“Kristen is an amazing leader possessing a modern and progressive view of strategy and planning, has a proven knack for winning over peers, clients and prospects, and knows how to impact the direction of an ambitious agency,” said Mullen President and CEO Joe Grimaldi. “We were looking for a catalyst who, through a special blend of skill and personal qualities, would elevate the performance of our increasingly successful Boston leadership team. There’s no question we will be more successful with her.”

“I’ve been given the rare gift to work for back-to-back companies with integrity, great work and an unwavering belief in collaboration,” said Cavallo. “I’m inspired by Mullen’s forward-thinking approach to creativity, weaving social influence, mobile marketing, PR and performance analytics into their cross-functional team. It’s hard to tell the different disciplines apart. They finish each other’s sentences.”

Cavallo has been SVP, Planning and Development at Martin for the past six years. She first joined the agency as SVP, Group Planning Director in 1998, following a Brand Planning engagement at Arnold. Cavallo has been a strategic leader for numerous major brands, including BMW, Timberland, Volkswagen, Coca-Cola, Kohler, Charles Schwab and Miller Brewing. She won several industry honors for her work on VW, Timberland and Vanilla Coke. In her role as development leader, Cavallo was instrumental in helping Martin become one of the fastest-growing agencies, winning new business from Walmart, Pizza Hut, Expedia, Microsoft, LivingSocial, Mentos, BFGoodrich, Kraft and Johnson & Johnson, among others

4A's President Nancy Hill

4A’s President Nancy Hill opened the conference with a note of optimism: ”Our industry is back….Our industry didn’t die.  Some might have once said that we were on life support.  But we’re revived.  We’ve by-passed rehab and come out leaner, more creative and more productive than ever.”

There was the standard allotment of buzz-words at the conference, but here are some thoughts that inspired me:

• Bill Koenigsberg, CEO of Horizon Media:  “We’re in a period of positive chaos…embrace change, don’t fight it.”

• Keith Weed, Global CMO of Unilever: “Don’t be a bystander, get involved…you won’t excel at anything just watching people, you have to get into the ring and have a fight.  There is a huge hunger for content and great content will travel.”

• Marilyn Mersereau, CMO of Cisco:  “90% of internet traffic by 2013 will be video and video is changing how the world communicates.”

• Fareed Zakaria, Editor at Large, Time:  “We’ve got to get back into the science and technology game…We’ve seen a serious decline in the technology skills of the American worker and if we don’t ramp up, the Silicon Valley companies will find they can’t make their product here.”

• Cindy Gallop, Founder & CEO, IfWeRanTheWorld:  ”In order to predict the future, you need to invent it.”

There was talk of how gaming companies are fighting for the living room; how 2011 will finally be the year of mobile because development, distribution and the devices (I call this D3) are finally here; and whether or not crowdsourcing is a tool or a tactic.

Ad holding co. CEOs discuss state of the industry

The most spirited and inspiring session was when three of the largest agency holding company chiefs came together to debate talent and collaboration with clients.  WPP CEO Martin Sorrell called it “criminal neglect” that we don’t recruit good people and until we do this, our business will be challenged.  Michael Roth, CEO of Mullen’s parent company IPG, talked about the importance of diversity in our business and how everything is structured around client needs.  Omnicom CEO John Wren said that clients need to give their agencies the “Permission to fail.” I loved this, as he’s 110% correct.

None of us strive to or want to fail, but because our business is changing so fast, it’s paramount that we as creators and inventors experiment and try new and different things.  If clients give us that ability to fall down once in a while without repercussions, I believe we’ll see more innovation and inspiring work (and we’ll make you famous).  What’s great is that with the fluidity of the digital age, we can do things more efficiently and invent new things.  It’s one thing to develop a $1,000,000 traditional campaign vs. $50,000 or $100,000 program or platform that lives digitally.  So, to all of you Fortune 500 CMO’s, it’s ok to fall down everyone once in a while.  I’ve been telling my kids for years that “Complacency is a four letter word.”

If you fail every now and then and don’t become complacent, I promise you’ll win in the long run.

