Donna's Promo Talk - Promotional Marketing that Creates Excitement and Gets Results

Promotions Kick Off Baseball's Opening Day

I just got off the phone with my mom and dad in which I called to specifically wish my dad a happy opening day of MLB baseball.  My Dad was quick to correct me that our team, The Boston Red Sox, already played two games over in Japan, so it's not really opening day. Plus the Yankees game was rained-out for today. So, there wasn't much excitement on this first day of a new season of Major League Baseball.

It's gonna be hard to beat last season's excitement. One of Boston's local retailers, Jordan's Furniture, ran a "Monster Deal" promotion last Spring in which they offered paybacks for furniture purchased if the Red Sox won the World Series.  Approximately 30,000 New Englanders responded and bought sofas, dining tables, beds and mattresses between March 7 and April 16. The Red Sox went on to win the World Series so these customers ended up getting their furniture for free.

Jordan’s, the official furniture store of the Red Sox, just had a fun promotion in mind when it conceived the original idea. They took out insurance on the promotion and ran a huge ad campaign that consisted of TV, radio and print.  Jordan’s was originally just focused on the traffic it would draw to the store during the promotional time frame, but they also received additional exposure with the Red Sox success.

So Jordan's is at it again this year with their "Monster Sweep" promotion which they've upped the anty a bit. They basically are offering the same rebate to consumers who purchase furniture through April 27th, but this year only if the Red Sox Sweep the World Series, which means they have to win it in the first four games. You can check out the official rules here.

Also this year we have SuitePlay, a Chicago-area retailer of home entertainment furniture, who is stealing Jordan's idea from last year and running the SuitePlay! "Cubs Win, You Win" promotion. SuitePlay is offering a full rebate on all purchases made at its four stores through April 15 if the Chicago Cubs end their century-long curse and finally win the World Series this year.

"This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Chicago Cubs World Championship win against the Detroit Tigers and all of Chicagoland is hoping that the Cubs will repeat history," said Kelly Claffey, Vice President of Marketing for SuitePlay!. "We are inviting our shoppers to step up to the plate and buy furniture, games and other accessories to make their home more fun for baseball season during the promotional period. To show our team spirit, we'll pay them back for their store purchases should the Cubbies go all the way! It's a win-win for everyone!"

As a new Cubs sponsor, SuitePlay is hoping it will do for them what it did for Jordan's and pull in traffic during the promotion and create buzz throughout the season. They're running full-color ads in the Chicago Tribune, TV spots on Comcast SportsNet, radio spots on WGN, e-mail blasts as well as ads on SuitePlay’s website. A scroll on the Wrigley Field marquee is running 100 times daily and it will get on-air mentions during the first six Cubs games. Like Jordon's, SuitePlay is fully insured against potential losses.

Anyone who's read my blog over the past year knows that my dad and I are huge Red Sox fans. Yes, it would be great to see the Red Sox and the Cubs go against each other for the Championship this year. The buzz already is that the Red Sox are poised to take the number one spot in the East over the Yankees. Not sure about those Cubs though. They're opening game today against the Milwaukee Brewers  just began after a rain delay the last I checked.

Anyhow it's a long season, so we all start out really hopeful.  In the meantime, we have the excitement of the NCAA Final Four right in front of us and the NHL's season is winding up. Hey those Buffalo Sabres are still hanging in there and have a possibility of making the playoffs...a slight one at that, but that little bit of hope is still alive. You gotta love it.

Online Video Sharing Tips from SES NY

Before last week's SES New York Conference slips into my distant memory, I would like to share with you one more presentation that I found really interesting. It was by Liana Evans, Director of Internet Marketing for KeyRelevance and also part of the "Social Media Track" I was following.

Li, as she's known, started off by asking the question "Social Media Marketing...What is it Good For?" Us older folks can hear those next words sung in our heads, "Absolutely Nothing!". For the younger generation that may not know what I'm talking about, those at the lyrics from the 1970 number one hit, anti-Vietnam song "War" sung by Edwin Starr.

Now Li shared with us some really great examples of ways that social media marketing can be put to use and since online video is all the buzz right now I'm just going to cover her section about online video sharing. Her number one recommendation was to create simple "How to Videos" which are a great way to drive traffic to a web site and get others to link to it.

One example she used were "How to Tie a Tie" videos. When the keywords "How to tie a tie" are typed into Google Video search, several videos appear on the results page. The video that came up second on the page is on YouTube and had over 647,000 views at the time. The video that came up first on the page actually had only half as many views, but has thousands of links coming from LifeHacker.com. Now we see the real value of links. And Li asks "What if a men's online clothing retailer had done one of these videos? Sounds like a very good idea that's also an inexpensive way to drive some web traffic!

