Tablet PCs Are The Future For Reaching Consumers

Tablets PCs (iPad, Samsung Galaxy, etc.)  may well be the future for marketing to consumers. 

An article in USA Today reports that several upscale hotels in major cities are offering tablets to their guests to quickly gain access to services that ordinarily needed a hotel concierge or a call to room service.  Several companies (including as Intelity, Ascension Software and Runtriz) have developed the applications designed to assist the traveler.  These added-on services also increase the hotel’s revenues (as well as reduce costs of human interaction)
Airlines are also considering distributing tablets in flight.  American airlines first class passengers will be receiving Samsung tablets for in-flight entertainment.  Travelers would be able to access shopping and make purchases as well as watching movies.
As tablets expand their presence into more consumers’ lives, they become the access point for information and entertainment virtually anywhere. Tablets will become the new media choice for marketers, replacing television, newspapers and magazines.  Consumers will search for information, graze through reading and entertainment choices throughout the day as well as contact friends. 
All of this is done through instant access to search as well as proprietary subscription applications.  Better still, QSR codes strategically placed along the route of travel or shopping allow for instant targeted access and lookup.
In any given day, consumers may pop into the following queries:
What time is that train coming?  Can I get a cab?  Can I talk to the designer of that dress in the store window? Where is the nearest hotel?  Can I get tickets to a movie tonight (better yet, can I stream it on my tablet)?   What is the chef saying about that new dish at my favorite restaurant? What is the latest news?  What is my favorite author writing about today?
Smart phones, with similar capabilities, have been around now for several years and consumers have become familiar with the touch based application approach.  Consumers are ready to take the next step and it will likely come in a very rapid pace of adoption.  Tablets will penetrate the market and become a staple in our lives.  Their rich color visuals, readable screen size and thin design will allow consumers to interact more easily and everywhere they go.    More importantly, it is a media that allows for awareness, consideration and immediate purchase.
I am calling tablets a huge disruptive trend in consumer media.  While tablets have been adopted across consumers in technology, their expansion into the lives of everyday people across all walks of life is right around the corner.  Will you be ready to reach your customer in this new media?

The Aging of the Media Audience

Ever wonder why the up-and-coming stars and contestants on American Idol (age 15 – 29 roughly) sing songs that were famous in the 1960s and 1970s?   I mean, come on, shouldn’t they be singing Lady Gaga and Ke$ha… (Not Motown and the Beatles)?  Well, the answer may be rather obvious to you.  Or maybe not.  The median age of the people watching American Idol is around 45.  Median means half below and half above. 

An recent article in The Economist on April 7th laid it out pretty clearly.  For those in the media business, it is not surprising that the median age of each of the major networks (except Fox) is now 50.  That is not all because TV is a bygone appliance. It is more to do with the fact that the population itself is getting older. 

I do remember the days that marketers looked at all demographics as male and female 18 – 49.  It was assumed that after that point, (known as “50+…. and irrelevant”) people were just elderly and unable to purchase things as they were likely in a wheelchair and homebound.   Really, that was the media and marketing thinking 15 years ago.  I was there.  Over the past years, however, marketers grew a little more wise and agreed that 50+ happens to have far more disposable income than the younger group, tends to shop more, and make bigger purchases (and likely not in a wheelchair until the early 80s). 

Now it seems that this viewer is a hot commodity – they tend to value brands, go online more than ever – even  pay for downloaded music (who does that anymore?) and trust advertising quite a bit more than the younger cohort.  Youth may still be enviable, but they are hard to pin down and are notoriously fickle as to paying for anything online. TV has become a friend to the 50-something consumer.  Networks proudly pitch their older viewership age demographics to the advertisers who seek this desirable target. 

So the next time you see Viagra ads on American Idol, realize that is why the artists are singing Beatles songs.

Do Brands Suffer in a Recession?

Actually, no.  Recessions rarely have a direct impact on the strength of a brand. 

A brand’s strength is measured in its ability to maintain its identity in the eye of the consumer and how uniquely it delivers on its promise.  That is different than how much product gets sold. Certainly a business can suffer from slower sales due to consumers choosing not to purchase as many things, or even to purchase only at the lowest price, but a brand is measured in its strength of persuasion and loyalty.

