Baking&Snack - August 2013 - 109

Q&A: DIGITAL MARKETING
Tim Ross
In the rough-and-tumble of consumer marketing, companies need
every advantage they can get. New digital tools point the way to
enhanced reach for essential messaging. Baking & Snack consulted
the experts at SolutionSet, San Francisco, and Catapult Marketing,
Westport, CT, for advice bakers and snack food manufacturers can
use now.
The two companies are the digital and consumer promotions
arms of Irving, TX-based Epsilon, one of the country’s leading
data and technology marketing firms. Drawing on the digital expertise of SolutionSet, the deep consumer insights of Catapult
and its own proprietary data and analytics, Epsilon creates
cutting-edge digital campaigns for consumer packaged goods
(CPG) companies such as the Kellogg Company, Battle Creek,
MI. Epsilon recently brought its various consumer experts together to concentrate on what marketing looks like for CPG
companies in the next several years, resulting in CPG-focused

Paul Kramer
services and the eBook “Beyond the Aisle,” a Top 10 seller in the
Amazon Kindle store.
Paul Kramer, CEO, Catapult Marketing, has worked with
some of the world’s greatest communication companies, including Grey Advertising, Bates Worldwide, Saatchi & Saatchi and
D.L. Ryan Companies. His clients have included several top
global companies, including Johnson & Johnson, M&M Mars,
Cadbury Schweppes, Wal-Mart, Alcoa Consumer Products,
Novartis and more.
Tim Ross, CEO, SolutionSet, leads the company’s efforts to leverage digital technologies to engage customers, partners and employees. He helps define the strategic impact of converging Web,
social and mobile initiatives. Mr. Ross has more than 12 years
experience leading consulting and implementation services on
enterprise digital programs that blend Internet-focused strategy,
user experience and technology.

How to Make
eMarketing Work

Thanks to digital evolution, you can
meet consumers where they are —
inside the store and out.

Joanie Spencer: What roles do Web, social media
and word-of-mouth marketing play in brand building
for baked foods and snacks?
Paul Kramer: You’re looking for opportunities to reach shoppers
as they’re building their shopping lists. That’s what starts the process. It might be occasion-based, either a cultural event like the
Super Bowl or the 4th of July, or a personal occasion such as a
birthday or anniversary.
We did a campaign for the Super Bowl last year for Keebler using football player LaDainian Tomlinson and his wife, Torsha, to
disseminate Keebler snacking recipes. Video became a key part of
the sharing, because we could show actual cooking demonstrations. Also, think about third-party and aggregator sites as channels for recipe distribution. For the Keebler campaign we used
Rachel Ray, for instance. Mr. Tomlinson and his wife appeared in
a video on Ms. Ray’s website, where people go for recipes, occasion ideas and so forth.
Store websites are extremely important. Research shows that
consumers don’t tend to go to brand websites; they frequently
visit their store websites — Wal-Mart, Publix, Target, Kroger, etc.
There are a number of ways to launch occasion ideas into those
sites as well, using banners, targeting direct emails through frequent shopper cards with seasonally appropriate snacking ideas
and so forth. Baking and snack companies can use that channel

as a way to market to consumers during the “pre-shop” period.
Companies need to get their brands on consumers’ shopping lists
by being where those consumers look for ideas.
Traffic to store sites vs. brand sites — even a big brand like Kraft
— is more than 10-to-1. In addition to recipes and food info, the
store sites feature assorted coupons and deals, so they draw a lot of
people looking for those things as well.
Tim Ross: From a social standpoint, there are two things to think
about. First, there’s personal sharing — what consumers are buying, how they’re using it and then sharing among friends. Then,
there’s the contest/promotion side of things, where companies
get users to contribute and vote on things like recipes and ideas.
We’ve seen success with these contests and brag books people have
around the execution of recipes or creative use of baked foods or
snacks.

How can wholesale bakeries better use digital and
social media while maintaining brand integrity?
Mr. Ross: I think that’s always a question companies have when
there are activities that involve user-generated content. As long as
brands enable crowd voting and commenting, along with moderating tools, they can usually mitigate risk without worrying too
much. If you have moderators reviewing items or comments before they publish and/or have the crowd flagging negative com-

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