Another example Li reviewed with us was a video that was done by a direct selling company, BareEscentuals. The video is about how to apply make-up and featured many of their beauty products. However, instead of simply calling it a "How to..." video, they titled it with their brand positioning trademarked slogan, Swirl, Tap, Buff. Now I'm all for integrating the brand into the communications, but honestly, no one speaks like a brand manager and therefore they don't search online like one either.

So, the video they created had less than 23,000 views at the time that Li did her presentation and it had been up on YouTube for 9 months already (its now up to 28,000 views after 11 months)! So again Li asks, "What if BareEscentuals went with How to Apply Make Up instead of Swirl, Tap, Buff in the title?"

Li also shared with us that yes, YouTube is the largest video sharing site by far, but its not the only source. She showed us a video the HSN did that appeared not only on their own network, but also on YouTube, MySpaceTV and VMIX (who are in the process of relaunching their site).

Now to summarize, Li said here's what matters most with Online Video Sharing:

• Ratings and Votes
• Comments and Responses
• Title of Video, Social Media Profiles and Images
• Keywords Used in Profiles and Descriptions
• Who's Linking to the Video

Thanks Li for helping me understand the important relevance of video sharing as it relates to search. Now that I finally have a new camera I better start creating a few myself, or at least, recommending that others create a few to include in their marketing mix. Please visit SEM Club House, which is a blog supported by KeyRelevance where you can find more information as well as Li.

Social Media Marketing Recap from SES NY

I wanted to report back on the Social Media Marketing panel session that I sat in last week while at the SES NY Conference. This was the first in their "Social Search" track that were all scheduled for that day, Wed., 3/19. It was one of my favorite sessions at the conference so I wanted to share with you what some of the experts on the panel had to say about Social Media Marketing. I can't cover them all here, so I'm going to have to limit it today to just a few.

The Social Media Marketing panel Included some top names in the industry such as:

• Conn Fishburn, Director of Social Media Strategy, Yahoo! Inc.
• Don Steele, Director of Digital Marketing, Comedy Central
• Chris Winfield, President, 10e20, LLC
• Jory Des Jardins, Co-Founder & President of Strategic Alliances, BlogHer
• Chris Beland, Partner, Director, Interactive Marketing & Social Media Practice , Ogilvy Worldwide

First Conn started off the panel with his presentation titled "The Rise of the People". He shared with us that there are over 800,000 people online on a monthly basis which is expected to grow to 2 billion by 2012. He shared with us that Yahoo!today is thinking about the evolution of media...what's it going to look like five years from now as we move from mass media to "me media". Brands and people are now in a constant dialog and he noted that 76% of Americans mention brands on a daily basis with equates to about 10 brand mentions a day.

Here's a list of Conn's Rules for us to Play in the Social Space:

1. Brands need to listen to their customers and hear what they are saying about them first.
2. Then become part of the story. A great example is Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty in which they first did a global survey and then tapped into a cultural truth which they supported.
   
3. Always bring some wine...act like you're going to a dinner party and don't come empty-handed.
4. Be good to your mother...treat your audience as if you know them, sit down and have a conversation.
5. Think holistically...not just one channel. Integrate social into the marketing mix.
6. Realize that social media is here to stay.

Chris Winfield's presentation focused on the benefits of tagging and bookmarking for marketers in the social media word. He reviewed the most popular sites which included Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon and Digg. This was a great review for me because while I regularly use Del.icio.us I didn't realize the differences between all three since I haven't used the other two much yet.
You can learn more about social media here at the 10e20 Blog. Here's also a few tips to follow from Chris:

1. Promote great content.
2. Build your networks.
3. Contribute to the communities.
4. Make the sites work together.
5. Have good hosting (in a case study he reviewed Digg.com sent 20,000 unique visitors in 24 hours to one site)

Jory spoke about "Managing the Unavoidable...Building a Brand in the Blogosphere" which she reviewed with us a few great BlogHer case studies which support this. She pointed out that blog posts on the Internet last. When doing a Google search a blog post or two will come up most the time in the top 10 results. She gave us an example of a post she wrote 2.5 years ago about a bad experience she had with Chase Visa when someone had stolen her identity and was charging up a storm on her credit card. When she originally wrote the post it started coming up in the top search result listings for Chase Visa and even today, after 2.5 years, it still comes up as #25!

So, Jory's point is that you can't get rid of us bloggers, we're here to stay. She shared with us this myth about blogs that so many marketers fear is that if they release their brand to the Blogosphere, all hell will break loose. One nasty thing said about my product and poof—I’ve committed brandicide. So if you can't beat them, why not join them, right?

