Advertising and Marketing Division Web Site: Los Angeles, 2002 Program Calendar

Food Marketing: From Applebee’s to Zabar’s
By Sara Stein, Bates

Speaker: Joan Leake, Center for Marketing Intelligence, Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc.

Moderator: Robin Feuerstein, Center for Marketing Intelligence, IPG

Food marketing encompasses an unusually wide variety of topics—including all sorts of restaurants and stores, food processing, packaged food, nutrition, health, and more. Food marketing researchers can expect questions that range from “Tell me about the vending machine market for bottled water” to “I need numbers on soup sales in quick-service restaurants” to “Write a report on packaging trends in frozen foods.”

Interpublic’s food expert Joan Leake gracefully combined an overview of this unwieldy topic with numerous savvy tips for researchers in her presentation. She also provided participants with an annotated bibliography of online resources, both free and fee-based.

Joan began by reviewing marketplace trends. Understanding consumer needs is essential, she stressed, and what consumers want in 2002 is convenience, whether it’s in restaurants or in food preparation. Off-premises restaurant food sales (in other words, “takeout”) have increased, while on-premises restaurant sales are nearly flat.

Among Joan’s searching tips were the following:

For top-line findings, use “Technomic” or “NPD” or “Mintel” (major food-research outfits) in search strategies. Similarly, look for food-industry analyst Ron Paul’s name in articles.
The UK-based New Nutrition Business is an excellent resource for global analysis of food and health trends and marketing insights.
Other favorite resources include: American Demographics, Nation’s Restaurant News, Mass Market Retailer, and Food Technology (especially Elizabeth Sloan’s column on consumer trends).
A favorite alert comes from from Morningnewsbeat.com. Their opinions are sometimes debatable, but they always have a strong point of view on issues.

Make sure to download a copy of Joan’s bibliography of sources that she presented at the conference. Click here.

Trendspotting
By Stephen Fleming

Speakers: Gene Balk, The Orange County Register and Ellen Ratchye, Fallon Worldwide

Moderator: Linda Henderson, The Providence Journal

The News Division and the Ad-Marketing Division co-hosted this session on how to research “trends.”

First to speak was Gene Balk, Librarian at The Orange County Register. According to Gene, “trends are trendy,” not only because they are a popular research question, but also because they are a way in which librarians strut their stuff to the outside world.

He suggests using the following search strategy on Lexis-Nexis’s ALLNWS file for finding good articles on trends:

terms(trends) and terms(market research or demographics or fashion or luxury goods or youth culture or youth market or mature market or boomer or empty nester or retiree or (generation pre/2 (x or y or z))) and (geography(north america) or country(united states)) and date aft mm/dd/yyyy and not terms(economic or financial or profits or trade or business or employment or editorials or census or politics)

According to Gene, this will turn up about 40-60 articles per week with a 60-70% relevancy rating.

He also suggests using the Business & Industry file on Lexis-Nexis (RDSB&I) using the same search strategy but with an expanded date range. These articles will be more focused, so you can delete some of the “and not” terms.

Tablebase is another database he recommends (RDSTBL), especially if you are looking for statistics. He suggests using their product index as this file is particularly useful for searching on a specific product.

Another file for trendspotting on Lexis-Nexis is RPOLL, the Public Opinion file. Here you can search surveys from Gallup, Harris, Roper, ABC, CBS, USA Today, and other sources.

Gene did not go into details about searching for trends on Factiva, Proquest or other services, but he did refer to them as other, viable sources.

On the Internet, Gene recommended just a few sites:

MarketResearch.com (some free statistics in report abstracts)
http://www.marketresearch.com

Statistics.com (with links to reliable web sources, some dead links though)
http://www.statistics.com

Faith Popcorn
http://www.faithpopcorn.com

TrendCentral (good for youth market, Generation X, Generation Y, and regional markets)
http://www.trendcentral.com

Iconoculture (market research firm specializing in generational marketing – i.e. Gen X, Gen Y, Boomers)
http://www.iconoculture.com

Bolt (portal for people ages 15-24 with numerous consumer surveys)
http://www.bolt.com

Ice Lounge (Generation Y product ratings)
http://www.icelounge.com

Gene also suggested joining e-newsletters.

