How Companies Can Manage Digital Data about Customers

"The amount of data we can collect from digital interactions by consumers is staggering, and making sense of it can seem daunting. This needn't be, though. You simply have to know which data are most relevant and how best to use them.

With that in mind, here's a quick primer on how to use data to drive your digital strategy," reports Advertising Age. "First-party, web-based data (the information you can learn about visitors to your sites) is often the most accessible and valuable. Visitors are generating useful signals with every action they take. These data sets belong to you, meaning you don't need to pay third parties to use them and you may use them as fully as the rights you've secured through your user terms." Read more.

Tweet Launches Kellogg Breakfast Cereal

"Twitter has done many things but we think this may be the first time a random tweet has inspired a new cereal brand. UK rocker Tim Burgess (frontman of The Charlatans) tweeted jokingly that he would love to launch a cereal called 'Totes Amazeballs' (slang for totally amazing), pretending Kellogg was interested," according to Creativity Online. "Kellogg picked up on the tweet…and created the product. As Burgess told NME.com, the product tastes something like Rocky Road ice cream, and he imagined it to be the kind of treat you'd want to eat to kill your hangover, especially the kind you get at music fests." Read more.

Music for Food, a United Biscuit Campaign

"UK food company United Biscuits is linking its various snack brands with music in a tie-up with Universal Music, Snacktracks. It's running an on-pack promotion through Wax Communications that gives consumers the opportunity to download more than 100, 000 songs from the Universal Music catalog," notes Creativity Online. "The promotion runs across 30 million packs of UB snack brands Hula Hoops, Mini Cheddars, Nik Naks, Skips, Discos and Wheat Crunchies. On the website, Snacktracks.co.uk, consumers can download a track for each pack they buy, having registered. There are also 'playlists' for each brand, matched to its brand personality( for example, the Mini Cheddars' playlist features 'absolute classics'.)" Read more.

Mobile Phone Market More of an Opportunity for Marketers

"'2011 proved to be a groundbreaking year for the mobile industry, with smartphones hitting the mainstream, tablets emerging as a formidable fourth screen, and consumers increasingly integrating mobile behaviors into their lifestyles. As the industry continues to innovate and more consumers look to multiple devices and platforms to consume digital media, we expect the mobile and connected device landscape to be shaken up even further in 2012,' said Mark Donovan, comScore Senior Vice President of Mobile. 'As mobile channels present a more personal, social, and ubiquitous experience to consumers, advertisers and publishers have an opportunity to better engage target audiences, given an understanding of how to connect and leverage the unique characteristics of these emerging platforms.'" Read more. For a copy of the report, click this link.

Facebook Ad Revenue to Exceed $5 Billion in 2012

"eMarketer estimates Facebook's worldwide ad revenues will soar more than 60% this year to exceed $5 billion. Just over half of those dollars will come from the US, where Facebook will account for 6.5% of all online ad spending." Read more.

Republican Presidential Hopefuls Turn to Microtargeted Ads

"Online Data Helping Campaigns Customize Ads." That was a headline in today's New York Times. Here's a bit of the story:

Political campaigns, which have borrowed tricks from Madison Avenue for decades, are now fully engaged on the latest technological frontier in advertising: aiming specific ads at potential supporters based on where they live, the Web sites they visit and their voting records. 

Read more.

Marketers Go from Tracking Consumers to Each Other

"Yesmail Interactive has launched a tool that lets marketers track their competitors and follow new campaigns in real time. The platform, called Yesmail Market Intelligence, allows marketers who join to follow the digital marketing activity of other brands, from the times they deploy email blasts to the number of views their YouTube channel received the previous week," eports Digital Marketing News. "Yesmail, an Infogroup company, draws the data from publicly available sources and offers them to Market Intelligence members in a centralized, more easily navigable format." Read more.

AmEx Users Get to Run Promotional Ads to 300 Mil Users

"Twitter will soon be offering ads to small- and medium-sized businesses, and American Express cardmembers will get early access to it, the companies said on Feb. 17. The new self-service ads, which are scheduled to launch in late March, will allow small businesses to run their own promotional campaigns and access Twitter's more than 300 million users," says Direct Marketing News. "Through a partnership with the social media company, American Express has arranged it so that its cardmembers and merchants will be the first to try the new platform. American Express will give $100 in free Twitter advertising to the first 10,000 enterprise customers that register at ads.twitter.com/amex." Read more.

Sunday's Grammy's Helps with Marketing--Sort Of!

"Sunday night's Grammy Awards crept into web conversation on Monday morning, dominating search and social trends just as the Super Bowl did one week ago," notes Brafton."Based on data from Google trends, "grammys 2012" was among the most frequently searched terms throughout Monday, with the awards show accounting for nine of the 10 most popular search terms overall. As is the case with most other major events, content marketing campaigns that leveraged this topic likely saw increased interest from their readers. Moreover, social media marketing likely benefited from the Grammys as well, with the event trending late Sunday and into Monday morning. Pop star Adele was one of the most frequently discussed topics." Read more.

