By Scott Martin, USA TODAY
Apple’s iPad and the tablet revolution are beating at the gates of the traditional PC sector, biting into the category and bringing uncertainty about the future of the industry.
The worldwide PC market suffered a 1.1% decline, with 84.3 million units sold in the first quarter of this year, according to technology research firm Gartner. Forecasts had called for 3% growth in PC shipments worldwide for the quarter.
Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa blamed the slowdown in PC shipments on “the hype around tablets.”
Gartner’s report underscores the change in consumer buying trends that’s underway as people around the world turn to tablets for mobile Internet consumption. The data also mark the first year-over-year worldwide PC decline in six quarters. The story for PCs in the United States was even more grim: a 6.1% decline from a year ago.
The quarter following the Christmas buying season is traditionally slow for PC sales. But the holiday hangover this year was especially hard for the likes of Hewlett-Packard, Acer and Dell, whose shipments declined 3.4%, 12.2% and 2.2%, respectively.
Acer was hardest hit because its netbook segment was affected the most by the tablet market’s rise.
Across the U.S., PC makers logged huge declines, with the exception of Toshiba and Apple. The Mac maker was the biggest winner, bagging 18.9% gains and 9.3% of the market. Toshiba tacked on 10.9% growth, to bump up to 10.4% of the U.S. market.
Gartner’s report found that the launch of the iPad 2 had more consumers either buying an alternative device to a personal computer or simply holding back from buying a PC altogether. “The tablet and consumer electronics devices’ effect on PCs will depend on how the tablet market and smartphone continues to evolve going forward,” Kitagawa said. “There are a lot of uncertainties in the market.”
Gartner forecasts Apple will ship nearly 48 million iPads worldwide this year.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Fortunes of Home Improvement Chains Improve as Americans Tackle Repair Projects
After several years of perusing real estate listings and spending Sunday afternoons at open houses, Denise Majeski decided to stay put and fix up her 25-year-old Gurnee, Ill., home.
As the housing market languished even as the economy improved, Majeski determined the financially prudent course would be to fix up the house a little at a time, starting with replacing the windows and renovating the bathrooms.
"Initially we were thinking about moving," said Majeski, 55. "But that would require a mortgage and additional amounts of money. We can do a home improvement at a pace that we can afford."
It is a choice more homeowners are making these days and one that is lifting the fortunes of the long-suffering home improvement industry.
Seasonal hiring at Lowe's Cos., the nation's No. 2 home improvement retailer, is up 15% this spring as homeowners, feeling more secure in their jobs, tackle maintenance projects delayed during the recession.
And Home Depot Inc., the largest home improvement retailer, in February reported its first annual sales increase since 2006, before the housing market crashed. The home improvement business is stabilizing despite the continued weakness of the housing market, Home Depot Chief Executive Frank Blake said at the time.
"People are doing what it takes to be happy where they are," said Jack Horst, retail strategist at Kurt Salmon, a consulting firm. "They are more likely doing maintenance and replacement than big fundamental changes."
A few buckets of paint, brighter lighting and some new door handles are enough to make Rebecca and Bill Klies happy in their new home. The couple, in their 30s, bought their first condo last October in a short sale, in which a lender allows a homeowner to sell a property for less than the amount owed on the mortgage.
Now the Klieses spend weekends at Home Depot and Lowe's getting ideas on how to fix up their West Loop loft in Chicago without spending a fortune. They've swapped out light fixtures, recaulked the shower, put up new towel racks, installed a ceiling fan in the bedroom, bought new light switch plates, painted several rooms and touched up the molding.
"These are simple little fixes that make a big difference overall," Rebecca Klies said.
At the same time, home improvement stores are getting an extra sales boost as homeowners dig out from a winter of lengthy cold spells. The severe weather has left shingles, gutters and downspouts in need of repair and lawns littered with broken shrubs and damaged trees.
"These are the have-to-do projects," said Jim Kane, president of Home Depot's northern division. "We've just come through a tough winter, and the winter has just taken its toll on all those things."
Maintenance and repairs account for about 40% of Home Depot sales, up sharply from recent years when home sales slowed, said Daniel Binder, an analyst at Jefferies & Co., in a report last month.
Spending on home remodeling is expected to rise 9.1% in the first quarter to $125.1 billion from the same period a year ago, according to a widely followed index from Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. The last time remodeling activity for a three-month period topped $125 billion was the second quarter of 2008.
The center predicts the industry to gain momentum this spring with sales jumping 12.7%, to $132.9 billion, in the second quarter from a year ago, before tapering off to a 6.5% gain, to $123.5 billion, in the third quarter.
More homeowners are tackling basic house projects on their own instead of using general contractors, bringing in electricians or plumbers only for the toughest jobs, said Rich Cowgill, Chicago-area chapter president of the National Assn. of the Remodeling Industry.
Cowgill said he had noticed an increase in the size of the do-it-yourself classes he teaches as a volunteer at ReStore for Habitat for Humanity as more homeowners try to lay tile, replace windows or put up drywall.
"People are dressing up their homes because they've come to the realization with housing devalues that they're not going to move," said Cowgill, who also owns a home remodeling business.
Kris and Dennis Cortes of Flossmoor, Ill., are typical of the post-recession home remodelers, industry experts said. The parents of five children said they chose to stay in the home they bought 20 years ago and to give the house a face-lift. They are adding a couple of gables to the roof, installing a new garage door and updating the landscaping.
"We could buy the megamansion, but we choose not to," said Kris Cortes, 46. "We're choosing to allocate our resources more toward education, charity and savings. I do think the country at large is headed in that direction."
(Source: Chicago Tribune, 04/13/11)
As the housing market languished even as the economy improved, Majeski determined the financially prudent course would be to fix up the house a little at a time, starting with replacing the windows and renovating the bathrooms.
"Initially we were thinking about moving," said Majeski, 55. "But that would require a mortgage and additional amounts of money. We can do a home improvement at a pace that we can afford."
It is a choice more homeowners are making these days and one that is lifting the fortunes of the long-suffering home improvement industry.
Seasonal hiring at Lowe's Cos., the nation's No. 2 home improvement retailer, is up 15% this spring as homeowners, feeling more secure in their jobs, tackle maintenance projects delayed during the recession.
And Home Depot Inc., the largest home improvement retailer, in February reported its first annual sales increase since 2006, before the housing market crashed. The home improvement business is stabilizing despite the continued weakness of the housing market, Home Depot Chief Executive Frank Blake said at the time.
"People are doing what it takes to be happy where they are," said Jack Horst, retail strategist at Kurt Salmon, a consulting firm. "They are more likely doing maintenance and replacement than big fundamental changes."
A few buckets of paint, brighter lighting and some new door handles are enough to make Rebecca and Bill Klies happy in their new home. The couple, in their 30s, bought their first condo last October in a short sale, in which a lender allows a homeowner to sell a property for less than the amount owed on the mortgage.
Now the Klieses spend weekends at Home Depot and Lowe's getting ideas on how to fix up their West Loop loft in Chicago without spending a fortune. They've swapped out light fixtures, recaulked the shower, put up new towel racks, installed a ceiling fan in the bedroom, bought new light switch plates, painted several rooms and touched up the molding.
"These are simple little fixes that make a big difference overall," Rebecca Klies said.
At the same time, home improvement stores are getting an extra sales boost as homeowners dig out from a winter of lengthy cold spells. The severe weather has left shingles, gutters and downspouts in need of repair and lawns littered with broken shrubs and damaged trees.
"These are the have-to-do projects," said Jim Kane, president of Home Depot's northern division. "We've just come through a tough winter, and the winter has just taken its toll on all those things."
Maintenance and repairs account for about 40% of Home Depot sales, up sharply from recent years when home sales slowed, said Daniel Binder, an analyst at Jefferies & Co., in a report last month.
Spending on home remodeling is expected to rise 9.1% in the first quarter to $125.1 billion from the same period a year ago, according to a widely followed index from Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. The last time remodeling activity for a three-month period topped $125 billion was the second quarter of 2008.
The center predicts the industry to gain momentum this spring with sales jumping 12.7%, to $132.9 billion, in the second quarter from a year ago, before tapering off to a 6.5% gain, to $123.5 billion, in the third quarter.
More homeowners are tackling basic house projects on their own instead of using general contractors, bringing in electricians or plumbers only for the toughest jobs, said Rich Cowgill, Chicago-area chapter president of the National Assn. of the Remodeling Industry.
Cowgill said he had noticed an increase in the size of the do-it-yourself classes he teaches as a volunteer at ReStore for Habitat for Humanity as more homeowners try to lay tile, replace windows or put up drywall.
"People are dressing up their homes because they've come to the realization with housing devalues that they're not going to move," said Cowgill, who also owns a home remodeling business.
Kris and Dennis Cortes of Flossmoor, Ill., are typical of the post-recession home remodelers, industry experts said. The parents of five children said they chose to stay in the home they bought 20 years ago and to give the house a face-lift. They are adding a couple of gables to the roof, installing a new garage door and updating the landscaping.
"We could buy the megamansion, but we choose not to," said Kris Cortes, 46. "We're choosing to allocate our resources more toward education, charity and savings. I do think the country at large is headed in that direction."
(Source: Chicago Tribune, 04/13/11)
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Study Examines Gender Differences in Vehicle Purchases
TrueCar.com, a provider of new-car pricing and industry trend information, recently released a demographic study based on gender differences in car-buying behavior during 2010.
"The study shows that women car buyers are more cost-conscious and purchased fuel-efficient vehicles while male buyers were completely the opposite, purchasing vehicles that were either big and brawny, like a large truck, or choosing a high-priced, high-performance vehicle," said Jesse Toprak, Vice President of Industry Trends and Insights at TrueCar.com.
Some of the key findings of the TrueCar.com study, which was based on over eight million retail purchases in 2010, include:
• The brand with the highest percentage of retail sales to females in 2010 was MINI (47.9 percent), followed by Kia (46.8 percent), and Honda (46.0 percent) compared to 2009 when Saturn and Kia tied at 45.2 percent and MINI came in third at 45.0 percent. Rounding out the top 15 brands in 2010 were Nissan, Subaru, Suzuki, Hyundai, Mercury, Mazda, Mitsubushi, Lexus, Volkswagen, Volvo, Saturn and Toyota.
• The highest percentage of male buyers primarily purchased exotic brands. There were five brands in 2010 at 10 percent or less for retail sales to women, including Ferrari (6.4 percent), Lotus (7.2 percent), Lamborghini (7.4 percent), Maybach (8.0 percent), and Rolls Royce (9.3 percent) compared to 2009 when there were six brands; including Bugatti (0 percent), Maybach (3.7 percent), Ferrari (5.1 percent), Lamborghini (5.5 percent), Rolls Royce (8.0 percent), and Aston Martin (9.0 percent). Also in the top 15 brands with the highest percentage of male buyers in 2010 were Tesla, Aston Martin, Maserati, Porsche, Bentley, GMC, Jaguar, Dodge, Land Rover and Ford.
• The top ten models that had greater than 50 percent retail sales to females and at least 1,000 annual retail sales in 2010 were: Volkswagen New Beetle, Nissan Rogue, Volkswagen Eos, Volvo S40, Jeep Compass, Honda CR-V, Nissan Sentra, Hyundai Tucson, Toyota RAV4 and Toyota Yaris.
• The top ten models that had greater than 50 percent retail sales to males and at least 1,000 annual retail sales in 2010 were: Porsche 911, GMC Sierra, Chevrolet Corvette, Chevrolet Silverado, Ford F-Series, BMW M3, Ford Ranger, Toyota Tundra, Dodge Ram and Audi S5.
(Source: TrueCar.com, 04/07/11)
"The study shows that women car buyers are more cost-conscious and purchased fuel-efficient vehicles while male buyers were completely the opposite, purchasing vehicles that were either big and brawny, like a large truck, or choosing a high-priced, high-performance vehicle," said Jesse Toprak, Vice President of Industry Trends and Insights at TrueCar.com.
Some of the key findings of the TrueCar.com study, which was based on over eight million retail purchases in 2010, include:
• The brand with the highest percentage of retail sales to females in 2010 was MINI (47.9 percent), followed by Kia (46.8 percent), and Honda (46.0 percent) compared to 2009 when Saturn and Kia tied at 45.2 percent and MINI came in third at 45.0 percent. Rounding out the top 15 brands in 2010 were Nissan, Subaru, Suzuki, Hyundai, Mercury, Mazda, Mitsubushi, Lexus, Volkswagen, Volvo, Saturn and Toyota.
• The highest percentage of male buyers primarily purchased exotic brands. There were five brands in 2010 at 10 percent or less for retail sales to women, including Ferrari (6.4 percent), Lotus (7.2 percent), Lamborghini (7.4 percent), Maybach (8.0 percent), and Rolls Royce (9.3 percent) compared to 2009 when there were six brands; including Bugatti (0 percent), Maybach (3.7 percent), Ferrari (5.1 percent), Lamborghini (5.5 percent), Rolls Royce (8.0 percent), and Aston Martin (9.0 percent). Also in the top 15 brands with the highest percentage of male buyers in 2010 were Tesla, Aston Martin, Maserati, Porsche, Bentley, GMC, Jaguar, Dodge, Land Rover and Ford.
• The top ten models that had greater than 50 percent retail sales to females and at least 1,000 annual retail sales in 2010 were: Volkswagen New Beetle, Nissan Rogue, Volkswagen Eos, Volvo S40, Jeep Compass, Honda CR-V, Nissan Sentra, Hyundai Tucson, Toyota RAV4 and Toyota Yaris.
• The top ten models that had greater than 50 percent retail sales to males and at least 1,000 annual retail sales in 2010 were: Porsche 911, GMC Sierra, Chevrolet Corvette, Chevrolet Silverado, Ford F-Series, BMW M3, Ford Ranger, Toyota Tundra, Dodge Ram and Audi S5.
(Source: TrueCar.com, 04/07/11)
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Cheers: Alcoholic Beverage Spending Increases
2010 was a positive year for alcoholic beverages, with the exception of non-craft domestic beers, according to the just-released "Handbook Advance 2011" report from the Beverage Information Group (BIG).
Meanwhile, a new Harris Interactive poll on Americans' alcohol consumption habits provides some additional insight. Notably, 29% of those 21 or older -- or three in 10 -- report drinking alcohol at least once per week, including 5% who drink daily and 10% who drink several times per week.
The Beverage Information Group reports that distilled spirits and wine both saw gains last year, continuing to grab share from the overall beer category. The analysts attribute the trends largely to the improving economy and a return to a "trading up" trend that had dominated the industry prior to the recession.
Distilled spirits -- which have seen steady growth over the past two years and 13 consecutive years of at least some growth -- saw sales increase 2.1%, to 192.7 cases, last year. On-premise or restaurant/bar consumption of distilled spirits also showed a slight uptick, especially in casual dining chains.
The wine category saw consumption grow by 1.7% (up from 0.8% in 2009), to 301.9 million 9-liter cases. Domestic table wines showed a particularly strong performance, outpacing imports.
Wine sales continue to increase in large part because of the wide range of products and growing number of available varietals, notes BIG manager of information services Eric Schmidt. "The Millennial generation continues to be a target for wine marketers as they position their brands as affordable and fun," he points out.
Total beer consumption declined 1.9% to 2.83 billion cases, although imports returned to showing some sales growth, in part because consumers are returning to on-premise consumption, according to the report.
Domestic beer consumption decreased 2.8%, with all categories showing declines except the super-premium, craft and flavored malt beverages category, which continued to see growth due to the craft beer segment.
Craft beers' growing popularity has been well documented, and spotlighted by developments such as Anheuser-Busch InBev's recent announcement that it is acquiring Chicago craft brewer Goose Island for $38.8 million as part of a broader strategy to increase its premium/craft offerings.
The Brewers Association reported that sales volume among small, independent craft brewers rose 11% last year, in contrast to a decline of 1% among total U.S. brewers (although crafts still represent just 4.9% of the overall beer market). MillerCoors' overall sales declined 3%, but its craft and import brands, led by Blue Moon (now the country's largest-selling craft -- at least as defined by MillerCoors), saw double-digit growth, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Who's drinking what?
On the consumption front, in addition to the stats cited above, the Harris Poll -- conducted online in March -- also found that 20% of adult Americans report drinking alcohol at least once per month, and 15% drink it several times per year. Nearly one-quarter (22%) say they never drink alcohol.
Nearly two in five men (38%), versus 21% of women, report drinking alcohol at least once per week.
And while overall beer sales have slowed, among those who imbibe at least several times per year, beer is the top choice. Nearly two-thirds (63%) report that beer is their choice when they drink, while 54% report drinking domestic wine. In addition, 41% drink vodka. These top three preferences have remained consistent over the past two years, according to Harris.
As for other choices, about one-third (34%) drink rum, 28% tequila, 28% imported wine, and 20% various types of whiskies, such as Irish or Canadian. Further down the list are champagne (17%), cordials and liqueurs (17%), bourbon (15%), gin (14%), scotch (11%), cognac (8%) and brandy/Armagnac (7%).
More men than women drink beer (75% versus 50%), bourbon (23% versus 6%) and scotch (17% versus 4%). More women than men drink domestic wine (63% versus 45%), champagne (23% versus 13%) and foreign wine (31% versus 26%).
Beer comes out on top when people are asked which type of alcoholic beverage they drink most often. One-third of those who drink at least several times a year (34%) say they drink beer most often, versus 22% saying they drink domestic wine most often. One in ten (12%) drink vodka most often, versus 6% for rum and 5% for imported wine. All other alcohol types are below 5%.
Alcoholic beverage consumption declines somewhat with age: 33% of Echo Boomers (21-34), 30% of Gen X/Millennials (35-46) and 29% of Baby Boomers (47-65) report drinking at least once per week, versus 26% of those 66 and older.
Beverage choices clearly vary by age. Beer is the dominant choice among the youngest groups, with 37% of Echo Boomers preferring beer (versus 20% preferring domestic wine), and 41% of Millennials preferring beer (versus 14% preferring wine). The beer preference is somewhat less marked among Boomers, with 33% saying they drink beer most often versus 22% who report drinking domestic wine most often.
However, among those 66 and older, wine is the preference of 36%, versus 22% who prefer beer.
(Source: Marketing Daily, 04/06/11)
Meanwhile, a new Harris Interactive poll on Americans' alcohol consumption habits provides some additional insight. Notably, 29% of those 21 or older -- or three in 10 -- report drinking alcohol at least once per week, including 5% who drink daily and 10% who drink several times per week.