He also advised us not to forget the telephone and recommends getting to know your company’s own market research department, which often has a wealth of untapped information from internal sources.

The Ad-Marketing speaker was Ellen Ratchye, who works for Fallon Worldwide as a “General Specialist.” Part of her job is to observe popular culture and see approaching trends on the horizon. She explained how she does this by presenting a case study involving one of Fallon’s clients, Nordstrom.

The client asked “Who is the customer of the future?” and Ellen traced back over the process of how she and others at Fallon answered this question. Her tools were the Internet, Lexis-Nexis, RoperASW, the US Census and others (Dialog, Gallup, CIA World Factbook).

While not a professional librarian, Ellen showed us how a typical advertising end-user would go about tracking trends. As an added interest, she explained that both her mother and her grandmother had worked in libraries.

Editors note: This was only one of two “regular” sessions mentioned by name in the July/August 2002 edition of Information Today in a general article about the conference.

Speakers: Grace Villamora, Euro RSCG McConaughy Tatham and Mary Ellen Bates, Bates Information Services

Moderator: Susan Henczel, CAVAL Collaborative Solutions

Based on Grace Villamora’s book, Super Searchers on Madison Avenue, to be published in January, Grace and Mary Ellen Bates presented some of the findings to one of the most highly attended A & M division sessions of the week. Grace began by stating that advertising and marketing information professionals are a “different breed.” We answer any question under the sun, cover multiple industries and disciplines, have a broad-based knowledge and work in a knowledge-hungry environment that is also intense and fast-paced while remaining passionate and flexible.

Some of the strategies for staying visible and in demand in the agency include walking around the office, providing orientation and training programs, participating in account status meetings, and establishing a good rapport with experts and suppliers. Further strategies for success on the job include getting a hobby and keeping a life outside of the office, acquiring a keen awareness of mass or pop culture, and owning the agency’s intranet with news briefs, resource guides and competitive reports.

Mary Ellen went on to detail various methods that she found in common among all the Super Searchers. For instance, push for live reference interviews instead of email. “Disambiguate” language that is used by the patrons. Ask for context and have the patron simply describe the situation. Always negotiate the deadlines and format that the information will be delivered in.

Make sure you know how the information will be used. Is it one bullet in a 50-slide Powerpoint presentation? Or is it the key point that will be made? Sometimes a one-sentence answer is all the client needs. Package and highlight the results “to go.” For demographic information on specific market segments, browse book stores, read the group’s magazines and newspapers, and even socialize with the group. Hang out with them and listen to what they talk about.

More secrets to success include maintaining an internal database of “a-ha!” sources, saturate yourself with knowledge through TV, newspapers, magazines, movies and books, learn to deal with short deadlines, multitask and feed partial answers to clients as you go.

Both Mary Ellen and Grace included favorite sites and sources in their presentations. Be sure to check out their presentation at www.BatesInfo.com/madison.html.

Speaker: Cindy Romaine, Librarian to the Stars, Nike Design Library

Moderator: Susan Scheiberg, RAND

At the beginning of this session, attendees were shown two short Nike videos for a better understanding of who Nike’s customers are. The first video described Nike’s “unwritten maxim” and showed people playing a number of different sports (basketball, baseball, soccer, skiing, football, etc…). The second video showed two Nike advertisements. Both of these videos portrayed Nike’s belief that as long as you have a body, you are an athlete. Ms. Romaine felt it was necessary for the audience to get a clear understanding of the environment and mindset of Nike employees to understand how and why the library offers what it does.

The presentation went on to discuss Nike’s creative process. Ms. Romaine pointed out that designers look at problems differently than other disciplines. The creative process is made up of the following steps:

Collect – research and gather pertinent information
Converse – explore ideas to arrive at a concept (i.e. sketches)
Create – apply the concept and execute the design
Construct – produce the design and put it in place (library is not really involved at this step)
Conserve – manage and protect the evolving brand

The next topic was inspiration. We were told that the designers at Nike find inspiration everywhere. Athletes and consumers are an enormous source of ideas for creative people. Ms. Romaine worked to create a “Design Resources” area (the library) that would help to provide this inspiration. It’s a three-dimensional sanctuary where designers can come to experience new materials. She has made sure that everything is very visual, including the catalog. The trend researcher who shares the library space “guides design and aesthetic choices.” Ms. Romaine spoke about the role of the library within the organization. She stated, “The library must be able to understand the pressures the clients are working with are fundamental” and must “customize services to the client”.

