When consumers think of Walmart as a brand, “innovative” may not be the first thing that comes to mind. But while speaking at a session at MMA Global’s POSSIBLE conference earlier this month, CMO William White aimed to dispel that myth, providing several examples of how the company is innovating across the board—despite its mammoth size. “You see it in all manner of our business, from supply chain to how we go to market,” he told the crowd. “Innovation is popping up in different parts of the company at all times.”

Take being the first retailer to offer drone delivery service, or rolling out a new open creator platform, called Walmart Creator, which, through influencer collaborations, incentivizes users to scale their businesses and drive sales. Each innovation, White explained, ties back to the brand’s relentless focus on how consumer expectations are evolving.

“Our business is fast,” he said. “We run from groceries to apparel to healthcare to financial services, et cetera. So we’re looking across variety of industries for, what are the things that are moving the needle? What are the things that are attracting customers? What are the things that are raising their expectations? And that’s done on a global scale.”

One way in which that has materialized is through its delivery options. Walmart currently offers drone delivery for 36 of its stores, and it also offers in-home delivery service for thousands more, which includes the added service of associates putting groceries away in the home. “That’s something that scaled pretty quickly,” White said. “And that was a small idea that we saw potential for and invested in it.”

Recently, Walmart has turned its attention to the overall customer experience. In order to keep up with customer expectations, senior executives across the company gather each Monday, White explained, to discuss and evaluate business results, from the in-store experience to the friendliness of associates to the speed of checkout to pick-up and delivery. “We gain a lot of insights into the things that we’re doing that drive positive and negative customer experience,” he said. “Everyone understands they have a role in the customer experience. And ultimately that’s a reflection of our brand, and really drives our way forward.”

The ability to evaluate customer experience is particular to the retail industry, according to White, who spent eight years as a global brand director at Coca-Cola. “The speed of retail is a lot faster than CPG… You see your scorecard every day, when you hit that early morning email with the previous day’s sales numbers. I think that the opportunity to make subtle, meaningful changes in the customer experience really moves the needle.”

Social commerce as a means to drive that customer experience is an area of focus for the retailer, White said. “As a marketing industry, we talk so much about different parts of the funnel… The cool thing about social commerce [is that] the whole funnel is right there… It’s brand building, it’s driving consideration and you can drive scale all in a very short, condensed path… It’s shortening that distance between inspiration and purchase.”

Case in point: Walmart recently jumped into the creator economy space with its new seller platform, Walmart Creator. “It’s an open platform where anyone can do it, and they’re incented and monetized based on what they sell. The great content is going to continue to rise to the top.” When asked whether creator economies are here to stay, White assured the crowd that the company believes it’s worth the investment. “Social commerce as a space is a large, meaty number with high growth,” he said. “I certainly don’t think it’s a shiny object or a flash in the pan. There are some creators that are scaling and driving greater power than others.”

The post Walmart CMO on Retail Innovation, Customer Experience and Social Commerce appeared first on Chief Marketer.

First Entertainment Credit Union CMO Amondo Redmond:

“One of the things that I’ve learned as a CMO is to not only be worried about the external brand, but also the experience of a person that you are bringing into your brand. That is a very hot topic for me right now. I’m doing all this work to bring in new members, but as I look at the overall experience of that member, in terms of how did they come into the credit union, where did we take them, what type of product did we offer them, how are we communicating with them—it’s very important.

I will tell you that in years past, we were much more focused on our external branding and making sure that we were getting people in the door. I think at this point it’s not good enough, because people have choices. [If we don’t give them] experiences, and new product offerings and advertising that speaks to their lifestyle, we will lose them just as fast as we got them. That would be where my mind is—not only looking at the external branding, but making sure that the overall experience for that person you’re bringing in the door is equally as great as how you brought them in the door.”

Kristen Lauria, EVP and Global Chief Marketing Officer at Cigna:

“Every brand, whether it’s B2B or B2C, has to resonate with the consumer marketplace. Ours is B2B, and our clients are the members. But I think that every marketer has to understand, does your brand and your brand platform resonate with the customer and with the marketplace itself? The second thing is the data and analytics. In a world that’s virtual, we have to deeply understand what the analytics are telling us. We have to understand how that feeds into what we do as marketers.

