Keen to get some last-minute Christmas traffic heading to your website? Perhaps the answer lies in judicious use of advertising tools such as Google AdWords.
We scanned the seasonal horizon to see if we could pick up some last-minute tips from the Jolly Red Guy. He was a little busy, but we came across some useful advice from one of his little Elfers, Arlene Helbert (AdWords Optimisation Specialist). She actually gave this advice last year, but we didn’t use it then — so now’s the time. Arlene suggests that you should:
Some more specific advice building on the key recommendations above:
*What are Google Gadget Ads?
Gadget ads enable advertisers and agencies to engage audiences on the Internet’s largest ad network with a rich and interactive new ad format. Think of gadget ads as mini versions of your website in any AdSense ad size.
Okay, time to get those raindeer humming. Just a few more sleeps till Christmas.
Tags: AdWords, Christmas 2009, Google, last-minute, traffic
We discussed the new music video destination site Vevo back in October.
It launches today. Check it out.
PS Now would be a good time to start devising a marketing strategy to take advantage of this new online video environment. We talk about such matters in our upcoming ONLINE VIDEO MARKETING STRATEGIES FOR 2010 White Paper. Subscribe to our newsletter and we’ll let you know when the White Paper is available.
Tags: music video, vevo, video, video marketing, youtube
There’s been an interesting topic under discussion for the last week or so at the Harvard Business blog. It all started with an article about The Super-Consumer by Eddie Yoon of The Cambridge Group, noting that:
In any product category, roughly 10% of the consumers account for more than 50% of the profits. These super-consumers, as we call them, are the hot dog buyers who eat five pounds of hot dogs a month, wolfing down as many as 4 per sitting. They are the stapler users who own 8 different staplers. They know what they want, they’ll buy a lot of it, and they’ll pay a premium for it. They’re passionate and engaged — sometimes even a little obsessive — and they exist in every category, from soft drinks and air travel to fast-food and oral care products.Many managers assume that their super-consumers are a unique species whose extreme appetites say little about what more casual consumers might go for. They also figure that their super-consumers are already sated, so there’s no point in probing them further. That’s a mistake.We’ve found that companies that listen to their super-consumers and use their insights to refine their message ultimately grow sales and margins across all segments. These companies aren’t trying to convert light users into heavy users. Rather, they’re figuring out what it is the super-consumers like so much and then offering it to them. Invariably, acting on the insights from those consumers who spend disproportionate time and energy in the category uncovers insights and innovations that encourage trade-up behaviors across other segments as well.In any product category, roughly 10% of the consumers account for more than 50% of the profits. These super-consumers, as we call them, are the hot dog buyers who eat five pounds of hot dogs a month, wolfing down as many as 4 per sitting. They are the stapler users who own 8 different staplers. They know what they want, they’ll buy a lot of it, and they’ll pay a premium for it. They’re passionate and engaged — sometimes even a little obsessive — and they exist in every category, from soft drinks and air travel to fast-food and oral care products.
Many managers assume that their super-consumers are a unique species whose extreme appetites say little about what more casual consumers might go for. They also figure that their super-consumers are already sated, so there’s no point in probing them further. That’s a mistake.
We’ve found that companies that listen to their super-consumers and use their insights to refine their message ultimately grow sales and margins across all segments. These companies aren’t trying to convert light users into heavy users. Rather, they’re figuring out what it is the super-consumers like so much and then offering it to them. Invariably, acting on the insights from those consumers who spend disproportionate time and energy in the category uncovers insights and innovations that encourage trade-up behaviors across other segments as well.
The blog article went on to outline a couple of case studies where listening to (and interrogating) the super consumers led to useful insights that drove substantial sales increases across all types of consumers, not just the supers.
The article has since attracted a number of comments which question whether the super-consumers are necessarily the best people from whom to learn.
Thom Mitchell made these points:
… sometimes listening to your best customers can create blind spots. Your best customers by definition already love you the most among all of your customers. Sure implementing some of their incremental suggestions will improve products and most likely sales, but what about all of those customers who only buy your product occasionally?
Imagine what might happen when you find out why some customers only buy your products once in a while – why don’t they buy your product more often? Are you the second choice on the shelf? Are you considered too expensive? Too cheap? Significant long-term growth can result from turning those infrequent customers into regular purchasers and then growing them into power purchasers.
