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

Promo Talk's Top Stories of 2010: from social media, to check-in's to promotions

This is #108 and my last post of 2010 on Donna's Promo Talk, so I thought I'd take a look back down memory lane to see what I've written about over the past year. At the end of 2009 I wrote this post, Promo Talk's Top Stories of 2009, that highlighted what I felt were my top posts that help to define 2009. I picked one post a month that was either of a promotion that reflected the pop culture of that month or one that defined a major milestone or shift in social media. This year I thought I'd continue the tradition as well. Here are my top picks for 2010:

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

This time of the year I normally write about promotions associated with the Super Bowl, one of the biggest if not biggest marketing event of the year. Being a huge football fan as I am, I did cover some of the promotions, but this post really stands out as I look back on the year. The 2010 recaps that I've read so far include the earthquake in Haiti as one of the year's top news stories. It would be interesting to learn now, almost a year after the date, how theses donations have been used to help the country.

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

February was mostly focused on the Winter Olympic Games that occurred in Vancouver, Canada. It seemed that the world got a lot smaller as athletes from around the world came to our continent to compete in these games. The past Summer Olympic Games that were held in Beijing has some restrictions on the media, and the previous winter games were held in Torino, Italy, when social media was really just emerging. Therefore, we experienced history in the making transforming over these two weeks as social media played a major role.

March - The BlogPaws or Bust Sweepstakes promotes event on Facebook, Twitter and online

This may not seem to be on the same scale as the devastation in Haiti or the Winter Olympic Games, but for those of us involved in launching BlogPaws, it was a huge milestone. Over 250 pet bloggers, online pet enthusiasts and pet brands got together in Columbus, Ohio for the very first event, BlogPaws 2010. It was so successful that a second event was quickly organized for September, BlogPaws 2010 West, taking place in Denver, CO. The 2011 event has just recently been announced which will be in Tyson Corners, VA on August 25-27.

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

This month was life changing for me personally when I lost my mother to breast cancer. I took a brief break from the online world to be with my family and while I was offline Facebook came out with some major changes. When I got back to town I was scheduled to speak to a local women's group regarding social media marketing. I quickly updated my presentation to include Facebook's new "Like" and their social graph which basically moved Facebook beyond just Facebook into the greater world wide web.

May - Women say that online coupons and product reviews influence their purchasing decisions the most

There were many studies done this year on marketing to women, and this one from iVillage and SheSpeaks was one of the first. It highlighted that the interaction between women through online community websites, forums and message boards does have a "dramatic" influence on driving product preference, loyalty, and purchase. Other studies supported this data reinforcing the belief that women are influenced by other women and that word mouth marketing has been reborn through social media.

June - 2010 FIFA World Cup gets underway and marketers gain exposure from many video views

The world's most popular sporting event, the FIFA World Cup™ kicked off on June 11 in South Africa, the first time the 32 final teams competed on the African continent. The whole world, including the U.S., really got into the games this year. Various Twitter hashtags associated with the event were on the top trending list and Nike's "Write The Future" ad, which included some of the soccer stars, was on the top viral video list during this time.

July - The next phase of social games goes to the brands with the launch of poweRBrands

Most of us that have spent any time on Facebook this past year have probably been invited at some point by one of our friends to play a social game such as the hugely popular Mafia Wars or Farmville. Social gaming grew significantly over the year and is forecasted to become even more popular in 2011, especially with women online.

August - Ford Explorer's reveal on Facebook turns out to be highly effective

Ford revealed their new Explorer live on their Explorer Facebook page which was a bit controversial since most auto manufacturers launch their new vehicles at auto shows in Detroit and L.A., never on a social network. Reports revealed that thei Explorer's reveal was highly effective and even did better than Super Bowl ads for other automakers. This program gave a new twist on marketing on Facebook and started convincing more brands that it may be time to increase their social media budgets.