The Mobile Ad Apocalypse Approaches

"All advertising imposes costs on the consumer. For example, TV commercials interrupt shows, outdoor ads sometimes obscure or distract from prettier views, and the sheer weight of the ad pages in the September issue of Vogue has undoubtedly caused a fair number of arm strains and Prada bag collapses over the years. But because of consumers' close relationships with their mobile devices, the consumer costs of mobile advertising may be more visible and less tolerated than those of other media," observes a ClickZ post. "The industry is only beginning to pay attention to the consumer costs of mobile advertising, and if it doesn't proactively address these, there's at least a chance that a mobile ad apocalypse could occur." Read more.

Zatarain's Parties Socially for Mardi Gras

"As Fat Tuesday approaches, New Orleans-based Zatarain's is plumping up its digital and social media marketing efforts," notes ClickZ. "Mardi Gras is a big deal for the big easy food brand, and it's using Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, and a "Krewe" of bloggers to help revelers get in the spirit this all-important weekend." Read more.

Predicting if Someone Is Pregnant

"Andrew Pole had just started working as a statistician for Target in 2002, when two colleagues from the marketing department stopped by his desk to ask an odd question: 'If we wanted to figure out if a customer is pregnant, even if she didn’t want us to know, can you do that?'" Read the rest of the New York Times article to find out if Pole could.

Newspapers Get Readers Online

"Online news sites have long won the battle to get readers to move online –- although the question of whether readers should pay for that online content is another question," says Marketing Vox. "Perhaps an issue even more pertinent to publishers’ long time survival is when the advertisers will follow. Pew’s Project for Excellent in Journalism reports that online news sites are finding it difficult to convince advertisers to move from their traditional platforms to online outlets. One in five ads on news websites are house ads." Read more.

MySpace Finds New Growth

"MySpace's one-million growth in users this past month has not only brought attention to the site but also to one of its forthcoming initiatives — MySpace TV.  Announced last month, it will let artists and fans share and discover content," according to a Marketing Vox post. "Initial channels on MySpace TV will be music-focused, using MySpace’s music rights and leading library of 100,000 music videos and 42 million songs. Eventually, though, it will encompass movies, news, sports and reality channels." Read more.

Earlier this week Marketing Vox reported:  "MySpace, which was left for dead last year when Specific Media bought the site from News Corp., has returned to the headlines. Monday it announced that it had added one million new members since December with new signups going from zero to 40,000 per day." Read more.

Marketers Change as US Media Consumtion Habits Change

In class yesterday we discussed many matters. They frequently surrounded this point discussed in eMarketer a few days ago:

Changes in US media consumption habits have brands reevaluating their multichannel marketing programs. Marketers continue to combine channels with the purpose of achieving maximum reach, but as multiple digital devices become staples of US daily life, traditional media such as TV, print and radio are no longer the only channels offering marketers mass exposure. Read more.

Advertising Locally on the Internet

Neustar discusses five ways that a marketer can make her/his "local" advertising program more effective. In other words, small, local businesses can benefit from Internet marketing. Read more.

Consumers' Concerns about Privacy Loom over Marketers

"Consumer concerns regarding online privacy have been well documented by the media," eMarketer reports. "But brands, publishers, advertisers and solution providers that haven't been listening carefully and addressing consumer worries may soon find themselves at odds with their key internet audiences." Read more. Remember: In this class you have evolved into a marketer. If you "like" this issue, then think of it as a marketer--not as a consumer.

Online Advertising Stumbling over Itself

"comScore has released its 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus report," according to comScore. "This annual report examines how the prevailing trends in social media, search, online video, digital advertising, mobile and e-commerce defining the current marketplace and what these trends mean for the year ahead. “It’s no secret that the online advertising industry has long held the promise of being the most measureable of all media,” writes comScore. Sill, the complex online advertising ecosystem makes validation of delivery difficult. In preparation for this year’s Focus report, comScore conducted a U.S.-based Charter Study in December 2011 involving 12 national brands, 3,000 placements, 381,000 site domains and 1.7 billion ad impressions." Read more.

Traditional News Media Doing a "Crummy Job"

"A new study of advertising in news by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism reveals that even the top news websites have little success getting advertisers to move online from traditional platforms," reports Media Buyer Planner. "They are in fact 'doing a crummy job of capitalizing on online advertising’s growth,' as blogger Andrew Beaujon of the Poynter Institute describes. Pew examined 5,381 ads on 22 homepages and landing pages at different news operations. Those operations included 11 newspapers, four magazines, three cable news outlets, three commercial network broadcasts and two online-only outlets (Yahoo News and The Huffington Post)." Read more.

Super Bowl Commercials Integrate with Social Media

"For some, the week began on a high note, celebrating the New York Giants' win over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI. Internet marketers likely rejoiced too, but not necessarily because of the game's actual outcome," reports Brafton. "As is tradition, the commercials airing during the game generated substantial conversation on the web, and the integration of social media marketing into some of the campaigns signaled the channel's value to some of the most recognizable brands in the world. On Monday, Brafton highlighted the use of social in some of these campaigns, including Bud Light Platinum's use of the hashtag '#MakeItPlatinum,' which quickly became a trending topic on Twitter. Audi's '#SoLongVampires' achieved similar success after the ad featuring a car with especially bright lights killing a series of vampires became an instant hit." Read more.