Donna's Promo Talk

St. Ives Elements Promotion - Books, Blogs and Beyond Conference

Today I'm the featured guest blogger over at Lip-sticking.com, a blog about marketing to women online. I've mentioned Lip-sticking here quite a few times before. I started my official role as a Lipsticking blogger last month and now hope to write a post there about every other week. My good friend Yvonne DiVita has invited me, along with three other women, to blog on it, so the five us make up a pretty diverse team.

I'm planning to also write my posts on Lip-sticking about interactive promotions but they'll be more focused on promotions that are targeted to women. Today's post here is about the interactive promotional campaign that Alberto Culver's St. Ives brand developed to help launch their new skincare line, St. Ives Elements. You just have to check out the interactive website, GetAHappyFace.com, that they developed which takes the campaign totally online.

Also I wanted to mention here that I'm working with Yvonne and the team from her company, Windsor Media Enterprises, on the development of a conference on Books, Blogs and Beyond - what we're calling Publishing 3.0. We have created a survey to help us get some initial feedback and have sent it out through some email messages to those friends and acquaintances who are business professionals and have either written a book, expressed the idea of wanting to write a book, or have mentioned that they have friends and colleagues who are writing or want to write a book. Some of also are bloggers, others are not - yet.

So, I thought I’d also include the survey link here on my blog and ask those of you who may be interested to take about 10 minutes to complete it. Please feel free to share with anyone you know that may also be interested. Yvonne is also putting this survey link up on Lip-sticking as well as some of her other blogs and including Twitter as well. The more input we can get, the better. Thanks for your input.

Online Promotions: The Big Shift

I wrote this post a week and a half ago about a report by Borrell Associates which states that the online promotions category is expected to nearly triple over the next five years from $8 billion last year to $22.8 billion, surpassing all other online advertising categories (paid search, banners, e-mail, audio/video advertising). Since I wrote this post Borrell Associates was gracious enough to send me a promotional copy of the report. So I would like provide you some more detail and well as some of my observations.

To recap, the report states that as in offline promotions, most of the value of online promotions is the cash value of incentives that are given to motivate short-term sales. The report also states that online display ads (Web page banners, pop-ups, etc.) have lost their luster and that spending on them has been generally flat for the past two years. They believe it will peak this year at $12.6 billion, and then begin a precipitous decline to less than half that amount over the next four years. They also state that paid search advertising is likewise facing a luster-loss and they foresee it hitting its peak next year at $16.9 billion, followed by a gradual decline.

Currently online promotion spending is only 22% of the total $37 billion overall interactive marketing pie. Overall promotions account for about 60 percent of all dollars spent annually in global marketing. The Borrell report says that the composition that makes up online promotions spending will continue to evolve over the next five years. Spending for online discounts and rebates (for example, the reduced ticket prices offered by some airlines) will continue to dominate the category, however, it will decrease in share going from 41.4% in 2007 to 38.7% by 2012. Spending on online games and contests however is predicated to grow from 10.5% of the online promotions pie in 2007 to 28.4% by 2012.

As I said in my previous post, to many of us in the interactive promotions business this is great news. We now have a report that helps to confirm what we've known all along...online promotions, specifically sweepstakes, contests and instant-win games, produce highly measurable results. By putting the right incentive in front of the right audience, you can get them to act! So while this report may contain predictions that seem strange to some, it makes perfect sense to us promotions people. We all know that marketers today need campaigns that can provide measurable results, and online promotions are an effective way for them to achieve this.

What I believe is an up and coming trend which will help fuel the growth of online sweepstakes and contest promotions is integrating them with social media. The strategy of combining these two marketing tactics is bound to become a big part of the increase that is predicted over the next five years.