To his credit, blog author Eddie Yoon acknowledged and built on Thom’s comments:
sometimes listening to your brand’s best customers can indeed leave you with blind spots and a false sense of security. There is a clarification that can help mitigate this risk.
There is a difference between BRAND super consumers and CATEGORY super consumers. Brand super consumers can be loyal for many personal reasons that may not be broadly relevant. A person might have grown up on the brand…they had an initial good experience, became habituated to it/on auto pilot (e.g., a Coke super consumer from Atlanta). Or sometimes a consumer is a brand super consumer because they’re not making the brand decision (e.g., an American Airlines super consumer whose company only flies American Airlines)
However, category super consumers are typically only loyal to a brand that truly provides superior benefits. They have tried every brand…even private label. They are early adopters of new products and active seekers of new information to see if there is anything better than what they have now. As a result, category super consumers are often the smartest, most articulate and most opinionated people you can find. Most clients are shocked to find out how much they actually know about their products and by how painfully honest they can be about their products and services.
You are exactly right that talking to medium and light users and finding ways to make them more frequent users is a huge growth opportunity. That said, you want to avoid talking to folks who are medium/light users of your brand, because they are medium/light users of the category. You likely won’t learn much from them…other than you need to drop your price!
Finding people who are category super consumers and medium/light users of your brand is where the magic can happen. Just brace yourself because it can be like eating your veggies…you may not like it, but it is good for you in the long run.
Another contributor, Judd Murphy, took us from the theoretical to the very real with his comments:
As the owner and manager of a small, casual sandwich shop, I have gotten to know our super-consumers. A handful of customers that visit us nearly every day, and from a revenue standpoint, they are really valuable.
We have found, however, that there is a subcategory of super-consumers that bring in new friends all the time. These super-consumers are a key to future growth because they are out promoting the restaurant and driving people through our doors. That’s the kind of promotion that no amount of advertising investment can buy. It really is a thrill and an honor to have these types of customers promoting your business.
All in all, the whole discussion chain not only enriched and expanded on the original article — it also demonstrated (in low-key fashion) the true power of Web 2.0. Sometimes high-profile discussions via Facebook and Twitter are the best way to make an impact; more and more often, however, the best use of online interaction lies in discussion threads that expand all our knowledge and understanding.
Tags: commenting, discussions, super-consumers, Web 2.0
The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) asks the question — and offers a potentially fiery debate — at its upcoming World Newspaper Congress in Hyderabad India (December 1-3).
Should we, asks WAN:
Applaud our gains in web site traffic? Develop closer partnerships with Google and their competitors? Launch our own search engines and collective news portals? Lobby to change or enforce copyright laws online? Sue – or encourage anti-trust cases? What DO we do about Google?
The Great Debate at the 62nd World Newspaper Congress will examine these and other such questions as news publishers world-wide examine and discuss their options and strategies for getting a bigger slice of the internet advertising revenues which are today being massively reaped by Google.
FOR GOOGLE:
David Drummond, Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Council of Google, will be on stage to give the search giant’s perspectives.
Mr Drummond leads Google’s global teams for legal, government relations, corporate development and new business development, including strategic partnerships. Before joining Google in 2002, he served as its first outside counsel and worked with Larry Page and Sergey Brin to incorporate the company and secure its initial round of financing.
FOR THE NEWSPAPERS:
Gavin O’Reilly, CEO of Independent News & Media and President of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), will debate on behalf of the newspaper iindustry.
Gavin O’Reilly was probably the first major news industry personality to publicly criticise Google, when he called them `kleptomaniacs’ in a 2006 speech where he said they were “increasingly aiming their strategic efforts at traditional content originators and aggregators like newspaper publishers. The irony is that these search engines exist, largely, because of the traditional news and content aggregators and profit at their expense’’.
ON THE SIDELINE, HECKLING:
Since then, others have joined in the chorus of opposition, most notably Rupert Murdoch, who said last month: “The aggregators and plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content. If we do not take advantage of the current movement toward paid content, it will be the content creators Š who will pay the ultimate price and the content kleptomaniacs who triumph.’’ Mr Murdoch just this week threatened to block Google News from taking any content from News Corp web sites.