September - Life in a Day project showcases 80,000 videos on it's You Tube Channel from one day in July

Online video views continued to grow during the year with YouTube becoming the #2 site online for searches, just behind Google. People continued to upload their own generated videos to both YouTube and Facebook and many brands launched contests and campaigns inviting people to submit videos around a specific theme. This unique video promotion sponsored by Google highlighted what people did one day during the summer of 2010, Saturday, July 24.

October - Think PINK for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Every October I usually write about a "Pink" promotion and the brands that are supporting National Breast Cancer Awareness month. This year I found it hard to write about it with the loss of my mom to breast cancer. However, I realized it was important for me to continue to spread the word. I decided to highlight a program from  Pepsi-Co's Frito-Lay division which donated $1 million to Susan G. Komen for the Cure through their Sun Chips multigrain snacks, Rold Gold pretzels and the Baked! line of products.

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

As we're now all aware, this year's election resulted in some major changes in our political landscape. Social media did play a much more prominent role than in 2008. From Facebook, to Twitter, to Foursquare and many, many email blasts, no matter what political party you are affiliated with, I think that we were all glad when it was finally over.

December - Check-in promotions lead the way this holiday season

This holiday season topped off a year that many retailers tried out the latest marketing craze which was giving people special offering through "check-ins". By including location-based services (LBS) into their holiday marketing program, they were able to lure shoppers in their stores. We'll see where this goes in 2011.

Hope you enjoyed the recap. I wish you a very Happy New Year and here's to a wonderful and prosperous 2011. Thanks again for reading!

Marketing Your Company During the Holidays and Beyond - Podcasts from my Christmas Eve WCEOhq Radio Show talk

This past Christmas Eve day I had the honor to again be a guest on the CEO Hour on WCEOhq Radio. This is an interactive two-hour Intenet radio show broadcast live on Fridays from noon to 2 pm EST and available as podcasts to listen to online at WCEOhq Radio Archives or to dowload and listen off your computer, iPhone, Droid or Blackberry. Since it was the Christmas holiday the assumption was that the "live" audience wouldn't be very big, so I thought I'd share the recorded podcasts of my segments here.

The show's theme was Marketing Your Company: During the Holidays and Beyond which was focused on how businesses are celebrating the holidays this year and a look into trends and forecasts for 2011. So I invite you to take a listen to my segments and let me know what you think of my 2011 predictions, and  also would love input on how you think I did as a radio voice.

If you would like more info about the show and have an interest in possibly participating please contact me. They are always looking for interesting guests.  Thanks and I hope you had a wonderful Christmas.

Part 1:  MP3 File

Part 2:  MP3 File

 

Thanksgiving is here. Let the Holiday Shopping Season Begin!

It's the day before Thanksgiving which means we're all getting ready to kick off the official 2010 holiday season. It's a time to reflect on the year and give thanks for what we have and to remember what we have lost. I'm a bit ambivalent about this holiday season since it will be the first one without my mom. She passed away in April from breast cancer which I wrote about on here. That's a photo of her to the left. Thanksgiving was always her favorite holiday and one that she hosted for many years.

However, I am thankful to be able to host Thanksgiving this year and have some of my in-laws as guests. My daughter Alex arrived home yesterday from college, so it's great to have her in the house again. The dogs were overjoyed to see her. Unfortunately my other daughter, Kelsey, won't be joining us since she's still in Florence, Italy, doing her study abroad semester. I spoke to her on Skype yesterday and she's feeling a bit homesick. She'll be home before Christmas though.

I haven't decided if I'm going to deal with any Black Friday in-store specials this year. I'll probably stick to doing most of my shopping online and spend the weekend doing some research and putting a gift list together. It's going to be a short list this year. However I have been reading that retailers are expecting consumers to really open up their wallets. The predictions are that online sales will top in-store sales for the first time. From what I've seen so far, it seems like most online retailers have been heavily marketing to women online this year and offering free shipping and other offers.

Google already has predicted what some of the hot items will be this year just by the number of searches that people have done. Electronics are always on the gift list and searches on 3D TVs rose ten times in 2010 compared with 2009, flip camcorder searches rose about 30% this year and "kids computers" rose by around 30% since this summer.

