Donna's Promo Talk

Celebrating America, the Olympic Games and their Sponsors

Happy 4th of July! It's such a beautiful morning here today and with Independence Day falling on a Friday it has given many of us Americans the gift of a long summer weekend. We have plans to visit some friends who have a place on Canandaigua Lake today, one of New York's magnificent Finger Lakes. It's such a picturesque part of the country and one that has been experiencing a growth in local wineries which has helped to raise the bar of New York State wines. Anyhow, I'm anxious to get out there and enjoy the day. However, it's been such a hectic last few weeks (I did survive the high school graduation party) and I haven't been on my blog, so here I am.

Today is the holiday in which we celebrate our country's freedom. However, many of us Americans this year are trying to remember how proud we are to be Americans, and yes I did say "trying"...it's been kinda difficult to do with the current presidential administration we have in place. But the Olympic Games are back this summer and they are helping to again bring out our sense of patriotism. We are now starting to see some of the trials on TV and hearing more and more about our U.S. teams and the individuals who are getting ready to compete in Beijing.

Millions of dollars are spent by brands to be official sponsors of the games as well supporters of the individual teams. This year some of the corporate brands that have been sponsors for years are getting some harsh criticism from international human rights activists that feel they are endorsing China's human rights record. However, Worldwide Olympic Game sponsors such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Kodak and Visa are all back. Unfortunately however, following the closing ceremonies of the Beijing 2008 Olympic games Kodak will conclude it's sponsorship as the Worldwide Official Imaging Sponsor which it has held for the past 100+ years.

It was back during the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games that I got so heavily involved in creating and executing promotions for Kodak that I realized what a huge marketing event this is. During that year Kodak not only promoted it's worldwide sponsorship, but also supported the individual sports (national governing bodies or NGBs as they are called). The strategy was to assign specific sports to specific retailers and develop exclusive tie-in programs.

I was leading the agency team at the time working with Kodak on this program which resulted in 73 different account-specific promotional campaigns that we rolled-out in a six-month period for about 33 different retailers such as Wal-Mart, kmart, Target, Walgreens, Kroger, Safeway and some that have merged and are no longer such as Eckerd Drug and Revco. Many of these included sweepstakes for a chance to win a trip to attend the Olympic Games.

I learned an extraordinary amount that year about working with the Olympic Committee and the individual NGB's as well as learning the differences and individual needs of Kodak's retail customers. All these promotions were communicated mostly through in-store merchandising and some with retail advertising. Nothing existed online at all yet. That was just 12 years ago, and think about how different it is today. Not only have the promotions moved online, but the coverage of the games have as well.

So, from now until the games begin in August I will be covering many of the different interactive promotions and marketing programs that the various sponsors have developed. Thanks to those brands that support the games and the teams. They pay a huge price to be an official sponsor and without their support these games could not take place. So please do support them and their products and services as well as stay clear of those that try and jump on the bandwagon unofficially.

Have a great 4th of July weekend and stay safe. Please visit my last year's post which includes a vintage 4th of July video from 1940.

High School Graduation Thoughts From a Mom and Marketer

I decided to take a break today from my normal posts about interactive marketing and write about my oldest daughter, Kelsey, who we'll be celebrating her high school graduation with tonight. I just haven't been able to get her off my mind today and my emotions have been getting the best of me. So, since today was my day to be the guest blogger over at Lip-sticking.com, I felt it was appropriate to write about Kelsey there and this life changing event. I was even able to slip in a little slant relating to marketing to women. Kelsey is after all now part of the coveted 18-24, female, college-age target market that so many brands and marketers want to reach.

Anyhow, here's the invite her and her best friend Claire created for their graduation party which is this Friday at our house. They handed them out to about 100 friends and posted it on Facebook. So, looks like we're going to have a houseful. Please take a moment to read my post here on Lip-sticking and if you have any current or past high school graduation thoughts, please feel free to pass along as comments.

Subway and Vespa Promote with GET SMART

Another theatrical release hit the box office this past weekend which, like Indiana Jones, tugs on the heartstrings of us baby boomers. GET SMART was updated for the big screen starring Steve Carell as the bumbling Agent 86 and Anne Hathaway as the smooth Agent 99. It did pretty well grossing an estimated $39.1 million over the weekend although the critics weren't very positive. Those of us that remember the TV series will agree that it was all based on some silly comedy that may not translate as well into today's entertainment world. But you have to admit that casting Steve Carell as Maxwell Smart was a great choice.

