Kraft sends dinner ideas via RSS
As PROMO Xtra’s Betsy Spethman reported, Kraft Foods continues to work hard at finding creative marketing uses for new technology. It has been quietly testing RSS feeds to deliver recipes to consumers’ computers. Consumers visit kraftfoods.com/onthego to register for up to three daily feeds (easy dinners, seasonal desserts, top-rated recipes) which come directly to their desktop, bypassing e-mail.
It’s one way to combat a decline in e-mail open rates, said Kathy Riordan, Kraft vice president-global digital and consumer relationship marketing. RSS feeds, which deliver syndicated content on topics that consumers specify, “could really transform the digital marketplace. It has the potential to be a disruptive technology,” Riordan said. “Our focus has been so strong on Web and e-mail delivery that I don’t want to miss a sea change in how consumers are having content delivered to them.”
Kraft also is mulling ways to deliver recipes via cell phone, but “we haven’t cracked the code yet,” Riordan said. The challenges: how to display recipes on such a small screen, and use characters that consumers will understand. Kraft will keep tinkering as cell phone penetration rises.
“Kraft Invites, Tests Innovation,” Promo magazine’s Promo Xtra, January 18, 2006
Organic goes private-label
Minneapolis-based grocer Supervalu has opened its first Sunflower Market store, a value-priced natural and organic foods retail outlet. Located in Indianapolis, the 12,000-square-foot store carries 8,000 to 12,000 SKUs of natural and organic products.
The store contains: grocery, frozen and dairy departments; produce and bulk foods; a deli and cheese area; an all-natural bakery and cafe; hormone- and antibiotic-free meat and seafood; beer and wine; and a wellness department. The Indianapolis store serves as a prototype for a Supervalu expansion plan that includes the opening of 50 Sunflower Market stores in five years.
According to Supervalu’s consumer research, 96 percent of consumers use fresh organic produce at least occasionally. Research also indicates that while 66 percent of the U.S. population seeks organic products that offer nutritional, appetizing solutions for themselves and their families, the cost of organic foods is the most common obstacle for consumers. Sunflower Market aims to address that barrier by delivering organic products at a value price point. The goal is to provide foods that are organic wherever possible and minimally processed, with no artificial colorings, sweeteners, flavors or preservatives.
Supervalu will support the launch of Sunflower Market with the phased deployment of more than 200 private-label items marketed under the new “Nature’s Best” brand. It will also make this private-label program available to its corporately owned and operated retail banners as well as to the approximately 2,200 independent retail locations to which Supervalu is the primary supplier. Additionally, Sunflower Market will use W. Newell & Co., Supervalu’s specialty produce company launched earlier this year, to offer organic produce to customers.
Miller recasts Genuine Draft as an aspirational brand
It may be an act of brilliance or one of desperation, but Miller Brewing Co. is aiming older. In an attempt to boost its slumping Genuine Draft brand, the beer maker has launched a campaign that presents Genuine Draft as beer for people who have “come of age,” which the company loosely defines as consumers who are 26 to 40 years old.
As writer Tom Daykin noted in a January article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, that’s a big departure in a business that has traditionally focused most of its marketing muscle on people ages 21 to 24 - a group that drinks 30 percent of the nation’s beer, according to industry statistics.
The idea, Miller executives said during a January presentation to beer wholesalers in Milwaukee, is to market Genuine Draft as a beer with “mainstream sophistication” that appeals to a somewhat older set.
If successful, it could breathe new life into a brand that makes up roughly 10 percent of Miller’s sales volume. That’s an important goal for Miller, which has turned around its largest brand, Miller Lite, but still faces flat or declining sales among its other major brands.
“Our big idea can be summarized in three words,” said Terry Haley, Genuine Draft brand manager. “Beer. Grown up.” The goal for Genuine Draft, Haley said, is to reach people who are “strivers” and who want the type of mainstream style embodied in retailers like Target Corp., Starbucks Corp. and Ikea.
The campaign includes TV ads that show people being carded when they try to buy Genuine Draft. A bartender, waitress and store clerk all refuse to sell the beer because the customer is still in his 20s. “Do you really have to be 30 to appreciate the golden, rich flavor of Miller Genuine Draft?” a narrator asks at the end of each spot. “Taste for yourself.”
Spots airing in March won’t make explicit references to age. But they are devoid of the sophomoric humor that has been a staple of past beer ads. In one, people are shown getting ready to cross a red line: a man about to shave his soul patch, a couple buying a house. Those events are likened to the decision to drink Genuine Draft, touted as a flavorful, sophisticated brand.
The new ads are “definitely a zig” to the beer industry’s “marketing target zag” of people ages 21 to 24, said Mark Silva, who operates Real Branding LLC, a San Francisco marketing firm. “My guess is that they’re losing at the 21-24 battle...and decided to reinvest their money where their core consumer is, and where all the other brands fall off in attending to this crowd,” Silva said.
Beer ads that declare a group of drinkers off limits to a particular brand have never been done before, said John Greening, associate professor of marketing at Northwestern University. The approach has some positive aspects, including the buzz that’s being generated, he said. But it also could cause consumers to question whether other Miller brands are as good as Genuine Draft, said Greening, a former Anheuser-Busch account director at the DDB Chicago ad agency.
“Miller Ads Tap Into Aged Drinkers,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, January 12, 2006