Most Popular for 2009
December 31, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
As we roll onto 2010 or “Twenty Ten” as many are calling it, I though it might be good to take a quick look back to some of the most popular blogs we wrote this year. Just like 2009, during 2010 we’ll try to write as many blogs as we can helping to educate advertisers, media buyers and owners on how to advertise online and reach your target audience.
So here we go…..
- 2010 Advertising Trends
- Targeting Grocery Buyers
- Online Drives CPG Sales
- Reaching Holiday Shoppers
- Grocery Store Loyalty Programs
- Display Ads Trigger Search
- Reaching Working Moms
- Creative Advertising
- More Cooking at Home
- Increasing Click Through Rates
- Interstitial Advertising
Maybe you had a favourite blog ?
Q1 Media Planning
December 22, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Q1 is literally only days away and you’ve probably already started your digital media planning for Q1 already. But for those that haven’t started media planning what should be your strategy for the first quarter of 2010?
Maybe take a moment and read our 2010 Advertising Trends.
For grocery / supermarket and CPG companies the largest event to allocate advertising budgets towards in Q1 is the Super Bowl the first week of February. Campaigns we’ve already got booked start around the 10th of January and conclude on the 10th of February focusing on driving consumer intent in the lead up to the Super Bowl – see blog on Super Bowl Advertising. Most advertisers are including a combination of regular display units (728 x90, 300 x250 and 160 x 600 ) and high visibility ad units such as interstitials and floating ads to make an impact. Don’t forget the earlier you start media planning the better CPM rates that can be negotiated.
Surprisingly we’ve already seen a number of companies who’ve held off advertising during 2009, now planning campaigns in early Q1 2010. Some have seen their market share reduce during 2009 and their strategy is gain back market share with roadblock advertising and high impact advertising units. So the strategy is to get their message in front of grocery buyers and household decision makers to drive sales growth.
So no matter what your media planning strategy you’re undertaking for 2010, the team at Gourmet Ads can develop a bespoke media plan for your consideration. Start by downloading our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from us.
Grocery Advertising
December 2, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Grocery Advertising online is about reaching the main household grocery buyer ( or Mr Household Grocery Buyer) when they are in the decision making phase. Running adverting for your grocery store next to recipes where the main household grocery buyer is researching food ideas and making critical family meal planning is the key for any grocery advertising campaign.
In the past, grocery stores used newspapers, television, radio and magazines to advertise their grocery stores and weekly specials. The previous focus was on mass branding, now it’s much more about spending advertising budgets more efficiently in order to reach the right person in the household, opposed to everyone in the household which is what you get with mass brand advertising.
From our perspective more and more Grocery Stores are shifting their grocery advertising budgets to online networks such as Gourmet Ads. This shift in moving grocery advertising budgets to online has been fuelled by a combination of key reasons, such as;
- Cost efficiencies offered by online
- Ability to target on a geo targeting basis from national right down to Zip Code
- Time and Day Part targeting – advertise throughout the day and evening
- Rich media opportunities that online presents
So what kind of advertising are grocery stores undertaking? Well it varies greatly from grocery brand to grocery brand. Large national grocery brands usually have their own grocery advertising budgets, plus Co-op advertising budgets which means that can run wide reaching and impactful campaigns online. However smaller, more regional grocery brands will tend to rely heavily on geo targeting to only reach local customers. Some of the grocery advertising we’re running includes;
- Brand advertising campaigns
- Grocery Coupon based campaigns
- Grocery Loyalty Card campaigns
- Weekly Specials Campaigns
- Pre Roll Video Campaigns
So if you’re grocery store isn’t running grocery advertising online, now is the time to start with more and more consumers online it makes sense to allocate a proposition of your budget to online. By running advertising with Gourmet Ads you’re reaching a network dedicated to reaching the household grocery buyer. That’s all we do. Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from us.
Super Bowl Advertising
October 27, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · 1 Comment
When you think of Super Bowl Advertising, you’ll probably immediately think of the advertising during the game, you know the ones that cost millions of dollars per 30 seconds. But the kind of super bowl advertising we’re talking about is the advertising to driver consumers to buy your food and beverage products prior the end of season game.
