SAMPLING THE POSSIBILITIES

JAMES TENSER

On Wednesday, Aug. 23, in Tuscaloosa, Ala., parched high school band members and football players -- the Hillcrest High School Patriots -- cooled down after a hot practice with free samples of Mello Yello soft drink, dispensed from a customized sampling van parked at the school parking lot.

For Mello Yello, a Coca-Cola Co. beverage that counts young males 12 to 20 years old as its prime consumers, this stop on its three-month van tour, which runs through October, is a finely wrought exercise in target marketing.

"We want to find young people in their element, where they have fun, and bring additional fun to them," says Mary Butin, spokeswoman at Coca-Cola, Atlanta.

To meet that goal, the brand managers have elected to sample the soft drink at beaches, parks, youth centers, after-school programs, minor-league ball games, community pools and high school football games, to name a few venues. The van is loaded with a powerful sound system, games of skill and, of course, beverage dispensers -- all chosen to appeal to the target consumer. Field Marketing Inc., Chicago, is coordinating the tour

for Mello Yello.

Explosive growth in product sampling over the past few years has been widely attributed to the success of the "high-touch" methods of in-store demos. Despite its high unit cost (dry sampling in-store typically runs $300 to $600 per thousand), proponents praise the technique for its ability to convert a high percentage of triers into buyers on the spot.

In-store programs may also align well with the recent focus on marketing through the retail trade, and they may be favored by brand marketers with a strong trade marketing orientation. But some observers say in-store sampling can sometimes miss the mark by reaching relatively few shoppers who are already in the store anyway. Account-specific or targeted programs that cover store trading areas can reach bigger numbers and create new shoppers, benefiting both brand and retailer.

This summer has been rich with examples of targeted sampling programs. A few current examples:

Hanes Hosiery, a division of Sara Lee Corp., Winston-Salem, N.C., created a co-op sampling program that distributes specially designed "art bags" stuffed with product samples, gifts and coupons through 1,000 beauty salons nationwide. Target market: African-American women.

Kraft Foods, Northfield, Ill., set up its tent at the Wisconsin, Minnesota and Nebraska state fairs, offering live cooking demonstrations and tastings of its Kraft Simple Answers quick and easy dinner ideas. Hundreds of thousands sampled the dishes. Tens of thousands of recipe cards were distributed. Target market: America's heartland.

James River Corp., Norwalk, Conn., chose a national door-to-door sampling program to deliver full-sized rolls of its premium Quilted Northern Ultra bathroom tissue to 8 million households in selected neighborhoods nationwide. Target market: upscale families.

Ragold Inc., Chicago, outfitted a "Hum Vee" military-style vehicle for guerrilla marketing of its Juicefuls and Velemints candies, then uses the brightly decorated "Hummer" to spread samples at retail stores, parades, college football games and other events throughout Illinois. Target market: people in Illinois.

Numerous brand marketers, notably Kellogg's PopTarts, PowerBar, Planters LifeSavers, General Mills Total cereal, Keebler snack foods, Seattle Filmworks, Hershey's BarNone and Phone Card People, to name a few, tossed samples into just one of dozens of different co-op sample packs now being prepared for distribution at the nation's colleges and universities next month by MarketSource, Cranbury, N.J. Target market: incoming students.

These real-world examples represent a subset of the vast array of sampling channels available to brand marketers today. Each has various advantages, which informed marketers can match up with their brand objectives and sometimes integrate with account-specific marketing activities.

The Hanes salon gift bag promotion combines ethnic reach and an appropriate venue for beauty care products with the cost advantages of co-op promotion, says Lafayette Jones, president and chief executive officer of Segmented Marketing Services, Winston-Salem, N.C., which developed the program.

With a little customization -- changing the shades of cosmetics samples, for instance -- the program translates well for various ethnic groups, Jones says. In addition to 1,000 beauty salons that cater to African-American women, the Hanes program will reach 750 Hispanic-American salons and 2,000 other targeted shops.