If the trends on the search engine are correct it is telling us that this year's hot toys will include Pillow Pets and Magic Orbeez Maker. Searches for Pillow Pets, stuffed animals that also function as a pillow, rose nearly 70% this year. My daughter Alex has one, Ms. Sassy Cat, which lives on her bed that she got as a gift last year. Magic Orbeez Maker are beads and pellets that grow when immersed in water and are then used to play games. Searches for this item rose 100% in the past 90 days. Here's a video of it that I found on YouTube. Another hot item may be Nerf Stampede which has been one of the fastest-rising toy searches in the past 30 days.

As far as fashion goes, Google is predicting that black will remain the hottest color beating all others by at least 50%. Red, blue, pink, green, yellow and purple follow, with green and purple being on the rise during the past six years.

So from now until the end of the year I will be writing about holiday marketing promotions, what I think is new, different, unique. I'm pretty sure they will all have a social media element as part of the program.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. Hope you enjoy the day and the weekend. I thought I'd share this dog with you which is one of my favorite Thanksgiving photos. Feel free to share your stories here, either about your holiday or your shopping experiences. Thanks again to all our readers for being here.

Does Duracell's myGrid really make charging simpler?

Product reviews by bloggers have been getting more and more popular and brands continue to reach out to them to help spread the word. Just last month I attended the second BlogPaws event where over 250 pet bloggers and pet brands convened for a two-day event. I'm not a pet blogger, but I do own pets and they are loving some of the free samples and toys I brought home from that event.

Now I mostly review promotional marketing campaigns here on Donna's Promo Talk, but I do occasionally get asked to review a product. This one I thought would be on interest to my readers, so I agreed.

It is a new product from Duracell called myGrid^TM, "Charging Made Simpler". It basically is a charger mat for mobile devices. They have a kit for cell phones, Motorola, Nokia, Blackberry, and a kit specifically for iPhones. I told the person at Duracell's PR agency that contacted me that I have the HTC Droid Incredible and my husband has an iTouch, so they sent me the myGrid starter kit for phones and a iPod Touch Power Sleeve.

They weren't sure if it would work with my Droid, but it did. Since these phones are now the fastest growing smart phones in the market I think Duracell should know what Droid models it can and cannot work with. In fact they may have to change their packaging since it doesn't list HTC. The kit comes with one power clip which I put on the back on my phone and then on to the pad and the charging began.

Since they also sent me the power sleeve for the iTouch we tried that next. First, we had to take off the protective sleeve my husband currently has on his phone to put the Power Sleeve on, which they look very similar. We placed this on the pad and they both were charging up. However, if we wanted to charge another phone we would need to purchase additional power clips or power sleeves.

So all in all it worked fine and it was a very simple process and easy to follow directions. However, I really don't get the overall benefit. Normally I just plug my phone into my computer and it charges. It also syncs with my calendar and contacts when I do that. My husband does the same with his iTouch. Plugs it into his computer and it allows him to sync with his iTunes account. So why do we need a myGrid?

Well Duracell's value proposition is that it eliminates cord clutter, but I still have to put the pad somewhere and the pad has a cord that needs to be plugged it. So it really doesn't work for us. I guess it may be a good fit for an office where people can come in and leave their phones to charge, however, they would be out of reach of their phone for a little while. Or perhaps a family that has several kids with phones, one place in the house to charge them all.

I am curious as to what Duracell's product research team identified as the ideal target market for this. Sounds like it may have been an engineer's idea looking for a market. I don't know, maybe it's me. Let me know where you think this product has a good fit? Perhaps we can help Duracell out here a bit. And yes, I do get to keep the product even though I'm probably  not going to use it. So that's my full disclosure. Now if you have a good use for it let me know and I'll be glad to send it to you.

BTW - Duracell batteries has a current back-to-school promotion that includes special value packs, one with a free Tide to Go Mini pen and another with a free glue stick. I just had to get something promotional in this post! Thanks Duracell.

