Tell me, Readers, how well do you know your customers and prospects? I mean really know them - beyond just "people in market for product xyz" or "people suffering from condition pdq"?

Beyond demographics, have you identified their psychographics? Behaviors? Motivators? Hot buttons? Have you taken the time to segment them into like-minded groups?

Seriously, indulge me with a response to this quick poll, and then read on to see how other marketers fair.

Continue reading "How well do you know your customers?" »

Posted by Stephanie Rogers at 05:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Why do we bother with global demand generation? Life is so much easier if all of the regions manage their own campaigns. After all, who knows their region better than they do? It removes all of the politics and makes global marketing just one big happy family. Right?

WRONG

Global companies have global customers. So a customer in Bangalore should have the same brand experience as a customer in Tokyo, Paris or Toronto. And in today's increasingly fragmented media environment, demand generation can play an even greater role in your brand perception than your traditional brand building mediums such as PR or advertising. Ignore this at your own risk.

And then of course there is the matter of finances. Developing 50 different campaigns in 50 different countries each and every quarter certainly doesn't have a positive impact on EBITDA does it? You're losing all of the economies of scale benefits offered by a more centralized demand generation structure.

So why don't more companies do it?

Continue reading "Global Demand Generation - Not For The Faint Of Heart" »

Posted by Doug Fox at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday was my day for door-to-door salespeople. I had two knocks within 15 minutes of each other. I can go six months without the doorbell ringing once so the two calls so close together was unusual. In my current neighborhood, however, the door-to-door sales effort has become a rite of Spring.

In the past, it's been a high school or college kid looking to paint my house or a lawn service technician promising to transform my yard. Yesterday, I had two very different experiences, which made me reflect on the value of tone.

The first knock was another college kid looking to schedule a free gutter estimate. Of note was his physical location - after knocking he had retreated fifteen feet to the bottom of our front stairs. He physically wasn't in my face and that helped make him to be less intimidating, less intrusive. He also had a grin that was ear-to-ear - this guy was happy doing what he was doing. First impression was positive. He asked how I was and if I had a few minutes. Polite – my positive perception was growing.

Continue reading "D2D Marketing. Knocking on the Customer's Front Door." »

Posted by Todd Baird at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you're a marketing professional, then you're likely all-too-familiar with the concept of media fragmentation, or the continued splintering of our target audiences as they move away from a handful of large media publishers/sites towards many smaller, niche ones. It makes finding and communicating with our audiences a lot harder, as the number of media outlets through which to reach them has grown exponentially. The phenomenon has given rise to the Long Tail, as well as a new breed of providers that claim to have the solution: ad networks.

Contextual advertising provider ContextWeb, together with BIMA, hosted an invitation-only roundtable in Boston last week to discuss this very topic. Titled, Media Fragmentation: Wandering Audiences and What Advertisers Can Do About It, the session featured Jay Sears, SVP Strategic Products at ContextWeb, and Steve Ustaris, Group Media Director at Carat, discussing the market response to fragmentation and the pros and cons of ad networks.

"Daunting but Exhilerating" Times

Sears opened the session with some pertinent quotes from IAB Chairman and ContextWeb Board Member, Wenda Harris Millard, who noted at the recent IAB Conference that these are "daunting but exhilerating" times - where consumers are calling the shots and the market bears witness to many strange bedfellows.

Consider that portal page views have declined in the last few years (below chart courtesy of ContextWeb), while blogs are growing at a rate of 120,000 per day (Technorati currently tracks 112 million blogs).

Yet 75% of media spend is still going to the top 10 Internet properties...perhaps out of habit, perhaps because planners don't know how to penetrate the Long Tail.

Continue reading "Ad Networks: a Response to Media Fragmentation" »

Posted by Stephanie Rogers at 06:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The Boston Business Journal is part of my required reading. I look for it every Friday and I've always gone cover to cover by the following Monday. It does a great job reporting across all the key industries, it is civically minded, the writers are well informed, the writing is lively, and largely spot on.

But I take a lot of heat from my people at PARTNERS+simons for not providing illustrative information to the BBJ so we can be included appropriately in the annual list of the "Area's Largest Advertising Firms." A few clients have even wondered about this -- which is a bit more awkward, frankly.

