Daily Buzz 5-7-12
Few people would suspect that what’s inside an unmarked building some 30 miles north of New York could change the way consumers view a soda brand, even the entire cola category. But that’s what Pepsi’s ambitious, high-energy marketers are promising.
This unassuming office park houses the Beverage Lab, and inside are the results of months of intense research. Pepsi execs have been working to chart a new course for a brand that has endured an embarrassing slip to the No. 3 soda, just behind Diet Coke.
Over several weeks early this year, Brad Jakeman, president-global enjoyment and chief creative officer, has walked key Pepsi constituents around the lab, talking about ideas and showing off mock-ups of new vending and fountain machines, samples of licensed products and new marketing concepts. It’s a world where Pepsi specifically — and the cola category generally — is cool again.
He insists it’s not a pipe dream, despite the facts: Blue-can Pepsi had slides of 0.3% in market share and 4.8% in volume last year, and the carbonated-soft-drink category has been declining for seven straight years, according to Beverage Digest. (www.adage.com)
Why Vigor Chose To Title Sponsor The Seattle Maritime Festival: “Industrial Jobs Matter”
Vigor Industrial jumped at the chance to be title sponsor of the 2012 Seattle Maritime Festival.
The Vigor Seattle Maritime Festival 2012 May 8-12 is an entertaining, delicious and potentially career-launching opportunity to learn more about the multi-billion-dollar maritime industry on the Seattle waterfront. Who is Vigor Industrial, and why would they do this?
“These industrial jobs matter,” said Frank Foti, president and chief executive officer of Vigor Industrial. “We are Vigor as in vigorous, and when the opportunity presented itself we vigorously pursued it, because we are proud of this great industry, want more people to know about it and believe it has a great future.”
Vigor currently has about 927 Seattle-area employees. (www.sponsorship.com)
Esurance, the direct-to-consumer personal car insurance company, has announced that it will be the presenting sponsor of Sasquatch! Music Festival 2012, May 25-28.
The “Sasquatch in Style” sweepstakes has just launched, offering one lucky winner the chance to win tickets, cash, space on the Esurance shuttle, and a fully stocked campsite simply by “liking” Esurance on Facebook and then entering the sweeps.
This is the sixth year in a row that Esurance has sponsored this important music festival, which has taken place every Memorial Day weekend since 2002 at The Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Washington.
As a green sponsor of Sasquatch! since 2007, Esurance also has a history of helping make this a planet-friendly festival. Over the past two years, Sasquatch! festival goers have logged 188,593 miles in 576 rides via Esurance’s partnership with Zimride, the carpooling community website. (www.sponsorship.com)
Crunch Fitness Named Presenting Partner Of The Brooklyn Nets All-New Dance Team
Crunch Fitness has been named as a Brooklyn Nets partner and presenting sponsor of the all-new dance team. Crunch, known for creating world-renowned programming including cutting edge dance fitness classes, has 39 locations worldwide, including two locations in the heart of Brooklyn. This is the health club chain’s first major alliance with a professional sports team.
Upon the start of the 2012-13 NBA season, monthly hip-hop classes will be taught by the new Nets dance team at Crunch locations throughout the New York metropolitan area. In addition, a Brooklyn Nets player and trainer will be teaming up with a Crunch expert personal trainer to give fitness tips that will be featured on brooklynnets.com.
“The Brooklyn Nets and Crunch are all about health and wellness, making this alignment a perfect fit,” said Chris Brahe, Senior Vice President of Partnership Sales and Marketing for the Brooklyn Nets. “By partnering with Crunch, we will be able to provide our fans with great health tips and utilize our dancers to help keep Brooklyn healthy.”
“Crunch’s No Judgments philosophy and long legacy of fusing fitness with entertainment makes the opportunity to partner with the Brooklyn Nets a true honor,” said Keith Worts, President, Crunch. “Crunch and the Brooklyn Nets are dedicated to creating a fit and fun environment for our members and the entire Brooklyn community.” (www.sponsorship.com)
Yodel Sponsors The Tour of Britain
Yodel, the UK’s leading parcel delivery company, today announces that it will continue its sponsorship of The Tour of Britain, confirming that it will remain the official logistics partner and sprints sponsor of the country’s biggest professional cycle race and largest free-to-watch sporting event in 2012.
The Tour, which starts on Sunday 9th September, will see the world’s top cyclists taking part in eight challenging stages throughout England, Scotland and Wales, before the thrilling final, this year hosted by Surrey on Sunday 16th September.
This is the third year that Yodel has been involved with the world class event, and the second as a lead sponsor. The partnership deal between Yodel and The Tour of Britain will see The Tour’s sprints competition branded as the Yodel Sprints Competition, with three ‘hot spot’ Yodel Sprints taking place on each stage of the 2012 race.
