Two-thirds of respondents said most of us would be better off if we lived more simply.
“In the last decade or so, people started to place a greater emphasis on living a simpler lifestyle, whether it was participating in the rise of the slow food movement (or eating locally grown, organic food) or supporting their local farmers and artisans,” Benett says. “The global recession accelerated these trends, leading many to realize that rampant spending didn’t bring happiness.”

The Map to Mindful Consumption

Now that we’re moving toward an era of mindful consumption, where both buyers and sellers are more aware we live in a world with finite resources, brands must support sustainability both in the open marketplace and behind the scenes.

“Consumerism is a dominant pattern that shapes cultures around the world,” says Erik Assadourian, senior fellow at The Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, D.C., research institute devoted to global environmental concerns. It stands to reason, then, that consumers’ preferences and dollars drive the products companies produce.

On the flip side, one cannot underestimate the huge impact media has on

consumer behavior. “Marketing is a dominant form of communication,” Assadourian says. “The average person watches four hours of television per day, and 85 percent of the world has access to a television, which is a powerful tool to cultivate desires.” As such, Assadourian says marketing has the potential to set the cultural standard and normalize the idea of a sustainable lifestyle.

For example, Zipcar, a car-sharing service that reduces consumers’ reliance on personal automobiles, has advertised its commitment to “offer a practical and actionable example of sustainable living that decreases the adverse effects of transportation.” This company appeals to consumers not only for the service it provides, but also because it markets the environmental good that it does: reducing emissions and significantly diminishing peoples’ need to own cars.

Even companies that aren’t green in nature have found ways to market to mindful consumers. For example, while Procter & Gamble’s Pampers disposable diapers are not recyclable, the marketing message to consumers is Pampers uses less material grown in sustainable forests and are manufactured using chlorine-free bleach and less packaging. S.C. Johnson’s Ziploc division started its “landfill diversion” initiative, an effort to offset the presence of its products in the waste stream, and now promotes its reward program for recycling bags from specially marked packages.

And Clorox offers a “Green Works” line of products that appeals to consumers’ heightened sense of responsibility to protect the environment. It’s a lesson from the hotel playbook: Don’t force your customer to abandon the lifestyle they value. Instead, make them feel good about their choices.

“Brands understand that corporate social responsibility is paramount to success in the future. They’re already shifting their behavior and the way they do business to become more transparent,” Benett says. Consumers are looking for brands that are doing more than just looking good—they have to do good, too. “More and more, consumers expect and support companies that adhere to environmental ethics, so it’s important for brands to let them know what they’re doing in this area,” Benett says.

In other words, brands are adjusting to consumers’ desire for less stuff not by offering less stuff, but by emphasizing the superior environmental responsibility of their products through marketing.

Setting Up a Dialogue

While media influences consumers, consumers’ voices in turn are a force for change in corporate behavior. “Mobile phones, tablets and computers are enabling consumers to do their research to make sure they are getting the best deals for the best products,”

Benett says. For many, the “best” products are healthy and sustainable.

One example of this is the ongoing controversy about high-fructose corn syrup. Michael Pollan, in his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, cites the public subsidy in favor of corn, which became a major food additive and sweetener. An idea then percolated after the book’s publishing in 2006—and public opinion followed—that the dramatic increase in obesity and diabetes stems from our excess consumption of sugar. True or not, consumer revulsion with high-fructose corn syrup has altered behavior and resulted in companies changing their recipes and the marketing of their goods: “Heinz Ketchup, no high-fructose corn syrup!”

Some businesses operate in a more transparent way, 
which also fosters loyalty, Benett says. Brands such as Kashi, Ben & Jerry’s, Stonyfield and others have “eco-consciousness built into their DNA, and customers rally behind them because of it,” he says. Ben & Jerry’s, which was “founded on and dedicated to a sustainable corporate concept,” has more than 3.4 million Facebook fans that presumably not only “like” their ice cream, but what the company stands for.

Read the Fine Print

Unfortunately, truth in marketing is not guaranteed. Assadourian says because

green marketing is under-regulated, companies can get away with “greenwashing”—when a brand promotes environmentally friendly practices or products to deflect attention away from their environmentally unfriendly activities. (Or simply, they want to capitalize on consumers seeking out environmentally responsible products.)

According to the “Seven Sins of Greenwashing” report by TerraChoice Environmental Marketing, a global environmental marketing firm, more than 95 percent of consumer products claiming to be green committed at least one of the “sins” of greenwashing. Some of these so-called sins include the “sin of irrelevance,” such as labeling a product as “CFC-free” (CFCs are banned by law); and the “sin of vagueness,” which is a marketing claim so devoid of specifics that it is rendered meaningless, such as labeling something “all natural.”

