Brian Grady's Marketing Blog

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Constellation and Tastemade partner up to take advantage of streaming boom while informing consumers.

https://www.marketingdive.com/news/constellation-brands-tastemade-partner-streaming-social-media/646519/

Constellation beverages is best known for producing the highly popular imported beer, Corona and all of its different iterations. However, they are the home of many other high quality beverages such as a variety of wine, beer, and spirits. Constellation has, because of this lack of brand awareness, has partnered with media company Tastemade in an effort to get their name and many other products out there and in the face of potential consumers.

This partnership will pave the way for a brand new content studio to allow Constellation and Tastemade to produce original streaming content. Constellation has done a great job trying to develop their market and inform their customers about their wide array of products. 

Taking advantage of the streaming boom is something all companies should look into and it is incredibly admirable how Constellation has utilized a streaming platform in the beverage industry. While many food and beverage companies have created shows or documentary pieces for streaming, none up to this point have started their own platform entirely.  The innovation shown by constellation here is why they succeed and is their main competitive advantage. 

This could not come at a better time for Constellation as they have seen their wine sales begin to decline in recent months. However, having the steady revenue of the industry leading imported beer is a fantastic base to build off of. Beginning with a series of how to pair your wine with cheese will allow for constellation to reach their target market as well as improve the desire for their wine brands as they try to build them back up. 

Reflecting on this story, questions will absolutely arise. In particular, what happens if the revenue stemming from corona begins to decline? Or what happens if the streaming boom dies down before you build your brand equity to its desired point.  

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Heinz and Absolut look to combine foodie culture with nostalgia in new partnership

https://www.marketingdive.com/news/heinz-absolut-vodka-tomato-pasta-sauce-cpg-marketing/645862/

Heinz has begun entering the elevated food market by introducing a variety of pasta sauces over the past year. Looking to continue to build this aspect of their product base, they have entered into a partnership with Absolut vodka to try and build brand equity associated with premium foods. Releasing a vodka sauce connected with one of the industry leaders, in Absolut, will only expedite Heinz’s ability to build equity for their brand. 

Heinz has done a fantastic job embracing the foodie culture they set out to infiltrate. Releasing a line of generic pasta sauces was a great way for Heinz to introduce this new wave of products from their company. However, partnering with a trend setting vodka company like Absolut will allow Heinz to succeed even more in this area of diversification. 

Looking to enter into a new food space outside of everyday condiments such as ketchup and mustard, Heinz diversifying their product portfolio with related products like a variety of pasta sauces will help exponentially. Being an established company like Heinz allows for an easier diversification process than most others. Heinz’s brand equity compounded with the partnership with Absolut, a company with an equal if not larger amount of brand equity, allows for Heinz to easily move into this new space and turn a profit fairly quickly. 

Although they have had pasta sauces out for over a year now, taking a different marketing approach with this product is smart and will be important towards building brand awareness. Absolut has an incredible reputation for marketing their products and have some iconic imagery that many consumers would be able to easily identify.

Not only does Absolut have great brand awareness but the rise in nostalgia  has allowed for their older marketing campaigns to be used with great success. Heinz has taken note of this and implemented this imagery into their new sauce campaign. Taking the simplicity of these old Absolut advertisements and combining them with wordplay geared towards their target markets is a really innovative way of diversifying your product portfolio while also respecting your current consumers. 

This partnership seems to be a match made in heaven, however there are always concerns when two massive companies partner together and release new products. Mainly, in this case what if the novelty of nostalgia runs out and the ad campaign does not have its desired affect? What if Heinz’s loyal customer base feels slighted by the more “premium” approach and turns to alternatives for condiments? 

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Coors Light looks to capitalize on March Madness

https://www.marketingdive.com/news/coors-light-march-madness-dick-vitale-icepop/645069/

Coors light capitalized on last years March Madness’ business boom by introducing “Chillollipops” and have a similar plan in mind for this year. Coors is an industry leader when it comes to domestic beer because of their innovations and ability to come up with relevant products for their consumers. This year the storied brand is looking to introduce beer flavored, non-alcoholic ice pops to be released in waves coinciding with the famous college basketball tournament. Along with this brand new product, the successful beer brand has partnered with legendary announcer Dick Vitale who has over 44 years of experience calling college basketball games and has been the soundtrack for numerous memorable moments throughout the history of college basketball. 

This is a concerted effort by the traditional brand to expand its customer base with new products in markets that they are already firmly planted in. Coors has done a great job of utilizing product expansion in the past, with “Chillollipops”, and has set themselves up to succeed with this strategy again. During last years tournament the “Chillollipops” sold out immediately and were a rousing success for Coors. 

The illustrious beer brand is once again playing on their “Chill” branding motto. One of the leading marketing strategies for Coors has always been to highlight how cold their beer is and that has not changed with the new products they have introduced over the years. The theme of the ice pops is to help fans “cool” down while watching intense, action packed tournament games. They are hoping to give fans an easy, non-alcoholic alternative to “cool down” while also enjoying an ice cold Coors Light during the games. 

