net rules
Marketers who claim to have mastered online and offline integration are probably over-confident. A few, however, are making strides.
When it comes to adding the Internet into the promotions mix, UDV is doing something very right.
United Distillers & Vintners Global took its island and in-bar promotions a virtual step farther late last year. First, the Stamford, CT-based liquor distributor broadcast events from Cuervo Nation – its eight acres of “leased” land in the British Virgin Islands – on the Web sites of seven radio stations around the country. (The $8 billion company uses the island as the ultimate vacation venue to promote brands such as Jose Cuervo, Bailey’s, and Smirnoff.)
In addition to the Net broadcasts, consumers could register online to become “citizens” of the faux country and sign up to receive e-mail updates about local events and brand news.
The Internet plays an even more pivotal role in UDV’s latest effort, Party Cam Central, a program that extends on-premise events by putting cameras in the hands of staffers to videotape the dancing, drinking crowd. “As soon as the bright light from the camera goes on, people go nuts,” says John Giarrante, channel marketing manager with UDV’s Chicago unit.
The videos run live on screens in bars and a week later on partycamcentral.com, where they’re accompanied by more heavily branded promotions such as mixed-drink recipes and event listings. Visitors can download images for use as screensavers, which also come branded. Alcone Marketing Group, Irvine, CA, helped conceive and execute the campaign, which is currently being tested in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Florida.
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
The manual for integrating online and offline promotions has yet to be written. But with each initiative that is launched, some guidelines are slowly emerging.
Marketers are finding that, although superb graphics and sophisticated features can add sizzle, it’s often best to keep online promotions simple. The more sophisticated an Internet campaign gets, the higher the chance of discouraging consumers, who may get lost on a site or have to wait while heavy graphics load onto their computers. (Similar to online shopping, the longer and more effort it takes, the less chance a consumer will stick around.)
Marketers are also realizing that the best online strategies more often than not replicate familiar offline experiences – scratch-and-win games or premium offers, for instance. In August, Pepsi kicks off a sweepstakes in which consumers win prize points by visiting a Web site and entering an alphanumeric code that will appear on the caps of 1.5 billion bottles. An icon on Pepsi’s home page will link players to a “micro site” dedicated to the contest, called Pepsistuff.com (see story, pg. 43).
Embedded in such an easy-to-play promotion is, perhaps, the most critical rule for online and offline integration, something known as “the action factor.” Regardless of the medium through which they’re delivered, promotions must offer an experience if they are going to connect consumers with a brand, says Charlene Li, a senior analyst with Cambridge, MA-based Forrester Research.
With a nod toward Ebay addicts, Milwaukee-based Miller Brewing Co. this summer is auctioning off an eclectic lot of goodies (from autographed baseballs to adventure trips) in a Get the Goods campaign. All cash proceeds from the auctions will go to local or national charities selected by the winning bidders. The promotion, which is being executed by St. Louis-based The Zipatoni Co., integrates radio, TV, print, and outdoor ads created by San Francisco-based Ogilvy & Mather.
Aside from a common logo, there is little visual consistency throughout the campaign. “The TV ads have a different look than billboards,” says Miller spokesperson Scott Bussen. But cans and bottles of Miller beer are outfitted with “Beer Bucks” that can be used to pay for an auction item.
TRANSITIONS
TV network NBC just wrapped an online promotion around its game show, 21. Viewers were given clues to a riddle right before four of the show’s commercial breaks, then were sent to nbc.com to obtain a fifth clue. The correct answer entered viewers into a contest to win $500. Twenty-one cash prizes were given away each show. The effort let NBC get hold of e-mail addresses and once-elusive viewer demographics (other than what Nielsen provides) to make a nice little database. Promotions.com, New York City, executed the sweepstakes, building the Web site’s technical back-end to handle the thousands of entries coming in over a 10-minute period.
Another network mixing up its marketing program is Atlanta-based Cartoon Network. In addition to doing some creative online/offline cross-over programming, the network just wrapped up a $10 million Cartoon Campaign 2000 promotion that asked kids to vote for the network’s next president from among 50 animated characters. No, U.S. President Bill Clinton did not win, although First Lady Hillary’s Senate race should take note: The month-long effort brought out 750,000 voters thanks to a multi-channel approach.
The network’s online and on-air efforts had some major support from Glenview, IL-based Kraft Foods, which ran messages on more than 100 million boxes of such popular brands as Macaroni & Cheese Dinner and Jell-O that included an exclusive toll-free number for kids to call in and vote. Different brands gave away different cartoon-related prizes as incentives.
The results found that 32 percent of the votes came through Kraft’s toll-free number; 24 percent through Cartoon Network’s hotline, and 44 percent via the Internet. (Lest we forget to mention: The new Cartoon Network president is that master orator and trouble-dodging expert, Scooby-Doo.)
BACK WASH
Integration can work both ways, and many brands are using offline components to supplement what are primarily online promotions as well.