The Beverage Information Group reports that distilled spirits and wine both saw gains last year, continuing to grab share from the overall beer category. The analysts attribute the trends largely to the improving economy and a return to a "trading up" trend that had dominated the industry prior to the recession.
Distilled spirits -- which have seen steady growth over the past two years and 13 consecutive years of at least some growth -- saw sales increase 2.1%, to 192.7 cases, last year. On-premise or restaurant/bar consumption of distilled spirits also showed a slight uptick, especially in casual dining chains.
The wine category saw consumption grow by 1.7% (up from 0.8% in 2009), to 301.9 million 9-liter cases. Domestic table wines showed a particularly strong performance, outpacing imports.
Wine sales continue to increase in large part because of the wide range of products and growing number of available varietals, notes BIG manager of information services Eric Schmidt. "The Millennial generation continues to be a target for wine marketers as they position their brands as affordable and fun," he points out.
Total beer consumption declined 1.9% to 2.83 billion cases, although imports returned to showing some sales growth, in part because consumers are returning to on-premise consumption, according to the report.
Domestic beer consumption decreased 2.8%, with all categories showing declines except the super-premium, craft and flavored malt beverages category, which continued to see growth due to the craft beer segment.
Craft beers' growing popularity has been well documented, and spotlighted by developments such as Anheuser-Busch InBev's recent announcement that it is acquiring Chicago craft brewer Goose Island for $38.8 million as part of a broader strategy to increase its premium/craft offerings.
The Brewers Association reported that sales volume among small, independent craft brewers rose 11% last year, in contrast to a decline of 1% among total U.S. brewers (although crafts still represent just 4.9% of the overall beer market). MillerCoors' overall sales declined 3%, but its craft and import brands, led by Blue Moon (now the country's largest-selling craft -- at least as defined by MillerCoors), saw double-digit growth, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Who's drinking what?
On the consumption front, in addition to the stats cited above, the Harris Poll -- conducted online in March -- also found that 20% of adult Americans report drinking alcohol at least once per month, and 15% drink it several times per year. Nearly one-quarter (22%) say they never drink alcohol.
Nearly two in five men (38%), versus 21% of women, report drinking alcohol at least once per week.
And while overall beer sales have slowed, among those who imbibe at least several times per year, beer is the top choice. Nearly two-thirds (63%) report that beer is their choice when they drink, while 54% report drinking domestic wine. In addition, 41% drink vodka. These top three preferences have remained consistent over the past two years, according to Harris.
As for other choices, about one-third (34%) drink rum, 28% tequila, 28% imported wine, and 20% various types of whiskies, such as Irish or Canadian. Further down the list are champagne (17%), cordials and liqueurs (17%), bourbon (15%), gin (14%), scotch (11%), cognac (8%) and brandy/Armagnac (7%).
More men than women drink beer (75% versus 50%), bourbon (23% versus 6%) and scotch (17% versus 4%). More women than men drink domestic wine (63% versus 45%), champagne (23% versus 13%) and foreign wine (31% versus 26%).
Beer comes out on top when people are asked which type of alcoholic beverage they drink most often. One-third of those who drink at least several times a year (34%) say they drink beer most often, versus 22% saying they drink domestic wine most often. One in ten (12%) drink vodka most often, versus 6% for rum and 5% for imported wine. All other alcohol types are below 5%.
Alcoholic beverage consumption declines somewhat with age: 33% of Echo Boomers (21-34), 30% of Gen X/Millennials (35-46) and 29% of Baby Boomers (47-65) report drinking at least once per week, versus 26% of those 66 and older.
Beverage choices clearly vary by age. Beer is the dominant choice among the youngest groups, with 37% of Echo Boomers preferring beer (versus 20% preferring domestic wine), and 41% of Millennials preferring beer (versus 14% preferring wine). The beer preference is somewhat less marked among Boomers, with 33% saying they drink beer most often versus 22% who report drinking domestic wine most often.
However, among those 66 and older, wine is the preference of 36%, versus 22% who prefer beer.
(Source: Marketing Daily, 04/06/11)
Independent Pharmacies Earn Top Scores from Consumers
An overwhelming majority of Consumer Reports readers are highly satisfied with their independent pharmacy experiences, as compared with experiences at some of the national chains, a report to be published in the magazine's May issue found.
While customers said they generally were satisfied with their pharmacies, some were irked by long waits and lagging service at some big-box stores. "Chalk one up for the little guy," stated Tod Marks, senior editor of Consumer Reports. "We found that the independents made fewer errors, offered swifter service at the pharmacy counter and were more likely to have medications ready for pickup when promised."
More than 90% of Consumer Reports readers gave independent drug stores top scores across the board for pharmacists' knowledge about drugs and other products, helpfulness and courtesy, speed, accuracy and personal service. Included in this group were McKesson's HealthMart franchise group and Cardinal Health's The Medicine Shoppe. Readers who shopped at independents were twice as likely as chain drug store shoppers to characterize their pharmacist as easy to talk to and able to give them a one-on-one consultation.
Almost 1-in-4 Consumer Reports readers fill their prescriptions at big-box stores, up from 14% in 2002, with price cited as an important reason for shopping there. One-in-4 mass merchant shoppers complained of a long wait at the service counter. And when a store was out of a drug, 33% waited for two or more days to get their prescriptions. Almost as many readers reported their pharmacy was out of stock on the medicine they needed at least once in the past year.
More than 1-in-5 cited slow service at the big-box counter as a complaint; and 15% of those surveyed complained that their medicine wasn't ready for pickup when promised.
Convenience was a key factor in customer satisfaction -- almost half of readers surveyed reported that the ability to get in and out quickly with medicine in hand was an important consideration when choosing a drug store.
(Source: Drug Store News, 04/05/11)
While customers said they generally were satisfied with their pharmacies, some were irked by long waits and lagging service at some big-box stores. "Chalk one up for the little guy," stated Tod Marks, senior editor of Consumer Reports. "We found that the independents made fewer errors, offered swifter service at the pharmacy counter and were more likely to have medications ready for pickup when promised."
More than 90% of Consumer Reports readers gave independent drug stores top scores across the board for pharmacists' knowledge about drugs and other products, helpfulness and courtesy, speed, accuracy and personal service. Included in this group were McKesson's HealthMart franchise group and Cardinal Health's The Medicine Shoppe. Readers who shopped at independents were twice as likely as chain drug store shoppers to characterize their pharmacist as easy to talk to and able to give them a one-on-one consultation.
Almost 1-in-4 Consumer Reports readers fill their prescriptions at big-box stores, up from 14% in 2002, with price cited as an important reason for shopping there. One-in-4 mass merchant shoppers complained of a long wait at the service counter. And when a store was out of a drug, 33% waited for two or more days to get their prescriptions. Almost as many readers reported their pharmacy was out of stock on the medicine they needed at least once in the past year.
More than 1-in-5 cited slow service at the big-box counter as a complaint; and 15% of those surveyed complained that their medicine wasn't ready for pickup when promised.
Convenience was a key factor in customer satisfaction -- almost half of readers surveyed reported that the ability to get in and out quickly with medicine in hand was an important consideration when choosing a drug store.
(Source: Drug Store News, 04/05/11)
Monday, April 11, 2011
50 Million And Growing: Why It’s Time For Businesses To Pay Attention to Hispanics
By GLENN LLOPIS
The following is an editorial I wrote that was featured on AOL Latino last week (in Spanish) in response to the most recent US Census results and the growing Hispanic population.
Hispanics’ presence, impact and influence in the workplace in growing faster than corporations know what to do with it. Because most corporations don’t support a dedicated infrastructure to recruit, retain and create leadership development programs for Hispanics, the majority of Hispanics simply assimilate in the workplace to be accepted and thus are not given the opportunity to showcase their authentic identity and unique skill-sets that make them potentially great leaders.
It’s time we all we begin to actively engage in how to best maximize the opportunities that 50 million American Hispanics can bring to the revival of our economy.
I would appreciate your candid feedback.
It’s official: the Census counts more than 50 million Hispanics in the US. This acknowledgment of the new prominence of Hispanics in the US brings with it a “to-do” for both the country and the Hispanics themselves:
To-Do #1: It’s time for the US to embrace diversity and get real about becoming a 21st century country.
To-Do #2: It’s time for Hispanics to stop believing themselves to be victims and embrace their leadership identity.
As the Hispanic population continues to grow, America’s corporations, schools, colleges and universities must provide culturally tailored training and educational programs to allow Hispanics to flourish in the post-2008 economy. These programs need to focus on helping Hispanics discover their authentic identity as leaders.
It’s time for America as a whole to understand the real value, the unique characteristics and the new types of opportunities that Hispanics can create for the country. The identity crisis that Hispanics are faced with each day has made it difficult for them to advance, thus damaging their identity and limiting their contributions to the economy.
The fiercely competitive global market requires everyone to begin contributing in newly meaningful and purposeful ways to the global economy. Hispanics must embrace this to-do like everyone else. They cannot afford to continue thinking of themselves as victims, and the US economy cannot afford that victim thinking either.
As I discuss this issue with executives in the boardroom and professors in the classroom, they often refer to Hispanics as second-class citizens. And because of this, Hispanic professionals, adults and children would rather assimilate and reject their essential identities. If this assimilation continues, we will lose the brilliance and innovative flair of the Hispanic population, and the US economy will suffer as a result, in the competition with the rest of the world.
To be sure, Hispanics have created their own barriers to advancement. Because Hispanics in the US are not a homogeneous community, they waste time debating which of their mother countries has more clout in the US, rather than getting on with it and investing in themselves.
The time has come for Hispanics to embrace their unique cultural differences and realize the power that this diversity gives them. Hispanics must recapture their authentic identities and train non-Hispanics to understand them. Hispanics must embrace their immigrant perspective, circular vision, Latin passion, entrepreneurial spirit, generous purpose and cultural promise – the natural characteristics that are inborn in their culture and that allow them to be highly effective contributors to the economy. It’s time for Hispanics to take it upon themselves to break out of their identity crisis and claim influence amongst their non-Hispanic peers.
Hispanics need to stop being viewed as victims of lost opportunities in their mother country and start being held accountable as new sources for innovation, economic prosperity, global influence and the economic revival of our country.
It’s time for Hispanics to earn the right to be more influential in America. Population growth alone does not entitle Hispanics or any other group in society to own the resources of our great country.
Until Hispanics discover their authentic leadership role, they will continue to be misrepresented and misunderstood. Today, many non-Hispanic whites believe they are financing the Hispanic population growth. Hispanics must seize the moment, take on their responsibilities, and change the role of the Hispanic immigrant in the United States. At 50 million strong, and growing faster than any other group, Hispanics must grow up now.
The following is an editorial I wrote that was featured on AOL Latino last week (in Spanish) in response to the most recent US Census results and the growing Hispanic population.
Hispanics’ presence, impact and influence in the workplace in growing faster than corporations know what to do with it. Because most corporations don’t support a dedicated infrastructure to recruit, retain and create leadership development programs for Hispanics, the majority of Hispanics simply assimilate in the workplace to be accepted and thus are not given the opportunity to showcase their authentic identity and unique skill-sets that make them potentially great leaders.
It’s time we all we begin to actively engage in how to best maximize the opportunities that 50 million American Hispanics can bring to the revival of our economy.
I would appreciate your candid feedback.
It’s official: the Census counts more than 50 million Hispanics in the US. This acknowledgment of the new prominence of Hispanics in the US brings with it a “to-do” for both the country and the Hispanics themselves:
To-Do #1: It’s time for the US to embrace diversity and get real about becoming a 21st century country.
To-Do #2: It’s time for Hispanics to stop believing themselves to be victims and embrace their leadership identity.
As the Hispanic population continues to grow, America’s corporations, schools, colleges and universities must provide culturally tailored training and educational programs to allow Hispanics to flourish in the post-2008 economy. These programs need to focus on helping Hispanics discover their authentic identity as leaders.
It’s time for America as a whole to understand the real value, the unique characteristics and the new types of opportunities that Hispanics can create for the country. The identity crisis that Hispanics are faced with each day has made it difficult for them to advance, thus damaging their identity and limiting their contributions to the economy.
The fiercely competitive global market requires everyone to begin contributing in newly meaningful and purposeful ways to the global economy. Hispanics must embrace this to-do like everyone else. They cannot afford to continue thinking of themselves as victims, and the US economy cannot afford that victim thinking either.
As I discuss this issue with executives in the boardroom and professors in the classroom, they often refer to Hispanics as second-class citizens. And because of this, Hispanic professionals, adults and children would rather assimilate and reject their essential identities. If this assimilation continues, we will lose the brilliance and innovative flair of the Hispanic population, and the US economy will suffer as a result, in the competition with the rest of the world.
To be sure, Hispanics have created their own barriers to advancement. Because Hispanics in the US are not a homogeneous community, they waste time debating which of their mother countries has more clout in the US, rather than getting on with it and investing in themselves.
The time has come for Hispanics to embrace their unique cultural differences and realize the power that this diversity gives them. Hispanics must recapture their authentic identities and train non-Hispanics to understand them. Hispanics must embrace their immigrant perspective, circular vision, Latin passion, entrepreneurial spirit, generous purpose and cultural promise – the natural characteristics that are inborn in their culture and that allow them to be highly effective contributors to the economy. It’s time for Hispanics to take it upon themselves to break out of their identity crisis and claim influence amongst their non-Hispanic peers.
Hispanics need to stop being viewed as victims of lost opportunities in their mother country and start being held accountable as new sources for innovation, economic prosperity, global influence and the economic revival of our country.
It’s time for Hispanics to earn the right to be more influential in America. Population growth alone does not entitle Hispanics or any other group in society to own the resources of our great country.
Until Hispanics discover their authentic leadership role, they will continue to be misrepresented and misunderstood. Today, many non-Hispanic whites believe they are financing the Hispanic population growth. Hispanics must seize the moment, take on their responsibilities, and change the role of the Hispanic immigrant in the United States. At 50 million strong, and growing faster than any other group, Hispanics must grow up now.
Facebook China? What Would The U.S. Say About It?
By GADY EPSTEIN
Facebook as the rest of the world knows it is still blocked in China, but with Baidu’s help, Mark Zuckerberg may be bringing Chinese users a government-approved version. Before Facebook China records its first status update, though, we will hear first from the authorities — not only in China, but also in the U.S.
The Web portal Sohu.com reported today, citing Baidu sources, that Facebook and the Chinese search giant have agreed to launch a Chinese social networking service that would stand alone from the worldwide service (the companies aren’t confirming this yet, and Sohu.com’s original report was taken down). The report follows up on respected China tech expert Hu Yanping’s tweet on Sina Weibo on Friday that Facebook has signed such a deal with a Chinese Internet company, and Baidu makes sense because it has so far, like Google in most other places, failed to gain traction in social media.
What happens now? For a while yet, nothing, beyond some brow-furrowing in China and perhaps some grandstanding in the U.S. If there is a deal, it must still make it over some imposing regulatory hurdles in China, and it will attract some attention from Capitol Hill. A lot has happened since Zuckerberg’s diplomatic mission to China in December, when he visited with most of the heads of China’s biggest Internet and mobile companies, including billionaire Robin Li’s Baidu, billionaire Jack Ma’s Alibaba Group, Sina Corp. and China Mobile.
I said back then that this “vacation” of his was laying the groundwork for an eventual deal to get Facebook into China somehow, and I believed Zuckerberg would inevitably succeed. I still think that, because he is fully committed to make the kinds of concessions to do business in China that did not come so easily for Google.
Still, Zuckerberg has his work cut out for him on both sides of the Pacific. This year the environment for the world’s most influential social networking service, already difficult in China, has become even more so. With protestors in the Middle East openly thanking Facebook and Zuckerberg for their help, and with calls for a Jasmine Revolution in China spurring an extremely harsh crackdown on lawyers and activists, Chinese authorities will be wary about welcoming a Facebook China. The imprimatur of Baidu, the trusted anti-Google, would help, but would not guarantee success. Beijing’s distrust of the foreign Internet should not be underestimated, as China tech blogger Bill Bishop notes:
Writing in the Party journal Seeking Truth in December 2009, Meng Jianzhu, the Minister of Public Security, wrote: “The internet has become a primary method for the anti-China forces to infiltrate us and amplify destructive energy. This provides new challenges in maintaining state security and social stability.” Censorship of foreign content has shifted from news sites to Web 2.0 services with superior communication and organizing functions, such as Twitter and Facebook, which the government accuses of becoming a rallying point for dissidents and separatists. A report on new media published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in July bluntly states: “Foreign social networking sites have become a tool for political subversion used by Western nations.”
In the U.S., too, there will be questions for Zuckerberg, from some members of Congress and the Obama administration, about all the concessions he would have to make to a country that is in the midst of blackening its already lamentable record on human rights. The recent detention of artist-dissident Ai Weiwei on suspicion of “economic crimes” has intensified scrutiny of China, at least for the moment.
Ultimately, though, I still believe Facebook China will happen because Zuckerberg wants it that badly. So must Li: Baidu has failed to find the right formula for social networking in China, while Facebook clone Renren (soon to IPO) and Twitter-Facebook hybrid Sina Weibo have been hugely popular; Facebook.cn can be Baidu’s social solution.
Facebook and the anti-Google, teaming up, a year after Google pulled out of China. Some people in China and the U.S. wouldn’t like a Zuckerberg-Li deal, but I suspect the two men reportedly making it think it makes perfect sense.
Facebook as the rest of the world knows it is still blocked in China, but with Baidu’s help, Mark Zuckerberg may be bringing Chinese users a government-approved version. Before Facebook China records its first status update, though, we will hear first from the authorities — not only in China, but also in the U.S.
The Web portal Sohu.com reported today, citing Baidu sources, that Facebook and the Chinese search giant have agreed to launch a Chinese social networking service that would stand alone from the worldwide service (the companies aren’t confirming this yet, and Sohu.com’s original report was taken down). The report follows up on respected China tech expert Hu Yanping’s tweet on Sina Weibo on Friday that Facebook has signed such a deal with a Chinese Internet company, and Baidu makes sense because it has so far, like Google in most other places, failed to gain traction in social media.
What happens now? For a while yet, nothing, beyond some brow-furrowing in China and perhaps some grandstanding in the U.S. If there is a deal, it must still make it over some imposing regulatory hurdles in China, and it will attract some attention from Capitol Hill. A lot has happened since Zuckerberg’s diplomatic mission to China in December, when he visited with most of the heads of China’s biggest Internet and mobile companies, including billionaire Robin Li’s Baidu, billionaire Jack Ma’s Alibaba Group, Sina Corp. and China Mobile.
