Digital CPG Blog

Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, General Mills and more consumer goods leaders have been named to the 2012 “Top 50 Companies for Executive Women” by the National Association for Female Executives (NAFE) .

The list, which appears in Working Mother magazine’s March 2012 issue, highlights organizations whose policies and practices encourage the advancement of women’s careers. Results are based on factors such as succession planning, profit-and-loss roles, gender pay parity, support programs and work-life balance.

The NAFE Top 10 Companies (in alpha order)
Bank of America
Cisco
General Mills
IBM
Johnson & Johnson
KPMG
The New York Times Companu
Procter & Gamble
Prudential Financial
State Farm Insurance

Other notable consumer goods and retail companies to make the top 50 list include: Colgate-Palmolive, Kraft Foods and Walmart. Click here to access the full list.

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Are you activating your Facebook fans? Here’s how:

1. Engage users creatively (and consistently) with likeable wall posts to support your f-commerce offering
2. Provide exclusivity with promotions, discounts and sales that are exclusive to your Facebook fans
3. Attract new fans with added incentives with one-time promo codes, coupons or discounted shipping for those Liking your page
4. Solicit input by asking your fans directly how you can improve the f-commerce experience
5. Make Facebook a PR tool with wall posts that provide news beyond retail – such as charitable and community service initiatives
6. Incorporate Facebook into Customer Service by enabling customer product reviews, a forum to share shopping experiences, and proactively, publicly and transparently addressing customer concerns
7. Keep an eye out for new features and tools with new f-commerce tools such as flash sales, group-buy offers, and contests – designed to may the f-commerce experience more fun and social

Media Post reports:

Nielsen and MyWebGrocer are forming a new partnership to track the fast-growing area of online grocery sales. While online grocery shopping accounts for just 2% of total U.S. consumer packaged goods sales, it is expected to explode in the next few years, growing from $12 billion now to $25 billion by 2014.

That increase “is because we’re seeing big changes in how consumers connect to retailers, between the growth of mobile and the growth of iPads,” John Burbank, president, Strategic Initiatives, Nielsen, tells Marketing Daily. “Consumers can now shop anywhere they might be, at any given moment. That’s a big change from 10 years ago, when they had to be at their home computers.” He adds that consumer acceptance of online grocery shopping is considerably higher in Europe.

As the online market grows, Burbank says, traditional stores, such as Walmart and Tesco, will continue to evolve their online offerings, competing with the likes of FreshDirect, Peapod and Alice.com.

But the distinction between online and instore shopping continues to get fuzzier, as consumers switch channels more fluidly. Nielsen reports that 25% of U.S. CPG purchases are researched online, including retailer weekly ads, and that 97% of the time, the researched product is eventually purchased.

So, are you online yet? What’s stopping you?

Even though we shared some negative news about private label last week, CPG overall is doing well!

The consumer packaged goods segment is recovering, according to a benchmarking report from GMA and PwC, with shipments up 6% in 2010 to almost $124 billion. All 148 of the companies analyzed saw sales growth, and GMA President and CEO Pamela Bailey said one factor is that companies are using digital capabilities to improve marketing, innovation and operations.

We love the digital!

And not only that, CPG companies are spending money on ads. Always a good sign. Procter & Gamble spent $4.6 billion on U.S. advertising in 2010, a 17.9% increase over the $3.9 billion of the previous year.

Let’s hope CPG continues it’s upward ascension!

“It is becoming increasingly clear that social media will not have 100 percent market reach. But you wouldn’t know that by how some people speak of it. That’s because awareness is extremely high while usage significantly lags behind,” argues Paul McCarthy.

Ouch.

“We’re getting to a point where social media penetration may have leveled off in the US. This is by no means for certain, but Facebook’s recent 6 million active user drop may be an early indicator.”

What do you think? Is this a sign that you shouldn’t be transfering your eggs to the social media basket? Or are the key connectors online?

We’ve talked a fair amount on this blog about the giant shift occurring in ad dollars from traditional media to digital opportunities.

A study released this week presented further evidence of this trend.  The study by research firm Outsell, predicts that Companies will spend more on digital and online marketing than print advertising in 2010 for the first time ever ($119.6 billion versus $111.5 billion).  You can read more about the study here and here.

Digital is clearly on the rise, but one interesting question remains for the CPG industry-will there be enough high quality digital opportunities for CPG to continue to shifting a larger amount of their budgets online?

As I’ve mentioned on this blog before, I think eCommerce can (and will) be a critical element in the growth of digital CPG ad spend.  In particular, CPG manufacturers have a huge opportunity to inject an eCommerce component into their websites, and allow that online fulfillment capability to serve as a centralized collection point for a host of diverse online campaigns, driving a much higher level of accountability and measurement to their online ad spending.  Many of the big CPG companies are beginning to invest in eCommerce, and it will be fascinating to watch how they leverage this new capability into their overall marketing mix.