Each January the Super Bowl draws an enormous audience of viewers from right around the country, most at super bowl parties. So in order trigger Super Bowl party planning ideas with consumers undertaking a targeted Super Bowl Advertising campaign can provide great results. 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 Super Bowl Advertising media mix.
So what companies can benefit from Super Bowl Advertising online? Well any companies that are associated with their products being served at Super Bowl Parties. With mostly a range finger food styled dishes being served at Super Bowl parties any ingredient or pre-made products which make dips, guacamole, chili, bbq ribs, nachos, spicy hot wings, sliders, hamburgers, hot dogs and quesadillas. Don’t forget chips, crisps, pop corn, crackers, cheese as well as beverages such as sodas, wines and beer which traditionally buy the million dollar TV advertising.
With the super bowl being played on the first Sunday in February, ideally your Super Bowl Advertising should commence in the last week of January which means you’ll have a two week campaign flight to drive consumer intent and engagement. Campaign ideas include using regular display advertising, expandable creative, interstitials, video and rich media. Campaign ideas which perform well include competitions and the ability to download Super Bowl coupons for product purchases.
It’s never too early to book your Super Bowl Advertising as this period tends to book up quickly as you can imagine. To book your two week Super Bowl Advertising campaign with Gourmet Ads, download our media kit or contact us with your campaign requirements.
Grocery Store Loyalty Programs
October 24, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Nearly every grocery store around the globe these days has its own loyalty program. Some like Costco even charge an annual membership to be part of their loyalty program, others are free. For grocery stores the ability to offer loyalty programs offer the ability to track consumer’s shopping habits and household characteristics. This is then linked to broader “market segments” based on age, race, income level, family size and neighborhood. The real benefit of grocery store loyalty programs is the ability to determine how profitable each market segment is to the store, and to treat customers in those segments accordingly.
Key to the growth of grocery store loyalty programs is to continue signups of new members, especially if, like Costco there is a membership fee to be paid or if your grocery store offers a credit card as well as a loyalty card. So it’s essential for grocery stores to continually be running campaigns to drive memberships. Advertising campaign ideas for Grocery Store Loyalty Programs include;
- Highlight benefits of your Loyalty Program
- Promote Loyalty Program only coupons
- Bonus points for Loyalty Program cards only
- Loyalty Program only discounts
- Ability to signup online and start earning points
- Interest free period for loyal program associated credit cards
For grocery store marketing managers and their advertising agencies, advertising for new members must be run in targeted environments. The Gourmet Ads network reaches millions of grocery buyers each month making us the logical choice for your media plans.
Here’s some information about the Gourmet Ads audience;
- They are the primary household grocery buyer
- They make more than 3 trips to the grocery store each month
- They spend anywhere from $200 to over $500 a month on groceries
- They search for food products online such as gourmet and organic
If you’re looking at running an advertising campaign to drive memberships in your Grocery Store Loyalty Program, please download a copy of our media kit. Alternatively use the contact us page to fill in your requirements and our team can help develop a media plan for your consideration.
Targeting Grocery Buyers
September 3, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
We recently wrote a blog called Online Drives CPG Sales which was inspired by a Comscore study which found that online advertising can be as effective as television advertising in lifting retail sales of CPG brands. The study indicated that online advertising lifted retail sales of CPG brands by an average of 9% compared to 8% for TV advertising. With more CPGs moving online with increased budgets I thought it might be good to talk about how Gourmet Ads targets Grocery buyers, as well as where they actually do their grocery buying.
First off, here’s a little about the Gourmet Audience in regards to the grocery buying;
- They are the primary household grocery buyer
- They make more than 3 trips to the grocery store each month
- They spend anywhere from $200 to over $500 a month on groceries
- They search for food products online such as gourmet and organic
What are they buying?
Across a range of products, our Grocery Buying audience are typically buying week to week the following food products; Baby Foods, Carbonated Soft Drinks, Carbonated Water, Cereals, Cheese, Crackers, Dairy products, Dried Pasta, Juice, Gourmet Frozen Meals, Pizzas Frozen and Packaged Meats. Apart from foods, also high on the list are baby products such as diapers, baby formula as well as pet related products such as pet food and cat litter.
Where do they shop?
