Month: February 2011

(Fellow blogger Ruth’s Bieber-themed post inspired me to write about the boy wonder, so for all you Beliebers out there hold on to your pants. Seriously.)

—

Justin Bieber must think he’s the luckiest kid alive right now. The 16 year-old Stratford, ON native has catapulted himself to international stardom by flexing his vocal chops on YouTube all while capturing the hearts of millions of squealing girls all over the world. The teen idol has lent his name to a whole range of items, from a look-alike Ken version of himself to nail polish to even headphones.

Those who may have seen his television ads with Proactiv however would be aware that the company has added Bieber to their growing roster of celebrity endorsers who include singer Mandy Moore, actress Jenna Fischer (aka. Pam from The Office) and rapper/mogul Sean Combs. Here’s the commercial anyway for those who haven’t seen it (or just want an excuse to ogle him):

Guthy-Renker, the company behind Proactiv, reportedly shelled out nearly $3 million over the next two years for the teen idol to become one of their many spokespersons. The same article in the link mentions how the company is hoping to leverage much of Bieber’s popularity with the teen girl market in order to boost sales.

Sure, Justin’s tween fans may not have the purchasing power to buy Proactiv themselves, but their parents probably do – and this is exactly what the company wants, to have legions of mothers buy the product online where the company makes nearly 60% of its sales. They realize that anything Justin Bieber touches turns into gold (figuratively of course) and that there is a legitimate opportunity in marketing directly to teens when before their celebrity endorsers largely catered to a more mature crowd. Any success with the teen crowd will translate into free word-of-mouth marketing wherein teens will extol the virtues of Proactiv and urge their BFFs to try it out, making their BFFs’ parents consider purchasing the product.

See guys, it’s a never-ending cycle.

Parents, take heed: do not underestimate Tween Power.

I am a self-confessed geek. I love playing video games and so do my two late 20-something brothers. From the Super Nintendo we graduated onto the Gameboy when even my technology-challenged dad would enjoy playing Tetris for hours on end. Eventually me and my siblings were gifted the Playstation (which saw better days) as well as its successor the PS2. With a couple of exceptions, we’ve sold our souls had a long history with Nintendo. My family is not alone however in our adoration for the video game industry giant: in 2009 Nintendo saw sales figures that were well into the billions of dollars worldwide. 15 billion in fact

Nintendo has maintained its leading position in the highly-competitive video game industry due in large part to its keen understanding of the audience. Nintendo pretty much has a product for every marketing segments it caters to – for every large slice of video game pie Nintendo knows exactly what goes with it. The company has learned over the years that selling video games to the usual target markets (children and the youth in general) just won’t cut it anymore – it wasn’t enough to segment the market based on demographic criteria, consumer lifestyles had to be taken into consideration as well. Capitalizing on the fitness renaissance of recent years, Nintendo released the Wii in 2006 hoping that they would be able to tap into a growing number of health-conscious individuals as well as so-called “casual gamers” who often feel left out by the industry’s usual offerings.

The console’s flagship game, Wii Sports was applauded by Nintendo’s intended target market and the numbers don’t lie: to date, the company has sold over 75 million copies of the game worldwide. Its more fitness-oriented cousin on the other hand, Wii Fit, has been received well by fitness enthusiasts and couch potatoes alike. The lesson: it pays to go beyond the horizon.

I guess they must be doing something right. As for me? I’ll be playing Super Mario Bros. On my pink NDS.

Crowd-sourcing is nothing new. As a prelude to this Sunday’s Superbowl, PepsiCo launched a contest during September of last year asking people to make a 30-second commercial showing their love for Dortios and Pepsi Max. Avid snack munchers naturally responded and they have created some ingenious ads that rival even the infamous Snickers commercial featuring Betty White. Here’s my favourite one (for Doritos):

High-profile companies like Amazon and PepsiCo are increasingly turning to us, the consumer for marketing advice! Crowd-sourcing is a highly interactive means of directly involving consumers with the brand. It often creates added value for the consumers as they are in a sense more invested in the product because well, they helped shape it! Before, companies never would have dreamed up of this because there was so little emphasis on the consumer – despite the adage “the customer is always right”. But now they aren’t content until we turn into their product slaves repeat customers (and hopefully eventual advocates of the brand). I think part of the reason why crowd-sourcing has the attention of major brands is that it is one way of generating additional value to the consumer without necessarily altering the existing product.

It doesn’t come without its own pitfalls however: imagine having to screen thousands upon thousands of entries from people! The company has to screen entries thoroughly just to make sure nothing that certain consumer groups consider “offensive” make it past their filter. Any negative publicity can spread like wildfire through word of mouth and if not capped/controlled, the company can face serious damage to their brand. There is some control with crowd-sourcing as there are screening mechanisms in place, but at the same time they can’t control exactly what you and I submit. Tricky!

Crowd-sourcing is not the marketing world’s panacea for all its problems. With anything these days, it comes with pros/cons that should be weighed against each other. PepsiCo however has used crowd-sourcing to their advantage with great results: the ad above could very well be the next great Superbowl commercial!