News

Dozens of local volunteers are working this weekend to bring young professionals (YPs) home to Rockford. Events include downtown walking tours of loft living and retail spaces, a family-fun day at Riverfront Museum Park and, of course, Jobapalooza where 43 area companies will be recruiting for more than 350 professional-level jobs.

Attracting and retaining young professionals is critical to the future economic and social health of the Rockford area, and LiveBig Weekend is designed with potential “Boomerangers” in mind – these are young professionals who grew up in the Rockford area but left for college and/or careers outside of the area. I myself am a quasi-Boomeranger – I attended Rockford College, worked here for almost a decade, moved away for 3 years and recently returned so that I could spend more time with my family. Rockford offers a wealth of opportunity for young professionals – we can afford the houses, there are professional jobs and there’s lots for young families to do.

Wouldn’t it be better if your friends/sons/daughters/grandkids were closer to enjoy life in the Forest City? Invite your friends, neighbors, relatives, even your complete strangers. Because making sure these bright talents come home will make us all better in the long run.

More information, including free e-mail invitations: www.LiveBigWeekend.com

More than 900 injured and 80 dead in terrorist attacks in the Indian financial capital in Mumbai, including India’s top anti-terror official. It appears they are/were targeting British and American citizens., many of who are in town for EU-India talks. After learning of the news, I found my way to this thread on Twitter: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23mumbai

There you can follow second-by-second accounts by people who are there. One man has posted 600+ photos already of the disturbance.

Twitter may be in its infancy but its immediacy and ability to keep people up to date – despite the chance for misinformation – is impressive and perhaps something to consider for your organization’s crisis communications plan.

Hope the situation resolves itself soon and my thoughts go out to those involved.

As customers of T-Mobile phone service who use their “My Faves” program can attest, it can be difficult but very cost efficient to declare your top five friends because these five people you can call free any time.  Deciding who is more important though, mom or the new friend you just made who you might or might not be calling frequently in the coming month can be a trying task.  

But if you had to narrow down your top five sources of information to keep efficiently informed through e-newsletters, which ones would it be?  We found a thread of bloggers dishing on their favorites: David Baker’s “Who’s in your Fab 5 inbox?” and a follow up article by Lisa Harmon “My Fab 5 inbox.” It would be interesting to make note of your favorites and why they are your favorites so that you could incorporate the “best of” into your own email newsletter.  They do say that imitation is the highest form of flattery. Now, mind you, we are not recommending copying but rather objectively analyzing what works and deciding what elements you could incorporate.  For example, Harmon notes that she enjoys getting communications from Netflix because they “make her feel cared for… and consistently deliver the kind of attention that builds brand loyalty.” Sound marketing principles for any business. But since the e-newsletter is a premier form of communication with customers across all industries, finding the finesse and style as well as message that best suits your brand is worth some time and analysis.  

Our collaborative KMK favorites list includes:

TrendCentral … weekly what is new in Lifestyle, Style, Entertainment & Technology, efficient because it highlights only three trends at a time, in short paragraph form with links and is always interesting

AAf Smartbrief… most everyone in the office reads the Smartbrief, a free daily e-newsletter with the latest industry information, always efficient and relevant

Mashable … “all that’s new on the web” this daily report groups and highlights new tools, applications, trends and web sites, and with the many that are unveiled every day, this site and newsletter help to sift through options with expert advice  

MEDIAPOST- sub categories: Media Daily News… Mediapost have many informative newsletters (net, TV, magazine, creative, digital, blog, online and more), but consensus is that the Daily News is the best summary across the industry. It gives us leads for blog posts and helps us check that our marketing strategy responds quickly to current news.

(And from the tech guys down the hall)  SearchEngineWatch … for all the juicy news on search engine optimization, software, web trends and analysis of news from a technical point of view.

Other top 5 ideas? Please do share.

The canary yellow J Crew ensemble Michelle Obama wore and talked about this month on the Tonight Show might not be for everybody but it created a public relations boom for J Crew, who quickly capitalized on the comments.

After learning about Mrs. Obama’s appearance and their name-drop, J Crew purchased the “Michelle Obama” keywords on pages like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, built a special page on its site to detail exactly what Mrs. Obama was wearing and instructed their call-center staff about how to help callers who wanted details about the outfit. (See more in today’s New York Times).

