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

BlogHer Study Shows Blogging is Mainstream Among Women

I was reading my daily AdAge MediaWorks newsletter yesterday and there was a mention in their 3 Minute Ad Age Video about a new report on the demographics of female blogging. So I clicked on the video and got to hear a one minute highlight about the report, however I first had to listen to a review of CBS's new series, Swingtown, about sex, drugs in suburbia 1970's that apparently media buyers really love so far, and then finishing with another one minute report telling me that Kellogg's Hydrox cookies are back and taking on Nabisco's Oreo cookies. A very strange combination of topics, wouldn't you say?

What I did find out is that the blogging report was conducted by my friends over at BlogHer, so I hopped over to their site and found the report myself. BlogHer conducted this study with Compass Partners, a consumer-research consultancy, and originally released some of the results at the BlogHer Business Conference back in March that I had wanted to attend, but was not able to. The overall message that the report shows is that blogging has now become mainstream among women.

The study was based on surveys of two sample groups which together included several thousand respondents: one composed of participants in the BlogHer community and the other of online women selected to represent the general population of U.S. women, age 18-75. The numbers showed that more than one third of women in the U.S., 36.2 million, participate in the blogosphere weekly. Of those women, nearly 42%, 15.1 million, are publishing at least one post weekly and slightly over 58%, 21.1 million women, are reading and/or posting. Those are pretty impressive numbers.

Now I currently believe that the average age of women online in the blogosphere falls in the range of young mothers and this study justifies that. Here's a chart that shows the age breakdowns as well how much each group is publishing vs. reading. Also not surprising is that 68% of the BlogHer community is concentrated in the 25-41 age group while only 42% of the general population fall here, but still the largest percentage.

Sex and the City Style Video Contest Winner Attends Movie Premier

Today I'm going to ask to you hop on over to Lip-sticking.com where I'm the featured guest blogger to read my post. It's about Sex and the City, the Movie which is scheduled to be released in theaters this weekend. I originally wrote this post on my blog a month ago about my anticipation of this movie and the consumer-generated promotional video contest that this really cool online retailer, Bag Borrow and Steal, was doing to tie-in with the movie premier.

Well, Bag Borrow and Steal announced the winner of the video contest yesterday who actually got to attend the movie premiere which was held last night at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Here's a photo of the ladies from New York taken at last night's premiere which I was able to grab off of E!Entertainment's website today.

So I invite you to please visit Lip-sticking here to read more about this interactive promotion, see the winning video, give us your thoughts and read some of the other women's posts all about marketing to women.

Dr. Pepper Explores with Indiana Promotion

Well today is Memorial Day, the day we pause to honor those who have lost their lives in pursuit of freedom and love of our country. It is the designated day to pay tribute to these Americans and celebrate with ceremonies, parades and family gatherings since most of us have been given the day off from work.

It is also the unofficial start of summer. Women can now feel comfortable wearing white pants and shoes. Those of us living in the northern part of the country can rest at ease taking our houseplants outside and planting annuals. Being a three-day weekend, it is the biggest movie weekend of the year with box office records to break. This year the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull drew in a huge audience that put the film on its way to become the second-biggest Memorial Day movie opening ever.

The fourth installment of this saga grossed an estimated $101 million from Friday to Sunday, plus $25 million from its opening Thursday according to Paramount Pictures. They expected to earn another $25 million today. This puts them just behind Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End which had a Friday-Monday total of $139.8 million during last year's Memorial Day weekend.

I already wrote two posts on this theatrical release: this first post regarding the promotional partnership with Major League Baseball and the second post about a major promotional and advertising campaign from Burger King. Another brand that put their entertainment marketing dollars to work with an innovative partnership with Indy and Paramount is Dr. Pepper.  The Dr. Pepper Passport to Explore with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull promotion centers around the adventure theme and will send 23 lucky winners on an adventure of their own-Indy-style!

