talk

For many of us, the current economic climate has curtailed more than just our shoe shopping or vacationing habits. It’s hitting us right in the gut (no pun intended) by changing our food and beverage consumption habits as well. As Elizabeth Strott, a finance journalist, explained concisely in a July 2009 MSN Money article, “The slumping economy has changed America’s attitudes toward eating out.” Zagat statistics show that a whopping 33% of restaurant-goers nationwide have reported becoming more attentive to menu prices at restaurants, and that 28% of regular restaurant patrons indicated that they have switched to dining at cheaper restaurants than they used to frequent before the recession began. About one-fifth of consumers polled are still dining out regularly, but have given up ordering alcoholic beverages, appetizers, or desserts when they do. All of this spells fewer customers and lower bottom lines for all kinds of dining establishments, from the high-end locations to the ones that feature drive-through windows and 99-cent Whoppers. “Restaurants need to be ready for customers who feel tired, overwhelmed and tapped out financially,” noted Maria Caranfa, the director of Mintel Menu Insights, a menu consultancy, recently.

So is there a silver lining, so to speak, to this restaurant-busting cloud? Well, for one, when consumers eat out less, they begin to cook at home more, and studies show that meals cooked at home usually contain more vegetables and whole grains and tend to be lower in calories, fat, and sodium. Consumers are also more likely to consume reasonable portion sizes when cooking—and eating—at home. Thus, fewer dollars spent dining out-of-home could make for healthier consumers. Even during a recession, healthier consumers are more likely to spend on the lucrative categories of sporting goods and athletic apparel. Secondly, as experiences middle-class American consumers have historically loved—like an annual five-day vacation or the purchase of a new car— have increasingly become out of reach, shoppers are looking to boost their own morale by enjoying smaller, more affordable indulgences to the fullest (by buying whipped cream to go with that instant hot chocolate, or purchasing hot fudge and rainbow sprinkles and to top their ice cream.)

Shoppers will also be looking for inexpensive ways to enhance their at-home dining experience, and will be more interested in trying out new food and beverage products and in seeking new flavors and textures to add to their homemade meals. This provides a great opportunity for supermarket retailers and packaged goods companies like ConAgra, Kraft Foods, and Nestle, since consumers are more likely now than ever to toss a newly introduced product into their carts at the grocery store. According to Diana Cholewa, a senior analyst at Mintel, this means that companies who decide to introduce food products with flavors like persimmon, starfruit, lavender, cactus, and masala are poised to enjoy higher sales this year. Consumers who feel “stuck in a rut” (due to, say, an extended period of joblessness) will often seek to alleviate their ennui by choosing products that feel novel and exciting, and purchases made at the supermarket, convenience store, and greengrocer are no exception. In large part, successful marketing is about getting inside a consumer’s head and working to truly understand his or her wants and needs; if marketers can bear this in mind in our current economic climate and translate this insight into improved product offerings and line extensions in processed food categories, the results could be fantastic.

Walk down Fifth Avenue (or through Battery Park, or around Williamsburg), and you’re likely to notice that a lot of the bodies rushing back and forth are clothed or accessorized in one of this year’s hottest trends: designs inspired by the diverse origins of global culture. Ikat prints, Madras fabrics, and African-inspired textiles and shapes add interest to every woman’s (and man’s) wardrobe, and it seems that clothing, shoe, handbag, jewelry, and even lingerie designers, manufacturers, and retailers at price points ranging from haute couture to bargain basement have caught wind of this in the past twenty months or so. Dresses and sandals reflecting this trend can be seen on the sales floors of Banana Republic stores nationwide, as well as at the chain’s lower-end fast fashion sibling, Old Navy. It seems appropriate that a look that can claim so many geographically and culturally diverse influences can also be had at diverse price points, and the influences of global culture have accordingly filtered into the fashion water supply of Everytown, USA just as effectively as they have into that of Hollywood or Manhattan.

This summer’s hot print, spotted on everything from Land’s End swim separates to Burberry cocktail dresses, seems to be the Ikat. Ikat (also spelled Ikkat) prints are traditionally created by dying warp or weft portions of thread, and then weaving that thread into a two-dimensional fabric on a loom. Ikat textiles have been woven in cultures the world over: Agrentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, India, Japan, Thailand, and Bali have all been home to generations of Ikat weavers. The print even derives its name from somewhere most of the print’s current wearers would likely consider exotic: Malaysia, where ikat means “to tie” or “to bind” in the Malay language. Once used to adorn Buddhist monks’ robes, Ikat now decorates both Topshop bras and pieces from the Fall 2007 Balenciaga and Armani collections.

