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

Live from Day 1 of PMA's 33rd Annual Marketing Law Conference

I'm back in Chicago again to attend PMA's 33rd Annual Marketing and Law Conference which is being held this year at the Marriott Hotel on Michigan Ave. Tuesday was day one of this two-day conference which held up to it's promise to provide the attendees with the things we need to know to comply with the fast changing world of promotion and advertising laws, regulations and government enforcement policies.

It was an extremely warm day for mid-November in Chicago which I unfortunately got to experience very little time outside to enjoy it. However, it was well worth it.

The morning kicked off with Bonnie Carlson, President of PMA, reviewing 100 years of Marketing Law. Yes, PMA is celebrating it's 100 anniversary and Bonnie has been a big part of helping to make PMA what it is today. There aren't many marketing related organizations that can say that they've been around for 100 years. Bonnie reviewed some of the organization's history. It first started out as the association for marketers offering premium offers such as Coca-Cola items and Hess trucks, that have become big collectible items. The association has come a long way since then.

Ron Urbach, Partner, Davis & Gilbert, LLP, was our first general session speaker which he has held this spot for many years. Ron always gives a very entertaining and informative presentation and this again lived up to our expectations. His session was titled "Brave New World: Exploring the Rapidly Changing Commercial and Legal Landscape" in which he reviewed with us the basic truths in surviving in today's changing world.

Truth #1 is "Data - the fuel that powers business". Basically data is today's currency for business and the more that businesses learn to use the data effectively, the more successful they will be. Companies need to be more transparent about their data practices and consumers need to be given more simplified choices on how they want their data used.

The other truths Ron disclosed included discussions on how: The 1st amendment is the first defense; We are becoming the wallet-less economy; Regulators need to understand the speed of change; Both consumers and technology shape today's marketplace. To summarize, we need to prepare for more than one future because it's coming all too quickly.

After a morning "refreshment break" we were treated to hearing from both this year's conference co-chair and sweepstakes diva, Linda Goldstein, Partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP. Linda's fast-paced, extremely informative session titled "What's New in the Game Today - New Twists on Traditional Sweeps, Contests and Promotions" was again the highlight of the conference, especially for my business.

Linda reviewed with us the basics on sweepstakes and contest promotions with an emphasis this year on the social media and mobile platforms that are popular today. She first reviewed Facebook which included a simple explanation of Facebook's promotional guidelines. The three conditions that you can include is requiring Liking a brand page to participant, asking participants to check into a "Place", and using a 3rd party application to feature the promotion. You can't automatically enter someone into a sweepstakes by liking the page or having them vote by clicking the Like button and you can't notify winners on Facebook.

For Twitter their guidelines state that you should discourage creating multiple accounts and asking participants to post the same tweet repetitively. Also brands should avoid creating sweepstakes that award a participant who re-tweets a post the most times. Linda's advice is to include in your official rules that the tweets must include the sponsor's hashtag and to state that you prohibit use of the hashtag for any other purpose. There were cases sited in which a hashtag was highjacked and used to promote negative comments regarding the brand.

Linda's presentation then went into the mobile space and reviewed both Foursquare location based sweepstakes as well as QR codes as a form of entry. She stated that the debate regarding whether these sweepstakes need an alternate means of entry (AMOE) is now raging. Most say that data and text rates are lower than the cost of postage since most people have unlimited text and data plans. However, best practice is still to offer an AMOE since these charges are still deemed as consideration. Many brands though are doing these without the AMOE since this is considered a low risk without any challenges to date.

I could go on and on to include more details that Linda shared with us, but I also want to highlight a few things discussed in the afternoon social media session that included a panel of speakers representing the advertiser's, agency's and platform's point of view. Susan Cooper from Facebook reviewed why they require a 3rd party application to run sweepstakes and contest promotions. Susan stated that the Facebook platform is a window into the brand's platform and that it's the brand's promotion that Facebook adds sharing features to. Facebook does update it's guidelines based on comments and questions it receives and helps people and developers keep abreast of their updates via their Facebook Site Governance page and directly though advertising account reps.

It's been a full day which included more detail that I can mention here along with some great networking with the opportunity to meet people in the real world (not via social networks). Tomorrow is another day with a session that is based specifically on mobile that I'm really looking forward to.

