Auchan Velizy: The greatest French hypermarket

I have worked for 6 months at Auchan Velizy, the largest hypermarket in France in terms of sales, as a section manager. It has been a great honor to contribute to the transformation of the 20 years old store which decided to renew its whole concept.

The challenge was great: redefine the hypermarket format, whereas customers plebiscit more and more local stores. This year in October, Auchan Velizy launches officially its news store. I wanted to share with you the great pictures French magazine lineaires specialized in retails took from the renovated store.

90 million € have been needed and 3 years of construction to define a new version of the "everything under one roof concept", which actually inspired Wall Mart's founder Sam Walton.

Branding Websites: 3 Ways To Boost Your Effort

Websites are not only made for ecommerce. It is not because you are not selling online that you don't need a strong Internet presence. Hence, websites are also great branding tools you must take care of. Internet technologies allow you first to interact with your customers, to provide them a great multichannel experience (text, video, sound, chatting among others) and also to know them better thanks to data mining potential.

Hence your brand website needs to be thought in order to optimize your customer relationship management. Here are three great ways to boost your branding website:

1. Incorporate measurement. According to Peter Drucker, "You can't manage what you can't measure." Well said by one of the world's top management gurus. Developing website strategies without user insight is the equivalent of shooting arrows in the dark.

Partner with a marketing research firm that understands the power of actionable consumer insights that drive optimization. Measurement should go beyond site satisfaction research. While site satisfaction is important, studies show that it isn't directly linked with purchase intent. Make sure you are measuring key consumer metrics such as impact on purchase intent and brand opinion as well.

Once a base read on key metrics has been developed, create a strategy for optimizing your website based on what your consumers are telling you instead of basing your strategy on a hunch.

2. Avoid design pitfalls. Here are a few classic mistakes marketers make when designing their websites:

• Pay attention to key site usability characteristics such as page speed, appearance, ease of navigation, etc. Fill up the gaps between expectations and satisfaction. This will drive lifts in brand opinion and purchase intent.
• Make sure the homepage has clearly defined calls to action. Keep them limited to two to three. Visitors should engage deeper into the second page within 10 to 15 seconds. Visitors who claim to have not accomplished their goals on your website are less likely to purchase your brand.
• Go easy on the Flash. CRM Metrix has consistently observed negative reactions to too much Flash, with consistent drops in purchase intent and site satisfaction, especially likelihood to revisit. So use Flash sparingly, only where your visitors see benefits.
• Before going for a complete site redesign, consider preserving some characteristics of your current site for your repeat visitors. Consumers used to a certain structure don't like when they can't find the information they are looking for.

3. Capitalize on consumer engagement. A consumer visiting your website is a consumer actively engaging with your brand. Here are a few ways to make the most of their time on your website:

• Focus on driving repeat visits. It builds more than just traffic. Our research shows that repeat visitors are more likely to purchase your brand's products or services versus first-time visitors.
• Find the "golden web pages" that impact purchase intent the most and make sure your visitors are exposed to those web pages.
• Drive traffic from other media vehicles. Research shows that it lifts purchase intent, and by attracting multi-brand and competitive users to the website, there are opportunities for brands to acquire and/or convert customers and gain market share.
• If you offer incentives like coupons on your site, make sure you deliver as promised or else it will cost brand consideration. Special offers tend to be the least performing feature of a brand website, all too often leaving customers disappointed.

I totally agree with all these points. Now you need to evaluate how you manager your brand website and then you'll be able to improve the other component of your strategy.

Internet Advertising Now Bigger Than TV In The UK

The actual economical downturn has deeply affected marketing department and strategies. By cutting budgets marketers needed to find out new ways to advertise at a lower cost, optimizing their return on investment. Hence, traditionnal mass media communication channel like TV has been impacted by this crisis.

Spending on internet advertising in Britain grew 4.6 percent in the first half of 2009, outperforming the wider ad sector, which slumped 17 percent, and making it the country's biggest ad medium ahead of TV.

According to the report, the internet accounted for 23.5 percent of all spend, compared with 18.7 percent in the first half of 2008. Television accounted for 21.9 percent, press display for 18.5 percent and direct mail for 11.5 percent.

The IAB report said the internet had avoided the advertising slump in general media, due to the strong demand for paid-for search on sites such as Google and resilience shown by classified online ads.

The study abreaks down the online display market by industry category, with technology the biggest spender, accounting for 19.1% of the market, followed by telecoms (13.3% rising from 9.7% the previous year) and finance (13.2% up from 11.9%).

Social Media Marketing And Permission Marketing : The Return of Disruption

Social Media marketing is on the edge to become a major relationship medium for brands. The way it has been designed enable brands and customers to discuss, and interact in a very unique way, something which is not comparable to any other known medium.

Nevertheless, a French study shows out that French customers perceive social media marketing to be intrusive, and hence, are reluctant to its raise.

Permission Marketing
Seth Godin book “Permission Marketing” has changed deeply the way companies interact with companies, promoting one to one CRM techniques, and mainly pull marketing campaigns, asking for the customers’ permission to deliver promotional messages.

The concept is simple: due to the multiplication of media and brands, customers are overloaded with commercial messages which they are not asking for. Hence, in order to get the attention of customers and to optimize advertising budgets, you should set up a contract with the customer, to provide him an accurate and targeted messages, which will be delivered at the frequency and through the media he wants.

Social Media As A Permission Marketing Threat
Hence, when companies are discussing via social media, there is somekind of disruption that could appear. Of course, a customer could decide whether or not to follow a brand on Twitter or to become a fan of it on Facebook, but still, with community management springing up, brands are listening more and more to what is going on in social media.

I've attended a ecommerce diner where one of the invitee asked if social media users wouldn't feel oppressed by being watched by brands. If they talk about brands on social media, that doesn't necessarily mean he wants to discuss or even get in contact with it.

Community Management To Be defined

Is social media a threat for permission marketing? I believe that social media marketing experiences the same problems that occurred with emailing not so long ago. As the medium is relatively cheap and new, people are not really mastering the medium, and hence, are more in a disruptive mode. Moreover, there is a lack of tools to run this kind of techniques.

However, there are some ways to create bonds with customers thanks to social media marketing without being disruptive. When a customer adds a brand on its Facebook, it is a strong sign that he wants to establish some kind of relationship with the brand.

I believe this feeling of disruption results mainly of the large amount of messages spreaded on social media, which create a lot of noise.

That was the very same thing with emailing in the early age. The media was so cheap and easy to use spamming became an easy job. But permission marketing has been designed, which helped a lot to establish an ethical code to optimize the customer relationship. That would probably be the same with community management.

What do you think about it?

Zara Embraces Ecommerce

Zara has decided to launch an online store. Even though H&M has already done such a move, this is a great news because it shows how companies are moving fast toward a multi channel distribution strategy. Nowadays, it is important to provide a 360 degrees customer experience. Inditex vice president qualify this move as not important on a strategical point of view, but would allow Zara to enhance customer experience.