For those ART+Science blog readers who may be unfamiliar with the list, agencies submit "2007 Massachusetts billings" and the number of "Massachusetts employees" among other data points having to do with business breakdown by media and by discipline. But a close look at the list reveals that there is something very squirrelly afoot, that there is a lack of integrity in the information that some of these agencies present about themselves.

For example, the agency listed at #3 claims $2.6 million in billings per employee, the #4 agency claims $4.7 million and #5 claims a whopping $8.6 million, but the poor shop that's ranked #6 reports only $1.2 million per employee. Are these agencies in the same industry? No amount of analysis of the breakdown by media or discipline can satisfactorily explain the astonishing differences.

Instead of presenting some visibility into the relative scale of the region's advertising agencies, the list says more about the hyperbole some agencies invoke on their own behalf. I am sure there are some truthful numbers, and I have a general idea whose those are. And in a more intimate setting, I'd point out where the truth is on leave.

My strategy? I don't play, and I don't feel left out.

Posted by Tom Simons at 04:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There are so many negative stories in the news right now. Sub prime lending crisis. Home values crashing. Foreclosures up. Jobs falling. Oil soaring. Dollar down. Food costs rising. February retail sales drop. Recession.
 
What's a brand to do during uncertain economic times like these? Predictably, cutting the marketing budget is a first line of defense. But clever marketers realize, and history demonstrates, that this is a mistake. After all, with your not-so-clever competitors cutting budgets this can be a better time for your brand to stand out from the crowd and grab more attention.

Since repetition is key to making your brand more memorable, altering your brand's promise to reflect the changing economy doesn't seem like a good idea. However, adjusting messaging to show customers and prospects that you understand their situation, essentially dialing up the brand’s empathy attribute, can help forge a better emotional connection with audiences.
 
On 3.13.08 at 11am ET, there were 506,000 Google results for "brands during recession."  So why not add this one  to the list? You may want to check out the brand debate at brandchannel.com. I also like David Murphy's blog on "Building brand value during a recession."

Posted by Todd Baird at 05:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Barack Obama sent me a text message on New Year's Eve. Michelle Obama emailed me earlier in the day. On Obama's Facebook page, supporters were urged to encourage their Iowan friends to caucus. As usual, Obama's blog was abuzz.

In a race that has already seen the nation's first-ever YouTube presidential debate, this election has attracted a new wave of young voters through the Internet and social networking sites. But what can we, as marketers, learn from Obama? Let’s look at four lessons before we decide who'll lead our country for the next four years.

Stay top of mind. Team Obama excels at putting "product" in hands, especially hands of the coveted 18-34 year-olds. Photos of him flood Flickr. Rallies and speeches feature merchandise tables like he's Bono. And Obama Mobile makes it easy to receive product, er, poll updates, like the one I received on New Year's Eve. It's politician as product—and it's working.

Develop a smart contact strategy. Politics is the ultimate sales pitch. The key to Obama's success online is his ability to reach his audience. He leads all candidates in Facebook supporters and MySpace friends, and dominates Democrats in YouTube views. Of course, clicks don't equal sales, but if all those friends turn into votes, Obama's Communications Director will keynote many a marketing conference in 2009.

Content is king. All politics aside, it's easy to see why Obama resonates well in Web 2.0: He's the youngest, freshest face out there. But he also delivers the goods with an easy-to-navigate site, tons of video, Buddy icons, Google Gadgets, and even fun ringtones. Can your brand say the same?

Learn from the past. Marketing and politics have at least one thing in common: failed campaigns. The key here is to learn from those mistakes. In a December New York Times Magazine article about Howard Dean's 2004 campaign, Matt Bai reflects on Dean’s ultimately failed attempt to utilize the Internet, and discusses whether today's candidates are doing any better. Granted, a campaign for home loans might not have the same impact as a race for the White House, but that doesn’t mean we can't learn from past mistakes.

So are we about to elect America's first iPrez? According to techpresident.com, yes. And Obama is in the lead, based on how he uses the Internet to enhance his campaign, as well as his stance on technology issues. If he wins, let's just hope he has a good relationship marketing plan in place.

