Digital CPG Blog

Ben & Jerry’s is debuting new ice cream flavors to encourage volunteering. But the really cool thing about the campaign is how they’re spreading the word via social media:

The new flavors were created to encourage customers to volunteer in their local communities through a promotion called “Scoop it Forward.” An affiliate website helps shoppers find volunteer opportunities in their neighborhoods.

After registering for a volunteer activity — and forwarding the volunteer program to five friends — that person and each of his or her friends will receive a coupon for a free pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, while supplies last.

Truly a great way to encourage actionable change and promote your brand at the same time, and one of the best examples of cause marketing in awhile.

PepsiCo is one of the many companies seeing a return from social media thanks to their willingness to experiment (and sometimes fail).

“If you visit our headquarters, the walls are lined with products and packaging that didn’t work,” said Bonin Bough director of digital and social media at PepsiCo .

Bough is finding that some of his ideas are taking off in a big way, however.

Recent such experiments include a Twitter and TV media strategy for the one-off Pepsuber ad during this year’s Super Bowl, reported Media Post. “We ran in isolation of paid digital media,” he said of the effort. “All we did was Twitter and drove nearly the same amount of traffic [as with paid digital]. Just with Twitter. I believe in doing small experiments and rolling them out in a big way.”

And Bough isn’t stopping anytime soon. Later this year, PepsiCo is going to start a program where consumers who scan bar codes on PepsiCo products via smartphones will get content about the brand or corporate goodwill programs.

Every brand wants you to share information about their brand via social media and networks, but Emergen-C, fizzy vitamin drink mixes, ” is going one better by enabling social media fans to get or gift friends with free, mail-delivered sample packets, as well as the virtual type,” reports Media Post.

Emergen-C’s “Share the Good” campaign spans Facebook and Twitter and have somewhat of a complicated and detailed strategy:

On Twitter, the brand will, of course, be tweeting much more frequently (offering energy-boosting tips, health facts and trivia, invites to its many events, etc.). A newly created “Emergen-C Tweet Patrol” will be on the case, and in charge of some special initiatives.

One of those Twitter efforts is rewarding the “intrepid” few (about 100) who continued to follow Emergen-C despite the long dearth of tweets by offering them a free T-shirt bearing the immortal words in that one-and-only 2009 tweet (“checking out Joshua Lynn’s article http://www.purebranding.com/blog/?p=40″).

A more ambitious, ongoing initiative will have the Patrol picking a specific word that relates to the product’s benefits each week, like “tired,” then picking a random sample of those using that word in their tweets and following them. Those who choose to follow back will be tweeted a message telling them that Emergen-C would like to send them a free sample “starter kit” by mail. (To receive one, they supply their postal address via a simple digital form provided.)

Although certainly creative, I’m not sure the return will be all that high for such Twitter initiatives. More compelling is their Facebook strategy:

As for Facebook, fans will not only be able to share “virtual” Emergen-C products, but the real thing. When they log in, they’ll be informed that they can give real samples to 10 friends in need of an Emergen-C pick-me-up. So, when Facebook friends post that they’re falling asleep at work, feeling run-down, forgetful, etc., Emergen-C followers can flag those friends, triggering both a message saying that they want to send them free sample packets and a personalized video.

This sounds like a great campaign, but Emergen-C will want to make sure that they don’t make it too complicated (i.e., will Emergen-C personalize the video or will the fan have to create their own personalized video?). Emergen-C could easily duplicate their Facebook strategy on Twitter by providing a landing page on their site, or could simply use Twitter to drive people to their Facebook promotions. The major concern then becomes measuring the effectiveness of the samples.

What do you think? Is this an effective way to provide samples and use social media to spread the word about your products?

