Trends: Cupcake Social Branding Emerging
Ever since discovering Buttercup in London I knew the cupcake would play a larger role this year and so I was determined to frame a story around the cupcake phenomenon.
Believe it or not, the humble cupcake is now a viable marketing tool. Early adopters started paying attention to cupcakes in 2006, but this craze is now infiltrating the mainstream and is just going to spread farther and wider. What was seen as an old-fashioned indulgence of the yesteryears is now growing a new rep as a trendy “brandable” delicacy to have at some events.
The Comeback of Cupcakes
This isn’t just my intuition talking. Time magazine published an article Cupcake Nation in August 2006 discussing the rather unhealthy mania which has pushed the cupcake to unprecedented popularity. The New York Times published a story about the cupcake’s comeback, Resident Publications posted a list of cupcake bakeries in Manhattan, and ModernBaking.com published a story about customers going cuckoo for cupcakes.
From the groundswell cupcake aficionados Allison Bojarski, Nichelle Stephens and Rachel Kramer Bussel created the blog Cupcakes Take the Cake to cover everything related to the world of cupcakes. Their success has brought them on the Martha Stewart Show and also MSNBC. Other bloggers like Mej at Yo Mama confirms the comeback of cupcakes, EatLikeAGirl shares where cupcakes can be found in London, many others have given accounts of people going absolutely bonkers for cupcakes and the mania is showing no signs of abating.
Capitalizing on the Cupcake Mania
I have begun to notice that some companies have already jumped onto the cupcake bandwagon and are using these edible joythings ever so creatively.
Merchandising with the Cupcake Concept
Some companies are taking advantage of this trend and are creating cupcake-themed merchandise. Action Toys, Inc. announced in February 2008 that Crazy for Cupcakes toys are now available for children 3 years old and up, Johnny Cupcakes continues to cash in with themed merchandise and even luxury brands like Tiffany & Co. created an 18k-gold cupcake charm to serve cupcake enthusiasts.
Labeling of Cupcakes
Meanwhile on the more conservative side of the collective phenomenon, corporations are labeling their cupcakes for functions and events to foster loyalty among employees, express brand pride and extend brand awareness.
Absolutely anything from logos and images can now be printed using edible inks on icing sheets. It might surprise some to know that some Canon bubblejet printers are used to create them. These bespoke cupcakes can be ordered at specialist bakeries in most major cosmopolitan cities like San Francisco, New York, Chicago and London.
The Cupcake as a Product
While labeled cupcakes are bound to amuse some, Tiffany & Co. has taken the cupcake to a whole new level with the creation of the “Tiffany Cupcake.”
Last weekend I came across these Tiffany cupcakes inside a glamorous candy box-house setup with a touch of Hansel and Gretel charm. The signature Tiffany-blue cupcakes can be purchased for a little under £3 each by anyone visiting Somerset House. Tiffany is sponsoring the ice-skating event there and on Saturday mornings adult ticket holders can get them for free in conjunction with Breakfast with Tiffany.
Cupcake-as-a-product works very well for a luxury brand with a cult following like Tiffany. Many can’t afford to buy Tiffany items on a frequent basis and few of their products cost less than £100. What the Tiffany cupcake does is offer brand loyalists the exclusive Tiffany experience for £3. Some may argue that it brings down the exclusivity of the brand but cupcakes are perishable and the brand-addiction fix is only temporary. If anything the sugary cupcakes only serves to strengthen and proliferate an addiction to the Tiffany brand.
Should luxury brand owners decide to give the cupcake-as-a-product route a miss, they should still keep their eyes and ears open for groundswell activity. Brand loyalists are willing to spend more than just money but time to evangelize their favorite brands. As with the case of Tiffany, if brand enthusiasts can’t get the real thing in a blue box they’ll create their own experience by baking cupcakes or purchasing knockoff versions from artistic bakeries.
Say Hello to Social Branding
The Groundswell is Baking and Sharing Brands with Each Other
Whether successful brands like it or not, the groundswell is happily baking at the moment and if brand owners pay attention they could benefit from these activities. Brand loyalists, cupcake artists and bakeries are using the cupcake as a means of expression at parties and weddings to share brand experiences with their customers, friends and guests. Trademark and copyright violation concerns aside, people are baking works of domestic art and sharing that with other people at parties and also pictures of their creations on social networks like Facebook and Flickr.
Take a look at these cupcake pictures I found below:-
Tiffany Cupcakes
Beijing Olympics 2008 Cupcakes
Here is another example of branded cupcakes made to celebrate the Olympics. Some are professionally made-to-order and some are baked by amateurs. Notice how different the designs are.
