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

New Study: Interactive Promotions to Triple by 2012

Yesterday a new report was released by Borrell Associates which states that the online promotions category is expected to nearly triple over the next five years from $8 billion last year to $22.8 billion, surpassing all other online advertising categories (paid search, banners, e-mail, audio/video advertising). It states that as in offline promotions, most of the value of online promotions is the cash value of incentives that are given to motivate short-term sales. Sounds like the basic principals of promotional marketing that we all know and love.

The report states that online display ads (Web page banners, pop-ups, etc.) have lost their luster and that spending on them has been generally flat for the past two years. They believe it will peak this year at $12.6 billion, and then begin a precipitous decline to less than half that amount over the next four years. They also state that paid search advertising is likewise facing a luster-loss and they foresee it hitting its peak next year at $16.9 billion, followed by a gradual decline.

To many of us in the interactive promotions business this is great to now have a report that helps prove what we've known all along...online promotions, such as sweepstakes, contests and instant-win games, are highly measurable and when you put the right incentive in front of the right audience, you can get them to act! So while this report may contain predictions that seem strange to some, it makes perfect sense to us. Marketers today need campaigns that can provide measurable results, and this is a way for them to achieve this.

"Online contests, giveaways, coupons and sales of half-price gift certificates are proliferating, many of them bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars annually and generating warm partnerships between the media company and the advertiser," the Borrell report said. "The utility of the Internet holds fascinating possibilities for local businesses. Local media companies that are genuinely helping those businesses grow, rather than merely selling advertising to them, are well positioned to succeed in this brave new world of marketing."

The full report includes some case studies of local promotions that were implemented successfully. The local medium best positioned to take advantage of the trend could be local TV. A survey from BIGResearch, cited in the Borrell report showed that 38 percent of people that were online were also watching television; more than 20 percent were listening to radio; 9.5 percent were reading a newspaper; almost 7 percent were reading a magazine.

Currently, online promotion spending is only 22% of the total $37 billion overall interactive marketing pie. Overall promotions account for about 60 percent of all dollars spent annually in global marketing. What I believe is an up and coming growing trend is the integration of promotions with social media. The strategy of combining these two marketing tactics is bound to become a big part of the growth that is predicted here over the next five years. I'm interested to see the full Borrell report and if this is in fact one one of their recommendations. It certainly is one of mine.

If you would like to learn more, please contact me. And as always, I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Sex and the City "Purse-onality" Contest & Sweeps

Right now we are in a pretty ho-hum time of year for new theatrical movie releases. Everyone seems to be more focused on renting DVD's to catch up on movies that won Oscars this year. But give it about another month and it'll be the start to the summer movie blockbuster season. One that I'm personally very eager to see is the return of the ladies from New York with the release of "Sex and The City", the movie on May 30th. I'm a big fan of the series and I have to admit, I really miss these characters.

Apparently I'm not alone in loving these characters...here's an interactive promotion that began on April 1 from an online retailer that has partnered with New Line Cinema to promote the premiere of the movie.  BAG BORROW OR STEAL is a unique business which lets women borrow designer handbags and jewelry online. What an interesting business model this is. They have developed this consumer-generated content, "Style Profile Contest" which invites women to submit videos in which they identify which character whose style most resembles their own, as represented by the handbags and accessories found in their closet. So, entrants need to explain if they think they're like Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte or Miranda and why.

The videos can be submitted on YouTube and as of today there are only 16 videos to view. Some women have chosen Charlotte for her classic style and her favorite Chanel designer handbags. Other have chosen Samantha based on her desire to stand out in the crowd and have bags that are bold and colorful. Carrie's style is described as spunky, spontaneous, energetic, a real individual, so her bags are always unique. Miranda was chosen because she's a polished career-woman with a child, so the bags that she needs have to be stylish, but also be able to carry a few necessities, like extra diapers!