The question asked to the social media panel today was what's the future of social media? Susan Cooper from Facebook said "The future is tomorrow and we'll find the answer tomorrow". So what do you think tomorrow will bring?

Social media and politics - how big of a role did it play in this year's election?

Election day is now behind us and we have all the results except for a few too close to call. We don't have to be bombarded anymore with the negative ads and propaganda. There were many angry politicians out to smear their competition on both sides this year. So I hope we can all put it behind us and pull together to help make us all proud of this country.

Social media played an much more prominent role in this year's election than in 2008. If you visited Facebook at all yesterday you would have seen at the top of the page their official app that asked if you had voted yet. The app also helped you locate the nearest polling place and gave you a badge that you could post on your wall and  into friends' newsfeeds to show that you had voted. I posted it on my wall, did you? 

Facebook also has created an official U.S. Politics on Facebook page that highlights the use of Facebook by politicians, elected officials, and political campaigns. The Page also shares tips and best practices as well as news from Facebook and live streaming video coverage on election night from ABC News under the "Vote 2010" tab. The tab enables you to invite your friends to also watch the coverage on this page.

According to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, typical turnout for midterm elections is only around 40%. So, did Facebook help get more people to the polls this year? Facebook has reported that more than 12 million people clicked the "I Voted" button yesterday compared to about 5.4 million in 2008. Also, did Facebook popularity help in predicting Election Night winners? The Facebook political team's initial snapshot of 98 House races shows that 74% of candidates with the most Facebook fans won their contests. In the Senate, their initial snapshot of 19 races shows that 81% of candidates with the most Facebook fans won their contests.

Twitter also was heavily involved in the election day coverage. There were several feeds people could follow such as the Democrats (@thedemocrats), the Republicans (@gopconference), the Tea Party (@TPPatriots), and the Libertarians (@LPNational). @CSPAN has also compiled comprehensive lists of all the House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates on Twitter.

The @WashingtonPost made news themselves as the first news organization to sponsor a Promoted Trend on Twitter. If you clicked on #Election on the Twitter.com home page you would have seen the Post’s election coverage from their page. The Washington Post Blog includes a link to a users' photo gallery where people can uploaded their "I Voted" badges.

Foursquare also got involved in this year's election day with their location-based social media tool. They offered users a special limited-edition "iVoted" badge to display. Foursquare users earned the badge by checking in at the polling station and including #ivoted in their "shout out." As of noon on Tuesday PST, Foursquare users had registered 12,544 polling stations as places to check in, and recorded a total of 21,166 actual check-ins, or roughly two check-ins per venue.

So what role do you think social media will play in the 2012 elections? Anyone what to give us some of your predictions? I'm sure the campaign wheels are starting to turn already. Hey this is what democracy and freedom of speech is all about, right?

Do we "Like" Facebook's new Social Graph and what does it really mean?

Today I went back to being the guest blogger on the Lip-sticking blog and I was wondering where do I begin?  Two weeks ago today my mother passed away after battling breast cancer for several years. I wanted the Lip-sticking readers to know what had just happened in my world, so I shared with them the last two posts that I wrote here, In Loving Memory of our mom, Eileen DeClemente, in which I tried to share what an amazing woman she was who meant the world to me and many others. And then also in my next post titled "What Social Media means when you lose a loved one", which I invite you all to read these as well if you haven't yet. 

I've been trying to get myself adjusted and get caught up with all that has been going on in the world and in my business, but it's very hard. It all seems so trivial to me, but as they say, life must go on.

So today I thought I'd say a few words about Facebook's introduction of the new "social graph". It's all I've been reading about since I've been back online and I'll link you to several very good articles to read throughout this post.

They first announced that they were changing the word fan to "Like". So now there will no longer be "Facebook fans" just "likes". That silly little Like button that turns into a "thumbs up" icon after you click on it when you "like" someone's status on their wall has moved to the top of the page...what we seem to be referring to now as "Business Pages" (formally "Fan Pages").

