ANA Marketing Maestros

Who Knows Media -- Marketers or Agencies?

By Barbara Bacci Mirque

By now you all have heard about Jim Stengel’s speech at the AAAA Media Conference in which he talked about Second Life and our own ANA CEO Bob Liodice’s avatar! But here is something you have not heard about and something which struck me as a very telling paradigm shift: There was the 40-something Global Marketing Officer of The Procter & Gamble Company, a somewhat conservative company, telling the audience of media mavens about the importance of Second Life to P&G. When Mr. Stengel asked for a show of hands from the media types to see how many had visited Second Life then how many actually had created an avatar, very few folks raised their hands! This confirms what I have heard from many advertisers in my own ANA work about "enhanced" television – more and more advertisers are leading their agencies into new media, not the other way around. When I started out in this business in the mid 80’s as an assistant product manager at The Frito-Lay Company, we expected our advertising agencies to be innovative and inform us about what was hip and cool – now it appears to be the other way around and the "clients" are the ones who are personally and professionally experimenting with new media forms and directing their agencies to look into them. What a difference in the last 20 years!

Technorati tags: media marketing procter & gamble second life

Content is the Killer App

By Will Waugh

We have heard about how a number of objects are killer apps - video, Firefox, love. I personally believe that content is the killer app, whether it's video, audio, the written word, photos, etc. At the ANA, we have been able to utilize the written word alone across multiple channels, most recently with our partnership with Yahoo Advertising. We are looking to "go digital" with our intellectual capital business and take advantage of the long tail - selling less of more.

Here are the lessons I have learned:

• Content -- in this case white papers, case studies, summaries -- are exceptional marketing tools. Recently a non-member of the ANA found some work we had done on Procurement and Marketing relationships via search, saw the value in our array of offerings and joined our organization.
• Split it up in as many ways as possible - With the multiple channels, sites, communities people are a part of online - why not have the same piece of content or a clip or summary in a lot of different places? I plan on taking our upcoming Trends in Agency Compensation and making it available in dozens of different formats, lengths and languages.
• People demand things when they want it and how they want it. For a membership organization, just like any client serving organization, why not give it to them their way? I have had members buy a piece of content from us that we had delivered to them previously for free. Get it in their hands in as many ways as possible.
• Partnerships are crucial - Don't stay out on an island or think that your stuff is so good people will seek you out. Share a little. Collaborate a little.
• More content creates more opportunity for people to share and talk about you. Ultimately, isn't that the most valauable component of all? (It has to be worth talking about of course) 

Technorati tags: content killer app marketing

Ten Columns Every CMO Should Read

By Will Waugh

Pete Blackshaw over at cgm has compiled a list of clickZ articles he authored in to Ten Columns Every CMO Should Read. This post is not to be confused with my Top Ten CMO List from a little while back. Pete is a smart guy who spent lots of time on the client side and has insight on what high level marketers should be looking at, particularly in the consumer generated space. The Pocket-Guide to Consumer Generated Media provides a perfect overview while The Third Moment of Truth breaks down A.G. Lafley's much publicized speech at our Annual Conference and what it means for marketers.

Technorati tags: consumer generated media marketing CMO

Rapping About Taxes by Intuit

By Will Waugh

Thanks to Church of the Customer for illuminating me about Intuit's TurboTax The Tax Rap ft. Vanilla Ice. The latest in consumer generated content features amateur rappers/videographers singing enthusiastically about tax preparation.

I hate the thought of doing my taxes this week, but I love the idea of rapping about the #1 selling tax software out there. Not real sure where Vanilla Ice comes in (KFed must have been too pricey), but I did view a couple and they are quite entertaining. I liked this one best:

Pontiac's Online Marketing Success

By Will Waugh

We always like to point out our members that showcase exceptional marketing in a complex environment. The U.S. auto market is going through a bit of an adjustment (understatement of the year) as they compete in a viscious market. Pontiac's marketing has not missed a beat. American Copywriter brought to my attention a bold move into MySpace to market the G5:

The premise is this, when/if you buy a new Pontiac G5, go to the MySpace page and register the car. When you do that, you'll get a "Friends with Benefits" debit card. The more people that buy a car and register, the more money is put onto the card (up to $1,000, which would be 1,000 people).

The G5 is already being marketed to the younger crowd, so a MySpace presence is a must. In addition, they're speaking to a crowd that likes the incentive of extra money.

Pontiac has led the way in to new and experimental media with gusto. Their mindset appears to be "I know we need to be there. There might be risks but we are confident there will be more upside than downside" Mark-Hans Richer and his team deserve alot of credit for their forays into branded entertainment, Second Life and online-marketing only product launches like the G5. With car companies like GM making adjustments to their spend to compete in the fragmented marketing world, it is nice to see companies like Pontiac making the most of their marketing dollars.

Technorati tags: online marketing pontiac

Do You Participate in the Conversation?

By Will Waugh

At the ANA, we conduct a number of surveys on anything from agency compensation to what keeps senior marketers awake at night. We do nothing focused primarily on this world; the "conversational marketing" space our friend Joe Jaffe over at Jaffe Juice is so actively engaged in. Jaffe, the crown prince of new marketing, is preparing a title for Wiley as a follow up to Life After the 30-Second Spot titled Join the Conversation (this link takes you to a wiki on the material). He is looking for brand marketers to participate in the conversation or, more pointedly, to take a survey to develop the framework for his new book.