Some of our Grocery Buying audience are shopping online, but the vast majority are heading to the grocery store and placing products in the shopping trolley. They are heading to Albertsons, Aldi, Bi-lo, Food Emporium, Food Lion, IGA, Kroger, Lowes Foods, Pathmark, Pick’n Save, Publix, Ralph’s and Safeway to name a few.
So what are the takeaways from this ?
There is no doubt that the Gourmet Ads audience spends on groceries multiple times a month across a range of products (food and non-food) and grocery/supermarkets. Add to this they are also very active online researching food products such as gourmet and organic.
So if you’re a grocery store / supermarket, then running campaigns with Gourmet Ads to drive our audience to your store makes sense. You can run campaigns such as discounts, this week’s specials and more. For those advertising food products, its about building brand awareness prior to the trip to the grocery store / supermarket. You could use discount coupons or promotions to influence our audience to buy your products.
If you’re tasked with marketing to Grocery Buyers, then download our media kit, or request a proposal for your next online campaign.
Online Drives CPG Sales
August 28, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Last week the leading research house Comscore released a study indicating what many in the online advertising space have believed for sometime, that online advertising can be as effective as television advertising in lifting retail sales of CPG brands.
The Comscore study, based on a 200,000 panel of consumers who were members of grocery store loyalty programs, indicated that online advertising lifts retail sales of CPG products by an average of 9%, compared to an average lift of about 8% from TV campaigns (measured by Information Resources, Inc). Advertising campaigns for brands in a variety of CPG product categories, including cereal, cookie mixes, pizza, juice drinks, snack bars, pasta, tea, deodorants and toothpaste, were examined.
From what we understand the CPG Sales study not only tracked online behavior, but actual purchases at the grocery store, providing some of the best evidence from online to cash register that we’ve seen. Now there’s proof that Online Drives CPG Sales.
Unlike TV which can really only be limited to location and placement, online advertising provides a raft of targeting options. Apart from standard campaign targeting options, Gourmet Ads provides additional targeting such as Behavioral Targeting and Retargeting which hones in on the target audience which can provide exceptional results for advertisers.
Given that the Gourmet Ads network only runs advertising on approved, editorial selected recipes sites and food blogs we are always targeting the household grocery buyer each and everyday.
Some of the takeaways from this research for CPG markets are;
- Online Advertising is typically less expensive to TV Advertising
- Online Advertising outperforms TV Advertising
- Greater campaign targeting options available for online
- Gourmet Ads reaches the main household grocery buyers each and everyday
- Reach audiences when they are learning and research family meal ideas.
- Measurable performance
If you’re tasked with marketing your CPG products, then download our media kit, or request a proposal for your next CPG product campaign.
Source: http://ir.comscore.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=403695
Reaching Moms
August 18, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Across America there are over 82 million moms who control over $1.3 billion in household spending each year, making them one of the most sought-after consumer segments for advertisers to reach. Apart from the obvious such as being the household grocery buyer, moms play pivotal role in house decision making such as finances, travel, automotive and clothing for the family. Ask any food advertiser or advertising agency and they’ll tell you that their main target demographic is about reaching moms.
So where are moms online? The good news is that moms are already online, in fact research indicates that the vast majority of moms go online at least once a day researching topics such as parental advice, clothing and of course food. There is no doubt moms rely on the Internet in terms of making purchasing decisions which means you need to be engaging with moms online.
When it comes to food, moms are looking at recipes and advice on what to feed their kids visiting recipe sites and food blogs for ideas. But its not always just about cooking kids meals, Moms are also researching recipes and choosing what to cook for the family dinner. Many moms will go online prior to heading to the grocery store, creating their shopping list after browsing recipes online.
The key in reaching moms online is to ensure any advertising creative is clearly directed / aimed at moms. The messaging needs to be clear and targeted, whilst not offending moms. It’s also important to mention that advertising to different demographics may require different creative to make a difference.
With all this in mind it shows how important reaching moms are online. If you haven’t got a strategy for reaching moms online now is the time to start. Because a large proportion of our audience has kids, Gourmet Ads makes sense so it’s essential to include us your online media plan.
If you’re interesting in running a campaign aimed at reaching moms, then request a proposal from Gourmet Ads or download our media kit for more information.
