Donna's Promo Talk

Happy Belated Mother's Day - Post Holiday Insights

Yesterday was Mother's Day and I did actually take the day off and I was away from my computer for most of it. I checked in on Facebook though in order to wish my friends and family members there a happy Mother's Day. I did not get to spend it with my mom unfortunately, but I did spend it with my two daughters, my mother-in-law and my husband and we had a very nice day.

So I still wanted to wish all my readers that are moms a Happy Mother's Day. I hope you enjoyed the day. As I mentioned, I had both my two daughters home with me which was the best present I could ask for since we just brought my older daughter home from college the day before. She finished her first year of college at NYU and is now part of the household again for a few months. I did receive some gifts such as three hanging flower baskets for the patio from my husband, who also cooked us another fabulous meal, and the girls gave me a digital picture frame which is really cool since I've been wanting one for awhile for my office.

Now according to a release from industry research firm IBISWorld, many moms missed out this year since gift giving was down an estimated 14.7%. The recession apparently has impacted Mother's Day as consumers scaled back purchases to $12.9 billion. They reported that those who did make purchases were staying away from department stores and specialty retailers and instead shopping in discount outlets. Their data also showed a strong trend of shoppers downgrading their gift purchases to smaller, lower-priced merchandise and services and choosing to make a home-cooked meal for mom, like at our home, rather than go out to a restaurant. This chart shows the  percentage by category for this years gift spending.

Sortprice.com, a fast-growing shopping search engine, reported higher traffic and user visits compared to this time last year, indicating that more consumers were utilizing the internet to find Mother's Day deals. They included a full list of gift ideas on their site here. Sortprice compiled data on traffic and user searches between April 27 and May 4 which the following data on the most popular categories and products is based on:

• Flowers - Mother's Day
• Women's Fragrances - Daisy by MarcJacobs
• Digital Picture Frames
• MP3 Players - iPod Touch
• KitchenAid Mixers
• Hugs for Mom Gift Set
• Vacumm Cleaners - Hoover Platinum
• Chocolates - Godiva Chocolates
• Women's Sleepwear - Bath Robe -
• Women's Handbags - Prada Handbags

Since flowers are the biggest selling gift item for Mother's Day I just wanted to mention this fun, interactive promotional website that Telefora created for the holiday. Their  Mother's Day Gift Guide includes different "Mom Types" such as the Super Mom, Classic Mom, Stylish Mom, Gourmet Mom, Modern Mom, Down-to-Earth-Mom and even Grandmother. Each type has a collection of different gifts associated with it.  

Teleflora also maintained a social media presence on Facebook and Twitter, and its website linked to this flower blog. They offered bloggers a special promotion that enabled them to give away a mother's day bouquet to their readers, providing they gave Teleflora credit in their blog. They also have this sweepstakes going on now that anyone who makes a comment on the blog will automatically be entered for a chance to win a bouquet of flowers.

Lasting, my blogging buddy, Yvonne DiVita, included this in her Mother's Day post on Lipsticking which I utilized to send to both my sister and my mother-in-law and wanted to share here as well. It's very cute and a clever use of viral marketing to help celebrate the holiday and you can still send it today. "Visit this link and have your Mom recognized on TV! Thanks go to Moms Rising for that one".

Happy Mother's Day!

Twilight Brings out Fans and Promo Partners

It's my usual style to write about the popular theatrical movie releases along with their promotional partners. So how could I not write a post about Twilight which took the box office by storm this weekend and reportedly pulled in an estimated $70.6 million. It was all from some major girl power and it goes to prove again that today's teenage girls are a huge market.

Well as you know, I have two teenage daughters and they've both read all the books in the Twilight saga. They were at Barnes and Noble at midnight when the latest book, Breaking Dawn, went on sale. They've been on the website, Twilight The Movie, since it first launched with the announcements of the cast. Now Alex, my 17 year old high school senior, was at the midnight showing Thursday night/Friday morning with a dozen of her best friends to see the movie. They luckily had Friday off from school, so they planned a sleep-over to go with the event.

My college daughter, Kelsey, wasn't able to go on Friday, but did make on Saturday with some of her girlfriends. A group of women that I now work with at the agency all had passed around the books to each other and they left early on Friday afternoon to go see the movie together. When I told them that my daughter had gone to the midnight showing they insisted that I call her and get a review.

