What Happens When A Company Veers Away From Its Brand Color? Starbucks Goes Red This Holiday Season

Starbucks goes red? When a company intentionally veers from its traditional brand color, there better be a darned good reason. Starbucks for instance has joined the Product (red) brigade, spearheaded by U2's Bono to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

It's marketing for a cause and it's a beautiful thing. When companies make themselves productive beyond the scope of their own profitability, it is just a blessing not only to the organization but to the world



Seeing a company that contributes to the world's sustainability is impressive. Companies in the private sector do not operate in a vacuum, but in a world where at some point everyone is interconnected.

Every time you buy coffee at Starbucks, five cents will be contributed to Africa. It's not a lot but it can save lives. It's a good start. When company brands as big as Starbucks start to take notice, I certainly do hope others will follow. This is a great way to blend holiday marketing as well.

Holiday Sales versus Holiday Discounts: Are You Giving Too Much For The Same Revenue?

Holiday shopping is still in full swing even with the economic slowdown. Black Friday has shown no signs of a decrease in consumer spending as thousands flocked to their favorite retail destinations to get the best deal for their money.

The National Retail Federation, adding up sales Thursday through Saturday and projected sales for Sunday, said that each shopper spent about 7 percent more this year than last year. Shoppers spent an average of $372.57 Friday though Sunday, according to the federation, a trade group.

Strength of online sales can even be seen via this reuters article that said, PayPal, an online payments service owned by eBay, saw almost 34 percent more transactions this Black Friday than a year earlier.

PayPal saw sales rise 26 percent on Black Friday, the day after the Thanksgiving holiday that traditionally kicks off the U.S. holiday shopping season. PayPal said its sales numbers reflected 12 percent of all U.S. e-commerce.

Black Friday is best known as the day consumers crowd shopping malls, while greater online traffic is expected three days later on "Cyber Monday," when consumers use faster Internet connections at the office to make purchases.

Overall Web sales during the U.S. holiday season are expected to be flat at about $29 billion this year, according to tracking firm comScore.

Amazon.com said Apple Inc's iPod touch was the top-selling electronics item on Friday morning, followed by a Canon Inc PowerShot camera. Wii Fit and the Wii console were the top-selling items in the video game category, while the LeapFrog Tag Reading System was the best-selling toy.

But are we giving too much away? Analysts said the discounts that drew in shoppers over the weekend were so steep that many ailing chains might be no better off in the long run.

“You’re looking at discounts of 50 to 70 percent off,” said Matthew Katz, managing director in the retail practice of Alix Partners, an advisory and restructuring firm. “You have to sell two to three times as much to break even.”

When Are People Spending? Online Retail Spending Peaks Mid-Day

During this year's holiday season comscore reports that online spending has peaked during the middle of the day, driven by the heavy influence of shopping from work, which has accounted for 45 percent of all e-commerce dollars spent this holiday season.

More than half of all online dollars were spent between 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM, with the heaviest spending (26.9 percent) occurring during the 12:00 PM - 3:00 PM time segment. Nearly 10 percent of online spending occurred from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM and 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM, making them the peak individual hour segments during the day.



Some additional findings from comscore for the week ended Dec. 9:

• Consumer electronics experienced a strong week of online sales, up 43 percent versus year ago, outpacing its 23 percent growth rate for the season to date.
  
• Event tickets also had a particularly strong week, gaining 70 percent versus the corresponding period last year.
  
• Apparel outperformed its season-to-date growth rate of 16 percent with a 22 percent gain during the most recent week.
  
• Toy sales grew just 3 percent during the past week, lowering overall growth for the season to date to 14 percent.

Evaluate Your Holiday Online Marketing Campaigns

A recent article on Search Engine Land called for online retailers to perform post mortem analyses on their holiday marketing campaigns. I couldn't agree more. The article goes on to say that, marketer's shouldn't assume that people are done shopping on December 22nd. Sure, most retailers experience a sharp decline in activity post holiday, but the 2006 drop-off wasn’t nearly as significant as in years past, and we do not expect it to be that dramatic in 2007 either. The reason? Maybe it’s the increasing effect of gift cards, or that most shoppers realize that the real deals happen after the holidays. Either way, savvy marketers should be prepared to capture post-holiday activity.



