Corporate Eye

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Archives for 2009

Kellogg’s Sustainability Might Produce Results

Everyone, but everyone, remembers Victor Kiam.  “I liked the shaver so much, I bought the company”.  You don’t get that kind of personal endorsement from many CEOs.

Another business owner who literally branded his product himself was WK Kellogg.  As early as 1903, he personally signed every box of Corn Flakes produced as a guarantee of quality.

He also pioneered a number of areas to promote healthy lifestyles, including endorsing minimal sugar and meat consumption and plenty of exercise.

From such an auspicious start it was disappointing to read that Ethical Corporation has criticised the company’s first, Corporate Responsibility report as “missing snap crackle and pop”.

So I thought I’d take a look at the company’s website offering to see if this mirrored the criticisms of the sustainability report. [Read more…] about Kellogg’s Sustainability Might Produce Results

Moms Represent 20% of Online Users – Is Your Brand Reaching Them?

mom-computerThere is no denying the statistics that repeatedly tell us mothers are one of the most powerful and influential consumer groups.  A new study from Nielsen has found that nearly 20% of the active online population is women between the ages of 25-54 with at least one child. 

What does this tell us? 

First, that the Internet is a great place to reach this highly coveted audience of consumers and influencers, and second, that your brand needs to be connecting with that audience where they already spend time – online.

Next, the Nielsen study identified differences in online behaviors between segments of the audience as follows: [Read more…] about Moms Represent 20% of Online Users – Is Your Brand Reaching Them?

Using Media Relations to Deal With a Sagging Economy

What is the best way that a corporate entity can combat sagging sales and manufacturing to deal with an economy in downturn? Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. Nor does pretending that there isn’t a solution will work either. Just as bad is coming up with unrealistic, unmarketable expectations for a corporation in the times of economic uncertainty and uneasiness.

In times of hard financial numbers, a corporation just like any other business has to be creative in their marketing and advertising efforts in order to stay above their competition. They must look at non-traditional models and applications, seeking ways to bring attention to their mission. And, not to try to overuse an already over-used phrase, but yes, they must think “outside the box.”

Just recently, McDonald’s introduced their new “McCafe”, a new social community designed for coffee drinkers/lovers who also love the networking scene. In a time when places like Starbuck’s, Joe Mugg’s and even the local coffee houses are dominating, McDonald’s knew that they had to be creative and forward-thinkers in their marketing strategy. The McCafe concept is following closely along the base model of Twitter and Facebook and reaching out to the social community as a voice with something to say. And, they’re using all available resources to get it.

McCafé launched a Twitter account at McCaféYourDay. As of press time, McCaféYourDay had 134 followers.

Although it’s not new, it’s definitely creative and companies would do well to embrace what is available and make full use of their resources.

The economy doesn’t have to be detrimental to a corporation. It doesn’t have to end in disaster, and no rule book says that they have to go away because business is declining! New strategic methods, creativity and resources are the essentials in building and sustaining your business in this questionable economy. What strategies can YOU use for your platform.

How can a corporation tell when it’s time to start the creative flow going? It’s time to start the creativity immediately and preferably at the business’ inception. Corporations typically do not advertise like other public companies, therefore, they must subtly market through their resources. Finding creative ways is a must.

Being creative can involve a lot of different ways to get attention. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the impact that a marketing campaign by Kraft had on the media. Apparently, the post was so viral, people were trying to enter the contest here at our blog at Corporate-Eye! In the space of an afternoon, Lucy (the editor) and I saw a host of entries with people trying to enter the contest through our site, all from a post that went viral, full of information. .

You must be both enticing and creative when you are trying to wow customers. As a corporation, you may not have the edge that you’d like in your marketing tools, but again, using what you already have is the key.

How can your company maximize its growth rate? What creative flow can you think of that will help your corporate entity thrive right now?

Swine flu and the corporate response

3d-model-flu-virus

Now that the initial flurry of panic about swine flu has stabilised, and everyone’s had a chance to plan their response, how well do you think that companies are handling this on their corporate website? We’re a long way from a crisis, but my ‘handy’ booklet from the government about swine flu arrived this morning, so clearly someone in authority thinks a crisis is coming…

There have been calls for companies to communicate with their employees about how to deal with swine flu should it affect them, and for companies to have contingency plans in place for a wider outbreak of flu. It is probably not appropriate to document these plans on the corporate website, although it wouldn’t hurt for a reassuring voice to be heard… especially since absentee rates have gone up.

Those companies directly affected (in a good way) by the approaching pandemic have done a good job of communicating with at least some of their website visitors.

roche flu centre

Roche, perhaps the company most associated with combating flu pandemics, have a dedicated flu centre, where they’ve pulled together images, video, factsheets and press-releases about the flu, their products, and the actions they’ve been asked to take.

