Strategic Communication

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Campbell’s ditches the soup aisle and head towards snacks

How the large brand is redirecting marketing efforts to target a growing snack sector

Press release published March 29, 2019

Gainesville, FL, March 29, 2019 (Swampstratcomm-sp19.tumblr.com) - One interesting development that occurred in the advertising industry recently was the 12 hour Facebook outage. During this outage, advertisers still paid for their ads, yet they were not able to be viewed, causing businesses that advertise on Facebook to lose money. Facebook is currently looking into administering refunds. Another article of interest addressed a new alliance among TV companies to help create addressable advertising, a means of distributing ads according to individual household, rather than entire networks. This new system would allow for the television medium to improve their measurement and targeting of advertisements to rival digital ad spaces such as Google and Facebook. Finally, Snapchat has made a huge decision that will favor creators across their platform by paying creators with large followings. This decision should bring back large users who had previously left the app for more business oriented apps such as Instagram and Facebook.

The article that I chose to focus on this week looked into the Campbell company, and their decision to leave soups on the back burner while they turn to snacks. With the acquisition of Snyder's-Lance,  Campbell’s snack division grew from 32 percent of total sales to 47 percent of total sales, which effectively dropped the total sales of soups from 34 to 26 percent. One particular snack food that Campbell is excited to grow is pretzels, one of the foods acquired with the Snyder brand. While Snyder’s is by far the dominant brand in the pretzel industry, their sales dropped by 2% last year, while the pretzel industry grew by .3%. Campbell sees this as an opportunity, however, and has dedicated advertising to promote the newly acquired pretzel brand, with 80% of this media going towards television commercials.

The article concerning Campbell is interesting because it shows that while a brand may be struggling, that does not mean that a brand should be abandoned. Because the industry is still growing, Campbell’s knows that the brand can still be profitable given the correct care. The article about an alliance between TV companies could have huge repercussions for the advertising industry, because this would mean that television ads would be able to have the individuality of online ads, perhaps the most important factor of digital advertising.

Ad Age is a daily must-read for an influential audience of decision makers and disruptors across the marketing and media landscape.

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Mitchell Wood

(941) 807- 5744

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Youtube looks for new ways to regulate advertising in a content creator world

How studying the pedophile dilemma is indicative of YouTube's struggling relationship with brands

Press release published March 15, 2019

Gainesville, FL, March 15, 2019 (Swampstratcomm-sp19.tumblr.com) - One company that has been making headlines through the advertising industry as of late is Walmart. In one article published by Adage, Walmart is identified in being a key player for online ad revenue, and could soon be threatening the two leaders in this department, Google and Facebook. A different article also looked into Walmart, and how they are attempting to bring virtual reality to the public. Walmart has been transporting a trailer from store to store that houses an interactive virtual reality experience, which allows the users to replicate an experience from the movie How To Train Your Dragon 3. Adage also looked into the new business practices of Kraft Heinz under the leadership of 3G, a company notorious for cutting costs, and how their reduced marketing budget may have adverse effects.

One of the most interesting articles from last week's edition is an article that looks into Youtube’s ever struggling relationship with advertisers. More specifically, this article looked into the way that Youtube has been handling comments from pedophiles. Officials within the online ad industry are saying that while Youtube has made half-measures to help protect the integrity of brands who wish to advertise on Youtube, it is not enough. One such half-measure involves marking brands as alcohol related, even if they are not, so as to avoid advertising on videos that are targeted to children. Another step that they have taken is to suspend comments on millions of videos to make it more difficult for pedophiles to interact with each other, but this is also a flawed solution.  While many large brands such as Disney and AT&T have pulled their advertising from Youtube, it will be interesting to see how Youtube will attempt to bring these brands back.