Assadourian cites the natural gas industry as one of the worst greenwashing offenders. It touts to consumers that the production of natural gas is “clean,” failing to acknowledge the greenhouse gas pollution that leaks into the atmosphere in the process. TerraChoice describes this as a “sin of hidden trade-off.”

Assadourian notes that in some cases, firms can back into doing good because high energy prices force them to innovate and ultimately do business differently.

“Companies that are thinking long term will choose the sustainable path,” he says. “This will be less profitable in the beginning, but they should sell the sustainable lifestyle and sell truly sustainable products. Companies that are effective in using the fewest resources will be most insulated from these changes.”

Companies’ products and offerings need to not only provide value, but also embody the ideals of the newly mindful consumer: sustainability and simplicity. More is not better after all. It’s just more.

tool that solves the problem of too much information and how to make sense of it,” she says.

Intel’s “The Museum of Me” website is another example of how social media data can be visualized. The site connects to your Facebook account and extracts its data, assembling them into a virtual museum tour of your online life. Set to sentimental music, the site leads you through several exhibits—your friends, your photos, a map of your location, your most frequently used words in posts, your videos. For the grand finale, it weaves your friends’ profile photos into a mosaic of your own. So far, the campaign has notched more than 800,000 likes on Facebook.

Data viz experts also point to Sprint as a leader in the relatively nascent discipline. Playing on the idea of what “now” looks like, the brand’s stunning Interactive Now campaign widget displays a staggering integration of up-to-the-second global data, from the number of calls made on Sprint phones at that very moment to the number of bicycles being produced to the current temperature in Seoul. Approximately 100,000 blogs have featured the campaign. The average user spent five minutes on the campaign microsite.

These examples of data visualization capture a growing trend among brands: Showing—not telling—your message to customers through what are often dazzling depictions of data. “Across the board, in every industry, it’s becoming not only a means of communication,” says R/GA’s Clark, “but also a means of creating new engagements with brands, in terms of new products and services we can build that are data driven.”

Data Inundation

To say that we are a culture awash in data is a gross understatement. Just consider the nearly incalculable volume of user-generated content—YouTube videos, tweets, Facebook posts—and you have a world teeming with data ripe for depiction, says JESS3’s Bradshaw. “The rise of visual storytelling has complete correlation to the prevalence and proliferation of data,” she says. “The more data there are, the more there is a need for this.”
In 2008, according to the “How Much Information?” study by the Global Information Industry Center at the University of California, San Diego, Americans consumed 3.6 zettabytes (1,000 billion gigabytes) of information—34 gigabytes per person, per day.

Data visualization’s main value proposition is it can condense hundreds of pages of information and spreadsheet upon spreadsheet of data into an engaging, attractive visualization. “When you visualize things, it’s really a means to see trends, or understand highlights in the data or findings that you wouldn’t see looking at a spreadsheet or a table, or even a story about the data,” says Kennedy Elliot, a data visualist hired out of graduate school by Nielsen, the consumer research firm, but who now works as an interactive producer for The Associated Press.

Colliding with that flare-up of figures are two other trends. First, consumers are becoming more data literate. Our fractured attention spans make us more inclined to toggle between Google, social networks and news sites online—all while watching a TV show, for instance. “An end consumer’s ability to quickly read and then quickly interpret a data visualization as opposed to text or images is only going to increase, and rapidly so, and so I think you’re going to see it as a major visual component in a lot of advertising going forward,” Clark says.

Second, social media has allowed data visualizations to be shared across social networks.

That’s among the reasons GE waded into data viz, says Camille Kubie, the corporation’s manager of brand and design. “One of the key things that attracted us to this space is [it’s] so well-suited to social media,” says Kubie, who has spearheaded the company’s bid to position itself as a thought leader in the health and energy industries through data viz. “Our primary interest in data visualization is that it helps us simplify complexity, tell stories and advance the conversation around the issues that are important to GE. The best visualizations are inherently shareable and well-suited for social media.”

GE curates a data viz blog that has garnered acclaim throughout the discipline’s extended community, tackling data-laden topics, such as engine innovation, and turning them into rich, interactive visualizations. (The rotors of a turbine engine illuminate as you scroll your cursor over each one, illustrating individual innovations in engine technology, for example.)

And this spring, GE debuted a free Stats of the Union iPad app, which allows consumers to “explore the nation’s vital signs,” drawing on data from the Department of Health and Human Services. Kubie says the app was downloaded 50,000 times in its first two weeks from the iTunes store.

