Shopper Culture

Your 'Dancing Cat' Search Cues ‘Smelly Cat’ Pre-Roll

We’ve all heard the many adaptations of: “if content is king…” Including the retort: “…context is queen.”

Case and point: the recent Netflix YouTube campaign to promote the addition of ‘Friends’ to their television roster. The “Friendly Pre-Roll Campaign” is the first pre-roll campaign to utilize responsive search to serve relevant clips from the oldie-but-goodie sitcom. Meaning if you searched for “funny dance videos” on YouTube, your video might open with a pre-roll of Monica and Ross’ infamous “routine.”

Cause Marketing & Gender Parity

Did you know that March is Women’s History month? Did you know that March 8, 2016 is International Women’s Day? Everyday Google changes its homepage search bar and 3/8/16 was dedicated to women. Google is a huge brand with a ton of visibility and is making a statement about gender parity. How can your brand get involved and support this day/month? Could your brand/retailer create an event or promotion specifically for this cause?

Image Source: Google 3/18/16

 

What’s Love Got To Do With It? What brands can learn from the art of attraction

Valentine’s Day has come and gone, and all things pink-and-red-hearted have gone on deep clearance until next year. But in the wake of the season of love, it seems like a good moment to reflect on what brands can learn from people in terms of attraction, relationship building and even love.

So many fish in the sea

The first lesson is that there are a lot of people out there who are single and ready to mingle. 50% of US adults are not married. Single person households are the fastest-growing household composition. 40 million Americans use an online dating service.

The same holds true for brands. Most consumers keep their options open. Just 25% of shoppers say that brands influence their purchase decisions. Shoppers across categories are highly promiscuous. And unattached shoppers are fair game. Datable. Ready to fall in love. 

 

QSR New Product Launch Building Up Super Bowl Suspense

As Super Bowl fans grow increasingly excited and anxious to see how their favorite team will fair in the 50^th annual Super Bowl celebration, they’re also anxiously awaiting the various mega-brand ads that will garner as much social chatter as the game itself. Many brands use the Super Bowl hype for new product or campaign launches, and this year is no different.

Taco Bell announced in January that they’d reveal their next "mystery mash up item" during their 2016 Super Bowl ad,               and even the actors were left in the dark on what the new menu item will be. (See Taco Bell's Super Secret YouTube video.) For Taco Bell lovers, the suspense has been growing, and just this week Taco Bell announced that people will be able to pre-order and enjoy the new product the day before the Super Bowl, which is two days before the official launch date. The pre-release will most likely create a title wave of social chatter and many opinions on whether or not the product was worth the hype and wait.

 

Affluent Asian Millennials - The Untapped Audience

I just read a research headline by ThinkNow Research, “The Most Affluent Millennial – Asians.” This instantly peaked my interest, mainly because my research rarely focuses on the Asian audience. As marketers, we have been focused on African Americans, Hispanics, Moms and Millennials. According to this research article, Asians were 30% more affluent than the nearest group, non-Hispanic Whites, was more financially conservative and more likely to research deals in advance. It also stated that they were less likely to drink beer, more likely to shop at specialty food stores and more likely to call themselves “Foodies” than their non-Asian age cohorts. These few data points paint a picture of a person that has completely different behavior than the audiences we have been focused on. I think we all should start learning more about this Affluent "Asian" Millennial, so we can figure out how to better reach them and earn their brand loyalty.

Image Source: Think Now Research

Virtual Reality is Becoming a Consumer Reality

The highly anticipated Oculus Rift was officially released for pre-order this morning. The virtual reality headset is priced at $599 and will begin shipping in March of this year.

While this new gadget is largely purposed for gamers, its release also signifies that virtual reality is going mainstream. As the headset continues to gain momentum with larger audiences, it could very well become a popular tool for retailers to engage with their shoppers.

Everyone's Giving Into The Shopping Spirit

According to the latest Checkout study on holiday shoppers, 41% of shoppers have already completed most of their holiday shopping. Between the Thanksgiving sales, Black Friday, the weekend and Cyber Monday, shoppers are making a dent in their shopping lists.

Shoppers are being lured by classic sales and fun experiences like Old Navy's overnight millionaire promotion, which awarded one lucky Black Friday Shopper $1million. But some brands are having more fun than others during this crazy shopping period.

