DMNews April 20, 2009

By Chantal Todé: While some sports marketers have gotten to first base with Twit-ter, no one has been able to drive it home yet. Still, Twitter is a hit in the sports community thanks to the microblogging site’s ability to engage and inform in real-time.

While it has yet to be used widely to drive sales conver-sions, Twitter’s potential to pro-vide brand and product insights and its ability to add interactivity to other media channels, such as television, print and e-mail, makes it increasingly difficult for direct marketers to ignore it when launching a campaign.

Because Twitter is an open appli-cation programming interface (API), marketers can scrape Twit-ter feeds for data, said Jason Inasi, president at Miami-based The Fac-tory Interactive. “Twitter as a data mining, predictive trending tool is amazing because you can do stuff in real-time,” Inasi said.

The social media site has amassed a large crowd — a total of 9.3 mil-lion members as of March — but for

By Bryan Yurcan: The US Postal Service is explor-ing a proposed “summer sale” for Standard Mail, and members of the mailing community are cau-tiously optimistic about the idea.

The USPS recently announced preliminary plans for the sale, which would have to be approved by the Postal Regulatory Com-mission, for Standard Mail permit holders meeting a minimum vol-ume who would be able to qualify for the proposed 30% discount. The minimum volume number

sports marketing, the real appeal is the synergy in purpose.

“Sports is fun. Twitter is fun,” said David Smith, president at Steiner Sports Direct. The ques-tion is how to leverage Twitter to make it fun for fans, he added.

Last week, the NBA’s Phoenix Suns franchise ran a TV broadcast ad during the last game of the regu-lar season soliciting for Facebook and Twitter followers, promising 500 prize giveaways to new users. The trend began last year when

several well-known athletes led the way into this emerging media, and quickly discovered loyal fans were thrilled to connect with the some-times hard-to-reach celebrities.

Shaquille O’Neal, the Suns center, has nearly 670,000 fol-lowers; cyclist Lance Armstrong has nearly 615,000. They are among the top 10 most-followed athlete feeds, according to account-ranking site WeFollow.com.

Twitter “is a new way to engage our fans,” said Jeramie McPeek, VP of interactive services for the Suns. “In the past, our philosophy was that our Web site was the end all and be all for our fans. With the explosion of social media, we have a lot of fans online, but not all on our site.”

Many marketers are simply listening to the conversation on Twitter so they can “come up with more creative ways to have cool conversations with fans before, during or after a game,” said Brad Alesi, dean of digital at The Mar-keting Arm, based in Dallas.

APRIL 20, 2009 www.dmnews.com

Potential FTCchanges mayaffect WOM

dmne

ws.co

m Want your e-mail recipients to share? Check out our Web Weekly feature — four industry experts share their best tips on getting your e-mails to go viral

By Dianna Dilworth : The Federal Trade Commission is proposing to revise the “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorse-ments and Testimonials in Adver-tising,” which could make things difficult for word-of-mouth and blog marketing.

Under the proposal, bloggers and brands would be held account-able for any false statements they make about a product in the blogo-sphere or on a social network.

“Those who are compensated to promote or review a product using these techniques are not exempt from the laws governing truthful advertising,” said Richard Cleland, assistant director, divi-sion of advertising practices at the FTC, in a statement.

The guides have not been revised in 30 years, so now is the time to do so, said an FTC spokesperson.

FTC attorneys are reviewing sub-mitted public comments to draw up a recommendation on whether the guides should be adopted or if further revision is needed.

“We think it is a smart approach,” said Sharon Swendner, president of .Com Marketing, an interac-tive agency that gets paid to blog. “We would all like to believe that the markets are self regulating, but unfortunately, as we’ve seen from banking, it doesn’t always work that way.” ●

USPS mulls ‘summer sale’ on Standard Mail

‘Sports’ continued on page 26

has not yet been finalized. Non-profit groups also would qualify.

The sale period would be from June 15 to September 15, and the USPS said the additional cost to the agency would be minimal since no additional processing would be needed.

The USPS estimated about 5% of the current 160,000 permit holders would qualify.

“We are always looking for ways to use our pricing flexibil-ity to improve business, and the

‘USPS’ continued on page 26

27

MORE INSIDE

PLUS Volvo takes over YouTube P4 | The NHL introduces a WAP site P7 | Creative potential rises for ad networks P15

Andrew Robertsonis bullish on Proximity BBDO’s growth potential

The NBA’s Phoenix Suns, led by Shaquille O’Neal, are breaking Twitter ground in sports

13

Teams, fans rally around Twitter Creative potential rises for ad networks P15 Creative potential rises for ad networks P15

Brand New,

p3Ben &

Jerry’s

18

Sheetz promoteda new coffee offering

The NBA’s Phoenix Suns, led by Shaquille O’Neal, are breaking Twitter ground in sports

Sheetz promoted

The FinancialTimes joinedwith Philips for health content

8

1_news_042009.indd 1 4/17/09 5:04:41 PM

By Dianna Dilworth: Paint manufacturers Sherwin-Williams and Benjamin Moore are looking to reach younger consumers to spread the word about home decorating, and both brands are doing so on the Web.

Benjamin Moore has debuted a new line of paints, called Ben, and worked with its agency of record, AKQA, to create a new interactive Web site that introduces the line and helps consumers choose colors.

Created by AKQA’s New York offi ce, visi-tors to the site, located on the Web at PaintWithBen.com, are asked to “Express your vision of color.” Users can select colors by mood and play color games.

“The strategy focused on the color benefi ts of the brand,” said Mehera O’Brien, creative director at AKQA, in an e-mail to DMNews. “Wespecifically wanted to showcase some of the fun, vibrant colors in the palette, which we thought would appeal to the target.”

The new Ben line was developed to target a 20- to 30-year-olds, who may be fi rst-time homeowners. This is an expansion from Benjamin Moore’s flagship audience: a slightly older, more affl uent homeowner who often works with interior decorators, and is part of a household in which the color decisions are primarily made by women. The younger couples targeted by the Ben line tend to make joint decisions and often do the painting without a decorator.

“They are digitally savvy,” said O’Brien about this target demographic. “Theydo research online to learn how to tackle home décor projects and to get inspired. And, they are engaged by social media and have a willingness to share their lives with others like them.”

The idea for the interactive site came out of AKQA’s brainstorming sessions on topics such

as color names, which led to the idea of a word association game, in which users see a word and add their own color interpretation.

“To explain their selection, we wanted users to be able to provide a personal story, which we limited to 140 characters as a nod to Twitter,” added O’Brien.

While it’s not the fi rst digitally interactive effort from Benjamin Moore, “it is the fi rst of its kind for us where it allows users to

some time, so we came up with some digital sites to help show it how [digital marketing] would work,” said Howard Zoss, president of Zig Marketing.

For the Dutch Boy brand, Zig created a Web page called MyHouseStinks.com. The site is the destination for a viral campaign and sweepstakes. Consumers are called to write in about the dirtiest room in their house for the chance to win free paint to refresh it. Entrants can post photos of their site and send it to friends to vote on it. Voters are entered into a monthly contest to win free paint and opt in for marketing messages.

“Dutch Boy’s new Arm and Hammer paint literally takes odor out of the air, so it is great for kitchens and bathrooms,” said Mike Smith, creative partner at Zig.

“Sherwin-Williams wanted to take advan-tage of this offering and reach as many people as it could to tell them about it,” he continued.

To promote the contest, Zig put the cre-ative up on Facebook, Twitter and on blogs. “The whole impetus is to use the whole viral ability of the Internet to drive people back to the site,” added Smith.

Zig also created an online sweepstakes to promote the Krylon brand of spray paint with wood staining properties.

The tag line for the campaign was “Save our Saturdays,” and it called users to spend Saturday doing something fun, rather than working on staining.

Consumers can opt in for monthly e-mails with branded sports trivia questions and sign up to win prizes including World Series tickets and big-screen TVs.

Finally, for the Pratt & Lambert line of high-end paint, Sherman-Williams created a green design social network on which archi-tects could fi nd stories from architecture magazines and share their own work.

The site, at MyGreenPalette.com, aims to be an architectural information center, rather than a product site. ●

Paint makers go online for youth

NEWSBRIEFS

Citysearch will integrate Superpages.com’s performance-based advertisers into Citysearch’s publisher network of about 50 Web sites and blogs. The goal of the partnership with Superpages parent Idearc Media is to help better monetize local search traffi c across the Web.

Microsoft has consolidated all of its direct marketing business and, as of July 1, Wun-derman will be its global AOR for relation-ship marketing. Previously the marketing initiatives had been split between Wun-derman and MRM, part of Interpublic’s McCann Worldgroup.

BBDO Toronto has been named AOR for Mercedes-Benz Canada’s Smart brand, fol-lowing a three-agency RFP. The agency has been the AOR for above-the-line work for Mercedes-Benz Canada since early 2008, but has never worked on the Smart cars.

Hewlett-Packard has tapped Publicis Groupe to handle its above-the-line com-munications for its Geneva-based personal systems group (PSG) in Europe, the Middle

East and Africa. PSG is HP’s personal com-puter and laptop division. The account was previously handled by McCann Erickson.

Paid search marketing spend was up 11% in March, after declines in January and February, according to the latest quarterly SearchIgnite report on the state of search. Additionally, while consumers are still mak-ing online purchases, the average conver-sion time has grown signifi cantly.

Majestic Realty Co., a commercial real estate developer, is expanding its e-mail pro-gram with a new partnership with Microsoft, ExactTarget and Neudesic. The company is using Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM 4.0 prod-uct to create and track campaigns, Exact Target’s e-mail platform and Neudesic’s implementation consulting services.

1Touch Marketing , a multichannel marketing fi rm, has announced plans to change its name to Options Media. The rebrand and eventual name change will take place over the next three months, the company said in a release.

UPS says that the negotiations for a service contract between it and DHL have ended with no deal. UPS would have provided air transport services for DHL’s North Ameri can business. Two independent airlines currently provide those services. The negotiations continued for much of the past year, even after DHL announced that it will discontinue its US-only air and ground services, resulting in the loss of 9,500 jobs.

DMNews has switched to a biweekly pub-lishing schedule as of this issue. Continue to visit DMNews.com daily for breaking news, features, blogs, podcasts and other online exclusives in the direct, digital and database marketing industry.

Corrections: In “SMBs, marketers differ over direct mail, digital” (April 6, DMNews), Bredin Business Information’s name was misspelled. In that same issue, in “Match.com app gives iPhone ussers a shot atlove on the go,” the new iPhone apps are being used to promote Match.com’s online dating services and Snap Interactive’s new Face-book dating app. We regret these errors.

Company sprouts from BA Airmiles

COUPONS HEARST OFFERS PRINTABLE COUPONS FROM ITS WEB SITES P4 DIGITAL AD NETWORKS GETTING MORE CREATIVE P15 LEAD GENERATION WARMING UP COLD LEADS ON A LOW BUDGET P23

By Lauren Bell : Airmiles, the rewards program owned by British Airways, is launching a new compa-ny devoted to managing white label loyalty programs for other businesses.

The Mileage Company, which went pub-lic last week, will run the existing Airmiles program and British Airways’ frequent fl ier program, BA Miles. It has yet to announce any other clients, but expects to begin devel-oping or managing other frequent fl ier and rewards programs within the year. The Mileage Company will provide clients with research and loyalty analytics, CRM and accounting expertise.

“We’ve noticed… since the recession has really started to bite [that] loyalty points are more valuable to customers, and loyalty schemes are more valuable to businesses who are looking for ways of keeping cus-tomers loyal,” said Andrew Swaffi eld, man-aging director, The Mileage Company. “So there’s an opportunity for us to provide an expert service to other companies in run-ning a loyalty scheme for them.”

The Mileage Company will use some major lessons gleaned from its time in the business to drive strategy for its new clients, such as sticking to the tenets that successful reward schemes must be simple and consistent, with rewards that are attainable. It also will use its particular expertise in the travel arena to woo new clients from that industry.

Outside of the US, Swaffi eld said, fre-quent fl ier programs are largely undevel-oped, and so airlines could benefi t from outsourcing those programs to The Mileage Company. Because it is owned by British Airways, the company will have access to the airline’s stock of unsold seats as part of its rewards offering.

The program has signed 45,000 new cus-tomers since January — a higher-than-usual growth rate. BA Miles and Airmiles together claim 4 million active members. ●

Benjamin Moore’s new interactive site lets usersexplore their love of color along with the brand

Short takes on the industry

2 | DMNEWS | April 20, 2009 | www.dmnews.com

enter their own thoughts and ideas around color,” said Maureen Germinder, the paint manufacturer’s senior manager for digital media services.

Meanwhile, Sherwin-Williams worked with Cleveland-based interactive agency Zig Marketing, its digital agency of record, to create new digital sites for its Dutch Boy, Pratt & Lambert, and Krylon brands.