Another Tool in the Arsenal

Data visualization stands to be a great equalizer for the consumer, especially when applied to products and brands. Because, after all, how do you argue with a chart? “People have this innate trust if they see a bar chart or a pie chart,” says Robin Richards, information design director responsible for JESS3’s data visualizations. “They kind of think, ‘Well, they made a chart, so it must be accurate.’”

That is, in part, why it’s catching on. “Marketers are looking at it as a potential tool in the arsenal,” says Teri Schindler, in charge of business development at Fathom Information Design, the company behind GE’s iPad app. It puts information in context for consumers. As Schindler says, “sometimes you want to see the forest and 
the trees.”

As data visualization spreads, practitioners and proponents say it’s key to guard against false, misleading or inaccurate data.

“If there’s one ‘watch out,’ it is that 
we lose credibility when we present data in a way that serves our commercial interests at the expense of objectivity,”

says GE’s Kubie. “We’re really trying to present information [accurately]—both data that’s objective, and presented in a way that’s objective.”

For Wesley Grubbs, a data viz whiz and the founder of the Madison, Wis.-based studio Pitch Interactive, striving for accuracy and data integrity is paramount. His journey from a well-known ad agency in Madison to starting his own data company underscores that. “I didn’t want to persuade anymore,” Grubbs says. “I wanted to inform people to make decisions.”

He says everyone can benefit from data viz. “It can really be used in any industry,” says Grubbs over the phone, standing on the Adriatic Coast looking out over the Mediterranean Sea.

“I can see the fishermen right now. They can benefit from data viz. What is the fish level in the water today? What is the water’s temperature? How deep are most of the fish?” asks Grubbs, imagining an instrument onboard their ship that could collectively and elegantly display this information using data viz.

How deep, indeed. It’s everyday situations like those that foreshadow data

visualization’s potential to infiltrate nearly every corner of our lives. And Grubbs’ example seems a particularly apt one: Just as he suggests it could help the fisherman peer deeper into the ocean, the discipline is giving consumers a new depth perception. In a sea of often-murky statistics, data visualizations—done right—are illuminating their way.

and author of Clients, Clients and More Clients: Create an Endless Stream of New Business with the Power of Psychology (McGraw Hill Companies, 2011).

Chain stores then began stamping generics with their brand name—Safeway, Walgreens, Wal-Mart. They expanded the type and number of products they sold and, over time, started treating these “generics” more and more like professional brands, with logo development, strategy, internal brand managers and agency-designed packaging.

Today, private-label products are brands in their own right. They’re no longer generic, but individually named and marketed according to product category.

And there are lots of them. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., for example, carries dozens of store brands at each of its 9,700 locations worldwide: George for apparel, Equate for pharmacy items and Parent’s Choice for baby products. Jewel-Osco, a Midwest grocer, carries Wild Harvest for organic foods, Culinary Circle for prepared foods, and an entire brand, Stockman & Dakota, just for beef. Each has its own identity, look and 
target market.

Retail giant Target provides one of the most poignant examples of the evolution from generic label to store-marked packaging to separately branded and marketed product lines. In 2009, Target, which has

1,750 stores nationwide, launched a complete rebranding of its private-label products, most significantly converting much of its CPG line to a new brand, up & up. The store switched out the Target name and bullseye trademark for a colorful arrow and lots of white space.

“We wanted up & up to stand out on our shelves and capture the attention of both our current Target brand guests as well as guests who have never tried the brand,” says Annie Zipfel, director of owned brands for Target. “The name up & up reinforces the core qualities our guests believe about Target—an optimistic brand that’s always looking up.” (Read an expanded Q&A about up & up with Target’s Zipfel at orange.imaginepub.com/target-interview.)

The up & up brand now spans more than 900 products and 45 categories. What’s more interesting, though, is how Target and other stores like it are turning their brands into household names.

Turf Wars

While the ad spend on private-label marketing is not surveyed or measured, there is at least anecdotal evidence that stores are increasingly pushing their own products through marketing. In July 2009, Target’s private labels started showing up in its TV commercials.

One such commercial showed products (next to low price points) solving a mother’s problems throughout her day, from $1 Vitamin Water to $1.99 Orbit gum to—and here’s the point—$3.29 up & up toilet paper.

A year later, Target started airing commercials exclusively on its store-branded products under the “Life’s a moving target” campaign. In one commercial, a husband walks into his kitchen with dozens of jars of barbecue sauce—the wife stands in shock, wondering what she’ll do with all that sauce, when all of a sudden a bag of Market Pantry boneless chicken breasts appears on the screen, next to a price tag of $6. (Market Pantry is Target’s primary private-label food line.)

