5 Blogs Before Lunch

Personalized In-store Ads Getting More Aggressive

It has long been a marketer's desire to find a way to reach consumers at point-of-purchase based on consumer identity and behavior, tailoring messages as consumers shop. Many programs have been tested, few have proved so successful to be rolled-out globally.

Now, marketers are experimenting with a new type of in-store and point-of-purchase ad based on consumer identity and behavior. Procter & Gamble is testing a system that uses radio-frequency identification to play ads on a digital screen based on what products a consumer has picked up. When a consumer picks out a shampoo for a particular type of hair, for instance, the screen recommends the most appropriate conditioner or other hair products.

Dunkin' Donuts is trying out a system that displays food ads to customers ordering just coffee. The system allows customers ordering their morning coffee to see ads at the cash register promoting the chain's hash browns or breakfast sandwiches. At the pick-up counter, customers see ads prompting them to return for a coffee break in the afternoon and try an oven-toasted pizza.

More at The Wall Street Journal.

Survey Says: More Consumers Are Reading Food Package Data

Here's another clear sign that consumers are becoming more health conscious, and more aware of what they are buying. A recent Nielsen Co. survey found that 65% of American consumers say they notice information on food packaging more often compared to only two years ago. Forty-two percent of U.S. consumers said they check a product's label when buying it for the first time, and eght percent said they never read labels.

But there is still room for education. The survey said that 67% of U.S. consumers claim to mostly understand what they are reading compared to 44% globally. As Brandweek says: "That leaves a third of the U.S. and more than half the world wondering exactly what Sodium Benzoate and other ingredients and metrics actually mean."

An FTC Study Looks At Marketing Spend Targeting Children

The FTC says that marketers spent about $1.6 billion marketing food and drink to children in 2006. That's a large chunk of change being used to drive children to foods that are often unhealthy choices.

From the AP: "This study confirms what I have been saying for years," Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said. "Industry needs to step up to the plate and use their innovation and creativity to market healthy foods to our kids. That $1.6 billion could be used to attract our kids to healthy snacks, tasty cereals, fruits and vegetables."

Some facts and figures about the study: 1). The study looked a marketing targeting children ages 2-17. 2). Spending on soda marketing came to $492 million, 3). Fast food restaurants reported spending close to $294 million, 4). cereal companies spent about $237 million.

Source: AP

Can Perception Skew Scuccess?

As we marketers know, brand perception is everything. What consumers feel about your brand skews sales.

But what if market perception on the part of entrepreneurs skewed success? Do entrepreneurs who imagine that their market sector is larger than what it is, do better?

That's what Guy Kawasaki muses in a recent blog post, with his thoughts based on a recent study by the University of Virginia.

The recent study examined golfers who are having a good day on the links who perceived the holes to be larger than players having a bad day. It was the same with softball players: those who perceive a larger ball hit better than those who see a smaller ball.

Might this be true in business, too?

Source: Scientific Blogging

Two Groups Try To Make Direct Marketing Greener

The New York Times reports on some fledgling efforts to make the direct marketing sector more environmentally friendly. Both the USPS and a coalition of advertisers have put together some guidlines.

The Green Marketing Coalition includes Microsoft, Washington Mutual and OptimaHealth.

The coalition’s guidelines include using chlorine-free recycled paper, proofreading marketing materials using Adobe PDF files rather than hard copies, and taking advantages of tax benefits that come from certain green initiatives.

The United States Postal Service has trademarked the term “environMAIList” to refer to marketers that adopt greener mail practices and try to make direct marketing more eco-friendly.
The postal service's recommendations? Letting people easily opt out of mailings, using water-based inks and recycled materials, and encouraging customers to recycle the mailing after reading it.

The Postal Service says that "Although direct-mail accounts for only 2.4 percent of landfill waste, many opportunities are available to lessen its environmental impact even more.”

Pedal Power in Paris

A new trend is afoot in Paris. Pay-for-Pedal bicycles seem all the rage, available at a self-serve rental station near you. They're environmentally friendly, cheap to rent, and subsidized by advertising.

The concept is not unlike the shared auto services offered by the likes of ZipCar, and others, but this mode of transportation uses pedal power instead of gas power.

For an annual subscription of about $46, leasees use a bike whenever they wish for 30 minutes at a time without extra charges. Use it instead of a cab or the metro to travel to work, to see the sights, to visit friends. The bikes can also be rented for a day or for a week, with a $239 deposit taken from the user's credit card if the bike is not returned. Usage fees over 30 minutes can rise steeply: two hours costs about $11. But 96 percent of all rides are less than 30 minutes, because bikes can be returned to any station.

The International Herald Tribune reports that about 20,600 Vélib' bicycles are in service, with more than 1,450 self-service rental stations around Paris. The stations are only about 300 yards apart, and there are four times as many as there are subway stations, even in a city so well served by its metro system.

The paper reports that In the first year there have been 27.5 million trips in this city of roughly 2.1 million people, many of them for daily commutes. On average, there are 120,000 trips a day. And on July 27, at the conclusion here of the Tour de France, 365 lucky Vélib' riders will be chosen to ride along for a while and cross the finish line.