Social media, including blogs and social networks, has dramatically increased the speed and coverage of word-of-mouth, also known as viral marketing. Blogs are powerful socializing tools that connect people from all over the world and build relationships, therefore can easily get the message out about a promotion. Bloggers like giveaways and contests and integrating a chance to win promotion into their blog provides added value plus excitement for their readers. Bloggers and social networks also help to spread the word quickly about an online promotion that a marketer may currently be conducting. To help get key bloggers involved with a contest promotion, marketers might want to consider inviting a few to be on their panel of judges 

A survey from BIGResearch, cited in the Borrell report showed that 38 percent of people that were online were also watching television; more than 20 percent were listening to radio; 9.5 percent were reading a newspaper; almost 7 percent were reading a magazine. The local medium best positioned to take advantage of the trend could be local TV.

The report goes on to suggest that the local media companies can capitalize on this trend by focusing on creating “promotions” for their advertisers. This may include establishing a special promotions team to develop promotional campaigns that will deliver measurable results for advertisers. These campaigns can include quarterly contests and give-always, weekly or monthly half-price gift certificate sales, “best-in-town” online voting campaigns for restaurants, dentists, ice cream parlors, golf courses, etc. Holidays and sporting events (College Bowl, Super Bowl, NCAA Tournament games, etc.) are all prime promotion periods.

An example of a local promotion sited in the report was created by WAVE-TV in Louisville, KY.  The “Win, Place, Show” promotion was a contest tie-in with the Kentucky Derby sponsored by the Kentucky Lottery. Contestants were invited to choose their three favorites in order for the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes. The person with the highest number of points – awarded for each correct choice – won a color television.

Another WAVE-TV advertiser, the Louisville Zoo, had been running a discount season pass promotion for the past six years. Its most recent promotion was a “Name the Baby” contest in which visitors to the site could enter suggestions for the zoo’s baby elephant and other baby animals. Both this promotion and the Kentucky Derby contest drove people to WAVE3.com to participate.

A further example was a contest run by WKRN-TV in Nashville, TN, in which they tied in to the 2007 College Bowl games.  The goal of “College Bowl Frenzy” was to increase page views and unique visitors for WKRN and to offer some fun interactivity for their viewers. Jamie Camp, Internet sales manager for WKRN said “It puts us in touch with participants at a more personal level.” With more than 32 College Bowl games last year it was a great fit for them. The contest received 1,000 participants which offered WKRN the chance to gain more knowledge about their audience.

WKRN offered their sponsor advertisers 15-second video spots on the site before the news and weather clips. Advertisers included KFC and RJ Young who were able to choose among three different level packages. These sponsors had online tile ads and displays on the College Bowl Frenzy pages. All the sponsors had the opportunity to create a sign-up survey to collect user information. They were also able to offer giveaways of their own. Since implementing contests, WKRN’s website traffic has quadrupled.

Local newspaper website sites are also offering opportunities to advertisers looking for an online presence without buying standard online advertising. Buffalo.com, owned by The Buffalo News, has been running contests for advertisers since the site launched in 1999, but rather than use contests as a way for advertisers to gain sales leads, Buffalo.com offers them more as an incentive program for advertisers who place ads in The Buffalo News, and as tie-ins to events such as movie premieres.

One promotion they created was an interactive game for Basil Cars called “Hidden Treasures”. Participants could look for Basil Treasure coins in the Basil ads running in the Buffalo News and also on Basilcars.com. When they collected all six coins they could then attach them to a game board and mail them in for a chance to win a two-year lease on a car or $7,000 in Basil Bucks.

What this report is basically saying is that we need to take a look backwards at some of the basic principals of marketing that have worked for years offline (nationally and locally) and effectively make them work online. Here are the three main drivers behind what they believe is the cause for the big shift to online promotions from traditional advertising.

1. Advertisers are demanding larger and more measurable returns from their marketing investments. New technologies are increasing marketers’ targeting and tracking capabilities as well as their expectations. Even within online advertising there is demand for more targeting, more measurement, and better ROI.
2. The Internet is better suited for research and fulfillment than for conveying emotion and excitement for a product. While the Internet does contribute to brand and product awareness, its uniqueness is that it’s interactive, which makes it a perfect media for promotions.
3. Online promotions are primed to closely mirror their offline counterparts. The ratio of non-ad spending to ad spending for total marketing expenditures (local and national) is 60:40. For online marketing, the ratio is 22:78. The online spending ration is out of synch because the Internet is still a relatively new medium and businesses are still experimenting with its marketing capabilities.