AND THEN THERE’S US:
Marketers everywhere would love to see a Win-Win resolution. None of us will benefit if newspapers fall over. But we’ll also be the poorer if the internet devolves into a collection of islands hidden behind paywalls.
There are no easy answers. But we look forward to the Debate and its outcome.
Tags: Google, Great Debate, newspapers
Every year at the Web 2.0 Summit, Morgan Stanley Internet analyst Mary Meeker gives her view of the world, the Web, and the technology industry by quickly going through about 50 slides that illustrate the major trends she is tracking.
Late last month, Ms Meeker delivered her annual presentation as usual. What has she picked as hot for 2010?
Mobile Internet.
Mary’s mobile internet take away, via Mobiz:
Mary Meeker’s Internet Presentation 2009
Why are we telling you this now?
To explain why we’ve just launched a mobile version of this site. Access us via your mobile and you’ll automatically be served a mobile-friendlier version.
It may not get much use now, but oh boy, wait till next year.
PS Full credit to MobilePress for the plugin that made our move to mobile a breeze!
Tags: Google, internet trends, iPhone, mary meeker, mobile devices, mobile internet, mobile version, morgan stanley, research in motion
The Nielsen Company, which knows a thing or two about product performance, provides useful insights in the latest NielsenWire into some of the key requirements needed to succeed in an ever-changing marketplace. The analysis is based on 500+ recent in-market cases globally.
It has become increasingly challenging to bring new products to market. Over the past decade, significant changes have occurred—consumers are more sophisticated, the value equation is shifting, retailers are more powerful and the communication models have been revolutionized. Additionally, product development time is now shorter, competition is fiercer than ever, and there is continued fragmentation at the shelf. Despite these changes, many new product development processes and metrics have not been adapted.Game changing metricsIt is no secret that most new products fall short of expectations for a variety of reasons. The ones that achieve in-market success do three fundamental tasks really well:Master the Trial Build Chain: Successful new products must have strong consumer appeal and be supported through quality distribution and awareness.Ensure Strong Ongoing Volume: Successful new products deliver on their consumer promise, with strong performance and on-going marketing support.Maximize Franchise Incrementality: Successful new products attract new triers or generate new usage occasions in order to minimize cannibalization of established franchises.While these fundamentals have not changed, the media and retail landscape has, and the current metrics and action standards used in the past are no longer enough to guarantee success today. To gain a fresh understanding for new product dynamics in the context of current marketplace conditions, Nielsen BASES analyzed 1,900+ recent product launches globally and examined how each initiative did in the marketplace against its goals. The net result was a compilation of 500+ cases of in-market launches that were used to develop the next generation success models, providing a strategic framework for how to win in today’s marketplace.It has become increasingly challenging to bring new products to market. Over the past decade, significant changes have occurred—consumers are more sophisticated, the value equation is shifting, retailers are more powerful and the communication models have been revolutionized. Additionally, product development time is now shorter, competition is fiercer than ever, and there is continued fragmentation at the shelf. Despite these changes, many new product development processes and metrics have not been adapted.
Game changing metrics
It is no secret that most new products fall short of expectations for a variety of reasons. The ones that achieve in-market success do three fundamental tasks really well:
- Master the Trial Build Chain: Successful new products must have strong consumer appeal and be supported through quality distribution and awareness.
- Ensure Strong Ongoing Volume: Successful new products deliver on their consumer promise, with strong performance and on-going marketing support.
- Maximize Franchise Incrementality: Successful new products attract new triers or generate new usage occasions in order to minimize cannibalization of established franchises.
While these fundamentals have not changed, the media and retail landscape has, and the current metrics and action standards used in the past are no longer enough to guarantee success today. To gain a fresh understanding for new product dynamics in the context of current marketplace conditions, Nielsen BASES analyzed 1,900+ recent product launches globally and examined how each initiative did in the marketplace against its goals. The net result was a compilation of 500+ cases of in-market launches that were used to develop the next generation success models, providing a strategic framework for how to win in today’s marketplace.