So, let's get some more videos up there (I'm really tempted to do one myself). Videos can be submitted up until May 9th. The first 50 people to enter will receive a $250 borrowing credit to BAG BORROW OR STEAL. One grand-prize winner will be chosen around May 14th to receive a $500 credit along with tickets to the movie premiere in New York City along with airfare, hotel, transportation and $500 spending money! They also will provide the winner with space to document her own experience in a blog which I'm interested to learn more of how they're going to go about this.

Five judges from the fashion world have been recruited to pick the winner. They are:

• Carol Han - Market Editor, Elle.com
• Jennifer Sherry - Fashion Producer, E! Entertainment
• Lesley Scott - Editor-in-Chief, Fashiontribes.com
• Marissa Rubin – Fashion Market Editor, People StyleWatch Magazine
• Pamela Pekerman – Founder and Editor-in-Chief, BagTrends.com

They'll be choosing the winner based on creativity, presentation skills and entrant’s expression of his or her passion for handbags and Sex and the City as well as the overall video quality.

A separate sweepstakes lets people take an online quiz to find their “Sex and the City purse-onality” for a chance to win additional credit, movie posters and T-Shirts.  BAG BORROW OR STEAL's website also offers a “Sex and the City” shop filled with a collection of luxury accessories inspired by the four ladies of the movie. They also have a viral marketing component that you can forward to friends and of course they have a link to the movie trailer. Kudos to BAG BORROW OR STEAL for developing a great promotion that really ties nicely into their brand as well as to the movie.

So, the hype is really going to start heating up over the next month for this movie release...Will Carrie end up marrying Mr. Big?  Check out the official movie website for more fun. There's icons and wallpapers you can download, a great soundtrack you can listen to and there's even this Official Movie Blog. It all looks great!

I'll be Featured Guest on Blog Talk Radio

This Saturday afternoon I am going to be a guest speaker on Blog Talk Radio on the premiere show for The Contest Queen...all things sweepstaking, contesting, lucky and fun.  Now I have listened to some shows on Blog Talk Radio before, but this will be my first time as a speaker.

If your not familiar, BlogTalkRadio is a social radio network that allows users to connect quickly and directly with their audience. Using both a telephone and a computer hosts can create free, live, call-in talk shows that are also archived and made available as podcasts. Listeners can subscribe to shows via RSS into iTunes and other feed readers. This network has produced tens of thousands of episodes since it launched in August of 2006.

Carolyn Wilman is the host of this new show and since it's her first one, she and I will be learning it together. The show is scheduled to be live at 4pm EST on Saturday and then will be available as a podcast for downloading so people can listen to it at anytime. I agreed to do this when Carolyn asked me (even though it's in the middle of the weekend and I'll be hurrying back from my daughter's high school softball game) because quite simply, I like her and I was flattered by the fact that she invited me to be her first guest speaker.

Carolyn and I have never met in person yet. She's from Canada, just the other side of the big lake from Rochester, and she found me through this blog. She writes a blog called From the Contest Queen and while my blog focuses on interactive promotions from a marketer's point of view, she reports on them from a consumer's perspective. Carolyn's background is similar to mine... she's been running her own marketing business, Imagination Edge, for the past several years and has assisted many companies with developing and executing sweepstakes and contest promotions.

Carolyn says her main objective is to teach others how to have fun. Besides her blog she produces a free bi-weekly e-newsletter called The Winning EDGE that includes contesting stories, tips, tricks and links to new contests. She also runs workshops: How to Win Cash, Cars, Trips and More…Online and Attracting Luck for hundreds of people annually. Carolyn has written a book which she just made available in the U.S. which is called You Can't Win if You Don't Enter. You can both download the first chapter for free as well as order the book here online.

There are many so called "sweepstakes" portals on the web, and some do offer added-value content such as Carolyn's, while others exists just to make money. Us marketers in the business refer to the later types as "sweepstakes whores". Most interactive promotions that involve sweepstakes and contests are initially developed to help build brand awareness and to attract potential customers to a website in order to build up the brand's database. If consumers come to these websites through a sweepstakes portal that have absolutely no interest in the brand's product or service, then it does the brand absolutely no good. But as always, the 80/20 rule is true here and marketers just have to work harder to weed out those non-customers and identity who their top ones are.