I said back then that this “vacation” of his was laying the groundwork for an eventual deal to get Facebook into China somehow, and I believed Zuckerberg would inevitably succeed. I still think that, because he is fully committed to make the kinds of concessions to do business in China that did not come so easily for Google.
Still, Zuckerberg has his work cut out for him on both sides of the Pacific. This year the environment for the world’s most influential social networking service, already difficult in China, has become even more so. With protestors in the Middle East openly thanking Facebook and Zuckerberg for their help, and with calls for a Jasmine Revolution in China spurring an extremely harsh crackdown on lawyers and activists, Chinese authorities will be wary about welcoming a Facebook China. The imprimatur of Baidu, the trusted anti-Google, would help, but would not guarantee success. Beijing’s distrust of the foreign Internet should not be underestimated, as China tech blogger Bill Bishop notes:
Writing in the Party journal Seeking Truth in December 2009, Meng Jianzhu, the Minister of Public Security, wrote: “The internet has become a primary method for the anti-China forces to infiltrate us and amplify destructive energy. This provides new challenges in maintaining state security and social stability.” Censorship of foreign content has shifted from news sites to Web 2.0 services with superior communication and organizing functions, such as Twitter and Facebook, which the government accuses of becoming a rallying point for dissidents and separatists. A report on new media published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in July bluntly states: “Foreign social networking sites have become a tool for political subversion used by Western nations.”
In the U.S., too, there will be questions for Zuckerberg, from some members of Congress and the Obama administration, about all the concessions he would have to make to a country that is in the midst of blackening its already lamentable record on human rights. The recent detention of artist-dissident Ai Weiwei on suspicion of “economic crimes” has intensified scrutiny of China, at least for the moment.
Ultimately, though, I still believe Facebook China will happen because Zuckerberg wants it that badly. So must Li: Baidu has failed to find the right formula for social networking in China, while Facebook clone Renren (soon to IPO) and Twitter-Facebook hybrid Sina Weibo have been hugely popular; Facebook.cn can be Baidu’s social solution.
Facebook and the anti-Google, teaming up, a year after Google pulled out of China. Some people in China and the U.S. wouldn’t like a Zuckerberg-Li deal, but I suspect the two men reportedly making it think it makes perfect sense.
Gas sales drop as prices rise and more drivers shift to 'Park'
By Chris Kahn, Associated Press
NEW YORK — With the price of gas averaging $3.77 a gallon Monday, there are signs that Americans are cutting back on driving, reversing a steady increase in demand for fuel.
Gasoline sales have fallen for five weeks, first time that has happened since November, according to MasterCard SpendingPulse, which tracks spending at 140,000 service stations nationwide.
Before the decline, demand had increased for two months. And some analysts expected that trend to continue because the economic recovery is picking up, adding 216,000 jobs in March.
“More people are going to work,” said John Gamel, director of gasoline research for MasterCard. “That means more people are driving and they should be buying more gas.”
Instead, about 70% of the nation’s major gas-station chains say sales have fallen, according to a March survey by the Oil Price Information Service. More than half reported a drop of 3% or more — sharpest since the summer of 2008, when gas soared past $4 a gallon.
This year, gas prices shot up as unrest in North Africa and the Middle East rattled energy markets and increased global demand for crude oil squeezed supplies.
Now, only Wyoming has an average gasoline price lower than $3.50 a gallon. Gas is already 41 cents more expensive than at this point in 2008, when it peaked at $4.11 in July.
Most analysts are sticking to forecasts of a high of $4 a gallon, though some have predicted $5 gas.
Across the country, some drivers are hunting for cheaper gas with the help of a mobile phone app. Others are reconsidering mass transportation, or trading in their SUVs for a more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Kim Cramer, who works for Radio Flyer in Chicago, has started walking and carpooling. She’s also learned to be choosy, buying gas in suburbs, where she’s learned she can save as much as 20 cents a gallon.
“I try to fill up anywhere besides the city,” she said.
About two-and-a-half days’ worth of Whitney Shaw’s pay each month goes to fill up her 2001 Hyundai Accent. The administrative assistant is thinking about taking the bus for her daily commute, 50 miles each way between Branford, Conn., and Hartford.
“It’s three hours of pay from work just to fill up my tank even once, so I’m definitely feeling it,” Shaw said while filling up for $3.61 a gallon at a Valero station on the Berlin Turnpike.
Some Americans also are turning to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. Sales of Hyundai Sonata and Elantra soared 55% in March, while sales of Chevy’s Suburban SUV dropped nearly 24%.
MasterCard’s report shows drivers bought 2.7 billion gallons of gas last week, down 3.6% from the same period in 2010, when it was 80 cents a gallon cheaper.
The decline is somewhat puzzling because Americans typically curb their driving only as a last resort, after sacrificing other forms of discretionary spending, like shopping for clothes, or going to movies, concerts and restaurants.
But demand for gas is falling while other types of spending are on the rise. Retail sales rose 2% in March compared with a year earlier, surprising economists who were expecting no increase or even a decline.
Gamel said it’s too early to tell whether this is the kind of long-term decline in gasoline demand that the economy endured during the recession. Prices already are in the range where Americans started to leave their cars parked several years ago. Drivers began to cut back on gas in October 2007, when the national average approached $3 per gallon.
Even if demand for gas keeps falling in the U.S., it probably won’t be enough to force the price down. That’s because worldwide demand for crude oil keeps rising.
Global demand for oil is about 87 million barrels a day, matching its peak, in 2007. It is expected to grow to more than 88 million barrels a day by year end, with most of the increase coming from China. At the same time, supply is shrinking because of uprisings in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East.
In the United States, people are watching their local gas stations a little more carefully. Some are even getting rid of their old gas-guzzler.
Andrea Meyer of Manteno, Ill., has done both. She buys gas in the middle of the week because prices seem to jump over the weekend. And she recently sold her 2005 Chevy Envoy SUV and bought a 2011 Chevy Cruze, which gets 30 miles per gallon. She still spent about $200 on gas for the new car from mid-February to mid-March.
“I won’t go hungry tomorrow,” she says. “It’s just taking away from me getting ahead faster. It throws off everything. It immediately makes you reprioritize.”
———
Associated Press Writers Barbara Rodriguez in Chicago, Ben Dobbin in Rochester, NY, and Stephanie Reitz in Hartford, Conn. contributed to this story.
NEW YORK — With the price of gas averaging $3.77 a gallon Monday, there are signs that Americans are cutting back on driving, reversing a steady increase in demand for fuel.
Gasoline sales have fallen for five weeks, first time that has happened since November, according to MasterCard SpendingPulse, which tracks spending at 140,000 service stations nationwide.
Before the decline, demand had increased for two months. And some analysts expected that trend to continue because the economic recovery is picking up, adding 216,000 jobs in March.
“More people are going to work,” said John Gamel, director of gasoline research for MasterCard. “That means more people are driving and they should be buying more gas.”
Instead, about 70% of the nation’s major gas-station chains say sales have fallen, according to a March survey by the Oil Price Information Service. More than half reported a drop of 3% or more — sharpest since the summer of 2008, when gas soared past $4 a gallon.
This year, gas prices shot up as unrest in North Africa and the Middle East rattled energy markets and increased global demand for crude oil squeezed supplies.
Now, only Wyoming has an average gasoline price lower than $3.50 a gallon. Gas is already 41 cents more expensive than at this point in 2008, when it peaked at $4.11 in July.
Most analysts are sticking to forecasts of a high of $4 a gallon, though some have predicted $5 gas.
Across the country, some drivers are hunting for cheaper gas with the help of a mobile phone app. Others are reconsidering mass transportation, or trading in their SUVs for a more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Kim Cramer, who works for Radio Flyer in Chicago, has started walking and carpooling. She’s also learned to be choosy, buying gas in suburbs, where she’s learned she can save as much as 20 cents a gallon.
“I try to fill up anywhere besides the city,” she said.
About two-and-a-half days’ worth of Whitney Shaw’s pay each month goes to fill up her 2001 Hyundai Accent. The administrative assistant is thinking about taking the bus for her daily commute, 50 miles each way between Branford, Conn., and Hartford.
“It’s three hours of pay from work just to fill up my tank even once, so I’m definitely feeling it,” Shaw said while filling up for $3.61 a gallon at a Valero station on the Berlin Turnpike.
Some Americans also are turning to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. Sales of Hyundai Sonata and Elantra soared 55% in March, while sales of Chevy’s Suburban SUV dropped nearly 24%.
MasterCard’s report shows drivers bought 2.7 billion gallons of gas last week, down 3.6% from the same period in 2010, when it was 80 cents a gallon cheaper.
The decline is somewhat puzzling because Americans typically curb their driving only as a last resort, after sacrificing other forms of discretionary spending, like shopping for clothes, or going to movies, concerts and restaurants.
But demand for gas is falling while other types of spending are on the rise. Retail sales rose 2% in March compared with a year earlier, surprising economists who were expecting no increase or even a decline.
Gamel said it’s too early to tell whether this is the kind of long-term decline in gasoline demand that the economy endured during the recession. Prices already are in the range where Americans started to leave their cars parked several years ago. Drivers began to cut back on gas in October 2007, when the national average approached $3 per gallon.
Even if demand for gas keeps falling in the U.S., it probably won’t be enough to force the price down. That’s because worldwide demand for crude oil keeps rising.
Global demand for oil is about 87 million barrels a day, matching its peak, in 2007. It is expected to grow to more than 88 million barrels a day by year end, with most of the increase coming from China. At the same time, supply is shrinking because of uprisings in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East.
In the United States, people are watching their local gas stations a little more carefully. Some are even getting rid of their old gas-guzzler.
Andrea Meyer of Manteno, Ill., has done both. She buys gas in the middle of the week because prices seem to jump over the weekend. And she recently sold her 2005 Chevy Envoy SUV and bought a 2011 Chevy Cruze, which gets 30 miles per gallon. She still spent about $200 on gas for the new car from mid-February to mid-March.
“I won’t go hungry tomorrow,” she says. “It’s just taking away from me getting ahead faster. It throws off everything. It immediately makes you reprioritize.”
———
Associated Press Writers Barbara Rodriguez in Chicago, Ben Dobbin in Rochester, NY, and Stephanie Reitz in Hartford, Conn. contributed to this story.
Super-Charge Product Sampling, Event Marketing
There's been a lot of research conducted to figure out what consumers want from brands on social media networks such as Facebook. What can the brand provide? What type of value can it add? One of the most frequently cited is the coupon -- which is a bit underwhelming, leaves the brand out of the conversation and may be leaving dollars behind, too.
Consumers don't go to the web to talk about brands (unless they're complaining); they go to share their experiences. A better way to get consumers talking about brands online is to give them something to talk about in the first place.
Product sampling and event marketing have long proven to be the most effective way to generate trial and drive purchase conversion. Nine out of ten consumers say they would purchase a product if they experienced it and were satisfied with it, says the Promotion Marketing Association. And today, social media tools can extend the story on a scale never before imagined. Once the products are distributed, consumers can and should be encouraged to share their experiences online. We all know the power of word of mouth to generate trial and use. Nielsen reports that eight out of ten consumers say they'd try products recommended to them.
Sounds simple, but don't think you can merely hand your product or share your experience with savvy, time-crunched consumers and expect that they'll automatically try it and then talk about it on Facebook. The most effective sampling efforts reach consumers at the point of use, when and where they are most receptive to the brand's message. For example, 40% of travelers forget to pack toiletries. Giving away a razor or toothbrush in hotels can go a long way; hotel gift shops are so expensive. Provide an energy drink or other healthy snack at the top of a ski slope. You get the idea.
Then what? Once you've identified where your consumers are open to trying new things and what their needs are, give them a reason to share their experience. Research tells us that consumers are happy when they're heard and respected. But you've got to make it easy for that sharing to happen and for them to be heard.
Drive consumers to a powerful online engagement platform that enables them to share their opinions across their social media profiles. Once there, give your new brand advocates space to write what they think, through free-form comments and with relevant surveys.
Programs designed with this model consistently demonstrate a swift increase in conversations and reviews across social media channels and significant increase in intent to purchase, to recommend the product, and an increase in share of voice over the competition. A nutritional supplement brand using this method saw Facebook fans increase 94%, and 85% said they intended to purchase the product. A razor brand increased share of voice to competitors by 18%.
Bottom line? The most authentic way to get someone to provide a recommendation is to get him or her to experience the product, first-hand. Then, their review is real. It's authentic. Offering a coupon on Facebook is like dropping in on a cocktail party conversation without being invited. Give them something meaningful when they want to receive it, ask them what they really think, and have the tools at the ready that enable them to share their opinions with their friends with ease. That's authentic engagement that delivers a real return on your marketing investment.
(Source: Marketing Daily, 04/06/11)
Consumers don't go to the web to talk about brands (unless they're complaining); they go to share their experiences. A better way to get consumers talking about brands online is to give them something to talk about in the first place.
Product sampling and event marketing have long proven to be the most effective way to generate trial and drive purchase conversion. Nine out of ten consumers say they would purchase a product if they experienced it and were satisfied with it, says the Promotion Marketing Association. And today, social media tools can extend the story on a scale never before imagined. Once the products are distributed, consumers can and should be encouraged to share their experiences online. We all know the power of word of mouth to generate trial and use. Nielsen reports that eight out of ten consumers say they'd try products recommended to them.
Sounds simple, but don't think you can merely hand your product or share your experience with savvy, time-crunched consumers and expect that they'll automatically try it and then talk about it on Facebook. The most effective sampling efforts reach consumers at the point of use, when and where they are most receptive to the brand's message. For example, 40% of travelers forget to pack toiletries. Giving away a razor or toothbrush in hotels can go a long way; hotel gift shops are so expensive. Provide an energy drink or other healthy snack at the top of a ski slope. You get the idea.
Then what? Once you've identified where your consumers are open to trying new things and what their needs are, give them a reason to share their experience. Research tells us that consumers are happy when they're heard and respected. But you've got to make it easy for that sharing to happen and for them to be heard.
Drive consumers to a powerful online engagement platform that enables them to share their opinions across their social media profiles. Once there, give your new brand advocates space to write what they think, through free-form comments and with relevant surveys.
Programs designed with this model consistently demonstrate a swift increase in conversations and reviews across social media channels and significant increase in intent to purchase, to recommend the product, and an increase in share of voice over the competition. A nutritional supplement brand using this method saw Facebook fans increase 94%, and 85% said they intended to purchase the product. A razor brand increased share of voice to competitors by 18%.
Bottom line? The most authentic way to get someone to provide a recommendation is to get him or her to experience the product, first-hand. Then, their review is real. It's authentic. Offering a coupon on Facebook is like dropping in on a cocktail party conversation without being invited. Give them something meaningful when they want to receive it, ask them what they really think, and have the tools at the ready that enable them to share their opinions with their friends with ease. That's authentic engagement that delivers a real return on your marketing investment.
(Source: Marketing Daily, 04/06/11)
Friday, April 8, 2011
US to use Facebook, Twitter to issue terror alerts
WASHINGTON — The U.S. government's new system to replace the five color-coded terror alerts will have two levels of warnings — elevated and imminent — that will be relayed to the public only under certain circumstances for limited periods of time, sometimes using Facebook and Twitter, according to a draft Homeland Security Department plan obtained by The Associated Press.
The government's color-coded warning system is being replaced with a more specific and informative plan that would offer two levels of alerts.The public could see the warnings on Facebook and Twitter.
Some terror warnings could be withheld from the public entirely if announcing a threat would risk exposing an intelligence operation or a current investigation, according to the government's confidential plan.
Like a carton of milk, the new terror warnings will each come with a stamped expiration date.
The 19-page document, marked "for official use only" and dated April 1, describes the step-by-step process that would occur behind the scenes when the government believes terrorists might be threatening Americans. It describes the sequence of notifying members of Congress, then counterterrorism officials in states and cities and then governors and mayors and, ultimately, the public. It specifies even details about how many minutes U.S. officials can wait before organizing urgent conference calls among themselves to discuss pending threats. It places the Homeland Security secretary, currently Janet Napolitano, in charge of the so-called National Terrorism Advisory System.
The new terror alerts would also be published online using Facebook and Twitter "when appropriate," the plan said, but only after federal, state and local government leaders have already been notified. The new system is expected to be in place by April 27.
The government has always struggled with how much information it can share with the public about specific threats, sometimes over fears it would reveal classified intelligence or law enforcement efforts to disrupt an unfolding plot. But the color warnings that became one of the government's most visible anti-terrorism programs since the September 2001 attacks were criticized as too vague to be useful and became fodder for television comedians.
The new advisory system is designed to be easier to understand and more specific, but it is impossible to know how often the public will receive these warnings. The message will always depend on the threat and the intelligence behind it.
For example, if there is a specific threat that terrorists were looking to hide explosives in backpacks around U.S. airports, the government might issue a public warning that would be announced in airports telling travelers to remain vigilant and report any unattended backpacks or other suspicious activity to authorities.
If the intelligence community believes a terror threat is so serious that an alert should be issued, the warning would offer specific information for specific audiences. The Homeland Security secretary would make the final decision on whether to issue an alert and to whom — sometimes just to law enforcement and other times to the public.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The government's color-coded warning system is being replaced with a more specific and informative plan that would offer two levels of alerts.The public could see the warnings on Facebook and Twitter.
Some terror warnings could be withheld from the public entirely if announcing a threat would risk exposing an intelligence operation or a current investigation, according to the government's confidential plan.
Like a carton of milk, the new terror warnings will each come with a stamped expiration date.
The 19-page document, marked "for official use only" and dated April 1, describes the step-by-step process that would occur behind the scenes when the government believes terrorists might be threatening Americans. It describes the sequence of notifying members of Congress, then counterterrorism officials in states and cities and then governors and mayors and, ultimately, the public. It specifies even details about how many minutes U.S. officials can wait before organizing urgent conference calls among themselves to discuss pending threats. It places the Homeland Security secretary, currently Janet Napolitano, in charge of the so-called National Terrorism Advisory System.
The new terror alerts would also be published online using Facebook and Twitter "when appropriate," the plan said, but only after federal, state and local government leaders have already been notified. The new system is expected to be in place by April 27.
The government has always struggled with how much information it can share with the public about specific threats, sometimes over fears it would reveal classified intelligence or law enforcement efforts to disrupt an unfolding plot. But the color warnings that became one of the government's most visible anti-terrorism programs since the September 2001 attacks were criticized as too vague to be useful and became fodder for television comedians.