From the Walmart related articles, we can see how many brands are realizing the importance of online ad revenue, and are making great strides to become leaders in this field. The article related to virtual reality also shows how large companies are expanding into any and all fields of the future, even if it is not their main focus. For example, Walmart is a retailers, not a technology developer. However, in the past year alone, retailers have spent an estimated $1.6 billion on developing this new technology. This is yet another example of how successful brands are recognizing that the future is stored in technological advancements. The main article concerning Youtube highlights the difficulty of advertising in a world where anyone with internet access can publish their own content, and how to regulate this content. If Youtube executives cannot figure out a method that is agreeable to advertisers while also being fair for content creators, the platform may find itself being replaced by a company that can soon in the future.

Ad Age is a daily must-read for an influential audience of decision makers and disruptors across the marketing and media landscape.

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Mitchell Wood

(941) 807- 5744

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Land Rover makes plans to bring their cars to the city with new marketing campaign

And for this campaign, no boys allowed!

Press release published Feb 22, 2019

Gainesville, FL, February 22, 2019 (Swampstratcomm-sp19.tumblr.com) - In their last issue, AdAge focused a few of its articles on the ever changing industry of online advertising. One such article described the challenges that the new Safari tracking prevention software was giving to marketers. This new software version makes it so that ads for websites that users have already visited cannot be displayed for that user, which makes it difficult to target consumers. While this is a step back for marketers, it is a step forward for consumer privacy. Another article delved into the controversy known as “corngate”, the recent feud between AB InBev (Bud Light) and MillerCoors. The feud started due to a Bud Light super bowl commercial which accused Coors of using corn syrup as an ingredient in their beer. While this is true, corn syrup should not be confused with high fructose corn syrup, which is a much un-healthier ingredient. Coors has since pointed out that the corn syrup they use is only during the fermentation process, meaning it may not even be in the final product at all, and that AB InBev makes several products with corn syrup in them.

The main article that I reviewed covered Land Rover, the popular luxury car company, and their new venture away from the outdoors and into the city. Up until now, LR has focused its marketing efforts on positioning their vehicles as outdoor vehicles that can go off road, while maintaining a classy and technologically advanced interior. However, LR has decided to market its smallest vehicle, the LAnd Rover Evoque, as a city vehicle. The target audience for the Evoque will be women, specifically women living in urban settings under the age of 35. 70% of consumers who bought the first generation Evoque fit into this demographic, making it an essential target for LR. LR has plans to launch a new ad campaign in May that will target this new demographic, entitled “live for the city”, which will feature ads that show women having fun on their own, without any men in the picture. One example of this will be an ad that features women away at “Camp No Man’s Land”, where they will play games such as “bro-less beer pong”.

From the article concerning tracking software in Safari, we can see the struggle between marketers wanting information and consumers wanting privacy, a very popular topic these days. While marketers may argue that by tracking user activity they can provide a more personalized ad experience for users, many still feel as though it is an invasion of their privacy. The Corngate article, on the other hand, was an example of a great public relations move by Coors Light. After being called out for using corn syrup in their beer, Coors proudly stated that this was a fact, and that they were proud to support farmers across America. This lead to a campaign called “toast to farmers”, where Coors celebrated the farmers that grow the ingredients in their beer. This campaign was mostly hosted on social media, and included pictures of the CEO of Coors visiting these farmers.

Ad Age is a daily must-read for an influential audience of decision makers and disruptors across the marketing and media landscape.

#SwampStratComm #TradeJournal3 #advertising #marketing #corngate #landrover #safari

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Mitchell Wood

(941) 807- 5744

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Domino’s Updates its Piece Of The Pie Rewards program with ability to scan pictures of pizza

The twist? These pizzas in no way have to be associated with Domino’s

Press release published February 8, 2019

Gainesville, FL, February 8, 2019 (Swampstratcomm-sp19.tumblr.com) - During the last week, the advertising industry went through perhaps the most important day of the year; the Super Bowl. Due to that, AdAge published an article summarizing the various ads, as well as giving their opinion on what the ads did correctly or incorrectly. In other news, popular sites Buzzfeed, Vice and Group Nine have combined their resources with Tubular Labs to determine the actual worth of digital media. Through their research, they are hoping to find a new way to measure effectiveness of online ads than just overall impressions or CPM. Another topic of interest was Amazon’s increased ad revenue from last year. The global company is now the third largest digital ad business in the U.S., trailing Google and Facebook.