In addition to these “Coors-icles” Molson Coors has attempted to increase their brand awareness and equity with a brand new series of commercials featuring Dick Vitale. With a celebrity endorsement roster featuring Jamie Foxx and Jason Aldean, Coors has done a great job expanding their reach by signing Dick Vitale 

Dick Vitale’s voice alone carries a lot of weight with sports fans and college basketball fans in particular, having been the voice of some of the most iconic plays to have ever happened. Vitale also has a knack for getting excited and sometimes even out of control while on the call, making him the perfect spokesperson for Coors. Many of his famous catch phrases are regularly yelled loudly by Vitale, this naturally created the narrative that he needed to “chill”. Vitale’s loud and rambunctious antics make him the perfect spokesperson for Coors’ signature “Stay chill” motto. 

Reflectively looking back on this article, many questions can come to mind. However, one that seems to continuously come up is will there be a point of diminishing returns when it comes to beer brands releasing non-alcoholic products?

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Instacart Moves to all Day and Night Delivery

https://www.grocerydive.com/news/instacart-rolls-out-247-delivery/606601/?utm_campaign=Newsletters&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=163176100&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--2vriWsUwjPSbygm9ky-KOTHKB5b6OKvzpifMm544HSX33h5pJ3QQ6iKYGr0ZxbQIA4xbkhhY1FQhzjJHB5jhj3-NFkA&utm_content=163176100&utm_source=hs_email

With more and more people not wanting to go out and get groceries themselves services like Instacart are continuing to grow. However, with most grocery stores closing at night the times for delivery become fairly restrictive, especially for people who work and cannot be home during the day to receive the delivery. Therefore, Instacart is partnering with 24/7 stores such as 7/11, select CVS’s, among others for late night orders that are not as much grocery items but more convenience focused. They expect these orders to be smaller and easily fulfillable.    

Instacart, with this new late night service, continues to improve their newly relevant business. Expanding the amount of stores and how late you can order from some of them is a brilliant idea to truly flaunt how unique of a service they are. Being able to pick from a large variety of stores is where Instacart sets themselves apart of services that are restricted to one store.

 Finding what makes you different and continuing to improve that aspect of your business is how you evolve to in an ever-changing market. Companies have to continue to evolve and not only did Instacart do that when Covid first began but are now showing they will continue to improve and are here to stay, for what seems like a long time. 

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Wawa Following Grocery Stores Into Self Checkout

https://www.retailwire.com/discussion/wawa-goes-big-on-self-checkout-tech/#.YYkyeu32MB0.twitter

After about 30 years of Grocery stores having self checkout lanes it looks like Wawa will be joining them after adding self checkout registers in 61 of their stores and saying all new locations will have them.

Wawa is always looking to improve their customers experience whether it's the sandwich ordering kiosks, surcharge free ATMs, adding gas stations to some locations, or now adding self checkout. This will directly fix one of the only issues Wawa customers seem to have, there are not enough registers open. Also, they are able to combat the main issue with self checkout, theft. While you will always have some theft, because of the size of a typical Wawa store is not that big, workers would be able to monitor the area at all times to ensure there is no one stealing items.  

Again, this is just another example of how Wawa continues to evolve their business and grow it to bigger and better things such as drive thru locations they are currently trying to develop. It is impressive to watch such dedication to consumers, always trying to make things easier for them. This is the most recent in a long line of great ideas by Wawa.  

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Wayfair’s New E-commerce  Experience

https://www.retaildive.com/news/wayfair-launches-in-app-video-commerce-experience/609379/?_hsmi=179347580&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9tbmr-yfIVuXjWzKz88elGw7ZtrXm5o8DSjANRXzQCnBh6Hbo3q2vid1F4OuWXnrt9ZW1wjq4YbnC0gfXisgRejJ3usA

Given the name “Wayfair On Air” the new platform aims to connects customers not only to new products but also to content creators that are there to inspire customers. With the coronavirus still affecting our daily lives and how we shop, Wayfair looks to simplify shopping from home with a look into the lives of creators as well as daily shows showcasing affordable products. 

Usually with Wayfair, customers will need to be in store to have inspiration on what to buy for their homes but with the added fear of the coronavirus many people do not want to be in store. Therefore, customers aren’t able to see Wayfair's products and really have a feel for how they would like to use them, Wayfair has solved this problem. A list of creators featuring celebrity chef Danny Boome, family blogger Amiyrah Martin and shopping aficionado Albany Irvin  making videos featuring products allows Wayfair to reach all kinds of people and let them stay home and shop online.

This is a platform that could really change the way retailing is done. Although this will not move Wayfair past Amazon in E-commerce business, it will make them different. Exceeding in customer experience on an E-commerce level is something companies are trying to be the best at right now and I think this will move Wayfair to the front of that pack, for now. In the way that fashion companies use models on their websites to show sizes, Wayfair is taking that and applying it to home goods. The extra added element of well known home good influencers showing off the products that they like and how they look in an actual home puts Wayfair above any other e-commerce experience like this. 

If Wayfair is able to continue to grow their stable of influencers and continue to evolve their website, with more daily shows then I believe Wayfair will only grow from here.