The Hunger Games: Latest Pop Culture Phenom

The first book in the wildly popular Hunger Games trilogy is about to make its cinema debut. I enjoyed the series, especially book #1, and I'm looking forward to seeing Katniss Everdeen and her allies/antagonists on the big screen.

My Google "everything" search for Hunger Games yielded the highest number of hits I've ever seen for one phrase: 1.19 billion. In addition to the official movie site, I found countless news stories about the book, cast, rating, etc, as well as the author's official site.

A Google "video" search turned up 48 million hits, fan-contributed videos and parodies, not just official and news-related videos. And a Google "books" search resulted in 72,000 hits. 

Inevitably, a search for "Hunger Games marketing" found a high number of hits, from the Forbes site's "5 Lessons Marketers Can Learn from The Hunger Games" (general brand advice) to the Wall Street Journal's "Why The Hunger Games Is Also the Gender Games" (about targeting all YA audiences, not just girls).

May the odds be ever in your favor.

For Airlines, Costs Counted in Pennies Add Up

A penny difference in cost can add up--in quantity for the world's airlines. Consider Delta Airlines's purchases of pretzels and peanuts. Every year, the airline gives away 61 million bags of peanuts and another 61 million bags of pretzels. So when Delta has to pay 1 penny more for a bag of peanuts, its costs rise by $610,000. Add another penny to what it pays for pretzels, and the airline's costs go up by another $610,000. Delta was able to save $210,000 by taking away one strawberry from salads served to passengers in first class on domestic routes. One strawberry!

Now think about the cost of jet fuel, which has tripled during the past decade. Fuel accounts for 35 percent of an airline's operating costs. Airlines can manage many costs in various ways, but an increase is an increase, and jet fuel's price spike has been measured in nickels, dimes, and quarters rather than pennies. Delta says that every penny increase in the cost of a gallon of jet fuel raises its yearly costs by another $40,000,000.

No wonder Delta and other airlines have added fuel surcharges to the fares they set for long-haul destinations such as Asia and Europe. Even if fuel prices ease off, the airlines may be slow to ease off the surcharges. Every penny counts when the numbers get this big.

Nestle's "Not Kit Kat" Super-Premium Chocolates

Nestle has a new line of customized luxury chocolates--and these are not your everyday, average Kit Kat bars (one of Nestle's top global brands).

Instead, Swiss-made Maison Cailler chocolates serve as a journey into your Chocolate Personality. The process begins when you read about the Maison Cailler chocolates, look at all the luscious photos on the Web site or the Facebook page, and order a sampler to taste.

Now comes the personalization part: You go to the Maison Cailler site and rate each chocolate in the sampler box, also noting whether you like to discover "exciting flavors" such as spices in your chocolate. With a click, you'll know your choco personality and you can then order boxes of premium chocolate specially selected for your preferences.

Not at all like Kit Kat, which has just introduced a new chunky peanut butter flavor, below (based on the results of a public vote).

JCP, the New and Improved JCPenney

JCP, the Texas-based department store formerly known as JCPenney, has a new attitude and look. Its new logo, left, suggests more style, as does its new monthly catalog. The debut issue is titled "March is Madness without JCPenney." (And yes, there's a basketball story in the catalog, along with college hoops team T-shirts.)

The look reminds me a bit of Target, emphasizing personal style without going overboard on fads, and spotlighting a few select items rather than crowding each page with lots of photos and text.

New pricing strategy: Instead of a new sale every week (or more frequently), JCP is promoting "everyday prices" and "month-long values." And it will have "best prices" markdown days twice a month, with blue price tags--hey, remember those old K mart Blue Light Specials? Blue is the new color of savings, apparently.

JCP needs this strategy to succeed: It's expensive to implement, and retailing is more intensely competitive than ever.

Pinterest and Marketing

Pinterest is the social media sharing site du jour, a cornucopia of images "pinned" to online walls, loosely organized by interest. Pinterest supports hashtags (like Twitter's #) and encourages "repinning" to spread the word, two important elements for building buzz.

Less than two years old, the site's audience is largely female, says Mashable, and that's attracting the interest of marketers who target women.

For example:

• Whole Foods Markets "pin" photos of food products, grouped by category or occasion, to its Pinterest wall. It has more than 18,000 Pinterest followers!
• Walker's Shortbread. The Scottish company "pins" photos of its food products to Pinterest, along with "pins" of its favorite bloggers (sharing!) and items of interest such as "all things Scotland."
• Nordstrom. Want to see the latest fashions in full-color, large-scale photos? Nordstrom "pins" its collections on Pinterest.
• Real Simple, Weddings, and other lifestyle mags are reaching their audiences through Pinterest.

