What’s next for food marketers? More Migration Marketing.
Foodpreneur Dom Celentano interviews product launch expert Julie Hall about a continuing trend of migration marketing, where food brands and manufacturers create products for new consumer audiences and retail channels. Recent examples highlighted include QSR chains like IHOP and Olive Garden creating supermarket grocery products. The article discusses how for food marketers, brand and product positioning is essential.
The Holmes Report featured an op-ed by Schneider Associates’ EVP and Launch Expert Julie Hall about how social media is changing the way we launch new products.
Hall and Schneider Associates introduced the Most Memorable New Product Launch (MMNPL) Survey in 2002, and since then, the poll has surveyed thousands of consumers about the most memorable product launches each year, analyzed media consumption and purchasing habits, and predicted trends based on the results.
Hall highlighted one significant change in this year’s MMNPL findings: “Facebook was nowhere near the top 10 sources of information about new products – and in the span of one year, it became the third most used source of information on new product launches, jumping from 17% to 40%. And this is just Facebook.”
Based on this and other findings, Hall coined the fifth P in the product marketer’s arsenal – Participation (the original four: product, price, promotion and place). Hall insists that consumers can be engaged by “Relationship Marketing,” which allows them to interact more closely with brands and products they love. Going forward, campaigns must consist of a blend of participatory marketing through various sources of old and new, traditional and social media marketing techniques in order to succeed.
Launching a new product or service in the age of social media isn’t easy.
As product launch specialists, we know that now it’s harder than ever to get your customer’s attention, and their dollars. Bust as more people embrace social media, brands have an opportunity to deepen customer relationships, drive loyalty and increase purchases. Extending relationships with and among customers is the new norm. It’s time to explore collaborative marketing and messaging with customers-and brands working together to find the right words and action to motivate customers to try and buy new products.
Consumer integration in action
Several brands are using customer integration in developing new services and products. New Balance customers helped design their Minimus running shoe line. Baskin-Robbins crowdsourced the creation of a new ice cream flavor. Mountain Dew’s Dewmocracy campaign called on customers to advocate and gather votes for their favorite discontinued flavors.
Getting engaged
By involving customers before making product development and management decisions, brands can acquire new customers and get existing customers excited before product even hits the shelf, leading to robust initial sales. What’s better than that?
The State-Gate Solution
Brand managers can profit from adapting Dr. Robert Cooper’s State-Gate approach to developing new products and initiatives by incorporating customer input:
In the Preliminary Investigation phase, consider and identify what your customers really need. Why do they choose your products and brand over others? What would they change?
For the Detailed Investigation phase, consider starting a beta program to test your product or services with a few core customers, secure feedback and use their input to refine your product.
The Development phase provides the opportunity to craft your message with input from customers. What are they saying about your brand, product or service? What do they want to hear?
In the Testing and Validation phase, introduce the redesigned product to the customers who provided feedback.
During the Manufacturing Production phase, provide your employees with the training and tools they need to become ambassadors for the launch.
In the Market Launch phase, involve the customers with whom you initially recruited to create the launch marketing strategy.
To learn more about cutting edge public relations tactics and trends from our PR agency partners around the world, download our free eBook from WorldCom Public Relations Group.
If you would like help planning your next launch, contact us at launch@schneiderpr.comor on Twitter @SchneiderPR.
At this year’s SXSW 2012 event, brand names vied for exposure in a space teeming with messages and activity, with everything of course being shared in existing and new social media platforms. For more about what’s hot in the digital world and being launched and experienced by the 20,000 visitors to SXSW, be sure to watch the following videos with Launch Expert Julie Hall of Schneider Associates and our on-site correspondent, Lynne Viera, president and CEO of Rival Marketing.
No SXSW conference is without free food and sampling, and this year was no different. Some of the brands displaying innovation and creativity include Chevrolet, Nikon, Miller Lite, Monster Energy, and Doritos. Doritos JACKED, the newest tortilla chips from Doritos, were being sampled at a Doritos sponsored concert that also featured a chance to win special prizes. Doritos also displayed a nearly six-story tall pop-up vending machine with giant oversized quarters, to help promote the new extra large chips flavored as Smoky Chipotle BBQ or Enchilada Supreme. Doritos also recently launched a Doritos branded taco shell which is being served at Taco Bell. For additional commentary on food brand promotions at SXSW, check out the post from Dom Celentano, The Foodpreneur, on About.com.
