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Brand

Undercover Boss Commercials Boost Brand Opinion

undercover-bossIf you want to get a positive brand boost, get your company on Undercover Boss — a television show on CBS in the United States that sends company presidents and other leaders undercover into their own companies to investigate it from the inside.

A new report from Nielsen reveals the top trends of 2010, including the 10 most effective product placements based on brand opinion.  7 out of the top 10 of the most effective product placements based on brand opinion were from Undercover Boss — specifically, 1-800-FLOWERS, Subway, Waste Management, Ride the Ducks, Hooters, DirecTV, and Roto-Rooter.

Rounding out the top 10 are:

  • Sears with a spot on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (show host shops for items for home makeover and Sears pays the bill)
  • Ancestry.com with a spot on Who Do You Think You Are? (participants use Ancestry.com to search for information about relatives)
  • Subway with a spot on Chuck (different characters eat Subway sandwiches and mention the brand)

In terms of advertising likability in 2010, two brands dominated the top 10 on Nielsen’s report: Snickers and M&M’s.  Each brand appeared in the top ten list three times.  Other brands in the top 10 ads based on likability in 2010 include: Target, Samsung, Chef Boyardee, and Starburst.  It’s important to note that the vast majority of commercials in the top 10 were humorous.

What do these top 10 lists tell us about consumers, brand perceptions, and marketing trends?  First, transparency is paramount in consumers minds as the popularity of Undercover Boss in terms of brand opinion demonstrates.  Second, humor always works when it comes to building a positive perception and being remembered.  Third, appropriate product placements and commercials that support a brand’s promise are far more effective than placements and commercials that run counter to a brand’s promise and risk confusing consumers — or worse, angering them.

What commercials and television brand placements from 2010 stick out in your mind as being likable?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: CBS.com

Which Brands Dominate Foursquare Check-ins?

According to Ad Age’s weekly Trendrr data, Christmas week was a busy one for foursquare check-ins — although check-ins did not reach previously set peaks.

Only two of the brands in the top ten for the holiday week saw a decline in check-ins from the prior week. Of the top ten retail brand check-ins on foursquare during that week, three were food and beverage chains and 7 were consumer products and electronics retailers. Interestingly, it was the food and beverage brands that saw a decline in foursquare check-ins while all consumer products and electronics retailers saw increases in check-ins (as much as a 25% increase for Macy’s).

You can see the breakdown of the top 10 retail brands for foursquare check-ins below:

  1. Starbucks = 139,226 check-ins during the week
  2. Target = 48,611 check-ins during the week
  3. McDonald’s = 48,264 check-ins during the week
  4. Walmart = 43,467 check-ins during the week
  5. Best Buy = 25,029 check-ins during the week
  6. Apple = 20,570 check-ins during the week
  7. Costco = 13,834 check-ins during the week
  8. Barnes & Noble = 11,038 check-ins during the week
  9. Macy’s = 10,418 check-ins during the week
  10. Burger King = 9,792 check-ins during the week

Earlier this year, Starbucks was the first retailer to partner with foursquare to offer a national program where local check-ins can earn users “mayor” status, which they can use across the United States.  And in October, Starbucks launched its new Digital Network in stores that offers content (including foursquare check-ins and more) aimed to enhance the in-store experience for customers.  With nearly three times as many check-ins during a single week as the next closest brand, Starbucks is doing something right with foursquare as far as its customers are concerned.

Location-based marketing offered through tools like foursquare are hot right now, but the recipes for success are still unknown.  As your brand looks to implement geo-targeting and mobile marketing initiatives, check out what the ten brands listed above are doing.  You’ll undoubtedly learn from them.

What are your company’s plans for location-based and mobile marketing in 2011?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts on these opportunities for the new year.


What Consumers Want vs. What Executives Think Consumers Want [Infographic]

mind the gapIn February of this year, Pivot released a research report that quantified the gap between what consumers actually want versus what executives think consumers want. Brian Solis referred to this as The Perception Gap. He explained this gap as follows:

“When Social Consumers were asked what they want from Social engagement, their desires were clear: deals, special content and rewards based on their engagement. Customer service ranks dead last in their responses. When Social Marketers were asked the same question, they indicated customer service as the benefit they felt Social Consumers wanted most. Customer needs were well back in the pack of professional presumptions.”