Posted by Matt Fishbein at 09:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Focus groups.  You gotta love them.  Even when they go wrong, at least they're fun (more on that later).  But the point of focus groups is to get meaningful information about your target audience and how they react to a particular set of concepts, positioning statements or product promotion materials.  If done right, a focus group can give you excellent results – giving you the information you need for your program development.  But, if done wrong, they can be disastrous – leaving you with a big bill, not much useful information and an unhappy client.  So how do you make sure that you have a good experience?

Stay Focused:  Often people say they want to test a message or ad concept using a set of focus groups, but during the development process other things start to creep into the scope of research.  Often it is a hope to kill two birds (or more) with one stone – and save money.  But the problem with scope creep is we lose focus.  For the best result, stay on track.  Use the focus groups to find out the answer to a specific set of questions about one specific problem.

Use the best research method: Focus groups can be an effective "qualitative" way to understand how your target audience will react to a positioning statement or concept.  But, remember, a small group of people will only give you a glimpse into what the larger audience will do – and what that larger audience will be like.  Qualitative results really can only be used for general direction.  If you need "quantitative" or "statistically significant" results, then a telephone or Internet study with a much larger audience sample will be required.

Visuals need to be simple: Testing specific visual images and asking a few specific questions can be very effective in a focus group.  For example, it would be okay to show a diagram of a knee with osteoarthritis and ask people if the image would be helpful in gaining a better understanding of osteoarthritis of the knee.  However, focus groups are not generally the right place to show complex concept visuals such as a an ad that states: how "sweet" a cable TV product is, and uses a visual of a woman eating chocolate cake.  For the former, some people may look away from the knee diagram at first, but mostly they will come back and say, "yes, that is helpful," or "no, it is not." But with the cake ad concept, you are likely to have more comments about the cake than an answer to your questions: "I don't like chocolate cake." or "Wow, she doesn't need to eat that." Or  "What does chocolate cake have to do with my cable TV?"

Continue reading "To Focus or Not to Focus (Group)" »

Posted by Ed Feather at 03:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was lucky enough to get a peek behind the curtain of this campaign at the Marketing Sherpa B2B Demand Generation Summit in Boston.  Unisys wanted to target C-Level decision makers in Fortune 500 companies. More specifically they wanted to enhance the perception that Unisys was the best strategic partner for outsourcing solutions. Even more specifically, they wanted to focus on about 100 key execs within that list.

Sure, with such a small list, Unisys could have simply sent in their top sales people (and I’m sure they did). But they went way beyond that.

It started with a big idea: Unlearn Outsourcing. It was a great theme that challenged C-level folks to rethink their perceptions of outsourcing.

To this big idea they added another: hyper targeting. While hyper-targeting is not without controversy—especially in the free-wheeling social networking world of MySpace, Facebook, et.al.—it can be highly effective when done right.

Unisys knew exactly who their top 100 prospects were. They knew where they worked, where they lived, how they commuted, etc. So they leveraged that knowledge and ran a drive to web campaign aimed at specific individuals.

Unisys ran outdoor ads along specific commuting routes. They wrapped select commuter trains. They used Captivate to message to key prospects within their own office buildings. They created magazine covers with personalized photos and messaging. They even sent these top 100 individuals a dimensional mailer complete with a video iPod pre-loaded with a personal message.

And then things really got targeted.
 

Continue reading "The Art of Hyper Targeting" »

Posted by Steve Lynch at 09:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had the good fortune to attend Podcamp Boston recently and meet a gentleman named John C. Havens.

John is the VP of Business Development at BlogTalkRadio, and together with Shel Holtz, is author of the upcoming book, Media 2.Open: Discussions on Transparency in Business.

This is a hot topic in professional circles these days; the rise of social networking, open source development, and consumer generated media has led to an environment of radical transparency.

How do individuals, companies, and brands deal with this phemonenon? How much information sharing is too much? And how do brand managers navigate these new waters in which they don't have control of their brands?

The idea of tranparency is interesting to me because I've experienced it as an individual blogger, as an agency blogger, and as a consultant to marketers trying to make sense of the social media space. Today, we find ourselves in an open source era, where consumers who are increasingly connected through social networks expect to have access to and share information when and where they want. I like to think that all of this sharing and collaboration creates value, but of course there can be pitfalls if not done carefully.

