In the early days of web retailing, some merchants feared that consumer packaged goods manufacturers would bypass retailers altogether and sell directly to consumers via the Internet. By now, CPG manufacturers have enthusiastically embraced the web, but as a marketing vehicle, not as a direct sales vehicle.
CoolSavings, a Chicago-based, online direct marketing company with more than 20 million households in its database, says it has experienced a 62% increase in the number of CPG companies using its web-based direct marketing services in the first quarter of 2002 compared to the same period last year. Mathew Moog, CoolSavings president and CEO, says CPGs can better target an audience with online newsletters that deliver store coupons than with traditional offline-distributed coupons.
For example, Tide launched a new stain pre-treater, called Tide Kick, with CoolSavings’ request-based sampling service. CoolSavings customers that were driven to the Tide product site also signed up to receive Tide’s consumer newsletter, allowing the brand to build one-to-one relationships with customers. While the company did not disclose promotion costs or the number of customers it acquired, Tide says no other marketing vehicle it used delivered the number of requests as CoolSavings.
Another brand, Lysol, used CoolSavings to push sales of its antibacterial spray during flu season. Moog says CoolSavings teamed with a company that provides flu reports based on geographic location and sent e-mails about Lysol spray to a targeted base of moms, who Lysol believed would likely be concerned about the flu virus.
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