For book publisher Harper Collins BlogHer created a blog outreach program to help raise awareness for a new book launch and sent 50 of the books out to bloggers in their network. Now, not all 50 wrote about the book and those that did write did not all have positive comments to share. However, sales of the book did increase during this time period and the conclusion was that at least they're talking about it in one way or another.

Another example was for Dove and their "Sleeveless" promotion that they did at the BlogHer Conference in Chicago last July. I was there for this event and did what Dove was hoping for and wrote about their promotion here on my blog. I did get some free samples of Dove's new deodorant, but more importantly I remember being invited to come to the party wearing something sleeveless, and by God most of us women did. It was all about the experience, not just getting free product samples.

GM did something similar also at the BlogHer Conference. They originally wanted bloggers just to write about the new Saturn and had content on the car prepared that they wanted the bloggers to say. Jory said, no, you don't tell bloggers what to write. So, instead Saturn brought a bunch of cars over to Chicago's Navy Pier where the BlogHer Conference was being held and let people test drive the cars. Many women wrote about their positive experience with the cars and a couple even uploaded video testimonials on to YouTube. 

Jory left us with these few words of wisdom about blogs:

• Avoidance is not a strategy
• When in doubt, ENGAGE!
• If touchy feely just isn’t in your DNA, play defense

So, I walked away from this session feeling pretty excited about the opportunities in front of us to really integrate social media into the marketing mix and had information I could take back to my readers and clients. In fact I realized that the term Social Media Marketing itself was something that all of a sudden I'm hearing quite a lot...at the conference and also online.

Cathy Taylor, who writes the Social Media Insider Blog for Media Post, wrote a post last week while I was at the conference titled "Maybe Advertising in Social Media Should be an Oxymoroan" which got quite a number of comments. I've always felt that placing ads on blogs and on social networking sites isn't the best use of the media. Instead developing an interactive promotional campaign and integrating that into social media I believe is smart marketing.  The panel at SES, as well as Cathy and I, all seem to agree upon is that social media is all about the conversation and the relationship! It's not what I would call advertising.

 

Easter Greetings

It's Easter Sunday and I realize that probably not too many people are checking their computer for blog updates today, but I did want to wish everyone a Happy Easter nonetheless.

Did you know that this is the earliest Easter has been in our lifetime (unless you're 95 years old and born before March of 1913). The earliest possible date it could ever occur would be one day earlier - March 22. It's not expected to be this early again till 2160, so none of us won't see that unless some miracle grows our life expectancy. The date is determined by some odd formula that has to do with the full moon and the Jewish Passover. I found a more detailed explanation of this on Wikipedia if you're interested in reading up on it.

Palm Sunday actually occurred before St. Patrick's Day this year and our first day of Spring was just a few days ago. Easter 2008 is not finding the U.S. economy in very good shape. However, according to the National Retail Federation’s 2008 Easter Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch, consumers are still expected to spend a total of $14.44 billion on Easter food, apparel, gifts, flowers, decorations and candy. The average consumer will spend $135.03 on the holiday which is almost the same as last year’s expected $135.07. 

Easter is typically seen as the official kick-off to spring, when retailers debut new clothes and consumers are in the mood to buy for warmer weather,” said NRF President and CEO Tracy Mullin. ”Although this is one of the earliest Easter holidays on record, retailers are hoping that this year will be no different."

I have to admit we, as a family, didn't spend much this year. I did buy some candy for my two teenage daughters which I put in a couple of used Easter baskets that I took down from our attic. I sent my parents a potted Easter Lily with some spring flowers since I won't be seeing them this holiday. Plus we spent a little extra on food for our Easter dinner, so I guess we probably did come very close to that $135.03.

My two teenagers did make appearances at the mall this weekend since they had some time off from school. One daughter was already searching for a prom dress but didn't find anything, the other did purchase some new clothes for the warmer weather - it should be here in upstate NY sometime soon!

My sister Eileen sent me this photo on Friday that I thought was just too cute not to share. I have no idea where she found it. So anyhow, here it is and enjoy your Easter Peeps today!