Everyone who enters an instant win game code online is eligible for the grand prize sweepstakes and an opportunity to channel their “inner Indy” on an adventure to one of four exotic destinations: Egypt, India, Jordan or Peru. All places that Indiana Jones himself has visited during his adventures! Each trip package is provided through Expedia and consists of a 10-12 day adventure with a local tour guide who takes winners horseback riding, boating, hiking and other Indy-style excursions.

Game codes can be found under the caps or inside the wraps of specially marked Dr Pepper and Diet Dr Pepper. This interactive promotion is being supported by a TV spot with ads that began running on May 1. Additionally, scratch off game codes are featured in print ads which started appearing on May 9. Online banner ads have also give out game codes which have been running on the Yahoo! Movies section on Yahoo.com.

One-in-six codes will win a prize! Fans enter these codes online after they register or by texting them in to learn if their codes are instant winners and redeem their prizes. In addition to the adventure trips, prizes include T-shirts, hats, movie tickets and free Dr Pepper product.

“Dr Pepper is Indiana Jones’ biggest fan, so we are thrilled to add even more excitement around an event that is 19 years in the making,” said Andrew Springate, vice president of marketing for Dr Pepper. “With the 23 flavors of Dr Pepper, there is always more to explore, and we’re bringing fans more ways to explore and experience Indiana Jones this summer.”

23 iPod Nanos are also hidden inside specially marked cans randomly placed in 12-packs. The Nanos are pre-loaded with “Raiders March” — the Indiana Jones theme song by composer John Williams, as well as an exclusive behind-the-scenes photo from the movie set. Fans will also have the opportunity to collect six limited edition Dr Pepper collector’s cans featuring scenes and characters from the new film.

“By working with Dr Pepper, we wanted to create a rich experience for Indiana Jones fans, both old and new,” said Kayleen Walters, director of marketing for Lucasfilm Ltd. “Dr Pepper is an American institution, making it a perfect partner for the new Indiana Jones film.”

Well I did not go see the movie this weekend, but my 18 year-old daughter did with some of her friends and they were not impressed at all. Maybe this generation just doesn't get it. I guess I'll have to see it for myself. Let me know what you thought of the film if you were one of the many who helped make it a box office hit this weekend.

Guitar Hero and McDonald's Win with American Idol

Well I'm sorry, but I just have to write about American Idol today, which is the buzz of the morning so far all over the Internet. I have really been into the show this year and I have to say that I agree with the judges that they've had some of the best talent make it to the finals this year than they've ever had. And yes, I'm am sooooo glad and sooooo surprised that David Cook won. I pretty much wrote it off that the young girls where going to text in their votes like crazy for the young cutie, David Archeleta. But the surprise was that it wasn't even close....DC won by over 12 million votes with American Idol breaking their record with a total of 90 million.

I was one of those people that recorded it on my DVR last night because I wanted to watch the whole show from the beginning, but wasn't able to sit down at the 8pm start time. So, yes my DVR stopped recording after two hours just when Ryan Seacrest said, "and the winner, by 12 million votes, of American Idol 2008 is..." It brought me right to my computer where I had to search to find out who won which took a few minutes before Yahoo had it up on their home page. I had to wait till this morning to see the video highlights which included the end announcement! This reminded me of the Soprano's surprising ending earlier this season when they went to a black screen and sent us online to find out if our televisions had screwed up and what we may had missed. In that case, nothing!

So, while the show this season has come down in its ratings from last year, it still has beat out anything else on TV, which just goes to show us that television's overall share is down, and that's where it will most likely stay.

I really enjoyed the finale show even though there were some "chezzy" moments. Look at all the talent they had...Seal singing with Syesha who made a great duo. He's got an amazing voice and she was able to hold her own while also looking as stunning as usual. Graham Nash performing Teach Your Children with Brooke White just made me smile. Donna Summers did look her age on the stage with all the beautiful, young female finalists, but she still has one hell of a voice. And the most fun I've seen on TV in quite a while was David Cook performing "Sharp Dressed Man" with ZZ Top...they were great!

