Digital CPG Blog

Energizer Personal Care brand Schick Intuition just launched a new, interactive coupon-oriented Facebook application (www.facebook.com/schickintuition) asking customers to tune into their intution while they tune into some of the top social media influencers: Melanie Notkin, Founder of The Savvy Auntie, Kimberley Clayton-Blaine, Executive Producer of TheGoToMom.TV and MommyToMommyTv.com and Audrey McClelland, Founder of MomGenerations.com.

“Schick Intuition is excited to escort consumers on the journey to discover the secrets to simplifying their active lifestyles,” says Chit Itchon, senior brand manager Schick Intuition. “We’re looking forward to interacting with our fans through this program, and start a dialogue around simple tips that can make a difference in their daily lives.”

Now until October 30, 2011 fans can visit www.Facebook.com/schickIntuition to take the “Intuition IQ” quiz and discover if they are “Simple Carefree,” “Simply Flexible” or “Simply Smart.” After taking the quiz, fans are able to download a $3.00 coupon for any Intuition razor or 3ct. refills.

Loved these tips from MediaPost as they won’t just mean making your Gen Y customer base happy, but everyone. Here are the top new rules of engagement to effectively reach Gen Y moms across today’s powerful digital platforms:

The 24-hour rule: With information at our fingertips 24/7, consumers have a new definition of what is current and timely. 46% of Gen Y moms expect brands to update their profile pages on Facebook daily, compared to 37% of female consumers. Sixty-four percent of Gen Y moms also expect to hear back from brands within a 24-hour window. Marketers need to make sure that their social networking strategies reflect this sense of immediacy, as well as meet age-old expectations for great, reliable service.

Get your game on: Women, and moms in particular, increasingly lead social and casual gaming. Today, 75% of women (and 77% of moms) have at least one gaming app, compared to 67% of men. Companies like Groupon, Living Social and DailyCandy Deals have effectively tapped into this game mentality, using flash sales and daily deals to build anticipation. Whether you develop a game to build your brand, or reward patrons with virtual currency, this is an opportunity to win big with female consumers.

Rethink loyalty: Loyalty programs are losing significance among consumers as a faster pace online and offline puts a premium on living in the now. With 66% of Gen Y moms claiming that brand loyalty constitutes usage of only six months to a year, brands need to rethink what it means to have “loyal” customers and consider developing a relevancy program instead. Marketers must ask themselves whether their brands are in the right place at the right time with the right information.

Curated serendipity: Offering filtered content is an effective and necessary way to cut through the clutter. But to fully engage moms, there must be room for serendipitous discovery. 87% of women and moms agree that they would rather participate in a one-day flash sale than a weeklong sale. Brands should create the possibility for surprise. E-commerce companies, for example, should take into account the element of spontaneity that happens in offline shopping — the moment of delight when someone discovers or stumbles across a perfect item they weren’t expecting.

Well, if you’re ever dismayed by a piece of research, just wait a bit and a new study will come out and make you happy again. While last week, we reported that researchers had found decreased loyalty among CPG categories, this week researchers are finding the opposite:

Despite the economy and the growth of private label, brand loyalty has increased in 45 of the top 100 CPG categories over the past three years, according to a new report from SymphonyIRI Group.

Some — like sports drinks — have seen significant gains. Between 2008 and 2010, the percentage of consumers who reported being loyal to a sports drink brand rose by 6.5 percentage points, to 87.6%.

The definition of brand loyalty: More than 50% of the buyer’s total purchasing in the category is of a single brand (not including private label).

Batteries gained 3.9 percentage points to reach a 73.5% loyalty level (as of July 3); cleaning tools/mops/brooms gained 2.8 to reach 72.4%; shelf-stable dinners gained 3.7 to reach 66.9%; shampoo gained 2.8 to reach 65.9%; cat and dog litter gained 2.5 to reach 62.2%; dry packaged dinners gained 3.2 to reach 59.3%; diapers gained 4.4 to reach 58.3%; and household cleaners gained 3.5 to reach 50.9%.

Categories showing the largest losses in brand loyalty include refrigerated salads/coleslaw (-22 points); gastrointestinal tablets (-11); cold/allergy/sinus tablets (-7.2); internal analgesics (-6.9); sugar (-6.5); pastry/doughnuts (-5.2); creams/creamers (-5.2); Mexican foods (-5.1); RTD tea/coffee (-4.9) and butter (-4.7).

Procter & Gamble is interviewing consumers who are struggling to pay their bills as well as ones who don’t worry about money as they consider how to adjust to a marketplace that is increasingly divided. A wealthy consumer who says she has never kept a budget said she doesn’t buy the company’s Gain detergent because the low price means “it can’t be that good.”

