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Marketing Monitor: Tumi Uses B-List Celebrities to Identify with Target Market

Stuart Elliot of the New York Times recently wrote about how Tumi Holdings is challenging the luxury luggage industry’s common marketing practice of using the most recognizable celebrities as brand endorsers.

I had never heard of Tumi before this article (why would I? I’m not a high-class world-traveler…yet), but I have definitely heard of some of the company’s celebrity-laden competition. Huge, world players such as Coach, Louis Vuitton, and Samsonite occupy this space and most of them use well known celebrities to communicate their brand’s exclusivity and luxuriousness.

Tumi, however, is taking a much more interesting approach at this. They’re challenging whether or not their target audience, or “global citizens” as Tumi describes them, identify more with mega-stardom or more attainable success within specific industries.

I imagine that Tumi’s hope is that their “global citizen” target customer who views their advertisements would ask himself, “What makes them famous?” and reason, “I have a moment. Let me Google them.” Upon doing so, they’d find out that Novak Djokovic, one of Tumi’s B-list celebrity endorsers, is ranked world no. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals. Of course the ideal scenario is that the customer gets lost in google’s labyrinth of information and somehow connects all of that time and energy spent back to Tumi–that’s the kind brand engagement that companies dream of.

Agent Obvious asks, “What if the target customer dismisses the B-list endorser turns to the Angelina Jolie Louis Vuitton advertisement out of sheer face-recognition?”

I think that is a risk Tumi is willing to take. They are already miles behind industry leaders in terms of market share and revenue, so I’d say that they’re looking for any way to differentiate themselves from the market leaders and establish a deeper psychological connection with their consumers.

They’re hoping that consumers believe it easier to achieve success as a business executive of a Fortune 500 company, like Tumi endorser Paolo Ferrari of Pirelli, than it is to become a movie or pop-star. If Tumi can position themselves closer to where their target consumers envision themselves, it might spell success for the 28-year old firm.

It would be equivalent to Reebok partnering with a college basketball star who didn’t get drafted to the NBA, but accomplished notable professional feats and retained his basketball skills well enough to lead his local intramural team to a championship.

I plan on following Tumi for a few quarters to see if their new ad campaign has any traction and raises their quarterly performance. What do you think of their strategy? Comment below!

August 17, 2013

Consumer Behavior Trends: We’re Tired of Waiting!

Here are 3 trends I’m noticing in consumer behavior that all impact my life (and subsequently, other millennials) in some way, shape or form.

1. Binge TV-watching

Primary suspects: Breaking Bad, Scandal, Orange is the new Black

I think we are all guilty of this one. Instead of waiting for TV networks to show new episodes like the generation before us, subscription services like Netflix and Hulu have made it possible for average viewers to take the term “couch potato” to a whole new level.

I think it’s evident that someone will eventually develop into an entirely ala carte TV-subscription service where customers can pick and choose the networks and even the shows that they are interested in watching on those networks.

2. Using online stores’ “Find it in store” feature before attending a physical store

Primary suspects: Apparel, Consumer electronics,

I think a lot of businesses are on to something with the advent of “find it in store” functionality on their websites. Unfortunately for them, it may not generate the kind of online revenue that they had hoped. At least in my case, I tend to use that function to figure out when to actually visit the store. Living in New York, just about every imaginable store is within an hour journey and I’m still interested in seeing, touching, and “trying on” things that I purchase.

At the same time, I hate waiting. I know that if Old Navy’s website says a pair of pants is available in store, I’m much more likely to visit that store to buy the pants than buy them online. Instant gratification beats 4-5 days shipping & handling every time (even if I don’t plan on going to Old Navy for a week).

Until we see a revolutionized returns process, I think this trend will continue and several businesses will start to see their online sales dip while their traffic increases.

3. Shareable transportation

Primary suspects: Zip car, Bike share systems

As millennials achieve higher education and migrate to major cities, personal transportation is likely to take a backseat to public transportation. However, many of us still see a need to have an element of privacy to our public transportation options. Hence, we see the onset of shareable transportation alternatives.

Again we see a theme of impatience with millennials. My guess is that because we don’t like to wait for common public transportation choices such as buses or trains, we are likely to choose a more immediate and personal option in a CitiBike (NYC) or ZipCar. These options hedge the risk of buying or leasing a bike or car until we can afford it (Another thing we hate waiting for!).

