Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Cause Marketing – the Diesel way

Cause Marketing has become popular.
It’s aimed at consumers that want to “do something good” with their purchase.
Needless to say, it should not infringe on their lifestyle.
Cause marketing campaigns peddle products while contributing to a worthy cause.

An example is the Red Motorazr cellphone of Sprint.
Motorola and Sprint contribute part of the revenues of each phone purchased to Bono’s Project (RED) to fight AIDS and other diseases in Africa.
Apple quickly followed with its red iPod Nano, retailing at $199 in the US. From each sale, Apple donates $10 to the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa.
Fashion brands are especially good at cause marketing.

Way back in 1990s, Italian fashion label Benetton launched its "Benetton Clothing Redistribution Project".
It was a clothes drive, regardless of maker, that benefited charitable organizations like the Red Cross and Gifts in Kind America.

For the last decade, cause marketing has gone mainstream.
Consumers are used to shop and save the world at the same time.
Companies are selling products and a clean conscience. Wherever you turn, it’s there.
But is comes to a point that it’s not effective anymore.
The pink ribbons of the breast cancer cause are all over the place, triggering a backlash (or "pinklash"). In such cases, both product and cause suffer.

So what are the key success factors of effective cause marketing?

  • Define your marketing goals
    What do you want to establish as a company: reaching potential customers, increasing sales, brand recognition, PR?
    To reach their target audience for their next-generation Xbox and Samsung HDTV, Microsoft and Samsung Electronics launched a nationwide (USA) cause-marketing program entitled "Samsung's Hope For Education."
    The program will deliver more than $2 million in much needed technology and software products, to elementary, middle and high schools across America through an on-line essay contest.
  • Make it part of your overall marketing strategy
    A good example is Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc.
    They launched a three year, global partnership with Special Olympics, in which Starwood Hotels will be the exclusive hotel sponsor of Special Olympics and the 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Shanghai, China. In addition, Starwood will donate $50 dollars to Special Olympics for every Westin Heavenly Bed, Sheraton Sweet Sleeper Bed and Four Points by Sheraton Four Comfort bed sold through Starwood retail channels, until June 30, 2007.
  • Define who your target audience is, and which causes appeal to them
    The company Clorox markets its products to the global adult population.
    They cleverly chose a cause appealing to this broad target audience. They will donate a small percentage of the retail purchase price of its bleach products to the Red Cross.
    Barclay's Taking Care of Christmas 2000 campaign benefited four charities chosen by Barclays' customers as the most popular causes.

  • Choose a cause that fits your business
    A perfect example is Radio Taxis, a carbon-neutral, London-based taxi company, boasting more than 2,500 cars.
    It measures the carbon pollutants its 2,500 cars emit, and then invests proportionally in air-cleansing projects, from forestry to renewable energy.
  • Define the timeline- how long do you want the cause campaign to run?
    Target Corp. operated a temporary, “pop-up” Target store, located on New York’s Times Square for 30 days. All profits made during this period were marked for breast cancer research.

  • Make the relationship between company and cause clear to the public
    Vodafone communicated the following about its relationship with the National Autistic Society.
    As communication lies at the heart of everything that Vodafone does, it made sense to partner with a cause that is closely related to communication. As the leading provider of mobile communications, Vodafone has a unique opportunity to employ its strengths, size and marketing power to: help the NAS improve the lives of people with autism; bring the issues to a wider audience; increase the capacity and accessibility of NAS services.

  • Be aggressive in your corporate communications and public relations
    Companies like Ben & Jerry's and Avon are good examples.
  • Be creative – stand out in the cause marketing crowd
    The best example of creative cause marketing is the Italian fashion label Diesel.
    To promote their apparel, Diesel gives a positive spin on global warming.
    Its ads show Manhattan buildings and Mount Rushmore’s presidential faces half-submerged in water from melted glaciers; Venice and Paris are tropical and the Great Wall is covered in desert sands. Against these surreal backgrounds, Diesel's fashionable and immaculately dressed models live glamorous lives, having camel rides, relaxing on a yacht or applying suntan lotion to their partner’s toned back.
    To fight global warming, (potential) customers are invited to visit the Diesel.com website to buy are encouraged to by Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” on DVD.
    The creativity of Diesel is two-fold.
    First of all, its campaign is wonderfully tongue-in-cheek funny and gets the global warming issue across with humor.
    Secondly, Diesel doesn’t pretend to be a crusader – as its creative director Wilbert Das puts it: "We are a fashion brand. We want to sell product. We don't do anything more or less."
    Diesel’s cause marketing will definitely support its main cause – making profit!

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Tween marketing – a dream or nightmare?

Tweens are (mainly) girls in the age group six to twelve.
They want to look older and hotter, like their idols Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie.
Where did this market niche come from?
As with the teenage concept in the 20th century; smart marketers identified the gap in the marketplace between the girl who is still a child under the age of about nine, and a real teenager of 13 or 14 who has reached puberty. These girls are getting older younger – hence a profitable new market niche was born.

The tween customer group has some unique characteristics.

  • Tweens have their own budget, but most of their items are bought for them by parents and relatives.
  • Their taste flips between those of a child and a young adult.
  • The highest goal is feeling accepted by a peer group.
  • They are more logical in their thinking about right/wrong and what is in/out of style than previous generations.
  • Their favorite media to stay in tune are chat rooms and television commercials.

What are the market drivers?
  • Image building by TV channels such as MTV .
  • Globalization of brands, just look at the global success of Bratz.
  • Spending power – the tweens have money and love to spend it.
  • Peer pressure – no group is so susceptible to social pressure of their fellow tweens .
  • Urge to grow up fast and to be an independent individual.

The Bratz dolls are the ultimate tween success story.
Created in 2001 by the US manufacturer MGA Entertainment, global sales reached 125 million dolls accounting for $US2 billion.
Archrival Mattel (the producer of Barbie) struck back with its line of My Scene Barbie dolls, that includes “totally blinged out and super fabulous fashionable” My Bling Bling dolls. Mattel also hooked up with cosmetic brand MAC.

Cosmetics and clothes designers quickly followed in the footsteps of the doll makers.
The Italian designer Anna Molinari showed her tween collection in Florence, choosing 6-year old Anna Ermakova (Boris Becker’s little girl) as the star model.
Tween fashion is nothing to sneeze at: padded bras for eight- to ten-year-olds and My Little Pony bandeau bras for two- to three-year-olds are bestsellers.

The marketing channels used to attract and keep these young customers are Internet and subscription TV channels.
Advertising in kits’ magazines is less popular due to declining circulation.

The best way to reach this consumer group:

  • Target both the tweens and their (grand) parents - shopping is a family event, where the adults like to spend money on their tweens.
  • Use chat rooms to keep abreast of tween consumer behavior.
  • Use TV channels for promotion and product placement.
  • Use models and spokespersons in the same (tween) age group.
  • Recognize and respect the unique characteristics of the tweens.

The biggest challenge for companies is to build brand loyalty with the tween consumers.
The “get them early” part might be manageable, but what about “keeping them for life”?
It will be interesting to see how tween consumer behavior will change overtime.
Since tweens are “consumers in training”( and can therefore still be deceived), it’s the job of marketers to stay ethical. It will pay off in the long run.
The biggest mistake is to underestimate them. They are savvy and want to make decisions about the things that impact their lives.
It's wise to keep in mind: once burnt by a brand, they will not forget, let alone forgive – for the next seven or so decades!