Madras fabric, too, seems to be experiencing something of a fashion Renaissance. Once the exclusive province of the country-club set and an icon of classic prepster style, this light-colored plaid print is now appearing on everything from miniskirts, shorts, and sundresses to neckties and Converse All-Star sneakers. The lightweight, textured cotton fabric takes its appellation from the nineteenth-century English name for the city of Chennai, India. More recently, Madras has been given a new twist by designers like Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo, and Madras-patterned pieces can be found everywhere from mall-based retailer American Eagle to J. Crew, the decades-old purveyor of all things pearls and pinstripes.

African-inspired shapes, colors, and textiles are having their moment in the sun, too. A summer-preview issue of T Magazine, the New York Times’s weekend fashion supplement, ran a story highlighting the African design motifs that are cropping up on this season’s dresses, shoes, and jackets. In the past few months, Louis Vuitton, Missoni, and Oscar de La Renta have all produced designs that are a nod to traditional African art and textiles. The works of designers who themselves hail from the continent have become highly popular, too: Azzedina Alaia of Tunisia, Oswald Boateng of Ghana, Deola Sagoe of Nigeria, and Marc Bouwer of South Africa have all made their marks on the fashion landscape in recent years. Opening Ceremony, one of Manhattan’s hippest boutiques, featured the wares of African designers during the Spring 2009 season. Global culture’s influence has clearly taken the fashion world by storm, and isn’t letting go anytime soon.

So is your closet craving a dose of the exotic? No need to book a flight to Zimbabwe or Chennai; the subway to Bloomingdale’s will do just fine.

The key to making strategic use of these observations about globally-influenced fashion trends may be to consider what implications Madras-adorned Chuck Taylors and Ikat-printed lingerie might have for other product categories. Since consumers have effectively told us—by speaking with their wallets, that is!—that they are craving that which is exotic, unusually-geographically-sourced, and originates from a cultural tradition different from their own respective ones, there’s no reason to limit our efforts to provide them with products that fit these descriptors to the clothes-and-accessories category. Market analysts and retailers can work together to sate this thirst for globally-influenced product by, say, stocking supermarket shelves with more Thai peanut and Japanese carrot-ginger salad dressings and fewer bottles of Ranch and Vinaigrette varieties. If taking steps such as these could lead to happier (and less tight-fisted) consumers in the food product category, imagine what increasing exotic and globally-influenced offerings could do for the home décor and art markets. Making Scandinavian-style furniture and room accents available to consumers at all price points, as Ikea has done, or providing every shopper, no matter what his or her yearly income, with the opportunity to purchase Indian-style embellished placemats and pottery, at Pier 1 has, could be all it takes to convince homeowners and apartment-dwellers alike to part with a little more cash or to make an unplanned purchase during a weekend stroll around town.

In the same vein, maybe performing arts centers could fill more seats and sell more premium tickets by more frequently booking the likes of Ballet Hispanico or Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (a troupe whose repertory includes lots of African- and Latin-influenced works). Since the trend landscape in the music category is tightly liked to that of the fashion category, perhaps record labels should consider allocating even greater portions of their advertising budgets to the promotion of artists such as Shakira and Enrique Inglesias, since consumers’ craving for the globally-influenced means that the potential for a lucrative return on this type of investment is enormous. Even market analysts and brand managers in the perfume and cosmetics categories would do well to include more exotic-themed fragrances and personal care products on shelves everywhere from Sephora locations to Target stores. Since neuroscientists have known for decades that humans instinctively crave novelty, all of us in the marketing community can put this knowledge to savvy use by assuming a global perspective when designing and selecting the products that we will promote during upcoming seasons—the choice to provide consumers at every price point with products influenced by global culture represents a great opportunity to positively impact the bottom lines of myriad product categories, increase consumer satisfaction, and even boost brand loyalty.

Written by Charlotte Blumenfeld

Quidditch. Hogwarts. Gryffindor. Even though you won’t find them in the Oxford English Dictionary, if you haven’t been living under a rock (or sequestering yourself from all entertainment media coverage) for the past decade, you probably know what these words refer to. The sport played by Harry Potter and his pals, the school they attend, and the house in which they reside all comprise integral parts of the storyline at the heart of one of the biggest print, motion picture, licensed merchandise, and web content media juggernauts in recent memory.  In fact, after reviewing worldwide box office returns, Warner Bros. announced in a 2007 press release that the Harry Potter film series had become the most successful movie franchise in history. When the sixth and latest installment of the film series hit theaters on July 17, the franchise raked in $58.2 million in North America alone within just the first twenty-four hours of its release. Harry Potter, with all its attendant sequels and products, has clearly achieved real cultural ubiquity in many regions of the globe—and the blockbuster financial returns to match. And its momentum doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon.

