Recipes Recipes Recipes
July 2, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
For brands looking to influence grocery buyers online, there are two real options.
The first is the spray and pray method, derived from a military term for not aiming, but firing in the general direction. The best illustration of this is where brands book say the home page of a portal for a day. Apart from reaching just the household grocery buyer, you reach the father, son, daughter, grand father, social gamer, automotive enthusiast and technophile. Not really the best form of efficiently if you’re trying to reach the grocery buyer.
The second method is to work with a media company, such as Gourmet Ads who not only understands how to reach the grocery buyer online, but specializes in reaching the grocery buyer online. When you start targeting a niche like the grocery buyer, sure the reach isn’t anywhere near as huge, but the upside is the spend is less and the media is much more efficient than reaching everyone on the internet.
Why do we know how to reach the grocery buyer online? Easy. Over the past few years we’ve developed a vast community of recipe sites, and we’ve worked hard to ensure that our ads run close or nearby recipes online. This is where meal decisions are made and grocery shopping lists are developed.
Because reaching grocery buyers online is all we do their isn’t any deviation from the focus. Sure we have a strong female demographic, but we don’t have lifestyle sites, beauty sites or gossip, we only do food and more specially recipes online. This is great if you’re marketing food products with the aim of increasing sales.
So if you’re responsible for booking campaigns aimed at reaching the grocery buyer online, then Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team.
IASH for Adify Media
April 7, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Adify Media in London has recently become a full accredited member of IASH after an independent audit by ABCE confirmed that the ad network has complied with the IASH Code of Conduct. This is great for both advertisers and publishers of Gourmet Ads because we work exclusively with Adify Media in the UK.
IASH exists to police and encourage best practice among online advertising sales houses and IASH is a symbol of trust and transparency, providing confidence and reassurance to advertisers and publishers.
Adify Media’s membership of IASH affirms its commitment to providing brand safe environments for advertisers. Nick Reid, VP of Adify Platform Development and Adify Media UK said: “We are absolutely delighted to now become a full accredited IASH member and look forward to working closely with the organization, helping to drive this sector forward in the UK.”
Julia Smith, head of IASH said: “Adify Media have worked hard to pass the stringent audit carried out by ABCe and they are now committed to adhering the IASH Code of Conduct, and protecting their clients’ brands. Aligning yourself with the IASH Council and successfully completing the ABCe audit demonstrates a real commitment to transparency, which serves to reinforce the integrity of our medium.”
If you’re currently media planning to run a campaign in brand safe environments on IASH certified sites in the UK, then download the Gourmet Ads UK Media Kit, or Request a Proposal from our team.
Diet After Easter
March 30, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Easter is about food, especially chocolate and hot cross buns. So it isn’t unusual that a great deal of diet and health food companies kick their advertising campaigns of on Easter Monday. Maybe bound by guild of eating a stack of chocolate after Easter a lot of people use this as trigger to kick off their diet. So for advertisers in this space it’s about being in the right place at the right time.
So who do most diet companies wish to target? The household grocery buyer, who is mostly female and aged between 25-55 year old. This person in the home influences the family eating habits and make the choices about whats going on the dinner plate today. So gaining the attention of this person in the household is key to any campaign success. Recent
Already booked this Easter is a number of well-known retail diet advertisers who are seeking to take advantage of the post Easter diet phase. These diet advertisers are running a range of creative from standard IAB sizes through to expandable creative to really gain attention of readers.
Generally speaking (as every campaign is different) diet advertising which works on Gourmet Ads includes advertising of diet books, diet programs, diet products you buy in the supermarket (i.e low carb, low fat), diet meal replacements (shakes) and of course meals which you have delivered to your home each week. Also advertising campaigns which focus on Gym memberships also provide good results. Gyms that focus on female only membership have performed very well in the past.
Some Comscore Index’s in relation to Dieting on the Gourmet Ads Network include;
- Index 267 for having searched for Diet Program information online in the last 6 months
- Index 146 for having spent under $25 for Diet meal replacements (e.g. Slim Fast) in the last 30 days
- Index 319 for having spent between $25-$49 for Diet meal replacements (e.g. Slim Fast) in the last 30 days
- Index of 251 for going to a gym or healthclub within the last 6 months
- Index of 135 for having a weight problem (25 lbs or more overweight )
Gourmet Ads has strict controls when it comes to the diet advertising. We can’t accept advertising that we call “fat ads” (the ones where is a thin stomach and a fat stomach on the ad) and any ads which make false and misleading claims. We prefer the advertiser to develop creative around food or simply use great messages reinforced with a strong call to action.
If you’re interested in running your next diet campaign with Gourmet Ads, then please download our media kit or request a proposal from our team.
Easter Advertising
March 3, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
This year Easter is the first week of April (dates below) and even if you don’t sell chocolate Easter eggs there are significant opportunities over the holiday period for all types of industries. Once regarded simply for the kids, Easter has become one of the most profitable holiday seasons of the year.
With spring in the air and many consumers possessing tax return money makes it an ideal time for you to kick-start your marketing campaign. As such we thought we’d put together a few Easter advertising ideas separated by various sectors.
Retailers
Given that Easter is of course a holiday period, many retailers run Easter Sales and to drive interest in the lead up is important. So running at least 10 days prior to the sale starting is essential, then upping the visibility over the Easter weekend to drive consumers in store. Ideally you’ll be running discounts off big ticket items and winter apparel.
