PJ Lehrer is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at NYU, teaching Consumer Behavior and Strategic Planning For Marketers.
Prof Lehrer's blog is syndicated by Newstex/ACI information Group.
Prior to moving into academia, PJ spent 20+ years working in advertising, primarily at large multi-national agencies, including McCann-Erickson and Grey on premier pieces of business such as AT&T, L’Oreal and Kraft/GF. One of the highlights of her career was orchestrating the global launch of Lucent Technologies, which garnered a Silver Effie and a Grand AME award.
Her latest book: "That's Not Why You Bought The Rolex." is now available on barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com
Subway
and Coca-Cola are partnering on a clean-water initiative.For every bottle of Dasani sold in
participating Subways by August 31, Subway will donate 30 cents to World Vision
- up to $125,000.
In
order to humanize the effort they are telling people that a 30-cent
contribution is enough to supply clean drinking water to one person for one
month.
The dedicated
site for the program http://freshwater4all.com/tallied
$38,000 in donations in the first 24 hours, and was up to $45,673.08 at posting.
(Lukovitz, 2016)
Will
this promotion motivate you to visit Subway and drink Dasani?Will it motivate anyone else?And, what happens when they reach their
goal?Will they inform people still coming
to the stores that their donations are now being made to Subway and Dasani?Why cap the effort at all?Is it misleading that they do? Will it affect your participation?
Macy's
is partnering with IBM to use Watson to answer customer questions in the store.So the next time you visit you can just ask
your smart phone - where is the ladies restroom?And if you are in Miami, you can ask in
Spanish.
Meanwhile
Lowe's is experimenting with OSHbots that roam the store and North Face is
using the technology to generate a list of shopping suggestions based on customer
responses to a series of questions. (Mahoney, 2016)
So
what do you think?Are you ready for
more in-store technology?Will it
enhance your experience?Will you start
shopping in department stores again?Will anyone else?
Mahoney,
S. (2016, July 20)Macy's, Watson
Offering AI In Stores.mediapost.com.Retrieved July 20, 2016, from
The
Olympics are rapidly approaching, and marketers are ready.Word has it that the women will be winning
most of the American medals.And sales
to women are driving the profits of sportswear companies, so it's no surprise
that they are mounting a major effort for the event.
After
a series of food contamination incidents that began last summer and extended
through this March, Chipotle's same store sales for 1st Q were down 30% and its
stock was down 35%.
In May
they started offering freebies after realizing that their heavy users weren't
coming back.Here's the blog I wrote
then...
I haven't
heard if it's working, but this week they released a new four minute video that
they are hoping will help.Development
of the video began 18 months ago, before the problems started.It goes back to the brand's initial
positioning and message -- the superiority of Chipotle's fresh natural
ingredients over typical fast food. (Lukovitz, 2016)
If you
haven't seen it yet, you can check it out here...
I have
mixed feelings about Chipotle's past video efforts.I voted their introductory ad, which aired on
the 2012 Grammy's best ad of the year.It's a great example of superior storytelling and since it persuaded
even me to give them a try, it's no surprise that sales increased by 23% in the
first half of that year.
So,
what do you think?Does the new video
work?Is it successfully conveying the
brand positioning?If you stopped eating
at Chipotle, will it make you want to start again?If not, what will?
