5 Ways to Bring Value to Local Co-op Franchise Advertising

Local co-op advertising dollars were designed to drive advertising efficiency for franchise organizations. Using local knowledge, a national brand could integrate into the fabric of a community through its network of franchisees. Today, many co-ops have left this original premise in the dust.  These important local dollars now serve to boost programs at the national level.  It’s time that co-ops recapture these dollars and build efficient local ad programs. Here are 5 ways co-ops can increase the impact of their local spend through local knowledge:

1 Leverage Local

It’s rare that a co-op's media buying agency is in their local market, which limits their ability to penetrate the local fabric of a community.  They focus on the lowest cost per point and rarely look at the softer side of the buy.  Local operators know the market better than anyone else. They see  customers walk through their doors every day. A high functioning co-op uses the local knowledge to get more impact from their buy.  If WAAA is sponsoring the Crowdlapalooza, a co-op should find a way to participate and get their brand in front of this target rich opportunity.  Co-ops that work with an agency partner will have a leg up on the community activities and will be able to combine their media buys with added value strategically.  Working with the right agency partner, co-op media buys deliver more value and extend the impact for the brand.

2 Partnerships Are A Plus

Most markets are full of venues, events, and activities that need marketing help. Unfortunately, these venues  have limited marketing resources, and that’s where the co-op can step in. By utilizing co-op media to partner and promote  exhibits, museums, amusement parks, or one-time events a co-op can fulfill the local marketing objective of weaving the brand into the fabric of the community.  These partnerships can take several forms. It’s important to have an experienced agency partner to create a program that carries the brand and gives the customer a deal that’s almost too good to be true

3 Location, Location, Location

If a co-op's ad budget covers the entire market, it’s a good bet that the co-op has plenty of locations.  Good co-ops use their locations to extend their brand within the community. They build goodwill by providing co/branded marketing presence to venues and events all over the city. As a promotional partner, brands can be a distribution point without the hassle of point-of-purchase integration and still drive additional customer traffic. This not only prevents POS nightmares but also maintains good franchise protocol.

4 Wag the dog

Co-op advertising dollars are the tail end of the advertising food chain.  First comes national dollars, then regional, then co-op dollars.  Until one market shows results and makes the needle move. Co-ops that have market success are often asked to to become key influencers for the national brand. This can lead to test marketing new ideas in these successful markets.   This success leads to more opportunity to lead the brand from the franchisee point of view.

5 Respect the brand

Unique and innovative local marketing programs should not run counter to brand guidelines. System-wide brand guidelines present a cohesive message to consumers. Local co-op efforts should complement national efforts to have an impact on sales. Prepackaged ad products by corporate are good to have, but not the best in some circumstances.  Co-ops should strive to explore localized creative execution that respects and conforms to the overall the brand guidelines.

VWA Marketing and Advertising has over 30 years of working with franchise brands and co-op groups.  Let us know if you would like to hear about our co-op marketing results.

Is This A Good Time to Update Your Branding

COVID days lead to a Covid Daze that has companies and their stakeholders wanting and waiting for the next phase of the future. As we wait it’s a good time to reflect, review and consider what we will look like in six months, a year or even ten years. Companies are considering pivots from their old business model to a new one with new products and new ways of doing business. Often people bring in advertising agencies and identity firms to help define and shape the way they present themselves in a post covid world. If you develop a new way of doing business but have the same look as yesteryear, you could present a confusing view of your company to the outside world.  

We have developed a checklist for brands to consider before they embark on a brand refresh or complete identity overhaul. 

1. Your brand has changed

   Changes in your business model or strategies change often. Successful entrepreneurs will often tell you that they started out doing one thing and the business evolved into something completely different. The founders of EBAY started out as a site for collectors of PEZ candy dispensers. The site was built to impress his girlfriend who was an avid collector of the kitsch candy dispensers. Somehow this became a world wide auction site worth billions of dollars.  More often brands just evolve. CVS was a regional chain of drug stores and eventually merged with Caremark, a pharmacy benefit management firm. They had to create messaging that would present their total offerings in a clear and concise manner. They became CVS Health.