Barack Obama Election Campaign 2008
Where the cupcake phenomenon has really made a noticeable impact is in the area of politics. Obama supporters have used the cupcake strategy to raise campaign dollars and to rally for more votes. A Flickr search for the term “Obama cupcakes” returns 527 results (as of today), not counting cookies. There is even a special interest group dedicated to Obama cupcakes and cookies.
Nintendo Super Mario Bros. Cupcakes
Video game enthisiasts from children to adults are enjoying Super Mario Bros. cupcakes independent of Nintendo’s involvement. This experience outlives the life cycle of a product version and will likely help sustain continued interest in Super Mario Bros. until a new version is released with a new gaming system.
Chanel Cupcakes
Last but not least, here are some amazing looking Chanel cupcakes. These will do well as treats girl friends give other girl friends on special occasions. Maybe they only seem relevant to women, but then so is the whole Chanel brand save the men’s line.
Embracing the Groundswell Bakery
Instead of panicking and threatening to sue Mary, Jane and Jill for trademark and copyright violation, brand owners should observe what is happening in the groundswell and learn to embrace the validation of their brand. It would serve brand owners well to sit back and enjoy the free promotion from volunteer brand evangelists, because the more people enjoy looking and eating knockoff cupcakes the stronger those brands become as a result of the viral sharing. The offline sensory experience will leak onto the online visual experience courtesy of cupcake creators and citizen journalists alike.
If you are a brand owner, this may be a good time to think about planting a seed for the groundswell to pick up on. Maybe they may just bake and share your brand with their friends.
Ad Tactics from Japan: Tissue Flyers
What is the best way to prevent people from throwing your flyers seconds after you’ve handed it out to them? Give them something they need — tissue wipes! These tissue paper packets that my friend brought back from Tokyo have advertising content either printed directly onto the plastic wrapping or come with a printed flyer insert placed at the base of the packet below the stack of tissue wipes.
YOUR AUDIENCE, THE RECEIVER
Consider the fact that every time someone takes out the tissue pack to get a sheet or two to use, they are exposed to the ad again and again until they finish using the tissues. Based on common sense, most people will keep these tissue packets for as long as there are still clean sheets of tissues in there that haven’t been used yet. On a subliminal level these ads are presented to the naked eye as it navigates through to find the opening of the packet. The ad presentation process is cleverly placed within the natural engagement process of a person getting a sheet of tissue. On an attentive level, people who are inquisitive would naturally let their eyes roam and analyze the literature of the products they interact with, thus allowing you that opening to send your message across.
SECONDARY ATTENTION, THE RECEIVER’S IMMEDIATE NETWORK
Here’s another possible scenario. If a tissue pack makes it around a post-meal table, other people are also exposed to these ads. I imagine some of the more attractive and creative ads would act as conversation triggers, and what better way to get people to talk about your products, services, and brand. What a smart, cost-effective, and practical way to advertise!
There are many other scenarios where such a tissue flyer may work very well for some. Everyone needs to wipe their mouths, sweat, and goo off of their faces and skin. Why haven’t western businesses caught on to this yet? I’m just waiting to see the western world get creative and adopt this smart little tactic to communicate their products and services to an audience that are just waiting to hoard some free packets of tissue paper for daily use.
COMPELLING AVENUE OF OPPORTUNITY
But of course, I would not bother discussing this little-known avenue if I did not believe there is a compelling potential for success behind it. I do however believe marketing has to be relevant or it is akin to flushing your money down the toilet. Retailers and restaurants will probably benefit from the tissue flyer the most because of its relevance. People need to wipe after they eat, mothers need to wipe their babies constantly, and women need to soak oil off of their t-zone, and people generally need tissue paper to maintain personal hygiene.
LIFE, INTERCEPTED
In any economic climate (not limited to a recessive or depressive one) businesses have to be creative and work smart to avoid sinking. That acumen should reach a breadth that is not confined to a design canvas alone. Businesses need to seek ways to appeal to an audience that are more resistant to traditional advertising, and a very controversial but promising place to start is to embrace the way of life of your target audience. By intercepting the process in which they carry out the necessary steps to complete a task, you have automatically created an awareness of your message, however effective. In the case of the tissue flyer, the goal for the user is to remove a lingering discomfort by way of drying and cleaning the body and its immediate environment of undesired particles. In order to execute that task successfully, people would need to look at the tissue wrapper’s surface to find the opening in order to reach the holy whiteness of a solution to their problems, which is tucked inside the glory that is your ad message.
