Digital CPG Blog

New start-up Birchbox delivers beauty samples to a customer’s door… for a fee!

The company curates four-to-five samples monthly and delivers them to every customer who is paying $10 a month. The company also seems to have  a built-in loyalty program for Birchbox fanatics. The site also features rich content including interviews, beauty tutorials and videos.

Of course, any customer can then buy a full-size version of the sample they receive.

It strikes me as incredibly interesting that commerce is to the point where not only are consumers requesting free samples, but are willing to pay for them. However, it doesn’t seem like a particularly good solution to build loyalty among the individual brands as the customer is constantly receiving new items to try. Time will tell, however!

Ah, the Brits are selling personalized cans of soup on Facebook – here are the details:

The pop-up store allows Heinz fans (and-only fans) to send personalised ‘get-well’ cans of Heinz soup to friends suffering from post-summer distress disorder – i.e. Autumn colds and chills, for a £1.99 ($3.00) PayPal payment via an store app on the brand’s Facebook page.

The customised cans feature a personal get-well message on the label, via a custom store app on the Heinz fan-page from London-based social media agency We Are Social.

What we really like about this Heinz pop-up fan-store is that it taps into Facebook strengths – gifting – an eminently social activity, and personalisation (although not, in this case, via the social graph). Personalised gifts in Facebook make real sense. Kudos Heinz.

Heinz is emerging as something of a poster-child for f-commerce in FMCG/CPG – earlier in the year it opened a pop-up fan-store in Facebook to support the launch of a new line of ketchup by offering fans exclusive fan-first access to the product before it became available in-store (also by We Are Social). And last month, Heinz ran a social couponing campaign, where the value of the coupon doubled when shared.

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.

Pepsi is going to try. They just introduced  a “social” vending machine that lets users buy beverages for friends by delivering a code that can be redeemed at any such machine.

“Our vision is to use innovative technology to empower consumers and create new ways for them to engage with our brands, their social networks and each other at the point of purchase,” said Mikel Durham, chief innovation officer at PepsiCo Foodservice. “Social Vending extends our consumers’ social networks beyond the confines of their own devices and transforms a static, transaction-oriented experience into something fun and exciting they’ll want to return to, again and again.”

Hm… perhaps this would work well in schools, but if I were going to buy something for my friends, I don’t know that I would buy them a pop over offering to grab a coffee. Perhaps not every experience needs to be social?

What do you think – is this going too far or is it the next big thing?

“The US Postal Service began a product sampling initiative this week, targeting more than 250,000 consumers in Chicago, Denver and Austin, Texas, as well as about 75,000 opted-in consumers across the country. Brands including Wisk, Starbucks and Nestle are distributing products through the “Sample Showcase” program at launch,” reports Frank Washkuck.

The first round of samples will be placed into the mailstream this week and should reach consumers within the next three weeks, said Dave Lewin, PR representative at the USPS.

Since sampling is  a $4 billion a year business, I can only imagine how this will make it even larger with the assumption of increased ease of getting into the consumer’s mailbox. I only wonder if the USPS will be able to turn around the data on the samples and let you know their success rate and conversion to a purchase.

What benefits or drawbacks do you see on using the USPS for your sampling program?

Despite the fact that we’ve been talking about innovative sampling campaigns this week, a new nationwide survey reveals that a free sample just may not be enough.

In the survey, 78% of shoppers ages 21 to 25 said they prefer discussing a product with company representatives over standing in line to receive samples. They said learning about a product through discussions and demonstrations will prompt them to think more highly of it and recommend it to others.

“Millennials stated that they think more of companies that take the time to discuss a product or service in person and they are more likely persuaded towards trial and discussion. Most importantly, after this engagement most Millennials would actually refer a friend to try the product after a good consumer engagement and promotional experience,” reports Progressive Grocer.

“Essentially, it comes down to a personalized engagement where a product representative takes an interest and is able to offer knowledgeable information on their product, the competitor’s products and answer other various questions that may arise. This will help ensure a more memorable and successful consumer engagement.”

“Surprisingly in this age of Facebook and Twitter, the younger they are, the more they want face-to-face, informational engagements. Therefore, it can be discerned that if a company wants to attract younger people to its brand and build a longer relationship, that face-to-face engagement with knowledgeable people for the product must be part of any experiential and promotional campaign.”

I think this is indicative of the free culture that Gen Y is used to. Everything on the internet is free; we’re not impressed or enticed with free. What is enticing and impressive is a brand being authentic and taking the time to champion their products in a very real way.

While it will surely be difficult for brands to implement nationwide experiental marketing campaigns to achieve such connections, I do think that they could use Facebook and Twitter. Think a brand-customer Q&A discussion or a live video chat. That might just bring the loyalty as well…

Yesterday, we talked about Kleenex using the inherently social nature of the internet to spark a social sampling campaign that increased it’s market share. Today, we’re reporting on a similar initiative by Heinz – this time on Facebook.