So, I'm interested to hear what types of questions consumers will ask me on the show tomorrow and I thought this would be of interest to other marketers as well. I believe Carolyn has a list of questions for me just in case we don't have a big live audience. So, if you can't make it there live tomorrow, perhaps you may want to download the archive and listen at your leisure. I have been considering doing some podcasts myself, so I also thought this would be a good way to test the waters. Let me know what you think...either of how I did as a guest or the idea of doing one myself. Thanks.

Social Media MarketingTool Prompts 941% Increase in Sign-Ups

Marketers today are beginning to look more and more at Social Media as an innovative and effective way to reach their targeted audiences and achieve their branding and marketing communication goals. The marketing goals will differ for every business or organization; however most Social Media Marketing (SMM) programs or campaigns will involve some the following objectives:

• Increase brand awareness
• Create Brand engagement (pages viewed, time on site)
• Generate Publicity, positive buzz and word of mouth
• Drive traffic to a website
• Convert sales of products and services
• Develop strong inbound link generation, which benefits organic search engine rankings
• Produce positive ROI

Here's an example of a recent campaign that included social media marketing that had some great results:

Zecco Holdings, Inc. developed an online customer referral program that awards people when they get friends to sign up for a new Zecco Trading account. They have built a financial social networking community that has access to free stock trading through its wholly owned subsidiary, Zecco Trading, Inc. PopularMedia, a social media marketing solutions agency, worked with Zecco to develop a viral marketing campaign that resulted in a 941 percent increase in Zecco Trading account sign ups.

Influencer marketing tools made it simple and rewarding for people to invite their contacts to join the MyZecco community, and motivated invitees to open and fund new Zecco Trading accounts.Through a variety of rewards ranging from a $25 certificate to iTunes to a charitable donation, Zecco found that online customers were most responsive with a cash giveaway. If a customer referred a friend who opened a Zecco Trading account, they would receive $50 in their Zecco Trading account. In addition, their friend would receive a free investing book. Program participants invited an average of 6 friends each.

“The key to a successful social media campaign is not only the ability to identify who is influential but also what makes them influential,” says Jim Calhoun, CEO of PopularMedia. “By unlocking and demystifying social networks, businesses of almost any size or industry have the potential to more effectively community with online customers.”

I guess it shows that if it appears that your friends are making money, than you want to get in on the action as well. This social media marketing campaign successfully acheived most of the objectives I listed above.

Bertolli's Romantic Nights Contest and Sweeps

Over the weekend I received an email from Bertolli informing me that the time has come to choose a winner in their Dinner and Your Movie contest! They have chosen four finalists who have submitted videos in this user-generated contest that began back in early February. The email was inviting me to view the finalists and vote for my favorite for a chance to win a trip to New York City.

Now to participate in the contest the submitted videos needed to explain what a romantic night means to them, what ingredients go into making a romantic night as well as they had to use Bertolli's Frozen Dinners as one of their ingredients. They then submitted these user-generated videos that were all posted on this microsite, www.BertolliNightsIn.com. From what I can tell there are a total of 328 videos submitted.

Well I watched the four videos that are posted on the site as the chosen finalists. I honestly wasn't too impressed by them, expect for one that I voted on which is clearly the favorite. So, please check it out and guess which one I voted on. You have up until the end of this month, April 30th, to vote and enter the sweepstakes.

So, now since I voted and filled out my online entry form I'm entered into the random-drawing sweepstakes for a chance to win the trip to New York. Not only does it include airfare and hotel accommodations for two, but it also comes with a chance to meet celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito and two invitations to the Bertolli's premiere and party. The finalist that has the most votes at the end of the voting period will also win the same New York City trip package. The other three finalists will receive $1,000 each.

