Success stories and data clearly support online's value in the marketing mix.

Karen Anderson, Modem Media's media director, has almost two decades of advertising experience. She leads client initiatives, manages strategy development and implementation, and heads multi-channel efforts that integrate non-interactive advertising and direct marketing, as well as online-only programs and promotions. Her current and previous clients include Heineken USA, Delta Air Lines, Philips, CSFBdirect, 3Com, Compaq and AT&T. She previously was with Grey, Ally & Gargano and North Castle Partners.

iMediaConnection: What's your biggest frustration these days?

Anderson: I’m always concerned when I see our industry focus so intently on a single element of media and marketing at any given time versus taking a more balanced view of digital marketing channels. It also frustrates me that a good number of agencies and publishers continue to walk away from Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) guidelines that these very same companies agreed to years ago. It either means that the hard work done on T&Cs by the industry was not time well spent, or that people didn’t really think about the implications until they had to. Either way, it’s now resulting in time spent dealing with contract terms that could be better spent buying and selling and developing strategies for our clients.

iMediaConnection: What's easier this year than last?

Anderson: Having actionable discussions around the potential benefits of behavioral and other targeting methodologies. Also, clients now more often see the value in paying for tracking interaction metrics versus limiting the information to direct marketing-related data alone.

iMediaConnection: What’s one of the most successful branding campaigns your company has executed recently, and what made it successful?

Anderson: The Heineken Hoax campaign was an incredibly successful branding program. It did a spectacular job of bringing a magazine campaign to life for Heineken customers. We created a strong viral element that resulted in the brand gaining exposure in front of about twice as many people as those we actually paid for. Plus, it was multiple award-winning, which elevated the client’s exposure within their company and the online industry.

iMediaConnection: Can your company point to evidence that suggests online advertising and marketing are contributing positively to branding metrics?

Anderson: Absolutely. And while I can’t release those numbers here, we have case studies and proprietary research that clearly support the value of online in the marketing mix as directly related to lifts in branding success metrics.

iMediaConnection: What’s one of the most successful direct response campaigns your company has executed recently, and what made it successful?

Anderson: We recently completed a program for one of our direct marketing clients that resulted in an 8:1 ROI. It was tremendous and beyond the client’s objective. What made it successful was the combination of left-brain and right-brain approaches. Modem uses a scenario planning tool for all direct response programs that enables us to view planned activity, actualize and build forecasts based on past results. We then adjust and optimize our ad support and pricing to match back to allowables and ROI goals. That’s the left-brain part. When we combined that with great creative and technology implementation (right-brain), it enabled rapid response to changing scenarios and yielded success.

iMediaConnection: Are any of your clients successfully using emerging technologies such as IM, wireless, iTV, etc.?

Anderson: I think that depends on how you’re defining "successfully." The short answer is 'yes.' The longer answer revolves around what you’re trying to get out of these technologies. For example, IM provides the opportunity to get in front of a massive audience of young adults. If that’s the objective, then it’s easy to be successful. As with any marketing channel, objectives need to be clearly defined and the role each channel plays in the mix has to be agreed to up front. I think that marketers sometimes forgo doing that work when it comes to new channels, in favor of a more simplified “let’s be there first” goal. Kind of like the Web in 1994.

iMediaConnection: Are you working with search and local search for your clients? Why? And how's it going?

Anderson: Yes, search is considered and/or represented in the mix for all advertising clients here in Modem’s East Norwalk office. We continuously evaluate its role within each client’s overall and online marketing objectives. Therefore, we use it for a variety of reasons, including the most obvious ecommerce programs and through to campaigns that are more closely aligned with branding goals.

iMediaConnection: What are you telling your clients about rich media?

Anderson: At this point, the conversation isn’t necessarily about rich media in the purely creative sense. I think we’ve gone beyond that conversation because our clients recognize that rich media brings the opportunity for more engaging, long-form, interactive experiences that enable data capture, viral marketing and other strategies to occur right in the ad asset.

Now we talk to our clients more about the value of measuring and reporting interactions within these rich experiences and using that information to compare what customers do online with how they engage with the client’s brand offline. What can we tell about the customer beyond the fact that they viewed, clicked, purchased or visited a desired page on our client’s site? How long did they interact with the experience? How does that compare to their interaction with, or more appropriately “attention to,” television ads? How does the price of that online experience translate to efficiency measures and -- most importantly -- how does that information impact the media mix? Can we take that behavioral data and use it in a more meaningful way to gauge success than simply saying, "online delivered X GRPs and TV delivered Y GRPs?" All the answers aren’t there, but at least the conversations are beginning.

iMediaConnection: What can't the Internet do, as much as we wish it could?

Anderson: It can’t bring me coffee. And the Internet -- smart as it is -- can’t yet override the people that find ways to abuse the technology to the detriment of the rest of us.

iMediaConnection: How is the agency-seller relationship these days? How could it be better?

Anderson: Generally, I think it’s as good as any other medium and I’ve worked in pretty much all media. There are issues that are not exclusive to online (although we might think they are), but the T&C conversation is our industry’s alone.

iMediaConnection: Are you working with your clients' non-interactive agencies? If so, how are you perceived -- as a partner or still as an oddity?

Anderson: This is a great question because the answer has gotten more positive over the years. Yes, Modem is working with every one of our media client’s non-interactive agencies and we are perceived in varying degrees as a partner. In the best scenarios (of which there are several) we are at the table during initial planning and budgeting conversations with the client and online is considered early on in the marketing process. We plan and execute programs in sync with the rest of the media and provide post analysis reports as a multi-agency team.

In the less-than-best situations, we partner closely with the other agencies, but we may not have access to budgets or marketing information from the client until later in the process. This means that we have to catch-up to the other marketing partners, but we still have the conversations and access we need to ensure that what we implement is tightly integrated with what the other companies have planned.

iMediaConnection: What's the one thing you wish clients would understand?

Anderson: Although interactive programs can provide more data than other media, that doesn’t mean that it should provide more data. Only data that is relevant to overall business objectives -- and actionable -- should be measured and reported on.

iMediaConnection: What's the one thing you wish publishers would understand?

Anderson: I can’t accommodate every meeting request, nor is it in our client’s best interest for me to do that. Please respect my decisions regarding how I need to spend my time against my client businesses.

iMediaConnection: What remains the industry’s biggest stumbling block?

Anderson: That we’ve only been in existence (at least the commercial Web) for 10 years. A longer history will provide such terrific hindsight and knowledge down the road. It’s a very exciting prospect!

iMediaConnection: What are you reading these days?

Anderson: Various subscription-based email industry newsletters and discussion lists. General news (also via email). Actually, almost all of my reading is delivered via email. Except for Stephen King and 'Clifford the Big Red Dog.'

iMediaConnection: And finally, tell us something we don't know yet, but that we will discover this year.

Anderson: That global warming doesn’t seem to apply to New England, based on the last couple of winters we had.