The new advisory system is designed to be easier to understand and more specific, but it is impossible to know how often the public will receive these warnings. The message will always depend on the threat and the intelligence behind it.
For example, if there is a specific threat that terrorists were looking to hide explosives in backpacks around U.S. airports, the government might issue a public warning that would be announced in airports telling travelers to remain vigilant and report any unattended backpacks or other suspicious activity to authorities.
If the intelligence community believes a terror threat is so serious that an alert should be issued, the warning would offer specific information for specific audiences. The Homeland Security secretary would make the final decision on whether to issue an alert and to whom — sometimes just to law enforcement and other times to the public.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Are Digital Marketers Ignoring Baby Boomers?
Boomers' lives are going in many different directions, as empty-nesters, step-parents, grandparents and caregivers. For all of these roles, the Internet and digital media are absolutely essential.
eMarketer estimates 78.2% of this cohort is online, nearly 60 million adults. Even as their numbers decline, that penetration rate will remain high through 2015. And they control more than $2 trillion in annual spending.
"The baby boomers grew up being chased by marketers and advertisers that tailored products and brands to appeal to them," said Lisa E. Phillips, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, "Digital Lives of Boomers: Reaching Them Online." "Now the median age of this cohort is 55, and many boomers feel as if they have dropped off many marketers' radar."
Boomers spend more time and money online than any other demographic. Younger boomers (ages 47 to 55) spent an average of 39.3 hours online per month in 2010, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Older boomers (ages 56 to 65) averaged only slightly less, at 36.5 hours. A lot of that time was spent shopping -- and buying. Forrester Research reported that boomers spent an average of about $650 online over a three-month period in 2010, compared with $581 by Generation X internet users (ages 35 to 46) and $429 by Millennials (ages 18 to 34).
Boomers also stay connected on the go. eMarketer estimates 86.9% will have a mobile phone this year, and 16.9 million boomers will access the internet from a mobile browser or installed app. In 2015, that number will reach 25.4 million, or nearly 40% of boomer mobile users. This is a market that content providers, game publishers and brand marketers should not pass by.
Marketers who widen their messages to include boomers would be wise to make their efforts ageless, rather than targeted at an older set.
"Boomers are immediately turned off by association with old age, infirmity and decline," said Phillips. "Most brands do not want to 'age' their products with blatant appeals to older consumers. The win-win is to create an overarching brand message that gives a nod to boomers, but also includes younger adults and even grandchildren."
This often means turning a negative -- fears about failing health, for example -- into a positive, such as showing the benefits of products that contribute to a healthy lifestyle.
(Source: eMarketer, 04/04/11)
eMarketer estimates 78.2% of this cohort is online, nearly 60 million adults. Even as their numbers decline, that penetration rate will remain high through 2015. And they control more than $2 trillion in annual spending.
"The baby boomers grew up being chased by marketers and advertisers that tailored products and brands to appeal to them," said Lisa E. Phillips, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, "Digital Lives of Boomers: Reaching Them Online." "Now the median age of this cohort is 55, and many boomers feel as if they have dropped off many marketers' radar."
Boomers spend more time and money online than any other demographic. Younger boomers (ages 47 to 55) spent an average of 39.3 hours online per month in 2010, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Older boomers (ages 56 to 65) averaged only slightly less, at 36.5 hours. A lot of that time was spent shopping -- and buying. Forrester Research reported that boomers spent an average of about $650 online over a three-month period in 2010, compared with $581 by Generation X internet users (ages 35 to 46) and $429 by Millennials (ages 18 to 34).
Boomers also stay connected on the go. eMarketer estimates 86.9% will have a mobile phone this year, and 16.9 million boomers will access the internet from a mobile browser or installed app. In 2015, that number will reach 25.4 million, or nearly 40% of boomer mobile users. This is a market that content providers, game publishers and brand marketers should not pass by.
Marketers who widen their messages to include boomers would be wise to make their efforts ageless, rather than targeted at an older set.
"Boomers are immediately turned off by association with old age, infirmity and decline," said Phillips. "Most brands do not want to 'age' their products with blatant appeals to older consumers. The win-win is to create an overarching brand message that gives a nod to boomers, but also includes younger adults and even grandchildren."
This often means turning a negative -- fears about failing health, for example -- into a positive, such as showing the benefits of products that contribute to a healthy lifestyle.
(Source: eMarketer, 04/04/11)
Rising Food Prices Spiking Coupon Use
According to a new survey conducted by Harris Interactive, and commissioned by Coupons.com, rising costs of food are giving Americans sticker shock at the grocery store, and 95% of U.S. adults plan to employ at least one savings strategy at the grocery as a result. And, says the report, consumers, particularly those in higher income brackets, are responding with additional saving strategies.
The survey found that incorporating coupons was the most popular planned activity to off-set rising food prices, followed by other budget-stretching actions:
* Using coupons (72%)
* Comparing unit prices of package sizes (71%)
* Shopping at discount grocery stores (66%)
* Stocking up when items reach rock-bottom prices (64%)
* Buying in bulk (57%)
Steven Boal, CEO of Coupons.com Incorporated, opines that "...(since) food prices are expected to continue to rise this year to potentially all-time highs...consumers are...stretching budgets, and...will take matters into their own hands when it comes to mitigating the effects of higher food costs."
Adults with higher incomes are actually much more likely to pinch pennies than their lesser earning counterparts, notes the study. Households with incomes in the $75 to $100K range were more likely than households that make less than $35K per year to plan to employ saving strategies, including:
* Using coupons (81% compared with 63%)
* Comparing unit prices of package sizes (88% versus 61%)
Additional impacts of budget stretching needs and solutions include:
* Adults with college degrees are not only significantly more likely to plan to use coupons than those without high school degrees (78% vs. 51%), but they also plan to use other savings tactics more frequently, including comparing unit prices (83% vs. 66%) and buying in bulk (62% vs. 42%)
* Women are more likely to use coupons to gain more savings compared to men (78% vs. 66%)
* Women are also more likely to compare unit prices of package sizes over men (75% vs. 67%), and stock up on goods when they reach rock-bottom prices (68% vs. 60%)
* 71% of U.S. adults plan to compare unit prices to get the most out of their grocery budget.
* Adults in larger households (3 or more people) were more likely than those living alone to comparison shop (72% vs. 61%)
(Source: The Center For Media Research, 04/04/11)
The survey found that incorporating coupons was the most popular planned activity to off-set rising food prices, followed by other budget-stretching actions:
* Using coupons (72%)
* Comparing unit prices of package sizes (71%)
* Shopping at discount grocery stores (66%)
* Stocking up when items reach rock-bottom prices (64%)
* Buying in bulk (57%)
Steven Boal, CEO of Coupons.com Incorporated, opines that "...(since) food prices are expected to continue to rise this year to potentially all-time highs...consumers are...stretching budgets, and...will take matters into their own hands when it comes to mitigating the effects of higher food costs."
Adults with higher incomes are actually much more likely to pinch pennies than their lesser earning counterparts, notes the study. Households with incomes in the $75 to $100K range were more likely than households that make less than $35K per year to plan to employ saving strategies, including:
* Using coupons (81% compared with 63%)
* Comparing unit prices of package sizes (88% versus 61%)
Additional impacts of budget stretching needs and solutions include:
* Adults with college degrees are not only significantly more likely to plan to use coupons than those without high school degrees (78% vs. 51%), but they also plan to use other savings tactics more frequently, including comparing unit prices (83% vs. 66%) and buying in bulk (62% vs. 42%)
* Women are more likely to use coupons to gain more savings compared to men (78% vs. 66%)
* Women are also more likely to compare unit prices of package sizes over men (75% vs. 67%), and stock up on goods when they reach rock-bottom prices (68% vs. 60%)
* 71% of U.S. adults plan to compare unit prices to get the most out of their grocery budget.
* Adults in larger households (3 or more people) were more likely than those living alone to comparison shop (72% vs. 61%)
(Source: The Center For Media Research, 04/04/11)
Friday, March 18, 2011
Nine Social Networks Your Business Should Be Using
Part of putting together your social media strategy is choosing which social networking platform works best for you. You may assume that Facebook is the end-all of social networks, but there may be better opportunities for your business with different platforms. Here are nine different social networks and how your company can benefit from each:
1. Facebook. You will be hard pressed to find any company or business that wouldn't benefit from Facebook. Easily the largest social network, your organization will be able to reach the largest amount of fans. Facebook ads targeting feature is interest specified which means you can connect with the exact people who would be interested in your product. Facebook Insights also allows you to measure your page activity so you can track your progression.
2. Twitter. Twitter is the second most popular social networking site. Use Twitter to humanize your brand, provide excellent customer service, and engage with your fans. It is also great for seeking out new fans by searching people who are talking about your brand, product, or field of interest. The one thing businesses need to remember is not to tweet as a brand. Remind your followers that there is a real live person on the other end of cyberspace.
3. Foursquare. Businesses can benefit from Foursquare in a number of ways. Offering deals for check-ins or mayorships are a fun, competitive way to get your customers coming back for more. For bigger brands and promotions, you can even have your own badge. Although they are a huge investment, the badge will live on forever, even if it is only accessible for one day!
4. LinkedIn. To be the best, you have to have the best employees. Instead of waiting until the perfect fit comes and finds you, you can go out and seek them. LinkedIn has not only become the number one professional social network, but also one of the top places for recruitment. You can create a company profile and allow others to follow your organization. Also, LinkedIn ads now has the same targeting features as Facebook. Use this to advertise your company or find great employees.
5. YouTube. Using YouTube is another great way to give a human face to your brand. Posting videos of behind the scenes interactions will give your fans an inside look into your organization. Also, having videos of the CEO, or other top executive, will bring your fans even closer to your company. A video only takes about a minute to make, so grab a FlipCam and start engaging your followers!
6. Quora. If you are a company with a special expertise, then Quora can be very beneficial for you. Not only can you follow similar thought leaders, and ask questions about your industry, but you can also reach out to those in need and answer questions. Spread the work about your company by answering questions and becoming an expert in that field. This is a direct way to connect with fans that have similar interests to your business.
7. Flickr. Flickr can be especially beneficial for companies that are visual. Whether you are showcasing products or homes, you can use Flickr to have easily searchable photos. The tagging features on Flickr make it effortless for your fans to find exactly what they are looking for. They are also a great place for you to hold photos when having contests and giveaways. When using Flickr, it is important that you integrate it well into your other social media platforms.
8. Tumblr. Corporate blogging is the new frontier. Having a company blog will create a real conversation about your brand. Many organizations have corporate blogs, and not just social media companies. These blogs will help you showcase your expertise, attract customers and future employees.
9. Meetup. Meetup is all about bringing your social relationships into a real-life setting. Whether it is once a month or once a year, schedule a meetup where your fans and followers can get together and interact in real life. Make a special event out of it! Have a fan-appreciation meetup or maybe just a meetup for other thought leaders to gather and network. Social media may be enhancing communication from companies to fans, but nothing beats face-to-face communication.
No matter what your business, there is a social network for you. Do you need them all? Probably not. Specify what your social media strategy is, what your goals are, and from there decide which social network will help you best accomplish that.
Which of these social networks does your business use? Which ones would you have added? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
(Source: Online Marketing Connect, 03/03/11)
1. Facebook. You will be hard pressed to find any company or business that wouldn't benefit from Facebook. Easily the largest social network, your organization will be able to reach the largest amount of fans. Facebook ads targeting feature is interest specified which means you can connect with the exact people who would be interested in your product. Facebook Insights also allows you to measure your page activity so you can track your progression.
2. Twitter. Twitter is the second most popular social networking site. Use Twitter to humanize your brand, provide excellent customer service, and engage with your fans. It is also great for seeking out new fans by searching people who are talking about your brand, product, or field of interest. The one thing businesses need to remember is not to tweet as a brand. Remind your followers that there is a real live person on the other end of cyberspace.
3. Foursquare. Businesses can benefit from Foursquare in a number of ways. Offering deals for check-ins or mayorships are a fun, competitive way to get your customers coming back for more. For bigger brands and promotions, you can even have your own badge. Although they are a huge investment, the badge will live on forever, even if it is only accessible for one day!
4. LinkedIn. To be the best, you have to have the best employees. Instead of waiting until the perfect fit comes and finds you, you can go out and seek them. LinkedIn has not only become the number one professional social network, but also one of the top places for recruitment. You can create a company profile and allow others to follow your organization. Also, LinkedIn ads now has the same targeting features as Facebook. Use this to advertise your company or find great employees.
5. YouTube. Using YouTube is another great way to give a human face to your brand. Posting videos of behind the scenes interactions will give your fans an inside look into your organization. Also, having videos of the CEO, or other top executive, will bring your fans even closer to your company. A video only takes about a minute to make, so grab a FlipCam and start engaging your followers!
6. Quora. If you are a company with a special expertise, then Quora can be very beneficial for you. Not only can you follow similar thought leaders, and ask questions about your industry, but you can also reach out to those in need and answer questions. Spread the work about your company by answering questions and becoming an expert in that field. This is a direct way to connect with fans that have similar interests to your business.
7. Flickr. Flickr can be especially beneficial for companies that are visual. Whether you are showcasing products or homes, you can use Flickr to have easily searchable photos. The tagging features on Flickr make it effortless for your fans to find exactly what they are looking for. They are also a great place for you to hold photos when having contests and giveaways. When using Flickr, it is important that you integrate it well into your other social media platforms.
8. Tumblr. Corporate blogging is the new frontier. Having a company blog will create a real conversation about your brand. Many organizations have corporate blogs, and not just social media companies. These blogs will help you showcase your expertise, attract customers and future employees.
9. Meetup. Meetup is all about bringing your social relationships into a real-life setting. Whether it is once a month or once a year, schedule a meetup where your fans and followers can get together and interact in real life. Make a special event out of it! Have a fan-appreciation meetup or maybe just a meetup for other thought leaders to gather and network. Social media may be enhancing communication from companies to fans, but nothing beats face-to-face communication.
No matter what your business, there is a social network for you. Do you need them all? Probably not. Specify what your social media strategy is, what your goals are, and from there decide which social network will help you best accomplish that.
Which of these social networks does your business use? Which ones would you have added? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
(Source: Online Marketing Connect, 03/03/11)
Online News Surpasses Newspapers
The inevitable shift finally came in 2010, as more Americans got their daily news from online sources other than print, according to the Biannual News Consumption Survey from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. The findings were released this week as part of Pew's annual overview of the news media.
Specifically, Pew found that the proportion of U.S. adults who said they got their news online the day before increased from 29% in 2008 to 34% in 2010. The proportion that cited print newspapers as the source of their recent news fell from 34% in 2008 to 31% in 2010.
The Internet came out ahead of print in terms of time spent with news sources, with an average 13 minutes per day, according to Pew. That stat beats print newspapers at 10 minutes, but trails TV at 19 minutes and radio at 15 minutes.
This good news for broadcast and cable TV was tempered somewhat by a more pronounced shift in news consumption habits among younger adults. Pew found that the Internet is now the No. 1 news source for the 18-29 cohort, with 65% saying they get most of their news online, compared to 52% for TV and just 21% for newspapers.
By contrast, TV still dominated in the 30-49 cohort, with 63% citing TV news as their top news source compared to 48% for the Internet.
It's worth noting that online news consumption is still dominated by traditional news sources -- including Web sites maintained by newspapers, which many publishers see as the key to future success.
Conversely, Pew noted that online advertising has not proved nearly as lucrative as print for newspaper publishers, raising questions about their ability to maintain both profitability and large news-gathering organizations.
Pew also noted the rise of online-only news operations, such as The Huffington Post, which now hold seven of the top 25 spots for online news consumption. However, five of these seven generate most of their traffic by aggregating traditional media.
(Source: Media Daily News, 03/15/11)
Specifically, Pew found that the proportion of U.S. adults who said they got their news online the day before increased from 29% in 2008 to 34% in 2010. The proportion that cited print newspapers as the source of their recent news fell from 34% in 2008 to 31% in 2010.
The Internet came out ahead of print in terms of time spent with news sources, with an average 13 minutes per day, according to Pew. That stat beats print newspapers at 10 minutes, but trails TV at 19 minutes and radio at 15 minutes.
This good news for broadcast and cable TV was tempered somewhat by a more pronounced shift in news consumption habits among younger adults. Pew found that the Internet is now the No. 1 news source for the 18-29 cohort, with 65% saying they get most of their news online, compared to 52% for TV and just 21% for newspapers.
By contrast, TV still dominated in the 30-49 cohort, with 63% citing TV news as their top news source compared to 48% for the Internet.
It's worth noting that online news consumption is still dominated by traditional news sources -- including Web sites maintained by newspapers, which many publishers see as the key to future success.
Conversely, Pew noted that online advertising has not proved nearly as lucrative as print for newspaper publishers, raising questions about their ability to maintain both profitability and large news-gathering organizations.
Pew also noted the rise of online-only news operations, such as The Huffington Post, which now hold seven of the top 25 spots for online news consumption. However, five of these seven generate most of their traffic by aggregating traditional media.
(Source: Media Daily News, 03/15/11)
Monday, February 28, 2011
Learn from Groupon and Pepsi's Mistakes
When you build a business from zero to several billion dollars in sales in a couple of years, quality control is bound to suffer somewhere.
For Groupon, that weak link proved to be Super Bowl advertising development. (I assume you've all seen the ill-conceived ads. Groupon yanked them after a public outcry, but as of Sunday you could see the Tibet creative on this TV station website .)
Instead of adding another critique of the flawed campaign to the chorus, I have some advice for Groupon and anyone else creating cause-related programs:
Build a feedback loop into your work.
It's depressing how rarely solid market research analysis is conducted on cause-related campaigns. Investing in understanding how your campaign will be perceived and later determining what went right and what went wrong can pay huge dividends.
Serious research (described in this MediaPost article) has helped Pepsi make some very smart alterations to this year's version of its crowdsourced Refresh campaign. For example, it's creating more opportunities for smaller groups and cutting down on abuse by substituting a lottery for its first-come, first-served entry system and eliminating $250,000 awards to fund a greater number of smaller awards.
Internal Pepsi research revealed that bottlers and other stakeholders didn't feel the program supported sales. In 2011, cans and bottles will carry promotional messaging and offers such as bottle cap offers for extra votes.
Another example: Since eBay Giving Works launched in 2003, ongoing analysis has transformed it from a nice program to a serious business-building enterprise that keeps growing in terms of sales impact and charitable contributions.
