P&G Marketing Chief Touts Role of Facebook, Yahoo in ‘Thank You, Mom’ Campaign

Procter & Gamble is looking to generate $500 million in sales off its massive marketing push centered on Olympic athletes and their moms, and while it won’t know if it’s hit the mark until the fall, Global Brand Building Officer Marc Pritchard thinks they’re on track.

During a call from London yesterday, Mr. Pritchard was bullish about the effectiveness of online platforms such as Facebook and Yahoo, calling them “fundamental,” and characterized P&G’s Olympics effort as the attempt to build a “perfect storm” of TV, digital, social and PR activity around closely followed events. It spans 34 brands and 150 sponsored athletes, with the “Thank you, Mom” concept that was first executed during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics serving as “the glue that ties it together to do multi-brand activations within retailers,” he said.

Retailers that have activated the campaign with in-store displays tied to it have seen a 5% to 20% sales lift for P&G products in the three- or four-week Olympic merchandising period, he said.

Beyond its massive scope, what’s unique about the campaign is the volume of content created and how early it was rolled out, he said. (The rollout began online 100 days prior to the opening ceremony on April 18.) Mr. Pritchard spoke in particular of the “mom-umentaries” featuring Olympians’ mothers that have been distributed on TV but also online as sponsored content and video ads. (www.adage.com)

Olympics Ads Reverse BP Brand Perceptions

The Olympics, it would seem, can turn an advertiser’s reputation from tarnished to sterling.

BP, the widely vilified oil company whose reputation took a drubbing in 2010 for the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf Of Mexico, has seen negative perceptions of its brand reversed during the first part of the Olympics, according to a survey conducted by YouGov BrandIndex.

YouGov BrandIndex interviews 5,000 people each weekday from a representative U.S. population sample, conducting more than 1.2 million interviews per year, according to the company. Respondents are drawn from an online panel of more than 1.5 million individuals. The margin of error is plus or minus 2%.

For its survey on Olympic-advertiser perceptions, YouGov asked respondents, “If you’ve heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth, was it positive or negative?” It derived scores ranging from 100 to -100 by subtracting negative feedback from positive. A zero score means equal positive and negative feedback.

BP saw its score go from a negative 5.9 in the week prior to the Olympics to a positive 2.6 during the first week of the games. Only Visa saw its brand perception rise more during the time period, according to the research. “We have seen the recovery with BP over the last year and a half,” said Ted Marzilli, global managing director for YouGov’s BrandIndex service. “But I think its association with the Olympics is showing benefits.” (www.adage.com)

Butter is once again welcome on the American dinner table

If you’re one of the millions who grab a hot slice of toast and drop it on a plate each morning, be aware: What you are about to do next touches on a sweeping social, agricultural and political controversy now entering its third century.

So what’ll it be—margarine or butter?

These days, most people say butter, whose sales grew over 2 percent in the last year, even as margarine’s have been falling steadily since 1992. But butter’s comeback in recent years (a resurgence driven largely by the slow-food and back-to-the-farm movement) doesn’t just signify a shift in eating trends but, as the ads here demonstrate, how advertising has reflected the changing attitudes that drive it.

The churned fat solids of milk, butter dates from 2000 B.C. and is about as natural a food as you can imagine. Margarine, on the other hand, is the product of late 19th-century science, specifically, French chemist Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès’ emulsification of margaric acid that gave Napoleon III a butter substitute to feed his armies with. “Artificial butter” made it to the U.S. in 1873 and grew very popular. It was reasonably palatable, spread more easily than butter and was cheaper. Dairy farmers watched with mounting horror. Can you guess where this one’s going? (www.adweek.com)

Ally Bank Borrows From Amex’s Digital Playbook

American Express isn’t the only financial player that’s serious about deals. Ally Bank has worked with 170 merchants in the last year, offering account holders the chance to get cash back when they make purchases with the retail brands in campaigns lasting two to three weeks.

For back to school season, it has partnered with Target, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Great Clips and Office Max to reward $5 cash back when Ally customers use their debit cards at the stores through Aug. 20. All told, they could save up to $300 on school supplies, according to Ally.

It’s little wonder the Detroit-based bank sees value in itsprogram, dubbed Ally Perks. Beth Coggins, a spokesperson for Ally, said around 70 percent of her brand’s debit card customers have taken advantage of the cash-back program in the last year. “In the last six months, Perks redeemed per day have doubled,” she said. “It’s definitely resonating with customers.”

Ally’s program is similar to Amex’s “Link Like Love” initiative, which hooks consumers up with merchant deals via Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter. And it perhaps more closely mirrors Amex’s relationship with LevelUp, while letting card holders earn cash back and loyalty points with purchases. (www.adweek.com)

Dow’s Olympic Goals

Dow Chemical Co. makes everything from adhesives to insecticide, but it is often a magnet for criticism because of its links with tainted names from the past such as napalm and the deadly Bhopal gas leak. So why would it invite criticism by signing on as a top Olympics sponsor?