1. Segment your data for deeper understanding. Site visitors come from a variety of sources and have different motivations for their visit. Embrace these differences. Take search as an example. How does site success differ by search keyword? What do site paths look like for different groups of keywords? Understanding how segments perform will bring clarity to what is working and what is not. Use this information to adjust bidding strategies, refine keywords and test ad messages.
2. Include the voice of the customer. Clickstream data from tools like Adobe Site Catalyst, Webtrends and Google Analytics do a great job of telling you what happened. They don’t, however, tell you why something happened. Many users achieve what you’d like them to on your site but what about those who don’t? Why weren’t they successful? And what can you do to change this in the future? Understanding the voice of the customer using online survey tools like 4Q, OpinionLab and ForeSee can help you to take action to improve online experiences. This could include adding new content that users desire, enhancing confusing navigation or even finding site bugs that are impacting user success.
3. Set benchmarks and targets. Has a client ever asked you if a report metric is good or bad? Setting benchmarks and targets can help you to provide this context. Past internal performance can be used as well as external competitive/industry data from services like Compete, Hitwise and the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Then, it’s as simple as understanding if performance is above or below the target level. When you’re below target, you’re automatically prompted to take actionable steps like those shown above.

So, take some action with your reports. You can use segmentation, the voice of the customer and benchmarks/targets to bring actionable intelligence and improved marketing performance to your clients. This is a beautiful thing!

What steps have you taken to deliver more actionable information?

Nexus is divided  into 12 key categories starting with the consumer’s overall technological aptitude and then digging deeper into their mobile, social, video and mainstream media behavior. The study will get at some of the key questions keeping CMO’s up at night:

• Is my target using their console system as their primary entertainment device?

• Does my target listen to more terrestrial radio or has this been displaced with entities like Slacker, Pandora and LastFM?
  

  Slacker Personal Radio

• Is my target moving away from reading magazines on paper to reading them on tablets?

• Does my target look for information on their smartphone via search or apps?

• Where can I reach my target with TV commercials when they are not hitting the fast forward button?

• Does my consumer spend more time on the web via a desktop or a smartphone?

• Is my consumer starting to enact in commerce via social, mobile and/or their TV?

This is just a small sample of the kind of insight we can provide clients that will have a profound effect on the trajectory of their overall campaigns and we truly believe we are the first marketing (media) company to unearth this type of crucial intelligence. In an environment where consumers are galloping and marketers are chasing consumers, we believe this insight will provide our clients with a distinct and unfair advantage. What do you think are the key media questions that should be asked?

Because we all need more mountains and less plateaus of creativity, Boulder Digital Works and the assembled group of participants from the recent August two day session set out to inspire both people and ideas that blur the lines between the real world and an augmented one found online.  And to create “stuff” that connects the two, leaving the old formulas of talk-at persuasion behind.

Below are five learnings from BDW that are actionable for any agency or client – helping amplify our own approach to creative ideas, what we call unbound thinking.

1. Blurring definitions of media
Paid media, earned media and user media are all highly influential in changing consumer behavior – forcing marketers to redefine past architecture of ideas in a new social landscape. Be useful, mobile and part of the conversation.

2.  Re-brief
The brief needs to evolve in an increasingly digital, social world – inspiring the stuff we are trying to create, not say.  To quote Gareth Kay of Goodby, “It’s not what we do, it’s what people do with what we do.” A brief should inspire ways to create space, not just use space.

3. T-shaping
A new breed of T-shaped people is emerging with knowledge of all disciplines at the top and core discipline expertise pointed upward. Ultimately, it is up to every employee, not a department, to become digiraditional. Learn it, live it, tweet it.

4. Ideas that redefine ideas
Some of the best examples of new creative work from clients and agencies connects the participatory and social aspects of digital with an offline idea. Small is the new big. New creative thinking requires an understanding of how to create interesting content and utility – but in a new, complex way. An idea that can be advertised, not an advertisement. It’s best explained by looking at some of these examples below.

• Brammo
• Uniqlo
• Rapha rides and short films
• Sponsafier from Toyota Racing
• Old Spice
• Diesel Cam

5.  Expanding creatives
Ideas that redefine ideas require new faces to join teams, eliminating 40-year-old silos of job function. Including UX, digital strategists, social expertise and PR into the creative process early to shape platform ideas for the new social landscape. Opening up creativity beyond the traditional art director/copywriter model.

