention to what matters to the kids that matter to your business. What’s great about teens is that they’re never shy about what they’re into so just listen to them. That way you won’t embarrass yourself by wading blindly between the sides of some fanboy flamewar. When it comes to things teens think are cool, pay attention here, too. It’s not identity-level stuff (like Xbox vs. PlayStation) but it matters a lot. If teens decide that Vine is way cooler than Instagram for videos, you want to at least be at aware of the fact. Or if the growth of the teen audience on Facebook continues to slow you need to be figuring out where they’re moving. The same goes for uncool. You might end up shooting yourself in the foot if you try to jump onto the newest trend only to find that your target teens have already decided it’s totally lame. On its face, none of this is that complicated. But what makes it difficult are the people at the center of all this attention: teens. They’re just not willing to play by an easy or predictable set of rules. And even if they were willing to, they’d change the rules on us anyway.
State Farm is launching four TV spots featuring "Saturday Night Live" characters Hans and Franz (of “They’re here to pump you up!” fame.) Featuring actors Kevin Nealon, Dana Carvey and Rob Schneider, the campaign from DDB Chicago launched earlier this week with a high-profile placement during the MTV Video Music Awards. The integrated campaign marks the start of a relationship with Lorne Michael’s media and entertainment company, Broadway Video Entertainment and its Saturday Night Live properties as SNL celebrates its 40-year anniversary. The characters Hans and Franz (played by Nealon and Carvey) and Richmeister (played by Schneider) first appeared 20 years ago. In the debut spot, “Steve’s Kid,” State Farm Agent Ashley saves her customers money with a “Discount Double Check” and they run into a surprise guest in the copy room. The effort also features a digital and social branded content push that includes search and social media-relevant online videos that will reach consumers without taking them out of the moment and a “Double Check the Archives” consumer promotion. The new commercials and branded content build upon the success and expand the reach of previous work that resulted in “Discount Double Check” becoming part of the current pop- and sports-culture lexicon, says a representative from DDB Chicago. The “Discount Double Check” move and terms like “grill class” have transcended the advertising world and are frequently used in social media and personal conversation, the agency representative says. Aaron Rodgers will continue his three-year relationship with State Farm and the Discount Double Check, appearing in two of the four new spots. The campaign will focus on the broader general market, while continuing to appeal to the football/sports audience.
Twitter, Path and other tech companies are asking a federal appellate court to make it harder for consumers to win class-action lawsuits over unwanted SMS messages. The tech companies say that the recent proliferation of lawsuits alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act is forcing them to choose between avoiding text-based services or running the risk of litigation. They add that lawyers for consumers “have sought to transform a statute intended to target abusive telemarketing practices into an extortionist club used to coerce windfall settlements.” Twitter, Path and the trade group Computer & Communications Industry Association make the argument in a recent friend-of-the-court brief backing Yahoo in its battle with Philadelphia resident Bill Dominguez. He is suing Yahoo for allegedly sending him thousands of misdirected SMS messages. Dominguez argues that Yahoo violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which prohibits companies from using automated dialers to send SMS messages to consumers. That law provides for damages of $500 to $1,500 for each text message that violates the statute. U.S. District Court Judge Michael Baylson in Pennsylvania recently dismissed Dominguez's lawsuit, ruling that he hadn't shown that Yahoo used an automated dialer to send the messages. Dominguez is now asking the 3rd Circuit Court Court of Appeals to reinstate the case. He filed the appellate papers under seal, so the details of his argument aren't yet known. Yahoo is opposing that request. The company argues that its SMS system, which converted emails to text messages and sent them to users' phones, didn't rely on automated dialers. Twitter, Path and the CCIA agree with Yahoo. They say that an automated dialing system should be defined as equipment that can automatically generate -- as opposed to merely dial -- phone numbers. “This interpretation avoids absurd results, helping to ensure that legitimate companies ... can continue offering innovative text message based services that consumers request and desire, without facing the risk of extortionist TCPA strike suits,” the companies argue. They add that a broad definition of automated dialers “would have serious consequences. Under that approach, the TCPA would regulate nearly every call or text from a smartphone,” the companies say. Twitter and the others add that Congress passed the law to prevent telemarketers from using automated systems to generate calls to “unlisted phone numbers, hospitals, or emergency organizations.” Twitter and Path are among the numerous Web companies that have themselves been sued for violating the law regulating SMS messages. The companies say in their friend-of-the-court brief that around 1,200 new potential class-actions were filed last year alone. “Companies in every sector of the economy -- footwear retailers, apparel manufacturers, fast-food restaurants, banks, sports franchises, electronic payment services, and online social networks -- have been swept up into a litigation maelstrom,” they write. Many of those cases were filed after the influential 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2009 that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act applies to SMS messages. Since then, judges have reached different conclusions about the definition of automated dialers. Even though Baylson agreed with Yahoo, U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel in the Southern District of California, who is presiding over a separate lawsuit, ruled that Yahoo's SMS-sending system was an automated dialer. In that case, California resident Rafael David Sherman alleged that Yahoo told him via SMS that he had received messages from the company. Yahoo recently asked Curiel for permission to immediately appeal his ruling to the 9th Circuit. Curiel rejected that application in July. Numerous other companies have settled similar lawsuits for millions of dollars. For example, Google recently agreed to pay $6 million to resolve allegations that an app operated by Slide (acquired by Google in 2010 and later shut down) used an automated dialing service to send SMS messages to people. That service allowed individuals to send group texts to up to 99 people at one time. In the case against Yahoo, Dominguez alleged that he believed the former owner arranged to receive SMS alerts from Yahoo whenever he received emails. Dominguez -- who doesn't have a Yahoo email address -- alleged that he received almost 5,000 SMS messages from Yahoo in the five months preceding his lawsuit. He said he complained to Yahoo, but was informed that only the phone's former owner could arrange to stop the texts.
Since I can never find a Coca-Cola bottle with my name on it, I'm rather enjoying this campaign for the brand that launched over the summer in China. The brand created "Lyric bottles," adding song lyrics from China's most famous and best loved songs to bottle packaging. Bottles allow users to express their feelings with sayings like: "When I think of you, I'm happy" and "Baby, I'm sorry." Users can scan a QR code on each bottle to unlock a 10-second animated musical clip that can be shared with friends via social media outlets. Isobar, the agency behind the campaign, is calling these snippets "Musicons" (for "musical emoticons"). Check out an intro video here. See two animated clips here and here.