Bertolli has also partnered with NetFlix and is sponsoring a weekly sweepstakes in which they will draw 20 names each week to receive free dinner and NetFlix movies for a year. There is a separate online entry form for this sweeps, however, since I had to supply my email and a password to vote on the contest all I had to do was sign-in and I was automatically entered into this as well. So, they've done a pretty good job of collecting my personal data and asking me to opt-in to receive future info on Bertolli as well other Unilever products, who is the parent company.

The last part of this interactive promotion, which is being administered by ePrize, offers consumers a $2.50 coupon on any Bertolli's frozen dinner. Unfortunately I had to fill out another form to get the coupon, I couldn't just log-in. This form asks for additional information regarding which Bertolli products I've purchased in the past and how much. Well I haven't purchased any of the frozen dinners, but now that I have a coupon, I'll try one and then I'll probably receive future offers from Bertolli as well. Now isn't that what these interactive promotions are all about?

If you do vote, let me know here in the comments which one is your favorite and what you think overall about the promotion.

McDonald's The Lost Ring Promotes the 2008 Olympics

I got to hear Neil Golden, CMO of McDonald’s USA, review with us their strategy of concentrating on their menu and creating products based on customer’s need into what he called “the strongest turnaround in business history.” Neil was another of the top-notched speakers that PMA offered us this year at their Annual Integrated Marketing Conference held in Chicago last week.

Neil also told us that McDonald's isn't doing "Promotions" anymore. Wait a minute, what was that? Instead he said they are concentrating on PROMOTION that adds attention and has relevance to their long-term brands. He went through and mentioned a few of the "Promotion" programs that they've been focused on.

The Lost Ring is a new program aimed at promoting the McDonald's brand and their partnership with the International Olympic Committee. It's an alternative reality game (ARG) which is sponsored by both in anticipation of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. The game was officially launched last month after some buzz was first created online through a viral marketing push that didn't have the sponsors' names associated with it. Neil said that the goal of the promotion is to tap into the existing equity McDonald's has with the Olympics as well as the whole social networking trend in order to join forces online globally.

The game is built around the fictional concept that more than 2,000 years ago an Olympic sport was lost to history and that now, five Olympic-caliber athletes have turned up in corn fields around the world, amnesiac but sure they've been tasked with some great mission.

To play the game you have to visit The Lost Ring.com where you first watch a trailer that's been created at the same high quality of most theatrical film releases. Neil told us that 1.5 million people have viewed the video to date and they currently have over 200,000 active gamers coming from all 119 countries that McDonald's does business in.

What I didn't realize is that Jane McGonigal is behind the creation of this game. Jane describes herself as a game designer, a games researcher, and a future forecaster. Her bio on her blog, Avant Game, says "I make games that give a damn". Check out her blog post here where you can learn much more about Jane, how to play this game as well as how it came about.

Anyhow, I first met Jane last year while attending the Interactive Promotions summit that ePrize sponsored in Las Vegas. Jane was one of the keynote speakers and spoke about her game philosophy and the World Without Oil game she was working on then. It was a very intriguing presentation which I wrote a post here about her as well as the rest of the conference.

Neil also did tell us that McDonald's Monopoly Game will indeed be back this fall and they continue to enhance its relevance to the brand each year and bring in some new partners. Last year they showcased the previous year's winner in order to create awareness that people do actually win these games. We'll have to wait on what new enhancements they'll add to this year's interactive promotion.

Back to The Lost Ring, now knowing that Jane is behind this game, I'm very eager to find the time to play it. If anyone has experienced the game please let us know if "You're Lovin it" or not. You're welcome to leave any of your thoughts in the comments section here. Also if you're interested, here's a Wiki that's been created that you can get some additional pointers on as well.

My Blogging Debut on Lip-Sticking.com

Today was my first official post as a guest blogger on Lip-Sticking.com. Yvonne DiVita started this blog several years ago which is mainly about marketing to women online. It's an A-List blog and I am extremely proud to be part of the Lip-Sticking team...one of five female marketers who contribute to this blog.