Grocery & Supermarkets
With many people spending time with the family over Easter it’s important to gain market share in the lead up to the Easter Weekend. Ideally your Easter Advertising will feature creative with messaging to drive consumers in store like discounts off key staples items or loss leader activity encourage them to do their Easter “big shop” while in store.
Travel Companies
With most people spending time with their families over the Easter weekend, there are two opportunities here for travel companies. Firstly, with many people head home there is a significant benefit for companies such as airlines to go heavy up 3-4 weeks prior to Easter, then slow it down closer to the weekend. The 2nd opportunity is for people not heading home, but rather going away for the weekend. So vacation specials should be advertised 10-14 days from Easter weekend. See Grocery Buyers make Travel Decisions.
Ecommerce Sites
Many of the major ecommerce retailers run Easter weekend specials, from free shipping to coupon discounts so why let them have all the business? In the lead up to Easter why not run a campaign targeted at consumers with creative indicating your Easter specials. So no matter if you sell food, clothing or kitchen gadgets, Easter is a great time to boost sales.
Movie Releases
Many over the Easter weekend will be looking for things to do to fill out the weekend. So for the movie studios, running movie trailer campaigns for new release in the days prior and over the Easter weekend will help boost a movies weekend revenues.
Automotive Companies & Dealerships
Consumers in the market for a new auto will dedicate the weekend heading to dealerships and doing test drives. So running a campaign in the 5-7 days prior to Easter, then heavy up over the Easter weekend will no doubt result in leads being generated. Learn about our audience of automotive buying Grocery Buyers.
So as we head in Q2 and with only a few weeks to go till Easter now is the time to book your Easter Advertising Campaign. For more information, Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team.
2010 Easter Dates
Good Friday is 2nd April 2010
Holy Saturday 3rd April 2010
Easter Sunday 4th April 2010
Easter Monday 5th April 2010
Dynamic Ads
February 19, 2010 by Benjamin Christie · 2 Comments
Imagine being able to control and change the entire content, messaging or call to action of a display campaign in just a few minutes. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that fresh creative as part of a campaign significantly increases click through and engagement rates.
Dynamic ads are generally created in Flash or HTML and instead of the content being written into the files, the content is sourced from a server live or cached. The content could be fed into the ad by a RSS feed or there are some companies specializing in creating and developing dynamic ads.
Developing a creative execution paired together with consumer behaviour in the form of cookies could significantly increase sales. For example Amazon has been using dynamic ads for years, integrating products you’ve looked at into their ad units. Adding in both to behavioural data, geotargeting data could also be applied to the add.
Dynamic Ads sound great but what are some practical uses or examples?
- Supermarkets could publish today’s special together with a product photo
- ecommerce sites could publish today’s product of the day
- Airlines and hotels could publish a hot vacation deal or cheap flight of the day
- Your brands Twitter conversation (as above)
- Sponsors of sports games like Superbowl or Football World Cup could publish the score in real time
- TV stations could publish what’s on tonight’s line up
- News companies could publish the current headlines
- Restaurant chains could advertise todays specials
As you can see the ideas are endless and are really only limited by your imagination. The team at Gourmet Ads can help develop dynamic ad concepts to reality and deliver them to our audience of highly engaged grocery buyers.
For more information about Dynamic Ads or Gourmet Ads, Download our Media Kit or Request a Proposal from our team.
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 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.
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.
Mr Household Grocery Buyer
August 4, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
This month Nielsen Consumer Insight published an article called “Role Reversal – Mr. Mom Goes Shopping”. The article is about how the household has changed and traditional roles have shifted with men now taking on a greater percentage of the household shopping than in the past. Today, almost one-third of men are now the principal shoppers in the home.
For any companies which advertise and sell products in supermarkets, there are some interesting statistics to be learnt. First off the percentage of female vs male grocery buyers is 61% female and 39% male. This is strikingly similar to our own sex demographic breakdown for the Gourmet Ads network which is 62% female and 38% male, indicating how inline our audience is with industry research.
Even though men have increasingly becoming the principal shoppers in the home, women continue to outspend men per trip across all retail channels. The article comments that this is due to women conducting more “planned” shopping trips than men.
So you’re probably thinking that men are stacking their shopping baskets full of beer, BBQ product and men’s health products like shaving creams and deodorants. However this is far from the case. Across the board, men are buying for the entire household and here is just a snapshot of what they are typically buying;
- Canned Seafood (61%)
- Refrigerated Juices, Drinks (61%)
- Prepared Food-Ready-to Serve Stew (59%)
- Herbal Package Tea (57%)
- Prepared Food-Ready-to Serve Lasagna (55%)
- Health Bars & Sticks (54%)
- Non-Sliced Refrigerated Lunch Meat (53%)
- Refrigerated Yogurt and Shakes (52%)
- Dishwasher Rinsing Aids (52%)
I think there are three main takeaways from this research.
1. Online Media Buying
When buying online media, ensure that you are buying a network which reaches the main household grocery buyer and has a similar percentage of women to men as indicated in the article (like Gourmet Ads network). If you were buying a women’s only advertising network you could be missing the male grocery buyer which is at least 35% of the market.
2. Creative Design
Like the first point in regards to media buying, you need to ensure your online advertising creative isn’t just targeted to women only, but yet appeals to both sexes. Otherwise you’ll be missing out on clicks from potential grocery buyers who are men.
3. Packaging & Branding
Once again with both women and men most likely to buy your products, it’s essential for the branding and packaging to appeal to both sexes and not just typically women.
Source:
http://en-us.nielsen.com/main/insights/consumer_insight/July_2009/role_reversal_mr_mom
