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

Confessions of a Back-To-School Marketing Mom

I'm still trying to recuperate from this past weekend, both physically and emotionally, but thought I should get around to updating my blog tonight nonetheless. This past weekend we dropped my first born daughter off at college for freshman orientation week which started this past Sunday along with many other parents across this country. Not only was it our first college move-in experience, but it also happened to be in New York City at NYU.

We first drove to my sister's house on Saturday who lives about a hour north of the City and who we spent the night with. She happened to invite a few of my old friends over which caused us to be up a little late. Therefore our time getting into the city on Sunday was not as early as we had originally planned. Nothing really new for us though.

When we arrived in NYC I have to say that NYU was pretty well prepared. They had blocked off most of the parking places in front of the dorms and had traffic cops which allowed you to pull right up to unload. However, once uploaded, you had to move your vehicle out ASAP and then check out your options.

Next steps included signing up on a waiting list for a cart to put your stuff in and then waiting on a line that was out the door and down the street for the elevators. Since there was four of us and my daughter's room was only on the fourth floor we decided to skip the elevator line and instead carry her stuff up the stairs ourselves. On my first way up with stuff in tow I passed a mom who was walking up to the 12th floor! She said she had no choice but to do the elevators since they were 12 floors up!  I have to admit that my husband carried the majority of the heavy stuff up to her room which concerned me because it was your typical humid, NYC summer day.  Thank god he quit smoking last year and with the help of some water bottles that we brought with us, we're all still alive today.

Once the stuff was in the room we started unpacking and setting it all up. Now this was our first college move-in experience and even though I thought we were pretty much prepared and thought of everything, there were things we didn't. In old buildings, especially in Manhattan, you don't have many electrical outlets, so we needed more extension cords and power strips. Students today come with too many electronics...laptop computer, printer, TV, fridge, microwave, lamps, etc. One of her suite mates next door even brought a Wii!

The dorm does provide free cable TV hook-up, but it just so happened in our case that the box was on her roommates' side of the room. So we needed a really long TV cable to make it work! No way could we have known this before we came nor the fact that her roommate, who happens to be just from Long Island, would beat us to the move-in.

Thank god for Kmart, which was just a few blocks from the dorm. My husband walked there to get the last minutes things that we needed and then had to go back out a second time. There was also a Radio Shack in the area so they got our business on trip #2.

Now Kmart and Bed Bath and Beyond are the two biggest retailers in the NYU area and they had a shuttle bus set up to take people back and fort on move-in day. Bed Bath and Beyond went another step further and hosted a party at their store that evening for all NYU students which they offered 20% off on their total purchase. The party latest till midnight that night and there were supposedly free snacks and other give-aways. I think this is a brilliant marketing promotion, however, my daughter didn't attend the party. By the time we left her she pretty much had everything she needed. Plus her particular college was hosting a party that night which she did attend. I did however see many families walking around that day with full Bed Bath and Beyond bags.

There is currently a joint online sweepstakes promotion targeted to college bound students called Shop Smart for College Sweepstakes sponsored by Bed Bath & Beyond and Staples. They have a grand prize for students and another grand prize for parents. It's only open till September 2nd, so you need to check it out soon.

We have been somewhat conservative with our spending all summer long as I believe most Americans have. But I have to say that over the past month we contributed quite a bit to the local economy by just getting her ready for college. I'm not sure how most moms do it, but even with the best planning when it comes down to the final days you just start buying so that you have everything you can think of that she needs.

I was quite aware of the huge back-to-school marketing push this year that included many various promotions. We visited and bought from many different retailers, all who were marketing to the college-bound students. They included Wal-Mart, Target, Kmart, Bed Bath & Beyond, Kohl's and Penny's. So, you see what I mean? Did we miss any of the big ones?

We received many direct marketing messages from these retailers, some that included a checklist of "stuff" college kids need. I'm not sure if that was really helpful to us parents or if it just added to the list of "stuff" my daughter felt she really needed.

Next year I have to do this all other again with daughter #2. I think I'll be a little more marketing savvy then (even though I'm in marketing now). Plus daughter #2 is much more easy-going that daughter #1 so it will hopefully be easier. Or will it? We'll see.