Well, the review wasn't good. As with most great books, the movie does not live up to the hype. Alex found it disappointing because the movie left out so much and also that some of the characters were not at all like they were described in the book. Some of the girls that haven't read the books yet gave the movie a much better review.

Summit Entertainment is the studio behind the release of Twilight the movie, which is based on the novel by Stephanie Meyers. In case you're not aware, the story is all about forbidden love between a vampire, Edward Cullen, and a high school girl, Bella Swan. Summit just announced over the weekend that they will be moving ahead with the production of the second novel in the series, New Moon.

Nokia is one the major partners involved with the movie. They have exclusive Twilight theme wallpapers and screensavers for Nokia phones as well Twilight voice and ring tones which include Edward's voice. They also have Twilight trading cards that give info on the characters and the movie trailers can be watched on the phones. Plus they have the Twilight widget to share which I've embedded below.

Nokia is also utilizing the entertainment marketing partnership to promote Nokia Maps. Fans can use the product to be their guide to Forks, the main town the story takes place in, plus other places of interest.

Borders is another big partner of the Twilight movie release. Their website has a special Twilight page that has interviews with Stephanie Meyers, cast members, fans, as well as the trailers and other clips. They feature a Twilight online shop which features exclusive Twilight merchandise such as a calendar, t-shirts, jewelry and special designed Borders gift cards. Makes for great Christmas gifts for any teenage girl on your list!

Hot Topix has grabbed the retailer partner spot. They are featuring HT Twilight bloggers on their homepage all wearing their favorite HT tees along with a link to their blog, The Bite, where you can read about them and their posts. They had run a sweepstakes and sent the winner, Melissa from Towson, MD, to the movie premiere. And of course, they have an online store with Twilight licensed apparel and merchandise.

Twilight exceeded what Madagascar Escape 2 Africa did a couple of weeks ago at the box office at $63.5 million over their opening weekend. I'm sure it will continue at the top for awhile. Catherine Hardwicke also broke the record for the biggest opening ever for a female director, far surpassing the previous standard of $41.1 million set by Mimi Leder 's " Deep Impact " in 1998. So we have a female author, female director and many, many female fans with this hit. I'm surprised we didn't see more female type partner brands. I'm sure they'll be working to get involved with the next release.

Dove Introduces New Reality Diaries Online Series

I chose Dove and their Campaign for Real Beauty as my first two posts when I started this blog last year so I thought I'd to start off 2008 with the same brand. These first posts focused on a couple of promotions Dove was running at the time in which they were seeking real women to star in some of their product ads. They were both consumer-generated contests; one was the Dove Energy Glow Contest and the other was for Dove Cream Oil Body

After writing about these two promotions I became very interested in learning more about Dove and their Campaign for Real Beauty and what Unilever, the parent company, was trying to achieve. I learned that Dove first launched the Campaign for Real Beauty in 2004, a global effort to widen today's stereotypical view of beauty. But it wasn't till January of 2006 that a heart-tugging 45-second ad, created by Ogilvy & Mather, which aired during Super Bowl XL really started to get the campaign some attention.

Soon after I got my blog started I was then invited to be a guest blogger at PMA's Annual Conference which was held in March in Chicago. There I got to hear Maureen Shirreff, Creative Director for O&M, give a great overview of the history of Dove's advertising and marketing campaigns as well as the strategy behind the Campaign for Real Beauty. You can read more about Maureen in this post that I ended up writing later in the year.   

Then as the year moved on I started writing a few posts about the growing popularity of viral video marketing and embedded some of the popular videos right into this blog. One post included Dove's Evolution, a one-minute video that shows how unrealistic body images are portrayed in media and entertainment. Evolution quickly became the most viewed video on the Internet.

Then on October 1st Dove introduced Onslaught, their second viral video which I also wrote a post about and embedded this video as well. Onslaught, also one-minute long, details all the beauty and media imaging young girls are inundated with within a 24-hour period.

So as a blogger, a marketer, and a mother of two teenage daughters, I was really connecting with Dove and this campaign. I found myself wanting to make my readers aware of what Dove was doing in order to raise awareness not only from a marketing perspective but also to help spread the positive messaging that the campaign has been communicating...to try and alter society's perceptions of real beauty.

As part of the Campaign for Real Beauty Dove I also learned about the Dove Self-Esteem Fund (DSEF) which was established to raise the self-esteem of girls and young women in order to make them feel more beautiful and confident every day. The Fund consists of a network of local country initiatives linked in strategy and direction by a global steering group. In each country, the DSEF supports a specific charitable organization that can help spread the message and to educate and inspire girls.

