110 Million Pounds of Hot Dogs? Only in America, Kids …

Americans may be watching pennies these days, but we’re not about to let
rising food costs or health-consciousness rain on our Fourth of July BBQs.
According to research from The Nielsen Company, sales of most traditional
Fourth food and beverage items during the four weeks around the holiday should
match or exceed sales during the same period last year.

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MediaPost Publications – 110 Million Pounds of Hot Dogs? Only in America, Kids … – 06/30/2008
Americans may be watching pennies these days, but we’re not about to let rising food costs or health-consciousness rain on our Fourth of July BBQs.

According to research from The Nielsen Company, sales of most traditional Fourth food and beverage items during the four weeks around the holiday should match or exceed sales during the same period last year.

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Corona Expands Outreach To Full Latino Audience

With the total Hispanic population continuing to grow and diversify, and
with our distribution expansion to the East Coast, it was important to ensure
that our message resonate with non-Mexican Hispanics, as well,” says Crown
Imports’ Guillermo Gutierrez. The new strategy will continue through 2009.

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MediaPost Publications – Corona Expands Outreach To Full Latino Audience – 06/25/2008
A new ad campaign from Corona Extra aims to leverage and expand the brand’s bond with the entire U.S. Latino community.

Previous Hispanic ad efforts by Corona have focused on using the brand’s Mexican heritage to create an emotional link with Mexican-Americans. Now, the brand is seeking to convey that “Corona is not only a brand that represents Mexicans, but an iconic brand that symbolizes all Latinos’ success,” in the words of Guillermo Gutierrez, director of Hispanic marketing for Crown Imports, Corona’s U.S. importer.

Filed under: Beer, Hispanics, advertising

Advertise To Workers At Work To Influence Purchases

At-work consumers research products online before purchasing, with
47.2% of them reporting having researched electronics online in the
last 90 days during the workday before making a purchase in a store.

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Research Brief » Blog Archive » Advertise To Workers At Work To Influence Purchases
The results of a new study, conducted by consumer intelligence firm BIGresearch, into the media and shopping behavior of consumers at work, finds that Americans are spending 60% of their waking hours at work, more than ever before. Marketing chiefs are rethinking their ad budgets and advertisers are preparing to meet a new, highly coveted, yet entirely untapped demographic on their own beige-carpeted turf.

Filed under: Consumer, advertising, workplace

Consumers Look Beyond Industry To Size Up Company Reputation

“In the past, there had been a tendency to throw the baby out with
the bathwater,” Harris Interactive’s Robert Fronk says. “[Now],
consumers are really trying hard to identify those companies that are behaving
differently.” And behaving differently can have an impact. According to
the survey, companies with the highest reputation scores were also the ones
most likely to be recommended by consumers for products and/or investment.
“Companies that pay attention to enhancing their reputation see
bottom-line results,” he says.

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MediaPost Publications – Consumers Look Beyond Industry To Size Up Company Reputation – 06/24/2008

When it comes to corporate reputations, the ones who have been doing things right are continuing to do so. As for the others, improvement needs to be made.

According to Harris Interactive’s ninth annual corporate reputation survey, corporate America’s reputation has declined, and the companies that had the worst marks in 2006 dropped again in 2007. But the companies at the top of the list increased their standing.

Filed under: Consumer

Nestle Purina’s Alpo Looks For New Face With Video Contest

The winning dog and its owner will also get a trip for two (plus dog) to
Hollywood to spend a day with an animal trainer, do a meet-and-greet with
canine celebrities from TV and film, tour L.A. animal film landmarks and get
spa treatments for both dog and owners. In addition, there will be a hometown
celebration, $10,000 in cash and a one-year supply for Alpo.

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MediaPost Publications – Nestle Purina’s Alpo Looks For New Face With Video Contest – 06/24/2008
Consumers have until July 27 to upload videos of their dogs at their hungriest for the chance to have their favorite canine’s mug plastered on 2.5 million cans of Alpo and in national print ads come September.