2. Your brand is constraining

   Some brands present their brand so literally when they start out that when they eventually expand and add services the name doesn’t fit anymore. Weight Watchers was just for people who wanted to lose weight. The company started with peer groups and used group influence to help people get to their ultimate weight goal. When the wellness trend started they began to promote exercise, positive lifestyle, and mental wellness. Weight Watchers was no longer relevant. They changed to WW with the tag line “Wellness that Works”

3. Your brand is confusing to the consumer

   The most famous example of this is Google which has now been brought into our vocabulary as a verb.  “I googled who won the 1995 World Series” The first version of Google was based on backlinks for sites so the founders called it BackRub. Many people found this to be confusing so they had to come up with a new name and Google won out.

4. You have changed your business so change your logo/name

   Arthur Andersen was a “Big 8” accounting firm that started a new consulting business and wanted to leverage their prestige in the corporate advice world by calling it Andersen Consulting. Eventually Anderson Consulting replaced the accounting firm in terms of prestige in the marketplace, and Arthur Andersen was caught up in the Enron scandal.  Suddenly the Andersen name became a liability. Andersen Consulting acted quickly and changed their name to Accenture by combining the words “accent” and “future”. They help clients make it to the future.

5. Your brand just doesn’t stand out

   Many brands just don’t stand out in a crowd of brands. Our retail clients always have concerns based on location, local sign ordinances, and the ability for consumers to see and interact with them from afar. After decades Gap decided to change their brand out of the blue square and move it into bold san serif letters with a small blue square above the p. After changing many of its retail locations, consumers said they couldn’t see it in the mall or from the streets like they did before. They switched back quickly.

6. Your brand doesn’t translate

   One of the most famous internal marketing case histories surrounds Chevrolet’s attempt to launch their Nova brand in hispanic markets. The car was affordable and immensely popular in the United States, and Chevrolet thought it would sell like hot cakes in Mexico.  The brand arrived on the shores and the locals started to laugh immediately. The name Nova translates to “no go” in Spanish. They relaunched the car under a new name.

7. Your brand has a bad reputation

   Atlanta based, Value Jet was one of the first no frills discount airlines to follow the success of Southwest. They capitalized on the high demand markets like New York, Washington, and Florida. Times were good and they had developed a hokey ad campaign with Captain Value confirming that it was all about price to Value Jet. Then they had a plane go down in the everglades due to lax cargo security measures. This was a PR nightmare because there was no way to get the plane out and the media stationed a helicopter with hourly updates about the crash for days. Litigation started and the Value Jet brand  was toast. The company was sold and the new owners changed to name to AirTran and the airline was successful until it was acquired by Southwest in 2011.

8. Your Brand is So Yesteryear

   There is nothing that shows it age like last year’s haircut or a font that was used ten years ago. If brands are to keep up with their consumers and continue to charge a premium, they need to stay current with their branding. Smart brands continue to make tweaks to their brand design every 5 or 10 years to stay relevant with the consumer. Although I hate to applaud them in Atlanta advertising circles, Pepsi has done an excellent job of changing their brand to reflect the trends of the times.

How CPG Manufacturers Can Support Retail in the Days of Covid

These strange times have forced shoppers to reconsider their shopping habits for the past month.  Over sixty five percent of the U.S. Shoppers have changed their grocery habits in the past four weeks.  Almost half of grocery shoppers have made additional “stock up” grocery trips in the past two weeks. The categories that have prospered from this behavior are canned foods, shelf stable foods, paper products, household cleaners and disinfectants and bottled water. While grocery has experienced fewer trips with larger purchases the stores that have been throttled back are mass merchandisers, club stores, and drugstore chains. 

The rush for the aisles has not been easy on the consumer either.  Nine out of ten shoppers say they have experienced out of stock at their grocery store.  While the trip to the grocery store can seem like something out of the ordinary, the online grocery shopping has started to take hold after years of stops, starts, and frustrations. Twenty eight percent of U.S grocery shoppers made their first online grocery order in the last four weeks.  Thirty six percent of shoppers ordered grocery items online for store pick-up and thirty eight percent ordered grocery items online for home delivery.  

With all these changes, CPG manufacturers need to step back and reconsider their marketing efforts.  Here are some of the low hanging fruits that all manufacturers should be doing today:

• Look at brand messaging and make sure it is supporting consumers with reassurance and empathy

• Review and confirm that planned messaging that could be seen as inconsistent with the times has been taken off the calendar and is not running as planned

• Take extraordinary measures to work with retail partners to alleviate snags in your supply chain

• Look at trade dollars allocated to the retailers and move them to later periods in the year.