Yvonne and her team at WME Blogs are due credit for getting me started blogging and helped me to launch Donna's Promo Talk early last year. I've written a couple of posts before that Yvonne had put on Lip-Sticking, but now I've got my guest blogging rights through Typepad to post directly. I guess she feels she taught me well.

Now the real exciting news is that yesterday Peter Caputa wrote a post on his blog, The Hubspot Internet Marketing Blog, titled Internet Marketing Blogs You Should Be Reading. In it he listed 15 blogs and Lip-Sticking was included sandwiched between Seth Godin and Groundswell. Peter's been getting many favorable comments on this post, most thanking him for creating the list. So I'm sure readers here will benefit from it as well. Since today was my turn to post on Lip-Sticking I expect to see some additional exposure from Peter's post that will hopefully direct some traffic back here as well.

So, I did want to give a huge thank-you to Yvonne and to the other ladies, Lena West, Robbie Hess and Mary Schmidt, that are part of the Lip-Sticking team and to Peter as well.

So, I'm inviting you to jump over to Lip-Sticking to read my post there today as well as some of previous post from the other women. My post is about another speaker from PMA's Annual Integrated Marketing Conference. Now I realize some of my readers are probably tired of hearing about the conference, however Ann Hand and the BP branding story I felt was a perfect fit for the Lip-Sticking audience. So please check it out and thanks again for being my readers.

Carly Fiorina Defines Integrated Marketing-PMA Day 2

We had the great privilege of having Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, as our keynote speaker who kicked off day two of PMA's Integrated Marketing Conference. Over the past year PMA went through a strategic branding initiative that resulted in changing the name of the conference as well as creating a new logo. The association is no longer just focused on promotional marketing, but instead is championing the understanding and meaning of integrated marketing which it defines as the integration of all disciplines in the marketing mix to deliver one unified message to the consumer.

Carly defined integrated marketing as “The collection of every impression that the customer has about a company.” She followed this up with saying “companies can’t always control with their marketing what the customer takes away about the company. We’re in a period of extraordinary change in our business today and we all know that change is difficult. PMA is now trying to integrate marketing as well as build accountability and measurement into what we do."

Carly then shared with us this quote which I think is great…”Change is like heaven…. everyone wants to go there but nobody wants to die.”

As with most great speakers Carly shared with us a story. It was about a man who called HP and wanted to speak with the CEO because he was very irate about a certain printer. Now they had what they called at HP the CEO hotline that was just for these types of customers who are so mad that they want to talk to the CEO. This team would take the calls and inform Carly about the situation. This man was so upset and told the woman that he was going to shove the printer "where the sun don't shine". The HP employee calmly told him that if he did that "it will void your warranty". This turned the customer totally around and he ended up calling back to tell the CEO how wonderful that woman was who took his call.

Here are some of Carly’s key take-aways for us marketers:

1.    Authenticity – if your marketing is not accurate and true, it just won’t work. People will reject it if they don't see it as authentic.

2.    Judgment – the ability to know when to act and when to pause...when to panic and when to stay calm. We need to make quick decisions, however there are always those times when the data is saying one thing and you just know it is wrong. That’s the time you should pause and reflect.

3.    Perspective – this is what really matters…remember that you can use information to prove just about anything.

Carly's comment about marketing not always having control is so true today. Many brands have not been comfortable embracing social media because they have to loose some control in order to do this successfully. I'll talk about that more in my next post.

I really enjoyed hearing Carly speak and found her to be very authentic and true. She reminded me a little of myself when I first started in this business...a secretary working before the age of computers.

Carly wrapped it up by saying that successful marketing is all about finding ways to connect a message that's important to both the brand and to it's customers. Simple and true.

Holly Cow! 7-Eleven and FreshWorks Win The Super Reggie Award

Day two of PMA's Annual Integrated Marketing Conference wrapped up on Wednesday night at the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile hotel with the 25^th Annual REGGIE live Awards Ceremony that featured 25 years of the best promotion and integrated marketing campaigns. 7-Eleven along with their agency, FreshWorks, took home the coveted Supper Reggie award this year for their Simpson’s Kwik E-Mart campaign. In celebration of the 25th Anniversary they were presented with a 72 lb. antique cash register.