Brands suffer when what they stand for is lost – usually to a competitor who is doing a better job of delivering on the promise. 

Here is an example.  A recent article on the beer industry shows that Coors Light beer is vying to take the #1 spot of beer sales away from Bud Light, which has seen its share decline for a couple of years.  While the market is declining –3% per year, Coors Light is seeing sales increases.  Bud Light is a well loved brand but has become somewhat interchangeable with others and has lost some its bond with its user.  Beer are measured by their consumer as to taste and how they fit in with lifestyle and friendships.  Coors Light has turned up the innovation (labels show when they are icy cold), and continued to hammer home with strong ad campaigns.

But these gains and losses in this category have little to do with a recession. A recession may cause consumers to act differently, usually by, more closely,  watching what they buy.  But the brand that stays relevant and tied to the consumer, in the end, will win.

The Weight Loss Industry (and Public Health) Dilemma

January is generally a time of “belt tightening” after the holidays.  But in the U.S., belt tightening is not always easy.  The weight loss industry is one industry that always booms in January.  Estimated to be about a $60 billion business in the U.S., this business is on trend in a country in which almost 65% of the adult population is considered overweight or obese. Government statistics on obesity show a dramatic increase, from 20 years ago, in the percentage of the population that is overweight.

The New York Times published an article on the weight loss industry on Jan 6th.  Spending by the big three weight loss players is expected to grow by double digits.  Weight Watchers International spent close to $120 million last year and Jenny Craig spent another $34 million. 

Jennifer Hudson, the new spokesperson for Weight Watchers, looks great belting out a powerful ballad of strength “It’s a New Day” in ads that broke this fall, and dialed up big as the new year approached.  Ms. Hudson, who reportedly has dropped from a size 16 to a size 4 by losing 80 pounds on the Weight Watchers program, is known by millions from her American Idol days and then on to further fame in the movie Dreamgirls.  This is a very stylish campaign from McCann Erickson, a unit of the Interpublic Group of Companies, which began using Ms. Hudson in April 2010. Weight Watchers advertises in the Fall (Back to School), Spring (right after Easter) and Winter, (i.e., New Years resolutions), with Winter naturally being their #1 season to sign up new users at $40/month. 

Weight Watchers is a top-rate program driven on lifestyle change.  They use a simple points approach where consumers do not have to count calories, but just have to stay within their allocation of points.  Weight Watchers has overhauled its points program, now called Points Plus, with an emphasis on higher points for processed foods and fewer points for fresh fruits and vegetables (e.g. 100 calories of fruit or vegetables are free while 100 calories of potato chips add several points). There is also a clear recognition of the negative weight consequences of carbohydrates.

Weight Watchers however has struggled through 2009, declining 8.8% due to the company’s claimed effect of a bad economy reducing this type of discretionary spending.  Internationally, the declines have not been as severe as in the U.S.  Their one bright spot has been their on-line membership program that grew 5% in 2009, growing from 10% to 14% of revenues in 2 years, while all other memberships fell according to their respective annual reports.  Another issue the company faces may be that according to the research company, NPD Group, the percentage of women who say they are on a diet declined from 36% in 1991 to only 25% today. 

There seems to be more riding on Ms. Hudson and this new campaign than a great advertising idea.  It is taking more than traditional pressure to get folks to do the work of losing weight. 

Micheal Rosenwald, in a Washington Post article,  argued that our economy is structured in a way that will keep obesity on the rise for some time to come.  Our convenience foods products, fast food, quick meals on the go and large portions have replaced at-home food preparation of moderate size meals.  Our lives are sedentary, and we have come a long way from the days of true physical labor for workers where women prepared meals that required hours in the kitchen.  Women are in the workforce now.  We are an affluent society, and don’t want to go back to the lifestyles of old (where we were thin).  we are enjoying life, yet hate the result to our bodies.

So the weight loss industry lives on the promise of hope and quick results.  After we have indulged in far more calories and fewer workouts than our bodies required all year, we wake up with a renewed willpower and focus.  As if on cue, we are enticed with a success story from an admired celebrity who has a successful weight loss story and looks great.   

