Thanksgiving advertising is great for the popular holiday food items

Many food companies know that a large percentage of their annual profits are made during the Holiday Season. That is why your Thanksgiving advertising campaign is one of your most important campaigns of the year, especially if you are selling foods that are typically high sellers for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners, like turkey, stuffing, green beans, cranberry sauce, cream of mushroom soup and pumpkin pie amongst others.

Taking advantage of targeted advertising next to online recipes for holiday favorites is a great way to get your brand at the top of every shopper’s grocery list this year. When a consumer goes online to look up recipes on how to roast their Thanksgiving turkey, will they be thinking Butterball, Norbest or Honeysuckle White? That all depends on whose ad is cleverly placed right beside the roast turkey recipe.

More and more consumers are turning to the internet for their recipe needs; especially their holiday recipe needs and smart advertisers are taking advantage of this trend with their Thanksgiving advertising in order to create brand awareness during the critical holiday sales rush. Ideally, companies should get their products placed four weeks before the big holiday as many shoppers have already begun to stock their pantries in preparation for the big event.

While these relatively new Thanksgiving advertising opportunities are great for the popular holiday food items featured in online recipes, they aren’t the only products that can benefit from these highly targeted ad campaigns. There are many other activities that correspond with holiday celebrations such as watching the “big game” on TV, beer companies can capitalize on this and even less glamorous, but necessary events such as washing the dishes. Your dish washing liquid, scrubbing sponges or dishwasher detergent can make a play for the millions of dishes that need to be washed after each holiday meal.

Thanksgiving advertising is also important in gearing shoppers up for Christmas Items

And, of course, Thanksgiving advertising is also important in gearing shoppers up for their Christmas purchases as well. Foods and other items that will sell for Christmas meals will need to be well placed by Thanksgiving, but other products, such as holiday gifts or sale events can also make a strong impression when placed next to food ads over the holiday season.

So if you’re selling a product in the lead up to Thanksgiving, it’s essential to run your Thanksgiving advertising online, contact Gourmet Ads for a customized media plan which targets consumers.

Thanksgiving Advertising is a blog post from Gourmet Ads Food Advertising network, providing Display Advertising , Video Advertising and Supermarket Advertising solutions to reach the Grocery Buyer online.

Make an Impact with your Black Friday Advertising

Black Friday is one of the most popular days on the shopping calendar as Black Friday flags the start to the Christmas shopping season. As such it’s important to make an impact with your Black Friday Advertising. For those that don’t know, Black Friday is the term used for the Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States and it’s typically one of the largest revenue days for retailers.

In past years Black Friday coupons have played a role in driving consumers to buy in store, but it’s important to remember that many consumers will prefer to click on advertising driving them to buy online. So it’s essential to not only do offline media, but ensure you invest in online Black Friday Advertising to drive sales online. Even if you only do in store sales, its important to run a campaign which reaches consumers, engages with them and creates a relationship well before they reach the store.

Because the Gourmet Ads network features an audience of grocery buyers and household decision makers it’s essential to ensure that we are part of your Black Friday Advertising media mix.

Ideas to make your Black Friday Advertising stand out from competitors include;

1. Roadblock Advertising – every impression for Thanksgiving and Black Friday will be yours across the network. We can offer you 100% of the network for 2 days.
2. Interstitial Advertising – Undertake an interstitial campaign capped at 1/24 on both Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Offers a high engagement rate and can include video and rich media.
3. Beyond the Banner – create a free standing rich media ad which grabs consumer’s attention and encourages click through.
4. Display Advertising campaign – Key to success is to include a variety of creative including expandable units on rollover to increase the engagement rate. This campaign could be run a week before Black Friday or launch on the morning of Thanksgiving.

If you haven’t already booked your Black Friday Advertising, then don’t delay as the Gourmet Ads network often books out during the Thanksgiving period.

Black Friday Advertising is a blog post from Gourmet Ads Food Advertising network, providing Display Advertising , Video Advertising and Supermarket Advertising solutions to reach the Grocery Buyer online.

Most Food Brands Reserve budgets for Christmas Advertising

Christmas is not only a great time for sales of gifts, but is also considered the peak season for sales of retail products such as beer, wine and food products in supermarkets and liquor stores. To ensure that your product stands out on the shelves it’s important to book a Christmas Advertising campaign which reaches consumers, engages with them and creates a relationship well before they reach the store. The campaign could even talk about the price or specials that you are running.

What is the ideal Christmas Advertising strategy ?

The ideal Christmas Advertising strategy is a two month campaign starting on the 1st of November and running till after New Years day. This will give maximum exposure of your product in the market place and if booked early enough will be cost effective as media often books up quickly or becomes expensive at this time of year.

Looking at Google trends from last years festive season, searches for Christmas related recipes absolutely peaked during this time driving increased traffic to recipe websites and food blogs. The same can be seen in the wine space with grape varieties being highly searched.

Here is a search for turkey recipes which shows the intense amounts of search during this time.

There is a similar trend for “Champagne” searches around Christmas and New Years Eve.