Regardless of the number of dollars the buzzy campaign may have showered J Crew – and they’re not talking about sales figures – its actions shows a shrewd marketing and public relations sense  that helped them take advantage of the unexpected publicity:

1. Moving quickly - As soon as the company started to hear about the mention via teaser ads on the NBC network the day of the appearance, it started the gears in motion to buy the keywords and place ads on likely search engines to direct traffic. If your organization’s PR, sales or marketing departments are bogged down by layers upon layers of approvals or a “that’s the way we’ve always done it” mentality, you will  never be able to capitalize on these types of trends. In the 24-hour news cycle, speed is everything.

2. Providing desired information to consumers up front - Instead of trying to get customers to slog through its catalog online, J Crew built a page that gave consumers the information they wanted. Again, they could have gone for the “let’s make the consumer see all of our inventory instead of just what Mrs. Obama was wearing” tactic but instead recognized the consumer’s desire for specific information. This reflects a consumer-first mentality that many large retailers have been slow to adopt.

3. Informing their internal audience – Training the call-center staff was particularly astute. There is no reason to build a mini site and buy ads online and then not tell your staff. These are the folks answering the calls, so they should know about it almost as soon as the CEO signs off on something. Employees are some of your most important brand ambassadors – don’t ever forget them when promoting your business.

Move fast, give ‘em what they want and don’t forget to tell your people – can your business could handle these things if you happen to hit a PR gold mine? If not, see how you can help make it so you can.

Yesterday, Ad Age hosted its annual Media Mavens lunch in New York City, where they honored 16 of the top marketers in the country. Here’s what they had to say about the recession and why some of it might be good news for marketers:

1. Lower media cost. Supply and demand here, folks. Less advertisers = more media inventory = lower prices for your ad message on TV, radio, print, etc.

2.  More TV watching. People might not have the cash to go out as much anymore, hence more TV watching at home and more eyes on your commercials.

3. More digital media = Better tracking. Across the board, data is becoming easier to get – Google can track just about anything digital these days, which makes figuring out your campaign’s return on investment (ROI) easier.  So mobile devices, social media and other “portable” outlets are not going away and are becoming easier to track.

Want to read it in depth? Here’s a link to who said what and how.

This just in: the Big Three domestic automobile makers are spending less on advertising…while foreign auto makers are spending more.

According to Nielsen, Ford and Chrysler trimmed their ad budgets for the first half of 2008 by a whopping 22 percent, and GM by 6 percent.

And foreign car makers took advantage of that situation:

Percent Increase in Ad Spending vs. 2007

• Honda = + 3%
• Daimler = + 48%
• Volkswagen = + 23%

Not a big surprise but it points to a few key things we’ve been talking about -

• In a recession, there IS sales hay to be made. Sensing the imminent downturn in domestic auto makers, foreign car companies upped their budgets to capitalize on those consumers that still need to buy cars. Whether or not we’ll see the same numbers for the second half of this year remains to be seen.

• The biggest losers from the slashed advertising of the Big Three were local and national newspapers. What ad dollars they do have – and GM spent about $1 Billion the first half of 2008 on advertising (yes, with a “B”) – are going towards cable TV. Print – which for a long-time was an American “town square” of sorts, where everyone in a community came for news and information – is undergoing dramatic changes and will need to be nimble and quick if it wants to adapt to new market realities.

• It’s not just the ad outlets that are suffering – major ad agencies have long made serious profits via fees from their Big Three clients.

Bottom line, you need to think through your strategy and spend some time really focusing on what your customers need and want and how you can provide it to them. No one ever went broke anticipating and then delivering on market demand.

So, you’ve looked at MySpace, set up a Facebook page and maybe even Tweeted on Twitter. But how do you keep up with all those sites and what’s being said about you and your company online?

Social media conversations are simply electronic “word-of-mouth” discussions. Buyers have always shared advice on purchasing decisions, and word-of-mouth almost always comes up at the top of any study that examines advertising effectiveness. The Internet just takes word of mouth recommendations (or criticisms) and amplifies them.

This is good, if people are saying good things about you online. Or bad, if they’re saying negative things or inaccuracies.  But you can’t possibly expect to keep up with it all – that in itself is a full-time job.

Yahoo! to the rescue: Check out their “Pipes” application. This takes all of the social media sites and builds them into a single feed. (Click here to take a look).

Previously on ADWire, we talked about blogging and whether or not it was a good idea for your business – answering that question with a “yes, but.” (Read the whole post here.) Like every other marketing strategy, blogs will get you results depending on how you put it to use and how much energy you devote to it. Blogging and social media are here to stay, and today’s consumers are morphing into beings that require a “relationship” with a brand before becoming loyal customers.

