Marketing Home Products

A few years ago, K&A put together a white paper on “Missing Males,” and how many – if not most – marketers tend to ignore the male consumer, focusing almost completely on female head of households &/or moms.

Advertising Age recently published further information about how marketers still have yet to embrace this growing consumer base of men. It highlighted a Yahoo survey in which more than half of men said they were the primary grocery shopper for their household… even though a small majority of packaged goods actually speak to them via advertisements. Yet, men still tend to wind up at the butt-end of a joke, implying they’re incompetent, goofy or aloof – especially when it comes to food and consumer goods for the home.

Have dads become more important targets for marketers over moms? That’s not quite the case, as household decision makers are still by and large women. For some, however, there’s something to be desired in advertisements and marketing in which men are left out.

It may be a difficult line to draw, but some brands have revamped their M.O., including Jif peanut butter’s addition to its “choosy moms” tagline and Kellogg’s targeted campaigns on ESPN.com. While the female head of household may very well make the majority of purchasing decisions, it’s clear that men simply can’t be ignored in advertising campaigns. The good news: a fair amount of white space exists here for specifically targeting men. Let’s see what they come up with…

How often do you use your smartphone in place of your computer to surf the Internet?  Smartphone technology is very well suited for those of us on the go. The common saying “there’s an app for that” may be more true than we might believe.  With a simple touch of the screen, we are able to gather information all over the web.  Companies are learning that the integration of mobile websites and apps can have a positive impact on business.  The goal of any successful mobile website or app is to create a pleasant experience for the customer, with one of the most important factors being easy navigation.

As technology advances at the pace of a freight train, it’s important that companies are able to keep up. The article “IKEA Rolls out iAd Campaign to Drive App Downloads” gives some insight into IKEA’s clever use of mobile apps.  The home furniture and accessories brand released its 2012 catalogue, which can now be viewed via a mobile app.  After clicking on the IKEA’s iAd, you are sent directly to the Apple App Store where the catalogue can then be downloaded for free.  The convenience and availability of mobile apps attracts customers and can therefore boost a company’s sales.

Target is also a big advocate on marketing through the use of mobile technology.  According to “Why Retailers Should Integrate Mobile Device Technology into Their Marketing Strategy,” Target uses a variety of mobile app strategies to attract customers.  If a customer is shopping at any Target store, he or she can use the barcode scanner on the Target mobile app to scan a product, which will result in detailed information about that product.  Both Target and IKEA are successful retailers that are taking necessary steps to expand their respective brands.  What other companies do you notice that are exercising smart mobile marketing campaigns?

How confident are you in the product you make? Do you think it’s a winner? More importantly…do your customers think it’s a winner? Are you confident enough in what you sell to allow your customer feedback to be broadcast on a billboard in the middle of Times Square? Most companies aren’t. But Domino’s is.

Last year, Domino’s released its ad campaign that was perhaps one of the most self-attacking ads ever. Domino’s proclaimed that its pizza – the focus of the company – was terrible. Focus group participants listed off all the things they hated about the pizza in TV ads and online video. Even company executives were featured in the videos proclaiming how disgusting the pizza was. The company had created a buzz online of people agreeing with the pizza maker’s ads – people really thought the pizza was bad; and they weren’t afraid to talk about it.

Domino’s had an opportunity to improve, and it did. These ads were followed by another set of videos introducing the new Domino’s pizza, one that was (hopefully) tastier and more pleasing to customers. But Domino’s wasn’t satisfied with trusting their taste buds. To combat the negative opinions of their pizza that would live forever on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and the blogosphere, the Domino’s team needed to get people talking about how great the new pizza was. They knew when making product selections, customers rely more on others’ opinions than the advertisements of companies. And they also knew that in the digital age, people express their opinions online.

So Domino’s embraced their customers and asked for honest feedback about the new pizza. Customers are encouraged to leave feedback on the company’s website and mobile app and there is a live stream of tweets about the pizza on its website. Most recently, the company has taken the campaign a step further by broadcasting this feedback – both good and bad – in the middle of Times Square. They even set up a web cam so anyone around the world can watch the giant screen tick off customer feedback. Now that is confidence in your product!

And the campaign seems to be working. In financial reports released for the second quarter of 2011, Domino’s reported a 6.2% year-over-year increase in revenue. In reference to the Times Square billboard, president and CEO Patrick Doyle said, “Our customers deserve, and have come to expect, honesty from us…and it really doesn’t get more open and honest than this…Our hope is that most of the feedback is positive, but our top priority is that people are seeing what is real.”