The Kraft state fair sampling program, aimed squarely at America's agricultural heartland, could not be more different in its marketing intent.

Kraft's Simple Answers pavilion has been a prime attraction at state fairs since 1993, said Mary Mistrioty, spokeswoman for GMR Marketing, Brookfield, Wis., which designed the sampling program. At the Wisconsin Fair, 105,558 fairgoers, or 12% of the total attendance, tasted the recipes and 40,000 recipe cards were distributed, she said.

Each brand marketer has selected sampling channels to efficiently bring the all-important product trial to the right consumers.

Jones of Segmented Marketing Services, who is also chairman of the Product Sampling Council, a group organized by the Promotion Marketing Association of America, New York, enumerates seven major sampling classifications, each of which may have further subsets or variations.

Those classifications include: in-store demonstration and distribution; in-pack and on-pack; venue-based sampling, such as church networks, salons and campus packs; door-to-door delivery using newspapers or by hand; direct mail; special events such as concerts, fairs or sports events, and face-to-face via street corner, transportation hub or mall intercepts.

Each of these may be applied nationally or locally, independently or in cooperation with other brand marketers. Programs, whether in-store or not, may be integrated with other in-store merchandising and promotional activity, or coordinated with national advertising.

Brand Marketing has identified 240 firms in the United States that offer any or all of these sampling forms, as well as several more specialized programs such as co-op sample packs for new mothers (distributed in hospitals) or samples distributed on commercial airline flights. These firms, along with the types of programs they offer, are enumerated in the directory that accompanies this article.

Total service billings in the sampling business are hard to pin down, but various sources have estimated the industry at about $750 million per year, not counting the cost of the samples themselves, which can ratchet up the costs considerably for brand marketers.

About two-thirds of the sampling companies identified are members of the National Assocation of Demonstration Companies, headquartered in Farmington, Conn., an organization of local and national companies that specialize in in-store sampling programs.

Virginia Johnson, vice president of H.V. Services, Hanover, Md., an NADC member firm, says independent sampling and demo companies like hers, which focus on in-store sampling and demonstrations, tend to range in revenues from about $750,000 to $4 million annually. Adding in higher figures for a handful major national suppliers substantiates the above estimate.

A few highly sales-driven brand marketers, such as Nabisco, have a reputation for focusing their sampling activities almost exclusively in-store in order to link up with trade marketing objectives. Not surprisingly, suppliers of out-of-store sampling programs have other opinions.

"In-store is important, but it is only part of the mix. The nonstore sampling is gaining rapidly as well," says Jones.

Says Tim Quinn, president of National Home Delivery, New York, a firm that specializes in home distribution of samples using newspaper delivery, "In-store sampling grew due to display opportunity. It's not about targeting, but about quarterly case movement."

NHD, newspaper and alternative delivery suppliers, and various solo and co-op direct-mail vehicles tout their local market targeting abilities as a major advantage over in-store techniques. Most offer either data-base or geodemographic targeting of varying degrees of sophistication, which are designed to target high-volume users of competitive brands and bring them into local stores.

"We have clients that ask us to deliver based on trade coverage," says Quinn, who is also a vice chairman of the Product Sampling Council. "Brand marketers no longer have to make a choice between in-store sampling and direct-to-home. We can hit all the people around the store."

Moving sampling activities outside the store may make competitive sense for some manufacturers who are doing battle with store brands. In the 1995 SN/Brand Marketing State of the Union survey,

53% of retailers said they had plans to increase the use of in-store sampling in support of their own brands during this year.

Combined with tightening restrictions on store access at some retailers, the "discovery" of in-store sampling by retail marketers could result in a tighter market for the same services among brand marketers. Nevertheless, about half the sampling industry billings continue to be generated through in-store programs.

"It's a no-brainer to do in-store merchandising behind in-store sampling. But in-store only represents about half the sampling business," says Jones of Segmented Marketing Services.