But not only will you see this "Like" button on Facebook, you'll see it on many websites throughout the Internet. The tech community is all over this right now and they're using lots of verbiage such as publisher plug-ins, semanic mark-up and developer API. And of course there is the privacy issue. Senator Chuck Schumer from right here in New York is already on it and doesn't "Like" it at all.

Academy Awards, Avatar or Hurt Locker? Avatar wins with McDonalds' Marketing Promotion

I'm looking forward to tomorrow night's 82nd Academy Awards ceremony. There appears to be a quite a bit of hype around whether we will see the first woman director, Kathryn Bigelow for the Hurt Locker, take home this year's Best Director Oscar. Now I have to admit that I don't often see many movies while they're in the theater. I like to wait to see most of them on DVD at home. However, my husband and I did go to see Avatar because we thought the large screen would be the way to see this film and we enjoyed it very much. In fact, I think I liked Avatar even more than he did.

So whether you're pulling for Avatar and James Cameron or the Hurt Locker and Kathryn Bigelow, Avatar by far had the biggest interactive promotional marketing campaign of all the films up for Best Picture Oscar. McDonald's got on board with Avatar and pushed the creative limits with a augmented reality game that let players explore the movie's computer-generated planet Pandora with a set of on-package cards.

While the campaign took different forms around the world in order to integrate with different menu items, the U.S. marketing effort centered on McDonald's Big Mac. McDonald's U.S. chief marketing officer Neal Golden said "The Big Mac is all about the thrill of your senses, that's why the company decided to link it to the Big Mac in North America." So from December 18 through January 7, U.S. customers who bought a Big Mac also got packaging that included one of 8 different Avatar "Thrill Cards" attached.

The game, called PandoraQuest, was accessed on McDonald's local Web site around the word. It tasked players with such goals as finding hidden objects within three different Pandoran landscapes. If players retrieved all objects, they advanced deeper into Pandora and reached their goal of becoming a member of the "RDA Research Team" as in the movie. U.S. players who scavenged successfully gott more than just the honor of joining the team: They also got to unlock bonus features in the form of scenes from the movie.

Players could also use an online version of a PandoraROVR, a transport vehicle seen in the film, to explore the planet on the Web, capturing and sharing images with others. Participants held up the cards to a Web cam and used McD Vision augmented reality software to interact with the jungle landscapes generated for the movie.

McDonald's also ran a social media campaign on Twitter which asked followers to be the first 10 to decode daily word scrambles. The grand prize was a private screening of Avatar along with a Big Mac lunch with producer Jon Landau.

Now this month PMA is holding their 27th annual Reggie Awards which are the highest honor in integrated marketing. The McDonald's Avatar campaign is one of the finalists in three categories:

• Age-Specific Marketing
• Digital Marketing
• International/Global Marketing

Gold, Silver and Bronze winners, including the SUPER REGGIE, will be announced during the REGGIE Gala Awards dinner, part of the PMA's Annual Integrated Marketing Conference, BLUR, taking place at the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago on March 24th. I will be there as PMA's "Official Blogger" so will report on who wins the top awards. If it is McDonald's Avatar campaign, I should have some real results to report on. So, please check back soon.

In the meantime, if you watch the Academy Awards ceremony, let us know if you were for or against the academy's decision.

The Olympics, Social Media and P&G's Thanks Moms program

Today is Wednesday, which is my day to post on the Lip-sticking blog. Since it's readership is mainly women, I wanted to get some of their opinions regarding P&G's Thanks, Mom Olympic program. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't also welcome what the readers here think of it. So if you have an opinion, please leave a comment. Here's the post:

So, like many of us, I've been watching some of the Winter Olympic Games that started with the opening ceremonies this past Friday in Vancouver, Canada. We just got done with the NFL Super Bowl game and also kicked off Nascar season this past weekend with the Daytona 500, but no other athletic competition comes close to the Olympic Games on a global scale. The games only come around every two years and the last experience we had was the Summer Games held in Beijing. So, this really is the first Olympic games that we will see the full power of social media.

Yes, social media is more than two years old, but this year the games are being held in a free, democratic country. So if you think back to the last winter games in Torino, social media was really just emerging. I didn't have a Facebook or Twitter page back then. In fact I just started blogging three years ago. So we have sort of a history in the making transforming over the next two weeks. It will be interesting to see how the various media is utilized to follow the games.

