Marketers Rate Below Politicians, Bankers on Respectability Scale

By: Rupal Parekh Published: October 24, 2012, adage.com

Think politicians are slimy? Well, according to a new study, what they do for a living is considered more desirable and valuable than what marketing and ad execs do.

The study, conducted earlier this month, was commissioned by Adobe and fielded by research firm Edelman Berland. It included 1,000 participants in the U.S., China and Japan; three quarters of them were consumers 18 years and older and the remaining quarter was made up of a mix of marketing professionals. That latter point is what's most troubling about what Adobe found: Not only do consumers not value the role of marketing and ad professionals, but many people in those jobs don't value themselves.... Read more

What Siri Means for the Future of Mobile Shopping

March, 13, 2012, eMarketer.

Even while Siri is in the hands of relatively few consumers, Apple’s digital assistant looks to have serious potential to change how people use their smartphones, mostly by streamlining the fast-growing smartphone shopping experience both in, near and out of stores.

Data from February 2012, from Catapult Marketing, showed that more than one-third of shoppers have either already used or would be interested in using Siri to compare prices at the shelf, while nearly as many would want Siri to check inventory for them at another store. Even more popular: sending Siri off in search of coupons and deals while the smartphone owner shopped...... Read more.

Is an Email Marketing Offer Just Like a TV Commercial?

David Daniels, March 12, 2012, ClickZ.

When sending email marketing offers, context matters more than timing - a theme covered in thiscolumn. In it, I discussed the hastened pace that our time-starved, short-burst society moves at and the impact that it has on our attention. As consumers we like simple things; the increasingly popular info-graphic is an example of our love for the elegant yet easily digestible. To create more engaging email, we must begin thinking like TV commercial producers and data-driven artists and quickly get our point across and spur action. This column looks at the intersection of creative, content, and context to drive engagement.

An Email Marketing Offer Is Just Like a TV Commercial - Or Is It?

LiveIntent conducted a study that found that on average their publisher clients' emails were viewed for 28.3 seconds, putting view time on par with a 30-second TV commercial. The duration that subscribers were engaged with these non-video emails is impressive, indicating that creative elements of email were contextually relevant to hold the subscriber's attention for this duration of time. Moreover, this LiveIntentcase study from publisher Techlicious shows that not only was engagement time long, but when using contextually relevant ads, their acquisition oriented ads improved. Most importantly, the engagement of these subscribers was better than other acquisition sources and these subscribers..... Read more.

How Do You Become a 'Super CMO?'

By: Russ Lange Published: February 16, 2012


The political controversy over Chrysler's 2012 Super Bowl ad with Clint Eastwood describing a rebounding Detroit is a reminder of how broad the role of the CMO is becoming. No longer just the master of corporate advertising and promotions to sell a product, "Marketing's CEO," as our firm has come to call him or her, is a lead driver of growth and strategy.

The "Halftime in America " ad, which Karl Rove decried as a plug for President Obama's reelection, is more of a call-to-action for Americans to rally in times of economic hardship and political discord than it is about selling cars. It's a high-profile example of a brand embracing deep-set issues on a national stage, perhaps in recognition that until Americans feel stability again they will continue to keep their wallets closed.

Don't lose sight that Chrysler is still in the business of filling..... Read more.

NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX ... Facebook?

By: Kevin Skobac Published: December 21, 2011, AdAge.

As Facebook continues to grow its user base worldwide, entertainment companies are increasingly trying to find ways to use the platform as a new form of TV channel with unprecedented reach. Both major TV networks and Hollywood film studios have previously allowed people to watch their content via their Facebook pages, including paid video trials such as Warner Brothers renting its "Dark Knight" film from its ultra-successful "Batman" franchise for Facebook credits.

Unfortunately, for WB and others, no early tests of traditional companies pushing their content on Facebook have registered any real success. Audiences simply don't seem interested in watching long-form, lean-back content wrapped in a Facebook environment (though augmenting traditional TV with a second-screen social context is another ... Read more.

Gartner Predictions for 2012: More Cloud, Consumerization, Loss of IT Control

By Ann Bednarz, December, 2, 2011, CIO.

Network World — IT budgets and responsibilities are moving out of the control of IT departments and into the hands of others, thanks to trends such as consumerization and cloud computing, Gartner says in its vision for 2012 and the coming years.

UP FOR DEBATE: 33 hottest IT arguments

That means, to be successful, IT organizations will have to excel at relationship management and be adept at coordinating more widely distributed activities, according to Daryl Plummer, managing vice president and Gartner fellow.

"As users take more control ..... Read more.