Walgreens too has launched TV advertisements, as well as print and online banner ads, to push its store-branded health and wellness products. Some of the ads even compare, side by side, prices of national brands vs. the Walgreens brand. All of this, arguably, is to foster loyalty among consumers and connect with them on an emotional level—advancing the idea that spending less on everyday products translates to more money in their pockets.

And generic brands are echoing that mantra on social networks. Jewel’s Wild Harvest brand has more than 13,000 fans on its own Facebook page, which takes informal polls,

provides recipes with Wild Harvest ingredients and answers shoppers’ questions about products. (A recent one: “Where do you obtain your concentrate for your apple juice?”)

Kroger’s Comforts for Baby line, which covers diapers, formula, and other baby items, has its own Facebook page and Twitter feed that are clearly professionally designed and managed. Though each channel has only a few hundred followers so far—the campaign launched in June—the pages link back to a robust microsite with an online community for parents. With a more established social media presence, Wal-Mart’s Parent’s Choice brand has more than 19,000 Facebook fans and nearly 1,000 Twitter followers in addition to its microsite.

Perhaps where store brands have more of an advantage is circulars. While in the past chains collaborated with national brands to showcase their products, stores are now devoting entire spreads to their own brands. In one of Target’s February circulars, for example, an entire page pitted up & up brands next to their nationally branded counterparts—Jergen’s lotion vs. up & up lotion, for example—and noted the cost savings to customers. Target labeled the page “Side by Side Savings.” And circulars are very, very important: 84 percent of shoppers say circulars affect their purchasing decisions, according to a survey by Acosta Sales & Marketing.

Standing Out

If you’re a brand manager or marketing executive, now’s 
the time to take a deep breath. Yes, private labels are turning into a new breed of competitors and they have clear advantages in pricing, distribution and access to consumers. But national brands have weathered recessions, fads and competition before.

They’ve done so by adapting their own marketing.

“Existing brands are going to have to find a niche—where they want to occupy the minds of consumers—and be very clear with that in their marketing,” says Kase, the marketing psychologist 
and author.

Here is the strategy to accomplish that.

Go retro. Big brands are still around for a reason, Kase says, and can boost sales by reminding consumers which brand “has been at it” the longest. For many brands, retro packaging and “historical” marketing campaigns have helped rekindle consumers’ feelings about the products their mothers (and grandmothers) used to buy.

Pepsico, for example, recently repackaged its Doritos chips with a 1960s design and introduced Pepsi Throwback, which uses real sugar instead of corn syrup, as the product was made pre-1990s.

In 2009, Pepsi’s market research showed more than 50 percent of people who purchased the retro product bought more than they normally would have, or they were new customers, a Pepsi marketing executive told the Wall Street Journal in May.

Make quality matter. While most shoppers consider the quality of private-label brands to be on the same level as national brands, many CPG companies know that simply isn’t true. To convince consumers quality matters more than price, national brands should invest in creating newer and higher-quality products—and emphasize how much time and effort goes into product development in their marketing, says Jasmine Bina, owner of public-relations agency JB Communications in Los Angeles.

“I’m an Apple person, and though their products are more expensive [than other electronics manufacturers], they’re frankly more superior,” says Bina, whose professional experience includes managing brands for national CPG lines. “Apple’s best marketing is their crazy, die-hard fans.”

Be the “category captain.” Private labels may reach more consumers by spanning so many products—900 products at Target fall under the up & up label—but in doing so they dilute the message of quality.National brands, on the other hand, can own a niche. “Huggies needs to show how they’re purposely not trying to do 5 million other things, because they want to be the best at what they do,” says Kase. Adds Bina, “It’s about

owning your territory and never letting anyone get near—private labels that mainly compete on price have little recourse if you approach it that way.”

Offer the widest variety of products within your category. This is a strategy employed by Campbell Soup. “In the soup aisle, Campbell is clearly the category captain—no other soup maker offers such a wide array of products,” says John Faulkner, director of brand communications for Campbell Soup Co. “[Stores] offer their shoppers a much more limited set of soups that compete primarily on price. Given the recent economic condition, there is a lot of price sensitivity among consumers, … but our answer is to provide greater variety, higher quality and added value.”

Make up consumers’ minds before they get to the store. According to Matthew Egol, partner at consulting firm Booz & Co. in New York City, shoppers spend about 30 to 40 minutes before each trip engaged in activities like looking for deals, visiting websites, social media and reading e-mails. That means it’s more important than ever to connect with consumers before they step foot in the store (and are convinced by in-store marketing to purchase the store brand).