So what can marketing and media professionals learn from the runaway success of the latest Harry Potter film, and of the Harry Potter franchise more generally? Firstly, as the old adage goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” Although marketers should always be looking for ways to innovate and to deliver more value (or at least more perceived value) to the consumer, the franchise’s continuing profitability is living proof that once a brand name identifies itself as a strong presence in the marketplace, its essential character shouldn’t be tampered with. Just as Harry Potter content has been leveraged in multiple media channels, but has not been diluted or stretched too thin, so to speak, by being licensed for use on merchandise targeted to either the toddler market or the 65+ one, other brands shouldn’t try to be all things to all people. At the same time, throwing financial muscle (in the form of underwriting the costs of heavy promotion) behind a brand name that has shown itself to have natural appeal to consumers of both genders and a wide variety of age groups has been a savvy and lucrative decision for everyone involved in the Potter franchise. The same key strategy has worked extremely well for market leaders like Coca-cola and McDonald’s, and could prove to be a valuable approach for managers of smaller brands as well.

Written by Nicolas Pinto

Billy Mays, the famous commercial pitchman, most known for his role in the OxiClean commercials, passed away on June 28, 2009, at the age of 50. Mays began his career at mall shows and convention centers near Atlantic City. There he learned the tricks of the trade from other veteran pitchmen and practiced his talent until he got to the top and became the famous OxiClean yelling pitchmen. His breakthrough helped the Appel family and Orange Glo International into a $200 million powerhouse. This year, he teamed up with his long time friend Anthony Sullivan to start on a Discovery Channel show “Pitch Men” aimed to show the world the process of the products that start from ideas that everyday people have, to multimillion dollar products that reach every house hold in America. Billy Mays knew how to turn an idea into a powerful invention, and helped people make their dreams come true.

Famous commercials from Billy Mays:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NNv2oiWdRU

http://www.asseenontvvideo.com/Billy-Mays.html

Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter; Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen

 Written by Adal Gutierrez

The new movie building big expectations, not only among Disney fans, but especially among adults who have read the book, is Tim Burton’s adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. What is already an interesting project, because it is Burton and it is Alice, is flavored by the actors who bring the main characters to life: Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter; Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen; Anne Hathaway as the White Queen; and the new face of Australian actress Mia Wasikowska as Alice. Burton has already said he will stay true to the stories’ essence, although the plot is about a 17-year-old Alice that goes back to Wonderland, a place she visited ten years before. Recently, the images of some movie characters have been released and as you might guess, the movie will be a combination of live performance with animation. With Burton’s gift of a kind of insane and mesmerizing creativity; this movie might just surpass the great expectations it is generating. Alice in Wonderland is in pre-production and is expected to open in theaters March 5, 2010.

Too see more characters from the new movie, click below:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/gallery/2009/jun/23/tim-burton-alice-in-wonderland-johnny-depp?lightbox=1

Written by Melissa Schwartz

In this day and age, technology seems to be establishing itself as the go-to medium for marketing campaigns. However, some major companies are taking an old school approach when it comes to promoting their products and services—and they are generating positive results!

Nike’s “Paper Battlefield” campaign, which consisted of a series of silk screen posters featuring and created by the top 10 teenage stars of the Nike Basketball League, just won the renowned Cannes Design Grand Prix on June 24^th.  What makes this win most interesting is that in an applicant pool consisting of over 1,100 campaign entries, many of which were touted as ‘technologically innovative’, Nike’s campaign utilized a 10^th century platform (silk screening). They were renowned “for simplicity over technical virtuosity or category-busting innovation”; according to the Cannes design jury.

Nike isn’t the first power-brand taking a back to basics approach to marketing.  In 2007, UPS launched their now infamous Whiteboard campaign, a series of commercials featuring a man drawing mundane pictures on a white board in order to tell stories about different UPS shipping options and company values. Since the commercials first aired they have received over 100,000 hits on YouTube and were even parodied by arch nemesis—FedEx.

So why are such basic campaigns generating so much consumer buzz? When companies such as CBS Outdoor are developing advertising platforms which allow consumers to connect their iPhone to a display screen via WiFi or 3G to create personalized posters, how is one guy with a pen and a white board making headlines?  I could only imagine it is at least partially due to the fact that consumers are constantly inundated with cutting edge media. Ironically, technical and creative innovation has become the norm. In an era where each design company and advertising agency are attempting to outdo one another with the most attention grabbing and novel ideas, the presence of straightforward campaigns–where the message, not the medium, is the main focus—can be relieving. Throw in the fact that in this economy marketing budgets are being cut left and right, and everyone seems to be scaling down, letting go of some of the bells and whistles associated with modern advertising may just be the way to go.

