Campaign Planning

Gift Certificates on Facebook

It happens every year. It's your birthday and you find yourself receiving a ton of "happy birthday" wishes on Facebook. Some from people you know really well, others from those you don't. It's nice. And you reply with a stream of thank yous. Birthdays have been going down like this on Facebook for years.

But starting this spring, perhaps it can be more. A new service out of Sweden, called Wrapp, lets friends post gift certificates to other friend's walls. The redemption process is supposedly easy: Wrapp's online app will show a barcode that makes that gift certificate redeemable at the store.

The service will reportedly be available in the US and UK in April. Brands who choose to be part of Wrapp can offer a variety of both free and paid gift cards for all of us to give away.

It's hard to predict what will take off. But, assuming it's easy to do, Wrapp sounds promising. It allows for giving something of value. It's genuine. It's personal. It comes from a friend. And it allows individual creative expression which is something that Campaign Planning talks about often in the development of the social web.

But it's also a good tool for businesses--large and small. Online incentives can drive offline behavior in many random ways... Brazil's Peixe Urbano rallied 1,000 people via Facebook the other weekend to create a human fish by offering a 75% discount on tickets to the Festival de Verao de Salvador Music Festival.

But beyond stunts, online advertising can increase offline sales.

Consider a recent study by comScore: when offline buying habits of households were compared between two different groups--those exposed to online ads and those who weren't--offline sales increased 21% among those who were exposed to the online ads. What's even more telling is that when predictive targeting was applied to online ads the study showed an in-store sales lift of 42%.

Now add a coupon sent by a friend to those numbers.

Wrapp is something to keep an eye on.

Final Holiday Retail Sales Figures

The 2011 holiday shopping season turned out to be a solid one for retailers. But it was a strange and bumpy ride to get there... Black Friday started things off well but December sales were weak up until closer to Christmas when shoppers returned to stores. Overall, holiday retail sales were up 4.5% compared to last season while average daily spending during the holidays was $83/day (vs. $85/day last season per Gallup). 

Just how bumpy of a ride was it? Per USA Today and ShopperTrak:

The post-Black Friday lull was deeper than usual this year. The two weeks after Thanksgiving weekend showed the biggest percentage sales decline since 2000. Then, during the final two weeks before Christmas, sales surged again, by the highest rate since 2005.

Interestingly, Christmas Eve and December 26th were the second and third heaviest spending days of the season. Which is odd because many analysts didn't even have December 24th forecast to be among the top 10 days. (But it was on a Saturday this year, which should have tipped a few off.) 

Online retail in particular had a great season, up 15% versus last season.

The combination of aggressive retailer discounting, the long-enduring recession and some rebounding activity created four types of shoppers this season:

The Bargain Timer:

Wait until the prices are at their absolute lowest, then strike hard.

The Midnight Buyer:

Get the best inventory no matter what time.

The Returner:

Over-buy and return. (Interestintly, retailers plan on returning nearly 10 cents of every dollar taken in during the holidays.)

The "Me" Shopper:

One for you, one for me.

Most likely, everyone showed signs of each this season.

But a strong holiday shopping season kicks 2012 off in a welcomed positive direction and somewhat helps abate the worries of low consumer demand which, per McKinsey, is the key thing executives report to be concerned with as 2012 begins. 

Two Minute Summary: Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Holiday Retail Sales

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For Black Friday and Thanksgiving weekend a record 226 million shoppers hit stores spending $52 billion which was 16% more than last year according to the National Retail Federation. A complete look at the last six years of shopping activity is below:

A couple of random retail notes about last weekend: Men purchased more than women with an average spend of $484 versus $317 and, on average, US shoppers visited 3.1 stores per shopping trip*.

Online spending over the weekend was up 26% per comScore to $816 million as 50 million US shoppers took to the web on Black Friday, 35% more than last season. Amazon led all sites with 50% more visitors than any other retailer.

How much did each shopper spend online? According to IBM Coremetrics the average order was $190 for 6 items--interestingly, both of these figures were slightly lower than last year*. But overall a jump of 26% in online spending is good news considering that last season online spending rose only 9%*.

There were also a notable amount of consumers looking online for offline deals, further supporting the idea that advertising online does indeed sell stuff offline. For example, TheBlackFriday.com had 3.2 million visits last weeked up 137% from last year*.

Mobile shopping was another area that saw significant growth this season with PayPal reporting a spending increase of 516% over last year courtesy of four times as many people shopping Black Friday sales on their mobile phones*.

Most reports cite three key reasons for the holiday weekend upsurge:

- Pre Midnight Openings

- Positive Strong Merchandising

- Competitive Price-to-Value Relationships

This is probably true as yesterday's Cyber Monday (a phrase coined in 2006) continued the positive sales momentum. Online traffic yesterday was up 43% from last year with online sales up 18% (as of 9pm last night). Electronics were the most popular item purchased, up 26%.