Featured in this picture left to right are: Bobbi Merkel, director of convergence at FreshWorks; Rita Bargerhuff, VP marketing, 7-Eleven, Inc.; Lynda Oliver, GM of FreshWorks; Rita Drucker, VP of domestic theatrical promotions at Twentieth Century FOX. Rita spoke about this campaign during a entertainment marketing session at the conference the day before. I had the pleasure of sitting with these women at lunch on day one of the conference and got to learn a little more about how their team works. Congratulations to all of you for a great job.

Back in July when The Simpsons Movie was just released in theaters I wrote this post describing the marketing partners that got on board with different promotions associated with this release. 7-Eleven and their agency FreshWorks worked with Fox Studios and Gracie Films to create what would become this award-wining campaign.

Twelve 7-Eleven stores were converted into Kwik-E-Marts (the fictional convenience store from The Simpsons for those that may not know). The Slurpee beverage was temporarily changed to “Squishee,” and new Sprinklicious Donuts filled bakery cases. Manufacturing partners were enlisted to create products like Buzz cola, KrustyO’s brand cereal and Radioactive Man comic books (Issue No. 711). Consumers were finally able to live like a Simpson at 7-Eleven.

“Each year, the PMA REGGIE Awards honors some of the most creative, well-executed, results-driven integrated marketing campaigns,” said Bonnie Carlson, president of the PMA. “FreshWorks and 7-Eleven delivered the largest-scale promotion to hit the convenience retail channel, and the first ever, real life Simpsons experience.  It is fitting that they got to take home the 72 lb cash register Super REGGIE Award for a campaign that made the cash registers ring.”

Gold, Silver and Bronze REGGIE Award-winning campaigns were announced in 16 categories.  Other multi-REGGIE Award-winning campaigns included: The Sopranos A&E Connection (two Gold REGGIES); McDonald's Shrek (one Gold REGGIE, one Silver REGGIE); SPIDER-MAN WEEK IN NYC (one Gold REGGIE, one Silver REGGIE); and My GRAMMY Moment (one Silver REGGIE, one Bronze REGGIE).

The Gold, Silver and Bronze REGGIE Award winners in each of the 16 categories are as follows:

National Consumer - Budget over $5 million
Gold: The Starter Wife Campaign (Client: USA Network; Agency: In-House)
Silver: McDonald's Shrek (Client: McDonald’s; Agency: Arc Worldwide)
Bronze: Bee Movie Theatrical Program (Client: DreamWorks Animation; Agency: In-House)

National Consumer - Budget between $1 million and $5 million
Gold:  Welcome to Stacy's (Client: Stacy's Pita Chip Company; Agency: TracyLocke)
Silver: The Sopranos A&E Connection Game (Client: A&E; Agency: Civic Entertainment Group)
Bronze: My GRAMMY Moment (Client: The Recording Academy; Agency: In-House)

National Consumer - Budget under $1 million
Gold: The Sopranos A&E Connection (Client: A&E Television Network; Agency: Civic Entertainment Group)
Silver: HOP Across America (Client:Hooked On Phonics; Agency: Civic Entertainment Group and Engage Marketing)
Bronze: Silk Soymilk "Green Caps for Green Energy" (Client: WhiteWave Foods; Agency: The Integer Group)
Bronze: Night At The Museum TREX TREK (Client: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment; Agency: The Borden Agency)

Local, Regional Market - Budget over $1 million
Gold: 7-Eleven/ Simpsons and Kwik-E-Mart (Client: 7-Eleven; Agency: FreshWorks)
Silver:  Maxwell House Brew Some Good (Client: Maxwell House; Agency: OgilvyAction)
Bronze: Charmin NYC Restroom Experience (Client: Procter & Gamble;
Agency: Gigunda Group, Inc.)