Transparency in business means conducting business with integrity, authenticity and intelligence - understanding how to join in the public conversation and share information that is relevant, while not feeling so pressured to share that you communicate irrelevant/erroneous/sensitive information.

John and I discussed this, plus practical ways for brand marketers to manage the blogosphere, in my recent interview on BlogTalkRadio. Give it a listen and let me know what you think.  

Posted by Stephanie Rogers at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Three elements of effective positioning are: 1) who you are, 2) what you do and 3) why you should care. The first two are easy, but it's the last one that can challenge a marketer. How do you cause someone to care about your brand?

The first impulse is to evaluate the rational benefits of your product or service. Is it faster, cheaper, or better in a meaningful way? If it is, then you can message against this advantage. But be careful. You need to know if your competitors can easily duplicate your "advantage". If they can then you could find your campaign outdated and meaningless rather quickly. Consider TD Banknorth "Bank Freely" campaign that ran last summer. They promised customers no fees to use their or any bank's ATMs. It was a bold move, but one that was easily duplicated. Within a few months, most of the major banks offered checking accounts that waived fees for using another bank's ATM. After about six months the campaign had no relevance and was soon dropped.

Especially in mature categories like banking where meaningful differentiation is rare, it's the emotional connection a brand has with its audience that can make a difference. To message emotionally requires an in-depth understanding of your target audiences. Start with your current customers. Who are they? What do they believe is important? Why do they buy your product or service? How does it make them feel? Once you have an understanding for their emotional connection to your brand you can develop messaging that has a better chance of engaging others like them. Once engaged, you have a chance they'll switch.

I've heard many colleagues suggest that positioning is about the rational while messaging focuses on the emotional. I suggest that today's marketing strategist needs to understand the emotional motivations as well as the rational. Caring is emotional, not rational.

Posted by Todd Baird at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As I sat in the large meeting room with hundreds of fellow marketers at the Marketing Sherpa’s B2B Demand Generation Summit here in Boston, I was not only energized by the brainpower in the room, but also with the willingness to share experiences of success and failure.  After all, a lot of us are trying to reach the same, sometimes elusive, B2B technology audience.

I found myself nodding in agreement when the moderator listed the top 5 challenges we face:

1. The growing committee of decision makers involved in the research and buying process.  Head nod – I’d written a blog posting on the subject several months ago.
2. The right content at the right time.  Head nod – we’ve discussed many times both internally and with clients the value of testing offers at various points in the process.  For example, is a prospect really ready for an in person assessment when they’re only at the awareness phase in the decision making process – probably not.
   
3. Building and testing landing pages.  Head nod – yes the samples of landing page looked so familiar.   Yet without the commitment to testing up front how will we know we couldn’t be doing a better job?
   
4. Being everywhere. Marketers think they’ve found their target audience but in reality that’s because they’re everywhere.  Head nod – our audience is everywhere.  They’re online, they’re reading magazines, blogs, emails, and mobile devices so our budgets need to work harder and harder to reach them.
   
5. Handing off the right leads.  Head nod - the sales team will appreciate fewer more qualified leads than being bombarded with leads that are no where near ready to speak to a sales rep.

They were preaching to the choir…So why is it that beyond the walls of this summit and within the walls of our client offices does it often feel like these challenges are ignored?

I don’t think they’re ignored.  Rather we as marketers need to keep our first target audience in mind – our clients.  In fact they are facing these same five challenges every day.

As we’re in the throes of 2008 planning we have a great opportunity to address the challenges our clients face as we develop our strategies and recommendations.  We need to keep the following in mind:

Continue reading "Knowing Your Audience" »

Posted by Kara Tierney at 05:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to the PEW Internet & American Life Project 80% of American Internet users have searched for health information on the web.  Most start at a general search engine to find health information, but eventually narrow their search to a health portal or a disease specific site.  Finding health information on the web is easy, but finding the RIGHT information, and information that can be trusted or easily understood is another story.

According to the American Academy of Physicians (AAP) there are now more than 24,000 medications on the market, and many have Websites with reams of product and disease information.  Combine this with the many health portals such as WebMD.com, CDC.gov and MayoClinic.com, and consumers often have more information than they can handle.  This means drug marketers need to be more and more careful about the information they provide online and how it is presented.  Is it enough?  Is it too much?  Is it easy for the target audience to find the Website, read the information and to understand it?