Cards Against Humanity's Black Friday sale raked in over $70,000 by selling nothing. While Madewell's "your boss is shopping today too" Cyber Monday Sale is offering sale prices to those that SHOPATWORK (their promo code).

It would seem that shopping is alive and well despite the issues surrounding Black Friday. This year's Holiday Checkout digs into the Black Friday back and forth both shoppers and retailers are encountering as well as who is doing most of the shopping during Thanksgiving weekend. 

Click here to download the Holiday Issue of The Checkout.

Photo Source: Madewell Email

We're All in Marketing: What Evolution Tells Us About Advertising

What do you have in common with an Australian Peacock Spider? How is Volkswagen like a Bull Snake? And how do you pick the right eggs at the grocery store?

Ethan Decker, PhD, VP of Insight & Strategy at Integer, recently spoke at TEDxSMU 2015 in Dallas, TX.

As an ecologist in marketing, he connects the dots between the natural world and the human world, and finds some surprising insights about marketing and advertising.

Watch Ethan's TED talk here. 

Shoppers Prefer Printed Coupons

In a world dominated by digital, chalk up a win for analog. According to a recent survey conducted by CreditCards.com, of the 85% of Americans who use coupons almost a third of those shoppers (63%) most frequently use paper coupons from FSIs, newspapers and other products. 

A distant second coupon usage were online discount codes (17%), followed by presenting a coupon or discount code on a smartphone (15%). "Plenty of Americans are still opening their snail mail and reading the Sunday paper. I expect paper coupons to lose some market share, though, as consumers and brands get even more comfortable using them electronically," said Matt Schulz, senior analyst for CreditCards.com. 

Is Advertising Inherently Evil, or Is It Nature?

Some would say advertising is inherently evil. Certainly it has a history of deception and snake oil salesmen. But it might not be as bad as one would think. In fact, it might even be natural.

Ethan Decker, VP of Insight & Strategy at Integer, recently reflected on his past as an ecologist and the world of elk and orchids to see what he could learn about the world of advertising.

Click here to read Ethan's article on Huffington Post. 

The New Shopper Acculturation Model

The acculturation model has started to show some cracks in the last 15 years. It was designed to address immigrant-driven diversity. With most Hispanic population growth now coming from native-born Hispanics, the relevance of a framework designed to explain an immigrant experience has increasingly become irrelevant. It's the understanding of the nation coming together and eliminating what makes us different. This includes all ethnicities including white adopting more and more different ethnicities behaviors into their day-to-day lifestyle.

VW Scandal Hurts Germany's Brand

Co-marketing can have huge repercussions for brands that ultimately impact shoppers. This time, Germany as a country has lost credibility globally as a trusted brand due to the emission scandal around VW.

Every time brands do a marketing program with a retailer and/or a promotional event, it is co-marketing. Brands have to be very careful on the parameters used to select to a good, profitable and safe partnership that also makes sense for the brand's essence.

Image Source: Statesman

The Power of Serendipity

More and more brands are complementing their e-tail strategies, based on analytics and previous buying behaviors, with experiential programs rooted in more human impulses and the desire for unexpected rewards and surprises.

In new neuroscience research, Dr. Gregory Berns, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Emory University in the U.S, and Dr. Read Montague, associate professor of neuroscience at Baylor University, suggest “the brain finds unexpected pleasures more rewarding than expected ones, and it may have nothing to do with what people say they like”.

Turning Limited Edition Into Scarcity

When Target® released the news that Lilly Pulitzer® was bringing an exclusive collection to Target stores this spring, shoppers were instantly thrilled and quickly memorized the look book to build their wish lists. The news of this limited-edition spring line was released with plenty of time to build up the anticipation. Complete with TV spots, Target® wasted no time emphasizing the limited-time aspect of this collection. What many shoppers did not notice in their excitement was that, along with being available for a limited time only, this collection would be available only while supplies lasted. So what did that mean for yesterday’s launch day?

Little Logo, Big Impact

Recently, Hillary Clinton announced that she will be running for office in 2016. But, it appears that her 2016 campaign logo is getting all the attention. Receiving a less than warm reception, the logo has ignited an online debate that goes to show the power of design.