Over the past year, Amazon made $10 billion in ad revenue, whereas analysts had predicted that they would generate only $2.8 billion.

The main article of interest from last week was the new campaign that Domino’s has started to promote their rewards program. For a 12 week period, consumers can earn Domino’s Piece Of The Pie rewards by simply scanning a picture of their pizza. The interesting thing about this promotion is that the pizzas that are scanned don’t even have to be ordered from Domino’s. As long as the analyzing software detects a pizza within the picture, no matter where it’s from, users can put the points from said pizza towards their rewards. This promotion is so broad that in one Domino’s advertisement for this promotion, the consumer scans a picture of a dog toy in the shape of a pizza, and this is accepted for points. This campaign will greatly increase consumer interactivity with Domino’s rewards, which will hopefully create greater brand equity and loyalty with their consumers. Kate Trumbull, Domino's VP of advertising, says that “Giving away points is essentially giving away pizza. It's not something that we necessarily can do forever."

From these articles, it appears that advertisers are taking new, exciting approaches towards digital advertising. In the case of the research being conducted by Tubular Labs, advertisers may soon be able to accurately measure the effectiveness of online ads in way previously inconceivable, which will send a shockwave into the entire industry. This, along with the continual growth of digital advertising in large companies such as Amazon, further confirms that digital advertising is the advertising of the future. As for the main article, this approach to a rewards program is extremely unique because it could benefit other pizza businesses, while building brand equity for Domino’s. With every pizza scanned into the rewards program that is not made by Domino’s, they lose money, but they hope that this increased interactivity with consumers will further brand loyalty. This kind of promotion in this industry is unprecedented, and could change the way rewards programs are operated if it is successful.

Ad Age is a daily must-read for an influential audience of decision makers and disruptors across the marketing and media landscape.

#SwampStratComm #TradeJournal2

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Mitchell Wood

(941) 807- 5744

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Podcasts Become The Newest Focus for Advertisers

How Pandora and Spotify are competing for market share in this growing industry 

Press Release published Jan 21, 2019

Gainesville, FL, January 21, 2019 (AdAge.com) - One of the articles that was discussed this week was a campaign run by the creative agency Oberland, who urged advertising agencies to address some of the problems that industry faces today. These issues include racial biases, gender inequalities, and the use of tokenism. The name of this campaign is fittingly named “nothing changes if we don’t”.  Lester Wonderman, who is credited with the invention of the 1-800 toll free number and often referred to as the Father of Direct Marketing, has died at the age of 98.

The article of interest that I am going to focus on is about the growing industry of podcasts. There were $354 million in ad revenues in 2017, and that number is expected to grow to $659 million by 2020, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. The current top two companies for podcasts are Spotify and Pandora, although their main focus is currently still on music streaming. However, both companies have detailed that they are attempting to increase their market share in the industry. For example, Pandora has recently launched a service called Podcast Genome Project, which will recommend podcasts for users based on their music tastes. The advertising market for podcasts is an interesting one, because most ads are read by the podcast speaker. When performed in this style, advertisements are easier for consumers to swallow because it is a familiar tone, which is easier to trust and tune in to.

What strikes me about these articles is how far advertising has come. We are so early in the stages of modern technology that the person who invented 1-800 toll free numbers has only just died, and yet we have come so far from there. We now have entirely new industries that support ad industries worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and we have so much farther to go.

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Mountain Dew Kickstart- “put a little Ya-hoo in your life”

What I love about this commercial for Mountain Dew Kickstarter is the chaotic nature of it. There is nothing that could have prepared Super Bowl viewers in 2016 for this god forsaken image to come across their screen. That is why the next day people were talking about this ad, not in a particularly favorable light, but they were still talking about it. I love seeing ads like this because they are enjoyable, and that is the point of the ad, not the product. This is an excellent form of building brand equity because it leaves a positive connotation to that brand, regardless of the product. Other brands, such as Old Spice, have taken similar routes.