The Design Library’s collection is composed of books, magazines and databases related to Nike’s creative direction. Specifically, the collection is focused on the following subject areas:

Art
Architecture
Industrial Design
Travel & Industrial Trends
Authentic pieces

The library also exhibits quarterly displays. The latest exhibit was entitled “Something I Saw or Thought Was Cool.” Everyone in the company was invited to include an item in the display. Ms. Romaine went on to discuss another recent time and labor-intensive exhibit. The topic was biomimicry, which is a “conscious emulation of nature’s geniuses.” The purpose of this exhibit was to draw people into the library and provide inspiration to develop stronger and innovative products. Biomimicry gave the designers a “new palette” of ideas to work with. Examples of items on display included a goat’s foot which was used as inspiration for the design of a new mountain-climbing shoe with a bottom grip that mimicked the goat’s foot and a woodpecker’s skull that was used to design a more cushioning football helmet. This exhibit also had workshops and books. One wall was painted in black chalk-board paint so that attendees could write down their thoughts and impressions of the exhibit for all to see. Ms. Romaine and her staff spent over six months planning for this three-month exhibit.

How do the librarians have time for all this? They “outsource everything but the smile.”

Speaker: Isabel Valdes, Santiago-Valdes Solutions

Moderator: Mark Bazzetta, Prenax

As a group, over 40 million Hispanic Americans live in the United States. This is approximately 12% of the population, creates over 10.5 million households and adds up to $560 billion in purchasing power. At the US Hispanic Marketing session in LA, Isabel Valdes, a Hispanic market guru and author, shared a phenomenal amount of information on this explosive market.

Ms. Valdes said the biggest misconceptions are that Hispanic Americans (also known as American Latinos) are speak Spanish 100% of the time, they suffer from low incomes and that simply translating ads or communications is all a marketer has to do to reach them.

Not so.

In reality, Hispanic Americans are a richly diversified segment with sub-cultures from over 30 countries. The variations drive their Spanish preference, media habits, values and consumer interests. Over a third (35%) of US Hispanics are younger than 18 years of age vs. 26% of the overall US population. In 2002, the growth of the Hispanic population translates to 2 million new consumers, over $50 billion in additional disposable income and over half a million newly formed households.

Over 70% of Hispanics are either foreign born or first generation Americans, clearly demonstrating the impact of the Hispanic culture on these individuals. Whether they’re first, second or third generation US-born Hispanics, they have marketing savvy and are brand “mature.” Foreign-born Hispanics, both recent arrivals and long-term residents, lack the understanding of brands and brand heritage and are information and advertising hungry as they acculturate. Levels and rates of acculturation vary between sub-ethnic groups (Cuban, Mexican, Caribbean, etc), generations, regions and even within families.

Most Hispanic babies and children are being raised bilingual and bicultural. The population of children is 7 million in 2002 and this will grow more than 25% by 2010, faster than any other group. They live mostly in bilingual households, with fewer in English-dominant households. However, they have more in common with American youth and have experienced a society where it’s “ok” to be different.

The Latino Boomer segment has over 7 million Hispanics between the ages of 40 and 59, or every 1 in 6 Hispanics. They are considered a sandwich generation between the old and new Latino cultures with 60% being foreign born. Those born elsewhere have resided in the US for about half of their adult lives and have become or are becoming US citizens. They are slowly acculturating, motivated by children and labor opportunities. Many more are fully bilingual but not necessarily bicultural. Most have credit cards, many own brand new cars and in selected markets more own their own homes than ever before. There’s almost a universal ownership of durable goods like cameras, TVs, microwave ovens and DVD players.

Hispanics report 9.71 hours of daily media time, similar to African Americans, but over two hours more than Non-Hispanic whites. This is attributed to the higher TV and radio time of Hispanics. Television is an extremely strong medium for reaching Hispanic households. Hispanic television households have grown 32% while cable viewing households have grown 48%. Hispanic radio is also growing and has the potential to deliver specific and precise targets. Internet penetration has increased dramatically, now at 41% among all Hispanics.