This is clearly linked from the home page, where they have a large banner header about influenza – and the term ‘influenza’ also appears in the tag cloud below.

In addition, one of their recent Investor Updates refers to their donation to WHO back in 2006 of 5 million treatment courses of Tamiflu, and confirms that they’ve been in discussion with WHO about the recent outbreak.

gsk flu centre

GSK have also collated some information about flu, which they’ve made available via a couple of links from their home page – one to a GSK Update and one to a collection of press releases. They also have a link to a pre-pandemic flu press kit from their press kits page in their media centre, which didn’t seem to be available on the day of our visit.

These companies – despite presumably potentially having improved sales this year as a result of flu – don’t seem to be addressing investors directly on this topic. Roche’s page providing key figures for 2008 does mention Tamiflu sales, but only to exclude them from the count – and it isn’t easy to learn anything more detailed. For example, how much of their business is based on Tamiflu sales? Prospective investors may want to know how the company expects to be affected by the impending pandemic. Not specifics – obviously Roche can’t and wouldn’t want to predict the need for Tamiflu – but if they provided figures for last year, we could do our own predictions, perhaps using a scenario analysis system like Adidas’.

On the other hand, perhaps stock prices will be minimally affected by a pandemic, and so this wouldn’t be interesting to investors.

But wouldn’t the company view on this be interesting to a corporate visitor in itself? What do you think? (I think that there will be some economic impact, though perhaps less than you’d think given the media discussion over the last couple of weeks).

As for corporate responsibility, there is a very interesting article on the limits of corporate responsibility using Roche as an example on the Insead site – definitely worth a read.

Image of flu virus courtesy of Roche

McDonald’s Unleashes McCafe Marketing Blitzkrieg – Will It Work?

According to an article on AdAge.com, McDonald’s has launched its biggest marketing push in history for the new McCafe coffee products.  I just received a direct mail piece on Wednesday for McCafe, but I swiftly threw it in the trash.  Why?  Because my local McDonald’s can’t even get their standard products and service correct, so McCafe has no hope in my mind.  But I digress.  Back to branding …

With the onslaught of McCafe marketing, I thought it would be interesting to see how McCafe is doing in Google Trends, which tracks the most searched for terms online, in comparison to its top competitors.  I got the idea after reading a post on the Official Google Blog about the accuracy of Google Trends in determining past winners of American Idol in the United States (hint – if the Google Trends success continues, put your money on Adam Lambert).

Let’s take a look at the search trends of McCafe vs. Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts over the past year.

mccafe_google-trends-12_months

Now, let’s take a look at the search trends of McCafe vs. Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts over the past 30 days since the marketing push began.

mccafe_google-trends

If Google Trends is right again, I don’t think Starbucks has anything to be worried about from McCafe, but did anyone really think there was cause for concern in the Starbucks camp?

Honestly, I think McDonald’s biggest problem with McCafe is brand positioning.  Your thoughts?

The Power of a Good Name: Oprah and KFC

When a business or corporation finds itself in financial challenges, it must be creative in finding ways to dig themselves out of it. Whether that’s increasing prices, offering give-aways or reducing their workforce, they must find some sort of avenue to save money and stay in the black.

Being creative? Is that just a way to avoid good old-fashioned hard work? Can anything take the place of solid, applicable, good business principles when it comes to growing and sustaining a company?

One thing that many businesses do in an effort to increase sales is to lend a name to their product or service. As in the recent case with KFC (YUM Products Brand), the company decided to ask Oprah to lend her name to them as they launched a new product line of grilled chicken. Yes, that’s right, GRILLED chicken. The fried-foods powers are dabbling in the healthy eating approach. And, they may have Oprah to thank for it.

How effective will this be for the chain? It’s hard to say right now. They are experiencing growing pains and still working out some of the kinks. It’s simply overwhelming for sales when a celebrity, any effective celebrity, endorses the product and says, “I, too,  like it!”. Can your company benefit from such a boost?

When I first began my speaking and communications consulting business, I enlisted the help of a well-known public speaker in my niche audience. I had them to write articles for my newsletter and asked them to put their name on some of my marketing material. The result? People loved my work and wanted my services too. Only thing was, was that they wanted to get to the name-endorser MORE than they wanted my services. I was a victim of celebrity overload!

How can your business effectively use the name or services of a celebrity or well-known person in your market? Should corporations rely on the celebrity to boost sales, or do they risk getting swamped under all of the attention the celebrity brings and NOT in the product or service that they’re offering? What do you think?