• Provide creative messaging to consumers who are sheltering at home and need confirmation in their daily lives

• Work on your e-commerce strategy with retailers.  Confirm that product listings and messaging on retailer sites is exactly what you want the consumer to see.

Brands cannot afford to hold their breath.  Consumer shopping habits are changing and brands need to act now.  Some of these changes will stick and some will dwindle away. It is imperative that brands meet the consumer’s mindset where they are today for a successful brand strategy in the future.

VWA is an Atlanta marketing and advertising agency with over thirty years of experience working with CPG brands.  Let us know if you are interested in our services.

Never doubt the value of a social media audit

Is your brand reaching the key performance indicators you first established when you began on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram? Is it reaching your target audience through the right channels? Are your followers becoming customers?

If you’re finding a lack of reward from your investments in social media, then maybe its time to re-evaluate how you’re using it to strengthen your brand and business.

Approach your brand’s social media audit step-by-step in the following order:

Inventory. Does your target audience for each platform actually align with the general demographics of users on those platforms? The Pew Research Center provides helpful data on the latest social media trends in users by age and gender. Use this information to pair your brand’s messaging with the platform used most frequently used by your target audience.

Policy. Who creates your brand’s narrative? Who is tasked with posting messages on each channel? When do you respond to users who tag your brand in their own social media posts? How do you track KPIs? Your brand’s voice will likely be loudest on social media, so planning ahead and answering these kinds of questions are key to ensuring brand consistency.

Activity. Examine information that each platform provides about your social media channels such as audience size, user age and gender, geographical location and engagement frequency. If you have social influencers pushing your brand, then determine the channels where they spend the most time and energy. Determine if visitors to your brand’s social channels prefer watching videos, listening to podcasts, or reading blogs. Find the messages for your brand that draw the largest positive responses and repurpose them to reinforce your narrative.

Compare. Regularly monitor the messaging your competitors are building for their brands as you would your own. Learn who the closest competitors are to your brand and how they’re sharing messages on social media channels, including the keywords and hashtags they most frequently use. Observe follower growth and impressions.

Analyze. If you follow the process above, then you will find all the pieces you need to reveal what the puzzle shows: the current state of your brand and the possibilities for the future. Set new goals for your KPIs, establish a target date to reach those goals, then perform another audit. You’ll see whether or not your brand is on the right track for success.

Outside Agency Services in an In-House Agency World

Allstate, the insurance giant, announced that they’ve formed a 200-person internal creative team and it plans to take more marketing services in-house.  The brand is maintaining relationships with its external agencies including Leo Burnett, which has had the account for 62 years. This has become a common theme in the marketing world and many agencies are considering it a setback to the advertising industry as a whole.  The Association of National Advertisers reported last year that 78 percent of its members have an in-house agency. 

The trend is strong and it will continue as long as the media landscape continues to proliferate at warp speed.  In the recession, in-house agencies were a brief phenom driven by cost cutting in a tough economy. Quickly, clients realized the strain to produce solid work coupled with the constant overhead was not the way to go.  Today, it is a completely different landscape. The amount of work that needs to be completed in a real time digital world has created more than enough work to go around. The primary reason clients have in-house agencies is “knowledge of the brand” according to the In-House Agency Forum.  In-house doesn’t mean they do not use external agencies.  Many companies believe that having knowledge of the brand and being able to integrate a message to a wide variety of contacts in the digital world is the reason to take it in-house.  VWA believes external agencies have an opportunity to work with in-house agencies for the following reasons:

Creative Chops:  Many in-house agencies are set up as production hubs getting all the materials produced and placed in a timely and cost efficient manner.  Clients with in-house agencies often go out in the market to get a fresh perspective on their brand and look for agencies to bring ideas. Isn’t that what we are in the business for anyway?

Digital Experts: The changing pace of digital and the technology that comes out everyday keeps even the most nimble agency hopping.  CMO’s recognize this and often rely on agencies to help set up digital processes and consult on analytics.

Partnership:  An agency that is able to work collaboratively with an in-house agency will be able to find a place with the client that is productive and will end up improving the work for the client and agency.  Even if you bid work against in-house agencies, you should look at it as an opportunity to enhance client knowledge and produce better work. A smaller agency that can react quickly can be a life saver to an in-house agency.

