New York City is an incredible place when you consider the incredible mix of people and their varying levels of personality, experience and insanity.  What’s even more amazing are the things you’ll overhear people discussing in the most mundane places.  The incident that inspired my writing this entry was my having lunch in a pizza joint one cool September afternoon when two people sat down at the table in front of me engaged in a heated debate.

Continue reading »

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

A newly released study reports that 84% of social marketers are not measuring ROI from the channel. In reading this, my first reaction is what’s wrong with the other 16% of marketers? Social media is a truly up-the-funnel engagement. Social platforms have been constructed to facilitate engagement between people, not advertisers and consumers. Just as the obsession over attribution models threatens to bog down the overall effectiveness of media channels, so too does this thinking in the social space. Most marketers are still struggling simply to get into the space in a non-intrusive and relevant manner that fits the medium and the audience. And those already a part of the social conversation need to focus on measuring the channel’s impact for what it is.

Continue reading »

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

This post was written by Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Search – The Americas, and published in MediaPost’s Search Insider, Friday, September 25, 2009

Every summer, millions of people take time off for the annual family vacation. Families take to planes, trains and automobiles in search of an escape from their day-to-day grind. Yet, during these tough economic times, many families have chosen convenience over destination. Fewer families headed to Disney’s theme parks and more headed to their closest lake or amusement park. Likewise, high-end vacations such as international travel and cruises all saw declines during the past twelve months.

Continue reading »

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Developing my first brand new website…ah, I remember the excitement of it! Like a painter with a clean white canvas, I was ready to put my creative talents to the test.  After diligently working to put a draft together, I presented it to my manager who promptly said, “Now that you have the site in place, what about the usability of the site – the user experience?”

Being absorbed in the site designing process, I was thinking more about the colors, the pictures — the overall look and feel of the site, but not the usability.  I was not thinking about the user.

Continue reading »

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

The air is crisp, the leaves are changing, and for most of the U.S., it’s dark by 8. This must mean one thing – Award Season is upon us. The time of year when search marketing means more than a page rank or limited character count and transforms into compelling, visual stories of interaction.

Recently, two divisions of GroupM Search and their clients were named finalists for four industry awards:

2009 IAB MIXX Award – Direct Response/Lead Generation
Pizza Hut / MEC Interaction

2009 IAB MIXX Award – Search Marketing
Pizza Hut / MEC Interaction

OMMA Online Advertising Creativity Award – Search Marketing: SEM Campaign
Century 21 / MediaCom Search

Creative Media Award – Online Media Search
Pizza Hut / MEC Interaction

Winners will be announced next week among a series of galas and ceremonies during Advertising Week in New York City.

So what does award chatter mean to the marketing community at large? Hopefully a bit more than cocktails, networking and some well-hosted after parties in the city that never sleeps. As I look at it, it’s a great time to tune in and see what’s going on as not only is outstanding work being recognized, but it is interesting to watch the evolution and see whose innovation today becomes trends and best practices of the future.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!