The third thing is that need to be a driving force in marketing, because as we look at the data and analytics to help us design what we design in marketing, we also need to make sure that we have a loop fully closed and make sure that the metrics are there as we launch our marketing efforts to feed back into our products and solutions. The longer this virtual world goes on, the more there is a need for data on how brands resonate in the market. Every marketer needs to think about B2B and B2C—regardless of the type of brand that you’re developing. More simply stated, understand the impact of the brand on the consumer and the individual.”

Kim McBee, Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President of Customer Experience for Papa Murphy’s

“The changing social media aspect. Because you can be agile and turn on a dime with social, make sure that it is a foundational tactic in your overall marketing plan. But make it right. There are so many different social channels, but the ability—and we found this with the pandemic—to be able to get a message out there to show you care, whatever the case may be, you need to use it to your advantage.

With franchising and regionality of brands, one size doesn’t fit all. Social allows you to be able to segment your customers. You need to be smart about making sure you’re not showing a winter background if you have stores in Arizona. Make sure that you’re pinpointing and targeting, because in today’s day and age and the tools that we have available, you don’t have an excuse if you’re not being really smart about your audience.”

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But, of course, it’s anything but that. To better quantify the impact of the pandemic on the industry, Chief Marketer set out to answer some of the questions marketers have been asking most during this time of upheaval. As live events eliminated the prospect of interacting with consumers and cultivating business leads, where have marketers turned to engage with customers and prospects? How have marketing budgets been affected as a result of consumer purchasing power being driven exclusively online and reduced? What types of content and messaging are marketers relying on during the pandemic?

We surveyed Fortune 1000 marketers from a wide range of companies and verticals at the start of the pandemic and again in the midst of the fallout. The following research attempts to answer some of those questions while uncovering some interesting insights pertaining to social media marketing, funding allocations and more.

We hope that these insights provide some of the data, analysis and perspective needed to craft your future marketing plans for the remainder of 2020 and beyond. Thank you to our readers, and especially to the survey respondents who took the time out of their hectic schedules to share their thoughts.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY HIGHLIGHTS

To pinpoint what aspects of marketing have shifted as a result of COVID-19, Chief Marketer surveyed our readership in two waves: first, in February and early March, as the potential effects of COVID-19 were just beginning to appear; and again in late April and early May, when the pandemic’s effects were in full swing. The data revealed some intuitive and surprising insights, from the decline of marketing budgets to the rise of virtual events to the increased reliance on social media for both engagement and conversions. Here’s a snapshot of some of the key findings:

BUDGET DECLINES

Survey data revealed that budgets were dramatically affected by COVID-19. In fact, the number of marketers who said their budgets were increasing in 2020 dropped by 30 percent, from 37 percent in February to seven percent in April and May. Moreover, compared to the first wave, many more marketers surveyed in April and May said their budgets were decreasing—from 14 percent pre-COVID-19 to 55 percent just two months later.

VIRTUAL EVENTS

Prior to COVID-19, the marketing categories requiring the most spend were content marketing, events and paid advertising, according to the surveys. Post-COVID-19, content marketing and paid advertising continued to require the most spend, but event spending dropped significantly among marketers from 41 percent to 22 percent of marketers ranking events in their top three spending categories. However, when respondents were asked where they were reallocating live event spend, nearly half of B2C marketers (44 percent) and more than half of B2B marketers (64 percent) said they were allocating live event spend to virtual events. This points to a major trend within the post-COVID-19 era: virtual engagement.

FUNDING ALLOCATIONS AND UNCERTAINTY

When examining which budget categories would receive more funding in 2020 compared to the year prior, there was consistency between the two waves. Content marketing, paid advertising and SEO were the top three choices for both time periods. However, Martech spending declined from 17 percent of marketers placing it in their top three to just eight percent post-COVID-19. Moreover, 25 percent of marketers surveyed in the second wave said they were not certain which line items would receive more spend in 2020. It is significant that a quarter of marketers surveyed post-COVID-19 were unsure of where and how to spend their budgets.