Cost: In-house agencies are set up as cost centers and charge between $50 and $175 per hour to the client’s production budgets.  This is calculated with and without an overhead factor. Assuming the $50 is a without overhead number, smaller and less bureaucratic agencies should be able to negotiate a rate that is within this parameter.  Often you can come in as a savings verses a cost to the client. 

Is Your Website ADA Compliant?

You may have read about the recent class action lawsuit against Beyonce’s Parkwood Entertainment, LLC alleging its website discriminates against the visually impaired.  The woman, Mary Conner says the star’s website is not designed or accessible for the visually impaired and doesn’t give blind fans a chance to buy tickets , merchandise or read about Knowles. The suit filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, cites the ADA or Americans with Disabilities Act, states, “ requires places of public accommodation to ensure access to goods, services, and facilities by making reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities” The suit requests an injunction requiring Knowles’ company to make adjustments to make the site accessible for blind fans and browsers.  Conner also requests payment of “compensatory damages in an amount to be determined by the court” 

Web compliant litigation is becoming a more common issue as websites are increasingly the main communication a consumer has to interact with a business.  The ADA guidelines for a compliant website are:

• CertainCertain business make accommodations for people with disabilities.

• Businesses that fall under Title 1, those that operate 20 or more weeks per year with at least 15 full-time employees, or Title III, those that fall under the category of “ public accommodation,” are covered by the ADA

• Web content should be accessible to the blind, deaf, and those who must navigate by voice screen readers or other assistive technologies

• There are no clear regulations defining website accessibility

• Failure to create ADA-compliant website could open a business to lawsuits, financial liabilities and damage your brand reputation.

The interesting part is that there are “no clear rules”, but a company is required to have a website that accommodates people with disabilities.  Websites should be built from the ground up with ADA compliance as part of the architecture. However; existing websites can be retrofitted with ADA compliance, but that can come at a significant cost.  The best place to look for for ADA compliant websites is government websites. Here are a couple of ways to address accessibility issues for a website:

• Create text transcripts for video and audio content: Text transcripts allow the hearing impaired to interact with your site.  It can also increase your Google site rankings.

• Identify the sites language in header code: This helps users with text readers.

• Offer alternatives and suggestions when users encounter input errors: You should always offer an alternative for users who are having a hard time with you site.

• Create a consistent, organized layout: UX design of your site should clearly layout the site so that it is readable and clearly organized for the impaired.

• Create alt tags for images, video, and audio files: Alt tags give the users the ability to read or hear alternative descriptions of content they might not otherwise be able to view.

The cost on non ADA compliance can be quite steep.  Not only are you giving up a chance to build relationships with a potential lucrative customer base, but fines can be up to $50,000. 

This area is still very subjective and at VWA Atlanta we believe a reasonable effort to offer  accessibility for users with disabilities can help companies avoid legal action until hard and fast rules are put in place.  If you would like a free ADA Website Compliance review please reach out to VWA at avanwinkle@VWAAtlanta.com.

10 Marketing Trends Still Worth Watching

It’s hard to believe we are halfway through 2019 already.  We thought we’d look back at marketing trend predictions and see how accurate they were.  Here are 10 from Entrepreneur magazine that we think are still worth watching:

1. The marketing funnel is shifting.

2. Content is everything

3. Chatbots aren’t going anywhere.

4. AI continues to grow.

5. People are cautious about security.

6. Voice search is getting louder.

7. Vertical video is on the rise.

8. It’s time to focus on Gen Z.

9. Visual searches are taking off.

10. Influencers have different identities.

Click here to read the full article:

5 Surprising Insights About Marketing to Generation Z

Gen Z, the demographic cohort after the Millennials is fast becoming the most discussed and debated new target group in marketing as they start to enter the workforce and earn their own incomes.  While many studies have been done to attempt to identify key traits and characteristics of this group, the best insights sometimes come from first-hand knowledge.  The Ad Age article, 5 Myths About Marketing to Gen Z – From a Member of Gen Z, outlines the following interesting insights:

1. Being Real Really Pays

In a time when Photoshopped images of “perfect” bodies flood Instagram, my generation yearns for brands that are truly authentic.  What we really want to see is reality—something that often seems to be in short supply online today.

2. Share Our Values

We’re very attuned to societal injustices such as racism, and we support brands that share the same values as us.  If done right, standing up for social justice will resonate with Gen Z. For example, Nike took a chance with its controversial ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick. Some didn’t like it, but Gen Z definitely did, and Nike’s increased sales showed they nailed it among their customers.

