As the headline notes, “if women hold so much buying power, why aren’t marketers doing a better job of communicating to them?  Kristin Laird outlines the key ways companies can meet the needs of female consumers”.

Of course, different consumer segments exist within the female consumer segment, so be sure you’re understanding your specific target fully prior to acting on any macro insights.

Women consumers: a snapshot

• 71% are more concerned with price than fashion or trends
• 60% enjoy sampling different brands of similar products (e.g. soft drinks) for the sake of comparison
• 47% are loyal to environmentally or socially responsible brands
• 58% actively look for products that offer coupon discounts
• 65% will encourage friends or relatives to purchase a product she likes
• 62% think store brand products are just as good as name brand products
• 39% say name brand products are a status symbol
• 58% usually purchase the lowest-priced product

IMI International provided Marketing Magazine a number of current consumer insights pertaining to female consumers, as a result of conducting three different studies earlier this year.  The studies provided these latest insights by looking at the attitudes and behaviours of Canadian women consumers 13 to 64. 

To read the full article, please visit Marketing Magazine or click on the link for IMI International’s Downloads page and find the article under the Media section.

For more information on ConsumerTrack™ Insights pertaining to Female Shoppers, please contact Tim Bishop at 416-440-0310 ext. 341 or by email at tbishop@consultIMI.com.

Don Mayo, Managing Partner of IMI International, is again one of the leading conference speakers for the Canadian Sponsorship Forum.  Held annually, this year’s event is hosted in beautiful Whistler, BC, site of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Be the first to see research focused on actual in-market effectiveness, impact of recent brand activations, consumer-validated insights and recent Vancouver 2010 Winter Games observations. Whether you’re an official sponsor or simply delivering best-in-class activations without any sponsorship affiliation, you will learn best practices both on how to win in the current economic climate and during major events.

Derived from a study completed during February & March 2010 by IMI International and in association with TrojanOne, the key focus of this session will be on the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games as well as other major properties. Don will isolate case studies on ‘who impacted consumers,’ ‘who avoided consumers’ and ‘means to optimize your activation plan going forward.’ Further, this session will detail not only recent sponsorship activations, but will include trending based on consumer research completed throughout prior years.  

The key focus will be on the 2010 Vancouver Olympics plus other major properties, such as the Super Bowl, Grammy Awards, Daytona 500, NBA All Star Game, Mardi Gras and others.

Based on the study’s consumer-validated insights plus recent at-the-Games observation, IMI International will isolate some case studies on ‘who impacted consumers’, ‘who avoided consumers’ and means to optimize your activation plan going forward. Further, this session will detail not only recent sponsorship activations, but will include trending based on consumer research completed throughout prior years.

Highlights will include some of the ‘winner’ activations, featuring not only how marketing impacted behaviour, talk value and brand equity, but how winning campaigns engaged consumers. Additionally, the presentation will detail best practices both on how to win in the current economic climate and during major events, whether you are an official sponsor or simply delivering best-in-class activations without any sponsorship affiliation.

The topic, “Optimizing Your Marketing Effectiveness and ROI”, will showcase the latest in IMI International’s consumer insights completed across Canada in Q4 2009.  Specifically, Julius will highlight the influence of promotions and brand activation on retail activity, brand purchasing and brand image. 

This session will provide attendees with the facts on the impact of promotions, events, sponsorships, advertising, pricing, social media and digital now versus two years ago.  Further, this session will provide delegates with fact-based case studies for agencies, retailers, marketers, governments, services and brands on means to optimize their marketing effectiveness and ROI.  

IMI International consults and provides strategic resources across the globe and will share these insights and case studies specific to the Quebec marketplace versus the rest of Canada and rest of North America.

About Julius Diamond: 

For close to 40 years, IMI International has focused on helping its clients maximize their return on investment from marketing and communication programs. Julius has been involved in the founding of two other companies: A retail shoe repair chain that operated throughout North America and a real estate development company with assets and operations in Canada and the United States. Mr. Diamond has been involved with several charity organizations and sits on the board of advisors of several small companies. Julius has direct experience in marketing, sales, finance and operations and graduated from the Ivy School of Business at the University of Western Ontario in 1966 and has an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley.

This Canadian consumer insights module conducted in autumn 2009 looks at a number of topics, including:

• How consumers viewed the recession during 2009
• The effect of the recession on various marketing tactics
• The changing attitudes of consumers and how these can explain the change in marketing tactic effectiveness
• Brand health with 85 brands ranked based on consumer responses
• Brand-specific examples of good and bad tactics used over the last 2 years
• Keys to your marketing success in 2010

This module provides a look into how consumers are thinking, what tactics will work the hardest for you and how brands have utilized these to their advantage.

For more information on ConsumerTrack™ Insights, please contact Tim Bishop at 416-440-0310 ext. 341 or by email at tbishop@consultIMI.com.

Speaking to one of the largest groups to recently assemble for the bi-monthly meetings, Dan led the session to showcase how Canadian consumers have changed in these turbulent times. 

Of note, Dan highlighted the changes in consumers’ receptiveness of brand activation tactics and of sponsorship & events in particular to show how marketers can still influence shoppers to open their hearts and wallets.  Consumers are not going out and spending as much as in the past, and this trend may impact sponsorship events into the near term future. 

Now more than ever, it is imperative to give consumers a compelling reason to engage with brands and properties and the best way to do this, based on IMI International’s latest Consumer Economic Impact Study – Turbulent Times II, is to leverage sponsorships to Activate, Demonstrate and Engage consumers to focus on your brand’s inherent value proposition.

To learn more insights from the presentation, please visit IMI International’s Downloads page.

Country:      United States 

Category:    Entertainment  

Date:          August 20, 2009 

Tactic:        Advertising, New Technology 

CBS, Entertainment Weekly Introduce First Video-in-Print Ads to Paper Magazine  

Description:

Readers will soon be watching video commercials on the pages of a magazine when the first-ever video advertisements hit Entertainment Weekly’s print edition in September.

The video-in-print (VIP) ads will appear in select copies of Entertainment Weekly’s business magazine on Sept. 18, exclusively in Los Angeles and New York.

This will be made possible by inserting a slim LCD screen within the magazine’s page.  It will be similar to the size of a mobile phone display, and will measure 2.7mm thick, with a 320×240 screen resolution.  

The advertisement will be activated as the magazine reader turns the page. Each chip can store up to 40 minutes of video, with a rechargeable battery lasting 70 minutes.

Clips from CBS’s fall line up including Two and a Half Men as well as NCIS Los Angeles and a Pepsi Max ad will be seen.

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