Is public health a victim of the shortcomings of the 30 second ad, sustained just long enough to sign up, attend a few classes, and stock our pantries with lean entrees?  As a marketer, I believe this marketing doesn’t seem to be working for the public health.  The goals of individual corporations’ sales targets seems not to be making material change in our waistline.  These ads are admirable in what they do short term, but these companies alone cannot make a dent in our growing problem.

Finding a Marketer in the Blogosphere

If you are like me, you did not grow up in a world in which blogs were a major source of knowledge sharing.   It could be that your reading patterns were established in the world of traditional media before blogging became popular.  Maybe you don’t spend that much time on the computer and internet or just plain have too many other things to do with your time (ie: you have a day job, or better yet, a life).  I admire you for that.  Those things do tend to take time and energy.

Technorati is a blog ranking and sharing site on the internet.  They just published some statistics in their report: 2010 State of the Blogosphere.  Seems like your average blogger is 25-49 years old, more male (60%) than female (40%), rather highly educated and a substantial number of them (>20%) do this for a living.   

But in any event, blogging is a writing forum that is actually being taken more seriously and is more widespread than ever as popular posts get discovered and shared on mainstream social media like Facebook and Twitter. You are only a Google click away from a blogger’s expertise on your search topic. Many bloggers are predicting blogging to overtake traditional print media in the not-so-distant future. 

Who Blogs and Why?
Bloggers are a diverse group. First there are a lot of folks who like to write and would love to simply catch up with friends and share their passions and interest.  This Hobbyist group is the biggest group blogging (64%), with personal satisfaction of writing as their primary goal.  

Another group is more professional in nature.  I think it is tied to the decline of traditional media.  There are a lot of intelligent journalists that are former employees of traditional media - commenting on art, music, the latest gadgets, travel, celebrities or business trends.  While trust in traditional media continues to decline, blogs seem to have a certain “genuine-ness” due to the community forum approach where comments are encouraged and welcome.  The author’s personality comes through, as they are often sharing of themselves rather than trying to report “just the facts”.  The new entrepreneur, consultant and small business owner are another big part of this group. 

A trend to watch;  Big companies are realizing that their brands can make significant guest appearances in consumer blog discussions, and are actively pursuing bloggers with large  audiences. The “mommy” blogger is a growing sector of bloggers that is attracting significant attention from consumer product companies.  A convention, named BlogHer, aimed at the growing female bloggers group was held at McCormick Place in Chicago last year.  In the size and scope of a major consumer products trade show, most of the the major packaged goods companies were in attendance.

As you can see from the chart, I am a new blogger, whose likely audience is fellow “marketeers” and business colleagues I have met along the way, and am learning as I go. 

Let me know your take on this world.  Is it new to you?  Do you read more blogs now than in the past?  Or maybe you have some words of advice for a new guy like me?   Somewhere among the millions of blogs out there, there could be one or two smart marketers like me  that would like to start some dialogue.

Turning Online Advertising Into E-Commerce

Today JPMorgan predicted that global e-commerce will grow 19% in 2011 and is forecasting that rate to continue through 2013.  What's more interesting is that 52% of people make an online purchase at least once per month, and only 12% didn’t shop online in 2010 (down from 20% in 2007).  This is according to JP Morgan senior analyst, Imran Khan.  Wow. Those are big numbers.  This is a swift and significant change in shopping behavior, even in a recession.
However, there is a bit of a disconnect pointed out as well.  Online advertising spending has grown significantly in the US – it reached 13.7% of total advertising, which far exceeded the percentage of online retail sales to total retail sales (3.9% of US retail).  This suggests some level of inefficiency.

 So what to make of this ecommerce to online advertising gap?   A couple of thoughts:

1. We have not yet hit the tipping point of online advertising.  There is a barrier that must still be overcome that will take more years of advertising to close the gap.
   
2. Online advertising may have little correlation to online sales.  This could be due to the fact that online advertising is a media, rather than retail, choice.  I can advertise soup on the internet, but I wouldn’t expect you to buy it there.  The same is true for restaurants, gasoline, etc.
   
3. Or….advertising is not effectively convincing people that online shopping is a safe, quick, and viable alternative to putting your coat on and driving to the mall.