SES New York 2008 Conference Highlights

The Search Engine Strategies (SES) New York Conference & Expo got under way this week at the Hilton New York, officially kicking off on Mon. March 17th and ending today, Thurs, March 20th. According to Forrester's Five Year US Interactive Marketing Forecast, search marketing is extremely important today and is expected to triple in the next 5 years to over 25 billion.  So, I decided to head down to NYC for this once-a-year event and was fortunate to be able to attend for two days. They included me as press since Adotas is the official online publication that I'm covering the conference for as well

SES New York is the largest show in the SES global series and is a must attend event for marketers looking to gain insights and knowledge from experts in the Internet and search industry. A total of over 60 sessions were offered across a wide variety of topics and experience levels that started with search fundamentals and then also included specialized tracks such as social search, local, advertising, multimedia and contextual ads. Some of these topics were on the agenda last year and it was noted that there will most likely be new ones next year that aren’t on our radar yet. The Expo Hall officially opened on Tuesday morning which included over 135 sponsors and exhibitors that we could chat with as well.

I choose Tues. and Wed. as the days to attend and tried to absorb as much as I could from all the experts there. I'm sorry to say that I missed the SES/St. Patty's Day PUB CRAWL on Monday evening that took folks bar hoping to seven different pubs. I flew into JFK on Tues. morning and actually made it to the Hilton before the 9am conference welcome and opening keynote from Nick Carr, author of The Big Switch: Rewiring the World from Edison to Google. Kevin Ryan, our host from SES for the event, introduced Nick and informed us that his book had just made #5 of the New York Times Best Seller list. Nick is also the former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review and writes and speaks on technology, business, and culture.

Nick started off saying that he thought it was hard to be the first slot in the morning after the biggest alcoholic holiday of the year. Kevin had previously commented about consuming a bit of alcohol the previous night. Nonetheless, all seemed awake and very interested in Nick’s topic. Nick stated that we’re at a major turning point in the history of computing and how we use computers. Economics, not technology, actually determines the way companies behave and what we do. Nick gave us a history lesson going back to the late 1800’s when the first water wheel was created to generate power. He continued on with explaining how the utility companies came along shortly after that and during the course of a 20 year span ended up supplying 80% of our power. 

The change we are now experiencing today is in deploying computing centrally, similar to how the utility companies did with power. This “cloud utility computing” model is not a new topic, but suddenly something that is seen as very possible as well as inevitable. After hearing Nick’s comparison to power generation I had a much better understanding of this topic including the term "virtualization" which is basically turning physical computing into software. Today the computer grid that can distribute over a network is now finally at the point that it’s catching up with computers.

So, a computer revolution is at our doorsteps. The major benefit to companies will be economies of scale in which they will no longer have to run and manage their own IT systems. However, it also means these companies will need to employ less people. The other growing trend today is user-generated content that companies can also tap into instead of developing their own content. On top of the fact that we are getting accustomed to having more and more highly personalized content served up to us which is based on our past behaviors. So, Nick asks, will this lead to the polarization of society? And of course there is the entire privacy issue that we’ve now been dealing with based on all the information that we have at hand, and will just continue to have more and more of. Nick ended his discussion by asking the question, which side are you on – the controlling or the liberating?

After lunch on Tuesday there was the “Orion Panel” on Universal Search that discussed how search, marketing and information seeking is changing the industry which included new research data from comScore. The panel consisted of:

• John Battelle, Founder/ Chairman/CEO, Federated Media
• James Lamberti, Senior Vice President, Search and Media, comScore
• Lyndsay Menzies, Managing Director, Big Mouth Media
• Jack Menzel, PM for Universal Search, Google

Google Universal Search not only searches the Internet for text, but also videos, images, news, maps, weather and more. The data presented by comScore showed that of the 1.2 billion total search queries from a week in January within the U.S., 220 million contained a Universal Search result. This equated to 58% of the 87 million people searching seeing a Universal Search result. Of those searches, video and news had the highest share. The panel discussed the fact that Universal Search is turning Google search result pages more into media destinations. They concluded that organic search is becoming more and more important and paid search is going to become even more competitive.

The afternoon included sponsored sessions from some of the big companies such as Google, Microsoft, Omniture, HitWise and Medio. I choose Google’s session which was on their Analytics and Web Optimizer products. Analytics appeared to be one of the most popular session topics this year which I found out by making the mistake of entering this session late and being left with standing room only. So, I didn’t get a very good overview since I could hardly see the screen. I’m hoping to get a copy of the presentation and then spending more time using both of these products to help raise my own organic search rankings. 

Day 3 on Wednesday morning got underway with the keynote: Search Has Changed Everything... And So Can You by Gordon McLeod, President of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network. Gordon discussed how the WSJ slowly, but surely, changed how they do business. They now have increased their organic search results by 33% which is more than double since Oct. ’06. Part of this has been by expanding their free online content which has consisted of mostly lifestyle and sports articles. As Gordon stated, the WSJ is basically a content company, not a technology company, but they are learning how to use technology better. Currently they have 1.1 million subscribers and 14.7 million monthly visitors which Gordon wants to see both areas grow. Part of their strategy to obtain this is to have ongoing SEO training throughout the company…"It’s not a project anymore”.