Vespa and Subway have teamed up with Warner Bros. for this entertainment marketing tie-in. In addition to making a cameo appearance in the film, Vespa is also giving away scooters to 10 lucky winners. Consumers can enter at any Subway restaurant or register online at subwayfreshbuzz.com or at VespaUSA.com. Customers can also receive a $5 coupon for Subway if they test drive a Vespa scooter at a participating dealership.

The Subway "Get Smart. Eat Fresh." interactive promotion is both a sweepstakes and an instant win win game. Over a $1 million dollars in prizes is up for grabs with a 1965 Sunbeam Tiger Series I Convertible as the top Grand Prize. This car is valued at $58,500 and the winner gets an additional $25,072 in spending money that can be used to cover taxes. That is a pretty cool prize with a total value of $83,572. The winner will be randomly chosen in a drawing at the end of the promotion which concludes on August 10th.

The instant win game is where they're giving away the Vespa GTS 250 as the top prize. The second prize is a  VIP Warner Bros. Lot Tour which includes a trip package to Los Angeles along with some spending money. Nine yellow Vespa LX 50 scooters will be given away as third prizes, and several other secondary prizes that include Apple and Best Buy gift cards along with Get Smart DVD's and "Movie Money" to see the Get Smart movie.

To play the instant win game consumers have to first enter the sweepstakes which allows them one game play per day. They need to enter the secret code which can be obtained several ways such as visiting a participating Subway restaurant and making a purchase which will be then included on the register receipt. Codes will also be found on in-store displays, hidden in the Subway and Vespa websites and also obtained via an email request. The promotion is being administered and hosted by eprize.

So I hear that the shoe phone makes an appearance in the film which of course having mobile communications isn't a stretch today as it was back in the '60's. But I'm wondering why some of today's big mobile phone brands didn't get on board with this - where is our Verizon "Can you Hear Me Now?" character? I think he'd fit in very well with Agent 86, don't you?

Another Study Claims Social Media is Mainstream

Today I read this post on Media Post's Online Media Daily newsletter regarding results of the latest installment of an ongoing tracking study from Interpublic's Universal McCann "Media in Mind" study. It states that "text messaging, blogging and social networking have reached critical mass, with more than half of adults now relying on at least one of these so-called Web 2.0 platforms for communicating with friends, family, or colleagues on a regular basis".

It appears that study after study is now telling us that that the world has moved on in the ways of traditional marketing communications and "Web 2.0" is here to stay. Just a couple of weeks ago I wrote this post about the BlogHer Study which states that blogging is mainstream among women. Last month I wrote this post about the Borrell Associates study which states that online promotions is expected to triple over the next five years and my guess is that social media will be fueling that growth. So, I don't think it will be long before "Web 3.0", or "Wave 3" now as they're referring to it, is what we'll be reading about from now on.

I do find this new report very interesting and I haven't had a chance to review the full copy of UM's white paper so for now I'm just going to recap Media Post's article which follows here:

Among adults 18-34 they have found that social media now is the dominant form of personal communication media, with 85% of this influential demographic group relying on one or more Web 2.0 platforms to stay in touch with others.

"Although age is the driving force behind usage patterns of these technologies, it is clear that a fundamental shift has taken place in all of our lives about what it means to communicate in the 21st Century," the agency says in a new white paper based on the research.

And it's not just newer forms of Web-based communications that people are relying more on. Even "old school" methods such as email and instant messaging are continuing to displace other forms of analog communication. The percentage of U.S. adults who said they now rely on instant messaging, for example, rose to 22% this year from just 9% in 2007. Among 18- to 34-year-olds, IM dependent crowd grew to 21% from 14% a year ago.

Text messaging, meanwhile, proves that mobile media also is becoming a dominant source of personal communications beyond the cell phone, even if mass marketers haven't yet figured out how to crack the potential of marketing through the medium. The percentage of U.S. adults who say they've never sent a text message fell to 41% this year from 49% a year ago. And among 18- to 34-year-olds, it dropped to 22% from 38%.

"We're definitely seeing continual shifts," says Graeme Hutton, senior vice president-director of consumer insights at UM, and the chief curator of the agency's highly regarded Media in Mind research. "The great unwashed - those people who have never sent a text message - is getting smaller all the time."

One of the more fascinating parts of the UM research is the speed with which the average American is becoming a self-publisher on the Internet. One out of 10 U.S. adults now publish blogs, up from just 5% a year ago. Among 18- to 34-year-olds, the rate is twice that, with one out of five publishing blogs, up from 10% a year ago.

And who's reading all this blog materials? Well, according to UM, everyone. The percentage of Americans of all demographic groups who say they now read a blog everyday soared between 2007 and 2008, and UM's Hutton attributed this to the rapid rise of another Web 2.0 platform: social networks.

