Donna's Promo Talk

Register for PROMOLive's Interactive Marketing Online Conference Tommorrow

I'm going to take a short break today from writing about interactive holiday promotions to tell you about a free Interactive Marketing Online Conference that's taking place tomorrow, December 13th. PROMO Live, in association with Penton Marketing Media Group, publishers of PROMO Magazine, are sponsoring for the first time ever this virtual conference.

This full schedule provides best practices and thought leadership in 5 cutting-edge areas of interactive marketing --- consumer generated, mobile, games and contests, web, and email. Here's the agenda:

10:30 - A keynote presentation kicks off the conference with Karla Lacey, Director of Integrated Marketing Communications, Strategy & Planning, Cisco Systems. Karla's talk is entitled: The Customer Grows Up - Marketing in the Interactive World

11:00 - The Do's and Dont's in Developing, Launching & Marketing Online Games, Contests and Sweeps -  Sponsored by Bossdev

12:00 - CtoC Marketing (consumer generated marketing)

1:00 - Email for Brand Marketers - Sponsored by Campaigner

2:00 - Interactive Bonding ---- are you 365?

3:00 - Mobile-izing Your Brand

Each session is 45 minutes and you can click on each link above to read more details on each and to register. One registration allows you to attend all or just one session for free and also lets you come back any time through March of 2008 to view them.

So don't miss out. If you can't spare the day tomorrow, at least register and sit in on one session and come back later, maybe over the holidays when things slow down, and listen to some of the other sessions. Also, if you do attend, please feel free to comment here at let me know what you think. The organizers of the event are looking for feedback and would like to do more of these in the future, so let us know how you liked it, or didn't like it.

And don't forget...if want or need advice on developing and launching online games, contests and sweeps, please remember to contact me. That is by the way what I specialize in as well.

PROMO Live Welcomes Daniel Levine From Avant-Guide

PROMOLive begins this Monday, Sept. 17 and runs through Wednesday, Sept. 19th again being held at the Navy Pier in downtown Chicago. This is PROMO Magazine's annual Promotional Marketing Event for Brand and Agency Marketers which I wrote about in this post last week and that I'll be attending as a guest blogger!

Beginning first thing Tuesday morning when I arrive at Midway Airport I'm going to head right over to the Navy Pier in order to catch Daniel Levine, Executive Director of Avant-Guide Institute. He'll be opening up the first session of the conference with "PROMO Aloud: The Innovation Interviews". They describe this session as giving us an "exhilarating look forward to the most fascinating and profitable trends heading our way." Daniel will be questioning before our live audience some of this year’s leading-edge creative thinkers about major cultural developments driving promotional marketing into the next decade.

So I checked out Avant-Guide's website to learn more about Mr. Levine. It says that he's a Conference Speaker, Global Trends Consultant and a TV and Radio Guest. A quote from CNN says: "Daniel Levine is the ultimate guru of cool.... He has a remarkable ability to distill cool to its essence and articulate it in a way we can all benefit from." Now that's not the way we typically describe us marketers, although some us would like to be!

The site says that Daniel's "Tomorrow Today" speaker session is "brimming with to-the-point examples of where culture and business are headed. This one-of-a-kind presentation reveals the latest international developments in your own industry, as well as the newest advances in other industries that will substantially impact your businesses."

Daniel's done work with a wide range of businesses such as MasterCard, Samsonite, HBO, NBC, Saatchi and Saatchi and Deutsche Telekom AG. He's the founder of Avant-Guide, which claims to be the leading resource for style. They are in the process of assembling an influential community of consumers along with a select network of destinations, merchants and service providers that caters to them. Their seminal product, the highly-acclaimed Avant-Guide city series, is one of the fastest-growing guidebooks in North America and Europe. They also have the Global Trends Blog that welcomes you to the world of Avant-Guide and includes an interview with Michael Stipe, from R.E.M., one of my all-time favorite bands.

So, I'm really looking forward to Daniel's session Tuesday morning. I'm going to try my best to catch up with him while at the conference and ask him a few questions regarding where he sees our industry heading. If you have something specific that you'd like me to ask him please let me know. You can also send Daniel an email directly off the PROMOLive Microsite where he's listed under speakers and where he's posted the Michael Stipe interview in the PROMOLive blog as well.  And yes, I've been added to the Microsite as a Conference Blogger along with access to post on their blog with a link back to this blog. So, I hope to get the conversation going one way or another.

PROMO Magazine Releases their 2007 Industry Trends Report

PROMO Magazine last week released their new 2007 Industry Trends Report which includes results from an annual survey of marketers and agencies. The editorial team from PROMO is scheduled to review these results at the PROMO Live show taking place in Chicago next week, September 18 & 19. In the meantime, here's a quick overview of what they will be saying.

