Marcom this week: From A to zinc – 3/4/11 edition

Although Charlie Sheen’s rants made more than enough headlines this week, marketers managed to squeeze in a few of their own. From the announcement of Apple’s iPad 2 to the latest research on what consumers want from brands online, here is a look at what happened this week in the integrated marketing communications industry.

iPad 2 raises the bar for marketers
In case you missed it, Apple announced its next-generation iPad on Wednesday. The lighter, thinner, faster tablet arrives March 11 with a price tag of $499 for the 18GB Wi-Fi version. More important than its new software and front- and rear-facing cameras is the fact that the iPad 2 is driving the post-PC conversation forward at full speed. Just a day after Apple’s announcement, Gartner lowered its growth forecast for worldwide PC shipments in 2011. Looks like the iPad is well on its way to bridging the gap between laptops and tablets, which means it’s time for marketers – who haven’t done much to test the tablet waters – to take notice. Faster browsing means a host of new apps are probably already in development. However, if PC alternatives are the future, then how do marketers get on board in a meaningful way?

For brands, it’s all about being "liked"
Take note marketers: consumers want to hear from you when online – if you’re offering discounts. This is the latest finding of a new Ad Age/Ipsos Observer survey of digital-media habits. Facebook was a clear winner, with 41 percent of respondents preferring to receive communication from marketers via this platform. The runner up was Twitter, which received 18 percent of the vote. Coupons are the most sought-after item, with 65 percent of respondents hunting for online discounts. In fact, for most respondents, this was the reason why they “liked” a brand on Facebook. Not surprisingly, only 22 percent of respondents cared about customer news, a reminder that pushing self-promoting content won’t win a brand many friends.

Taco Bell: Where’s the beef?
This week, Taco Bell debuted a series of commercials in response to a lawsuit claiming its beef isn’t beefy enough. According to the ads, Taco Bell’s beef is comprised of 88 percent premium ground beef and 12 percent signature recipe. Viewers are encouraged to visit the fast-food chain’s website to view the entire ingredients list. Overall, the ads aren’t very interesting. We probably would’ve dismissed them with a shrug had it not been for the commercial’s inopportune airing on Sunday evening during a repeat of Fox’s new animated series, "Bob’s Burgers." Titled “Human Flesh,” the episode is about a misunderstanding surrounding the beef content of Bob’s Burgers signature hamburgers. (Sound familiar?) The first ad to air during the commercial break? Taco Bell, of course. Bad timing for the brand, and a big “oops” for Fox.



Marcom This Week: From A to Zinc is compiled by the Vitamin IMC editorial team. They can be reached at vitaminimc@gmail.com. Miss your vitamins last week? Visit the “Marcom this Week” archive.

Marcom this week: From A to zinc – 2/4/11 edition

Despite Blizzard 2011 wreaking havoc on one in three Americans this week, the marketing industry managed to squeak in a few of its own headlines. Put aside the snow shovel and check out what you may have missed while digging out from the storm.

Print media on track to rise again?
The week was chock full of big announcements from leading print publishers. Just when we thought print was a dying media, it appears some pubs may be on their way back to the top. Leading the pack was People.com, which reached 1 billion page views in January, according to Omniture. This is a first for People, and for all magazine websites.

People wasn’t the only Time Inc. publication making waves this week. In fact, the publisher claimed four of the top five magazines most followed on Twitter. According to Folio, People, Time, InStyle and Women’s Wear Daily topped the list. Entertainment Weekly came in fifth.

Perhaps the most anticipated news came from News Corp., which announced its iPad-only newspaper, The Daily. As Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. chairman and CEO, said, “iPad demands that we rethink our craft.” Developed in partnership with Apple, the made-for-tablet pub will cost users $40 a year.

With advertising revenues decline, the Web is where publishers are hoping to cash in. However, billions of page views and highly followed Twitter handles don’t generate cash on their own. In addition, while The Daily may set the tone for the future of the news business model, we’re left wondering who its audience is. We applaud these media companies for their efforts, but hope their strategies are fully baked.




Gap names new CMO
Change is on the horizon for Gap, which ushered in a new CMO this week: Seth Farbman. No doubt the past few months have been rough for the retailer. As Vitamin IMC previously reported, Gap’s new logo was a major flop and the brand took a hit when its “Made in USA” charitable tote bags turned out to be a product of China.