I don't agree. I believe that adding up an ecommerce platform changes dramatically the marketing approach. Hence the website will provide more product information, and will also provide more online advertising capabilities, thanks to more efficient keywords campaigns (based on a return on investment strategy, and not only to a number of contacts generated basis).

What do you think about it?

Social Media Marketing Fails To Convince Women

Social media marketing has showed up recently, but is on the edge to spring up fast. Of course, so far marketers are still struggling to figure out how to get the most of the new social communities to establish a strong relationship with customers.

Hence, a recent study explains that women, which are in most of the market one of the strong decision maker in one household, don't consider social media to be an important part of their decision making process.

Although marketers have paved major inroads to reach online audiences, their efforts seem to have gained little traction with female consumers, according to new research. A study by ad:tech Chicago and Q Interactive that analyzes how women engage online with brands finds that 75 percent of women reported that social networking sites have little bearing on their purchasing decisions.

Sites have "somewhat" of an influence over 21.9 percent and greatly influence only 3.3 percent of users. The data, which represents online survey answers collected from over 1,000 women from Aug 11 to 14, 2009, was presented yesterday at ad:tech Chicago by Matt Wise, president of Q Interactive, and Jonathan Ashton, managing partner for Agency.com, Chicago.

When asked what the most important factor in making a purchasing decision as a mother, price (47 percent) and quality (45.7 percent) topped the list.
Brand ranked fourth highest at 2 percent behind "other" responses (3.5 percent).

The underlying problem seems to be a lack of positive engagement. Although 52 percent of female users have "friended" a brand, feelings of neutrality (64 percent) and negativity (19 percent) were the most common reactions when women encountered brands online. Only 17 percent said the experience was positive.

Only 10 percent of women said that participating in brand-related activities, such as finding information (8.7 percent) and writing reviews (1 percent), was their most common social media activity. Sending private messages to peers (34.6 percent), sharing photos (13.4 percent), and chatting (12.8 percent) ranked as women¹s top-three social media activities.

Of course, those results might appear deceiving but they are just the result that social media marketing is still raising. The hype has gone, and we enter an era where the mass market is mastering the tools, and appropriating them in the every day life.

Also marketers should understand that socia media are not going to replace the consumption of other kind of media, and hence, people are not going to facebook as much as they are currently watching TV. There will be a normalization process which will occur soon, as TV consumption will steadily decrease.

These figures must be taking in account though, to match women's needs in their decision making process.

What do you think about it?
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

An Army Of Influencers

Leaders of opinion are a common target for marketers and PRs. They are suppose to influence people in their purchase and lifestyle. But the Internet, and more specifically the Instant Internet has changed the concept of leaders of opinion.

First of all, anyone could become a leader of opinion, if he wants to. You don't need to be a star, highly educated or so. You simply need, as would say Henri Kaufman "a pen... And a good idea". Well, I should be more precised. You need an Internet access, and something to say.

Secondly, which results of the first point, there is an army of influencers. There is no minority which could influence people. The Internet has enabled anyone to post, to be seen on the web, and hence, anyone could influence its community. That is the reason why PR must reinvent themselves, and turn into community managers that would be able to understand and leverage this mass of people which communicate and speak about brands and products.

I wanted to share with you this article:Over 100 Million Consumers Worldwide are Word of Mouth Advocates, Ground-Breaking Research by Zuberance Shows

This article explains how the game has changed, and how there are millions of influencers that are playing an active role in the customer decision making process. And thanks to mobile Internet, it will become even more true.

Advocates’ Recommendations are #1 Influencer of Consumers& Business Buyers’ Purchase Decisions

More than 100 million consumers worldwide are Word of Mouth Advocates, a massive, highly influential, yet under-leveraged sales and marketing force, according to ground-breaking research by Zuberance, the leading online Word of Mouth marketing company.

Advocates are people who frequently recommend brands and products. Empowered by Social Media, millions of Advocates are:

• Evangelizing their favorite brands and products on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Bebo, LinkedIn, and on other social networks, online communities, and forums
• Writing positive reviews on sites like Amazon.com, ePinions, and Angie’s List plus on e-tailers’ and manufacturer websites. (TripAdvisor boasts more than 20 million reviews while Yelp has 5 million user reviews with positive reviews outnumbering negative by 6:1.)
• Posting positive comments about brands and products on YouTube, on blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo or even creating advocate blogs like ”Slave to Target”

In addition, millions of Advocates are spreading positive Word of Mouth about brands and products in face to face settings, such as offices, restaurants, golf courses, trade shows, and more.

”Army of Advocates”

”An army of Advocates is evangelizing companies, brands, and products online and offline, and these recommendations lead directly to purchases,” said Rob Fuggetta, Founder&CEO of Zuberance. ”Yet many companies are missing a major opportunity to increase sales because they are not identifying and mobilizing these influential Advocates,” Fuggetta added.

In the U.S. alone, about 30 million U.S. adult Internet users are ”Word of Mouth Influencers” - adults who are opinion leaders and whose advice is sought, trusted, and acted upon by other consumers, according to eMarketer.

Advocacy is a global phenomenon. According to GfK Roper, 80% of consumers surveyed in 25 countries across five continents frequently recommend brands and products to their friends and colleagues with the average consumer recommending 3.7 brands. The total adult population in the 25 countries included in the Roper study is more than one billion people.

Advocates are Brand’s Most Effective Salespeople

Advocates’ recommendations drive sales. Numerous surveys by independent market research firms have shown that Word of Mouth is up to five times more influential than advertising, email, and search engine marketing. According to a study by Forrester Research, Inc., 84% of business buyers said peers’ Word of Mouth recommendations influenced their purchase decisions while only 24% said blogs impacted their choices. In a global Neilsen survey, 78% of consumers said they trust Word of Mouth recommendations from other consumers while only 26% trust banner ads.

Key Findings of Zuberance Research

The Zuberance study found that:

• Approximately 40% of a company’s customers -- a surprisingly high percentage -- are highly likely to recommend the company and its products or services to friends or colleagues. Among the companies included in the Zuberance study, the percentage of company’s customers who are highly likely to recommend ranged from 25% for a business products company to 76% for a consumer electronics manufacturer.
• About 25% of a company’s customers are Advocates. This percentage can vary, depending on several factors including the type of company or product and how easy a company makes it for highly-satisfied customers to spread positive Word of Mouth.
• Depending on the size of its customer base, a company may have hundreds of thousands to millions of Advocates. For example, a consumer electronics company with 10 million customers may have approximately one to two million Advocates.