The report confirms now more than ever that promotional marketing is no longer the stepchild to advertising and that the two are really blurring together. More firms this year, nearly two-third or 65%, are now saying that promotions are part of their overall marketing strategy. Only 9% said that they develop them separately and another 24% said they develop them after in order to use other disciplines to lead the promotional strategy. So, this conclusion coincides with what we have been hearing earlier this year both at PMA's Annual Conference, which I wrote about in this past post, as well as at the Interactive Promotions Summit, which I covered in this particular post.

The report also states that budgets now have become more evenly split between consumer promotion, advertising and trade. The plans call for promotion budgets to continue to grow and advertising to further decline. 42% said they plan to increase consumer promotion spending with a third of those dollars specifically allocated to online media.

It shouldn't be a surprise that measuring promotions is now more important to marketers as promotions have become a bigger part of the overall marketing strategy. Sales growth is still the number one factor in determining the success of a promotion. However, increased brand awareness has now become more of a factor. Some other measurement results utilized include ROI, increased customer knowledge, incremental sales, lead generation and response rates.

Direct mail is again the most widely used medium, with 37% of the mix, and a close second is the Internet with 32%. When asked what percentage of their consumer and trade promotion budgets would be spent online, 24% said 25-50% of their budget, however, 36% said 75-99% of their promotion budget would still be offline.

The report goes on to give an overview of the many different categories of promotions. I'm just going to mention two of them here since they relate more to my business as well as to this blog.

The first category I'd like to highlight is "Games, Contests and Sweepstakes". Of course the report features the biggest trend to hit this category, and one that I have been writing quite a bit about,... contests with consumer- generated content. More and more brands have been hoping on the band-wagon and letting the consumer be their advocate, and in many cases, creating the actual ads as well. Dorito's really popularized this trend with their ad contest in which they broadcast the winners during the Super Bowl. I've done many individual posts on contests this year that you can review and I have two in particular that you may really want to check out: The Top 10 CGC Promotional Contests Part 1 and Part 2. Both have become very popular.

Companies spent $1.83 billion dollars creating games and contests in 2006 and the numbers are expected to reach $1.846 billion by 2009. 17% of companies outsource their playable promotions, so since that is what my business, DDC Marketing Group, specializes in we hope to see an increase as well over the next couple of years.

The other category that I'd like to highlight from the report is "Interactive". Larry Jaffe, Editor in chief of PROMO writes "No need to wait - the future of online promotions is here today". This survey also confirms what we've been reading in all other reports as well...the increase in Internet advertising is making up for the lack of growth in traditional advertising media. Online ad spending is the only medium experiencing double-digit growth which hit a new record of $4.9 billion in the first quarter of this year.

Paid search advertising is expected to exceed $11 billion by 2008 and hit almost $9 billion by the end of this year. The report also makes note that the college kids of today became of age with computers, cell phones and the Internet. Therefore, they interact with media differently than the generations before them and spend up to three hours a day online compared to 30 minutes for the general population.

There's quite a bit more information in the report that you can download for free here on PROMO's website. Take a look and let me know if you'd like to highlight something else that's in the report. All in all it sounds like a good outlook for us promotional marketers.

I'll be Blogging at PROMOLIVE! in Chicago

PROMO Magazine is again holding it's annual promotional marketing conference which has been at the Navy Pier in Chicago since I can remember. This year it's taking place a little earlier than normal, September 17-19th, and it's been named PROMOLive!, the Promotional Marketing Event for Brand and Agency Marketers.

I'm having a hard time remembering the first PROMO event that I attended (which tends to happen more and more after you hit a certain age) but I can tell you that it was when the magazine was still owned by a small, private publishing company and run like a family business. The industry has certainly changed since then. Over the years I've attended as an attendee, an exhibitor, a speaker, a workshop participant and some years all of the above. This year however I'm very excited since I'll be attending as a blogger covering the event here on Donna's Promo Talk along with of course the editors from PROMO Magazine reporting via PROMO Xtra.

Ideas Take Center Stage for this year's event which promises new ideas for both brand and agency marketers to attract and engage their audiences. The Center Stage Forums will kick off in the mornings of each conference day with "PROMO Aloud: The Innovation Interviews" on Day 1 hosted by Daniel Levine, executive Director of Avant-Guide and with "Powering Up Your Creative" on Day 2 from Jim McCafferty, President & CEO of JMP Creative. I'll be writing more about these two guys and their companies over the next couple of weeks leading up to the event.

Each afternoon will feature a SPOTLIGHT Session focusing on trends. Day 1 Spotlight is PROMO's Annual Industry Trends Results which the editorial team will review the findings from PROMO's annual report which will be a first at this event. Day 2 Spotlight is on Virtual Worlds where Brent Arslaner from Unisfair, a leading virtual event solution provider, will discuss this growing marketing trend.