Olympics Wrapping Up and Dove Partners with "The Women"

Last week I was out taking a August vacation like so many of the rest of us this time of year. So, that's why you haven't seen any new posts from me. I went back down to Myrtle Beach to visit my parents who still don't have Internet access. I sat out in the driveway a few days with my laptop and snuck on to a neighbor's "unsecured" wireless account...just enough to check email.

One thing about not having Internet access is you watch more TV. It was great that the Beijing Olympic Games were going on since I spent quite a bit of time with my mom and daughters watching many of the events. I had originally wrote that my two teenage daughters weren't that into the Olympics when it first began, but we all really got into them, especially my college-bound daughter. Who could not be excited about Michael Phelps who my girls think is really "hot", as well as the beach volleyball teams, both guys and girls, and of course women's gynmastics. The games are now starting to wind down with tomorrow being the closing ceremonies.

In the latest news, US Women's Soccer won the Gold by defeating Brazil. The team was able to do it without their famous teammate, Abby Wambach, who I mentioned before is a graduate of the same high school my daughters are from.

NBC Universal had a very successful Olympics and said earlier this week that more than 196 million viewers have watched the Beijing Olympics on its various networks through the first ten days. This figure makes these games the fourth-most-watched TV event in U.S. history, NBC said, "only behind the complete totals of the 1996 Atlanta (209 million), 1994 Lillehammer (204 million) and 2004 Athens (203 million) Games." They sold an $25 million in additional advertising that they were holding on to and said that overall the network had secured around $1 billion in Olympics-related advertising from about 100 marketers. They owe Micheal Phelps a big percentage of that!

So, it's now on to the next big thing, which will be the political conventions! Once their over than we can really "get ready for some football!"

Oh and since I was out last week I missed my guest blogger spot on Lipsticking and instead wrote a post yesterday which I don't want you to miss. This post is about the latest project from the folks at Dove and their Campaign for Real Beauty. So please again visit Lipsticking and read about Dove's new short film The Women Behind "The Women". It's another example of a great viral marketing program and this time integrates some entertainment marketing as well! I'm asking readers to please leave their thoughts and comments on what they think about the campaign. So chime in!

 

The Olympic Games Have Begun - Are you Watching?

The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games got off to a spectacular start.  I stayed up till midnight on Friday night to see the end of the recorded version of the opening ceremonies that NBC broadcast. It was really cool the way they lifted Li Ning, former Olympic gymnast for China, to the top of the Beijing National Stadium ("The Birds Nest") and had him appear to be running on air with the Olympic torch to light the cauldron. 

It appears that the opening ceremonies that the Chinese hosted for the world were the most spectacular to date and included an amazing blend of human talent combined with technology. I found it really hard to pull away from watching the event on TV...even the commercials. While the Olympic Opening Ceremony normally doesn't receive the same hype for TV ads as the Super Bowl does, there were some really great ads that ran during the broadcast.

One of my favorite ads was from McDonald's featuring children's soccer. It didn't have any words, just a musical score with very strong expressions coming from the "losing team" and well as the "winning team".  It showed how the kids' expressions changed dramatically once the food showed up... for the losing team of course. It reminded me of when my daughters were young and going to McDonald's was such a treat. In fact one of my daughter's first words were "french fries" (which actually sounded like "fra-fras") and she would yell that out whenever we passed the Golden Arches.

I'm looking forward to watching some of the events tonight. I read that the U.S. already got it's first Gold Medal - in Fencing. The time difference is a little confusing. We'll get to watch some live meets tonight, Saturday evening, which are actually taking place Sunday morning in Beijing. That's why it's so important to be able to watch what you want, when you want. NBC is scheduled to have over 2.200 hours of event coverage online this year. That's pretty cool, even though there has been some criticism for not giving viewers more choice. Check out this article from Silicon Alley Insider that lists some of the ways NBC could have really utilized Web 2.0 in their strategy.