And one final parting thought. New strategies and ideas can’t replace the intense, lengthy and thought-provoking conversations had over the alluring assortment of IPA local microbrews after the sessions end. When you get that many brilliantly smart, interesting and “ready to climb mountains” people together, the dialogue itself becomes just as much of a reason to find time for a trip to Boulder.

So, take a deep breath. Take a different view of the funnel. And think about it this way.

In a consumer-controlled world, where it’s less about taking the brand to the consumer and more about taking the consumer to the brand, behavioral patterns are less likely to be linear – or sequential. And therefore it’s hard to imagine a consumer who seamlessly transitions from a state of awareness to purchase, by smoothly sliding down the funnel as they consume media. But knowing this doesn’t mean that the funnel is no longer relevant. There’s more to consider. And let me explain why:

1. What we know from our work behind the 7 Modes of The Mind is that consumer behavior in a digitally-powered world is increasingly shaped by their mood, mode and mindset.

2. We’ve discovered that mode of behavior and potential brand receptivity is shaped by a confluence of consumption – based on how a consumer interacts with categories, brands, technology, content and media.

3. We’ve found that the consumer journey towards a brand experience begins at one of seven primary modes: entertainment, share, learn/research, task/transact, socialize/connect, play and information mode.

4. We’ve also studied how the consumer jumps from one mode to another as they make their way towards the path to purchase – based on what frame of mind they’re in while consuming different media, devices and content.

By connecting these dots together in this way it then becomes apparent that the consumer mode of behavior and the “gravitational-pull” towards the bottom of the funnel are highly inter-related. And what’s amazing is that when you take a peak inside the purchase funnel you can begin to see all this unfold.

Go beyond a two-dimesional view of the funnel, dig deeper inside, and with the benefit of a three dimensional perspective it’s fascinating to actually see this modally driven form of behavior unfold. Far from being a linear sequential series of steps, what you’ll likely see is a meandering path to purchase towards the center of the funnel – that’s akin to a journey through a twisting-turning labyrinth, with trap doors and blind alleys, trampolines and pitfalls. But because this journey is fraught with distractions along the way, it also means the consumer may or may not make it down to the bottom of the funnel – depending on when and how a brand engages them.

So far, what’s clear from our initial work in this area, is that knowing how and when to intercept the consumer within the funnel and understanding what mode they’re in at a particular moment, increases the odds they’ll take the chute to purchasing your brand and become an advocate. Using a snap-shot of the three-dimensional view from above the funnel as an integrated modal connections framework can also be helpful, as a way to potentially mapping-out the journey a consumer might embark on as they make their way through the complicated ecosystem within.

So in short, don’t be mistaken. The funnel is far from dead – because on the inside, what we’ve found is that it’s very much alive. Dare to dive in, and what you may discover might initially scare your brand to death. But equally, don’t be surprised if this new perspective of the funnel provides you with a better understanding of how to give your brand a new lease on life.

You have weathered the economic storm. You were probably caught flat-footed by the recession, but now you sense the light at the end of the tunnel. Business and consumer confidence indices are improving although the US unemployment rate is still high. There is optimism in the air. You have cleared deadwood within your organization.   You have outsourced whatever you can outsource to reduce payroll. Remember that recessions are not unusual – happened over time (1980, 1987, 1991/1992, 2000/2001, 2008/2009) and across geographies (Japan in the ‘90s, East Asia in late ‘90s, Germany/France during mid 90s) – and we can use a few strategies and tactics that worked in the past as our guide.

Treat every dollar as your last

Your marketing and advertising budget probably shrank in the last 18 months. In tandem with your competitors, you migrated dollars to more “measurable” channels and new media – because you were focused on short-term performance.

The last time the CFO asked for ROI for each marketing and advertising tactic, you couldn’t quantify the impact and so the CFO controlled the conversation and the purse. Don’t go back to the CFO for increase in budget now. Instead tell your CEO and CFO what you will deliver by changing your budget or allocating it more optimally across media, geographies, target market segments and marketing tactics.