Guitar Hero got in on the entertainment marketing bandwagon and was also a big winner last night. They ran two commercials, one of each of the Davids, performing the famous Tom Cruise scene from Risky Business. You know, where he slides across the hardwood floor in his socks and underwear, jumps on the couch and lip-syncs to "Ole' Time Rock and Roll". In this version however, they weren't playing air guitar, but of course the Guitar Hero player. Here's David Cook's Version:

Micheal Myers who was there to promote is new, upcoming film, The Love Guru, also made us laugh with a "Sitar Hero" stint. It was all fun, fun all around. And then experiencing David's Cook's final performance at the very end of the show just proved that America got it right this year.

So as an excuse to write about the American Idol Season 7 finale, I also thought I'd mention an interactive promotion that McDonald's did as a major partner with this them year. McDonald's invited America to pick an "American Idol" from one of eight musical Happy Meal toys that they created to name a Happy Meal superstar. Each toy plays a tune within the genre of the music their character represents: groove to disco songs with Disco Dave, line dance with Country Clay, rock out with Rockin' Riley (shown here), vibe to the beat with Lil' Hip Hop, make a melody with Hippie Harmony, sing along with New Wave Nigel, jam with Soulful Selma or kick it with Punky Pete! McDonald's customers went online to happymeal.com to vote for their favorite. 

McDonald's also offered a chance for a couple of lucky customers to experience American Idol with the "You're Going to Hollywood" Sweepstakes. Consumers were invited online to happymeal.com to enter for a chance to win one of two prizes. Joseph Kershenbaum, of Lowell, Mass., and Cheryl Russell, of Riverside, Calif., each traveled to Los Angeles for a three-day/two-night trip. Kershenbaum attended the May 20 show, while Russell attended last night's finale.  “McDonald's congratulates our winners on this exciting opportunity to enjoy America's hit television show in person,” said Rebecca Anderson, Marketing Manager, McDonald’s USA.

I'll now have to wait a while to see David Cook perform again and also for American Idol Season 8 to begin. I guess it's probably because I have a teenage daughter who's a singer and an actress that I really get emotional about this show. I'm just so proud of my daughter who's been accepted into NYU's prestigious Tisch School of performing arts for the Fall semester. Maybe, just maybe she'll want to tryout this summer for Season 8. That would screw up her college plans if she got in, but you never know. Stay tuned!

Congratulations to David Cook and David Archeleta.

Burger King's Interactive Promotion Digs Indiana Jones

All you have to do is turn on your TV or go online this week and your bound to see an ad promoting this Thursday's theatrical release of  Steven Spielberg's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". This past weekend I wrote my first post about it and ever since it seems I've seen Harrison Ford's Indy character just about everywhere! I wrote in my first post about the partnership Major League Baseball has formed with Paramount over the release of this movie and I mentioned that there were another nine brands that have also gotten on this entertainment marketing bandwagon. So I picked Burger King to write about next.

Burger King has launched a national Indy-themed campaign that includes an interactive promotion that you can find on their website... the "Reveal the Secret" scratch-and-win game and the "Big Dig" online game. They also have introduced for a limited time a series of Indy Kids Meal toys as well as a new burger, The Indy Double Whopper, which comes with an extra kick... spicy Cajun mayo and pepper jack cheese.

"Reveal the Secret" game players have a one-in-two chance of winning each time they play, and prizes include $1 million, a 2008 Hummer H2, a trip for four to Peru from Expedia.com (another Indy partner), and free food items from BK.

The game consists of two parts, and in-store game and an online game. "Reveal the Secret" Game pieces are given out in-store and consumers can receive up to three game pieces per visit depending upon what BK items they purchase. Players can scratch off the skull area on the game piece to reveal if they've won and if so what.

Free online game codes are available online at bkindy.com where visitors must first register and can then receive up to three codes per day to play.  Each day, a $10,000 prize is hidden on the site. Site visitors enter their code and press the "Dig" icon to stop the roving searchlight and start digging for the prize. Each day the $10,000 prize goes uncovered, an additional $10,000 is added to the total prize. As of today, Courtney B. "dug up" $10,000 on May 14th. So the pot is growing!