I suspect that these shareable forms of technology will get cooler and more sustainable to attract millennial-types into the next generation.

Honorable Mentions

Pretzel buns
Neon everything

Are you witnessing any of these trends? Have you noticed any others? Comment below!

August 14, 2013

Microsoft Is Smarter Than It Looks: XBOX ONE

Lately, it seems like Microsoft always comes up a little short. The company has suffered several embarrassing failures in different markets. Internet Explorer, Zune, and Bing are just a few. I’m sure there are several ways that each of these efforts can be dissected to show why they’ve come up short in their respective markets.

However, I believe that at the heart of each product’s failure, is Microsoft’s inability to accurately understand its customer. Microsoft Office and Explorer shared similar initial successes because of their early entry into their markets. The Zune and Bing, however, were late entrants that did not achieve enough significant differentiation from the current competitors. Furthermore, none of those products really captured the majority of consumers’ interests and preferences.

Microsoft’s shining beacon that seems to have “got it right” is their popular game console, the XBOX. The Xbox entered the market later than its competitors but gathered enough interest AND adapted well enough to survive and even thrive in the gaming industry.

Recently, The New York Times recently released an article explaining how Xbox planned to further engage its consumers and attract more business.

Through strategic brand extensions, I see Xbox’s effort to increase their brand’s perception as the premiere alternative for interactive entertainment, but also extend their relationship with their consumers beyond just gaming.

You’ll remember that Xbox is the brand that brought competitive gaming between distant participants from computers to consoles with the ingenious, “Xbox Live.” This fit perfectly as a complement into Aaker and Keller’s (1990) discovery of three bases in which consumers categorize and evaluate brand extensions. The new extension of the brand must either “fit” into the consumer’s idea of the brand as a:

Complement,
Substitute, or
Transfer

Yet again, Microsoft is taking interaction to another level. I think they have wisely decided to create a live-action television series (with director Steven Speilberg!) modeled after their cash cow, Halo. This makes total sense as a brand extension because it has an immediate connection to a current brand winner and has the potential to drive even more interaction with the brand. Furthermore, no other game system currently occupies this space successfully. Xbox has the opportunity to define this sector in a similar way that they did with Xbox Live.

I see where Xbox strategists are trying to draw the linkage between their second extension, a smartphone app in partnership with the NFL that allows users to interact with their fantasy league teams as they watch the game, but I think ESPN already provides significant competition in this space. They will need to really make their offer to their consumers extremely salient and prove that their mobile app is the method for real gamers to interact with their fantasy football leagues.

The following video alludes to the XBOX ONE’s new features while heralding the brands previous accomplishments and almost makes me want to become a gamer again. Enjoy.

May 23, 2013

Kanye West – New Slaves [Video] SoHo, NYC

“No one man should have all that power.” – KanYeWest

Kanye West does it again! The world’s most interesting artist took it back to the streets and offered his mobile fans an opportunity at an exclusive sneak peek at his latest video for “New Slaves.” This guerrilla marketing tactic is a part of a larger 66-show campaign across the globe. There were several shows in New York City alone.

I found out about it via Twitter and jumped up out of bed to get to SoHo. Someone tweeted about a live Kanye performance up the street in Williamsburg and I quickly found out that there were other shows going on in the New York area. I threw on some clothes and hopped on the train. You can already guess that it didn’t start on time. I struck up small talk with another guy there commenting on how we’re all suckers and even joked about leaving, but we both knew the truth: Neither one of us was going anywhere.

Being there was literally like being a part of a huge social experiment. People flocked like sheep to each rumored video location in the city and any suspicious shadow in a building window or especially bright light in an alley attracted nearly every attendant to see if Kanye himself would pop out. It was sheer genius in my eyes. I envisioned some experimenter in a high rise building on the corner hurriedly jotting down notes about our behavior and I laughed to myself. As soon as the truck pulled up with the mobile show, everyone’s phone came out as they rushed to share the experience with their followers. Personally, I was active on Twitter, Instagram, Vine, and YouTube. That’s what marketers call a Social Media Grand Slam! (Actually, there is no such term, but if you see it out, you know where you heard it first.)

This is definitely not the first, nor the last, posting you will see about Kanye West’s, “New Slaves.” Enjoy.