Improvements such as making it easier for consumers to donate to their favorite nonprofits pushed donations from eBay sellers and buyers to a record $54.8-million in 2010, a 7-percent bump.
Lets hope that armed with solid research and planning, Groupon will use its marketing muscle to create future cause campaigns that generate as many accolades as this year's effort yielded brickbats.
(Source: David Hessekial, Cause Marketing Today, 02/22/11)
For Groupon, that weak link proved to be Super Bowl advertising development. (I assume you've all seen the ill-conceived ads. Groupon yanked them after a public outcry, but as of Sunday you could see the Tibet creative on this TV station website .)
Instead of adding another critique of the flawed campaign to the chorus, I have some advice for Groupon and anyone else creating cause-related programs:
Build a feedback loop into your work.
It's depressing how rarely solid market research analysis is conducted on cause-related campaigns. Investing in understanding how your campaign will be perceived and later determining what went right and what went wrong can pay huge dividends.
Serious research (described in this MediaPost article) has helped Pepsi make some very smart alterations to this year's version of its crowdsourced Refresh campaign. For example, it's creating more opportunities for smaller groups and cutting down on abuse by substituting a lottery for its first-come, first-served entry system and eliminating $250,000 awards to fund a greater number of smaller awards.
Internal Pepsi research revealed that bottlers and other stakeholders didn't feel the program supported sales. In 2011, cans and bottles will carry promotional messaging and offers such as bottle cap offers for extra votes.
Another example: Since eBay Giving Works launched in 2003, ongoing analysis has transformed it from a nice program to a serious business-building enterprise that keeps growing in terms of sales impact and charitable contributions.
Improvements such as making it easier for consumers to donate to their favorite nonprofits pushed donations from eBay sellers and buyers to a record $54.8-million in 2010, a 7-percent bump.
Lets hope that armed with solid research and planning, Groupon will use its marketing muscle to create future cause campaigns that generate as many accolades as this year's effort yielded brickbats.
(Source: David Hessekial, Cause Marketing Today, 02/22/11)
Friday, February 18, 2011
Most Popular Marketing Tool For Local Biz: Facebook
Engaging local marketers like never before, a striking 70% of small businesses now use Facebook to reach consumers, according to new research from small-business social network MerchantCircle.
Up from 50% a year ago -- and topping the 66% of small businesses that currently use Google search advertising -- Facebook now ranks as the most popular marketing tool among local businesses.
True, adoption doesn't equal effectiveness, but 37% of local merchants now rate Facebook as one of their most effective tools -- just behind the 40% that cite the prime effectiveness of Google search.
Supplementing search and email marketing, time- and cash-strapped business owners are gravitating toward simple, low-cost online marketing methods like Facebook. "Many merchants are working with very small budgets and almost no marketing resources," said Darren Waddell, VP of marketing at MerchantCircle. As result, "the marketing methods we see gaining the most traction are therefore the ones that offer merchants simplicity, low costs and immediate results."
On the other hand, buzzworthy marketing methods like mobile and group buying have yet to win over most local merchants, according to MerchantCircle's quarterly Merchant Confidence Index survey of over 8,500 small and local businesses nationwide.
According to the report, more than half of local merchants are spending less than $2,500 a year on marketing, and the majority -- 60% -- have no plans to raise their budgets this year.
These merchants are also price-sensitive, as one quarter of merchants cite high costs as their chief complaint about online marketing. Merchants are also struggling to manage their existing programs, the research finds, and don't have the time or money to take advantage of new, unproven services. Indeed, 37% cite lack of time and resources as their top online marketing challenge.
Also of note, Facebook Places has soared past Foursquare to reach a 32% current usage rate -- with an additional 12% of small businesses expressing their intention to use Facebook Places in the coming months. By contrast, Foursquare's usage has remained unchanged from the fourth quarter of last year at about 9%.
Twitter has also grown in popularity over the past year, with nearly 40% of local merchants using the microblogging platform to build awareness and community around their products and services -- up from 32% since the fourth quarter of 2009.
Overall, less than 15% of merchants report doing any sort of mobile marketing or advertising, and more than half have no plans to do so in the coming months. Lack of understanding remains a huge barrier to adoption, as 74% of merchants report not having a good idea of how to reach consumers via mobile marketing.
Group buying will also take time to penetrate the local market, according to MerchantCircle, as only 11% of local merchants have offered a "daily deal" using a service like Groupon or LivingSocial, with an additional 20% planning to do so in the coming months. Results of group buying have also been mixed and may be hindering growth, as 50% of businesses that have run a daily deal campaign say they would not do so again
(Source: Online Media Daily, 02/15/11)
Up from 50% a year ago -- and topping the 66% of small businesses that currently use Google search advertising -- Facebook now ranks as the most popular marketing tool among local businesses.
True, adoption doesn't equal effectiveness, but 37% of local merchants now rate Facebook as one of their most effective tools -- just behind the 40% that cite the prime effectiveness of Google search.
Supplementing search and email marketing, time- and cash-strapped business owners are gravitating toward simple, low-cost online marketing methods like Facebook. "Many merchants are working with very small budgets and almost no marketing resources," said Darren Waddell, VP of marketing at MerchantCircle. As result, "the marketing methods we see gaining the most traction are therefore the ones that offer merchants simplicity, low costs and immediate results."
On the other hand, buzzworthy marketing methods like mobile and group buying have yet to win over most local merchants, according to MerchantCircle's quarterly Merchant Confidence Index survey of over 8,500 small and local businesses nationwide.
According to the report, more than half of local merchants are spending less than $2,500 a year on marketing, and the majority -- 60% -- have no plans to raise their budgets this year.
These merchants are also price-sensitive, as one quarter of merchants cite high costs as their chief complaint about online marketing. Merchants are also struggling to manage their existing programs, the research finds, and don't have the time or money to take advantage of new, unproven services. Indeed, 37% cite lack of time and resources as their top online marketing challenge.
Also of note, Facebook Places has soared past Foursquare to reach a 32% current usage rate -- with an additional 12% of small businesses expressing their intention to use Facebook Places in the coming months. By contrast, Foursquare's usage has remained unchanged from the fourth quarter of last year at about 9%.
Twitter has also grown in popularity over the past year, with nearly 40% of local merchants using the microblogging platform to build awareness and community around their products and services -- up from 32% since the fourth quarter of 2009.
Overall, less than 15% of merchants report doing any sort of mobile marketing or advertising, and more than half have no plans to do so in the coming months. Lack of understanding remains a huge barrier to adoption, as 74% of merchants report not having a good idea of how to reach consumers via mobile marketing.
Group buying will also take time to penetrate the local market, according to MerchantCircle, as only 11% of local merchants have offered a "daily deal" using a service like Groupon or LivingSocial, with an additional 20% planning to do so in the coming months. Results of group buying have also been mixed and may be hindering growth, as 50% of businesses that have run a daily deal campaign say they would not do so again
(Source: Online Media Daily, 02/15/11)
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Home Improvement Retailers Trying to Woo Women
To appeal better to women, Home Depot has started offering Martha Stewart curtains in hues of "tilled soil," paint in "cornbread," and rugs in colors like "Wilderstein brook trout."
To make shopping simpler for women, nearly all Martha Stewart Living products carry an icon, such as a moon or a star, to help coordinate and match items to room makeovers. Of course, a more obvious part of the women's push is the Martha Stewart line, which debuted in late 2009 with patio furniture and has since expanded into cabinets, draperies, carpets and paint. Lighting, vanity tables and bathroom décor will be added this spring.
With major renovations and big-ticket items stalled by a slow housing recovery, smaller projects are the big focus for home improvement stores and women are more of the target customer.
"For years, we've always had a bad -- I don't want to say a bad reputation, it's more that people look at our business and think it is male-oriented, dominated," Gordon Erickson, the senior vice president for merchandising and décor at Home Depot, told The New York Times.
"Fifty percent of our customers are female. We need to offer her products that she wants."
Among other chains, Lowe's, which claims to have had a more women's-oriented focus as part of its founding, designs its stores with less steel and more wood tones, and "comfort zones" where customers can review paint samples or remodeling plans.
In another effort, True Value recently opened a corporate-owned store near Chicago touting wider aisles, better lighting and clear signs.
The Times article points to the challenges the DIY channel has creating a comfortable shopping environment for women. Lauren Butler, who grew up helping her parents with home improvement projects, told the Times she was pleased to see that Home Depot had added Martha Stewart items at reasonable prices. But she still often feels unwelcome in the DIY channel.
"Sometimes they seem to feel like you're just a girl, you don't know what you're doing, you need to get your husband in here," said Ms. Butler. "It's intimidating for any female to walk into a home improvement store."
(Source: Retail Wire, 02/07/11)
To make shopping simpler for women, nearly all Martha Stewart Living products carry an icon, such as a moon or a star, to help coordinate and match items to room makeovers. Of course, a more obvious part of the women's push is the Martha Stewart line, which debuted in late 2009 with patio furniture and has since expanded into cabinets, draperies, carpets and paint. Lighting, vanity tables and bathroom décor will be added this spring.
With major renovations and big-ticket items stalled by a slow housing recovery, smaller projects are the big focus for home improvement stores and women are more of the target customer.
"For years, we've always had a bad -- I don't want to say a bad reputation, it's more that people look at our business and think it is male-oriented, dominated," Gordon Erickson, the senior vice president for merchandising and décor at Home Depot, told The New York Times.
"Fifty percent of our customers are female. We need to offer her products that she wants."
Among other chains, Lowe's, which claims to have had a more women's-oriented focus as part of its founding, designs its stores with less steel and more wood tones, and "comfort zones" where customers can review paint samples or remodeling plans.
In another effort, True Value recently opened a corporate-owned store near Chicago touting wider aisles, better lighting and clear signs.
The Times article points to the challenges the DIY channel has creating a comfortable shopping environment for women. Lauren Butler, who grew up helping her parents with home improvement projects, told the Times she was pleased to see that Home Depot had added Martha Stewart items at reasonable prices. But she still often feels unwelcome in the DIY channel.
"Sometimes they seem to feel like you're just a girl, you don't know what you're doing, you need to get your husband in here," said Ms. Butler. "It's intimidating for any female to walk into a home improvement store."
(Source: Retail Wire, 02/07/11)
Friday, February 11, 2011
Mobile Becomes Marketing Discipline for Ad Strategies
Mobile handsets are fast becoming a shopping tool. Near field communication (NFC) technology catapults that movement with the inclusion in devices and service by Google, Nokia, Apple, AT&T, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless.
This year, mobile becomes a marketing discipline or practice in overall ad strategies, rather than an application in a campaign or on a handset or tablet, according to the white paper "Upward Mobility: Developing an Effective Mobile Shopper Marketing Strategy" that Augme released last week.
Sitting on the front line in campaign planning sessions with consumer product goods companies like Johnson & Johnson in 2010 reveals that many strategies were based on applications or QR codes for specific products, according to David Apple, CMO of Augme. That changes this year, he says, as more consumers use mobile devices to advance consumption, knowledge and capabilities about products and services with or without assistance from the brand.
CPG companies have begun making the transition to integrate technologies, such as NFC, into point-of-sale platforms in stores, Apple says. "Many things still must happen, and it will become easier for chips to be integrated into mobile devices, than retailers to rip out lasers and put in imagers," he says, referring to NFC technology. "The big catalyst in the U.S. becomes what companies and carriers get paid in the process."
The U.S. remains far behind other countries around the world when it comes to integrating mobile tools for data transfer and m-commerce. Marketers, however, will be forced to look at mobile devices as an agnostic tool -- a connection to a campaign rather than an application, as slightly more than half -- 51% -- of the U.S. population will have a smartphone by the end of 2011, estimates Augme, citing Nielsen statistics.
Market research firm IHS iSuppli estimates global smartphone unit shipments will rise from 288 million in 2010 to 651 million in 2014.
The white paper draws a conclusion between the reality of the marketplace and the device capabilities in the market, and highlights strategies to reach consumers. "The reality of the market is the U.S. remains a 35% smartphone marketplace, which leaves the remainder of the country in feature phones and messaging phones," Apple says. "The real question becomes, as a marketer, how do I effectively communicate with that population without segmenting anybody based on their technology or device capabilities."
Apple says it's done through the use of consumer-response type technologies and strategies, reaching out to the 65% of consumers who don't carry a Web-enabled phone. They can still respond and receive a coupon through SMS, search or QR campaigns. An SMS campaign initiated on a piece of physical media such as billboard or magazine instantly allows the brand to reach 248 million consumers, he says. "It's not sexy, but that's how you create sales," he adds. "Universal codes like QR are open source, allowing the consumer to engage from the digital to the physical world."
Augme provides services and mobile technology Ad Life to consumer and healthcare brands. The company says it's working with HBO, Johnson & Johnson, Colgate Palmolive, Lionsgate, among others, allowing them to plan, create, test, deploy and track mobile marketing programs.
(Source: Online Media Daily, 02/02/11)
This year, mobile becomes a marketing discipline or practice in overall ad strategies, rather than an application in a campaign or on a handset or tablet, according to the white paper "Upward Mobility: Developing an Effective Mobile Shopper Marketing Strategy" that Augme released last week.
Sitting on the front line in campaign planning sessions with consumer product goods companies like Johnson & Johnson in 2010 reveals that many strategies were based on applications or QR codes for specific products, according to David Apple, CMO of Augme. That changes this year, he says, as more consumers use mobile devices to advance consumption, knowledge and capabilities about products and services with or without assistance from the brand.
CPG companies have begun making the transition to integrate technologies, such as NFC, into point-of-sale platforms in stores, Apple says. "Many things still must happen, and it will become easier for chips to be integrated into mobile devices, than retailers to rip out lasers and put in imagers," he says, referring to NFC technology. "The big catalyst in the U.S. becomes what companies and carriers get paid in the process."
The U.S. remains far behind other countries around the world when it comes to integrating mobile tools for data transfer and m-commerce. Marketers, however, will be forced to look at mobile devices as an agnostic tool -- a connection to a campaign rather than an application, as slightly more than half -- 51% -- of the U.S. population will have a smartphone by the end of 2011, estimates Augme, citing Nielsen statistics.
Market research firm IHS iSuppli estimates global smartphone unit shipments will rise from 288 million in 2010 to 651 million in 2014.
The white paper draws a conclusion between the reality of the marketplace and the device capabilities in the market, and highlights strategies to reach consumers. "The reality of the market is the U.S. remains a 35% smartphone marketplace, which leaves the remainder of the country in feature phones and messaging phones," Apple says. "The real question becomes, as a marketer, how do I effectively communicate with that population without segmenting anybody based on their technology or device capabilities."
Apple says it's done through the use of consumer-response type technologies and strategies, reaching out to the 65% of consumers who don't carry a Web-enabled phone. They can still respond and receive a coupon through SMS, search or QR campaigns. An SMS campaign initiated on a piece of physical media such as billboard or magazine instantly allows the brand to reach 248 million consumers, he says. "It's not sexy, but that's how you create sales," he adds. "Universal codes like QR are open source, allowing the consumer to engage from the digital to the physical world."
Augme provides services and mobile technology Ad Life to consumer and healthcare brands. The company says it's working with HBO, Johnson & Johnson, Colgate Palmolive, Lionsgate, among others, allowing them to plan, create, test, deploy and track mobile marketing programs.
(Source: Online Media Daily, 02/02/11)
Number of Smartphone Users Up 60 Percent Versus Year Ago
This week, comScore reported key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three-month average period ending December 2010. The report ranked the leading mobile original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and smartphone operating system (OS) platforms in the U.S. according to their share of current mobile subscribers ages 13 and older, and reviewed the most popular activities and content accessed via the subscriber's primary mobile phone. The December report found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 24.8 percent market share, while RIM led among smartphone platforms with 31.6 percent market share.
OEM Market Share
For the three-month average period ending in December, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 24.8 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, up 1.3 percentage points from the three-month period ending in September. LG ranked second with 20.9 percent share, followed by Motorola (16.7 percent), RIM (8.5 percent) and Nokia (7.0 percent).
Smartphone Platform Market Share
63.2 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in December 2010, up 60 percent versus year ago. RIM led the ranking with 31.6 percent market share of smartphones, while Google Android maintained the #2 position with 28.7 percent, up 7.3 percentage points versus September. Apple accounted for 25.0 percent of smartphone subscribers (up 0.7 percentage points), followed by Microsoft with 8.4 percent and Palm with 3.7 percent.
Mobile Content Usage
In December, 68.0 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device, up 1.0 percentage points versus the prior three month period, while browsers were used by 36.4 percent of subscribers (up 1.3 percentage points). Subscribers who used downloaded applications comprised 34.4 percent of the mobile audience, representing an increase of 1.3 percentage points. Accessing of social networking sites or blogs increased 1.5 percentage points, representing 24.7 percent of mobile subscribers. Playing games attracted 23.2 percent of the mobile audience, while listening to music attracted 15.7 percent.
(Source: RAB, from comScore release, 02/07/11)
OEM Market Share
For the three-month average period ending in December, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 24.8 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, up 1.3 percentage points from the three-month period ending in September. LG ranked second with 20.9 percent share, followed by Motorola (16.7 percent), RIM (8.5 percent) and Nokia (7.0 percent).
Smartphone Platform Market Share
63.2 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in December 2010, up 60 percent versus year ago. RIM led the ranking with 31.6 percent market share of smartphones, while Google Android maintained the #2 position with 28.7 percent, up 7.3 percentage points versus September. Apple accounted for 25.0 percent of smartphone subscribers (up 0.7 percentage points), followed by Microsoft with 8.4 percent and Palm with 3.7 percent.
Mobile Content Usage
In December, 68.0 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device, up 1.0 percentage points versus the prior three month period, while browsers were used by 36.4 percent of subscribers (up 1.3 percentage points). Subscribers who used downloaded applications comprised 34.4 percent of the mobile audience, representing an increase of 1.3 percentage points. Accessing of social networking sites or blogs increased 1.5 percentage points, representing 24.7 percent of mobile subscribers. Playing games attracted 23.2 percent of the mobile audience, while listening to music attracted 15.7 percent.
(Source: RAB, from comScore release, 02/07/11)
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Study: Women Show Strong Personal Renewal Bent
Women may not be able to control the larger economic scenario, but they can improve how they feel about themselves and their lives.
That's the basic thinking behind a pronounced personal renewal or "me-covery" post-recessionary trend among American women, according to a new national survey conducted by specialist marketing firm Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness and Time Inc.'s Health brand.