Moving into December the National Retail Federation has estimated that holiday sales will increase to $465.6 billion this year, up about 2.8% versus last season.

Yet while all of these numbers are strong, and publications like Reuters are posting headlines like holiday shopping is off to a solid start, it doesn't necessarily mean this holiday season will be breaking records. RetailSails provides us with a good historical reminder...

"Black Friday weekend has historically not been a very good predictor of overall Holiday retail sales. For example, both the National Retail Federation and ShopperTrak saw record spending over Black Friday weekend in 2008, but overall that Holiday season saw by far the worst performance on record as overall sales in the November-December period tumbled 4.4%."

Additionally, with 84% of American households saying today that they will spend the same amount or less than they did last holiday season we should look for retailers to continue their aggressive approaches all month long with some doing exceedingly well at the expense of others.

[ Sources can be found via links next to stats above ]

Back to the Food

Burger King has gone back to the food. Students of advertising will remember that the burger chain has done this before.

A favorite historical agency of mine, Ammirati & Puris, won the Burger King account in 1994 away from DMB&B, a large, prominent creative agency at the time. The BK campaign for the first four years of the Ammirati relationship was "Get Your Burger's Worth."

Take away the differences in pop culture and fifteen years worth of filming advances and the ads could be from the same campaign.  

I like mcgarrybowen, the agency doing the new work, and I loved Ammirati so this will be interesting to watch...

There's a world of difference between 1995 and 2011. But in the first year that Ammirati had the Burger King account and the creative went "back to the basics" and "focused on the food and good value" as it's apparently doing again today, sales went up 6.6%.*

Zero Channel Retail and Getting Social Close to the Product

When it comes to social, what consumers want and what businesses think they want seem to be a bit different. Consider this insight from IBM's recent report: From Social Media to Social CRM (via Influx). Businesses think consumers follow social channels to feel connected, submit comments and be part of the community but consumers report to mostly wanting to be closer to the product and product transactions.

What makes the consumer's desire for discounts, promotions and purchase even more important is Deloitte's recent Retailing Report which states that as the economy continues to circle back, in-store deals won't be as prevelant as we've all been used to over the last several years. The firm predicts this will cause consumers to turn more towards their social connections to make savvier buying decisions--both on-premise and off-premise.

Interestingly, both of these insights support the rise of two retailing trends that Forrester began the year with: Zero Channel Retail and a general shifting from the standard supply chain process to a Customer Value Chain business. I think these trends are worth a re-read now that we're nearly halfway into 2011. Both can be put to use across large and local retailers alike. And then at the same time the social presence can be refined to match.

Why Less Choice Could Mean More Sales

In 1997 I discovered Tapatio. It's terrific. And one of the best things about it is that there's only one kind of Tapatio. Makes it easy. Which is most welcomed considering that the average American supermarket now carries 48,750 items, five times the amount they did 1975*. Tropicana, for instance, had six juice varieties in 2004 but today they have 20. Shoppers say we like choice. And that's true because we like to shop. But let's not make the mistake of confusing shopping with buying.

Not so long ago a California grocery store conducted a test on choice. They set up a testing table of different jams for shoppers to taste. Anyone who participated received a discount voucher to buy a brand of jam tasted. During the test the store put out 24 jams to taste on certain days while on other days they only put out six. Turns out that while more shoppers stopped at the display of 24 jams only 3% of them actually purchased. On the days where only six jams were on display, 30% purchased.

How could that be?

Too much choice creates the need for lots of effort to make the correct decision. When faced with too much choice we often simply choose not to buy. It takes too long (real and perceived) to figure out what the 100% right choice is. Barry Schwartz wrote a great book on this.

But we'll shop all day long... driving up traffic counts, sampling product, trying stuff on, engaging sales people, asking questions, yet we may not buy. And worst of all, we may not give the business any real reason for our lack of puchase. "They just didn't have exactly what I wanted," we say. So what do companies do? They're listening so they create more choice. America's patent and trademark office now issues 200,000 patents a year.

As counter-intuitive as it sounds to increase sales one might want to limit choice and perfect what remains. At one time there were 26 kinds of Head & Shoulders shampoo. But once P&G slimmed it down to only 15 varieties, sales increased 10%.  [ found here ]

It seems that more choice probably encourages more shopping. More activity. But that risks coming at the expense of actual buying.

Too much choice might also be a key reason why we react so strongly when well-known companies, like Starbucks, change their logos. It's hard enough to keep up with all the choices in front of us. So when the stuff we're familiar with suddenly changes it entices, perhaps, a stronger emotional reaction than it probably should.