How can marketers manage this exploding audience? First, identify the segment of Hispanic consumers you would like to target. Then, learn what is different about those consumers. Develop messages and campaigns that communicate in the proper culture and language. Think “personal contact,” for example, train staff on how different the shopping experience is for foreign-born Hispanics. Add Latino and/or “Latino friendly” employees. Use models or talent who look and feel like Latinos. Talk to the “Hispanic emotional buttons.” Take advantage of the emotional power of Spanish language across acculturation segments. In your place of business, use “in-language” signage (imagine you are in a foreign country). Use the culture to design products and services such as using popular Hispanic colors. Also, appeal to families and ensure that your products are “user friendly.” Collateral materials should be available in the language of preference of your selected segment. Have complete back office support, complete with toll-free numbers that can attend in-language.

For further information, the slides from this presentation are available at www.santiagovaldessolutions.com/sla. Isabel Valdes’ new book “Marketing to American Latinos: A Guide to the In-Culture Approach” is now available as well. It can be ordered from Paramount Market Publishing by calling 888-787-8100 or go to www.paramountbooks.com.

Exclusively sponsored by Dialog.

Click Here to see the photos.

Bud Day, the A & M division chair in 1962, traveled over 1500 miles from Minneapolis to LA with his wife, Ruth, to help us celebrate our 60^th anniversary. Not only was this a great surprise for all of us, he added the perfect historical touch to our event. His outgoing personality and his tales of the past had everyone entertained throughout the party.

Dialog graciously sponsored our reception and we were treated to an abundant and delicious buffet of hot and cold hors d’oeuvres, an open bar and a massive anniversary cake. Collectively, I’m sure we all put on a few pounds before the night was over. We also distributed new metal pins commemorating our anniversary. There are still some left so be sure to get yours next year in New York.

To further celebrate our long and colorful history, we added some nostalgic touches to the party. Prior to the conference, Stephen Fleming had organized and put together an entertaining historical tape of various agency ads that we played throughout the event. I had spent Memorial Day weekend pouring over our archives in order to make display boards from each of our past six decades. I think at least a few members found the relics as interesting as I did.

Halfway through the reception, I had the honor of presenting a mystery winner with the Award of Merit. Reading through all of the winner’s accomplishments nearly had me tongue-tied but by the time I was done some attendees were shouting “I know who it is!” This added to the excitement of revealing that the well-deserved recipient of the Award was Ellen Kuner.

All in all, it was a nice evening and some of us stayed until we got thrown out. That was for the best, because then it was time to move on to other fun events in LA, including the massive Dialog party. (This year’s band was the crowd-pleasing Paul Revere and the Raiders.)

Thanks to all who were able to attend the party. And for those of you who had to miss it, check out the photos on the web site!

Sponsored by Euromonitor International

Click Here to see the photos.

On Wednesday. June 12, 2002 we visited TBWA/Chiat/Day for a tour of the agency, the library, lunch, and our annual Round Table. Velda Ruddock, the manager of the Intelligence Center, and her able staff, were our gracious hosts and tour guides.

We noticed we were in for a tour of an unusual architectural space upon disembarking the bus in Playa del Rey. The low-rise building (which was formerly a warehouse) is bright yellow and shaped like a surfboard! Indeed, the surfboard motif is woven throughout the space, including a meeting space with a table/bar composed of several surfboards. Not surprisingly, surfing is a passion of long-time Creative Director, Lee Clow. The space is light, airy, colorful, and conveys a sense of fun.

Some of the more visibly interesting and/or unique architectural details include “cliff dwellings” - a multi-level arrangement of cubicles, a basketball court, and a “park” which feels as if it is outdoors. Main Street, is, of course, the main transverse of the space. (There have been several articles, complete with pictures, detailing this office space. I trust you Librarians should have no trouble finding them. Hint: one is “It Takes a Village,” Interior Design, March 1999.)

The library is a generous space, housing many of the “usual suspects” and the staff has offices located not too far away. We had ample time to browse the collection and take a look at some of the products and services the Intelligence Center provides to the agency.

