Shopper Culture

Making the most of a Super Bowl promotion

The Super Bowl is a tremendous opportunity for anyone in the retail business to capture momentum in sales volume early in the year.  Though cash-strapped from the holidays, consumers spend an estimated $11.7 billion on Super Bowl parties, a month after the traditional holiday season is over.  The event is bigger than the game, as we all head to Super Bowl parties to sample part of the $5 billion worth of goods the hosts bought, or the $6.7 billion worth of goods the rest of us guests threw in nationwide.   Sales data shows us that its not just chips ($33.4 million), meat ($16.6 million), soda ($18.6 million), and beer ($20.7 million), being purchased incrementally, but nearly 4 million HD TVs (65 % bought at Wal-Mart or Best Buy) and 1.8 million pieces of furniture outfitting living rooms. This, and the fact that it is consistently the highest rated TV program of the year, makes the Super Bowl a boon for all the brands that stand to benefit from the occasion.

Brands market at retail for the Super Bowl in a variety of ways. Brands like Coors Light, Pepsi, Doritos and others pay the NFL for official sponsorship and rights to the marks for the Super Bowl. Non-sponsors like Coke, Miller Lite, and Kellogg’s use generic terms like the “Big Game” to try to capture the essence of the big game. The biggest retailers “took back” the Super Bowl by creating their own programming themes. But promotional programs that most brands execute offer fewer, bigger prizes, don’t interact with the shopper beyond their experience at the shelf. Despite their efforts, most promotions seem generic because everyone is doing the same thing. Brands with the greatest connection to football parties – especially food and beverage brands – tout the “Ultimate Party” but don’t give us a compelling reason to believe them.

It’s as if most Super Bowl brands are talking to themselves and not their audience – the fans. And the fans can tell the difference.

We the fans want to have the best experience possible.  And, unless you are a one of the few fans that has connections, your chance of getting tickets to the game is nil. The biggest fans, the most loyal ones, are watching at home because they simply can’t go to the live event.  So the game becomes a reason to get together with friends, consume copious amounts of stuff and enjoy a pop-culture event with no equal. Outside of the host stadium, the Super Bowl is 28 million parties with 154 million viewers, who are there for the game, the advertising, and to be with friends, in that order. The host's success is measured on putting out a great spread, showing off the home theater, or placing a friendly bet on which quarterback will throw the first interception.

So, what can brands do more to enhance our experience before, during and after the pinnacle moment of kickoff?  How can brands connect with the shopper at retail when there is so much clutter and noise in the context of a shopper wants to get in, get out and get to where they are going?  At a time when everyone is sponsoring everything, how can a brand be authentic to an increasingly skeptical audience? 

When there is so much opportunity to make a great impression for the Super Bowl, brands need to create programming that breaks through the clutter at retail and communicates a relevant message for the shopper. Brands must connect with the consumer in a meaningful way, understanding the insights of what the Super Bowl occasion is about. And perhaps most importantly, brands need to connect to their audience in a way that is authentic to the brand, while most of all remaining true to the fans.

- Contributed by Eric Anhold

Source: ACNielsen: average weekly sales for two weeks ending Feb. 10 2007; BigResearch: CIA survey, Jan 2007

Image credits: In-Store Marketer

Toshiba after HD-DVD: Down but Not Out

If you read the recent post on Sony's Blu-Ray's recent victory over Toshiba in the HD-DVD space, you know Toshiba pulled out of the race the moment they calculated they couldn't win. In today's Wall Street Journal, Toshiba's CEO, Atsutoshi Nishida commented on the move:

"One has to take calculated risks in business, but it's also important to switch gears immediately if you think your decision was wrong. We were doing this to win, and if we weren't going to win then we had to pull out, especially since consumers were already asking for a single standard."

Moving quickly on bad news is bold step, especially for Japanese CEO, many of whom might have postponed a decision even in the face of the inevitable, in order to save face. Building on this, the Wall Street Journal cited five management tips from the Toshiba CEO:

For those of you who are concerned about Toshiba's future, don't worry too much. CEO Nishida reminds us that HD DVD was one of 45 strategic business units or "areas of growth" and 44 still remain.

Did You See That Great Commercial Last Night?

As I was running errands on Super Bowl Sunday I realized I didn't feel the usual rush to get home.  This was not because I'm not a football fan, but rather because I knew if I missed the first couple of commercial breaks, I could see them online at any number of websites on Monday.  Some of the spots that aired during the game even directed you to their web site.  This got me (among others) thinking, what is the future of TV and TV advertising going to look like with the Web?  Apple's iTunes has fundamentally changed the music business, will another application do the same to TV?

Fortunately, The Atlantic that arrived in my mailbox a few days later had a great article addressing this topic.  Michael Hirschorn begins his article with Apple changing the way we buy music and he quickly transitions over to TV, noting he works in the industry.  He raises some interesting points, primarily that TV should be around for the long run, but that it is up to the TV industry itself to change the definition of TV if they want to remain players in both content and distribution.

In the short term, bandwidth limitations will prevent satisfying web based video offering for anything but short form videos, such as TV spots.  In the long term, TV networks need to bring more Web functionality to TV rather than invest in creating more bandwidth online.  With the switch to digital and HD broadcasting herein the USA due in 2009, the next generation of TV's could begin to include Web applications in their hardware.  The options are varied and appealing - from being able to click from an ad to a retail site to purchase a product (the next generation of shopping channels) to being able to access any movie or any show for a fee to watch at your leisure (the next generation of on-demand services).