Just yesterday I registered online at NBColympics.com in order to watch live coverage of some of the events online. My daughter, who is a college student at NYU and doesn't have a TV in her dorm room, wanted to watch the USA vs. Sweden hockey game. In order to watch live though you have to register and be a cable subscriber. So she couldn't register without my help. Once we got it set up it worked great, however, there is a time-delay online so it's not really "live". She was disappointed because she would be behind the tweets and texts of her friends following the game on TV.

This morning I turned the TV on to NBC where the full cast of the Today Show are all in Vancouver for the week. They were interviewing a group of ladies who were moms of some of the athletes. But before the interview started there was a message from P&G (Procter and Gamble) claiming to be the "Official Sponsor of Moms". Now I found this a bit odd. How can a company be the official sponsor of Moms? Did they pay some mom's organization for the rights to say this. So I looked it up online and found P&G's official press release on this. Here's the deal:

We Are the World 25 for Haiti debuts during opening ceremonies of Olympic Winter games on NBC

Tonight is the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics which will include on NBC the debut of the updated version of "We Are the World", re-recorded to benefit the Haitian earthquake relief efforts. Twenty-five years ago, the iconic recording, “We Are The World” generated millions of dollars to help ease suffering in Africa and now "We are the World 25" will benefit the Haitian earthquake.

Original producer Quincy Jones and co-writer Lionel Richie both came back and assembled an amazing lineup of singers and actors back on Feb. 1st in Los Angeles to re-record the song. Kanye West, Janet Jackson, Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand, Pink, Lil Wayne, Miley Cyrus, Jennifer Hudson, Santana, Jeff Bridges and "Slumdog Millionaire" composer A.R. Rahman are among the nearly 80 performers who all donated their time and talents.

The song will be available to download on iTunes immediately following the world premiere on NBC by visiting www.WORLD25.org. The “We Are The World 25 For Haiti” video will also be on the We Are the World 25 YouTube Channel which will have a donate now button. They've incorporated some viral marketing tools such as this widget that can be grabbed off their website to embed on a blog or website to help spread the word. It includes all the many social media ways you can share as well as a link to the We are the World fan page on Facebook.

Coca-Cola, a worldwide sponsor of the Winter Olympic Games, has joined forces with the We Are the World 25 team to help further create awareness and encourage people to donate through multiple ways. Here's a few:

The Coca-Cola Digital Network (CDN), which consists of 29 electronic billboards located in 20 major cities, will for the first time ever carry non-stop messaging from 9:00 p.m. ET on Friday until midnight Saturday. The boards will display the “We Are The World 25 For Haiti” logo and remind people to view the video and visit the website to download the song or purchase the DVD.

They are also dedicating their Times Square Spectacular sign to include the “We Are the World 25 For Haiti” messaging.

Coca-Cola's Facebook Fan Page will feature updates about “We Are The World 25 For Haiti” that will be shared with the more than 5 million Coca-Cola fans.

Celebrities and athletes that are part of the Coca-Cola Family will be using their social networks through their websites, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds to encourage people to support “We Are the World 25 For Haiti.”

My Coke Rewards will send emails and text messages to it's 15 million members encouraging people to view the video and visit the website.

So tune in tonight starting at 7:30 p.m. EST, download and donate! Let the Games Begin!

Haiti earthquake relief fund gets huge boost from texting donations and social media

Since I only write once a week, Wednesdays, on The Lip-sticking blog I felt I needed to include a post related to the Haiti earthquake that hit the island a little over a week ago now. Since I wrote this post earlier today a huge aftershock of 6.5 has hit Haiti making the situation there even worse. So donations are still needed more than ever. Here is my post:

As this week's news of the horrendous Haiti earthquake unfolded it solidified the fact that social media has become an invaluable tool for keeping the lines of communication open between people around the world especially when hit with a natural disaster such as this. The Internet, social media and mobile have helped to bring people emotionally and visually closer to this event like never before which resulted in a huge outpouring of financial support.

Making a donation to the Haiti relief funds has never been easier through text messages, Twitter posts, blogs and social networks, such as Facebook. Microsoft, Yahoo and Google also donated resource as well.

