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Cashing in on the Royal Wedding – 5 Bizarre Royal Wedding Merchandise Options

Back in November 2010 when Prince William and Kate Middleton announced their engagement, analysts quickly spoke up about the money the royal wedding could bring to the U.K. retail sector. Early estimates predicted that royal wedding-related merchandise revenue could reach more than $40 million.

Now, the Royal Wedding is upon us and merchandise with Prince William and Kate Middleton imagery or related messaging is flooding the market. Following are some particularly creative (i.e., strange) products featuring the future king and queen’s likenesses:

Beer

One bottle of the special Royal Virility Performance Beer from Britain’s BrewDog brewery contains one-third of the amount of a prescription Viagra dosage. If that’s not enough to get your libido going, Royal Virility Performance Beer also includes chocolate and Horny Goat Weed–two ingredients known for their aphrodisiac powers.


Don’t worry. If you don’t need a Viagra boost, there could still be a Royal Wedding-related beer for you such as Adnams Royal Wedding Ale which lists honey as a key ingredient (according to the Adnams website, honey beers have been used to celebrate weddings for years–hence the term “honeymoon”).

Another option, Kiss Me Kate, comes from England’s Castle Rock Brewery.

Condoms

Crown Jewels aren’t just any condoms. As the tagline says, these are “condoms of distinction.” These condoms come in a souvenir heirloom collector’s box and include a collectible portrait of the royal couple.

Sick Bags

Royal Wedding not your thing? Feeling ill from all the media attention? Try the Throne Up Royal Wedding Sick Bags — available in red or blue.

Toilet Seat Covers

So the Royal Couple can be with you at all times, try the Royal Wedding commemorative toilet seat cover!

Refrigerator

You can break away from the royal nuptials for a snack and still see the Royal Couple’s smiling faces in gigantic size on your refrigerator doors with the GE/GDHA royal refrigerator.

I guess it’s not surprising that the Lord Chamberlain’s office issued guidelines for Royal Wedding merchandise in December. The Royal Wedding is big bucks and retailers aren’t going to miss their chance to cash in.

What’s your favorite Royal Wedding merchandise? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Web Email Provider Affects Email Marketing Response Rates

For most brands, email marketing is a critical component of the marketing plan and response rates and return on investment are scrutinized very closely. But are you analyzing response rates based on recipients’ email providers?  According to new research by Chitika, you might want to start.

Depending on the web email provider a person uses, that person may be more likely or less likely to click on links in your email marketing messages. Furthermore, that person might be more or less likely to stay on your website after clicking through to it depending on the web email provider he or she uses.

The top web email providers in North America in March 2011 Yahoo! Mail. The market share breakdown is as follows (via eMarketer):

  • Yahoo! Mail = 62%
  • Windows Live = 27%
  • AOL Mail = 7%
  • Gmail = 4%

Separate research from other companies has revealed that Gmail has a much larger market share than the Chitika study claimed (closer to 30% market share). However, the demographics and behaviors of Yahoo! Mail versus Gmail users does not seem to change from one study to the next.  Those demographics and behaviors follow:

  • Gmail users tend to be younger than other web email users.
  • Yahoo! Mail users are more likely to open and click on email marketing messages to visit the email message landing page.
  • Gmail users are more likely to click through the email message landing page when they arrive on it than Yahoo! Mail users.

These findings tell marketers a few important things that you should be watching in your own brand email marketing campaigns. First, Gmail users may be more tech-savvy and are more choosy about which email marketing messages they actually open. Second, when you can convince a Gmail user to open and click through to your email landing page, you’re more likely to convert that visitor to a sale or reach your goal. The Chitika research showed that Gmail users are three times more likely to click through when they arrive at an email marketing landing page than Yahoo! Mail or Windows Live mail users are.

It’s interesting to think of different ways that you can slice and dice the demographic profiles and behavioral profiles of customers and email marketing message recipients. There may come a time when you reach a point in your analysis that you can delete specific web email providers from your email marketing list entirely. It’s something to think about.

Image: stock.xchng

The Quantifiable Value of Return Policies for Brands

In a recent study by Northwestern University and MIT researchers (reported by Neuromarketing Blog), a quantifiable value was placed on retail return policies.  While it may seem like the real value of return policies comes from the positive brand perceptions they create, there are now hard metrics that prove return policies are important and should be well promoted

In the study, researchers determined the specific value that customers put on having the option to return items they purchase online.  As you might expect, the value was closely tied to the perceived risk of a purchase.  However, the study also reveals some specifics about how much more customers are willing to pay for a great return policy.

The study determined that the value of a return policy on men’s shirts equates to $3.19. For women’s shirts, the value is $5.00. However, the value of a return policy on women’s shoes is $15.81. These valuations make sense when you consider the fact that purchasing a man’s shirt is less risky than purchasing shoes for a woman. Without actually trying the shoes on, it can be difficult for women to find the right fit. Men’s shirts are more likely to fit without trying them on than women’s shoes are. It’s a riskier online purchase making the value of a good return policy five times higher for women’s shoes than men’s shirts.

Of course, a good return policy can mean different things to different people, but offering comparisons between your return policy and competitors’ return policies can demonstrate to consumers that yours is more valuable (assuming it’s better than your competitors’ return policies). If your return policy is great, make sure your customers know it, too. They need to understand its value in order to see it as an important benefit to them and differentiator of your brand from others.

You can follow the link to read the complete Northwestern University and MIT study findings. It’s filled with statistical analysis and information you can take to your leadership team to help you sell the need for your brand to have a great return policy.

Image: stock.xchng

Which Brands are Engaging Fans on Facebook Pages?

A new study of over 200 million Facebook page fans conducted by Visibli reveals some interesting findings about how well brands are engaging consumers on the most popular social networking site.