And in order to make the most of this post mortem analysis, here are a list of questions that have been recommended to accurately define how the online campaigns worked or didn't work:

• Did messaging target your customer base, data should reveal the information you need to tweak your messaging so it is more closely aligned with the language of your customers
• What were the best moving or most profitable items?
• Can you identify compatible product combinations?
• Have you aligned website promotions and product availability to influence overall merchandising strategy?
• Research competitor performance in comparison with your own history

Search engine land recommends you perform post mortem reports on your holiday campaigns. And with good reason - the holidays bring in more than 50% of the average monthly sales for most retailers. This is painstaking and probably time consuming for most companies that do their own analytics, especially during the holidays. But the results from this study will provide you with elements and capacities to improve your campaigns and set it on a competitive position as you once more launch campaigns in the first quarter of 2008.

Holiday Marketing Targeting Young Adults

An article from eMarketer reports that young adults will spend $634 per person, according to researcher Youth Trends.

Tops on their shopping lists:



Most of them will be shopping online too



Not only that but $158 of the average $634 in spending, young adults will spend on other purchases for themselves. That's a ttal of $48 billion on discretionary purchases this year made by young adults 18-30 years old.

What does this mean for retailers? If you have products that are within the $158 range and are directed towards the young adult market, it would be beneficial to conceptualize promotions right now in this relation

What does this mean for management? Strategies should expand in terms of targeting the market. Although most businesses are geared towards the working population, because of convergence through the internet, the world has become so much smaller. More and more markets are becoming available online - younger and older.

Holiday Marketing Targeting Young Adults

An article from eMarketer reports that young adults will spend $634 per person, according to researcher Youth Trends.

Tops on their shopping lists:



Most of them will be shopping online too



Not only that but $158 of the average $634 in spending, young adults will spend on other purchases for themselves. That's a ttal of $48 billion on discretionary purchases this year made by young adults 18-30 years old.

What does this mean for retailers? If you have products that are within the $158 range and are directed towards the young adult market, it would be beneficial to conceptualize promotions right now in this relation

What does this mean for management? Strategies should expand in terms of targeting the market. Although most businesses are geared towards the working population, because of convergence through the internet, the world has become so much smaller. More and more markets are becoming available online - younger and older.

Holiday Marketing – Crisis or Opportunity?

To different types of businesses, the holidays can either be a bane or a blessing. Some businesses become hectic while others become so quiet that they just have to pause operations during this time of the year. Here are some tips to prepare for the holidays, whether you’re looking to slow down or speed up business

1. Start now. Plan the coming holidays. What do you intend to do? When will you push sales? When will you close the books?
   
2. Look back and review how you’ve done in the past to determine if there’s some form of marketing that can help revenues this time of the year


3. Calendarize your holiday. Based on your history and trend for the year, how many staff members will you need to get through the holiday? Jot down everybody’s days off as well as your own

The holidays are what you make it.

(image from MSNBC.MSN.com)

Ready, Market, Shop! Holiday Shopping Statistics

4 out of 10 will reduce spend of the holidays. However even if Americans are projected to spend less this holiday, total revenue as a result of gifts purchased expected to remain the same compared to 2006 according to 22nd Annual Holiday Survey

Areas where spending is likely to be down include home improvements, socializing/entertaining, charitable donations, home/holiday furnishings and non-gift clothing. However, people intend to buy an average of 23 gifts this year - highest over the last 6 years, with women planning to buy more. Older consumers (61-74 years old) plan to spend more than a quarter more than the average consumer.

The backdrop to these spending expectations:

• American consumers are less optimistic about the economy, with only 57% of consumers surveyed saying the economy will improve or remain the same next year.
• However, the vast majority (85%) say they feel secure about their jobs, which is about even with last year.