I agree with Hirshorn in his wrap up ... will the future look like TV with more interactivity or the Internet with TV included?  The debate will go on, but the future of a billion dollar industry is up for grabs and whoever figures out how to make it simple and intuitive for Joe and Jane Consumer is going to be the big winner.

- Contributed by Todd Cameron
Image courtesy of Jupiter Images

Big Cable: Too Big?

15,000 attendees turned out to the 2007 Cable Show in Las Vegas earlier this year, and more than a few must have been perplexed by this year's improbable show theme:

"Competition works. Consumers win."

For an industry many consider anti-competitive and consumer-unfriendly, the show theme seemed counter-intuitive, if not outrageous. Competition? Perhaps the idea was to pacify Day One's featured speaker:  Kevin Martin, Chairman of the FCC.

The FCC under Chairman Martin has been publicly critical of the Big Cable. This chart, compiled by the New York Times, helps explain why. The cost of cable television in the United States has outpaced  inflation by a significant margin. This fact seems to indicate that the cable industry - led by Comcast, the nation's largest cable provider - is taking advantage of a monopoly status to raise rates at will.

The cable industry strongly insists there is no monopoly. While Comcast is by far the largest provider of pay TV, they go head-to-head with other cable providers, like Time Warner, in many local markets. What's more, phone companies like Qwest offer the same bundled packages - phone, high-speed internet and pay TV (through satellite partners) nationwide. Comcast would point out that they lost 65,000 subscribers in the last quarter. There's plenty of competition, the cable industry contends. The cable industry has been deregulated since 1996 through an act of Congress, and that's just the way Big Cable likes it.

Chairman Martin has been pushing the other members of the five-member commission to invoke the "70/70" rule of the Cable Communications act: when 70% of U.S. households are cable-ready, and 70% of those households subscribe to cable, the government is empowered to regulate the industry in favor of lower prices and more diverse programming. In an agency meeting last week, the commission rejected the "70-70" finding, citing unreliable data, in a vote considered a blow to cable consumers in general and Chairman Martin in particular.

Despite this defeat, the FCC have recently affected other, smaller changes that benefit consumers and the competitive landscape. For example, as of last month, specific cable companies may no longer have exclusivity on apartment buildings; building managers must allow competition between rival cable companies and satellite TV.

But this represents only a minor victory for consumers. In the remaining 13 months of his appointment, Martin's goals are more ambitious:

• Cable ownership limits, imposing a 30% cap on Comcast's share of the pay-TV market while preventing other giants like Time Warner from making substantial new acquisitions
  
• A la carte legislation, allowing cable subscribers to pick and choose which specific channels they want, instead of paying for large bundles of channels that go unwatched
  
• Increased diversity programming, lowering the price of channel access to minority and women programmers
• Dual carriage, forcing cable operators to carry local TV signals in both analog and digital form until all cable subscribers have upgraded to digital reception equipment 

Chairman Martin is drafting a revised proposal for a possible vote at the agency's next meeting, scheduled for December 18th. Consumer groups and cable proponents alike eagerly await the outcome. Is Big Cable too big? Does the pay-TV industry require government regulation? How will TV viewers benefit from greater competition? Stay tuned.

P&G going back to its roots...Kind of

A recent NY Times articled feature P&G's latest branded entertainment efforts with Crescent Heights and Tide. Living solely online, the show will consist of 3 minute episodes about a recent college graduate, Ashley, who moves to Los Angeles from Wisconsin to start a career in public relations, and her emerging circle of friends and romantic interests. While product will be integrated to a degree, the larger connection as P&G sees it is with people and their clothes.

"We want to speak to people about more than just laundry,” said Kevin Crociata, Tide’s associate marketing director. “We provide benefits to the fabrics she wears on daily basis. They have much more meaning."

Tide media (TV spots, print ads, etc...) will be tagged with a drive to the online property. While many branded online TV efforts have failed of late, ie Bud TV, it will be interesting to see if P&G can reconnect with its Soap Opera roots in a new way with new consumers.

NBC embracing digital on multiple fronts

In recent months it has become clear that large traditional media companies are embracing digital in new and creative ways.

NBC, for example, has popped up a couple times in the press, or we've observed through regular viewing, as taking advantage of new ways to engage young audiences.

This Mediapost story covers how NBC is using Mediaport Kiosks, an ATM style machine
that allows users to download music, to feature content around their news and late night line ups. Mediaport allows customers to create custom compilations which can be burned to CDs or downloaded to various digital devices.

 

“The partnership is an ideal way for us to reach digital-savvy 18- to-28-year-olds," said Frank Radice, an executive with the NBC Agency. "Media kiosks have a promising future and present an exciting new channel for us to reach and influence these target groups."

Further demonstrating their commitment to things digital, during the premieres of their Monday line up (Chuck, Heroes and Journeyman), they encouraged viewers to go online and chat live with the shows producers, directors, etc… Co-media usage, which used to be feared in TVLand as it implied a less engaged audience, is now being capitalized on to provide a richer brand experience to viewers.

Add in their use of Twitter to promote their new series Chuck , and it is clear that rather than viewing the digital world as a threat to their viewing audience, they are using these new channels to better distribute their brands and engage audiences.