International Business News Blogs - Media & Marketing http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/rss/sections/media-amp-marketing.rss All articles are copyrighted by IBTimes.com 120 30 http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/rss/sections/media-amp-marketing.rss http://www.ibtimes.com/images/top_logo_ibt2_3.gif According to \"The Chaos Scenario,\" widgets, YouTube, and crowd sourcing has changed everything faster than you think. \"On the Media\" radio host, troublemaker and professionally cranky AdAge commentator Bob Garfield is a media guru. Really. His latest project is a series of provocative essays that you should read for its trenchant analysis of exactly why it will be tougher and tougher to make money with media and information businesses, as well as excellently reported specific interviews and examples of where this business might go in the future. http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20091008/marketers-must-digitally-listen-or-die.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/10544/20091008/marketers-must-digitally-listen-or-die.htm Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:52:09 EDT Indices and surveys demonstrating thought processes need correlation to purchase or other conversion stats to be really useful. The RFIntent index is a newly launched effort by the New York PR firm Ruder Finn to publicize what they see as a comprehensive analysis of the underlying motivations that people go online. "The intent index underscores the emerging trend that people's online behavior is better explained and understood by similarities in intent rather than by demographic differences...." http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090923/measuring-online-user-intent-is-necessary-but-not-sufficient.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/10173/20090923/measuring-online-user-intent-is-necessary-but-not-sufficient.htm Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:04:48 EDT Exchanges for Specialized Marketing Tasks Give Great Value and Service. When Virginia Reynolds founded Insight Quality, a consulting service that specializes in providing clients with expertise in IT quality assurance processes, she wanted a logo designed professionally for her start-up-but she only had start-up money. http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090917/the-game-changing-aspects-of-sourcing-creative-online.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/9989/20090917/the-game-changing-aspects-of-sourcing-creative-online.htm Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:51:19 EDT Like other CPGs, Maker's Mark is bypassing traditional publishing options. It's troubling that more and more package goods companies bypass publishers of all sorts and become their own media, such as Kraft Food and Family magazine. Now Beam Global Spirits & Wine is in the business of BYOM-Bring Your Own Media. http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090827/byom-innovation-in-media-creation-comes-from-bourbon-brand.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/9227/20090827/byom-innovation-in-media-creation-comes-from-bourbon-brand.htm Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:53:40 EDT Expensive must-have features of yesterday are today's can-live-withouts. Marketers spend significant time and money on building databases with years of consumer of transactions and attitudinal information. It's a hard enough and expensive enough process to maintain as to be considered a real competitive advantage for those that have the data. Some companies in travel or luxury goods have gone on the record to say that consumer behavior has changed so much that their historical data is useless in many cases. John Wallis, Hyatt's global head of marketing and brand strategy, said in a recent interview, "The customer who's traveling today isn't the one who was traveling in 2008. We've been concentrating on customers who've traveled since then, because that means they have a job and a budget." Jim Motrinec, Senior Consumer Marketing Director, ProCirc Circulation Management, with whom I work, sees his company's clients affected by both the economy and the digital world. "Depending on your product, your core audience's buying habits may have permanently changed. Or there's no longer a demand for the old incarnation of whatever it was. Maybe a new market opened. Maybe the data you have is now more useful for suppression versus prospecting." Yet, he still believes in maintaining historical data. "If data is uncertain or less reliable then you have to go back to the drawing board and get creative with educated testing to try to open up new opportunities. It's probably more crucial now to be recording as much data as you can while we're in such a transitional period." The database marketing manager at Southwest Airlines, Steve Crowell has a similar viewpoint. He told AdAge that while the most recent and relevant data are important, if your model still differentiates among your customers accurately, you don't need to throw out the model. http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090817/databases-are-less-predictive-inrecession.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/8698/20090817/databases-are-less-predictive-inrecession.htm Mon, 17 Aug 2009 16:32:11 EDT Although lower expectations and fewer customers plays a part in the score. The American Customer Satisfaction Index, or the ACSI, is a national, cross-industry measure of satisfaction with the quality of goods and services available in the U.S. The index isn't just used by marketers to measure and benchmark how their company's customers and U.S. customers are feeling about their products, but its used by financial types as a predictor too. http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090812/improvement-in-customer-satisfaction-index-indicates-roi-for-customer-service-spending.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/8462/20090812/improvement-in-customer-satisfaction-index-indicates-roi-for-customer-service-spending.htm Wed, 12 Aug 2009 09:51:59 EDT Expensive must-have features of yesterday are today's can-live-withouts. Marketing professionals think they know of the pitfalls of cutting back on research and marketing during a time of change in consumer attitudes and spending. After all, the perceived wisdom that I've seen in numerous articles and blogs is that companies that spend on marketing during a recession come out ahead as the economy rebounds. http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090806/optimizing-marketing-spend-during-the-recession.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/8232/20090806/optimizing-marketing-spend-during-the-recession.htm Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:39:38 EDT Publicity, b-to-b communication and driving traffic to a Web site are more obvious media uses. Martha Stewart's dogs and the media reporter David Carr both have Twitter accounts (@TheDailyWag and @carr2n). The only thing is, the dogs have a lot more followers, Stewart and Carr revealed at The Future of Celebrity Media conference. http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090722/going-beyond-your-pets-tweets.