What does this mean for businesses?

• Would be best to capitalize on the status quo and generally compliment existing product lines with what consumers are most likely to buy or are interested in buying.
• Marketing campaigns should be geared towards the holiday season.
• Management should be aware of the trade-offs of the season: exchanging cost of offers for more volume sales resulting in hopefully more absolute dollars at the end of the day.
• Target markets should be considered carefully in accordance with product offerings. In this case though, the more mature market will likely be competitive

More Discounts and More Promotions For The 2007 Holiday Season

Marketing projections have been made that more holiday discounts and promotions should be available this holiday season as 73% of all US retailers.

Al Ferrara, a Partner in the Retail and Consumer Product Practice at BDO Seidman projects that, "A 5% holiday growth forecast is a full percentage point higher than the forecast of the National Retail Federation, but represents a large drop in optimism among retail CMOs when you consider this same group of professionals predicted 7.8 percent growth for the 2006 holiday season."

Highlights of the BDO Seidman Retail Compass Survey of CMOs

• More than half of all leading retailers expect flat holiday shopping season. Although they think that there will be an increase compared to last year (41% of them think there will be a 5% increase)
  


• The very reason why marketers don't go on holidays during the holiday - 26% of annual sales revenue come in during the holiday shopping season. In 2006, this was 24%
  


• A major concern for the holiday is credit concerns (mostly on account of interest rates and the subprime lending crisis), next to that are fuel costs and the weak housing market. All of which are pretty much interlocked - credit concerns, fuel or energy costs and housing are the top 3 factors that may affect holiday sales in 2007.

• There is also the news about safety issues regarding Chinese products which has affected inventory assortment for many retailers.
  
  

About the study: The BDO Seidman Retail Compass Survey is a national telephone survey conducted in October 2007 by Market Measurement, Inc. Its executive interviewers spoke directly to 100 chief marketing officers, using a telephone survey conducted within a pure random sample of the nation’s largest retailers, excluding automotive dealers and restaurants. The retailers were among the largest in the country, with revenues of more than $100 million, including 15% of the top 100 based on annual sales revenue.

No Holidays For Marketing

Marketing has no holidays. Unfortunately, holidays are the best times of the year to hype campaigns and make them more effective than they would normally be. Why do you think Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day and even seemingly not-that-important occasions like Mother's Day and even Grandparent's day are becoming such big deals?

I have nothing against it, it's actually great that more people start remembering dates like these, I bet the receiving end doesn't feel so bad either. But anyway on to our Holiday campaigns. It is Halloween and it will soon be Thanksgiving, followed by Christmas and the New Year.

The time to start thinking about Holiday marketing though is RIGHT NOW. I have already made a marketing budget projection for our holiday spending. Some questions to consider for the holidays:

• How much did we spend in previous years and what returns did we get from them? Will it be worthwhile to do the same this year?
• What are the current trends and market behavior leading to the holidays that might be able to highlight certain product lines?
• On what days were we exceptionally active and on which days did we lay low?
• What offers are we planning to put out? Will there be a boxing day special?

After you've considered the holiday factors and established with management the holiday strategies to set in place, here are some tips on implementation to make the most out of the holiday shopping spree:

• Segment and target your customer base, differentiate people who purchase on different holidays. An email marketing campaign or direct mail campaign to the right people at the right time can generate extra sales.
• Always be timely. Customers will appreciate you sending them a card at the right time. If you're thinking of doing direct mail. make sure you mail out the pieces with the right lead time. Nothing worse than a client getting your coupon past the deadline - I should know. I've tried.
• Try a greeting card instead of the typical letter. Although the commercial nature of the holidays have stigmatized so many people. Holidays are still good reasons for people to justify their purchasing behavior. That's the spike in spending during the holidays otherwise called holiday shopping.
• Try not selling them anything. Just being thoughtful is enough to create goodwill and encourage the customer to revisit your site every now and then.