SOCIAL MEDIA USE

Social media marketing has risen in importance during the pandemic. LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram were the most effective social media channels for marketers both before and after COVID-19, with Twitter and Instagram experiencing the largest increases. But while both surveys indicated that marketing handles the majority of social media management, there was an uptick in the number of marketers who are using a dedicated social media team in the post-COVID-19 era. This points to a growing need for more digital and social media skills in marketing organizations moving forward.

To access the full report, complete the form below.

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The 2020 CMO Spend Survey, which fielded responses from 432 marketing executives in North America, the U.K., France and Germany at businesses that have between $500 million and $20 billion in annual revenue, indicates that this optimism held by CMOs is at odds with the expectations of their C-suite colleagues. While chief marketers appear to be upbeat about a recovery in 2021, 60 percent of CEOs surveyed by the World Economic Forum believe the recession will be U-shaped and 22 percent think it could be a double dip one. The contrast between CMOs’ optimism and CEOs’ more tempered predictions is stark—and, according to Gartner, should be cause for alarm.

Additional highlights from the report include:

*More than half (57 percent) of respondents across all industries believe that business performance will return to normal in 18 to 24 months. But only 22 percent of travel and hospitality CMOs predict a positive impact will occur by that time. Consumer products was another industry that was less optimistic, with 33 percent predicting a positive outcome.

*The top three actions that CMOs have taken in response to COVID-19 were: launched special COVID-19 communications to customers (61 percent); deployed listening tools to monitor customer COVID-19 sentiment of trends (47 percent); and developed scenarios for planning purposes (42 percent).

*Seventy-nine percent of CMOs will fuel growth in 2021 with existing markets, suggesting that CMOs’ priorities are trending toward conservative. Moreover, 69 percent said they will conserve the status quo or take limited risks.

*In terms of strategic marketing capabilities, brand strategy holds the top spot, with 33 percent of respondents, behind market analytics (29 percent) and marketing operations (28 percent).

*The most important brand metrics were brand health (44 percent ranked it in the top two) and competitive benchmarks (41 percent). And ROI (19 percent) and marketing qualified leads (18 percent) topped the list of CMOs’ most valuable metrics.

*A third of marketing work has shifted from agencies to in-house, but future plans may be interrupted by budget cuts.

*Martech spending has stayed strong, accounting for 26.2 percent of marketing budgets.

*Digital channels represent nearly 80 percent of budgets in 2020, and 62 percent of CMOs surveyed expect media spend to bounce back in 2021.

—

We spoke with Ewan McIntyre, Vice President Analyst at Gartner for Marketers, about the survey’s key findings and what strategies CMOs should employ to further economic recovery.

Chief Marketer: Do you have a theory on why CMOs’ optimism conflicts with the business reality they’re facing, such as budget cuts?

Ewan McIntyre: The challenge is that CMOs are just not looking at the right signals when considering the long-term outlook. This is not a new thing—CMOs have reported in previous Gartner surveys that they rely on near-term, and often internal indicators, when considering the environment. This is a different mindset and mentality from that displayed by other members of the C-suite. Marketing is considered being the enterprise’s optimist in chief. Positivity is a virtue—an essential attribute for marketing success. But only when married with pragmatism and a realistic view of the world outside the four walls of the marketing department.

CM: Why is there such a discrepancy between CMOs’ view of the recovery and CEOs’? Do you see this as a serious issue?

EM: This is a serious issue. As we move through the stages of the COVID crisis, marketing is fundamental to enterprise recovery and renewal. But marketing needs to firstly ensure that it has focused on optimizing its costs and built the right capabilities based on the fundamental changes that have occurred, not just to customer journeys, but also to the prevailing economic environment. The challenges have just started—the COVID-19 pandemic is a health crisis that precedes an economic crisis. Focusing on the right customers, strategies and resources to deliver recovery is of paramount importance. This requires strategic alignment across the enterprise.