How do you do that? Provide valuable content. “Social influence is really important—offer testimonials, endorsements, stories, problem-solvers, always showcasing people who fit your target consumer,” Kase says.

Doing so, of course, creates loyalty, which is achievable in this economy and beyond.

“I think things will swing back again,” Bina says. “It might take longer this time, but people have short-term memories. People will look again to premium brands and the emotional value that comes with them.”

To keep the uncertainty circuits dark, we go nowhere without GPS. We don’t try new restaurants unless we’ve seen the menu first. We don’t buy until we’ve asked for references from Facebook friends. We don’t travel until we’ve checked Trip Advisor. We compulsively check our devices for updates, alerts and messages. We can Google anything and sound like an expert instantly. And for absolute certainty, we can wake up to our daily horoscope.

We do all these things because they’re available. Reducing uncertainty, in fact, has turned into a big business. “Huge industries are devoted to it,” Rock says.

Non-conscious resources

There is only one certainty, says Rock: that there will be 
more uncertainty.

Uncertainty—the blank sheet of paper, for example—makes us anxious, which in turn makes those around us anxious, which increases our self doubt. And all of that causes the pain neurons to fire, preventing us from doing much of anything. We’ve all been confronted with something that literally stopped us in our tracks. Overwhelming uncertainty freezes us, both mentally and physically. The answer for many people is to avoid uncertainty at all costs, even though that is where the best answers lie.

Instead, Rock advocates institutionalizing time to explore, time to embrace uncertainty and see where it can take you.

“Genentech invented the idea of 20 percent time, and Google popularized it,” Rock says. In other words, let people work on anything they want using company resources for one day a week. Let them work at home. Let them design their own workspaces.

“I know CEOs who come to the office at least one day a week with no plan in mind. They claim that it’s the secret to how they do what they do. Extraordinary results have come out of it. Google invented Gmail, for instance. Bring your non-conscious resources to bear; you’ll see things you don’t normally see.”

Breakthroughs

Rock’s point that you have to let your mind wander to be creative is backed up by a chapter in, of all things, Blood, Bones and Butter, the memoir by Gabrielle Hamilton, owner of the tiny but renowned restaurant Prune in New York City. The chapter that talks about how she came to own a restaurant, totally by accident, is interlaced with stories about her year-long wanderings as a young woman.

The kind of travel she undertook—before cell phones, ATMs, GPS—“is probably not even possible now,” she writes.

She had no plans, and the uncertainty of that was heavily freighted with hunger and fear. Down to her last few dollars, no one knowing where she was, not having eaten on yet another three-day bus ride taught her not only about what true hospitality means, but also about her own capabilities. It made her resourceful, independent, confident.

The leap of faith it took to open Prune was grounded in her ability to operate in unexpected situations. She ignored things like damp in the basement and leapt ahead to the delicious dishes she could serve and the sort of wonderful place it would be. “I had never heard of due diligence,” she writes.

And she was totally sure that she could do it. Having dealt with the vast uncertainty of where her next meal was coming from, she knew she could handle anything. Twelve years later, Prune seats only 24 people but carries excellent reviews and does $2 million in business a year.

To move past impasses, things like damp in the basement of your new business or the inability to solve a problem, we usually do the exact opposite

of what we should do, according to Rock. We bear down, work harder on it, think about it more, gather information. “It’s like 70 people talking in a room,” he says. “You just literally can’t hear creativity because there’s too much noise. Ideas are too quiet. Being creative involves being able to quiet the brain so that you don’t land on something that simply reduces uncertainty.”

There are many ways to quiet the brain. Go for a walk. Stare out the window. Make your “pleasure” circuitry light up by looking at pictures of your kids. Or exercise. The repetitive nature of something like jogging or swimming frees the mind to go elsewhere, and the increased oxygen intake clears your head. “I don’t really like exercising,” Rock says, “I find it pretty boring. But it’s good for me, and it always gives me good ideas. It gives me a huge amount of energy because ideas are energizing.”

In other words, you have to think of something else to see the answer. You have to go for the blank sheet of paper rather than the mountain of data. “When you quiet the brain,” Rock says, “the non-conscious ideas can come through.”

collection and distribution process and launched our biggest line extension: Red Bull Media House.”

Apart from publishing The Red Bulletin, the media house produces sports and lifestyle content for major television networks. Some of its most successful programming in recent years include TV specials “Red Bull New Year No Limits” (ESPN) and “Red Bull X-Fighters” (ABC), which are extreme sports competitions.

