Welcome to the latest edition of Marketer's Brief, a quick
take on marketing news, moves and trends from Ad Age's reporters
and editors. Send tips/suggestions to [email protected]
The economy might be booming, but CPG marketing spending keeps
going bust. Find out below about the latest packaged-goods marketer
to slash its marketing spending. But first, some news about cheap
beer up north.
Buck-a-beer
If Canadian politician Doug Ford gets his way, it will soon be
dollar beer night across Ontario, all the time. The Ontario
Premier— and brother of the late Toronto mayor Rob
Ford—said this week he will introduce legislation to lower
the minimum price of beer to $1 from $1.25, according to Canadian
press reports. Ford is a member of the Progressive Conservative
party which
came into power in Ontario earlier this year, ending 15 years of
Liberal rule. The Liberal government raised the minimum beer
price to $1.25 in 2008.
Canadian Beer
Credit:
iStock
As the Guardian points out, the price floor applies to beers
with less than 5.6 percent alcohol content and breweries will not
be forced to adopt the minimum price. But that is not stopping
breweries from complaining about the new minimum (see some of their
tweets below.) Ford says he will encourage the new minimum with a
"buck-a-beer challenge," which,
as The Guardian reports, will "offer promotional programs,
in-store displays and advertising to those who sell their beer at
the minimum price."
Our brewery will not be joining this
#buckabeer race to the bottom. We are committed to making a
quality product that we are proud to serve and that means it will
always cost more. We firmly believe that you really do get what you
pay for.
#qualitymatters
#craftbeer
We will continue to offer fair prices that
allow the living wage to our team and maintain fresh quality brews.
We are not going to pursue this initiative.
As "disruption" contagion spreads to ever more categories of
packaged goods, True Sons is taking aim at men's hair
color—and Combe's Just for Men—with a subscription foam
that requires no mixing and otherwise promises to work better on
many fronts than other stuff on the market. Founder Carl Sandler
arrives without a wheelbarrow of venture cash, unlike many recent
market entrants, but says he did get enough from angel investors to
fund years of painstaking product development. In the tradition of
Dollar Shave Club – now part of Unilever – he's
starting with a clever, funny video, in his case from MinusL, New
York.
Sandler says True Sons aims to reach younger men in their 30s
and 40s who have grey hair but are turned off by the bygone-era
advertising, packaging and products of Just for Men. Only about 12
percent of greying men dye their hair, Sandler says, vs. 80 percent
of women. He hopes he can change that.
Economy eats more CPG ad budgets
The economy may look great to lots of folks, but not necessarily
to packaged-goods marketers. Add Edgewell Personal Care to the list
of marketers whose spending fell last quarter following an organic
sales decline. Clorox Co. and
Kimberly-Clark Corp. were also among marketers whose marketing
spending declined last quarter.
Edgewell joined K-C in citing less spending and more efficiency
on "non-working" advertising, i.e. fees for agencies and production
(This, of course, leads more agency staff to be "non-working" in a
different sense.) K-C also came up light on sales, but Clorox,
whose sales rose 3 percent, blamed weather that dampened Kingsford
sales and other timing issues. For all of them, underlying factors
include a rise in material and trucking costs, along with an
inability to take price hikes quickly. Several players such as
Procter & Gamble Co., Clorox and K-C have
indicated price hikes are coming, which could help. And it's worth
noting that two marketers that delivered strong organic sales
growth of 4 percent to 5 percent – Church & Dwight Co.
and Energizer – also hiked ad spending. Their "non-working"
worked pretty well.
Venmo me…for that Abercrombie shirt
Customers shopping the Abercrombie & Fitch or Hollister apps
can now use Venmo to pay. The apparel retailer, which has struggled
in recent years to revive its '90s-era heyday, has introduced the
payment option in order to better engage with millennial and Gen Z
customers. Joanne Crevoiserat, chief operating officer, noted in a
statement that Venmo is a "powerful addition" to the retailer's
apps.
A brand in transition
Fresh on the heels of a new marketing campaign, "Light Under
Control," and brand refresh, Transitions, the lenses that go from
sunglasses to spectacles in the blink of an eye (or, in actuality,
a slow three minutes), has announced a new partnership with fashion
designer Christian Siriano. Siriano's line includes new colors and
style mirrors.
Transitions Optical
The Essilor-owned Transitions is hoping to go from "fashion faux
pas" to "fashion must-have," according to a publicist's pitch,
which also references the tired association of older generations
wearing Transitions in the '80s and '90s. Tell that to Ad Age's
Director of Video, Alfred Maskeroni, who has been wearing
Transitions for at least two decades and will vehemently deny that
the brand is in any need of an update.
Would you give to this?
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Action Figure
It's a bird, it's a plane... it's a liberal Supreme Court
justice? RBG's robe is getting superhero cape treatment. A
Brooklyn-based product incubator is running a Kickstarter to create
an action figure modeled after Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader
Ginsburg. The crowdfunding campaign has raised more than $613,000
so far, far more than the initial $15,000 goal. Toys ship out this
fall.
Number of the Week
120 percent: The increase in pounds of Korean barbeque sauce
shipped to U.S. restaurants last year, according to NPD Group,
which says the new demand is the latest part of Korean culture to
hit the states, following K-pop, K-drama and K-beauty.
Lee Applbaum, global CMO for Patrón Spirits, is expanding
his duties to include Grey Goose. Grey Goose is owned by Bacardi
Limited, which acquired Patron earlier this year.
Brenda Tsai joined BNY Mellon as chief marketing officer this
week. The New York-based position is a new one for the bank, and it
includes leading marketing strategy on a global level, as well as
expanding digital marketing initiatives. Tsai formerly was senior
VP and global head of strategic marketing and communications at
FactSet.
Contributing: E.J. Schultz, Adrianne Pasquarelli, Jack
Neff