Now the odds of winning the $1 million dollars or the 2008 Hummer H2 (valued at over $59,000 U.S.) are one in 278,689,720. So this appears to be an insured prize game and BK pays for the prize insurance based on these odds. Since it is an instant-win game, not a drawing, these prizes may never be awarded. If there is a winner for either prize, then the insurance company will pay to fulfill the prize. The Official Rules state that the winner of the Hummer has the option of taking $55,000 cash instead. With gas prices as they are, who can afford to drive a Hummer these days!

There is also a series of eight adventure-themed Kids Meal toys based on key scenes from all four "Indiana Jones" movies, as well as a Kids Meal bag printed in invisible ink. Each bag is printed with Indy trivia, and answers can only be revealed using the invisible ink pen, one of the Kids Meal toys.

TV spots on network and cable have been scheduled. The children's ads were created by Campbell Mithun of Minneapolis and are running through June 8 on children's cable channels such as Nickelodeon and Disney. The adult spots, created by Miami-based Crispin Porter + Bogusky, are running on major network and cable stations in prime time.

"The cross-generational appeal and cultural phenomenon of the 'Indiana Jones' series make this one of the most coveted entertainment partnerships," said Brian Gies, VP/marketing impact, Burger King Corp., in a statement. "The sponsorship allows Burger King Corp. to give our customers and fans of the movie the action and adventure they love."

Now I read that the movie debuted this past Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival. Most people would agree that this movie wasn't made for critics, it's for the fans, so why did they do that? You can read about what some of the critics are saying here in this article MSNBC picked up. MSNBC also has provided a slide show which includes photos of many of the stars from the Indy movie as well as others that attended the film festival. So, that's worth checking out in itself. Again, let us know what you think of the movie after you've seen it!

MLB Teams up With Indiana Jones

The long awaited Steven Spielberg's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" is finally coming to theaters this week, starting on May 22nd to be exact.  Paramount Pictures is bringing back Harrison Ford in this iconic role along with Karen Allen and adding a new, younger star to the cast, Shia LaBeouf, and also the very talented Cate Blanchett. This movie is bound to attract a extremely diverse audience...male, female, older, younger, adventurer, romanticist, you name it. With this much excitement around a new theatrical movie release it was bound to attract many marketing partners, one big one being Major League Baseball.

Official MLB team sites have in the past been a great venue for entertainment marketers who want to promote a new sports-related movie release. However, this new Indiana Jones movie is among the few non-sports film related campaigns seen on MLB.com and its 30 team sites which launched at the begging of May. When baseball fans check their favorite team's schedules during this month of May they not only get the schedule but also find an image of Harrison Ford in his signature Indiana Jones attire on the May 22nd calendar date.

"This is the first time we've had creative in the schedule section," said Jason Klein, MLB.com's VP corporate partnerships for the Western region, adding, "It kind of jumps out at you. It seemed like such a perfect fit because people are constantly checking the schedule." He added that teams prefer to have game schedule links limited to ticket sales pages.

So I went to my favorite team's website, the Boston Red Sox, and clicked on the schedule and here's part of what I saw for this month.  There's also this image off the left side of the calendar that links me to the official Indiana Jones website.

Display ads for the Living Legends Sweepstakes appear across MLB sites. Visitors to the MLB Sweepstakes page can view a trailer of the film and enter the name of their favorite active major leaguer for a chance to win a trip to see him on the field, along with tickets to see the Indiana Jones movie. MLB "wanted to focus on the legend of Indiana Jones," explained Klein. MLB.com will promote the sweepstakes through e-newsletters to their database and editorial coverage. The campaign runs through May 25.

Sweepstakes promotions are one of the most popular formats for advertisers on MLB sites. Again most marketers' objective with a sweepstakes is to collect consumers' contact information in order to send them future information via email on product offerings and promotions. In this case Paramount and MLB will share the database. Klein looks forward to launching similar campaigns on behalf of other non-sports related flicks. "We hope to do this with other studios," he said.

