The Marketplace for Ideas & Business

In a world of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, it is increasingly difficult for marketers to reach their target audiences. And, marketers need to know how these new mediums interact with each other as well as with traditional platforms like TV and print. However, the biggest question is how marketing dollars tie directly to the bottom line.

In this session, executives at MarketShare Partners and Nutrisystem will discuss the comprehensive marketing investment optimization analytics that MSP conducted on behalf of Nutrisytem.

Nutrisystem now understands their whole marketing picture holistically, and understands how various marketing investments interact to help reach consumers and drive outcomes. As a result, Nutrisystem was able to get into new markets and adjust strategies for current ones.

There is huge potential in this area for companies with multiple product lines at various stages of the lifecycle to understand the interaction of their marketing spend to ensure maximizing of revenue and profit. The audience will hear this real-life example of how Nutrisystem was able to make changes to their marketing resource allocations based on the right data and understanding of how to act on it.

The marketing industry gets more dynamic every year. We develop amazing new tools and tactics. At the same time, we are inundated with useless fads and data points.

Leading brands know how to truly leverage consumer input through behavioral analytics, primary research and social media listening. But this is not an easy under-taking and many companies are overwhelmed by the data and have trouble taking action

Jeff Rosenblum helped pioneer the field of Internet research and now concentrates on helping companies leverage the newest tools to focus on the consumer. Jeff will present strategic recommendations for going beyond lip service to use consumer insights and create a true competitive advantage.

Brands are as relevant as ever, but what they signify to consumers and how they connect with customers is being transformed by social media, 4-screen convergence and increased mobility.

Millennials are the vanguard of this shift. 73-million strong, they are easy to find online and through mobile media, but notoriously difficult to engage. They are time-strapped, cash-poor consumers who buy very little without talking to their parents and friends. Ads are ignored. They are tech-dependent, but not necessarily tech-savvy. Only 18% have ‘friended’ or ‘fanned’ a brand in social media. And just because they share a viral video doesn’t mean they have any greater affinity to your brand.

So forget your brand onion and grab your social graph – engaging Millennials through digital marketing requires a new set of strategic tools. Earning their attention, engaging their interest and encouraging them to advocate for your brand, demands culturally relevant content, not message points. “Social currency” is the new call to action. “Transmedia story telling” is the new creative strategy. “Branded utility” is the new media. In this session, you will learn how to craft a digital age strategy for engaging Millennial consumers and positioning your brand to win in the new world of virtual brand relationships.

Brands have embraced the Mom target like no other time in marketing history. Everywhere you turn, there is a conversation centered on reaching and connecting with her. Who is she? What does she do? Her use of digital media? Her media consumption patterns you might ask? To connect with Moms, you need more than statistics and data points. You need to speak her language, and that means learning a new language and having a real voice for your brand. Brands and brand managers have been trained in finding the USP of their products and the tone for their advertising but marketing to Mom is a conversation. Brands need to act more human. At its best it is naturally occurring, emotional and honest. This is a whole new way for a brand to think. Communicating is very different than selling. The world has changed. And Moms have been the impetus for the change creating a very different relationship between brands and the Moms that buy them. They can no longer be treated as demographics and psychographics. Some brands are getting it right while others are finding their way through hard lessons learned. We’ll share our whitepaper with you and give you helpful examples of how to take the insights and turn them into valuable opportunities and ideas.

The decline of mass media, saturation of email and rise of online video and social networking necessitates a strong digital strategy for every brand. But how will the digital customer relationship improve the customer experience?

Media consumption trends demand a shift in advertising allocations. How will your organization rethink team and financial resources to respond to the changes? Going forward, digital media will be free over the internet via relevant and timely content creation. Today brands spend 90% of marketing in media and 10% in content creation. How will that change in 2011… 2015… 2020?

Through case studies and a review of firsthand marketing results, Mark Snyder will share how Sears and Kmart have utilized key trends in social and digital media to connect with their target audiences through comprehensive and integrated communications strategies and created a step change in multichannel marketing for the retail category. You will learn how to:

• Get senior leaders to advocate for change in customer marketing strategies

• Avoid common social media mishaps

• Breakdown internal silos and present solutions to shared media communities

• Build an effective, integrated content strategy with a redefined portfolio of products

Search experts from comScore join with Vibrant Media, the world leader in contextual in-text solutions for a presentation that explores innovative ways to extend keyword advertising into relevant web content. Showcasing the latest research data, comScore demonstrates the impact that search engine marketing has on online branding, and Vibrant presents current examples of marketers who leverage in-text advertising solutions to extend the reach of their keyword targeted campaigns across thousands of premium publisher websites.