So while we all don’t have crystal balls that can look five years into the future, we can always look backwards. It’s an exciting time to be in the interactive, online promotions business. I’m looking forward to the next five years.

Kraft Singles Promotion Helps to Celebrate Moms

Tomorrow's Mother's Day and I'm going to try to take some time off and enjoy the day, so I'm here at my computer today writing a post to reflect on the holiday. I've got the house to myself right now... just me with my golden retriever, Shadow, at my feet. An empty house on a Saturday afternoon is not the norm, so I thought I'd take advantage of the time.

I read an article in our local newspaper this morning about what women today think about this holiday. It said that they actually get stressed out about it. Instead of planning to relax and letting the kids and the husband take care of them for the day, they're now more concerned about which other mothers in the family they're going to spend the day with... my mom, my mother-in-law, my sisters and sister in-laws (who are also moms), my best friend, etc. I did kinda relate to this because I remember asking my husband a few times this week if he called his mom to invite her to do something with us...dinner, brunch, whatever. I still don't know what the plans are for tomorrow.

I do know that unfortunately I won't be seeing my mom this Mother's Day since she lives over 800 miles away in South Carolina. However, my mom and dad will be taking a ride back up north next month to visit for the first time since they moved down south two years ago. We all are very grateful this year that mom's healthy enough to make the trip. Last year at this time she had just begun chemo and radiation treatments to make sure the cancer in her breast was gone. Today she is cancer free!

So I saw this really cute promotion that Kraft Foods is doing in honor of Mother's day and I just wish I could participate and make my mom a grilled cheese sandwich! Kraft Singles is offering in-store cooking demonstrations along with samples at select grocery stores through tomorrow to celebrate Happy Sandwich Day and moms. They plan of distributing more than 675,000 samples as well as handing out 250,000 Singles Savers, special square tubs used to store Kraft Singles Cheese. During the demos, in-store TV will feature Kraft Singles’ “Have a Happy Sandwich” ads which can all be viewed online.

“For many people, the first grilled cheese sandwich they ever had was one prepared by mom,” said Kraft spokesman Basil Maglaris. “Kraft Singles is providing fun ways to help children, fathers and husbands celebrate moms and all they do.”

Kraft has also teamed up with American Greetings who is giving out in-store free Happy Mother’s Day “Grilled Cheese Sandwich” gift certificates, that come with cooking instructions. They've also made the promotion interactive where kids, as well as husbands, can also go online to AmericanGreetings.com and send free Kraft Singles-branded e-cards to mom with customizable coupons. The coupons can be redeemed for everything from a grilled cheese sandwich and a kitchen clean up to a hand-drawn picture or a week of bed making. The e-cards for husbands can be made with coupons good for countless compliments, a romantic rendezvous, or trash takeout.

So, maybe one of my daughters will make me a grilled cheese sandwich tomorrow. I love anything with cheese!

So, please have a wonderful Mother's Day. Don't fret about the little stuff. Take the time to enjoy the day. I'm really going to try and follow my own advice here! 

Super Marketing Heroes: Marvel Entertainment & Iron Man

I'm going to continue today from my Monday post talking about Marvel Entertainment and their recent huge success with the theatrical release of the Iron Man Movie. It just so happens that our local chapter of the American Marketing Association, Rochester (RAMA), held their annual Marketer of the Year Awards luncheon today.

One of the sponsors of this event, who also happens to have a professor on the board, is Alfred University, located in the Southern Tier of Western New York. They secured one of their alumnus to the event as our keynote speaker who just happened to be Peter Cuomo, Marvel Entertainment Inc.’s vice chairman and former CEO who discussed the evolution of the Marvel brand since the comic book company’s comeback eight years ago.

