The Keyhole makes observations about consumers, brands, ads, & marketing, through a predictive customer loyalty lens. Most marketing is ineffective to today's bionic consumer, given undifferentiated products, loss of "brandness," & hard to come by profits. Marketers talk about "engagement" but nobody seems to be doing a very good job measuring or integrating it into what they do & it shows! The Keyhole opens a dialogue on this subject & suggests real-world solutions with the marketing community.
Thursday, November 20, 2014
2014 Hispanic Holiday Shopping Survey: Feliz Navidad For Retailers
This holiday season Hispanic shoppers will make the difference between a ‘Feliz’ (happy) and ‘Feria’ (fair) ‘Navidad’ for retailers, according to 2,417 Hispanic consumers who participated in the Brand Keys 20th annual Holiday Shopping Survey.
The projected individual spend among Hispanic households is estimated to be $985.00, about 7% higher than last year, and nearly 15% higher than the projected 2014 spend for the general population. But retailers will need to work culturally smarter if they want to get their share.
In this year’s Brand Keys Holiday Shopping survey, 54% of the general population indicated they were going to start Holiday shopping in November, a trend we’ve commented upon for a number of years now. But this is not the case for Hispanic shoppers. Nearly half of Hispanic consumers surveyed (49%) indicated they were going to wait until Black Friday November 28. Many Hispanics (38%) indicated they were going to wait well into the traditional holiday shopping season to buy gifts, which has less to do with discounts and more the time taken to search for the perfect gift. The rest started shopping last month.
Virtually all consumers interviewed indicated they’ll buy holiday gifts online this year (98%), and is equally true for Hispanic shoppers. And, even in light of the mobile sales movement, brick-and-mortar retailers rank high on Hispanic consumers’ list of places to shop, with some meaningful differences from the general population:
Store Type 2014 % change from General Population
Traditional Department Stores 88% +10
Specialty & Apparel Stores 63% +23
Discount Department Stores 90% – 6
Catalogues 15% -10
Gift cards have become as universal as greetings cards, and Hispanic shoppers indicated they’d buy at least one this year, at slightly higher levels (98%, +3) than the general population. Hispanic consumers indicated that the following categories are where money will be spent. The differences from the general population is worth noting by retailers:
Gift Categories 2014 % change from General Population
Clothing and Accessories 83% +5
Electronics/Phones/Computer 58% +7
Jewelry 25% +5
Food and Wine 21% +1
Toys 15% +7
Home Décor 10% +3
Personal Care Products/Spa 10% -23
Hispanic consumer expectations are up again this year regarding outreach and convenience, but particularly as regards the brick-and-mortar retail shopping experience. Brand trumps dollar-value perceptions among this cohort and retailers that can integrate some sense of Hispanic culture and store experience with all forms of outreach will likely find it to be a winning combination for this shopper segment. Y una muy feliz navidad este año!
Find out more about what makes customer loyalty happen and how Brand Keys metrics is able to predict future consumer behavior: brandkeys.com. Visit our YouTube channel to learn more about Brand Keys methodology, applications and case studies.
Sunday, November 09, 2014
The Few. The Proud. The Marines.
Tuesday is Veterans Day,
a celebration to honor America's
veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and
sacrifice for the common good. We salute them all. But today belongs to the United States
Marines, marking the 239th birthday of the Corps.
Marine Corps birthday celebrations
come with a traditional cake-cutting ceremony that would put your usual event
marketing to shame. For this, a commanding officer cuts the cake with a
Mameluke sword (a kind of scimitar), the first piece going to the oldest Marine
present, which is then passed along to the youngest. During the annual birthday celebration, Order No. 47 is
read, which says in part, “it is fitting that we who are Marines should commemorate
the birthday of our corps by calling to mind the glories of its long and
illustrious history.” Marines are proud of that history.
This birthday
presentation started November 1, 1921 by order of the 13th Commandant, Gen.
John A. LeJeune, as a reminder of the service of the Corps and its inception. It’s
been celebrated this way for 93 years. So a real tradition and part of its
“long and illustrious history” and a truly emotional event where loyalty and
continuity continues to reinforce the Marine Corps brand.
History and tradition are
a big part of the Marine Corps brand, and many expressions that have become
part of the American lexicon are related to the Marines.
For example, the phrase
“Leathernecks,” hearkens back to 1776 when the Naval Committee of the Second
Continental Congress stipulated new Marine uniforms and along with green coats,
buff breeches, and black gaiters, the committee mandated a leather collar to
protect the neck against cutlasses. Oh, and to help maintain proper military
bearing. Marine “packaging” has changed over the past 239 years – they have the
best dress uniforms of any of the services – but the name stuck!
The appellation “Devil
Dogs” comes from the Battle of Belleau Wood in 1918. The Germans called the
Marines fighting through woods that were thought to impenetrable, and who finally
captured ground thought to be an absolute German safe haven, “Teufel Hunden,” referring
to the legendary Hounds from Hell.
Marines have sometimes
been called “Jarheads,” and
that term originates from the "high and tight" haircut that
many Marines have, which makes their head look like a jar. (OK, nobody’s
perfect, but Marines come as close as you can get to perfect!)
The Marine Corps
motto – “Semper Fidelis” (“Ever faithful” and the John Philip Sousa official
march of the Marines) – was adopted in 1883. It replaced three traditional but
unofficial slogans, which isn’t a bad record for a brand that’s 239 years old (Take
a look and see how many times Coca Cola has changed their tag line. And that
brand is only 128years old!) The first
was “Fortitudine” (Latin for “with
courage”), the second, “Per Mare, Per
Terram” (“By sea and by land”). The third, “To the shores of Tripoli,” was revised
in 1848 to “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.”