DSEF is committed to reaching 5 million young women by the end of 2010 and is doing so by inviting people to play a role in supporting and promoting this wider definition of beauty. To date their website says they've reach 1,489,056 lives. Too many girls develop low self-esteem from hang-ups about looks. Consequently, many fail to reach their full potential later in life. To make change possible, the DSEF focuses its efforts to foster positive image-related self-esteem in two areas of activity:

• The Fund develops and distributes resources that enable and empower women and girls to embrace a broad definition of beauty
• The Fund provides needed resources to organizations that foster a broader definition of beauty

Dove recognizes that alone they can't make changes in the way beauty is defined so their mission is to provide tools and support to individuals, groups and organizations and to personally invite people to get involved. Since I've written about Dove's campaign several times on this blog, I was one of those who was invited by Andrea from Rocket XL, a small marketing agency in Los Angeles that has also been working with Dove. Through their outreach campaigns Rocket XL encourages bloggers like me to spread the word about specific campaigns and to express our opinions with our readers. Depending on the campaign they also give bloggers the opportunity to view shows before they air or to sample products for free.

For Dove's Real Beauty Campaign, Rocket XL has been providing background on the campaign as well as introducing us to the new Dove Reality Diaries online series which I would like to now introduce you to. The Reality Diaries Program is a 6-week program that revolves around the lives of four real girls who share their personal self-esteem stories online. They record their journey online through the use of blogs and videos, allowing girls across the country to go behind-the-scenes on their real lives and understand the factors that impact their self-esteem. 

Each girl deals with a different self-esteem issue and the Diaries will reflect how the media influences their self-esteem. Jessica Weiner is the self-esteem expert continuously providing guidance and advice online to all four girls through video, live chats, talk workshops and recommended Dove Self-Esteem tools.

So, check all this out and feel free to get involved and pass the word. I'm going to be following the Reality Diaries and will be reporting back on this campaign throughout 2008. I'd love to get your opinions on what you think about this campaign both from a marketing perspective and a personal one as well. So please join in the conversation.

Go Wild For Knitting with Wild Wooly

Last night I attended the local Addy Awards put on by the RAF (Rochester Advertising Federation), one of the many clubs affiliated with the AAF. I hadn't been to the annual awards ceremony in a couple of years and thought it was time to reconnect with some of the people in the local ad community, especially since I was previously on the RAF board for 8 years as well as a past president. I also just wanted to have some fun.

Well I have to share with you the entry that won the Best of Show... Go Wild For Knitting which includes the funny blogged adventures of the Wild Woolies. Who would of thought that a ball of yarn would win over big brands such as Kodak, Bausch & Lomb, Wegmans, Constellation Brands and Xerox!

Well, it did and it just goes to show how social media combined with great creative can build a brand and connect with an audience very quickly. The campaign allows you to follow the Wild Woolies as they make their way across the country and invites you to locate them, pass them on, add your comments and share what you've done with your ball of yarn. All from a little shop in Rochester, NY called Wild Wools owned by Lucinda Snyder.

One of this year's Addy judges, Jane Murray, Associate Creative Director at Ogilvy & Mather in Toronto said about the entry "The fact the campaign was so quickly embraced, adopted, loved and propagated by the people it was intended for, told us that Wild Wooly was our hands-down winner".

I recently read an article on the Click Z Network By Rebecca Lieb "Why is a Website Like a Women", which she summarizes the book "Marketing in the In-Between: A Post-Modern Turn on Madison Avenue" by Len Ellis, who was Wunderman's EVP of Global Strategy. Lieb goes on to quote "Why is a Web site like a woman? Both want you to talk to them. This is a strong listening metaphor and a powerful argument as to why businesses would do better to invest in inbound, rather than outbound, marketing...such as why big agencies are so slowly and inadequately rising to meet interactive challenges."

I salute the women creative team that created the Wild Woolies campaign and who definitely rose above the interactive creative challenge, while both not being from any of the "big agencies". Congratulations to Anne Esse, designer and Kate Sonnick, copywriter. In today's Rochester Democrat & Chronicle Anne modestly gives Kate credit for the concept. While I personally haven't have the opportunity yet to work with Anne, I have worked with Kate and can say she is one of the most creative people in the business. 

I'm really anxious to find out what Phase 2 of the Wild Woolies will be. Can you ladies give us a hint?