Will Pinterest become a staple of social media marketing? Or will another new site emerge as the next new thing?

Leap Day Promotions

Once every four years--that's how often February 29th rolls around, and some marketers are using Leap Day as a leaping-off point for promotions. Here are a few:

• Zappos says that anything purchased on Leap Day can be returned at any time during the next four years (see top image).
• Staples has 29 special deals for the 29 days of February (see purple-background image, above).
• Disneyland will be open 24 hours on Leap Day, the culmination of a two-month sweepstakes promotion called "One More Disney Day" (see blue-background image, above).

Happy Leap Day. And that's it for four more years!

World Water Week, March 19-25

"A glass of tap water has the power to change the world." That's what the Unicef Tap Project says about World Water Week, when people pay $1 for a glass of tap water at a local restaurant--and the money is donated to Unicef to provide clean water to children worldwide. Tap water is usually free, but for this week in March, restaurant customers can donate and feel good about helping others get access to safe drinking water.

In addition to online web ads such as this, the Tap Project is being promoted through PSAs in magazines such as Time, through Twitter messages, with YouTube videos, and more.

 

Here's another of the print ads by Droga5, New York.

The project can't work without behind-the-scenes recruitment to sign up restaurants. Unicef has already begun training nearly 2,000 volunteers to visit U.S. restaurants nationwide. Watch for the Tap Project in your local restaurant during March.

Snail Mail Stamps, Your Way

Snail mail may not be as popular as before e-mail and social media, but people still mail letters and cards--and that's an opportunity for marketing.

Planning a wedding? Many engaged couples look at every detail, including the stamps on their invitations, as the New York Times points out. The USPS has its own standard love or wedding stamps (top) but authorized marketers such as Zazzle also offer personalized stamps (just above).

India Post is not only offering personalized stamps, the Mumbai General Post Office provides a photographer to take the photo of you and your sweetheart (or anyone else whose likeness will be on the stamp). Wedding stamps are popular but so are "new baby" stamps.

Beauty by Mail

Time took a look at the new trend toward "makeup-of-the-month" clubs that have popped up online. These businesses edit collections of cosmetics samples and deliver them to your mailbox for a small monthly fee (usually $10-12), with the hope that you'll like some of what you find and become a loyal customer of that beauty brand.

These clubs are matchmakers, serving as go-between for consumers seeking novelty (new products) and beauty businesses seeking new customers. For consumers who like trying new things, subscribing to a sampler box is a more cost-effective way to acquire trial sizes than walking through malls or department stores. For the beauty brands, subscribers represent consumers who are open to new products, actively involved in beauty behavior, and (often) enthusiastic about sharing their ideas with others. Hearing your friend praise a new product on the basis of experience can be a powerful influence on your attitude and action toward that brand and product!

Because this industry is young and growing so rapidly, some of the businesses will inevitably morph into other businesses or leave the industry as competition intensifies. Meantime, here's a trio of beauty-by-mail sampling businesses as of February, 2012:

• Birchbox, which sends upscale cosmetics samples to 100,000+ U.S. customers, features brands such as Carol's Daughter, Kiehl's, Stila, and LaRocca. Founded by two Harvard Business School grads, Birchbox is growing very rapidly, with more than 80,000 Facebook "likes" plus an active Twitter account, a behind-the-scenes blog, and a beauty tips magazine online.
• Glossybox says it specializes in "the latest beauty trends and cosmetics delivered to you in a beauty box." The company encourages refer-a-friend by offering reward points and offers tips and promotions via Twitter.
• Beauty Army (shown here) offers deluxe makeup samples and supports Beauty Bus, a nonprofit that brings beauty how-to to chronically ill people and their care-givers.

Thinking, Fast and Slow

One of the most important consumer behavior books on the market today is Thinking, Fast and Slow by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman.

The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and The New York Times are among the publications that named this a top pick in 2011. Why? Because Kahneman explains how we think about the world, often in irrational fashion, which in turn affects how we make decisions, why we rely on intuition, how we often fail to balance emotions with logic, and finally--why we sometimes disregard or discount vital data.

In other words, we need to learn how to get our "slow thinking" mind working alongside our "fast thinking" mind.

For example:

• How do consumers judge whether a price is too high or too low? Anchoring (see p. 119).
• Why do so many marketing plans fail to achieve some of their market-share objectives--and what can marketers do to anticipate problems? Competition neglect (see p. 259) and premortem (see p. 264).
• How do consumers prioritize uses for their money? Mental accounts (see p. 342).
• Which is more compelling: Preventing a loss or pursuing a possible gain? Frames (see p. 363).

Kahneman's insights are important for marketers and consumers alike. Highly recommended!