3. Brand Loyalty is Possible

My generation can still be loyal to a brand if that brand can earn our trust. No company has cracked the Gen Z brand-loyalty code more successfully than Apple—a survey found that as of spring of this year, a new high of 83 percent of U.S. teens own an iPhone, and 86 percent plan on their next smartphone being an iPhone. 

4. Subtlety in Branding is Key

Gen Z places a premium on individuality, and while we still appreciate expensive clothes, we don’t want our clothes’ branding overshadowing our personal brands.  Gen Zers want our Instagrams to be a reflection of our uniqueness—not just free advertising for a luxury brand. 

5. Focus on In-store Experience

42 percent of Gen Z members surveyed prefer in-store shopping to online, while just 23 percent prefer only shopping online. But to get Gen Zers coming in to your store, it has to be a fun time—56 percent said an enjoyable in-store experience impacts where they shop.

To read the full article, click here:

Print Isn’t Dead!

It appears that the early pronouncements of the demise of print are premature.  According to the article, Print isn’t dead:  Why marketers are going back to the basics, print remains a viable and effective medium.  

Some key takeaways:

Consumers trust printed books and magazines as a way to switch off and reduce digital overload.

“While many believed physical books were done and dusted after the Kindle launched in 2007, the stats tell a different story. Since 2013, publisher-reported revenue in the US has increased by $820 million, while e-book sales slipped by 3.9 percent in 2018. “

Marketers are also beginning to realize the benefits of integrating print and digital efforts.

“The argument about whether digital or print reigns supreme is ultimately a false dichotomy. For marketers, the combination of both can be the most effective strategy.  Branching out into different mediums allows you to connect with a whole new audience and introduce them to your content.  Using print to supplement a digital strategy also lets you cut content in a range of different ways for different audiences: as with any channel, it’s about making sure the content fits the medium. “

Print can also help to leave a deeper and more lasting brand impression upon consumers.

According to a study conducted by Millward Brown in 2009, tangible material is more real to the brain. It has a meaning, and a place. It is also better connected to memory.  In addition, printed items generate more emotion, which in turn helps to develop more positive brand associations.

It turns out print is alive and well. If anything, it’s going to be more of a focus in 2019, as brands discover new tools and technologies that mean they can apply the same tactics and measurement from digital channels to print. Smart marketers will be jumping at the chance to reach audiences in all the different places and moments they consume media – as long as it’s relevant and unique.

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The Three Most Important Benefits of Working With a Single Agency Partner

The agency model has continued to evolve over the last decade as the trend toward specialization continues to grow.  According to the recent article, The growing complexity of the Agency Model for Marketers, from The Drum Consulting, there are at least 20 identifiable agency models today leading to confusion among marketers when it comes to choosing the right agency partner. 

At VWA, we’ve always believed that the full-service agency model offers the most value to marketers, no matter the size brand or budget.  There are many benefits of working with one agency partner for all of your marketing needs, but we have identified three that are the most important ones.

1. Enhanced Integration

What marketer do you know that doesn’t want or expect a consistent, seamless, multi-dimensional brand experience for their customers and prospective customers?  Unfortunately too many times when employing the multi-agency partner model, campaigns fall short of this goal due to lack of communication, a unifying strategy or an effective approval process.  When working with one invested agency partner, your team is working as one entity to devise a compelling, unified voice for your brand and extend that into every aspect of the brand’s persona from advertising to merchandising to customer service.

2. Sharper Insights

With so much focus on measurement and analytics, it’s easy to lose sight of the importance of synergy between the message and the medium.  When a creative agency develops content with a particular objective or goal in mind that conflicts with what the  media agency is focused on, you can end up with a disjointed effort and analytics reporting that doesn’t add value or sometimes even make sense.  Integrated campaigns with aligned creative and media KPI’s provide sharper insights that are more actionable.  

3. Improved Efficiencies

Utilizing one agency partner can save you real money in fees or commission, allowing you to allocate more of that budget to content development and media placement.   Agencies that function as an AOR have the ability to be more flexible with their staffing and pricing models leading to more efficiency across the board for their clients.   Additionally, with all processes being handled in-house by the same teams, speed to market and quality control also increases. 

VWA is a client focused, media agnostic, full-service advertising agency headquartered in Atlanta, GA.  To learn more, visit vwaatlanta.com.