The session tracks on Day 3 include Fundamentals, Stats & Research, Social Search, Vertical & Retail and The Click Z Track. I followed the Social Search Track and the first session was a great one titled Social Media Marketing - What is it and What is it Good For? It featured five panelists including Jory Des Jardins, Cofounder & President of Strategic Alliances of BlogHer - which happens to be the next event in NYC that I'd like to attend in a couple of weeks. I could write an entire post just on this session alone, which I probably will do. There were some great case studies shared on brands that have integrated social media into their marketing mix and have received success. The overarching teaching that all the panelists tried to pass on to the audience is that social media is not about just throwing out a message to an audience but instead it’s all about relationships and the conversation. You need to invest the time to do it right.

Wednesday’s afternoon keynote was with Jason Calacanis, founder and CEO of Mahalo.com, which is a human-powered search engine focused on the top English-language vertical search terms such as travel, products, news, entertainment, sports, food, and health. Jason was also the CEO and cofounder of Weblogs, Inc., a network of blogs that he sold to AOL in Nov. ’05 and then was appointed SVP. Jason has an especially open communication style and speaks to people very much on Twitter, which at one time he became the most followed person in the world. He even shared with us his cell phone number, which I won’t divulge here since he said he’s had some “stalking” issues.

I had to head out during the middle of the next Social Search session which was all about social media research…a great application. Unfortunately Jet Blue had called and left a message on my cell phone that my flight was canceled. I was planning on taking a late, last one out flight that evening. So I called them and they got me on an earlier flight. The weather was a problem for everyone traveling and my “earlier” flight actually got me home just about 10 minutes before my “late” flight was originally scheduled to. I was trying to explain to the Jet Blue agent that the message they left me was to call 1-800-Jet-Blue, but I couldn't easily do that because letters on smart phones don't all match up to a number. So, the letter "J" isn't the number 5 on my phone as it is on her phone, instead I have a $ with the caps on. It took her awhile to get it. I don't know if she'll pass the word to the Jet Blue marketing folks as I asked her to do. They certainly aren't the only brand that hasn't figured this out yet. And I'm sure I'm not the only traveler that's had this problem either.

Overall I’d say the conference was very successful. I did not get actual attendance numbers, but it appears to be the same as last year, around 8,000 people. They tried some new formats this year and they did do a good job of staying on schedule and leaving some time for Q&A’s at the end of the sessions. However, there never seems to be enough time for these and when they end you always have the race up to the front of the room if you want to talk with any of the speakers. I do have to say though that the majority of speakers appeared to be very accessible. It’s definitely an event I would recommend and after all, it is New York. Check out more about the conference on the SES Blog as well.

St. Pat's and other March Interactive Marketing Stuff

I'm getting ready to head down to New York City very early tomorrow morning to attend the SES Conference for two days. So, today I'm a bit rushed trying to get my act together, so here's a little potpourri of thoughts for the day.

First off I want to wish everyone a Happy St. Patrick's Day. It was a beautiful sunny day here in New York with the temperatures above freezing... a sure sign of Spring. Everybody has a touch of Irish in them on St. Patty's day, and I'm proud to say I had an Irish grandmother who gave me the one-quarter Irish that I can celebrate today.

I read on PROMO Xtra today about a month-long St. Patrick’s Day themed interactive mobile marketing promotion that Jameson Irish Whiskey was wrapping up by midnight tonight. Those that signed up got an Irish toast on their mobile phones—at the rate of one an hour all day, for a total of 22 toasts. Wayne Hartunian, brand director for Jameson's parent company Pernod Ricard USA, said “Everyone wants the perfect toast on St. Patrick’s Day, and mobile is the ideal medium to quickly distribute these words of wisdom to our customers who have opted in.” So, here's a toast to the Irish in us all!

The NCAA March Madness officially gott underway with the team selection for the men's championship games announced yesterday. Unfortunately my regional favorite, the Syracuse University Orangemen, didn't make it this year. But be sure fill out your brackets which you can find located on Facebook here. The two NCAA themed consumer-generated contest promotions that I previously wrote about here and here did announce some winners.

Coca-Cola announced who the four lucky individuals are who have been selected for the Coke Zero “Ultimate Dream Job.” Steven Book, from Rochester Hills, Mich.; Ryan Hohanshelt, from Boone, Iowa; Stacey Rice, from Oswego, N.Y; and Dustin Tinney, from Ft. Worth, Tex. have accepted the job and will be relocating to San Antonio, the site of the 2008 NCAA Men’s Final Four, where they will be “challenged” to watch every minute of the 2008 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship and live blog about the games.