Marketing Daily recently asked Paul Parkin, founding partner of SALT Branding, an integrated brand consultancy in San Francisco, to make sense of Gen Y and brands. Here are two key takeaways from the interview:

1) Gen Y is less loyal. “They grew up in an age when there was always a new site emerging that was better than the old one, and they’re happy to leave it behind. But they are more loyal to channels. They may not be loyal to any brand of shoes or department store, but they are loyal to the Internet channel, and brands like Zappos.com and Amazon”

2) Use Social Media to keep up w/ Gen Y. “The fastest-moving consumer companies, like Virgin, Red Bull and Pepsi recognize that consumers want to engage with brands in entirely new ways, such as through mobile or social media. And they know people want to do it on their own terms.”

In the new digital age, channels and those brands increasingly rule. We’ve seen it in marketplaces like Orbitz and e-Bay where young consumers are given all the tools to find information and make the best decision.

I’m always reminded of the movie Miracle on 34th Street where the fictional Macy’s store opens up the door on pricing and allows their customers to compare prices  to all of their competitors right there in the store. What a revolution that was!

In the CPG sector, sites like our own Alice.com also work hard to bring the power back to the consumer, empowering them with a wide range of unbiased information to find the best products. Such transparencies are surely a big reason why channels are outperforming individual brands.

Photo via New York Times.

Big-box stores have finally joined the loyalty game. Sam’s Club is offering personalized discounts for buyers through it’s eValues program that tailors bargains based on a member’s buying history. The New York Times reports:

Linda Vytlacil, vice president for member insights and innovation at Sam’s Club, said coupons normally had a response rate of 1 percent or 2 percent. With eValues, she said, as many as 20 percent to 30 percent of eligible customers collect the discount they are offered.

The program is available only to Sam’s Club’s “Plus” members, who pay a higher yearly membership fee than do regular members. They can view the deals by e-mail, on the Sam’s Club Web site or at store kiosks.

“There’s no clipping coupons,” Ms. Vytlacil said, adding that eValues offered “highly individual relevant offers specific to each Plus member. All they have to do is purchase the product, and the savings are automatically applied at checkout.” Like other membership clubs, shoppers must present a card at checkout.

While consumers and retailers benefit from such long-awaited programs, manufacturers continue to watch from afar. Watch for CPG manufacturers to create their own loyalty programs to buid brand loyalty and acquire customer data. This is just the beginning for an exciting chapter on loyalty in CPG.

A young woman walks through the drive-through. Photo Credit: joelogon.

As someone who lives in a small downtown condo, walks everywhere, and has never owned a car before my current position and 20 minute commute, a culture much less dependent on cars make total sense to me. Jack Neff of AdAge reports on this growing trend and how it affects e-commerce for CPG manufacturers:

William Draves,  president of Lern, a consulting firm which focuses mainly on higher education, and co-author of “Nine Shift,” has a theory that almost everything about digital media and technology makes cars less desirable or useful and public transportation a lot more relevant.

Gen Y will be working on “intangibles” in professional jobs, not on tangible things that require physical presence, Mr. Draves said. “Time becomes really valuable to them,” he said. “You can work on a train. You can’t work in a car. And the difference is two to three hours a day, or about 25% of one’s productive time.”

Mr. Draves predicts a resurgence of urban living in denser housing surrounding train stations. As a result, suburban shopping malls and big-box stores such as Walmart, Target and club stores that rely on people hauling big purchases away in cars stand to suffer.

Gen Y’s driving-behavior shift, however, won’t just be about helping main streets return as big-box retailers fade, Mr. Draves said. E-commerce is likely to benefit, too, as categories at first resistant to e-commerce take another serious crack at it. Alice.com, which is providing the platform and fulfillment now for more than 60 mainly package-goods e-stores, is seeing a growing share of its business, which drew close to 700,000 visitors in April from Gen Y shoppers, according to Compete.com, said CEO Brian Wiegand.

“This new generation, their first thought is not ‘let’s drive to the store to get these things,’” he said, “but ‘let’s get them the easiest, fastest, cheapest way.’ We call them internet-first people. We think that’s an important segment for us, and it’s also the biggest segment for our iPhone app, which is almost all Gen Y.”

