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  1. Who Do You Blame for Fat?

    November 19, 2008  | Comments (2)

    We consumers are a growing market, pound by pound, inch by inch, and we’re growing by the simple act of consuming. Marketers work our ravenous appetites for food, sex, love, pleasure, security and status to their advantage every day.

    For many years critics have targeted the advertising business for pumping our desires into a frenzy of excess.  Nielsen, the company famous for monitoring our television-watching habits, also examines our consumption behavior in other areas.  Recently, it published a study titled “A Widening Market: The obese consumer in the U. S.”

    The Nielsen Consumer Insight study reports that three-fourths of American consumers believe that advertising encourages people to eat less-healthy food, and that food manufacturing companies should provide healthier food.

    The report says that most consumers don’t put as much blame on fast food companies.  They rank in the second tier of responsibility, alongside the government.

    Sarah Hills, in a report on the study for foodnavigator-usa.com, notes this is a radical shift in attitude from 2006, when Nielsen LifeChoices said 82 percent of American adults took individual responsibility for weight gain. Six percent blamed fast food companies, and only two percent blamed food manufacturers.

    According to the Body Mass Index, a third of Americans are obese. Women represent 54 percent of that group, and many are aged 55-64.  Older consumers who have grown fatter as they age tend to be more concerned about it than younger obese consumers.

    Nielson’s report is designed to help marketers “unlock” this consumer segment by helping them understand obese consumers and their self-perceptions.  This could result in the creation of products that address the obesity problem—or help us ignore it.

    A recent Credit Suisse report estimates that revenue from obesity products in the consumer staples sector, including food and beverage companies, will reach $1.4 trillion globally by 2012, with average annual growth of 9.2 percent from 2008. … more

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  2. Advertisers Miss the Mark for Car Buyers?

    November 6, 2008  | Comments (0)

    Think Gen Y is all about style over substance?  You might think that, judging from mass market vehicle commercials, says a San Diego marketing consultancy.

    Think again, says Strategic Vision, at least when it comes to buying a new vehicle.

    Data from the company’s 2007-2008 New Vehicle Experience Study suggests that folks born between 1979 and 1999 may not be very different from older new car buyers when it comes to preferences that influence purchases.

    According to a recent Marketing Daily article, safety and security in design and durability are much more important to Gen Yers than, say, how fun the vehicle is to drive.  The study says brands perceived to have higher security ratings are much more often considered for purchase regardless of whether they are considered “fun.”

    Gen Y new car buyers, 77% of whom are female, are likely to be college educated and buying for the first time. Seventy-nine percent of the surveyed buyers said they want a vehicle that offers security, can be trusted, is safe, and expresses confidence. If they perceive that security is built into the brand, then they’ll consider how fun and exciting it is.

    Gen Yers do have more interest in style and performance than older generations, but for the most part, when it comes to buying a new car, “any 19-year-old is more like their 50-year old parent than their Gen Y cohort,” says Strategic Vision spokesman Alexander Edwards.… more

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  3. What do we really want?

    August 1, 2008  | Comments (5)

    Sex sells. It sells games, deodorant, cars, even Centrum vitamins for seniors. Every once in a while, we hear some backlash against the advertising establishment, yet ads get racier by the minute, and downloads of those commercials increase exponentially. Women keep buying beauty products, watching TV shows and paying to see movies that perpetuate the idea that women should be bombshell brainiacs with superhuman powers and oozing sexuality. But it’s no longer all about female exploitation. Throw in Abercrombie and Fitch’s steamy male model campaigns and maybe, just maybe, the writing is on the wall. Maybe the truth is that humans respond to the visual and emotional impact of beauty and sexual images and there’s no getting around it. Maybe our instinct is to make ourselves feel good, and taking in attractive images makes us feel good--even motivated. Marketers know that urge, whether acknowledged or not by us, will always drive our buying habits.… more

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  4. Imagine That.

    June 27, 2008  | Comments (1)

    In Ben Stiller’s new movie “Tropic Thunder,” an action comedy about a movie by the same name, you’ll see an energy drink called “Booty Sweat” being swilled on camera. 

    A commercial for the imaginary drink opened a recent press screening for the film, prompting hilarity from the entertainment industry crowd that often witnesses Hollywood’s mercenary efforts to place product in films.

    This time, life imitates art.  Paramount Pictures is licensing “Booty Sweat” for production as a real beverage.  It will be on retail shelves at Hot Topic, Hastings, Wherehouse and Coconuts, as well as available through Amazon and college bookstores around the nation before the movie’s wide release August 15. Several hundred thousand cases have already been produced, according to an article in Advertising Age.

    The product will be packaged differently for urban and rural markets.  Urbanites will get the slang can, describing the contents as “delicious and bump up struttin’ energy drink…that will fill yo’ pimp pockets to burstin.’ Country folk will get the brand sans street slang.… more

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