Texting donations emerged as the quickest and easiest way to donate money. We all have gotten emails or seen tweets urging us to donate money to support the relief effort in Haiti. The American Red Cross has been working with mobile donation company mGive and said on Monday that it has received $22 million in donations via text messages. All you need to do is simply text “Haiti” to short code 90999, and a $10 donation to the group’s Haitian relief fund gets added to your next mobile phone bill.

Happy New Year....Welcome 2010 and The Lip-sticking Society

Happy New Year everyone. We have now started not just a new year, but a new decade! I'm really looking forward to 2010 and have some very exciting things that I'm working on that I want to tell you about.

First off today we launched the new look for the Lip-sticking blog and announced the launch of The Lip-sticking Society. As many of my readers know I am one of the five women bloggers who writes for the Lip-sticking blog which was originally created by Yvonne DiVita back in 2004. I have been working with Yvonne behind the scenes during the second half of 2009 to expand the Lip-sticking brand and The Lipsticking Society is a result of this. This is, however, just the beginning and we have quite a bit more work to do.

Here's what Yvonne had to say on the blog this morning:

Welcome to The Lip-sticking Blog, an integral part of The Lip-sticking Society. Starting this year, we're expanding our reach to include services, advertising, and a Learning Center where we will offer concrete, actionable articles and webinars and content small business owners can use to build a stronger, more successful business this year.

Take a moment to visit The Lip-sticking Society's homepage and tell us what you think. We encourage feedback and participation. Let us help you make 2010 a star-studded year of amazing success.

So please give me your comments here about what you think of the new Lip-sticking site and what you'd like to see on it. I'm in charge of marketing and sales for the Lip-sticking Society and we are seeking sponsors and advertisers, so if you or your clients want to reach a very influential group of women, please contact me.

I'll also be writing about some other new exciting projects that I'm involved in, so please stay tuned and thanks again for being part of Donna's Promo Talk.

Promo Talk's Top Stories of 2009

For those of us still working this week, or at least checking our email and social networks, it's been a nice time to catch-up and reflect on the past year. Over the Christmas weekend I spent some time reviewing all the blog posts that I contributed during 2009. I counted 109, so with this post I raise the total to an even 110. That equates to about a third of the year that I have invested part of my day to blogging.

For me 2009 was a year that I not only kept up my passion for blogging here, but I expanded my social media reach. The major highlights included increasing my guest blogging on the Lip-sticking blog to a weekly commitment, starting a Twitter page which resulted in over 1,600 followers so far and connecting with many old and new friends on Facebook. 

So I thought I would provide a summary of what I think are some of my top posts that help to define 2009. Looking back I tried to pick one post a month that is either of a promotion that reflected the pop culture of that time or one that defined a major milestone or shift in social media. So if I may here are my picks:

January - Facebook Helps Connect us to the 2009 Presidential Inauguration

Normally the majority of my posts this time a year are a countdown to the Super Bowl. With being a big NFL fan and a marketer I just love to read and write about what the major brands are doing. So I have quite a few dedicated to the big game, including this post on the infamous Dorito's consumer-generated ad contest. However, instead I'm selecting this post that really started us off to the year.

February - And the Oscar Goes To....This Year's Winning Promotions

This month we were treated to the 81st Annual Academy Awards and, as with the Super Bowl, several marketers created ads and programs affiliated with the event, but in this case directed to a more female audience. I was speculating whether Slum Dog Millionaire would win, and they did, which resulted in us all now being familiar with the term Bollywood.

March - Twitter, Facebook and Skittles...Oh My!

Both Facebook and Twitter were now getting quite a bit of press during the first quarter of 2009 and this brand decided to take the leap to create a totally new online experience that integrated these social media sites. Many, however, questioned their decision.

April - The Final Four is Here - What Brand-Sponsored Bracket are you following?

I spent a good amount of time in March attending some top marketing conferences and blogging about them so I didn't get a chance to write about who was doing what to promote March Madness until this post. For this year's countdown to the Final Four we were exposed to many different sponsored brackets to chose from and we even got to follow President Obama's bracket picks!