Hire analytical talent

You probably read the book “Competing on Analytics” and wondered how to bring similar rigor to your organization and decision-making processes in order to maximize marketing ROI. Take this opportunity to upgrade your talent pool while mixing right-brained and left-brained individuals. Let the magic happen.

Optimize your marketing communications

Are you getting what you want from your marketing and advertising services partners? How did your partners guide you through the recession? How are you planning to change the conversation with your prospects and customers? Now is the time to launch an aggressive marketing effort and get to your customers as their wallets thaw. Ensure that your brand stands for the one thing that matters to your target audience.

Don’t forget your employees

Another area where your company probably cut back: reduction in customer service personnel, training, etc. If the service you provide is an integral component of the brand experience, assess the components of the service that are indeed valued by your customers prior to making across the board investment increases.

Don’t let your brand falter

During the first spending reductions you cut back on brand building as your CFO wanted to take cost out of “everything.” Not just advertising, but also customer service, innovation, customer experience and more. You insisted on the value of brand building but couldn’t quantify the value of the brand on long-term performance. Maybe your competitor did not follow your budget cuts and instead maintained or increased spending during the recession. You may have to work smarter and be more surgical.

Take risks

Try to be the first mover in emerging media – mobile, video, social, iPad, and more – if you think that your customers and prospects are hanging out in these venues. Don’t be afraid to try unproven tactics, but adopt a disciplined test & learn approach to know the unknown and manage the risks. If your agency hasn’t proposed treading the untested waters yet, consider firing your agency!

Recession and economic recovery favor the prepared organization. Are you prepared? Now is the time for disciplined, deliberate, and thoughtful actions.

The rankings below were captured during the period of 6:00 – 11:00 PM eastern time on Super Sunday (that was game time). The methodology we used to calculate the rankings is explained on the BrandBowl site. The rankings reflect both volume of chatter and relative sentiment (positive/negative) and are based on nearly 100,000 tweets captured from 66,000 Twitter accounts. We have analytical dashboard data for all the Super Bowl brands if any of you brand managers would like to see?

Here are the final BrandBowl standings 1-42 and above is a Hulu widget if you’d like to view the Super Bowl spots :

1. Doritos
2. Google
3. Focus on the Family
4. Snickers
5. Budweiser
6. Bud Light
7. Hyundai
8. Kia
9. GoDaddy
10. Coca-Cola
11. U.S. Census Bureau
12. E-Trade
13. Dockers
14. Audi
15. Vizio
16. Dodge
17. Dove
18. VW
19. Monster
20. McDonald’s
21. Intel
22. Denny’s
23. Boost
24. CareerBuilder
25. Bridgestone
26. TacoBell
27. TruTV
28. HomeAway
29. EA
30. Walt Disney
31. Dr. Pepper
32. KGB
33. Universal
34. Paramount
35. FloTV
36. Cars.com
37. Motorola
38. Diamond Foods – Pop Secret
39. Honda
40. Teleflora
41. Michelob Ultra
42. Budweiser Select55

Doritos - "Keep your hands off my Mama!"

Doritos, Google and Focus on the Family.

They were the three brands left standing on the podium at the conclusion of BrandBowl2010. Why you ask? Isn’t it obvious, I say? Simplicity. Buzz. And dialogue.

Of course, we all know pulling off effective campaigns is a lot harder than it looks. It’s much easier to be an armchair quarterback, to write blog posts about how successful brands follow simple marketing rules, and then state those rules for all to see.

Boy, this armchair sure is comfy.

1) Production dollars don’t help you stand out at the Super Bowl.

In fact, they might help you blend in.

How do you squeeze your message through the spectacle that is the Super Bowl? How do you break through all of the hype, through the blaring graphics, the laser shows, the celebrities, the boatloads of slickly produced, over-the-top spots?

You chill out.

Google reused their elegant “Parisian Love” spot from their Search Stories campaign. It was nothing more than a simple screencast of an enthralling dialogue-free story. You (yes, you!) can purchase a license for Snapz Pro for $69, get yourself some royalty-free music and in an hour produce something similar yourself. Gene Simmons—and his midget—can eat their hearts out.

