Marketing and ad director says CRM is critically important, because customers can turn quickly.

Shawn Conly is advertising and marketing director for Electronic Arts, an independent developer and publisher of interactive entertainment software for personal computers and advanced entertainment systems such as the PlayStation®2 Computer Entertainment System, the PlayStation®, Xbox™ video game console from Microsoft, the Nintendo GameCube™ and the Game Boy® Advance. Since its inception, EA has garnered more than 700 awards for outstanding software in the U.S. and Europe. EA markets its products worldwide under four brand logos, and has more than 33 product franchises that have reached more than a million unit sales worldwide.

iMediaConnection: What was your biggest online "win" this year, and how did you sell it throughout the company?

Conly: Beginning to shift focus from traditional impression/click success metrics to deeper customer interaction metrics.

iMediaConnection: How has your job changed this year?

Conly: More ROI demands, more creativity demands.

iMediaConnection: What surprised you in the online world this year?

Conly: People measuring success by what they see online vs. the quantitative metrics.

iMediaConnection: Have you realigned internal structures and resources to simplify or increase integrated marketing?

Conly: We built a closer alignment between online community managers and advertising.

iMediaConnection: How do you determine your marketing mix -- and how has the role of online in it changed?

Conly: It's based on sales forecast, PR, creative, marketing strategy and tactical opportunities.

iMediaConnection: What haven't you brought into the marketing mix yet that you want to try?

Conly: Longer form content.

iMediaConnection: Have you seen specific evidence of online driving offline sales?

Conly: Yes -- two-thirds of our Web site visitors buy offline.

iMediaConnection: Are you using consultants, software, agencies or other tools to help with search engine marketing?

Conly: Yes

iMediaConnection: What do you believe is the future of ad agencies?

Conly: They will split between being strategic, consultative experts in the discipline and more tactical, project-oriented firms.

iMediaConnection: What do we need to be doing as an industry to help you make interactive marketing a bigger piece of your marketing pie?

Conly: Make it easier to measure and increase visibility of the medium overall -- get it on par with print and TV. Success at this equals senior management wanting to review online ads vs. print ads.

iMediaConnection: Are you being affected by any consumer-generated marketing (CGM) -- blogs, user groups, etc.? Are you using any blogs or other social networking tools to market?

Conly: Yes -- we're tracking blog activity heavily now.

iMediaConnection: How important is CRM in your marketing efforts? Give us an example of what's working.

Conly: It's critical -- our customers turn easily and can be our best allies one minute and insidious, verbal enemies the next. Getting them our assets/content first is an important part of our relationship process.

iMediaConnection: What are you investing in now for next year's marketing program?

Conly: Community measurement -- reach out programs.

iMediaConnection: Does anything still frustrate you about what online can or can't do?

Conly: It's still too focused on short-term measurements vs. longer term brand impact. Reach is still an issue, in comparison to TV.

iMediaConnection: What blogs do you read?

Conly: EA blogs primarily.

iMediaConnection: What are your daily "must-see" Web sites and why?

Conly: Gamespot, My Yahoo, Gameindustry.net

iMediaConnection: What are you reading these days, other than iMediaConnection.com, of course?

Conly: Adcritic.com, "History of Salt."