Some of the highlights from the study tell us:

  • Audi Facebook Page fans are highly engaged. The only other brand to rank in the top 5 Facebook pages with a minimum of 100,000 “likes” ranked by Visibli is American Airlines. See the chart below for details.
  • Celebrity Facebook pages are the most active and their audiences are the most engaged. In fact, engagement increases as celebrity Facebook pages grow. The exact opposite is true of brand Facebook pages.
  • Celebrity Facebook pages get twice as many “likes” as brand and media organization Facebook pages get.
  • Media organizations get 2 and a half times as many comments on their Facebook pages than celebrities get and 5 times more than brands get.
  • Half of the “likes” on posts published on Facebook pages happen within the first hour and 20 minutes after the post is published. 80% happen within the first seven hours and 95% happen within the first 22 hours after the post is published.

What can brands learn from this study? First, media organizations are doing a better job of encouraging Facebook page fans to publish comments and join the conversation than brands are. Furthermore, Audi and American Airlines are two branded Facebook pages to review and determine how you can implement similar strategies into your own brand Facebook pages to boost engagement.  Finally, it’s easy to spend less time on your brand’s Facebook page as the audience gets bigger and bigger simply because you’re no longer publishing and interacting in an effort to build your fan base. However, you can’t let your Facebook activities slide just because your audience is growing organically. The online audience is fickle. If you’re not providing fresh and interesting content and conversations, they’ll replace your brand with another in the blink of an eye. Don’t let them get away.

Getting fans to like your Facebook page is only the first step. Once you have them listening, you have to give them meaningful information that they’ll want to share and talk about. That’s how Facebook pages become a successful indirect marketing tool and can help build your brand, business and bottom-line.

What do you think? Leave a comment and share your thoughts about brand Facebook page engagement.

Image: Visibli

Foreign Brands Hold Strong in China

China is a hot spot for brands around the world as more and more companies focus on the huge audience of consumers there. For example, just last month I was interviewed about how the Playboy brand can position itself for future success in Asia, particularly in China, based on my research about the brand in my book Building Brand Value the Playboy Way. You can read that interview and article in English on AsiaOne.com. It’s an interesting read.

Now, research from marketing consultancy R3 reveals that consumers in China are more open to foreign brands than you might think. Every three months, R3 conducts research in 10 cities in China among an audience of 15-40 year old respondents. These people rate brands based on three factors: preference (within a brand’s category), engagement (if the brand is correctly linked with a celebrity or media asset), and values (if the brand has strong values and associations with consumers).

During the first quarter of 2011, 19 of the top 50 brands in China were not from local companies (according to the 10,500 study respondents). While China Mobile, owner of the largest mobile network in the world, ranked at the top of the overall list, it didn’t take the top spot for the engagement rating. That top spot went to BBK, an electronics company in China.

BBK’s enagement rating was closely trailed by Nike’s engagement rating. Why does the athletic-wear company rank so high in China? As Sunny Chen, Senior Researcher for R3, explains, Nike “leads for strong engagement and association with stars and media in China.” Consumers in China like brands that are associated with popular celebrities and media properties. They’re also spending more time on popular social sites in China such as Q-Zone and shopping sites like Taobao, according to R3’s research. Social media has the ability to reach Chinese consumers faster than traditional media, and those consumers are actively looking for information from brands.

Which brands are engaging consumers in China? The top 10 as ranked in Q1 2011 are listed below. You can find the rest in the complete list from R3.

  1. China Mobile
  2. Nokia
  3. Nike
  4. Apple
  5. LiNing
  6. Lenovo
  7. KFC
  8. Mengnlu
  9. Sony
  10. Coca-Cola

There is a new world of opportunity for brands to connect with new consumers in the China market. Is your brand there yet? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Flickr

2010 Online Ad Revenues Jump to $26 Billion in the United States

If there was any question as to whether or not online advertising is doing well, a new report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) gives the answer. In 2010, online ad revenues in the United States grew by an impressive 15% to $26 billion. Clearly, online advertising is a key component of brand marketing plans that shows no signs of slowing down.

The biggest winner in the online advertising realm during 2010 was sponsorships, which according to the IAB and PWC report, grew 88% over 2009 and included an incredible 142% increase in just the fourth quarter of 2010. However, sponsorships make up a very small part of overall online ad revenue. Search advertising holds the top spot at over $12 billion for 2010 (a 12% increase over 2009). Display advertising (including banner ads, display ads, and rich media) takes the number two spot and grew 24% over 2009 to $10 billion in 2010. Digital video advertising jumped by 40% in 2010.

The 2009 and 2010 ad revenue by format data from the report is provided below:

The IAB and PWC conduct this research semi-annually, and the 2010 data report marks the fifth year in a row that annual online advertising revenue has grown. The new report also includes mobile ad revenue in the United States for the first time. With 2010 mobile ad revenue estimated to be between $550 and $650 million, we can expect to see those numbers skyrocket in the 2011 report.

Another interesting finding in the IAB and PWC report relates to the increased focus on performance-based advertising, which made up 62% of online ad revenue in 2010 (up from 59% in 2009) versus impression-based advertising at just 33% (down from 37% in 2009) and hybrid at just 5% (up from 4% in 2009).

Online advertising is growing for a number of reasons. First, customers are spending more time online than ever before. Second, there is a lot of unsold display advertising inventory out there so pricing is attractive to advertisers. Third, there are a lot of opportunities available for advertisers to seize in the “less popular” ad formats such as digital video, sponsorships, and mobile. These advertising opportunities aren’t already taken, so there is still time to make your brand stand out from the crowd in mobile advertising or online video advertising.

What do you think about the current state and future of online advertising? Which online advertising formats do you plan on investing in to advertise your brand in 2011 and 2012? Leave a comment and share your opinion.