For marketers who work in the trenches each day, these findings are not surprising. How many meetings have you been in with executives who ignore consumer research results and social media feedback or “massaged the data” to make it fit their agendas? In fact, that’s probably one of the biggest challenges that marketers face, particularly in large companies.

Of course, it could be argued that consumers don’t know what they want. A company like Apple and the vision of Steve Jobs certainly demonstrates that rolling out innovative products, which consumers don’t yet know they want, can work very well. In fact, being innovative and first to market is one of the most powerful positions a brand can occupy in the marketplace. Again, this is not new information. At the same time, consumers don’t always respond to market research surveys and focus group sessions the way they really feel. The same is true of social media conversations. Instead of being honest, they say what they think the moderator wants to hear or what they want their social media followers to hear from them.

The best marketers can dive deeper into the research results and the social media conversations to get to the root of consumers’ emotional brand involvement, wants, and needs. That’s a talent that only a minority of marketers actually have, and it’s probably a talent that even fewer corporate executives have. Whether you call it intuition or educated decision-making based on experience, it’s a talent that’s not acknowledged enough.

Whichever type of marketer you are, the data from the Pivot study is something that you should share with your executives. Next time you’re debating what your target audience wants from your brand and the executives at the table are going in the wrong direction, show them the data. It’s always harder to argue with tangible numbers, and what better way to visualize the size of The Perception Gap than with an infographic?

Pivot and Barnickel Design released The Perception Gap Between Social Consumers and Social Marketers infographic shown below earlier this week, which offers many of the most interesting findings from the study. For example, 76% of marketing executives claim that they know what their customers want, but only 34% of them have actually asked their customers what they want from the brand. Furthermore, 83% of consumers want deals from brands, but only 53% of marketing executives think that deals are what their customer want. Social consumers want to engage businesses to share feedback and to receive customer service (59% and 58%, respectively), but only 37% of marketing executives think their customers want these things. Instead, 45% of marketing executives believe that rewards programs are important to their consumers. Not surprisingly, 70% of social consumers do not think that rewards programs are important.

Click on the infographic to view it at full size.

perception gap infographic

Image: Philip Jackson

Apple and Google – Friends or Foes?

iphone_droidThere was a time, not that long ago, when Apple and Google could nearly be called friends.  In a recent article on Ad Age, Danny Sullivan describes the partnerships the two companies shared, and it’s an interesting read.  However, it looks like things are changing.  Google launched the Droid, which competes with Apple’s iPhone.  Google launched it’s own Internet browser, Chrome.  Apple already had Safari.  Google is the preferred search engine for both Safari and the iPhone.  Or at least, Google was.

What’s next for the Apple and Google relationship?

Well, Google recently launched its own social network, Google Buzz (available through Gmail, Google’s email application), and rumor has it, Apple is hoping to launch its own social network, iGroups, through the iPhone.

What strikes me as particularly interesting when looking at these two brands is the disparate brand promises.  Google promises first and foremost, the best search tool, and secondarily, a Web application or tool for everything you can image.  True, Google isn’t there yet, but the company certainly seems to be moving in that direction.

On the other hand, Apple promises first and foremost, cool technology and gadgets, and secondarily … well, I can’t really think what Apple promises secondarily.  Regardless, these two companies offer very different brand promises, but with the desire to expand their brands, they’re encroaching on each other’s territory.

And looming in the background trying to expand and steal market share of its own is Microsoft whose successful launch of its Bing search engine has drawn some attention back to the company that seemed to be missing the boat for a long time.  Microsoft’s brand promise of delivering the software people need to do their jobs must seem too constraining these days.

In fact, the current environment between these companies seems to foster brand expansion, while most other industries are realizing the benefits of brand contraction and focus.  This is an interesting competition to watch.  Who will end up on top?  Will one company take the lead or will the varied players each remain with their own niches of strength?  One would expect the latter to hold true, but you never know with these three companies.  What you expect to happen might not happen at all.

One thing is for certain.  As Google, Apple, and Microsoft battle it out and redefine their brand promises in keeping with coming expansions, consumers are getting access to more useful and cool products faster than ever.