That was
incorporated into the "Marines' Hymn," the official hymn of the Corps as
well as the oldest official military theme song in the United States armed
forces. See what we mean about history? Marines stand at attention when it’s
played or sung, a real tribute to the Mad Men of the ‘50’s who counseled you
could identify a hit brand, theme song, or campaign by “running it up the
flagpole, to see if anyone saluted it.” Marines continue to do so.
But the six words the Marines, and the Marine brand, are
perhaps best known for are, “The Few. The Proud. The Marines.”
A lot of credit goes to ad man J. Walter Thompson for that.
Mr. Thompson enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1864 so you might say there was
some history there too, because l about 100 years later his company helped
develop the Marine Corps into the elite brand it stands for today. It is,
perhaps, the most-cited slogan of any of the U.S military forces and even appears
on Madison Avenue’s Advertising Walk of Fame.
But, like all things Marine, it also has its roots in
history. On March 20, 1779, Captain William Jones of the Continental Marines
placed a recruiting advertisement in The
Providence Gazette (digital banner ads being unavailable at the time),
which read in part "The Continental ship Providence, now lying at Boston,
is bound on a short cruise, immediately; a few good men are wanted to make up
her complement." If you want a celebrity endorsement regarding that
practice, it was George Washington who later commented, “It is infinitely
better to have a few good men than many indifferent ones.”
So to the complement of those few good men, past and
present, we say “Happy Birthday.”
And (as is traditional) “Semper
Fi, brothers.”
Find out more about what makes customer loyalty happen and how Brand Keys metrics is able to predict future consumer behavior: brandkeys.com. Visit our YouTube channel to learn more about Brand Keys methodology, applications and case studies.
Find out more about what makes customer loyalty happen and how Brand Keys metrics is able to predict future consumer behavior: brandkeys.com. Visit our YouTube channel to learn more about Brand Keys methodology, applications and case studies.
Thursday, November 06, 2014
For Retailers “Black Friday” Has Become A Season Unto Itself. Oh, And It Started November 1st.
Super-charged by increased mobile outreach, intensified consumer planning, and raised numbers of retailer mobile apps, traditional retailers will be going to work earlier, and working harder to engage consumers this season if they want their share of a projected individual $855.00 holiday spend, about 4% higher than last year. Sixteen-thousand (16,000) consumers from the 9 U.S. Census regions identified these real facts-of-retail-life in Brand Keys’ 20th annual national holiday shopping survey.
And many consumers missed Black
Friday. That’s because it started last Saturday. Surprised? Well, it shouldn’t have been a
total surprise. Store checks conducted by Brand Keys found retailer displays of
holiday greeting cards, giftwrap and Christmas-themed gifts already on display
in October. Consumers shopping for Halloween candy, actually had to sort
through themed packaging, because retailers had Christmas candy leitmotifs
right next to the bat wing and witches-on-broomsticks packaged candy, for the
same candy!
More than half of the sample
indicated that they were going to start holiday shopping in November. In last
year’s Holiday Shopping survey, 54% of consumers indicated they were going to
start Holiday shopping in November, a trend we’ve commented upon for a number
of years. Only 25% of consumers – 10% fewer than 2013 – indicated they were going
to wait until Black Friday November 28th.
Amazon and Walmart kicked off their
Christmas discounts on Saturday, November 1st – 27 days before the
traditional Black Friday, which had long been regarded as the start of the
holiday shopping season. Amazon started
its “Black Friday” Saturday with two daily deals on holiday merchandise that
will run through December 22nd. Walmart’s chief merchandising
officer, Duncan MacNaughton, said, “As soon as they put away their Halloween
costumes, our customers start prepping for Thanksgiving buying Christmas trees
and shopping for gifts.”
Ninety-eight percent
of those interviewed indicated they’d buy holiday gifts online again this year,
but no surprise there. And, even in light of the mobile movement, bricks-and-mortar
retailers still rank high on consumers’ list of places they intend to shop:
Store Type 2014 % change from 2013
Discount Department
Stores 96% +2
Traditional
Department Stores 78% +2
Specialty and Apparel Stores 40% - 5
Catalogues (25%),
are down again from last year by 50%. And apparently if a consumer can pull it up
on a site on a mobile device, hard-copy has become superfluous.
Oh, and spoiler
alert: everybody is getting a gift card this year. Gift cards have become as
universal as greetings cards, with 95% indicating they’ll buy at least one for
someone. All other categories remain relatively
unchanged from 2013. Apps and downloads have replaced CDs, DVDs, and printed
books. Consumers indicated the following
categories where money was going to be spent:
Clothing and
Accessories 78%
Electronics/Phones/Computer 51%
Personal Care
Products/Spa 33%
Jewelry 20%
Food and Wine 20%
Home Décor 7%
Value is still paramount
for all platforms and consumer expectations regarding outreach and convenience,
particularly for mobile, and the shopping experience for bricks-and-mortar
retail, are all up again. Retailers that can integrate the store experience
with their mobile outreach will likely find it to be a winning combination.
They’re just going to have to do it much earlier this year.
But given the
intense competition for consumer dollars, Department stores and specialty shops
will have to become more aggressive on deals, promotions, and operating hours.
Because this year they
won’t be able to avoid it.
Find out more about what makes customer loyalty happen and how Brand Keys metrics is able to predict future consumer behavior: brandkeys.com. Visit our YouTube channel to learn more about Brand Keys methodology, applications and case studies.
Find out more about what makes customer loyalty happen and how Brand Keys metrics is able to predict future consumer behavior: brandkeys.com. Visit our YouTube channel to learn more about Brand Keys methodology, applications and case studies.
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