2) Pre-game buzz is worth more than any thirty-second spot.

Set against a white seamless backdrop, Focus on the Family had Pam Tebow talk about her difficult pregnancy. Then her son, 2007 Heisman Trophy winning Tim Tebow, tackles her to the ground. Goofy smiles and heart-warming feelings ensue. Not a particularly memorable spot in and of itself.

But Focus on the Family got their $2.6-million-dollar-buy worth before Drew Brees brushed his teeth Sunday morning. According to the BrandBowl, Focus on Family was far and away the most tweeted about brand among Super Bowl advertisers in the days leading up to the big game. That the actual spot turned out to be something of a non-event didn’t matter.

3) Mix the first two rules, add a dash of dialogue with your consumers, and you’ll win the BrandBowl!

Doritos’ “Crash the Super Bowl” campaign continued the brilliant crowdsourcing effort they’ve been running for three years now. It eschews top production values, in favor of building buzz and a community of avid followers in the months (and years, really) leading up to the game. It lets the people take control of the brand. The result is hilarious, simple, stand-out spots that get tweeted about in droves, make Doritos feel like a contemporary brand and makes them winners of the Brand Bowl.

Acknowledgment: this article was written with contributions from Andy Schneider.

BrandBowl2010 Winners

According to the 63,000+ Twitter users whose comments were captured in BrandBowl2010, Doritos was the most effective brand to advertise on the Super Bowl telecast on CBS this year. Budweiser Select55 was the least effective brand.

Mullen, and Radian6, a leader in social media measurement, created BrandBowl2010, a Twitter/Super Bowl experience that combined tweeting, ad reviews and a host of metrics to let viewers generate and view real time ratings of the TV commercials that ran on the big game.

The results were determined from a total of 98,656 Tweets collected at BrandBowl2010. The site provided an overall ranking of the brands advertising on the game based on a composite score that takes into consideration both volume of tweets and sentiment (positive or negative).

TOP SCORERS
When all was said and done, the top three brands were Doritos, Google and Focus on the Family. Doritos won the title by virtue of dominating the sheer volume of tweets. That was enough to keep them ahead of Google, which had a higher percentage of positive tweets.

MOST POPULAR
The most popular brands at the BrandBowl were McDonald’s and Dr. Pepper. Interestingly, neither of these brands had the sheer number of tweets to break into BrandBowl’s top ten—but the tweets about these brands were overwhelmingly positive.

MOST VOLUME
Again, the top three brands were Doritos, Google and Focus on the Family. These brands gapped the rest of the field in terms of volume of tweets, which dropped off sharply after the top three.

Free creative for Budweiser Select55

Mullen is offering Budweiser Select55, the last place finisher in BrandBowl2010, free creative services to make a better Super Bowl commercial next year. Mullen has produced four Super Bowl commercials in the past, including the Monster.com spot When I Grow Up, which many ad critics consider among the best Super Bowl spots of all time.

“Clearly no one wants to come in last place,” said Edward Boches, chief creative officer at Mullen. “So to ease the pain, we’ve made a commitment to recommend, for free, to the losing brand, creative ideas for next year. Perhaps we’ll even crowdsource those ideas, asking the entire social media community to join us in offering up free recommendations.”

The Top Ten Most Effective Brands on BrandBowl2010

1. Doritos
2. Google
3. Focus On Family
4. Snickers:
5. Budweiser
6. Bud Light
7. Hyundai
8. Kia
9. GoDaddy
10. Coca-Cola

The Five Least Effective Brands on BrandBowl2010

1. Budweiser Select55
2. Michelob Ultra
3. Teleflora
4. Honda
5. Diamond Foods’ – Pop Secret

The success of Brandbowl is due not only to all the people at Mullen and Radian6 who built it, but to many people in the social media community who helped promote it: @bbhlabs, @bigspaceship, @rga, @erproulx, @benkunz, @schwartzie14, @stevehall,  @kenwheaton, @lvanderpool and dozens of others.  That alone is a reminder of the worth of having a social network and a community.