With Farbman, who is currently worldwide managing director for Ogilvy & Mather, at the helm, Gap hopes to set itself on a course to better performance in North America. Ogilvy also is stepping in as Gap’s worldwide agency of record, replacing Laird & Partners. While the retailer denies these changes are a result of the logo fiasco, we find this hard to believe. Here’s to hoping 2011 brings the brand better luck than last year.

Love doesn’t conquer all, but money does
When offered a choice between great sex every week for five years and free chocolate every week for five years, U.S. women pick sex 73 percent of the time. Throw a one-lump sum of $1,000 into the mix, and the majority of women (91 percent) choose the cash over weekly chocolate. These findings from the latest Saatchi Wellness and Time Inc. annual tracking study shed light on a growing trend: the “Me-Covery.” That is, women increasing spending on beauty and health products and services.

This shift is evident in the growing percentage of women who are spending money on anti-aging products and salon services – both were up nearly 20 percent in 2010. It appears women are loosening their purse strings and putting aside recessionary spending habits, which should bode well for marketers of health and beauty products.

Marcom this week: From A to zinc is compiled by the Vitamin IMC editorial team. They can be reached at vitaminimc@gmail.com. Miss your vitamins last week? Visit the “Marcom this Week” from January 28.

What the iPad means for marketers

By Nathan Kraft

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve likely heard the tidal wave of hype surrounding Apple’s iPad mobile device.

Fitting somewhere on the mobile device spectrum between a smartphone and a netbook, the iPad features a 10-inch touch screen, WiFi capability (3G optional), a battery with 10 hours of active life and tons of memory storage—all wrapped in a sexy, slim Apple design. Steve Jobs probably said it best when he said the iPad is “far more intimate than a laptop, but far more capable than a smartphone.

Market penetration beyond early adopters isn’t expected until next year—after at least one price cut, although the 3 to 4 MM units analysts anticipate in 2010 is nothing to sniff at. More importantly, the iPad will legitimize the tablet device and lift sales for the burgeoning category, just as the iPhone and iPod did in the smartphone and MP3 player categories. However, The iPad is in a category slightly different than the Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader because of expanded capabilities.

What does all this mean for marketers? Here are a few implications:

• More Apps, New Apps – First the iPhone, then the Android, now iPad. Marketers–who have found applications to be one of the best ways to drive engagement, loyalty and consumer value–will need to re-think their approach to application development taking the iPad’s expanded capabilities and different user needs into account. While most successful smartphone apps serve specific, information-now needs; iPad apps may incorporate more entertainment and social components because of its larger size and different consumer use cases. At the same time, marketers will need to figure efficient ways to deploy applications across a growing number of mobile platforms. As Forrester’s Josh Bernoff recently noted, device fragmentation isn’t going away anytime soon.

• Mobile Gaming Gets Bigger – With its bigger, higher resolution screen, the new iPad is already being touted for its much richer mobile gaming experience than smartphones. Marketers should think of ways to integrate brands into popular games or create games that are an extension of their current brand offering.

• A new channel for traditional media and mobile advertising – This new device was built for media consumption, and will create a new distribution channel for legacy media companies. Though no big media company deals have been inked, large publishers will likely create iPad-specific sites or applications that integrate with new pay walls being introduced on traditional wired sites. Will people pay? It remains to be seen, but as iTunes demonstrates, when the user experience and exclusive content warrants it, consumers are willing to pay by the bite. While most of today’s mobile advertising is limited to text links and tiny banners, mobile advertising on the bigger screen is a new canvas for advertisers. Smart advertisers won’t think of this as another place to plaster irrelevant ads, but will find ways to add value to the consumer’s media consumption experience—taking advantage of social, behavioral and geographic data to deliver relevant messaging yet unavailable in other media, including the internet. This will be a boon to retailers and local businesses, which will be able to efficiently serve richer, relevant offers to small, location-specific audiences. Instead of text links and click-to-call buttons, think of maps, product/service preview videos, etc.

• The social mobile web will expand – Social applications for Facebook and Twitter are already among the most popular smartphone applications. But consumers primarily use these apps to skim through status updates or post a status. The iPad’s larger screen will encourage deeper engagement in social applications and use in coordination with behaviors such as point-of-sale research. This makes consumer reviews and consumer generated product feedback more important than ever, as consumers turn to their social networks for advice on what brands to buy while standing in front of the shelf or showroom.

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Nathan Kraft, MSIMC ’09, is a Chicago-based marketing manager at Cars.com, responsible primarily for social and emerging media at the automotive publisher. He can be reached at nathangkraft@gmail.com.