Advertising: Build a buzz in Social Media ahead of traditional Marketing

Perfetti Van Melle has hired the Agency Martin part of Richmond, Virginia, the Interpublic Group of companies, as the Agency of social media in the United States for its line of Mentos mints and gums. As Perfetti Van Melle Mentos prepares to introduce UP2U, its first rubber stick sold in this country, initial publicity efforts will focus in social media like Facebook.

For example, the new rubber already has a Facebook fan page on facebook.com,/up2u, that more people have shown 95,900 their "likes." The first 1,000 visitors who clicked on the button "as" obtained in a rubber free promotion that began on June 13 and ended on Wednesday.

Plans call for an invitation to be made next month on the fan page, wondering who "like" the new product to provide the name of friends who would like to receive samples.

•

Perfetti Van Melle long has been a part of digital media for Mentos. In 2003, during the election for Governor, California Mentos introduced a microsite, or special Web site, which tried to declare a new boxed product, Mentos mints, such as "chewy Mint official" of the elections.

And in 2006, when performance artists loaded to a website called eepybird.com, a video clip that showed how mixing Diet Coke with Mentos mints can produce cool explosions, Perfetti Van Melle hugged them and posted the clip on mentos.com.

The strategy of introducing Mentos UP2U "is very marketing 360 degrees, starting with very compelling and unique content, social media," said Mehmet Yuksek, executive vice President for North America at the Office of Perfetti Van Melle in Erlanger, KY.

"We would like to build a buzz," he added, and then navigate to advertising in traditional media such as television.

To help generate that word of mouth, Perfetti Van Melle is also using Lizzie – Grubman public relations in New York, which will distribute samples of Mentos UP2U to events in places like Las Vegas and Miami.

Aspects of interactive marketing plans are indicative of the growing importance of digital initiatives at companies that peddle packaged consumer goods.

"Only a few years ago, digital information meant one thing to senior executives: risk," said Susan McPartlin, retail and consumer industry leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he joined with the Grocery Manufacturers Association, on Tuesday to release a study entitled "thriving in a world connected".

"However, companies are no longer defending the thought," he added. "They are using the digital data to advance their competitive position."

At the same time, social media, smart phones and other digital technologies are empowering consumers with more control of their shopping choices, "ms. McPartlin said. "And are not shy of posting their feelings about products online, where they literally are deliver reams of potential insights that can create a tremendous opportunity for consumer packaged goods organizations that can find patterns in noise."

Which is shown repeatedly on Facebook fan page UP2U. For example, about an hour after the mark has posted a question on the Wednesday afternoon — "a song theme plays whenever you enter a room. The UP2U, what song is choose? "— There were already more than 120 comments that included "I Will Survive", the theme from "Jaws", "Like a Virgin" and "my children say the music from ' the wizard of Oz ' when the old lady is on her bike. "

In this realm, "consumers are out in front, said Marc Kempter, senior vice president and group account Director at Martin, in particular the target for the gum, which is of teenagers and young adults.

"Television is still necessary to create broad awareness" for a new product, he added, but the propensities of digital extroverts "" in the market for core UP2U has led to a decision "to launch it digitally before, building up a following of fans and then take mass."

There are disadvantages to this strategy, Mr. Kempter said, especially that "there is no playbook" for success.

"Six months ago, a year ago, everyone was talking about Facebook ' likes '," he added. "Now, it's not just ' tastes ', is the interaction that you want to have with consumers. "

•

Perfetti Van Melle already sells a variety of chewing gum pellets of Mentos, called Mentos pure fresh, but wants to enter the segment of Chew Stick because it is about four times larger. The segment of baton-rubber, however, is intensely competitive, as the confectionery giant Mars, which now owns Wrigley chewing stick brands like orbit, juicy fruit, 5 and collides with Kraft Foods, which now owns brands like Cadbury-stick gum, Dentyne and Trident Stride.

"We are a top-tier global rubber formidable player," Mr. Yuksek said, referring to the brands Perfetti Van Melle sold internationally as Brooklyn and Happydent. "We are here to make it happen in the United States."

Mentos UP2U carries that name, because each package 14-stick contains seven sticks of a flavor and seven sticks of a second. Packages to declare: "2 flavors. 1 package. You decide '. The four couples include Berry watermelon/fresh mint and fresh mint sweet/bubble.

In September, there will be "an entire digital experience bringing the brand to life, all about choice celebrates," Mr. Kempter said, "and then TV in late autumn."

According to Mr. Yuksek, Perfetti Van Melle expects to spend 50 million dollars in advertising and marketing to introduce new rubber. The company spent $ 17.3 million in the United States last year, the unit of WPP's Kantar Media reported, to advertise in major media in all its gums, mints and candy, including taffy Air Heads and Chupa Chups lollipops.