I encourage all marketers actively engaged or curious about the space to take the survey (Joe is offering some topline nuggets before the book release to those who participate). Though the membership of the ANA are not all believers that the :30 spot is dead and buried like Joe (shameless plug for our TV Forum where we talk about this), there is an enormous amount of interest in the world of social media (or whatever you want to call it Steve). I, myself, look forward to the results.

Technorati tags: marketing social media

The Great Intellectual Property Debate

By Will Waugh

"We can't control it, we must try to direct."

I have had the privilege of spending the last two days with advertising lawyers and business affairs types at our Advertising Law and Business Affairs Conference. The above quote was provided by a panelist during a discussion on the future of intellectual property and individual rights. As we all know, ads are getting mocked, morphed and commercialized without advertiser consent. More times than none, talent and musicians are also getting infringed. Two of the brands represented, Elizabeth Arden (with their Britney Spears' fragrances) and Limited Brands (with Victoria Secret) have been subjected to numerous consumer-generated interpretations.

Some of their advice in facing this new reality:

• You must have a policing policy in place, but you can only protect so much.
• Make sure it's not your people doing it (whether in-house or agency).
• Look at what the cost/benefit analysis is.
• The dilemma is that alot of brands needs to be in this space so what is the balance between protecting and engaging.

One also referenced the Monday New York Times article "Hollywood Asks YouTube: Friend or Foe" highlighting what they felt was the most telling statement, as quoted by Universal chair Mark Shmuger - "I think that the marketing side of our company and the copyright-protection side have contradictory impulses."

In researching this post, I found an interesting article on the use or non-use of the word 'intellectual property' on a site called P2P Foundation -- a site with a lengthy mission, it's first component being - "that technology reflects a change of consciousness towards participation, and in turn strengthens it."

Technorati tags: intellectual property youtube viral video marketers

Google's YouTube Play

By Will Waugh

Google hosted the ANA's TV Advertising and New Technologies committees late last week at their swanky new West side headquarters. They took the time to talk to the 50 or so assorted advertisers about the multiple uses of video on the web particularly through YouTube and Google Video. Here are the pros and cons as seen by the advertisers:

Pros

• Advertisers will be able to run video ads through Adwords across their network. You Tube will expand the reach.
• YouTube's sacred real estate, where people watch the videos, will remain untouched (for now).
• Syndication of content (content in this case being advertising people like to watch) and the push down the long tail.

Cons

• Measurement of video is still not up to snuff. Google made it big on accountable marketing, video needs to be able to follow suit.
• Not a direct response medium

It was an interesting discussion among marketers. The most common talking point was how much Google paid for YouTube and how they are never going to get their money's worth. While researching Google bloggers, I realized that not too many of them had much to say about the YouTube acquisition. I did however discover the enlightening blog Technical Revenue with the tagline 'Entrepreneur trapped in an engineer's body.'

My favorite story with video is the Dove Real Beauty commercial, part of the brand's campaign promoting the Dove Self Esteem fund, that apparently got better results from the online viral component than the version aired on the Super Bowl.

Technorati tags: google youtube viral video marketers

The NFL's Marketing Champion

Great article from Tim Manners at Reveries featuring a Q&A with ANA Board member Lisa Baird, the NFL's SVP of consumer products and marketing. Lisa was also a judge for the big buzz "Pitch Us Your Idea for the best Super Bowl Commercial Ever. Seriously." Contest, won by marketing professional Gino Bona (seen here pitching the winning concept).

Technorati tags: super bowl advertising

Open Post to All Marketers -- Why Blogging Matters

Sorry about my tardiness on the open post; I was vacationing for my first anniversary (legitimate excuse).

Below is the brain child of Eric Kintz over at HP -- a group perspective from some bloggers on why the blogosphere matters for marketers . Without further ado...

Introduction

Technology has enabled customers to dramatically change their attitude towards marketing. As a result, they are tuning out in increasing numbers and talking back. Customers are shifting massively their entertainment and information consumption away from traditional media to the new web space.

Marketers are responding by shifting their advertising to web properties, but online advertising is struggling to gain trust. According to a recent Forrester survey of US households, only 6% trust search engine ads and 2% online banner ads. Customers trust themselves and each other in influencing their perception of a brand. Yet few marketers have embraced blogging, although it supposedly enables a more personal and two-way interaction with the brand.

So does blogging matter? All of us are senior marketing executives in established corporations but we also share a common passion for blogging. At the initiation of Eric Kintz at Hewlett-Packard (www.hp.com/blogs/kintz), we decided to all get together to share our thoughts about the opportunities and challenges of this new marketing frontier.

Join the conversation.

David Armano - Creative VP - Digitas – Logic + Emotion(http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/ )

Peter Blackshaw - CMO - Nielsen Buzz Metrics – Consumer Generated Media(http://notetaker.typepad.com/cgm/ )

David Churbuck - VP Global Web Marketing - Lenovo – Churbuck (http://www.churbuck.com/wordpress/ )

Dan Greenfield - VP Corporate Communications - EarthLink – Bernaisesource (http://bernaisesource.blog.com/ )

Eric Kintz – VP Global Marketing Strategy - Hewlett-Packard – Marketing Excellence (www.hp.com/blogs/kintz)

Will Waugh – Senior Director, Communications - ANA – Marketing Maestros (this one of course )