Kraft has stepped up and launched what appears to be the CPG industry’s first consumer iPhone application called iFood Assistant. This nifty little app provides iPhone users with a way to engage with Kraft and its portfolio of brands in a new and exciting way. Through the iFood Assistant, consumers can search and retrieve recipe ideas, build a shopping list and even view instructional videos right from their iPhone. Of course, all product shopping lists draw from the Kraft portfolio of brands and exclude competitors.
Hats off to Kraft for taking a stand and making this investment of time and energy. According to recent research from NPD, the iPhone now ranks #2 in unit sales for smart phone devices (simply amazing after just 18 months since launch), so this investment makes sense. At first pass, I see three ways that Kraft could leverage the iFood Assistant app to deliver an even richer consumer experience:
1. Contests and games- Expose all Kraft-branded interactive promotions, contests and games through the iFood Assistant application. Promotions don’t need to be tied to those using the application, but this could present a great awareness channel for Kraft to reach digitally-inclined consumers.
2. Digital coupons- This has a logical fit and could be one of the killer-apps for the iFood Assistant. Since consumers are already accessing recipes and tips through the application, offering brand-specific digital/printable coupons could be a great tie-in for the next shopping trip. Extending this idea even further, Kraft could allow consumers to electronically deposit coupon value onto their Kroger-banner loyalty card accounts.
3. Trade promotions- Kraft is already directing iFood Assistant users to local grocers to fulfill their recipe shopping needs. Taking this one step further, the local grocery store search results could also display retailers that are featuring Kraft brands, or offering a price promotion such as a buy-one/get-one or even a temporary price reduction.
I’ve become a big iPhone fan, and am happy to see Kraft take this pioneering step to better serve consumers. I look forward to seeing how this application evolves over time.
I’ve become a fan of David Armano, author of the Logic + Emotion blog and VP, Creative / Design Evangelist at Critical Mass. He has an uncanny ability to distill complex thoughts into really simple, informative visuals.
David recently posted a presentation (embedded above) on the social movement of personal brand builders who can influence large spheres of followers. Think Guy Kawasaki and Seth Godin as two prime examples. This introduces some real opportunities in the CPG marketing community, as outspoken individuals who have achieved “micro-celebrity” status online have the power to quickly and efficiently influence a defined market.
Perhaps the strategy for CPG folks is to cultivate relationships with the right micro-celebrities to help proliferate market test opportunities and evangelize new item intros to their vast networks. I’m thinking Phil Lempert can play that role quite well.
A very interesting topic delivered through an easy-to-digest presentation.
I’m really digging this interactive contest that the Nature Valley team at General Mills recently wrapped up titled “Where’s Yours?”. Consumers were asked to record a video about their favorite outdoor destination and then post to YouTube to receive votes. There were some pretty elaborate and entertaining entries from a passionate group of Nature Valley consumers. The brief video overview pasted above does a nice job of laying out the contest rules and dream vacation prizes.
Two things really impressed me with the design and execution of this activity:
2. The large scale of online media used to support the contest. According to BrandWeek, Mills invested nearly $3MM in display ads to support the campaign and related sweesptakes. The results were equally as impressive, with 1000% increases in search queries and website visits.
We’ve entered an era where big brands are engaging consumers in more meaningful ways and are supporting these activities with pretty sizable digital media investments. It’ll be fun to see how the Nature Valley team follows up on this successful campaign.
The office products industry is a pretty rough and tumble place to sustain a brand. Over the past 20 or so years, big box retail private label programs have eroded brand market share across virtually all product categories. I saw this first hand during my time at Avery Dennison, with some tough store brand competition in the labels, markers and printable photo paper categories really making life difficult for Avery’s brand teams.
What to do? Double down on brand investment: drive product innovation where appropriate, build sustainable loyalty programs that reward good consumer behavior, and push on the digital marketing lever pretty hard.
Advergaming is a great digital marketing tactic that drives brand engagement. The key here is to keep it simple. Brands are not competing with World of Warcraft for game design and complexity, rather providing an outlet for the casual gamer to chew up 10 minutes of time during a busy workday. If done right, advergames can go viral rather quickly and reach a pretty broad audience.
Mead office products has done a fantastic job with their recent Five Star Classroom Pilot advergame. It’s a very simple game that involves launching a paper airplane for distance in a virtual classroom setting. According to MediaPost, Classroom Pilot drove 10mm unique visitors for an average of 4 minutes per visit — amazing reach and engagement for a relatively small investment. The agency representing Mead, GoFish, cites $500k to $1.5mm to develop an advergame of this caliber. Based on my experience, this range is on the very high end and should be much closer to $200k. On a personal note, while at SoftCoin I worked with Fuel Industries to develop an advergame for Sara Lee, and found them to be one of the most creative and approachable shops in the industry.
This story hits home for me on many fronts: At SoftCoin, we executed multiple interactive promotions for the Dr Pepper brand over the course of several years. Dr Pepper Snapple Group has a great group of folks with a lot of passion for their business. They embrace interactive marketing in a big way. DPSG is also a DemandTec customer. And I happen to really like GN’R (my high school rock band covered a few of their tunes!)
This story is a painful, yet important reminder about the power of viral marketing. Long story short, DPSG ran a wildly attractive, time-bound consumer offer for a free bottle of Dr Pepper due to GN’R releasing their new album, Chinese Democracy. The registration site apparently couldn’t handle the rush and lots of consumers became upset. Guns N’ Roses is now threatening a lawsuit against DPSG, arguing that this misstep has damaged the release of their new album. We’ll see how this sorts out in the coming weeks.
I can’t speculate why the server crashed, or what could have been done differently. But this saga underscores just how powerful the groundswell of consumers can be with an attractive promotional offer. Social networks can compress campaign awareness from days to minutes. Literally overnight, a campaign can “go viral” and take on a life of its own. Use this reality to your advantage, but wherever possible plan your interactive for massive scale.
Kraft has stepped up and launched what appears to be the CPG industry’s first consumer iPhone application called iFood Assistant. This nifty little app provides iPhone users with a way to engage with Kraft and its portfolio of brands in a new and exciting way. Through the iFood Assistant, consumers can search and retrieve recipe ideas, build a shopping list and even view instructional videos right from their iPhone. Of course, all product shopping lists draw from the Kraft portfolio of brands and exclude competitors.
This story hits home for me on many fronts: At 