CM: Do you think recent surges in COVID-19 cases across the U.S., and the fact that many states have reversed their course on reopening certain businesses, would influence CMOs’ responses if the survey was fielded today? If yes, how might they differ? 

EM: We anticipate responses will evolve throughout the year. Gartner has been tracking CMO sentiment, strategies and budgets right from the start of 2020 and will continue to do so as the crisis evolves. Like consumers, CMOs are struggling to understand the implications of COVID-19, and how it will continue to impact journeys and demand. Furthermore, the budget challenges we reported in the survey are the first of a set of cuts. Those marketers who saw their budgets increase in the face of COVID may find their budgets normalize in the back half of 2020, as abnormal demand falls away. And even the almost half of CMOs who had to cut their budget in the first half of 2020 are likely to see further cuts in 2020 and 2021. This is likely to further dent the confidence of CMOs and their teams. But, by focusing on agile, adaptive strategies, re-prioritizing their spend commitments and maintaining a laser-sharp focus on their customers, CMOs can take positive steps to weather the storm ahead.

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So Avon is on the move. It has gotten out its makeup remover and wiped clean its “marketing rule book.” The book has been replaced with a plan aimed directly at Gen Z—young people aged four to 24.

The strategy calls for a three-point plan that will upend every aspect of Avon’s marketing.

The outcome is in the hands of Chief Brand and Beauty officer James Thompson, who will have been on the job one year in November. He has been charged with rebranding the company.

“It’s about products, positioning and doing the right thing. That’s how we’re addressing the next generation,” he told Marketing Week. “We’ve got an opportunity to be one of the iconic businesses that is relevant and characterizes this part of the 20th century.”

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The first line of defense is to streamline innovation through social listening and other tactics. Avon recently introduced a new mascara based on listening to what social users wanted in their mascara products.

Spotting trends before a trend even becomes a trend is the second point in the plan. The goal is to capitalize on those trends—and to get in market—quickly, like the launch of its first Korean beauty range.

The third point leads to where Gen Z spends much of its time—Instagram. Products will be photographed to be Instagram and sharable worthy.

“The way we bring products to life in terms of our visuals has really evolved,” Thompson said. “At the same … we’ve been the world’s largest funder of causes that are critical to women’s rights such as breast cancer awareness and gender-based domestic violence.”

Technology will help with personalization, like what effects the environment has on skin type and skin coloring.

“If you can close the day knowing you’ve done your best you can’t worry, and I know this company is doing its best,” he told Marketing Week. “It’s doing huge work to innovate, to refresh our product pipeline, to work more innovatively across the brand, to be more relevant and to work more collaboratively.”

The post Avon Wipes Clean its Marketing Playbook with a Fresh Makeover appeared first on Chief Marketer.

To do that, UNO, famous for inventing the deep-dish pizza in Chicago in 1943, is playing to one of its strengths—margaritas. A recent $2 margarita program, in partnership with Sauza, began April 29, the week of Cinco de Mayo. That promo was paired with a $2 Corona promo as part of UNO’s value platform. The campaign was designed to bring new guests to the restaurant and excite existing customers.

“We were thinking about how to engage people beyond our craft beer program. We came up with a margarita we could market for two dollars,” UNO CMO Sam Mancuso says.

The promo was marketed through influencers, PR outreach, on Facebook and Instagram, as well as through content to it 900,000 members strong Insider’s Club and by restaurant employees.

The campaign is measured by sales, profits and margaritas per covers and is so successful it is being extended through the end of June.

While Mancuso declined to share specifics he says, “We are not only driving margarita sales and profit for our overall restaurants, but are we increasing the overall traffic to our restaurants. So far so good, we’re hitting on all cylinders. It’s been great and well received by our franchisees as well.”

This month, another promotion, “UNO Now, UNO Later,” joins the value platform. Customers that purchase an entrée, which comes with a side salad, get to take home a classic pasta entrée, a deep-dish pizza or a Chicago thin crust individual pizza.