These are the five requirements identified by The Nielsen Company as essential for new product success:
1. What worked yesterday might not be good enough for tomorrow.
Many organisations have long-established performance standards that they use to evaluate any new product. Sorry, that’s not good enough in today’s marketplace. You need to guide your new product development decisions based on the most up-to-date, multifaceted models of in-market success, to help you anticipate issues more effectively and bring more sound propositions to market.
2. Consumer adoption may be complex, but the steps of the process are clear.
Measure and optimize everything that matters. The current key measures of success—such as purchase intent, units per purchase and frequency of purchase—continue to be critically important and are key to accurate estimations of volume potential. But there are a host of new factors—such as breaking through clutter, generating buzz and offering true innovation—that also need to be considered.
In particular, positive word of mouth is essential. April’s Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey (of over 25,000 Internet consumers from 50 countries) found that recommendations from personal acquaintances or opinions posted by consumers online are the most trusted forms of advertising in the twenty-first century: ninety percent of consumers surveyed noted that they trust recommendations from people they know, while 70 percent trusted consumer opinions posted online.
3. What it takes to be ready for a successful launch varies at each step in the adoption process.
The consumer adoption process is all about being relevant, getting noticed, getting found on-shelf, being affordable, competitively-priced and delivering on the product promise. Those attributes remain as enduring as ever.
However (depending on the category) it may not be necessary to achieve top of the line excellence for every attribute. For some measures, being “average” may be good enough for in-market readiness and improvements may have limited returns on the potential for success. For other measures, it may be more important to perform better than your competition, as this could represent an area of real competitive advantage.
4. Success is about doing most everything well enough, not about really excelling at one facet.
In-market success is not about doing one thing really well. Rather, it is about doing everything you need to do—covering every touch-point in the consumer adoption process—sufficiently. The initiative that does everything enough, but isn’t a star at any one thing is likely to be a success. A single fatal flaw can derail even the otherwise strongest of initiatives—think “weakest link”. Many marketers fall into a trap of focusing only on the one or two areas that a new product does really well, but ignoring areas that represent barriers to success.
5. Measure what matters, when it matters.
Set action standards for every new product development stage based on the relevant consumer touch-points. And the earlier you start in the new product development process, the better. Even at the earliest stages, you can understand an idea’s ability to stand out, catch attention, and meet a relevant need. As the idea progresses into a more developed concept and branding, features, and pricing are built in, more elements of the communication and point of purchase dynamics can be folded in.
There are no guarantees of success in new product development. But not taking account of these five requirements could be a quick shortcut to failure.
Tags: competition, consumer adoption, customer reviews, fragmentation, measure what matters, metrics, new product, product development, recommendations, Word of Mouth
There have been some epic television commercials for Guinness.
This probably isn’t one of them.
Take a look for yourself.
Not that any expense was spared.
Conceived and developed at AMV BBDO London by creative Paul Brazier, and agency producer Yvonne Chalkley, this latest commercial ["World"] was shot on location in Canada, New Zealand, Fiji and the UK.
The Independent lapses into rather poetic retelling of the story behind the scenes:
This is the story of the making of the most anticipated advertising campaign of the year. It involved a trip to the other side of the earth and a brief to simulate the creation of the world. In a 90-second film.
And so it came to pass that the Manchester-born director Johnny Green, having taken on the greatest challenge of his career, found himself in a New Zealand field facing disaster. Green had been commissioned by Guinness, the client with the greatest creative advertising legacy of them all, to make the campaign intended to reposition the world-famous brand and change the habits of millions of drinkers.
In the back of his mind was some of the greatest advertising of all time: the horses emerging from the waves in Jonathan Glazer’s 1999 Surfer, Frank Budgen’s epic Snail Race from 2000, Danny Kleinman’s Cannes Grand Prix-winning story of the evolution of the Guinness drinker, Noitulove from 2006, and Nicolai Fuglsig’s Tipping Point, showing dominoes, fridges and cars toppling through a South American village, two years ago. “I know it all inside out,” says Green of this back catalogue. “But you can’t get too involved because you get intimidated if you start thinking ‘I’ve got to live up to all those guys’.”
The other commercials all featured the famous endline “Good things come to those who wait”. Green was tasked with ushering in a brand new era of Guinness drinking, built around a fresh line: “Bring it to life”.
