Recession Lesson: Throw Out Your Old Algorithms†

Q&A With John Wallis, Global Head of Marketing and Brand Strategy, Hyatt

Advertising Age, June 15, 2009 — After 28 years at Hyatt, John Wallis was named head of marketing at the hotel chain in November of last year. Resigned not to let the recession limit Hyatt's marketing activity, he launched a massive marketing effort. The campaign, which is intended to introduce its redesigned loyalty program, awards three winners — one from North America, Europe and Asia — of an essay contest 365 free nights at any Hyatt hotel worldwide; another 30,000 people will win one free night. More than 87,000 people, 79% of which were customers, entered an essay.

Put Ad on Web. Count Clicks. Revise.

New York Times, May 31, 2009 — ON a recent Thursday, Darren Herman, the president of Varick Media Management, was sequestered in his SoHo office. He wasn’t scrutinizing a television ad or images from a photo shoot. He was combing through graphs and Excel spreadsheets.

Direct Mail Doomed, Long Live Email

MediaPost Publications, May 21, 2009 — After making quick work of print newspapers, and the Yellow Pages industry, "The kudzu-like creep of the Internet is about to claim its third analog victim," warns a new report from research firm Borrell Associates. The victim? "The largest and least-read of all print media: Direct mail."

"Direct mail has begun spiraling into what we believe is a precipitous decline from which it will never fully recover," Borrell predicts.

Social Media Fails To Manifest As Marketing Medium, Report Likens Twitter To TiVo: More Hype Than Re

MediaPost Publications, May 20, 2009 — Social media has reached critical mass, with 83% of the Internet population now using it - and more than half doing so on a regular basis - according to new research being released today by Knowledge Networks. But for all the media industry's hype and buzz surrounding social networks, microblogs, and other social networking platforms, the genre has failed to become much of a marketing medium, and in the opinion of the Knowledge Networks' analysts, likely never will.

Modeling Tools Stretch Ad Dollars†

Chrysler Uses Digital-Response Data to Adjust Commercials, Drive Web Visits

Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2009 — With a reduced advertising budget and a desperate need to increase sales, Chrysler is relying more heavily on new technologies to predict how ad purchases will translate into sales.

A team of statisticians, economists, software engineers and media planners at Chrysler's digital marketing agency, Organic, has designed a "media modeling" system that helps the company calculate the best ways to allocate its marketing dollars. The system calculates how much ad spending is needed to meet certain sales targets and then analyzes how both online and offline ads affect Web activity and, ultimately, sales.

An Interview with Michael Dunn, author of The Marketing Accountability Imperative

By Michael Dunn

Prophet, May 14, 2009 — In this StrategyDriven podcast, Michael explores the challenges and solutions to creating alignment between an organization’s strategic and marketing plans and accountability to achieving predetermined marketing results. (via StrategyDriven)

Gatorade Really Gets Into the Game With Thirst Meter†

2009 Festival of Media Case Study: Best Use of Gaming Platforms Award

Advertising Age, May 14, 2009 — Not content with the success of its stadium signage integrations in the past three years in such popular video games as "NBA Ballers," "NBA 2K" and "NBA Live," Gatorade upped the ante: It made the product part of the on-court action.

How McDonald's Is Winning More Than the Value Wars†

By Building on Its Dollar Menu, Fast-Feeder Boosted Ad Spending on Full-Priced Items

Advertising Age, May 12, 2009 — It wasn't enough that McDonald's is beating competitors in same-store sales and winning the value-perception wars. Thanks to stepped-up burger marketing, it's now getting higher-margin customers, too.

While McDonald's pretty much owns the value menu and pricing proposition, since last summer it's quietly boosted advertising of full-priced items, which is paying off by bringing in higher-ticket customers. The product-specific pushes, for Big Mac in July, chicken nuggets in December and the Quarter Pounder with cheese in February, have resulted in double-digit sales increases for the products in question.

Marketers Search For Social Media Metric

MediaPost Publications, May 7, 2009 — Marketers place a lifetime value on customers with addresses on its email list based on their purchasing activity. For Netflix, it could be $9. At US Airways, maybe $2. But how do you place a similar value on a person who is active on a company's Facebook or MySpace page? With social-networking booming, marketers are now in hot pursuit of the metric.

Quantcast Shifts Focus Of Audience Measurement From Users To Brands

MediaPost Publications, April 14, 2009 — At a time when the online advertising world seems to be shifting from an era of measuring content to one that tracks the audiences that consume it, Quantcast is making a play to shift the focus again — this time with a decidedly brand-centric approach. Instead of aggregating audience impression data based on content, media outlets, or the profiles of individual or groups of consumers, the online audience measurement firm has introduced a product that pools it based on a brand's or a marketer's unique profile.