The new emphasis on taking control and responsibility for personal well-being and happiness and reevaluating old choices represents a major shift in women's attitudinal and behavioral patterns within a markedly short time frame.
In 2009, a similar national survey of adult (18+) American women by Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness focusing on the economy's influence on wellness issues found that their primary wellness goals were "holding it together" and "surviving the day."
The attitude/behavior shifts have important implications for numerous product/service categories and brands, including food and beverages, restaurants and personal care and beauty, according to the research sponsors.
For one: Women are "re-investing in their health and wellness," points out Health publisher Dave Watt.
While 92% of the 800 women surveyed (representative of U.S. adult females as a whole) still feel negatively affected by the economy and 10% feel more affected than in 2009, 64% say that they are committed to making a positive change and taking better care of themselves by eating right, staying physically fit, "looking good to feel good" and having fun.
Given female consumers' more positive overall attitude and focus on self-empowerment, physical and emotional health and making "real changes" in their lives, "marketers should reexamine the ways that they are talking to and engaging with women," stresses Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness chief strategy officer Johanna Skilling.
The indicators point to longevity for this lifestyle shift among American women, adds Ned Russell, managing director for the marketing firm.
The major take-aways for marketers:
* "Taking responsibility" has made health and wellness women's #1 priority. This includes taking steps to prevent health problems and making a commitment to manageable health/fitness goals.
* "Reevaluating choices" reflects renewed confidence and includes increased emphasis on value-driven purchases. Value is defined as offering benefits worth the money, meaning that price alone is not the dominant purchasing factor.
* "Welcoming the right kind of support" means that women are seeking sources of inspiration and motivation, as well as meaningful rewards that mesh with their new lifestyle priorities.
Specific survey findings confirm upswings in purchases of health-related and beauty products, as well as shifts in the retail formats in which women are purchasing these products:
* 54% of adult female respondents report buying more healthy food overall, and 47% say that they're buying organic foods more often, despite these foods' higher prices.
* 74% of those most affected by the economy report that they are buying less fast food than in 2009 (up from 41% indicating fast-food cutbacks in the 2009 survey).
* 48% report being committed to working out more on their own and gaining inspiration and motivation through online music downloads, workout videos and interactive gaming systems. More than one-third (37%) report working out at the gym more often.
* 86% report engaging in more online health research (up 47 points from 2009) and 79% say that they're now seeing their doctors regularly (up 21 points).
* 64% are buying prescription medication (up 16 points from 2009) and 48% are buying more vitamins (up 27 points). Also, 16% are buying more over-the-counter remedies and 14% are using alternative/homeopathic remedies.
* About half are buying more hair care (47%), skin care (45%) and oral care products (51%), and nearly half say that "value for money" and "product quality" are the key brand characteristics influencing their purchases in these categories.
* 52% say they are "committed to having more fun," 35% report that they are currently considering a vacation, and 24% report using products to enhance their sex lives (up 17 points since 2009).
* 70% now say that they buy skin care/beauty products primarily in drug stores, grocery stores and mass retailers -- up 25 points from 2009. Just 6% report they are buying more luxury/high-end cosmetics than in past years.
(Source: Marketing Daily, 02/02/11)
That's the basic thinking behind a pronounced personal renewal or "me-covery" post-recessionary trend among American women, according to a new national survey conducted by specialist marketing firm Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness and Time Inc.'s Health brand.
The new emphasis on taking control and responsibility for personal well-being and happiness and reevaluating old choices represents a major shift in women's attitudinal and behavioral patterns within a markedly short time frame.
In 2009, a similar national survey of adult (18+) American women by Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness focusing on the economy's influence on wellness issues found that their primary wellness goals were "holding it together" and "surviving the day."
The attitude/behavior shifts have important implications for numerous product/service categories and brands, including food and beverages, restaurants and personal care and beauty, according to the research sponsors.
For one: Women are "re-investing in their health and wellness," points out Health publisher Dave Watt.
While 92% of the 800 women surveyed (representative of U.S. adult females as a whole) still feel negatively affected by the economy and 10% feel more affected than in 2009, 64% say that they are committed to making a positive change and taking better care of themselves by eating right, staying physically fit, "looking good to feel good" and having fun.
Given female consumers' more positive overall attitude and focus on self-empowerment, physical and emotional health and making "real changes" in their lives, "marketers should reexamine the ways that they are talking to and engaging with women," stresses Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness chief strategy officer Johanna Skilling.
The indicators point to longevity for this lifestyle shift among American women, adds Ned Russell, managing director for the marketing firm.
The major take-aways for marketers:
* "Taking responsibility" has made health and wellness women's #1 priority. This includes taking steps to prevent health problems and making a commitment to manageable health/fitness goals.
* "Reevaluating choices" reflects renewed confidence and includes increased emphasis on value-driven purchases. Value is defined as offering benefits worth the money, meaning that price alone is not the dominant purchasing factor.
* "Welcoming the right kind of support" means that women are seeking sources of inspiration and motivation, as well as meaningful rewards that mesh with their new lifestyle priorities.
Specific survey findings confirm upswings in purchases of health-related and beauty products, as well as shifts in the retail formats in which women are purchasing these products:
* 54% of adult female respondents report buying more healthy food overall, and 47% say that they're buying organic foods more often, despite these foods' higher prices.
* 74% of those most affected by the economy report that they are buying less fast food than in 2009 (up from 41% indicating fast-food cutbacks in the 2009 survey).
* 48% report being committed to working out more on their own and gaining inspiration and motivation through online music downloads, workout videos and interactive gaming systems. More than one-third (37%) report working out at the gym more often.
* 86% report engaging in more online health research (up 47 points from 2009) and 79% say that they're now seeing their doctors regularly (up 21 points).
* 64% are buying prescription medication (up 16 points from 2009) and 48% are buying more vitamins (up 27 points). Also, 16% are buying more over-the-counter remedies and 14% are using alternative/homeopathic remedies.
* About half are buying more hair care (47%), skin care (45%) and oral care products (51%), and nearly half say that "value for money" and "product quality" are the key brand characteristics influencing their purchases in these categories.
* 52% say they are "committed to having more fun," 35% report that they are currently considering a vacation, and 24% report using products to enhance their sex lives (up 17 points since 2009).
* 70% now say that they buy skin care/beauty products primarily in drug stores, grocery stores and mass retailers -- up 25 points from 2009. Just 6% report they are buying more luxury/high-end cosmetics than in past years.
(Source: Marketing Daily, 02/02/11)
Retailers Offer Financial Services to 'Unbanked'
Millions of low-income Americans who don't have bank accounts are finding an alternative to check-cashing stores at an unusual place: their local big-box retailer.
Kmart has begun testing check cashing, money transfers and prepaid cards in stores in Illinois, California and Puerto Rico, with plans to roll out the services nationally later this year. Best Buy has installed kiosks in its stores for shoppers to pay utility, cable and phone bills. Wal-Mart has opened roughly 1,500 MoneyCenters that process as many as 5 million transactions each week.
The retailers are mainstreaming a $320 billion industry of alternative financial services that has long operated in the shadow of the formal banking system and under the radar of federal regulators. The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was established in part to plug the gaps in oversight, but it remains unclear how much authority it will have over stores. One thing, however, does seem certain: Demand for alternative services is only expected to grow as strict new rules force banks to charge higher fees for checking accounts, placing them out of reach of many financially strapped households.
"We're in a place where large banks are becoming more conservative," said Kimberly Gartner, vice president of market services for the Center for Financial Services Innovation, a think tank. Meanwhile, "consumers are a little disgruntled with banks, so there's a real opportunity here to attract more customers."
According to a recent government survey, nearly 30 million households either do not have a bank account or use one sparingly. Nearly 70 percent of families considered "unbanked" earn less than $30,000 a year and many say they will never do business at a bank.
These households have traditionally relied on a patchwork of services to manage their money, and retailers have begun to realize that those same consumers are shopping in their stores. Wal-Mart, for example, has said that one in five of its customers does not have a checking account.
Many consumers think that they don't make enough money to warrant a bank account, the government survey found. But others simply don't trust banks or come from cash-based cultures. That is part of the impetus for the bill-payment service Best Buy launched last year in a handful of markets. The kiosks, operated by Tio Networks, cater to Hispanic shoppers who are often wary of banks. But many are willing to sign up for complicated cellphone plans at Best Buy, and executives say it was a short step to paying the bills in the store as well.
Kmart began wading into the market when it reintroduced layaway in its stores at the start of the recession. Many shoppers had lost their jobs and were wary of building up credit card debt, making layaway an attractive alternative.
The program was so successful that Kmart began offering it year-round. And Susan Ehrlich, president of financial services for Kmart and parent company Sears, said executives learned another important lesson: Shoppers turned to the store to help them manage their money.
"That sort of drew us up the value chain," Ehrlich said.
Customers were reliant on cash, so check cashing was the next logical extension. That cash could then be loaded on to a prepaid card, used to pay bills or send money to family in another country. The combination of services closely matches those provided by a checking account -- without the hassle of going through a bank.
But consumer groups have criticized the services traditionally available to the unbanked as being riddled with high fees and for not offering clear disclosures. The average fee for cashing a check ranges from 2 to 4 percent of the value, according to consumer groups.
Yet as larger companies enter the field, they are bringing economies of scale to a market that has been dominated by mom-and-pop players. Wal-Mart, for example, lowered its fee to cash a check to $3, and slashed the cost of its prepaid card from nearly $9 to $3.
"Wal-Mart is certainly the (800)-pound gorilla in any market that they choose to serve," said Jamie Fulmer, vice president of public affairs for Advance America, one of the few publicly held companies that offers payday loans and check cashing. "I don't think we'll ever be a competitor to Wal-Mart in terms of sheer volume, (but) we believe there's a big enough market that we can have some share."
Wal-Mart, however, is doing more than just selling to customers. Not only does it account for 64 percent of business for its prepaid-card issuer, Green Dot, it acquired a stake in the company last summer. The blurring of the line between banks and companies that just act like banks has been a challenge for federal regulators.
Under the new consumer protection bureau, financial products and services offered by retailers will have to meet the agency's rules. But the question remains whether it will have the authority to examine the companies' books and business practices, according to consumer groups. The law that established the agency exempts retailers from such oversight, unless they are large players in the market -- a phrase that has yet to be clearly defined.
Meanwhile, retailers are getting a seat at the table: Kmart's Ehrlich was named to the Federal Reserve's Consumer Advisory Council, the precursor to the new agency.
"My belief and expectation is that retail is going to continue to play an increasing and evolving role in the provision of financial services, particularly in underserved communities," she said. "Our having a voice in making sure that there is an awareness of that, and that we set the regulatory framework to accommodate that, is going to be important."
(Source: The Washington Post, 01/31/11)
Kmart has begun testing check cashing, money transfers and prepaid cards in stores in Illinois, California and Puerto Rico, with plans to roll out the services nationally later this year. Best Buy has installed kiosks in its stores for shoppers to pay utility, cable and phone bills. Wal-Mart has opened roughly 1,500 MoneyCenters that process as many as 5 million transactions each week.
The retailers are mainstreaming a $320 billion industry of alternative financial services that has long operated in the shadow of the formal banking system and under the radar of federal regulators. The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was established in part to plug the gaps in oversight, but it remains unclear how much authority it will have over stores. One thing, however, does seem certain: Demand for alternative services is only expected to grow as strict new rules force banks to charge higher fees for checking accounts, placing them out of reach of many financially strapped households.
"We're in a place where large banks are becoming more conservative," said Kimberly Gartner, vice president of market services for the Center for Financial Services Innovation, a think tank. Meanwhile, "consumers are a little disgruntled with banks, so there's a real opportunity here to attract more customers."
According to a recent government survey, nearly 30 million households either do not have a bank account or use one sparingly. Nearly 70 percent of families considered "unbanked" earn less than $30,000 a year and many say they will never do business at a bank.
These households have traditionally relied on a patchwork of services to manage their money, and retailers have begun to realize that those same consumers are shopping in their stores. Wal-Mart, for example, has said that one in five of its customers does not have a checking account.
Many consumers think that they don't make enough money to warrant a bank account, the government survey found. But others simply don't trust banks or come from cash-based cultures. That is part of the impetus for the bill-payment service Best Buy launched last year in a handful of markets. The kiosks, operated by Tio Networks, cater to Hispanic shoppers who are often wary of banks. But many are willing to sign up for complicated cellphone plans at Best Buy, and executives say it was a short step to paying the bills in the store as well.
Kmart began wading into the market when it reintroduced layaway in its stores at the start of the recession. Many shoppers had lost their jobs and were wary of building up credit card debt, making layaway an attractive alternative.
The program was so successful that Kmart began offering it year-round. And Susan Ehrlich, president of financial services for Kmart and parent company Sears, said executives learned another important lesson: Shoppers turned to the store to help them manage their money.
"That sort of drew us up the value chain," Ehrlich said.
Customers were reliant on cash, so check cashing was the next logical extension. That cash could then be loaded on to a prepaid card, used to pay bills or send money to family in another country. The combination of services closely matches those provided by a checking account -- without the hassle of going through a bank.
But consumer groups have criticized the services traditionally available to the unbanked as being riddled with high fees and for not offering clear disclosures. The average fee for cashing a check ranges from 2 to 4 percent of the value, according to consumer groups.
Yet as larger companies enter the field, they are bringing economies of scale to a market that has been dominated by mom-and-pop players. Wal-Mart, for example, lowered its fee to cash a check to $3, and slashed the cost of its prepaid card from nearly $9 to $3.
"Wal-Mart is certainly the (800)-pound gorilla in any market that they choose to serve," said Jamie Fulmer, vice president of public affairs for Advance America, one of the few publicly held companies that offers payday loans and check cashing. "I don't think we'll ever be a competitor to Wal-Mart in terms of sheer volume, (but) we believe there's a big enough market that we can have some share."
Wal-Mart, however, is doing more than just selling to customers. Not only does it account for 64 percent of business for its prepaid-card issuer, Green Dot, it acquired a stake in the company last summer. The blurring of the line between banks and companies that just act like banks has been a challenge for federal regulators.
Under the new consumer protection bureau, financial products and services offered by retailers will have to meet the agency's rules. But the question remains whether it will have the authority to examine the companies' books and business practices, according to consumer groups. The law that established the agency exempts retailers from such oversight, unless they are large players in the market -- a phrase that has yet to be clearly defined.
Meanwhile, retailers are getting a seat at the table: Kmart's Ehrlich was named to the Federal Reserve's Consumer Advisory Council, the precursor to the new agency.
"My belief and expectation is that retail is going to continue to play an increasing and evolving role in the provision of financial services, particularly in underserved communities," she said. "Our having a voice in making sure that there is an awareness of that, and that we set the regulatory framework to accommodate that, is going to be important."
(Source: The Washington Post, 01/31/11)
Auto Sales Sizzle, Forecasts Rise
Busy Showrooms, 17 Percent Rise in January Transactions Spark Optimism
So many retail customers are pouring into dealer showrooms that several carmakers and analysts have boosted their 2011 sales forecasts.
TrueCar.com says January's retail SAAR was 10.2 million, up from 8.3 million a year earlier. And that retail burst lifted January's overall selling rate to its highest level since cash for clunkers 18 months ago: a seasonally adjusted 12.6 million units.
"Consumers are driving much of the gain," said Don Johnson, General Motors' U.S. sales boss.
Light-vehicle sales in January jumped 17 percent from a year earlier to 819,938 units.
Among the top seven automakers, according to industry sources, combined fleet sales declined by 12 percent and retail sales rose 28 percent.
"Retail sales were much stronger than fleet," said J.P. Morgan analyst Himanshu Patel in a note to investors. "Fleet sales were down, primarily driven by weaker daily-rental sales."
Light trucks outsold cars for the fourth straight month. And General Motors Co. and Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. fired the first shots in what some analysts fear could become a new incentives war.
January's overall SAAR of 12.6 million was fractionally higher than December's and above the Bloomberg consensus forecast of 12.4 million. Last year U.S. sales were 11.6 million, up 11 percent over 2009.
The retail gains encouraged automakers and analysts.
"The recovery is being fueled by real, natural demand and by consumers who aren't just buying what they need but also starting to buy because they want to," said TrueCar analyst Jesse Toprak. "The most promising thing is the retail growth."
GM's Johnson credited retail for the automaker's 22 percent January sales increase.
GM and Ford last month each added half a million units to the upper range of their 2011 sales forecasts -- both to 13.3 million units. IHS Automotive boosted its forecast to 13.1 million from 12.8 million.
On Jan. 27, J.D. Power and Associates raised its forecast to 12.9 million from 12.8 million. So far, TrueCar's Toprak has not changed his 12.7 million forecast. But he's reviewing it and said: "There is more upside than downside this year."
Several automakers are sticking with 2011 projections made at the start of the year but say they are leaning toward the upper end of their ranges after January's results.
Except for Mazda's 9 percent decline, all automakers boosted sales in January. Hyundai-Kia Automotive, Chrysler Group and GM outperformed the market. Hyundai-Kia gained 24 percent, Chrysler rose 23 percent, and GM rode an incentive surge to its 22 percent sales increase.
Three groups increased volume but lost market share. Nissan North America's sales rose 15 percent, American Honda Motor Co. was up 13 percent, and Ford Motor Co. rose 9 percent.
Ford-brand sales were up 22 percent, but Ford said its lower overall figure reflected a planned 27 percent decline in sales to daily rental companies, as well as last year's elimination of Mercury and sale of Volvo.
George Pipas, Ford's chief sales analyst, said he expects retail sales to provide more growth than fleet this year, especially in the first half.
At Ford, fleet declined to 30 percent of total January sales, from 37 percent a year earlier. The daily rental mix was down to 12 percent of the total, from 18 percent last January. Pipas expects sales to commercial fleets to increase this year for Ford.
Toyota Motor Sales' 17 percent gain matched the industry's growth. But for Toyota, which has emphasized its retail strength for a year, January's growth was driven by fleet sales. A 7,000-unit Corolla fleet delivery made the small sedan the best-selling car in the country in January, Toyota said, and increased the fleet mix for the Toyota brand.
"Our January fleet was 12.6 percent of the mix, compared to 8.5 percent for (all of) 2010," said Toyota brand General Manager Bob Carter. But he insisted Toyota intends to limit fleet to 2010 levels over the year ahead.
Sales of full-sized pickups sizzled in January -- up 29 percent to 94,320. Every model posted gains of at least 22 percent except the Nissan Titan, which was down 4 percent to 1,431.