Ground-Breaking Word of Mouth Research

Zuberance’s findings are included in a ground-breaking, five-part research report on the power of Word of Mouth Advocacy. Entitled ”Mobilizing Advocates, Driving Sales Now,” the report is one of the most comprehensive ever on Word of Mouth Advocates. To date, Zuberance has surveyed over 100,000 customers across numerous multiple industries and verticals including automotive, consumer electronics, consumer software, housewares, travel and tourism, and business products and services. In addition, the report leverages research on Word of Mouth and Advocates by highly-respected market research firms. The first report in the Zuberance series - ”An Army of Advocates” - is available now at www.zuberance.com/research.

About Zuberance

Zuberance is a leading online Word of Mouth marketing company. Global 2000 companies and others are using Zuberance’s ground-breaking Word of Mouth marketing platform now to identify and mobilize their highly-satisfied customers (AKA ”Advocates”), cost-effectively increasing sales. Headquartered in San Carlos, CA, Zuberance is backed by Emergence Capital Partners, the leading venture capital firm focused on early and growth-stage Technology-Enabled Services companies. For more information, visit Zuberance at www.zuberance.com, call 800.962.0590 or email info@zuberance.com.

L'Iphone et la Customer Lifetime Value: Etude de cas

La Customer Lifetime value et son calcul sont au coeur de la stratégie de relation client. Ainsi, en prévisionnant les revenus futurs issus d'un client, on est capable d'adapter sa stratégie commerciale, par exemple en faisant une offre au prospect importante qui les convertira sur le long terme.


Je viens de lire l'artice suivant: L'iPhone, gouffre financier pour les opérateurs de téléphonie ?
Celui-ci expose le fort coût d'aquisition pour les opérateurs mobiles des clients Iphone. Ainsi, ces téléphones sont largement subventionnés. Orange a ainsi établi un partenariat avec Apple afin d'avoir l'exclusivité sur une période de temps donné afin de pouvoir assurer la rentabilité de son investissement de départ. Cependant, Apple est en train de modifier sa stratégie commerciale, mettant ainsi en péril la profitabilité des clients Iphone.

En effet, les très bons chiffres de vente de l'iPhone – 5,2 millions d'exemplaires vendus entre avril et juin – ne garantissent pas des revenus en proportion aux opérateurs. Par exemple, pour SingTel, un fournisseur d'accès océanien, le téléphone d'Apple plombe les résultats, avant impôts, de l'entreprise de 3 à 5 % selon les pays, note l'étude. "D'après nos recherches, aucun opérateur n'a augmenté sa part de marché, son chiffre d'affaire ou ses bénéfices grâce à l'iPhone", écrivent les auteurs. "Au contraire, certains opérateurs, comme AT&T et SingTel, ont dû envoyer un avertissement sur résultat à cause de l'iPhone."

COÛT D'ACQUISITION CONTRE REVENU MOYEN

Les opérateurs vendraient-ils l'iPhone à perte ? Pas exactement. Pour savoir si un téléphone est financièrement intéressant pour un opérateur, deux paramètres entrent en jeu : le coût d'acquisition de l'abonné, c'est-à-dire ce que l'opérateur débourse pour attirer le client (rabais sur le téléphone, campagnes marketing...) et le revenu moyen par abonné, à savoir ce que le consommateur rapporte à l'opérateur. Pour l'allemand T-Mobile, le coût d'acquisition d'un client iPhone s'élève à 317 euros, et le revenu moyen mensuel, à 77 euros. Les deux chiffres sont élevés : pour T-Mobile, un client iPhone coûte cher, mais il rapporte également plus qu'un autre. Sur le long terme, l'entreprise peut donc espérer réaliser des profits importants.

Les opérateurs ont été d'accord pour cette stratégie, car l'explosion des ventes d'Iphone leurs permettaient de mettre en avant leurs forfaits Internet mobile et de générer ainsi des ventes à valeur ajoutée (upselling).

Mais ce cas précis montre bien à quel point la notion de customer lifetime value est fondamentale en CRM. Car celle-ci peut soit permettre de gagner de fortes part de marché en étant plus aggressif que ses concurrents, soit mettre en péril la santé d'une entreprise. Reste alors aux opérateurs mobiles de développer des stratégies de relation client adapté, afin de garder ses nouveaux clients acquis, afin d'assurer un retour sur investissement suffisant pour ne pas perdre d'argent.

Branding To Lead Customer Behavior

I have attended the customer behavior class of SUNY Oswego as a student in 2004, which was held by Ashraf Attia. I usually refer to this experience as one of the most important one, which led me to work in the customer relationship management field. I deeply believe that companies aren't focused enough to both the decision making process and behavior of shoppers.

But what really matters in marketing is to influence customer behavior. “Successful brands are collaborating internally—cross-departmentally—with customers to create tangible behaviors that ultimately prompt purchase.”

Branding evolved in that way. Brands must not provide an image of what the product or service should inspire, but about the experience the customer will get.

A New Premise
The definition of branding is seldom agreed upon, yet “brand equity” is considered a measure of success. As a result, brand-focused marketing pros often feel misunderstood. Smart, capable operational executives can’t accept that the ultimate value of brands cannot be measured like every other function of the business.

The opportunity now is to redefine brands in terms that marketers and operational executives alike can embrace. That emergent definition is to base brands on the objectively measurable, real-time aggregation of everything marketers and their customers do together. That’s different from the old-school definition of focusing on awareness and influencing how customers feel.

Experts like author Jonathan Salem Baskin say branding is evolving away from artsy strategies that create “mental states” toward a behavior-based science. It’s all about creating measurable, valuable experiences.

Think of campaigns that prompt customer behavior—like when T-Mobile launched its myFaves campaign in 2007. The company prompted customers to call their top five numbers for free. It also prompted customers to think about who those five people were in their lives. It made people do something. Contrast this example with Verizon’s “It’s the network” campaign (which doesn’t prompt customers).

Baskin is steeped in brand advertising (Nissan, Limited Brands) yet questions the central tenants of traditional practices. He recently spoke on the subject at the Direct Marketing Association’s Leaders’ Forum and authored the book “Branding Only Works on Cattle.”

Now branding is important. This is the image which will vehicle the company. It should be managed properly. It remains difficult to scale the power of a brand objectively. But what is sure, it is that without brands, it would be hard to get into the mass market.

Now new tools could be used to measure your branding effort. The idea of branding score is common. But this new approach is great. Speaking about customer experience, branding has a great role to play in it.

Customer relationship management encompass branding, as the brands and what it vehicles is a vital part of the relationship between a customer and the company.

I really like this article, because it gives an other picture of how a brand should be conceived and managed.

Out Of Stock Is A Total Turn Off

That is a basic of the retail industry. Probably one of the first lesson I had while I was a section manager at Auchan: You should never be out of stock. You must have at all time your product on the shelves. Because that is a disaster for the customer if he can not find the products he needs, especially when he is determine to buy it, and needs it now.

Somehow, people believe that if the product is out of stock, people would substitute it with the very same product from another brand. But it seems unlikely. Recent study has shown that customers are not taking substitute if by any chance the products they want is out of stock.

