Consumer activation in the traditional last mile.

As against at modern trade outlets, undertaking brand activations at traditional trade outlets is tough to undertake and even more difficult to measure for impact and ROI.

AaramShop can not just help your strategize with creation of last mile campaigns, but also undertake the comprehensive program, including reaching-out to partner retailers, rolling-out consumer engagement and measuring the impact of your marketing initiative. 

We have fine-tuned our solutions to specifically engage with independently owned, A category, neighborhood outlets. It is with these outlets that we help drive tertiary sales for your brands. Our on-ground activations are backed up with digital initiatives to ensure that your product gets into the shopping list of consumers.

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A good digital campaign by Fanta.

Visit the campaign site here. Good to see the brand staying away from TVCs to focus on the core experience. The campaign encourages co-creation and conversations about the brand.

The missing bit - is the next logical step to encourage the last mile discovery of the brand. Maybe the scale of the campaign makes it too tough.  

Now add "Shoppability" to "Reachability".

FMCG & CPG brands reach out to consumers using every media option available - both offline and online. However, what has often been missing is the possibility of translating brand awareness into action - that too real-time.

AaramShop's plug-ins now enable consumers to add the brand they want directly into their shopping list - commerce happens across touch-points and across devices.

Talk to us to understand how we enable EveryWhere Commerce.

The internet & The Local Business.

Local businesses and brands that use local businesses to market / sell themselves understand the power of "word-of-mouth" marketing. However, it is normally expected that the internet marketing is the domain of larger corporates and that your local store is immune to its impact. 

Contrary to that belief Milo, an online product locator, has put together this infographic that speaks volumes about the power of online reviews for local businesses.

According to the Small business Search Marketing Survey by American Express OPEN, U.S. small businesses can still count on word-of-mouth as a top way for shoppers to find them. Close behind, however, is the Internet. Local consumers now heavily rely on search engine power when shopping locally. 

This trend binds in very well with the AaramShop's strategy of bring the local neighborhood grocers online, thereby get them future-ready.

View the full infographic here

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• 
  

A New Era For Experiential Marketing

Experiential marketing has been around since the days of the traveling salesman. But with a strong assist from technology, it now it is re-emerging as the backbone of many branding plans.

Came across this wonderful article on CMO and felt it was worth sharing. 

The article captures the key changes and the fact that the empowered consumer has made experiential marketing a necessity in some areas, such as retail and electronics, where showrooming is turning products into commodities. 

And with the rise of online and mobile shopping empowering consumers to commoditize products, a tactile experience becomes a good way to set one product aside from another.

Read the full article here on CMO

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Superb Marketing Campaign for Nature Valley Granola Bars.

This is a fantastic marketing initiative by General Mills Nature Valley Granola Bars.

Awesome objective, great strategy, superb brand fitment and creation of not just a great campaign, but something that will be used for years on end by a thankful target audience. 

I rate this as one of the best marketing initiatives that I have come across. 

The video link below captures the process and the impact and I would suggest that you experience it here on the website

Got Milk? A digital activation.

Soy, coconut and almond milks are saying they’re healthier than real milk. But why? What’s in them? Here is a website to celebrate just that, all the ingredients that go into imitation milk. 

Has been Created by Goodby Silverstein & Partners for the Califonia Milk Processors Board to drive awareness.

I liked the thought, the strategy and the integration of devices; however, I did feel that the video interface makes the experience a little jerky and not as much of fun as I would have liked it to be, especially on the mobile device.

Visit the website here

CPG Mobile Marketing Strategy

Here is a comprehensive presentation by Brunner on how & why CPG / FMCG companies can adopt mobile marketing and make it an integral and "growing in importance" part of their overall strategy. 

The Future of Marketing by Gerd Leonhard.

Another gem by Gerd Leonhard - the futurist. 

Einstein Simplified!!

If Einstein can be simplified, I bet digital  marketing for FMCG / CPG brands can be simplified as well.

You would have noticed that it is difficult (if not impossible) to wrap up a digital / online marketing discussion, without learning a few extra jargons and tech-speak. All the jargon has a MEGO effect on me (`My Eyes Glaze Over') :-). 

If you are into jargons pick up a few from here.

The other interesting bit in most discussions is the "evasive action" when it comes to quantifiable returns from the marketing spends. 

At AaramShop, we have taken a few steps towards addressing this challenge by creating a marketing program which converts consumer touch-points (jargon 1) into shopper action-points (jargon 2) for FMCG / CPG brands. 

Talk to us about our Simplified Online Plan for FMCG brands (in India) and sign-in for the Step-Up Program. 

You are assured of time porn (jargon 3) 

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The role of mobile in shopping related research.

