oral-b celebrates our favorite moment with dad.

Share your favorite moment with pops.

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We know Hispanics are “super” consumers of digital media, over-indexing on all things mobile and digital.  A new study by Sensis shows a preference among all Hispanics for English on-line, and that Hispanics prefer to buy products on an English-language website.  This may be because digital use and biculturalism/acculturation go hand-in-hand, or it may be that the quality and credibility of English-language websites are perceived as higher by Hispanics.  Regardless of the reasons, it is important that English-language websites are inclusive and recognize the passion points for Hispanic as well as non-Hispanic users. And it is  important that we as marketers, dig deeper than translations of English language efforts.

Once again, we see that the key to marketing to Hispanics is not language. For some media, language may be a factor, but language choice is never a strategy.  Rather, culture is everything and it is important to hit on the important passion points for Hispanics, even on your English-language websites.  Hispanics must be able to relate to the images, and images must be inclusive of a multicultural mainstream.  Further, the areas close to the hearts of Hispanics—including music, culture, food, sports and family can play a huge role in creating resonance for this shopper.  While this may be the current state of this issue, we should keep an eye out for the proliferation and improved quality of Spanish-language and bi-lingual websites—as they gain credibility we may see some changes in this trend.

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Abercrombie and Fitch missed the mark last week in their latest attempt to scrub an image tarnished in recent months by none other than CEO Mike Jefferies. We’re all familiar with the PR blunder regarding who he DIDN’T want wearing A/F clothing, and the social-media-driven backlash/DIY campaign that followed. But here’s the next chapter; an anti-bullying “campaign” to help us believe A/F are more than the “good looking guys,” but really good guys as well. Here’s my beef: 1) it’s not an anti bullying campaign at all. It’s throwing money at a hot topic without actively trying to change the status quo. Nobody has to state they are against bullying, but what are you doing to change it? In A/F’s case, not much. 2) The scholarships are designated to provide “assistance to individuals who have been victims of bullying…” Imagine that application process. 3) Still can’t buy clothing over size 10 in their stores. I’d fire my PR agency and hire this one.  In the era of social media accessed by a generation grown weary of “marketing,” you have to walk the talk. In my book, Abercrombie has blundered again.

What would you have done differently to heal Abercrombie’s first self-inflicted wound?  How have you changed, or how will you change your cause marketing efforts to hold up against a connected millennial marketplace that demands action, not just words, substance vs. talking points?

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Online grocery start-ups in Seattle and LA believe that Amazonfresh will only serve them well by increasing awareness about online grocery shopping. Many small start-ups in LA are able to deliver promptly for a much lower fee than Amazon and hence feel like they will survive the giant.

What’s interesting is that many of these small online grocery start-ups look at brick and mortar stores as content providers, and serve more as pick-up and delivery services vs. providing any true competition to traditional grocers. Amazon on the other hand is serving as a true grocer. Amazon’s service, though expensive, has great reviews (4/5 on yelp by 121 shoppers).

When should the traditional brick and mortar grocers begin to worry?

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smart ideas for smarter cities.

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Featuring:

eBay’s 24 hour, interactive storefront this weekend in Manhattan-open until July 6. “Shoppable” windows will enable people to buy products and have them delivered FREE within an HOUR anywhere in NYC.

Unilver’s Tresemme shoppable video on YouTube. Unilever’s Tresemme is the first brand to utilize YouTube’s channel gadget, allowing users to click on various products in demo videos for purchase information, ultimately driving online sales at the listed retailers.The channel gadget allows YouTube users to buy brands by connecting shoppers, brands and retailers throughout the YouTube experience.

Let us know your thoughts on this week’s trends.

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Do highly creative ads really inspire people to buy products? Studies have found that creative messages get more attention and lead to positive attitudes about the products, but there’s little evidence linking those messages to purchase behavior. To address this gap, Reinartz and Saffert developed a consumer survey approach that measures perceived creativity along five dimensions; originality, flexibility, elaboration, synthesis and artistic value.  They then applied the approach in a study of 437 TV ad campaigns for 90 fast-moving consumer goods brands in Germany. The study then linked the assessments to sales figures for the products.

The findings confirm that creative campaigns are, in general, more effective than other types of ads. The research also shows that the various creativity dimensions deliver different results. Elaboration, for instance, had a far more powerful effect on sales than did originality, a more commonly used dimension. Indeed, many companies focus on the wrong dimensions in their campaigns. This article reveals which product categories are best suited to creative advertising and which dimensions of creativity have the most influence on sales.

Can this model of analyzing the creativity in advertising be applied to shopper marketing advertisement? How does gaining an understanding of how different creative dimensions affect national advertisement help us as shopper marketers? Do we have the power to alter the shopper’s perception of brands/products throughout the path to purchase after exposure to national advertisement? Can we as shopper marketers provide creative advertisements for our products that surpass the national advertisement perception?

The post creativity in advertising: when it works and when it doesn’t. appeared first on Mars Advertising.

These days, many brands are focusing on reaching the up and coming Millennial shoppers, putting the 50+ market on the back burner.  Point in case, only 5% of ads target baby boomers, yet they dominate 119 out of 123 CPG categories.  Not only that, they outspend other generations by $400 billion a year on consumer goods and services.  With 50% of the population expected to be over 50 in less than five years, it would be a miss to overlook this market.  Our partners at Iconoculture have identified five key 50+ archetypes to help brands target this group more effectively.  These archetypes consist of:  New Balancers, Bachelor Boomers, Happy Enders, Late Bloomers, and Invisible Women.

Thinking about your brands and key retailers, where are the opportunities, if any, to more directly target this large and growing segment with deep pockets?  Among the five archetypes, which one(s) should your brand target and how?  Learn more about these archetypes by clicking here and then give us a call to lay out a plan for developing a strategy to reach them in key retailers.

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A recent study by Hartman Group takes an in-depth look at the wider context of how and why modern consumers shop in today’s complex and ever-changing market. By taking a holistic approach to expectations, experiences and behaviors of today’s shopper, the study is able to cover multiple facets of the how and why the Shopper Topography is the way it is today. The study assesses the current state of the pre, during and post-shop phases, channels, categories and the value equation. An important fact to know about this study is that it’s not some traditional analysis of the path-to-purchase and all it entails.  It is a report that delivers substantially more insightful and pragmatic data and information with respect to the contemporary shopping experience and the pathways to purchase. It will serve all of us well to read further into this study. Do so here!

The executive summary of the first portion, “Shopping Topography Study,” examines something called The Constant Consumer Shopping Model. Portrayed like gears in a car, it illuminates that there are 3 gears to the model: Inform, Consume and Purchase. These 3 pieces of the model are always working together, and no one stage is specific to one gear of the model. If you were to keep the model intact, would you label the gears this same way? Do you have a different opinion on what role each gear plays? Do you completely disagree with this model? Share your opinion!

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