More Cooking at Home
August 15, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
The recession has certainly changed the behavior of consumers greatly when it comes to cooking at home. A recent study by Zagat survey confirms that since the economic downturn, 61 percent of those surveyed say they’re cooking dinner at home more than before. Not surprisingly, only 1 percent of the respondents said they’re cooking less. Although this study was specifically into the eating habits of New Yorkers, the increased trend of cooking at home is no doubt widespread across the nation as people cook to save money. There is no doubt that less people are eating out at restaurants in order to save money. With more cooking at home, I thought I’d look at who is benefiting from this trend as well as how companies with the most to reap can interact and engage with consumers online.
Supermarkets, Grocery Store and even Gourmet providores are seeing the benefits of people eating in. Many supermarkets are now printing recipes ideas as soon as you enter the supermarket in order to help consumers choose something for dinner. Companies that market core ingredients have the most to benefit, which is why nearly every supermarket has developed their own brand of private label products. One supermarket has even developed two of their own private label brands; one which is cheap and the other a little more gourmet proving consumers a real choice.
So supermarkets and grocery stores have a real opportunity to expand their consumer base during the economic downturn. One such strategy to increase market share would be to run a campaign with a CRM focus asking consumers for their contact details including email address. Then supermarkets and grocery stores could run a series of email campaigns sending weekly catalogs, discount vouchers or any other special offers. Alternatively they could send a weekly newsletter with ideas of what can be cooked this coming week with links to the shopping list making it super simple for consumers to go to the store and buy the ingredients.
The other major industries to see growth from the downturn in eating out, is both kitchen appliance manufacturers and companies that make and sell kitchen accessories or cookware. I recently was talking with a company that sells a $1000 kitchen appliance. They indicated that they are nearly selling double the about of individual units than they were last year. Another manufacturer who makes a kitchen appliance for around the $100 is also seeing product sales increase. This illustrates how people still have money, but are looking longer term than just months with them prepared to invest in new kitchen appliances in order to save money.
For any company selling kitchen appliances, the key to educating consumers on how to use their products is via recipes. One such strategy for online campaigns would be via a branded recipe widget which allows people to search for recipes which can be made with their products. People eat with their eyes, so making sure every recipes has a image is key to the success of any recipe based marketing program.
So if you’re tasked with increase consumers to your supermarket / grocery store or are tasked at selling more kitchen appliances, now is the time to develop an advertising campaign to take advantage of the trend of more cooking at home. Gourmet Ads can certainly help you develop either short term advertising campaigns or long multi month campaigns to hit your sales and revenue targets. For more information, download our media kit or request a proposal from us.
Recipes for 50%
July 21, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
An interesting report from JupiterResearch called “Targeting Online Food Lovers — Identifying Segments and Online Advertising Opportunities,” reveals that 50% of online users are looking for food and cooking information online. Let me say that again – 50% of online users are looking for food and cooking information online.
Monique Levy of JupiterResearch noted that food fans typically are looking for the specific information found on food sites, rather than the more general food information found on health and wellness sites. “Online food lovers use food destination sites and manufacturer sites the most, rather than branded product sites and health- and lifestyle-related Websites,” Ms. Levy said.
This research shows that it’s not just foodies which use the internet to research recipes, but in actual fact it’s the wider internet audience who uses the internet as a resource for food information. This in turn means that advertising in and around recipes can have a huge effect at the supermarket checkout. One thing that the report also indicated was that people are not looking for cheap foods online, rather they are seeking information on gourmet or organic products.
So where does the half of the internet looks for food, recipes and cooking information online? Well if you take a look at the sites within the Gourmet Ads network, they are typically;
1. Recipe Portals
2. Regional Recipe Sites – like Australian Recipes
3. Nich Food Sites – like New Orleans Cuisine
4. Food Blogs
5. Chef and Restaurant sites
Major food manufactures as well as food equipment companies understand that people search for recipes online. Which is why online savvy companies like Nestle and Kraft have developed and published a wide range of recipe and food content on their sites.
So with such a volume of consumers coming to food and recipes sites, it makes sense for food and food related companies to advertise online to reach these large audiences. Add to this the diverse range of people looking for recipes also means that products which are not food related will perform – check out a blog we wrote sometime ago called “Not only Food, Wine or Beer”.
If you’d like to advertise in or around recipes on the internet, download the Gourmet Ads Media Kit or Request a Proposal from us.
Article Source ; http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1004743
