A good marketer has a tight grip on every possible sales factor: pricing, media plan, creative and brand strategy. However, even the best can’t control the weather. For products whose sales depend on a particular season, the ‘wrong’ weather can be very bad for business. But some marketers are finding that while you can’t control the weather, you can adapt your marketing strategy to minimize its impact.

How badly can unseasonable weather hurt a business? ‘It can kill it,’ says Toronto-based international business speaker Donald Cooper. ‘You have a warm winter, who’s going to buy the winter coats? If it’s not a hot summer, beer sales die, pop sales die, ice cream sales die.’

Weather is always an X factor – seemingly more so in the last few years when weather patterns have become increasingly unpredictable – leading businesses to respond in different ways. Some get proactive and look for ways to turn weather to their advantage, while others have tweaked strategies to become less dependent on Mother Nature.

Toronto-based Campbell Soup Canada is an example of the former. Last winter, the company came up with an innovative, integrated marketing strategy, with the help of BBDO Toronto and media buying agency OMD, to air commercials on The Weather Network during winter – but only on days when the temperature dropped below 5° C. Ads also ran on the weather pages of the National Post and Toronto Star, and spots aired during weather and traffic reports on several Toronto radio stations. A ticker promoting Campbell’s soup ran on the Weather Network’s home page and was also e-mailed to people who had signed up to the network’s database.

Campbell’s successfully arranged with The Weather Network to alert other media partners whenever the temperature was forecast to hit the target.

‘It was really there to capitalize on the ‘seasons of the mind,” says Randy Weyersberg, VP of marketing for Campbell’s. ‘Consumers are experiencing cold weather – what can you bring close to mind?’

There was no attempt made to directly measure the campaign’s impact on sales, but gut feeling and a noted buzz around workplace water coolers let Campbell’s know it was on the right track. ‘Intuitively, this program made a lot of sense. It’s right for the business.’

He adds that while driving sales and increasing brand awareness are always goals, ‘it’s important to establish enduring brand strength and you achieve that by resonating with your target group.’

In Cooper’s opinion, the winter campaign was a winner: ‘That’s a great strategy. There’s an immediacy there that resonates with people.’

It’s one thing to exploit weather that’s naturally good for your business but what about marketers confronted with weather that’s not good for their sales?

For Toronto-based Labatt, whose peak selling seasons are summer and December, weather can significantly affect beer consumption. According to Andrew Howard, senior director of marketing, a rainy week can cause as much as a 5% sales drop. If inclement weather continues long enough he says, ‘you might end up with more [media] budget cuts.’

He adds: ‘Weather provides volatility to business results. Rain really shuts it down.’

But, he says, there is a way to soften the blow. ‘You try to do a better job to sell more beer – maybe do less image-based advertising and more promotional [ads].’

This summer, Labatt ran a Blue Light Motel promotion involving agencies Grip, and Echo Advertising and media/entertainment company Clear Channel. While not a direct response to any weather changes, Howard says the May to August campaign was promotional rather than image-based – something not done last year at this time. The promotion involved TV, radio and in- and on-pack exposure, giving consumers a chance to win tickets to two beach parties at Ontario’s Wasaga Beach. Howard says sales volume increased 3% to 4% during the life of the promotion.

Toronto-based men’s fashion retailer Harry Rosen is also trying to be less dependent on the weather by focusing on fashion for fashion’s sake, instead of seasonable wear. While it used to be that people bought long sleeves when it was cold and short sleeves when it was warm, Dave Lackie, events and PR manager for Harry Rosen, says it’s become more about the availability of ‘interesting’ product.

‘We can sell shearling coats in the summer if the piece is interesting enough, because people are buying on impulse and want something special.’

For instance, a July co-promotion the clothier did with Versace for the recent Sean Connery film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was supposed to feature a spring-summer collection. But Rosen was nearly sold out of inventory.

‘So we said, ‘Get the fall stuff in here immediately.’ We put fall outfits in the window display. They sold out. This [trend] is something we’ve noticed more and more in the last couple of years.’