View the original article here

Small Business Guide: some ways to get started as a social entrepreneur

server temporarily unavailable

"I get the sense that the recession actually has resulted in more people taking interest in investing in companies that are doing the right thing right from the start," said Wes Selke, investment manager at Good Capital, a social-impact venture capital firm in San Francisco. As one indicator, at least three social-impact funds have raised more than $ 100 million in the last couple of years: Ignia Fund, Leapfrog Investments and MicroVest.

Marrying mission and money in one business can be tricky. This guide focuses on commercial, profit-making businesses and entrepreneurs who want to build self-sustaining social ventures, a term that encompasses non-profit and profit-making companies as well as some new types of legal hybrids, like an L3C, which stands for low-profit limited liability company. These ventures are commonly thought of as enterprises that need a so-called triple bottom line: people, planet and profits.

At a social venture, the social mission is expected to be at least as important as the money-making mission. So, for example, the tobacco giant Philip Morris does not pass the test even though it donates generously to artistic and social causes. But a business that addresses to socioeconomic or environmental challenge as part of its DNA — for instance by selling low-cost solar-powered lanterns to villages that lack electricity — would be considered a social enterprise, according to Deb Nelson, executive director of Social Venture Network, an organization of some 500 chief executives, company founders, nonprofit leaders and investors.

To those looking to start such ventures, social entrepreneurs and investors offer the following pointers.

IT'S O.K. TO MAKE MONEY If you choose the profit-making model, stick with it — without apology. A few years ago, Assaf Shafran founded a nonprofit in Israel that offered a smartphone-based dispatching system for first responders, like firefighters and emergency medical technicians.

But his social venture, called IsraeLife, had an impossible time giving the system away to volunteer organizations, largely because the organizations were suspicious of giveaways — they demanded exclusive rights or they got mired in red tape related to receiving gifts. Mr. Shafran decided he could do more good by selling the systems. In 2008 he and his team formed to profit-making division, called NowForce, which has expanded into the United States. The business has raised $ 2.5 million from private investors, and Mr. Shafran expects sales to surpass $ 3 million this year.

Proudly embracing a profit-making model may require focusing on the balance sheet before unleashing the social mission. "You can't pay employees a livable wage if you don't have money in the bank," said Lisa Lorimer, former chief executive of the Vermont Bread Company, which started making organic cookies in 1978.

VENTURE CAPITAL NOT THE SOLE OPTION Financing a social venture can be even more challenging than a traditional business financing. Some entrepreneurs prefer to self finance with the help of bank loans. Others pursue venture capital, and they accept the loss of control that entails.

Vermont Bread began with a commitment to paying employees to "livable wage" — three to four times more than the minimum wage most competitors offered. It also offered employees health insurance and bought ingredients from local farms and sustainable, which further squeezed margins, according to Ms. Lorimer.

As a result, the company grew deliberately, mostly through bootstrapping and bank financing. At a time when many in the baking business said the company was unrealistic in trying to sell organic goods (with their brief shelf life) and to pay employees a premium, Vermont Bread was able to find a local bank that offered small loans so the fledgling business could buy equipment — one pan, one truck, one pizza oven at a time.

BE WARY OF GROWTH In 2005, James Gutierrez founded Progreso Financiero, a bank based in Mountain View, Calif. It offers small loans, averaging $ 1,000, to individuals and small businesses with little or no credit history, through staffed kiosks in Hispanic grocery stores and pharmacies in California and Texas. Borrowers often use the loans to buy a delivery truck or other equipment.

Mr. Gutierrez, 33, whose grandparents immigrated to the United States from Mexico Progreso Financiero, conceived as a "social entrepreneuring" research project when he was earning an M.B.A. at Stanford. He wanted to see if microlending, which was taking off in India, could help the millions of immigrants in the United States. He started in one Mexican supermarket in East Los Angeles. Before long he was operating staffed kiosks at Sears and Kmart stores 16, which he figured would be magnets for many Latino families. "We thought this was a great opportunity, a great way to grow fast," he said. It did not turn out that way.

Sears and Kmart shut down Progreso's kiosks because their loan volume was thin. "We found out that the grass-roots supermarkets are where people go three times a week, not the national chain stores," said Mr. Gutierrez, which ended up being a valuable lesson. The closings prompted Progreso to refocus on what Mr. Gutierrez called the basic building blocks: technology, automated credit scoring (yielding more loans per store per month), and the grass-roots supermarket channel.

View the original article here

For new social networks, sharing can be more targeted

Some of these networks take advantage of the massive audience of Facebook or Twitter to allow users to reach the maximum number of friends. But if you are worried about potential privacy holes to Facebook and want to avoid them, there is a network that, too.