GiltTaste.com is another recent custom content launch and the latest offering from luxury brand discount e-tailer Gilt Groupe, founded in 2007. The site, Gilt’s most recent addition to its luxury portfolio, sells artisanal food and wine but also provides editorial content that includes recipes for the food it sells, features on restaurants and foods, and even cooking videos. The result is artfully presented content with beautifully photographed food that looks and feels like an online magazine.

Gilt Taste is putting equal emphasis on its editorial and e-commerce sections; the content on the site revolves around the products sold in the online store. Likewise, each piece of content, whether a profile of a restaurant or a recipe, is paired with complementary products sold in the store—links to these products are conveniently positioned in an adjacent column.

For Red Bull and Gilt Taste, the content is remarkably transparent: “We want to inspire people to use the product we are selling,” says Jennifer Pelka, managing editor for Gilt Taste. That means branding the site, or the magazine, in a way that ensures readers know where the content is coming from. (Red Bull’s logo is displayed prominently on every page of its magazine.)

It also means hiring true editorial talent, not just corporateers, to instill trust among consumers. Ruth Reichl, former editor of Gourmet magazine and a household name in the world of food writing, serves as editorial advisor for Gilt Taste, for example.

To Brand or Not To Brand

Gilt has tapped into a new cultural zeitgeist. People these days are less picky about where they get their information, says Rebecca Rolfes, executive vice president of Imagination Publishing in Chicago. (Imagination publishes orange.) “People are concerned with getting high-quality editorial content. The source is not important,” she says. “People don’t have the same sense of separation between traditional media and branded content.”
In other words, it doesn’t matter where the content is coming from as long as it is adding value to people’s lives.

However, consumers are constantly being bombarded with content and have learned to tune it out when the quality is low. That leaves an opening for companies that are willing to invest in quality.

Consumer goods giant P&G is well-positioned (and well-funded) to take advantage of that trend. Its current content strategy includes a beauty-focused print and digital magazine called Rouge, launched last year and distributed free via subscription, with older issues available online. Rouge features P&G product-focused content and is taglined “Inspiring ideas by P&G Beauty.”

P&G also produces websites petside.com, a resource for pet owners; LifeGoesStrong.com, entertainment and lifestyle news for 45-to-64-year-olds; and DinnerTool.com, a meal planning and recipe website. P&G launched all three websites in partnership with NBC Universal in the past three years but, unlike Rouge, decided to not make it obvious it owns the websites. The only mention of P&G on these sites is in the privacy policy’s legalese.

P&G, for its part, says it is in the business of making people’s lives better not just through the products that it makes, but also by providing quality family entertainment. “The one thing that hasn’t changed is P&G’s belief in the power of entertainment to make people’s lives better,” Marc Pritchard,

P&G’s global marketing and brand building officer, told Forbes.com last summer. The company’s hope: If you trust their content, by extension you’ll trust their products.

Although P&G sites like DinnerTool.com are not branded, some (but not all) of the ads served up on the site are for complementary P&G products, like Iams dog food on petside.com, and Olay skin products and Crest toothpaste on LifeGoesStrong.com. It’s also worth noting these sites accept advertisements from P&G competitors, such as Purina dog food and Colgate toothpaste.

Johnson & Johnson is another brand that likes to remain behind the scenes. The company bought informational website BabyCenter.com from eToys in the dotcom bust of 2001, and since then has let the site operate pretty much independently of the brand. That’s likely not an accidental decision. (BabyCenter declined to comment for this story.) Today, BabyCenter is the most popular parenting website in the country with an astonishing 78 percent of all new and expectant moms in the United States visiting the site.

Johnson & Johnson doesn’t try to make an overt sales pitch with BabyCenter. In fact, visitors to the site have to dig down pretty deep to find out that it is owned by J&J.

And it also accepts advertisements from competitors, which makes J&J look much more like a media company than a soap manufacturer.

The country’s leading authority on magazines, Samir Husni, says people should be given credit for knowing where they are getting their information. “I am smart enough to know whether to take it with a grain of salt,” says Husni, a journalism professor at the University of Mississippi. Likewise, Husni thinks brands that are not upfront about their content are doing themselves a disservice. After all, they are in the business of selling products. “Why bother putting out good content if you are not going to say it is yours?” Husni asks. “If I am proud of my content, I have to be up front and center about it.”

Which is exactly what Red Bull has done with The Red Bulletin. “We don’t shy away from our brand, our athletes or our stories. That’s why it’s called The ‘Red Bull’-etin,” says Roker.

Rolfes believes part of Red Bull’s motivation for launching a branded magazine has to do with the energy drink’s target demographic. “Red Bull has a very fickle audience that jumps from one trendy thing to another. Right now Red Bull is trendy so the brand has to solidify its position before

people move on to the next trendy thing,” she says.