In loving memory of our mom, Eileen DeClemente

I realize today is Earth Day, but I just can't write about that. Instead I have to devote this post today to my mother, Eileen DeClemente, who passed away a week ago yesterday, April 14th. I've mentioned my mother several times in this blog, mostly in reference to her fight against cancer. She had breast cancer which was detected very early. The doctors all were very positive that they had cured her. But a year after her treatment ended it was back and had jumped into her lungs. She fought this stage for almost two years, but she just couldn't do it any longer.

I'm extremely grateful that I recently got to spend some time with her and my dad when I visited them during the last week of March. My husband, Kevin, and I were at their home in South Carolina where they had moved to from New York just four years ago. She was very weak when I last saw her, but I didn't think I would need to go back there so soon.

I was notified of how grave her condition was the morning of the day she died. It was just as I was finishing up my last blog post that my sister called me to say I should try and get back down as soon as possible. I booked a 5:30 pm flight for that day, but it was too late.

We had a memorial service for her on Monday and a mass on Tuesday. I got to share a few days with many extended family members and friends that came to say their good-byes. We all reminisced about her life and growing up together and went through many photos. As my parent's oldest child, and the only one that has done any public speaking, I wanted to say a few words about her at the service. I wasn't sure if I could do it, but I did and it was probably the hardest thing I've ever done, but also one of the sweetest. I'm sure my mom would have been proud of me. I'd like to share it with you here:

Our mom, Eileen, really was an extraordinary woman….

A great mother to the four of us who then opened up her heart to our husbands and wife.

A loving, caring and giving wife to one man for 54 years.

The best grandma a kid could ever want.

An Aunt and 2nd mom to her nieces & nephews, and also to several of our good friends that we brought into our home.

She was a very, very close friend to a chosen few, and a good friend to many.

She also was an exceptional co-worker who befriended countless people by her generous and caring nature.

She started out as the little sister to two brothers who loved to spoil her.

And she grew up surrounded by many aunts, uncles and cousins who all helped to shape her life.

But first she was a daughter, little Eileen, the youngest child of Albert & Eileen, the apple of her father’s eye.

Our mom was one of those types of people, that when you met her and began to get to know her, you really wanted her to like you….

you wanted her approval…you wanted her to be your friend

She always put others first and never judged anyone – although she would clearly let us know when she did not approve.

 
We all love you very much Mom.

We miss you terribly already, but you will always be in our hearts forever.

May you be in peace and may we all hopefully be together again some how, some time, some place.

Thanks so much to everyone for their prayers and words of comfort. Big thanks to my Dad, sisters Frances and Eileen, and to my brother John, who helped take care of my mom and each other through this difficult time.

BlogPaws 2010 - Finally a Conference for Pet Bloggers

With today being the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday it has been someone quite online, so I take it many businesses were closed. My husband had the day off and we were enjoying the house to ourselves again after our two daughters just left yesterday to head back to college. It was great to have them home and I'll miss them, but when you work out of a home office it can cause for a bit of distraction.

So now it's just me and my staff again, my two dogs, Shadow a golden retriever and Izzy a cocker spaniel who are pictured on the right, and of course the two cats, Jack and Rose.

Which leads me to tell you about another new initiative that I'm working on this year called BlogPaws™ 2010. For the first time ever, pet bloggers, pet writers and companies serving the pet market will meet for networking and education at the industry’s inaugural pet bloggers conference taking place April 9 & 10 in Columbus, Ohio.

One of the founders of BlogPaws is Yvonne DiVita, who not only founded the Lip-sticking Blog which I write for, but also the pet blog, Scratchings and Sniffings which is sponsored by Purina. While Yvonne was at the annual BlogHer Conference in Chicago this past July she met up with Caroline Golon who writes the popular animal rescue fund-raising blog, Romeo the Cat. Both ladies recognized how successful the Blogher conferences have become for women, especially mommy bloggers, but there seemed to be a unmet need for the pet community.

“Clearly, there’s a pent up demand for an event like this,” Yvonne said. “The response from the blogger community and pet brands has been incredible. We’re looking forward to a terrific event.”