"We think that's do to the increased use of social networking, and blogs are an integral part of using them," he explains. "Two years ago, asking people about blogs, people were shaking their heads. I think now it's taking off because social networks are taking off. RSS feeds, which make reading blogs easier, have become an integral part of the way people communicate and exchange content. People may have been doing it before, but may not have realized it. Now they're recognizing it for what it is."

Dads, Grads, Brides and...The Hulk!

It was a weekend of "Dads, Grads and Brides" for me which mirrored the way most retail marketers define the month of June. With all that I had going on this weekend I never even got a chance to get to my computer except to briefly check my email before I went to bed last night.

Saturday we started the morning at an 11am wedding ceremony for our nice, Elizabeth, which was held at a beautiful outdoor setting with Lake Ontario as the backdrop. The rain held off for the most part... just a few sprinkles came down on us which no one seemed to mind too much. After the lunch reception we headed back home to change clothes and out the door again we went to a high school graduation party. Then Sunday was Father's Day which I got to spend at home catching up on the usual weekend chores and watching Tiger Woods march on to force a playoff round today in the U.S. Open Championship against Rocco Mediate.

The Incredible Hulk was also released in movie theaters and grabbed the top spot at the box office with $54.5 million in sales for the weekend. However, it didn't come anywhere close to Marvel Entertainment's other movie release this season, Iron Man, which brought in $104.2 over the Memorial Day weekend, the second-best premiere ever for a non-sequel. Universal Pictures is Marvel's distributor partner on this movie which stars Edward Norton as the scientist who turns into the Hulk when maddened.

Kmart used up some of their entertainment marketing dollars to partner with The Incredible Hulk. Their "Incredible Dads" Father's Day Promotion takes advantage of the "Dads" day timing. Consumers are invited to purchase "Incredible Dad" Hulk-themed gift cards, and those who purchase at least $50 worth can receive "movie money" for two general admissions to see the film.

Additionally, Kmart is running a mobile marketing segment of the promotion that includes a text-to-win sweepstakes that gives consumers a chance to win a trip for four people to the Universal Studios Orlando theme park. Other prizes include Kmart gift cards and THE INCREDIBLE HULK merchandise which is also available for sale at Kmart.

I can not finish this post if I did not mention the loss of Tim Russert this past weekend which has deeply saddened so many people, especially those of us in Western New York. Tom Brokaw said on NBC Friday evening that if we were to morn and celebrate the life of Tim there wouldn't be a more approriate weekend than Father's Day. Thank you Tim for all you have shared with us. You will be greatly missed. It's hard to imagine going forward with this year's presidential election without you.

So, as for my closing remarks, Happy Father's Day to all and as Tim would say....."GO BILLS!" 

House Party Combines Social Events with Social Media

Today I am again the guest blogger over at Lip-sticking.com, which I've now comfortably fell into the every other Wednesday slot. I recently learned about this pretty interesting promotion that The Hershey Co. did by working with a new marketing services firm called House Party. They developed and managed the Hershey's Bliss Chocolate Party which took place in 10,200 homes back in April.

I thought this was a really cool marketing concept and felt the Lipsticking network would appreciate reading about it since marketing to women appears to be it's key focus. So I invite you to please hop on over there and read my post and learn how chocolate, tequila and TNT are integrating social events with social media to engage a huge market of consumers.

PROMO 100 2008 Agency of the Year - Digitas

As is tradition, PROMO Magazine reveals it's PROMO 100 annual list of the top promotional agencies every June 1st which this year happened to be a Sunday, so the announcement was made on Monday, the 2nd instead. Last year they started a new tradition by holding a live webinar to announce the top 10 agencies along with the Agency of the Year. This year they again had a live webinar which was on Monday morning and presented by Patty Odell, Executive Editor of PROMO. However, I was not able to log-in for what ever reason that day, but it appears to be working fine now. If you want to see the presentation you can do so here.

PROMO changed up the model in which they selected their top agencies. As in the past there were three different factors which made up the rankings; two-year growth, creative and revenue. This year they went strictly with total revenue which I find odd and a bit disappointing.  So it's no surprise who really ends up in the top 10 anymore.  PROMO concluded that editors aren't creative directors, so their creative judgment was not fair.

