Shopping Influence & Giving Tuesday

It’s been interesting to watch retailers (and the media) wake up to the nation’s purchasing habits – and “name” them, “institutionalize” them, and further promote these habits.  I’m speaking, of course of “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday.”  It wasn’t long ago that the day or weekend after Thanksgiving marked the beginning of the holiday buying season... yet the “official” nature of these spending days has now been set in stone, so to speak, through the phrases and the sales.

What’s more intriguing today is to see how others are trying to bend the rules a bit – not picking up on consumer habits and “naming” them but rather using the technique to try to create behavior itself.  To “influence” how consumers spend their money… and the best example so far has been “Giving Tuesday” – the day after Cyber Monday.  Nonprofits now are doing their best to continue the tradition of “year-end giving” by naming a day – and hopefully creating the behavior.  

It’s not that far-fetched an idea, in this case.  As a general rule, people do tend to give more to nonprofits during the holidays – perhaps because of the concept of “giving” to those in need during the holiday season, perhaps because of the year-end tax deductions.  Who knows?  However, nonprofits have had a longstanding tradition of pushing donations in the 4^th Quarter and some generate the majority of their revenue stream at this time.

So how to influence giving?  GivingTuesday.org is the brainchild of the 92^nd Street Y – and they’ve created the website as well as the Twitter hashtag #GivingTuesday.  And the idea seems to have taken off… thanks (perhaps?) to the 92^nd Street Y’s partnership with organizations such as Microsoft, the United Way, JPMorgan Chase, and the Huffington Post, among others. 

According to Crains New York, approximately 1,500 organizations across the U.S. are promoting the idea. And the media have picked it up, with stories from Atlanta to Oregon (picked up from the AP Newswire) to NPR. 

It’s nice to see that a new effort from nonprofits to generate donations has gained some traction among a number of factions – from donors to the media.  Now let’s see if this “influence” idea works – and if consumers will “follow the name.”

Hostess & Brand Influence

It was not hard to recognize what influenced Americans most this week.  The outpouring of sentiment across media at the news that Hostess was shutting its doors was tremendous – reflecting the power and influence of brands on children.

To quote one tweet I received, as we sent out condolences to one another: “I can’t remember the last time I had a Twinkee.  But it’s still so sad!”   It’s not about what we’re eating now – Hostess is in trouble because not enough of us are Twinkeed out.  Instead, our culture has become more health/snack conscious and has been shunning these types of foods.   But that hasn’t stopped the shock factor of losing one of America’s “favorite” brands… and may be the best hope for a resurrection….

Of course, every media outlet had its twist on the closing.  Fox News was all about the union battle that led to the closing decision.  The Huffington Post blog was about how declining sales, over time, led to the company’s demise.  But the Boston Globe hit the nail on the head when it comes to “influence.”  With a photograph, they noted the buying frenzy for the last of Hostess memories.  

As one mother lamented for her 2 yr. old daughter: “She’s never had a Twinkie…I can’t wrap my head around it. It was always in lunchboxes, and I was a teacher. They’ve always been there.”

And therein lies the power of brand influence.  We may not have bought one for decades but the sentiment hangs on.  No one wants Hostess to disappear forever – it represents the staple of our childhood. 

“Adrienne Vincent, 52, of Braintree, was already feeling nostalgic about her favorite Hostess snack — Devil Dogs — and feared it might bring her to tears. She recalled climbing out of the family swimming pool as a child to be greeted by her mom with the chocolate cake sandwiches, shaped like a hot dog bun, with a creamy filling.”

Hostess represents childhood to us – to the joys of eating those sugary, fatty, high-calorie foods when we were young and our parents didn’t know any better. 

We’ll see where the Hostess story goes. In the meantime, we should salute Hostess for the power of their brand influence over us – even if we only realize it when the doors have shut.  

Post-Election Blog – Who REALLY had Influence?

Looking at the election in hindsight, perhaps it is most interesting now to talk about who were truly the most influential people, events, and media?

It’s interesting to note that, during and after the election, the true winner was pollster Nate Silver –who had predicted all results correctly for each state in the U.S.   While not everyone looked to him for results, it is clear that – going forward – he will have tremendous influence on media coverage.

Similarly, it’s interesting to note how well television coverage did – as viewers tuned in to see how the election was going. According to the New York Times, over 66 billion people watched the results on television.   NBC News “won” with their election night coverage, according to Nielsen data, with approx. 12.1 million viewers.  This was higher than the audience that viewed Fox News Channel (approx. 11.5), thought it was – in fact – their biggest primetime audience ever.

In addition, it appears that 31 million tweets showed the influence of social media on election coverage.  And the Twitter world was “on fire” with speculation that Diane Sawyer was perhaps under the influence of alcohol. 

Even more interesting to note was how television coverage was “reacting” to news on Twitter.  For example, Brian Williams had to “shootdown a Twitter rumor about NBC calling the Senate race in Massachusetts for Elizabeth Warren.”   While NBC did call the state for Warren later, it was interesting to note their reaction to – and correction of  - incorrect information flying around the Twittersphere. 

A similar reaction came from Tom Brokaw, who called the election results “schizophrenic” and then came back to retract his statement after a deluge of social media comments and reactions.  He apologized on air for using the term.  Long live the new power and influence of social media!   

The Hollywood Reporter, interestingly enough, covered how the media reported the election results around the world.  It led in the BBC’s morning coverage with their Washington D.C. correspondent (Adam Brookes) noting estimates of campaign spending of “at least $3 billion.”  He went on to mention that “Americans spend $6.5 billion a year on Halloween costumes and candy,” to put the amount in perspective, however.   

That keeps it all in perspective now, doesn't it?