Unfortunately we didn't have much time alloted to hear from Peter today since we were there to give out some awards during an extended lunch hour. So Peter first asked us, due to the limited amount of time, should he:

1. Talk about Marvel coming out of bankruptcy
2. The lessons he learned doing this
3. Or, the movie business, specifically their new movie, Iron Man, and let us get to watch some movie trailers

Yes, we all agreed to number three. To be entertained is all we really want.

So, after a little technical difficulty we were able to view the full trailer of Iron Man on the big screen.  He emphasized that the key to success in a film is a great trailer. Reviews aren't even as important to a film's success as is their movie trailer, which by the way Iron Man received a 97% positive review rate. He went on to say that Marvel's next theatrical film, The Incredible Hulk,  which is to be released on June 13th, has turned out to be the most watched trailer in all the history of Universal Pictures - over 14 million people have viewed it so far.

Going back to Iron Man, Peter said that one of the most asked questions is.."Why did you cast Robert Downey Jr. as the lead character?". I can relate to this question because when speaking to my 16 year-old daughter she asked.."Why did they put an old guy in the lead? He's just not the same as Tobey McGuire" who played the lead, Peter Parker in Spiderman. So, Peter explained that during the casting call Robert Downey Jr. did the first half of the call on script, but then totally ad-libbed the second part which just showed them that he totally connected with the character. It's no secret to the troubles that Robert Downey Jr. has had in his real life that just so happened to fit the background of Tony Stark eerily similar. So Robert totally understood this character...and he got the part.

Speaking of emotional connections, Peter said that what they also try to achieve is to connect with a wider demographic audience for their films. Comic book are mostly associated with a male fan base, so they need to bring the emotional relationship story into their films. Peter Parker had that famous upside down kiss with Mary Jane (Kristen Dunst) in Spiderman (most of us women will remember more than the men). Iron Man has the relationship with Virgina "Pepper" Potts, executive assistant to Tony Sparks, who's always there to "put out the fires that Tony leaves in his past". The next Marvel movie, The Incredible Hulk, even goes further with the relationship angle staring Liv Taylor, (still one of my favorite actresses since the Lord of the Rings) as the romantic partner to the Hulk character. 

Peter also reminded us about how much planning, as well as money, goes into launching a major theatrical movie. He spoke a little about the entertainment marketing partnership they created with Audi over Iron Man and said that Audi came to the table with over $20 million in promotion support of the film. Peter admitted that Internet promotion is the biggest way to promote a film today. Timing of the release date is also very critical to the final outcome of how much money a movie will make. The summer season is not the best time to promote licensed retail products which is key to the Marvel characters. The back-to-school season and Halloween are their biggest seasons. So this is something that is taken into the fact when they release the DVD, which Peter said they spend just as much money promoting as the movie release.

Marvel Entertainment, with their recent success of Iron Man, is now going down in history as one of the greatest turn-around corporate stories of today. Peter didn't have time to go through his whole PowerPoint presentation on this subject, but he did mention that the stock of the company went from an all time low of $.80 a share to $34.00 as of yesterday. They now have 55% of the comic book share of market and are worth over $2.8 billion. The really interesting fact is that they only have 250 employees worldwide, which makes each employee worth over $1 million dollars each. Their key is that they use over 500 freelances from all over the world who produce their comic books who still pump out 75 comic books a month!

So, we could of been there all afternoon listening to Peter's stories and insights, but we had to get on with our local marketing awards. For those from Rochester, and afar that are interested, here are the results:

• Excellus BlueCross Blue Shield, Rochester region was named Marketer of the Year for their new Healthy Blue Campaign
• Tavern on the Green/TavernDirect.com is this year’s Turnaround/Start-up Marketer of the Year
• United Way of Greater Rochester is Non-profit Marketer of the Year
• George Eastman House was honored as Online Marketer of the Year

Congratulations to this year's winners and thanks to Peter Cuomo from Marvel Entertainment for speaking to us at such an important time in Marvel Entertainment's history. The Rochester AMA chapter did a great job of pulling it all together today and made me proud to be part of our marketing community today,

Iron Man's a Hit - Promotions include Audi and LG Mobile

Well it looks like the summer blockbuster movie season is upon us quicker than I thought. The news today says that "Iron Man was pure gold at the box office" during its opening this past weekend. It brought in $104.2 million since debuting Thursday night, the second-best premiere ever for a non-sequel. The film also scored overseas with $96.7 million in 57 countries where it began opening Wednesday, putting its worldwide total at $201 million.