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/7553/20090722/going-beyond-your-pets-tweets.htm Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:38:21 EDT Inborn talent? Nah. Look for "deliberate practice" and organizational support Geoff Colvin's recent book Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else has theoretical and practical ideas about improving performance in your chosen profession or in an avocation. The book is compelling, wonderfully written, and well worth buying (discounted to about $20 online). I particularly liked reading specifics about dozens of studies in support and opposition of his thesis. That being said, you can read an excellent summary of the book's key points and hear the author speak about the book. http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090714/talent-is-overrated-and-managers-will-find-out-that-practice-makesbetter-manager.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/7267/20090714/talent-is-overrated-and-managers-will-find-out-that-practice-makesbetter-manager.htm Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:54:15 EDT Communications departments now work directly for the top exec and are responsible for product presence on social media. http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090701/pr-is-marketingraising-star-during-the-economic-downturn.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/6710/20090701/pr-is-marketingraising-star-during-the-economic-downturn.htm Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:13:51 EDT Triple-team the medium: Product placement, advertising and sponsorship. Kevin Nalty has a conflict of interest. He is a marketing director for a big, buttoned-down pharma and he is a YouTube comedian—hilarious, and really a star—known as “Nalts.” He reports that more than 150,000 people watch Nalts videos each day. So Nalty [pictured] definitely has something personal to gai... http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090625/leverage-the-stars-of-user-generated-video-content.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/6391/20090625/leverage-the-stars-of-user-generated-video-content.htm Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:46:18 EDT Banner ads, forget it. Video ads? Now you’re talking. U.S. media consumers have a love/hate relationship with advertising. Some recent surveys would like to help marketers decide when it is love and when it is hate. According to the information released about the annual survey done by the Center for the Digital Future at USC’s Annenberg School, Internet users expressed stunningly n... http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090528/how-consumers-prefer-their-online-advertising.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/5210/20090528/how-consumers-prefer-their-online-advertising.htm Thu, 28 May 2009 09:13:00 EDT In marketing, product placement and logo proliferation can’t do the job alone. “Buyology” is marketing guru Martin Lindstrom’s coined term to describe the subconscious thoughts, feelings, and desires that drive consumer purchasing decisions. Lindstrom’s recent book, Buyology: Truth and Lies about Why We Buy is based on an extensive set of data and analyses: A three-year research project across th... http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090516/a-logo-is-not-as-powerful-as-you-might-think.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/4751/20090516/a-logo-is-not-as-powerful-as-you-might-think.htm Sat, 16 May 2009 11:01:47 EDT The key to understanding emotional response could be in finding “Deep Metaphors.” We stand accused. According to the book Marketing Metaphoria marketing people lack careful reflection and bold thinking about complex consumer information. Authors Gerald and Lindsay Zaltman (father and son who also run consulting practice Olson Zaltman) are appalled. They call this wide-spread condition â€... http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090513/understanding-the-real-drivers-of-consumer-behavior.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/4626/20090513/understanding-the-real-drivers-of-consumer-behavior.htm Wed, 13 May 2009 09:09:36 EDT Just as you suspected, they're not so helpful in implementing strategy. Living through the continuous reorganizations that many media companies have employed over the past decade to cope with changing technology makes ya’ think—specially when, just a few years later, the reorganization returns things to the way they were a few cycles back. According to the well-respected consulting... http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090505/orgs-and-re-orgs-and-re-re-orgs-got-you-down.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/4283/20090505/orgs-and-re-orgs-and-re-re-orgs-got-you-down.htm Tue, 05 May 2009 17:17:31 EDT Management during a downtown takes consistent and fearless data analysis. When Dan McCarthy [pictured], the CEO of Network Communications, described how he personally manages his company during the economic downturn, his story resonated with his listeners at a breakfast hosted by the MPA and DaSilva & Phillips. Network Communications—being in the magazine and the real estate market (13 mil... http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090430/real-estate-magazines-dealing-withdouble-whammy.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/4052/20090430/real-estate-magazines-dealing-withdouble-whammy.htm Thu, 30 Apr 2009 08:16:39 EDT Rivals more likely to be global in scope. The Duke University Fuqua School of Business and the American Marketing Association co-sponsor a semi-annual collection of opinions called The CMO Survey. The stated mission of the project is to collect and disseminate the opinions of top marketers in order to “predict the future of markets, track marketing excellence, and improve the value of mar... http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090417/how-media-marketers-see-the-competitive-landscape.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/3551/20090417/how-media-marketers-see-the-competitive-landscape.htm Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:45:27 EDT Manufacturers and retailers now compete to become media companies Steve Rubel, Senior VP, Director of Insights at Edelman Digital [pictured], collects a lot of metadata. I guess he better be doing that, given his fairly pretentious job title. (In fact, since he seemed such an intense guy during a presentation I listened to recently, maybe he ought to expand his title to “Director of Insigh... http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090405/publish-for-searchers-not-for-readers.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/3138/20090405/publish-for-searchers-not-for-readers.htm Sun, 05 Apr 2009 20:18:33 EDT What a coffee table book can teach us about circulation in the glory days of magazines I recommend you take a look at a fabulous, large format, 400-page coffee table book about a magazine that you never heard of. The book is called The Chicagoan, A Lost Magazine of the Jazz Age. The magazine was rediscovered—and it’s life and death were organized into a luscious book—by my pal, the ... http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090405/sales-lessons-from-resurrecting-the-chicagoan.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/3137/20090405/sales-lessons-from-resurrecting-the-chicagoan.htm Sun, 05 Apr 2009 20:03:56 EDT Sometimes Consumers perpetuate a 'momentum effect.' When Heidi Browning, a Sr. VP from MySpace, goes on the conference circuit, she is particularly interesting on the subject of brands and their effectiveness on social networking sights. At a CMO conference at the end of 2008, I heard her in person. She stressed that the impact of a brand presence on a social networking site... http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090330/brands-can-benefit-from-social-networking.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/blogs/articles/2819/20090330/brands-can-benefit-from-social-networking.htm Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:19:19 EDT