Back to the movie's official website, it is packed with information, videos, downloads and ways to order tickets. I've downloaded their widget which I've embedded at the end of this post. There's also links to the movie's MySpace and Facebook pages. There's a list of their other partners which include Burger King, Dr. Pepper, M&M's, Snickers, Expedia, Kellogg's, Harley Davidson, Blackberry Peal and Lunchables.  Quite an impressive list and I'm sure that each of these brands are doing their own interactive promotion, but I can't cover each of them all here. Perhaps I'll try and write about a couple in another post.

I just hope the movie actually lives up to it's expectations, which are so very high. It will introduce the adventures of Indiana Jones to a whole new generation. Paramount already has a huge hit with it's first major summer release, IronMan which I wrote about here. Let''s see if Indiana Jones will be as big or bigger. If you go see it during opening weekend, please let us know what you think.

St. Ives Elements Promotion - Books, Blogs and Beyond Conference

Today I'm the featured guest blogger over at Lip-sticking.com, a blog about marketing to women online. I've mentioned Lip-sticking here quite a few times before. I started my official role as a Lipsticking blogger last month and now hope to write a post there about every other week. My good friend Yvonne DiVita has invited me, along with three other women, to blog on it, so the five us make up a pretty diverse team.

I'm planning to also write my posts on Lip-sticking about interactive promotions but they'll be more focused on promotions that are targeted to women. Today's post here is about the interactive promotional campaign that Alberto Culver's St. Ives brand developed to help launch their new skincare line, St. Ives Elements. You just have to check out the interactive website, GetAHappyFace.com, that they developed which takes the campaign totally online.

Also I wanted to mention here that I'm working with Yvonne and the team from her company, Windsor Media Enterprises, on the development of a conference on Books, Blogs and Beyond - what we're calling Publishing 3.0. We have created a survey to help us get some initial feedback and have sent it out through some email messages to those friends and acquaintances who are business professionals and have either written a book, expressed the idea of wanting to write a book, or have mentioned that they have friends and colleagues who are writing or want to write a book. Some of also are bloggers, others are not - yet.

So, I thought I’d also include the survey link here on my blog and ask those of you who may be interested to take about 10 minutes to complete it. Please feel free to share with anyone you know that may also be interested. Yvonne is also putting this survey link up on Lip-sticking as well as some of her other blogs and including Twitter as well. The more input we can get, the better. Thanks for your input.

Online Promotions: The Big Shift

I wrote this post a week and a half ago about a report 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). Since I wrote this post Borrell Associates was gracious enough to send me a promotional copy of the report. So I would like provide you some more detail and well as some of my observations.

To recap, the report 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. The report also 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.

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. The Borrell report says that the composition that makes up online promotions spending will continue to evolve over the next five years. Spending for online discounts and rebates (for example, the reduced ticket prices offered by some airlines) will continue to dominate the category, however, it will decrease in share going from 41.4% in 2007 to 38.7% by 2012. Spending on online games and contests however is predicated to grow from 10.5% of the online promotions pie in 2007 to 28.4% by 2012.

As I said in my previous post, to many of us in the interactive promotions business this is great news. We now have a report that helps to confirm what we've known all along...online promotions, specifically sweepstakes, contests and instant-win games, produce highly measurable results. By putting 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 promotions people. We all know that marketers today need campaigns that can provide measurable results, and online promotions are an effective way for them to achieve this.

What I believe is an up and coming trend which will help fuel the growth of online sweepstakes and contest promotions is integrating them with social media. The strategy of combining these two marketing tactics is bound to become a big part of the increase that is predicted over the next five years.