The Vélib' — a contraction of vélo for bike and liberté —program in Paris was conceived by the Socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, and the 10-year contract was won by JCDecaux, a major French public relations and advertising company with good political contacts, after defeating a rival bid from Clear Channel.

JCDecaux has invested nearly $142 million to set up the rental bike system and the billboards, and must provide maintenance and replace stolen bikes; the city of Paris gets the proceeds from the usage of the bikes plus some royalties from Decaux.

According to the IHT, Decaux expects to make about $94 million a year from them. The company stands to begin turning a considerable profit if not next year, then in the third year of its 10-year contract. The city has received $31.5 million from subscribers and users of the bikes, plus an additional $5.5 million a year, fixed in the contract, from advertising royalties.

Expect to see a similar plan in the U.S. soon.

No Need To Greenwash The "Never Greens"

About 10% of the population are "Never Greens"— people who either don't care or are not interested in America's new passion for sustainable, green products.

According to a survey by Mintel International in Chicago, a research firm, the Never Greens don't buy green products, don't remember green advertising when they see it and are irritated by it even if they do.

Brandweek reports that Never Greens also showed up in a survey by Shelton Group, an ad agency for BP Solar, the oil giant's renewable unit. About 26% of Americans are hardcore skeptics, according to Suzanne Shelton, the CEO of the Knoxville, Tenn., firm. They tend to be upper-income, middle-aged, conservative males, she said.

So should marketers pay attention to this demo and play to their anti-green concerns? Probably not. No need to target a negative demo when the vast majority of consumers are beginning to pay attention to environmental issues. Never Greens won't necessarily NOT buy your product because its green, they'll just not pay attention to the focus on its environmental friendliness.
 

Marketers--the Invited (or not so invited) Guests To The Social Networking Party

I often liken using the online social networking world to reach customers and market to them to wandering the streets of the Barbary Coast during the Gold Rush days. Many made great fortunes, and others got Shanghaied.

In the social networking Gold Rush, advertisers are looking for ways to make themselves heard in the busy social hangouts, without making it feel (to consumers) that their domain has been taken over by marketers. In other words, marketers need to join the conversation--quietly and without altering the core socializing activities that are going on there.

It is estimated that MySpace and Facebook have 100 million customers in the U.S. alone. It is an audience that many marketers would love to interact with.

On the surface, it seems like fertile ground for advertisers. With users posting detailed personal information on their profile pages, including age, sex and hobbies, social networks provide an opportunity to reach very precise demographic groups.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

"They are reading about it a lot, their children are using it," said Ian Schafer, CEO and founder of Deep Focus, an ad agency that created Facebook campaigns for HBO, Coca-Cola and New Line Cinema. "And they are finding that the social media networks are too big to ignore."

In March, retail giant Sears Holdings Corp., which pioneered the mail-order business with its catalog more than a century ago, rolled out a prom-dress campaign, asking high school girls to share their selections with friends on Facebook.

Last month, one of the largest packaged food companies, ConAgra Foods, partnered with San Francisco's Slide, developer of the Fun Wall and Top Friends applications, to promote its Slim Jim brand.

And this week, Visa, the world's largest credit card processor, said it will invest $2 million in advertising on Facebook and introduce social-networking applications for small businesses to help them find new customers.

You get the picture.

But despite a growing number of subscribers, marketers need to figure out HOW to market to these audiences in this new medium. Users are on these sites to socialize, not look for information or be marketed to. In other words, marketers face an uphill battle of getting these users "in the mood."

The folks at Slide, an agency focused on the space, say "As an advertiser, you want to have your brand inserted into the online conversation that is already taking place."

The Chronicle reports that many businesses are experimenting with widgets that allow them to spread their message across social networks quickly and virally with the help of virtual hugs, horoscopes or games. An example is a campaign for Slim Jim which launched its Facebook campaign with Slide's "Super Poke" application. Users can poke each other to show off their "spicy side," based on the premise that everyone has a smaller, wilder version of themselves that goes crazy after eating a Slim Jim.

Slim Jim isn't the only company trying to get an invite to the social networking party. Sears, Visa, Microsoft, Victoria's Secret, HBO, Coke and New Line Cinema are just a few willing to take the plunge.

Go Green, Organically. BW Looks at "The Benefits of Downscaling"

Why Greenwash when you can really Go Green incrementally by making small changes to the size, longevity or features of your products while reducing your consumption of energy. Businessweek looks at "The Benefits of Downscaling" examining how some companies, such as BMW and Patagonia, that have done it successfully.

While there has been an impressive shift in consumer consciousness, the truth is that consumer habits change gradually. For that matter, it takes time for new, greener materials to become truly affordable. This means designers and our corporate clients need to focus less on finding a killer green technology or selling consumers on green products, and more on the small design changes that can make a large impact immediately.

Atlantic Monthly's Biggest 11 1/2 Ideas of the Year

For the July/August issue of the Atlantic Monthly, editors have compiled a list of The Biggest 11 1/2 Ideas of the Year--concepts that most affected the American conversation, or as they put it: "a thumbnail intellectual history of the year." Constributing articles to these topics include James Fallows, Andrew Sullivan and Russ Douthat

Some that made the list: Mass-Market Atheism, MySpace Politics, The Iraq "Surge" and Carbon Conscoiusness.