Beer-at-Burger-Chain Fad May Leave Hangover

Want a beer with that burger and fries?

Fast feeders such as Burger King, White Castle and Sonic are dabbling in booze in test markets. Starbucks has started selling wine and beer in five Seattle locations and at one in Portland, Ore. It plans to offer wine and beer in seven locations in Chicago and will expand the offerings to Southern California and Atlanta to boost evening sales.

The moves can bring higher check prices, but also regulatory headaches. And for big fast-food chains, selling booze on a large scale won’t deliver huge margins — at least at first — since it’s also likely to add upfront costs for franchisees who would need to install new equipment such as coolers and booze lockers. (www.adage.com)

P&G, Lever Battle for Sexes in Dandruff Wars

Is your dandruff male or female?

One might think dandruff is the same whether it’s on a man or a woman, but Unilever and Procter & Gamble beg to differ. Each are introducing shampoo lines with dandruff products targeted specifically at each sex.

Unilever’s Clear, a global brand sold in more than 40 countries that’s now coming to the U.S., aims to redefine the segment around “scalp health” with lines designed for men, women and African-Americans. Meanwhile, P&G hopes to preempt Clear by introducing men’s and women’s lines of its segment-leading Head & Shoulders, which has long had a stranglehold on the market.

“The genderization of Head & Shoulders is a natural evolution for the brand, as we have seen the trend happening in categories such as deodorants and personal cleansing,” said a P&G spokeswoman. While dandruff may be the same whether male or female, she said genders “have different hair-benefit priorities and package-design preferences.” (www.adage.com)

Personalized Products Please But Can They Create Profit?

In June 2005, Procter & Gamble announced that it was pulling the plug on Reflect, a highly touted venture overseen by then-Chairman A.G. Lafley that promised the mass customization of beauty products, including 10,000 shades of lip gloss, sold online and in stores. Despite some momentum — at one point the Reflect site had 1 million unique visitors — P&G said that it would instead focus on its big brands.

The failure of the experiment was heard as a “tap-tap-tap” across the marketing industry: the nail in the coffin of mass customization. But seven years later, the strategy appears to be rising from the dead.

Thanks to more-affordable digital tools and customer-facing technology that help make the tailoring process easier, there are fresh possibilities. One boost comes from social media, which lets customers show off their looks. Marketers love the enhanced profile that type of pass-around can bring.

A Forrester report last year, “Mass Customization Is (Finally) the Future of Products,” said that while initial movers such as Dell and Levi’s failed because their setups were expensive or lacked key considerations (Levi’s, for example, offering consumers the choice of fit, but not color), major brands including Ford, Kraft and Wrigley are now experimenting with sophisticated build-to-order products. (www.adage.com)

Perky ‘Trudy’ Drives True Lemon Push

A perky, energetic character named “Trudy” is central to Roth Partners’ first work for True Lemon, a natural lemon flavoring for water that’s looking to steal share from bigger players like Crystal Light.

Dressed in a bright yellow T-shirt and matching eyeglass frames, Trudy will appear in two TV ads and a series of videos that will live online. In the ads, she pops into scenes like Jeannie from “I Dream of Jeannie” and pitches True Lemon to women as effervescently as “Flo” touts Progressive to insurance buyers.

The campaign, which breaks Monday, also includes social media efforts, contests and events. The total budget for the effort—an estimated $4-5 million—is modest compared to bigger competitors, but it represents the largest marketing push for the brand to date.

“I don’t have to be as big as Crystal Light,” said Al Soricelli, CEO of True Citrus Co., parent company of True Lemon. “When I started here [in June 2010], we had about 2 percent household penetration. We’re hoping to get up to about 6. That would be phenomenal.”

One TV ad is set in a yoga studio and another in an office. In each setting, True encounters a thirtyish woman who represents the consumer that the brand seeks to reach.

“Truth out,” Trudy says in the yoga ad, using her hands to form the signal for time out. In seconds, she replaces the exerciser’s flavored water with a bottle infused with True Lemon. (www.adweek.com)

Hot Stuff – Angry Birds and Lotus F1 Team Reach a Milestone Together

While Lotus F1 Team will contest its 500th Grand Prix in Monaco, the No.1 digital game in the world – Angry Birds – has just reached 1 billion downloads. As a result, both brands have decided to join forces to celebrate these respective milestones.

To commemorate this noteworthy occasion, Rovio’s famous game will become the team’s “Official Angry Partner”, represented by eye catching Angry Birds branding on the team’s E20 cars.