Iron Man is the first release by Marvel Studios and is distributed by Paramount Pictures. It stars Robert Downey Jr. as the guy in the metal suit, billionaire arms designer Tony Stark. He's described as a boozy womanizer who builds a high-tech suit and becomes a superhero, mending his ways after he's taken captive and sees firsthand the devastation his weapons cause.

Audi is one of the brands that has teamed up with Paramount and Marvel for the theatrical release. In the film Tony Stark drives the new Audi R8 sports car. In the weeks prior to the film’s release Audi launched a new global campaign featuring this special promotional microsite. On it visitors got peaks at eleven exclusive video clips including behind-the-scenes content, interviews with the cast and crew, Audi Iron Man commercials, background on use of Audi vehicles on the movie set, etc. Now I'm a huge BMW fan, but this Audi does look totally awesome.

LG Mobile Phones is another partner who has created an integrated campaign for the film that reaches across multiple media platforms. A mobile marketing component that ties into a sweepstakes is running now through May 15. LG Mobile Phones is working closely with Slifter on the text messaging aspect of the campaign who has built a wireless sign-up site that links to local LG Mobile products. Slifter's mobile shopping tool, GPShopper, enables millions of mobile users to search and share nearly 250 million products and promotions at over 150,000 U.S. locations, straight from their cell phones.

Consumers can text “LG” to 42229 or go online to http://m.lg2win.com for a chance to win a $7,000 LG Electronic Makeover and daily prizes ranging from LG Mobile Phones to movie tickets. They can also enter this Tony Stark Ultimate Giveaway Sweepstakes on LG Mobile Phones website and can print out a form to mail-in. I'm assuming they're offering this mail-in entry option as a way to make sure that they are complying with no purchase necessary since text-messaging as a means of entry is still being questioned in the courts.

Anyhow, it's the beginning of the summer movie season for sure. I wrote this post last week about my much anticipated return of the ladies from Sex and the City. I'll be writing here about more of the entertainment marketing partnerships as the season moves along. If you've seen Iron Man yet, let us know what you thought.

The Simpsons Website Grabs Top Interactive Marketing Award

This past week ePrize sponsored the 3rd Annual Interactive Promotions Summit which was held in Las  Vegas. I was invited back this year and was planning on going, (I even have it still listed on the sidebar of this blog that I would be blogging from it), but unfortunately I wasn't able to make it this year.  Even though I had my reservations booked at the Wynn Hotel (at the conference rate) and was really looking forward to staying there for the first time, I just had too many things going on right now to fly all the way out to Vegas for just two days. I went to the event last year and it was great. Oh well, hopefully I'll be able to swing it next year.

On Thursday afternoon, May 1st, they announced the winners of the 3rd Annual Interactive Marketing Awards which is sponsored by PROMO Magazine. I found the info on PROMO's website so I thought I'd share it here with you. A record 131 entries, 13% more than last year's competition, were received. PROMO said that "Nearly half of this year's winners were sequels to successful campaigns. A few tweaks here and there, but basically MyCokeRewards.com (twice winners in '08, once in '07), and the Gap Casting Call were new spins on the tried and true."

The Best in Show was awarded to the Everyone's a Simpson website which I'm assuming is the official movie website. I recently wrote this post on the Simpson's Movie when 7-Eleven won the Supper Reggie Award at PMA's Annual Integrated Marketing Conference for their tie-in promotion they developed around it's release. I also wrote a post back in July called "Promotions Have a Cow with The Simpsons Movie" that reviewed the many brands and promotions that partnered up with 20th Century Fox for entertainment marketing opportunities. So again, Holy Cow, it's just a Simpson's kind of year.

