Retailers are finding their customers on Facebook… and a lot of them.
In a recent study, the results “speak to the power of Facebook: The retailers surveyed by Media Logic with 1 million or more likers averaged nearly 40 percent growth between mid-July and mid-September.”
Other key findings included:
- Blogs, microsites, commerce sites and stores are all being swept up and into the social revolution. Retailers are connecting their online and real-world properties into what are effectively media networks owned and operated by the brands.
– Promotions in the form of social games and contests, hosted both within Facebook and on microsites, are drawing huge numbers of participants and, thus far, tireless engagement. Fans and followers must now be considered significant cooperative marketing partners as they remarket the brand messages.
– Big brands buy fans. It has become common practice for retailers to drive new non-likers to a promotional Facebook tab where they are asked to like the page in return for a gift or special access to promotions or contests.
How are you using Facebook to drive customer growth and loyalty?
“S. C. Johnson wants to step up its ‘green’ game with advertising intended to convey to consumers a commitment to disclose the ingredients of its familiar household cleaning products, like Glade, Pledge and Windex,” reports the New York Times.
The ads got underway over Thanksgiving on major network and cable channels and are poised to come online, appearing on Web sites like cnn.com, marthastewart.com, msn.com, people.com and yahoo.com since S.C. Johnson is devoted to additional resources toward online advertising.
“It’s much more holistic than just television,” Mr. Johnson said in a phone interview, with “more digital engagement than we’ve typically done.”
Transparency in product ingredients is an important facet for consumers, and letting them know through online efforts can only help to add to a grassroots authentic feeling of communication. How is your brand increasing it’s transparency to the customer?
Mom is shopping for just about everybody this holiday season, but it’s not always easy figuring out what to buy. Brands “should note that this gift idea quandary is solved by websites and blogs, with 71% of Moms relying on websites and 62% using blogs to find the “perfect” gift. If your product or brand is unique and fits the “in-laws” demographic, reach out to top bloggers and websites with a sample of your product. Many bloggers publish gift guides or suggested gift lists. Remember to seek out bloggers who have a popular social media presence, as almost 70% of Moms will look for product reviews on Facebook or LinkedIn,” reports BSM Media.
Other key findings;
- A whopping 90% of Moms have not started shopping for holiday gifts, or have only picked up a few things. Almost 40% indicated that they would shop after Halloween and on Black Friday, which means there is still time to place ads, recruit bloggers for product reviews or schedule a Twitter party.
- An overwhelming majority of moms in our survey are planning to buy online. An even 66% of Moms surveyed said they plan on purchasing more than half of their gift items through online retailers, with Amazon and eBay leading the list.
- Presents aren’t the only items on Mom’s Holiday Shopping List. Don’t forget the holiday dinners, office parties and get-togethers. Food retailers should take note that the majority of Moms will try a new product when offered a coupon. Fifty-six percent of Moms would “always” try a new product with a coupon and 40.9% would “sometimes” try a new product when enticed with a coupon.
Is your brand approaching moms this holiday season?
According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Pricewaterhouse Coopers, internet advertising is showing strong returns:
Revenue for the first half of 2010 was $12.1 billion, an 11.3 percent increase over the same period last year. That represents the highest revenue for the first half of a year since the bureau began releasing figures in 1996. Revenue for the second quarter of 2010, which accounted for $6.2 billion, was also the highest on record.
“Interactive media are starting to show substantial growth and great vitality in making money,” said Sherrill Mane, senior vice president for industry services at the IAB, during a news conference about the results this morning.
The strongest advertising sectors included search advertising, which accounted for 47 percent of year-to-date revenues, followed by display-related advertising at 36 percent and classified at 10 percent. Lead generation and e-mail were the weakest sectors, generating 5 percent and 1 percent of revenue, respectively.
Where do you see the most return in online advertising?
It’s important for marketing to be integrated online and offline because the consumer doesn’t distinguish between online or offline.
The customer doesn’t see which department produced the content/wrote the script/spoke to you last Tuesday. Or who should respond to their Facebook comment at 4:56am Sunday morning.
They just see a brand.
The most successful campaigns as of late have integrated between ad campaigns and social media outreach and content (think Old Spice). Do you distinguish between your online and offline marketing efforts? Why or why not?
That’s what Matt Owens argues in a recent E-Consultancy post. He aruges that the supremacy surrounding social media is creating a number of problems and calls out these key assumptions:
- Assuming social media is more influential than traditional media
We agree with Matt on this one – social media should be used in tandem with other marketing and advertising initiatives for full effect. Particularly the broadcast arena, which Owens argues is still alive and well.
- Social media is the best place to create brand awareness
I do think social media is a great place to create initial brand awareness through expediting word of mouth, but like Owens, I agree you must have a long-term plan to maintain your brand’s exposure. You can only be featured on the same blog so many times after all…
- The audience can be trusted to curate their own content
Owens argues that with more content than ever, it’s important to have editors and curators to build trust with your customers. We agree, but also took a different stance – don’t be afraid to let those customers create their own content either. Sometimes that’s even more powerful than organizing what’s already out there.
What do you think? Are we relying on social media too much to the detriment of other areas of marketing and advertising?
But “CPG companies on average spend six percent of their marketing budgets on online media, half of what other companies in other industries are spending,” Douglas Brooks reports. “Clearly, there is an enormous untapped opportunity for the CPG marketer who gets it right. And that means having a clear, holistic view of your digital marketing spend across your entire organization.”
Brooks urges that marketers start with the following basic questions to get it right:
• Over the short term, what are the goals of the digital campaign and how do they tie with those of the broader advertising and marketing program?
• Over the longer term, how does this campaign contribute to brand goals such as share of shelf, sales and market share uplift?
• What specific consumer actions does the company want to drive—do you want them to visit a Web site, print a coupon, buy online, go to the store?
• How will the team track information disseminated and measure the success of the campaign, both in terms of direct consumer response as well as the effect on offline activity
Brooks later suggests that what’s great about digital is that it allows for – and requires constant experimentation and refinement. Indeed, the area is still so new it is ripe for innovation, particularly by the CPG industry, where consumers are pleading for products and conversations that respond to their modern lifestyles.
Jack Neff at AdAge recently reported that the CMO of Unilever Keith Weed stated the company will increase digital investment significantly:
Mr. Weed acknowledged there’s a risk in “getting ahead of consumers,” as he describes some of Unilever’s efforts. But he likens investments in emerging media to those in upstream product development — a necessary outlay to ensure long-term growth.
Ad Age: You’ve said you’re going to double digital spending this year, which is really very ambitious. Why?
Mr. Weed: At the end of the day we are a mass marketer. Every day, 2 billion people use our products. So what dictates what we do is those consumers, and I want to be where consumers are. The truth of the matter is we’re seeing this huge migration across the world to digital. We need to be ahead of the consumer, so when the consumer arrives, we’re already there.
We’ve talked a lot this week about being where the customer is, and it looks like Unilever understands that well.
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?
Method has evolved its “Just Say No to Jugs” campaign for its concentrated Method Laundry Detergent with a video of an attractive couple futzing with a big jug of liquid detergent. Never has laundry detergent been so sexy…
With almost a quarter of a million hits on YouTube, the video states, “It’s a well-known fact that big jugs are bad for your back. Method smartclean technology is smarter, easier, greener… and a whole lot less sticky.”
What do you think? Is this the way to catch people’s attention about laundry? It’s certainly different than most laundry commercials which may be enough for consumers to sit up and take notice.