“Sherman-Williams has been wondering if it should get into the digital space for

Google last week reported a 6% increase in fi rst quarter earnings over the same period last year and a 3% decrease compared to the fourth quarter of 2008.

6%fi rst quarter

earnings

2_news_0420.indd 1 4/17/09 4:07:34 PM

Women’s Cycling, anew pub, to launch

Philosophy, Snapfish launch Mother’s Day benefit promo

MOBILE AS PLAYOFFS BEGIN, NHL INTRODUCES NEW WAP SITE P7 RECRUITMENT TWITTER CAN BE A POWERFUL TOOL TO HELP FIND TALENT P25

By Chantal Todé: In its fi rst integrated marketing campaign for Mother’s Day, personal care brand Phi-losophy has joined online photo Web site Snapfish for a promotion to benefit the Women’s Cancer Research Fund. Other elements include e-mail, Facebook, a new product, a song from Amy Grant and two contests.

“Our goal is to surround our customer with all kinds of ways to connect with this cause,” said Leslie Sna-vely, VP of marketing at Philosophy.

Whi le the brand has typically had a Mother’s Day offering, the company decided to take things up a notch this year when fi ndings from its Web site showed a lot of mother and daughter Philosophy users.

“The inspiration was around building a connec-tion between mother and daughter, and what better time than Mother’s Day is there to do that?” Snavely said.

A signifi cant component of the campaign is the “You color my day” photo books that consumers can create on Snapfi sh by uploading personal photos and artwork.

The inspiration for the campaign came from the company’s founder who had cre-ated her own hardcover book from her daughter’s artwork. “While children’s art-

work is the inspiration for this, we fully anticipate people will add photos,” said Karolyn Stayer, director of marketing and communications at Philosophy.

For each book created, Snapfish will donate 50% of net proceeds to Philoso-

phy’s “She colors my day” non-profi t initiative, which directly benefi ts the Women’s Cancer Research Fund.

The books are being pro-moted on the Philosophy and Snapfish home pages, as well as on Philosophy’s Facebook page. Space in both brands’ regular e-mail blasts also will be given over to the promotion.

To encourage visitors to create their own books, Snapfi sh and Philosophy are holding a contest through May 1 in which 40 winners will receive Philosophy’s best sellers collection and a $50 Snapfish gift certificate. A separate contest on Philoso-phy’s Facebook page encour-

ages fans to enter photos of the women who “color their day.”

The SheColorsMyDay.com Web site, where visitors can learn more about how Philosophy is supporting the cancer fund, buy campaign-branded bubble bath and download the song “She Colors My Day” by Amy Grant, also is being promoted.Philosophy will donate 100% of net pro-ceeds to benefi t cancer research. ●

What ingredients would be in your

ice cream? Ben & Jerry’s are seeking

their next fair trade fl avor in the “Do the world a fl avor” contest. Ice cream concoctors can enter the contest atwww.benjerry.com. Using the “fl avor generator,” visitors mix a variety of ice creams and other ingredients, upload a photo for the pint and name their confection. The contest aims to boost awareness of growers of fair trade ingredi-ents, as well as promote Ben& Jerry’s latest fair trade fl avor, Chocolate Macadamia.Visitors also can opt in for e-mails on product information and special offers, and share their entry on social networks.

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By Lauren Bell: Women’s Cycling, a new magazine focused on women’s bicycle racing and leisure rid-ing, will launch as a subscription-only title at the end of June.

Three issues, printing 15,000 to 20,000 copies each, are planned for 2009. The idea is to publish 12 issues a year by the 2012 Summer Olympics. Women interested in cycling will be targeted for subscriptions, largely through social media, event appear-ances and word of mouth.

“There are tons of women out there competing and riding, and they don’t get the exposure they need to go further with their sport,” said Carson Blume, co-owner and photo editor of Women’s Cycling, of his inspiration for the magazine. “In the racing paradigm, riders need sponsors, and spon-sors want exposure. Women’s cycling doesn’t get the exposure that men’s does, so this will help raise the bar in women’s cycling.”

Facebook and MySpace pages for Women’s Cycling are already up, as are staff Twitter accounts. A “linking contest” encouraging readers to link back to the magazine as often as possible is in the works to beef up Women’s Cycling’s search engine presence.

The magazine’s homepage currently has a splash page and blog up, and is accepting subscriptions through PayPal. Subscriptions are currently limited to US readers. The Web site will relaunch with videos, photos, written content and event calendars when the magazine launches in June.

Women’s Cycling will go to newsstands once it establishes a solid subscriber base, which Blume predicts will take about a year.

Coverage will focus on competitions, but bike events such as New York’s 5 Boro Bike Tour and other lifestyle content also will be covered. By 2012, the goal is to offer worldwide bicycling coverage. ●

ICrossing deal adds Russian capabilitiesBy Mary Elizabeth Hurn: Search agency iCrossing has partnered with Russian search agency Ingate to man-age global brands’ search efforts in Russian markets. ICrossing now will have access to search capabilities across Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which includes 12 countries and more than 300 million people.

“With the support of Ingate, we can help non-Russian brands access Russian mar-kets as well as help Russian brands market globally,” said Don Scales, president and CEO of iCrossing. The venture builds on iCrossing’s overall global strategy to enter all global growth markets, Scales said.

With this partnership, Ingate’s clients will have the ability to tap into iCrossing’s digital services, including Web develop-ment, social media, display, as well as paid and natural search.

Ingate was founded in 2000 and has more than 200 brand clients, including Procter & Gamble, PricewaterhouseCoopers, L’Oreal, Peugeot and Honda. With headquarters in Tula and an offi ce in Moscow, Ingate has more than 130 employees, and the company also runs a search industry news portal in Russia: www.seonews.ru. ●

BrandNewA flurry of social justice

would be in your

The Snapfi sh partnership dovetails with an existing Philosophynonprofi t initiative

3_brandnew_042009.indd 1 4/17/09 12:23:09 PM


the company’s sales team, which plans to add coupon opportunities to packages for core advertisers.

The company is observing user behavior for use in future optimization of the offers, but right now there are no plans to target specifi c coupons to specifi c users. ●

CIRCULATION FINANCIAL TIMES, PHILIPS PARTNER ON HEALTH CONTENT P8 CREATIVE COULD UGC ACTUALLY SUPPLANT AGENCY WORK? P12 SOCIAL MEDIA GETTING STARTED IN SOCIAL MEDIA P23

Hearst adds coupons to its Web properties

DULYNOTED

By Chantal Todé: Electronic coupon Web site RetailMeNot.com, which receives upwards of 9 million visitors each month, has entered into several strategic partnerships enabling it to offer consumers printable coupons that can be redeemed at local stores and restaurants.

The partnerships are with MoneyMailer.com, which helps marketers integrate shared mail, one-to-one marketing, mobile advertising and online coupon distribution; redplum.com, which is owned by Valassis and offers coupons from thousands of retailers, manufacturers and vendors; and Valpak.com, one of the largest local savings sites on the Web.

The new feature, RetailMeNot.com print-able, will provide consumers with more than 90,000 printable coupons. RetailMeNot.com will continue to add partners to expand the volume of coupons offered on the site. ●

By Mary Elizabeth Hurn: Coinciding with the New York Auto Show last week, Volvo, Euro RSCG New York and Media Contacts launched an interactive homepage takeover of YouTube.com.

The initiative also marked the debut of an expandable banner ad, which promoted Volvo’s 2010 XC60 by highlighting its “City Safety” feature, which stops the vehicle at low speeds to avoid collisions.

The banner incorporated a Twitter feed from @VolvoXC60, in which Volvo spokes-people Tweeted live from a test drive outside the show. Twitter was a great way to reach the 25-45 year old target demographic made up of tech-savvy infl uencers, said John Stew-ard, creative director for Euro RSCG New York, which had digital responsibilities for the campaign.

Discovery goes digital with Microsoft-powered Deadliest Catch campaign

RetailMeNot ups printable offering

Volvo promotes2010 XC60 withYouTube takeover

By Lauren Bell: Hearst Magazines Digital Media has part-nered with Coupons.com to add online, printable coupons to its Web sites − a first for the company.

The rollout follows a month-long test run of the couponing program on Hearst's budget-focused Quick and Simple Web site, which saw users printing 56,000 coupons worth $100,000 in just a month. A coupon gallery now appears on food site Delish.com — which boasts more than 5.5 million unique monthly visitors — and will expand to other Hearst sites, like Good Housekeeping’s and Redbook’s, in the coming months.

“We’ve been watching consumers click more on content that involves saving money across all our sites,” said Chris Johnson, VP of content and business development, Hearst. “We were running test editorial to see if people were interested in the theme of saving money [on] food, and they were.”

Johnson pointed to recent ComScore numbers as proof of coupons’ growing

popularity with American consumers: In December 2008, searches that included words like “coupon” hit 19.9 million — a 19.9% increase over December 2007 — according to ComScore. The word “dis-count” rose 26% to 7.9 million.

“Adding coupons was a response to peo-ple’s wallets being a little thinner,” he added. “They need their dollars to go farther and are looking for ways to do that while enjoy-ing the same recipes [as] before.”

In addition to the printable coupon gal-lery, Hearst has placed a coupons option in the sites’ navigation bars and is adding hyperlinked coupons for specifi c ingredients into the recipes on Delish.com. For example, if a recipe calls for two teaspoons of salt, a link there might lead to a “20 cents off Mor-ton’s salt” coupon. Hearst also is exploring ways to provide coupons through a weekly “Super Saver” e-mail program to readers.

Adding coupons to its sites will not only help Hearst better engage site users. The move also presents more opportunities for

By Dianna Dilworth: Microsoft Advertising has launched a mul-tichannel advertising blitz for the Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch series.

Discovery is spending the show’s entire online advertising budget on the campaign, which promotes the series’ fi fth season. The campaign, which will run across MSN, MSN Mobile, Windows Live Hotmail, Microsoft Live Search and Xbox LIVE, includes dis-play, search, video, e-mail, mobile, homepage takeovers and in-game advertising.

“Whether in the morning on the MSN homepage, watching news at lunchtime on MSNBC Video, on the MSN mobile homep-age anytime, or playing Xbox at night, we wanted consumers to see the… promotion and… engage with the content,” said Jon Wren, account executive, Microsoft Advertis-ing Sales – East, in an e-mail to DMNews.

The main push began across the Microsoft Media Network with the April 14 season pre-miere. For that day, Discovery bought more than 90% of the advertising inventory on MSNBC, Fox Sports, MSN, MSN Mobile and Xbox LIVE and also ran a home page takeover across MSN and MSN Mobile, a fi rst of its kind for a media buy. A mobile WAP site was developed by Microsoft sub-sidiary ScreenTonic.

Windows Live Hotmail will feature demo-graphically targeted ads to coincide with the Fox Sports and MSNBC ad placements. In addition, Discovery is using Microsoft Adver-tising’s AdCenter platform and purchasing search keywords. The campaign also will involve a variety of Microsoft-developed video and interactive media, and in-game advertising assets supported by Microsoft subsidiary Massive Inc. ●

Delish.com is the fi rst Hearst site to add coupons

Volvo sees a future in social media for its marketing

US OKs more telecom links with Cuba. The US will see greater telecommunica-tions links with Cuba, under new policies announced by the Obama administration. The new policy allows US telecommuni-cations network providers to enter into agreements to establish fi ber-optic cable and satellite telecommunications facili-ties between the two countries, and also enables telecom service providers to enter into roaming service agreements with their Cuban counterparts. The new policy also allows US-based satellite radio and satellite television service providers to provide their services to Cuban customers.

FedEx Offi ce survey: Businesses wary but optimistic. More than half — 54% — of small business owners polled remained very concerned about the current econ-omy’s impact on their business, up from 40 % in 2008, according to FedEx Offi ce’s second annual Signs of the Times national

small business survey. Yet, 75% say they are confi dent they will be open for business at this time next year, and almost half — 46% — said they would be willing to open another small business today if they had the proper fi nancial backing. The online survey, conducted in February, polled 500 small business owners.

DirecTV, Comcast slapped with Do Not Call fi nes. Satellite television pro-vider DirecTV and Comcast Corp. will pay $3.21 million to settle separate Federal Trade Commission charges of do-not-call violations by calling consumers who had told the companies not to call them again. Under the proposed settlements, DirecTV, which had paid a previous fi ne for similar charges in 2005, will pay $2.31 million. Comcast has agreed to pay $900,000 to settle the claims. Both companies are pro-hibited from future violations of the Tele-marketing Sales and Do Not Call rules.

The US Postal Service has adopted new mailing standards for letter-size booklets mailed at automation, presorted machinable or carrier route letter prices. The new standards take effect on September 8.