The DVD for the movie was recently released, so the movie website is still live but I have to admit that I still haven't watched it. The website is great though. You can take a tour through Springfield, play various games, create your own Simpsons Avatar, download wallpapers, icons, screen savers, ringtones, and easily embed video clips to MySpace, your iPod or you blog.

Burger King also was a promotional partner of the movie release and created a microsite called SimpsonizeMe.com that allows consumers to turn digital photos into animated, yellow versions of themselves and had over 32 million hits when I reported on it back in July. The site was supported by TV ads as part of Burger King's overall promotion for the movie which also included talking Simpsons figurines with the purchase of a Kids Meal, in-restaurant displays, custom packaging and two other TV spots.

So, I'm not sure if the Burger King site or the official movie site won the award. Perhaps one of my readers that was at the event could confirm for us.

Anyhow, here's a list of all the winners (a couple had ties) from the different award categories:

• BEST IN SHOW/Best Promotional Website: Everyone's a Simpson
• SMS/MMS Mobile Marketing: Taste Test
• Viral Promotion: T-Shirt Beacon
• E-mail Marketing: Instant Database
• Internet-based Trial Recruitment: (Tied) Parental Pride; Pack up the SUV
• Internet-based Loyalty: Rewarding Redemption
• New Media: (Tied) Cyber Barbie; Buzz Pick-Up
• Search Engine Marketing: Finding Coke Drinkers

Since the only other information PROMO provided on the category winners was the mentions to MyCokeRewards.com and the Gap Casting Call, I can only assume that the SEM and mobile marketing categories were for Coke but I can't figure out the other. Since I wasn't there I can't tell you much more. You know the saying, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!

New Study: Interactive Promotions to Triple by 2012

Yesterday a new report was released by Borrell Associates which states that the online promotions category is expected to nearly triple over the next five years from $8 billion last year to $22.8 billion, surpassing all other online advertising categories (paid search, banners, e-mail, audio/video advertising). It states that as in offline promotions, most of the value of online promotions is the cash value of incentives that are given to motivate short-term sales. Sounds like the basic principals of promotional marketing that we all know and love.

The report states that online display ads (Web page banners, pop-ups, etc.) have lost their luster and that spending on them has been generally flat for the past two years. They believe it will peak this year at $12.6 billion, and then begin a precipitous decline to less than half that amount over the next four years. They also state that paid search advertising is likewise facing a luster-loss and they foresee it hitting its peak next year at $16.9 billion, followed by a gradual decline.

To many of us in the interactive promotions business this is great to now have a report that helps prove what we've known all along...online promotions, such as sweepstakes, contests and instant-win games, are highly measurable and when you put the right incentive in front of the right audience, you can get them to act! So while this report may contain predictions that seem strange to some, it makes perfect sense to us. Marketers today need campaigns that can provide measurable results, and this is a way for them to achieve this.

"Online contests, giveaways, coupons and sales of half-price gift certificates are proliferating, many of them bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars annually and generating warm partnerships between the media company and the advertiser," the Borrell report said. "The utility of the Internet holds fascinating possibilities for local businesses. Local media companies that are genuinely helping those businesses grow, rather than merely selling advertising to them, are well positioned to succeed in this brave new world of marketing."

The full report includes some case studies of local promotions that were implemented successfully. The local medium best positioned to take advantage of the trend could be local TV. A survey from BIGResearch, cited in the Borrell report showed that 38 percent of people that were online were also watching television; more than 20 percent were listening to radio; 9.5 percent were reading a newspaper; almost 7 percent were reading a magazine.

Currently, online promotion spending is only 22% of the total $37 billion overall interactive marketing pie. Overall promotions account for about 60 percent of all dollars spent annually in global marketing. What I believe is an up and coming growing trend is the integration of promotions with social media. The strategy of combining these two marketing tactics is bound to become a big part of the growth that is predicted here over the next five years. I'm interested to see the full Borrell report and if this is in fact one one of their recommendations. It certainly is one of mine.

