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.
Axe, the body spray and grooming brand by Unilever, famous for its ads that turn average young men into heroic “girl-magnets,” recently launched the newest addition to its line of body sprays: Anarchy, a scent marketed towards men andwomen.
The campaign, by Bartle Bogle Hegarty, focuses on the idea of chaos and commotion, using dramatic online and print advertisements to stir up attention. The online promotion kicked-off with a teaser commercial, also seen in movie theaters, which featured the "Anarchy" concept without revealing the new product for women.
Social media, specifically the Axe Facebook page, played a key role in unleashing the “anarchist” scent. Up until the launch, Facebook users were greeted with a countdown to the fragrance release using the text “Anarchy is coming.” Free samples were distributed before the product hit stores for Facebook users who answered all of the questions correctly on an Axe quiz.
Axe also launched an original graphic novel in partnership with Aspen Comics, appropriately titled “Anarchy,” via YouTube and Facebook. The graphic novel, “Anarchy Girl,.” Was created with fan feedback in real time, with Axe consumers voting on the comic’s plotline, characters and other aspects online through Axe’s social media channels. Some lucky fans also had comic versions of themselves featured in the novel after “liking” specific Axe Facebook posts or contributing their ideas.
To elaborate on their “Are you ready for unexpected attraction at every turn?” marketing campaign, Axe produced their usual suggestive commercial: a female police officer chasing a male robber through the city, only to meet with an incredible force of attraction at the end of the ad.
A limited edition release, the question is will the body spray make women forgo their normal stand-by and make Axe Anarchy body spray their new choice? Barret Roberts, Senior Brand Manager at Axe, told the New York Times, “We’ve been hearing for some time that females have been asking for and looking for their very own scent of Axe.”
At SA, we believe this is not anarchy, just smart marketing.
Need a great deal on a hotel room tonight? There’s an app for that. HotelTonight helps consumers search hotels with immediately available rooms while saving up to 70 percent on their bill. Available for iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) and Android, this free app allows users to browse quality hotel profiles and book a same-day hotel stay until 2 a.m.
In a market saturated with companies offering travel deals, HotelTonight managed the almost impossible – it became the most downloaded app in its category in just one month. HotelTonight founder and CEO Sam Shank told Marketing Sherpa his secret: "The strategy is to make sure everybody has an incredible experience using the application."
As a start-up with a limited budget for an advertising and marketing blitz, HotelTonight focused on creating word-of-mouth buzz by offering great deals and stellar customer service. This old-fashioned approach to marketing helped HotelTonight skyrocket to the top of the app download charts.
Improvements to the app are coming fast: HotelTonight recently launched their newly-included Las Vegas hotel deals at Caesar’s Palace, Trump International Hotel, The Palms, and the Hard Rock Hotel.
“No city in the world is more spontaneous than Vegas, and our hotel partners are working in creative ways to remind people of this,” said Shank. “We look forward to inspiring many Friday night Vegas road trips with deals this great."
Will HotelTonight’s success allow them to ramp up marketing efforts with new introductions and leverage partnerships to grow awareness? Only time will tell.
For more than a decade, children have enjoyed the famous Goldfish crackers from Pepperidge Farm (smiling Goldfish crackers were launched by Schneider Associates many years ago.) Now, Pepperidge Farm is leveraging their smiling Goldfish equity by launching Goldfish Sandwich Bread- the bread that smiles back.
The bread comes in three varieties: Soft White, Soft 100% Whole Wheat, and Soft Honey Whole Wheat. All three contain no high fructose corn syrup and boast 3 grams of fiber per serving for only 120 calories. Not to mention, thebread is completely crust-free, ensuring that the pickiest eaters will have no reason to dislike it.
“We are excited to offer kids and the young at heart a fun and healthful new way to enjoy their favorite sandwiches,” Maureen Linder, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Fresh and Frozen Bakery at Pepperidge Farm said in a press release from the company.
To celebrate the launch, Pepperidge Farms conducted a national survey to unveil the hidden troubles of making lunches. In “The Shape of Sandwiches” survey, they found that parents often find making lunches difficult and even frustrating. Nine out of 10 moms revealed that their children find their sandwiches more appealing if the bread is cut into fun and creative shapes and sizes, and are more likely to eat them. 50% of mothers participating in the survey revealed that their children have requested triangular sandwiches while 23% revealed that their children have wanted their food in shapes of faces. Pepperidge farm created a product based on a unique consumer insight, fitting into the recent trend of Customer Calibration™ that we have been seeing.
Aside from the survey, Pepperidge Farms also participated in Evo ’11, a three-day social media conference for women in Park City, Utah, to showcase their new bread. They provided lunch for the conference on Friday, July 8th, where the new sandwich bread was a featured product. A photo op included a scenic picnic backdrop and a blow-up replica of the Goldfish mascot, Finn. Participant pictures were all uploaded onto the official Pepperidge Farms Facebook page.
So far, the reviews for Goldfish Sandwich Bread have been positive, which is no surprise considering the brand developed the product based on consumer insights. Is it the best thing since sliced bread? Could be.
Downy is giving consumers a boost to the senses with its new Downy Unstopables that deliver a fresh-out-of-the-laundry smell all day. When these scented beads are added to the wash, they dissolve and leave clothes with a long-lasting fresh scent, which Downy claims can last up to twelve weeks (perfect for students). Although Downy Unstopables make your clothes smell fresh, they still must be used with detergent and fabric softener, and so the product represents a new addition to one’s laundry care regimen.
Downy launched the new Unstopables with a commercial targeted toward moms. Comedian and actress Amy Sedaris is featured and provides a quick, quirky tutorial on how to use the new scented beads. The character played by Sedaris is a retro chic housewife claiming to be a “laundry expert.” Downy also posted the new commercial on their YouTube channel, Facebook page and official website.
Supporting the ad campaign, Downy has been conducting a sampling promotion where consumers can sign up for on the Facebook page and receive one of 2 million free samples.. After signup, consumers are entered into a drawing for a $1,000 gift card toward all Downy products.
It’s undeniable that everyone loves the fresh-out-of-the laundry smell, but at a time when lots of consumers are cutting chemicals and scents out of their lives, it will be interesting to see how the product fares with its intended audience. Will the new Downy entrant be an Unstopable success?
Spotify is a music streaming service that allows users to access a seemingly endless music library and play songs on their computers, phones or home audio systems. Currently, Spotify offers three tiers of service: a free, limited monthly streaming membership (by invitation only), and two pay plans that offer an ad-free listening experience and offline usability.
To build an American market Spotify partnered with Klout, the online reputation service, to offer influential social media users a chance to try Spotify for free. Demand for invitations was so strong that the Klout website briefly crashed, an indication that there is a strong interest in this music streaming service.
Even the record companies are behind Spotify. Universal Music Group (UMG), a major national record label, announced the release of a playlist service called Digster that is completely integrated with the Spotify platform. Other record companies are expected to follow suit, preferring to monetize consumer music consumption that previously may have been diverted to pirated material.
There are several other music streaming services available in the U.S., like Pandora and Grooveshark. But what sets Spotify apart is a user base in the millions, a track record of success in Europe, and a business model that should continue to generate profit.
Spotify promises to finally break any tension still separating music lovers and record companies by integrating its service across the three major, modern platforms: online, mobile, and social media.
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