Marketing That Works

ADWEEK recently released their Top 10 Marketers of the Year. It's a great list with many familiar campaigns...

Groupings like this are always interesting because everyone naturally pours through them for insight and to find the master formula.

And once you pour through the case studies in this article, what you'll find is... there is no formula.

Isn't that freeing?

Turns out, TV still works to change behavior. Just ask Lays.

That the social web can help revive established brands, like Old Spice and Converse, while creating new ones like Zappos.

But you don't necessarily have to invest in the social web to attract audience love. Just ask Subaru.

Customers can be your stars, like with Microsoft. And the newest technology can co-exist with longstanding tradition, like with Ralph Lauren.

You can destroy long-standing products, like Domino's. And you can create new industries, like Apple.

And per Macy's, you can go back to the ethos of a 152-year old brand nationally while tailoring your value locally.

There's only one right way to do it. And that's probably your way. Do your own thing.

If you invest in whatever your way is... If you nurture it... If you believe in it... If you focus... And if you tie it back to your rock-solid strategy, it will probably do the job.

When it comes to creating campaigns, David Droga recently said it well:

Convince, inspire, motivate.

At the heart of it, that's what the Top 10 did.

The manner in which you do that, though, is entirely up to you.

And that's incredibly freeing.

Be Interesting, Be Good

"What if companies started doing what people do all the time, reuse perfectly good boxes?"

Columbia Sportswear just launched A Box Life which allows online shoppers to choose if they want to receive their purchases in a used box. By using QR codes shoppers can track where the package has traveled. The can also visit aboxlife.com and share pics and stories about their box's journey.

This is a great example of a company doing something interesting that's also bettering the planet... so naturally it's fun to write about, share and discuss.

Via Creativity.

Why People Buy Online

In marketing we are bombarded with facts, figures, research and over-analysis. So much so that it's often difficult to reach a decision of confidence. That's why it's important to center ourselves whenever possible.

Forrester Research just completed a survey regarding the main driver(s) of why people buy online. The two most important things: Low Price / High Product Quality. Combined together, of course, we get to value. And value is, predictably, all over Brand Keys' recently released 10 trends for 2010. 

Seems natural that "low price" would rank highest. But it's interesting that "high product quality" is so far separated from ""well-known brand names". This learning should build confidence for smaller online sellers. It infers that if a brand is new or under-developed that showcasing product uniqueness, investing in photography, offering generous warranties, and whatever else backs up a "high product quality" presentation all have the ability to push sales past better-branded rivals.

The Importance of Great Signage

I was recently shown an image of the sign for the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It's fantastic! In fact, it's so fantastic that folks talk about how cool the sign is in the same way they talk about the place itself (which is a wonderful throwback to the Wild West). I theorize that perhaps that sign is part of the reason why the Cowboy Bar has been around since 1937.

Seeing this sign triggered a thought:  I think we need a sign revolution. I mean, think about all the lackluster and annoying signs out there... You know what 80% of them are? A missed opportunity.

I think the error comes from two areas:

1.) The owner's thinking that money can be better used somewhere other than the sign.

2.) The owner's singular-focused desire for the sign: "We just need to be noticed from the street!"

The problem with error #1 is obvious and not really worth discussing: boring signs don't get noticed. But the problem with error #2 may not be as obvious...

Being "noticed from the street" typically means using bright colors and big fonts. But just being big and bright doesn't cut it. As consumers we blatantly ignore such stuff because big and bright isn't endearing or welcoming, but rather intrusive and repellent. (Russell has captured a fantastic example of this here.)

More important than being big and bright is that the sign extends (and for some introduces) the brand experience. If that's achieved the sign goes way beyond just getting noticed. It becomes memorable. It gives an intriguing taste for what's inside. And it does its job not only when you're driving by, but long after you've gone.

My advice:  When putting up a sign, get as creative and courageous as local community ordinances allow. It doesn't need to be big, it just needs to be an idea:  Use intricate neon, use funky light bulbs, use interesting metal work, use wonderful color, make it flash, make it rotate, make it blink. Use words and phrases like "world famous," "the original," "it's fun!" and maybe even "welcome!" It's counter-intuitive, but doing so actually makes the sign more endearing. Do whatever fits with your brand, just invest in it. Hire someone like these guys.

When it comes to signage, consider:
- the number of customers that pass by the sign everyday
- the number of times current employees pass by the sign
- the number of news crews and writers that pass by the sign
- the number of bloggers and photographers who pass by the sign

A company's sign is a source of pride and an opportunity to convey the feeling of what's inside.

And if it's lackluster, it simply becomes a missed opportunity.