Social media, including blogs and social networks, has dramatically increased the speed and coverage of word-of-mouth, also known as viral marketing. Blogs are powerful socializing tools that connect people from all over the world and build relationships, therefore can easily get the message out about a promotion. Bloggers like giveaways and contests and integrating a chance to win promotion into their blog provides added value plus excitement for their readers. Bloggers and social networks also help to spread the word quickly about an online promotion that a marketer may currently be conducting. To help get key bloggers involved with a contest promotion, marketers might want to consider inviting a few to be on their panel of judges 

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. The local medium best positioned to take advantage of the trend could be local TV.

The report goes on to suggest that the local media companies can capitalize on this trend by focusing on creating “promotions” for their advertisers. This may include establishing a special promotions team to develop promotional campaigns that will deliver measurable results for advertisers. These campaigns can include quarterly contests and give-always, weekly or monthly half-price gift certificate sales, “best-in-town” online voting campaigns for restaurants, dentists, ice cream parlors, golf courses, etc. Holidays and sporting events (College Bowl, Super Bowl, NCAA Tournament games, etc.) are all prime promotion periods.

An example of a local promotion sited in the report was created by WAVE-TV in Louisville, KY.  The “Win, Place, Show” promotion was a contest tie-in with the Kentucky Derby sponsored by the Kentucky Lottery. Contestants were invited to choose their three favorites in order for the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes. The person with the highest number of points – awarded for each correct choice – won a color television.

Another WAVE-TV advertiser, the Louisville Zoo, had been running a discount season pass promotion for the past six years. Its most recent promotion was a “Name the Baby” contest in which visitors to the site could enter suggestions for the zoo’s baby elephant and other baby animals. Both this promotion and the Kentucky Derby contest drove people to WAVE3.com to participate.

A further example was a contest run by WKRN-TV in Nashville, TN, in which they tied in to the 2007 College Bowl games.  The goal of “College Bowl Frenzy” was to increase page views and unique visitors for WKRN and to offer some fun interactivity for their viewers. Jamie Camp, Internet sales manager for WKRN said “It puts us in touch with participants at a more personal level.” With more than 32 College Bowl games last year it was a great fit for them. The contest received 1,000 participants which offered WKRN the chance to gain more knowledge about their audience.

WKRN offered their sponsor advertisers 15-second video spots on the site before the news and weather clips. Advertisers included KFC and RJ Young who were able to choose among three different level packages. These sponsors had online tile ads and displays on the College Bowl Frenzy pages. All the sponsors had the opportunity to create a sign-up survey to collect user information. They were also able to offer giveaways of their own. Since implementing contests, WKRN’s website traffic has quadrupled.

Local newspaper website sites are also offering opportunities to advertisers looking for an online presence without buying standard online advertising. Buffalo.com, owned by The Buffalo News, has been running contests for advertisers since the site launched in 1999, but rather than use contests as a way for advertisers to gain sales leads, Buffalo.com offers them more as an incentive program for advertisers who place ads in The Buffalo News, and as tie-ins to events such as movie premieres.

One promotion they created was an interactive game for Basil Cars called “Hidden Treasures”. Participants could look for Basil Treasure coins in the Basil ads running in the Buffalo News and also on Basilcars.com. When they collected all six coins they could then attach them to a game board and mail them in for a chance to win a two-year lease on a car or $7,000 in Basil Bucks.

What this report is basically saying is that we need to take a look backwards at some of the basic principals of marketing that have worked for years offline (nationally and locally) and effectively make them work online. Here are the three main drivers behind what they believe is the cause for the big shift to online promotions from traditional advertising.

1. Advertisers are demanding larger and more measurable returns from their marketing investments. New technologies are increasing marketers’ targeting and tracking capabilities as well as their expectations. Even within online advertising there is demand for more targeting, more measurement, and better ROI.
2. The Internet is better suited for research and fulfillment than for conveying emotion and excitement for a product. While the Internet does contribute to brand and product awareness, its uniqueness is that it’s interactive, which makes it a perfect media for promotions.
3. Online promotions are primed to closely mirror their offline counterparts. The ratio of non-ad spending to ad spending for total marketing expenditures (local and national) is 60:40. For online marketing, the ratio is 22:78. The online spending ration is out of synch because the Internet is still a relatively new medium and businesses are still experimenting with its marketing capabilities.

