The Internet enables critical data collection and relationship-building for a category that relies on consumers to purchase its products over and over and over again.
One of the most active advertising categories in the marketing world is beverages. Whether the beverages be sweet, savory or buzz-generating, advertising for that special something that will quench the thirst or cure what ails you is omnipresent and in some cases omnipotent.
Catchy phrases (“Tastes great, less filling”), hip images (The Absolut bottle), and now-regular cultural icons (the human-sized, red-and-white dressed Santa Claus) have inculcated our culture over the years to the point at which we would feel less of who we are without them. Millions of children every year would be without a lap to sit on or a reason for being good if it weren’t for Coco-Cola’s invention of the fat, jolly Santa Claus we know today, first introduced in 1931.
Marketing is extremely important for the beverage category. Choices are so varied and the needs they satisfy are so uniform that distinction by benefit is nearly impossible. So most beverage marketing has to rely on establishing an image. And that image needs to be part of a population’s understanding of itself early on in order to be a subconscious constituent of their identity and thus establish a perennial presence in our lives. These are companies for which it is not enough that large numbers of persons purchase product but once.
Consumers have to come back to the brand again and again and again.
And although there is recidivism among consumers based solely on the quality of the product, it is advertising that brings new consumers into the fold and reminds those who have wandered from the herd to come back.
It should come as no surprise, then, that beverage category advertisers have found the Internet to be such a compelling medium by which to advertise their products.
So little about what compels an individual to consume a pre-packaged beverage product has to do with any particular benefit. Because of this, beverage advertisers have always relied on either the offer—some form of promotion, be it a contest or a coupon—or unbelievably sophisticated creative imaging to solicit and/or retain usage.
Beverage marketers have sought to use the Internet in both ways when advertising their wares. Online’s unique ability to engage an individual and pull him or her into the media, allowing for a branded experience, as well as the medium’s capacity to serve as a data conduit between the consumer and the advertiser, have given beverage category advertisers the best of both worlds. They can use branded experiences as the means by which to collect data, killing two birds with one virtual stone.
Promotions in particular always have been an important part of the marketing mix for many beverage category advertisers. Contests, sweepstakes and deals all have been part and parcel of a beverage advertiser’s marketing efforts. Promotions always have allowed these advertisers to both engage a consumer and get data out of them through such things as games—Bud Bowl comes to mind. Online provides a platform where not only can the engagement be more sophisticated, such as through advergaming or voting for the commercial you’d like to see most during the Super Bowl, but the cost of entry is so much lower and the amount of data that can be collected in a much shorter period of time is so much more robust.
Jason Heller, CEO of Mass Transit, an online ad agency in New York City with several beverage clients, says, “Providing brand experiences using clever rich media executions and the use of the interactive channel itself as an acquisition vehicle for relationship marketing programs” has been what brings these advertisers to the medium and keeps them there.
Just to give you some idea of the significant presence beverage marketers have online, in 2003 AdRelevance tracked over 3.6 billion ad impressions attributable to Pepsi. Coca-Cola was tracked at some 541.4 million impressions; that’s enough to have touched each person online almost four times each. Pepsi’s media weight is enough to have touched every person online some 25 times.
And the use of online seems to be working. Last Spring Forrester released a study of grocery shoppers its analysts did over 12 months to understand how families purchase the mega-cola brands. What they found was that more than 60 percent of both Coke-loyal and Pepsi-loyal users look up recipes online, and more than 50 percent of both groups have visited the brand site in the last three months. Pepsi consumers were 18 percent more likely to register or track loyalty points online than the typical Coke-loyalist due to the “training” they have received in the last few years with such promotional activities as PepsiStuff. It is through these kinds of activities that advertisers such as these stay in contact with their consumers and continue to foster relationships that go beyond just the exchange of monies for product.
Heller adds, “Building consumer databases allows marketers to develop closer relationships with many of their high value customers through relationship marketing programs of varying degrees of complexity. It's about gaining more control over your communication with segments of potentially high value consumers.”
One of the potentially more exciting promotions a beverage advertiser is participating in and using online is the recently-announced deal with Apple and Pepsi-Cola North America. The deal is that they will give away 100 million free song downloads from the iTunes Music Store as part of a Pepsi promotion that begins February 1 during the Super Bowl.
The promotion’s offline component is the random placement of 100 million winning codes on the insides of caps of 20-ounce and one-liter bottles of Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Sierra Mist. These codes are redeemable at Apple's iTunes Music Store. Winners will be able to choose from 400,000 $.99 songs from the store catalog.
What this promotion demonstrates is true integration of online and offline marketing activity. It is also a not-so-subtle acknowledgement that a significant part of the future is going to be given over to online experiences. Something like music, which for so long was carried by tangible media, is now an essential part of the ether that is the Internet, and by virtue of that, renders the Internet an even more powerful marketing tool. And it signifies a significant cultural change in how we think about music and how music is used to market product. Instead of a specific piece of music carrying a brand association, Pepsi and Apple are letting consumers link whatever music they want with a brand experience.
"This promotion to legally give away 100 million free songs will go down in history as igniting the legal download market," Apple’s Steve Jobs said in a public statement. "Pepsi has marketed their products through music for generations, and this is going to be another one that is remembered for decades."
The Internet is going to continue to be an important tool for beverage marketers, as it is becoming for all marketers. Through the use of data captured about consumers’ behavior and media usage habits that can now be collected through the Internet, marketers are better able to refine their messaging and even their overall distribution strategies. A story from a major beverage marketer came to me recently—by whom I cannot say—that put the potential of the Web for beverage marketers in a whole new light. I learned that some 90 percent of a particular soft drink’s volume came from only 10 percent of its consumer base. With the way online can be used to hone in on a particular audience segment, marketers with product usage patterns such as these would do well to figure the finest nuances of online media usage and turn the medium to their advantage.
As Heller from Mass Transit says, “You can say that as media consumption habits become more fragmented… relationship marketing becomes a more important communication channel, and one that allows marketers to make closer connections with customers. The Internet enables these marketers to provide accountable, interactive brand experiences while at the same time initiating relationships with potentially high value consumers.”
About Underscore Marketing
Underscore Marketing is a next-generation media and strategy shop founded in May of 2002. Since its inception, Underscore has attracted top-notch talent, including some of the innovators who have helped guide the industry through the emerging media landscape. Underscore’s deep understanding of all forms of media drives its success as a cross-platform shop that delivers top-notch expertise to its clients, both in planning and in execution.