Gina Bingham, senior category manager of convenience and grocery for Pepsi-Cola North America, Purchase, N.Y., said energy drinks bring in some of the most fickle cold-vault customers. "They have the highest walk-away rate at 13%," she said, citing Pepsi's Cooler Study 2008. "The energy consumer has already made the purchase decision before going to the store." She further noted that the energy-drink consumer on average spends about 12 seconds choosing a beverage and will give about 30 seconds before giving up on the purchase.

Meanwhile, Dr Pepper Snapple Group convenience-store consumer study, conducted in conjunction with Meyers Research, shows 52% of the 1,200 consumers surveyed planned to buy a cold-vault beverage when they stopped at the c-store, and 54% actually did buy a cold beverage.

Dr Pepper Snapple Group's Miner added: "Gas-trip shoppers buy more drinks and snacks than those that don't buy gas. That's good reason to try to get more gas buyers to come into our stores."

Further data provided by Plano, Texas-based Dr Pepper Snapple Group shows 77% of c-store beverage shoppers would substitute a product if their choice were missing, 15% would go to another store, and 8% would delay the purchase or note make a purchase at all.

Also, 65% of respondents said they came into the c-store that day knowing which beverage brand and product they wanted to purchase, rather than making the decision on site. And that statistic rose to 76% for shoppers who purchased a carbonated soft drink.

Matt McCourt, director of c-stores for Information Resources Inc., Chicago, added that recent research shows 65% of all shoppers now make shopping lists at home, before leaving for the store.

Hence, it is very important to keep a great supply chain and an in-store organization that enables products to be constantly available on the shelves. On a customer relationship management (CRM) point of view, this is enabling your customers to switch to another store. The fact your customer is sure it will find over and over again the same product in your store is probably one of the main factor that would insure its loyalty. Indeed, not being out of stock is a vital part of the customer experience you provide.

E-Coupons To Boost In Store Sales

I deeply believe in E-coupons. First, they are a great way to boost in store sales. Secondly, they cut most of the costs of paper coupons.

E-coupons could be used for different reasons:

• Driving consumer traffic: This is even more true when coupons are advvertised on specific websites with coupons, and adwords campaign promoting coupons on strategic keywords.
• Building loyalty: Mainly through emailing campaigns. Also, Carrefour provided e-coupons on its websites, as they were asking people to download it thanks to a radio campaign.
• Increasing sales and attracting new customers

Be Careful With Your Coupons
Now coupons campaigns must be taken seriously. The ultimate goal is to get a high return on investment and hence, a profit. Therefore, it is important to measure your generosity rate, the difference between what you offer, and how much the customer will pay in the end. Of course, it depends of your mergin rate.

However, companies are still figuring out the new dynamics of managing the array of coupons and how fast they can spread.

Marsh Supermarkets had to halt a recent Facebook deal offering $10 off a $10 or more purchase as the coupon spread much further and faster through the social networking site than the Midwest grocer had intended.

"It just went everywhere. We did not anticipate that," company spokesperson Connie Gardner said. "We would not have issued it if we had known."

Most notoriously, KFC faced traffic jams and overwhelming demand this spring at several restaurants and ultimately offered rain checks to cope with unanticipated demand for free grilled chicken meals offered in a coupon posted on TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey's Web site.

Overall, electronic coupons lack the reach of print because consumers must seek them out -- as opposed to finding them in the mailbox or on the front step, Brown said.

Experts say both electronic and traditional print formats are likely to grow, though it will be a while before they match the all-time peak in coupon use of 7.9 billion in 1992. In 2008, consumers redeemed just 2.6 billion coupons of all types.

Therefore, e-coupons could be a very powerful tool to boost sales, and hence be a link between your sales strategy, online marketing effort, and your retail experience and sales.

Zakia Halal et le marketing ethnique

Au début de la période du ramadan est apparu sur la télévision française des publicités pour la marque de produits Halal Zakia. L'apparition de ces spots fut un événement, puisque c'est la première fois qu'une marque de produits "ethnique" fait de la publicité sur un média de masse national. D'ailleurs les médias nationaux ont repris la nouvelle.

Il est sûr que des marques de ce type doivent bénéficier de la crise, où les annonceurs à la télévision ont sensiblement diminuer leurs budgets. Mais c'est aussi un formidable coup marketing.

Je pense personnellement que c'est une bonne chose. Beaucoup de gens semble choqué par le fait qu'un produit à caractère religieux (puisque les produits halal sont dédiés spécifiquement à la communauté musulmane) puisse passé à la télévision. Mais je pense qu'il est positif de voir des produits ethniques, c'est à dire clairement dédié à un segment de population identifié, avec des besoins spécifiques, s'inviter à la télévision.

Aux Etats-Unis, il n'est pas rare de voir des publicités pour des shampoings dédié aux noirs américains (cheveux crépus), ou pour des produits alimentaires de la communauté hispanique. Dans une société multi culturelle, où les modes de consommation deviennent de plus en plus différents en fonction de son milieur social, les média de masses, mais aussi les produits doivent s'adapter, et ce segmenter plus finement pour répondre au besoin de chacun.

C'est pourquoi je suis très content de voir des publicités de Zakia Halal à la télévision française, et j'espère que de nouvelles initiatives viendront prochainement.

Et vous, qu'en pensez vous? Je serai ravi d'échanger à ce sujet avec vous.

Loyalty Progams To Boost Word Of Mouth

There is a link between loyalty programs and the ability of one company to buzz. That is the result of a Colloquy study, which "Reveals Reward Program Members 70% More Likely to be Word-of-Mouth Champions than Non-Members".

Here are the key results of that study:

• Reward program members are 70% more likely to be WOM champions (defined as customers who are “actively recommending” a product, service or brand) than the general population;
• 55% of reward program members are self-described WOM champions;
• Only 32% of non-reward program members are self-described WOM champions;
• 68% of WOM champions in reward programs will recommend a program sponsor’s brand within a year;
• Actively participating reward program members are over three times more likely to be WOM champions;
• Reward program members who have redeemed for experiential rewards are 30% more likely to be WOM champions than those who have redeemed for discounts.

Top Five Reasons Consumers Talk, Blog, Email & Post Info on Their Favorite Brands

The COLLOQUY research also examined the motivations of WOM champions—asking why they engaged in WOM activity regarding their favorite products and brands and what categories of offers and information they were most likely to pass along to others within their networks. The top five motivations of WOM champions were:

— To tell manufacturers what I think..........	73%
— To get smart about products/services........	68%
— To be the first to discover new items.......	68%
— To get free product samples.................	63%
— To share my opinion with others.............	61%

Hence, word of mouth is driven by opinion leaders and loyal customers. Therefore, if one company owns a powerful loyalty program, which has a large customer data base, and active members, it will be more likely it could leverage it for buzz marketing purpose.

There is a common statement that social media would help companies to find new leads, because loyal customers will spread the word. This study actually demonstrate it.