Legislation and corporate news

ple’s wallets being a little thinner,” he added. “They need their dollars to go farther and are looking for ways to do that while enjoy-

In addition to the printable coupon gal-lery, Hearst has placed a coupons option in the sites’ navigation bars and is adding hyperlinked coupons for specifi c ingredients into the recipes on Delish.com. For example,

The US Postal Service has

“We want consumers to join in the con-versation,” he said. “As much as consumers want to talk to the brand, they also want to talk to each other.”

Google-owned YouTube was right for this campaign because of its reach, said Linda Gangeri, manager of national advertising for Volvo Cars of North America. In Novem-ber, the site surpassed Yahoo in number of searches, according to ComScore.

“We want to have a casual conversation with consumers and speak with them as opposed to speaking at them with market-ing jargon,” Gangeri said.

This was also the fi rst time YouTube ran an ad that expanded in this fashion — from 960 by 250 pixels to 960 by 500 pixels.

“By experimenting boldly with the fi rst-ever expandable homepage ad on YouTube, Volvo and its agencies… enabled YouTube usersto engage and interact with the Volvo XC60 in a completely original way,” said Bonita Stewart, industry director for Google Auto.

In addition to the Twitter feed, the one-day-only banner, developed just for YouTube using DoubleClick’s rich media, included videos and photos of the car, an interactive game and links to Volvo’s XC60 YouTube channel.

This initiative is just the beginning for Volvo in terms of social media, Gangeri said. Volvo also is reaching out to consum-ers using Facebook, Flickr, paid search and a blog at www.thecarthatstopsitself.com.

“We’re just getting started,” she said, “but we know it’s right.”

The campaign, which runs through June, also includes print, TV and cinema buys. It boosted YouTube Volvo channel views by more than 50,000, according to Volvo. ●

4_DulyNoted_0402009.indd 1 4/17/09 12:21:04 PM

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By Dianna Dilworth: Just in time for the 2009 Stanley Cup Play-offs, which began last week, the National Hockey League (NHL) has debuted a new mobile WAP site to reach fans on the go.

The new site − an ad-backed publish-ing site supported by mobile ad network Quattro Wireless − is a mobile version of NHL.com that has been reformatted for the mobile phone with some special mobile-exclusive features.

“The foundation of our NHL mobile strat-egy is to develop the best creative means to engage the hockey fan,” said Larry Gelfand, SVP of media sales at the NHL, in an e-mail to DMNews. “Because the mobile Web is accelerating at such an exciting pace, we committed the resources to build a feature-rich WAP site that automatically confi gures to the various types of mobile phones.”

Like the online site, the WAP site features news, and information such as statistics, photos, standings, schedules, scores and NHL headlines. The mobile site incorpo-rates a dynamic feed process, which keeps the stats updated in real time.

It also features a special personalization tool, MyNHL, through which fans can set their favorite team or player’s stats to show up on the homepage.

The NHL will work with Quattro’s Ad Sales and Ad Network to help build theirmobile business via the mobile Web and in concert with the N H L’s textmessaging partner, Telescope.

“It is designed to fi rst and foremost help fans interact with all of the great content on NHL.com,” said Lars Albright, SVP of business development at Quattro Wireless. “Secondly, it is also an ad supported site, so it can help NHL.com generate revenue.”

The site will be live in the US, as well as globally. Bell Canada subscribers, in an exclusive arrangement with the NHL, also have exclusive access to audio and video components of the site.

THIRDSCREEN

Client NHL

Ad network Quattro Wireless

Campaign WAP site

NHL skates into mobile space with WAP version of its site

Confessions of a

PrecisionTracker

“The NHL is expanding its fan base across the world, and we’ve mapped devices internationally to adapt content to conform to NHL.com, to the mobile Web for this global audience,” Albright said.

To promote the new mobile site, NHL.com is running promotions on its Web homepage, which links to a full-page micro-site. They also are using integrated online

marketing and SMS messages to cross promote. In addition, mobile banner ads are running across the Quattro Wireless network promoting the new NHL site. All of the marketing drives people back to the mobile WAP site.

The NHL joins Quattro’s sports publisher roster of sports organizations already a part of the Quattro Mobile Ad Network, includ-

ing NFL.com, CBS Sportsline, TSN.com, CNET, Fox Interactive and Univision.

“Sports content is very popular on the mobile phone,” said Albright. “It’s one of those things that is very dynamic. Scores and news change very quickly, so it makes sense for consumers to use the device to check in on their favorite teams while they are on the go.” ●

7_thirdscreen_042009.indd 1 4/17/09 12:18:35 PM

E-MAIL AUTHENTICATION PROTECTS BRANDS, CONSUMERS P10 WORD OF MOUTH LAPTOP PURCHASES ARE HEAVILY INFORMED BY PEERS P16 MOBILE JAMESON TEXTED ST. PADDY’S DAY TOASTS P18


By Lauren Bell: The Financial Times (FT) has teamedup with health and well-being company Philips to launch a new content series in print and online.

Part of a global brand campaign for Philips, the Financial Times’ Health series is also an entrée into a new niche market for the business-focused publication.

Philips is the sole advertising sponsor of Health’s four-part magazine series, which is being distributed in March, May, Sep-tember and November as a 48-page insert in the UK, continental European and US circulations of the FT. Globally, the FT has a circulation of 431,900.

“We saw this as a good opportunity for collaboration between two leading brands,” said Andrew Bowyer, head of FT strategic publishing. “The FT is one of the

world’s most respected media organiza-tions, and Philips is a thought leader inmultiple spheres including the health and well-being space.

“It is a good example of the FT creating new franchises that are both of interest to our readers as well as a truly integrated multiplatform solution for our commercial partners,” he added. “This is a key pillar of our business strategy. In terms of expanding other outlets for [readers’] engagement, this is an excellent example of the FT delving into a key topic on multiple levels to add further value for our readers.”

The FT also has built a custom microsite, www.FT.com/FTHealth, for the venture, as well as an FT Health blog. Philips will be featured prominently on these sites in an effort to better engage business and opinion leaders with the Philips business.

In addition to the FT-branded sites, Philips also is working with the publisher on its own online portal, GetInsideHealth. This new portal, which offers monthly subscriber newsletters, will feature FT content along with content from other media companies. GetInsideHealth can be accessed through Philips.com.

Although this type of partnership is not new to the FT, Bowyer noted, this particular project stands out because it is fully inte-grated across print, online and conference platforms globally. And, although the initia-tive may seem like custom publishing for Philips, he added, editorial integrity will remain “paramount.”

“Healthcare is a critical issue to our read-ers, and Philips saw this as an excellent platform through which to engage the FT’s readership through their partnership in a way that is engaging, thoughtful and, most importantly, adherent to complete editorial integrity,” he said. ●

OPTIMIZED

By Sara Holoubek: Over the past decade, self-publishing platforms, such as blogs and YouTube, have made it signifi cantly easier for a market-ing manager to both craft the message and press “send.” For most companies, the image presented was usually the corporate brand — until Twitter arrived, putting a per-sonal face on professional marketing.

“There’s a personal component,” said Frank Eliason, director of digital care for Comcast. “People need to relate to the individual.”

This is quite different from traditional messaging, where the emphasis is on the company and not the actual employee delivering the message. Eliason’s Twitter account, @comcastcares, not only has a photo of himself, but frequently includes his

own personal thoughts. While Eliason’s work creating @comcastcares has been lauded as a highly successful corporate approach to Twitter, the process took a year.

“Last February, we sent our fi rst Tweet,” he explained. “Then we listened for a while before we did anything.”

It was this period of listening that helped craft the voice, tone and general approach for Comcast. Eliason noted that using the search function of Twitter to monitor both mentions of the brand and the general conversation around the industry was particularly helpful.

Based on the listening period, it was clear that Comcast’s efforts would be most beneficial under the customer service division. According to The Shorty Report, recently published by SawHorse Media, the

ability to use Twitter as a customer service mechanism is frequently overlooked. Full disclosure: I became a reviewer for this report after reading it.

“Companies are mostly using Twitter to connect with their customers, but they do so though a number of means,” said Sawhorse Media founder Greg Galant. “Rather than just keep Twitter in the PR and marketing departments, some companies have allowed their customer service and operating depart-ments to get on Twitter in a big way

Galant noted that fi rms must develop a new communications protocol.

“Traditionally, every written word to come out of a big corporation had to pass through PR and legal, so it’s a pretty big shift to let employees send messages directly to the public,” he observed. ●

FT partners with Philips for multichannel health content

Connecting withconsumers on Twitter requires expertly crafted tone, strategy

Q Why is it challenging for user reviews to drive traffi c to e-commerce sites?

A When Google and other search robots are looking at product detail pages, with the way the technology currently works, they can’t index the user reviews — they’re blocked. So, it’s challenging to fi gure out how to expose those reviews to search engines.

Q Why can indexing user reviews drive more traffi c?

A There are certain qualitative words that we would never use to describe a product, but customer reviewers would. We shy away from words like “best,” but a reviewer might say something to that effect. For example, Google would index the word “best” along with a certain product. So this increased traffi c when people would type qualitative words, as they often do, into a search engine.

Q How does PowerReviews’ software help marketers index more easily?

A PowerReviews packages up the fi rst 15 user reviews, and we put them into our own database. So we, instead of PowerReviews, serve up the fi rst 15 reviews for all of our products. Now, the engines can index those phrases. It’s easy in concept but hard in execution.

Q Why was now a good time for Diapers.com to use the software?

A It’s always a good time for search engine optimization (SEO). But specifi cally now, even in this tough economy, pay-per-click (PPC) prices are not going down. The only way to combat that is by being good at SEO. The good thing about SEO is that a lot — I’d say 80% — of the work is up front. If you do it well up front, then you only have about 20% maintenance. But with PPC, you’re in the weeds all the time.

Q Why is this type of marketing effective for the mom demographic?

A Everyone wants to be very cautious and careful with their babies — that’s the spirit in which these moms give reviews. The reviews are very in-depth and give specifi c observations about the interac-tions of their children with the products. They want to have that sense of helping other parents. So indexing those reviews is important.

Q What were the results?

A Just two weeks after the launch in February, we saw big lifts in traffic. On the product detail pages where we have user reviews, we saw a 48.8% increase in natural search traffi c and a 33.2% lift in natural search sales.

Josh Himwich, director of e-commerce operations and user experience for Diapers.com, discusses how PowerReviews’ SEO software helped drivetraffi c to the e-commerce site

NAILEDIT

Making the most of digital

The best corporate Twitter accounts allow for a personal component

Twitter can put a face to customer service or operations

Before engaging, a period oflistening is recommended

KEYPOINTS

The Health series will be inserted into FT issues

8_nailedit_042009.indd 1 4/16/09 3:07:30 PM

AGENCY BBDO’S CHAIRMAN DISCUSSES THE COMPANY’S GROWTH P13 SEARCH MAKE PAY-PER-CLICK COST-EFFECTIVE P17 MULTICHANNEL SHEETZ TARGETED PROFESSIONALS FOR COFFEE PUSH P18


Companies must take e-mail authenticationseriously to protect brands and domainsBy Bryan Yurcan: Many e-commerce and multichannel retailers need to go to greater lengths to pre-vent deceptive e-mail and phishing scams, according to industry group the Online Trust Alliance (OTA).

The organization released a report last week claiming that 56% of .gov Web sites and 45% of leading e-commerce sites are not taking appropriate e-mail and domain security measures.

The report measured 25 government domains, as well as the top 300 online retail-ers as measured by sales volume.

Analysis was completed from April 3 to April 13, based on examining the public domain name system records of the brands and governmental agencies, as well as more than 20 million e-mails sent to consumers purporting to come from the legitimate brand and domain.

The organization also found that among the top online retailers, 45% have not adopt-ed e-mail authentication, according to Craig Spiezle, chairman and founder of the OTA, which is based in Bellevue, WA.

E-mail authentication has been widely heralded as a best practice to help curb

for marketing services company Eloqua, based in Vienna, VA.

“What I tend to see is there are so many companies with many divisions, they may not know how many are sending e-mails from that single identity,” he says. “That makes it diffi cult for e-mail marketers today.”

While many companies authenticate e-mail addresses used on the marketing side, Dayman notes, that’s not always the case with corporate domain name addresses. This is a mistake, he says.

“E-mail authentication should be used on any and all domains you send e-mail from to help identify who sent an e-mail from that domain or identity,” he explains.

Another problem is that many marketing departments leave e-mail authentication issues to their fi rms’ IT department. That could be trouble, Dayman notes, for departments that don’t generally communicate that often — but can be solved with more communication.

“There should be weekly or monthly meetings with all the e-mail people,” he says. “Find out if you are overlapping [e-mail campaigns], and discuss major changes to your network.”

Dayman applauds companies that use e-mail authentication technology, but warns that sim-ply talking only that step isn’t enough.