Local, Regional Market  - Budget under $1 million
Gold:  SPIDER-MAN WEEK IN NYC (Client: Columbia Tristar  Marketing Group; Agency: NYC & Company)
Silver: Free Food on Your Phone! (Client: Hardee’s; Agency: CellFire, Inc.)
Bronze:  Inspire Change (Client: Seeds of Change; Agency: Alcone Marketing Group)

Multi-Partner Promotion - three or more partners (No budgetary parameters)
Gold: The world is going yellow in celebration of the Simpsons movie (Client:  20th Century Fox; Agency: In-House)
Silver: 7-Eleven/ Simpsons and Kwik-E-Mart (Client: 7-Eleven Agency: FreshWorks)
Bronze:  The Starter Wife multi-partner campaign (Client: USA Network;
Agency: In-House)

Business-to-Business (includes trade promotion) (No budgetary parameters)
Gold:  Gatorade/ All-Stars VPI Program (Client: The Gatorade Company;  Agency: TPN)
Silver: Chase the Extraordinary (Client: InterContinental Hotels Group/Hotel Management Group; Agency: US Concepts)
Bronze: Girls Gone Wired (B2B) (Client: Oxygen Media; Agency: GEM Group, Inc.)

Multi-cultural/Ethnic (No budgetary parameters)
Gold: Scott Dichonario (Client: Kimberly-Clark; Agency: MASS Hispanic Marketing)
Silver: WonkaArte "Dia de los Muertos" Program (Client: Wonka;
Agency: Bromley Communications)
Bronze: Herbal Essences RBD (Client: Procter & Gamble; Agency: Leo Burnett, Arc Worldwide & SMG)

Digital (No budgetary parameters)
Gold:  The Sopranos A&E Connection (Client: A&E Television Network; Agency: Civic Entertainment Group)
Silver: My GRAMMY Moment (Client: The Recording Company; Agency: In-House)
Bronze: Degree / 24 (Client: Twentieth Century Fox Licensing & Merchandising; Agency: MindShare)

Cause/Community Outreach (No Budgetary parameters)
Gold: Tide CleanStart Mobile Laundromat (Client: Procter & Gamble; Agency: Gigunda Group, Inc.)
Silver:  Yahoo! Be A Better Planet (Client: Yahoo!; Agency: In-House)
Bronze: The National 9/11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center 9/11 Tribute Exhibition (Client: National 9/11 Memorial & Museum; Agency: Octagon, Jack Morton & Weber Shandwick PR)

Experiential Marketing - Budget under $1 million
Gold: Godiva "Decadence Goes Mobile" (Client: Godiva Chocolatier; Agency: Eastwest Marketing Group)
Silver: SPIDER-MAN WEEK IN NYC (Client: Columbia Tristar Marketing Group; Agency: NYC & Company)
Bronze:  Take Off and Tune In (Client: A&E Television Network; Agency: Civic Entertainment Group)

Experiential Marketing - Budget over $1 million
Gold:  7-Eleven/ Simpsons and Kwik-E-Mart (Client: 7-Eleven; Agency: FreshWorks)
Silver: Sony (Alpha) DSLR Tour (Client: Sony; Agency: Gigunda Group, Inc.)
Bronze:  World Vision Experience: Aids  (Client: World Vision Organization; Agency: The Brand Experience)

Shopper Marketing (No budgetary parameters)
Gold: It's a "Tween Thing" at Toys "R" Us (Client: Disney Consumer Products;
Agency: In-House)
Silver: Sony HD Test Drive (Client: Sony; Agency: PowerPact, LLC)
Bronze:  Bounty Re-launch (Client: Procter & Gamble; Agency: The Integer Group)

Age Specific (No budgetary parameters)
Gold: Rescuing Recess (Client: Cartoon Network; Agency: Arc Worldwide)
Gold: McDonald's Shrek (Client: McDonald’s; Agency: Arc Worldwide)
Silver: Hannah Montana MyConcert Memory Book Presented by HP (Client: Disney Online/Hollywood Records/HP; Agency: Disney Online In-House)
Bronze: AT&T World's Loudest Pep Rally (Client: AT&T; Agency: The Marketing Arm)