The finalists were also announced in the Alltel Wireless “MyCircle Pick & Roll Challenge.” They are: Larry Mastrogianakis from Jacksonville, Fla. - Florida Gators Fan; Jeff Feller from Gainesville, Fla. - Florida Gators Fan; and Bradley Daniels from Hazelhurst, Miss. - Mississippi Rebels Fan. The grand prize winner is still to be announced who will spend a weekend jet-setting to his/her choice of college basketball conference tournaments along with a $100,000 “salary” as the first-ever Chief Basketball Officer.

Lastly I wanted to give some link love back and mention Debbie Hemley's blog, Impressions Through Media, in which she referenced today my post on Forrester's Five Year Interactive Marketing Forecast. Debbie's post called Marketing’s Brave New Lexicon addresses the discussion of today's terminology for what we call online marketing, internet marketing, web marketing, or sometimes interactive marketing. You'll see my two cents on her blog about what my favorite term is and I'm interested to hear what yours is.

So, I really have to go back a bag for my trip now. I'll be reporting back here soon about SES. For now, Erin go Braugh!

Horton Hears a Who Movie Promo Takes Offline to Online

It's been quite a while since I wrote anything related to entertainment marketing, especially about an interactive promotion for a theatrical movie release, so here's a fairly simple one.

The animated move version of Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who was released yesterday in theaters.  20th Century Fox teamed up with IHOP restaurants as well as with direct marketing leader, Valpak, who branded 44 million of its blue envelopes with images from the movie. Inside the Valpak envelopes consumers were directed to Valpak.com to enter the "Win a Who-Lot" Sweepstakes.

Two grand prizes winners will receive an IHOP Family dinner for a year in the form of 52, $50 IHOP gift certificates. Now that's alot of pancakes! There's also an instant-win component in which $25.00 IHOP "Be My Guest" Gift Certificates were randomly inserted into 1,000 Valpak envelopes.

In addition, consumers can redeem the Valpak envelope for a free IHOP Kids' Meal or short stack order of pancakes. For a limited time IHOP is offering Horton Hears a Who-inspired menu items such as Who Cakes, Bezzelnut drinks and even the famous Green Eggs and Ham.

This promotion is a good example of using an offline channel to drive people online. Valpak.com is using the sweepstakes to grow it's email database by giving those entering the opportunity for more chances to win by agreeing to receive info on new offers and savings from Valpak.com. Valpak will also be sharing the database with IHOP unless those that enter specifically opt-out of this option.

The movie is based on the Dr. Seuss classic which is about an imaginative elephant who hears a cry for help coming from a speck of dust floating in the air. Unbeknownst to Horton the particle is home to a city named Who-ville inhabited by Whos. Despite being ridiculed by his neighbors, Horton, voiced by Jim Carrey, is determined to help.

Jim Carrey also was the voice for the Grinch in the move adaptation of Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas. He showed up as a special guest on American Idol this past week dressed in an odd elephant costume to help promote the movie release. Carol Burnett is the voice of the mean kangaroo and Steve Carell plays the mayor of Who-ville.

The movie's website also offers some engaging interactivity. They have a viral component in which you can adopt a Who and then share a widget that shows your Who. You give your Who a name, determine if it's a boy or girl Who, dress it, pick it's house as well as a few other options. I named mine Donna Marie and got an adoption certificate along with a widget that shows my Who. I was given many options on where I wanted to inbed this widget, so I chose Typepad and it automatically it was embeds it into the post that you tell it to. So, here it is.

The website also offers the chance to play some games as well as download wallpapers and print out activities. The movie reviews haven't been great, but they say the computer animation is fantastic and worth seeing alone. It's from the same creators of Ice Age and its too bad Horton didn't live up to Ice Age, which is one of my favorite animated movies. Ice Age 3 will be in theaters Summer 2009, so we'll have to wait and see if that one's a hit again.

I'll Be At Search Engine Strategies New York

The report from Forrester on the Five Year US Interactive Marketing Forecast that I just wrote about really stressed the fact that Search Marketing is extremely important today and will just continue to grow in its significance. So, on that note, I'm off to attend the Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo in New York next week. It's being held at the New York Hilton starting on Mon., March 17th till Thurs, March 19th. SES is part of Incisive Interactive Marketing, the marketing services division of Incisive Media that also includes Search Engine Watch and the ClickZ Network .

I'm planning on spending two days there, Tues. & Wed., to learn as much as I can from the experts. So, I'm sorry to say that I'll be missing the SES/St. Patty's Day PUB CRAWL on Monday evening that will take folks on a bar hoping event to visit seven different pubs. It's been a long time since I've been in New York on St. Patty's day, but I still remember how crazy it gets.