I think it is an absolutely brilliant idea. What do you think?
Change.gov: Obama Continues To Use the Web
Ladies and gentleman, check out http://www.change.gov. I am officially rendered speechless for the rest of the night, but I thought I’d share this with you. I am especially impressed that Obama has put his agenda out for all to track. That is so incredibly professional of him. Kudos to him and his team for even bothering!
I admire the fact that the site was all done in anticipation of Obama’s victory because it shows that a lot of pre-work was done before he was even elected president. I’ll bet you ten dollars there’s a PMI or PRINCE2 certified programme manager behind Obama internet projects. This is exciting stuff, so very exciting!
The Recycling of Advertising Ideas
The Beer Boys have come together to back Obama! Here is a 2008 rendition of the Budweiser Wassup Campaign from 2000 that is adapted for the Obama presidential campaign. Although I think this idea did outlive its appeal on television sets, to see it resurface in the context of the U.S. election is a delight. This goes to show that good ideas, even those that have gone stale can be reused and adapted for other brands through capitalizing on the relationships that were formed by a legacy brand. In this case, the Obama brand is clearly benefiting from its genius. Enjoy!
UPS Widget on Groundswell and Other News
GROUNDSWELL
The UPS widget project that I worked on earlier this year at McCann-Erickson got a mention on Page 34 of Groundswell. Published by Harvard Business Press in May 2008, the much-celebrated book by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff goes into detail about a world that is transformed by social technologies and how you can use them to work to your advantage. I am only on Chapter 5 at the moment but it is definitely coming across as a “must-read.” I found their breakdown of the Social Technographics Profile helpful for online strategy formulation. Traditional audience segmentation unfortunately do not reflect the current participation levels and groups on the Internet and thus are not particularly insightful for the kind of work we do anymore. Forrester Research has the most relevant data and that has been the foundation to the writing of this book by two of their senior analysts. (P.S. Charlene left Forrester recently to start her own consulting company Altimeter Group. Here’s where to grab a copy of Groundswell.
SEESMIC
Johann Romefort, CTO of Seesmic has abandoned Paris for the moment and will now shake his French lovely locks for San Franciscan admirers. Although I did interview him in London, we were interrupted by un chien et une abeille at Kensington Gardens. Although the whole thing was caught on video, I’ll spare myself the embarrassment of being attacked by a buzzing bee mid-interview and show you a picture of triumphant avoiders of the bee-sting!
Johann Romefort and Jackie Miao. London, July 2008
YOUTUBE STARDOM
I’ve been tracking YouTube music stars like Kina Grannis, David Choi, TheBathroomGirl, JillianMarieThomas and SinginDork888, because these folks are really really good! Check out David Choi’s cover of How Deep Is Your Love below. Enjoy the sing-song!
What About User-Generated Advertisements?
I wanted to share this blog post, Letting your Community Create your Advertisements by Jeremiah Owyang. I think what Dell has done with their Regeneration campaign and the way they are pointing in terms of how the advertising industry will pick up from this is not something to be ignored.
Email Marketing Is Not Rocket Science
I shudder at email marketers who talk incessantly about email best practices like your business would die unless you listen to them and practice what they preach. So-called e-mail marketing experts are not usability experts and what they say is a regurgitation of what is already common sense to Uncle Jimmy and Auntie Jill. The palatability of email isn’t rocket science.
Everyone knows people usually hate emails unless it is from their adulterous lover or children living 3000 miles away. Majority of emails are spam-ads that people dodge like the plague. Saying that, people still heavily depend on email for business and as a way of life as they willingly put up with all the crap that floods their inbox in exchange for the illusive satisfaction of “knowing.”
I guess you have an advantage there if you’re thinking of marketing via email. However, that advantage probably only gives you 2 seconds of your reader’s attention, before he or she decides their internet connection is too slow to download the pretty graphics you’ve laboriously designed. At the end of the day, the game has not changed. Email is merely a channel just like print flyers are, although being instantly interactive means you can provide a more convenient way for your readers to respond to whatever incitement you choose to dish out to them.
I insist that the game and rules haven’t changed. People will still only give their attention to brands and the people they trust. In the end, the longterm success of your business depends on TRUST, SERVICE AND QUALITY.
Saying that, email is a great way to maintain relationships with your customers and to keep them informed about things that matter to them. You still need a good marketing strategy but here’s some statistics and metrics from EmailLabs to satisfy your need to know whether you are a service provider or business looking to use email as a channel of delivery.
Who?
JACKIE MIAO
Digital Consultant/ Project Manager
Location: Everywhere-