His big scene was to feature a vast, lush carpet of green turf, which would be dragged into place by his planet-building group of untrained actors. Except, in growing his turf he hadn’t bargained for the New Zealand weather. “It rained so heavily the grass ended up disintegrating,” he says. His response was to assemble a team of 45 local New Zealand women and set up a small factory where, over six days, they stitched together an artificial lawn. Last Wednesday, during coverage of the Champions League, millions of viewers saw this green tapestry being lugged over rocks and through the rain by a man whose day job is as a New Zealand fireman.
The Inspiration Room blog, meanwhile. points us at a “Making Of” video clip:
So does it work? The Independent reports on industry reaction so far, channelling the Brand Republic website:
The reaction in the advertising community is mixed. “This is like being served a Guinness by an Aussie barmaid just off the plane; it’s flat and lifeless,” was one comment on the Brand Republic website. “I think this is epic. Guinness is a big powerful drink that really does come to life before your eyes,” was a more positive response on Creative Review’s site. “It’s beautiful cinematography but the message is lost,” said another.
THE BRIEF
So how did this all come about?
Back to The Independent and some words from the client:
The story of how Guinness chose the “Bring it to life” endline stretches back two years and involves exhaustive research of the target audience. Paul Cornell, marketing manager for Guinness, says: “What has become clear is that a lot of our volume is coming from the guys who love the brand, love the product and drink us on many occasions.” But the more occasional Guinness consumers had become convinced it was only a drink for special moments, while watching a rugby match, say, or on St Patrick’s Day.
Which somehow led to:
Anxious to widen the appeal of his product, Cornell analysed previous Guinness advertising work and decided three elements were crucial to success: epic production, a positive resolution and a shared experience.
And from there, for no obvious reason, to:
After countless hours of thought, Brazier finally came up with the new endline on a taxi journey to the Guinness office for a crucial meeting. “I don’t know if it’s nervous energy but creativity comes out of that last-minute panic. I was in the cab going down there, and I just interrupted the conversation and said, ‘I know – it’s ‘Bring it to life’!” He snatched a pencil to scrawl down the line and presented it to the client on a Post-it note. From there, the team went through around 60 storyboards to get to the finished version.
Which is all very well. But, with all due respect, may we point out that if one pauses the commercial just before the end frame, there is absolutely NO connection with the product. And, for that matter, there’s no connection between “Bring it to life” and Guinness either. Perhaps Mr Brazier should have told the cabbie to keep driving aroung the block a few more times.
ABC is introducing a new feature aimed at “encouraging viewers who stream their favorite shows online to make the experience more social”. Right, like we needed encouraging to talk amongst ourselves.
This Saturday, according to MediaWeek:
… the network will launch ABC Social: Episode Commentary on ABC.com. The new tool allows Web viewers to add their two cents by commenting on the show in an adjacent window to the left of the site’s video viewer. Users can log in to this feature using their Facebook accounts and can instantly share their personal commentary with their Facebook friend circles if they so choose.
ABC is using this week’s premiere of the sci-fi remake V to kick off ABC Social—as the show’s debut episode will be the first to incorporate the functionality starting this weekend. To make ABC Social more compelling—and to stoke the passion of sci-fi fans—the site will include commentary from V executive producers Scott Peters and Steve Pearlman. ABC plans to include such “insider” commentary alongside other shows down the road—potentially including commentary from actors, network executives and show staffers, journalists and even bloggers.
Executives at ABC see Social as a differentiator in an increasingly cluttered online video landscape, according to Alexis Rapo, vp, digital media, ABC Entertainment. “This definitely allows us to engage with a deeper, broader audience,” she said, comparing the experience to the “DVD extras” model. “It’s so wide ranging in terms of the commentary that might be available. We have lots of interesting ideas keep coming into play.”
Why bother?
ABC is testing inserted ads within the stream of comments within the ABC Social feed. “We think this is going to be a compelling opportunity for our advertisers,” Rapo said.
Ah yes, of course. The search for the mighty dollar.
The notion of providing extended commentary is appealing, especially for SciFi fans — the BBC has done a sterling job of catering to that community with its DR WHO CONFIDENTIAL companion series to the rebooted DR WHO, which takes fans behind the scenes. But we’re unconvinced that a social stream is needed, especially one with ads.