This is something Red Bull seems to be aware of. “In this launch phase, we’re paying close attention to how our new audience is interacting with and discussing The Red Bulletin,” says Roker. And Red Bull’s Media House is creating more than just a magazine. His vision sounds like a media empire. “Globally, we have a 360-degree platform approach to cover every screen: Red Bull TV, Red Bull Mobile, The Red Bulletin, Redbull.com and Red Bull Records,” he says. “We never intended for The Red Bulletin to only be seen or absorbed as a print magazine, and our hope is that readers and viewers find their way to us across whatever medium they choose.”

For custom content sponsors that are taking a subtler branding approach, their strategy revolves around deepening relationships with consumers by providing strong editorial content that resonates. A strategy called a “deep sell.”

Measuring Custom Content Success

Brands still struggle to prove the success of their content strategy. Content will only be successful if the audience feels it has something of value for them.

The rule of thumb: Custom content has to meet four basic requirements.

First, the brand has to know its consumer, know their needs, socio-economic base, and lifestyle interests. Gilt Taste, for example, has narrowed its customer base to food and wine aficionados willing to pay a premium price for gourmet food. The website’s content revolves around that premise.

Second, the brand should understand what the consumer expects and needs from the brand. Red Bull knows energy drink fans expect highly charged and exciting content, so it delivers on that expectation by sponsoring sports competitions.

Third, the brand should be able to track its readers’ preferences so it can make both hard and soft sells down the road. BabyCenter does this by asking expectant moms (and dads) to create an account on the site and enter in their baby’s due date. The site tracks where the mother is in her pregnancy, or how old the child is, and sends her relevant information in a weekly newsletter. “It’s about understanding what’s in their hearts and minds so that … your messaging … is in sync with where a mom is in her life,” Tina Sharkey, BabyCenter’s chairman and global president, told Hub magazine in its spring issue.

Fourth, there has to be a reward for the consumer; something that he or she gets in return for their loyalty. And rewards don’t have to mean monetary

or material rewards, though this is common: P&G showers its custom magazine, Rouge, with coupons.

Red Bull measures success in terms of the level of engagement the audience has with its content strategy, whether through print subscribers, newsstand sales or “enthusiastic The Red Bulletin recipients of the Sunday metros we partner with,” says Roker. (In its launch phase, The Red Bulletin distributed more than 1 million copies to subscribers of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, Houston Chronicle and the New York Daily News.)

Similarly, Gilt Taste wants to provide a space for people to learn about the food sold on the website. Gilt Taste tracks its success primarily through the total number of readers it attracts to the site, as well as which products the company sells through its online store.

“We’re focused on building a dedicated daily following of readers who regularly check in on our content,” says Pelka. “The website serves as a resource for people to uncover different foods … and the content is there to teach and inspire people to use them in ways they haven’t before.”

Husni, the magazine expert, says the quality and value of the content being delivered is what ultimately determines success. “Good content confirms the goodness of a product,” he says. 
“It is a brand extension, and it has to have the same addictive value, lifestyle and vision as 
the product.”

And what’s the story behind the current packaging design?

The packaging for up & up is visually appealing while avoiding the use of busy graphics. Guests will continue to see the “compare to …” language on the front of most up & up products because they told us it was important. We also added information about Target’s 5 percent giving program to the back of up & up packaging because we know our guests value shopping at a retailer who has an active presence in their community.

By adding an element of design to our owned brand packaging, we’re creating an emotional connection with our guests.

The up & up brand seems to be expanding. What are some of the newer items under the brand?

We continue to add owned brand products where we are able to add significant value for our guests, by either serving an unmet guest need, or helping them save money on their favorite products.

In the spring, we launched a new line of up & up office products, including several filing items, binders, pushpins, paper clips and magnets. Guest response has been very positive. Since converting to up & up in 2009, we have seen consistent and significant sales increases for the brand.

“I’d like people to be able to touch and feel my product, like I do any other product, but ours is an intangible product; it’s a service. We’re an experience, and experiences are hard to evaluate before the purchase. So, that was where we anchored ourselves and our marketing fundamentals, and we said to ourselves, ‘Hey, does your service, does our service here at Blue Cross/Blue Shield of North Carolina have clear positioning against the competition? Do we have or use focused communications with distinctive appeals, to clarify our service promise and inform our customers?’

I think we said, ‘Before this campaign, no we don’t.’ And that was really the strategy behind what we did. If you look at our campaign now, I think you can look at right off of our website. You can feel. You can see. You can touch the experience. You can imagine the experience that you would have with us as your health insurance company.”