“It’s a great sales layer and engagement layer for us to provide value in the cost of the entrée, but also in the time savings that affords mom or the meal provider and a delight to the people who may not have been able to go to the restaurant that night.

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UNO Now, UNO Later is being tested in the New England area and in one restaurant in New Jersey.

“We’ve seen an uptick in sales in those restaurants so we’re very encouraged and that is without the overall marketing support that we’ll put behind it when we roll it to all restaurants in the middle of June,” Mancuso says.

In general, UNO’s marketing strategy focuses on engagement marketing through emails to its Insider’s Club, its social media channels and paid social and digital media like display advertising and connected TV. That strategy is complimented by in-store displays and other collateral as well as “Dough Raisers” or local marketing to raise funds for community causes.

The post UNO Spices Up its Value Platform and Customers Come Running appeared first on Chief Marketer.

At the Washington Post, marketing had a broad function before CMO Miki King came on board several years ago. A large group of people comprised the local print marketing team focused on home delivery while just two individuals focused on digital marketing selling digital subscriptions. As digital subscriptions grew, so too did the team. King spoke recently with Digiday in a video about the importance of merging the teams within the publishing company.

“We really wanted to make sure the two groups weren’t speaking two different languages because we had this print team doing things the way they had been doing them that made a ton of sense 10 years ago, but as we started to have more conversations about the voice that we wanted to have to the market we thought it was really important for us to be speaking in one language, one voice,” she says.

The teams were integrated: the digital and print marketing teams and the local and national marketing teams.

“There is not a single person now on the entire team who focuses only on print subscriptions, so we have integrated that in every way,” she says. “The person leading that team now works directly on national branding, instead of specific to the DC market and that was 90 percent of what it was doing. We stopped, quite honestly, on anything that is focused only on the local market.”

The integration required training. A culture shift was necessary among team members that had primarily been working on the print side of the business to help them understand that the business is transitioning and that doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t a place for those that were part of the legacy business.

“It was a matter of having them work with our folks on the digital team, having them work with folks on our analytics team to encourage more shared learning. We didn’t have a lot of major skill gaps where people just couldn’t do the work that we had. We let natural attrition take place in some cases … and rather than backfilling those roles specifically, we expanded the roles of other folks who were left on the team some of which took on more digital responsibility,” King says.

The message now is that while the news may be happening in the Washington, DC, backyard, here’s why it’s relevant to others across the country and world.

“Our goal is, how do we meet the reader where he or she is to put them on the path to a subscription,” she says. “We think there is a huge opportunity in reaching the digital reader.”

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L.L. Bean Shifts Focus

Another brand that recently combined various departments is L.L.Bean.

L.L.Bean is two years into a transformation journey, shifting focus to align with its new, refined brand positioning: For the Shared Joy of the Outdoors. Part of that transformation has been to blend experiential, PR, social, partnership and charitable giving to create a new department, brand engagement, that was created by and is led by Director of Brand Engagement Kathryn Burke Pratt.

“Historically those five channels have resided in different parts of the organization. We brought them together under one roof over the last two years. What we see is that those types of marketing channels work better together so we really approach all of our work agnostic of the individual channel and think about the idea first and how does that idea get expressed across those channels,” she says.

The new department has allowed the team to execute robust campaigns like its successful “Be an Outsider at Work” and “Boots & Brews” and to be more efficient staging programs like grand openings that live across all of our channels.

“It’s really exciting, but being able to point to the benefit of having all of these channels under one jurisdiction is really exciting to see,” she says.

“Being an Outsider at Work” was born of an insight—and academic research—that people would like to spend more time outdoors, but that work was preventing that. The campaign, run last summer over six weeks, launched in New York City’s Madison Square Park with a pop-up outdoor office space with group and individual work areas. The experience then hit the road over six weeks with stops in Philly, Boston and Madison, WI. The campaign also lived on Bean’s social channels and included a variety of marketing content.

