Innovative Online Food and Drinks Marketing: Building brand and customer relationships online

Innovative Online Food and Drinks Marketing

Building brand and customer relationships online

Report Overview

...In Europe and North America there has been a huge increase in the amount of time spent online, propelling the internet to second place in terms of media consumption, second only to the television. Online advertising is increasingly being used by food and drinks companies to build relationships with their consumers that are not merely based on products. The internet also provides a variety of innovative ways in which to sustain those relationships over time.

Food and drinks companies are increasingly adopting rich media ads and contextual, in-text and in-game advertising all of which are helping to produce more targeted, interactive content for users. As consumers move on to Web 2.0 and increase their use of social-networking and sharing sites, food and drinks companies need to understand how to utilize these applications to target their audience effectively.

Innovative Online Food and Drinks Marketing: Building brand and customer relationships online’ is a report published by Business Insights that provides insight into online marketing strategies. This report analyzes consumer and manufacturer drivers and NPD in the key markets of Europe, Japan and the US.

Key Findings

...Internet penetration is highest amongst teenagers but Internet usage (in terms of hours spent online) peaks amongst the middle aged. Differences between the genders are disappearing as women catch up with men.

The number of hours that people spend consuming media, including online, is rising. Online is the fastest-growing medium and is now second only to TV in terms of timespend.

There are almost 0.6 billion Internet users in the developed world and almost one billion users in emerging markets. That's 72% of the population of the former and 20% of the latter.

Expenditure on online advertising in Western Europe and North America reached $35bn in 2008. This figure is expected to continue growing strongly during the recession.

Use this report to...

• Gain insight into the current and future online advertising technologies and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of different types of online advertising for use in the food and drinks industry.
• Examine the many online advertising opportunities and gain insight into the number of users and their usage rates, as well as the growth and segmentation of the online marketing sector.
• Discover how to build long term customer relationships with this report’s analysis of trade press, industry blogs, entrants to online advertising competitions and ad agency portfolios.
• Identify key trends that are shaping the online food and drinks market and how this might impact on future online marketing campaigns.

Key issues...

User-generated content. Food and Drinks brands are utilizing this low cost creativity by encouraging users to co-create and promote advertisements as well as new products and packaging designs.

Personalization. Companies can target particular consumer groups by personalizing display ads and using sites popular with the specific target group.

Social networking. The growth of social networking is particularly widespread amongst the younger age groups. Food and drinks companies are capitalizing on the growth of this trend by advertising on sites such as facebook.

Instant Messaging (IM). Instant messaging is beginning to replace email for a number of consumers to become the top online activity. Whilst difficult to execute IM marketing can be beneficial for companies investing in this media.

Your questions answered...

• What are the latest types of display ad to be used by food and drink companies?
• Which market is most geared towards winning and maintaining customer loyalty online?
• How have food and drink companies turned advergames into a marketing technique that appeals to both adults and children?
• What proportion of visitors to food and drink company websites arrive via a search engine?
• Which form of new media marketing has the greatest potential reach?
• How can food and drinks manufacturers position their products to capitalize on the key areas of growth in online marketing?