Research helps P&G launch no-frills Tide

Procter & Gamble (P&G) has launched Tide Basic, a new offering geared toward the coupon-clipping consumers who have shown themselves less willing to shell out for premium detergents. Though it lacks features like anti-pilling and color-preservation technologies, it costs about 20 percent less, according to Ellen Byron’s August 6, 2009, article, “Tide turns ‘Basic’ for P&G in slump,” in the Wall Street Journal. For decades, P&G has held fast to the “higher price = higher quality” equation, but as cheaper store brands gained traction in the aisles, P&G was forced to change with the times.
Suzanne Watson, associate marketing manager for P&G, teamed up with Mark Christenson, a Tide brand manager, to promote the launch of a wallet-friendlier Tide. The decision to test a lower-priced Tide fell to Alex Tosolini, a P&G vice president. Tosolini opted for testing powder, as it carried less risk given that it is a smaller segment of the detergent market.
The managers supported the idea but had packaging concerns - should the new version be encased in Tide’s iconic orange? Shoppers on average spend 45-60 seconds in the laundry aisle, devoting just seven seconds to choosing a product, making color a crucial guide for finding the right product, P&G research found. Yellow and blue, the other colors of Tide’s famous bull’s eye, were considered, with yellow used less often for detergent packaging than blue. “People kept insisting, ‘Tide isn’t yellow,’” said Tosolini. “But then we thought maybe it could discourage current Tide users, which is what we wanted.”
Christenson and Watson suggested naming the product “Tide Basic.” Preliminary tests with consumers included Tide Simply Clean, Tide Basico and Tide Basic. Tests also judged yellow vs. orange package mock-ups. Tide Basic, in yellow, won with consumers.
P&G began stocking Tide Basic in Walmart and Kroger Co. stores across the South in late June 2009. Tide Basic can be found on shelves down with other mid-tier brands - right where P&G marketers want it. 

Buick youth-anizes its brand identity

As one of the four remaining core brands of General Motors (GM), calling Buick niche would be an understatement. In 2008, Buick’s market share at GM was 4.6 percent, and the brand sold 137,197 vehicles for a 1.04 percent overall industry market share in the U.S., according to Noreen O’Leary and Steve McClellan’s July 20, 2009, article, “Buick leads GM’s efforts at reinvention,” in Brandweek. With fewer models to appeal to even more buyers, GM is quickly devising a marketing strategy to expand Buick’s target audience beyond retirees on the hunt for plush, easy-driving sedans.
GM’s 2009 launch of the 2010 Buick LaCrosse seeks to attract younger consumers with a more sophisticated car design and image overhaul to match. The 2010 LaCrosse is drawing good reviews, but target consumers (late Boomers aged 46-55, about 10 years younger than current Buick buyers) are reluctant to even visit Buick showrooms, given that the brand image is - in a word - old.
“We have a huge challenge with Buick because many people don’t know what the brand stands for,” said Cheryl Catton, general director, advertising and promotion for the Buick-Pontiac-GMC division.
Buick’s attempts to reach a different audience encompass marketing Buick via “younger” media vehicles. Catton said the use of non-TV media is proportionately higher in the LaCrosse campaign, with its digital component including new use of social media like Twitter and Facebook. The campaign is also using more outdoor advertising and, for the first time, will have a 60-second in-cinema spot. Buick is also doing experiential marketing, such as using zip-code-precise targeting.
As for TV, Buick is buying into drama, cable and prime-time programming. It previously skewed toward early morning, news and weather, and has also been associated with golf, namely via recent brand spokesman Tiger Woods.

Marketers happy to feed consumers’ track-a-holism

In December 1995, during the early days of online package tracking, UPS had just 100,000 online tracking requests. By December 2008, that number was 27.3 million requests a day. America is becoming a nation of track-a-holics. Tracking a package or a flight or a pizza may not help it arrive any sooner or more smoothly, but some would say it still satisfies the consumer desire for control - real or perceived. And according to Bruce Horovitz’s July 26, 2009, article, “Tracking deliveries of all kinds is on everyone’s radar,” in USA Today, marketers have caught on quickly to the fact that the marketers that track best, win.
Here’s what Americans are tracking:
Packages. FedEx.com gets six million package-tracking requests daily. “Tracking is one of our top drivers for customer satisfaction,” said Mark Colombo, senior vice president of digital access marketing. “People are obsessed with it.” FedEx has 14 tracking “events” for the average package, from pickup to when it gets on the plane to when it’s on a local truck to delivery.
Flights. Daniel Baker started FlightAware in 2005, a free service that receives FAA information and converts it into maps that track almost all non-military flights in the U.S. and Canada. The service receives 100 million flight-tracking requests a month. “There are tons of people who are just tracking to track,” said Baker. He says that’s about 20 percent of his site’s business.
Buses. The Chicago Transit Authority’s bus tracker (www.ctabustracker.com) provides estimated arrival time based on traffic, scheduling and GPS systems on most of the city’s 2,000 buses. The tracker is also rolling out a new service to provide information via text messages on cell phones.
Spending. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is giving New Yorkers the chance to track city agency performance at www.nyc.gov/cpr. The Web site includes 550 data points that residents can track. It also tracks spending of the $5 billion in federal stimulus money the city is receiving, at www.nyc.gov/stimulustracker.