All very fashionable, we guess.
Tags: abc entertainment, Facebook, sci fi fans, scifi fans, social, web viewers
Those fine folks at Springwise (an excellent resource for stealing ideas — get yourself on their newsletter mailing list) have pointed us in the direction of “a nationwide network of pop-up marketing places”:
BrandNew Stores aims to turn fleeting pop-up shops into a chain concept, creating fixed spaces where brands can temporarily present themselves in a regular retail environment. Its first branch opened in the Dutch town of Amstelveen last month, where Alfa Romeo used the shopping mall space to present its new Alfa Mito model. It’s all about experience marketing: companies can use a BrandNew Store for a few weeks to present a product or service, or to reach out to new and existing customers without going for immediate sales.
Targeting premium retail areas where unhurried leisure-shoppers are more likely to explore a client’s offerings, BrandNew Stores will add locations in Groningen, Den Haag and Rotterdam later this year, with more cities to follow in 2010. The stores will be decked out with video screens, interactive floor projectors and other elements that make it easy for brands to present themselves.
Exclusivity has been a major element of the pop-up phenomenon, and brands have mostly limited their temporary attention-seeking abodes to major cities like London and New York. By creating a nationwide network, much of that exclusivity is lost, and the concept becomes more of a regular marketing tool. Which has its benefits: brands can reach a much wider audience, and being able to design once and then move everything to another city significantly brings down the cost per location. Since rents are still down in most malls and high street shopping areas, now’s the time to bring this to other countries.
What can you do with a Pop-Up store?
Lots of things:
How about a purpose-built Nike Tennis pop-up-shop, just 1km from Wimbledon? The store was a hub of tennis activity, featuring vibrant art installations, grass-covered signage and historic memorabilia from Nike’s past Wimbledon champions. As a pop-up shop it only existed for the 2-week duration of the tournament, after which the store returned to its original look and function as a DVD rental store.
How about a water store?
Sikara & Co. Jewelry Pop-Up Store makes Union Street in San Francisco its new home as a “pop-up” shop.
“This style of store front allows us to open a temporary store in San Francisco and market test our collections as we roll them out nationally; we are very excited to be one of the first pop-up stores in the city,” said Mousumi Shaw, Founder and Creative Director.
The temporary store features globally inspired designs that fall into four collections: Indian, Italian, Mexican and Egyptian. Limited edition pieces will also be available for the holiday, many of which are exclusive to the Union Street pop-up. Sikara & Co. has partnered with San Francisco Stylist, Jill Siefert, as she will be helping customers most Mondays in the store with free styling tips.
As the LA Times reports, popup stores are a blessing to landlords in the current economy:
Designed to generate buzz and lure shoppers with a get-in-while-you-can appeal, pop-ups allow merchants to move quickly, opening up shops to test a new product or market, and closing them without much fuss.
Gap Inc. recently opened a pop-up shop on trendy Robertson Boulevard to promote its new premium denim line; celebrities including Halle Berry and Ashlee Simpson-Wentz turned out to the shop’s launch party. Toys R Us Inc. is setting up about 80 temporary toy shops nationwide, including several at upscale malls previously unavailable to the chain. J.C. Penney Co. touted its back-to-school offerings through interactive pop-up displays in half a dozen Southern California malls.
The pop-up phenomenon is not that new. BusinessWeek wrote about it in early 2007, giving a solid business perspective on the experiential marketing possibilities — and providing us with more inspiration along the way:
Four days. That’s how much time New Yorkers had to get a piece of the upscale design line Proenza Schouler at discount prices. On Feb. 2, the über-chic discount retail store Target popped open a store in lower Manhattan, to display this latest high-fashion-at-low-prices design line. The store then closed on Feb. 5.
In a world of BlackBerries and instant messaging, there’s a growing sense of haste in people’s lives. In response, companies trying to get consumers’ attention are trying to create a sense of urgency. For retailers, who need to get people into stores to try out their clothes, their shoes, and any other new products, the store itself is the new limited edition. So limited in fact that it may last a mere 96 hours. “There’s a certain passion about things that shout ‘act now!’ and that has transpired into the way we shop too,” says Claudine Gumbel, co-founder of Think PR, a New York fashion publicity firm.