May - American Idol Finale. Did Google & Twitter Get It Right?

We experienced another popular season of American Idol, however, this one was a bit different since it included Twitter which made for a totally new experience. I was one of the many that watched the show on TV while also following the real-time tweets and sharing a few myself. The finale was a surprise to many and as of today we're still not sure since we have seen more from the #2 Idol than #1.

June - Bing, Microsoft's New Search Engine Arrives With a Wimper

There was much too choose from in June which included some major theatrical releases, such as the next  Transformers film, a Season 2 of the hit HBO TV show, True Blood, along with the sudden death of Micheal Jackson which was initially announced on Twitter. However, the month got started with the announcement of the much anticipated launch of Microsoft's Bing new search engine.

July - Promotions Help to Give Starbucks the Most Popular Brand on Facebook Title...For Now

The benefits of the combination of promotions and social media was beginning to become really apparent with the fact that Starbucks surpassed Coca-Cola as the #1 brand on Facebook. It also was a confirmation to what I have been describing as "Social Sweeps" promotions as becoming one of today's leading marketing strategies.

August - MAD MEN inspires brands to create some stylish AD campaigns to help kick-off season 3

Well I wasn't a fan of Mad Men until this season and am now totally hooked on this amazing series. I'm currently in the process of watching Season 1 On Demand and I just got Season 2 on DVD as a Christmas present from my daughter (which I had hinted on Facebook that I wanted and she got the hint!). Reading Media Post's Mad Blog written by Dorothy Parker as you watch the episodes is a must! 

September - Hanes T-Shirt Contest Seeks Passionately Pink Designs

In anticipation of October being breast cancer awareness month many brands starting kicking off their "Pink" promotions. These were especially close to my heart this year since my mom has been battling breast cancer and had a very tough year. Our prayers go to the many fighting this disease along with their families.

October - Google Wave....Will it be the email of the 21st Century?

Google made quite a few major announcements during 2009 and the launch of Google Wave was one of them. I still haven't experienced it personally, but I did share on Twitter and Facebook this very cool "Waving Good-bye to 2009" post on YouTube created with Google Wave.

November - Day Two at PMA's Marketing Law Conference: FTC "We have no intention of shutting down the blogosphere"

I was again invited back as a guest blogger at PMA's Annual Marketing Law Conference and this year the timing couldn't have been more perfect. We got to hear directly from directors of the FTC what their newly updated endorsement guidelines really mean. I'll be watching closely in 2010 who will be the first enforcement target. My guess is it will be affiliate marketers that are promoting diet products.

December - Twis the Season Twitter promo & Winter Wonder-Win game help promote American Express Gift Cards for the Holidays

With the economy as it was this year many brands decided to give-back through charitable holiday programs. Amex was one brand that not only partnered with the great organization, but also integrated fun promotions executed on Twitter and also online that promoted their brand and products.

Hope you enjoyed the recap. Happy New Year and here's to a wonderful and prosperous 2010,

Overview of PMA's 2nd Annual Digital Marketing Summit and highlights from the FTC Disclosure Panel

PMA held their 2nd Annual Digital Marketing Summit called Fast Forward 2011 which was held last Thursday, Dec. 3rd, at Google's NYC headquarters. It was a day of full of great content from speakers that presented to a fairly intimate group of attendees. All I could think of is that it's difficult to host an event in December that isn't a holiday party which everyone has way too many on their calendars already. Well for those of us who got to attend it was our gain and all others their loss.

I spoke on a panel regarding the new FTC disclosure guidelines and what they mean for advertising and marketing. I had the privileged to be joined by Linda Goldstein, Esq., Partner, Manatt, Phelps, & Phillips LLP, who I have heard speak several times and highly regard as the diva of sweepstakes and promotional marketing law, and Randall Rothenberg, President, Interactive Advertising Bureau, who I had not previously met but got to speak to ahead of time on a conference call. We were the last panel of the day just prior to Tim Reis from Google and Elizabeth Apelles from agency Greater Than One , both Summit co-chairs,  who got to wrap-up the day with a look into the future. Then eveyone could head over to the cocktail reception which was held at Google's Chelsea Market Slide Microkitchen location just across the street from where we were.