“That’s just step one,” he says. “Step two is reputation − like how many bad addresses or spam buckets you have [in a given e-mail mailing]. That can be improved simply with good marketing practices.” ●

deceptive e-mail and phishing exploits, which are some of the leading tactics for identity theft, he says.

“It is incomprehensible that in this period of escalating online scams and diminishing consumer confi dence these agencies and businesses continue to sit on the sidelines,” says Spiezle. “Best practices not only need to be adopted by business, but also by gov-ernmental agencies.”

While companies increasingly have embraced e-mail authentication over the past year, it hasn’t been enough, he says.

“We had growth [in that area], but the bad news is that companies we know have been victims of phishing or spoofi ng in the past year haven’t stepped up their authen-tication efforts,” Spiezle says.

Many organizations and businesses that have failed to use some form of these e-mail authentication standards, including SPF/Sender ID or DomainKeys Identifi ed e-mail, have become victims of forged e-mail and online exploitation, says Spiezle.

One reason for lack of e-mail authentica-tion adoption among so many companies could be due to a lack of communication, says Dennis Dayman, chief privacy offi cer

DATABANK

US loyalty program memberships, percentage by category

SOURCE: 2009 Colloquy Loyalty Marketing Census, 1.807 billion program memberships; 792.8 million active program memberships

Active vs. inactiveUS loyalty program memberships 2008

The week in stats

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RETAIL 39%

TRAVEL/HOSPITALITY 31%

FINANCIAL SERVICES 23%

OTHER 7%

43.8%

56.2%

Active

Inactive

10_Analy_databank_042009.indd 1 4/16/09 3:08:41 PM

L ike the high-school geek who uses his brainpower to surpass the success of his handsome, football-playing counterpart, direct and database profes-

sionals are finding the marketing world coming around to fully appreciating the breadth and depth of their sought-after talents.

The fact is, data is the new sexy in the world of mar-keting. Everyone wants it. Everyone needs it. Everyone wants more of it. Daniel Morel, CEO of Wunderman, agrees, using that very word in a conversation with me last week about the world of DM agencies for an upcoming Agency Business Report we’ll be publishing in May. “[DM] is becoming sexy,” he says. “We were the invisible part of the ad world, the guys working the data, the guys working the numbers… but now we’re becoming more front-row for the client.”

It’s not surprising that suddenly, marketers are seeing database expertise in a whole new light. The economic cliff-dive that the US has experienced over the past year means that in order to survive, companies can no longer spend their marketing budget without attending to every detail of the bottom line. Measurement is being recognized as an absolute necessity rather than an after-thought, and campaigns that use clean data and tools that offer better targeting and segmenting are making CMOs hearts flutter across the country.

I had lunch last Wednesday with John Meyer, the CEO of Acxiom, and Michael Darviche, the company’s CMO. These Little Rock, AR-based folks gave me the vibe that they’re quite confident about who they are and their legacy in direct marketing and data manage-ment. Sure, everything they do these days is dressed up in pretty (and equally important) words such as multichannel and integration, but there’s no question that in its heart and soul it’s all about the data.

“The recession is creating scrutiny,” Meyer told me. “It’s making measurable marketing the Holy Grail.”

Obviously, here at DMNews, we’re big supporters of such fervor — and, to that end, we were excited to part-ner with Cognitive Data on our first data management survey, the highlights of which will appear alongside an in-depth feature in our May 4 print edition and online at DMNews.com. The survey of more than 250 data management professionals illuminate the challenges of everything from data integration, technology investment and cleansing to access, accuracy and cost.

Of course, traditional direct marketers probably want to raise their hands in protest over what may seem like a belated bow by the larger marketing community to the science behind DM. And digital marketers, after all, have been digging deep into data for over 15 years. But hey — I’m never going to turn down a compliment on behalf of our industry, particularly as I see marketers struggling to find their footing. If it means more marketing budgets turning towards direct and digital thanks to the power of data, “sexy” sounds just fine to me. ●

Sharon GoldmanExecutive editor,DMNews

Campaigns that use clean data and tools that offer better targeting and segmenting are making CMOs hearts fl utter across the country.

OPINION

EditorialLetters From Our Readers

Self-regulation, not legislation, for catalog marketersCatalog Choice, a free service that helps consumers communicate their mail preferences to catalog marketers, would like to correct the record on our organization’s position on the San Francisco Do Not Mail resolution, mentioned in the article “SF Leads California Do Not Mail Push” (April 6, DMNews). Catalog Choice and its Board of Directors do not “back” any legislation. As a policy, Catalog Choice does not engage in federal, state or local legislative advocacy. Our secure, business-oriented online service repre-sents an opportunity for direct mailers to self-regulate by honoring consumers’ mail preference requests.

Strong consumer opinion on unwanted mail warrants the industry’s immediate attention and response. Since the start of our service in Octo-

Death needs its own NCOA listThe US Postal Service is now $2.8 bil-lion in debt and wants to cut its postal workers’ health insurance. It could simply receive $4 million a year from the same National Change of Address vendors who pay it $200,000 each per year by having a card similar to the Change of Address Card at the post office for deaths. This card could then become the Death File — then, as with NCOA for changes of address, the list industry could remove the deceased from active lists.

Currently, the industry can buy the Social Security Death File for $1,850 a year to cleanse its data. However it only covers 75% of Americans who are entitled to receive Social Security, and does not cover anyone receiving a government pension. Further, it only provides the name and ZIP code, which sometimes belongs to the hospital a person died in and not his or her home. The street address is not available because of the hodgepodge

ber 2007, more than 1.1 million con-sumers have recorded more than 16 million opt-out requests for more than 1,000 catalog titles. We are working with nearly 400 merchants who honor mail preferences as a fundamental part of their business practices.

But too many catalog mailers continue to shrug off consumer senti-ment, and consumers are left uncon-vinced that the existing solutions work. Unless the industry can show that it has rallied behind solutions that consumers recognize, the organiza-tions that backed the San Francisco resolution will continue its city-by-city campaign for a Do Not Mail registry.

All direct mailers can do three things to support self-regulation. First, pro-vide a convenient way for consumers to set their mail preferences on their Web sites. Crate&Barrel’s service at http://bit.ly/1b0ALb is excellent.

of privacy laws. Frankly, I understand privacy regarding financials of the dead, but I do not understand it for the fact that someone is dead.

A large problem with using NCOA data to get these deceased changes is the role that widow or widowers play. Around 8 million people in the US have this status and are using the dead spouse’s credit card and checking account before and after he or she died. If you telemarket the dead person, the spouse will get upset, but if you mail the dead person, the spouse will get out the dead person’s checkbook and make a donation or purchase. Mark the matches of deaths run them against Amaica or M1 (the two companies that have a contract with every local bell company’s inter-nal billing records). If the deceased spouse is paying a phone bill monthly, the surviving spouse is the one mak-ing the decisions. A death card at the post office would allow the widow or widower to change the name on bills

Next, honor requests submitted through our independent, industry-endorsed mail preference service at CatalogChoice.org.

Lastly, follow the guidelines in the Direct Marketing Association’sCommitment to Consumer Choice(www.dmaccc.org), and participate inDMAChoice.org if they are members.

Merchants who participate in effec-tive solutions like Catalog Choice fur-ther the industry’s interests by showing that they hear consumer concerns and are eager to provide a good customer experience. The industry needs to demonstrate to consumers and elected officials that there are free, easy and reliable ways to stop unwanted mail.

Chuck TellerExecutive directorCatalog Choicewww.catalogchoice.org

or take deceased children off all bulk rate mailing lists.

Article 401R requires all births to be given a Social Security number, but this is only half of what needs to be done. Having a death card at the post office could cut the cost of taking a census and help track when individuals’ Social Security numbers and identities should no longer be considered active.

Our industry needs a death card at the post office to keep up to date on the more than 13 million deaths a year that impact our data. The USPS needs to cut its deficit. Carriers would be carrying approximately 4.745 bil-lion less pieces of mail; bar coded at 18.3 cents a piece, the savings in post-age to our industry would be more than $86.8 billion.

Leslie Ann Mandel-Herzog IIIPresident and ownerThe Rich List Companywww.richlist.com

Tell us what you think Send your opinions to [email protected]


EDITORIAL: Editor-in-Chief Cara Wood(646) 638-6185,[email protected] Editor Sharon Goldman(646) 638-6121,[email protected] Editor Nancy Kearney(646) 638-6184,[email protected] Editor Chantal Todé (802) 257-1295, [email protected] Editor Dianna Dilworth (347) 439-6803,[email protected] Lauren Bell(646) 638-6191, [email protected] Mary Elizabeth Hurn(646) 638-6192, [email protected] Bryan Yurcan(646) 638-6190, [email protected] Editor Nathan Golia(646) 638-6193,[email protected]

Web Editor Kevin McKeefery(646) 638-6194,[email protected] Assistant Jonathan Mack(646) 638-6183,[email protected] Editor Sara [email protected] Director Julia Hood(646) 638-6031,[email protected]

ART AND PRODUCTION: Design Director Sandra DiPasqua(646) 638-6005,[email protected] Director Claire Spiezio(646) 638-6186, [email protected] Manager Michelle Chizmadia(646) 638-6126,[email protected] of Production and Manufacturing Louise Morrin, (646) 638-6064,[email protected]

ADVERTISING: Advertising Director Emma Halliwell(646) 638-6023,[email protected] Managers Sammy Patel(646) 638-6171, [email protected];Jessica Schmidt, (646) 638-6173,[email protected] Display Advertising Manager Deborah Hartley (646) 638-6188,[email protected] Executive Mike Szymanski(646) 638-6176,[email protected]

Group Circulation ManagerSherry Oommen (646) 638-6003,[email protected] of Audience DevelopmentJohn Crewe (646) 638-6060,[email protected]

Licensing and Reprint Sales ExecutiveBob Panza (646) 638-6158,[email protected]

CORPORATE: President/Publishing Director Lisa Kirk (646) 638-6010, [email protected]/CEO William Pecover (646) 638-6001,[email protected]

SUBSCRIPTIONS &CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 558-1708, www.dmnews.com

11-oped-042009.indd 1 4/16/09 3:09:38 PM

: Pitting user-generated content and agency-created content against each other suggests a separation of two worlds that are, in fact, more connected than ever.

If an agency decides to harness user-gen-erated content to solve a client’s marketing problem, it still falls upon the agency to create the filters, inform the ground rules, stimulate the conversation and — implicitly or explicitly — set the direction to transform the content into marketing material. If users were to solve a marketing problem free of influence from client or agency — through a highly trafficked fan site, for example — wouldn’t they become a de facto partner agency?

On the flip side, the idea of agency-created content, made in a world with no input from what users are generating and discussing with regards to the brand, seems dated at best, foolhardy at worst. Has that level of detachment from the user experience paid off for any agencies you know lately?

As client marketers partner with agencies and consumers alike to achieve their goals in an economic climate where listening to ideas trumps talking over them, the ideal agency relationship is one formed between all three parties.

The smart agencies will learn to look for good ideas, wherever they may be found, and build a platform that spurs further discussion with all stakeholders, deeper learning and better business.

And, as the marketing world evolves, if some agencies would rather stake their creative claims from on high, dismissing the relevance of what users could contribute to the process, then perhaps they deserve to be surpassed — and replaced. l

GLOVESOFF

Has UGC surpassed content from agencies?With Twitter, YouTube and Flickr among the many user-generated content sites informing marketing, our experts debate whether agency-created content could fall by the wayside

> CONTENDER Steve CaputoCreative director, R/GATwelve years of professional writing and marketing experience

Caputo argues that an agency will still have to work to refine user-generated content but to ignore it is dated, while Dunleavy argues UGC effectively engages consumers’ creativity. There’s no monopoly

DMNEwS’ DECISION on good ideas, and it is up to marketers to decide what it be-lieves will best engage its target audience.HAVE YOUR SAY E-mail your topic to [email protected]

: Incredible meal? Upload your photo. Your favorite team won? Upgrade your status. Working late? Update your update.

Thanks to affordable technology, accessible Wi-Fi and countless social networking Web sites, anyone with a laptop and an iPhone can be a creative director. Need proof? Of the 180 million Facebook users, more than 18 million update their status at least once a day. All of the advertising agencies in the world couldn’t generate that much content in a week, let alone in a single day.

The world’s current obsession with self-publishing has turned everyone into a potential creator of user-generated content,

defined as anything posted to the Internet by a non-media professional. These non-professionals aren’t just creating content: They are creating the content that is creating our campaigns.

Just take a look at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “It’s time we Met” and Visa’s “Go” campaigns, which both feature user-submitted Flickr photos. And there was Doritos’ use of not one, but two user-generated commercials for their Super Bowl TV spots. Both Geico and Heinz Ketchup bought and branded fans’ homemade You-Tube clips. And, let’s not forget about Skit-tles reskinning Twitter with the latest Skittles Tweets, and DiGiorno seeding influencers to contribute their own “Tweetups.”