Last summer, Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream was looking for ways to hype its new Dreamery super-premium brand. In addition to in-store sampling, the shop orchestrated a direct-mail campaign that drove people to Dreamery’s Web site. Some 50,000 folks signed up for a loyalty program; those who moved quickly got free pints of ice cream or dollar-off coupons. A total of 10,000 free pints were gobbled up in 48 hours. Three days later, an additional 15,000 coupons had disappeared.
Visitors who provided Dreamery with their name, address, and other vital statistics now get monthly e-mails and newsletters (via snail mail) filled with more cash-back offers. And, with apologies to Sigmund Freud, the Dreamery site also analyzes dreams. (Now that’s entertainment.)
Meanwhile, smart dot-coms are swapping online muscle for offline reach to develop a more powerful brand punch. That’s the plan at Lexington, KY-based ecampus.com. Founded in early 1999, the Web site sells discount text books to college and graduate school students. But how do you get the 15.1 million U.S. college students to visit the site?
Ecampus decided to leverage music retailer Trans World Entertainment, which gets a steady flow of teens into its 950 music stores, which include the Coconuts and Strawberries chains. Framingham, MA-based agency Cohen Friedberg Associates devised a two-month Lucky Number Game sweepstakes that kicked off May 8.
The online match-the-numbers contest is being promoted through in-store P-O-P displays including four-foot posters, tear-pads at checkouts and, in June, inserts popped into customers’ bags. Online banner ads at other Web sites should also drive traffic. Some 500 prizes, including a $1 million payoff, are being given away.
But in order to play, students must first serve up their name, e-mail, address, gender, and year in college. (It’s no surprise that one of the campaign’s main goals is to give ecampus an A+ in data collection.)
At Waltham, MA-based Internet portal Lycos, Inc., 30 percent of the company’s 50 annual promotional programs are coordinated with traditional brands such as Sony Music, PepsiCo, and Universal Studios.
Lycos teamed up with Universal this spring to promote seven of the studio’s new home video releases, including the sex-starved-teen flick American Pie and art-house favorite The Red Violin. Universal inserted a two-minute, 30-second spot pitching a contest on lycos.com at the front of each video. Viewers could write down a code to enter on the site to be eligible to win such prizes as a ski trip to Oregon’s Mt. Hood. Links on Lycos’s home page led people to a custom page for each movie. The Lycos URL also appeared on Universal’s in-store P-O-P displays.
The effort yielded one billion total consumer impressions and bolstered Lycos’ database to jump-start its direct-mail machine, according to online promotions manager Brigitte LaMarche.
THE DOWN SIDE
One of the biggest obstacles blocking successful integration is speed, says LaMarche. It can be difficult to get offline components on the same schedule as online programs, which are inherently quicker and cheaper to set up and roll out. That’s because the Web is free of what Promotions.com ceo Steve Krein calls “Old World economies” such as time and costs associated with paper, printing, postage, and data entry. “The Internet allows you to do what paper does not: change coupon offers, swap one prize for another, add more incentives. You can do it all in real time,” Krein adds.
The promise of Internet speed, however, can be deceptive. The Old World has laws and regulations that the online world cannot ignore. Put a sweepstakes or direct mail program online and many of the same legal hurdles still apply. “We get calls from clients who want to launch in three to four days, so we must tell them they’ll have to avoid Florida (where strict sweeps laws require meticulous preparation),” says Marc Wortsman, director of new media at Marden-Kane, Manhasset, NY.
That’s just one of the potential snags. Online contests can be more complex than paper versions, because entries usually involve text in the form of essays or picture files, and a site must have the technical resources to support them. The site must also have the technical scale to support a huge database and an influx of thousands of visitors, often within a short time frame; your fulfillment house can handle 60,000 pieces of mail a day; your Web server may not.
And when a site’s technology goes awry, a campaign can actually disappear. On a recent weekday soon after Miller’s Get the Goods campaign launched May 1, a visit to www.getthegoods.com found an inactive site with an announcement: “Working diligently to resume service.”
There’s another, more human barrier to successful integration as well: office politics. “Agencies are still handling promotions at two sides of the house that don’t talk to each other,” says Forrester Research’s Li.
Bill Carmody, chief marketing officer with San Francisco-based Seismicom, concurs that many agencies and in-house marketing departments separate their Internet groups from the rest of the staff. That can bog down any attempt to share information and insight.
Companies that are integrating their employees should be applauded, since some naysayers insist that the old promotion guard will never effectively mix in the interactive element.
In the workplace and in campaigns, there should be no distinction between online and offline, says George Valva, ceo of DVC, Morristown, NJ. “It’s really one line in terms of the consumer.” If an agency’s radio, TV, and events teams aren’t embracing their online team – or the online folks are still sitting “over there” – it is unlikely that a seamless promotion will be conceived, Valva says.
Zipatoni recently restructured its interactive group to provide a “baked in” approach. “[The online group] used to live in isolation, not cooperation,” says president Jim Holbrook. “We’ve integrated them with creative and account-service people so they are involved in the initial planning stages.”
Marketers are keeping busy preparing themselves for the Internet of today – but also the Internet of tomorrow. Says Carmody, “Think back to when television was first introduced into the media mix. It was treated as different and put off as an ugly stepchild. That’s where the Internet is now.”
But not for long.