If you would like to learn more, please contact me. And as always, I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Sex and the City "Purse-onality" Contest & Sweeps

Right now we are in a pretty ho-hum time of year for new theatrical movie releases. Everyone seems to be more focused on renting DVD's to catch up on movies that won Oscars this year. But give it about another month and it'll be the start to the summer movie blockbuster season. One that I'm personally very eager to see is the return of the ladies from New York with the release of "Sex and The City", the movie on May 30th. I'm a big fan of the series and I have to admit, I really miss these characters.

Apparently I'm not alone in loving these characters...here's an interactive promotion that began on April 1 from an online retailer that has partnered with New Line Cinema to promote the premiere of the movie.  BAG BORROW OR STEAL is a unique business which lets women borrow designer handbags and jewelry online. What an interesting business model this is. They have developed this consumer-generated content, "Style Profile Contest" which invites women to submit videos in which they identify which character whose style most resembles their own, as represented by the handbags and accessories found in their closet. So, entrants need to explain if they think they're like Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte or Miranda and why.

The videos can be submitted on YouTube and as of today there are only 16 videos to view. Some women have chosen Charlotte for her classic style and her favorite Chanel designer handbags. Other have chosen Samantha based on her desire to stand out in the crowd and have bags that are bold and colorful. Carrie's style is described as spunky, spontaneous, energetic, a real individual, so her bags are always unique. Miranda was chosen because she's a polished career-woman with a child, so the bags that she needs have to be stylish, but also be able to carry a few necessities, like extra diapers!

So, let's get some more videos up there (I'm really tempted to do one myself). Videos can be submitted up until May 9th. The first 50 people to enter will receive a $250 borrowing credit to BAG BORROW OR STEAL. One grand-prize winner will be chosen around May 14th to receive a $500 credit along with tickets to the movie premiere in New York City along with airfare, hotel, transportation and $500 spending money! They also will provide the winner with space to document her own experience in a blog which I'm interested to learn more of how they're going to go about this.

Five judges from the fashion world have been recruited to pick the winner. They are:

• Carol Han - Market Editor, Elle.com
• Jennifer Sherry - Fashion Producer, E! Entertainment
• Lesley Scott - Editor-in-Chief, Fashiontribes.com
• Marissa Rubin – Fashion Market Editor, People StyleWatch Magazine
• Pamela Pekerman – Founder and Editor-in-Chief, BagTrends.com

They'll be choosing the winner based on creativity, presentation skills and entrant’s expression of his or her passion for handbags and Sex and the City as well as the overall video quality.

A separate sweepstakes lets people take an online quiz to find their “Sex and the City purse-onality” for a chance to win additional credit, movie posters and T-Shirts.  BAG BORROW OR STEAL's website also offers a “Sex and the City” shop filled with a collection of luxury accessories inspired by the four ladies of the movie. They also have a viral marketing component that you can forward to friends and of course they have a link to the movie trailer. Kudos to BAG BORROW OR STEAL for developing a great promotion that really ties nicely into their brand as well as to the movie.

So, the hype is really going to start heating up over the next month for this movie release...Will Carrie end up marrying Mr. Big?  Check out the official movie website for more fun. There's icons and wallpapers you can download, a great soundtrack you can listen to and there's even this Official Movie Blog. It all looks great!

I'll be Featured Guest on Blog Talk Radio

This Saturday afternoon I am going to be a guest speaker on Blog Talk Radio on the premiere show for The Contest Queen...all things sweepstaking, contesting, lucky and fun.  Now I have listened to some shows on Blog Talk Radio before, but this will be my first time as a speaker.

If your not familiar, BlogTalkRadio is a social radio network that allows users to connect quickly and directly with their audience. Using both a telephone and a computer hosts can create free, live, call-in talk shows that are also archived and made available as podcasts. Listeners can subscribe to shows via RSS into iTunes and other feed readers. This network has produced tens of thousands of episodes since it launched in August of 2006.

Carolyn Wilman is the host of this new show and since it's her first one, she and I will be learning it together. The show is scheduled to be live at 4pm EST on Saturday and then will be available as a podcast for downloading so people can listen to it at anytime. I agreed to do this when Carolyn asked me (even though it's in the middle of the weekend and I'll be hurrying back from my daughter's high school softball game) because quite simply, I like her and I was flattered by the fact that she invited me to be her first guest speaker.