So while we all don’t have crystal balls that can look five years into the future, we can always look backwards. It’s an exciting time to be in the interactive, online promotions business. I’m looking forward to the next five years.

Kraft Singles Promotion Helps to Celebrate Moms

Tomorrow's Mother's Day and I'm going to try to take some time off and enjoy the day, so I'm here at my computer today writing a post to reflect on the holiday. I've got the house to myself right now... just me with my golden retriever, Shadow, at my feet. An empty house on a Saturday afternoon is not the norm, so I thought I'd take advantage of the time.

I read an article in our local newspaper this morning about what women today think about this holiday. It said that they actually get stressed out about it. Instead of planning to relax and letting the kids and the husband take care of them for the day, they're now more concerned about which other mothers in the family they're going to spend the day with... my mom, my mother-in-law, my sisters and sister in-laws (who are also moms), my best friend, etc. I did kinda relate to this because I remember asking my husband a few times this week if he called his mom to invite her to do something with us...dinner, brunch, whatever. I still don't know what the plans are for tomorrow.

I do know that unfortunately I won't be seeing my mom this Mother's Day since she lives over 800 miles away in South Carolina. However, my mom and dad will be taking a ride back up north next month to visit for the first time since they moved down south two years ago. We all are very grateful this year that mom's healthy enough to make the trip. Last year at this time she had just begun chemo and radiation treatments to make sure the cancer in her breast was gone. Today she is cancer free!

So I saw this really cute promotion that Kraft Foods is doing in honor of Mother's day and I just wish I could participate and make my mom a grilled cheese sandwich! Kraft Singles is offering in-store cooking demonstrations along with samples at select grocery stores through tomorrow to celebrate Happy Sandwich Day and moms. They plan of distributing more than 675,000 samples as well as handing out 250,000 Singles Savers, special square tubs used to store Kraft Singles Cheese. During the demos, in-store TV will feature Kraft Singles’ “Have a Happy Sandwich” ads which can all be viewed online.

“For many people, the first grilled cheese sandwich they ever had was one prepared by mom,” said Kraft spokesman Basil Maglaris. “Kraft Singles is providing fun ways to help children, fathers and husbands celebrate moms and all they do.”

Kraft has also teamed up with American Greetings who is giving out in-store free Happy Mother’s Day “Grilled Cheese Sandwich” gift certificates, that come with cooking instructions. They've also made the promotion interactive where kids, as well as husbands, can also go online to AmericanGreetings.com and send free Kraft Singles-branded e-cards to mom with customizable coupons. The coupons can be redeemed for everything from a grilled cheese sandwich and a kitchen clean up to a hand-drawn picture or a week of bed making. The e-cards for husbands can be made with coupons good for countless compliments, a romantic rendezvous, or trash takeout.

So, maybe one of my daughters will make me a grilled cheese sandwich tomorrow. I love anything with cheese!

So, please have a wonderful Mother's Day. Don't fret about the little stuff. Take the time to enjoy the day. I'm really going to try and follow my own advice here! 

Super Marketing Heroes: Marvel Entertainment & Iron Man

I'm going to continue today from my Monday post talking about Marvel Entertainment and their recent huge success with the theatrical release of the Iron Man Movie. It just so happens that our local chapter of the American Marketing Association, Rochester (RAMA), held their annual Marketer of the Year Awards luncheon today.

One of the sponsors of this event, who also happens to have a professor on the board, is Alfred University, located in the Southern Tier of Western New York. They secured one of their alumnus to the event as our keynote speaker who just happened to be Peter Cuomo, Marvel Entertainment Inc.’s vice chairman and former CEO who discussed the evolution of the Marvel brand since the comic book company’s comeback eight years ago.