Sales of pickups, vans, SUVs and crossovers rose 29 percent to 413,276, and cars gained 7 percent to 406,662. A year ago, cars led light trucks by almost 60,000 units.
Subaru of America, the only brand to increase U.S. volume three straight years starting in 2008, started the New Year with a 21 percent sales gain.
(Source: Automotive News, 02/07/11)
So many retail customers are pouring into dealer showrooms that several carmakers and analysts have boosted their 2011 sales forecasts.
TrueCar.com says January's retail SAAR was 10.2 million, up from 8.3 million a year earlier. And that retail burst lifted January's overall selling rate to its highest level since cash for clunkers 18 months ago: a seasonally adjusted 12.6 million units.
"Consumers are driving much of the gain," said Don Johnson, General Motors' U.S. sales boss.
Light-vehicle sales in January jumped 17 percent from a year earlier to 819,938 units.
Among the top seven automakers, according to industry sources, combined fleet sales declined by 12 percent and retail sales rose 28 percent.
"Retail sales were much stronger than fleet," said J.P. Morgan analyst Himanshu Patel in a note to investors. "Fleet sales were down, primarily driven by weaker daily-rental sales."
Light trucks outsold cars for the fourth straight month. And General Motors Co. and Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. fired the first shots in what some analysts fear could become a new incentives war.
January's overall SAAR of 12.6 million was fractionally higher than December's and above the Bloomberg consensus forecast of 12.4 million. Last year U.S. sales were 11.6 million, up 11 percent over 2009.
The retail gains encouraged automakers and analysts.
"The recovery is being fueled by real, natural demand and by consumers who aren't just buying what they need but also starting to buy because they want to," said TrueCar analyst Jesse Toprak. "The most promising thing is the retail growth."
GM's Johnson credited retail for the automaker's 22 percent January sales increase.
GM and Ford last month each added half a million units to the upper range of their 2011 sales forecasts -- both to 13.3 million units. IHS Automotive boosted its forecast to 13.1 million from 12.8 million.
On Jan. 27, J.D. Power and Associates raised its forecast to 12.9 million from 12.8 million. So far, TrueCar's Toprak has not changed his 12.7 million forecast. But he's reviewing it and said: "There is more upside than downside this year."
Several automakers are sticking with 2011 projections made at the start of the year but say they are leaning toward the upper end of their ranges after January's results.
Except for Mazda's 9 percent decline, all automakers boosted sales in January. Hyundai-Kia Automotive, Chrysler Group and GM outperformed the market. Hyundai-Kia gained 24 percent, Chrysler rose 23 percent, and GM rode an incentive surge to its 22 percent sales increase.
Three groups increased volume but lost market share. Nissan North America's sales rose 15 percent, American Honda Motor Co. was up 13 percent, and Ford Motor Co. rose 9 percent.
Ford-brand sales were up 22 percent, but Ford said its lower overall figure reflected a planned 27 percent decline in sales to daily rental companies, as well as last year's elimination of Mercury and sale of Volvo.
George Pipas, Ford's chief sales analyst, said he expects retail sales to provide more growth than fleet this year, especially in the first half.
At Ford, fleet declined to 30 percent of total January sales, from 37 percent a year earlier. The daily rental mix was down to 12 percent of the total, from 18 percent last January. Pipas expects sales to commercial fleets to increase this year for Ford.
Toyota Motor Sales' 17 percent gain matched the industry's growth. But for Toyota, which has emphasized its retail strength for a year, January's growth was driven by fleet sales. A 7,000-unit Corolla fleet delivery made the small sedan the best-selling car in the country in January, Toyota said, and increased the fleet mix for the Toyota brand.
"Our January fleet was 12.6 percent of the mix, compared to 8.5 percent for (all of) 2010," said Toyota brand General Manager Bob Carter. But he insisted Toyota intends to limit fleet to 2010 levels over the year ahead.
Sales of full-sized pickups sizzled in January -- up 29 percent to 94,320. Every model posted gains of at least 22 percent except the Nissan Titan, which was down 4 percent to 1,431.
Sales of pickups, vans, SUVs and crossovers rose 29 percent to 413,276, and cars gained 7 percent to 406,662. A year ago, cars led light trucks by almost 60,000 units.
Subaru of America, the only brand to increase U.S. volume three straight years starting in 2008, started the New Year with a 21 percent sales gain.
(Source: Automotive News, 02/07/11)
Friday, February 4, 2011
Sports and Leisure: How Web Savvy Are Super Bowl Fans?
Super Bowl advertisers take note. A new study by The Media Audit reveals that 41.6% of U.S. adults who regularly follow the Super Bowl on TV or radio are also considered heavy Internet users, spending three or more hours in the typical day online. Furthermore, Super Bowl fans are more likely than the general population to surf popular websites and make online purchases.
According to the national study, 71% of those who regularly follow the Super Bowl have made one or more online purchase in the last year, compared to 64.6% for the general population. Furthermore, 47.5% have made five or more purchases within the past year and 26.7% have made at least twelve purchases in the past year.
The same study reveals that Super Bowl fans are more likely to visit the web pages of newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations. Among Super Bowl fans, 41.7% have made a visit in the past month to a TV network website, compared to 36.5% of the general population. As a result, Super Bowl fans are 16% more likely to visit a TV network's website. Super Bowl fans are also 16% more likely to have visited a radio station's website in the past month and 17% more likely to have visited the website of a major daily newspaper.
One in four Super Bowl fans regularly or occasionally visit an automobile website, compared to 21.9% for the general population. Among some of the more popular automotive specific websites visited are Autotrader.com and Craigslist.org. Six percent of Super Bowl fans have visited Autotrader.com in the past month, a figure that is 30% higher when compared to the general population, and 7.9% have visited Craigslist.org for automobiles, a figure that is 10% higher when compared to the general population.
(Source: The Media Audit, 01/31/11)
According to the national study, 71% of those who regularly follow the Super Bowl have made one or more online purchase in the last year, compared to 64.6% for the general population. Furthermore, 47.5% have made five or more purchases within the past year and 26.7% have made at least twelve purchases in the past year.
The same study reveals that Super Bowl fans are more likely to visit the web pages of newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations. Among Super Bowl fans, 41.7% have made a visit in the past month to a TV network website, compared to 36.5% of the general population. As a result, Super Bowl fans are 16% more likely to visit a TV network's website. Super Bowl fans are also 16% more likely to have visited a radio station's website in the past month and 17% more likely to have visited the website of a major daily newspaper.
One in four Super Bowl fans regularly or occasionally visit an automobile website, compared to 21.9% for the general population. Among some of the more popular automotive specific websites visited are Autotrader.com and Craigslist.org. Six percent of Super Bowl fans have visited Autotrader.com in the past month, a figure that is 30% higher when compared to the general population, and 7.9% have visited Craigslist.org for automobiles, a figure that is 10% higher when compared to the general population.
(Source: The Media Audit, 01/31/11)
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Motorcycle Brands Look for Keys to Youth
Both the products and the news are surprising in the motorcycle business this year, as companies like Honda and Harley try unusual methods for getting younger consumers, or first-time consumers, to swing a leg over a bike.
Take Honda. One of the products that Honda's Torrance, Calif.-based U.S. sales arm is riding into showrooms this year is a 250cc, one-cylinder bike that the company hopes has the chutzpah, looks, and technology to take on Kawasaki's Ninja 250 and maybe bigger motorcycles. By today's standards, where it is perfectly natural for a starter sport bike to have north of 700 cc's under the seat (and even some scooters have larger displacement than that), 250 seems small. A lot of people think a bike should have a lot of power.
But Honda spokesperson Jon Seidel says the new CBR 250R motorcycle, a sleek sport bike, is designed to do pretty much everything that bigger-displacement bikes do. "You can tour with it, ride roads, or highways. And because it's only 359 pounds, it's much less intimidating for first-time riders than larger motorcycles." If so, it's also lighter than the Ninja 250's official curb weight of 375 pounds.
Seidel says the company is also doing something unusual with the bike: He says this is the first motorcycle in this class to have ABS, or anti-lock braking. He said the price, a tad north of $4,000 with ABS, is designed to bring in relatively new riders who aren't ready to plunk down more than $6,000 for a bigger bike.
Harley-Davidson, which is also bringing in new, younger riders with its Dark Custom line, will launch the Blackline FXS Softail this year. The company says the Dark Custom motorcycles have given it the highest share of street-bike owners between 18 and 35 years of age of any brand and any size of bike. Younger riders are critical to the brand's health, as its traditional owner base for big cruisers is primarily in the Baby Boomer demographic.
Mike Lowney, head of market outreach for the Milwaukee, Wisc.-based company, says Harley -- which launched a retro-style motorcycle called 48 last year -- is getting a boost from a cultural shift among some younger riders away from sport bikes and toward an aesthetic epitomized by naked bikes like Harley-Davidson's own retro Forty-Eight, which features a peanut gas tank and tractor-seat type saddle. "There's a move toward the post-WWII-type chopper," he says. "It's minimalist, grassroots, rogue -- not at all contrived."
Lowney says the company has 1.9 million fans on its 18-month-old Facebook page. Half of them are under 35. The company also just launched a Dark Custom microsite. He says the leading Harley-Davidson motorcycles among younger riders include the Iron 883, the Forty-Eight, and the Street Bob.
The company this year will focus on building relevancy among younger riders with targeted campaigns similar to last year's message that financing lets you get onto a Harley-Davidson for $6 a day.
"Attainability is the focus," says Lowney, who adds that the company will also do more experiential marketing this year. That tactic started recently with a party that took place on New York's West Side timed with the International Motorcycle Show in the city's Jacob Javits Center. Harley also hosted a party for influencers at Don Hill's club in the Greenwich Village, where the Blackline was displayed. "They were all over it," he says. The company also has its V-Rod Muscle motorcycle as Kato's other ride in the new "Green Hornet" film.
Last year, the company sponsored the 20-city heavy-metal Mayhem Tour, and had products at SXSW and the giant four-day Bonnaroo festival in Manchester, Tenn. "It's really a 'flashpoint' strategy," he says. "We like to bring Harley-Davidson to one big event, one geographic area over multiple days."
(Source: Marketing Daily, 01/25/11)
Take Honda. One of the products that Honda's Torrance, Calif.-based U.S. sales arm is riding into showrooms this year is a 250cc, one-cylinder bike that the company hopes has the chutzpah, looks, and technology to take on Kawasaki's Ninja 250 and maybe bigger motorcycles. By today's standards, where it is perfectly natural for a starter sport bike to have north of 700 cc's under the seat (and even some scooters have larger displacement than that), 250 seems small. A lot of people think a bike should have a lot of power.
But Honda spokesperson Jon Seidel says the new CBR 250R motorcycle, a sleek sport bike, is designed to do pretty much everything that bigger-displacement bikes do. "You can tour with it, ride roads, or highways. And because it's only 359 pounds, it's much less intimidating for first-time riders than larger motorcycles." If so, it's also lighter than the Ninja 250's official curb weight of 375 pounds.
Seidel says the company is also doing something unusual with the bike: He says this is the first motorcycle in this class to have ABS, or anti-lock braking. He said the price, a tad north of $4,000 with ABS, is designed to bring in relatively new riders who aren't ready to plunk down more than $6,000 for a bigger bike.
Harley-Davidson, which is also bringing in new, younger riders with its Dark Custom line, will launch the Blackline FXS Softail this year. The company says the Dark Custom motorcycles have given it the highest share of street-bike owners between 18 and 35 years of age of any brand and any size of bike. Younger riders are critical to the brand's health, as its traditional owner base for big cruisers is primarily in the Baby Boomer demographic.
Mike Lowney, head of market outreach for the Milwaukee, Wisc.-based company, says Harley -- which launched a retro-style motorcycle called 48 last year -- is getting a boost from a cultural shift among some younger riders away from sport bikes and toward an aesthetic epitomized by naked bikes like Harley-Davidson's own retro Forty-Eight, which features a peanut gas tank and tractor-seat type saddle. "There's a move toward the post-WWII-type chopper," he says. "It's minimalist, grassroots, rogue -- not at all contrived."
Lowney says the company has 1.9 million fans on its 18-month-old Facebook page. Half of them are under 35. The company also just launched a Dark Custom microsite. He says the leading Harley-Davidson motorcycles among younger riders include the Iron 883, the Forty-Eight, and the Street Bob.
The company this year will focus on building relevancy among younger riders with targeted campaigns similar to last year's message that financing lets you get onto a Harley-Davidson for $6 a day.
"Attainability is the focus," says Lowney, who adds that the company will also do more experiential marketing this year. That tactic started recently with a party that took place on New York's West Side timed with the International Motorcycle Show in the city's Jacob Javits Center. Harley also hosted a party for influencers at Don Hill's club in the Greenwich Village, where the Blackline was displayed. "They were all over it," he says. The company also has its V-Rod Muscle motorcycle as Kato's other ride in the new "Green Hornet" film.
Last year, the company sponsored the 20-city heavy-metal Mayhem Tour, and had products at SXSW and the giant four-day Bonnaroo festival in Manchester, Tenn. "It's really a 'flashpoint' strategy," he says. "We like to bring Harley-Davidson to one big event, one geographic area over multiple days."
(Source: Marketing Daily, 01/25/11)
Monday, January 31, 2011
Mattress Wars Get Hot and Heavy
I read with great interest that the mattress folks have gone to the mattresses. Sealy and Simmons are at war over the fact that the former is introducing a new line with its coils encased in fabric. "Pocketed coils," or "Marshall units," as they are known among bedding wonks, have been the latter's shtick since forever, which is to say 1924, giving it the famous bowling-ball-on-the-bed positioning.
It may not be as bloody as a battle between warring Mafia families, or as ruthless as campus politics, but the snarky insults were flying back and forth in The New York Times.
#1 Sealy doesn't think giving its consumers another option is such a big deal, Stephanie Clifford reports. "To say it's not a major shift -- of course it is," Simmons CEO Gary Fazio fires back. "Do you not have faith in the brand promise you're making?"
"This, to me, feels like the competition is just aggressively going after this," Sealy CMO Jodi Allen tells Clifford. "Consumers could, really, to be honest, care less."
We've been shopping for a new mattress for, oh, about a decade. Maybe more. Not that there's anything particularly wrong with the full-sized Sears-o-Pedic Dream Velvet polyurethane model we purchased more than 25 years ago -- except that it has gotten smaller by dint of the two cats and one pit bull insisting on their territorial rights where human legs have every right to go.
There have been intense active periods and long passive stretches where we just gave up looking. Nothing has been more difficult in our lives to sort out. Not a house. Not colleges. Not financial services, automobiles, computers, cell phones, surgeons or bottled water. A little newspaper in the countryside where the deadlines are later than 7:30 a.m., perhaps, but that's another story.
It all started when I became enamored of Tempur-Pedic ads circa 1990. I got on their mailing list. They must have spent more than the cost of an original twin-sized bed, with a few memory-foam pillows thrown in, trying to get me to buy. The marketing material sounded so...right. I can't give you specifics but I remember walking around for years thinking that I was spending about a third of my life (eight hours a night) on a mattress and I deserved, by golly, to have those eight hours be as restful and restorative as possible, no matter what the cost.
(Make that should be spending, according to sleep researchers; unfortunately maintaining the lifestyle that such aspirational thinking supports means that I've actually been spending, like most Americans, about 25% [six hours] of my lifetime sleeping and a good portion of the rest of it earning enough to pay off previous my aspirations.)
Anyway, I never pulled the trigger on Tempur-Pedic's many glossy, 90-day free-trial offers. In the end, whatever I bought would have cost at least five times more than the Sears-o-Pedic Dream Velvet and the trusty captain's bed we'd gotten at an unpainted furniture store to support it. Plus, I didn't think I'd have the guts to return it if I didn't like it. And when I finally lay down on a memory-foam Tempur-Pedic in a Sleepy's, I felt I was mired in pond muck. But that's just me. From polls I've seen, the vast majority of memory-foam purchasers feel good about their mattress.
Let's go back to the cost factor for a moment because, truth be told, that's what's really been separating us from a purchase. I Googled "Why do mattresses cost so much?" and came up with some interesting insights. Superior technology costs more. There's more steel in the inner-spring mattress than there used to be and steel is expensive. Government regulations drove up the price (what, you think it doesn't cost money to produce models that don't go up in flames every time you drop a lighted cigarette on it?).
Then there's the fellow in Arizona who sells "eco-friendly" latex mattresses, purportedly at a price far better than the competition. He says the new latex models are "just bad for business due to their durability." Bottom line: the major manufacturers ratchet up the price because they're not getting the repeat business they used to get. His marketing philosophy is "maybe not, but if you like my deal, you'll tell your cousin Vinnie."
Good ol' Consumer Reports says that the margins are usually higher for mattresses than any other product in a furniture store, with gross profit margins of basic models as high as 30% to 40% each for wholesalers and retailers. And those deluxe versions carry margins as high as 50%. You can read more about "Eight Mattress Mysteries" (including the difference between a "warranty" and a "comfort guarantee" if you have a subscription).
But what Consumer Reports editors won't do is make a recommendation. Despite extensive testing on memory foam, air, latex and inner spring models, they beg off with the "it-all-comes-down-to-individual-preference" demurral.
I did find one fellow who has compiled a bunch of those individual preferences into a database that names names. When he made this very helpful YouTube video, he'd sorted through 8,300 responses. (I'm not sure, as a marketing wag, that I'd have advised him to use SleepLikeTheDead.com as a brand name, but that's what separates the commentators from the doers.)
Nick Robinson now has collected nearly 14,000 "consumer experiences" about a whole bunch of foam-memory, air, latex, coil-spring and water-bed brands, as well as ancillary products like mattress toppers, electric blankets and dog beds (yeah, right, who uses those?). The models are rated in a number of categories including price, durability, motion isolation (do you get seasick every time hubby rolls over?), allergies and "less pain."
On the grand scale, memory foam, air and latex all score around 80% in user satisfaction. Inner-spring mattresses -- the mainstays of Sealy's and Simmons -- come in at 61%. There was only one category in which users rated inner-spring mattresses better than air, latex or memory foam. Sex.
I'm not going to go anywhere with that. I'm just surprised that the mattress companies haven't. In fact, and surprisingly, no mattress advertising I've seen would get anywhere near a "C" rating from the Legion of Decency. Except, perhaps, anything for Bob's Discount Furniture's Bob-O-Pedic. There's nothing salacious about it. You just have to condemn it out of, well, aesthetic decency.