Here’s a satire on the changing relationship between marketers/business and the consumer that makes a good point.  If this is how customers are feeling, there is definitely a need to re-engage:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3qltEtl7H8&eurl=&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]


Social Media can be defined as “activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction.” Some of the major players in social media are FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, and other online communities such as Ning, LinkedIn and Plaxo. They range in focus from business networking to social sites that let people share their lives online to video sharing…and there are hundreds of more out there.

So why should you and your company engage with social media? In a broad sense, social media can benefit your business by:

• Embracing Gen Xs, Ys and Zs, both in your consumer group and within your organization.
• Engaging an audience – social media is the equivalent of extending the conversation started with other electronic and traditional advertising. Dialogue with your customers is a good thing.
• Giving instant updates to your followers, and you can follow their updates so that you are engaged with and aware of new movement
• Creating events and gathering RSVPs with little manpower in terms of compiling lists, etc. Plus you can capture all of that user information (emails, etc.) and reach out to them with electronic communications and special offers.
• Improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and increase traffic to your site.
• Getting the chance to listen to what’s being said about your business online and to say something back.

These days it is usually less about “sell, sell, sell” and more about developing a relationship with your customer first, with sales to follow.

“To my campaign manager, David Plouffe; my chief strategist, David Axelrod; and the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics…”  Arguably it has been the most comprehensive strategy ever assembled in politics, gaining world-wide support as well as extending the marketing message to every group imaginable (bumper sticker from Ohio) within this country.  

There was a campaign office in the corner of a shopping mall for Somali immigrants in Columbus, Ohio.  Such an obscure group could have easily been overlooked, but instead was mobilized by volunteers similar to those across the country that have been dubbed by the media as “Obama brand evangelists.” These are the type of consumers and brand ambassadors that any company would want to have, and keep.Even before he stepped out of the hotel on Tuesday evening, Obama sent out these words via email to his supporters

–Katharyn – (since of course it was sent personally to me) 

I’m about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.We just made history.And I don’t want you to forget how we did it. 

You made history every single day during this campaign — every day you knocked on doors, made a donation, or talked to your family, friends, and neighbors about why you believe it’s time for change.I want to thank all of you who gave your time, talent, and passion to this campaign. We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I’ll be in touch soon about what comes next.

But I want to be very clear about one thing…All of this happened because of you. 

Thank you,Barack 

On top of that, his website changed Tuesday night with the opening image of Obama and Biden and a bold ‘thank you’ across the screen.  Much has been written about the marketing acumen of ‘brand Obama,’ and this shows that his team passed the goal line and keeps on going with a follow-through.  This hard-earned support base are consumers and their sustained loyalty is still needed by the party as a whole, and by the new administration in the coming years.  So, like any business, just because you got customers in the door for a big sale, you want to continue efforts to reach them and a ‘thank you’ can go a long way.  I am sure I have not received the last of emails into my inbox from Obama or the DNC, and speculate that there are books being written right now about how 2008 saw the making of a political brand.

Are you a “media multi-tasker”? Do you check websites while watching TV and texting on your phone? If you’re like the majority of Americans, the answer is no. But, research is showing that the trend is growing, particularly among teenagers and twentysomethings. Nielsen Company (they of the TV ratings) said Friday that almost one third of all household Internet activity is taking place while users are watching television.

Those characterized as “Heavy Internet Users” were actually the most dedicated to their televisions – watching 250 hours of TV a day. That’s good news for advertisers – it shows that the Internet is being used in addition to traditional television watching, not just siphoning it off.

So what does that mean for local businesses’ advertising efforts?

1. Capitalize on the media multitasking trend. Internet use is probably not going to take away the traditional TV  audience, but you do yourself a disservice by not flashing your web address on your TV spots. If I’m interested in your offer and I’m online, I’ll zip over there to check it out.

2. But first, make sure you have a web site. I’m constantly amazed at the number of local businesses that do not have a website – even a simple one with hours, directions to their store, etc. If a business doesn’t have a website I can check out before-hand, I’m much less likely to physically enter that particular business, despite the fact I try as much as I can to “buy local” instead of at the chain stores. No more excuses – get thee online!

3. Cross promote. Use your television ads to drive traffic to your website AND to your business. Your website can give the consumer tons more information than a 30-second TV spot can.  And post your TV ads on your website, particularly if they’re funny, to generate more buzz about them.

There’s a lot of media out there, and we continue to find new ways to use it to our advantage. There’s no reason your business can’t take advantage of it too.