Social chatter about the campaign was 4.4 times higher than the industry average. The media showed interest, including an article on the front page of USA Today, the largest newspaper in the country. The campaign is also credited with a cultural movement as evidenced by the January 2019 New York Times article citing L.L.Bean’s survey in an article titled “The Next Frontier in Office Space: The Outdoors.”

The post L.L.Bean and Washington Post on Why Integrating Departments Made Sense appeared first on Chief Marketer.

By 2023, global spending on marketing automation tools is projected to reach $25 billion. That translates to a 14 percent annual growth rate fueled by the fact that 55 percent of marketers plan to increase their marketing technology spending within the next year.

However, this spending isn’t about adopting technology for technology’s sake. The transformation is driven by a need to interpret and optimize increasingly complex data across channels. While the capabilities are exciting, the industry is still in the early stages of using automation and AI to improve performance. Affiliate marketing, in particular, is poised to reap the benefits as marketers increasingly adopt more AI optimization techniques.

How AI Will Streamline the Affiliate Partnership Process

Relationships comprise the very core of affiliate marketing, and AI can be a major part of how they form and how successful they become. On a basic level, recommendation engines can match brands and publishers that could conceivably work well together. For example, if a company has a goal of a 10:1 return on ad spend, machines can examine the campaign data, spot trends within it, and identify new potential partnerships on behalf of the brand that can drive similar ROAS.

However, the power of AI in relationship building goes far beyond that. AI can automatically invite affiliates and publishers to join programs. AI operates at an accelerated rate that surpasses manual efforts and streamlines the establishment of relationships, saving time and ultimately leading to faster activation. Eliminating manual processes allows account managers to focus on cultivating and nurturing relationships with high-potential publishers and increasing productivity for all involved.

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Achieving Optimization Through Machine Learning

Beyond partnership identification and establishment, AI will also transform the optimization component of affiliate marketing. While optimization in affiliate marketing is broad, at its core, the current process involves manually identifying areas of opportunity or risk and implementing alternative tactics to achieve desired outcomes.

Drawing from the wealth of data available, machine learning streamlines the manual exchange between publishers and brands and automates processes. Think of it as automatically recommending program optimizations to improve conversion rates and optimize spend on a publisher basis. For example, tailored machine learning recommendations drive 35 percent of purchases on Amazon, optimizing their sales and targeting efforts.

AI will also enhance the optimization of paid placements. Akin to media buying, affiliate managers contact publishers to determine available premium ad inventory and broker a purchase. Based on available inventory, the marketer negotiates a paid placement and formalizes the purchase through an insertion order.

Perhaps most importantly, machine learning capabilities will take unstructured data and identify patterns almost immediately that humans might not see right away—or ever. Affiliate marketing managers will spend less time pulling levers to optimize campaign performance, partnerships, or placements and more time refining their overall strategy by using machine learning.

Dispel the Myths: Be a Change Agent for AI in the Affiliate Space

So far, affiliate marketing has been relatively slow to adapt and maximize technology. It might be due to a fear that introducing automation and AI will put jobs at risk and reduce the authenticity of relationship-based strategies. However, affiliate marketing will always require people who know the brands and publishers. In fact, a recent survey by CleverTouch found that 40 percent of marketing directors and CMOs say a lack of human expertise is preventing their marketing automation strategies from fully succeeding. Marketers will still need human support for automated self-service tools as they establish more expertise in-house and stop outsourcing.

Affiliate marketers are used to identifying opportunities and solving problems on their own. As more technology solutions become available, marketers will see the value in the reliable data that machine learning produces. In other words, AI will simply make affiliate marketers more efficient and empowered to make better optimization decisions.

Despite the power of AI in affiliate marketing, it has yet to be fully recognized and utilized by the industry. Here are three key predictions for how affiliate marketers will see AI play a role in the industry in the future:

1. Investment will be in R&D.
Research and development will no doubt be one of the first to see a stream of cash flowing as affiliate marketing technology providers identify ways in which AI will be useful in their work. As this technology is explored, providers will implement cutting-edge technology to save marketers time and optimize results.