Now, if a company own a great loyalty program, that doesn't imply its community management and/or social media strategy will be a success. Nevertheless, it owns a great competitive advantage to stand out of the competition.

Customer relationship management (CRM) aims to leverage existing customers to expand business, especially through cross selling and upselling, but thanks to new social media, it could also imply to get new prospects thanks to its own customers, as a referral marketing strategy would.

Very interesting results. Very inspiring.

Customer Loyalty Shifting From Brands To Retailers

Customer loyalty has always been a hot CRM topic. Thus, the main focus of a CRM strategy is to build a strong customer lifetime value, capturing its loyalty, in order to insure larger cashflow from this specific customer.

Brands have always been great in marketing, and retailers, kind of the followers. In the category management field, which aims for both the brands and retailers to collaborate to enhance departments performances, brands have always been sort of the provider of customer insight, which would ultimately lead to customer loyalty.

Now, based on years of studying people's shopping habits, Hartman Group's researchers predict consumer loyalty is shifting from products and brands to retailers, particularly those that offer shoppers an experience rather than just goods.

That is exactly what I was exposing you not so long ago, about customer experience marketing.

"People don't relate to brands in the same way they used to when there weren't that many products to choose from," said Hartman Senior Vice President Michelle Barry. "Capturing the attention of the consumer requires different tactics, getting a lot more intimate and experiential."

Customer experience aims to bond with customers, and as the retailer can be close to customer's daily life, it is the best placed to get valuable insight, and hence, create customer loyalty. Therefore, even though customer experience improvement effort might be difficult to estimate in term of return on investment, it is indeed a valuable asset, which will create customer loyalty and provide a great competitive advantage.

The Starbucks Example
Starbucks is the best example of how you could turn a classic business into a great customer experience that will drive high revenues. "Starbucks took a tired product category and transformed it into an entire world," he said. "Imagine if someone had walked into Folgers and said, 'We have a new business model for you: Open thousands of stores around the world based around the espresso bean.' It's hard to get somebody to wrap their head around what could be."

It also explains the reason why French retailers are so eager to develop private labels, to create differenciation with the competition.

Designing Your B2B CRM Strategy: 4 Customers Profile

Interesting article inspired by a Gartner study in the B2B CRM field. Here are 4 kind of profiles B2B websites should focus on to improve their ROI on the web.

The Influencer

The main goal of the influencer is to drive sales, but the final transaction does not necessarily end with an online sale. Promotions, test marketing, product information and tools such as loan calculators and quoting engines, are all part of the influencer's activities. The influencer also seeks to raise consumer awareness of the company or product. However, the end transaction is not necessarily on the Web, nor does it have to be with the company.

Consumer goods companies, for example, have sites that influence consumers to go to a reseller to pick up their products, avoiding channel conflicts, and pharmaceutical companies have marketing material online to coax consumers into asking their doctors for the product. For the influencer, online campaign management, email marketing, brand management, product marketing collateral and lead management are most important for influencing and increasing awareness to ultimately drive a sale. Influencer website examples include Toyota, P&G and Maytag.com.

The Facilitator

The main goal of the facilitator is to extend the relationship online, creating a multichannel environment. The facilitator might allow consumers to transact online, but that is only one tool in its arsenal for extending the relationship. The facilitator seeks to understand where the Web fits best in the overall relationship or buying process, and to optimize online functionality, ensuring compatibility and integration with the applications that are used in other channels. For example, an airline company uses a multi-channel relationship in which the Web facilitates the booking of flights, displaying frequent-flier mileage and publishing Web flight updates while its call center assists cancellations, seating arrangements and so on, and the airplane delivers the product, the actual flight. For the facilitator, customer analytics, online dialogue and multichannel integration are the most important technologies. Facilitator website examples include Bank of America, American Airlines and Fidelity.com.

The Seller

The seller creates an environment for transactions, driving business online. The seller, unlike the facilitator, doesn't mind what you buy, as long as you buy it from the seller, and preferably online. It is transaction-oriented, and usually includes high-volume products and multibrands. Like the influencer, it uses marketing to drive a sale, often relying on push marketing and promotions to get customers to buy online. E-commerce includes order management, catalogues, interactive selling tools, Web analytics, email marketing/email response management, and customer self-service, which are all important technologies in the seller's environment. Seller website examples include Amazon, Overstock and Newegg.com.

First, companies should determine which type of website they should be gravitating toward and whether it matches the company's overall value proposition. Second, they should identify which type of website they already have, and reconcile this with the type of website they want for future development. Finally, they need to audit current and future website technologies against the type of website and goal toward which they're gravitating. This will immensely help B2C companies with defining and selecting the technology and the business processes used to support it.

Customer Experience: Macy Tries To Bond With Customers

There are a lot of good examples of great customer experience marketing in the retail industry. Here is one of the newest I fond on the web, with Macy aiming to bond with its customers.

The "brow bar" in the newly reopened Macy's in Deerbrook Mall was a lively scene this week. . Over sounds of pop music, stylish black-clad estheticians were shaping the eyebrows of female customers seated on bar stools.
The brow bar seems to be the kind of thing that can create a bond between a customer and a store -- exactly what Macy's and other chains are trying to do at a time when the department store sector is struggling.

With the goal of tailoring all of its 800 stores to the needs of customers in their respective neighborhoods, Macy's is rolling out its "My Macy's" campaign.

The dramatically remodeled Deerbrook Macy's in Humble reflects some My Macy's initiatives, including a new cosmetics concept called Impulse and a women's shoe department that is 30 percent larger than before.

Macy's Deerbrook in Humble had its grand reopening Wednesday. The store had been shuttered almost 10 months after suffering heavy damage from Hurricane Ike. The three-level store is completely remodeled with a bright modern look.

In September, Macy's will reopen its remodeled Almeda Mall store, also ravaged by Ike. When the Almeda store reopens, Macy's will have 16 area locations.

A strategy like My Macy's is the "right idea, but it will all be in the execution," said Love Goel, chairman and CEO of GVG Capital.

Part of the My Macy's campaign will likely relate to the weather -- adjusting apparel assortments to a particular climate, said Steve Hoch, professor of marketing and director of the Baker Retailing Initiative at the Wharton School of Finance.

While department stores have been facing rough times, Goel thinks they will fare better over the next few years.

"Macy's and other surviving retailers have a tremendous opportunity in the short term," said Goel, who noted that other department store chains have either gone out of business or downsized significantly.

"If you're a 'last man standing' like a Macy's, you should benefit," he said. People still need to buy apparel and housewares, he said, although they are not spending as much.

In the long term, however, the department store sector faces major challenges as consumers spend less time at malls and more time at big box discount and specialty stores, Goel said.

The department store sector has been in decline for decades, Hoch said. For the first quarter ending May 2, same store sales at Macy's were down 9 percent.