These days, retailers are adopting the concept of a pop-up store with gusto. A pop-up store opens up at an empty retail location for a few days in a major city, or a mall, with great fanfare. And then, poof! It’s gone. In November [2006], Nike opened a pop-up store in Soho for just four days for the sole purpose of selling 250 pairs of the Zoom LeBron IV NYC basketball shoes, named after the popular 22-year-old NBA All-Star LeBron James. The special edition shoes were priced at $250 each.
In May and June, Gap kicked off a ’60s style tour, where it used a school bus as a traveling pop-up store that made appearances in Los Angeles and New York and stopped at beaches on both coasts. Instead of seats, the bus sported shelves filled with t-shirts, flip-flops, and beach hats that people bought and paid for at a cash register near the driver’s seat. Even the stodgy giant Wal-Mart adopted the concept last April, when it showed its new fashion line Metro 7 in a Fashion Cabana in Miami’s South Beach district, open for only two days.
BUDGET BUZZ
Retailers use pop-up stores to generate buzz and excitement around a new product launch, as in the case of Target’s Proenza Schouler line. Sometimes, the stores are a great way for stores to check the pulse of consumers and try out new products. Usually, they are less costly than television ads, which can run in the millions of dollars to produce and broadcast, and the stores generate similar buzz and publicity for new brands.Even nonretailers are giving it a try. The U.S. Potato Board, which represents American potato growers, opened a pop-up store in New York, during the week of Thanksgiving, for less than $200,000. The group, with the help of cartoon character Mr. Potato Head, promoted the message that potatoes contain more potassium than bananas as well as nutrients like folic acid and vitamin C.
Pop-up stores have worked especially well, though, for brands that don’t have a retail outlet store. Currently, the carmaker Lexus is wrapping up its multicity pop-up art gallery tour in Chicago. There, it has rented retail space to showcase three avant-garde artists—a photographer, a video movie maker, and a wood carver—whom the company feels reflect the innovation and design elements of its latest self-parking car.
For much of last year, Ford opened kiosks in several malls around the country to show off its midsize Fusion. The kiosks, labeled Fusion Studio D, were targeted at women, and offered makeovers, fitness training, and health information. The kiosks would pop up in malls in cities around the country, just days before the local Susan G. Komen Foundation’s Race for the Cure, and signed up people who wanted to run to cure breast cancer.
LOOKING FOR KICKS
Of course, it’s not easy to set up a pop-up store [which is why the notion of a store network is so appealing]. Unoccupied stores in hot retail locations aren’t easy to come by [2009 update: more available now]. Moreover, they can backfire, if a retailer doesn’t staff the store with some of the best customer service personnel, who know enough about the brand. “We had to make sure there were people who live and breathe Florida to explain what they were missing,” says Nicki Grossman, chief executive of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau, which set up a pop-up store—complete with sandy beaches, a golf putting hole, lifeguards, and beach beauties—in January in New York.No wonder companies feel the pressure not only to be cool, but to offer visitors an additional kick. For instance, when electronics company JVC opened its pop-up store, it offered karaoke and let people film themselves using its newly launched video camera and make their own DVDs, which folks could then carry home as gifts. And sneaker maker Fila let people draw their own designs on a computer, which they printed on a T-shirt that shoppers could take home with them for free. “You had the sense that you are creating artwork and you are really engaging the consumer, which is the most important part,” says Gumbel of Think PR.
Retailers have clearly discovered that pop-up stores bring brands to life and let people sample products in a great format, without much cost. “Try getting that from a 30-second ad,” says Claudia Strauss, president of Lime PR, in New York.
Uniqlo, the hip Japanese retailer of casual wear, took the pop-up format to a new level late in the runup to the November 2006 opening of its New York store. To announce its arrival, it drove two shipping containers into the city and used them as stores that “popped up” in various locations over eight weeks to show off the company’s apparel:
Pop-up stores — coming to an empty location near you. Are you up for it?