Public content seems to be a thoroughly effective and economical way to spark con-sumer interactivity while engaging users in an authentic voice: their own. In the future, it won’t be called user-generated content or agency-created content – it will probably just be called “content.” l

> CONTENDER Suzanne Darmory DunleavyHead of copy, ACD, JWT RMG ConnectFourteen years of advertising and mar-keting experience

12 | DMNEwS | April 20, 2009 | www.dmnews.com

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SPOTLIGHT

Betting on innovationBBDO’s Robertson talks about the impetus behind the agency’s growth strategy

By Lauren Bell Q: What is the key idea behind BBDO’s slogan, “the work, the work, the work”?A: Consumers have more ability than ever to switch from things that aren’t interesting and valuable to them. Unless you can create really compelling work,the rest doesn’t count. You have to iden-tify the right target audience to work out what the most persuasive content or strat-egy is, but that isn’t enough — unless you create an experience that is suffi ciently engaging and valuable.

Q: What is your defi nition of innovation?A: I think the most innovative productsor campaigns are where you take some-thing that isn’t new but do it so much better and faster than anyone. Innovation isn’t inventing something entirely new, but when you fi nd what consumers are already doing and do it much better and cheaper and faster.

Q: What your views on social media? A: I am a big fan of it because consumers are. Great social media have made it really easy for people to do what they’ve always done, which is to stay connected. Agen-cies have to be responsible in how we try to play in that arena because it was set up for people — a brand can’t just jump in with both clumsy boots.

Q: Tell me more about Proximity and how it fi ts in with the rest of BBDO.A: Proximity is young. We are building Proximity to differentiate itself from its competitors based on the quality of its work. We’re also building Proximity to be a kind of fl at-world organization. We’re building it to be great at using the power of networks. We believe in the power of networks to grow local business because between us we know more than any one of us does.

Q: How do you plan to grow in the US? A: The US has been the last frontier. We are now opening up in an unconventional way. We have guys that are creating cells in Chicago, Minneapolis and Atlanta. And, in the past few weeks, we’ve decided that At-mosphere, which was an interactive agency focused on advertising, is going to be the New York part of the Proximity network. In each case, these new cells bring something to the party, and they benefi t from what everybody else brings.

Q: Why did you decide to expand inthe US right now? A: Evidence that we could make it work. We’ve got nothing to lose and everything to play for. We have a magnifi cent client base to work with and the capability and


8 | DMNEWS | January 19, 2009 | www.dmnews.com

experience to draw on of the rest of the Proximity world. We have some very good creative and strategic talent. If we were a very big bus, expanding it would be diffi cult — but for us it’s all upside to grow from, and I’m pretty bullish about [our potential] growth rate. ●

Andrew RobertsonJob: Chairman, Proximity Worldwide; president and CEO, BBDO WorldwidePets: Three dogs and a catFirst job: Door-to-door life insurance salesman Hobbies: Yoga, cooking and drinking red wine

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First ClickFirst ClickShe sees your message posted by a friend on a social network.

She checks out your website and makes a purchase.

She takes your survey andtells you what makes her tick.

She gets personalized transactional emails and buys accessories.

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ENGAGEMENT MARKETING SOLUTIONS

@dmnews.comRobertson speaksin a video interview with Lauren Bell

13-spot-042009.indd 1 4/16/09 11:57:33 AM

flashAt last a set of awards that recognizes the added strengththat creative image-makers bring to the power of advertising.

The awards for professional photographers and agencycreatives who respond to an advertising brief with astonishingimages of immense beauty, deep emotions and selling oomph.

The Campaign Photo Awards is an international Awardsprogramme and we happily welcome work from USphotographers, creative agencies and picture libraries.Campaign is the UK's leading weekly magazine for theadvertising, media and communications industry.

Entry deadline: Friday 29 May 2009

www.campaignphotoawards.com

Contact Adele Durham, Event Co-ordinator on 020 8267 4344 / [email protected]

CampaignerFlash.indd 1 4/16/09 2:02:00 PM

Feature


Marketers add rich media and better targeting to their ad network mix

By Dianna Dilworth: For the American Red Cross, fi nding enough volunteers can be tough. And for any nonprofi t, advertising budgets are usually limited. So the emergency preparedness organization’s recent “I + NY” campaign, which sought to sign up 10,000 volunteers to take an emer-gency training course, was challenged to get the word out to New Yorkers without breaking the bank. To attain a broad reach at a scalable budget, the organization used ad networks — run-ning online display ads on many sites across the Internet.

Traditionally, ad networks push cre-ative to consumers who spend more time online. But these days, brands are becoming more ambitious about the creative for these ads. Historically, a banner ad was a simple design that clicked back to a Web site. Today’s banner ads are full of rich media that get consumers excited about the mes-sage. For the American Red Cross, this meant using video clips of actual volunteers to help draw attention.

“Ad networks have the ability to get a very high reach, so a brand can get its messaging out to a wide audience in a simple and cost-effective way,” says Nicolle Pangis, VP, global media & technology product management at 24/7 Real Media, one of the largest ad networks. “They can also be used to identify users who clicked on a wider type of campaign, showing a more spe-cifi c and targeted ad the next time.”

Through better tools for contextual, behavioral and geographic targeting, marketers can target their ad network spend in more sophisticated ways. Behavioral advertising lets marketers place ads based on a consumer’s click-ing habits and patterns across as many sites as exist in the network, while con-textual advertising places ads based on the content on the site and geographic targeting uses a consumer’s location to place ads. Mixing these tools has become a mainstay for marketers.

“The old way of hitting users is to use media as a proxy — so a marketer would serve a message to a site, hoping that the majority of the people going to that site fall within the target audi-ence,” says Michael Katz, founder and president of ad network InterClick. “But what happens to all the people that come to the site that don’t fit within this audience? It is better to break down a large-scale user base into a more granular user base and show different people different ads.”

Ad networks can get more granular by looking at the historical behaviors that users have exhibited, such as their locations, the times of day they come to a site, or the times of the week.

The American Red Cross used ad networks in this way to help promote

its “I + NY” campaign in New York. The campaign involved multiple touch-points, including out-of-home, print and online ads. The logo also appeared on buttons, posters, billboards, print ads, and the NY Red Cross Web site.

“The entire campaign is to help raise awareness, and the second goal is to inspire people to be a part of this and to get them to sign up and take the training class,” says Laura Scala, part-ner, group planning director, media, Neo@Ogilvy. “We wanted to reach all New Yorkers and be in places where they would see these ads. We believe that by using ad networks we were able to build up the reach in the area.”

The banner ads featured rich media videos of volunteers. These were meant to give a personal face to the call to action, hopefully driving users to click to see the whole video.

“When you click back to the Web site, you can hear the volunteer’s story of why they wanted to volunteer,” Scala explains. “The testimonials are very powerful in helping somebody else make that decision themselves.”

These ads ran on such sites as MenuPages, HopStop, Fandango, Bloomberg.com and NYMag.com. Ogilvy and the American Red Cross worked with a handful of ad networks to run the display ads, including 24/7, AOL’s Platform-A, InterClick, Burst, Gorilla Nation, Tribal Fusion andValueClick. Using a variety of ad net-works is common among brands these days — it helps extend reach.

“When it comes to budget, we were limited, but we want to spread out as fast as we could, so this approach helped us bring in a lot of impressions,” says Scala. “The ad networks are the

best way to get the best bang for our buck. Using these different networks helped us bring the impression level up and help us spread this across a whole array of sites from the biggest sites to the long tail.”

Ogilvy worked with ad network InterClick for local targeting and behavioral targeting. Due to the campaign’s regional call to action, geotargeting was important to the media buy. It bought impressions with a New York-centric focus and looked at local sites, as well as national sites that focused on entertainment, news and sports, to push for a strong reach.

“The clear benefit for geotarget-ing is that you only hit users within a certain location — ZIP code, city, state, region — and we make sure that nobody outside of that, so it increases relevance,” says Katz.

Ogilvy also gave InterClick a list of behaviors that potential volunteers might display. InterClick’s third-party data partner BlueKai tracks the behav-ior of people within the InterClick network through cookies across the network. If a consumer exhibits rel-evant behavior based on this informa-

tion, then the ad is served.Vibrant Media, a contextual adver-

tising services fi rm that creates mes-saging based on keywords, also helped with the contextual advertising for the ad network buy.

“It helped us build our keyword list that was around New York and safety and help,” says Scala. “We went for a New York-centric media buy.”

Beyond reach, ad networks are also beneficial because they offer a relatively inexpensive media buy com-pared with more traditional channels such as print and TV along with more sophisticated targeting. These facts are not overlooked in this recession.

“We are seeing that the ability to measure and optimize campaigns has become ever more important, espe-cially as advertising dollars get tighter and budgets shrink,” adds Pangis.

The American Red Cross campaign is just one example of the way that brands and their agencies are work-ing with ad networks to help get their message across online. Brands such as JetBlue Airways, Virgin America and Washington Mutual have all gotten more creative about the design of their display ads and their use of targeting tools from ad networks.

As the targeting technologies and capabilities of digital marketing become more advanced, in the future brands will do even more sophisticated things when developing display ads and working with ad networks.

“It’s not just about media buys,it is about media and technology work-ing together,” adds Pangis. “Theseare merging, and brands are using different plays of media with technol-ogy to help optimize their messaging through ad networks.” ●

We believe that by using ad networks we were able to build up the reach in the area.

Laura Scala, partner, group planning director, media, Neo@Ogilvy

The American Red Cross used rich video clips in banner ads to draw attention to its campaign to sign up 10,000 New York area volunteers

Creative gets ambitious with ad networks

main_042009.indd 1 4/15/09 9:53:07 AM

www.dmnews.com | March 9, 2009 | DMNEWS | 13


By Sharon Goldman: Laptop computers are no longer simply the desk-top PC’s smaller sibling. After catching up over the past few years, shipments of laptops, or notebooks, surpassed those of desktop PCs for the fi rst time in 2008, according to recent research, standing at a solid 55.2% share of the personal computer market in the third quarter of last year.

But while on-the-go consumers have made the portable convenience of laptops an everyday tool and a resounding success, there are a seemingly endless number of different customizable models on the market, not to mention a plethora of smart-phones that sit in the category between laptops and phones. That means a highly competitive sector for marketers looking to stand out.

“I think there’s just an overwhelming amount of choice in the market for consumers,” says Chris Aarons, co-founder of BuzzCorps, a word-of-mouth agency that works with HP on various marketing initiatives, including a recent campaign

for its stylish laptops designed by Vivienne Tam. “There are business notebooks, consumer note-books, mini notebooks, and different features and specs on each one. It can be hard for the average consumer to really fi gure out what the best choice is for them and at their price point.”

Word-of-mouth marketing is one channel that works extremely well for computer marketing, he explains, because a laptop typically need explana-tion both about its functionality and how to use it properly. “For computers, having someone tell you whether this is a good one vs. not a good one is huge,” he explains.

In addition, people tend to research their com-puter purchases online – so word-of-mouth cam-paigns through blogs and social media can be a sweet spot for marketers. “You need someone who can say, ‘Listen — this is a good product for these reasons,’’” Aarons adds. “Bloggers can really help you by giving you third-party credible information because they’ve used this notebook.”

User-generated content — particularly ratings and reviews — is also a prime research tool for consumers seeking laptop-buying guidance, so these options have become must-haves for com-puter manufacturers.

“Word of mouth is still the No. 1 infl uencer for electronics purchases – particularly for notebooks, which is a very complex sale,” says Sam Decker, CMO of Bazaarvoice, which provides tools for user-generated ratings and reviews to manufactur-ers such as Dell, HP and Toshiba. “There are a lot of feature functionality tradeoffs, and almost every manufacturer can customize what you have.”

This means, he continues, that consumers need to make dozens of choices when they purchase a laptop — from how much RAM to purchase, the screen size and the weight, not to mention aesthetics, like color and style.

“All of these are very complex tradeoffs,” he points out. “It’s not just about what the best fea-

Laptops benefit from buzz

Top trendsLaptop sales surpassed those of desktops for the fi rst time in 2008

A dizzying array of choices and options mean a competitive category for laptop marketers

Word-of-mouth is a popular marketing channel for laptops, because it is a com-plex purchase that requires explanation and guidance

Ratings and reviews are popular tools for consumers search-ing for laptops

Targeting lifestyle and personal rel-evance is becoming a way for new prod-ucts to stand out

CAMPAIGNSExperts say word of mouth works well for notebook computers, as consumers seek out peer feedback to inform this complex purchase

HP wanted to promote its new Vivienne Tam-designed mini-laptops this past winter, so agency BuzzCorps launched a measurable word-of-mouth campaign, in which it targeted 20 to 30 hand-picked bloggers – mostly women or fashion bloggers and a few tech bloggers. In some cases, examples were even sent to the wives of the men who actually wrote the blog. The bloggers were brought to New York to meet with Vivienne Tam during Fashion Week. BuzzCorps measured the amount of content that was generated — audio, video, photos and posting. In addition, the pass-along rate was measured, and sales metrics were also evaluated.