These are consumers that are looking for products and haven’t made a decision on the brand yet. So it’s a great time to run an advertising campaign to capture, influence and engage this audience online.

If you are looking at having your products advertised to our Food Audience or Wine Audience, and haven’t yet booked your Christmas Advertising campaign yet,

Christmas Advertising is a blog post from Gourmet Ads Food Advertising network, providing Display Advertising , Video Advertising and Supermarket Advertising solutions to reach the Grocery Buyer online.

For the team at Gourmet Ads, the fourth quarter (or Q4 as some say) is very much considered the business end of the year for us. It’s when many food, wine and grocery companies begin their advertising campaigns, having reserved the majority of their annual advertising budget for the last 3 months of the year.

For many of our advertisers, their campaigns are centred on key dates which revolve around consumers either buying food and wine or shopping / shopping online. These key advertising days include;

• Thanksgiving (see Thanksgiving Advertising)
• Black Friday Shopping (See Black Friday Advertising)
• Cyber Monday Shopping (see Cyber Monday Advertising)
• Christmas Shopping (i.e gifts)
• Christmas Day ( see Christmas Advertising )

Apart from the days themselves, another key reason for advertising in Q4 is the traffic to foods sites and in particular recipe sites peak. Year on year, publishers during Q4 tend to see an increase of approximately 20-25% compared to throughout the year. There’s the obvious environmental reasons such as cold weather outside encourages people to stay in and go online. But add to this, the volume of consumers who are searching for recipes increases greatly during this period. As such because the traffic across the Gourmet Ads network grows during this period, we also increase our overall reach of the network. Which means that advertising at this time of the year allows you to capture, influence and engage audiences online, increasing sales and revenue.

So it makes sense that if you’re tasked with marketing your food brands, wines or grocery stores during Q4, then you need to start media planning and media buying right now.

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Q4 Advertising Campaigns is a blog post from Gourmet Ads Food Advertising network, providing Display Advertising , Video Advertising and Supermarket Advertising solutions to reach the Grocery Buyer online.

Holiday Season Advertising Drives Consumers to Stores

For our American Advertisers, the Holiday Season kicks off in just a few weeks with Thanksgiving on the 27th November.

Major advertisers (particularly those who use advertising agencies) have already booked their holiday season advertising (including their Christmas Advertising), but for most small businesses and online retailers they haven’t so it’s important to make sure you book your advertising as soon as possible.

As holiday season advertising space starts to book up, CPM rates tend to increase closer to holiday dates, so its best to get in early. Plus this year we’re already seeing companies which use traditional mediums like TV, Radio and Outdoor beginning to shift their advertising to online for the first time.

There is no doubt that year after year, the holiday season is the busiest time for online retailers, so if your not advertising, you’re definitely missing out on sales. Apart from booking advertising campaigns, it’s essential to have key messages in your advertising creative which help consumers towards your online store. Make sure you use phrases like “Free Shipping”, “Flat Rate Shipping” and “Overnight Shipping” which are familiar with consumers.

Holiday Season Advertising Includes Thanksgiving and Christmas

Finally don’t forget about key dates after Thanksgiving and Christmas Day when consumers are looking for bargains. Add to these days like Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) and Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving) are also days to intensify with your online Holiday Season Advertising.

Holiday Season Advertising is a blog post from Gourmet Ads Food Advertising network, providing Display Advertising , Video Advertising and Supermarket Advertising solutions to reach the Grocery Buyer online.

For Many Advertising Agencies Fall Media Planning is well underway

It’s mid June and we’re already having companies lock away their fall campaigns with Gourmet Ads. It’s typical to see this sort of six month forward media planning with campaigns booked already pretty much focus on holiday periods such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. Just like snow falling, media planner and media buyers need to take a blanket approach with high share of voice to ensure their products gain the attention they desire online. With this in mind, it’s key to lock it in as soon as possible.

Fall is so important to many food and wine companies. Not only are the holiday periods key, but we find that traffic generally increases to our sites during the fall. There are a variety of reasons for why we see this trend of increased traffic (I believe the main reason is that cold weather contributes with more people generally staying in) during the fall period. Take a look at the graph below from Google Trends for the keyword search “recipes”. Towards the end of each year take a look at the common annual trends for people searching “recipes”. Given that the majority of sites in the Gourmet Ads network feature recipes we also see this trend rather consistently.

Media planners and media buyers should look at starting campaigns in early September and October, then mid November vamping it up to high share of voice. Focusing on key dates around Thanksgiving, then Black Friday, the last few days of online Christmas spending and then Christmas spending.

Fall Media Planning is about engaging with Consumers in Q4

We’ve previously write blogs on Thanksgiving Advertising and Christmas Advertising which both focus on each of these topics. Both blogs give you ideas on timing and what can be done in the lead up to both thanksgiving and Christmas.

So although we’ve just started the US summer, start your fall media planning for advertising campaigns at the end of the year is something that should be happening now.

Fall Media Planning is a blog post from Gourmet Ads Food Advertising network, providing Display Advertising , Video Advertising and Supermarket Advertising solutions to reach the Grocery Buyer online.