Continue reading "Making Medical Marketing a Little Easier to Understand" »

Posted by Ed Feather at 05:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Every marketer believes in the value of conducting a competitive analysis. But what happens once it’s been completed? How did it impact your strategy? How often do you refer to it? Update it? How deep is it? How much value did it really have?

For many, competitive analysis is a checklist item. Some internal or external source labors to inventory and summarize the communication by media. Another aspect of these reports may include determining the positioning and support. There may even be a positioning/messaging map that visually groups competitors by their message area. This helps the marketer determine a unique place for their messaging strategy. For the most part, these analyses do a good job of reporting what competitors say.

But where these exercises tend to fall short is in analyzing how they are making their claims.  What emotional ground are they using? How does the message connect? Are the communications simple? Unexpected? Concrete? Credible? What reasons are there to believe what they claim? Knowing how competitors are messaging is as important as what they are messaging. The competitive analysis that does a good job of evaluating the message beyond the words will lead to a sharper positioning and message strategy, one that will drive better creative.

Posted by Todd Baird at 08:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Any time I get more than 3 emails from 3 different people on the same topic on the same day I stand up and take notice. Especially when it has the subject “monkey with a death wish.”

But that’s not what this is about (although it is pretty darn funny).

I’m talking about the marketing for The Simpsons Movie. (In theaters starting July 27, 2007. Doh! I couldn’t stop myself.) It is a great example of surround the customer creative that works.

But let me start with a warning. If you think the Simpsons is stupid, stop reading and go ahead and click on the monkey with a death wish video.

But if you’re one of the many who consider the Simpsons TV show to be a high water mark in American culture and the most consistently funny, longest running sitcom in TV history, then by all means stay with me here.

Lots of brands try to surround the customer with marketing. But it doesn’t always work. And when you take on something as legendary as the Simpsons, it better be good and on brand.

Well, hooray, hooray, the people marketing the new Simpsons movie have it just right. For starters the movie site is incredibly addictive and engaging.  Granted it is still under construction, but I love the way the site immerses you in Springfield.

If you have time to kill, check out the Wrecking Ball Game. Very cathartic.  They also feature a tool called Create Your Simpson Avatar – a terrific, free lesson in cartooning the Simpsons way! There’s even a MySpace page that hits the right notes. All this plus a variety of desktop and mobile downloads from ringtones to icons to wallpapers.

(Even as I write this I can’t wait to see the movie. And pre-order the DVD. See, it works.)

While most of the target audience for this film lives online, the Simpsons marketing team also has a smart guerilla campaign.  For a limited time (as in during the promotion of this film) a number of 7-Eleven Stores have turned into Kwik-e-Marts from the show. The 7-Eleven site itself is a partner in crime.

 

Continue reading "Surrounded by Simpsons" »

Posted by Steve Lynch at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's my turn to write a blog entry on strategy, an area that I know a thing or two about.

So naturally, I start with a list.

Corporate strategy. Brand strategy. Marketing strategy. Sales strategy. Communication strategy. Media strategy. Direct strategy. Offer strategy. Creative strategy. Service strategy. Product strategy. Pricing strategy. Web strategy. Promotion strategy. Contact strategy. Distribution strategy. Public relations strategy. New business strategy. Research strategy. Customer strategy. Naming strategy.  Measurement strategy.

Finally, I pause. I’m sure I could add more, but my head is already dizzy just thinking about this maze of decks. How do I possibly pull something together on such a broad subject?

I gave some thought to people who I consider to be exceptionally smart, strategic thinkers. Some can take the complex and make it simple. Others provided tremendous insight into customer motivations and how to connect with it. And that’s when I focus my thinking – the best strategy is the one that can be executed and measured.

Too often, we put more emphasis on the thinking...“coming up with the big idea”...than on the execution. What good is the strategy if you can’t make it happen?  And, even if you can make it happen how do you know if it's working or not unless you measure it?

Posted by Todd Baird at 02:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Technology marketers have historically spent a lot of their budget on events – without really knowing if they’re a productive sales and marketing activity.

It needn’t be that way. By developing an event measurement strategy and plan, technology marketers can better understand event ROI and make an informed decision on which events are profitable and which are not.

