BrandBlog (tm) / Marketing + Branding Blog

Wanna Be Wal-Mart's Ad Man?

Four finalist agencies must show how they'd use $200 million to spark "cross-shopping" between departments while renewing shoppers' love for the retail giant.

via Business Week

New Marketing Model for New CW Network

"I don't look at us as launching a new network. I look at us as launching a new entertainment brand," said Haskins, whose title also makes the point: executive vice president, marketing and brand strategy.

via Forbes

Progressive Selects Arnold

Progressive Direct has selected Arnold for creative chores following a review, the client has confirmed. Estimated billings exceed $150 million.

Use Promotions To Cut Through Ad Clutter

Promotions are more popular than ever, have wide appeal, and drive purchase and awareness — a welcome revelation for marketers struggling to create relevance with ad-weary consumers. Online promotions are particularly good tools for targeting valuable customers and enabling more interactive, relationship-based promotions strategies. As promotion use grows more sophisticated, Forrester expects that promotions will join the online marketing suite, print promotions providers will retrench, and marketers will leverage Social Computing technologies to guide their promotions strategies.

Title: Use Promotions To Cut Through Ad Clutter
Link: http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=39629

B-Student Optimizes Panhandling Through Emotional Targeting

Business Week this week runs a great story about a biz student whose internship project was to increase daily revenue of a panhandler through adjusting the emotional pitch of the cardboard sign:

"The concept behind the experiment: Marketing products through pricing or product features alone results in only one-time purchases. However, if a customer feels an emotional attachment to the product, there is a greater chance for repeat buying and loyalty. "My goal was to create an emotional attachment between people on the street and Amy so that they would become 'repeat customers,'" says Zimmerman."

I was writing a story for my undegrad newspaper once about how much money the panhandlers make. I went undercover, got me a wig and a tin can, and spent a day on a lively city square. Got about $8 in two hours. That's in Bulgaria, where the average monthly salary at the time was around $100.

 

Title: B-Student Optimizes Panhandling Through Emotional Targeting
Link: http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2006/09/b-student-optimizes-panhandling.html

What Should You Pay Your Usability Staff?

Nearly 900 US-based user experience (UX) professionals — including  information architects, usability practitioners, interface designers, and  usability managers — responded to the Usability Professionals' Association's  (UPA) 2005 salary survey. The data shows that salaries vary by position,  experience, advanced degrees, geography, and gender. The big takeaway? UX  professionals are a steal — the potential ROI of usability and design fixes far  outweighs the costs of UX salaries. But low salaries have a negative long-term  impact on the field: Companies looking to beef up their staff with experienced  professionals or Ph.D.'s may find these candidates hard to come by.
http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=40167

Twelve Steps To Experience-Based Differentiation

Experience-based differentiation (EBD) strategies can create desperately  needed distinction in the market; 60% of recently surveyed organizations tell us  that it is "critical" that their firm improve customer experience. But only 24%  had an executive (other than the CEO) responsible for the "whole customer  experience." To make a difference, follow the example of executives at  MegaFon-Moscow and build the skills required to lead EBD transformation  initiatives. EBD leaders face 12 tests of leadership, comprised of four  challenges: 1) recognizing the need for change; 2) leading change; 3) becoming  part of the change; and 4) sustaining change. Executives leading EBD strategies  must: Challenge the process, inspire a shared vision, enable others to act,  model new behaviors, and encourage the heart.

http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=40152

B2B Marketers Zero In On Customer Experience

Business-to-business (B2B) marketers believe that technology can help them  drive demand, deepen customer relationships, and prove their value to peers. But  to make current technology initiatives pay off, B2B marketers must emphasize  customer data management as they update the systems and processes needed to  transform data into customer knowledge. They must also move beyond tactical  demand generation and align marketing activities with the customer buying cycle.  Improving the online customer experience is a first step, but further  investment, centered on building customer knowledge and uniting marketing,  sales, and customer service to better serve target audiences, must  follow.
http://www.forrester.com/go?docid=40149