Image: Flickr

Design as a Catalyst for Brand-Building

A recent article about Procter & Gamble published by Advertising Age, tells the story of the company’s new focus on design as a catalyst for shaping marketing strategy and building consumer products brands.  The new design focus seamlessly integrates product, package and marketing for a stronger presence at the store-level rather than relying on a silo approach that was no longer working.

P&G invested time and money into research, design, and execution to revive many of its brands, and the results so far have been very positive.  The company’s new direction requires that every marketing idea can prove its potential for success at the shelf-level before it is pursued.

It’s a bold shift in thinking that feeds off of 2009 research by Nielsen Co., which reported that half of respondents (who came from six developed markets, including the United States) to the Nielsen survey claimed that they learned about new products in-store while just one-third reported television as the place where they learn about new products.  Furthermore, 71% of the consumers who reported that they learn about new products primarily in-store cited seeing a product on the store shelf and its package as the source of their awareness.  According to these results, in-store promotional displays have clearly been trumped by package design.

Many of P&G’s new design efforts haven’t launched at the store level yet, so results are forthcoming.  However, the company can cite a 2-point market share increase for one of its brands since implementing a redesign effort for it.

shampoo_store

Overall, P&G’s efforts sound positive, primarily because they’re attempting to listen to consumers throughout the redesign process to learn what consumers truly need and want from P&G products and brands.  We’ve all been to the supermarket and stood in front of shelves and shelves filled with shampoo trying to find the brand we prefer.  And once you find your brand, you need to carefully read each label to ensure you select the formula or scent that you like.  P&G is finally accepting that shelf clutter isn’t boosting sales and market share.  For example, the company is redesigning its Pantene hair care product line by cutting 25% of the items in the line and adding an easier to read color-coding design to its packages to help consumers find the specific item they want faster and with less frustration.

When was the last time your marketing team took a look at your package design and evaluated its real performance on the shelf?  Are you sure your design is working?  Consumers’ tastes, needs, and wants change faster than ever these days.  Brands need to not only keep up with those changes but also to seek out every possible way to gain even the slightest advantage over the competition.  Packaging and design just might be the catalyst for your own brand building efforts.

Image: Flickr

Brands Invest Big Bucks in Google Advertising

Even big brands invest in pay-per-click advertising on the leading search engine, Google.  According to statistics from Kantar Media, as reported by Ad Age, June 2010 spending on Google pay-per-click search advertising through the Google AdWords program  was dominated by online retailers and BP, a brand desperately trying to win back favor in consumers’ minds following the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico a month earlier.

All Google pay-per-click advertisers weren’t included in the report, but of those that invested heavily in June 2010 on search marketing, the following companies stood out:

  • AT&T Mobility = $8.08 million
  • Apollo Group = $6.67 million
  • Expedia = $5.95 million
  • Amazon = $5.85 million
  • eBay = $4.25
  • BP Corp = $3.59
  • Hotels.com = $3.30 million
  • JC Penney = $3.30 million
  • Living Social = $2.29 million
  • ADT Security = $2.19 million
  • YellowPages.com = $1.2 million

Brands spending less than $1 million on Google AdWords in June 2010 included Apple and Intel, and brands spending under $500,000 included GM, Walt Disney, Eastman Kodak, and BMW.

However, looking at these results from some different perspectives, consider this — AT&T is the third biggest advertising spender in the United States, spending $2.8 billion in 2009 on measured media according to Ad Age.  The $8.08 million spent by AT&T in June 2010 is just a drop in the bucket and helped drive marketing efforts related to the launch of the iPhone 4.

In fact, the top 10 Google AdWords advertisers only accounted for 5% of Google’s U.S. revenue in June 2010 as reported by Ad Age.  Of the biggest advertising spenders in the Google AdWords program, only a small percentage spend over $100,000 per year.  The bulk of Google’s revenue from its search advertising program comes from a huge pool of smaller investments by smaller advertisers rather than the larger investments made by advertisers with deeper budgets.

Is your brand represented in Google search advertising?  If not, you might want to take a look at the ads consumers are presented with when they type keywords related to your business into Google’s search box.  It doesn’t take a huge investment to be represented.  As the statistics from Ad Age point out, most large and small businesses invest only a small percentage of their overall marketing budgets on search advertising, but at the very least, they are represented.