Along with Macy's, other department stores are finding ways to localize their stores. At Dillard's, which has nine Houston area locations, "we've been tailoring our stores to the tastes and preferences of customers in a specific area, including Houston, for quite some time," said company spokeswoman Julie Bull. Such customizing includes keeping track of customers' size and color preferences at each store, she said.

The Deerbrook Macy's has a My Macy's concept in the cosmetics department called Impulse that affords the company the opportunity to bring in more up-and-coming brands, said Macy's spokeswoman Robin Reibel.

While the brow bar, which is adjacent to Impulse, predates the My Macy's initiative, it very much reflects the mission, Reibel said. The brow bar is run by Benefit, a San Francisco-based company. There is also a Benefit brow bar at a Galleria Macy's.

Macy's Deerbrook will continue to bring in more My Macy's elements, said Gary Hudgins, the company's division vice president.

In the women's apparel section, the store has already added Michael Kors, which the customers requested, and the men's department added Tommy Bahama, he said.

Macy's customer Laura Schauermann, a retired teacher, is impressed with the remodeled Deerbrook store. "It's exquisite," she said. "I love the layout with the wide aisles and color scheme."

Now, innovation seeks for customer experience, which leads to new concept stores. Here are more pictures about the new store.

Marketing And Packaging

I believe that packaging is a key medium for customer relationship management (CRM). In a slower economy, when marketing departments owns little money to spend on advertising, you need to be creative, and take every chance you can get to communicate, and create brand equity. As packaging is the first tangible brand asset a customer will touch, it is obviously very important to optomize it and turn it into a branding vehicle.

Packaging could be used in very different ways for branding purpose, but in this particular example, packages are used to bond with customers, and support good causes. Here is a short highlight of the article:

Cause marketing programs are taking on new significance in this economy, as brand owners strive to broadcast their corporate principles, create closer relationships with consumers and offer the idea of greater brand value.

In the current economy, people definitely “vote with their dollars,” says Sean Greenwood, Ben & Jerry’s grand poobah of PR (his actual title). Consumers may not be able to make financial donations to charities and other nonprofits as they have in the past, but they will make a conscious purchase, Greenwood says. “I don’t think that’s uncommon for people today.”

Whether you make it fancy or classy, make sure your packaging will provide to customers the right image of what your company is about.

Experience Marketing In The Retail Field

Experience marketing might actually be the definition of marketing for the retail industry. Customer experience is a key factor of success in the retail field. The product might be more complex that it seems in the retail industry. You are not offering a product, but more a service: finding the right product, at the right price, with the right advice.

There is actually two main component of experience marketing in the retail industry:

• The core, or the basic: Have a clean store, not much waiting line at the cashier, the right product displayed, available, and so on. This is probably the most important. Nevertheless, as competition is getting much harder, you can't rely on delivering the basics.
• The experience: The customer experience is a package that will encompass customer service, product range, access to information, and providing the little extra that will convince the customer to purchase at your store, and not the next block one.

Experience marketing implies to be creative, to find the new ideas, new services that will trigger the purchase, and also provide that famous "waow" effect, that will drive customer loyalty, and future purchases.

Experience marketing is probably a difficult art to master. Indeed, it is difficult to measure properly the effectiveness of the experience provided to a customer, and how much of it will drive the customer to buy. But the lack of it will ultimately turn stores obsolete.

Category Management To Provide High Quality Customer Experience

I have explained why retailers should focus on delivering a great customer experience. Customer experience is the key leverage of customer satisfaction and loyalty in the retail business, which also explains why I consider it is an art retailers should thrive on.

Now suppliers still have to take an important part in this effort. Category management has been designed for quite a while now and has always emphasis on marketing better the offer, to increase sales for both parties. Nevertheless, brands and retailers are still missing some marketing opportunities, which could raise from their collaboration.

Engaging shoppers in stores is more important than ever, but retailers and brands must team up or miss important perspectives their partners can provide, according to “Enabling the Shopping Process: In-Store Marketing for the Empowered Consumer” by Miami-based RSR Research. The report is based on a survey of 88 retailers and manufacturers this spring. It reveals that without working together, brands “get too promotional and miss the bigger picture of consumer engagement in the store, while retailers lack the more nuanced shopper insights that brands can provide.”

While creating targeted in-store offers and communications is a top priority, many retailers are too focused on optimization and offer-creation rather than promotion-delivery capability, noted Paula Rosenblum, RSR Research managing partner and co-author of the report.

Part of customer experience is indeed the collaboration between retailers and brands, that share a different part of customer knowledge.

I believe brands and retailers are missing great opportunities to get out of the promotional spins by improving customer experience and providing added value versus a competition centered on promotion making.

Social Media Metrics

It remains difficult so far to estimate social media metrics, as the topic has emerged recently, and that we have never seen anything comparable so far. I have already talked in the past about social media return on investment, inspired by the great work Safia Ouaissa on the topic. Now it is Christopher Carfi that explains us how to get metrics from social media efforts. People are working on this topic and we can see emerge clear tools and indicators to measure community management efficiency.

Online Community Metrics

View more documents from Christopher Carfi.

Facebook Evolution

It is interesting to see how Facebook has been evolving since its debut. I have been on Facebook since 2004, which was the very early stage of the social medium, as it was limited to college students. I was at this time a student at SUNY Oswego, part of an internatinal abroad program. Thus, in order to keep in contact with my international friends, it was important to be on Facebook, and that is the reason why I am still connected with them.

Facebook As A Network Management Tool
That was the first use of Facebook: Stay in contact with your college friends. You could in a glance know who was working where, organize events, and post pictures online. But Facebook has experienced major twists since then. It has evolved at the same pace than the Internet did.

Facebook Apps
That has been probably the major change in Facebook. In the early 2006, Facebook has decided to open its service to third party applications, which results in the creation of lots of different online games. Actually, at some point, it turned me down of Facebook: There were so many apps, Facebook personal pages looked like a mess. You had tons of applications that you could not even see what the person was actually doing. These facebook apps results of an effort to monetize the traffic generated, which was already huge at this time. But as we have seen recently with the launch of the new Facebook interface, things have once more changed.

Facebook And The Instant Web
Since then, Twitter has become the hottest hype on the web. Everybody is speaking about it, and instant web has become an important trend in social media. Knowing what your community is doing right now has become vital. And therefore Facebook adapted once more. They have removed all apps from the main personal page, to put it into a specific ones, and started creating status updates feed, as a "Friendfeed" would, in order to match with the new trend.

As a result, Facebook is evolving and isn't scared to see what are the new trends in the Internet to adapt their platform.

How To Use Social Score: Referral Marketing

I have talked this week about social score, which is one of the most important CRM concept that emerged for the web 2.0. Social score aims to identify the potential of one customer in regards of both his online community (in size and value) and activities (blog posts, number of tweets...)