Unfortunately we didn't have much time alloted to hear from Peter today since we were there to give out some awards during an extended lunch hour. So Peter first asked us, due to the limited amount of time, should he:

1. Talk about Marvel coming out of bankruptcy
2. The lessons he learned doing this
3. Or, the movie business, specifically their new movie, Iron Man, and let us get to watch some movie trailers

Yes, we all agreed to number three. To be entertained is all we really want.

So, after a little technical difficulty we were able to view the full trailer of Iron Man on the big screen.  He emphasized that the key to success in a film is a great trailer. Reviews aren't even as important to a film's success as is their movie trailer, which by the way Iron Man received a 97% positive review rate. He went on to say that Marvel's next theatrical film, The Incredible Hulk,  which is to be released on June 13th, has turned out to be the most watched trailer in all the history of Universal Pictures - over 14 million people have viewed it so far.

Going back to Iron Man, Peter said that one of the most asked questions is.."Why did you cast Robert Downey Jr. as the lead character?". I can relate to this question because when speaking to my 16 year-old daughter she asked.."Why did they put an old guy in the lead? He's just not the same as Tobey McGuire" who played the lead, Peter Parker in Spiderman. So, Peter explained that during the casting call Robert Downey Jr. did the first half of the call on script, but then totally ad-libbed the second part which just showed them that he totally connected with the character. It's no secret to the troubles that Robert Downey Jr. has had in his real life that just so happened to fit the background of Tony Stark eerily similar. So Robert totally understood this character...and he got the part.

Speaking of emotional connections, Peter said that what they also try to achieve is to connect with a wider demographic audience for their films. Comic book are mostly associated with a male fan base, so they need to bring the emotional relationship story into their films. Peter Parker had that famous upside down kiss with Mary Jane (Kristen Dunst) in Spiderman (most of us women will remember more than the men). Iron Man has the relationship with Virgina "Pepper" Potts, executive assistant to Tony Sparks, who's always there to "put out the fires that Tony leaves in his past". The next Marvel movie, The Incredible Hulk, even goes further with the relationship angle staring Liv Taylor, (still one of my favorite actresses since the Lord of the Rings) as the romantic partner to the Hulk character. 

Peter also reminded us about how much planning, as well as money, goes into launching a major theatrical movie. He spoke a little about the entertainment marketing partnership they created with Audi over Iron Man and said that Audi came to the table with over $20 million in promotion support of the film. Peter admitted that Internet promotion is the biggest way to promote a film today. Timing of the release date is also very critical to the final outcome of how much money a movie will make. The summer season is not the best time to promote licensed retail products which is key to the Marvel characters. The back-to-school season and Halloween are their biggest seasons. So this is something that is taken into the fact when they release the DVD, which Peter said they spend just as much money promoting as the movie release.

Marvel Entertainment, with their recent success of Iron Man, is now going down in history as one of the greatest turn-around corporate stories of today. Peter didn't have time to go through his whole PowerPoint presentation on this subject, but he did mention that the stock of the company went from an all time low of $.80 a share to $34.00 as of yesterday. They now have 55% of the comic book share of market and are worth over $2.8 billion. The really interesting fact is that they only have 250 employees worldwide, which makes each employee worth over $1 million dollars each. Their key is that they use over 500 freelances from all over the world who produce their comic books who still pump out 75 comic books a month!

So, we could of been there all afternoon listening to Peter's stories and insights, but we had to get on with our local marketing awards. For those from Rochester, and afar that are interested, here are the results:

• Excellus BlueCross Blue Shield, Rochester region was named Marketer of the Year for their new Healthy Blue Campaign
• Tavern on the Green/TavernDirect.com is this year’s Turnaround/Start-up Marketer of the Year
• United Way of Greater Rochester is Non-profit Marketer of the Year
• George Eastman House was honored as Online Marketer of the Year

Congratulations to this year's winners and thanks to Peter Cuomo from Marvel Entertainment for speaking to us at such an important time in Marvel Entertainment's history. The Rochester AMA chapter did a great job of pulling it all together today and made me proud to be part of our marketing community today,