"The big opportunity we see in sampling is for merchandisers to leverage sampling events not executed in-store. You have to tell them that it is coming. Sampling lead times are long -- up to nine months. There is time to tell the retailer to prepare," he adds.

Sampling in all its forms reaches a large majority of consumers, and based on their receptiveness, most seem to like it, according to a bit of research just released by the Chicago marketing firm Frankel & Co. The study, which probed consumer attitudes about various kinds of promotions, found that 82% of households had participated in receiving a free sample (one or more) in the past year. Frankel researchers also found that 72% of respondents either always or almost always accept samples that are offered in retail stores.

Roy Cook, managing director of Impact Media, a San Francisco-based provider of national door-to-door sampling programs, says he sees a healthy environment for consumer packaged goods companies as they confront more varied sampling opportunities than ever. "It should keep things competitive. It should keep prices down," he says.

But he also warns that brand marketers are "thinner than ever" in the brand management ranks, which results in more farming out to third parties of programs that were once more closely monitored.

"More options also equals more ways to throw away money. That's why there is deep concern about program controls up front and tracking conversions after the fact," says Cook.

Whether mindful or in spite of such caveats, a large majority of brand marketers, 85%, include product sampling in their promotion activities, according to Donnelley Marketing's 17th-annual Survey of Promotional Practices, released this summer. In-store sample distribution is unquestionably the most popular channel, the survey finds. It is used by 89% of companies who sample.

In-packs and on-packs are the next most popular sampling channel, used by 53%, and local event sampling comes in third at 47%, according to Donnelley, Chicago.

Penetration of other forms of sampling are significantly lower, with 28% of manufacturers employing direct mail; 22% using sample request; 13% using door-to-door or alternate delivery; 13% using newspaper distribution; 13% using magazines, and 10% using mall sampling, according to survey results.

The Donnelley survey results also highlight the importance of consumer targeting being applied to sampling programs. Notably, 67% of brand marketers say they make use of retailer-specific methodologies (primarily in-store sampling). In a span of just two years, the survey authors say, that emphasis has eclipsed demographics at the top of the list. Brand or category development indices are a targeting method of choice for 61% of respondents. Geography is cited by 51%, demographics by 52% and local events by 52%, the survey says. Notably, consumer data base ranks comparatively low on the list, cited by just 21% of brand marketers that target sampling.

The high cost of sampling and sample delivery leads manufacturers to participate in co-op sampling activities. Indeed, according to the Donnelley survey, 30% of sampling is some form of co-op.

While brand marketers and sampling suppliers work to develop more sampling options that permit local market targeting and coordination with retail account objectives, funding for most sampling programs continues to come from the brand side of the equation, rather than the trade side.

"Consumer promotion dollars pay for our activities," says Quinn of NHD.

Jones of Segmented Marketing Services says that in his experience, funding for sampling projects arrive from "various budgets, various ways in different companies." Where careful measurement of distribution and conversion are required, some activities are even paid for out of marketing research funds, he offers as an example.

"Some companies allow local, regional, national sales managers or planners to make decisions about sampling in-store. At some other companies, the decision is made by a corporate manager at headquarters, but timing may be decided by individual sales regions or accounts," Jones says.

With brand marketers' increasing focus on local targeting and account-specific promotion, says Quinn, "sampling will continue to grow dramatically over next couple of years. Lots of manufacturers are trying a lot of different things," says Quinn. "We are trying to make it a forethought, not an afterthought."

Methods of Targeting Samples

Retailer-specific methodologies have taken the lead over demographics, which were cited by 77% of respondents as recently as two years ago.

PERCENTAGE OF BRAND MARKETERS RESPONDING

Retailer-Specific 67%

Brand/Category Development 61%

Geography 54%

Demographics 52%

Local Events 52%

Geodemographics 33%

Consumer Data Base 21%

Saturation of Entire Geography 21%