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Insurance marketers leverage targeted marketing

February 01, 2012

Healthcare reform and signs of economic recovery have insurance marketers retooling their direct marketing efforts to drive relevant messaging to consumers and prospects.
 

Take me away

January 11, 2012

An appealing travel campaign has the potential to transport an audience, literally making hearts take flight with a desire to travel to the country or city depicted. And then there are the travel campaigns that inspire you to stay at home.
 

Online ads expected to thrive in 2012

January 01, 2012

Media services companies ZenithOptimedia and GroupM softened their independent global ad spending predictions for 2012 in forecasts released in early December. MagnaGlobal, a unit of advertising giant Interpublic, also cut its global advertising forecasts for 2011 and 2012, citing a "worsening economic outlook." But with positive effect of quadrennial events, such as the Summer Olympics, European soccer championship and U.S. presidential elections, will there still be some winning channels?
 

Choosing the right mobile ad network for your brand

Jon Schepke, president, SIM Partners January 01, 2012

Mobile advertising is a fragmented market, with sketchy data on ad network market share and revenue.
 

Will Google's paid ads affect marketers?

January 01, 2012

Google's paid ads: What will the impact be for marketers? Dorothy Weaver, VP of digital marketing services at Acquirgy, and Tej Shah, VP of e-commerce and marketing at Blue Soda Promo, weigh in.
 

Twitter to offer brand pages

December 08, 2011

Twitter will join Facebook and Google in offering brand pages that allow advertisers to get more of a handle on the content their followers see and how that content is displayed in an effort to broaden the microblogging site's appeal, the company said Dec. 8.
 

ZenithOptimedia, GroupM soften global ad spend predictions

December 05, 2011

Media services companies ZenithOptimedia and WPP's GroupM have softened their independent global ad spending predictions for 2012 in forecasts released Dec. 5.
 

Buying display: focus on quality

Andrew Lerner, CEO, Trust Metrics December 01, 2011

Direct marketers may dominate the digital display advertising market, but most of these marketers are getting as little as one-third of the return they could.
 

RadioShack conducting creative agency review

November 30, 2011

RadioShack Corp. announced it is in the early stages of an RFP for a new creative agency of record (AOR). Eric Bruner, RadioShack's director of corporate communications, said the assignment will focus on all marketing channels, including direct and digital marketing. RadioShack will decide on the AOR in March 2012.
 

Up in smoke

November 10, 2011

Sure, smoking cigarettes will most likely kill you — if a misstep off the curb in front of a city bus or some other misadventure doesn't grim-reap you first. But this reality — nor the $12-15 per-pack price in New York City, nor the glares of nonsmoking New Yorkers, nor the various outdoor smoking bans — seem to be swaying smokers from their vice of choice.
 

Bill-bored: Documentary lambasts visual pollution

November 09, 2011

If someone assembled together all the billboards in the U.S., how many football fields would they cover? According to the makers of "This Space Available," a new documentary examining the "blight of visual pollution" in cities across the globe, the answer is 60,000.
 

Street-smart NY storage ads tell it straight

Scott Donaton, CEO, Ensemble November 01, 2011

Walking the streets of New York City after a recent Sunday brunch, an out-of-town friend delighted in the sight of a woman making her way home in what seemed to be the outfit she had worn out the night before. "That's what I love about New York: the anonymity," my friend said.
 

Omnicom CRM, specialty marketing revenue up in Q3

October 18, 2011

Omnicom Group's third-quarter net income increased 16.7% to $203.7 million compared with the third quarter of 2010, the company said Oct. 18. The holding company's worldwide revenue increased 12.9% to $3.4 billion compared with the same quarter last year.
 

Market roller coaster spooks ad world

September 01, 2011

First, debt-ceiling negotiations in Washington, DC went down to the wire. Then Standard & Poor's downgraded the United States' credit rating, prompting a roller-coaster stretch for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. In response, marketers pondered if the economy was entering the second valley of a double-dip recession, or whether the market volatility was just another bump in a slow recovery.
 

Tough times are silver lining for direct

September 01, 2011

How's this for an attention-grabbing headline, courtesy of the Associated Press: "Here we go again: Another big down day for Dow." As I write this column, the Dow is going berserk again in a major stock sell-off on the heels of poor economic reports and European debt woes.
 

Outdoor posters hype album

September 01, 2011

To promote the release of British rock band Dry the River's new album "No Rest," Sony Music Entertainment developed a guerilla outdoor advertising campaign with a dimensional element directing passersby to the band's site, DrytheRiver.net.
 