This year's agency of the year went to DIGITAS, chosen mostly for it's work in interactive marketing. "€œIt has been a fabulous year for us," says Laura Lang, CEO of DIGITAS, USA who is featured here in this image. "I tell everyone that I couldn'€™t have imagined a better outcome."€

DIGITAS was purchased last year by advertising giant Publicis for $1.3 billion which added interactive talent to their mix as well as accounts such as American Express, General Motors and IBM. Maurice Levy, CEO of Publicis announced in late April that digital revenue was the strongest growth element in the company's Q1 2008 financial picture and he expects digital sales to make up 20% of his company's total revenue by the end of the year.

DIGITAS' promotions VP, Jackie Stone, highlighted the Buick Tee Off with Tiger online campaign their running this year. Entrants are asked to predict Tiger Woods' score on each hole of each round of each tournament of the 2008 PGA Tour in which he participates through the end of September. At the end of each tournament, the registered participants with the top ten scores will be considered finalists and will each receive one entry into the grand prize drawing for a chance to win a round of golf with Woods as the caddy. Each finalist will also win their choice of Tiger's actual Buick vehicle from that tournament or a new 2008 Buick vehicle up to $48,000 retail value.

There is also an instant win game that is giving away 20 gift certificates per tournament worth $25 each at either Nike Golf or PGA TOUR Superstore.com. "€œThese golfers are fascinated with how the game is played," Lang says. "€œSo the conversation around the promotion is how Tiger'€™s playing each hole, what club he's using and what strategy. We had insight into the consumer, and then we acted to bring that to life with a campaign that starts a broader conversation inside the group."€

The next stop on the PGA Tour that Tiger will be playing is the U.S. Open Championship being held June 12 -15 in La Jolla, California at Torrey Pines Golf Course. So, join in and see how well you predict how Tiger will do.

Another interactive promotional campaign launched by DIGITAS in the last year included the American Express Members Project, which asked cardholders to suggest worthy social projects. It pledged a $1 donation for every member who voted for the idea (to a $5 million limit).

So congratulations to the team at DIGITAS for being the first Interactive Agency to be awarded this coveted title. Last year it went to Ryan Partnership, one of the few independent agencies in the top 100. Here's links to the posts I wrote last year about them and the promotions they ran for Dove, Heineken and Campbell's.

WWE Raw $Million Giveaway Crashes ePrize Site

Well, there are good days and bad days when your business involves technology, and for ePrize, the leading supplier of interactive promotions, yesterday was not a good day. What every marketer fears when launching a major online promotion happened to WWE during their WWE Raw telecast last night...their promotional site crashed.

Now eprize hosts their clients' promotional websites on their servers and redirects them to an eprize.net URL, so I'm not sure if they had any problems with other client's sites, but it was reported today that the website for Vince McMahon's Million Dollar Mania Giveaway Contest  went down because of high interest and the amount of exposure the promotion had received. So while it's great that they got quite bit of traffic, it's isn't good to not be prepared to let your guests in.

From what I understand Vince McMahon announced the contest last night during WWE Monday Night RAW which airs on the USA Network. For those of us non-wrestling fans, Vince McMahon is the Chairman of the WWE Board of Directors and majority shareholder of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. In addition to owning the organization, he also wrestles often and has held both the WWE World title in 1999 and ECW World title in 2007.

Vince will be giving away a total of eight prizes, totaling $1,000,000 in this sweepstakes to be awarded live on WWE RAW next Monday, June 9th. Here's the breakdown:

• ONE GRAND PRIZE: $250,000
• TWO FIRST PRIZES: $200,000 each
• ONE SECOND PRIZE: $125,000
• ONE THIRD PRIZE: $98,000
• ONE FOURTH PRIZE: $75,000
• ONE FIFTH PRIZE: $51,998
• ONE SIXTH PRIZE: $2.00

No, that's not a typo. The last prize is actually two dollars! I guess they're trying to be funny.

The goal is to bring back and gain new viewers to WWE Raw.“This is no hoax. This is the real deal,” McMahon said to a live audience while standing at a Plexiglas podium full of play money. “Why would I give away a million dollars in cash? Maybe it’s because I’m eccentric, or maybe it’s because I’m generous. Or maybe I just want people to enjoy and watch what you enjoy every week.”

Now you can go visit the eprize promo site which is up. It invites fans to get in on the action by first entering their email address. Then it reminds then that they'll need a code to win. So next Monday June 9th at 9PM ET they can either tune into RAW on USA or visit wwe.com to find out what it is. In order to win they must be accessible during the two hours that the show is broadcast by the phone number they provided when they registered.

So, eprize I'm sure is now ready to have a record number of hits next Monday night. It will be interesting to actually go visit the website during this time frame and see if it's running slow. I can play the game, and not even watch the show. So, I'm not sure how well it will boost WWE Raw ratings. We'll have to wait and see. Either way, both WWE and eprize have gotten some publicity out of this.

