Article

4 retailers with hot summer marketing tactics

Retail experts discuss how to incorporate summer into marketing plans.

July 23, 2012

Retailers are always looking for a good hook to increase traffic, and summer presents a sizable marketing opportunity, according to several retail and marketing experts. Retail Customer Experience recently interviewed a few to find out their top picks for this summer's hottest marketing campaigns.

Our experts: Reid Stone, CEO of Hero Farm; Sheridan Orr of the Interrobang! Agency, a consulting firm specializing in brand experiences; Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor; and Jamie Ortiz, CEO of Jamie Ortiz Communications.

Stone's pick:Target
Summer marketing tactic: Rolled out its Big Honkin' Summer campaign targeting "mommy bloggers." The company sent them a kit filled with summer toys for review. The retailer also created an app called "Summerizer," where parents could upload pictures of their children with Target-branded frames and clip art.
Why it worked:The campaign captured one of the most basic and age-old, yet commonly overlooked, marketing concepts — filling a timely need, Stone said.

Target sent its Big Honkin' Summer kit to mommy bloggers in hopes of getting some mentions in the blogs. It worked: Shannon Bailey Kelly of The Shopping Mama posted photos of kids playing with the toys.

"During the summer, children often find themselves with huge chunks of free time and parents worrying about the mischief and headache that can bring. Target grabbed onto this thinking and sold an experience. They packaged several products together to not only fill the empty time, but enhance it."

Parents, especially moms, loved the campaign.

Numerous mommy bloggers took to their sites proclaiming their love of the campaign and the thinking behind it. The "Summerizer" images were shared, commented on and liked thousands of times by parents showing their children to the world.

Orr's pick:Havaianas
Who they are: Flip-flop designer
Summer marketing tactic: Launched the #HotSummerNites Campaign on Twitter and Facebook in partnership with Klout, a San Francisco-based company that provides social media analytics to measure a user's influence across his or her social network. The campaign encouraged consumers to publish photos of summer drinks and food and awarded top sharers with prizes.
Why it worked: It used engagement as a measure to win prizes, so customers had to do more than just click, "Like."

"This continuous interaction means the brand had an opportunity to build a relationship with the customer," Orr said. "I loved that the prizes were awarded based on engagement and influence rather than random drawings. That meant that users needed to stay active in the promotion throughout the summer to increase their chances of winning. It was also interesting that they used Klout to measure user engagement."

Phibbs' pick: Graeter's
Who they are: Ice cream parlor based in Ohio
Summer marketing tactic: Displayed a poster in several locations with the head cut out inviting customers to put their heads through it for a funny photo opp. Customers posting their images to the company's Facebook page could win coupons.
Why it worked: It helped pass time for customers waiting in busy lines while encouraging them to interact with the brand.

"It was so much more creative than, 'Scan and Like us' on Facebook to get coupons," Phibbs said.

Ortiz's pick: Barons Market
Who they are: A specialty retail store in Southern California
Summer marketing tactic: Grills sausage dogs and sells chips and unusual sodas in its parking lot and sometimes at local community festivals.
Why it worked: It attracts passersby, builds community relationships and is a way for the brand to showcase its commitment to high-quality foods.

While most retailers focus on online marketing, Barons went with an "old-school grassroots idea," Ortiz said.

Planning your own summer marketing campaigns
Even small retailers can use summer in their marketing plans, said Stone, who insists that a huge budget isn't necessary to pull off successful campaigns.

"Take a look at your customers and see what is driving them at the moment. Everyone has needs and, as a business, it is your job to try to fill them," he said. "How do you create a feeling of family and quality time in this situation with your brand? Answer that and you've got the formula for any time of the year."

Photos:Shannon Bailey Kelly:The Shopping Mama