SXSW also launched its first Tex-Mex Taco Table that featured participating restaurants Taco Deli, Habanero Mexican Café, and Matt's Famous El Rancho. What better place than Austin, Texas to promote foods and restaurants with Hispanic flavor profiles and influences? This year, FedEx delivered food and free coffee from their food truck, along with providing a power up from their human chargers (see photo). Even world champion eater Kobayashi showed up to scarf what we think was a record number of grilled cheese sandwiches. The Today Show also had a food truck, as many brands find it is easier to get the attention of attendees outside the convention by offering free food or other services.
(Fedex Human Chargers)
(Today Show food truck)
Beer company Miller Lite gave its consumers a chance to enter the “SXSW 2012 Instant Win Game” for a $200 gift card or more. Attendees can also "Tweet a Beer" to someone, buying a Miller via PayPal which is redeemable at some bars. They also sponsored giveaways and downloads on Pandora, Spotify, and other music apps. Another beverage brand, Monster Energy, offered free breakfast and morning beverages during its events.
On the non-food front, Chevrolet developed an innovative promotion by providing taxi cab rides to Austin, Texas venues. Dubbed “Catch a Chevy,” the shuttle service showed off a full line of cars including Cruze sedans, Volts, Camaros, Corvettes and Mailbu Ecos featuring their updated OnStar service. People test drove the vehicles from the convention center or hailed a car to take them to their next destination.
Nikon put its new Nikon D4 and D-800 HD SLR cameras in the hands of fans. SXSW attendees sampled the devices by snapping pictures of featured musicians.
The annual SXSW event began in 1987 in Austin, Texas, at the Austin Convention Center, and has become one of the best chances brands have to get in front of a core audience of influencers and trendsetters.
If you would like help planning your next launch, contact us at launch@schneiderpr.comor on Twitter @SchneiderPR.
“The NEW Launch Plan,”written by Joan Schneider, President, and Julie Hall, EVP/Partner, of Schneider Associates, has just been listed as one of the five top “beach books for marketers” according to marketing blogger, Danny Flamberg.
A well known marketing strategy consultant who has represented top-tier corporations such as American Express, General Motors, Federal Express, and Morgan Stanley, Flamberg praised authors Schneider and Hall for touching “on every topic, from positioning, messages, advertising, social media, sampling, and measurement, to keep marketers focused on the process and the prize” and commented how “tips are detailed, enumerated and illustrated with case studies, advice and imagery.” Flamberg manages the blog Manhattan Marketing Mavenand discusses relevant news, topics, trends and techniques related to PR and marketing. Please click here to read the review in its entirety.
If you would like help planning your next launch, contact us at launch@schneiderpr.com or on Twitter @SchneiderPR.
Despite the varying opinions of the iPad before it’s launch on March 5, 2010, the innovative product transcended all doubtful opinions and is one of the most successful product launches in Apple’s history, selling more than 3 million pads in less than 60 days. With the multitude of downloadable apps and portability, the iPad enhances and transforms the social media, online and general computer experience.
On Cramer Insights, Cramer’s thought leadership and perspectives newsletter, Joan Schneider, president of Schneider Associates and author of "The New Launch Plan," speaks about why the iPad deserves recognition as one of the most well designed communication devices to date; “Companies have started finding ways to use the iPad to enhance business. Now a host of other manufacturers are introducing their own tablet devices to jump into this runaway market,” Schneider states in the article.
To learn more about why the iPad transcends the hype, please follow this link to the Cramer Insights summer 2010 newsletter. To sign up for Cramer Insights and learn more from thought leaders, please click here.
Cramer is a digital marketing and event solutions agency that fuses creativity and technology to design and execute experiences that move audiences. For more than 25 years, the agency has helped the world's leading and emerging brands win and retain loyal customers, launch products and inspire sales teams. Reaching audiences online, offline, through emerging media and face-to-face, Cramer creates personalized, integrated marketing programs and events that maximize marketingimpact—and their clients' dollars. Cramer’s clients include Boston Scientific, Progress Software, EMD Serono, Inc., Bayer Healthcare and PricewaterhouseCoopers among others. Cramer is a privately held company. For more information, please go to http://www.crameronline.com, or visit their blog at http://www.awidernet.com.