Steve Jobs' resignation: Will it change the way consumers see Apple?

August 25, 2011

Steve Jobs is a marketing genius. This is a fact. Some would say his greatest success is illustrated by consumer behavior leading up to and following launches of new Apple products.
 

Boston Bruins name Arnold AOR, drop Mullen

August 19, 2011

The Boston Bruins National Hockey League franchise has named Arnold Worldwide its AOR. The team, which won the Stanley Cup championship last season, previously worked with Mullen.
 

On heels of SC Johnson loss, layoffs, another strikeout for Draftfcb

August 19, 2011

If an agency ever wore bad luck like a backpack, surely it's Draftfcb. What else can go wrong for this agency?
 

Twitter buys keyword management firm AdGrok

May 31, 2011

Twitter has acquired keyword bid management platform AdGrok, the companies said May 31. AdGrok employees have joined Twitter's revenue engineering team, with plans to discontinue AdGrok's Google AdWords management product on June 30.
 

Beiersdorf invests $1 billion in Nivea

May 10, 2011

Beiersdorf will launch a whopping $1 billion-dollar global campaign on May 15 celebrating the Nivea skincare brand's centennial, the company said in a statement. The campaign will feature digital, video, print, social, advertising banners and point-of-sale marketing components. And let's not forget uber-star Rihanna.
 

Microsoft turns to operations lead to run ad sales

April 22, 2011

Microsoft has named Frank Holland corporate VP of its advertising and online division, the company said April 22. As Microsoft's top ad sales executive, Holland will be responsible for working with all of the company's advertising customers and partners.
 

Why are Kindle editions of newspapers ad-free?

March 28, 2011

I used to buy the print edition of 'The New York Times' every Sunday. Then I received a Kindle and stopped. I was stoked on the $3.92 savings, but my girlfriend wasn't. She liked the circulars that came with the print edition, and for whatever reason 'The New York Times' doesn't include advertisements with its Kindle editions.
 

Twitter to roll out Promoted Tweets to all users' timelines in Q4

March 14, 2011

Twitter will expand its Promoted Tweets advertising service to all users' timelines in the fourth quarter of this year, the company's director of platform said last week. Ryan Sarver said Twitter thinks Promoted Tweets will be the company's equivalent of Google's AdWords, which places paid ads alongside organic search results.
 

Chobani features digital in first national campaign

February 17, 2011

Yogurt maker Chobani launched its first national marketing campaign this week, using digital, out-of-home, Facebook and TV ad elements to raise awareness of the New Berlin, NY-based company nationally. The company worked with ad agency Gotham on the campaign.
 

Omnicom Q4 specialty marketing revenue up 17%; CRM increases 6%

February 15, 2011

Omnicom Group's fourth-quarter specialty marketing services revenue increased 17.2% year-over-year to $331.3 million. For full-year 2010, the holding company generated $1.2 billion in revenue from specialty marketing, a 9.2% increase compared with the year before. The company's revenue from CRM grew 6.5% in 2010 to $4.5 billion, compared with the previous year. Omnicom's Q4 2010 CRM revenue grew 6.2%, compared with the fourth quarter of 2009, to $1.3 billion.
 

Groupon, LivingSocial Super Bowl debuts missed opportunity

Ken Johns, SVP, digital strategy, Brunner February 07, 2011

Daily deal competitors Groupon and LivingSocial went for the laugh with their Super Bowl ads and, to some degree, they got it. Yet, in the process, these two brands might have missed a bigger opportunity.
 

Chevy bests competitors in Super Bowl SEM showdown

Dave Ragals, VP, client services, SearchIgnite February 07, 2011

The immediacy and measurability of SEM provide great insight into what ads viewers are paying attention to. Companies can leverage not just their brands, but also the themes of their ads, to garner traffic for days following high profile events like the Super Bowl.
 

Godaddy.com's follow-through disappoints

Ken Fitzgerald, executive creative director, Catalyst February 07, 2011

My visceral reaction to this spot was positive. It was against the expectation of what Godaddy.com was known for: misogynist, salacious marketing. Instead, this spot was fun and self-deprecating.
 

Super Bowl marketing creativity continues to expand beyond TV

February 04, 2011

Super Bowl marketing used to pretty much begin and end with the TV ad with perhaps some on-field product placement, sponsorships thrown in.