The conference welcome and opening keynote on Tues. morning is from Nick Carr, author of The Big Switch: Rewiring the World from Edison to Google. I guess it's natural that Google's name be in the opening keynote for a conference focused on SEM.

Nick is a former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review and writes and speaks on technology, business, and culture. His bio states that his book examines the future of computing and its implications for business and society. Since 2005, he has published the popular blog Rough Type. He recently wrote in it that he was pleasantly surprised to see The Big Switch listed in the Wall Street Journal business bestseller list, at Number 5 - just behind Good to Great and just ahead of Who Moved My Cheese? - another book to add to our reading list. In 2005, Optimize magazine named him one of the leading thinkers on information technology, and in 2007 eWeek named him one of the 100 most influential people in IT. So, I'm looking forward to hearing Nick speak. I hope my plane is on time since I'm coming in that morning from JFK.

After Nick's talk the Expo Hall officially opens which has over 135 sponsors and exhibitors to chat with. Then starting at 11 am they offer the first of five different sessions that each follow a different track that you can follow for the day. They are: Fundamentals; Conversion; Local; Advertising; and Contextual Ads. I'm not sure yet where I'll start.

After lunch there's a panel session on universal search that will discuss how search, marketing and information seeking is changing the industry that follows the search and will include research data available only at SES. Panelists gurus for this include:

• John Battelle, Founder/Chairman/CEO, Federated Media
• James Lamberti, Senior Vice President, Search and Media, comScore
• Lyndsay Menzies, Managing Director, Big Mouth Media
• Jack Menzel, PM for Universal Search, Google

Day 2 ends with a networking reception back in the Expo Hall.

Day 3 on Wednesday morning gets underway with the keynote: Search Has Changed Everything... And So Can You by Gordon McLeod, President of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network. Gordon will discuss how the WSJ changed how they do business in a search driven world and the session promises us a better understanding of how making the right moves can help make the most of this dynamic universe. Basically it will hopefully explain how we all need to combine the best of the old with the new marketing of today.

The names of the session tracks on Day 3 include Fundamentals, Stats & Research, Social Search, Vertical & Retail and The Click Z Track. I'm very interested in the Social Search Track which includes a session titled Social Media Marketing - What is it and What is it Good For? that features Jory Des Jardins, Cofounder & President of Strategic Alliances of BlogHer - which happens to be the next event that I'm planning on attending in a couple of weeks.  

The afternoon keynote that day is from Jason Calacanis, founder and CEO of Mahalo.com, a human-powered search engine focused on the top English-language search terms which include verticals such as travel, products, news, entertainment, sports, food, and health. Prior to this Jason cofounded and was the CEO of Weblogs, Inc., a network of popular weblogs that was sold to AOL in November 2005. Upon joining AOL, he was appointed SVP. In addition, he was named general manager of AOL's Netscape and was responsible for the July 2006 relaunch of the browser as a social bookmarking news site.

I'm going to head back home on Wednesday night, so I'll miss Thursday's keynote speaker which is Andrew Tomkins, Chief Scientist at Yahoo! Research. Andrew's research over the last eight years has focused on measurement, modeling, and analysis of content, communities, and users on the World Wide Web. I'm sure it will be very informative, but my head would probably have enough information to absorb by that time anyhow. Anyone sitting in on this feel free to send me some comments.

So, I'll be reporting back next week when I return on how the conference was and some of the highlights and take-aways. I'll also be writing an article for Adotas to feature since I'll be covering the conference for them as well. If you're planning on being there on Tues. & Wed. please drop me a note so that we could perhaps meet or just look for me there and say hello. I'm really looking forward to this conference and I'm sure I'll walk away with a ton of new knowledge.

Forrester's Five Year Interactive Marketing Forecast

Being a member of the American Marketing Association I get invited to all of the many webinars that they put on with various sponsors. Webinars don't normally hold my interest and instead I find myself reading or sending email or looking online at something else. However last week I signed up for one that actually kept my interest so I thought I'd share it with you here.

The title of the webinar was "The US Five Year Interactive Marketing Forecast" which was presented by Shar VanBoskirk, Principal Analyst for Forrester Research and sponsored by IMPAQT, a search-engine marketing firm.

The forecast predicts that interactive marketing will reach $61 billion by 2012. What's really significant about that number is that it will become 18% of all marketing spend which right now it is only at 8%. So by that time we should see interactive as a part of an everyday marketing campaign budget and integrated much more with traditional media. For example this year we saw many more Super Bowl advertisers using URL addresses in their ads (64% I wrote about in this post) and integrating the ads with websites. So by 2012 that percentage should reach 100%.