Small Budget - Budget less than $100,000
Gold: Early Times Reel in a Million (Client: Brown Forman; Agency: PriceWeber)
Silver: Bon Appetite and Bon Voyage; Lactalis USA, the Official Cheese of Ratatouille (Client: Lactalis, USA; Agency: Eric Mower and Associates)
Bronze: Kellogg's Pop-tarts Splitz Create Your Own Webisode (Client: Cartoon Network; Agency: In-House)

New Product Launch (No budgetary parameters)
Gold: GlaxoSmithKline alli Product Launch (Client: GlaxoSmithKline; Agency: Draftfcb Chicago)
Silver: alli U - Hispanic Grass Roots Initiative (Client: GlaxoSmithKline; Agency: Casanova Pendrill)
Bronze: Volkswagen Touareg 2 Launch: The Bourne Ultimatum (Client: Volkswagen; Agency: In-House)

Full campaign summaries are available here on the PMA Website. Congratulations to all the winners.

PMA's Integrated Marketing Conference - Day 1

It's been a very exciting and fully packed day here in Chicago at PMA's Annual Integrated Marketing Conference. I caught a 6:40 flight out of Buffalo and arrived here at the Marriott Downtown in time to check into my room and grab a cup of coffee before the opening remarks kicked off the conference. We went pretty much non-stop all day until after the networking reception which I left at 7:30pm when it was supposed to be wrapping up, but there were still quite a few people mingling around the Grand Ballroom.

It was really good to see again some old friends (like the ladies from SCA Promotions who are the Gold Sponsors of the conference this year), a few other business acquaintances as well as to meet several new people. It appeared to me that most people here really wanted to meet you, talk with you and find out more about what you do. It did seem to be a bit smaller crowd than were at last year's conference, but maybe that's what made it feel a little more personal.

Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics, did kick us off as the opening keynote speaker...I wrote about his background in my previous post. He admitted that he wasn't a business expert at all and he really didn't talk to us much about marketing, but nonetheless he was very engaging as well as funny. I promised in my last post to be accountable, since accountability is the theme of this year's conference, and share with you some of Steven's insights, so here's a few on how I interrupted them.

The key message that Steven focused on during his hour with us this morning was that most of us marketers make major decisions based on what the customers say versus what they actually do. He shared with us some learnings that came out of several behavioral experiments that were conducted at the University of Chicago to find out what makes people do what they do. They resulted in different outcomes depending on if they were done in the lab vs. the real world. These showed that people's behavior can be greatly affected by their environment and the particular situation that they are put in. This has always been one of the major disadvantages of focus group research. Steven's advised us to try and build a feedback tool into everything that we do since we should not rely on that one time to give the real truth.

After Steven we were treated to Ann Hand who is the former SVP Global Brand Marketing and Innovation for BP. Ann shared with us a really great story of how this brand made an emotional connection with its customers on a global level by fulfilling its promise to make things "a little better" for them. The new Helios Power retail brand campaign was originally launched just a year ago and soon will be integral to BP's 25,000 retail locations worldwide. I asked Ann is she could share her presentation deck with me so that I can cover this story on its own, so I will follow up with her.

There were several other key learnings that were shared with us during the rest of the day that are worthy of their own post; some that I've asked for additional information. Those include speakers from The Coca-Cola Company, OfficeMax, Kraft, ConAgra Foods, 7-Eleven, Heineken USA, Interstate Bakeries (Hostess) and Yahoo.

Tomorrow we have another full day that gets started with keynote speaker Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard. So, I'm going to try and get some sleep now since I've been up since 4 am EST today and really starting to fade. This has nothing to do with the fact that there was some pretty good, complimentary Shiraz wine served at the networking event (sorry I can't remember the name of the winery, but I believe its a brand from Pernod Ricard, one of the sponsors).

I hope all those people that I introduced this blog to today will visit and add their comments. I'm looking forward to hearing from you all as well as to tomorrow. Good Night...