Another interesting bit of research that I read in this Adotas article is that teens are not that into the Games. I have two teenager daughters who are so busy with what's going in their own lives that they really don't appear interested at all in the Olympics. They may have been more I think if Abby Wambach was there playing with the U.S. Soccer Team. Abby is a graduate of Our Lady of Mercy High School here in Rochester, where both my girls are from. The team did pretty well without Abby today. The study on teens was done by Harris Interactive which states that less than half, 43%, expressed any interest in the Olympics.

I've also been trying to keep up with Jenny and Tom who are blogging on Kodak's blog, A Thousand Words, from Beijing. I've also been able to follow Jenny on Twitter. It appears to be an experience of a lifetime for her so far. She writes in her first post from Beijing about how "tall" she thought all the Chinese women were until she noticed the platform shoes they wear. Jenny took this photo of the shoes along with some other great photos of the Opening Ceremonies you just have to check out.

Well I just have to admit that these Olympic Games have brought back for me at least a sense of patriotism and if anything helps make the world seem like a smaller place. I've learned so much already about China and its people. It's hard to comprehend how big of a country it is ....over 1.3 billion people living in a country on the other side of the world from us Americans. Hopefully we'll get to know them and they'll get to know us a little better. Now wouldn't that be be a great result of these games?

YouTube Becomes a Dedicated Channel for the Beijing Olympic Games

The Beijing Olympic Games are scheduled to start this Friday at 8:08 p.m. which is the 8th day of the 8th month in 2008. They have generated approximately $1.5 billion by brands to be official sponsors of the games as well as supporters of the individual teams. I've written various posts over the last month regarding the marketing campaigns of these sponsors that I invite you to read.

Now today The International Olympic Committee announced that YouTube will provide Beijing Olympic Game content on a dedicated channel. The Google business unit will present about three hours a day of exclusive content from the IOC's Olympic Broadcasting Services during the Games. The content, including highlight reels and daily wrap-ups but not live coverage, will reach 77 territories across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, including India, Republic of Korea, Nigeria and Indonesia, the areas which aren't officially covered by Olympic sponsors.

While NBC, "America's Olympic Network", holds the digital video-on-demand rights for the Olympic Games in the U.S., rights have not been sold on an exclusive basis. So, beginning on August 6th, the IOC will broadcast a selection of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games clips as Video On Demand (VOD). The IOC’s Channel will be available on YouTube at www.youtube.com/beijing2008. Users in the U.S. and other markets where the IOC has sold digital video-on-demand rights on an exclusive basis will be blocked from viewing the footage.

IOC Director of Television and Marketing Services, Timo Lumme said: “The IOC’s priority is to ensure that as many people as possible get to experience the magic of the Olympic Games and the inspirational sporting achievements of the Olympic athletes. For the first time in Olympic history we will have complete global online coverage, and the IOC will have its own broadcast Channel and content production facilities. The IOC’s Channel will make fantastic Olympic footage available where young generations of sports fans are already going for online entertainment, and will complement the footage offered in these territories by our broadcast partners across all media platforms.”

YouTube will be able to sell ads around its Olympics channel, but only to Olympic sponsors. The tight timing and the exclusion of the U.S., where the online-ad market is far more mature than most other countries, means the financial benefit will be minimal.

This Wall Street Journal Article quoted Patrick Walker, YouTube's director of partnerships for Europe, Middle East and Africa, as saying that the IOC will supply and upload the content -- an estimated 500 to 800 segments over the course of the Games. "This is really more about the accessibility," says Mr. Walker. YouTube hopes to seize more sponsorship opportunities by extending the partnership with the IOC in coming years, he says.

The content is expected to reach only about 200 million people, because the territories covered have relatively small numbers of online-video viewers. By comparison, China -- which isn't allowing the YouTube broadcast -- has an estimated 180 million people who watch online video; they will be able to watch Olympics content from CCTV.com, the online arm of China Central Television, and its partners.

The increasing number of people watching video online has been a challenge for Olympics organizers. While new media channels, from blogging to online video sharing, could expand viewership of the Games, they also make it more difficult for organizers to control exclusive content, for which sponsors pay millions of dollars.

During the 2004 Games in Athens, online broadcast coverage was available in a limited amount of territories. Now, officials say providing quality video content across all platforms, including online, will help reduce piracy, because viewers will opt for professional video over illegal amateur footage.