But once you have identified its potential value, its ability to spread the word of mouth, you need to leverage your new abilities. Of course, you need to have set up a proper community management strategy, where you'll be able to interact with your customers, provide the appropriate response to their needs, but also survey what is said about your brand and products online.

Referral Marketing As A Community Management Tool
I believe referral marketing could be the best strategy to apply online. Indeed, you need to get a specific trigger, and to reward people that will bring you customers among their friends and community activities.

Referral marketing is commonly known in the real estate business, and helps agents to find new clients thanks to their existent network. Hence, referral marketing has developped a wide range of tips and techniques to trigger referrals at no cost. I think there is a lot to be learnt from it and to be adapted to community management.

The goal is to mix social score results (in order to identify the potential return on investment you could get on a specific customer) with referral marketing (that will enable you to reach new customers thanks to the one you already have).

And you what do you think about it? It will be interesting to speak with some already great experts of both worlds to see how they envision the concept.

Social Score: A New Marketing Concept

The concept of social score is emerging. New social media have changed interraction between people and hence, it implies a change in the way we consider customers values.

If in marketing an important concept was to reach early adopters, which influents the rest of customers, wouldn't it be great to know how much of an early adopter each of your customers are?

The social score aims to measure how influent someone is based on its social media activities. It could take into account:

• The number of services he uses (Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Gtalk among others)
• How often he uses (number of Tweets/day, time spent on Facebook, number of comments via Disqus)
• How implicated he is (does he post notes, or does he simply watch comments and status updates? Does he create events, groups, or tests?)
  
• Number of friends he owns
• How influent his friends are

On a customer relationship management point of view (CRM), we consider that a company own a customer equity, which is the sum of customer lifetime value. This customer equity is as important as the financial equity, as it is the base of future sales. Actually, this social score idea match perfectly with a CRM approach.

Now, thanks to social score, the customer equity concept must be revisited, to evaluate how your customers could spread your brand through social media.

To learn more about the topic (in French), it's here on the blog of Henri Kaufman.

Why I Like Customer Relationship Management VS CRM

You have probably noticed that on my blog, you'll find most of the time the term "customer relationship management" more often than crm. It might seem obvious that CRM are the initials of customer relationship management, but in fact, I like to dissociate both.

Gestion de la relation client
In French, we have two terms for customer relationship management. "Gestion de la relation client" litteraly customer relationship management, and CRM. CRM has in French a great connotation of IT, and are linked with CRM softwares. But Gestion de la relation client is a wider term that defines the whole customer relationship management strategy a company could have. It is the idea of the customer focused company, which has been organized to provide a great customer experience.

CRM VS Customer Relationship Management
In English, the difference might not seem that obvious, but I have noticed that most of the CRM blogs speak mainly of CRM softwares and CRM technologies. I'd rather focus on this blog about CRM strategy, and how it implicates different departments (such as sales, marketing, and IT), to have as ultimate goal customer satisfaction.

Don't get me wrong, CRM software have sort of the same kind of goal, but it is limited, as a CRM strategy implies branding and market research for instance.

Hence, I use both terms, but I wanted to make it clear that CRM must be understood as a whole enterprise strategy, and not only as defining a great softwared which would provide analytics to sales and marketing departments.

Vinci And Customer Relationship Management

This is a story that happened to me as I was looking for a parking lot. I was on my way to watch the basketball game France-Hungrary.

Of course, in this neighborhood of Paris, finding a parking spot a night game is a difficult task, and hence, I drove around the block many times to finally decide to get inside the Vinci parking. I get inside the parking and start driving around for about 10 minutes. As a matter of fact, there was no parking available in there. When I decide to get out of the parking, I had to p 2.5 euros, whereas I didn't even park, just for a minute!

Vinci's Park Problems
Vinci let me get into their parking whereas they couldn't deliver the service. They had no parking lot, that is fine, but they should alert about it. Also, I have to pay for a service that hasn't been provide. This is just a total ripp off. If I couldn't consume the product, I should be paid back.

On top of that, Vinci is proposing me a customer service phone number, to deal any kind of problems...

This is simply ridiculous. The company is not able to provide the service and require the customer to pay! This is obviously a complete ripp off. I am not used to use this blog for personal purpose, but I believe this has a complete link with the blog theme: customer relationship management.

This post is also a great way to see the community management strategy Vinci has established. Will they be able to get in contact with me to fix that problem (I have a pretty high reputation online now, and they shouldn't have no problems founding me)? Or will they ignore me on purpose, or simply will have no clue about this issue?

I'll keep you updated in case there is any kind of response.

Branding And SEM Don't Get Along Well

Branding is important for a company. It aims to give to stakeholders, customers and potential ones, a clear view of what the company offers, its position in the market and its values. Branding is a difficult exercise, especially for businesses that provides somehow the same kind of servies than its competitors. It is especially true in the business to business industry.

SEM is the art of buying keywords on search engines, in order to generate traffic on a website, and ultimately convert this traffic into customers. But sometimes, interests of both trades are hard to get along.

SEM takes into consideration web users semantic, and searching methods. If someone is looking for a video conferencing service, it will key "video conference". But branding aims to make a company and its product different. In that case, a company might establish itself as a video communication leader. Moreover, as brand specialist, they might consider the company is better off trying to buy keywords associated with the video communication terms than video conferencing words, which market is expensive and overcrowded.

SEM expert Ian Harris explains the problems he experiences to deal with branding consideration and SEO.

I believe the best solution is to brand yourself on the website as you like, but keep a search engine optimization strategy that would bring you the best results, taking into consideration web users terminologies. Also, with a microsite strategy or couple of landingscape, techniques that bring a high conversion rate most of the time with keywords campaigns, you could link both strategies without much problems.

Publicis Bought Razorfish

This is a great news. Global advertising company Publicis has purchased this week Razorfish, one of the finest web agency in the world. Previously owned by Microsoft, which didn't really want to get into the marketing and communication field, Razorfish has a great reputation, and works on all kind of Internet medium, from SEO to websites creation, but also, knows a lot about web 2.0 and social media.

I am glad and proud that Publicis, A French corporation, was able to make this smart move, which provides it a competitive advantage on other communication companies, as they have succeeded in diversifying its advertising offer on new media, meanwhile TV advertising is hit badly by crisis.

Very smart move, and looking forward how Publicis will leverage this new partnership to get even more into the Internet, but also in the US market.

Social Media To Provide A New 360 Customer Relationship Management

Social Media is a great new medium that has been emerging now for about 3 years. Marketers are still defining the use of it on the long term, but we can have a clear view that social media change dramatically the marketing approach of customers. Prior to social media, CRM was based on customizing a customer relationship management, based on company owned data. It was pretty difficult already, but the goal was to limit cost and have an appropriate message, upon customers needs.