TECHNOLOGY

I think there’s just an overwhelming amount of choice in the market for consumers.

Chris Aarons, co-founder, BuzzCorps

tures are, but what the right combination is — and what’s most important to the consumer.”

Reviews and ratings, he adds, offer consumers a way to get other customers to clarify what’s important to them. “They want to see someone like them who has purchased this product and fi nd out why – as opposed to just getting the informa-tion about the product,” he says.

For some marketers, standing out in the mar-ketplace now means emphasizing the personal relevance of a particular notebook to a consumer – particularly their lifestyle.

“I think people’s knowledge and familiarity with technology, along with their intelligence and the evolution of the laptop category, mean that people are most looking for personal relevance,” says Stephen Sonnenfeld, president of customer solutions at Y&R division Enfatico, which recently launched a campaign for Dell’s Adamo laptop, billed as a luxury model. “There’s such an array

of choices, and let’s face it – most machines will be able to do essentially what any other machine does. A lot of the decision will be how does this conform to my personal sense of style?”

Marketing style as well as function meant think-ing outside the box when it came to the Adamo, he adds. “The biggest challenge was to think outside the boundaries of marketing a piece of technology and marketing it more as a luxury item that prob-ably occupies a position closer to a luxury watch of piece of jewelry,” Sonnenfeld says. “Obviously, there’s a strong functional aspect, but we wanted to create the sense that this fi t into an overall lifestyle for a certain group of people — and I think across the category you’re seeing campaigns moving away from hardcore technology sales to more balanced types of approaches.”

No matter what the approach, however, lap-top manufacturers must also deal with the chal-lenge of driving consumers to the sales channel — sometimes directly through their Web sites, but very often through retail stores such as Best Buy. For Bazaarvoice, a tool called BrandVoice allows manufacturers to syndicate their user-generated content to retailers — so reviews show up in retailer promotions, for example.

“It’s about how marketers can fi nd the infl u-encers for their brand, capture their voice and amplify it in the sales channel,” says Decker. “You don’t want just two reviews of your laptop on Best Buy’s Web site while you’ve captured 100 on your site.”

But any word-of-mouth effort needs to be ongo-ing and takes commitment, Aarons emphasizes.

“For HP, it’s an ongoing evolution of building this evangelism,” he says of the company’s laptop-promoting efforts. “A word-of-mouth campaign done right is kind of like having a baby — once you start, you need to care and feed and nurture it, you can’t just walk away from it. You have to come up with something to keep everyone engaged and involved.” ●

vertical_042009.indd 1 4/15/09 2:00:12 PM


Pocket more profit with better paid search

Cameron FriedlanderVP of technology solutions, Designkitchen

Heather PidgeonClient services director, iProspect

Michael BehrensVP of e-marketing, WebMetro

Price GlomskiAcct. director and integration strategist, Range Online Media

Want to get the most value from your paid search spend? Four industry experts weigh in on how you can assess your campaign strategies and tactics to make pay-per-click really worth your while during the recession

: The landscape for sponsored listings is reminiscent of the wild west. The mental-ity is often who has the most guns vs. who has the best aim. For business-to-consumer clients, this is costly. If you spread yourself too thin, your cost for conversion grows exponentially — and you pay for users who had no interest in your product. The basic fundamental for a product site, then, is to aim correctly and not waste money.

So, is paid search worth it? Relying on organic listings alone may be less relevant for users. Not only do marketers find them-selves battling for first-page placement, but users encounter results riddled with search engine optimization (SEO)-spoofing “com-parison” sites and strange ad-revenue gen-erating sites, which don’t sell the product. With so much clutter, sponsored listings have become a relief to users looking to buy a product and thus a very viable option for b-to-c marketers.

One simple tip to get in the game is to be as specific as possible with sponsored list-ings for a product. The more information about the product, the more likely you’re focusing on users who are interested in buy-ing. Let’s look at Microsoft’s Xbox gaming system as an example. Users who type in “Xbox 360” could be searching for any-thing: cheat codes, warranty information — the list goes on.

Now, users who type in “Xbox 360 Elite” have a clearer sense of what they are looking for, yet are still sticking to just the general product name. Those users who type in specific product naming such as “Xbox 360 Elite 120GB bundle” have already done the research, know exactly what they want and are ready to purchase. There is no question of their intent: they want to buy.

Then, it’s time to get the paid links out to draw them to your site. Ultimately, when it comes to paid search, using very specific keywords around your products will decrease your pay-per-click cost to con-version cost while increasing your overall conversion rate — in other words, getting users who are ready to buy to your site and increasing the chances that they will follow through with a purchase — and that’s good news. l

: An annual or semi-annual reorganization and streamlining of your campaigns can make a significant difference in the perfor-mance of your campaigns. A few guidelines to consider this spring when embarking on a clean-up of your own:

Organization is the goal. Campaign organization tends to be sidestepped more than other tasks because of the granularity and required project time. However, a well-organized account increases quality score, improves spend management, enhances creative relevance and provides a more actionable reporting layer.

Initiating a restructure is daunting, so focus on your product hierarchy (or site map) to assist in mapping out your site organization. Because engines no longer require unique campaign set-up, use a man-agement technology to easily clone your program or proprietary techniques to set up and track each engine.

Next, go out with the old and in with the new. As first and fourth quarter promotion fatigue wears off, consumers again become more approachable. In order to create pro-ductive copy, you should always be testing where testing is warranted — use mid- to high-traffic groups to eliminate variance. Ensure that each ad group includes three or more active ad units. Organize your creative testing by building a simple report template that includes test name, start and end date, engine, campaign, ad group, type of test (even split, percent discount, etc.), creative, all associated metrics, winner/loser and con-fidence level. A cleanup idea: Instead of pausing out underperforming or legacy creative, go ahead and delete them from the campaign. Engines maintain creative info under historical reports.

Also, be sure to clear some shelf space. Don’t be one-track minded when approach-ing your search program. Save room for testing with similar or influential channels, such as feeds (i.e. comparison shopping engines, Yahoo SSP, travel submit, etc.). Optimize page share, qualified clicks and conversion by sharing product specific results cross-channel. Test idea: Shadow your top Google product search listings with a promotion-based search ad, either parallel to the listing or in top position.

Finally, less is more. An organized cam-paign and testing strategy means fewer hours spent on management, thereby allowing for growth opportunity and thoughtful strategy in other areas of your campaigns. l

: What is the “one thing” you need to improve your search engine marketing (SEM) performance in 2009? It’s something many abandoned when radical wins began to diminish and excitement faded quickly: a recommitment to testing.

While 2008 did not yield most search marketers’ three-digit increases in conver-sion rates or 50% savings in media cost through day parts or bid management; it was a year of incremental wins that cer-tainly added significant value. Here are a few notable examples from our agency:

In a landing page test for a financial services company, adding video to the search landing pages increased conversion rates 18%. Because consumers perceived the landscape as cluttered and seemingly commoditized, video provided clarity to the market about our client’s differentia-tion. Although the conversion rate didn’t double, the 18% increase provided a needed competitive advantage.

Also, A/B testing for creative in a soft-ware provider’s content campaign proved successful. For many advertisers, a Google campaign is primarily a search campaign with a few dollars allocated to the contextual network. For many of our clients, contextual advertising is a significant portion of their media allocation due to the strong returns and increasing amount of available sales volume ripe for picking when using the net-works. We tested two banners with similar positioning strategies but unique position-ing methods for a free software download. The winning call-to-action produced a 14% increase in conversions.

We also measured creative impact on average order value (AOV). An often- overlooked element of creatives used in Google, Yahoo and MSN is the impact a creative has on the AOV of a client. Should the title tag use “free shipping” to get the popular “free” word in the prominent part of the ad creative? How about using thresholds in the D1, i.e. “Free Shipping Over $50”? In a test for an e-commerce client the AOV increased by $12.09, or 21% by adding “Sale Ends Soon” to the ad copy.

Testing isn’t new but it gives us serious ROI. Are you still committed to testing? Have you become complacent? Hopefully, the examples that gave us incremental wins will inspire you to dust off the stats soft-ware, login into your multivariate testing platforms and get down to work. l

: Dismal economic conditions are forcing marketers to be more efficient with their pay-per-click (PPC) budgets. To get the most value out of this spend, it’s vital to take a closer look at your current campaign strategy and tactics. Even if you are already generating strong results, there’s opportunity for additional gains — you just need to look beyond the obvious results, such as cost per action or ROI. These are four tips to help make your campaigns more efficient:

First, assess your keyword set. To start, ask yourself the following questions: Are my keywords too broad? What’s their match type? Do I have enough negative keywords? To help you make sound deci-sions, look through query reports to see if there’s unqualified traffic that’s costing you money.

Next, identify “opportunity” keywords — these words have a high conversion rate, but low click-through rate or low positioning. Once you’ve identified them, adjust your ad copy or increase bids in order to net a larger share of the clicks on these terms. Doing so will not only help you garner more conversions, but also help you obtain incremental gains.

You also need to trim the fat: Identify the keywords that are most ineffective at driving results, and eliminate those that have been generating negative returns. To help you get through the process, keep in mind that spending $5 on one keyword over the course of a month doesn’t seem like a hefty sum, but it changes dramati-cally when you multiply that figure by 10 or 20 keywords.

Finally, mind your competition. First and foremost, get familiar with the keywords your competitors focus on. Put them on the watch list in your campaign and assess how your ad copy compares to theirs. Look at how they are enticing your potential cus-tomers. You may have to change your ad copy to include an offer or even change the call to action.

Without question, to remain competitive in this economy you’ve got to make every dollar count. Following these tips will help you identify areas of opportunity and inef-ficiency in your PPC campaigns, and in the end, boost their overall efficacy. l

TECHNIQUE

THE TAKEAWAYSponsored listings can help marketers rise above the clutter, but be product-specific

THE TAKEAWAYMake dollars count by identifying “opportu-nity” keywords as well as ineffective ones

THE TAKEAWAYA period of reorganization of your paid search campaigns can boost results

THE TAKEAWAYDon’t get complacent — recommit to test-ing of paid search campaigns

technique_042009.indd 1 4/15/09 9:54:15 AM

Between April and July of last year, Sheetz sent out 2 million direct mail pieces to HR managers with various deals. The mailer also suggested Sheetz as an alternative to other chain coffeehouses.

“The goal was not only to reach workers, but to drive word-of-mouth marketing and buzz within the business,” says Michael Bollinger, director of client services for Smith Brothers. Radio, TV, outdoor and online marketing also were used.

The ads, which featured beat poets, had a bohemian tone. The campaign tagline was “Coffeehouse Coffee Without the Coffeehouse.” Consumers were urged to create their own beat poetry videos and upload them to Sheetz’s YouTube channel for a chance to win a prize.

More than 65 unique videos were uploaded and specialty coffee sales more than doubled after the campaign.

-Mary Elizabeth Hurn

dmne

ws.co

m

For the latestnews on agency wins and fresh campaignlaunches, visit the agency sectionof DMNews.com

PRIVATEVIEW

SheetzSituation

Approach

Approach

Approach

: AT&T partnered with agency Worktank to build awareness for its International Roaming service and several internation-ally ready smartphones. Last summer, Worktank targeted US travelers planning trips to popular destinations with strong AT&T service using rich-media ads on several travel Web sites. An Amazon.com landing page, e-mails to Amazon.com custom-ers and search engine marketing completed the picture.

AT&T

The campaign scored an interac-tion rate of 21.71% based on 21 million customer impressions. The click-through rate was 0.19% for the rich media portion.

-Chantal Todé

: Pernod USA’s Jameson brand of whiskey recently teamed up with HipCricket for a second annual mobile marketing campaign centered around St. Patrick’s Day. Posters in bars as well as print and online mes-sages featured the tagline “Kee-pin’ It Green” and encouraged consumers to opt in for the abil-ity to send and receive Jameson branded Irish toasts March 17. Participants also had a chance to win a trip to Ireland.

Jameson Irish Whiskey

The campaign saw 9,108 mobile toasts sent during the sweepstakes, which ran from February 17 to March 18.