2. Machine learning will empower marketers to segment audiences.
Nearly half of digital advertising professionals say they’re already using AI for audience targeting and segmentation. But, like any marketing strategy, effectively leveraging AI requires defining the problem you’re solving from the customer’s or brand’s point of view. Companies will start seeing the need to identify affiliate marketing technology providers that understand and align with their customer-centric approaches and offer segmentation tools powered by AI.

3. Marketers will take notice, and solution providers will need to take action.
Ultimately, AI will become an integral part of affiliate marketing when marketers recognize its capabilities and solution providers rise to meet marketers’ AI needs. AI is expected to increase global business value to $3.9 trillion in 2022 as the technology leads to positive effects on the customer experience, new revenue from increased sales, and reduced costs for production and delivery.

If the race to adopt AI in the affiliate marketing industry isn’t on yet, it will be soon. Now is the time to consider adopting it as standard practice for your brand. Speak to your solution provider to learn more about how AI can improve your affiliate marketing strategy.
Maura Smith is the senior vice president of Pepperjam. She can be reached at maurasmith@pepperjam.com

The post How AI Is Poised to Disrupt, Transform, and Improve the World of Affiliate Marketing appeared first on Chief Marketer.

1. How’s your social life?
It’s common sense for brands to have a social media strategy, but can you afford to leave that social interaction to chance?

Most brands have become quite good at engaging influencers to build loyalty, especially through the use of social media influencers. An influencer, by definition, is someone who lives on social media and has a particular expertise or personifies a specific lifestyle such as fitness, beauty, or parenting, and has amassed a multitude of followers or fans. They may wield great influence; however they are not a magic pill.

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Many marketers today quickly offer to pay for a post, however if the over-posed selfie with the branded product is a one-time shot, Millennial consumers will view this as an unauthentic endorsement, and the money spent will be a waste, even possibly damage the brand’s reputation through over commercialization. If an influencer doesn’t already use your brand, or live the brand’s lifestyle authentically, move on, as this swipe right generation will not be impressed.

2. Are you leaving everyone else on the sidelines and only focusing on Millennials?
If you’re not sure how to reach Millennials, go to Instagram or Snapchat and search your friend’s kids’ pages.

Marketing to Millennials is the hot topic, but what about Gen Xers, born between the late 60’s and late ‘70’s? What about the better-than-ever generation between X and Boomers, who are getting younger every decade, or so it seems. Those two groups have money to spend and social media skills, too.

Gen Xers want to have relationships with their brands, and not just digital ones, either. They grew up watching TV commercials with catchy jingles in the ‘70s and require other forms of communication beyond an Instagram post. Are you still budgeting for and engaging in those activities? While Millennial research shows they would rather spend money on experiences vs. things, they largely live in the digital world. If you want to market a beverage, food or other tangible item which offers varying consumers an experience, get out there and see the people (again). Leave the blogosphere and spend hard marketing dollars on personal connections. Faces sell cases, an old beverage delivery man’s motto, and it works to this day with so many consumers across many verticals.

CELSIUS, a leading fitness drink, is banking on building a brand by association, through Tough Mudder, the 10 mile obstacle course races which combine mud and teamwork. In a quest to market an active lifestyle beverage brand, this platform is a perfect place to interact with consumers who are committed to going outdoors to experience life while trying new things. This community of all ages is strong, and fiercely loyal to the brands which support them. CELSIUS launched a partnership with Tough Mudder in 2018 and is enjoying the benefits of “Tough Mudder Presented by CELSIUS,” which gives the brand a platform to sample consumers of every age group at weekend events nationwide. The branded obstacle courses, dedicated digital content series, and consumer on site interaction, provide CELSIUS with educational opportunities to build awareness, gain trial and build a nationwide community of brand fans. The wide ranging demographics are focused on living fit, active lives—a target rich environment who will taste and experience the brand.