But social media has open the picture and it is clear that it will have a great impact on both customer experience and service. Therefore, in a global customer relationship management approach, you could have different company's department that would use social media abilities to create this great online customer experience. I found that great article on line, which explains well how to use social media for a customer relationship strategy:

• SUPPORT DEPARTMENT: Strategic engagements in social media start therefor on the support side as we can see with companies like Comcast, Ford, Dell and many others.
• PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: A natural next step is to leverage the experience in the service and support departments to drive down product development cost, get early market feedback and in particular support during the product launch phase.
• LOGISTICS AND PROCUREMENT: Social media is probably the most effective and the least expensive early warning system for everybody involved in procurement, logistics and production planning challenges.
• SALES & MARKETING: With the experience from support, product development and logistics it is a natural to now leverage social media in sales and marketing. Why at last? Only happy customers become advocates, helper in the word of mouth campaign or any other function to help create buzz and become buzz drivers into a market. Frustrated customers do the other way around. So starting in marketing - while very counter intuitive - is probably the biggest mistake you can make when you engage in social media.

Of course such changes would drive a some major changes in business organization. Therefore, it is important to have a clear view on how companies are thinking about using social media to run their business. And that is also the reason why a community manager is important, as it could coordinate company's efforts.

Customer Relationship Starts Before Customer’s First Purchase

Customer relationship management (CRM) aims to manage customer experiences. This implies to take control over the whole relationship with a customer, from its first purchase to the next ones.

But the journey to provide a great customer relationship doesn’t start when the customer buys its first product. Indeed, if loyalty is engaged after the second purchase, the relationship a customer has with one company has already started prior that.

Customer’s decision making process
A customer has already established some contacts with the brands during his decision making process. Either he visited a website, or ask the opinion of some friends, but he already has a picture in mind of who you are. Even prior the decision making process.

I believe the decision making process is indeed not taking into consideration as much as it should. Analysing this key event is important, because it will probably determine how to market a product and adapt its communication.

Branding Is Key Prior To Purchase
Hence, your brand, the way you communicate on your customer service and experience, will help you to set up a particular customer relationship with customers. A company

Promoting Customer Service
Also, as customer relationship management is starting before the customer enter the retail, it could have a clear expectation of what the relationship will be based on. Indeed, most of companies now promote their customer service policy and strategy on their website. By doing so, it alerts the customer that it is entering into a clear relationship where he'll get in returns of his loyalty some rewards and advantages.

Some Potential Tools To Evaluate Pre-customer Relationship
I believe the topic of CRM before the first purchase hasn't really been developped so far. Actually, it is difficult to have clear measure about this step, as company's can't really get any data, but still, some tools could give a good outlook. For instance, branding surveys or focus group based on non customers could help you define what potential customers believe the relationship will be about.

Do you have any other ideas about the topic? Let's discuss about it.

Les marques nationales contre attaquent

La crise a profondément changer les stratégies de communication des enseignes de la grande distribution en France. Pouvoir d'achat en berne, moyens de communication revue à la baisse, et bien sûr changement profond dans les modes de consommation ont conduit les enseignes tels que Auchan, Carrefour ou Leclerc à revoir leurs messages publicitaires:

• Auchan communique sur leurs premiers prix: Ils les affiches sur les affiches, en parlent à la télévision, les incorporent dans leurs prospectus.
  
• Carrefour lance Carrefour Discount: L'enseigne ayant du mal à assoir son image prix, elle décide de lancer une nouvelle gamme de produits premiers prix, en lui assignant sa marque comme gage de qualité.
• Leclerc poursuit sa stratégie de comparaison de prix: Mais cette fois-ci, Leclerc va plus loin en mettant en avant le fait que ces premiers prix sont aussi moins cher que la concurrence dans des spots télévisées. Leclerc est le moins cher sur toutes les gammes de produits, grandes marques, MDD, et premiers prix, et le fait savoir.
• Intermarché invente le concept de Discount utile: les produits à bas prix sont sélectionnés en fonction des besoins du consommateur, et non en fonction de ceux qui sont le plus margés. Ainsi Intermarché a développé un concept qu'il explique sur les différents média (prospectus, télévision, radio etc...)

L'objectif de ces changements profonds de communication est bien sûr de proposer au consommateur des solutions par rapport à la période actuelle de crise, mais aussi pour partir à l'offensive des hard discounts, qui à l'heure d'aujourd'hui, gagnent des parts de marché.

Les marques nationales contre attaquent
Aujourd'hui, c'est donc les marques nationales qui se trouvent à mal, puisqu'ils avaient l'habitude d'être les rois de la communication en hypermarché. C'est pour cela qu'il y a quelques jours je viens de voir une affiche sur le Coca Cola Zero. Le texte (approximatif, car en voiture, je n'ai pas pu prendre l'affiche en photo): "qui mieux que Coca Cola Zero peut vous offrir du Coca Cola Zero?"

Et l'affiche renvoie sur un lien Internet: Les marques et vous. Ainsi les grandes marques nationales décident de se défendre et de mettre en avant son aspect qualitatif afin de pouvoir contrer l'offensive des MDD et autres premiers prix. De plus, certaines études aux Etats-Unis ont montré qu'avec la crise, les foyers vont moins au restaurant, mais ce rabattent sur des produits de marque pour avoir la même qualité.

Cette initiative montre bien que les grandes marques, plutôt individualiste dans l'esprit, montrent elles aussi des signes de faiblesse, et leurs problèmes actuelles. Voici l'édito du site.

"A quoi servent les marques ?

Une grande marque, c’est une marque de fabricant.

Elle affiche et engage la responsabilité du fabricant. Elle signe et authentifie son produit en rappelant qu'il a été fabriqué selon ses exigences et sous son contrôle. Elle assure un niveau de qualité.

Une grande marque, c’est aussi le signe d'une relation durable avec le consommateur : garantie, service après-vente, améliorations, innovations font partie de leur histoire depuis plus 150 ans.

Imaginiez-vous tout ce dont les marques sont capables ?

Une grande marque, c'est aussi un engagement : pour les consommateurs bien sûr, mais aussi pour la société dans son ensemble. En mettant leur nom au service de causes qui nous concernent, telles que l'écologie, l'innovation ou le développement durable, les marques participent directement à l'avancement de grands projets sociétaux.

L'objectif de ce nouveau portail est de mettre en lumière les initiatives, souvent méconnues, des marques qui vous entourent, et de vous faire découvrir leur face « cachée »..."

Dunkin Donuts Set Up An Iphone App For New Marketing Campaign

Dunikin Donuts set up a new marketing campaign. As the competition is getting tougher, with Starbucks being hit by the crisis and Mc Donald's entering the market with Mc Cafe, Dunkin Donuts created a new campaign, which invites customers to create Dunkin's next Donut.
This $10 million campaign has brought in the opinions of 130 000 participants.

Also part of the strategy the company launched a new Iphone app, enabling users to create shopping list with different co workers. That is actually very smart as it fits to customer's decision making process, since most of the times co workers of a company will share their orders.
To find out more, check here.