Surprise ROI: “When we played the videos for internal staff, and I looked around the room, all I saw was tears. And I received so many e-mails from employees just thanking me for finally telling our story.

The poignancy and emotion this brought on was unexpected by me, and this campaign went far beyond what I could have imagined. It helped our entire company feel proud about what we do.”

Key to Success: “Tell the stories you believe in. Focus the communications about your service in a distinctive way to clarify the promise of why your service is better than someone else’s.”

Who inspires you? “Seth Godin. He keeps you sharp and honest. As a marketer, he doesn’t allow you to go to that soft, squishy middle place of undifferentiated marketing.”

Jenifer Gulvik

VP, Marketing, Houlihan’s Restaurants, Inc.

Campaign: The HQ, 2008

Goal: Create an online community and crowdsourcing experience for select Houlihan’s customers so they can engage with Houlihan’s leadership and provide insight into the consumer market

“By actively engaging with our customer base, we had to experience a mindset change—internally. Suddenly we realized the potential impact of having 10,000 customers talking to you in the social space and what that might mean. While the hard costs weren’t that much, there are people running this community and a lot of time goes into it. Everybody wants to talk about the ROI on social media or listening, but I like to ask, ‘What’s the ROI on ignoring your customers?’”

Surprise ROI: “I never realized just what customers will do for you as a business if you just ask them. When we launched this, I really wanted it to be more subtle, like it wasn’t an overly commercial venture. I never wanted anything to come across as hard sell, or we’ll do this for you if you do this for us. But I’ve come to realize that a lot of consumers, a lot of your customers, they actually want to help you. They want to be a part of your success.”

Key to Success: “There’s never any downside to listening. I can understand there are times that you want to be led by your

consumers and other times where you just need to lead them and lead the business. Expectations are so much higher today for customer service, and customers are so much more well-read and more aware of what good service is. If you’re not listening and responding, you’ll miss out.”

Who inspires you? “Bob Hartnett, CEO of Houlihan’s. He’s taught me the most about leadership. Working for him, you learn how to make things happen even when there are people or obstacles standing in your way.”

Scott Brandt

Vice President, Marketing, SurePayroll

Campaign: Extreme Payroll social media engagement

Goal: Engage customers online
“We’ve come up with different methods to get our customers talking and incent them to share their stories with their peers, business associates, and others. While it may not have the impact of a Super

Bowl commercial, it is cost effective and gets both our customers and prospects involved.”

Surprise ROI: “Our expectations on campaigns like this are limited. We’re certainly not expecting to double quarterly sales immediately, but at the same time, if we’re gradually and continually getting our brand name and message out there, more small businesses will hear about us over time.”

Key to Success: “As a relatively small business trying to reach the small business community, we have limited resources compared to our larger competitors. So when it comes to branding, we’re not able to spend much of our budget building our brand. While viral marketing has been around for a long time, social media on the Internet has really given companies like us a platform to compete.”

Who inspires you? “I keep a close eye on companies I believe do a great job when it comes to marketing. Some of those I watch closely are Apple, Intuit, Salesforce.com, American Express, and Google.”

Patrick M. Flanagan

VP of Digital Strategy, Simon Brand Ventures
Simon Property Group

Campaign: National and Localized Social Media

Goal: Allow customers from across the country to interact, while leveraging the grassroots characteristics of each property
“We’re bringing content back and forth so the same deal can be found and is accessible to everyone. So, we send out a message in a Facebook app, and it also shows up in the e-mail stream inside of an iPhone app, and on any of our other digital networks. We’re trying to wrap our arms around the shoppers so wherever they go, they can find the answer they’re looking for.”

Surprise ROI: “We now have a 400,000 “Like” count, although those numbers don’t really matter. It’s the engagement that matters, and we get 46 percent engagement each month. It’s easy to get fans. You can buy fans; but you can’t buy engagement.”

Key to Success: “The national presence of a brand has its place. But to only have one voice, well frankly, that’s a real waste. You’re missing a real opportunity. Nobody wants to hear from another corporate spokesperson. Instead, they’re hearing from their mall’s moderator. You can go meet the moderator—they’re working in that local mall. They’re there taking pictures, bringing up the voice.”

Who inspires you? “I live by a saying: ‘Your product is your brand. Focus on your product, and your brand will follow.’ The idea is, ‘What are you trying to put out if it’s not up to standard?’ Instead of putting that money into marketing your product, you should put all that money into the product itself.

The person who best follows that approach is Marissa Meyer, VP of search product at Google. Their product is so strong. They rarely advertise and have built a huge following.”