Bombay Sapphire Integrates Online Contest and Blogs

Now that I've been blogging here for almost a year and a half about interactive promotions I've made the list of a few PR firms who have been sending me information about their clients' latest promotions. Most of them I have found interesting and try and write about. This one I received from the folks over at Terpin Communications that I just couldn't pass up for a few good reasons: 1) They have an awesome promotional website 2) They've got a separate contest just for us bloggers! 3) I love a good Bombay Sapphire Martini!

Bombay Sapphire's "The Spirit of Exploration" contest is sending a lucky winner on a trip to the Sky Bar in Bangkok, Thailand! Once you get through the regulatory website pages and tell them your birth date and country you're told that "the most extraordinary brand introduces an interactive experience like no other". You're then greeted by the bartender of the Sky Bar, an exotic spot located on top of the Baiyoke Sky Hotel, the second tallest building in Bangkok.

To enter the contest, consumers need to write a 50 word essay saying "What the Spirit of Exploration means to them". They may also include photographs and/or videos to go along with their essay or insert a link to their Flickr, MySpace, Facebook page that contains them. A panel of judges will review all the entries and choose a winner based on the persuasiveness of the entry, their ability to communicate their explorative spirit and their relevance to Bombay Sapphire. Entries are accepted up till July 15th.

The grand prize winner receives a 7-day trip to Bangkok along with some tours and an English-speaking sightseeing guide. The winner get to fly on Cathay Pacific airlines either out of New York's JFK airport, Los Angeles' LAX or San Fransisco however, they need to find their own way to one of those airports on their own expense. Either way, the trip is valued at $8,000, so it's worth it.

Now the Spirit of Exploration blogger's contest is asking for blog posts that focus on the same question of what the spirit of exploration means to you. So, that's not really what I'm writing about here. I guess I'll have to come back to it and write about it in a different post if I want a shot at this. But what's really cool about what they've done here is created a blog in which they're generating content for it by the promotion itself. You can read all the posts that have been submitted (and accepted) and then vote for which one you think should get the title of "the Spirit of Exploration Blogger"!

The bloggers can't win the trip to Bangkok just by posting, but they can take their blog post and also enter it as an essay in the contest. Each blogger can submit a link to their actual blog which gets added to the Bombay Sapphire blogroll. They also supply the blogger with a downloadable badge that they can place on their own blog which invites their readers to vote for them. I counted 11 posts on the blog as of today. Soon to come will be a Sapphire Explores Community on Facebook that I guess they don't have up yet.

So, if you read my previous post here on the reported growth online promotions will be experiencing in the next five years I also did my own forecasting. I stated that integrating social media, especially blogs, with interactive promotions is one of the ways in which I think this growth is going to happen. The Bombay Sapphire promotion is a great example of how they've brought the two mediums together. Stay tuned for my Spirit of Exploration post. I really want that martini now!

BlogHer Study Shows Blogging is Mainstream Among Women

I was reading my daily AdAge MediaWorks newsletter yesterday and there was a mention in their 3 Minute Ad Age Video about a new report on the demographics of female blogging. So I clicked on the video and got to hear a one minute highlight about the report, however I first had to listen to a review of CBS's new series, Swingtown, about sex, drugs in suburbia 1970's that apparently media buyers really love so far, and then finishing with another one minute report telling me that Kellogg's Hydrox cookies are back and taking on Nabisco's Oreo cookies. A very strange combination of topics, wouldn't you say?

What I did find out is that the blogging report was conducted by my friends over at BlogHer, so I hopped over to their site and found the report myself. BlogHer conducted this study with Compass Partners, a consumer-research consultancy, and originally released some of the results at the BlogHer Business Conference back in March that I had wanted to attend, but was not able to. The overall message that the report shows is that blogging has now become mainstream among women.

The study was based on surveys of two sample groups which together included several thousand respondents: one composed of participants in the BlogHer community and the other of online women selected to represent the general population of U.S. women, age 18-75. The numbers showed that more than one third of women in the U.S., 36.2 million, participate in the blogosphere weekly. Of those women, nearly 42%, 15.1 million, are publishing at least one post weekly and slightly over 58%, 21.1 million women, are reading and/or posting. Those are pretty impressive numbers.

Now I currently believe that the average age of women online in the blogosphere falls in the range of young mothers and this study justifies that. Here's a chart that shows the age breakdowns as well how much each group is publishing vs. reading. Also not surprising is that 68% of the BlogHer community is concentrated in the 25-41 age group while only 42% of the general population fall here, but still the largest percentage.