As part of the sponsorship deal, Yodel will also become Official Logistics Partner to The Halfords Tour Series, an eleven round city centre cycling race series, which brings unique and exciting televised professional team racing to towns and cities across Britain during May and June. (www.sponsorship.com)
Subaru Announces PUMA As New Team Sponsor For Three-car Global RallyCross Championship Program
Subaru of America, Inc. has announced the official sponsorship of sportslifestyle brand PUMA for the Subaru PUMA RallyCross Team. As part of the multi-year sponsorship agreement with Subaru, PUMA becomes the official supplier of team and racewear and an exclusive licensing partner to the team for footwear and apparel. As part of the team sponsorship PUMA has developed custom graphics for the three Subaru WRX STI program cars.
The Subaru PUMA RallyCross Team is the factory backed rally team for Subaru of America, Inc., managed by Subaru technical partner Vermont SportsCar. The all-star team consists of BMX legend and professional Rally athlete Dave Mirra; Professional skateboarder Bucky Lasek; and three-time European RallyCross champion Sverre Isachsen. The team will be competing in the six-round Global RallyCross Championship (GRC) series.
“I am stoked to have Sverre and Bucky join the team,” said rally veteran Dave Mirra “Sverre has been an unstoppable force in European rallycross and will definitely be an asset to the team with his experience and talent. I have known Bucky for years on the X Games circuit, it is great to see another extreme athlete cross over to rallycross; his enthusiasm for racing and fearlessness should be great to watch.”
Sverre Isachsen, aka The Viking Warrior, has been a motorsports addict his whole life. After competing in local autocross and rallycross events in his native Norway, he set his sights on the European RallyCross Championship. After a strong debut in 2002 he dominated the series and was crowned its champion in 2009, 2010 and 2011. (www.sponsorship.com)
To Keep Viewers Watching, New Ads Come With Varied Endings
IT is not uncommon for marketers seeking to reach different audiences to run different versions of the same commercial, among them spots for Sony Bravia TV sets, meant for men and women, and spots for Orbitz and Levi’s jeans, intended for straight and gay men. Now, along come different versions of the same commercial — but this time each version is aimed at the same audience.
For its big annual marketing push before the summer, the Mike’s Hard Lemonade line of flavored malt beverages is to introduce on Wednesday a series of humorous commercials that begin the same way but then diverge to offer different endings.
The goal is to entertain the target audience of men and women ages 21 to 34 enough to refrain from zapping or zipping through the spots. Younger viewers, in particular, avidly avoid commercials, much to the dismay of marketers and media companies. (www.nytimes.com)
VW brings USA cycling nationals to home of new plant
Volkswagen of America has signed a four-year sponsorship deal with USA Cycling.
As part of the deal, Volkswagen of America will become the title sponsor of the country’s professional road and time trial national championships, which USA Cycling has awarded to Chattanooga, Tennessee for three years from 2013.
A new women’s competition has been set up to run alongside the men’s events in Chattanooga.
Although course details have not yet been finalised, it is believed the time trial course will run near the Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga. (www.sportspromedia.com)
It’s spring, and that means while some people are disrobing to worship the sun, others are donning their riding gear and rolling their motorcycles out of the garage. It also means that people who have always toyed with the idea of buying a first bike, or getting a new one, are heading to motorcycle dealerships to ogle and maybe buy.
Motorcycle prospects, like car shoppers, study the products online before going to retail. But the similarity ends there, says Fran O’Hagan, president and CEO of Pacific Grove, Calif.-based auto market research firm Pied Piper Management Co., LLC.
“In the car industry, unless a dealership is really terrible, how good or bad the dealer is hasn’t got that much to do with how many cars you sell,” he says. “But the same is absolutely not true for motorcycles. For motorcycles, what the dealership does translates directly into how successful they are.” (www.mediapost.com)
Samsung Gaining On Apple In Mobile Market Share
Apple may still be the dominant smartphone brand, but thanks to aggressive marketing and wider availability (particularly in the prepaid sector), Samsung is pulling awfully close in terms of market share, meaning there may be more head-to-head marketing battles between the two brands in the future.
According to the NPD Group, Samsung devices accounted for 24% of the smartphones sold over the first quarter in the U.S., a 140% increase over the previous year’s market share. Apple, which accounted for 29% of the phones sold, increased 7% over the previous year, while models manufactured by LG, HTC, Motorola and RIM all experienced market share declines.
“Samsung has grown to take up a larger and larger percentage of Android handset sales,” Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at NPD, tells Marketing Daily. “They’ve had very successful launches with the Galaxy S line, and on the back of that the company is becoming more aggressive in developing its own [technology] ecosystem.” (www.mediapost.com)
No comments yet.