Lackie says Rosen is buying smaller lots from suppliers – and buying earlier in order to provide product pre-season. But weather hurts less when you’re a high-end retailer, he points out.

‘Our clientele is pretty sophisticated, so it’s more of a luxury item. We don’t tend to respond to [weather]. We may push our sale advertising up a week but it’s not a huge amount.’

At Dairy Queen, bad weather during the crucial spring and summer months can also cut sales anywhere between 1% and 5%, according to VP marketing Ron Caughlin.

‘The weather does have an effect on our sales,’ he says. Dairy Queen typically introduces new ice cream products in the summer and, according to Caughlin, ‘spends [its] dollars’ between March and September, which is when 60% of sales occur.

Caughlin says the ice cream maker employs a mix of strategies, ranging from product switching to discounting to counter poor summer weather or seasonal winter weather, but it doesn’t increase ad spend.

‘In the past we used to think we had to spend to drive traffic,’ says Caughlin. ‘We realized it’s a better investment to spend the dollars when historically the sales are strong, during those hotter months.’

He says that at times DQ mails coupons to consumers, especially in winter, to perk up sales. ‘If we were to have a really dismal January we might drop a direct mail in February in some specific markets. It’s not pre-planned.’

Still, he admits there isn’t anything better than a long, warm summer. He says spring and half of the summer was colder than normal this year in eastern Canada. But it warmed up more recently and sales picked up.

He attributes the sales lift in part to the current ad campaign by Grey Toronto introducing new Blizzard flavours such as Strawberry CheeseQuake and Cotton Candy. ‘[But] the weather co-operating has really [translated] into strong sales growth,’ he says, pointing to the Blizzard category being up 30% for the first eight months of the year with a ‘real pickup’ in June.

‘It’s a combination of everything but when you get the right weather it’s like fertilizer – it helps.’

No power? No problem. Hallmark, Mars get innovative

It’s one thing to have your market ravaged by a blizzard, but what happens when the lights go out? You could sit back like everyone else and wait for the power to come back. Or you could turn the situation to your advantage. A few marketers recently did just that. Both Hallmark Canada and Effem rushed out print ads soon after the Aug. 14 power outage in Ontario and parts of the U.S.

Bolton, Ont.-based Effem, which manufactures Mars candy bars, tackled the blackout with a stark ad featuring a darkened Toronto skyline and the simple line, ‘Thursday, August 14, 10:00 P.M.’ The Mars energy bar appeared in one corner with the tag ‘Recharge on Mars.’ The ad ran in the Aug. 21 issues of free Toronto weeklies Eye and NOW as one-time insertions. Rankin Carroll, group franchise manager at Effem, says the credit has to go to BBDO Toronto, which pitched the idea.

‘Something happened, relevant to our consumer base, that had an impact on people’s lives and we saw a linkage between that and this notion of recharging your situation with Mars. We thought people might get a laugh out of it.’

Similarly, Hallmark’s campaign, created by Toronto-based Leo Burnett, used humour in pushing cards welcoming the birth of new babies – the ones consumers created during the power outage when there wasn’t a whole lot else to do except…. The ad featured one card each for boys and girls. The tagline read, ‘Just a reminder that we have cards for all of life’s memorable occasions. Including blackouts.’ The ad made its debut on Aug. 22 in the free daily Metro Toronto, which reaches over 300,000 readers, primarily along public transit routes. The ad also ran on the following Monday in Metro and on Aug. 23 in the Toronto Star.
Denise Darragh, VP brand marketing for Toronto-based Hallmark, says the decision to respond was immediate after agency Leo Burnett pitched the idea on Aug. 21. ‘It came together in 24 hours. We said, ‘It’s fantastic. Let’s go!”

She says it was a great opportunity to demonstrate that Hallmark isn’t exclusively about gushy sentimentality. ‘When we get the chance, we like to show that yes, we do have a sense of humour. That really was the main goal – to hopefully put a bit of a happy spin on what was a challenging time for everybody.’