How can you market to customers with discerning tastes and those with a thin wallet? Well, you can’t be everything to everyone, first and foremost. I would focus on finding rabid fans wherever they may lie and the rest will follow. It seems P&G is doing just that–

Procter & Gamble executives said a shrinking middle class is prompting them to focus more on high- and low-end products, “where a lot of the growth is happening.” The company recently introduced bargain-priced Gain dish soap. Other companies, including H.J. Heinz, also are betting that the shopping public is dividing into high and low.

This talk about the customer’s budget comes at the heels of talk about P&G’s restructring and “analysts say thousands of jobs may be cut. CEO Bob McDonald said the changes will be announced later this year after the company completes the $3 billion sale of Pringles to Diamond Foods.”

U.S. based direct-to-consumer platform Alice recently expanded to Europe (that’s our company), and now Nestle is starting their own direct-to-consumer effort in Germany:

So Nestlé has joined the social commerce movement, launching an innovative new social marketplace (Nestlé Marktplatz), allowing consumers to discover, shop and share 72 Nestlé brands. Piloting in Germany, this direct-to-consumer marketplace showcases Nestlé’s extended brand range.

Significantly, Nestlé is looking to engage Marketplace customers as brand advisors – inviting ideas and suggestions for new products, packaging and usage occasions.  In other words, the marketplace is not only a forum for buying and selling, it’s also a forum for conversations between customers – who can rate, comment, seek advice and share ideas with each other – and a forum for conversations with customers.

Overall, we like the concept of the Nestlé Marktplatz, particularly as an insight and advocacy generator, and as a central e-commerce platform that will be able to power individual Facebook fan-stores for individual brands.  We see the value for Nestlé, but the challenge for Nestlé will be to demonstrate a compelling reason-to-shop on this central marketplace – as opposed to from a brand-specific Facebook fan-store, or from supermarkets offering a far broader range of products. Why shop 72 brands when you can shop 7200 brands on online supermarkets?

The draw certainly won’t come from the Marketplace’s social features – these are increasingly standard hygiene factors on all decent e-commerce platforms.  Instead, we think Nestlé should turn up the volume on the Marketplace’s differentiator – exclusive access to new and non-local products, whilst adding in an enhanced dose of brand utility in the form of exclusive and quality recipe/nutrition guides/apps and a Kraft iFood-style shopping list manager. We’d also integrate the Marketplace with Facebook, if only to do away with the daunting friction-laden sign up form.

We talked yesterday about how Facebook was more of a loyalty program, not a customer acquisiton tool and judging by the latest numbers, more CPG brands should be using it:

The best-selling packaged-goods brands saw the defection of some of their most loyal customers over the past year, per a study by Catalina Marketing, which examined shopper loyalty-card data related to the top 100 CPG brands. According to Catalina, these brands experienced a 46% dip in loyalty among their best customers, although they still managed to grow their sales by an average of 2.2% during the 52-week period examined in the study.

Pop-up try-vesting f-commerce store? No it’s not just a hodge-podge of the latest vocab but an actual campaign –

Confirming its trailblazing status as a pioneer in social commerce for luxury brands, Burberry has launched a pop-up ‘tryvertising’ fan-store on its Facebook page to promote the launch of its new fragrance Burberry Body to its 7m+ fans.

And the best thing for Burberry fans is that the cost of getting the fragrance delivered to your door is $0 – the fan-store is actually a sample-store, offering free samples to Burberry fans.  We think it’s smart and slick and sets a new standard for tryvertising on Facebook.  The Burberry Body sample store features a like-gate, a count-down timer, an attractive order form, and plenty of opportunities for users to share the news.

Making Forbes’ list of the World’s Most Powerful Women were:

- PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi (No. 4)

- Kraft CEO Irene Rosenfeld (No. 10)

- Archer Daniels Midland CEO Patricia Woertz (No. 45)

- Campbell CEO Denise Morrison (No. 80)

Congrats to all – a fresh look at power and influence!

CPG Manus are being a lot more direct lately… want to know why? Read on -

Brands have jumped on the e-commerce bandwagon, establishing their own direct-to-consumer domains, not just for the opportunity to sell directly to consumers, but also to engage and understand their shopping behaviours.

As you can see, the lines are quickly blurring between manufacturer and retailer. And there’s no doubt that this will foster accelerated innovation and cooperation.

What’s driving this market shift? I can think of a few initial reasons:

The economic crisis

Simply put, the rise in commodity prices and recent recession have forced us to innovate. The ability to combine advertising budgets to reach the right consumers preserves margins for both manufacturer and retailer.

Access to the consumer

For brands that don’t have their own retail website, this represents an opportunity to get closer to the consumer.

Proximity to the consumer allows a brand to capture more meaningful insights that can then be used for spotting market trends, or uncovering ways to accelerate a brand’s product development.

Lack of effective means to gather customer feedback

Brands that lack the capability to capture these insights may end up using blunt-force consumer surveys, which creates misinformation that results in products like the ‘Homer-Mobile‘.

The convergence of retailers and manufacturers foreshadows a flattening of the marketplace and increased challenges in differentiation.