At the Path To Purchase Institute’s annual Shopper Marketing Expo, Alison Chaltas of GFK shopper and retail strategy, shared a global study that revealed the future of shopping is “getting extreme.”

Chaltas said that a hard economy – with one in three barely able to meet expenses and only 15% living comfortably – is fueling the emergence of a new shopper profile. This “extreme shopper” is wired; 68% research purchases on the internet and buy in store.

While “extreme shopper” was new, the concept of ROBO (research online buy offline) has been around for a while, but the percentage was interestingly high. However, what caught my attention was the way in which the shopper was doing the research and the emergence of mobile as the research tool.

The study found one quarter are using their phone to help shop, and that they’re seeing a broadening of categories this applies to, not just consumer electronics and clothes, but also food and beverages, as well as health and beauty.

They also found a multi-dimensional aspect to mobile shopping: value seeking is the goal of 89%, 51% are using mobile to connect to social media as a shopping tool, 24% are using it transactionally, and 82% informationally.

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Digital Influencers of Brand Selection.

Here is yet another research that supports the need of multi channel marketing initiatives – especially from a digital perspective in the CPG / FMCG space. The fact that consumers have adopted the digital media in their daily life is not lost on anybody; however, it is important to understand that they use it in different ways and with different intentions.

The key for brands, marketers and manufacturers looking to capitalize on digital in the CPG environment, is to identify how each consumer group embraces digital media.

Clearly the 18 - 34 year old consumers are comfortable with digital technology and their use of digital resources has an impact on purchase. What is even more dramatic is the extent to which this group is influenced by product and brand recommendations from bloggers and social networking platforms. In-store digital touch screens and phone applications are also seen to address this group effectively and present immediate, high-impact brand marketing opportunities.

Another plus for marketers is that these digital-savvy consumers are often trendsetters and influencers in their own circles. Word-of-mouth and informal, viral marketing can make a huge impact on those that are fully engaged in digital media.

Download the SymphonyIRI Group Point of View report: Digital Dimension: Consumers Embrace Digital Media with Diverse Approaches from here (PDF)

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Where tomorrow‘s customers will place their trust.

One thing is clear: mass marketing has had its day. For decades people have consumed what they learned about through the constant barrage of advertising – and what was available in the shops. Retailers stripped their shelves of everything that only sold occasionally, in order to free up valuable shelf space for the real top sellers.

That is all in the past. In the new online economy of the “long tail”, providers increasingly earn their money with niche products. Thanks to limited costs for storage and for the “showroom”, it is well worth their while to offer the unusual and the quirky as well.

Consumers like niches. They no longer want to be one of the masses; they want to own things that are rare and unusual. Small groups of aficionados grow up – “social networks”, which replace the mainstream as a peer group.

These networks take over the job of communication. Information about “cool” new offers travels round in no time. Providers who want to be noticed in increasingly fragmented markets must therefore make themselves visible in these circles.

The explosion of choice makes heavy demands on consumers. To reduce the flood of information, they go along with a calculated risk: they trust the recommendations and tips of others. They increasingly take decisions for emotional rather than objective, factual reasons.

Read the report here

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Saving Abandoned Brand Mobile Apps.

There’s a graveyard of brand apps that were a little more than a flash in the pan in terms of repeat usage from consumers. And the reason for this is simple. The majority of brand apps serve little or no utility at all to users.

The key, unsurprisingly, is making apps that are based more on long-term utility rather than campaign one-offs. The tradeoff is that true brand platforms require a mix of departments while most brand apps originate from marketing departments and are geared to specific campaigns.

“Utility apps have broken the path for the app world,” said Yvonne Caravia, chief experience officer for Mobients, a mobile design and strategy agency. “People who are on the go want to get stuff done quickly, and having a branded app that provides some sort of utility is a good way to get them coming back over and over again.

A study by Localytics found that just one in four mobile apps are never used again after being downloaded. The same study also found that 26 percent of apps aren’t used more than once.

Read more here

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The Social Media Advocacy Model

In theory, as social media becomes more common place, organizational audience engagement objectives, strategies and tactics should evolve past acquisition towards advocacy. Mark Smiciklas is quite sure some consumer brands are heading in this direction but, in his experience, many companies and agencies still seem to be focused on driving audience awareness and using “likes” and “follows” as success metrics.

To spark some discussion on the topic Mark thought it might be helpful to present an encapsulated view of advocacy. This brilliant infographic aims to present advocacy at a glance, explaining where it sits on the audience relationship spectrum while visualizing the steps organizations can follow to move connections towards becoming advocates.

Here are a few notes on the process and the model:

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