Our generous sponsor, Euromonitor, treated us to a delicious luncheon. After a brief presentation of Euromonitor’s excellent products and services, we held our very popular annual Roundtable, hosted by yours truly. To those of you who are unfamiliar with this session, it is one in which Ad/Marketing Librarians come together and discuss issues of concern to us. There is really no agenda (though when I do it I usually solicit topics beforehand), and we can get a spirited 10 to 15 minute discussion going on a particular topic. This year we discussed serials management (still do?) and vendors (pros and cons of each), vertical files (still have?), corporate intranets (do we contribute? how?), pushing search to desktops, serving creatives (resources? picture files?), virtualness, how to say no graciously, et. al. As always, it went too fast!

Call to Order. Kristine Spanier called the meeting to order at 11:38 am.
Introductions.
Treasurer’s Report. Reported by Kristine on behalf of Tesse Santoro.
Income from January 2002 to May 31, 2002 were $3,917.52. Expenses (not including LA Conference) were $3,365.95. Total liabilities & equity as of May 31, 2002 for A&M Division was $25,695.34.
Report of Actions at the Board Meeting. Kristine reported on the board meeting on June 9^th, which consisted of review of L.A. Conference programming.
Committee Reports
Internet – Jennifer Hahs reported the posting of two newsletters on the internet, conference notice of programming.
International Relations – Grace Villamora reported a joint venture with the D.C. chapter to support bringing a special librarian from Kashmir.
Awards – Kristine reported giving the 2002 Award of Merit to Ellen Kuner, which was presented last night at A&M Division’s Anniversary reception.
Bulletin – Kristine reported that the bulletin has published and posted on the web.
Membership – Carol Doms reported membership was at 326 at the end of April 2002. That is down from 358 at the end of 2001.
Publications – Kristine reported for Gretchen Reed. SLA was weeding out older publications. Gretchen managed to obtain copies of the A&M division publication “International Advertising & Marketing Information Sources.” Copies can be obtained directly from A&M division for $25.
New York Conference. Stephen Fleming reported on programming in works for the New York conference next year. Stephen indicated that SLA is looking to divide each day with a theme (State of the Art, Future Directions or Globalization) and have a key note speaker each day of the conference. Included are programs on: Conducting market research online, virtual libraries in advertising agencies, importance of information gathering and sharing across a global agency network, librarians in advertisements, along with A&M open house, annual business lunch, division roundtable and tours to 3 or 4 agencies near the conference.
New Business.
Slate of officers. The A&M division officers for 2002-2003 are as follows: Co-chairs: Gwen Loeffler and Stephen Flemming, Co-chairs elect: Elizabeth Hoza and Jennifer Hahs, Secretary: Carol Doms, Treasurer: Tesse Santoro, Directors: Maureen Pine and Julie-Ann Zilavy. Motion to accept slate of officers was seconded and passed by members present.
Adjournment. Meeting was adjourned at 12.15 pm

Call to Order. The meeting was called to order by Stephen Fleming at 4:08 pm
Introductions. The Board meeting was attended by: Carol Doms, Robin Feuerstein, Stephan Fleming, Jennifer Hahs, Betsy Hoza, Maureen Pine, Kristine Spanier, Grace A. Villamora, Julie-Ann Zilavy.
Committee Reports.
New York Programming. Stephan summarized New York program, some discussion followed on number of agencies tours feasible, round table at AAAA, etc.
Internet – Stephen reported on some upcoming plans for our web site and what we could do to make it more useful to our members.
New Business
Unfilled Committee Positions. The following positions were filled at the board meeting. PR chair – Kristine Spanier, Division Archivist – Robin Feuerstein, Publications chair – Gretchen Reed, Vendor and International Relations chair – Grace Villamora, and Awards chair – Maureen Pine
Adjournment. Meeting was adjourned at 4:58 pm.

Note: Since this meeting, Rebecca Rydzewski took over the PR Chair position.

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Food Marketing: From Applebee’s to Zabar’s By Sara Stein, Bates

Food Marketing: From Applebee’s to Zabar’s
By Sara Stein, Bates