3. Should you plan your work and work your plan or wing it a bit?
Larger beverage brands have traditionally had a top down approach to marketing, whereas marketing a smaller brand or innovative challenger brand requires listening to consumers first and following with an authentic response to build loyalty—and ultimately sales. Sometimes the best way to market isn’t with a set-in-stone plan telling consumers what to do, but a nimble plan flexing marketing dollars to take advantage of events which appeal to the target audience. The payoff may include viral sharing and earned media, plus a momentum build that creates the perception the brand is “everywhere.” Marketers need to give consumers ways to discover their brand by being present in their social worlds—online and on the ground.

As an example, CELSIUS marketers noticed reality television star Sammi Sweetheart posting her pre-workout routine, which included drinking the brand. With over 2.6 million followers, they reached out to invite her to an iHeart Radio event they were sponsoring in her local area. Interest in Sammi and what she was up to generated a live mention on the Z100 morning show with Elvis Duran, reaching millions of target listeners with an authentic, double endorsement.

What Should You Remember?
Consumers aren’t going to stop preferring experiences over products, which can be a great opportunity. Social media done right is a two-way street that provides relevant content to consumers and invaluable exposure to marketers. Choose your influencers wisely. An engaging individual with a growing social following is far better than someone with a huge following who doesn’t have an authentic brand connection. Keep your eyes and ears open to see what consumers are telling you and what your next move should be.
Vanessa Walker is executive vice president of marketing and innovation at Celsius Holdings, Inc.

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And quite a history it has been. In 1941 M&M’s was developed for the military as an easy, light, quick treat for soldiers to take to war. The candies have made their way to space and are handed out at the White House to visitors. A contest in 1995 asking consumers to vote for a new color recorded an astounding 11 million votes. (Blue won). It would be shocking to find anyone who hasn’t heard of M&M’s, let alone enjoyed the sweet treats.

“We have a brand that is part of the American brand,” Berta De Pablos-Barbier, vice president, marketing, Mars Chocolate North America, said today at the ANA Brand Activation Conference.

So when it came time to celebrate M&M’s 75^th birthday, “We wanted to make it really big,” she said.

The candy’s multiple bright colors, flavors and its origin and history are all elements incorporated into messaging, creative and activations around a single internal rallying cry, “Shelf to Stars.” That rallying cry includes three major elements: shelf, social and stars.

“We didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about what is going to be that single selling message. We decided to communicate all of it because it’s part of the rich history of the brand,” De Pablos-Barbier said.

At shelf, the plan is to create eye-catching activities at the point-of-purchase.

On pack M&Ms shares with the public how the look of the characters have changed throughout history. Various types of in-store displays reflect the 75-year message and encourage purchase. New packaging, like the portable pack, play a role and the brand connects with consumers through shopper marketing programs at Walmart and Target.

Voting continues to be a big mover for the brand so it launched #MMSFlavorVote around the election for consumers to participate in deciding the first ever flavor in the peanut variety. Three choices are in play: Coffee Nut, Honey Nut and Chili Nut. (Coffee Nut is currently in the lead). The contest plays out on-pack as well.

“Voting is something that is creating a lot of excitement in the store,” she said. “We want to make sure something exciting is happening all year long and the voting starts soon.”

On the social/star front, the plan calls for creating a groundswell of content and discussion online where Gen Y lives, works and plays and to engage celebrity partners and create events that inject M&M’s into pop culture.

M&M’s works with a number of high-profile bloggers and entertainers to spread the message. It owns the rights to the Sammy Davis Jr. song “Candyman” and put Aloe Blacc and Zedd in charge to bring the song back to life in a contemporary way. The remix quickly rose to No. 5 in the dancing category and was turned into a video posted on YouTube and the brand’s social sites, which so far, has been watched 11 million times. The content was repurposed into a 60-second TV spot that was released on the popular NBC show, “The Voice.” A supporting app was developed for fans to make their own music and share content. Watch the video:

“By developing this song people are talking about the brand,” De Pablos-Barbier said. “Social was at the center of everything we did.”

The campaign has been paying off with sales “increasing,” she added.

In addition, a major party was staged in New York City with 500 attendees, 140 media reps and social bloggers to amplify content from the event.

“We always say we want M&Ms to be cool,” she said. “We wanted to make sure people have passion for our brand.”

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