-Dianna Dilworth

TJ Bennett Creative director, Hill Holliday

Showcasing creative solutions

Results

Results

Results


: While the art direction on the Sheetz work is certainly bold, which feels appropriate, it also feels a bit disconnected. I’m not entirely sure why the people are in black and white. And the font choice is not quite right. Are these pieces supposed to feel youthful? Or hip? It’s unclear. But, at the end of the day, you can’t help but notice these pieces, which is good. The messaging, while a bit fl atfooted on some of the work (although the copy on the direct mail piece is pretty solid), certainly comes through strongly.The AT&T campaign is nice overall. It feels a little safe: Nothing new, but still engaging. Looking at each ad, I am inclined to interact with it. And that’s kind of the whole point, isn’t it? The messages of interna-tional roaming and more global coverage come through clearly. But I wonder if I’m left with any lasting effects from these. They are a bit like empty calories. Will I remember the message 20 minutes after I’ve interacted with it? I’m not so sure.The Jameson campaign feels a little fl at to me overall. When it comes to spirits market-ing, I expect to feel the brand personality in every piece of communication. I don’t get that from these. I think the sta-dium cups come a little closer to hitting the mark, although the art direction feels a bit simplistic. The posters have a slicker feel, but they don’t have the person-ality that I’m looking for. An Irish whiskey should do St. Paddy’s day a little better.

SheetzSheetzSheetzSheetz

: When Sheetz, a gas station and convenience restaurant chain, wanted to raise awareness of its made-to-order coffee, it tapped Smith Brothers Agency and Harmelin Media for an integrated campaign.The company, which has 350 locations in six states, targeted professional men and women in a five-mile radius around each of its stores.

TheWork_042009.indd 1 4/16/09 12:22:12 PM

NEW LISTSLicensed to Work: CosmetologistsListBargainsDescription: This file contains beauty pro-fessionals who are interested in their work and continuing their cosmetology educa-tion. These prospects earn an average of $40,000. This list is 90% female. Selects: 700,000 universeContact: Your list broker or ListBargains, 4 Squantz View Drive, New Fairfield, CT 06812Phone: 203/746-6640Fax 203/746-6662 E-mail: [email protected]

Accidental MillionaireMacromarkDescription: This file contains people who have purchased the Accidental Millionaire kit to help them sell smartphone applica-tions through their Web sites. These pros-pects have spend an average of $75 on the kit. This list is 57% female.Selects: 8,341 universeContact: Your list broker or Macromark, 185 Route 312, Brewster, NY 10509Phone: 845/230-6300Fax: 845/278-0650E-mail: [email protected]

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Easy Card ApprovalsMidwest Direct MarketingDescription: This file contains people with credit problems who have used Easy Card Approval to help them find banks that are willing to offer financial support. These prospects earn an average of $50,000 annually. This list is 50% male. Selects: 80,516 universeContact: Your list broker or Midwest Direct Marketing, 501 N. Webster St., Spring Hill, KS 66083Phone: 913/686-2220Fax: 913/686-2320E-mail: [email protected]

Golf/TravelOwenoak InternationalDescription: This file contains wealthy golfers and travelers. These prospects spend an average of $4,200 on golf and other vacations and earn an average of $350,000 annually. This list is 80% male. Selects: 10,000 universeContact: Your list broker or Owenoak International, 200 Connecticut Ave., Nor-walk, CT 06854Phone: 203/831-0711Fax: 203/831-2819Email: [email protected]

Real Estate ProfessionalseTargetMedia.com Inc.Description: This file contains professional contacts in the real estate industry.Selects: 487,341 universeContact: Your list broker or eTargetMedia.com Inc., 6810 Lyons Technology Circle, Coconut Creek, FL 33073Phone: 954/480-8470Fax: 954/480-8489E-mail: [email protected]

Consumer Reports ShopSmartRMI Direct MarketingDescription: This file contains subscribers to Consumer Reports ShopSmart, a pub-lication that offers product reviews. These prospects have spent an average of $18 on a subscription. This list is 62% female.Selects: 75,815 universeContact: Your list broker or RMI Direct Marketing, 42 Old Ridgebury Road, Dan-bury, CT 06810Phone: 203/825-4613Fax: 203/207-8524E-mail: [email protected]

Uni-Med – Ailments by MedicationLighthouse List Description: This file contains people who have opted in for offers from pharmaceuti-cal marketers online. These prospects earn an average of $50,000 annually and spend an average of $100 on medications. Selects: 14 million universeContact: Your list broker or Lighthouse List, 27 SE 24th Ave., Pompano Beach, FL 33062Phone: 800/684-2180Fax: 954/489-3092E-mail: [email protected]

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Masterfile by Real DataListSolutionsDescription: This file contains professional contacts across a variety of industries. This list is 52% female. Selects: 9,241,000 universeContact: Your list broker or ListSolutions, 825 Georges Road, North Brunswick, NJ 08902Phone: 732/729-0500Fax: 732/729-0515E-mail: [email protected]

Diet and Nutrition EnthusiastsDirect GroupDescription: This file contains people who are interested in diet, nutrition and main-taining their health. This list is 50% female. Selects: 3,585,424 universeContact: Your list broker or Direct Group, 200 Centennial Ave, Piscataway, NJ 08854Phone: 732/980-0505Fax: 732/907-1905E-mail: [email protected]

Degree and Continuing Education RespondersFocus USADescription: This file contains people who have responded to e-mails and/or online advertisements and have gone online to check out education programs. Selects: 156,770 30-day hotlineContact: Your list broker or Focus USA, 1 University Plaza, Hackensack, NJ 07601 Tel: 201/489-2525Fax: 201/489-4499E-mail: [email protected]

Stewart Financial – Real Estate Investing SeminarsGeon Media GroupDescription: This file contains people who have attended real estate seminars throughout the US. Selects: 622,174 universeContact: Your list broker or Geon Media Group, 1922 East 10300, Sandy, UT 84092Phone: 801/619-7800Fax: 800/505-1703E-mail: [email protected]

Me Gusta Leer (I Love to Read) Spanish-Language SubscribersEstee Marketing GroupDescription: This file contains subscribers of various Spanish-language magazines and newspapers. These prospects spend an average of $70 on subscriptions. This list is 61% female. Selects: 3.4 million universeContact: Your list broker or Estee Market-ing Group, 270 North Ave., New Rochelle, NY 10801

Phone: 914/235-7080Fax: 914/235-6518E-mail: [email protected]

US Grant AssistanceNet60Description: This file contains people who are seeking government grants and assis-tance programs. This list is 57% male.Selects: 65,000 monthly hotlineContact: Your list broker or Net60, 1420 Queen Anne Road, Teaneck, NJ 07666 Phone: 201/833-9003Fax: 201/336-9088E-mail: [email protected]

Payday Loan ApplicantsList Services Corp.Description: This file contains people who are looking for payday advances. This list is 60% male.Selects: 5 million universeContact: Your list broker or List Services Corp., 6 Trowbridge Drive, PO Box 516, Bethel, CT 06801Phone: 203/791-4495Fax: 203/778-4299E-mail: [email protected]

Food Network MagazineAmerican List CounselDescription: This file contains subscribers to Food Network Magazine, which offers food lovers recipes and food-related col-umns. These prospects earn an average of $75,400 annually and have spent an average of $10 on a subscription. This list is 89% female; its average age is 43. Selects: 448,690 universeContact: Your list broker or American List Counsel, 660 White Plains Road, Tarrytown, NY 10591Phone: 914/524-5243Fax: 914/524-5290E-mail: [email protected]

Veterans of the American Armed ForcesShamokin Database ServicesDescription: This file contains veterans who donate to the armed forces. These prospects contribute an average of $90. Selects: 596,400 universeContact: Your list broker or Shamokin Database Services, PO Box 244, Richboro, PA 18954Phone: 215/583-6271Fax: 215/364-2212E-mail: [email protected]

NEW MANAGEMENTThe Healthy Directions Product Buyer & Subscriber MasterfileConrad Direct Inc.Description: This file contains subscribers to Healthy Directions newsletters, which offers alternative medicine news and infor-mation to readers.Selects: 2,400,000 universeContact: Your list broker or Conrad Direct Inc., 300 Knickerbocker Rd., Cresskill, NJ 07626Phone: 201/567-3200Fax: 201/567-4959 E-mail: [email protected]

LISTS AND DATABASESFor Publication: All list and insert information sent to DMNews for publication should be e-mailed, preferably in a Word attachment, to [email protected]. You may also fax 646/638-6159, to the attention of List News. Please avoid multiple submissions of the same lists. There may be a delay between the receipt of material and the date of publication.


16 | DMNEWS | March 30, 2009 | www.dmnews.com

dm-1920-lists-0420.indd 1 4/15/09 9:56:43 AM


LISTS AND DATABASES

2 | DMNEWS | January 12, 2009 | www.dmnews.com

LISTS AND DATABASES

Encompass MasterfileWest List BrokersDescription: This file contains vacationers who have filled out a travel survey at the end of a trip. Selects: 204,325 universeContact: Your list broker or West List Brokers, 550 Queens Quay West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5V 3M8Phone: 416/622-8700Fax: 647/435-0304E-mail: [email protected]

INSERTSPuritan’s Pride Package Insert ProgramLeon Henry Inc.Description: Ads can be placed inside ship-ments from Puritan’s Pride catalog, which offers vitamins, natural supplements, diet aids and beauty products to buyers. Selects: 2.2 million universeContact: Your list broker or Leon Henry, 200 N. Central Ave., Hartsdale, NY 10530Phone: 914/285-3456Fax: 914/285-3450E-mail: [email protected]

NEW SELECTSGourmet Center CookiesMoran Direct Inc. Description: This file contains buyers of

gourmet cookies from the Gourmet Center catalog. These prospects earn an average of $80,000 annually and have spent an average of $76 on gourmet cookies. This list is 76% female. Selects: 122,187 universe, $30-plus buyers, $40-plus buyers, $50-plus buyers, gender, geographyContact: Your list broker or Moran Direct Inc., 710 N. Post Oak Road, Houston, TX 77024Phone: 713/880-3725Fax: 713/263-7647E-mail: [email protected]

We’re Having a Baby!Infinite MediaDescription: This file contains parents who are having their first child. These prospects earn an average of $55,000 annually. Selects: 304,274 universe, age of children, due date, Hispanic ethnicity, Spanish-speaking, household income, geographyContact: Your list broker or Infinite Media, 190 E. Post Road, White Plains, NY 10601 Phone: 914/949-1547Fax: 914/949-1605E-mail: [email protected]

Complete BarbersComplete Mailing ListsDescription: This file contains professional barbers, ideal targets for beauty products, magazines and trade publications. Selects: 41,971 universeContact: Your list broker or Complete Mailing

Lists, 81 Pondfield Road, Bronxville, NY 10708Phone: 914/771-6640Fax: 914/771-6645E-mail: [email protected]

Office Depot MasterfileWalter KarlDescription: This file contains people who have bought from Office Depot. These pros-pects earn an average of $50,000 annually. This list is 58% female. Selects: 2,261,798 universe, business address, furniture buyers, gender, home address, job title selects, mail order buy-ers, max per company/sites, multi buyers, multi channel buyers, number of employ-ees, online buyers, sales volume, SOHO buyers, state, technology product buyersContact: Your list broker or Walter Karl, 2 Blue Hill Plaza, Pearl River, NY 10965 Phone: 847/273-5712Fax: 847/619-0150E-mail: [email protected]

Plastics Industry FocusDunn DataCoDescription: This file contains plastic indus-try professionals. They earn an average of $50,000 annually and are 69% male.Selects: 10,582 universe, company size, gender, job function, job title, phoneContact: Your list broker or Dunn DataCo, 2022 Route 22, Brewster, NY 10509Phone: 845/278-1258E-mail: [email protected]

Classical Music EnthusiastsPractical Marketing Inc.Description: This file contains people who have an interest in classical music. This list is 50% female.Selects: 5,778,678 universe, 1-month hotline, ethnicity, sexuality, geography, home owner, incomeContact: Your local list broker or Practical Marketing Inc., 23116 Sandalfoot Plaza Drive, Boca Raton, FL 33428.Phone: 888/697-5478Fax: 888/749-5478E-mail: [email protected]

Catalog Product Buyers NetworkList Connection Inc. Description: This file contains people who shop through catalogs. These prospects earn an average of $50,000. This list is 70% female. Selects: 6,270,000 universe, $10-plus buyers, $25-plus buyers, $50-plus buy-ers, 3-month buyers, 6-month buyers, 12-month buyers, 24-month buyers, age, child’s age range, dwelling type, ethnicity, gender of child, gender, geography, home owner, household income, length of resi-dence, number of children, phone number, presence of childrenContact: Your list broker or List Connection Inc., PO Box 1712, Simpsonville, SC 29681Phone: 864/962-0761Fax: 864/962-0769E-mail: [email protected]

▲

dm-1920-lists-0420.indd 2 4/15/09 9:57:01 AM

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TOOLBOX

Massaging ‘cold’ leads on a tight budget, why your message always comes fi rst in creative and more

SEARCHHow should I manage my organic search efforts?“The harder road often leads to the better ending,” says Niuniu Ji, founder and CEO of World Avenue. “Some key factors are understanding of search engine rules, link structure and content management.”