The Midland, Mich., plastics-and-chemicals giant struck a decade-long sponsorship deal with the International Olympics Committee in 2010 for an undisclosed amount of cash and donated materials. It joined McDonalds Corp. and Coca-Cola Co. in the top tier of games backers, comprised of 11 companies that paid $957 million in sponsorship money from 2009 to 2012and contributed an array of technologies and supplies.

But unlike consumer-driven companies such as McDonalds and Coca-Cola—which sign sponsorship deals largely to win over the public with Olympics-themed marketing campaigns and gain a license to sell products in the Olympic Park—Dow has less visible motives.

Those include wooing top clients, sniffing out Olympics infrastructure deals in advance and attracting employees enticed by the Olympics affiliation. (www.wsj.com)

A Print Focus Returns in Lane Bryant Campaign

LANE BRYANT, the women’s plus-size fashion retailer, is introducing a $10 million advertising and marketing campaign to make its clothing and lingerie more relevant to current and prospective customers.

The campaign by MODCo, a New York-based agency that has worked with Vera Wang, Century 21, Theory, Carolina Herrera and other fashion companies, features new print advertising; a revamped Web site and social media outreach; and in-store and direct marketing initiatives, including new logos for the Lane Bryant clothing and Cacique lingerie brands. The target customers are women ages 30 to 45 who wear sizes 14 to 28.

“The campaign is meant to showcase the great fashion we have that fits the dynamic lifestyle of our customer and makes her feel sexy, confident and happy,” said Liz Crystal, chief marketing officer at Lane Bryant. “We want to celebrate who she is. We want to be aspirational in fashion, but the key is to be relatable.”

Founded in New York in 1904 by a Lithuanian dressmaker, Lane Bryant was sold in May with its parent company, Charming Shoppes, to Ascena Retail Group for $890 million. Ms. Crystal said the new marketing strategy was in the works before the sale. The company, which operates about 800 stores, had sales of $992 million and profits of $111 million in the fiscal year that ended in January; 12 percent of its sales were generated online in that time period. (www.mediapost.com)

Sirius Airs Higher Revs, More Subscribers

Satellite broadcaster Sirius XM is having a banner year, with revenue increasing 13% from $744 million in the second quarter of 2011 to $838 million in the second quarter of 2012. The company added 463,000 new self-pay subscribers and 622,000 net additions overall, boosting the company’s total subscriber base to a record 23 million.

The subscriber growth was largely driven by new vehicle shipments and light vehicle sales, as well as reactivated subscriptions resulting from used car sales.

The strong performance prompted Sirius XM to raise its guidance for subscribers, revenue and earnings for the year.

The company now projects full-year revenues of $3.4 billion, and 1.6 million net subscriber additions. It is also on firmer financial footing, having paid its debt down to $2.7 billion, compared to around $3.1 billion this time last year. (www.mediapost.com)

Old Bay Brings Labels To Life

Old Bay, the popular Chesapeake seasoning owned by McCormick, is blessed to have a recognizable name, label and package design. In a bid for even more engagement, the brand is bringing those static labels to life.

Using an app called Blippar, the brand is turning its logos and packaging into three-dimensional interactive games such as “Whack-A-Crab” and duckpin bowling. Although the app has been used in campaigns in Europe (for brands such as Nike and Domino’s), this marks the first time it has been used in the U.S. consumer products sector.

“They’ve done major campaigns [in Europe] with Tesco and Domino’s, and we’ve been working with them since January,” Andrew Foust, digital business development manager for Old Bay, tells Marketing Daily. “We decided to run our first one with Old Bay because of the sheer passion of the brand’s fans. It’s a way to celebrate the brand, and we’ve developed specific games around that.”

The app, which is available through the Android Marketplace and/or the App Store, enables a smartphone’s camera to turn ordinary Old Bay cans, logos and packaging into an augmented reality setting that includes recipes and the aforementioned games. (www.mediapost.com)

Ovaltine Facebook App Turns Kids’ Quips Into Art

Ovaltine has launched a Facebook app, dubbed “Quotagraph,” that lets moms readily turn their kids’ verbal gems into digital art.

To use the app, a mom simply types in the quote, the child’s name and age, a description of the moment, and her own first name and last initial, then chooses a design template to showcase the quote.

The app — which also enables users to save and share the art via Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter — is designed to give moms new reasons to think of Ovaltine by offering them a tool that they can find nowhere else, and to contemporize the more than 100-year-old brand.

The app will be promoted through a campaign that includes flash banners on sites targeted to moms and outreach to mommy bloggers. (www.mediapost.com)