“Heinz has opened up a pop-up ‘tryvertising’ f-store on Facebook (tryvertising = advertising by sampling designed to create word of mouth, pop-up = temporary), making an initial 3,000 bottles of its latest tomato ketchup (with Balsamic Vinegar) exclusively available to ketchup fans – before the new product is launched in traditional stores.  The f-store is slick, simple and smart.  Kudos Heinz, for smart social commerce,” reports Paul Marsden.

Similar to Kleenex, Heinz hasn’t tried to move an existing campaign online, but rather has created an online social event that uses the best of the web to spread the word about it’s new product.

“Rather than simply mirror your traditional web-store with an f-store selling all your wares (à la Asos), instead use Facebook to create word of mouth advocacy for your new product launches by rewarding brand fans with an exclusive trial designed to stimulate word of mouth (a variableknown to accelerate product uptake). The combination of exclusivity, scarcity with experience is a proven technique for stimulating word of mouth, combined with the Facebook platform – which is essentially a word of mouth platform – with a differentiated rationale versus web stores.  In other words, use Facebook for retail events. In our book, the future of f-commerce lies in retail events, not stores that simply replicate what is sold elsewhere.”

Too many brands are trying to replicate existing experiences instead of building experiences suited towards the medium. And especially with Facebook, you can’t simply just plop your site into the iframe and expect results. You need to look at Facebook as the social platform it is, and strategize and execute accordingly.

Usually freebies are geared towards and redeemed by you and you alone. But Kleenex has tried it’s hand at social sampling, encouraging visitors to it’s site at kleenex.com to send a free pack of tissues to a friend or family member during the cold and flu season, reports AdAge.

“They could also send virtual Kleenex tissues to Facebook friends, but the million were all actual tissue packs,” said Amy Popp, Kleenex brand manager.

“People can track online how their samples inspire others to follow suit or how many samples have been sent or received by state or ZIP code. So far, 1.5 million people have done so, Ms. Popp said, and the longest ‘chain of sharing’ so far has involved 34 cycles.”

I think this is a very smart way for Kleenex to use the inherently social and sharing nature of the internet to its advantage as a brand. Instead of transferring their sampling campaign online, they came up with an innovative way to connect its customers with other customers. Ultimately, that is what every brand should be doing – not attempting to connect customers with the brand, but enabling connections and conversations between customers.

Very smart, Kleenex. And the results proved it:

“The Kimberly-Clark Corp. brand last week sent its millionth requested mini-box of tissues in North America. And the ‘Softness Worth Sharing’ campaign, aimed at introducing a new softer version of the tissue, has lifted market share 1.7 points since October, said Kleenex Brand Director Craig Smith. Nielsen data from Sanford C. Bernstein show Kleenex share up 3.9 points to 49.9% for the four weeks ended Feb. 19 vs. the period before the campaign began.”

Photo Credit: n0r.

AdAge recently launched their predictions for big marketing ideas for 2011… with a bit of humorous reporting.

Here are our favorites:

Big Sampling – Which AdAge editor Jonathan Salem Baskin calls opt-out selling. “The logical next extension of the economic philosophy of ‘free’ means you send products to people, then keep sending stuff until they pay you to leave them alone.”

Sleep Shopping. “Inception meets HSN in this new technique to stop chasing eyeballs and get behind the eyelids of sleep-walking consumers, including dream product placement opportunities (think running gear and things that float) and inclusion in recurring dreams (requires a platform upgrade).”

Branded Conspiracies. “Skip facts: Your toothpaste is a plot to democratize Antarctica. Your competitor employs Martians in Area 51 factories.”

MirrorCasting. “Imagine a set of technology tools that allows people to record blog comments, chat posts and video clips about themselves, and then applies proprietary algorithms to automatically and randomly change the content and play it back to them … so consumers can spend all of their time interacting with themselves!”

Hope these marketing ideas gave you a little chuckle as well. Do you have any predictions for the New Year?

Lay’s is offering a taste of farm life with its mobile greenhouse tour, which aims to offer a peek at the “rural farm experience,” reports BrandFreak.

The campaign is an effort to spotlight real, local farmers and is an extension of the ad campaign that launched last year featuring the farmers that grow potatoes for Lay’s. Once inside the bus, visitors can meet Lay’s potato farmers and learn about the chip-making process.

“At the end of each visit (the tour includes six cities altogether), Lay’s will donate the mobile farm’s contents to nearby community gardens, to encourage the planting of fruits and vegetables in metropolitan areas. The initiative taps into the localvore craze and offers a less taxing way to get in touch with your food sources than actually visiting a farm,” BrandFreak reported.

From the photo, it looks like Lay’s is setting up shop in Target store parking lots in some areas. In New York, Lay’s rolled into Times Square and not without some dissention. “When Frito-Lay wheeled its new promotion for Lay’s potato chips — a 70-foot long, 10-foot wide traveling greenhouse — into the crowded urban chaos of Times Square today, it became the latest large food company to awkwardly attempt to exploit a food trend that has largely left them out in the cold — the local food movement,” argued Melanie Warner of BNET.

Although I suspect most locavores will see right through this effort, it’s interesting that Lay’s is making the effort to tap into this important trend.