Time also is a crucial component in search engine optimization efforts, he adds. “The cost and patience needed to overcome the time intervals between goals often demoralize advertisers, but this is where the dedi-cated and strong will survive in this economy,” Ji says. “The longer you wait, the harder it will be to compete at a high level. Dust off that old Web site with a new design, update the supporting technology to provide a modern look and feel, examine those links to see if they are even leading to active or helpful sites and turn your attention back to low cost fundamentals.”

LEAD GENERATIONHow can I generate leads on a shoestring budget?“You can warm up ‘cold’ leads,” says Pava Cohen, VP of Sage Communications. “Companies are too quick to classify a lead as cold — often these are prospects that are not quite ready to buy. Reach out through e-mail to requalify and re-engage.

Cohen suggests you get more ROI from association memberships: “Leverage those dues — join committees, give speeches and contribute to the newsletter. Network at events, and ask those you meet for referrals.” Finally, repurpose PR and marketing content. “Content devel-opment is expensive,” says Cohen. “Get more bang for your buck by sending press releases and media articles directly to prospects, syndicating your whitepapers and using presentations to attract new leads.”

CREATIVEHow can I improve my marketing materials?“Too often, money is wasted on fancy brochures, direct mail campaigns and flashy Web sites with little impact,” says Jason Sherman, president of Sherman Commu-nications and Marketing. “Everything starts with your message — make it compelling, relevant and appealing.”

Sherman notes that you typically only have a few sec-onds to capture your audience’s attention and engage it. “Strong visuals that support your central message are important, but the written message needs to be on target,” he says. “Survey and speak your audience. Find out what key issues matter most to them, then craft your messaging around the overlap between these top concerns and desires and your product’s or service’s greatest strengths. Test your marketing materials and campaign with samples of your target audience. See what reactions you get, and tweak accordingly.”

SOCIALHow can I test the social media waters? “The easy place to start is by analyzing your current position in the social landscape,” says Chris Thornton, CMO of Definition 6. “Chances are, someone’s already talking about you online. Take a look at what’s being said, and analyze the impact of those conversations.

“You also need to understand your motivation for using social media,” he adds. “Rather than taking an ‘everyone is doing it’ approach, you’ll need to clearly define your goals and outline what you believe social media will help your organization achieve. All social tools are not created equal, and some work better than others depending on the desired outcomes and target audiences. There are numerous inexpensive tools that can help you create a launching pad for a social media presence that will, over time, be effective.” ●


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: Cellufun has hired Neil Edwards (1) as CEO. Previously, Edwards held the same title at CotMobi.

: Portrait Software has named Luke McKeever (2) CEO. Prior to joining Portrait Software, McKeever was CEO at Capital ID.

: Responsys has named John Berkley VP of product mar-keting and new business. He had last served as interim CEO at Revcube.

: AudienceScience has hired Stuart Coleman as head of European operations. Prior to joining AudienceScience, Coleman was head of sales at the Financial Times.

: InterClick Inc. has hired Dave Meyers as its VP of ad opera-tions. Most recently, Meyers served as senior director of advertiser marketplace operations at Yahoo.

: Presstek Inc. has named Daniel Victory (3) global technical director. Prior to joining Presstek Inc., Victory was director of fi eld technical support, con-sumables products at Agfa Corporation.

: Euro RSCG Discovery has named Bruce Wilkinson (4) SVP of sales.Prior to joining Euro RSCG Discovery, Wilkin-son served as VP and business development leader at Experian.

: Peer39 has announced that Gordon Crovitz will joinits advisory board. He had been publisher at The Wall Street Journal.

: Doclix Inc. has hired Yael Yekutiel as VP of marketing and PR. Previously, Yekutiel served as head of mar-keting at Traffi q.

: Marketing Technology Solutions has hired Rob Rebak as CEO. He had been CEO at ParentingTeensNetwork.

PEOPLENEWS

Neil Edwards (1) Luke McKeever (2) Daniel Victory (3) Bruce Wilkinson (4)

Tracy CoteExecutive director, talent,Organic

How can a direct marketing agency use Twitter as an effective recruiting tool?

EXPERTADVICE

: The Twitter phenomenon has taken the social networking world by storm. While policy wonks, celebrities and even your own mother may be Tweeting, Twitter also has very practical applications.

Talent recruiting is a perfect example of how Twitter can simplify and amplify the recruiting process. Twitter’s no-cost model and low time commitment makes it an ideal tool for a recruiter.

Here are the steps marketing agencies can take to effectively use Twitter as a recruiting tool:

First — and maybe obviously — create a company Twitter profi le so potential applicants can fi nd you. Carefully select someone to post all open positions and to be the person behind the Tweets. Twit-ter’s 140 characters force you to com-municate in “headlines,” so this person must be a concise but creative writer.

Next, consider holding “Twitter Twaining” for your agency’s recruiters. While many people have dabbled on Twitter, it can take time to perfect the art of Tweeting. It is helpful to share with

recruiters basic tips on how to Tweet effectively” so your recruiters are not Twitter “wallfl owers” nor sharing too much personal information.

You also will want to provide your recruiters with specifi c information like which applications to use to conduct Twitter searches and how to use Twit-ter’s own job search app.

Post jobs using key identifi ers, such as hash marks around key words. Also, dedicate a URL to each Twitter job post-ing, so you can monitor the number of clickthroughs a job posting receives spe-cifi cally through the Twitter channel.

Another benefi t of Twitter is the ease with which people can forward, or “re-Tweet.” Encourage employees to re-Tweet job openings by offering an employee referral bonus for candidates found through Tweeting.

Although these tips will provide a solid start for any agency’s Twitter recruiting program, it is important to remember that Twitter is a social networking tool, and it’s essential to be authentic. ●

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25-peoplenews-042009.indd 1 4/15/09 1:29:46 PM

The Suns have used Twitter since Decem-ber to keep fans informed about players and to try to get them to come back to the Web site, said McPeek. This communication will continue during the offseason.

McPeek said that the costs associated with Twitter have been coming from the team’s general marketing budget. Most of the money spent, he says, can be attributed to employee hours and promotional giveaways.

“We have not allocated any budget towards our Twitter efforts and really aren’t spend-ing any money to grow it at this point,” he explained. “In terms of time spent on Twitter, it’s a difficult one to answer, since there are so many of us who are regularly Tweeting. I personally am spending several hours a week on Twitter, but it’s typically in short bursts of three to five minutes at a time, or time on my Blackberry out at lunch or while watching our team practice or play.”

The Suns recently signed with Twackle.com, which aggregates all Twitter messages related to a specific topic. The site was launchedby Octagon Digital in February specifically to aggregate sports-related Tweets.

The Suns also recently held a Tweetup, or in-person meeting for Twitter followers, at a game. For the event, Twitter followers were offered discount tickets, had their own section and participated in pre- and post-game activities. Approximately 120 people showed up.

Also, NHL fans in 21 US and Canadian cities last week participated in the first-ever NHL Tweetup to mark the beginning of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The Tweetup “is really a fan-oriented event that has grown organically because of them,” said Michael DiLorenzo, director of corpo-rate communications at the NHL. “Twitter was the catalyst allowing us to rally people to kick off the start of the playoffs.”

There are potential pitfalls to Twitter. Earlier this year, Charlie Villaneuva of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks posted a Tweet from his cell phone during halftime of a game. When the coach found out, he told Villaneuva and the rest of the team that Tweeting during games was a no-no.

Still, like with other social media before it, the opportunities seem to outweigh the hurdles for those who grab on early and establish a following in this uncharted territory.

The real innovations in using Twitter to market sports teams and leagues while driving results are yet to come, said David Berkowitz, director of emerging media and client strategy at New York-based 360i.

“If you’re able to bring people closer to the game, ideally they’re going to want to experi-ence it live,” Berkowitz said. “Plus, all of a fan’s followers are being exposed to [the interaction with a team]. The real goal is to reach the influencers and get to their audiences.”

Even corporate sponsors are eyeing Twit-ter. “We’re starting to talk to clients about how to leverage Twitter,” said Smith. “If you’re already investing heavily in a spon-sorship, the question becomes, ‘How do I take the asset that I have and use the most advanced digital channel to leverage it?’”

Smith expects some of the early examples of what Twitter initiatives will look like to show up this summer. ●


DIRECTCHOICE

Mailers excitedby sale talk, even with short notice

Sports teams, players score with fans when marketing with micro-blogging

Contact File

: Every once in a while, my neighbors will stop me during my dog walk to show me some interesting piece of mail they’ve received. This is, to my way of thinking, a bonus for living in an old, Leave it to

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current economic climate makes that more important than ever,” said Steve Kearney, SVP of customer relations for the USPS. “Promotional pricing is one possibility, an idea that would need to be reviewed by the Postal Regulatory Commission. As we move forward with specific pricing promotions and other business incentives, we’ll announce them to the industry and the media.”

The Direct Marketing Association has already come out in favor of the idea.

“The current economic climate demands this new pricing strategy to grow mail vol-ume during the slow summer season,” said DMA president and CEO John Greco in a statement. “It has taken two years for this to come to fruition, and we welcome its continued progress.”

There might be some concern among mailers about the lead time to take advan-tage of the sale, said Jerry Cerasale, SVP of government relations for the DMA.

“Many mailers have already locked in June and July, so we are uncertain of how many can take advantage of it, but some will,” he said. “Because of a short lead time, the reaction to this won’t be the same as if there was a lot more notice.”

Still, the idea is a good start, Cerasale continued. “Let’s applaud them for it,” he said. “We hope the postal service uses this as a baseline to look at and implement fur-ther sales.”

Hamilton Davison, executive director of the American Catalog Mailers Association, said there is “a lot of excitement” in the mailing industry for the proposed sale.

“We are very pleased they are thinking out of the box and using innovative approaches to stimulate mail,” he said.

“The record shows that as rates have been artificially reduced, volume has continued to drop — and at an unprecedented rate,” he wrote.

PRC spokesman Norm Scherstrom said the agency had not yet received an official proposal from the USPS to review. Once it does, the PRC will have up to 45 days, including a public comment period, to review the proposal. ●

‘Sports’ continued from cover

‘Mailers’ continued from cover

Send your Direct Choice [email protected]

We… aren’t spending any money to grow[Twitter] at this point

Jeramie McPeek, VP ofinteractive svcs, Phoenix Suns Both Jerry Cerasale

(top), the DMA’s SVPof government affairs;and Hamilton Davison,executive director ofthe American CatalogMailer’s Association,expressed concernover the short noticeto mailers of the ratediscount proposal, butalso praised the USPSfor the initiative

Beaver-style neighborhood. And a piece that my neighbor Jerry showed me recently really got my attention. As in, “Tennnn — HUT!” That’s right, it’s for the US Army.

The piece itself appears to be an enve-lope package, although it was formatted wisely to print in one piece and covert – saving time and money.

But, I seem to recall that there were laws about sending unsolicited mail to young kids — and the recipient of this piece is 13 years old. I don’t know about you, but it really bugs me to think that the Army hired an agency so inept that its database work couldn’t sort out the kids under 16 — your tax dollars at work.

The mail piece has some good ideas that show knowledge of the teen market – the mail side announces the offer and teases with “How to take on the world,” which is what most teenagers feel like doing most days of their overactive, hormone-fueled lives. The opposite side has a map on it with a challenge to

Military mail hits the target with creative, but misses the mark in data

match coordinates to their corresponding pinpoints. This is a pretty good concept insofar as they are targeting kids who like to solve problems.

The approach of this mailing is also pretty honest and straightforward. Unlike some of the “glamour advertising” that I’ve seen for military recruitment, this mailing showed a truer portrayal with photos of Army men and women partici-pating in military maneuvers.

This package also includes two reply cards – just in case you and your friend want to join together. Using peer inertia to encourage signups is just how teens are wired. And finally, a very cool offer: personalized dog tags, just for sending back the card. While the offer is so good it may have gotten them a lot of bad leads, I have few doubts that it got many conversations going — and that’s what lead generation is all about.

Davison said he, too, was initially con-cerned about the short notice given mailers, but added that “there’s a lot of excitement and appreciation” among catalogers for the sale.

Although the proposal still must be approved by the Postal Regulatory Com-mission, Davison estimated there’s “a 75% chance” that the sale will happen.

“I think it will go through,” he said. However, American Postal Workers

Union president William Burrus said in a statement to union members that the proposal “represents a further erosion of uniform rates.”

“Does anyone remember the noble prin-ciple that every mailer should pay the same amount?” he wrote. “According to the con-cept of ‘universal service and uniform rates,’ no matter where you live or who you are, postage rates should be the same.”

Burrus further said that the plan will not increase mail volumes.

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