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Millennial Media Opps: B&G Foods increases spend, focuses on building online business

B&G Foods increased SG&A expenses in 2020 partly because of higher ad spending. It increased full-year spend by about 20% and Q4 spend by 50% compared to Q4 2019, per its recent Q4 2020 earnings report. B&G spent around $4.5m on marketing in Q4. It plans to continue adding dollars to marketing with an emphases on building its digital presence. Online sales will be an important sector for B&G going forward as online sales grew by 150% in 2020.In other news B&G acquired Crisco from J.M. Smucker for roughly $550m in October 2020. 

Per Pathmatics, Green Giant earned 5.6m impressions YTD through Instagram ads (35%), Facebook ads (34%) and desktop display ads (31%). It placed the majority (91%) of these ads site direct onto sites such as instagram.com, facebook.com, ebay.com and fox8.com. It placed the remainder indirectly through Beeswax onto politico.com. It spent around $35.9k on digital display ads YTD, a drastic increase from $5.2k spent during the same time period of 2020. Full-year spend totaled $1.3m in 2020, a significant jump from $109k in 2019. 

Pathmatics also reports Ortega earned 2.3m impressions so far this year through Instagram ads (98%) and desktop display ads (2%). It placed the majority (98%) of these ads directly onto instagram.com. It placed the remainder (2%) indirectly through Google AdX+AdSense onto nhl.com. It spent roughly $14k on digital display ads YTD, compared to only $500 during the same time period of 2020.Full-year spend slightly increased from $506.8k in 2019 to $507.1k in 2020. 

According to iSpot, B&G only invests in national TV ads for Green Giant. It spent around $19k in this channel YTD; it did not allocate any budget during the same time period of 2020. Full-year spend equaled $53.5k in 2020 after not investing in this channel in 2019. This year, it placed ads during programming such as "Family Guy," "Love & Marriage: Huntsville, " "Ready Player One," "Forensic Files' and "Dateline on OWN." 

Sellers-- B&G mainly targets millennials with s slight female skew. It only utilizes national TV ads for Green Giant, and I do not think the company will use the channel to promote other brands because it is working on improving its eCommerce business. Digital ads are usually more effective at driving online growth. It also invests in print ads, per Kantar. Keep an eye on the Ortega brand as it typically spends more around Cinco de Mayo, so lookout for extra campaign ad dollars in Q2. Sellers should offer primarily digital ad space. 

Agency & martech readers-- I believe B&G works with AOR Blue Chip Marketing & Communications on creative, digital, social and media. There are no signs indicating a potential review. I recommend looking to other companies for work at this time.