(Source: Thom Forbes, Marketing Daily, 01/27/11)
How You Can Make Money:
An advertising war between Sealy and Simmons means better results for the retailers who take advantage of their co-op programs. It's time to start talking to those retailers about the power of theatre-of-the mind and the benefits of your station before they allocate those funds to print, direct mail, or television.
It may not be as bloody as a battle between warring Mafia families, or as ruthless as campus politics, but the snarky insults were flying back and forth in The New York Times.
#1 Sealy doesn't think giving its consumers another option is such a big deal, Stephanie Clifford reports. "To say it's not a major shift -- of course it is," Simmons CEO Gary Fazio fires back. "Do you not have faith in the brand promise you're making?"
"This, to me, feels like the competition is just aggressively going after this," Sealy CMO Jodi Allen tells Clifford. "Consumers could, really, to be honest, care less."
We've been shopping for a new mattress for, oh, about a decade. Maybe more. Not that there's anything particularly wrong with the full-sized Sears-o-Pedic Dream Velvet polyurethane model we purchased more than 25 years ago -- except that it has gotten smaller by dint of the two cats and one pit bull insisting on their territorial rights where human legs have every right to go.
There have been intense active periods and long passive stretches where we just gave up looking. Nothing has been more difficult in our lives to sort out. Not a house. Not colleges. Not financial services, automobiles, computers, cell phones, surgeons or bottled water. A little newspaper in the countryside where the deadlines are later than 7:30 a.m., perhaps, but that's another story.
It all started when I became enamored of Tempur-Pedic ads circa 1990. I got on their mailing list. They must have spent more than the cost of an original twin-sized bed, with a few memory-foam pillows thrown in, trying to get me to buy. The marketing material sounded so...right. I can't give you specifics but I remember walking around for years thinking that I was spending about a third of my life (eight hours a night) on a mattress and I deserved, by golly, to have those eight hours be as restful and restorative as possible, no matter what the cost.
(Make that should be spending, according to sleep researchers; unfortunately maintaining the lifestyle that such aspirational thinking supports means that I've actually been spending, like most Americans, about 25% [six hours] of my lifetime sleeping and a good portion of the rest of it earning enough to pay off previous my aspirations.)
Anyway, I never pulled the trigger on Tempur-Pedic's many glossy, 90-day free-trial offers. In the end, whatever I bought would have cost at least five times more than the Sears-o-Pedic Dream Velvet and the trusty captain's bed we'd gotten at an unpainted furniture store to support it. Plus, I didn't think I'd have the guts to return it if I didn't like it. And when I finally lay down on a memory-foam Tempur-Pedic in a Sleepy's, I felt I was mired in pond muck. But that's just me. From polls I've seen, the vast majority of memory-foam purchasers feel good about their mattress.
Let's go back to the cost factor for a moment because, truth be told, that's what's really been separating us from a purchase. I Googled "Why do mattresses cost so much?" and came up with some interesting insights. Superior technology costs more. There's more steel in the inner-spring mattress than there used to be and steel is expensive. Government regulations drove up the price (what, you think it doesn't cost money to produce models that don't go up in flames every time you drop a lighted cigarette on it?).
Then there's the fellow in Arizona who sells "eco-friendly" latex mattresses, purportedly at a price far better than the competition. He says the new latex models are "just bad for business due to their durability." Bottom line: the major manufacturers ratchet up the price because they're not getting the repeat business they used to get. His marketing philosophy is "maybe not, but if you like my deal, you'll tell your cousin Vinnie."
Good ol' Consumer Reports says that the margins are usually higher for mattresses than any other product in a furniture store, with gross profit margins of basic models as high as 30% to 40% each for wholesalers and retailers. And those deluxe versions carry margins as high as 50%. You can read more about "Eight Mattress Mysteries" (including the difference between a "warranty" and a "comfort guarantee" if you have a subscription).
But what Consumer Reports editors won't do is make a recommendation. Despite extensive testing on memory foam, air, latex and inner spring models, they beg off with the "it-all-comes-down-to-individual-preference" demurral.
I did find one fellow who has compiled a bunch of those individual preferences into a database that names names. When he made this very helpful YouTube video, he'd sorted through 8,300 responses. (I'm not sure, as a marketing wag, that I'd have advised him to use SleepLikeTheDead.com as a brand name, but that's what separates the commentators from the doers.)
Nick Robinson now has collected nearly 14,000 "consumer experiences" about a whole bunch of foam-memory, air, latex, coil-spring and water-bed brands, as well as ancillary products like mattress toppers, electric blankets and dog beds (yeah, right, who uses those?). The models are rated in a number of categories including price, durability, motion isolation (do you get seasick every time hubby rolls over?), allergies and "less pain."
On the grand scale, memory foam, air and latex all score around 80% in user satisfaction. Inner-spring mattresses -- the mainstays of Sealy's and Simmons -- come in at 61%. There was only one category in which users rated inner-spring mattresses better than air, latex or memory foam. Sex.
I'm not going to go anywhere with that. I'm just surprised that the mattress companies haven't. In fact, and surprisingly, no mattress advertising I've seen would get anywhere near a "C" rating from the Legion of Decency. Except, perhaps, anything for Bob's Discount Furniture's Bob-O-Pedic. There's nothing salacious about it. You just have to condemn it out of, well, aesthetic decency.
(Source: Thom Forbes, Marketing Daily, 01/27/11)
How You Can Make Money:
An advertising war between Sealy and Simmons means better results for the retailers who take advantage of their co-op programs. It's time to start talking to those retailers about the power of theatre-of-the mind and the benefits of your station before they allocate those funds to print, direct mail, or television.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Why Harley Is Showing Its Feminine Side
Motorcycles September 30, 2010, 5:00PM EST text size: TT
Why Harley Is Showing Its Feminine Side
Harley-Davidson has felt the economic downturn keenly and is increasing its female-targeted marketing efforts this year
By Mark Clothier
BW Magazine
On a stormy Tuesday night in late September, Linda "Jo" Giovannoni was busy making preparations for a women-only "garage party" at the Palatine (Ill.) dealership of Harley-Davidson, a company best known for its big motorcycles that appeal primarily to aging white males. That evening Giovannoni, marketing director at the suburban Chicago dealership and a co-founder of Harley Women magazine, was out to change that perception among the dozen or so women who showed up to share snacks, overcome fears, and talk cycling. Giovannoni led the women on a tour of the showroom, crowded with $15,000 bikes, and gave them advice on essentials such as how to fit a helmet and the proper accessories to customize their rides. One partygoer, 55-year-old Jo-Ellen Douglas, had ridden with her husband for years. "I was just happy to be on the back," she said. "Now I've decided it's my turn."
Harley, still reeling from the weak economy, has increased female-targeted marketing this year to attract more would-be riders like Douglas. In July it introduced the $8,000 SuperLow, designed to appeal to women and first-time riders. The SuperLow has the lowest seat in Harley's 32-bike lineup, making it easier to ride, and it's 150 pounds lighter than a typical Harley.
A bike more suited to women is something Harley customers have long been asking for. Chief Executive Officer Keith Wandell saw that firsthand at a riders event in Orlando on his first day on the job in May 2009. "Ten questions were asked and nine of them were from women, and all of them were really asking the same thing: When are you going to design a bike that's more suitable for women riders?" Wandell recalls.
The company certainly needs additional sources of growth. New motorcycle registrations have fallen 41 percent since 2007 overall and 36 percent for Harley. The company's production has sunk to 2001 levels. And about a fifth of the bikes Harley ships today are Sportsters, the smaller, less expensive (and less profitable) models. To help address declining volume and product margins, Wandell spent his first 19 months in office reworking labor contracts at Harley's plants. The new agreements give new employees fewer benefits and let the company add and cut workers based on demand. Wandell also got rid of non-Harley bike brands such as MV Agusta and Buell to focus on its namesake icon, which traces its roots to 1901.
Women riders now represent about 12 percent of Harley sales compared with 2 percent in 1995. The brand also has a 53 percentage-point market-share lead among female riders and has the leading share for people aged 18 to 34, Hispanics, and African-Americans, other groups it's courting, the company says, citing researcher R.L. Polk's data.
Harley-Davidson has 47 percent of the U.S. market share for on-road motorcycles through July, a one percentage point increase from last year, according to Polk. Kawasaki Motors is second, with 14 percent.
To help attract women, Harley in 2008 hired Marisa Miller, who has modeled for Victoria's Secret and Sports Illustrated's swimsuit edition, as a spokesperson. In addition to appealing to men, Miller, whose riding skills can be seen on YouTube, helps Harley draw female riders, Wandell says. "It says, look, this is real stuff," he says. "A lot of women ride bikes, and here's a Victoria's Secret supermodel riding bikes and doing burnouts. It was strictly intended to send that message." The marketing effort, part of a doubling of spending since 2007, complements the introduction of the SuperLow, which, in addition to black and other traditional Harley colors, comes in Merlot Sunglo.
Harley and its dealers are also working to overcome some women's apprehension about safety. A few evenings a year, many of Harley's 650 U.S. dealers close their stores to men and hold women-only parties where staffers try to demystify a 700-pound motorcycle. The company held about 500 such events in March, attracting 27,000 women, 11,000 of whom were in a Harley dealership for the first time. The company says it sold 3,000 bikes from the events that month.
Turning age 50 brought Joanne DeGennaro, an office administrator for an orthopedic surgeons' group, to Giovannoni's garage party near Chicago last month for her first time on a bike. "I had been conservative and in a career where I've seen very bad injuries from these types of things," she said. "I have no idea what I'm doing. I mean the weight of it just intimidates me, you know?"
That night, however, she was able to sit on one of Harley's smaller bikes, a Sportster, with salesman Mike Parth showing her that it's easier to lift the 550-pound bike off its kickstand by turning the front wheel to the right. She said she now plans to sign up for Harley-Davidson's training class and get her license. "Considering the type of work I'm in, I'm apprehensive because I see the gooey stuff that we fix from these accidents," she said. "But I just decided, you know what, I've got to start living for myself."
The bottom line: With motorcycle sales in a slump, Harley-Davidson is boosting its efforts to attract more female riders.
Clothier is a reporter for Bloomberg News.
Why Harley Is Showing Its Feminine Side
Harley-Davidson has felt the economic downturn keenly and is increasing its female-targeted marketing efforts this year
By Mark Clothier
BW Magazine
On a stormy Tuesday night in late September, Linda "Jo" Giovannoni was busy making preparations for a women-only "garage party" at the Palatine (Ill.) dealership of Harley-Davidson, a company best known for its big motorcycles that appeal primarily to aging white males. That evening Giovannoni, marketing director at the suburban Chicago dealership and a co-founder of Harley Women magazine, was out to change that perception among the dozen or so women who showed up to share snacks, overcome fears, and talk cycling. Giovannoni led the women on a tour of the showroom, crowded with $15,000 bikes, and gave them advice on essentials such as how to fit a helmet and the proper accessories to customize their rides. One partygoer, 55-year-old Jo-Ellen Douglas, had ridden with her husband for years. "I was just happy to be on the back," she said. "Now I've decided it's my turn."
Harley, still reeling from the weak economy, has increased female-targeted marketing this year to attract more would-be riders like Douglas. In July it introduced the $8,000 SuperLow, designed to appeal to women and first-time riders. The SuperLow has the lowest seat in Harley's 32-bike lineup, making it easier to ride, and it's 150 pounds lighter than a typical Harley.
A bike more suited to women is something Harley customers have long been asking for. Chief Executive Officer Keith Wandell saw that firsthand at a riders event in Orlando on his first day on the job in May 2009. "Ten questions were asked and nine of them were from women, and all of them were really asking the same thing: When are you going to design a bike that's more suitable for women riders?" Wandell recalls.
The company certainly needs additional sources of growth. New motorcycle registrations have fallen 41 percent since 2007 overall and 36 percent for Harley. The company's production has sunk to 2001 levels. And about a fifth of the bikes Harley ships today are Sportsters, the smaller, less expensive (and less profitable) models. To help address declining volume and product margins, Wandell spent his first 19 months in office reworking labor contracts at Harley's plants. The new agreements give new employees fewer benefits and let the company add and cut workers based on demand. Wandell also got rid of non-Harley bike brands such as MV Agusta and Buell to focus on its namesake icon, which traces its roots to 1901.
Women riders now represent about 12 percent of Harley sales compared with 2 percent in 1995. The brand also has a 53 percentage-point market-share lead among female riders and has the leading share for people aged 18 to 34, Hispanics, and African-Americans, other groups it's courting, the company says, citing researcher R.L. Polk's data.
Harley-Davidson has 47 percent of the U.S. market share for on-road motorcycles through July, a one percentage point increase from last year, according to Polk. Kawasaki Motors is second, with 14 percent.
To help attract women, Harley in 2008 hired Marisa Miller, who has modeled for Victoria's Secret and Sports Illustrated's swimsuit edition, as a spokesperson. In addition to appealing to men, Miller, whose riding skills can be seen on YouTube, helps Harley draw female riders, Wandell says. "It says, look, this is real stuff," he says. "A lot of women ride bikes, and here's a Victoria's Secret supermodel riding bikes and doing burnouts. It was strictly intended to send that message." The marketing effort, part of a doubling of spending since 2007, complements the introduction of the SuperLow, which, in addition to black and other traditional Harley colors, comes in Merlot Sunglo.
Harley and its dealers are also working to overcome some women's apprehension about safety. A few evenings a year, many of Harley's 650 U.S. dealers close their stores to men and hold women-only parties where staffers try to demystify a 700-pound motorcycle. The company held about 500 such events in March, attracting 27,000 women, 11,000 of whom were in a Harley dealership for the first time. The company says it sold 3,000 bikes from the events that month.
Turning age 50 brought Joanne DeGennaro, an office administrator for an orthopedic surgeons' group, to Giovannoni's garage party near Chicago last month for her first time on a bike. "I had been conservative and in a career where I've seen very bad injuries from these types of things," she said. "I have no idea what I'm doing. I mean the weight of it just intimidates me, you know?"
That night, however, she was able to sit on one of Harley's smaller bikes, a Sportster, with salesman Mike Parth showing her that it's easier to lift the 550-pound bike off its kickstand by turning the front wheel to the right. She said she now plans to sign up for Harley-Davidson's training class and get her license. "Considering the type of work I'm in, I'm apprehensive because I see the gooey stuff that we fix from these accidents," she said. "But I just decided, you know what, I've got to start living for myself."
The bottom line: With motorcycle sales in a slump, Harley-Davidson is boosting its efforts to attract more female riders.
Clothier is a reporter for Bloomberg News.
Agency Survey Shows 'Rebirth' of Buyers' Interest in Radio
A survey of advertising agency buying teams finds fewer are cutting radio budgets, and client interest in the medium is growing. STRATA executives say the top three media -- television, Internet and radio -- also appear to be the breakout hits of the advertising recovery.
"It's looking very bright for radio," STRATA marketing chief J.D. Miller told Inside Radio. The firm's quarterly survey of buyers found 24% of agencies' clients are more focused on radio, up from 17% in the prior quarter. The number of agencies reporting they are spending less on radio is off by half -- 17% say they're trimming radio budgets compared to 34% who said that three months ago.
When it came to classifying the advertising avenue that agency clients are most focused on, the STRATA survey found TV remains at the top with 44%, followed by digital at 21%. But even the survey takers were surprised with #3: radio. The results show 16% of clients rate radio as their top pick, compared to 9% who said that in the prior quarter's survey. Miller says, "Something good is happening for radio."
Beyond the top three, there's a "considerable drop off" of interest in other media. Print ranks fourth, with 7% of clients making it their top pick. Miller says that could be considered good news for newspaper publishers. "Print has a pulse -- it was almost nonexistent, now it has a pulse," he says.
Agencies Grow More Confident in Recovery -- and Old Media Friends
By their nature, media buyers are a tough crowd not known for gushing optimism. So when a survey shows a steady uptick in client activity, it's worth taking note.
More than half (51%) of buyers surveyed by STRATA say their agency is seeing improving business, up from a low of 23% during the 2008 economic meltdown. STRATA president/CEO John Shelton says, "Advertisers are finally feeling more confident about the economy."
That confidence is manifesting itself in a surprising way. As budgets come back, buyers appear to be more interested in traditional advertising like television and radio -- with demand for digital advertising going in the other direction.
"We see that the focus on digital has fallen off a bit," Shelton says. "While still hot, it is used more in a solid media mix than more dollars heading its way."
The most popular digital menu items are website display ads, social media and search. Mobile may have buzz, but just 29% of buyers say they're buying mobile ads. Among those who are, mobile display is the preferred format with SMS text ads fading fast. Just 15% of agency buyers say they're on their radar in 2011.
(Source: Inside Radio, 01/21/11)
"It's looking very bright for radio," STRATA marketing chief J.D. Miller told Inside Radio. The firm's quarterly survey of buyers found 24% of agencies' clients are more focused on radio, up from 17% in the prior quarter. The number of agencies reporting they are spending less on radio is off by half -- 17% say they're trimming radio budgets compared to 34% who said that three months ago.
When it came to classifying the advertising avenue that agency clients are most focused on, the STRATA survey found TV remains at the top with 44%, followed by digital at 21%. But even the survey takers were surprised with #3: radio. The results show 16% of clients rate radio as their top pick, compared to 9% who said that in the prior quarter's survey. Miller says, "Something good is happening for radio."
Beyond the top three, there's a "considerable drop off" of interest in other media. Print ranks fourth, with 7% of clients making it their top pick. Miller says that could be considered good news for newspaper publishers. "Print has a pulse -- it was almost nonexistent, now it has a pulse," he says.
Agencies Grow More Confident in Recovery -- and Old Media Friends
By their nature, media buyers are a tough crowd not known for gushing optimism. So when a survey shows a steady uptick in client activity, it's worth taking note.
More than half (51%) of buyers surveyed by STRATA say their agency is seeing improving business, up from a low of 23% during the 2008 economic meltdown. STRATA president/CEO John Shelton says, "Advertisers are finally feeling more confident about the economy."
That confidence is manifesting itself in a surprising way. As budgets come back, buyers appear to be more interested in traditional advertising like television and radio -- with demand for digital advertising going in the other direction.
"We see that the focus on digital has fallen off a bit," Shelton says. "While still hot, it is used more in a solid media mix than more dollars heading its way."
The most popular digital menu items are website display ads, social media and search. Mobile may have buzz, but just 29% of buyers say they're buying mobile ads. Among those who are, mobile display is the preferred format with SMS text ads fading fast. Just 15% of agency buyers say they're on their radar in 2011.
(Source: Inside Radio, 01/21/11)
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