In addition, a unique version of the Angry Birds game will be available exclusively from the team’s Facebook fan page for a limited period of time. ‘Lotus F1 Team Angry Birds’, specifically designed for the Monaco Grand Prix, will be playable from Wednesday May 23rd onwards. (www.sponsorship.com)

GM to Forgo Pricey Super Bowl Ads

General Motors Co. said it will forgo advertising in the next Super Bowl rather than swallow a price hike, a surprising reversal of strategy that comes as the auto maker overhauls its global marketing operations.

Super Bowl advertising is effective but has become too expensive to justify the cost, Joel Ewanick, GM’s global marketing chief, said in an interview. Ads for next year’s National Football League championship game are up about 9%, selling for about $3.8 million for a 30-second spot, according to media buyers.

“It’s just getting too expensive,” Mr. Ewanick said on Friday. “And we’re not just going to do the same thing every year.”

It’s Mr. Ewanick’s second high-profile move this week as he shakes up marketing at GM, the nation’s third-largest buyer of media advertizing, rattling ad shops and media companies along the way.

On Tuesday, GM said it would stop paid ads on Facebook, and instead rely on the website’s free content, because the company felt paid ads did little to influence consumer automobile purchases. That controversial move, two days ahead of Facebook’s initial public offering on Thursday, grabbed attention. (www.wsj.com)

Clash of the Theme Parks

Pull down your lap bars: Universal Studios, the theme park chain now controlled by Comcast, is rolling out new weapons in its battle against Walt Disney Parks and Resorts — and Disney is fortifying its defenses.

Universal’s parks have always languished in the shadow of mouse ears, and that will not change anytime soon. Disney has eight parks in California and Florida that attract over 73 million visitors each year, with summer the busiest season. Universal operates three parks, with annual attendance totaling about 18 million.

But Universal is starting to look a lot less puny. A $265 million Harry Potter-themed addition to its resort here sent 2010 attendance soaring 30 percent over the year before, draining attention from Walt Disney World in the process. Universal is now racing to replicate the attraction at its parks in California and Japan while expanding the boy wizard’s presence in Orlando.

To maintain momentum, Universal — with more Comcast money — is introducing a swarm of offerings. A major 3-D ride themed to Michael Bay’s “Transformers” movies opens this Friday at Universal Studios Hollywood, at an estimated cost of $100 million. New draws at Universal Orlando include a refurbished Spider-Man ride, a lavish parade, a high-tech fountain and pyrotechnics show and a ride based on “Despicable Me.” (www.nytimes.com)

Hilton checks in to continue stay at McLaren

Hotel chain Hilton Worldwide has renewed its longstanding partnership with the McLaren Formula One team.

The partnership, which began in 2005, will continue for an undisclosed period, which was described as ‘multi-year’ by the team. The new phase of the partnership will include promotion of the Hilton HHonors guest loyalty programme, which has 30 million members worldwide across Hilton’s ten brands.

Hilton HHonors logos will appear on McLaren’s cars, while a variety of other activation elements, including a dedicated website and digital marketing strands, were also announced. (www.sportspromedia.com)

VW Enlists Dave Matthews Band For Eco Promotion

Volkswagen of America is partnering with Dave Matthews Band for its 2012 summer tour.

The band will be stopping in 40 cities nationwide. Throughout the tour, Volkswagen will give fans the opportunity to win tickets and on-site upgrades.

“The partnership allows us to engage with our fans while bringing together shared passions of great music and environmental responsibility,” said Tim Mahoney, chief product and marketing officer, Herndon, Virginia-based Volkswagen of America, in a release.

This is not the first automotive sponsor for the band. Last summer Chrysler’s Jeep brand sponsored Dave Matthews’ four-city summer music festival. As sponsor of the “Dave Matthews Band Caravan,” Jeep had an experiential marketing footprint at tour stops and the 2011 Compass was the exclusive automotive sponsor for the tour. (www.mediapost.com)
AT&T Sings Facebook Fans’ Praises

Rather than offering a traditional blanket “thank you” or a discount or promotion for reaching two million Facebook fans, AT&T will take two full days this week to celebrate a number of its fans individually … and through song.

“We felt this milestone was important because it was indicative of the fact that we’d created a relationship with our fans,” Morgan Dewan, a member of AT&T’s youth marketing team, tells Marketing Daily. “We wanted to give our fans a richer experience and do something fun.”

Over the past week, AT&T has been soliciting e-mails from its fans explaining what makes them (the fans) awesome. On May 21 and 22, AT&T will turn 500 of those emails into songs to be broadcast on the company’s Facebook page and its YouTube channel.

“We wanted to make it about them, not us,” Dewan says. “Tell us something that makes you awesome.”  (www.mediapost.com)