Filed under: Consumer, advertising, celebrity, dogs, pets

Nuts for Boomers

Frito-Lay’s new nut-based
snack line, True North, claims not only to be healthy and tasty, but
inspirational as well.

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Nuts for Boomers
The snack food category is known for being several things, but inspirational?

Frito-Lay thinks it can be and is positioning its new nut-based, Boomer-targeted snack line, True North as “a truly inspired natural nut snack.”

Filed under: Baby Boomers, CPG, Consumer, advertising, food, health

High Fructose Corn Syrup Mixes It Up

The Corn Refiners
Association is trying to rehabilitate the reputation of high-fructose corn
syrup with a big ad and public-relations campaign to convince consumers that
HFCS isn’t the evil it has been made out to be. The group is running full-page
ads in more than a dozen major newspapers around the country today saying its
product is no worse for you than sugar.

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High Fructose Corn Syrup Mixes It Up – WSJ.com
The high-fructose corn-syrup business is fighting back.

In recent years, there have been a series of research papers and studies linking HFCS to the rise in obesity in the U.S. While sugar has to some degree also been blamed for America’s growing weight problems, HFCS, because it is manufactured, has come under greater criticism by consumers and some health professionals.

Filed under: Consumer, Internet, Moms, advertising, families, health

Nothing Sells Like Celebrity

Using celebrities for
promotion is hardly new, but over the last decade, corporate brands have
increasingly turned to Hollywood celebrities and musicians to sell their
products. Stars showed up in nearly 14% of ads last year, according to Millward
Brown, a marketing research agency.

Some consumers don’t really trust celebrities, but they still run out to buy
their perfumes or fashions for two reasons. First is the emergence of Web sites
and magazines that chronicle the mundane, daily activities of stars on a 24/7
basis. The other new force has been the explosive growth and mainstreaming of
urban hip-hop music and marketing moves by artists like Sean Combs, Shawn
Carter (better known as Jay-Z) and Jennifer Lopez

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Nothing Sells Like Celebrity – The Boom in Endorsements – NYTimes.com
EARLY last year, marketing executives at Totes Isotoner, a Cincinnati company that had spent the previous 30 years churning out a reliable lineup of humble umbrellas, crowded around a computer and listened to a teenage singer from Barbados named Rihanna breeze through a tune titled, appropriately, “Umbrella.”

Filed under: Consumer, advertising, celebrity, trends

Will Women Relish Their New Role As Chief Thrift Officer?

They’re dealing with thrifty concepts that may be entirely novel–eating
more leftovers, planning fewer, bigger shopping trips to supercenters, and even
baking from scratch. But these aren’t Martha Stewart-inspired moments of
domestic creativity–so far, they’re pure Betty Crocker. What’s interesting,
though, is the growing evidence that women seem to be enjoying at least some
aspects of these back-to-the-Bisquick initiatives.

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MediaPost Publications – Will Women Relish Their New Role As Chief Thrift Officer? – 06/23/2008
While marketers everywhere are keenly sensitive to how rising gas and food prices are affecting family spending, experts think they may be missing a marketing-to-women sea change. For the first time in decades, women are taking on a role they’ve never had before–chief thrift officer. The bigger shock: They may even be enjoying it.

Filed under: CPG, Consumer, economy, food, shopping, trends

NPD Finds Fewer Americans Dieting But More Eating “Better for You” Foods

NPD’s National Eating Trends®
data finds that at least once in a two-week period, over 70 percent of
Americans are consuming reduced fat foods, and over half of them are
eating reduced calorie, whole grain or fortified foods.

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NPD Finds Fewer Americans Dieting But More Eating “Better for You” Foods
Rosemont, Ill., June 16, 2008 – Eating “better for you” foods rather than dieting appears to be the weapon of choice against the battle of the bulge, according to The NPD Group, a leading market research firm. NPD reports that the percentage of adults on a diet has decreased by 10 percentage points since 1990, while the percentage of Americans eating healthier has increased.

Filed under: Consumer, diet, food, health