Read the full, fascinating article >

In a survey by eMarketer, 25% of consumers say they become Facebook fans of a brand to receive deals and discounts. The report details that the brands that have enjoyed the most success using social media to drive consumers toward purchases follow one of two paths: Either they offer coupons or discounts, or they position themselves in front of consumers during sales or other special events.

One-quarter of respondents to a survey conducted by Chadwick Martin Bailey said that coupons and discounts were the primary reason they became fans of a brand on Facebook, reported AdWeek..

While coupons are great, companies will have to do more to keep their new fans engaged as loyal customers beyond deals. Publishing user-generated content is a useful strategy to create such affinities. What ways and strategies have you seen companies use to keep fans engaged?

SCENTED BANNER NATURA KAIAK from Black Mamba on Vimeo.

There are a lot of initiatives in the social media world, but not a lot of them catch attention like this one. Digital Buzz Blog reports:

Created by TBWA Brazil for a the re-launch of a men’s fragrance, the agency created a scented web banner that was… real.

To make the idea come to life, they sponsored 15 lan houses across Brazil and installed a small scent strip distributor on the back of each screen so when people click the special Kaiak banner, it instantly delivers a real life sample into the hands of the banner clicker!

The results show a massive 17.2% click through rate which is 43x the global average.

Great ROI, not to mention that the above video has been played more than 40,000 times increasing word of mouth for the brand. Not surprising. Wouldn’t you feel compelled to click on a scented web banner?

Consumer Goods Technology recently interviewed Pat Conroy, vice chairman, U.S. Consumer Products Leader, Deloitte LLP. Here’s a summary of his suggestions on how to compete with store brands:

1. Change the Mindset. “Consumer products companies should address each store brand as a real competitor brand. That means understanding the brand and product differentiation strategy today, and in the future. Of course, ongoing product innovation plays a major role in differentiation.”

2. Create Destination Brands. “These are products that consumers actively seek out, believe the product performance is demonstrably superior, and will go to another retailer to find the product. Nearly half of all executives surveyed showed strong agreement that consumers will switch stores if their preferred brand is not offered.”

3. Create Retailer-Specific Product Portfolios. Companies should create retailer-specific product portfolios to compete with the multi-tier range of low-end to often premium store brands. Less than two out of five executives surveyed believe that consumer products companies have a product lineup to successfully compete with store brands.

4. Create Local Versions. “That is, localized versions at the regional, state or even city level. Our survey results show that retail executives are much more tuned in to this opportunity for national brands, compared to consumer products executives.”

5. De-Emphasize Discount-Driven Promotions. “Consumer products companies should deemphasize discount-driven promotions as undermining the national brands and increasing consumer price sensitivity. Nearly seven in 10 respondents showed strong agreement that consumers are more price sensitive due to national brand promotions.”

To implement these strategies, like destination brands and localized versions, CPG manufacturers will also have to create strong loyalty programs that demonstrate the value and experience of the brand. That’s another reason why the online channel is a great resource for CPG manufacturers. There, they have a learning lab of data that can help them compete successfully against store brands.

It’s more likely that consumers interact with CPG manufactures via visits to brand Web sites than of fandom or followerdom via Facebook or Twitter, a 3-country survey by Ipsos Marketing, Consumer Goods, released last week.

When the purpose is to “obtain information about the brand,” 74 percent said they go to the brand’s Web site, 34 percent to its Facebook page and 28 percent to its Twitter page. The numbers were nearly identical when it comes to getting coupons or promotional offers.

But it’s quite different when consumers want to “share opinions/experiences” regarding a CPG brand. When this is their purpose, 57 percent use the brand’s Facebook page, 50 percent its Web site and 38 percent its Twitter page.

Likewise, when they want to “connect with other customers,” 54 percent use the Facebook page, 48 percent the brand Web site and 35 percent the Twitter page.

via Adweek.