Carolyn and I have never met in person yet. She's from Canada, just the other side of the big lake from Rochester, and she found me through this blog. She writes a blog called From the Contest Queen and while my blog focuses on interactive promotions from a marketer's point of view, she reports on them from a consumer's perspective. Carolyn's background is similar to mine... she's been running her own marketing business, Imagination Edge, for the past several years and has assisted many companies with developing and executing sweepstakes and contest promotions.

Carolyn says her main objective is to teach others how to have fun. Besides her blog she produces a free bi-weekly e-newsletter called The Winning EDGE that includes contesting stories, tips, tricks and links to new contests. She also runs workshops: How to Win Cash, Cars, Trips and More…Online and Attracting Luck for hundreds of people annually. Carolyn has written a book which she just made available in the U.S. which is called You Can't Win if You Don't Enter. You can both download the first chapter for free as well as order the book here online.

There are many so called "sweepstakes" portals on the web, and some do offer added-value content such as Carolyn's, while others exists just to make money. Us marketers in the business refer to the later types as "sweepstakes whores". Most interactive promotions that involve sweepstakes and contests are initially developed to help build brand awareness and to attract potential customers to a website in order to build up the brand's database. If consumers come to these websites through a sweepstakes portal that have absolutely no interest in the brand's product or service, then it does the brand absolutely no good. But as always, the 80/20 rule is true here and marketers just have to work harder to weed out those non-customers and identity who their top ones are.

So, I'm interested to hear what types of questions consumers will ask me on the show tomorrow and I thought this would be of interest to other marketers as well. I believe Carolyn has a list of questions for me just in case we don't have a big live audience. So, if you can't make it there live tomorrow, perhaps you may want to download the archive and listen at your leisure. I have been considering doing some podcasts myself, so I also thought this would be a good way to test the waters. Let me know what you think...either of how I did as a guest or the idea of doing one myself. Thanks.

Social Media MarketingTool Prompts 941% Increase in Sign-Ups

Marketers today are beginning to look more and more at Social Media as an innovative and effective way to reach their targeted audiences and achieve their branding and marketing communication goals. The marketing goals will differ for every business or organization; however most Social Media Marketing (SMM) programs or campaigns will involve some the following objectives:

• Increase brand awareness
• Create Brand engagement (pages viewed, time on site)
• Generate Publicity, positive buzz and word of mouth
• Drive traffic to a website
• Convert sales of products and services
• Develop strong inbound link generation, which benefits organic search engine rankings
• Produce positive ROI

Here's an example of a recent campaign that included social media marketing that had some great results:

Zecco Holdings, Inc. developed an online customer referral program that awards people when they get friends to sign up for a new Zecco Trading account. They have built a financial social networking community that has access to free stock trading through its wholly owned subsidiary, Zecco Trading, Inc. PopularMedia, a social media marketing solutions agency, worked with Zecco to develop a viral marketing campaign that resulted in a 941 percent increase in Zecco Trading account sign ups.

Influencer marketing tools made it simple and rewarding for people to invite their contacts to join the MyZecco community, and motivated invitees to open and fund new Zecco Trading accounts.Through a variety of rewards ranging from a $25 certificate to iTunes to a charitable donation, Zecco found that online customers were most responsive with a cash giveaway. If a customer referred a friend who opened a Zecco Trading account, they would receive $50 in their Zecco Trading account. In addition, their friend would receive a free investing book. Program participants invited an average of 6 friends each.

“The key to a successful social media campaign is not only the ability to identify who is influential but also what makes them influential,” says Jim Calhoun, CEO of PopularMedia. “By unlocking and demystifying social networks, businesses of almost any size or industry have the potential to more effectively community with online customers.”

I guess it shows that if it appears that your friends are making money, than you want to get in on the action as well. This social media marketing campaign successfully acheived most of the objectives I listed above.