Patricia Lippe Davis of AARP and Jerry Shereshewsky of GrownUpMarketing will help you examine the ins and outs of the largest and richest group of Americans: the 45 plus cohorts. Guess who is buying the xbox for millennials? Who covers the cost of airfare for this summer’s family reunion? It’s the boomer crowd, and they’re footing the bill for families in many unexpected ways. Learn more about the populations most significantly holding the “purse-strings” and how to turn them into your own brand advocates. Gain insight into why they're being so ignored and the opportunity that creates for you. In this master class, you'll gain understanding of the DNA of these groups, learn what appeals to them and what doesn't, examine a few brands that have benefited from marketing to them and provide a real understanding of the myths, prejudices and misinformation that's keeping you and your brands from reaping their rewards.

The Online Publishers Association (OPA) will be making the first stop of its seventh annual “Eyes on the Internet” tour at the iMedia Summit. The 2010 Eyes on the Internet presentation will unveil the study: “A Sense of Place: Why Environments Matter.” This study, conducted by Harris Interactive, explores the views of consumers who access different online environments, and uncovers how environment impacts advertising receptivity and response. Stu Schneiderman, head of research at OPA, will share powerful insights and provide answers to questions including:

• Are online environments perceived differently by consumers – and what impact does that have on brands’ messages?

• Does the way consumers view media brands’ strengths impact how they respond to advertising?

• What are the implications for brands when audiences make an emotional connection with a media site?

• Should it matter to advertisers if consumers “engage” with content?

One of the great advantages of digital marketing is the ability to track, measure and optimize our efforts, maximizing the efficiency we drive for marketers. Or is it? In our quest to derive greater and greater efficiencies, to use databases, algorithms and technology to its greatest effect, are we actually making a difference? Despite the changes in media and methodology, is advertising still the business of persuasion, still the business of getting a consumer to change their mind or change their behavior? Have we lost sight of this basic premise? Is it a more optimized algorithm that will convince advertisers to spend more of their dollars in our medium? Perhaps not... This session will explore these questions and offer up some new solutions.

Digital sales leaders and managers spend a lot of time on strategy that will help their teams achieve goals and make breakthroughs in the market, but as management guru Peter Drucker said, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." In this highly interactive, discussion-driven program, Upstream Group CEO and iMedia senior analyst Doug Weaver will offer insights into planning and fostering a real culture within your team. What are the primary sources of engagement and disengagement within sales organizations? How can you promote meaningful team collaboration? Who are the enemies of a powerful sales culture? Grab your breakfast and come early as seating will be limited.

What should agencies be paid to do? The market has an oversupply of agencies and the laws of supply and demand have forced most agencies to fundamentally readdress their basic value proposition. It is time to reconsider the roles of both the agency and the client.

Marc Fleishhacker’s keynote will tackle the tough, vital questions facing the client agency relationship and how it must rapidly evolve in the digital era.

Are client companies capable of being creative on their own? Should the clients themselves measure marketing effectiveness, design their own applications and web sites and produce most if not all of their own emails, printed materials and indeed many of their campaigns?

If expertise and talent are so central to the process of ideation and creating enduring brand value, is it time for corporations to learn how to create hospitable environments and cultures that embrace design and innovation?

Are client companies’ marketing departments just vessels for process owners and intermediaries who dedicate the vast majority of their time to managing the external agency suppliers?

Are reduced headcount mandates and stifling corporate cultures justification for paying, at a minimum, a 200% premium for these types of services?

Join us as Fleishhacker addresses these difficult questions.

In today’s global, connected, interactive, collaborative and customer-empowered world, companies have access to a variety of powerful technologies to understand and interact with customers. In such an environment, the traditional product-centric view of marketing and customer value creation built around the STPC model (segmentation, targeting, positioning, communication) needs to be replaced by a more customer-centric view of marketing that favors:

• Cultivating long-term customer relationships, rather than pushing individual brands

• Co-creating value through customer collaboration, rather than relying on internal company resources, like R&D

• Penetrating customer cultures through ongoing conversations, rather than by interrupting, pushing and selling

To win in tomorrow’s markets, companies need to rethink marketing’s DNA. Successful companies will migrate from balancing brand-based pull vs. push strategies, to effectively listening, engaging and responding to the new empowered customer.

Be ready to share your insights in this interactive session.

This spotlight presentation, by Grab Networks & Barefoot Proximity, highlights the significant increase in how consumers are using video in their everyday experiences on the web. Their behavior suggests a multi-pronged approach to connecting with these voracious video consumers, as the stand alone :30 pre-roll presents challenges in this environment for both the marketer and the consumer.

This session will cover:

• Data and insights on consumer video behavior

• How video content syndication works

• The six things you must know about using your video on the web

A case study and live example of how our collective partner, Procter & Gamble, is using their video assets to create deeper connections with consumers will be highlighted…

Oh and we’ll also have a drawing for a Flip Slide HD Video camera, so you can start creating your own personal brand videos right here at iMedia.