See these ads at:

http://whiteboard.ups.com/#

http://adage.com/cannes09/article?article_id=137548 

I’ve heard it stated before that the sale of “small luxuries” like lipsticks and other beauty products actually increase during times of economic recession.  It seems this is ringing especially true right now with Latinas!  Latinas are more image conscious than non-Latinas in that 57% (compared to 42% of non-Latinas) said that they do “whatever it takes to look younger”.  In fact, Latinas are actually spending more than women of other races in the clothing, footwear, accessories and make-up departments!

Some cosmetic brands (Sephora, Clinique, L’Oreal) have already foreseen the great buying power that the Hispanic community presents and have expanded their line of products to incorporate more appealing options for Latinas.  Also, and possibly more important, these products live alongside and often in conjunction with their general market counterparts.  By doing this, these brands are actually creating a sense of acknowledgement amongst Latinas.  And being that Latinas are brand loyal consumers, I think it’s safe to say that no brand can afford ignoring them!

Ok, first let me give credit where credit is due: My 67 year old, conservative yet media savvy mother sent me this link.

It leads to a hub for disillusioned yet Americans in search for a new road map to follow.  Its main attraction is a well produced music video that puts its finger on the pulse of an American Population lost with within the tumult and turmoil that for better or for worse has turned our economy upside down. The premise that “I played by the rules and then the rules changed” is a valid one, if not the most empowering one. Perhaps in this new economy it’s not enough to simply play by the rules of the game, but we must also be prepared to see where the game is going and be prepared for changes. In a way, it’s a kind of therapeutic tool that builds community off of shared stories of personal sorrows. I think ultimately it will be an important part of our American history to chronic these stories of what the average American went through in the depression of 2009.
Its got a catchy tune as well.

http://www.bornagainamerican.org/

Experience leads to understanding.
Understanding leads to insights that can’t be learned in a seminar or from a book.
There is much talk these days about how the insight gained from ones colored life experience, adds to the understanding of a multicultural society.
I speak candidly of the discussion surrounding Judicial Nominee Sonya Sotomayor who enjoys a quick wit, a sharp mind and an honest tongue; all traits praised in Caribbean culture. It is ironic how her ethnicity not only influences her perception; it may be misleading how she is perceived, especially by those who do not understand her culture. The fact that she is so misunderstood gives credence to the argument that there is a large segment of the population that just “doesn’t get” multicultural.
The funny thing is that Sotomayor’s perfect English her credentials and her judges trappings leads this segment assume she should behave according to the protocol for women of their ethnic backgrounds, a stark contrast to the ones she grew up with. Aside from being female, Sotomayor might have little in common with a demure southern belle, or a housewife in the Hamptons.

One’s life experience for better or worse will always inform ones perception.
This only becomes a liability when one is not in touch with this fact, and assumes that everyone should share his point of view.
I think it’s noteworthy to be able to admit that our experience, ethnicity, religious upbringing, and our gender influence our perspective.  We do our best to look beyond that as necessary especially when trying to understand others, and leverage it when the time is right. Often enough this honest acknowledgement of our own colored lenses gives us extra motivation to get to know how others tick. It is this honest search that is to be valued in marketing as well as on the judicial bench. Taking no opinions for granted, making no assumptions, we are best armed to search for truth.

America’s Needle has Permanently Shifted.

We are not the United States of 15 years ago, and never has this been more apparent than in the election of our new president. Barack Hussien Obama represents everything that is different about our new America from the inside out. Younger than most of his predecessors , half black, half white, raised between Hawaii, Kansas and Indonesia - his complete profile could not be more different that those of Presidents past. His election and his cabinet nominees send a clear message for brand managers across the nation. Today’s mainstream market has fundamentally changed. It looks, thinks, and responds in a way that is completely new. This has been extremely hard for most traditional marketers to grapple with; and though it has led to much speculation, few have managed to plan and capitalize on this new American psychology. Those that have such as Obama, Nike, Apple, and others continue to reap enormous benefits.

It’s safe to say that the speed at which technology and media have been evolving have made us a more informed people with easy access to information in our language from around the world. The gadgets and widgets that keep us plugged in have made us avid yet selective (and  often critical) consumers of information. It has also made us a more empowered consumer, as platforms such as cnet, amazon, youtube, google groups, social networking sites and others allow us to complement or criticize brands and products as we see fit. With one click we can spread the word good or bad whether companies like it or not.

At the same time, immigration and globalization have changed our inner composition as a country and our exposure to other cultures abroad. With the entry of so many peoples from Latin America and Asia the apple pie of America has slowly evolved into more of an exotic fruit salad; richer in color and taste. As a people, Americans have a more global sense of self; what used to be patriotism to country alone has evolved into a loyalty to planet, and the world as a whole. This is what is causing the great leftward shift that has our conservative republican party flustered. Country First is not as relevant as People and Planet First.

continue reading “The Needle has Shifted”