Our measurement approach collects data and analyzes event performance across three dimensions:

• Perception Metrics - focus on the range of functional, emotional and latent connections that combine to form an opinion of your brand resulting from the event.
• Performance Metrics - help to assess how the various brand building and demand generation activities of the event have combined to drive overall business results.
• Financial Metrics - represent the economic impact on the business of the event investment.

We then develop a turnkey measurement program plan aimed at guiding continuous improvement of events. This includes:

• Content - which content were attendees most interested in and why?
• Campaigns - what communications efforts aimed at driving qualified traffic and mining that traffic worked and what didn’t?
• Commerce - how many qualified opportunities that resulted in measurable economic value resulted from the event investment?

We can measure these by individual event and in total. The following is our recommended set of metrics for optimizing the performance of your event investments:

Continue reading "The Show Must Go On. Are You Sure?" »

Posted by Ken Dec at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I am currently reading Ideaspotting: How to find your Next Great Idea by Sam Harrison. The book offers suggestions about how one can find creative ideas by looking at life in new ways. I came across one particular anecdote I'd like to share.

Liking broccoli is not the same as eating it.

A boy goes to dinner at a friend's house, and the mother asks if he likes broccoli.

"Sure," says the boy. "I like broccoli fine."

During dinner, however, the mother sees the boy hasn't touched the broccoli.

"I thought you said you likes broccoli," says the mother.

"Oh, I like it," replies the boy. "I just don't eat it." 

Sam's point, "watch what people do rather than just ask for their opinions. What they tell you often belies their behavior."

This is a great excuse to move from behind the computer, leave the concepting den and try something different than the traditional focus group session. If we take the time to watch our customers and observe their behavior out in the real world, rather than make assumptions from what has been reported, we may spot our next big creative idea.

Great advice. 

Posted by Nancy Carle at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As more and more “traditional” brands seek greater ROI for their broadcast investments, they are turning to the DRTV format (short format and long, infomercial format) as a way to both drive demand and build their brand.

If you're considering doing so, or just appreciate a reminder of how to ensure your DRTV spots are successful, here is a top 10 list of key success factors to keep in mind when developing, producing and placing DRTV campaigns:

1. Understand your target - Use a profile of your best customers to drive your targeting and messaging strategy.
2. Strong offers (incentives to respond NOW) are crucial - Next to the accuracy of reaching your target, having a unique, relevant and compelling offer is critical.
3. Be sure to employ multiple, consistent response options - Make it easy for people to call, click or visit. Consistent placement of response types throughout the spot, from beginning to end will ensure optimized response.
4. Demonstrations work - The more people can “experience” offering benefits the better.
5. Long spots work better than short ones - Because you can provide greater demonstration of the product/service and longer spots allow for multiple calls to action.
6. Better with a brand umbrella - So you can focus on traffic building - DRTV spots that are supported by separate, brand building efforts will perform far better than trying to drive demand and build the brand in the same spot – you’ll tend to do neither as well as you might.
7. Cable and syndication stronger than network - The data here are overwhelming. You’ll generate lower CPAs due to lower CPMs and there is simply a boatload of evidence that shows that cable and syndication placements have generated better historical response rates.
8. Leverage the power of versioning - Track message and media effectiveness with unique phone numbers. Vanity URLs don’t work though (too bad)…ask people where and when they saw a spot if you drive them to the Web.
9. Make the experience seamless - From viewing the spot to responding to the offer to making a purchase…make it smooth throughout the brand experience.
10. Don’t over complicate the testing - Just because you can measure a bazillion things doesn’t mean you should.

Follow these ten tenets and you’ll be well on your way to developing high performing DRTV campaigns.

Posted by Ken Dec at 03:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

AT&T has decided that after many years and billions (yes that’s bllions with a B) building a hip, memorable wireless brand that putting the word "new" in front of initials that stand for American Telephone and Telegraph is a better option. Uggh. (American for a global business in this day and age? Telegraph? What?)

Well, these are the same people after all who, upon acquiring MediaOne (one of the best and potentially most powerful names ever for a potential consumer triple play offering of cable-phone-internet) chose to change the name of that company to AT&T Broadband. Double uggh.