In between these sessions are break-outs to choose from with marketing subjects including: Ideation: Experiential; Social Media; Guerilla; Sponsorship; Loyalty; Interactive; Measurement & Metrics; At Retail. There is an area to meet with exhibitors called "The Hub" where you can also review case study demos from a selection to choose from. The Hub also serves as the networking/mingling/schmoozing/eating/drinking spot.

And of course an event like this wouldn't be complete without giving out some awards...PROMO's PRO Awards 2007 will be awarded on the evening of September 18th at a party in the Grand Ballroom that includes food, drinks, music and the awards presentation. All the finalists will be presented and the winners announced for each of the 22 categories. Two new categories have been added this year which are; Best Use of Consumer-Generated-Content and Best Use of Targeted Direct Mail or eMail. All the finalists will also be showcased in "The Hub" area to view anytime during the event.

Now what's new this year is a special mircosite that's been built called ThePromoEvent.com. On this site you can not only review the detailed schedule and registration information, but also read about all the speakers and their bios and have the opportunity to send them a message. Plus they've created a PROMOLive 2007 Blog which the speakers have been given access to post. There's currently a post by Daniel Levine from an interview with Michael Stipe, frontman for the band R.E.M., one of my all-time favorites. The developers of the Microsite are still in the process of getting me set up to have access so that I can post to this blog as well and they've also promised to include a link to Donna's Promo Talk. So, I'll keep you informed as we move forward.

I'm not only looking forward to covering all these great topics at the event, but I'm also  excited about reconnecting with many people in the industry that I've know over the years as well as hopefully meeting many new people. So if you are planning to attend, please let me know and I'd love to meet up with you sometime over the course of the event.  And, if you can't make it let me know what topic or session you are specifically interested in and I'll try and cover it. Between now and then I plan on trying to connect with some of the speakers in order to give you a little more perspective on who they are and their backgrounds. So, please plan on visiting  back to my blog often, or better yet, subscribe so you don't miss out. 

Back to Day 1 of PMA Conference: Robert Stephens Tells Us About the Remarkable Geek Squad

In looking back at the PMA Annual Conference and in talking to people that were there, everyone seems to be in agreement that it was a great event. The only complaint that I've heard is the fact that there was a so much content in just two days for which I can personally say I'm still trying to catch up this week from last week's overload. But of course it's better to have too much good content than not enough.

What everyone also appears to agree on is that Robert Stephens , CEO of the Geek Squad, was by far our most entertaining and "real" speaker. As our second speaker of Day 1 he made us laugh from the start as he told us he was here to tell us some stories which "I'm going to make this shit up as I go along."

Which it appeared that he did and proceeded to tell us his life story...how he started out being a Geek and showed us a photo of the "jock" in high school that he would help copy computer games for. He reminded us all of the early days of technology and shared with us that he "had a family album of all my modems".

Robert kept bringing up the comparison of his business to that of a plumber - "Why hasn't anyone nationalized a plumbing service?" Everyone needs it, but it's hard to copy that required personal service and expertise. But that's exactly what he did with the Geek Squad. He went from being that one person geek working mostly on hardware in a room full of computer parts to a 24-hour computer support task force that's over 12,000 agents strong throughout the U.S. and Canada.

His story continued on telling us that by not having money when he started the business it made him have to be more creative. He confessed that the Geek Squad logo he copied from the original gas station logos. Next was the origins of the car which his first one resembled the "Bat Mobile" and the next one being a '64 Ford Falcon. (My first car was a '64 Falcon station wagon that my parents game me with wood paneling  so I could really relate to Robert by this time). He said he would drive around town in this one car and hang out in front of the TV stations in Chicago so that he would end up appearing in the background of the newscasts. People would comment that they saw his car all around town! Finally black VW Beetles were used to become the B&W GeekMobiles of today.

Then of course came the famous Geek Squad Agent uniforms. Robert got his original idea from the  movie "Apollo 13" in which all the NASA geeks were wearing plain white short-sleeved shirts and skinny black ties. He added the Geek Squad logo to the tie as well as the badges which are the "Agents" Id's. The black belt is pretty much there "to hold up the agent's black pants". They appear to resemble Joe Friday of "Dragnet" as well, although he didn't admit to that.

2002 is when he partnered with Best Buy (or as he kidded when they "acquired" Best Buy). This is when they started rolling out the "Orange box inside the Blue Box" throughout Best Buy locations.

So, what's the moral of his story? He's got a few:

"Was Google a threat to Microsoft or the best thing that happened to them?" As consumers get more  and more comfortable with technology it will be good for businesses. It's not a linear thing." 

"People are famous sooner or later. If you peaked in high school, then I really feel sorry for you now."

"Be a hero, be humble, be yourself"

Now Robert I really hope you can find that photo you mentioned of the 700 black VW's coming off the super tanker and send it to me so I can post it here. Thanks so much for your story!

For those of you that haven't met Robert check him out in some of the Geek Squad TV commercials here and click on TV/Radio spots.