If you would like help planning your next product introduction or launch event, contact us at launch@schneiderpr.com or on Twitter @SchneiderPR.
“If you put together messages without a framework, you will probably be mired in wordsmithing before you know it. Instead, begin by working logically from questions to answers. Assemble key individuals who will be involved in your launch, such as the brand manager, thought leaders from your public relations and advertising agencies, internal personnel with marketing savvy, and consumers. Ask each individual to write down any questions they think might be asked about the product, from the global to the specific. How does this work? What’s new about it? How much will it cost? How long will it last? Where can I buy it? Why would I buy this when the competition already has a better product on the market? Who tested the product to prove its efficacy? At this point, all questions are important to consider and none should be disregarded as irrelevant.
“Working with a trained facilitator (from your PR agency or a resource within the company), write all the questions on a flip chart or whiteboard so the group can see them. Review the queries to learn what the group thinks about them. Then ask the participants—working either alone or in teams of two or three—to group all of the questions into buckets. These will most likely address the product’s benefit to the consumer and what is new and different about it. We suggest having two or three buckets, one for each subject.
“Now comes the hard part: the facilitator needs to keep a relatively tight rein on the participants. Break people into groups and ask each team to formulate one sentence with the dominant answer or statement about the subject matter addressed in each bucket. Compare the input from the groups. You will find that the answers are usually very similar and will give you the essence of your key messages. Test each message you formulate by asking this question: If people hear, understand, believe and act on each key message, will it drive sales of the product and make the launch a success? If the answer is yes, you have likely formulated effective key messages.Be sure to take a break at various intervals, as messaging requires time and perspective that can be gained only through discussions about each message and its meaning.”
Follow this link to watch Schneider and Hall talk about how social media is transforming new product launches, and discuss their favorite social media case studies.
“The NEW Launch Plan,”available at BNPmedia.com and at Amazon.com, is a business book for brand and marketing professionals, written by Joan Schneider, President, and Julie Hall, EVP/Partner, of Schneider Associates. Authors Schneider and Hall draw upon decades of experience launching new products and showcase real world strategies and tactics used in highly effective product introductions. “The NEW Launch Plan” is replete with case studies from brand managers on the front lines of the battle for market share, and demonstrates how creative, integrated marketing ideas fuel and sustain launch success.
David Meerman Scott, author of “The New Rules of Marketing & PR,” commented: “In today’s always on, YouTube-infested, Twitter-centric world, it’s much tougher to launch a new product than even a few years ago. If you’re ready to launch a new consumer product into the national market, ‘The NEW Launch Plan’ is your blueprint for success.”
Reflecting back on the month of May, when we celebrate, honor and cherish moms everywhere on Mother’s day, maybe it’s time to look forward when it comes to marketing? For so long, marketers have focused their efforts on marketing to moms as a “target” audience – but Julie Hall, Chief Mommy Organizer of Mommies Clique(and EVP of Schneider Associates), thinks that for today’s marketing-savvy moms, that’s an old school way of thinking (see Julie's bylined article, "Marketing to Modern Moms," in Candy & Snack TODAY). Not only are today’s moms much more sensitive and aware of marketing messages, they are also critiquing, shaping and re-forming those messages to include their own knowledge and research on products. Why is that important? Well for starters, according to a white paper published by Advertising Age, The Rise of the Real Mom, moms control $4.3 trillion of the $5.9 trillion U.S. consumer spending total. Estimates of the percentage of household purchasing decisions resting with mom range from 73% to 85%. Even more important, today’s moms are talking back to marketers, and talking to their social networks, in person or through social channels. While many of the newest product launches seem to meet mom’s expectations (such as the re-vamped Crystal Light Pure Fitness), others have put moms on guard (see the new Smartwhite Wonder Bread).
As always, we wish you many happy launches to come.If you would like help planning your next launch, contact us at launch@schneiderpr.com or on Twitter @SchneiderPR
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