And what about two HUGE investments in the Cingular brand – American Idol and the new iPhone from Apple?

I think this is a case where one of the world’s least hip brands (AT&T) may actually do harm to two very hot brands (Idol and Apple).

Continue reading "The "new" AT&? – A Cingular mistake" »

Posted by Ken Dec at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Over the past two days, a group of us attended Edward Tufte's workshop on "Presenting Data and Information." For those of you who are not acquainted, Tufte (Professor Emeritus at Yale University) is the brightest light in the art (design) and science (cognitive study) of presenting all forms of data. He has authored a handful of remarkable books, each of which would be of interest to anyone working in this information-intense environment.

A bunch of our art directors/designers went to the workshop, as well as Steve Lynch and Trina Arnett our newly minted Director of Research and Measurement. And we all left with new perspectives, refreshing arguments on presentation integrity, and a boatload of insights that we will be incorporating into our work product.

Tufte runs numerous workshops all over the country. I can't recommend them highly enough. Hit one. Here's more information: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/courses

Posted by Tom Simons at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For the ultimate mind bend – here’s a special report on whitepapers?  Okay it’s called a “special report” but you and I know this is a whitepaper on whitepapers.  Does this signify a cosmic event? The end of the universe as the comedian Louis Black would lead you to believe because there’s a Starbucks on all four corners of an intersection?

No, it reinforces the value of whitepapers and the need to write a good one in order to stand out in the sea of whitepapers. They are valuable content in the technology industry – particularly when a prospect is in decision making or buying stages.  Here are three tips to help increase downloads, content, and pass along and separate your paper from the masses.

1. A smart title. Keep it to the point (not funny or trite).  Try testing whitepapers names to see which receives more downloads.  Michael Stelzner author of the book “Writing Whitepapers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged” and founder of www.whitepapersource.com suggests trying numbers in titles.  For example, “Ten things you need to know about compliance”.  The title is one of the most important factors on whether your paper is read, not an afterthought or something that should be left to a technical writer.
2. Keep it short and relevant.  While a short whitepaper sounds like a contradiction, we all know how hard it is to find the time to read a 25-page paper.   Instead try 4-6 pages and make it’s direct and easy to scan online.
3. Use key words. Using the right key words in your abstract/paper summary will help ensure your paper can be found via search engines and within your site.  You wrote this great content – you want it to be easy to find and determine whether it’s relevant for them.

Keep in mind that whitepapers are a valuable marketing tool and should be given the same attention and care that a high profile ad campaign warrants.

Posted by Kara Tierney at 04:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We have all heard about the decreasing impact of mass media and the diminishing influence of the :30 spot. So I find a delightful irony in that PARTNERS+simons has been much more active this past year in TV broadcast production than at any time in our past. But I hasten to add that the strategies we employed and the objectives that we worked towards were hardly traditional.

One of our efforts was a series of four serialized episodic spots that drove viewers to the web where they could see a full five minute film version of the whole story.

Another campaign employed segmentation, addressable messaging strategies and cable delivery to localize the content -- by neighborhood.

A third foray was a direct response effort for a medical therapy -- that lowered previous acquisition costs by an order of magnitude.

All three of these examples are -- by definition -- television advertising in the traditional :30/:60 format. But that's where the similarity ends.

All are insightful blends of "art" and "science." Each practice leading edge segmentation and addressability strategies. All are easily measurable (and regularly measured). And just as important, all are thoughtfully and sensitively integrated into sensitively calculated multimedia campaign chemistries.

What will this year bring? Well, I know this: we've already got three broadcast advertising assignments in the chute, along with a very deep 2.0 development assignment and...

Posted by Tom Simons at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In today’s marketing world CEO’s are demanding accountability from all aspects of their CMO’s marketingcommunications efforts. Last year, we fielded a survey among a number of C level and senior marketing executives. Eighty-one percent report that marketing is taking on a more important role in delivering bottom line results for their organization, thereby suggesting a shift in CEO expectations of the traditional roles of sales versus marketing. Due to this shift, 64% of CEO’s are looking for much greater accountability from marketing spending.

Continue reading "Why Smart Marketers Are Now Viewing Their Communications Efforts As A Systemic Process" »

Posted by Walter Mills at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)