In a world of BlackBerries and instant messaging, there’s a growing sense of haste in people’s lives. In response, companies trying to get consumers’ attention are trying to create a sense of urgency. For retailers, who need to get people into stores to try out their clothes, their shoes, and any other new products, the store itself is the new limited edition. So limited in fact that it may last a mere 96 hours. “There’s a certain passion about things that shout ‘act now!’ and that has transpired into the way we shop too,” says Claudine Gumbel, co-founder of Think PR, a New York fashion publicity firm.
These days, retailers are adopting the concept of a pop-up store with gusto. A pop-up store opens up at an empty retail location for a few days in a major city, or a mall, with great fanfare. And then, poof! It’s gone. Last year, in November, Nike (NKE) opened a pop-up store in Soho for just four days for the sole purpose of selling 250 pairs of the Zoom LeBron IV NYC basketball shoes, named after the popular 22-year-old NBA All-Star LeBron James. The special edition shoes were priced at $250 each.
In May and June, Gap (GPS) kicked off a ’60s style tour, where it used a school bus as a traveling pop-up store that made appearances in Los Angeles and New York and stopped at beaches on both coasts. Instead of seats, the bus sported shelves filled with t-shirts, flip-flops, and beach hats that people bought and paid for at a cash register near the driver’s seat. Even the stodgy giant Wal-Mart (WMT) adopted the concept last April, when it showed its new fashion line Metro 7 in a Fashion Cabana in Miami’s South Beach district, open for only two days.
BUDGET BUZZ
Retailers use pop-up stores to generate buzz and excitement around a new product launch, as in the case of Target’s Proenza Schouler line. Sometimes, the stores are a great way for stores to check the pulse of consumers and try out new products. Usually, they are less costly than television ads, which can run in the millions of dollars to produce and broadcast, and the stores generate similar buzz and publicity for new brands.
Even nonretailers are giving it a try. The U.S. Potato Board, which represents American potato growers, opened a pop-up store in New York, during the week of Thanksgiving, for less than $200,000. The group, with the help of cartoon character Mr. Potato Head, promoted the message that potatoes contain more potassium than bananas as well as nutrients like folic acid and vitamin C.
Tags: buzz, exclusive, Experiential, limited, new product, pop-up stores, retail, sample, short-term, temporary
You may have noticed that radio — the good old-fashioned AM/FM type, not the fancy digital or satellite offerings — has been having a rough old time of it since the invention of the iPod by Al Gore.
Seems that those pesky consumers have preferred roll-your-own music to that pre-digested by programmers in Milwaukee or Boston or Dublin (or wherever).
Now comes the news that Listener Driven Radio, LDR — crowdsourced radio, to give it a sexy Web 2.0 label — is the Next Big Thing.
According to “Inside Radio”, Citadel Media is now making the LDR service available in the US:
Launched in July [2009] in the U.K. , France and Australia , the software enables listeners to impact playlists, request songs and upload or vote for new music through radio station websites, smartphones and social networks. You Pick The Next Song, for example, lets listeners choose from three songs based on clocks and rules set by the station’s PD. Housed in a widget on a station’s website, the system collects audience feedback and integrates it into the station’s music scheduling and automation systems. Stations can go as far as turning an entire daypart or weekend over to listeners, within specific parameters.
“Radio has been scratching its head about how to embrace and make money from social networking,” says Citadel Media senior VP of programming and distribution Carl Anderson. “With this, programmers can keep their hands on the wheel as much as they want, while endearing their stations to listeners in a whole new way with constant interaction and research to program the station together.”
Listeners can paste the widget into their own site, blog or social networking page. McVay New Media president Daniel Anstandig, who developed the system, says it was built to influence P1 listener TSL and loyalty and allows stations to evolve from broadcasting to crowdcasting. “It gives the keys to your car to more P1s and gives them the opportunity to shape your programming, while giving programmers more real-time feedback.”
Clearly the breathless writer of the press release had never heard of radio request programs, made possible by that dazzling technological wonder, the te-le-ph-one — in operation ever since, oh, the dawn of radio in the 1920s.
Now we’re trading telephone and email for widgets and apps. How thoroughly modern.
Tags: audience feedback, automation systems, future, hands on the wheel, invention of the ipod, listeners, pesky consumers, radio station websites, request songs, sexy web, social networking, social networks, widget
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