Tag: Holiday shopping

Oreo Launches Pop-up Ecommerce Site To Attract Holiday Gift Shoppers

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Oreo is dipping its toe into ecommerce as the popular cookie brand opens its first branded ecommerce site (gifts.oreo.com) to sell holiday-themed Oreo cookies directly to the gift shoppers. Unlike other ecommerce site, however, this Oreo Gifts site offers an interesting feature where the gift buyer can simply put in the email address or mobile number of the recipient without filling out the address. The recipient will receive a notification via text or email with instruction on how to claim their gifts.

Why Brands Should Care
Oreo is not the only popular snack brand to venture into ecommerce in time for the holiday season. Earlier this month, Cheetos launched an online shop that sells branded holiday gifts ranging from clothing to perfume. Oreo’s parent company Mondelez International says the site is part of a global e-commerce strategy, which it is expecting to grow by at least $1 billion in revenue by 2020. As more and more consumers opting for the convenience of online shopping, traditional CPG brands should take a cue from Mondelez and start exploring ecommerce opportunities to reclaim some of the diminishing distribution channels and build a lasting customer relationship.

 

Source: PR Newswire


Lead image courtesy of Oreo Gifts

Amazon To Lure Holiday Shoppers With Alexa-Exclusive Deals

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon is set to lure more holiday shoppers to try out its Alexa-enabled Echo devices with exclusive deals. Starting with the upcoming Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and lasting until the rest of the year, Amazon will be offering customers special deals available only through its digital assistant service. In addition, Amazon is also offering customers who purchase an Alexa-exclusive deal between now and Cyber Monday a bonus $5 Amazon gift card. Earlier this year, the ecommerce giant offered similar Alexa-exclusive deals during its Prime Day sales event, which proved quite popular with Alexa users.

What Brands Should Do
As Amazon continues to integrate shopping capabilities into Alexa and incentivizing more shoppers to try it out, it is familiarizing millions of its customers with voice-based conversational commerce as well as locking in their customer loyalty. With Alexa-enabled devices gaining traction with mainstream consumers, voice ordering is something that retail and CPG brands need to look out for.

For other brands, the popularization of voice-based digital assistant devices like Echo or Google Home also opens up a new channel for brands to reach customers in their living rooms. For instance, Amazon recently created an audio game for Alexa to promote its upcoming original auto show The Grand Tour, showing the potential for companies to connect with customers through similar conversational branded content.

The Lab has extensive experience with building Alexa skills and helping brands navigate the new realities that conversational interfaces are set to bring. If you’re interested in learning more about our take on this topic, please reach out and schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: AdWeek

Facebook And Instagram Wrap Up Holiday Shoppers For Advertisers

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
As Black Friday draws near, Facebook and Instagram are ramping up their ad products for the upcoming holiday shopping season. In fact, the two social networks will offer advertisers and brands the option to target holiday shoppers, based on their posts and interactions with others containing holiday-related keywords. The new segment is available within Facebook self-service ad dashboards in the “Behaviors” section under the “Seasonal and Events” category. Macy’s is one of the brands that are already utilizing this new targeting option, running a holiday campaign using Instagram’s new multi-video ad format called Marquee.

What Brands Need To Do
Even though Black Friday is becoming less and less relevant due to the impact of ecommerce, holiday shopping as a whoel will still count as a big portion of retailers’ annual sales. Therefore, for brands that are interested in making a big push for holiday shoppers, this new targeting tool from Facebook may prove useful.

 

Source: Marketing Land

On Trend: How Ecommerce Is Eroding Black Friday

Posted on by Richard Yao

Amazon might have just severely undermined the cultural relevance of Black Friday.

On Wednesday, the ecommerce giant announced its plan to start offering its Black Friday deals on Nov. 20 – a full week ahead of Black Friday. Amazon Prime members will be granted a half-hour earlier access to many deals than the general public. Facing pressure from Amazon’s aggressively proactive approach, traditional retailers like Best Buy, Toys “R” Us, Kmart, and Sears are all starting their Black Friday sales early this year so as not to be left out.

More importantly, as more and more people start shopping online and taking advantage of easier comparison shopping, most retailers are now offering the same Black Friday deals online, giving customers less incentive to visit the store. No more lining up for the doorbusters at Walmart this year, as the retail giant has opted to provide nearly all of its deals both online and in stores, with the online deals becoming available at midnight on Thanksgiving day, 18 hours before the stores open.  

Overall, the disruption ecommerce has caused what analysts call the “graying” of Black Friday, where holiday sales start earlier and are spread out evenly throughout the holiday, thus making Black Friday less relevant. For retailers, this means a longer holiday sales period that starts earlier. Some retailers, such as Amazon and Toy “R” Us, are offering their loyalty program members early access, which creates smart sales windowing to incentivize the shoppers.

Besides starting early and rewarding loyal fans with early access, retailers should also consider making a push for mobile shopping this year. Amazon, for example, plans to offer a slew of mobile-only deals in hopes of driving more consumers to its app. Using mobile-exclusive deals to incentivize more shoppers to download branded retail apps can help retailers establish a digital touchpoint on shoppers’ smartphones, allowing them to connect with shoppers on the go. Apps can also provide consumer data for retailers to learn valuable insights into consumer insights.

Ecommerce may be eroding Black Friday’s importance as the biggest annual sales event, but it is also what will help retailers to reach today’s connected consumers and stay relevant in the long run.