The biggest trend is that consumer behavior is changing and technology is adjusting consumer media time. Emerging media is commonplace for the younger consumers. These 18-27 years are spending more time online then they are watching television and almost as much time on their cell phones. This is all not surprising, however, the thing to note is that they, Generation Y, are the mainstream consumers of tomorrow. Interactive will become more effective than some traditional channels. The lesser media channels of today will most likely have double penetration a year from now and we'll see new media activities that aren't even here today. So the real question is, what will consumers be doing tomorrow and will marketers be willing to invest in these new media activities.

Interactive Marketing was broken down into the following categories:

• Search Marketing is expected to triple in 5 years to over $25 billion.
• Online Display ads will reach almost $14 billion. The ability to create reach media ads will help this growth.
• Email marketing spend will shift to integration which means that email will start to be more integrated with other mediums.
• Online video has the steepest growth curve of any of these channels because it has a very low adaption of around $450 million today. It's an easy medium for marketers to understand and something that they're familiar with. Interactive videos will also help see this medium grow.
• Emerging Media which Forrester defined as social media, mobile marketing and in-game advertising and states that social media is poised to have the most significant growth of these three elements. Social media is providing many marketers with a way to help get them interactive.

Next Shar gave her most controversial statement in saying that she doesn't think mobile marketing is an immediate priority. All the other tools outlined in this presentation should have priority over mobile. She believes, and I have to agree with her, that we still have a couple of years for mobile players to work out the mechanics of how to make it work in a cost effective way. By 2009 it should then be a viable marketing priority.

So, what should marketers prioritize?

Top of the list are the mainstays that most marketers are using today...email, search marketing and online ads and absolutely search marketing which is the #1 way consumers find websites: 72% of adults are coming to websites via search results and 57% of youths - they use social media more than adults.

Social Media tools are the up-and-comers...social networks, blogs, consumer-generated content, online video, RSS, podcasts, are all tools that marketers should start to integrate into their marketing mix.

Interesting media that nobody is really investing in yet is mobile, in-game ads and virtual worlds.

Shar summarized the presentation by saying "The world of interactive marketing is just beginning to unfold in terms of the kinds opportunities it can provide to marketers and their customers. This opportunity is still not completely unfamiliar though...the consumer is still the same type of consumer, but the tools are different." Here are a few of her recommendations:

• Focus on the mainstays: email, search and online ads
• Experiment with social media and online video
• Think about mobile in the next 18 months
• Grow your keyword list
• Beef up your search analytics
• Refocus on SEO

Sounds all like good, sound advice to follow.

My Very First YouTube Video UpLoad

Recently I celebrated my blog's first birthday which I am extremely proud of and I'm very happy to now be able to say that I've been part of this blogosphere for a full year. I didn't know much about blogging and social media when I first started out, however I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to learn from my blogging team at Windsor Media, Yvonne DiVita and her partner Tom Collins. Now Yvonne is the blogger, her most popular blog is Lipsticking.com, and Tom is the technical adviser.

So I learned, and I keep learning, a great deal from both Yvonne and Tom and have since also gained much knowledge from just blogging myself, reading and visiting other people's blog and by staying current on all that's written about emerging media these  days...which is a full time job in itself! I've learned how to add things to my blog in my sidebars; gotten better at resizing photos; picked-up on some simple HTML coding that let's me make a few minor adjustments here and there. Also I've embedded many videos into my posts from YouTube, but I hate to admit that I never have uploaded one of my own...until now.

We borrowed a video camera and took it on our vacation to St. Maarten this year which I told you a little about in this post. My daughters and their friend were vacationing with us and they took the camera down the beach on one of the last days we were there to tape the planes landing. Now I had mentioned in my previous post that where we were staying was practically at the beginning of the runway and at a certain part of the beach the planes literally would come in right over your head. The girls had seen the landing schedule of the planes and were waiting for the big one, Air France, to come in so they could capture it.

I promised I would share this footage with you, so I went to YouTube and finally uploaded my first video which I'm embedding here. Take a look.

Now I can tell my family and friends, and my girls can tell their friends, to check out the video they shot which is on my blog. That's one way to drive traffic to my blog I guess!

Now I can't believe how easy it was. I keep telling people that the best way to learn about this social media thing is to just do it. So, here's another example. Now I think we're going to buy this camera from it's current owner since he went out and got a new one and really dosen't need this one anymore. It'll be just fine for our purposes. So maybe next time I'll even shoot the video myself.