INSTAGRAMInstagram, a photo sharing network based on a free app for Apple iPhone, is the breakout of specialty social networks. The service, which was introduced in October, says that more than one million users have already joined.

Instagram's secret weapon is its built-in photo filters, edit images before uploading them. Some effects are banal, but some — like the Early Bird inspired sepia or toaster soft-color — miracles to remove often harsh lighting and strident colors photo phone. With the help of filters, images can look better than those uploaded to other social sites like Facebook.

Davin Bentti, software engineer in Atlanta, uses Instagram to control where he posts photos.

"The Instagram allows me to share photos on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Posterous, Tumblr, Foursquare," he said. "When I take a photo, I can put it anywhere in the world without having to think much about it. But I can also put it where I want to go. "

For example, said Mr. Bentti, missed Twitter when sending a recent photo of her dog, because his Twitter followers are mostly professional colleagues.

To get started, download the free Instagram iPhone app and sign up for an account. If you own an Android phone, be patient; an app for this operating system is in the works, the company said.

To find friends to share your photos with, launch the application and select the profile option at the bottom right of your screen. Instagram offers several ways to find people: access to Facebook or Twitter to view lists of your friends have already signed with Instagram; search your phone's contact list to match e-mail addresses with existing users; send invitations to those in your contact list who have not yet joined; Search the database of Instagram users and usernames; Browse the list of users suggested that the company has deemed worthy to their photos.

"We don't see ourselves as an alternative" at Facebook, said Kevin Systrom, Director of Instagram. "We see ourselves as a complement, to allow sharing across multiple networks, all at once."

Path Path, a photo and video sharing network, also sees itself as an accessory to Facebook; users can access Facebook to find the location of users to share with. But the location limits the sharing of up to 50 friends, rather than with all that ye know. And it is not possible to post photos to Facebook itself. Your friends should check their location app or website location to see images.

Path does not connect to Twitter or other networks.

The idea, said Dave Morin, Executive Director of the path, is to make sharing photos more personal. Here's how Laurie Percival, Los Angeles, is used to share the picture of Charlotte, the daughter of the newborn, with only eight people.

"It seems more private Location," he said. "I use it to not share moments with Charlotte publicly."

Instagram and route allow focus on recruitment and send a photo, without the distractions of status updates, Twitter postings or photographer information not seen on other social networks. Both apps to minimize the number of options and buttons on the screen.

Photographers who use both services say that you should remember that the photos will probably appear on relatively small iPhone screen, and so it is better to follow tight and headshots. With long-distance shots, individual persons or objects of interest, as a sign of fun, it will be difficult to see.

View the original article here

Pope warns or risk of alienation in social networks

Vatican City (Reuters)-Pope Benedict XVI gave a blessing qualified social networking Monday, praising its potential, but beware that friendships online are no substitute for real human contact.

The Pontiff of 83 years, who do not have their own Facebook account, established from his point of view in a message with a heavy title that fits easily in a tweet: "Truth, proclamation and authenticity of life in the digital age".

Said the possibilities of new media and social networks offered "a great opportunity", but warned of the risks of depersonalization, alienation, self-indulgence and dangers have more friends than virtual reality.

"It is important to always remember that virtual contact cannot and should not take the place of direct human contact with people at every level of our life," Benedict said in his message for world communications day of the Catholic Church.

He urged users of social networks to wonder "who is my ' perfect ' in this new world?" and avoid the danger of always is available online, but to be "less present to those we encounter in our daily lives".

The wide horizons of new media "urgently demand a serious reflection on the importance of communication in the digital age," he said.

The Pope does not mention any specific social networking website or application by name, but sprinkled his message with terms such as "sharing," of "friends" and "profiles".

Said social networking can help "dialogue, sharing, solidarity and creating positive relationships", but also provided a list of warnings.

"Entering cyberspace can be a sign of an authentic search for personal meetings with others, provided that it is careful to avoid the dangers, as if you were around in some sort of parallel existence, or excessive exposure to the virtual world," he said.

"In search of sharing, of ' friends ', there is the challenge of being genuine and faithful and not succumb to the illusion of artificial construct a public profile for themselves".

The Pope is known to write by hand, most of his speeches, while his aides to manage his forays into cyberspace. In 2009, a new site, www.pope2you.net, went live, offering an application called "the Pope is on Facebook," and another that allows people to see the Pope's speeches and messages on their iPhone or iPod.

The Vatican has notoriously egg on his face in 2009, when it was forced to admit that, if it had sailed on the web anymore, it might have known that a traditionalist Bishop was revoked the excommunication was for years a Holocaust denier.

(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

View the original article here