Boxers for Breast Cancer Promotion Supports the Cause

It's been a long day and I almost forgot to add my Lip-sticking blog post that I wrote earlier today here as well. It's not a post about any cutting-edge interactive promotion or example of a great social media use, but it's original and I have a personal interest in promoting unique "pink promotions. So here it is:

As the month of October is starting to wind down we've all probably seen our share of "Pink Promotions" with October being known as Breast Cancer Awareness month. Back towards the beginning of September I wrote this post about the cause in which I highlighted a great online promotion -- a t-shirt design contest developed by Hanes, the apparel sponsor of Passionately Pink for the Cure which benefits Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Refections from a Mom on this Graduation Day

Today being Wednesday was my guest blogging day over at Lip-Sticking.com. It was also the day that we attended the high school graduation ceremony of my youngest daughter. So since I've been feeling a bit melancholy today I wrote about her in my post and how time keeps going by way too fast. So please hop on over and read it which also talks about some recent online visitation stats that comScore released this week that pertain to this season of gifting, whether it was Mother's Day, Father's Day, Graduations or Weddings.

As I anticipated tonight I took many photos during and after the ceremony of my daughter and her friends. Many with her posing in groups with friends in their cap & gown and many of her with just one special friend. Some of these girls she went to school with since kindergarten and we've gotten to be close friends with some of the parents as well. Will we stay in touch? Perhaps with some, but it will not be the same. 

I thought the valedictorian did a great job tonight with her speech in which she talked quite a bit about relationships and questioning if they will stay in touch with their fellow classmates. I was thinking that they have it easier now since we didn't have Facebook and Twitter and blogs back in the day that I graduated. In fact many of us are just now reconnecting with our long lost high school classmates now after many years. Boy, how times have changed. 

My daughter attended an all female private school, so they were a small, close-knit class, even though there were specific groups that hung around with each other. The valedictorian made jokes about how they didn't need to worry about their appearance and could really be themselves because they were all just girls. She ended her talk using words from St. Gabriel, the Archangel "Do Not Be Afraid".  So, let us all remember that as we move forward in the pursuit of new opportunities and challenges that we face in our lives and in our business.

So congratulations again to my daughter, Alex, on her graduation day and here's to the next chapter in your life. We are very proud of the smart, young woman that you have become.

The Rochester Women's Network Celebrates Local Women & Names the 2009 "W" Award Recipient

I'm continuing my Wednesday gig as guest blogger over at Lipsticking.com. So today I wrote this post about an event I attended last Wednesday, June 3rd, which was all about women. It was The Rochester Women's Network (RWN) 4th Annual SPLASH! which was held at the Woodcliff Hotel and Spa. It was marvelous night with some 165 guests which consisted of enjoying some good food and drinks, visiting with friends, meeting some new friends and celebrating women. Since I'm the editor of the RWN's monthly enewsletter I really wanted to cover the event here on my blog as well. So here it is:

Part of the event was to not only acknowledge the RWN members who have worked so hard in pulling the event together, but also to honor the six "W" Award finalists and name the 2009 "W" Award Recipient. This esteemed award is given annually to a local woman who works tirelessly on behalf of women; supports and empowers women to learn, grow, and succeed by her example, inspires women through her courage, initiative and creative energy, and exemplifies a high standard of integrity and respect for others. Members of RWN first get to nominate women and then cast their ballot from the six finalists selected by the "W" award committee.

This year's six finalists were: Regine Calvar, Jackie Campbell, Catherine Cerulli, Ph.D., Sheila Gaddis, Esq., Angella Luyk, and Mary Catherine (Kitty) Van Bortel and the 2009 "W" Award Recipient went to Mary Catherine, 'Kitty' Van Bortel, President and General Manager of Van Bortel Subaru and Van Bortel Ford. She joins the illustrious group of past winners which include: Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, Carol Love, Cynthia Herriott and Germaine Knapp, among others.

New American Idol Chris Allen Singing Falling Slowly